Questions from the front lines of a war that strains logic

By Brian J. Sullivan
Opinion

HILLAH, Iraq — My military tour of duty in Iraq ends in several weeks. We return home during a period of military success, to a decidedly anti-war nation and to an unclear future Iraq policy.

There is a certain pressure for those returning from this war to thump our chests, make proud claims of success, honor the fallen and extol a positive military spirit. Returning is a time to wave the flag; it's hard not to get caught up in those feelings of pride and conclusion.

My unit will focus on pinning medals and awards on returning soldiers, speeches by the generals, and maybe a homecoming event or parade.

But, tough questions will be on the minds of many as their flights leave Baghdad International Airport.

Was it worth it? Is the nation of Iraq we are attempting to assist worth the sacrifice? Will Iraq be different tomorrow because of our blood, sweat and a trillion dollars?

After serving here, I strongly disagree with the most common justification for the war.

U.S. Sen. John McCain has often commented, to paraphrase, "If we don't kill the enemy in Iraq, they will follow us home to America."

From the several hundred detainees I've seen here, and others I am aware of, I conclude it's unlikely that many of these illiterate dirt farmers and thugs caught planting roadside bombs, men who can barely feed themselves, or their children, would be able to mount a successful jihad against North America.

A closer look at the 9/11 terrorists should stiffen our resolve against radicalized, sophisticated, Westernized Muslims, from nations like Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.

Our concern should focus on sealing the U.S. border, and finding terrorists who can navigate the airports and the complexities of the First World, not the palm groves of Iraq.

I've thought about this a lot as I drove in convoys to our outlying patrol bases or flew over the palm forests along the Tigris and Euphrates. I thought about this as I crouched in bunkers as rockets were landing near me.

What I see are militia groups continuing their violent struggle for primacy and power. Iraq's primitive legal system is hardly functioning; it's a coin toss whether due process or torture will be applied.

The country's ancient power grid remains unimproved. The Mosul dam is near failure but the Iraqi government will not act to stop potential catastrophe. Iraq's police are corrupt and unreliable. Iraq's army is better, but struggling with basics like putting shoes on its soldiers' feet. The graft-dominated central government seemingly controls little.

Contrast this mess with the actions of our young U.S. soldiers. They do their combat patrols on bomb-infested roads and kick down doors of houses that could be rigged to explode. Their behavior and competence have cemented my trust in the military leaders and troops I serve with here.

I wish I could say the same of my confidence in our D.C. policymakers.

Iraq is a war being waged with a military that is stretched to the bone. Can we respond elsewhere in the world if we had to? The reality is, the U.S. Army has insufficient troops to extend the surge in Iraq without ordering 18-month rotations.

I've watched more than a dozen congressmen come into our forward operating base for their 60-minute briefings and photo opportunities.

After one briefing, I listened to a general and State Department official talk about how a large group of federal elected officials ignored the presentations, looked at their watches, or stared at the ceiling. They didn't care about the details. But, details matter, and should matter to policymakers.

It is that kind of highhandedness that will keep us fighting here.

I leave Iraq loving the organization of the Army, and grateful for the hard sacrifices of my fellow soldiers.

I leave Iraq unsure ... whether the true reason we are here, as Alan Greenspan recently opined, is that we are fighting for oil, regional stability and protecting our oil-based economic system.

I leave hoping the American people will fire their congressmen next year, especially if they are arrogant toward those risking their lives in a mission they directed.

Most of all, I challenge the soundness of the logic that what we are getting in Iraq is worth the steep cost in American blood and treasure.
Brian J. Sullivan is an infantry brigade staff officer in Iraq and formerly served two terms, from 1997 to 2001, in the state House of Representatives representing Tacoma and Pierce County. The views in this guest column are his alone.

Private security firms a problem in Afghanistan-study

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Private security contractors in Afghanistan add to the sense of insecurity, are often confused with foreign troops, employ former militiamen and may have links to crime, said an independent Swiss study published on Monday.

The number of private security companies has risen steadily since U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001, with armed men guarding homes and offices in cities and supply convoys and construction projects in the countryside.

The Afghan government has failed to introduce proper legislation or regulations to govern the private security companies, but the police have nevertheless begun a crackdown on those operating without a temporary licence.

Some of the companies are Afghan-owned, while among the foreign-owned companies the main country of origin is the United States followed by Britian.

The main problem, said Susanne Schmeidl, the author of the Swiss study, is that "nobody guards the guardians".

Private security companies represent a new form of mercenary activity, a United Nations report said last week. The firms have come under increased scrutiny since a shooting in September in which guards working for the company Blackwater were accused of killing 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.

While there have been no such incidents in Afghanistan, some ordinary Afghans interviewed for the study by the Swisspeace think-tank complained some security contractors behaved in a "cowboy-like" way and did not treat Afghans with respect.

The presence of so many armed men, often from different groups operating in close vicinity to one another, added to residents' sense of insecurity, the study found.

more

IRAQ: Basra closes doors to displaced

BASRA, 12 November 2007 (IRIN) - Basra province, 550km south of Baghdad, can no longer accommodate Iraqi families fleeing insecurity, according to local officials.

"We cannot cope with any more families seeking refuge in our province, whatever their reasons. The governorate is seriously affected by the high number of displaced families," a senior official in Basra Governing Council, Hassan Abdul-Kareem, told IRIN on 11 November.

"Health services have deteriorated, schools are overcrowded and we aren't even able to offer a good service to our locals. Things have become worse since the high influx of new arrivals," Abdul-Kareem said.

He added that according to the local council and the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, more than 40 displaced families have been arriving daily in Basra. The increase has led to higher crime rates, deteriorating security and a rise in the number of commercial sex workers.

"We cannot try to offer something that isn't available; we lack resources. We understand the desperation of Iraqi families trying to flee violence but the central government has to take urgent action to better disperse displaced families to other governorates," he said.

"The number of Iraqi families fleeing their homes for safer areas has increased, despite reports that levels of violence have diminished," said Abdul-Kareem.

more

CP

With the help of USAID, Kandahar's farmers are selling their famous fruit overseas for the first time since the Taliban's collapse

Globe and Mail, November 12

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — During the worst fighting north of Kandahar city earlier this month, as gunfire crackled through the orchards and hundreds of villagers fled their homes, a truck loaded with pomegranates rumbled along dirt roads in the middle of the night.

The fruit delivery was late, and the truck driver's boss in Kandahar city called him for regular updates on his crawl out of the war zone.

The driver reported some of the usual annoyances of transport in southern Afghanistan - a flat tire, engine trouble, getting stuck in a river - but with each phone call, his friends were relieved to hear he wasn't caught in crossfire.

