Tuesday - June 10, 2014

DEFEAT In Iraq

[ DEBKA Files, today ] Al Qaeda in Iraq (ISIS: Islamist State of Iraq and Syria), captured the northern Iraqi oil city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh Province, Tuesday, June 10, after the Iraqi military defenders caved in and fled. Mosul is Iraq’s third largest city after Baghdad and Basra with a population of around two million.

Ministers in Nuri al-Maliki’s government have sent> desperate appeals to the Obama administration for help to save Baghdad and Iraq from doom.

debkafile’s military sources report that the Iraqi army’s command facilities and bases in Mosul are ablaze and many bodies of Iraqi soldiers are lying in the town’s streets. Convoys of fleeing troops were ambushed by the invaders and destroyed.
The fall of Mosul with heavy casualties is the worst disaster suffered by the Iraqi army in its feeble attempts to fend off the deep inroads Al Qaeda has been making in the country for more than a year. ISIS now controls two major Iraqi cities, after capturing Fallujah earlier this year, has overrun parts of Ramadi and Tikrit, as well as eastern provinces bordering on Iran, Diyala province and parts of the town Baquba, where just Tuesday, 20 people were killed in two explosions.

Unknown number of casualties ... assume thousands. You don’t destroy “convoys” without a whole lot of bloodshed. Plus civilians. And any AQ fighters killed by accident.

[ PJ Tattler, today ] Iraq’s second-largest city fell to jihadists, a danger that had been building up but appeared to be low on Washington’s priority list.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, formerly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq, “infiltrated the old-city quarter of Meidan and have established a bridgehead close to the Old Bridge over the Tigris River that bisects the city into two halves,” according to the newspaper Azzaman.

“Government troops lack the necessary air support to take out the militants. Their assaults have failed so far to halt the push by ISIS… The districts and towns nearby report large-scale exodus, with thousands of displaced Mosul residents arriving in Zammar and the Kurdish city of Dahouk.”

Azzaman reports that Kurdish militias — the peshmerga — are on “high alert” to take a stand against the terrorists.

On Monday, Nineveh Governor Atheel al-Nujaifi made a televised plea to Mosul’s residents, calling on them to “stand firm in their areas and to defend them against the strangers,” according to the BBC.
...
Fallujah fell to al-Qaeda forces in January, sparking swift criticism on the Hill of the administration’s strategy in Iraq and subsequent pullout map in Afghanistan.

“Look, we’re following very closely reports of significant ISIL attacks, particularly in the city of Mosul. The security situation is, quite frankly, there still in flux. And the Iraqi security forces have undertaken operations to fight back against this; they remain ongoing. Obviously, I can’t go into all of the on-the-ground specifics,” Harf said Monday.

“We have worked with the Iraqis quite a bit to build their capacity and their capability to fight this threat,” she added. “ISIL has recently launched attacks on Anbar University in Ramadi, on the PUK in other places.

[ Hot Air, today ] Mosul falls to al-Qaeda as US-trained security forces flee
And not just Mosul, according to some reports, but the entire northern province of Nineveh has now fallen into al-Qaeda’s control.  Parliamentarians from the region want a declaration of emergency and immediate government intervention, but the forces that had been in Mosul have fled — some of which abandoned their uniforms as well as their posts as the ISIS forces swarmed into the city

Insurgents seized control early Tuesday of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, including the provincial government headquarters, offering a powerful demonstration of the mounting threat posed by extremists to Iraq’s teetering stability.

Fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaeda offshoot, overran the entire western bank of the city overnight after Iraqi soldiers and police apparently fled their posts, in some instances discarding their uniforms as they sought to escape the advance of the militants.

Iraq’s speaker of parliament, Osama Nujaifi, said the city that ranks as the capital of northern Iraq is now entirely in insurgent hands.

“When the battle got tough in the city of Mosul, the troops dropped their weapons and abandoned their posts, making it an easy prey for the terrorists,” he told a televised news conference in Baghdad.
...
Iraqi Parliament speaker Usama al-Nujaifi said the terrorists are now setting their sight on Salahuddin, a province just north of Baghdad.

