Republican Senator sez Iraq Security is Worsening

[jAfO]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/06/iraq.chafee/index.html


If we are going to win in this situation we have to stop politisizing things and face the realities of the situation. If we continue to fiddle while Rome burns we will lose this thing.

[Lazarus]

Lincoln Chafee is a RINO. Who cares what he thinks?

That's right the MEDIA does becaue like McCain he can be counted on to knife the Bush Administration in the back--and smile whn he does it for the cameras.

::) ::) ::)

[wendy]

Does this mean that JaFO is joining the Army and going to Iraq?

[Unca Walt]

Does this mean that jAfO is NOT pleased with the pronouncement made by this REPUBLICAN? That jAfO is NOT "gratified" by it?

Hm?

Unca Walt

Ok well only shiney happy news from Iraq from now on, less Walt accusses you of being sympathetic to the enemy. Isn't Iraq going swell? freedom is on the march! La la la la ::)

Perhaps this section should be renamed "Good News from Iraq". Now we know what the North Korean press corps feels like.

[Observer]

Pepsi,

I haven't seen anyone advocate that only "good" news from Iraq be published. But don't you think it would be more honest of the press, and permit Americans to make better informed judgments of the situation there if some of the positive accomplishments were reported on as well, rather than plastering the press with nothing but the negative?

If you used only the major media as your information source on Iraq, do you think you would have any idea of what is actually happening on the ground?

I find it interesting that first hand reports from the troops tend to paint a very different picture from what you see and read in the "news".

Don't you?

[HollyBaere]

Pepsi,

I haven't seen anyone advocate that only "good" news from Iraq be published. But don't you think it would be more honest of the press, and permit Americans to make better informed judgments of the situation there if some of the positive accomplishments were reported on as well, rather than plastering the press with nothing but the negative?

If you used only the major media as your information source on Iraq, do you think you would have any idea of what is actually happening on the ground?

I find it interesting that first hand reports from the troops tend to paint a very different picture from what you see and read in the "news".

Don't you?


No Observer, you and the other "Bush's War in Iraq" supporters don't want to face reality. Did it ever occur to you that the picture painted by those troops are only from the one's who will say what you want to hear?? Did you realise that the news from the "Green Zone" is a whole lot different that that of Fallujah or even Mousul?? Naw, that would burst your "rosey picture" bubble!

I'm not saying that there is no good things going on in Iraq, but I would say 99% bad to 1% good is not a stellar record considering how long this "cake walk war" has been raging on.

************************************************** ***********************

US has suffered heavy casualties in Iraq: Al-Sadr:
[India News]: Hyderabad, Dec 17 : The US Army had suffered heavy casualities from attacks by resistance and apart from army bases, it had no control over the rest of Iraq, a representative of the Al-Sadr militia said here today.

The Iraqi people were united in resisting the US-led occupation and there was no Shia-Sunni divide in Iraq, as was being projected by the Western media, Cheik Hassan Zarkani, representative of the militia, actively engaged in fighting US forces in the Shia-majority region of Iraq, said.

Zarkani was addressing the opening session of three-day Anti-War Assembly, organised by intellectuals and left thinkers to channelise the global protest against Iraq war, which began here today.

The Al-Sadr representative, who lives in exile in Lebanon, blamed deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussain's tyranny for creating conditions which enabled the US to attack Iraq.

The opening session denounced the wars unleashed by the USA and the UK on the people of the world.

More than 500 delegates, including those from Iraq, Palestine, the UK, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and India, are attending the assembly to protest war. PTI




This page printed from: http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=48797
************************************************** ***********************

3 employees of body organizing next month's elections killed in central Baghdad ambush
Sunday December 19, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) About 30 gunmen ambushed a car Sunday in central Baghdad carrying employees of the Iraqi organization running next month's elections, killing three of the workers while two escaped unhurt, an official from the election body said.

Adel al-Lami, a member of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the early morning attack took place in downtown Baghdad's Haifa Street, the scene of repeated clashes between security forces and insurgents.

Al-Lami said about 30 militants ambushed a car carrying five employees working for the commission's Baghdad office, hurling hand grenades at the vehicle and firing at it with machine-guns.

Three employees, including a security guard, were killed in the brazen ambush, while two escaped unhurt.

``They tried to drag them out of the car,'' he said of the militants, who eyewitnesses said later set fire to the vehicle and wandered the street openly brandishing their weapons.


(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
http://cbs4.com/worldnews/Iraq-Clashes-ai/resources_news_html

************************************************** ***********************

Westerner beheaded on Mosul street as American forces lose control of key city
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
18 December 2004


Gunmen raked a car with machine-gun fire in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, killing three foreigners and their driver. They then cut off the head of one of their victims.

