Iraqi men carry the body of the casualties of a US airstrike into the morgue of a hospital in Baghdad's impoverished district of Sadr City. The US military said today six insurgents were killed and five wounded when a warplane dropped a bomb on a building near the town of Hussainiyah, north of Baghdad.(AFP/Wissam al-Oakili) I draw your attention to the size of the body. -- C
Security Incidents
Baghdad
Gunmen kidnapped and killed Brig. Falah Khalaf Jabir, the official in charge of the national police at the Iraqi interior ministry, in the northeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Ur on Sunday, the Iraqi police said.
Explosion near the al-Israa Wa al-Miraj mosque in the neighborhood of al-Amin, southwestern Baghdad, kills one civilian, injures five.
Reuters reports a similar casualty toll from a "roadside bomb attack on a minibus". Probably the same incident.
Husseiniya (north of Baghdad)
U.S. claims helicopter assault kills six "insurgents," injures five; Iraqi witnesses say 18 civilians killed, 21 wounded. I just have to point out that the core of Gen. Petraeus's shiny new counter-insurgency doctrine is that the goal of counter-insurgency is to protect civilians, and this outweighs killing insurgents. Yet we read of incidents like this several times a week. It is getting so tiresome that moral outrage is exhausted. -- C McClatchy has more on this story. This was a Sadrist-controlled area. "Iraqi residents told a different version: The dead came from two Shiite Muslim families who lived in an area controlled by the powerful Mahdi Army militia. The bodies pulled from the rubble, locals say, were ordinary parents killed with their children in the middle of the night. Locals counted 11 corpses - two men, two women and seven children. Another 10 were injured. Some Iraqi authorities put the death toll as high as 18." See below for VOI report on the aftermath.
Jurf al-Milih (also north of Baghdad, near Taji)
Five Sunni tribal leaders opposed to al Qaeda were killed when a suicide bomber drove a minivan packed with about half a tonne of explosives into a house. An Iraqi army source said the local Sunni tribal chiefs were meeting after talks were held in Taji on Friday with local Shi'ite leaders. Those talks were held under the protection of U.S. forces, the army source said.
Basra
British soldier killed in mortar attack on British base in the former presidential palace. This is in addition to the three deaths announced Friday.
Grenade attack on a house in a Basra suburb kills one man, injures his two sisters. No motive is given.
Kut
An interpreter working for MNF is shot dead. In a separate incident, a police officer is killed.
Iskandariya
At least two people were killed and four others wounded in a mortar attack.
Reuters also reports:
- A woman was killed and a child wounded when three mortar rounds hit a residential area in Iskandariya late on Saturday, police said. (Evidently a separate incident.
- The bodies of five people, all with gunshot wounds and showing signs of torture, were found in Iskandariya on Saturday, police said.
Mosul
Six police officers killed by IED.
Kirkuk
Booby-trapped corpse kills two police officers, wounds two others.
Other News of the Day
VOI reports angry demonstration in Husainiya following helicopter assault. Excerpt:
In Husainiya, on the north-east outskirts of Baghdad and on the main road linking the capital with Diyala province, angry reaction to the late Friday raid on the predominantly-Shia district continued.
While the US military said Saturday that six militants were killed during the airstrike on the Shiite stronghold, local residents told VOI and al-Jazeera TV channel that 18 civilians had been killed in the attack and that three houses were destroyed.
While al-Jazeera aired Sunday footage of hundreds of angry Husainiya residents demonstrating in the streets, VOI quoted a source in al-Sadr's office saying 'US forces had laid a siege on the neighbourhood for three days now, conducting house searches late in the evenings, terrorizing families and children.'
The al-Sadr office source, who spoke to VOI on condition of anonymity, said angry residents demonstrated in the streets demanding the end of airstrikes and that house searches take place in the morning and by Iraqi, not American, forces.
U.S. military continues, elaborates accusations that Iranians are arming Iraqis. (Is it relevant to point out that even if these accusations are true, the U.S. is arming Iraqis -- not only official forces but tribal militias -- on a much larger scale? Also, Iran did not invade Iraq and does not maintain an army of occupation in that country. Admiral Fox might want to discuss the issue of foreign interference in Iraq more broadly . . . C) Excerpt:
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US military on Sunday said its troops had found Chinese-made missiles which they believe were smuggled into Iraq by groups in Iran in order to arm groups fighting US-led forces.