“They have already seized the Shergat air base in Salahuddin”, Nujaifi said, adding that terrorists laid their hands on weapon depots, heavy equipment and army helicopters from abandoned army bases in Mosul.
[Saving Baghdad ...] This will be almost impossible to do, and entirely impossible to do quickly. We pulled out all of our forces three years ago when the Obama administration failed to negotiate for a residual force for this exact scenario. In order to land an effective fighting force to defend Baghdad and retake Mosul, we would need to commit tens of thousands of troops and a large amount of materiel in a big hurry. Logistically speaking, that would be a feat worthy of George S. Patton and the Battle of the Bulge in order for us to get to Baghdad before ISIS does, especially with Iraqi security forces collapsing.

Politically speaking, it’s a dead letter. Obama just coughed up five prizes to the Taliban in his haste to get the US out of Afghanistan. Does Iraq really expect Obama to restart the Iraq War all over again after spending his entire national political career speaking out against it? Agreement or no, Obama almost certainly won’t send combat troops into Iraq, even if it’s to fight al-Qaeda, and very certainly not before the midterm elections.

The White House poo-pooed this AQ surge Monday , saying that reports were vastly overrated. At this point, the Iraq story is starting to hit US TV news. The battle for Mosul took about 5 days.

Pulling total defeat from the closed jaws of absolute victory. That’s Change you can Believe in.

more at BBC, et al
more at Washington Post, et al
more at the NY Times, et al
and of course, Atlas Shrugs



Oh ... and a little By The Way ... when those chickenshit Iraqi forces shit themselves and ran from battle, they left thousands of tons of arms behind. Brand new, supplied by the USA. From helmets to rifles to ammo to artillery to trucks to tanks. Enough to equip an army, for real. Now in the hands of AQ.

[ The New York Times, today ] The insurgent fighters who routed the Iraqi army out of Mosul on Tuesday did not just capture much of Iraq’s second-largest city. They also gained a windfall of arms, munitions and equipment abandoned by the soldiers as they fled — arms that were supplied by the United States and intended to give the troops an edge over the insurgents.

The problem is not a new one, but it looms larger now that the United States is shifting its counterterrorism strategy away from using American armed forces directly, and toward relying on allied or indigenous troops and security forces supplied and trained by the United States. President Obama proposed last week that a $5 billion fund be set up to finance such efforts.
...
But those proxy forces do not always prove equal to the task, and when they buckle, the United States finds itself having unwittingly armed its enemies — a problem the Obama administration has been trying to avoid in Syria by carefully limiting its aid to the opposition there. The militants who swept into control of Mosul on Tuesday are believed to be connected to the main Islamist militant group fighting in Syria.

Of course they are. What a wonderful coincidence for AQ that they’ve got their top 5 leaders back, to go along with a lifetime’s worth of new weapons, and who knows how much captured intel.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/10/2014 at 04:40 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   Sunday - January 05, 2014

You Worthless SOB

Can’t blame Bush for this. Not one single bit. This is ALL Obama’s fault. Him, his failed policies, his naive Secretaries of State, his absurd Middle East stance, his anti-military stance, and his continued purge of the upper echelons of the branches of the military.  It’s all coming together, and what we’re now seeing in Fallujah and other parts of that rebuilt country is no accident. Expect similar results around the globe ... because, hey, at this point, what difference does it make?

So you have any idea how sickening this is to write?

Our President, the “Leader of the Free World”, allowed this to happen. If it isn’t his idea, his deliberate doing, then it’s at least his fault. Because he knew, and did nothing. The worthless shitmouth.

Inside the ancient city, just 43 miles from Baghdad, Iraqis are once again braced for a siege and say security has declined precipitously over the past year. On Thursday, Iraqi interior ministry officials declared that half of the city was occupied by a brutal wing of al Qaeda called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

What little peace this city has seen in the past decade came at the expense of dozens of American Marines who fought al Qaeda-backed insurgents in two battles in 2004. They finally eliminated the al Qaeda forces in a house by house, alleyway by alleyway battle in which Marines had to contend with booby traps, roadside bombs and insurgents who fought with near suicidal determination.

“No one expected the level of ferocity we encountered in Fallujah,” said Maj. Charleston Malkemus, a member of the Marines’ First Batallion, the first division deployed to the city. “Insurgents and al Qaeda fighters flocked to the city and inserted themselves to take control, similar to what’s going on now.”

The second battle of Fallujah fought in the final months of 2004 was the greatest urban military operation involving U.S. troops since the battle for Hue City, Vietnam, in 1968.

