*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

US troops hold children hostages in northern Iraq: police

US troops held five children as hostages to demand handover of insurgents near a northern Iraqi town on Tuesday, police said.

"The US forces surrounded the village of Mazraa near Baiji and detained five children under 10 years old, calling on the residents by loudspeakers to hand over several other children showed on TV channels celebrating the killing of US soldiers after roadside blast last week," a police source from Baiji told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The US troops threatened to sweep the village by Wednesday morning to detain the other children and suspected insurgents, he said.

The US military, however, said they had no information about the incident.

Last week, four US soldiers were killed and six others wounded in a roadside bomb blast that hit their patrol near the northern oil refinery city of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi police source in the nearby Tikrit city said insurgents struck the US patrol with several roadside bombs on a road in al- Mazraa village near Baiji before they attacked them with rocket- propelled grenades and gunfire.

Two US Humvees and a larger armored vehicle were also destroyed in the attack, said the police source.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Robert Fisk article from this week's Independent on the 1,100 dead Iraqis in the Baghdad morgue in July and details of the numbers from previous months. Shocking reading.

We are not supposed to know that the Iraqi capital’s death toll last month was only 700 short of the total American fatalities in Iraq since April of 2003. Of the dead, 963 were men - many with their hands bound, their eyes taped and bullets in their heads - and 137 women. The statistics are as shameful as they are horrifying. For these are the men and women we supposedly came to "liberate" - and about whose fate we do not care.

.....

"I consider this a quiet day," one of the mortuary officials said to me as we stood close to the dead. So in just 36 hours - from dawn on Sunday to midday on Monday, 62 Baghdad civilians had been killed. No Western official, no Iraqi government minister, no civil servant, no press release from the authorities, no newspaper, mentioned this terrible statistic. The dead of Iraq - as they have from the beginning of our illegal invasion - were simply written out of the script. Officially they do not exist.

Thus there has been no disclosure of the fact that in July 2003 - three months after the invasion - 700 corpses were brought to the mortuary in Baghdad. In July of 2004, this rose to around 800. The mortuary records the violent death toll for June of this year as 879 - 764 of them male, 115 female. Of the men, 480 had been killed by firearms, along with 25 of the women. By comparison, equivalent figures for July 1997, 1998 and 1999 were all below 200.

Between 10 and 20 per cent of all bodies are never identified - the medical authorities have had to bury 500 of them since January of this year, unidentified and unclaimed. In many cases, the remains have been shattered by explosions - possibly by suicide bombers - or by deliberate disfigurement by their killers.

Mortuary officials have been appalled at the sadism visited on the victims. "We have many who have obviously been tortured - mostly men," one said. "They have terrible burn marks on hands and feet and other parts of their bodies. Many have their hands fastened behind their backs with handcuffs and their eyes have been bound with Sellotape. Then they have been shot in the head - in the back of the head, the face, the eyes. These are executions."

While Saddam’s regime visited death by official execution upon its opponents, the scale of anarchy now existing in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra and other cities is unprecedented. "The July figures are the largest ever recorded in the history of the Baghdad Medical Institute," a senior member of the management told The Independent.

http://www.selvesandothers.org/article11009.html

 

[jonH]

US warship escapes Jordan attack

 

[Barking_Mad]

Report here on the Jordan attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4165190.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Good article on the Iraqi embargo by the UN

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1552187,00.html

 

[oi2002]

Ashraf Fahim in the Asia Times:

It is telling that even the new US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who is paid to be optimistic, recently broke a self-imposed American taboo by speaking openly of the possibility of civil war. But Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group, emphasizes that the die is not yet cast. "There are the signs of civil war, but it's not inevitable that civil war will come," Hiltermann told Asia Times Online. "Steps can still be taken to prevent it." Hiltermann stressed the importance of training the Iraqi security forces and bringing Sunni Arabs fully into the political process. "If things get out of control here it's going to be a bloodbath that will be something we cannot imagine, of a scale we cannot imagine," he said.
...
Iraq's descent into zero-sum sectarianism has increased fears in the Arab world that it will become another Lebanon, where a gruesome 15-year civil war tore that country's intricate sectarian mosaic asunder. The denominational map in Iraq is not as maddening as it is in Lebanon, but the grievances of Iraq's three major communities are becoming ever more intractable. And Iraq's population of 25 million, 10 times larger than Lebanon's, clearly has a stellar per capita rate of martial acumen to go with an apparently endless reservoir of arms. An all-out conflict in Iraq would therefore make Lebanon seem quaint.

