NOVEMBER 2005

U.S. warplanes and helicopters bombed two villages near the restive city of Ramadi, killing an estimated 70 militants, the military said Monday, though witnesses said at least 39 of the dead were civilians.

On referendum day, a roadside bomb killed five U.S. soldiers in a vehicle in the Al-Bu Ubaid village on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi. On Sunday, a group of about two dozen Iraqis gathered around the wreckage; they were hit by U.S. airstrikes, the military and witnesses said. The military said in a statement that the crowd was setting another roadside bomb when F-15 warplanes hit them, killing around 20 people, described by the military as "terrorists."

But several witnesses and one local leader said they were civilians who had gathered to gawk at and take pieces of the wreckage, as often occurs after an American vehicle is hit. A tribal leader, Chiad Sa'ad, said the airstrike killed 25 civilians, and several other witnesses said the same thing, though they refused to give their names out of fear for their safety.

The other deaths occurred in the nearby village of Al-Bu Faraj.

The military said a group of gunmen opened fire on a Cobra attack helicopter that had spotted their position. The Cobra returned fire, killing around 10. The men ran into a nearby house, where gunmen were seen unloading weapons when an F/A-18 warplane struck the building with a bomb, killing 40 (Iraqis), the military said.

Witnesses said at least 14 of the dead were civilians. First, one man was wounded in an airstrike, and when he was brought into a nearby building, warplanes struck it, said the witnesses, who refused to give their names over concerns about their safety. An Associated Press stringer later saw the 14 bodies and the damaged building. He said residents, many of them crying, removed the bodies and buried them, some in wooden coffins, others simply wrapped in white cloth. One of the bodies was that of a boy who appeared to be between the ages of 10 and 15, the stringer said.

Iraqis apprehended two Americans disguised in Arab dress in the middle of a residential area in western Baghdad on 11th October 2005.

Residents of western Baghdad’s al-Ghazaliyah district told Quds Press that the people had apprehended the Americans as they left their Caprice car near a residential neighborhood in al-Ghazaliyah on Tuesday afternoon (11 October 2005). Local people found they looked suspicious so they detained the men before they could get away. That was when they discovered that they were Americans and called the Iraqi puppet police.

Five minutes after the arrival of the Iraqi puppet police on the scene a large force of US troops showed up and surrounded the area. They put the two Americans in one of their Humvees and drove away at high speed to the astonishment of the residents of the area.

Questions submitted to General Casey re. the formation of an Iraqi Army.:

There are "technically 194,000 Iraqis" in the security forces. In terms of what may properly be referred to as the Iraqi army, General Casey said there were 100 battalions in all. These were divided, in terms of their capability into three categories: Category 1, 2 and 3 -- with Category 1 being the most capable.

Q: General, you and General Abizaid and the secretary, and others, have said that in large measure, our ability to pull American troops out of Iraq will depend on progress in training the Iraqi forces. You've just given a large number of figures there. But you said yesterday that only one Iraqi battalion, army battalion now, instead of the three previously stated, are able now to operate alone without U.S. military help. And yet you say that's not a setback to U.S. hopes to leave Iraq. Would you explain that? How is that not a setback, sir?

GEN. CASEY: Charlie, think about what you're saying; two battalions out of a hundred. One thing. Second, let me explain here the different levels and why we set them up like we did.

First of all, we purposely set a very high standard for the first level, because as we looked at our strategy, we said that whatever happens with the Iraqi security forces, when we leave them, we have to leave them at a level where they can sustain the counterinsurgency effort with progressively less support from us. So that first one is a very, very high standard. We set that standard knowing full well that it was going to be a long time before all Iraqi units got in that category. And so the fact that there's only one or three units, that is not necessarily important to me right now. Next year at this time, I'll be much more concerned about it. Right now I'm not.

the importance of the numbers of available Category 2 Iraqi battalions was emphasized time and again. General Casey noted that it was with Category 2 Iraqi forces that the battle of Tal Afar was successfully fought -- and it is with these Category 2 batts that the near term campaign will be waged.

GEN. CASEY: You mentioned the Tall Afar model. I think that's a good example. Three Iraqi brigades and a third Iraqi infantry division went in Tall Afar with one of our brigades. Urban fighting. I mean, the toughest type of combat. And these Iraqi units were right there with our guys. And what happens is more and more we're seeing them -- and General Vines told me this morning -- in about half the cases now our guys are providing the outer cordon, and it's the Iraqis that are going inside; frankly, because they're much more effective in understanding what it is they're seeing there. But that's kind of the Tall Afar model. And none of those brigades that went in there were level one. They were level two and three. And so I'm trying to give you some sense of the capabilities of these guys.

