A weekly compilation of news you may or may not have seen or read regarding America’s most disastrous war.
Good news! George Bush has given himself power to seize the assets of anyone undermining the (puppet) Iraqi government! Like, you know, famous war critic Sen. Hillary Clinton, who only two weeks ago was ripped by a Cheney protégé at the Pentagon for giving the enemy succor by asking the Pentagon about contingencies for a drawdown of troops. (Cheney backed up his protégé this week, in case anyone cares: “I thought it was a good letter.”) Or, you know, you. For reading this. Be sure to identify yourself in the comment thread.
Otherwise, while it hit 120 in Baghdad again this week, and most of the city suffered from no drinking water due to the mere trickle of daily electricity available for running the pumps (and what drinking water there was, was mostly contaminated due to lack of electricity for the water treatment plants), back in Washington it wasn’t the heat, it was the stupidity: Administration parrots, and much of corporate US media (an overlapping set), lauded July’s decreased US soldier death toll as evidence the escalation “surge” was “working.” Problem is, things always slow down in 120 degree heat, war included, and not only have troop deaths declined in past Julys, but July 2007 was up nearly 50 percent over July 2006. And yes, some of those same pundits were snarking about the Iraqi parliament adjourning for the entire month, even as Congress and the President did exactly the same thing — and while they’ve destroyed a lot of infrastructure in this country, too, they still have air conditioning.
Before everyone fled D.C., the House this week voted 224-194 to give GIs breaks between Iraq deployments. The margin was not enough to overcome a Bush veto threat. New British PM Gordon Brown, visiting the White House, announced that the UK will not delay its Iraq exit in consideration of America or Bush. The Congressional Budget Office weighed in with a real shocker — that the war is now expected to cost over $1 trillion over ten years. Given that it’s cost over a half trillion in its first five, and that famed economist Joseph Stiglitz co-authored a study last year estimating a $1-2 trillion long-term cost then, well, you don’t say? A GAO report revealed that the Pentagon cannot account for 190,000 guns shipped to Iraq since the war’s start. Oh, and one last item before I join everyone else and leave Washington: Dick Cheney, in his media rounds this week, allowed as to how the September report due to Congress on the escalation “surge” will show “significant progress.” No surprise there: his office probably wrote it already.
Back in the real heat, the war didn’t entirely take a break, the euphoria from the Iraqi national soccer team’s unexpected Asian Cup win notwithstanding: 142 Iraqis were killed or found dead in the Baghdad area Wednesday alone. All six ministers from the largest Sunni political party, the Iraqi Accordance Front, quit Prime Minister al-Maliki’s Cabinet this week over Maliki’s refusal to address their concerns over how the Shiite-dominated government is treating Sunnis. A report by US advisors to an Iraqi corruption agency echoed some of their concerns, saying that Iraqi government corruption is endemic and “remains untouchable,” and singled out Maliki: “the PM’s office has on a number of occasions intervened on cases involving political supporters.” Sounds sort of like another chief executive we know.
Meanwhile, most Iraqis aren’t exactly sharing in the largesse of the American taxpayer. Oxfam and a number of other NGOs jointly announced that some eight million Iraqis (well over one-third of what’s left of the country) now need urgent humanitarian aid.
For weeks, Turkey has been massing its troops on the northern (Kurdish) border of Iraq, lobbing shells across the border and threatening to invade in pursuit of Turkish Kurdish separatists using Iraqi Kurdish territory as a safe haven. It’s a sticky situation for the US: A NATO ally, armed to the teeth with US weaponry, going after America’s most loyal allies in Iraq. What to do? Well-connected conservative columnist Robert Novak (of Valerie Plame notoriety) claimed this week to have the answer: the US is working covertly with Turkey to suppress the Kurdish guerrillas so as to forestall Turkish invasion. If this is true, it raises an obvious and depressing question: How many times is the US going to sell out the Kurds, anyway?
Like (seemingly) everyone else, I’m going on vacation in August, too, but only for a week: this weekly roundup will be back in two weeks.
