Friday - December 16, 2011
Have Some Leftovers
Truth be told, when I saw that headline, my first thought was the more things change, the more they stay the same. This was from WWII:
But that isn’t exactly the case here. As the last of our troops board the big planes to exit sandland, what they’re leaving behind is much more than just refuse ...
Troops are leaving a bounty of leftovers as they exit the country this month, abandoning dining-hall tables and chairs, tents, air conditioners and old vehicles. Unlike a traditional American yard sale, the military bric-a-brac is free.
...
The State Department, which inherits the lead U.S. role in Iraq on Jan. 1, also is accepting hand-me-downs, such as armored vehicles and surveillance electronics to protect its turf.“We’ve gone through a very extensive review process to determine what we need to take back to the United States, what gets reconditioned, what we can afford to transfer to the State Department, or to state and local governments back in the United States, or to the Iraqi government,” said ArmyMaj. Gen. Jeffrey S. Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.
“It’s really the leftover things we’ve transferred to the Iraq government.”
The command estimates that it has bequeathed to the Iraqi government more than 4 million pieces of this and that, valued at $580 million. However, the military is saving more than $1 billion in shipping costs.
It’s not all free. Iraq is going to pay for the 140 M-1 tanks we’re leaving, but we’re keeping some of the spy gear and 60 of the MRAPs (armored vehicles) are going to the State Department.
Still, it must seem like a yard sale over there. I’d say Christmas in December, but not only would that be redundant, it might offend their prickly little muslim feewings.
Let’s not forget all the schools, hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure staying there too, that our troops built when they weren’t being shot at.
Posted by Drew458
on 12/16/2011 at 02:37 PM
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Permalink • Monday - December 12, 2011
And it’s over, over there
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama heralded the end of the divisive Iraq war Monday, and warned Iraq’s neighbors that the United States would remain a major player in the region even as it brings its troops home.
“Our strong presence in the Middle East endures,” Obama said. “And the United States will never waiver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests.”
...
Speaking after a morning of meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama said other nations must not interfere with Iraq’s sovereignty. While he stopped short of mentioning any countries by name, U.S. officials are closely watching how neighboring Iran may seek to influence Baghdad after U.S. troops withdraw.
...
Al-Maliki’s trip to Washington came as the last American troops were preparing to leave Iraq ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline. Just 6,000 U.S. forces remain, down from a high of 170,000 at the war’s peak in 2007.
So prepare, say a pray’r,
Send the word, send the word to beware.
We’ll be over, we’re coming over,
And we won’t come back till it’s over
Over there.
Hey, did you hear that yet another 10 or so AQ guys escaped from prison in Yemen? It’s good to know the whole region has quieted down and is happily at peace. Mission Accomplished, right?
Posted by Drew458
on 12/12/2011 at 01:41 PM
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Permalink • Tuesday - October 25, 2011
That’s About How I See It Too
Hope n’ Change daily cartoons and commentary.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/25/2011 at 08:13 AM
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Permalink • Friday - October 21, 2011
War Is Over, Troops Home By Christmas
Just one day after the death of Gadaffi and at least one more of his adult sons, Obama announces this afternoon that the US has done enough in Iraq and is heading for the exit.
President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. will pull out all of its troops from Iraq by the end of December, drawing the nine-year war to a conclusion.
The announcement signals the imminent end of a war that has cost the U.S. more than $800 billion dollars and claimed the lives of 3,525 American service members.
Obama administration officials had considered extending the U.S. troop presence beyond the end of the year, leaving a force of between 3,000 and 5,000 for contingencies. The proposal was controversial, dividing administration officials. But the president’s announcement will settle the debate and spell an end to the U.S. troop presence.
Military leaders wanted to keep a presence in Iraq to serve as a training role, and a deterrent to Iranian meddling in Iraq’s affairs.
But negotiations with a divided Iraqi government foundered over the issue of whether U.S. forces should be given a measure of immunity from Iraq laws while serving in the country. The military routinely demands such protections as a condition of deploying troops abroad, but Iraqi officials balked.
Even with a full troop withdrawal, a very small number of military personnel will remain in Baghdad and at U.S. diplomatic facilities to help Iraq with matters such as purchases of American weapons systems, including Abrams tanks and F-16 fighters. But there will be no long-term military-led training program.
President Obama announced Friday that all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of 2011, saying the troops “will definitely be home for the holidays.”
The announcement, in the White House briefing room, came after the president completed a secure video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The discussion apparently finalized negotiations that have dragged on for months over what, if any, military presence the U.S. would maintain in Iraq beyond a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline set in 2008. The president said the two are now in “full agreement” over how to move forward, and that no U.S. troops will remain.
