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TheQuixote Joined: 25 Sep 2003 Total posts: 4085 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 08-04-2006 14:46 Post subject: Iraq Aftermath Pt II |
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As the Iraq - Aftermath thread has now exceeded over 2000 replies it will be closed and this thread can be used to carry on the discussion.
Last post on the Iraq - Aftermath thread here. |
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| MaxMolyneux Photography Ninja Of The Night!
Great Old One Joined: 07 Jun 2005 Total posts: 1651 Location: Liverpool England United Kingdom Age: 27 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 10-04-2006 02:53 Post subject: |
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From an article in the first thread.
| Quote: | | IT WAS the day Our Jack brought his girl home to Blackburn to meet the folks and win their approval. |
Sure didn't win anyones approval in Liverpool! 
That thread did over 2000 a while back. Aww should of let it do 3000 as a record. |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 10-04-2006 07:59 Post subject: |
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Here's another Happy Birthday, 'Liberated' Iraq piece, by a man who's been there, seen that, etc:
| Quote: | How predictions for Iraq came true
By John Simpson
BBC World Affairs Editor
It was a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq, three years ago. I was interviewing the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, in the ballroom of a big hotel in Cairo.
Shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes, he described to me all the disasters he was certain would follow the invasion.
The US and British troops would be bogged down in Iraq for years. There would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias. The real beneficiary would be the government in Iran.
"And what do the Americans say when you tell them this," I asked? "They don't even listen," he said.
Over the last three years, from a ringside seat here in Baghdad, I have watched his predictions come true, stage by stage.
Falluja fallout
The first stage was the looting.
As Saddam Hussein fled Baghdad, people started attacking every symbol of the old system, no matter how self-destructive that might be.
I saw crowds of people sacking a hospital, running out with bits of equipment which were useless to them, but essential to the running of the hospital.
At the information ministry I watched them stripping the claddings from the walls and the underlay from the floors. The American soldiers outside did nothing to stop them. Sometimes they would fire in the air, but the looters scarcely even looked round.
Until then, most Iraqis had thought the US was all-powerful, and were there to help them. The perception started to change then and there.
For the next year, if you were careful, you could wander round Baghdad, and even drive to other parts of the country.
When we arrived for a tour of duty we travelled by road to Baghdad from Jordan, through places like Falluja, or else from Kuwait, past Nasiriya and Hilla. It was sometimes nerve-racking, but we always got through. Now there is no alternative to flying in.
The BBC, like most other news organisations, is based in the city centre, not inside the Green Zone. It still is; but now our bureau is protected like a fortress.
Everything in Iraq changed in April 2004, with the American onslaught on Falluja. The town is small, but it took a long time to subdue - and it never has been subdued entirely. The ferocity of the American attack angered a broad swathe of Iraqi opinion.
At the same time, against the advice of many Iraqi politicians, the Americans also took on the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
After that, the towns and cities of central Iraq became markedly more dangerous. We started hearing more of the American acronym IED, or improvised explosive device (it simply means a bomb).
Post-traumatic stress
The Coalition Provisional Authority under the leadership of Paul Bremer handed over to an interim Iraqi administration in July 2004.
It made little difference: the corruption had already started, and people now realised that neither the coalition nor the Iraqi administration could do anything about the failing water, power and fuel supplies.
The next key moment was the election of January 2005. The violence dropped noticeably, as the insurgents saw the size of the turn-out and felt the general enthusiasm, and waited to see if they could do a deal with the new government.
But there was no new government for a full three months. The politicians squabbled among themselves, and the moment passed. The violence soon returned to its former level.
By July of last year there was already talk of civil war. A referendum and another election followed, and an effective administration was as far away as ever. Four months after the December election, Iraq still has no government.
'Easier targets'
The insurgency is fading a little now. Fewer American, British and Iraqi troops are dying, and there are less frequent attacks on the Iraqi police.
Instead, easier targets present themselves. There is an all-out effort to provoke a civil war. The bombings of Shia shrines are always followed by the murder of individual Sunnis: sometimes dozens at a time.