By one estimate 36,000 of the city’s 50,000 homes in Fallujah were laid to waste. More than 2,000 insurgents are believed to have been killed in the fighting, as were nearly 100 American troops.

Al Qaeda was routed from the city, but they have returned in force according to officials, leaving some Americans to wonder whether too many died in vain.

“It was all for naught,” said Ross Ducati, a former Marine who fought in the second battle for the city and has since become an outspoken critic of U.S. intervention in Iraq. “Americans fought and died there—my friends died there—for the purposes of regime change and furthering business interests friendly to the Bush administration… [Now] Iraqis will die there to further the interests of [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki’s government.”

I understand brother, and I really wish there was a higher purpose involved. It’s all pretty sickening.

The security situation in Iraq has deteriorated in the past year. According to the U.N., 7,818 people were killed in 2013, the highest number in years.

Much of the recent sectarian violence has taken place in Anbar province, where Fallujah is located. Prime Minister Maliki’s Shiite-controlled government has tried to contain the violence in the province, a majority Sunni region.

Against the backdrop of al Qaeda backed militias launching attacks on police statements and military bases, the government has also cracked down on peaceful Sunni protests and sit-ins and dismantled Sunni militias, including those unaffiliated with al Qaeda.

Right. The locals form militias because a) they feel their local safety is not ensured by the government, and b) their safety is not ensured by the government along tribal lines, and like the shithole that is Africa, the Near East will never get past tribalism and thus is damned to petty tyranny forever.

Yet somehow the wonderful, multi-partisan, democratic government that the USA installed there, and that the little mud people went out and purple fingered for, isn’t doing the job. Maybe it isn’t so representative after all. Or maybe, just like we said in 2006 or so, Iraq ( just like every other country in the Middle East, post Balfour, shouldn’t be forced to exist within the lines drawn by disinterested white guys on a map somewhere. The sandbox is primitive and tribal, and always will be. The people are primitive and tribal, and always will be. Barbaric too. So no real point wasting endless blood and treasure trying to force them into a 21st century mold; given the first time in forever opportunity to write up their own constitution a few years back, they insisted on putting shit in there straight out of the fuckwad quran. So not even the best of them can see past the 7th century. I’m sorry for the American lives lost there. I’m sorry for the dickless traitor’s pretend leadership that got us to this point.

Now, since we’ll never, ever, have the balls to nuke the fuck out of this urban asshole, can we at least lay a hexagonal star of MOABS down on it? Won’t be a helluva difference either way;

   *   *
*   *   *    =    “M*”
   *   *
1/2 mile diameter circle of destruction

  M*  M*
M*  M*  M*
  M*  M*
>= 1 1/2 mile diameter circle of destruction; equal to an atomic bomb but without any radiation

Maybe a star or 2 of them. We sort of saved the city once, then we rescued it at great cost. And now, years later, it’s fallen once more to the enemy. Probably because that’s what the locals really want.
So fry them. To ashes. Because we still owe the fuckers for that bridge. So Fallujah Delenda Est. Again. Fuck it, we tried. Twice.

And if we can’t save it, then let’s turn it into dust before giving it over to Al Qaida. WTF, they’d do the same for us if they could.

Kill them all. Every last one. Squashed into tomato soup by overpressure and then roasted to a jerky-like crisp. And every building turned to small pieces of rubble. Sodom, Gommorah, Fallujah. Redefining “smote” for the 21st century.

Wait. Any of that would only happen if we had a leader at the helm. A MAN in charge.

Sorry.  We’ve only got bawak “Is it time for another vacation yet?” Obongo at the helm.

Never mind.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/05/2014 at 09:03 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Obama, The One • War On Terror •  
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Vietnam, With Sand?

[Friday] Al-Qaeda-linked force captures Fallujah amid rise in violence in Iraq

BEIRUT — A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.

Elsewhere in the province, local tribal militias claimed they were gaining ground against the al-Qaeda militants who surged into urban areas from their desert strongholds this week after clashes erupted between local residents and the Iraqi security forces.

In Fallujah, where Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in 2004, the militants appeared to have the upper hand, underscoring the extent to which the Iraqi security forces have struggled to sustain the gains made by U.S. troops before they withdrew in December 2011.