It is a pretense of many in Lebanon that their civil war was actually a proxy war fought on Lebanese soil. In reality the war had its roots deep in Lebanese domestic politics and history. But to some degree Lebanon did eventually become a battleground for competing regional interests. Unfortunately, there is vastly more at stake in Iraq, the most blessed Arab country in terms of natural resources and strategic geography. Iraq shares long borders with Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, all of whom it has had at least contentious relations with previously. In a civil war, the temptation for Iraq's neighbors to forcefully assert their interests would be irresistible.
...
This situation presents the US with an unenviable quandary. If civil war does break out it will be blamed regardless - either because of the provocation of its enduring presence or the vacuum left if it withdraws precipitously. To an extent, the Bush administration has only itself to blame for Iraq's simmering sectarian tensions. Iraq was hardly a model of communal harmony under Saddam Hussein. But US support for sectarian political parties and the creation of a political system centered around confessional quotas has significantly elevated identity politics. If the administration intended to divide Iraq's communities in order to make them more malleable, its success could come at a very high price.

Khalilzad is an arrogant overbearing neocon Pashtun he's also very capable.

 

[Pickman's model]

MOSUL, Iraq, Aug. 19 -- Gunmen in this northern city Friday abducted and publicly executed three Sunni Arab activists who had been working to draw the disgruntled Sunni minority into Iraq's political mainstream, and then draped their bodies in a get-out-the-vote banner, officials and witnesses said.

The killings, before a horrified crowd, were the latest episode in the accelerating violence between suspected insurgents and the Sunni minority that has been their base of support.

One witness, Muhammed Khalid, said armed men traveling in eight cars kidnapped the activists as they were hanging banners encouraging voter participation. An hour later, gunmen appeared in another neighborhood. They blocked off side roads, stopped people from fleeing and forbade frightened shopkeepers to close their establishments, witnesses said.

"Then they took three men out of their cars and killed them in front of us," said a witness, Harith Saleem. He quoted one of the killers as saying, "This is the punishment for those who promote the elections."

In the western city of Ramadi, meanwhile, Sunni tribal members shot and killed a Saudi and three other members of the country's main insurgent group, al Qaeda in Iraq, headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, witnesses and sources said. Killings there, too, marked rapidly escalating tensions between foreign-led fighters and Sunnis.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9/AR2005081901506.html?nav=rss_print/asection

 

[Barking_Mad]

Haditha, Iraq. Another piece which is a rare break away from the usual reports, some of it makes for quite horrific reading - I doubt this will make it to BBC's 6 o'clock slot. Out of interest I checked icasualties.org and there was indeed the killing of 6 US troops on the day mention below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1553969,00.html

Two men who robbed a foreign exchange shop were splayed on the ground. Masked men stood on their hands while others broke their arms with rocks. The shopkeeper offered the insurgents a reward but they declined.

DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children prefer them to cartoons. "They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but parents appeared not to object.

One DVD features a young, blond muscular man who had been disembowelled. He was said to have been a member of a six-strong US sniper team ambushed and killed on August 1. Residents said he had been paraded in town before being executed.

The US military denied that, saying six bodies were recovered and that all appeared to have died in combat. Shortly after the ambush three landmines killed 14 marines in a convoy which ventured from their base outside the town.

Twice in recent months marines backed by aircraft and armour swept into Haditha to flush out the rebels. In a pattern repeated across Anbar there were skirmishes, a few suspects killed or detained, and success was declared.

In reality, said residents, the insurgents withdrew for a few days and returned when the Americans left. They have learned from last November's battle in Falluja, when hundreds died fighting the marines and still lost the city.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US relents on Islamic law to reach Iraq deal

The United States has eased its opposition to an Islamic Iraqi state to help clinch a deal on a draft constitution before tonight's deadline. American diplomats backed religious conservatives who threatened to torpedo talks over the shape of the new Iraq unless Islam was a primary source of law. Secular and liberal groups were dismayed at the move, branding it a betrayal of Washington's promise to advocate equal rights in a free and tolerant society.