"We have seen ordnance and weapons that come from other places, but we assess that they have come through Iran," US military spokesman Admiral Mark Fox told reporters. There are missiles that are actually manufactured in China that we assess come through Iran as well."
Fox also alleged Iranian agents continue to smuggle Iranian made armour piercing bombs -- explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs) -- to Iraqi extremist groups across the country's long border.
U.S. detains a former mayor and current city council member in Al-Sadiyah, Diyala province. They claim he is simultaneously affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the new Baath party. (We report, you decide -- C).
The Independent's Andrew Buncombe calculates the U.S. has fired 250,000 bullets for every "insurgent" killed. Domestic ammunition industry can't keep up, U.S. is importing bullets from Israel to shoot Iraqis. Excerpt:
Estimating how many bullets US forces have expended for every insurgent killed is not a simple or precisely scientific matter. The former head of US forces in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, famously claimed that his forces "don't do body counts".
But senior officers have recently claimed "great successes" in Iraq, based on counting the bodies of insurgents killed. Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, the top US military spokesman in Iraq, said 1,534 insurgents had been seized or killed in a recent operation in the west of Baghdad. Other estimates from military officials suggest that at least 20,000 insurgents have been killed in President George Bush's "war on terror".
John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, said that, based on the GAO's figures, US forces had expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005. "How many evil-doers have we sent to their maker using bullets rather than bombs? I don't know," he said.
"If they don't do body counts, how can I? But using these figures it works out at around 300,000 bullets per insurgent. Let's round that down to 250,000 so that we are underestimating."
AP's David Espo sees Republican Senators feeling the strain of continuing support for Iraq war policy. We're still waiting for them to actually do something about it, however. Excerpt:
"Cut and run," has largely come and gone as an insult to hurl at Democrats, as Republicans themselves contemplate a change in course.
It also is the mission they envision changing as they try to salvage what they can from a war that has taken the lives of more than 3,600 U.S. troops and cost more than $400 billion. Their once-clear vision of Iraq as a stable, self-sustaining democracy is faded.
"Today's mission is focused on al-Qaida," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., reflecting what other administration allies in Congress say privately.
In this view, the main U.S. military focus should be on preventing Iraq from falling under terrorist control. One Republican senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shift in talk of a military objective was a prelude to a change to a strategy that would pull U.S. troops back from a civil war between Sunni and Shiites.
But focusing attention on al-Qaida raises familiar questions: Were terrorists present in Iraq before the 2003 invasion and what would happen if U.S. forces departed?
According to several officials, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and McCain engaged in a brief, impromptu debate touching on that point recently at a private meeting of the rank and file.
Voinovich said the Sunni and Shiites in Iraq would together drive al-Qaida from their country if the U.S. were not there. McCain took the opposite view. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting that the meeting was private.
Tip 'o the hat to Josh Marshall for noticing that last paragraph and linking to this analysis from Kevin Drum. Excerpt:
In fact, there's a dirty little secret of the Iraq war that neither party is eager to acknowledge publicly: namely that the fastest way to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is probably for us to leave and let the Iraqis do it themselves. Republicans don't want to acknowledge this for the obvious reason: they want to stay in Iraq and this doesn't help their cause. Democrats, I suspect, also don't want to talk too much about this, but for a different reason: because it tacitly condones the reason the Iraqis can do a better job than us of stamping out AQI. It's not just that Iraqis know their own neighborhoods better than us (though that's part of it), but that when it comes to exterminating AQI Iraqis would almost certainly be far more brutal about it than Americans. That's not really a subject anyone wants to bring up in polite company.
But that doesn't make it any less true. If we leave Iraq, the country is unlikely in the extreme to become an al-Qaeda haven. Partly this is because it's rage at the American presence itself that provides a big part of the fuel for AQI's growth. Our withdrawal would eliminate that source of rage and devastate AQI's ability to continue its recruiting. Partly it's because, as we're seeing in Anbar province right now, even Sunni extremists don't like AQI. Left to their own devices they'll kill off AQI jihadists in order to protect their own tribal turf. And partly it's because once we withdraw, non-Kurdish Iraq will be free to finish its inevitable transition into a Shiite theocracy — a transition that's sadly unavoidable whether we stay or not. Yes, this transition will be bloody, but in the end Iraq will almost certainly be composed of the Kurdish north, which has no use for al-Qaeda; the remaining Sunni sheikhs, who also have no use for al-Qaeda; and the victorious Shiite central government itself, which likewise has no use for murderous Sunni jihadists on its soil. Between the three of them, AQI isn't likely to last a year.