“As promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” Obama said. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.”
There are still 40,000-45,000 U.S. troops in the country, but Obama said they would all be shipping home soon. He said the next challenge will be to ensure those troops can find work in America upon returning home.
“I respectfully disagree with President Obama. I feel all we have worked for, fought for, and sacrificed for is very much in jeopardy by today’s announcement. I hope I am wrong and the president is right, but I fear this decision has set in motion events that will come back to haunt our country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement.
More than 4,400 American military members have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Hey, can we say “Mission Accomplished” now?
Will Kosovo and Afghanistan be checked off next on his To-Do list?
Posted by Drew458
on 10/21/2011 at 05:36 PM
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Permalink • Saturday - September 17, 2011
What WMDs?
If we had delayed even a couple of months, until Saddam actually had his deadly pathogens and gas weapons, it would have meant the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers. And if those weapons had found their way into terrorist hands, it would have doomed millions. But did Saddam have these kinds of connections? Was he a global terror threat akin to al-Qaeda? The common wisdom says no. The common wisdom is wrong.
When American tanks smashed into Baghdad, Saddam had already completed construction of an anthrax production facility, which was a week away from going live. If it had been permitted to go into production, this one facility could have produced ten tons of weaponized anthrax a year.
Dual-use, mobile bio labs, hundreds of suicide bombers in training, direct links to dozens of terrorist groups throughout the Middle East and major funding to them, operatives kitted up and ready to attack in a dozen countries, half a thousand tons of yellowcake, a 40 fold increase in WMD spending ... the list goes on and on. Saddam Hussein was on the very, very cusp of the vertical part of the logarithmic curve of WMD growth when the USA invaded in March 2003. Another month’s delay would have given him enough poison to kill tens of thousands of our soldiers. Another year and he could have wiped out half the world. That was why we were “rushing to war” Senator Kennedy.
According to documents discovered after the war, by 1997 the number of university “instructors” doing solely WMD work numbered 3,300, with another 700 to 800 dispatched to WMD-related facilities to help with technical problems. Between 1996 and 2002 — the eve of the invasion — spending on WMD projects increased 40-fold, and the number of specific projects increased from 40 to 3,200. Top officials captured after the collapse of the regime repeatedly told investigators that Saddam’s WMD projects were in overdrive and ready to go into production the moment sanctions were lifted.
You mean those horrible sanctions that the evil USA was using to starve poor but happy kite flying Iraqi children? The sanctions the Democrats wanted lifted? The sanctions the whole Oil For Food scandal was doing an end run around anyway? (hey, whatever happened with Oil For Food? Why wasn’t France fined a hundred zillion for that? Did anybody anywhere get into any actual real trouble?)
A good analogy for the links between Saddam and bin Laden is the Cali and Medellín drug cartels. Both drug cartels (actually loose collections of families and criminal gangs) were serious national-security concerns to the United States. The two cartels competed for a share of the illegal drug market. However, neither cartel was reluctant to cooperate with the other when it came to the pursuit of a common objective — expanding and facilitating their illicit trade. The well-publicized and violent rise of the Medellín cartel temporarily obscured and overshadowed the rise of, and threat posed by, the Cali cartel, in the same way that 9/11 camouflaged the terror threat posed by Saddam. In reality Saddam and bin Laden were operating parallel terror networks aimed at the United States. Bin Laden just has the distinction of having made the first horrendous attack.
Given the evidence, it appears that we removed Saddam’s regime not a moment too soon.
And all of this is in the Duelfer Report, the document that the media claims proved there were NO WMDs in Iraq ... because they never even bothered to read past the first page’s Executive Summary.
And let’s not ignore the other salient facts: the pre-invasion inspectors were played like a violin, the post-invasion inspectors were often under fire, you can hide damn near anything under the sand in a desert, and allah alone knows how many of his researchers were silenced or never interviewed or killed during the invasion and their documents destroyed accidentally. In all likelihood things were even worse; we’ll never know.
via BlackFive
Posted by Drew458
on 09/17/2011 at 10:09 AM
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Permalink • Friday - December 18, 2009
Iran getting too frisky
Iraq’s deputy foreign minister says Iranian troops have seized an oil well in southern Iraq along their disputed border.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Haj Aziz said Friday that Iranian troops seized oil well No. 4 Thursday night.
He said he did not know whether Iranians were still in control of the oil well. He said the Foreign Ministry and the Oil Ministry are coordinating over what steps to take and were considering summoning the Iranian ambassador to discuss the issue on Saturday.
Such incidents have happened before along the Iran-Iraq border, which was never clearly delineated after the brutal war between the two countries in the 1980s.