Stalemate over the role of Islam, among other issues, meant last week's deadline was extended for a week. Outstanding disputes could produce another cliffhanger tonight, triggering a further extension. The Bush administration, keen to show the political process is on track, has waded into negotiations and pressured all sides to compromise.

Administration officials have suggested that the number of US troops could be reduced next year if Iraq makes political progress and enough Iraqi troops are trained to take on insurgents. But yesterday, a US general said the army was making "worst case" contingency plans to maintain troops at the current level for another four years.

 

[jeff_leigh]

In Iraq Jail, Resistance Goes Underground

Well worth a read
"CAMP BUCCA, Iraq -- In the darkest hours before dawn, groups of 10 detainees toiled 15 feet beneath Compound 5 of America's largest prison in Iraq. The men worked in five-minute shifts, digging with shovels fashioned from tent poles and hauling the dirt to the surface with five-gallon water jugs tethered to 200 feet of rope. They bagged it in sacks that had been used to deliver their bread rations and spread it surreptitiously across a soccer field where fellow inmates churned it during daily matches, guards and detainees recalled."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301525.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ive missed so much news over the last few days I hardly know where to start, so you'll have to excuse the missing stuff.........

This sounds worrying, Shiites fighting Shiites....

Clashes erupt between rival Shi'ites in Iraq

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Clashes erupted between followers of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and a rival Shi'ite movement associated with the government in the Iraqi city of Najaf on Wednesday, witnesses said. Hospital official Riad al-Shibli said six people were killed and dozens were wounded. A spokesman for Sadr said several people were killed or wounded but he had no details. The spokesman blamed the violence on the Badr Brigades, a militia linked to the most powerful Shi'ite party in the governing coalition, and said Sadr called on his Mehdi Army militia to be on a "state of high alert."

The clashes come at a time of high sectarian tension when Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders are expected to push a draft constitution through parliament that is fiercely opposed by Sadr and Arab Sunnis. Sadr, who derives his legitimacy from his support for the poor and his deceased cleric father's credentials, has staged two major uprisings against U.S. forces and the previous Iraqi government. His defiance of U.S. troops has also gained him the respect of Sunnis, who are leading a raging insurgency against the Shi'ite-dominated government.

25 dead as militias clash in gun battles

AT LEAST 17 people were killed in Baghdad last night as gun battles erupted following a suicide car bomb attack on police. After the bomber struck, some masked gunman opened fire with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades. Three police officers were among the dead in Baghdad and at least 53 people were injured, police said.

Streets in western Baghdad were sealed off in what was the worst street fighting for months. Violence also erupted in Najaf, central Iraq, where eight people died and at least 13 were wounded following clashes between supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Iraqi Shia cleric, and the rival Shia Badr movement.

Traders in Najaf’s old town were demonstrating against members of al-Sadr’s group, who were attempting to reopen their local office when violence erupted. Ibrahim Jaafari, the Iraqi Prime Minister, appealed for calm in a late-night televised address and condemned the attack on the Badr group. He said that violence against the Najaf office of al-Sadr was unacceptable: “Peace must reign. This language of violence cannot be permitted in the new Iraq.”

He called on all Shia groups to remember that the repression that they suffered under the rule of Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the US-led invasion in 2003.

Insurgents darken Baghdad, cut oil flow

BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Saboteurs triggered a cascade of blackouts that halted Iraq's entire oil export capacity for most of Monday, a move that cost the country almost $60 million in lost exports and rattled already jittery world markets. Government officials blamed the outage on insurgent attacks that toppled key power pylons in central Iraq and darkened broad swaths of the country, including its two largest cities — Baghdad and Basra.

The attacks occurred as Iraqi leaders, in another dramatic last-minute standoff, called off a vote on a draft constitution, adjourning parliament at a midnight deadline in a bid for three more days to win over the Sunni Arab minority whose support is key to stopping the insurgency. By late Monday, oil tankers were being loaded at less than a third of normal capacity with the help of backup generators, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US dead so far this month 74

 

[Barking_Mad]

Reuters calls for US to release Iraqi cameraman

News agency Reuters has called for the release of an Iraqi cameraman who has been held by the US military for two weeks. Reuters said it was "concerned and dismayed" by the detention of 36-year-old freelance Omar Abrahem al-Mashhadani

3 dead, 10 hurt in Iraq police attacks

Insurgents attacked Iraqi police patrols Wednesday in western Baghdad with three car bombs and small arms fire, killing at least three people and wounding 10, police said.

