Twenty-nine American lives were lost last month in Iraq. At least 270 more troops have been wounded in February.
Meanwhile, the carnage remains steady on the Iraqi side as well. Indeed, in a sad turn of events, Iraqi casualties have jumped in the last month:
NEW YORK The number of Iraqis killed in February rose by 33 percent over January, reversing a six-month trend of reduced violence, in a setback to the U.S. military plan to curb the bloodshed ravaging the country, Agence France Press reports.
The combined figures obtained by AFP from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that the total number of Iraqis killed in February was 721, including 636 civilians, compared with 541 dead in January.
The Associated Press count was very similar. AP emphasized that this was considered a “minimum” number with the toll likely higher.
Aside from the unending flow of lives lost, our continued presence in Iraq is costing Americans an untold amount of taxpayer money.
When you break down the costs, our Iraq presence is costing Americans an astonishing $3,845 per second.
Nearly 4,000 Americans dead, nearly 30,000 wounded, and nearly $4,000 per second. Five years later, this is the cost of waging a war that should have never been initiated, and the cost of continuing a blunder that should have ended a long time ago.
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And all we got was this lousy photo-shoot?
Ahmadinejad’s visit with the Shiite government of Iraq is a useful reminder of what the permanent Iraq occupation means: an expansion of the power of Iran in the region, even as its nuclear bomb aspirations continue, and the slow emasculation of the US. Of course, the visit has inflamed the Awakening forces and widened the gulf that separates Sunni and Shia Mesopotamia:
“I think Ahmadinejad is the most criminal and bloody person in the world,” said Emad Abbas, a university student in Samarra. “This visit degrades Iraq’s dignity, and it proves that Iraq is occupied twice, once by the United States and once by Iran.”
In Kirkuk, where Sunnis are fighting efforts by Kurds to control the city, tribes and political parties rallied against the visit. “How can we tolerate this?” said Salman Abdullah Al-Hamad, an Arab tribal leader in Kirkuk. “Today we live under the regime of the clerics. The Iranian revolution has been exported to Iraq.”
But no worry: the US will spend more billions and deploy 100,000 troops for decades if necessary to make Iraq safe for the Iranian mullahs and keep oil prices lower than they would otherwise be for Chinese industrialists. Bush is the gift to our enemies that keeps on giving.
(Photo: Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty.)
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When Michael Ledeen and Hilzoy agree on something, you know the Bush administration is acting indefensibly.
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Looks like John McCain and Barack Obama are giving us a preview of the general election’s Iraq debate.
In the Wisconsin Democratic debate, Obama said: “If Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.”
John McCain later responded: “I have news for Senator Obama. Al Qaeda is in Iraq. And that’s why we’re fighting in Iraq, and that’s why we’re succeeding in Iraq.”
The long distance argument continued when Obama later said: “I have some news for John McCain, and that is there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.”
That last quote from Obama is what bothers me so much about the Democratic position on Iraq. Yes, he’s absolutely right that al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist until we blew open the door and they streamed in. However, in terms of making policy in the here-and-now, what does it matter how al Qaeda got to Iraq? The real focus should be on defeating them or at least keeping them from ever organizing the kind of operations that threaten the stability of Iraq and the security of the United States.
Now, according to Obama’s first quote, he is comfortable taking action against al Qaeda in Iraq if they form a base. I don’t know what Obama’s definition of “base” is but al Qaeda is certainly already active in Iraq and I don’t think it’s a radical position to think our goal should be to stop them from forming bases rather than holding off action until they do. I fail to see how quick withdrawal of our troops is the most sensible way to stop al Qaeda from gaining/regaining footholds. Shouldn’t we at least wait until the commanders on the ground deem the al Qaeda presence negligible or deem the Iraqi army and police capable of taking whatever further actions are needed?
I don’t think our speedy withdrawal from Iraq will suddenly inspire the Iraqi government to come together, patch up their differences and go out and secure their territories. If you believe we have a duty to act against al Qaeda in Iraq, as Obama says he believes, then why take away our troops when, in all likelihood, we’d have to send them back in the moment the place slips into the chaos caused by the vacuum of our absence?
I know there are many Americans desperate for us to get out, regardless of what the future consequences of a quick withdrawal may be. However, I think there are many more Americans who, while fatigued over the war and upset that we ever got into this mess, understand that the situation in Iraq is delicate and requires careful action so that the progress of the last nine months doesn’t evaporate. Obama has to convince those Americans that his plan is based on military, moral and national security interests and not just on the wishes of the anti-war agitators in his party.