Really? Disputed border? Never made clear? After the US military has been in Iraq for how many years now? What a total crock of puss. This is not even remotely possible, especially since Iran is a de-facto enemy state.
No, this is an overt act of aggression. Period. An act of war. Period. It’s Ahmadumjihad thumbing his nose at Obowma, the weak horse. And he’ll get away with it too.
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”? “Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Haj Aziz”? I wonder if he’s related to old Tariq Aziz who held the Foreign Minister spot under Saddam? I hope not, but it’s very hard to tell. M. Aziz is a very common name over that way; there’s even a Saudi prince with that name who has a sports stadium named after him. To make matters worse, it seems that the DFM goes by at least one other name as well. Gee thanks. He’s Mohammed Haj Mahmoud according to some news reports:
BAGHDAD — Iranian troops have crossed into Iraqi territory and seized an oil well that lies in a disputed area along the two countries’ southern border, Iraq’s deputy foreign Minster said Friday.
The deputy minister, Mohammed Haj Mahmoud, said Iranian troops seized oil well No. 4 Thursday night in the al-Fakkah oil field, located about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. The oil field is one of Iraq’s largest.
Oil prices rose slightly after news of the incident.
“We are coordinating with the Oil Ministry regarding this issue. This is not the first time that the Iranians have tried to prevent Iraqis from investing in oil fields in border areas. Tomorrow, we might summon the Iranian ambassador to discuss this issue,” Mahmoud told The Associated Press.
The al-Fakkah field is considered a shared field between Iran and Iraq, meaning both nations are able to pump oil from it, but the Iraqis consider oil well No. 4 theirs. In Washington, a U.S. official said that although Iranians have crossed the border before, they had not previously ventured this far. Iraqi security forces were in the area, but there are no reports of any fighting or that any shots were fired, he said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
No U.S. troops were in the area. And the Iranians are believed to have left the area, he said.
Such incidents have happened before along the Iran-Iraq border, which was never clearly delineated after the brutal war between the two countries in the 1980s. Last year, the Iraqi Oil Ministry accused Iran of stealing oil from the al-Fakkah field and of illegally seizing and capping off wells in a second field that Iraq claims lies entirely within its territory. The two adjacent oil fields — Abu Gharb, which Iraq claims in its entirety, and al-Fakkah, the shared field — both lie in Maysan province.
Other news pages are carrying the same AP story, but with the trailer “(This version CORRECTS spelling of deputy foreign minister’s name.)”.
Regardless. It just amazes me that such a thing can happen. After all these years of occupation, and all those endless talks with Iran, I would have thought that the borders were long since settled, even if they were just a line in the sand. “A line in the sand”? And Ahmadinnerjacket crossed it? Are you paying attention here Obama?
Posted by Drew458
on 12/18/2009 at 11:23 AM
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Permalink • Wednesday - February 04, 2009
More evidence of the failed Bush policies
Another guest post by the lovely and talented Carol!
Subject: The non news NEWS from Iraq
Sunday meant super bowl for most Americans and their attention was on NBC, its exciting last minute-finish ball game, lousy commercials, and gabbing announcers. Half way around the world there was more attention on how the election in Iraq would proceed. I notice that the White House has conveniently not mentioned the unparalleled success of the election. But here is a dispatch from the Marine general there; we won!
Subject: [U] Election Day
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
I don’t suppose this will get much coverage in the States as the news is so good. No, the news is unbelievable.
Something didn’t happen in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, today. Once the most violent and most dangerous places on earth, no suicide vest bomber detonated killing dozens of voters. No suicide truck bomber drove into a polling place collapsing the building and killing and injuring over 100. No Marine was in a firefight engaging an Al Qaida terrorist trying to disrupt democracy.
What did happen was Anbar Sunnis came out in their tens of thousands to vote in the first free election of their lives.
With the expectation of all of the above
(suicide bombers) they walked miles (we shut down all vehicle traffic with the exception of some shuttle busses for the elderly and infirm) to the polling places. I slept under the stars with some Grunts at Combat Outpost Iba on the far side of Karma, and started driving the 200 miles up the Euphrates River Valley through Karma, Fallujah, Habbiniyah, Ramadi, Hit, Baghdad and back here to Al Asad. I stopped here and there to speak with cops, soldiers, Marines, and most importantly, regular Iraqi men and women along the way. It was the same everywhere. A tension with every finger on a trigger that broke at perhaps 3PM when we all began to think what was almost unthinkable a year ago. We might just pull this off without a bombing. No way. By
4PM it seemed like we’d make it to 5PM when the polls closed. At 4:30 the unbelievable happened: the election was extended an hour to 6PM because of the large crowds! What are they kidding? Tempting fate like that is not nice. Six PM and the polls close without a single act of violence or a single accusation of fraud, and nearly by early reports pretty close to 100% voted. Priceless.