Another worker for the same agriculture project had been hit in the shoulder by a bullet during the battles, and local co-ordinators from the United States Agency for International Development didn't want another casualty - not only for the driver's sake, but because they needed to get the truckload of pomegranates onto the next morning's cargo flight at Kandahar Air Field.

"I didn't sleep all night," said Mohammed Gul, a project manager for USAID. "It was the worst time of my career."

Meeting the shipment deadline was critical to the fledgling project, in which hundreds of tonnes of Kandahar's pomegranates are packed into boxes and flown to supermarkets around the world. It's the first time since the collapse of the Taliban regime that the region's farmers have sold their fruit overseas, and as harvest season finishes up this week, the people involved with the effort are quietly celebrating.

After three years of trying to open foreign markets to Kandahar's legendary fruit, once hailed as the best of the continent, the luscious red spheres are finally arriving in places such as Dubai, Delhi, Singapore, London, and even Vancouver.

It's part of a $120-million USAID project called the Afghanistan Alternative Development Program, intended to foster a legal economy in the south that might eventually replace the booming trade in opium.

The project has faced enormous difficulties along the way. Foreign staffers who oversee the work say they cannot be identified for security reasons, as the risk of kidnapping and murder rises in Kandahar city. The Taliban snatched Mr. Gul's driver, a local Afghan employee, and held him for more than a week in August until he negotiated a $5,000 (U.S.) ransom and bought his freedom.

YAHYA BARZANJI, AP, November 13

SULAIMANIYAH, IRAQ — Turkish helicopter gunships attacked villages inside Iraq on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said, the first such air strike since border tensions have escalated in recent months.

It also was the first major Turkish action against Kurdish rebels since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington earlier this month.

Col. Hussein Tamir, an Iraqi Army officer who supervises border guards, said the air strikes occurred before dawn on abandoned villages near Zakhu, an Iraqi Kurdish town near the border with Turkey. There were no casualties, he said.

A spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, corroborated Col. Tamir's account. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

The United States and Iraq have pressured Turkey to avoid a large-scale attack on PKK bases in northern Iraq, fearing such an operation would destabilize what has been the calmest region in the country.

U.S. authorities have agreed, however, to share intelligence about positions of Kurdish rebels with Turkey, possibly enabling the Turkish military to carry out limited assaults.

"The United States has declared the PKK as the common enemy. The struggle against this enemy will be maintained until it is eliminated," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told lawmakers in Parliament on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of Turkish troops have massed in the country's southeast ahead of a possible operation in Iraq. A series of hit-and-run attacks by PKK rebels has left nearly 50 dead, primarily Turkish soldiers, since late September.

Kurds are a major ethnic group straddling four Middle Eastern countries — Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria — totalling about 20 million people. Most live in Turkey, primarily in the southeast, where the PKK has been fighting for autonomy since 1984 in a conflict that has killed nearly 40,000 people.
Source

In Iraq, the silence of the lambs

The separation of religious groups in the face of sectarian cleansing by militias and death squads has brought a semblance of relative calm to Baghdad. Contradicting claims that the US military "surge" has reduced sectarian attacks, one resident says that "All that has happened is a dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq." Still, the violence continues, though at a slower rate: five to 10 tortured bodies are found in the garbage dumps and streets of Baghdad every day. - Ali al-Fadhily (Nov 13, '07)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK14Ak03.html

RISE OF THE NEO-TALIBAN, Part 2
'Pain has become the remedy'
With the invaluable help of Punjabi jihadis diverted from the struggle in Kashmir, Taliban leader Mullah Omar, al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have resolved to announce a region-wide Islamic emirate. This will mean taking on the Pakistani military, but a seasoned Punjabi tells Syed Saleem Shahzad that's not a problem - the mujahideen have suffered beyond the point of no return.
This is the conclusion of a two-part report. (Nov 13, '07)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK14Df04.html

MarketWatch, By William L. Watts, November 13

WASHINGTON -- The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost the U.S. economy $1.6 trillion through 2009, about double the amount directly requested by the Bush administration so far, according to a report released Tuesday by Democrats on the House-Senate Joint Economic Committee.

The report includes costs not included in the administration's funding requests, including the interest on money borrowed to finance the war, an estimate of the impact on oil markets, and costs tied to treating the wounded and disabled and other related costs.

Those costs, when added to direct funding of $607 billion, push total costs for the Iraq war to $1.3 trillion, the report said. If spending in Afghanistan is included, costs could reach $1.6 trillion by the end of fiscal 2008. The report estimated that both wars could carry economic costs of $3.5 trillion between 2003 and 2017.

"The full costs of this war to our economy are manifested in ways that have never been accounted for by this administration -- we are funding this war with borrowed money, Americans are paying more at the gas pump and it will take years for our military to recover from the damage of the president's failed war strategy," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The White House and congressional Republicans attacked the report, saying its assumptions about the impact of the war on energy prices and business investment were flawed.

Exiting leader calls situation 'unacceptable'

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | November 14, 2007

Globe

BALTIMORE - Increasingly frustrated by the war in Iraq and worried about bellicose talk toward Iran, the outgoing president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops described the situation in Iraq yesterday as "unacceptable and unsustainable" and called for the Bush administration to work with Iran and Syria to stabilize the region.

Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, in one of his last acts as president of the bishops conference, issued a public letter saying the bishops are "alarmed by the political and partisan stalemate in Washington" and declaring "our country needs a new direction."

The bishops conference and the Vatican raised concerns about the Iraq war before it began and have issued repeated statements calling for a "responsible transition" to Iraqi self-governance and the withdrawal of US troops "at the earliest opportunity consistent with that goal."

With Attacks Ebbing, Government Is Urged to Reach Out to Opponents

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 15, 2007; Page A01

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq

WaPo - Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government's failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but "it's unclear how long that window is going to be open."

The lack of political progress calls into question the core rationale behind the troop buildup President Bush announced in January, which was premised on the notion that improved security would create space for Iraqis to arrive at new power-sharing arrangements. And what if there is no such breakthrough by next summer? "If that doesn't happen," Odierno said, "we're going to have to review our strategy."

Brig. Gen. John F. Campbell, deputy commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, complained last week that Iraqi politicians appear out of touch with everyday citizens. "The ministers, they don't get out," he said. "They don't know what the hell is going on on the ground." Campbell noted approvingly that Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, the top Iraqi commander in the Baghdad security offensive, lately has begun escorting cabinet officials involved in health, housing, oil and other issues out of the Green Zone to show them, as Campbell put it, "Hey, I got the security, bring in the [expletive] essential services." ...

Air Force lets some F-15s go back in the air
By Bryan Mitchell, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 15, 2007

RAF LAKENHEATH, England — The Air Force rescinded a grounding order on some of its F-15s Wednesday, sending a fighter jet squadron in Afghanistan back on combat sorties and squadrons in the United Kingdom back onto their training regimen.

