By Matthias Gebauer, Yassin Musharbash and Holger Stark, Spiegel

A young German-born Turk could possibly have carried out an attack in Afghanistan that killed two US soldiers. The Islamic Jihad Union claims 28-year-old Cüneyt C. from Bavaria was responsible for the March 3 attack, now the German authorities are desperately trying to find out the bomber's identity.

His last mission began at exactly 4.04 p.m. on March 3. The driver pulled up his blue Toyota Dyna truck in front of the Sabari district center in the eastern Afghan province of Khost. The motor was still running when he hit the detonator. The force of the blast shook the earth and caused the guard post to collapse, trapping dozens of US soldiers under the rumble. The explosion was so forceful that eye witnesses assumed there had been a rocket attack on the building that the US army had built just two months previously.
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TORONTO — Thousands of protesters filled streets across the country on Saturday to speak out against Canada's military mission in Afghanistan and to mark the upcoming five-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq.

Rallies were organized in 20 communities countrywide in a joint call for the federal government to recall its troops from Afghanistan and instead adopt a peacekeeping role, which protesters said is Canada's true calling.

“The majority of Canadians want the troops to come home now – shame on Parliament,” said Diane Alexopoulos at a rally on the front lawn of the Ontario legislature in Toronto.

More than 1,000 demonstrators then marched a couple kilometres through busy stretches of the city.

Within the diverse crowd of different ethnicities and ages was father and son Kevin Barrett and six-year-old Caleb, who had to be convinced that nothing was wrong, even though a phalanx of police officers stood by ominously looking like they were ready to pounce.

“He was afraid they were going to shoot him,” said Mr. Barrett, who stood on the sidelines for the march but was part of the protest.

“And then he was confused about why police would be here when we're a bunch of people who are concerned about peace, so why on Earth would they think we would do something violent when we're here to promote peace.”
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By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times

For the first time in the 60-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia will attend the alliance's summit meeting on April 2-4 in Bucharest, Romania.

It is clear that NATO will defer to a future date any decision to put Ukraine and Georgia on its Membership Action Plan. This means effectively that the two former Soviet republics cannot draw closer to NATO for another year at the very least, which in turn implies that the earliest the two countries can realize their membership claim would be in a four-year timeframe.

That is a huge gesture by NATO to Moscow's sensitivities. Conceivably, it clears the decks for what could prove to be a turning point in Russia-NATO relations. Russia may be about to join hands with NATO in Afghanistan. A clearer picture will emerge out of the intensive consultations of the foreign and defense ministers of Russia and the United States within the so-called "2+2" format due to take place in Moscow from Monday through Tuesday next week. From the guarded comments by both sides and the flurry of US diplomatic activity, it appears highly probable that Russia is being brought into the solution of the Afghanistan problem, along with NATO.

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant and the Financial Times of London, the initiative came from Russia when its new ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin - erstwhile Russian politician with a controversial record as a staunch Russian nationalist who routinely berated the West - signaled a strong interest in this area at a recent meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at Brussels. The plan involves Russia providing a land corridor for NATO to transport its goods - "non-military materials" - destined for the mission in Afghanistan. Intensive talks have been going on since then over a framework agreement.

From the feverish pace of diplomatic activity, the expectation of the two sides seems to be that an agreement could be formalized at NATO's Bucharest summit. In an interview with German publication Der Spiegel on Monday, Rogozin confirmed this expectation, saying, "We [Russia] support the anti-terror campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I hope we can manage to reach a series of very important agreements with our Western partners at the Bucharest summit. We will demonstrate that we are ready to contribute to the reconstruction of Afghanistan."

Russian diplomats have been quoted as saying that Moscow is engaged in consultations with the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as regards the proposed land corridor to be made available to NATO.

Given the complicated history of Russia-NATO relations, the issue is loaded with geopolitics. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted as much at a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow last Saturday. He said, "NATO is already overstepping its limits today. We have no problem to helping Afghanistan, but it is another matter when it is NATO that is providing the assistance. This is a matter beyond the bounds of the North Atlantic, as you are well aware."
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just because I post it, doesn't mean I believe it. It would be nice if it were true;-)

AFP - The warring camps of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton called a truce Sunday as the Democratic White House contenders stared down the long road to hoped-for victory in November's presidential vote.

With Republican nominee-elect John McCain burnishing his national security credentials on a surprise trip to Iraq, Clinton and Obama supporters dialed down their heated rhetoric for fear of handing McCain electoral ammunition.

There was plenty of fodder for Clinton backers after video footage emerged of Obama's fiery Chicago pastor, arguing that the September 11 attacks of 2001 showed that "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the country's highest ranking elected Democrat, ruled out a "dream ticket" combining Obama and Clinton and said the party's nominee should be whoever leads in the final delegate count.

That would appear to favor Obama, while the New York Times reported that many Democratic "superdelegates" are loath for party grandees to overturn the will of the majority of primary and caucus voters at the August convention.

In the race for pledged delegates, Obama enjoys a lead of about 170 over Clinton, has won double the number of states and is ahead in the national popular vote.

Speaking on ABC News, Pelosi said "if the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."

"This is going to be over before we go to the convention... pretty soon, somebody will be far enough in front that this will come to an end," she said.

The next battle in the Democrats' nominating epic is Pennsylvania on April 22, but Obama is already campaigning in Indiana, which votes on May 6 along with North Carolina, in a sign that the race has weeks to go yet.

Clinton, dogged by her 2002 vote authorizing military force in Iraq, was due to give what her campaign called a "major policy address" on the war on Monday in Washington, as the US-led invasion's fifth anniversary looms Thursday.