Every Anbari walking towards the polling place had these determined and, frankly, concerned looks on their faces. No children with them (here mothers and grandmothers are NEVER without their children or grandchildren) because of the expectation of death. Husbands voted separately from wives, and mothers separately from fathers for the same reason. In and out quickly to be less of a target for the expected suicide murderer. When they came out after voting they also wore the same expression on their faces, but now one of smiling amazement as they held up and stared at ink stained index fingers.
Norman Rockwell could not have captured this wonderment. Even the ladies voted in large numbers and their husbands didn’t insist on going into the booths to tell them who to vote for.
One of the things I’ve always said was that we came here to “give” them democracy. Even in the dark days my only consolation was that it was about freedom and democracy. After what I saw today, and having forgotten our own history and revolution, this was arrogance. People are not given freedom and democracy - they take it for themselves. The Anbaris deserve this credit.
Today I step down as the dictator, albeit benevolent, of Anbar Province. Today the Anbaris took it from me. I am ecstatic. It was a privilege to be part of it, to have somehow in a small way to have helped make it happen.
Semper Fi.
Kelly
PS - I’m not making that first part up. Carol builds her own cars, from the ground up. And she sends me all these cooool emails on top of that!
Posted by Drew458
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Permalink • Monday - November 17, 2008
Somebody has to say it
The media was on Bush’s case for years over his “mission accomplished” speech, even though what he said was utterly correct: that the really large scale combat operations in Iraq were over. But because of that “blunder”, and the PMSM spending months playing up the “McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years” tripe, nobody wants to mention the obvious: that the fighting in Iraq is over. And it has been over for some time. Sure, there might be a couple little leftover splodeydopes with nothing better to do but push their little buttons. There might be a little action here and there for squad sized groups of soldiers. But it’s a done deal, and it has been for several months. So in that vein, since Kate Smith has left us long ago and there are no other large women ready to sing, ZombieTime feels it’s up to us to state the obvious. We might as well pick a date too, and use that to remind folks what has been so obvious that you haven’t heard a word about it on TV. So let’s use November 22nd. It’s as good a day as any.
- AQ in Iraq is smashed
- Just about no foreign fighters are coming in from Syria or other countries anymore
- The flow of Iranian weapons and fighters has been cut off or cut down to nearly nothing
- Al Sadr is pretty much a non-player these days
- The Iraqis have a freely elected government that is growing into the job better every day
- Most of those mileposts that the US set have been met
- the Iraqi army is pretty much up to the task, everywhere
But where’s the official announcement?
The only reason that the war has not been declared “over” is that the media, which was generally opposed to the war and opposed to any of President Bush’s policies, doesn’t want to give him and his supporters the satisfaction of having been right. The media wants U.S. troops to return home, but only on condition that they do so with their tails between their legs in defeat—not as victorious liberators, which would invalidate five years of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-war propaganda on the part of the left-leaning media. The Bush administration for its part has not declared victory for two probable reasons: first, because they fear that by so doing they would only increase the call by the media and liberal Democrats to “bring the troops home now”; and also by so doing they might invite some last-ditch spectacular terror attack by the few remaining jihadists in order to embarrass the administration. And the incoming Obama administration will certainly never announce victory, since Obama spent over a year campaigning for the Democratic primary as the anti-war candidate. So both sides refuse to say the war is over. Even though it is, in fact, over.It is up to the American people to declare victory. Which is exactly what we are doing right now.
Even the little altercations are becoming rarer. Bill Roggio, who has done a superb job of keeping abreast of the Iraq situation, can only run a story from last week, in which our guys rounded up a bunch of insurgent wanna-bes after killing their leaders who were hiding in a hole in the ground:
Iraqi and US forces killed five al Qaeda fighters and captured 149 suspects, including two senior leaders, during operations in Iraq’s North over the past three days. In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier shot and killed two US soldiers and wounded six others during a joint patrol in the eastern part of the city.
Iraqi forces killed five al Qaeda fighters and rounded up 67 suspected al Qaeda operatives and insurgents were in the northeastern province of Diyala. Nine local al Qaeda emirs were captured “in an underground bunker used for torturing and beheading captives,” AFP reported, while five operatives were killed when troops raided a weapons cache.
So it’s not early to make this call. It wasn’t too early a couple of months ago, when Michael Yon first brought the subject up. And don’t be fooled by a little bit of trouble here and there; go read what Zombie has to say about that.
It’s over, over there.