The F-15Es can return to flight after a one-time 13-hour inspection, according to Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Bentley. All other models remain grounded.

“Some of our planes are flying here,” said 455th Air Expeditionary Wing spokesman Capt. Michael Meridith from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.

The latest grounding was ordered last week after the Nov. 2 crash of an F-15C from the Missouri Air National Guard. The crash was the second involving a Missouri Air National Guard F-15 this year.

The pilot was engaged in a dog fighting exercise at speeds of up to 500 mph when the accident occurred. He ejected safely and suffered minor injuries.

The order grounded the aging fleet of more than 700 F-15s across the United States and at Lakenheath, where the 48th Fighter Wing is based. The wing has the only contingent of F-15s in U.S. Air Forces Europe.

It’s unclear if the Air Force determined what caused the crash, but officials have acknowledged the plane suffered structural problems and broke apart in flight.

“They can’t give us anything partial from the investigation,” Bentley said.

RAF Lakenheath is home to three F-15 squadrons, which includes approximately 83 F-15s that fly an average of 60 sorties a day.

During the grounding, pilots and weapons systems officers at the 48th Fighter Wing focused on studying and preparing for the ongoing NATO Operations evaluation while the maintenance crews attempted to work ahead on scheduled overhauls, RAF Lakenheath officials said last week.

The first F-15 rolled off the McDonnell Douglas production line and launched into the skies in 1972. Upgrades and modifications have significantly altered the aircraft.

The F-15 is one of the primary aircraft used by the Air Force in Afghanistan to provide close-air support to coalition troops serving across the Texas-sized nation.

more

AWOL soldier: Army didn’t help with PTSD

By William Kates - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Nov 15, 2007 7:52:35 EST

SYRACUSE, N.Y.— A soldier who served two combat tours in Iraq was arrested Wednesday as he was preparing to surrender to Fort Drum officials after spending more than a year AWOL seeking treatment for post traumatic stress disorder.

Sgt. Brad Gaskins, 25, of East Orange, N.J., said he left the northern New York post in August 2006 because the Army wasn’t providing effective treatment after he was diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression.

“They just don’t have the resources to handle it, but that’s not my fault,” said Gaskins, speaking at a press conference in Syracuse just hours before he was arrested at the Different Drummer Cafe in Watertown, less than 10 miles from Fort Drum.

Gaskins, an eight-year Army veteran who also did a peacekeeping tour in Kosovo, was taken into custody by two civilian police officers from Fort Drum and two Watertown city policeman, said Tod Ensign, an attorney with Citizen Soldier, a GI rights group that is representing Gaskins. Ensign said he was on the phone with military prosecutors at Fort Drum working out the details of Gaskins’ surrender when the soldier was arrested.

Fort Drum spokesman Ben Abel said after a soldier is AWOL for more than 30 days he becomes classified as a deserter, and a federal arrest warrant is issued.

Abel said Gaskins would be turned over to his unit commanders, who will decide whether he is to be prosecuted or not.

Ensign said Gaskins’ case is part of a “coming tsunami” of mental health problems involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Last month, the Veterans Administration said more than 100,000 soldiers were being treated for mental health problems, and half of those specifically for PTSD.

“We hope they don’t just recycle him and push him back into the role of soldier. They need to see him as a badly injured person, and he needs to be treated that way,” said Ensign, whose organization previously represented Spc. Eugene Cherry, another Fort Drum soldier who was facing a court martial and a bad conduct discharge after going AWOL to get treatment until the Army softened its stance and gave him a general discharge in July.

Gaskins said he enlisted in 1999, excited to be serving his country and with the dream of becoming a policeman after fulfilling his military duty. He was scheduled for discharge in 2009.

In 2003, Gaskins was deployed to Iraq and said he served his first tour without incident. He was sent back to Iraq in June 2005, and his mental health began deteriorating.

In his second tour, Gaskins said his job was to conduct road searches and locate IEDs.

In one outing, Gaskins said his unit found an IED and were waiting for an explosives team to arrive to disarm it. An Iraqi police officer decided to shoot the IED, which caused an explosion that leveled a nearby house.

“It killed a family of four ... that sight will never leave my mind. These people were in their house eating their breakfast. They never had a chance,” Gaskins said.

The disturbing experiences continued. A friend in another unit was killed. Gaskins said he was in numerous gun battles, including one in which two Iraqi police officers were accidentally killed by his unit. His unit was ambushed several times, and he saw the aftermath of countless suicide bombings, including one that left 25 people dead.

“It takes its toll. It’s a constant fear every day,” he said.

Gaskins left Iraq in February 2006 and was transferred to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, where he sought help for his worsening mental problems.

Upon his return, he began suffering flashbacks and nightmares, headaches, sleeplessness, weight loss and mood swings that took him from depression to irrational rages, he said.

Military doctors sent Gaskins to the Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, where he spent two weeks and was diagnosed with PTSD. He soon returned to his unit, but continued having problems. When he asked his commanders about returning to Samaritan, they told him it would delay any chance he had at obtaining a medical release.

“There is a stigma that comes with seeking help, and you basically jeopardize your entire career,” Gaskins said.

At the time, the Fort Drum mental health facility had a staff of a dozen caring for approximately 17,000 troops, Ensign said.

Over the past year, Fort Drum has expanded its mental health facility staff to 31, with plans to add 17 staffers, Abel said. “Is there a need for more — yes,” he said.

Abel said he was unaware of the specifics of Gaskins’ case and declined to comment on it.

Unable to get proper help, Gaskins said he requested a two-week leave and went home to New Jersey, where he had one of his most worrisome experiences.

“My wife came home late one night and startled me awake. I think I blacked out. I ran at her with a knife and almost stabbed her. I didn’t know what I was doing ... I don’t want to hurt anybody,” said Gaskins, who said he hasn’t been able to find a job because of his PTSD.

Gaskins and his wife are separated as he tries to deal with his mental problems. He has only supervised visitation rights with his two children, a 3-year-old son and a 9-year-old stepdaughter.

Gaskins said he called Fort Drum officials, told them about the incident and said he wasn’t coming back.

“They never sent anyone to help me,” Gaskins said, adding, “I never attempted to hide. I stayed at my house.”

Muqtada moves to stop a Sunni 'surge'

Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's stormy relationship with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has taken a turn for the better, with Muqtada calling for a renewal of his Mahdi Army's truce with both American and Iraqi troops. He also wants Parliament dissolved, which would pave the way for his return to government with Maliki. At heart, Maliki and Muqtada fear a rebirth of Sunnis at the expense of Shi'ites. - Sami Moubayed (Nov 15,

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK16Ak03.html

from the November 16, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1116/p01s04-usmi.html
Key test in Iraq: Is the power on?