While the Democrats have sparred furiously over who would be the better commander-in-chief, McCain and two other pro-war senators arrived in Iraq on the first leg of a tour also taking him to the Middle East and Europe.

In Baghdad, McCain was due to meet US ambassador Ryan Crocker, and to see firsthand the effects of the troop "surge" for which he has been a fervent advocate even as US public support for the war has slumped.

Pelosi said the Arizona senator favored "a war without end," and stressed that Obama or Clinton would abide by their campaign promises and conduct "a responsible, honorable, safe redeployment of our troops out of Iraq."

Discussing the campaign, the House speaker reiterated she was "absolutely sure" that Obama and Clinton would not run on a joint ticket, arguing that either could be sure of the other's support in the general election.

"I think the tone could be improved," she added after days of combative exchanges between the two campaigns. "We'll come out of that convention unified, and we'll be ready to win in November."

The rhetoric appeared to calm Sunday as Democrats strove for unity ahead of their eventual battle against McCain.

Clinton backers such as New York Senator Charles Schumer refused to be drawn into an uproar surrounding the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who said in the newly disclosed video that the 9/11 attacks were brought on by American "terrorism."

Obama on Friday categorically rejected the "appalling remarks" by Wright, who officiated at the Democrat's wedding and baptized his two daughters, and said the black preacher had resigned from one of his campaign committees.

Echoed by other Clinton surrogates, Schumer told Fox News Sunday that he accepted Obama's denunciation and said it was time to "move on" to pressing issues such as the faltering economy and Iraq.

"I think this election will be much more on the issues," he said.

"The dramatic differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and John McCain are not only large, but they're right at the center of what's worrying people," Schumer said.

_{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?}

AP VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in Iraq on Sunday, days after the body of the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop was found near the northern city of Mosul.

The pope also denounced the five-year-long war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life.

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Benedict said to applause at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square.

On Thursday, the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found near Mosul. He had been abducted on Feb. 29.

Benedict has called Rahho's death an "inhuman act of violence" that offended human dignity.

On Sunday, Benedict praised Rahho for his refusal to abandon his flock despite many threats and difficulties.

Benedict said Rahho's dedication to the Catholic Church and his death compelled him to "raise a strong and sorrowful cry" to denounce the violence in Iraq spawned by the war that began five years ago this week.

"At the same time, I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for the past five years have borne the consequences of a war that provoked the breakup of their civil and social life," Benedict said.

He urged them to raise their heads and reconstruct their life through "reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and coexistence among tribal, ethnic and religious groups."

The Vatican strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In its aftermath, Benedict has frequently criticized attacks against Iraqi Christians by Islamic extremists. Last year, he urged President Bush to keep the safety of Iraqi Christians in mind.

Benedict is due to preside over a memorial service at the Vatican on Monday in honor of Rahho. Typically, the pope only presides over such services when a cardinal dies.

The pontiff's appeal for peace came at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass, which opens the Church's busy Holy Week celebrations. They include the Good Friday re-enactment of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and death and the celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday.

At the start of Mass, Benedict blessed palms and olive branches with holy water and then processed through St. Peter's Square, wearing intricate, red- and gold-brocaded vestments and clutching a woven palm frond.

A few hundred young people carried massive palm fronds at the start of the procession through the square as part of the lead-up to celebrations for the Catholic Church's annual World Youth Day.

Benedict plans to attend World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, in July.

Sam Dagher | Baghdad | March 17

CSM - Over the past 10 days, violence has tested the militia's period of quiet, which many say has contributed to a drop in US and Iraqi casualties, and seems to indicate deepening fissures within Sadr's powerful organization.

For the Iraqi Army, the loss of the weapons, even though only a relatively small number, is not only embarrassing but also shows how quickly the M16s, issued recently to replace inferior AK-47s, can fall into enemy hands.

Gen. Naseer al-Abadi, deputy chief of staff of Iraq's armed forces, says this is the first incident of its kind since the fall of last year, when the Army started receiving M16s as part of wider efforts to build up the capabilities of the US-trained force. So far, about 22,000 M16s have been issued to the nearly 200,000-strong army, he says.

"There is a big investigation … this is very serious," said General Abadi. "We will not tolerate anyone losing an M16." He says the soldiers are now in jail pending the investigation.

A series of violent incidents have followed the Sadr City incident in predominantly Shiite areas in the country where the Mahdi Army has great influence.

more st the link

It's time to rid ourselves of the fiction that the war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with the 'U.S.-led war in Iraq'

The whole campaign to keep Canadian troops fighting in Afghanistan has been desperate to distance our mission from "the U.S.-led war in Iraq." Consider the report of the Manley panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan:

"... Neither do we accept any parallel between the Afghanistan mission and the U.S.-led war in Iraq. To confuse the two is to overlook the authority of the UN, the collective decisions of NATO, and the legitimacy of the Afghan government that has sought Canada's engagement."

"The day after 9/11, the UN Security Council formally recognized the right of individual and collective self-defence and called on all member states to co-operate in Afghanistan 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks.'"

But the reason that the word "Afghanistan" doesn't make it inside the quotation marks is because you won't find it in any of the Security Council Resolutions said to authorize America's attack of October 2001.

You might think it strange to authorize a war against a member state of the United Nations without even mentioning its name. You might think it stranger still to authorize the use of military force without mentioning anything resembling military force even once among all the measures that the Security Council called on member states to deploy to deal with terrorism. The resolutions do not even say that a state may use "all necessary means," to use the well-know euphamism.

In fact, the only means mentioned in the Security Council Resolutions of bringing anyone "to justice" is to "ensure that ... such terrorist acts are established as serious criminal offences in domestic laws and regulations." In other words, fight terror through law, not war.

