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POPSDoD Leak On Deployed Force Casualties Unpardonable investigations and charges of war crimes. ThreatsWatch will be utilizing its many military, intelligence, policy maker and administration sources to get to the bottom of what is proving to be yet another intolerable breach of confidentiality and information security at the highest levels of government. This clearly politically motivated and coordinated endeavor to sabotage future policy aims can be neither dismissed nor allowed to proceed unpunished. UPDATE: The “senior Administration official” noted above has now added to the damage by data on Iraqi force structure. “Iraqi forces now have 192 combat battalions in the fight – and more than 110 of these battalions are taking the lead in combat operations against terrorists and extremists,” the senior official was quoted as saying to reluctant media sources, now pressed into covering the developing and clearly organized and systematic intelligence leak effort.
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POPSU.S. Ambassador Cites Positive Changes In Iraq
The enemy may be pushing back, the Iraqi government’s response displays intolerance for these acts and a determination to reclaim their neighborhoods from the perpetrators, the ambassador said. Leadership response to a June 24 attack in Sadr City aimed at district council members is a prime example. On June 26, the council reconvened to hold the election that had been scheduled for the day of the attack and elected one of the members who had been wounded as its new chairman. It then denounced the attackers, publicly thanked the United States for its support, and extended sympathy to those affected by the attack, Crocker said. “We’ve got more hard work in front of us,” he said. “The fighting is by no means over, but clearly we are in a different and better place than we were even six months ago.” Though work remains to be completed in Iraq, Crocker said, he is certain the climate is in place for Iraqis to build their country on all fronts -- security, political and economic.
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POPSObscene Pentagon Budget disappearing down the Rabbit hole of corruption
Money Problems The Pentagon has its work cut out for it. Keeping track of its more than half trillion dollar budget and the hundreds of billions more in war spending is no easy task. There is bound to be some slippage here and there. But the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office recently reported to Congress that the Pentagon is unable to account for nearly $15 billion earmarked for the Iraq reconstruction effort. In a May report to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Inspector General’s Office highlights $7.8 billion paid to contractors for everything from telephones to trucks without any support documentation—like a check for $5.6 million to an Iraqi contractor. For what? No one knows. Or the $32 million doled out to build a facility for the Iraqi military. Never built. Why not? No one knows. One reason that money just seems to disappear is that there are not enough people watching the books. While the Pentagon budget has soared in the past seven years,
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POPS"No more Iraq occupation funding." How much longer must this illegal, extortionate war in Iraq go on? There has been so much damage caused by this war ranging from the loss of influence to the United States of America, around the world, to the endless casualties of Iraqi citizens. Totals (Especially from the Pro-war, Pro-neocons) are estimated at 84,050 to 91,713 but these figures, although quite shocking, are not the true estimate. A study in 2006 assesses the loss of life at over 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day (A report, which of course, President Bush does not consider credible.). That would mean, every single family most likely, has suffered a loss in this war. Natural disasters that are inundating the news today, such as in Myanmar, . And China's death toll from last week’s earthquake ... Alarming numbers but still dwarfed by the Iraqi totals.
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POPSMcCain "Death of Iraqis due to war? In the Hundreds of Thousands" Either McCain has no clue what he's talking about. Which is a very distinct possibility if anyone's been following his gaffes on what's actually taking place in the Mid-East ...... or ...... much of what the lunatic rightwing holds onto, as ridiculously low numbers of Iraqi deaths due to Bush's reckless war based on lies, is propaganda
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POPS Q&A: Who is Moqtada al-Sadr? (continued)>>>Shi'ite guerrillas, who continued the insurgency. Where is he now? Sadr is believed to have moved to Tehran last year and is studying to become an ayatollah in the holy city of Qom. He is said to have married an Iranian woman. It is not clear how much control he exercises over the Mahdi army. A substantial part of the army still takes its orders from the Qods Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The ceasefire has been repeatedly tested by the "special groups", but Sadr's call for a civil revolt appears to have been prompted by the necessity of surviving the most aggressive bid by Iraq's security forces to assert the state's authority in Basra. What happens next? The Iraqi army, despite its British and American training, does not have the organisation or discipline to drive his followers out of towns and cities. The best that can be hoped for is that Sadr supporters will acquiesce to a stronger security force and establish their support in provincial
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POPSIraqi Guards Leave Posts Near Baghdad I've never heard of soldiers going on strike. Don't they realize that they are at war and will be shot for desertion. Blackwater will fix it. No worries. They must be really p....d off to do this.