The US scrambles to increase hours of power to Iraqi homes.

By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

It is the Cadillac of electrical plants, new and sophisticated and reflected in the pride of the local security guards hired to protect it. When it's turned on, providing enough power to run roughly the equivalent of 400,000 Iraqi homes, the Musayyib gas power plant will provide a large boost in the US military's campaign to restore basic services to Baghdad and, it hopes, quell the insurgency there.

But in Iraq, it seems, nothing is simple. Lack of fuel and parts, and poor Iraqi governance, have kept the Musayyib plant's 10 jet-engine-sized turbines off-line. It is emblematic of the large challenges facing the military's most important noncombat counterinsurgency tool: the provision of clean water, working sewage systems, and electric power to a population hungry for them.

US officials have long maintained that if Iraqis had these basic services, they would be less inclined to support the insurgency. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 US commander in Iraq, sees electricity as the No. 1 priority.

"We now need to start to improve the basic services," General Odierno said while in Washington last month. "If we can do that, I think we will see a tipping point" in Iraqi tolerance of the US occupation and support for the current Iraqi regime, he said.

what an idiot ~ tina

The hours of power that Iraqis receive each day has fluctuated since the US invasion in 2003. In March of that year, the average Iraqi had between four and eight hours of electricity per day, according to a study by the Brookings Institution in Washington. In March 2004, Iraqis had as many as 16 hours of power per day. Since then, however, that average has dipped again to as low as eight hours. In September, according to the study, Iraqis had nearly 12 hours of power per day.

To get power, many Iraqis string wires from their homes to truck-size generators that sit on street corners. But US and Iraqi officials aim to get most Iraqis on the country's power grid. The average household in Baghdad gets just about eight hours of electricity per day – the lowest amount in any province.

US officials are furiously trying to raise those numbers even as Iraqis scramble to buy new air conditioners, refrigerators, and electronic devices that create all the more demand.

The unfinished Musayyib plant sits by itself in an agrarian area south of the city. It has been plagued by a shortage of fuel to run it, in part because the Ministry of Oil is focused on exporting fuel to raise revenues instead of using it at home. And it has ignored infrastructure problems, says Col. Mike Moon, director of electrical-sector development for the Gulf region of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Parts to build it are hard to come by at a time when large industrial countries like China and India seek to expand their own power networks.

"You don't just go down to Auto Zone and get a transformer," says Colonel Moon. "They cost a million dollars."

Controversy has dogged the plant since 2006, when Southeast Texas Industrial Services, the US-based firm that won the $350 million contract to build it, walked off the job, citing security concerns and lack of Iraqi government support, Moon says. The US government is spending another $28 million to finish the project, which includes "commissioning" each of the remaining turbines not already running and completing a portion of the plant that will separate crude oil and leave higher-quality fuel on which the plant can run.

Terrorism and sabotage, aging equipment, and "overwhelmed repair crews" also impede overall progress with Iraq's power grid, according to a report by the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity. The head of the ministry, Karim Hasan, has what US officials see as an ambitious, though not totally unrealistic, $25 billion plan to meet current power demand by 2010 and expand the power grid to handle even more demand by 2016.

Though his ministry is considered one of the most effective, poor coordination between ministries and bad governance overall within the Iraq government will stifle progress unless better coordination begins to occur, say Moon and other US officials. Then there's the war.

more at link

Lasers, Helmet Cams Ordered for U.S. Convoy Guards

November 15, 2007 12:55 PM
Brian Ross Reports:

The State Department plans to equip its motorcade security details in Iraq with lasers to "dazzle" suspect motorists and helmet cameras to record it all.

U.S. officials also say the State Department plans to double the number of its diplomatic security agents to 90 so that one of its agents can accompany every convoy guarded by Blackwater and other private security contractors.

Security experts say the lasers, emitting a green beam and already in use at some U.S. military checkpoints in Baghdad, overload the optic nerve but, if used from at least 10 feet away, will not cause any permanent eye damage.

Lasers designed to cause permanent blindness have been banned by international law since 1995.

The lasers being sent to Iraq, experts say, are intended only to dazzle or temporarily blind vehicle drivers and alert them to stop.

Lasergreen"I've had them tested on me, and while it is certainly uncomfortable, like a flashbulb going off in front of your face, there is no permanent damage whatsoever," said Tony Diebler, a former State Department security official who now works at Cohort, International, the company providing the lasers and helmet cameras to the State Department.

more

14.11.2007
NATO Aware of Prisoner Abuse in Afghanistan, General Says

Deutsche Welle

Canadians stopped working with Afghan authorities until assured of prisoners' safety

The executive head of the ISAF troops in Afghanistan, Gen. Egon Ramms, confirmed Amnesty International accusations and told Deutsche Welle that NATO knew prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities were later tortured.

"We are aware of individual cases where employees in Afghan prisons committed actions that, according to international law, certainly do not meet our expectations," German Gen. Egon Ramms told Deutsche Welle on Wednesday, Nov. 14.

The general added that the situation was not widespread and that the alliance wanted to prevent additional cases by allowing NATO's military leaders on the ground to decide if prisoners were transferred to Afghan authorities.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was accused by Amnesty International on Tuesday of exposing detainees to abuse by handing them over to Afghan security authorities who tortured the detainees.

The human rights group called for prisoner transfers to stop "until effective safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment are introduced in the Afghan detention system."

Pressure on Afghan government needed

The ISAF had previously said it was not aware of any abuse.

"NATO-ISAF has no evidence of systematic mistreatment and torture of detainees who have been handed over to Afghan authorities by ISAF," alliance spokesman Nicholas Lunt told reporters. "The business of monitoring prisoners who have been handed over by ISAF is the responsibility of individual nations."

Ramms, however, said NATO was aware of indications that transferred detainees were being abused by Afghan authorities. He said Canadian troops in the Kandahar province stopped handing over prisoners until their safety and human rights could be guaranteed.

The general added that ISAF rules of engagement agreed to by the NATO council required soldiers to convey prisoners to the Afghan security officials within 96 hours.

"I now expect politicians to become active and influence the Afghan government to change things," Ramms told Deutsche Welle. "If we obey the rules agreed on and given to us, it is terrible for the soldiers to be the ones accused of acting inappropriately."

more

Petraeus adviser: Violence reduction due to ‘luck.’

In an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Gen. David Petraeus’s adviser Steven Biddle said that much of the U.S.’s recent “tactical successes” in Iraq have little to do with the impact of Bush’s escalation but instead are largely “luck.”

Q: Well what do you attribute this whole change on the ground to? Is this due to what is called “the surge,” or good diplomacy by the U.S. military, or just luck?