Posted by Drew458
on 11/17/2008 at 03:37 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - October 30, 2008
Nice cache catch
via Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal, some news from the war in Iraq. Remember Iraq? Remember that there’s a war going on over there? Funny, it never makes the news anymore.
Iraqi troops uncovered a massive weapons cache and factory inside the northeastern neighborhood of Sadr City. The cache contained 34 of the deadly explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), the weapons that are the hallmark of the Iranian-backed Shia militias. This is the third large cache found in Sadr City since Oct. 20.
The find is “significant as it included the machines used by the enemy to manufacture explosively-formed penetrators – the number one killer of our US soldiers,” said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad.
The soldiers found 34 EFPs, 53 copper plates and 40 shaped plates, which are used for the EFP’s shaped warhead, 160 blocks of C4 explosives, and 14 107 mm rockets and launch rails. Also found were three presses and a punch, machinery that is thought to be used to mill the copper plates into the cone-shaped warhead.
Since Oct. 20, Iraqi troops found two other large caches in Sadr City. A raid by troops from the 3rd Battalion, 42nd Brigade of the 11th Iraq Army Division on Oct. 20 resulted in the discovery of 61 rockets, 368 mortar rounds, 263 mortar tubes, shape charges, an IED, 32,000 rounds of ammunition, seven DSHKA machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades launchers and grenades, and other equipment.
The same Iraqi Army unit also found a large cache in Sadr City the day prior. The troops found 15 EFPs, an IED, two 72.5 mm rockets, two 64 mm rockets, numerous RPG launchers and warheads and hand grenades, and other equipment.
In all, 49 of the deadly EFPs have been found by Iraqi troops since Oct. 20.
Sounds like the Iraqi Army is doing a pretty fine job. And, along with our guys, they’re rounding up “insurgents” and Qod Force fighters at a good rate - several dozen so far this month, including a couple of the money men.
Qods Force has supported various Shia militias and terror groups inside Iraq, including the Mahdi Army, which it helped build along the same lines as Lebanese Hezbollah. Iran denies the charges, but captive Shia terrorists admit to being recruited by Iranian agents, and then transported into Iran for training.
Bravo. Well Done. And there’s more, including the capture of 180 AQ “suspects”. Go read the rest.
Posted by Drew458
on 10/30/2008 at 06:35 PM
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Permalink • Thursday - July 17, 2008
AP reluctantly starts to sing Die Walküre
Throughout the country, al-Qaida in Iraq, an insurgent organization thought to be affiliated with the global terrorist network but comprised mainly of Iraqis, has lost so much clout it is close to becoming irrelevant to the outcome of the war.
What did you say there? Did I hear you say the surge actually worked?
When President Bush announced in January 2007 that he was sending more than 21,000 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq — mostly to the Baghdad area — as part of a new approach to fighting the insurgency, commanders said their No. 1 focus was degrading al-Qaida’s ability to foment sectarian violence.
In the Latifiyah area, it’s not hard to see that goal appears to have been achieved — an accomplishment that adds to the expectation that Bush will be able to further reduce U.S. troop levels this fall.
That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it’s the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaida in Iraq, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias.
There is no available official estimate of the number of al-Qaida fighters in Iraq. A U.S. intelligence estimate early this year put it at a maximum of 6,000, although it probably has fallen far lower recently. Perhaps more importantly, U.S. officers said in a series of Associated Press interviews over the past 10 days that so many al-Qaida leaders have been captured or killed that its remnants are ineffective.
Did you say something about failed policies?
Col. Al Batschelet, chief of staff for the U.S. command overseeing military operations in the Baghdad area, said that once the leadership began disappearing, lower-level technicians were pressed into duty.
That had the effect of accelerating the group’s decline: the technical experts were not as good at organizing and executing attacks, and by taking the lead they exposed themselves to being captured or killed. That, in turn, has left even less-technically skilled fighters to perform the specialized work of assembling bombs like al-Qaida’s signature weapon, the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, officers said.
What do you call these fighters again? Weren’t they the new Minutemen? Holy warriors? Freedom Fighters?
Stephen Biddle, an Iraq watcher in Washington at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview that without an urban hideout, al-Qaida is reduced to the role of being ”furtive terrorists.”
Ok, AP tries so hard to minimize it. But I pulled the core points for you. The whole thing, with their endless picayune caveats, is here.
Posted by Drew458
on 07/17/2008 at 07:04 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 08, 2008
Is the end near for Sadr City fighters?
Iraqi soldiers for the first time warned residents in the embattled Sadr City district to leave their houses Thursday, signaling a new push by the U.S.-backed forces against Shiite extremist who have been waging street battles for seven weeks.