Mortar Attack Wounds Seven

Four mortar rounds landed on a base used by the Iraqi police's rapid reaction force in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north-east of Baghdad, wounding seven.

Insurgents attack police checkpoints in Baghdad

Around 40 insurgents, some of them wearing masks, could be seen brandishing weapons in the streets of Hay al-Jamma, a district in the west of the city, shortly after they attacked checkpoints with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

 

[Barking_Mad]

All these are taken from events reported on the 21st August.

Rebels kill six Iraqis, kidnap five including Turkish engineer

Rebels killed six Iraqis, including three policemen and kidnapped five, including a Turkish engineer.

Car Bomb Shootings Kill Six Iraqi

Farid Jabouri, an Iraqi interpreter, was shot dead by gunmen as he travelled to work. In Baquba two workers in a Shiite mosque were shot dead early Sunday. Three people were killed and nine others were wounded when a car bomb in the Baghdad.

Kidnapped Sunni Leader Found Dead in Baghdad

Meanwhile, an official in the main Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, who served also as a member in the local municipal council in al-Azamiyah district in Baghdad, was found dead after he was kidnapped by gunmen, a party statement said.

Three Iraqi Police Killed

Two police commandos were shot dead by gunmen in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Ameriyah. Another policeman was killed as he came under fire from gunmen in al-Shuhada neighbourhood, east of Samarra.

US soldier killed in Iraq

One US soldier has been killed when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northern Iraq, the military said. The soldier was with 20th Engineer Brigade Combat Airborne. He was killed south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

Attack wounds Baghdad councilman

Fighters have opened fire at the motorcade of a member of Baghdad's city council, killing one of his bodyguards and seriously wounding him and three others, an official at the municipality says.

 

[Barking_Mad]

From the 23rd

Five Iraqi policemen killed

A police statement said bodies of two officers kidnapped since Monday were discovered in al Wihda town in Mosul. A police statement in Najaf said two policemen were killed earlier today while underoing a search operation north of the city.

Two extra US battalions to Iraq

THE Pentagon plans to deploy two additional battalions to Iraq amid rising insurgent attacks ahead of an anticipated referendum on a constitution, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.

Iraqi base attack leaves 14 dead

Eight policemen died in the explosion along with a US soldier and a contractor, according to US military and Iraqi police reports. And three members of an Iraqi special forces unit in the area were killed in error by US troops, Iraqi police added.

 

[Loki]

Pentagon announces an an extra 1,500 troops to be sent Iraq to support security efforts during upcoming elections.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4181186.stm

Bush clearly has the situation in hand then. I hope it's not disturbing his holiday too much.

 

[oi2002]

Larry Johnson says it's time to quit Iraq.

We could potentially defeat the Sunni insurgents if we were willing and able to deploy sufficient troops to control the key infiltration routes that run along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys. But we are neither willing nor able. It would require at least 380,000 troops devoted exclusively to that mission. Part of that mission would entail killing anyone who moved into controlled areas, such as roadways. In adopting those kinds of rules of engagement we would certainly increase the risk of killing innocent civilians. But, we would impose effective control over those routes. That is a prerequisite to gaining control over the insurgency.

We cannot meet the increased manpower requirements in Iraq without a draft. We do not currently have enough troops in the Army and the Marine Corps to supply and sustain that size of force in the field. But, even with a draft, we would be at least 15 months away from having the new batch of trained soldiers ready to deploy. More importantly, there is no political support for a draft. In other words, we’re unwilling to do what is required to even have a shot at winning.

He's got a point there. If Dubya had grasped the nettle 18 months ago ditched bumbling Rummie and started pumping up the US land army DC would have more options. But getting real about Iraq and interfering in Pentagon procurement would probably have made Dubya a one term war President. If you're looking for when DC's will failed look back to Spring 2004.

 

[moono]

That's true enough and it was clear at the time.