The war on Afghanistan was George W. Bush's war, not the UN's. It had no more UN authority than the war on Iraq. Both are marked by the same original sin, Nuremberg's "supreme international crime" of aggressive war. That the Security Council later succumbed in both cases, and authorized the subsequent use of force to defend (both) the American-installed governments doesn't diminish that fact, just the way it doesn't bring back the innocent dead.
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Afghan blast kills Nato soldiers

A suicide bomber has attacked a Nato military convoy in southern Afghanistan, killing three Nato soldiers, two of them Danish.

Police say a number of Afghan civilians were injured when the bomb went off near the convoy in Helmand province.

Earlier reports said some Afghan civilians had been killed in the blast in the district of Gereshk.

There has been a sharp increase in violence in Afghanistan this year. Suicide bombs are increasingly common.

On Sunday night a Canadian soldier was killed in an explosion in Kandahar province.

More than 450 international troops have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2006 .

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or so revisionist history from NYT's braveheart Michael Gordon goes....(Rumsfeld had nothing to do with it??)

The decision by L. Paul Bremer III to dissolve Iraq’s Army was a reversal from a plan the White House had approved.

Fateful Choice on Iraq Army Bypassed Debate

_{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?}

see also Cheney Says High Oil Price Reflects Market Reality (no market speculation involved, just believe me)

NYT - Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip Monday to Baghdad, where he plans to push Iraqi political leaders toward opening the country’s vast oil fields to international companies, a senior Bush administration official said.

Mr. Cheney, who arrived in the Iraqi capital with his wife and daughter in the morning, is to meet with top officials including the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, and the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

The vice president plans, among other things, to push Iraqi officials to pass petroleum legislation that would help bring international oil companies to Iraq, according to a pool report of comments by a senior administration official who was flying with Mr. Cheney.

The official described the petroleum issue as being about Iraqi leaders “figuring out how they really begin to exploit” the country’s resources, according to the pool report.

Perhaps the most contentious major legislation pending in Iraq covers how to divvy up the country’s vast petroleum wealth and develop its oil fields. But some Iraqi leaders fear that the proposals may allow American and western firms too much access to contracts for developing and exploiting Iraqi oil reserves.

In particular, politicians loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose political alliance could take control of several southern Shiite provinces in the next round of provincial elections, are concerned about what will happen to the country’s oil wealth.

“Exploiting and controlling the Iraqi oil fields have been part of the American scheme for more than four years,” said Hassan al-Rubaie, a member of parliament and senior member of Mr. Sadr’s political alliance. “Our presence in the parliament and among the Iraqi people will work with other national forces to stop this scheme.”

_{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?}

Jeff Mason | Washington | March 17

Reuters - Democrat Hillary Clinton charged on Monday the Iraq war may end up costing Americans $1 trillion and further strain the economy, as she made her case for a prompt U.S. troop pullout from a war "we cannot win."

She said the war has sapped U.S. military and economic strength, damaged U.S. national security, taken the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans and left thousands wounded.

"Our economic security is at stake," she said. "Taking into consideration the long-term costs of replacing equipment and providing medical care for troops and survivors' benefits for their families, the war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over $1 trillion."

more at the link

Partick Cockburn: A gross failure that ignored history and ended with a humiliating retreat

The war in Iraq has been one of the most disastrous wars ever fought by Britain. It has been small but we achieved nothing. It will stand with Crimea and the Boer War as conflicts which could have been avoided and were demonstrations of incompetence from start to finish.

The British failure in the Iraq war has been even more gross because it has not ended with a costly military victory but a humiliating scuttle. The victors in Basra and southern Iraq have been the local Shia militias masquerading as government security forces.

Britain should immediately hold a full inquiry into the mistakes made before and during the war in Iraq out of pure self-interest. Gordon Brown's suggestion that holding such an inquiry now would somehow threaten the stability of Iraq is either a piece of obvious prevarication or, if taken at face value, a sign of absurd vanity. Iraqis show not the slightest interest in British policy and assume it will simply be an echo of decisions made in Washington.

I have watched this war being fought over the last five years and I never for a moment felt that the Government in London had the slightest idea of the type of conflict in which it was engaged. It has become common for supporters and opponents of the war to argue patronisingly that what was needed was a plan about what to do after the war, as if this would have reconciled Iraqis to be occupied by foreign powers.

Those British officers I met over the years had an acute idea of why intervention in Iraq was a very bad idea but had become used to being ignored. A few would claim that Britain had rich experience of counter- insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s and Northern Ireland after 1968. "The situation in Basra was exactly the opposite," one former British military intelligence officer exclaimed to me impatiently. "In Malaya and Northern Ireland, we had the support of the majority but in Basra we have no allies."

How we got into this situation needs to be inquired into and also how we avoid falling into it again. The worst failings were political. In many ways Tony Blair in 2002-03, when he decided to join America in the war, resembled Neville Chamberlain in 1938. He ignored expert professional advice. He had no alternative plan if anything went wrong. He lived in a world of propaganda and fantasy. He would spring from his plane in Baghdad to be greeted by Iraqi politicians who did not dare leave the Green Zone.

There are 175 British servicemen who have died for nothing. The troops stationed outside Basra do nothing except show the US that they have one ally left.