BIDDLE: All of those things have some role but I would put “luck” as probably the biggest.

more with links at Tina November 15, 2007 - 10:47pm

PressTV (DT/DT), November 16

Turkish tanks have been reportedly moving towards the northern Iraqi borders to hunt down the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) rebels.

"More than 17 Turkish tanks on Friday drew near 3 kilometers from the district of Zakho, close to the Iraqi-Turkish borders in the Kurdish autonomous region," the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency quoted Colonel Hussein Tamr as saying.

According to DPA, witnesses from the village of Qargula, west of Zakho near the border, confirmed the report, saying they saw the Turkish tanks.

The Turkish forces were authorized by the parliament to launch cross-border operations to hunt down PKK rebels in Northern Iraq.

The PKK had been launching attacks on Turkey from the rugged Qandil mountains of northern Iraq.

Army Desertion Rate Up 80 Pct. Since '03

Saturday November 17, 2007 1:16 AM
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year.

``We're asking a lot of soldiers these days,'' said Roy Wallace, director of plans and resources for Army personnel. ``They're humans. They have all sorts of issues back home and other places like that. So, I'm sure it has to do with the stress of being a soldier.''

The Army defines a deserter as someone who has been absent without leave for longer than 30 days. The soldier is then discharged as a deserter.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.

The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders - including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey - have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. Efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments.

``We have been concentrating on this,'' said Wallace. ``The Army can't afford to throw away good people. We have got to work with those individuals and try to help them become good soldiers.''

Still, he noted that ``the military is not for everybody, not everybody can be a soldier.'' And those who want to leave the service will find a way to do it, he said.

While the Army does not have an up-to-date profile of deserters, more than 75 percent of them are soldiers in their first term of enlistment. And most are male.

more

When night falls, the assassins gather in Hayaniya Square

In the second of two remarkable dispatches from Iraq, our award-winning correspondent chronicles life in the southern city following the British troop withdrawal

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Basra
Saturday November 17, 2007
The Guardian

Hayaniya Square in Basra is a busy intersection leading to a poor and run-down neighbourhood. On one side of the piazza, sewage water flows through what was once a dried-up river bed, filling the air with an oppressive smell. On the other side, a pair of kebab stalls send columns of smoke from skewers of burning meat into the warm air. Two sheep, whose fate lies on those skewers, stand tethered to a nearby telegraph pole.

The square is dominated by a painting of six men dressed in casual trousers and jackets, behind whom loom the faces of Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi army, and his father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. The six men, described on the mural as martyrs, are Mahdi army commanders who were killed by the British.

At night, when traffic in the square slows, a group of men gather. These are the sakkaka, or assassins. Their Toyota saloons, chosen for the voluminous boots that can accommodate two bodies with room to spare, stand parked nearby.

The assassins chat, eat kebabs and stroll around in small groups, discussing their sinister trade. They buy and sell names of collaborators, Iraqis who worked for the British, as well as journalists and uncooperative police officers, businessmen and the footsoldiers of other militias.

Depending on the nature of their perceived crime, the price on a collaborator's head can vary from couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand. The most valuable lives these days in Basra are those of the interpreters and contractors who were employed by the British before they withdrew from the city.

Local people lower their eyes when they drive through the square. Gunshots crackle all through the night.

Not far from Hayaniya I met the commander of the Mahdi army's security committees. A dark green liquid had flooded the street outside his house and rocks and bricks had been thrown into the pungent water to form stepping stones. A sheet of corrugated iron was placed in front of his door as a bridge and a doormat.

In the corner of the living room was a wooden table with a desktop computer, a laptop and piles of CDs and books. Behind it sat the commander, a cleric in his early 30s. "We liberated the town from the British," he told me. "That is our victory, achieved with God's help. Basra is the first Iraqi city to be liberated from the occupiers."

He fiddled with the thick ring on his finger. In front of him on the table were two telephones. One, the "Najaf phone", was used only to call Moqtada's office, 250 hundred miles away in the holy city of Najaf. "Now is not the time for to escalate the situation with the British," he said. "They retreated to the airport and that's fine, for now. Our goal is to get rid of the governor of Basra, consolidate our control over the city and finish with the collaborators."

The day before our meeting, the energetic Iraqi army commander in the region, General Mohan, whose 8th division is in charge of security in Basra, banned illegally imported right-hand drive cars from the streets of Basra. The Mahdi army controls the ports and the smuggling of these cars. The ban was aimed at draining a vital financial asset of the militia.

Within a few hours of the ban, an Iraqi army checkpoint in Basra seized a smuggled car with some Mahdi gunmen inside. Half an hour later, the Mahdi army had detained 55 Iraqi soldiers, and paraded at least seven Iraqi army armoured vehicles in the street, eyewitnesses said.

"We didn't want that escalation, but this Mohan is an American agent and he is risking dragging Basra into open warfare," the commander told me.

The following day there was an assassination attempt against the police chief, an ally of Mohan.

more

November 17

Derby Evening Telegraph(UK) -The head of the Army has voiced concern about poor morale among troops and the strain placed on resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An internal survey of views at all ranks of the Army prompted General Sir Richard Dannatt to describe the need for improvements in accommodation, pay and medical services.

His intervention came in an internal report, leaked to The Sunday Telegraph[I can't find it yet on the web], revealing disillusionment with conditions for soldiers.

In his Staff Briefing Team Report for 2007, the Chief of the General Staff said troops felt "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue".

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

15,000 or more US casualties in Iraq War

According to the article the number of suicide deaths among troops returning from Iraq exceeds casualties in combat. I'm not vouching for this, just providing the link. dhfjr.

I did inhale.

also see: British hostages in Iraq to be ‘held for years’

November 18, 2007
They think no one cares

For the past six months, five British hostages have been held captive in Iraq. You could be forgiven for having forgotten about them. Since an IT consultant and his four bodyguards were seized by kidnappers in the finance ministry in Baghdad, precious little has been heard of them. Contrast that with Alan Johnston, the BBC’s Gaza correspondent. After he was captured a worldwide campaign was launched for his release, a campaign that he later said had given him enormous comfort. It also put considerable pressure on his kidnappers. Or think of an earlier era and the kidnappings of John McCarthy, Terry Waite and the other Beirut hostages. Or even the hapless sailors seized by the Iranians.

The five British hostages in Iraq are, in sharp contrast, almost forgotten - and for good reason. After they were captured the Foreign Office imposed an effective news blackout, urging newspapers not to identify them or contact their families. Officials said that to do so would endanger their lives and make the task of those negotiating their release much harder. Faced with such entreaties, newspapers have only one course of action: nobody wants to risk causing harm to hostages or play into the hands of their captors.