The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the rebranded version of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization that was formed a decade ago to confront U.S. troops and expanded into Syria last year while escalating its activities in Iraq. Roughly a third of the 4,486 U.S. troops killed in Iraq died in Anbar trying to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, nearly 100 of them in the November 2004 battle for control of Fallujah, the site of America’s bloodiest confrontation since the Vietnam War.

Events Friday suggested the fight may have been in vain.

“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”

Most residents of Fallujah do not support the al-Qaeda fighters, the journalist there said, but they also lack the means to oppose them, and they also oppose the Iraqi government.

“It is sad, because we are going back to the days of the past,” he said. “Everyone is remembering the battles of 2004 when the Marines came in, and now we are revisiting history.”

Sounds like latent tribalism to me, and a corrupt population steeped in pathos. So glad they learned to believe in freedom. In’challa; as God wills it. They can’t be bothered. But boy howdy, watch them piss and moan when it goes against them.

[Saturday] An ineffective and cowardly response

Iraqi army shells Falluja to try to dislodge Qaeda, tribes Iraqi troops trying to retake Anbar province from a mixture of Islamist and tribal foes battled al Qaeda fighters in Ramadi on Saturday after shelling the western region’s other main city, Falluja, overnight, tribal leaders and officials said.

At least eight people were killed and 30 were wounded in Falluja, and residents of both cities said the fighting had limited their access to food, and that they were running low on generator fuel.

Shops were sending food to mosques, and people were being asked through loudspeakers to go to collect it.

Falluja has been held since Monday by Sunni Muslim militants linked to al Qaeda and tribal fighters united in their opposition to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in a serious challenge to the authority of his Shi’ite-led government in Anbar province.

Al Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been steadily tightening its grip in the Sunni-dominated desert province bordering Syria in recent months in a bid to create a Sunni Muslim state straddling the frontier.
...
The U.S. State Department said Washington was following the Anbar situation closely and was concerned about ISIL extending its authority in Syria as well as Iraq.

“Their barbarism against civilians of Ramadi and Falluja and against Iraqi Security Forces is on display for all to see,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.

“We would note that a number of tribal leaders in Iraq have declared an open revolt against ISIL. We are working with the Iraqi government to support those tribes in every possible way.”

[Today]
Kerry: We’ll help Iraq but won’t send in troops

Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will help the Iraqi government in its battle against al Qaeda-linked fighters in western Iraq, but stressed it won’t send troops.

...

“We are not, obviously, contemplating returning. We’re not contemplating putting boots on the ground. This is their fight, but we’re going to help them in their fight,” Kerry said, noting that the United States plans to be in “close contact with all of the Iraq political leaders” to determine how to help them.

This is the same way we “lost” the Vietnam War. We went home in victory there, with honor, having stopped the NV from taking over. And with a bright shiny peace treaty. Which the commies broke not long after we’d gone home. And then the Democrat dominated Legislature refused to honor that treaty, which called for us to come back and fight. And thus the war that was won on the ground was lost in Washington DC, by duplicitous asshats. I don’t know IF we have any treaty with Iraq, or WHAT it entails. But we spent nearly a decade rooting evil out of their sand patch, and did the best we could to give them a representative government and a rebuilt infrastructure. And it will probably all come to naught now, because ( hey, it’s Deja-Poo all over again! ) the Democrat dominated Executive has already cut our newly freed allies off at the knees. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory once again.

Posted by Drew458     on 01/05/2014 at 02:34 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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   Monday - October 07, 2013

earning the right to 72 virgins. easy. slaughter a few children

Folks, sometimes tho it can hurt we have to acknowledge ppl who just do not think as we do, and give em some credit for bravery and all the other macho stuff that makes a fighting man. And these days, some women as well.

For example, when a man has a cause worthy of fighting for and gives his all, he is a hero. He has faced an enemy and either survived or died fighting.

In a world far separate from ours with a totally separate definition of what I describe …. here’s a case of one man facing his enemy and in the brave tradition of his kind of people …. has sacrificed himself against a vicious enemy worthy of his hate.  His reward is 72 virgins and he gets to meet allah.  And all he had to do was … kill a few children.  I ask you. Wasn’t that brave of him? Hey … that’s macho for ya.
Take a look.

A SUICIDE BOMBER KILLED 14 CHILDREN when he drove a truck packed with explosives into the playground of a primary school.