The British Government throughout the whole war has shown an extraordinary degree of arrogance and ignorance of history. They did not seem to know that three years after Britain captured Baghdad in 1917 it was fighting a ferocious tribal revolt along the valley of the Euphrates.

more at The Independent

NEW REPORT: ABU GHRAIB PRISONERS PACKED IN ICE WATER-FILLED GARBAGE CANS AND SENT INTO SHOCK, MILITARY POLICE SAY

Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2008-03-17 16:26.
By Sherwood Ross

Muslim prisoners held in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were submerged in water-filled garbage cans with ice or put naked under cold showers in near-freezing rooms until they went into shock, Sgt. Javal Davis, who served with the 372nd Military Police Company there, has told a national magazine.

Davis, from the Roselle, N.J., area, said while stationed at the prison he also saw an incinerator with “bones in it” that he believed to be a crematorium and said some prisoners were starved prior to their interrogation.

Another soldier that had been stationed at Abu Ghraib, M.P. Sabrina Harman---who gained dubious fame for making a thumbs-up sign posing over the body of a prisoner she believed tortured to death---said the U.S. had imprisoned “women and children” on Tier 1B, including one child was as young as ten.

“Like a number of the other kids and of the women there, he was being held as a pawn in the military’s effort to capture or break his father,” write co-authors Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris in the March 24th issue of The New Yorker magazine, which describes Abu Ghraib in a 14-page article titled “Exposure.”

They assert “the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration.”
They add that the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented in the prison ”were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President’s office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments.” (President Bush has insisted “We do not torture,” The Associated Press reported on November 7, 2005.)

Imprisoning suspects in a war zone, torturing and/or murdering them, and holding their wives and children as hostages, are all banned practices under international law. Some prisoners died from rocket attacks on the compound.

Harman said she didn’t like taking away naked prisoners’ blankets when it was really cold. “Because if I’m freezing and I’m wearing a jacket and a hat and gloves, and these people don’t have anything on and no blanket, no mattress, that’s kind of hard to see and do to somebody---even if they are a terrorist.” (Note: the prisoners were suspects, not terrorists, being held without due process on charges of which they were often ignorant and without legal representation.)

Harman said the corpse she posed with likely was murdered during interrogation although a platoon commander said he had died of a heart attack. Harman and another soldier, Corporal Charles Graner unzipped his body bag and took photos of him and “kind of realized right away that there was no way he died of a heart attack because of all the cuts and blood coming out of his nose.” Harman added, “His knees were bruised, his thighs were bruised by his genitals. He had restraint marks on his wrists. “

Asked why she posed making a “thumbs up” gesture over the corpse, Harman said she thought, “Hey, it’s a dead guy, it’d be cool to get a photo next to a dead person. I know it looks bad. I mean, even when I look at them (the photos) I go, ‘Oh Jesus, that does look pretty bad.’”

The corpse, said to have died under interrogation by a CIA agent, was identified as that of Manadel al-Jamadi. An autopsy found he had succumbed to “blunt force injuries” and “compromised respiration” and his death was classified as a homicide, The New Yorker article said. The dead man was removed from the tier disguised as a sick prisoner, his arm taped to an IV, and rolled away on a gurney, apparently as authorities “didn’t want any of the prisoners thinking we were in there killing folks,” Sergeant Hydrue Joyner, Harman’s team leader, told the magazine.

Harman said she saw one naked prisoner with his hands bound behind his back raised higher than his shoulders. This forced him to bend forward with his head bowed and his weight suspended from his wrists and is known as a “Palestinian hanging” as it is said to be used in Israeli prisons, Gourevitch and Morris write.

In a letter to a friend Harman described “sleep deprivation” used on the prisoners: “They sleep one hour then we yell and wake them---make them stay up for one hour, then sleep one hour---then up etc. This goes on for 72 hours while we fuck with them. Most have been so scared they piss on themselves. Its sad.” On one occasion, she wrote, sandbags soaked in hot sauce were put over the prisoners’ heads.

The CIA agent that interrogated al-Jamadi at the time of his “heart attack” was never charged with a crime but Harman was convicted by court-martial in May, 2005, of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners, dereliction of duty and sentenced to six months in prison, reduced in rank, and given a bad-conduct discharge.

more at afterdowning street

Published: March 18, 2008 at 10:19 AM

BAGHDAD, March 18 (UPI) -- Seven people -- including five on a playground -- died in mortar and bombing incidents in Baghdad and Mosul, Iraqi security forces said.

Five people were killed and 12 others injured Monday when mortar shells struck a playground in Baghdad, reported KUNA, the Kuwaiti news agency.

Ten Iraqis were injured in two separate incidents in Mosul, security forces said. A booby-trapped car blew up near a police car, injuring six including a police officer, while four civilians were injured when five mortar shells hit different parts of the northern Iraqi city.

Officials, meanwhile, told KUNA Iraqi police found five bodies in Mosul and Kirkuk. Two decapitated bodies were found in Mosul while three bodies of the Awakening Council forces were found southern Kirkuk.

Two Multi-National Division soldiers were killed when a bomb struck their vehicle north of Baghdad, U.S. military officials said. The soldiers were conducting a route-clearance combat operation.

Stunning.

Literally.

BRB. Have to rush out to buy duct tape and a flag.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact. Non-Westerners never do." Samuel P. Huntington

ABC News

Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence for analysis and chairman of the National Intelligence Council, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill February 27, 2007 in Washington, D.C. Fingar testified on current and future worldwide threats to the national security of the United States, including the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iran. (Getty)

U.S. Spy Boss: Iraq WMD Intel Failure Just 'A Bad Hair Day'

By BRIAN ROSS
March 18, 2008

The failure of U.S. intelligence in assessing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was like "a yearbook photo on your worst hair day ever," according to one of the country's top spy bosses, Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence.

Fingar made the comment in defending the overall quality of U.S. intelligence during an appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, five years to the week after the 2003 start of the Iraq war.