Six months later the Foreign Office softly-softly approach looks increasingly dubious. Not only has lack of publicity deprived the hostages, who have access to satellite television, of the comfort of knowing that others care about their plight, but it has also eased pressure on the government to bring about their release. Today we bring news that a video passed from the kidnappers to British officials shows the hostages to be in good health and well cared for. But their release is no closer. The kidnappers want an Iranian-backed militia leader to be released in exchange for the hostages’ freedom, something Britain is powerless to bring about even if it were desirable. So the risk is that the hostages will remain in captivity. And, thanks to the Foreign Office, they will continue to believe that nobody cares.

Poland to end Iraq mission in 2008: defence minister
Posted: 17 November 2007 2246 hrs
AFP

WARSAW : Poland will end next year its mission in Iraq, where it currently deploys 900 soldiers, new Polish Defence Minister Bogdan Klich said Saturday.

"I can confirm that in 2008 the Polish military contingent in Iraq will be withdrawn," the minister, who took up his post in the new liberal government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday, told public radio Jedynma.

He said the details of the withdrawal would be announced next Friday when Tusk outlines his government's policies in parliament.

Warsaw has been one of the closest US allies over Iraq. Polish troops took part in the 2003 invasion, sparking a bitter verbal battle with anti-war European Union members, notably France.

US-Polish ties strengthened after the election in 2005 of the previous Law and Justice party administration.

Last December, President Lech Kaczynski extended the deployment of its 900-strong force until the end of this year, and the conservative government had said it was planning to send a new group of soldiers in 2008.

Tusk's Civic Platform, which won last month's snap general elections, has pledged a swift pull-out of Polish armed forces from Iraq.

more

Iraq says little progress in reconciliation
Posted: 18 November 2007 0357 hrs

BAGHDAD : While violence levels are declining in Iraq, there has been little progress in political reconciliation due to sectarian divides and lack of trust, Iraq's government spokesman said on Saturday.

The rifts are preventing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from consolidating his cabinet, Ali al-Dabbagh said in a frank briefing to reporters, US military commanders and US embassy staff.

Maliki is currently running government with around 25 ministers out of an original 40, while his Shiite coalition can now only count on the support of 136 lawmakers in the 275-seat parliament.

"We need political reform," Dabbagh told the briefing at a government office in Baghdad's highly protected Green Zone.

"The political situation is not as it should be and steps must be taken to bring the parties together," he said. "There are no good relations between the parties. There is a lack of trust between them."

The National Concord Front, the main Sunni Arab bloc in the 275-member parliament, pulled its six ministers out of government in early August, accusing Maliki of failing to rein in Shiite militias and of the arbitrary arrest and detention of Sunnis.

One minister has subsequently returned and has been expelled from the party.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement had earlier in the year pulled its five ministers out of the cabinet, saying Baghdad had failed to provide basic services to the people.

Two of those ministers have been recently replaced by Maliki.

The prime minister, according to Dabbagh, was now trying to fill the vacancies left by the other Sadrists and was still trying to persuade the Sunni members to return, but was making little progress.

"There's nothing on the table right now."

more

Nov 17, 3:57 PM EST

Gunfire Hit Most of Afghan Bomb Victims

> By ALISA TANG JASON STRAZIUSO and FISNIK ABRASHI
Associated Press Writer

BAGHLANI-JADID, Afghanistan (AP) -- Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers' panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes, a preliminary U.N. report says.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry says only a "small number" of the victims were hit by gunfire, but an Afghan official in Baghlan province told The Associated Press that bodyguards were "raining bullets" on the crowd.

The suicide bomb contained ball bearings, the Interior Ministry said, which may have caused wounds that look like bullet holes.

An Afghan doctor who treated patients after the Nov. 6 blast, meanwhile, told the AP that a high-ranking government official told him not to publicly reveal the number of gunfire victims, suggesting a possible government cover-up.

Separate teams of U.N. investigators have uncovered conflicting information about the number of people hit by gunfire and are trying to reconcile the differences, according to two Western officials who have seen the internal reports. The two spoke to the AP on condition they not be identified talking about preliminary findings.

But at least one of those reports - based on interviews with witnesses and medical authorities and a reconstruction of the bomb scene - says that of the roughly 77 people killed and 100 wounded, up to two-thirds were hit by the three to five minutes of gunfire the bodyguards fired into the crowd, one official said.

"A large number of people - and quite probably a majority - were killed and wounded as a result of gunfire after the blast," said the second official, a U.N. employee. The official said one internal report is highly critical of the bodyguards' reaction.

Among the dead were 61 students and five teachers, said Education Ministry adviser Hamid Almi. Six members of parliament and five bodyguards also died. The deadliest previous suicide bombing in Afghanistan was in June, when 35 people were killed in a bomb attack on a police bus.

more

lotsa lotsa info

I don't know this blog but scrolling thru the page there are lots of links and questions. I don't imagine it was a western security company involved, that would have been in all the headlines. The targets were opposition govt members.

http://statefailure.blogspot.com/search/label/Baghlan

EXCLUSIVE-U.S. strikes killed pro-U.S. Iraq fighters-officer
18 Nov 2007 16:44:22 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Maher Nazeh and Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD, Nov 18 (Reuters) - A group of gunmen killed in U.S. airstrikes in Iraq last week were pro-U.S. fighters, an American military officer said on Sunday, despite the military's public statements that they were insurgents.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. military officials had talked to Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs in Taji, just north of Baghdad, to express their regret for the loss of life in the attack, which took place last Tuesday.

"There was some confusion and we were not able to turn off the attack quickly enough," he said of the airstrikes that continued for several hours despite frantic phone calls from local tribal leaders to the U.S. base in Taji.

"We have talked to them and explained our sorrow over the incident and the loss of lives of volunteers trying to bring order to their neighbourhoods," the officer said.

The incident threatens to derail a carefully constructed relationship between U.S. forces and anti-al Qaeda Sunni tribes in Taji and has put the spotlight on operating procedures for tribal police units the U.S. military is forming around Iraq.

"If they (the U.S. military) do not give us a proper reason for what happened, we will withdraw from the Awakening Council and let al Qaeda return," said Sheikh Shathir Abid Salim, leader of the anti-al Qaeda group. His brother was among those killed.

The military said in a statement last week that it killed 25 suspected insurgents in operations targeting al Qaeda militants near the capital. Tribal leaders told Reuters U.S. warplanes had mistakenly bombed their men, killing 45.

The U.S. military officer told Reuters the men targeted in the airstrikes were a mixture of volunteers from the Taji Awakening Council and tribesmen loyal to Sheikh Shathir.

TRIBESMEN

He said U.S. forces in Taji, elements of the 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division had signed a contract with the Awakening Council for tribesmen to man checkpoints in their battlespace.