There is a quiet movement of population, as people leave mixed areas and head for places where others like them live. Marriages between Sunnis and Shias used to be frequent; now they've dropped away to almost nothing.
A psychiatrist at one of the main hospitals in Baghdad told me that serious mental illness in Iraq in the past had affected fewer than 3% of the population. Now, he said, the figure was 17%.
Another psychiatrist told me that in the days of Saddam his patients had shown the effects of living under a ferocious dictatorship: stress levels were very high.
Now, he said, most of his patients suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's no longer the fear of violence and injury which troubles them, it's the daily reality of it.
While we were filming, someone fired a gun close by. I won't easily forget the terrified way some of the patients flinched.
Doing and undoing
Just over three years ago, when I interviewed the Saudi foreign minister, I asked him why he thought the US was determined to invade Iraq.
He said he had put the same question to Vice-President Dick Cheney. Mr Cheney had replied: "Because it's do-able".
It was. The trouble is, undoing the kind of damage the Saudi foreign minister foresaw is proving very hard indeed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4894148.stm
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-04-2006 17:28 Post subject: |
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Here's another piece on the depleted uranium munitions issue, I think this is going to become a huge talking point in the next few years. 
http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=2416 |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-04-2006 19:14 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.
None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.
"There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers. Another recalled an epithet that came to be associated with the trailers: "the biggest sand toilets in the world."
Primary Piece of Evidence
The story of the technical team and its reports adds a new dimension to the debate over the U.S. government's handling of intelligence related to banned Iraqi weapons programs. The trailers -- along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was claimed to be a nuclear weapons program -- were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.
Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied allegations that intelligence was hyped or manipulated in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But officials familiar with the technical team's reports are questioning anew whether intelligence agencies played down or dismissed postwar evidence that contradicted the administration's public views about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Last year, a presidential commission on intelligence failures criticized U.S. spy agencies for discounting evidence that contradicted the official line about banned weapons in Iraq, both before and after the invasion.
Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified. A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004 -- 15 months after the technical report was written -- said the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.
"Whether the information was offered to others in the political realm I cannot say," said the DIA official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
The technical team's findings had no apparent impact on the intelligence agencies' public statements on the trailers. A day after the team's report was transmitted to Washington -- May 28, 2003 -- the CIA publicly released its first formal assessment of the trailers, reflecting the views of its Washington analysts. That white paper, which also bore the DIA seal, contended that U.S. officials were "confident" that the trailers were used for "mobile biological weapons production."
Throughout the summer and fall of 2003, the trailers became simply "mobile biological laboratories" in speeches and press statements by administration officials. In late June, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell declared that the "confidence level is increasing" that the trailers were intended for biowarfare. In September, Vice President Cheney pronounced the trailers to be "mobile biological facilities," and said they could have been used to produce anthrax or smallpox.
By autumn, leaders of the Iraqi Survey Group were publicly expressing doubts about the trailers in news reports. David Kay, the group's first leader, told Congress on Oct. 2 that he had found no banned weapons in Iraq and was unable to verify the claim that the disputed trailers were weapons labs. Still, as late as February 2004, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet continued to assert that the mobile-labs theory remained plausible. Although there was "no consensus" among intelligence officials, the trailers "could be made to work" as weapons labs, he said in a speech Feb. 5.
Tenet, now a faculty member at Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, declined to comment for this story.
Kay, in an interview, said senior CIA officials had advised him upon accepting the survey group's leadership in June 2003 that some experts in the DIA were "backsliding" on whether the trailers were weapons labs. But Kay said he was not apprised of the technical team's findings until late 2003, near the end of his time as the group's leader.
"If I had known that we had such a team in Iraq," Kay said, "I would certainly have given their findings more weight."
A Defector's Tales
Even before the trailers were seized in spring 2003, the mobile labs had achieved mythic stature. As early as the mid-1990s, weapons inspectors from the United Nations chased phantom mobile labs that were said to be mounted on trucks or rail cars, churning out tons of anthrax by night and moving to new locations each day. No such labs were found, but many officials believed the stories, thanks in large part to elaborate tales told by Iraqi defectors.