Iraqi soldiers, using loudspeakers, told residents in some areas of southeastern Sadr City, which were virtually abandoned, to go to nearby soccer stadiums, residents said. UNICEF says about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Sadr City, most of them from the southeastern section.
U.S. forces have increased air power and armored patrols in an attempt to cripple Shiite militia influence in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people that serves as the Baghdad base for the Mahdi Army led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The U.S. military is trying to weaken the militia grip in the slum and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes from Sadr City on the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices.
...
Iraqi soldiers on Thursday shut down a local radio station, al-Aahad, run by the Sadrists after raiding offices of the station in a neighborhood near Sadr City, police said.
Fighting continues to be hot in this area of Baghdad, and the wall around it continues to be built. Divide, then conquer. Looks like the divisioning aspect is really progressing, so maybe the conquer part is soon to come. Fighting around the Qod Street part of the wall is still intense:
The Mahdi Army continues to attack US and Iraqi forces as they erect the barrier on Qods Street, which divides the southern third from the northern portion of Sadr City. US and Iraqi troops responded, killing 18 Mahdi Army fighters and capturing 11 throughout Baghdad.
US and Iraqi troops and US air weapons teams killed 11 Mahdi Army fighters as they attacked barrier emplacement teams and planted roadside bombs in Sadr City on the night of May 5 and the morning of May 6. Iraqi soldiers and police also uncovered numerous weapons caches in northern and eastern Baghdad. In one raid, Iraqi police discovered a weapons cache in the courtyard of the Imam Ali Mosque in the Al Ghadeer neighborhood in New Baghdad (number 31 on map). “The [National Police] found five explosively formed projectiles, two improvised explosive devices, five rocket rails, three grenades and numerous rounds of various ammunitions,” Multinational Forces Iraq reported.
The US military conducted a guided rocket attack on a Special Groups headquarters adjacent to a hospital in Sadr City, while 14 Mahdi Army fighters have been killed during clashes over the past 24 hours.
The US Army targeted and destroyed a Special Groups command and control center in a Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System strike in Sadr City at 10 AM local time Saturday morning, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. “There were six GMLRS rocket strikes on these Special Groups criminal command and control nodes,” (said Public Relations Officer) Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover
I’m posting this because you probably haven’t heard much about it on your TV news. There has been a pretty heavy battle going on there in Sadr City for over a month now, and al Sadr’s gangs are getting creamed. Gee, too friggin bad. These rocket attacks - I mentioned the GMLRS system the other day - are proving to be a very effective weapons system for the Army. Good.
With their vertical trajectory, ability to cover 70 kilometers (43 miles) in 82 seconds and close-combat precision, GMLRS rockets are becoming the rockets of choice, even when other more traditional missiles or other bombs are available. Army officials say many requests for the rockets to be used instead of aircraft-launched missiles are coming from the Air Force. Of the estimated 273 missions in which GMLRS rockets have been used in theater, about 83 percent were accomplished in urban environments and 69 percent were done with troops in close proximity.
...
U.S. Army commanders and troops have come to view the Army’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) as their “70-kilometer sniper rifle,” but enemy forces in Iraq see the weapon in a starker light.“The enemy is calling it the ’Hand of Allah,’”
Got that one right Achmed. The Hand of Allah. And stop and think, if you live long enough that is, just who is controlling that hand.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/08/2008 at 09:22 AM
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Permalink • Friday - May 02, 2008
Baghdad fighting focuses on Sadr City Wall
Leaving aside the Pink Floyd references that jump to mind, there has been a very intense level of fighting going on in Baghdad over the past few weeks. Coalition forces are trying to build a wall around one of the worst areas of the Sadr City slum zone, to control egress. Our troops are building a wall while under nearly continuous assault. The wall is supposed to isolate the area and keep insurgents (sorry, they’re called “criminals” now) from being able to range the Green Zone with mortar fire. This is what you get from fighting a “gentle war”. Maybe a wall, or that way, isn’t the best course of action right now?
The large majority of the direct attacks by the Mahdi Army against US and Iraqi forces in Sadr City are occurring on Qods Street, where a barrier is being erected to separate the Iraqi Army and US controlled sections in the south from the northern portion of the district, the US military told The Long War Journal. The Mahdi Army is attempting to stop the building of the barrier.
...The Mahdi Army is desperately trying to stop the barrier from being built, and is focusing its attacks on US engineers and patrols as they work to complete it. The Mahdi Army has launched complex attacks and ambushes using small-arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and roadside bombs.
“[The barrier is] a magnet,” said Lieutenant Colonel Steven Stover, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Division Baghdad in response to email questions on the recent fighting in Sadr City. “In that area, for the past three days we’ve seen some pretty heavy, prolonged engagements.