MORE at the link.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact. Non-Westerners never do." Samuel P. Huntington

_{TS Admin : On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, George Bush said, “Because we acted, the world is better and the United States of America is safer.” With a million dead Iraqis, more than 30,000 dead and wounded American soldiers, the world now teeming with a new breed of America haters and more than 3 trillion dollars blown to achieve all that, the US president sits atop an economically crumbling America and happily crows his mantra. George W. Bush indeed seems far removed from reality.}

Anwaar Hussain | March 20

Pakistan Tribune - The essay below was written in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Iraqi city of Fallujah. At the time, the article ricocheted across the cyber space and refused to die down. Every word of what was written has now been proven true. Here it is once again lest we forget.

Known as the “city of mosques” for its more than 200 mosques, Fallujah is also known for refusing to add Saddam’s name to the call for prayers from its ancient minarets. It is located on the banks of river Euphrates, the largest river in Southwest Asia. The 1700 miles long Euphrates is linked with some of the most important events in olden history.The city of Ur, found at its mouth, was the birthplace of Abraham. On its banks stood the city of Babylon. In the past, the army of Necho was defeated on its banks by Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus the Younger and Crassus perished after crossing it. Alexander traversed it and continued his journey eastward. Presently, George Bush’s forces are crossing and re-crossing it making its waters redder each time with the blood of Fallujah’s citizens.

Fallujah has been laid waste. It has been bombed, re-bombed, its citizens gunned down, its structures devastated by powerful weapons. It is a hell on earth of crushed bodies, shattered buildings and the reek of death. In addition to the artillery and the warplanes dropping 500, 1000, and 2000-pound bombs, 70-ton Abrams Tanks and the murderous AC-130 Spectre gunship that can demolish a whole city block in less than a minute, the Marines had snipers crisscrossing the entire town firing at will at whatever moved outside the buildings. For those inside, the US troops were equipped with thermal sights capable of detecting body heat. Any such detection was eagerly assumed to indicate the presence of “insurgents” inviting a deadly salvo.

No body has an accurate idea of how many Iraqis, combatants and noncombatants, have been killed by the thousands of tons of explosives and bullets let loose upon the city. Mortuary teams collecting the dead rotting in the city streets are fighting the wandering dogs that are busy devouring their former masters. The hundreds buried beneath the rubble and debris will be dug out later. A US marine spokesman, Colonel Mike Regner, estimated 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis dead. The world is awaiting the toll from more reliable sources with a wincing anticipation.

Eyewitnesses report human corpses littering the city’s streets, nibbled at by starving canines. Parents have been forced to watch their wounded children die and then bury their bodies in their gardens. An Iraqi journalist, reporting in the city for the BBC and Reuters, said: “I have seen some strange things recently, such as stray dogs snatching bites out of bodies lying on the streets. Meanwhile, people forage in their gardens looking for something to eat. Those that have survived this far are looking gaunt. The opposite is happening to the dead, left where they fell, they are now bloated and rotting…”

Some images that did manage to filter through the layers of American censorship include scenes of the devastated landscape of the city; the bloodied and fly-covered corpses of young Iraqi men lying in the streets or heaped in rows amidst the debris; a headless body; women and children escaping with the few possessions they have left; mortuary teams collecting the dead; and Fallujah infants being treated for horrific injuries in Baghdad hospitals. US general John Sattler declared: “We have liberated the city of Fallujah.”

The assault on Fallujah is a pure and simple Nazi-style collective punishment, not liberation. The city has been razed to the ground because its political, spiritual and tribal leaders, motivated by Iraqi patriotism and opposition to the presence of foreign troops in their country, organized a guerilla resistance to the US invasion.The aim of the US assault is to make Fallujah a model to the rest of Iraq of what will happen to those thinking on similar lines. It is the leading thrust of an orgy of killing intended to crush and drive underground every voice of dissent and ensure that elections this coming January will throw up a weak-willed, pro-US toady regime. The American military is rumored to be planning similar attacks on scores of other Iraqi cities and towns.

Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against the ongoing destruction of Fallujah. While much of the world recognizes something dreadful has occurred, the US press does not even bat an eyelash over the organized leveling of a city of 300,000 people. In none of the US media commentaries is there a single phrase of unease about the moral, or legal, questions involved in the attack on Fallujah. None have dared say it in as many words that the American military operation in the city is an unlawful act of aggression in an equally illegal, criminal, aggressive war.

The opposite is true in fact. Ralph Peters, the author of “Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace.” a rabid Neocon mouthpiece, revered by the ruling Neocons, in his prominently placed November 4 New York Post article wrote: “We need to demonstrate that the US military cannot be deterred or defeated. If that means widespread destruction, we must accept the price. Most of Fallujah’s residents, those who wish to live in peace, have already fled. Those who remain have made their choice. We need to pursue the terrorists remorselessly…

…That means killing. While we strive to obey the internationally recognized laws of war (though our enemies do not), our goal should be to target the terrorists and insurgents so forcefully that few survive to raise their hands in surrender. We don’t need more complaints about our treatment of prisoners from the global forces of appeasement. We need terrorists dead in the dust. And the world needs to see their corpses…

…Even if Fallujah has to go the way of Carthage, reduced to shards, the price will be worth it. We need to demonstrate our strength of will to the world, to show that there is only one possible result when madmen take on America.”

Though the carnage carried out by Hitler’s regime was on a different scale than that now being committed by the Bush administration, there are striking parallels. For the first time since the Wehrmacht swept through Europe, the world is witnessing a major imperialist power launching an unjustifiable war, placing an entire people under military occupation and carrying out acts of collective and visible punishment against civilian populace. The US media’s wretched connivance in this deception is incredible, as incredible as the fact that this war, based on undeniable lies as it was, was sold to the American people as the gospel truth ordained by God.