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POPSGood News! All Iraqi Groups Blame the U.S. Invasion for the Civil War in Iraq
More: Dated December 2007, the report notes "the Iraqi government has still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of national reconciliation." Asked to describe "the current situation in Iraq to a foreign visitor," some groups focused on positive aspects of the recent security improvements. But "most would describe the negative elements of life in Iraq beginning with the 'U.S. occupation' in March 2003," the report says. Few mentioned Saddam Hussein as a cause of their problems, which the report described as an important finding implying that "the current strife in Iraq seems to have totally eclipsed any agonies or grievances many Iraqis would have incurred from the past regime, lasting nearly four decades -- as opposed to the current conflict, lasting five years." Overall, "these findings may be expected to conclude that national reconciliation is neither anticipated nor possible. In reality, this survey provides very strong evidence that the opposite is tru
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POPSThe War Crimes Keep Addin Up--and Covered Up The military and the MSM do NOT want us to know what is really happening...I can only cry out and hope someday there will be some justice--but the indiscriminate killing goes on while the Bushies claim "the surge is working"! Goddamn them all to hell!
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POPSIraq Coalition Casualty Count This is the best compilation I've seen yet. It shows casualties - US UK, coalition forces. It also shows the number of wounded as well as the number of Iraqi civilian casualties.
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POPSDemocrats' 'F' Troop Just a general assessment of the *current* climate in Iraq and in the US. Despite every negative event that can be scrounged up, there is hope in Iraq for the US to be able to successfully turn the security and management of Iraq over to their elected government. It's happening even now. The rest is up to them That is not to deny that there maybe/will be in-fighting and jockeying for power. The US, and others, most certainly will maintain a "presence" in the Country. It would be foolish, in light of our national and personal investments, to do otherwise. But the Democrats *apparent* desire for defeat, failure and dishonorable withdrawal won't be there. Shame, shame on them.
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POPSLately, Iraq news vanishes from the MSM • Iraqi civilian casualties are down two-thirds from their peak in December 2006. • Iraq's government and the U.S. military say al-Qaida has been vanquished in Baghdad, as thousands of Iraqi families return to the capital to rebuild their lives. • The U.S. has announced it will remove 3,000 troops, with more to follow in coming months, as the wind-down of the surge begins. But so it goes with anti-war news organizations that aggressively report setbacks in Iraq but give short, if any, shrift to the positive developments. It's to the point where some news observers use the absence of news about Iraq as a bellwether of U.S. progress — the old "no news is good news" indicator.
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POPSTroops 1, Puppet Government 0 O’HANLON: … and it doesn’t answer the questions about political progress. KARL: In fact, there’s been almost no political progress on the national level, and U.S. officials know military gains won’t mean much if the Iraqi government doesn’t get its act together, which is one reason the Pentagon doesn’t even want to use the word “winning.” You’re not ready to say we’re winning, that the surge is working – ROBERT GATES : (From tape.) I think — I think that those end up being loaded words. I think we have been very successful. We need to continue being successful. KARL: Today, Defense Secretary Gates said that the reduction in violence would not have been possible without the surge of 30,000 additional troops into Iraq, but, Charlie, those troops are going home in the coming months, raising the question of whether the violence will go up when they leave. GIBSON: Jonathan Karl tonight reporting from the Pentagon, thanks
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POPS"We will make th Kurd rebels grieve" When I have 2 friends fighting, each wanting my support, I simply tell them, I will not take sides, both friendships are important to me and I will remain neutral. Why can't countries make it this simple?
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POPSIraq: Surge Working? Could it be that the numbers released by the Bush Administration and conservative commentators hide the truth about the success of the surge? And, what will happen if (when?) we attack Iran and it retaliates by hitting the two closest targets: Israel and our troops in Iraq?
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POPS The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished Court cases, such as the ones surrounding the massacre in Haditha and the rape and murder of a 14-year-old in Mahmudiya, and news stories in the Washington Post, Time, the London Independent and elsewhere based on Iraqi accounts have begun to hint at the wide extent of the attacks on civilians. Human rights groups have issued reports, such as Human Rights Watch's Hearts and Minds: Post-war Civilian Deaths in Baghdad Caused by U.S. Forces, packed with detailed incidents that suggest that the killing of Iraqi civilians by occupation forces is more common than has been acknowledged by military authorities.
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POPSDeath Bait, new bait in Iraq
"In a country that is awash in armaments and magazines and implements of war, if every time somebody picked up something that was potentially useful as a weapon, you might as well ask every Iraqi to walk around with a target on his back," said Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice. "We don't discuss specific methods targeting enemy combatants," said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman. "The accused are charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals. There are no classified programs that authorize the murder of local nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear legally justified." "It's our job out here to lay people down who are doing bad things," Spec. Joshua L. Michaud testified in Iraq in July, discussing the unit's numerous casualties. "I don't want to call it revenge, but we needed to find a way so that we could get the bad guys the right way and still maintain the right military things to d
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