The attack took place at around 9.30am in the village of Qabak, around 260 miles north-west of Baghdad.
An estimated 90 people were injured, the majority of whom were children, and the school’s male head teacher was killed in the blast.

PLEASE NOTE, GRAPHIC PHOTOS HERE. NOT PRETTY.

Then, moving right along another story of some bravery facing an enemy and you can of course understand the threat here.

A nine-year-old Jewish girl was seriously injured in a suspected Palestinian militant attack while playing outside her home on Saturday in a settlement in the West Bank, Israeli police said.

Israeli authorities weren’t able to find the shooter who they say was a sniper. 

Meanwhile, spokesmen for militants in Gaza praised the attack.

“We salute and congratulate our people in the west bank for heroic resistance operations that target Israeli soldiers and Zionist settlers as a response to all acts of violence, oppression and terrorism practised by the Israelis against our people.”

The 9 year old has survived as of this writing. She got lucky but, no virgins for the shooter.

Wow ... the Israelis as terrorists? Well yeah. I can see that.

In a world turned upside down.

Posted by peiper     on 10/07/2013 at 05:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Israel • Paleswine • Terrorists •  
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   Saturday - March 10, 2012

What Our Blood And Treasure Bought

At least 90 Iraqi teenagers with “emo” appearances have been stoned to death by religious extremists in Baghdad in the past month after an inflammatory interior ministry statement dubbed it “devil worshiping”, activists said.

Iraq’s Moral Police released a chilling statement on the interior ministry’s website condemning the “emo phenomenon” among Iraqi youth, disturbingly declaring its intent to “eliminate” the trend.

“The ‘Emo phenomenon’ or devil worshiping is being followed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate [the phenomenon] as soon as possible since it’s detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger,” the statement read.

“They wear strange, tight clothes that have pictures on them such as skulls and use stationary that are shaped as skulls. They also wear rings on their noses and tongues, and do other strange activities,” it continued.

Religious extremists caught onto the interior ministry statement, and have been harassing and killing teenagers with “strange” or “emo” appearances.

A group of armed men dressed in civilian clothing led dozens of teenagers to secluded areas a few days ago, stoned them to death, and then disposed their bodies in garbage dumpsters across the capital, according to activists.

Al-Bayaty said the killings appear to have been carried out by extremist Shia militias in mostly poor Shia neighborhoods and said she suspected “there’s complicity of the Ministry of Interior in the killings.”

Photos of the victims were released on Facebook, causing panic and fear among Iraqi students.
...
The interior ministry has not disclosed the number of teenage victims, but released a follow-up statement on Thursday warning extremists “not to step on public freedom of Iraqis.”
...
The Director of the Moral Police of the Interior Ministry released a statement, saying “The ‘Emo phenomenon’ or devil worshiping is being followed by the Moral Police who have the approval to eliminate [the phenomenon] as soon as possible since it’s detrimentally affecting the society and becoming a danger.”
...
“They wear strange, tight clothes that have pictures on them such as skulls and use stationary that are shaped as skulls. They also wear rings on their noses and tongues, and do other strange activities.”

Yes, I think that kind of strange dress and behavior is called being a teenager.

Can someone please tell me what the heck kind of “freedom” or “democracy” we set up over there that has a MORAL POLICE to even begin with? Freedom Rule #1: Get your damn nose out of my life; what I do, what I think, how I look, how I act, how I feel, what I believe in is NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/10/2012 at 08:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • RoPMA •  
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   Friday - December 16, 2011

Have Some Leftovers

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   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Military •  
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   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   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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   Tuesday - October 25, 2011

That’s About How I See It Too

Posted by Drew458     on 10/25/2011 at 08:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   Friday - October 21, 2011

War Is Over, Troops Home By Christmas

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   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   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   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Tyrants and Dictators • War On Terror •  
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   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   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq •  
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   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     on 02/04/2009 at 08:39 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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   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.

graphic design by reader Serr8d

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   
Filed Under: • Iraq • War On Terror •  
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   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.

EFPs are a kind of shaped charge IED that can disable or destroy just about any vehicle out there, up to and including tanks. Very. Bad. News. In the past, these have been smuggled in from Iran.

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   
Filed Under: • Iran • Iraq • Military • War On Terror •  
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