To be honest, George Bush is not the first US president ordering the states machinery to pulverize nations and peoples abroad. Even a hurried analysis of the American government’s conduct in the last century makes for a most damning indictment. Out of the US’s past foreign policy woodwork, crawl out numerous invasions, bombings, overthrowing governments, suppressing movements for social change, assassinating political leaders, perverting elections, manipulating labor unions, manufacturing “news”, selling blatant lies, death squads, torture, biological warfare, depleted uranium, drug trafficking, mercenaries … you name it.

This terrorizing of nations and individuals by various US governments has been going on full bore since at least the late 1890s, when Americans obliterated a million Filipinos to keep them safe from the Spanish. 60 million Native Americans, the children of a lesser God, were exterminated by the orders of earlier administrations throughout the 19th century. The difference with past is that George Bush does it in the name of his God, a God far superior to any other and sanctioned fully by his coterie. Ironically, both George Bush and his nemesis, Osama Bin Laden, refer to God almost equal number of times in their public pronouncements.

The United States went into Afghanistan to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. They killed 10,000 innocent Afghans but could not find their man. They went into Iraq to discover and eliminate Saddam’s WMDs. They killed tens of thousands of Iraqis but found no WMD. They laid siege to the city of Fallujah to kill or capture Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The city and its inhabitants have been blown to smithereens but there is no Zarqawi. Is it not only too convenient? Next when they want to attack Pakistan, or Iran, they simply have to say that Bin Laden is taking refuge there. Just like the next Iraqi city awaiting the fate of Fallujah will be the latest refuge of Zarqawi; the WMDs too could next fly to Syria or may be even Saudi Arabia. Is one imagining things here? Or is it that the US imperialism is indeed now riding full time on the back of gargantuan lies?

After granting George Bush a carte blanche to do what he likes the American citizens, of course, continue their daily lives oblivious to what is being done in their name. Between their work places and the nearest fast food joints, they just do not have enough time to check back on the activities of the man who is playing ‘The Terminator’ in the name of God and in their name.

Those who do get to know a little are in a constant state of denial. One thing is sure though. Just like in post-war Germany where some even denied the holocaust, “We didn’t know what was happening” is bound to become a cliché that will one day be used to ridicule Americans who claim ignorance of the atrocities committed by their administration in their name. Ironically, Khomeini died trying to get people to see America as “the great Satan”. It took George W. Bush and his cohorts just four years to do exactly that, and not just in the eyes of the Muslim world.

As America sinks deeper into the heart of darkness, its thinking citizens need to jolt each other out of their apathy. With each passing day their beloved America is scaling ever greater heights of hideous glories. The man in charge, George W. Bush, is actually living the throes of his apocalyptic dream of “I am become death-the destroyer of the worlds”. He codenamed his destruction of Fallujah as “Operation Phantom Fury”. But as the falsehood dies and gives way to truth, as all lies must one day, it will be the Iraqi dead that will form a legion of phantoms and would throng around Americans in a macabre dance to haunt them for decades. The fury of those phantoms will be hair raising.

Fallujah will enter history as the place where US imperialism carried out an offense of heinous proportions this November, a monstrous crime far beyond any possible forgiveness. The crimson waters of the Euphrates are now emptying into the Persian Gulf the hopes and aspirations of innocent people whose lives were snuffed out on the orders of a man rewarded for his monumental crimes by his great nation.

The Euphrates flows on.

_{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?}

By Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, March 20, 2008

ARLINGTON, Va. — With political and practical limits on the growth of the active Army, the Guard and Reserve soldiers are destined for regular deployments “for another generation,” Gen. Charles Campbell, commander of U.S. Army Forces Command, said Wednesday.

“It’s a fact that the standing Army is not sufficiently large,” Campbell, the Army’s point man for training and supplying forces in response to requests from commanders in the field, told reporters during a Washington press breakfast.

The Army is growing from 520,000 active-duty soldiers today to about 547,000 by 2010.

But with no end in sight to the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, “the demand for land force capability [still] exceeds the sustainable supply,” Campbell said.

To meet demand without turning to the Reserves, the active Army would need 800,000 soldiers, he said.

“But there may not be the political will to grow an active component to that size,” Campbell said, not to mention the difficulties of recruiting such a large Army and the cost of sustaining it.

Congress could bring back the draft, he said, but “I don’t think that’s an option.”

That leaves Army leaders with no choice but to use the Reserves not as they were designed — as a strategic back-up, to be tapped for overseas missions only in times of gravest emergency — but as an “operational” force, he said.

“That reality has been true for the past seven years, and it’s likely to be true for another generation,” Campbell said.

It’s high time the nation realized that the Reserves have a new role, Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army Reserve, told Stars and Stripes during a recent interview at the Pentagon.

“Our Army was a Cold War Army,” Stultz said.

“Now we, as a nation, have to change the way we think,” he said.

In fact, the regular mobilizations of reservists should not end when America withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan, Stultz said.

He and other Army leaders are drawing up plans that call for Army Reserve soldiers to spend four years at home, “then, every five years, you’ll be called on to mobilize and use your skill set,” Stultz said. “It might not be for a year — it might be six months, or three. But you’ll go overseas and do something somewhere.”
.
Those deployments, Stultz said, “are what our soldiers want. They are the norm for them. They’re one of the reasons our re-enlistment rates are good.”