Of all the reasons for staying in Iraq, a desire to finish off AQI is by far the least convincing. It's our presence that largely keeps AQI going, and our withdrawal is the surest way to ensure their demise. It won't happen without a lot of bloodshed, but it will happen.
Victory of Iraqi soccer team gives Iraqis something to cheer about, moment of unity briefly lifts the gloom and fear, stirs up sentiments of national unity. Excerpt:
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Police danced at checkpoints and gunmen fired their weapons in celebration Saturday as thousands of jubilant Iraqis poured into the streets of Baghdad after their national soccer team's 2-0 victory over Vietnam in a quarterfinal match of the Asia Cup in Bangkok, Thailand.
The impromptu citywide parade lifted the capital's wartime gloom and let Iraqis forget momentarily the daily frustrations of their lives.
Families spent precious gasoline cruising up and down the main street in the central neighborhood of Karada. Taxi drivers honked their horns and blasted patriotic music. Children, typically shut indoors for their protection, whooped and jumped in the middle of intersections. Iraqi women trilled from balconies, while throngs of ecstatic young men peeled off their shirts and waved them in the air.
"All this is not only for the game - it's for the wounds of Iraq," said Sahar Abd Ali, a beaming, 40-year-old mother who strolled among the celebrants. "God willing, this shows that even those deep wounds can be healed."
However, there was a downside: A stray bullet from Iraqi football fans celebrating a victory in the Asian Cup landed less than a metre from Australia's Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy. Elsewhere in Baghdad two people were killed and 15 wounded by celebratory gunfire.
Patrick Cockburn finds Kurds readying for invasion by Turkey. Excerpt:
in the Qandil Mountains.
Hiding in the high mountains and deep gorges of one of the world's great natural fortresses are bands of guerrillas whose presence could provoke a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq and the next war in the Middle East.
In the weeks before the Turkish election on Sunday, Turkey has threatened to cross the border into Iraq in pursuit of the guerrillas of the Turkish Kurdish movement, the PKK, and its Iranian Kurdish offshoot, Pejak.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, warns that there are 140,000 Turkish troops massed just north of the frontier.
"Until recently, we didn't take the Turkish threat that seriously but thought it was part of the election campaign," says Safeen Sezayee. A leading Iraqi Kurdish expert on Turkey and spokesman for the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Mr Dezayee now sees an invasion as quite possible.
The Iraqi Kurds are becoming nervous. The drumbeat of threats from Turkish politicians and generals has become more persistent. "The government and opposition parties are competing to show nationalist fervour," says Mr Dezayee. Anti-PKK feeling is greater than ever in Turkey.
Most menacingly, Turkey is appalled that the Kurds are key players in Iraqi politics and are developing a semi- independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
After the election, Ankara may find it impossible to retreat from the bellicose rhetoric of recent weeks and will send its troops across the border, even if the incursion is only on a limited scale.
If the Turkish army does invade, it will not find it easy to locate the PKK guerrillas. Their main headquarters is in the Qandil mountains which are on the Iranian border but conveniently close to Turkey. It is an area extraordinarily well-adapted for guerrilla warfare where even Saddam Hussein's armies found it impossible to penetrate.
Quote of the Day
At its core, the history of the Iraq War has been authored by an indescribably deceitful and very intellectually limited political and media elite, perfectly symbolized by Kit Bond. These are people who spent four years hailing the Great Progress the Leader was making in Iraq, claiming we were "clearing and holding" neighborhoods of all the Terrorists, that Freedom was on the March, that anyone who questioned any of this was either brainwashed by the war-hating media or a Friend of The Terrorists.
And now, four years later, with the War plainly having been a failure, and their assurances all exposed as false, what are they doing? Hailing the Great Progress the Leader is making in Iraq, claiming we are "clearing and holding" neighborhoods of all the Terrorists, that Freedom is on the March, that anyone who questions any of this is either brainwashed by the war-hating media or a Friend of The Terrorists. Nothing ever changes. It just plods along with the same idiot slogans and the same people spouting them. And they do it with no shame, no acknowledgment of their own past behavior, and no loss of credibility.
Glenn Greenwald
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