Obama can certainly make an issue out of McCain’s judgment , using the Arizona senator’s support of the invasion to call into question his fitness to make future decisions. But that’s really where the debate about the invasion ends. We’re a long way from then. We need plans based on the realities of today and not on the complaints of yesteryear.
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The House of Representatives said OK Thursday to a $471 billion Pentagon budget that covers spending for everything in the Defense budget except the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The new budget reflects a 9 percent, $40 billion increase over last fiscal year.
The Pentagon bill only funds core department operations, omitting Bush’s $196 billion request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, except for an almost $12 billion infusion for new troop vehicles that are resistant to roadside bombs. …
The House-Senate Pentagon measure is Bush’s top priority in the budget endgame consuming so much time and energy on Capitol Hill. It would be the first of 12 appropriations bills for the budget year that began Oct. 1 to be signed into law.
Bush has in turn promised to veto Democratic-driven increases for domestic programs, and nowhere are those Democratic priorities more evident than on the labor, health, human services and education funding bill. It’s the second largest of the 12 annual appropriations bills funding agency budgets, and it is by far the largest bill funding domestic programs.
Meanwhile, a House vote on a $50 billion White House request for combat operations in Iraq could take place as early as Friday. It represents about a fourth of the $196 billion Mister Bush has requested and would finance four months of combat:
The proposal, similar to one Bush vetoed earlier this year, would identify a goal of ending combat entirely by December 2008. It would require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat, as well as effectively ban harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding.
In a private caucus meeting, [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi told rank-and-file Democrats that the bill was their best shot at challenging Bush on the war. And if Bush rejected it, she said, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year.
“This is not a blank check for the president,” she said later at a Capitol Hill news conference. “This is providing funding for the troops limited to a particular purpose, for a short time frame.” …
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush would veto any bill that sets an “artificial timeline” for troop withdrawals. …Several anti-war liberals said Thursday they were willing to get behind the measure, so long as Democrats don’t send Bush the money anyway if the bill is vetoed.
“What I don’t want to do is get on this merry-go-round where we try to end this war and negotiate it down to a blank check,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. “It’s time to play hardball.”
And they call us an echo chamber. McGovern’s a good guy, but we’ve heard all this before, before, before.
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That’s what we’re saying, but are we sure?
See, we’ve heard similar claims before, but they ultimately just move back in. And since we’re going to draw down the troops who helped get the terrorists out, this feels like another case of temporary good news that could very well give way to chaos yet again.
BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 — American forces have routed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi militant network, from every neighborhood of Baghdad, a top American general said today, allowing American troops involved in the “surge” to depart as planned.
Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of United States forces in Baghdad, also said that American troops had yet to clear some 13 percent of the city, including Sadr City and several other areas controlled by Shiite militias. But, he said, “there’s just no question” that violence had declined since a spike in June.
“Murder victims are down 80 percent from where they were at the peak,” and attacks involving improvised bombs are down 70 percent, he said.
See, this is the problem with treating al Qaeda as if it were a nation. It’s not as if we pushed Germany out of France, and we all know the terrorists have simply moved into some other area with fewer troops. That’s what they do. And as we continue to stay in Iraq, new people will join al Qaeda and they’ll be able to move into Baghdad and begin to wreak havoc.
Yep, I’m a gloom and doomer, and it’s specifically because we’ve never figured out a way to solve this problem. Because folks, this isn’t a solution, it’s merely a band-aid. Sure, deaths have decreased in the short term, but our expenditures keep increasing and our all volunteer force is being decimated by PTSD.
And again, let’s not forget that the surge was meant to create an atmosphere so the Iraqis could build a solid government.
Has that happened?
And though Sunni extremist groups could revive and “reinfest very quickly,” General Fil said, Iraq’s leaders should now have the peace they need to build a trusted, cross-sectarian government. But progress toward that, he said, has been “disappointing.”
Disappointing means no. And we’ll continue to see “disappointing” results and our soldiers will keep dying and we’ll continue to fall deeper into debt.
Again, it’s good that al Qaeda is out of Baghdad, but it should have been us out of their first.
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Andgarden notes Rahm Emanuel’s appearance on Real Time this weekend, wherein he’s called upon to address the question of “defunding” the “war” in “Iraq.”
I note this:
MAHER: Now, President Bush has asked for another, I think, around $200 billion to keep the war going. Okay, and I hear all the time-
EMANUEL: This would be - make it $680 billion.
MAHER: Okay.
Reports are that the supplemental may be put off for a while, which is sort of good news. Of course, it might be getting backed up so that it’s not on the record of any presidential candidates before the first flurry of primaries, which at this point in the ever-quickening schedule, may have decided the whole mess before anyone has to stake out a position on the Iraq money, which is not such good news if you’re scoring accountability at home rather than political expediency.