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 19, 2008 12:56:09 EDT

A House committee is investigating accidental electrocutions of U.S. troops in Iraq to determine if inadequate oversight of government contracts played a role in the deaths.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked the Pentagon on Wednesday to provide details on 12 deaths in Iraq since 2003 that are believed to have been caused by electrocution.

In particular, the committee is interested in maintenance contracts for troops’ living areas to see if contractors have been slow to make repairs when electrical problems have been reported.

Once the information is in hand, the committee will decide how to proceed, aides said. Waxman’s committee does not have direct oversight of the military, but it does have power over federal contracting, and is considering revising some rules after finding a variety of problems with other Iraq-related contracts.

The committee investigation was prompted by the Jan. 2 accidental death of 24-year-old Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, who suffered cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while taking a shower in Iraq.

Army investigators found that Maseth’s death was the result of improper grounding of electrical wiring to the pump supplying water for living quarters at the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad, Waxman said.

“When Staff Sergeant Maseth stepped into the shower and turned on the water, an electrical short in the pump sent an electrical current through the water pipes to the metal shower hose, and then through Staff Sergeant Maseth’s arm to his heart,” Waxman said.

Maseth’s death was not an isolated incident, Waxman said.

MORE

Senator J. Willaim Fulbright wrote a book in 1974 that is stunning to come across now. I really ought to scan the table of contents; it's sooo 2008...

The Crippled Giant

Read it. It was written *for* today....

Women: Iraq's persecuted majority

In the past five years, surveys have found a staggering rise in domestic abuse and a precipitous drop in the number of girls in school

By the numbers

Women for Women International, a non-governmental organization working in Iraq, recently surveyed 1,513 women. Here's some of what they found.

10.7 %

Were widowed

70.5 %

Didn't know whether they had the right to move freely

52.7 %

Didn't know whether they had the right to an education

76.2 %

Said girls in their family were not allowed to attend school

56.7 %

Found it harder for girls to attend school than before the war

52 %

Didn't know whether they had the right to political participation

63.9 %

Felt that violence against women was increasing

67.9 %

Found it less likely now to be able to walk down the street as they please

56.7 %

Found it harder now to work outside the home

.....Mr. Hussein's Iraq, for all its flaws, was a staunchly secular society and women and men were equal before the law. Five years after the U.S. invasion, women have become a persecuted majority.

.....Many women have hit rock bottom. Tens of thousands have been forced into prostitution, including many from the vulnerable Iraqi refugee community spread across the Middle East.

....."We've experienced such tragedies, such sadness. We can't go out on the street at all. We can't participate. We get threatened,"

....."They are not against employing women. In fact, it's the opposite - they are supportive," she said of Mr. Maliki and his associates. "But they take an Islamic view. ... They believe that power in the family must belong to the man, and that men and women are not equal."

It's an attitude that holds sway in large swathes of Iraq. In the southern city of Basra, which was once one of the most casually dressed cities in the entire Middle East but is now under the control of Shia militias, graffiti on the walls warn women not to wear makeup or go outside without proper Islamic dress. "Whoever disobeys this will be punished," the message reads. "God is our witness that we have conveyed this message."

It's no idle threat. Police say more than 40 women have been killed in recent months for violating the dress code. In at least two cases, the woman's children were slain along with her.
More

links at Think Progress

As the United States military approaches 4,000 troop deaths in just over five years of war in Iraq, USA Today has released a comprehensive database and analysis of those who have fallen. According to USA Today, “[o]ne in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays.” Access the full database here.

By Michael Kamber
Friday, March 21, 2008

JISR DIALA, Iraq: During the war in Iraq, young Marine and army captains have become U.S. viceroys, officers with large sectors to run and near-autonomy to do it. In army parlance, they are the "ground-owners." In practice, they are power brokers.

"They give us a chunk of land and say, 'Fix it,' " said Captain Rich Thompson, 36, who controls an area east of Baghdad.

The Iraqis have learned that these captains, many still in their 20s, can call down devastating U.S. firepower one day and approve multimillion-dollar projects the next. Some have become celebrities in their sectors, leaders whose names are known even to children. Many believe that these captains are the linchpins in the Americans' strategy for success in Iraq, but as the war continues into its sixth year, the army has been losing them in large numbers - at a time when it says it needs thousands more.

Most of these captains have extensive combat experience and are regarded as the army's future leaders. They are exactly the people the army most wants. Unfortunately for the army, corporate America wants them too. And the hardships of repeated tours are taking their toll, tilting them back toward civilian life and possibly complicating the future course of the war.

"I have served my time; I've done two tours in Iraq," said Captain Kirkner Bailey, 26, of the 3rd Armored Combat Regiment in Mosul.

"For the past three years of my life, I have either been in Iraq or training to go to Iraq," he added. "I just know that there is more to life than this war, and my girlfriend Shannon and I are interested in finding out what that is."

"I can't speak to trends," he said. "But 8 of my 10 friends who are captains are leaving the army."

It is hard to overstate the importance of these officers to the U.S. war effort. Captain Brian Gilbert, 30, who controls a million-dollar monthly army budget for his sector of 200,000 residents in Jisr Diala, a city east of Baghdad, has pulled together a group of tribal leaders as well as a local Iraqi security force while keeping a close eye on the elected city council.

more

By Jeff Karoub - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Mar 21, 2008 9:41:41 EDT

DETROIT — The billboard displays a phone number and only two English words: “Call Mona.” The rest is in Arabic. But if you can read it, the Army wants you.

The sign, erected to help recruit translators from Detroit’s large Middle Eastern population, urges Arabic speakers to consider joining the military.

“In the land of different opportunities,” it reads, “this is one you might not have heard before: job opportunities with the U.S. Army.”