The problem with Iraqi units is most of them cannot handle their own logistic. Logistic is a very complicate piece of warfighting - even most Western battalions do not have the same logistical standard as the US. The rating as reported by the media is misleading. Logistics is indeed a tough one. Logistics is why Wal-Mart rules and why K-Mart was code-blue. It also explains why OMC (Outboard Motor Corporation) died the way it did. KMart nor OMC had to worry about bombs and people shooting at them and they still screwed up logistics. 9:17 AM marcusaurelius

the reality: Simon Jenkins of the Guardian:

Between now and elections for a new government in December there should be a semblance of political activity. As democracy it is a pastiche. Its leaders are entombed in the mightiest fortress on Earth, the Americans' Green Zone in Baghdad, while voting is not political but religious and ethnic. But it will be enough for the occupiers to claim that things are "getting better", and therefore that they should stay.

Last week I returned to Iraq for the first time since the end of 2003. If the essence of "getting better" is security then things are incomparably worse. I could no longer walk the streets or visit friends. Anyone associating with foreigners risks execution. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, academics are fleeing abroad for fear of kidnap. The National Museum has closed. Visiting VIPs must go everywhere by helicopter. The Iraqi head of Baghdad's military academy must change into civilian clothes before leaving his base. After nearly three years of American rule, Baghdad is simply the most terrifying city in the world.

Not surprisingly the chief topic among the occupation forces is how to get out. I own a fine collection of exit strategies dating back to Vietnam and Lebanon. Iraq already offers such exhibits as the neocon vintage 2003: "Exit when Iraq is a stable, secure and democratic beacon of peace in the region." There are less exotic versions, such as Tony Blair's exit-when-asked-to-leave or John Reid's exit-when-the-job-is-done. The most recent army standard-issue strategy is "exit when an Iraqi division is capable of independent deployment". Ask when that might be and the answer is "a ball of string". These strategies have lost all touch with reality. Is Blair really giving right of veto on a British departure to a group of pro-Iranian Shias? As for Reid's "going when the job is done", what job? Bringing democracy to Iraq? We claim to have done that already. Bringing peace and security to the country? You must be joking. Rebuilding the Iraqi army? Of 113 paid-up battalions, the Americans regard just one as reliable in a firefight, and that after two years of recruitment and training. The fact is you can train an army but not motivate it. That it must do for itself.

No Iraqi units other than peshmergas from Kurdistan could be deployed by the Baghdad government against Sunni or Shia insurgents. At the weekend the Americans used air power rather than local troops to kill over 70 "insurgents" in a Sunni village outside Ramadi in revenge for five American deaths. Such counterproductive slaughter is what makes coalition withdrawal vital if civil authority is ever to be restored in Iraq.

The British army in the south no longer tries to police the towns. This is left to unreliable police units heavily penetrated by local militias, hugely complicating anti-terrorist operations. Instead the emphasis is on training the Iraq army's 10th Division. Yet who is being trained and to what end is dubious. The balance of power in any Arab country between army, police and unofficial militias will always be unstable while foreign troops are present. Already the constitution leaves it open to provincial governors to co-opt into their police and local gendarmerie whichever militia appears to be dominant locally, and pay them from federal oil money. This might embrace the pro-Iranian Badr brigades in the south, al-Sadr's Mahdi army nearer Baghdad and the Sunni warlords of the Euphrates valley. Such alliances are no bad thing, since only someone with a sense of discipline is likely to deliver civil law and order, which the coalition conspicuously cannot do. Such moves are being reported across all southern provinces, in Nasiriyah, Amara and even round Basra itself.

Iraqis crying the death of two relatives killed by US-backed police in Baghdad yesterday (Assafir, 10/22/05)

Iraq is a landscape of poverty atop a lake of wealth. It is dotted with military citadels whose maze of bunkers and anti-blast walls eerily mimic their medieval forebears. Within, all seems safe and English-speaking. Food is good and Jeeps park within white lines. Outside, so the occupiers believe, a human ammunition dump is ready to explode into civil war should the civilised west depart.

I believe this is a false, indeed a racist, analysis. All Iraq, probably the entire Middle East, is simply waiting for us to go. It is waiting to see what new balance of power emerges within Iraq. Only then can anyone assess Iranian influence over the Shias, the importance of Syria to the Sunnis, the vexed status of Kirkuk or the nature of Kurdish autonomy. The coalition can no longer influence this balance, only postpone its resolution. It merely sits, generating violence and killing people.