Sheikh Shathir had carried out "a personal mission outside the scope of the contract", sending his tribesmen outside the 1st Brigade's battlespace to set up roadblocks in an area controlled by another U.S. military unit, he said.

"They were well-intentioned, trying to do what was best," the officer said.

What happened next is still unclear but it appears that the neighbouring U.S. military unit, unaware they were members of the Taji Awakening Council, then identified the tribesmen as enemy fighters and called in airstrikes to kill them.

U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday, however, that what happened was "no accidental attack against what we identified as terrorists".

"Our understanding to date is that the individuals that were killed and those that were captured were all participating in an activity that we deemed to be not in the best interest of Iraq," Smith said.

more

Secretary Robert Gates says Congress's failure to fund war operations means furloughs at US bases are likely.

The Christian Science Monitor, By Gordon Lubold, November 19

Washington - Congress's failure last week to agree whether and how to fund the war puts the onus on the Pentagon, at least for now, to find a way to cover expenses in Iraq, potentially forcing the Defense Department to close dozens of domestic military bases and imperil the livelihoods of tens of thousands of defense workers.

The congressional inaction may trigger Secretary Robert Gates to carry out his threat last week to furlough as many as 200,000 civil servants and defense contractors this winter, raising the stakes for Democratic lawmakers determined to tie war funding to a drawdown of US troops from Iraq.

Before lawmakers left town Friday for their Thanksgiving recess, they did approve the Pentagon's $470 billion base budget, but not a supplemental funding request to pay for war operations. Democrats don't want to fund that $189 billion defense request from President Bush unless the money is tied to deadlines, or at least goals, to bring the bulk of troops home from Iraq by the end of 2008.

One Democratic measure, to provide $50 billion for war operations as long as the Pentagon aims to all but finish the redeployment of troops by December 2008, failed in the Senate on Friday. Another measure backed by Republicans, to provide $70 billion with no such deadline language, also failed, leaving the Pentagon uncertain about how to pay for the next several months of operations in Iraq.

That leaves the Pentagon with no choice, according to Secretary Gates, who said bluntly last week that the furloughs would be "the least undesirable" of the limited options if it runs out of money. The Defense Department would begin laying off nonuniformed defense workers, effectively shutting down all Army bases by February, followed by at least some Marine bases a month later.

Foreign guards arrested in Iraq-security spokesman
19 Nov 2007 18:17:11 GMT

BAGHDAD, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces arrested a number of foreign security guards after a shooting incident in central Baghdad on Monday, the capital's security spokesman said.

The role of foreign security guards has been under the spotlight since a September shooting in Baghdad involving private U.S. security firm Blackwater in which 17 Iraqis died.

"Iraqi security forces arrested a number of security guards from a security company who fired at civilians today in Karrada district," Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi told Reuters.

"They are still with the Iraqi government. They are not Iraqis, they are foreigners, and the company is a foreign company," he said.

Private security guards in Iraq usually have immunity from prosecution under a 2004 ruling by former U.S. administrators.

Moussawi said the security guards were in a convoy of four four-wheel drive vehicles crossing al-Kahramana Square on the edge of Karrada. A woman crossing the street was shot.

Iraqi security forces took the woman to hospital but her condition was not known.

Iraqi soldiers detained the security guards when their convoy was stopped at an Iraqi checkpoint inside Karrada, Moussawi said.

He would not say how many were arrested but Iraq's al-Hurra television put the number of guards involved at 31.

The nationalities of the security guards was not immediately known. Moussawi said he would hold a news conference on Tuesday to provide more information.

more

U.S. to seek charges against Iraq photographer

By Brian Murphy - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Nov 19, 2007 20:51:05 EST

NEW YORK — The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a “sham of due process.” The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months.

In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained the decision to bring charges now by saying “new evidence has come to light” about Hussein, but said the information would remain in government hands until the formal complaint is filed with Iraqi authorities.

Morrell asserted the military has “convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to stability and security in Iraq as a link to insurgent activity” and called Hussein “a terrorist operative who infiltrated the AP.”

AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin rejected the claim: “That’s what the military has been saying for 19 months, but whenever we ask to see what’s so convincing we get back something that isn’t convincing at all.”

The case has drawn attention from press groups as another example of the complications for Iraqis chronicling the war in their homeland — including death squads that target local journalists working for Western media and apparent scrutiny from U.S. intelligence agents.

A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as early as Nov. 29. Under Iraqi codes, an investigative magistrate will decide whether there are grounds to try Hussein, 36, who was seized in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006.

Tomlin said the defense for Hussein is being forced to work “totally in the dark.”

more

Fallujah Now Under a Different Kind of Siege
By Ali al-Fadhily*

FALLUJAH, Nov 20 (IPS) - Three years after a devastating U.S.-led siege of the city, residents of Fallujah continue to struggle with a shattered economy, infrastructure, and lack of mobility.

The city that was routed in November 2004 is still suffering the worst humanitarian conditions under a siege that continues. Although military actions are down to the minimum inside the city, local and US authorities do not seem to be thinking of ending the agonies of the over 400,000 residents of Fallujah.

"You, people of the media, say things in Fallujah are good," Mohammad Sammy, an aid worker for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Fallujah told IPS, "Then why don’t you come and live in this paradise with us? It is so easy to say things for you, isn’t it?"

His anger is due to the fact that the embattled city is still completely closed and surrounded by military checkpoints to make it look like an isolated island. Those who are not genuine residents of the city are not granted the biometric identification badge from the U.S. Marines, and are thus not allowed to enter the city.

Since the November 2004 U.S.-led attack on the city, named Operation Phantom Fury, which left approximately 70 percent of the city destroyed, the U.S. military has required residents to undergo retina scans, and finger-printings in order to gain a bar-code for identification.

"This isolation has destroyed the economy of the city that was once one the best in Iraq," Professor Mohammad Al-Dulaymi of Al-Anbar University told IPS. "All of the other cities in the province used to do their wholesale shopping in Fallujah, but now they have to find alternatives, leaving the cities businesses to starve," he explained.

All of the residents interviewed by IPS were extremely angry with the media for recent reports that the situation in the city is good. Many refused to be quoted for different reasons.

"Fallujah is probably the city that had the most of media coverage in the history of the occupation," Hatam Jawad, a school headmaster in Fallujah told IPS. "People are tired of shouting and appearing on TV to complain, without feeling any change in their sorrowful living situation. Some of them are afraid of police revenge for telling the truth."

Many residents told IPS that U.S.-backed Iraqi Police and Army personnel have detained people who have spoken to the media.