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the Army says it is meeting or exceeding its goals for recruiting Arabic translators. But despite growing acceptance of the military among Arab immigrants, recruiters acknowledge that much of the immigrant community remains deeply suspicious of the Army.

“At first, it was more hostile from the community. It was at the peak of the invasion,” said Mona Makki, a community liaison and language specialist with a company that helps the Army with recruitment. “They perceive us now in a positive way.”

Hassan Jaber, executive director of the Dearborn-based Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, said the Army has built some credibility in the community, but it is not fully embraced.

“To my knowledge, people who are volunteering and taking these jobs are doing it in secret,” he said. “It might be a factor of shame, and that they go in there ... because of the money offered, not necessarily because they feel the war is justified.”

Sgt. Mario Banderas, a 39-year-old native of Lebanon, joined the Army in Detroit and served a tour of duty in 2005 as a translator in Iraq. He returned as a recruiter.

“I had the idea in my mind that I can go talk to this community and probably get at least two or three people a day to join the Army. This is not the case,” said Banderas, whose name is an alias because the Army does not release translators’ real names to protect their safety.

“The idea that people have here, as soon as they see me in uniform is: ‘Oh, you’re in the U.S. Army? You’re in Iraq killing your own people?’”

He said such comments upset him, but he doesn’t blame the critics “because they don’t know what’s going on in the Army.”

Banderas, a former architect who speaks six languages, works with civilian recruiters of Arab descent to find new translators in the Detroit area, which is home to 300,000 people who trace their roots to the Middle East.

They hold recruitment fairs, sponsor community events and advertise in print, on the radio and billboards.

Applicants must be between 17 and 42, have documents proving U.S. residency, speak fluent Arabic and decent English. The process includes a background check and physical.

The military has met recruitment goals for its translator program since 2006 after falling short in the first three years of the war. In 2006, it recruited 277 translators, and in the following year, pulled in 250.

Community leaders and some potential recruits say interest in the jobs is driven in large part by the offer of a steady salary.

more

From Gleaner (Blog)

This week marks the fifth anniversary of our mistaken invasion of Iraq, an invasion, if memory serves, that was facilitated not only by the all-too predictable cowardice of politicians of both parties, but also enthusiastically supported by a shamefully large number of bloodthirsty Americans and a drum-banging, flag-waving mainstream media.

Since then, both the citizenry and the media have undergone some painful but necessary introspection. As a result, a better-informed body politic, wizened by the catastrophic errors of its ways, has developed a far healthier and more mature perspective — which explains why a substantial portion of the people and the press (pictured, in a rare group photo) have come to the insightful realization that the future of this nation if not the entire world now hinges on what some geezer said in a Chicago church.

(A smart and painfully funny political blogger in Las Vegas.)

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That's easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." Hermann Goering - Nuremberg Trial

The quote below was part of a conversation Gustave Gilbert held with Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the Nuremberg trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Source

David Kay interview with Spiegel

David Kay was charged by the Bush administration with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the invasion. Instead of finding weapons, though, he found what he told SPIEGEL was 'the biggest intelligence fiasco of my lifetime.'

AFP

Four US soldiers killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The US military announced on Saturday the deaths of four soldiers, including three who were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad that also left two Iraqis dead.

Two soldiers were killed when their vehicle was struck while on patrol in Baghdad while a third injured in the attack died later of his wounds, the military said in a series of statements.

It gave no further details of the incident.

The military had earlier reported the death on Friday of another soldier, who sustained injuries in a rocket or mortar attack south of Baghdad.

Four other soldiers were wounded in Friday's "indirect fire" attack, it said. The US military uses the term "indirect fire" to refer to rocket or mortar attacks.

The latest death brings the military's losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 3,996, according to an AFP tally based on independent website icasualties.org.

or not?

It's cold by our overprotected city standards and hasn't gotten much publicity.....We'll see:

NYC-UPJ - It's not too late to call up your friends, bundle up your kids and come out to 14th Street in Manhattan for River to River: Join Hands for Peace!

The weather report is calling for cold. But we, New Yorkers, are resolute and won't let a little cold keep us from standing strong for peace. We cannot let this tragic anniversary pass without speaking out loud and clear: Fund Our Communities, Not War. Bring all the Troops Home Now! So put on your long underwear, hats and gloves and meet us at noon anywhere on 14th St!

_{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?}

Exposing lies about the surge, and the precarious position we are in due to the way we are handling the Awakening Councils and CLC's.

"...cunning, baffling, powerful."

... explains why he thinks we can't just pull out, and other views on the situation from Iraq.

"...cunning, baffling, powerful."

While speaking at a conference hosted by AKbank in Istanbul Turkey on May 31, 2007, just prior to the scheduled Bilderberg meeting, Henry Kissinger gave a speech in which he stated,
"What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system..."

Richard Holbrooke is also a Bilderburg attendee.

AP, March 23

BAGHDAD: The heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad came under attack Sunday, and the police said up to nine people had been killed by rockets falling outside the government and diplomatic compound.

The attack, one of the fiercest and most sustained onslaughts on the zone in the past year, ushered in a day of violence that claimed the lives of nearly 50 people around the country. The attacks underscored the fragility of security in Iraq, despite a decline in violence over the past year.

In the deadliest attack, on an Iraqi Army base in Mosul, a suicide truck bomber killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 45 people, including civilians, the Interior Ministry said.

Iraqi security forces opened fire on the bomber as he sped toward a military base but were unable to foil the attack because the truck's windshield had been made bullet-proof, according to an Iraqi Army officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The attacker blasted past an armored vehicle to reach the courtyard of the military headquarters, the officer said.