The CIA's star informant, an Iraqi with the code name Curveball, was a self-proclaimed chemical engineer who defected to Germany in 1999 and requested asylum. For four years, the Baghdad native passed secrets about alleged Iraqi banned weapons to the CIA indirectly, through Germany's intelligence service. Curveball provided descriptions of mobile labs and said he had supervised work in one of them. He even described a catastrophic 1998 accident in one lab that left 12 Iraqis dead.
Curveball's detailed descriptions -- which were officially discredited in 2004 -- helped CIA artists create color diagrams of the labs, which Powell later used to argue the case for military intervention in Iraq before the U.N. Security Council.
"We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails," Powell said in the Feb. 5, 2003, speech. Thanks to those descriptions, he said, "We know what the fermenters look like. We know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like."
The trailers discovered in the Iraqi desert resembled the drawings well enough, at least from a distance. One of them, a flatbed trailer covered by tarps, was found in April by Kurdish fighters near the northern city of Irbil. The second was captured by U.S. forces near Mosul. Both were painted military green and outfitted with a suspicious array of gear: large metal tanks, motors, compressors, pipes and valves.
Photos of the trailers were quickly circulated, and many weapons experts were convinced that the long-sought mobile labs had been found.
Yet reaction from Iraqi sources was troublingly inconsistent. Curveball, shown photos of the trailers, confirmed they were mobile labs and even pointed out key features. But other Iraqi informants in internal reports disputed Curveball's story and claimed the trailers had a benign purpose: producing hydrogen for weather balloons.
Back at the Pentagon, DIA officials attempted a quick resolution of the dispute. The task fell to the "Jefferson Project," a DIA-led initiative made up of government and civilian technical experts who specialize in analyzing and countering biological threats. Project leaders put together a team of volunteers, eight Americans and a Briton, each with at least a decade of experience in one of the essential technical skills needed for bioweapons production. All were nongovernment employees working for defense contractors or the Energy Department's national labs.
The technical team was assembled in Kuwait and then flown to Baghdad to begin their work early on May 25, 2003. By that date, the two trailers had been moved to a military base on the grounds of one of deposed president Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palaces. When members of the technical team arrived, they found the trailers parked in an open lot, covered with camouflage netting.
The technical team went to work under a blistering sun in 110-degree temperatures. Using tools from home, they peered into vats, turned valves, tapped gauges and measured pipes. They reconstructed a flow-path through feed tanks and reactor vessels, past cooling chambers and drain valves, and into discharge tanks and exhaust pipes. They took hundreds of photographs.
By the end of their first day, team members still had differing views about what the trailers were. But they agreed about what the trailers were not.
"Within the first four hours," said one team member, who like the others spoke on the condition he not be named, "it was clear to everyone that these were not biological labs."
News of the team's early impressions leaped across the Atlantic well ahead of the technical report. Over the next two days, a stream of anxious e-mails and phone calls from Washington pressed for details and clarifications.
The reason for the nervousness was soon obvious: In Washington, a CIA analyst had written a draft white paper on the trailers, an official assessment that would also reflect the views of the DIA. The white paper described the trailers as "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program." It also explicitly rejected an explanation by Iraqi officials, described in a New York Times article a few days earlier, that the trailers might be mobile units for producing hydrogen.
But the technical team's preliminary report, written in a tent in Baghdad and approved by each team member, reached a conclusion opposite from that of the white paper.
Key Components Lacking
Team members and other sources intimately familiar with the mission declined to discuss technical details of the team's findings because the report remains classified. But they cited the Iraqi Survey Group's nonclassified, final report to Congress in September 2004 as reflecting the same conclusions.
That report said the trailers were "impractical for biological agent production," lacking 11 components that would be crucial for making bioweapons. Instead, the trailers were "almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen," the survey group reported.
The group's report and members of the technical team also dismissed the notion that the trailers could be easily modified to produce weapons.