...
“As the engineers were emplacing the barriers an M1A1 Abrams fired a main gun round at militants across the street,” Stover said. “We fired 5 Hellfire missiles and dropped two JDAMs from fixed wing aircraft. It got a bit hot today, but our Soldiers continued emplacing the barriers.”
Please go read the rest over at Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal. For a nearly constant stream of press releases about things going on in Iraq, visit Operation Iraqi Freedom, the website of MNF Iraq.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/02/2008 at 11:21 AM
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Permalink • Friday - April 25, 2008
Proxy War Heating Up?
The U.S. military says it has found caches of newly made Iranian weapons in Iraq, leading senior officials to conclude Tehran is continuing to funnel armaments into Iraq despite its pledges to the contrary.
Officials in Washington and Baghdad said the purported Iranian mortars, rockets and explosives had date stamps indicating they were manufactured in the past two months. The U.S. plans to publicize the weapons caches in coming days. A pair of senior commanders said a presentation was tentatively planned for Monday.
...
ast fall, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Mr. Ahmadinejad had told the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that Tehran would take steps to curb shipments of Iranian weaponry into Iraq.The weapons of deepest concern to U.S. officials were explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, which U.S. officials accuse Iran of manufacturing and shipping to Shiite militants. EFPs, which are capable of punching through even the strongest U.S. armor, have been responsible for hundreds of American deaths.
...
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, focused his recent congressional testimony almost exclusively on Iran, which he said was playing a “destructive role” by funneling advanced weaponry to Shiite militants in Iraq
The use of the EFPs had diminished for a while after Ahmadumjihad had promised Iraqi PM Maliki Iran would try harder to control smuggling. Now their use has flared up again. Maybe they were just being stockpiled for a while?
Meanwhile, Iran’s stooge in place, rotundo Al-Sadr (I guess he got over the food poisoning?) is yelling and screaming and threatening more war. He launched two major uprising in the past, and is now threatening more. But Maliki wants his forces to disband, saying there is no room in Iraq for a seperate private army. Clashes between the forces are increasing, with probably close to 100 Mahdi Army casualties so far, though the MSM is reporting many less. From Bill Roggio’s Long War Journal:
The showdown with the Mahdi Army continues in Baghdad and outlying areas to the North as Iraq’s prime minister says the days of the militias are over. US and Iraqi forces engaged the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the towns of Rashidiyah and Hussaniyah in northern Baghdad Province over the past several days, killing 16 Mahdi Army fighters and capturing five. Seventy-two Mahdi Army fighters have been killed in Baghdad since Muqtada al Sadr threatened to initiate a third uprising.
The largest clash occurred in Hussaniyah, a town north of Baghdad, on April 22 when an Iraqi patrol was ambushed by a “criminal group” armed with roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms. Iraqi troops, backed by US Special Forces advisers, counterattacked and killed nine Mahdi Army fighters and destroyed two of their vehicles.
Hussaniyah has been a hotbed of Mahdi Army activity in the recent past. In August 2007, US troops surrounded the town after patrols were ambushed. In October, US troops uncovered a weapons factory where explosively formed penetrators and other roadside bombs were manufactured.
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South of Baghdad, Iraqi forces captured a Mahdi Army leader and two others and seized an IED factory in Karbala. US forces also found 12 Iranian-made rocket launchers, which were aimed at a nearby forward operating base.
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The US military has slowly begun to stop making distinctions between the Mahdi Army and the Criminals and Iranian-trained Special Groups as the fighting has flared since March. Colonel Allen Batschelet, the chief of staff for Multinational Division Baghdad, came closest to admitting the distinctions are often meaningless.
Some background on Al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army; it’s so hard to tell the players without a score card.
I don’t like what I’m seeing here. While this could be the last great attempt by Iran to foment another civil war in Iraq, it could also be a putsch by Maliki against opponents. The only thing I’m sure of is that American troops are going to be caught in the middle of this muddle. I think it would have been better to have offed al-Sadr several years ago when we had the chance.
And just for extra fun, little Yemen is about to fall off the cliff and descend into anrachy. War in the North, riots in the south, hungry people everywhere. Naturally they’re another oil producing nation. Yemen is about the size of California, though its borders are sandy and not well defined.
UPDATE:
CNN says Al-Sadr is threatening all-out war against “occupiers”:
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened “open war,” against the American “occupiers” and not the Iraqi government, according to a letter read by a top aide during Friday prayers.
