Is this an acceptable level of violence for the Iraqi people, Mr. President?
Sunday was one of the deadliest days in the country in recent weeks, with at least 100 people killed or found dead.
At least 50 people were killed and dozens wounded by a suicide truck bombing in the northern Iraqi town of Makhmur, police said.
A parked car exploded in the centre of Baghdad, killing at least 17.
More than 20 bullet-riddled bodies were found in areas of the capital and the northern city of Mosul.
I don’t think the Iraqi people think so, at least not those who are voting with their feet:
(cont.)
At a meeting in mid-April in Geneva, held by António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, the numbers presented confirmed what had long been suspected: the collapse of Iraq had created a refugee crisis, and that crisis was threatening to precipitate the collapse of the region. The numbers dwarfed anything that the Middle East had seen since the dislocations brought on by the establishment of Israel in 1948. In Syria, there were estimated to be 1.2 million Iraqi refugees. There were another 750,000 in Jordan, 100,000 in Egypt, 54,000 in Iran, 40,000 in Lebanon and 10,000 in Turkey. The overall estimate for the number of Iraqis who had fled Iraq was put at two million by Guterres. The number of displaced Iraqis still inside Iraq’s borders was given as 1.9 million. This would mean about 15 percent of Iraqis have left their homes.
Yet, our fearless “surge” proponents continue to ask for more … time:
[Kenneth] Pollack [former CIA analyst and White House policymaker] and some other analysts, including Frederick Kagan of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who was an architect of the “surge” policy, say it’s much too early to declare failure. Two of the five brigades of additional U.S. troops, each comprising about 3,500 soldiers, have yet to begin operations in Iraq, they note.
Meanwhile, remember those fab new armored vehicles that were supposed to protect our troops better than their semi-armored Humvees? You know, the Stryker, the “combat vehicle of choice for the Army’s Interim Brigade Combat Teams.” Guess what? They suck.
BAGHDAD – A string of heavy losses from powerful roadside bombs has raised new questions about the vulnerability of the Stryker, the Army’s troop-carrying vehicle hailed by supporters as the key to a leaner, more mobile force.
Since the Strykers went into action in violent Diyala province north of Baghdad two months ago, losses of the vehicles have been rising steadily, U.S. officials said.
A single infantry company in Diyala lost five Strykers this month in less than a week, according to Soldiers familiar with the losses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release the information. The overall number of Strykers lost recently is classified.
Bush, meanwhile is pissed. Oh, not at what’s happening in Iraq, mind you. He’s pissed that a few Republicans came to tell him he’s as loony as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, and he’s even more pissed that those Republicans made their meeting with him, and what they said to his blithering face, public:
Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.
The confrontations are the latest indications of an intensifying rift between Bush and congressional Republicans. […]
Sources said that Dan Meyer, Bush’s liaison to the House, confronted LaHood while White House political strategist Karl Rove rebuked Kirk. It is unclear if LaHood or Kirk were the originial sources for the stories, but LaHood was quoted in one of the articles.
Regardless, LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange. […]
“The White House is not happy,” said a Republican lawmaker.
Two GOP lawmakers said that Rove admonished Kirk for talking to the media about the private meeting.
I believe that’s what Diplomats call a “frank and and honest exchange.” Or, to use a term more familiar to many of you who who conversant in the jargon of blogotopia (and yes, skippy coined that term), this is what is known as a “Shut your fucking pie hole” moment.
Which means of course that the surge will continue indefinitely, or until Bush can blame his successor in office for losing Iraq, whichever comes first. Certainly all the signs from the Pentagon are telling us that the Friedman unit which comes due in September, won’t be the last one we ever get suckered into:
[A]lready military officials are putting out word that such progress will be far from clear cut. “I don’t think it’s going to be a ‘this is working’ or ‘this isn’t.’ It’s not going to be a thumbs up or down,” says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. “There will be lots of areas of gray.”
Shades of gray mixed with the red of the oxygenated hemoglobin variety, I might add. Nonetheless, in the words of that inimitable war hawk, Mr. Pollack:
“I don’t think that Bush has any interest in giving up on Iraq,” Pollack, a former CIA analyst and White House policymaker, said. “I think he’s going to ride the surge until he’s out of office.”
So pray for the Iraqi people, pray for our poor soldiers, many of them on their second, third and fourth deployments, many of them still suffering from grievous injuries, and pray that there really isn’t a vengeful God or Goddess out there watching over us. Because thanks to Our Dear Leader, we’re all screwed if he or she’s been paying the least bit of attention to the goings on in Iraq. In short, our collective bad Karma account is filled to overflowing right now. And something tells me George W. Bush, much as he’s done throughout his life, is going to skip out of Dodge leaving the rest of us holding the accountability bag.