 

[oi2002]

Khalilzad on News Hour a couple of days ago. Interesting, unusually frank, emphasis on the need to reduce popular support for the insurgency. We've become used to smug bunglers from DC; Khalilzad by contrast looks like a player.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Just found this article which as well as talking about the increase in US troops, also has this to say about Sadr's men clashing with other Shi'ites. Apparently they have been demonstrating WITH Sunni's about the constitution, which makes for an interesting alliance.

In another worrying development for the US-British coalition, followers of the militant Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, joined a Sunni demonstration against the constitution at Hawja, north of Baghdad. Sadr, who runs the Mehdi Army which has remained heavily armed despite a supposed disarmament exercise last year, has maintained links with several Sunni groups in an alliance against the proposed federal structure of the country's future government.

Sunnis maintain that federalism is a pretext for the Kurdish and Shia groups to carve up the oil-rich north and south of the country. Sadr's group, with its power base in the relatively resource-poor central Iraq has also complained that it is being sidelined.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article307999.ece

 

[sihhi]

Just found this article which as well as talking about the increase in US troops, also has this to say about Sadr's men clashing with other Shi'ites. Apparently they have been demonstrating WITH Sunni's about the constitution, which makes for an interesting alliance.

It is the case that sunnis who aren't die hard Islamist fundamentalists are pretty OK with Moqtada al-Sadr because of 100%-anti-US occupation stance.

Here's this with an interview with Sunni insurgent leader "Colonel Jassam" in FT
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/693a8434-13ff-11da-af53-00000e2511c8.html

He also says the Badr forced the prisoners to dirty themselves when they went to the bathroom, rendering them ritually impure and therefore unable to pray. He stresses he has nothing against the Shia per se. “We like [anti-American Shia leader] Muqtada al-Sadr. I don't have any problem with Shia, just with the Supreme Council and with Badr.”

Al-Sadr significantly has some support because SCIRI and al-Sistani are seen by his followers as corrupt and rich spending lots of money on T-shirts during the lections for example.

 

[Barking_Mad]

8 of President's bodyguards killed

To the north, eight of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's bodyguards have been killed in an attack south of Kirkuk on a convoy of cars owned by Talabani. Investigators said 15 bodyguards were wounded. The cars were returning to Baghdad from Kurdistan.

8 Iraqis killed around Baqubah

Near Baquba, gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims who were heading home after visiting holy sites in Iran, killing four. In Oudiam a roadside bomb killed four Iraqi engineers working for a cell phone company.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Here's this with an interview with Sunni insurgent leader "Colonel Jassam" in FT
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/693a8434-13ff-11da-af53-00000e2511c8.html

Cheers for that, always interesting to read insurgents views on what's going on. An interesting read.

 

[Barking_Mad]

36 bodies found

As a sign of deep religious and ethnic tensions already tearing at Iraq, police found the bodies of 36 men Thursday in a dry river bed near the Iranian border, their hands bound and with bullet wounds in the head.

The bodies contained no identification and police said most were wearing baggy trousers favored by Kurds. But when photographers arrived, they saw the bodies wearing normal clothing.

Blast hits Kirkuk oil well

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents sabotaged an exporting oil well in Iraq on Friday, stepping up pressure on the U.S.-backed government struggling to steer Iraq through a political crisis over a draft constitution.

In an all too familiar scene in a country with the world's third largest oil reserves, flames threatened to halt output from the well, which pumps 7,000 to 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) and feeds a pipeline to Turkey.

An Iraqi oil official said firefighters were battling the blaze in the northern Kirkuk oilfields, which have been spared the relentless attacks on domestic and export oil pipelines in the region.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Clear-up Iraqi civilian compo rumours, Opposition tells Govt

The Federal Opposition says the Government must reveal whether it has paid compensation to Iraqi civilians who have been injured or killed by Australian soldiers.

There are suggestions the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has already made secret payments to some Iraqi families, but only in cases where Australian troops were found to have acted negligently. Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd says the Government must declare whether there is any truth in the allegations.

"We think it's important for the Australian Government to put all the facts on the table," he said.

"Have there been Iraqi civilians killed by the ADF, have payments been made, and if so, how much?"

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq struggles for charter deal

Talks aimed at persuading Sunni Arabs to back the text of a new Iraqi constitution have resumed after a deadline passed with no deal reached.

Earlier, the prime minister's spokesman said some changes had been made. But Sunnis remain opposed to federalism and a negotiator saw no prospect of a deal.