Yet, at the same time, other sources see the very same speech as a call for peace:
Less than one week after threatening to conduct an uprising against the Iraqi government and US forces, Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, has called for his fighters to maintain the self-imposed cease-fire. The US and Iraqi military continue to strike at Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Baghdad. Ten “criminals” were killed in strikes in Sadr City, making 82 Mahdi fighters killed in the six days since Sadr threatened renewed violence.
Go read the rest, along with some very helpful comments, over at The Long War Journal.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/25/2008 at 07:58 AM
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Permalink • Tuesday - April 01, 2008
What is Gaddafi’s son REALLY doing in Iraq?
A letter from the wood-paneled study of your latest BMEWS news analyst.
I was looking through some Austrian news, when I chanced upon an item that there are two Austrians still being held hostage in North Africa, in the country of Mali, to be exact. It is an elaborate denial that Muammar al-Gaddafi (who we all know about) has sent his number two son, Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, to negotiate with the kidnappers (who announced themselves to be al Qaeda) for the release of the hostages. This runs contrary to other stories that he is doing exactly that.
Seif is also (nominally) in charge of his father’s charity, the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity Associations, which in the past has been instrumental in extracting other hostages from similar situations.
“I know that name”, I thought to myself. For not long before, I had read another item which placed him in Northwestern Iraq, in the area around Mosul, which still has bands of al Qaeda running wild. Iraq The Model also has an excellent article.
So there are three stories about this man.
Story 1: He helps to run his father’s charity foundation, which involves the in-flow and out-flow of large sums of money.
Story 2: He negotiates with al Qaeda kidnappers for the release of their hostages, probably paying them off in the process.
Story 3: He is the Mosul regional captain of al Qaeda himself, financing their campaign, and generating some Fear and Despondency in the Western media. Seif went into Iraq with a large company of palace guards (the Seifaddin Regiment) to add some military muscle to the campaign.
Let me fill in the gaps with some facts.
Fact 1: There has recently been an increase in terrorist activity in and around Mosul. Quote: “It is their strategic center of gravity. One-half to two-thirds of attacks in Iraq today are in and around Mosul.”
Fact 2: Libyans are the second largest nationality of foreign insurgent fighters (19%) in Iraq, after the Saudis.
Some other factors are worthy of note.
Note 1: During the Cold War, when an agent was sent out on his (or her) mission, he was given a “cover”(CIA-speak) or “legend” (KGB-speak), to give a legitimate reason for being where he was.
Note 2: Nothing in the Middle East is straightforward. There are always multiple motivations, more than one reason for anything happening, especially so since al-Quaeda became considerably more decentralized. The rationale of who did what and why is constantly being muddled by a “Billy the Kid” effect (see footnote). This constantly bamboozles the MSM, who don’t seem to get their heads around it.
Note 3: Seif’s father is a ruthless bastard. That is pretty much a given. Gaddafi wants to trade in either smuggled goods or political influence: smuggling antiquities (yes it still goes on), or getting in some last jabs in against the Iraqi government and the US forces to gain some kudos with the other regional dictatorships (Iran, Syria, Sudan).
Note 4: For a long time, Seif al-Gaddafi (number two son) was seen as the heir-apparent to be President of Libya. But there are reports that he was dropped in favor of his younger brother Motassim Bilal, also known as Hannibal. And yes, he is something of a cannibal. Seif would be keen to win his spurs on the field of battle and regain his father’s favor.
Conclusion: Gaddafi is again playing both ends against the middle. It reminds me of this character (picture in the middle) in the Rockford Files – one of my favorite programs which has recently had a re-playing on digital TV in the UK. (See the comments here.)
Footnote: The “Billy the Kid” effect is one of false attribution. For a few years, while Billy was still at large, it was common for young criminals to hold up a store or a stagecoach and announce that they were Billy the Kid. Word goes around, and in no time at all, a pretty fearsome reputation has been created, and a hitherto unknown talent for being in two places at the same time. Billy would not disown the crimes, for they make him appear mightier than he really is, and a large part of his modus operandi is the psychology. (No links, Google was no help.)
Postscript 1: Don’t you think Seif looks like Art Malik in True Lies? Maybe he can come to a similar sticky end, or crispy-fried a la Zarqawi.
Postscript 2: To those who think “Better inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in”, there is a third possibility – Inside the tent pissing on your shoes - which is what the Western powers are in danger of, unless they wise up and see Gaddafi for what he really is. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Presently, DWMF is our only reader in Switzerland Gnaargh!, AUSTRIA. (funny name for a town 
) He also could use a hand with some plain old html. So, give his essay a read and a think, and leave an opinion and a response or two. And if you have impressive html skills and some time, lend him a hand. Or a keyboard. Thanks. If any of the links are beat, it’s my fault.
Posted by Drew458
on 04/01/2008 at 08:05 PM
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