Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Lies! All Lies!!!
More highly suspect news from those 'unverifiable sources':
Personally, I question the timing. Looks like another transparent attempt to distract the American public from casualties that are spiraling out of control in Iraq:
Infidels! May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest their jockey shorts for all eternity. As is well known to all well-informed citizens, these highly unnecessary reminders of what U.S. and Iraqi forces have accomplished are a distraction from the real issue, which is that war causes great suffering but never achieves anything of value.
- Cassandra
Violence in Iraq’s Kirkuk province has dropped by 70 percent, and coalition and Iraqi forces have “virtually destroyed” al-Qaida in Iraq in the region, the commander of the U.S. brigade combat team in the area said May 12.
Army Col. David Paschal, commander of 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, said that as security improves in the strategic northern province, changes are happening in the economy and in governance that help cement the security progress in place.
...The brigade arrived in September 2007 and has killed or captured 20 high-value targets. U.S. soldiers also captured 63 “persons of interest” in the area, the colonel said. Enemy activity began trending down in August and remains low, he added.
None of this would be possible without the improvement in the Iraqi security forces, Paschal said. Iraqi police are responsible for maintaining security in Kirkuk, a city of roughly 800,000 people. The 15th Brigade of the 4th Iraqi Army Division conducts independent, intelligence-driven operations outside the city. The Iraqi army unit has also conducted joint operations with the fledgling Iraqi air force.
The Sons of Iraq program has been a cornerstone to security in the region, he said, noting that 400 men who were part of the Sons of Iraq program from the brigade’s Arab areas are graduating from two months of police training this week. They’ll be reassigned to the outer district on the western side of the province.
With more security, the Iraqi people are feeling more confident, Paschal said.
“The information and actionable intelligence that they provide has grown exponentially,” he said. “That actionable intelligence is in the form of the turning of caches, location of [roadside bombs] and, in many cases, instances of insurgent or terrorist leaders throughout the province,” he said.
Personally, I question the timing. Looks like another transparent attempt to distract the American public from casualties that are spiraling out of control in Iraq:
The newspapers are predictably filled with articles about how 52 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq last month – the highest toll since September. Iraqi civilian casualties are also said to be at the highest level since August. These losses are being used to cast aspersions on claims of progress in Iraq.
Even one death is too many and 52 deaths is tragedy multiplied 52-fold. But let's keep some perspective. As the icasualties.org website makes clear, for better or worse, April was still one of the lighter-casualty months during the long war in Iraq.
More important, casualties cannot be looked at in a vacuum. A spike in casualties could be a sign that the enemy is gaining strength. Or it could be a sign that tough combat is under way that will lead to the enemy's defeat and the creation of a more peaceful environment in the future.
The latter was certainly the case with the casualty spike during the summer of 2007. (More than a hundred soldiers died each month in April, May and June.) Those losses were widely denounced as evidence that the surge wasn't working, but in fact they were proof of the opposite.
At the time, troops were engaged in hard fighting as part of Operation Phantom Thunder that eventually cleared most terrorists out of Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Babil and other provinces, leading to dramatic reductions in violence over the last year (more than 80% before the recent fighting).
The latest increase in casualties is the result of another coalition offensive: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to break the grip of militias in Basra. At first the results did not look promising: Iraqi troops were rushed in without adequate preparation, and shortly after the March 25 offensive began appeared stymied in their battles against the Mahdist Army. Mr. Maliki seemed to agree to an Iranian-brokered cease-fire with Moqtada al Sadr that left the Mahdists in control of much of the city. But as April progressed it became clear that the results of the initial clashes were more beneficial than most (including me) had initially suspected.
Iraqi security forces have not suspended their operations in Basra. In fact, since the "cease-fire," they have continued to increase their area of control. An April 25 article by a London Times correspondent who visited Basra finds: "Raids are continuing in a few remaining strongholds but the Iraqi commander in charge of the unprecedented operation is confident that his forces will soon achieve something that the British military could not – a city free from rogue gunmen."
Infidels! May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest their jockey shorts for all eternity. As is well known to all well-informed citizens, these highly unnecessary reminders of what U.S. and Iraqi forces have accomplished are a distraction from the real issue, which is that war causes great suffering but never achieves anything of value.
- Cassandra
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