"It would be easier to start all over with just a bucket," said Rod Barton, an Australian biological weapons expert and former member of the survey group.
The technical team's preliminary report was transmitted in the early hours of May 27, just before its members began boarding planes to return home. Within 24 hours, the CIA published its white paper, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," on its Web site.
After team members returned to Washington, they began work on a final report. At several points, members were questioned about revising their conclusions, according to sources knowledgeable about the conversations. The questioners generally wanted to know the same thing: Could the report's conclusions be softened, to leave open a possibility that the trailers might have been intended for weapons?
In the end, the final report -- 19 pages plus a 103-page appendix -- remained unequivocal in declaring the trailers unsuitable for weapons production.
"It was very assertive," said one weapons expert familiar with the report's contents.
Then, their mission completed, the team members returned to their jobs and watched as their work appeared to vanish.
"I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated," one member recalled. "It never happened. And I just had to live with it."
---------
Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company |
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-04-2006 21:33 Post subject: |
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I had to do a bit of thinking before I posted this, it is a video made by Iraqi resistance showing their point of view. It has no killing in but it does show munitions being prepared and fired, however it is the sound track I thought warranted being heard. I think the guy speaking may be a UK subject who is on the resistance side. So don't watch it if you don't want to see folk you regard as the enemy it may be offensive and that wasn't why I posted it. DU and the consequences of using it get mentioned.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/iraq/video_war_through_eyes_iraqi.htm |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 14-04-2006 07:32 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | RAF doctor jailed and dismissed for refusing Iraq duty
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor
AN RAF doctor who refused to serve in Iraq was in Colchester military prison last night after being found guilty of five charges at a court martial. He was jailed for eight months.
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, the first British officer to be charged and convicted for disobeying an order to go to Iraq, will serve half the sentence and then be released on licence. The Ministry of Defence said that he would be transferred to a civilian jail in a few days, as his sentence included dismissal from the RAF.
Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss told the former officer that the offences were so serious that only a custodial sentence was appropriate. The judge advocate said: “Obedience of orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Disobedience of orders means it is not a disciplined force, it is a disorganised rabble.” He added: “Those who wear the Queen’s uniform cannot pick and choose which orders they obey and those who do so must face the consequences.” He added that the sentence would send a message to other members of the Armed Forces on the importance of obeying orders.
He added: “You have, in this court’s view, sought to make a martyr of yourself. You have shown a degree of arrogance that is amazing.”
During the court martial hearing this week in Aldershot, the judge advocate had rebuked Kendall-Smith for “grandstanding” his anti-Iraq war views. The RAF doctor had refused to go to Iraq last year on the ground that he believed the “occupation” by the British forces in the south was unlawful. Judge Advocate Bayliss said that although Kendall-Smith may have acted in accordance with his moral viewpoint, his interpretation of the law covering the presence of British troops in Iraq was wrong. Kendall-Smith who has dual British and New Zealand citizenship, was found guilty by a panel of five military officers. He was also ordered to pay £20,000 towards his defence costs, which were paid by legal aid.
Kendall-Smith had pleaded not guilty to five charges of disobeying orders. He had served twice before in Iraq but when he received his orders to go for a third time, he told his commanding officer that he had studied the legal advice given to the Government, mandating the military action in Iraq, and decided that it was in breach of international and domestic law. In court he likened the invasion to a Nazi war crime.
Outside the court, Justin Hugheston-Roberts, Kendall-Smith’s solicitor, said that he intended to appeal. The decision of the court was “most distressing”, he said. “However, he has asked me to state that now, more so than ever, he feels that his actions were totally justified and he would not, if placed in the same circumstances, seek to do anything differently.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2133812,00.html
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Hmmm..
Seems to be one rule for the German defendents in the Nuremburg trials,
and another for Britons in Iraq.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=770775 |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-04-2006 00:01 Post subject: |
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Interesting links, Crunchy.
But it would help if you quoted at least some of the most relevent links.