But hey, the world’s political.
Meanwhile, back to our show:
EMANUEL: This would be - make it $680 billion.
Just for the record, this next $200 billion goes with the $90 or so in the infamous May ‘06 supplemental, meaning nearly $300 billion of the $680 or so comes on the Democratic watch. One year under Dems, $300 billion. Four years under Republicans, $480 billion.
$180 billion is nothing to sneeze at, of course. But that’s the thin line separating the Republican’s controlling interest in funding this nonsense versus the Democratic share.
That’s one supplemental bill’s difference, the way things are going.
Please make a note of it.
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Since there are only fifty-two cards in a deck, the Pentagon came up with a new way to identify insurgents in Iraq:
A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
Yes, in the continuing quest to spread democracy, here is a U.S. Army Captain explaining the new and improved version of innocent until proven guilty:
Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.
The president of the National Institute of Military Justice cautions that:
…such a baiting program should be examined “quite meticulously” because it raises troubling possibilities, such as what happens when civilians pick up the items.
Of course that “troubling possibility” is laid out in the opening sentence of the article. Not to mention the troubling possibility that the “bait” items might be planted on Iraqis after-the-fact to justify shooting them, which is how this program came to light:
The classified program was described in investigative documents related to recently filed murder charges against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed.
Update: OneCrankyDom has an excellent take on this story here.
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Yay for diplomacy! Or, um, something like it:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki kept a polite distance Saturday as they attended a group meeting and avoided discussion of a deadly Baghdad shootout involving guards from a U.S. company protecting American diplomats.
The two greeted each other before the meeting, but in a brief exchange of pleasantries, the issue of the shootout didn’t come up, deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.
With tensions soaring over the Sept. 16 incident, Rice and al-Maliki chose not to speak about it at a United Nations gathering at which they were among senior diplomats and officials from Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria, weighing future assistance to Iraq.
Earlier, the State Department’s Iraq coordinator, David Satterfield, said the two did not have any one-on-one contact. Satterfield testily told reporters that the issue of the incident was not on the agenda. He told reporters after the meeting that Rice had already spoken by phone with al-Maliki about the matter.
The U.N. meeting came as a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows employees of Blackwater USA opening fire against civilians without provocation on Sept. 16.
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Winning hearts and minds:
A U.S. State Department motorcade came under attack in Baghdad on Sunday, prompting security contractors guarding the convoy to open fire in the streets. At least nine civilians were killed, according to Iraqi officials.
According to U.S. officials, the Blackwater USA security contractors, “escalated the force to defend themselves,” while Iraqi officials say the incident, “involved excessive force and killed innocent civilians.” And today:
The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.
“We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.
For the record, while U.S. troops are immune from prosecution in Iraq, private contractors are not.
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“The more successful we are, the more troops can return home.”
The cornerstone of Bush’s latest Iraq “plan,” laid out in his prime-time speech Thursday, was reiterated in his radio address yesterday: “return on success.” (Mr. Bush’s spin team is seriously lacking in the waning days of his would-be reign.)
That plan is, of course, playing out the clock. That plan is telling the soldiers they can return to their homes when they achieve success, but gives them no hope of finding that elusive goal. To make that goal even more unattainable, Bush provides no definition of what success is. He just tells them that reinforcing troops will be pulled out, stretching the remaining forces even thinner, bringing them that much closer to the breaking point.
And yet there he forces them to stay, until they succeed. At something. He tells their families and those of us back home, essentially, that until our troops figure out how to fix this mess, then they just have to stay there and tough it out. Because it’s his war and he’ll keep it going as long as he wants, consequences (and body bags) be damned.
For 1600 days since “Mission Accomplished,” and through the loss of at least 3,781 dutiful American lives, Bush has been a petulant commander in chief playing army men, as if those 3,781 men and women and their fellow soldiers were so many toy soldiers. He has proven unable to recognize the quagmire staring him in the face, refusing the advice of his military advisors going into Iraq resulting in this gawd-awful mess, and refusing the advice of the Iraq study group in January resulting in this pointless and failed escalation.
And today he has the gall to tell the men and women in Iraq that they will just have to be there until they do better, but he doesn’t have any plan for helping them do just that. If that’s not a hostage situation, I don’t know what is.
A note to our leaders in Congress. As with a petulant pre-adolescent, there’s no “negotiating” with Bush. He’s not going to bend to your will unless you give him no other option. In other words, don’t give him his money for this war without a deadline for its ending.
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