An exit strategy is the management of retreat. The cabinet's refusal to adopt one not only betrays its befuddled mission in Iraq but outrages the reputation of the British army. The invasion was merely illegal. The occupation has been the most bafflingly inept venture undertaken by western powers in modern history. I tremble to think what Tony Blair and George Bush would have done with the cold war.

The British cabinet now owes it to those it has sent to their deaths to remove the army from Iraq with expedition and dignity. Having just spent a week with that army I have no doubt of its morale and its loyalty. I also have no doubt of its ruthlessness in joint memoir operations. In the not too distant future, Blair, Straw, Reid and Hoon are going to know the full meaning of "shock and awe".

These men have left a British army stranded in an Arabian desert with no apparent exit and no control over its fate. Their only possible redemption is to withdraw that army (other than as advisers) when the next Baghdad government is installed in the new year. Iraq can then be left to the Iraqis. If the Americans want to stay, more fool them.

Before leaving Baghdad I saw on television a desperate earthquake rescuer in Pakistan pleading for just one thing, helicopters, to save thousands from death in the mountains. Two hours' hop to the west, I was gazing on inert helicopters as far as the eye could see. Not one was saving lives - only political skins.

simon.jenkins@guardian.co.uk

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Iraq's Sistani distances himself from elections
08 Oct 2005 19:47:40 GMT
Source: Reuters

NAJAF, Iraq, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has told his closest followers not to run in December elections or support any candidates, aides said, suggesting no party stands to win his backing. That could spell difficulties for the parties in the already much criticised government coalition, who profited in January's poll from a wide perception that they had Sistani's blessing.

Sistani rarely speaks in public but sources in his office said that while he wants the millions who look to him for spiritual guidance to take part in the election, he wants to maintain the distance from party politics that he has long sought -- in contrast to fellow Shi'ite clerics in Iran. A statement from Sistani's office said any official of his clerical organisation who runs on a party list or openly supports candidates will "lose his status as a representative". "Sayyid Sistani bans his representatives from nominating themselves in the next election after they proposed to run," said the statement. The full impact may not be clear for some time but Sistani's apparent rejection of endorsing any party may raise concerns among some politicians after he discreetly let it be known he backed them in the election in January to an interim parliament that is dominated by the Shi'ite-led United Iraqi Alliance.

The Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, both Islamist in outlook, dominate the coalition. The beneficiaries at the election, expected on Dec. 15 under a constitution expected to be ratified at a referendum on Saturday, could be other Shi'ite movements and leaders, now in opposition, such as nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and secular former prime minister Iyad Allawi. Jaafari's government has also proved unpopular with his Kurdish allies and, especially, with once dominant Sunni Arabs, who accuse it of condoning Shi'ite militia death squads.

Though his precise views are rarely clear, Sistani appears to have let it be known through various followers that he is unhappy with their performance -- a dismay that is echoed among many of the long-oppressed Shi'ite poor, who complain that they have yet to see economic benefits from majority rule. Sistani is seen as a stabilising force and many will continue to look to him for guidance as election day approaches.

 

U.S. Troop in Iraq: 'We're Not Even Trying. It's Pathetic' Decries Lack of Troops, Armor and Air Support... 'We Need 3 Times as Many Toops Here'

{Blogged by Brad in Portland, OR}

Last week, Iraq War vet Paul Rieckhoff of OpTruth.org wrote a troubling blog item in which he discussed the DoD's lip-service given to supporting the troops, while sending at least 40,000 of them into harms way in Iraq with inadequate body armor. His item includes a link to a shocking video showing a sniper taking a clear shot at one U.S. troop who was lucky enough to have the appropriate armor!

Today, Rieckhoff follows that item up with another which includes an email from another troop currently serving in Ramadi, where 11 have been killed in the batallion within the last 10 days.

Rieckhoff notes:

The conversation in America is dominated by the "stay or go" dialogue right now. Few people outside of Iraq are talking about the fact that what we are doing there is being done half-assed.

The email from his friend in Ramadi complains about the lack of side armor on vehicles where troops are now being targeted every day by snipers and IED's, and goes on to say:

Side armor is one thing. But Paul, we have no reserve here. Every avilable troop is on the line every day. We have no offensive capability because to launch an operation in one sector would mean pulling the troops out of another sector. While they are bullshitting with the numbers, we need 3 times as many troops as we have here just to be able to protect ourselves. We don't have the people to clear out the bad neighborhoods, so we just keep going over there and getting killed, 1, 3 or 5 guys at a time.

He goes on to add that, though they should have appropriate air support for their daily missions, they are not getting getting the air cover they need. And then he closes with this troubling phrase...

We're not even trying. It's pathetic.

Blogged by Brad on 10/3/2005 @ 11:12am PT...

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