Otherwise TPTB might delete/censor them, thus leaving the wider world ignorant about their content. |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-04-2006 00:20 Post subject: |
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I'll look into doing that I suppose it's straight forward, does it require 2 visits to the post box or some other techy wizardry  |
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-04-2006 10:47 Post subject: |
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| rynner wrote: | Interesting links, Crunchy.
But it would help if you quoted at least some of the most relevent links.
Otherwise TPTB might delete/censor them, thus leaving the wider world ignorant about their content. |
Cracked it, very easy, I first did it in sunspots in new science. Ta for advice I have noted dead links, and folks objections to huge copy and paste.  |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-04-2006 11:04 Post subject: |
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| crunchy5 wrote: | | rynner wrote: | Interesting links, Crunchy.
But it would help if you quoted at least some of the most relevent links.
Otherwise TPTB might delete/censor them, thus leaving the wider world ignorant about their content. |
Cracked it, very easy, I first did it in sunspots in new science. Ta for advice I have noted dead links, and folks objections to huge copy and paste. |
This a Fortean website. News clippings (even virtual ones), are where we're at. So, just you go ahead and cut'n'paste.
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| crunchy5 Great Old One Joined: 24 Aug 2005 Total posts: 1951 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 15-04-2006 11:32 Post subject: |
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Rob Newman's a history of oil program is on sat the 15th it's hyper relevant to this thread definately a video job. Also see his, Splendid Electrical Website, here.
http://www.robnewman.com/ |
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| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-04-2006 11:15 Post subject: |
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Page 1 of a 3-page article:
| Quote: | [b]US plots ‘new liberation of Baghdad’[/b]
Sarah Baxter , Washington
THE American military is planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed.
Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing for a significant withdrawal of American troops.
Strategic and tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant- General David Petraeus. He is regarded as an innovative officer and was formerly responsible for training Iraqi troops.
The battle for Baghdad is expected to entail a “carrot-and-stick” approach, offering the beleaguered population protection from sectarian violence in exchange for rooting out insurgent groups and Al-Qaeda.
Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops.
Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6 “Little Birds” used by the marines and special forces and armed with rocket launchers and machineguns, are likely to complement the ground attack.
The sources said American and Iraqi troops would move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, leaving behind Sweat teams — an acronym for “sewage, water, electricity and trash” — to improve living conditions by upgrading clinics, schools, rubbish collection, water and electricity supplies.
Sunni insurgent strongholds are almost certain to be the first targets, although the Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric, and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade would need to be contained.
President George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, are under intense pressure to prove to the American public that Iraq is not slipping into anarchy and civil war. An effective military campaign could provide the White House with a bounce in the polls before the mid-term congressional elections in November. With Bush’s approval ratings below 40%, the vote is shaping up to be a Republican rout.
The Iraqi government, when it is finally formed, will also need to demonstrate that it is in charge of its own seat of government. “It will be the second liberation of Baghdad,” said Daniel Gouré, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank. “The new government will be able to claim it is taking back the streets.”
Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell at the State Department, said a crackdown in Baghdad was one of the few ways in which a fresh Iraqi government could bind the new national army and prove its mettle.
“They have to show they can liberate their own capital,” he said. “Baghdad is the key to stability in Iraq. It’s a chance for the new government to stand up and say, ‘Here we are’. They can’t do that if they are hunkered down in bunkers.”
The operation is likely to take place towards the end of the summer, giving the newly appointed government time to establish itself. If all goes to plan, US troop withdrawals could take place before the end of the year. In the absence of progress by then, the war may come to be seen by the American public as a lost cause.
There are 140,000 US troops in Iraq. Lieutenant-General John Vines, who stepped down as commander of ground forces in Iraq at the beginning of this year, said it was essential to reduce the numbers.
“There is an incredible amount of stress and I’m worried about it,” said Vines. He added that soldiers were on their third or fourth tours of duty in Iraq: “The war has been going on nearly as long as the second world war and we’re asking a lot of the forces.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2136297,00.html
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What a good idea! You can't have too many liberations of Baghdad, if you ask me...! |
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