The speaker of Iraq's parliament said whatever the outcome, the text would go to a referendum in October.

Shia and Kurdish leaders have reached agreement on the entire document.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Red Cross treated insurgents to free Italian hostages

The lives of four "presumed terrorists" on America's wanted list were secretly saved by Italy's Red Cross as part of the price for freeing Italian hostages in Iraq.

Maurizio Scelli, the outgoing head of Italy's Red Cross, told La Stampa newspaper that with the explicit approval of the office of Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, he had agreed to treat four critically wounded Iraqi "terrorists" in the Italian Red Cross's hospital in Baghdad. "Keeping the Americans in the dark was an essential condition for guaranteeing the safety of the hostages and ourselves," he said. "I kept to this ... and under-secretary Gianni Letta also agreed to it when we discussed it with him."

Mr Letta is Mr Berlusconi's security adviser and one of his closest confidants.

Mr Scelli told the newspaper how on 23 September last year he was working for the release of "the two Simonas", Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, volunteers abducted from their Baghdad office. The same day there was a claim on an Islamist website that the two women had been killed because Mr Berlusconi had failed to withdraw Italy's troops from Iraq.

But then Mr Scelli heard two messages on the voicemail of his mobile phone: the voices of the Simonas, one after the other, denying the internet claim and insisting that they were still alive. He said that on hearing the messages he heaved a sigh of relief: it meant that his efforts for the women's release were still on track. "The mediators had asked us to save the lives of four presumed terrorists whom the Americans were looking for and who had been wounded in combat," he said.

......

"There were two American checkpoints outside the hospital. We had to trick them. We dispatched an ambulance and a Jeep, officially to deliver medicines. In reality it was a way of collecting the wounded men. Hidden under covers and boxes of drugs, the four terrorists - three in a desperate state - were operated on and saved by the Red Cross."

 

[oi2002]

Pat Lang talking about the The Great Escape

LANG: Yes, I didn`t want to offend any Steve McQueen fans, but that was what I immediately thought of, because the only way you could do something like this, is to have a quasi-military organization created by the prisoners that assigns creates a digging committee and a concealment committee and a this committee and a that committee.

And for all that to work inside the jail, where they could go to the American guards at any time and inform on the whole thing, indicates a military sort of organization with a great deal of internal discipline. And, you know, the only way they ever really found this thing initially was that a satellite photograph showed the color of the dirt in the compound was a different color from that outside, because the disposal committee was littering the grounds with this stuff.

And the Iraqi officer corps cunning:

LANG: When I used to talk to their officers a long time ago, they used to say that the one thing they knew was that they could never fight the United States, that there was no possibility they could ever win against us, and that to try and do so was futile.

So, I really think that they didn`t really very seriously try to fight our main armored forces until they got into the area of Baghdad. And in the big brigade sized Thunder Runs down -- going downtown by the 3rd Armored Division, all of our hundreds of armored vehicles, every single one of them, had hits on them from anti-tank weapons.

But I think the main idea in this war from the Iraqi planning point of view was from the beginning a kind of stay-behind operation. In other words, that they were going to launch a guerrilla resistance once the country was occupied. So, I think there`s some method to all this. I think we were a little bit deceived by the ease of our achievement at the beginning.
...
LANG: I think that, if we want to wear these people down, the Iraqi nationalist Baathist insurgents, that we`re looking in fact at a campaign that will last six or seven more years, because it will require a process of grinding them down while the government is developed.

MATTHEWS: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

LANG: The jihadis are different, you`ll never beat them -- you`ll never beat them in Iraq. They are an international movement and will have to be defeated on a world wide basis.

 

[oi2002]

Lang again: Senior Iran cleric hails “Islamic state of Iraq”

Jannati, who is a top confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that all justice-seeking counties of the world “have no model other than the Islamic revolution in Iran to turn to”.

“Lebanese Hezbollah and the state of Iraq are not the only supporters of the Islamic revolution”, he said.

Referring to the West as Global Arrogance, the hard-line cleric said, “No matter how many stones they throw in our path, they cannot prevent the spread of the Islamic revolution in the world”.

This guy could have the same speech writer as Dubya.

 

[rocketman]

This guy could have the same speech writer as Dubya.

Probably does. it's all smoke and mirrors. It's a war between the elites played out on the suffering of the people.