"I am not going to tell you whether it is good or bad to be a Fallujah resident," 55-year-old lawyer, Shakir Naji, told IPS. "Why don’t you just ask what the prices of essential materials are and judge for yourself? Kerosene for heating is almost one U.S. dollar per liter, a jar of propane gas is 15 dollars, and it is not winter yet when the prices will definitely be doubled."

Water and electricity services are at a minimum in the city. An Oxfam International report released in July found that 70 percent of Iraqis do not have access to safe drinking water.

Since the November 2004 siege, entire neighborhoods remain totally destroyed, and with no water or electricity. Most of the businesses in Fallujah remain closed.

"We depend upon the private sector for electricity," Fatima Saed, a woman whose husband was detained in 2005 and has not been released yet told IPS. "In my situation, to pay 50 dollars a month [for electricity] is a disaster because I have to cut it from the quantity and quality of food that I buy for myself and my kids."

more

CNN -The State Department said Monday enough Foreign Service officers have volunteered for duty in Iraq that no diplomats will have to be sent there against their will.

The department had threatened to force diplomats to accept assignments in Iraq or risk losing their jobs.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday that such "direct assignments" won't be necessary -- at least this year. "All of the Iraq jobs have been filled by volunteers, a total of 252," he told reporters at his daily briefing.

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

Leaders must use relative calm to advance political reconciliation, increase basic services and pass laws, officials and experts say.

Tina Susman | Nov 20 | Baghdad

LAT— As Iraq's government on Monday trumpeted a dramatic decline in violence, describing it as a sign that sectarian warfare is waning, U.S. officials warned that the gains would be short-lived if the nation's leaders did not use the relative calm to advance political reconciliation.

A day after U.S. military officials proclaimed that bombings and other attacks had dropped 55% nationwide since June, the Iraqi government released figures showing steeper declines in the capital and surrounding areas. According to its figures, there were 323 violent attacks in the governorate of Baghdad last month, compared with 1,134 in June.

The violence remains high, but the current level is a vast improvement, one that turned government spokesman Ali Dabbagh nearly giddy as he spoke on Al Arabiya TV on Monday. Dabbagh said Baghdad had "defeated the forces of darkness" and returned to its glory as "the beautiful city of the 'One Thousand and One Arabian Nights.' "

"Certainly we still have more to do, but no one can deny that we have passed the difficult stage in Baghdad, the stage that we all had fears of sliding to a civil war," he said.

Dabbagh echoed U.S. officials who have cited various factors for decreasing violence: the recruitment of former insurgents to work alongside U.S. and Iraqi security forces; a decision by Sunni Arab tribal leaders to turn on insurgents; and the deployment of an additional 28,500 American troops to Iraq between February and June of this year as part of a U.S. security plan.

But military and government officials warned at the start of the clampdown that it would not have lasting success unless it was matched with political progress. It is a message being repeated with a new sense of urgency, now that Iraqi leaders can no longer blame huge bombs, mass abductions, and street-by-street fighting as an excuse for political paralysis.

Analysts, as well as officials, say now is the time that Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government must step up delivery of essential services, revive schools and hospitals, and pass laws to end distrust among Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds.

"It's about confidence-building measures. You have got to step forward," said the No. 2 commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno.

Odierno said the government has a window of opportunity, perhaps until next summer, to act before gains begin unraveling. "Security is better, so now is the time to reach out to the other parts of the Iraqi populace," he said. "It's time to really look at delivering services to all Iraqis in Baghdad and around" the country.

U.S. government officials agree.

"This is absolutely the case," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Philip T. Reeker. "This really is the time when they need to take advantage of the window that has been given."

Some basic services such as electricity are showing signs of improvement, with most customers receiving more power per day than a few months ago. But that could be because demand for electricity is down now that the end of summer has reduced use of air conditioners.

The major laws that U.S. and Iraqi leaders long maintained were crucial to peace have not been passed, and there is little sign any of them will be soon. None has come before the parliament for debate.

Chief among them are a law to end the official shunning of former members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Baath Party, who were stripped of their jobs and pensions after Hussein's ouster; a law to manage the country's oil industry so that Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish regions reap the financial rewards; and a law to decide the extent of provinces' powers.

Perhaps the most pressing is the provincial powers law, which is necessary before provincial elections can be held. A U.S. Embassy official said there had been no movement on it since July and that different factions were deadlocked over such things as whether the prime minister should have the power to sack governors. This has stalled the scheduling of provincial elections, since no party wants to hold them until they know the provinces' ultimate powers, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Odierno said provincial elections were a key confidence-building measure. "I'm hoping it happens next year. I think it's essential," he said.

Senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, have frequently expressed frustration that political reconciliation has lagged behind progress they say is being made by U.S. forces. At one point, Gates bluntly warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki that U.S. troops were buying him time with their blood.

But one senior U.S. military official noted that many Iraqi government leaders had been chosen by their peers precisely because they did not have a strong political base, leaving them insecure and not inclined to move quickly and decisively.

"They weren't the strongest horses around; there was concern about somebody taking the reins and running away with it," the official said. "Because of their insecurities and the weakness of their political base, they've been reluctant to jump off the high board."

Maliki's government has bristled at the U.S. impatience and accused American lawmakers of trying to push Iraq's parliament to satisfy Washington's clock. It also has been slow to embrace the U.S. military's idea of using former Sunni Arab insurgents as security forces, warning that such recruits could turn on Shiite forces once American troops leave.

But many provincial leaders have accepted the idea, and senior U.S. military commanders, as well as many Iraqis, are hopeful this will turn up pressure on Baghdad's government to do what it takes to solidify the gains made.

Many Iraqi politicians agree that they need to act fast.

Dabbagh tempered his enthusiasm with an acknowledgment that some Baghdad neighborhoods, such as Dora and Saidiya, remain tense and that threats from insurgents remain.

Ammar Wajeeh, a Sunni Arab lawmaker in the national parliament, said legislators were under pressure because there were few jobs and scant municipal services.

"People are wondering what will be next," Wajeeh said. "Winter is on the doorstep and we are wondering if the sewers will stand the rain. The municipal services provided are, to say the least, minimal."

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}

x-link to WW'S related post here

US helicopter crashes in Iraq
Article from: Agence France-Presse

From correspondents in Baghdad

November 21, 2007 06:43am

A US military helicopter crashed near Salman Pak, 25km south-east of Baghdad today, the American military announced, without giving details of any casualties.

"An investigation will be conducted to determine the cause of the incident," the military said.

"However, initial reports indicate the crash was not the result of enemy fire."

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22795788-5005961,00.html

here.

Cave's article front page article for the NYT today left a lot of
surgers happier. The blog interview is a lot more detailed and not
so positive.

_{1."George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," -Shmuley Boteach.
2.The Dems haven't punished the GOP enough, so you're going to reward the Republicans?}