The killings show that at the same time as the US was recapturing Fallujah in a heavily publicised assault it largely lost control of Mosul, Iraq's northern capital. Though US troops launched a counter-attack, their grip on the city remains tenuous. The four men who died yesterday were travelling in a white sedan when it was attacked with automatic weapons and set on fire at a traffic intersection in Mosul.

One of the foreigners was briefly captured by the insurgents, according to an eyewitness. When he tried to escape they cut his head off and left his body in a pool of blood.

A photographer for Reuters news agency saw four bodies lying beside the burning car. Three of those who died appeared to be foreigners, one of whom looked Turkish and the other two European. The fourth body, possibly of the driver, was partly burnt, but appeared to be that of an Arab.

The men were carrying small automatic weapons, indicating that they may have been working for one of the private security companies in Iraq.

Mosul, a city on the Tigris river with a population of 1.2 million, is largely populated by Sunni Muslims but has a large Kurdish minority. It has increasingly fallen into the hands of Sunni insurgents over the past six weeks.

Insurgents launched an uprising on 10 November, two days after the US Marines started their attack on Mosul, and stormed 10 police stations. Out of a local police force of 8,000, all but 1,000 have deserted and only 400 of those remaining are considered reliable.

Earlier in the year, the US occupation of Mosul by the 101st Airborne was presented as a model of what the occupation should have been in the rest of the country. Several thousand army officers publicly renounced Baathism. The local police force was being built up. The unpopular political parties of returned exiles in Baghdad were kept at bay.

Until the past few months, guerrilla attacks in Mosul were both less frequent and less effective than further south around Baghdad. This may have been because Mosul and Nineveh province, of which it is the centre, was never seen as a bastion of support for Saddam Hussein. But the city was always a nationalist centre and a recruiting ground for the officer corps of the Iraqi army. The defence minister under the old regime was usually from Mosul.

Unlike Fallujah, the guerrillas did not contest the recapture of Mosul by US and Iraqi forces in November. Leaflets were issued instructing fighters to hide their weapons and stay in the city. Since then 150 bodies have found, many of them members of the National Guard or other security forces. US forces in Iraq are being built up from 138,000 to 150,000 men and are already stretched trying to hold Sunni Muslim cities and towns around Baghdad. They were never able to surround Fallujah, even at the height of the battle last month, and many fighters escaped.

Much of the US Army in Iraq is tied down providing support services, guarding fixed positions or protecting convoys that are frequently attack. US patrols often seem to serve no particular purpose but severely disrupt traffic because Iraqi drivers do not want to get close to the American vehicles in case they are attacked.

In Fallujah, the mayor, Mahmoud Ibrahim, said the first families would start to return to the south of the city yesterday. But this may be in doubt because there is shelling is continuing in northern Fallujah.

There are more than 250,000 refugees who fled the city to seek shelter in Baghdad 35 miles away or the nearby city of Ramadi. Others are in camps on the city outskirts or in neighbouring villages. Fallujah has had no power or water since the US assault and these will take time to restore.
19 December 2004 12:02

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594312

************************************************** ***********************

Soldier Charged With Having Himself Shot




By RANDY PENNELL
Associated Press Writer

December 17, 2004, 10:57 AM EST

PHILADELPHIA -- A soldier who allegedly had a relative shoot him so he wouldn't have to return to Iraq could face military discipline.

Army Spc. Marquise J. Roberts, of Hinesville, Ga., suffered a minor wound Tuesday to his left leg from a .22-caliber pistol, police said. He was treated at a hospital, then arrested after he and a relative allegedly admitted making up a story about the shooting.

After giving differing accounts, "they just broke down and confessed that they concocted the whole story so he didn't have to go back to the war," police Lt. James Clark said Thursday.

Police charged Roberts with filing a false report and charged a cousin, Roland Fuller, with aggravated assault and other charges.

Roberts could face military discipline if the charges prove true, said Lt. Col. Cliff Kent, a spokesman for the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, but the civilian case probably would proceed first.

Roberts, who was visiting family in Philadelphia, initially claimed he was shot during an attempted robbery, but Fuller had said the incident occurred at another location during an argument, according to Clark.

Roberts, 23, was on a two-week leave from the 3rd Infantry Division, which led the assault on Baghdad in 2003. He had been scheduled to return this week to Fort Stewart, Ga., and to return to Iraq within the next few months. The division has been home since the summer of 2003.

Police said Roberts, a supply specialist who had spent seven months in Iraq, was distraught about having to return to combat duty and wanted to stay with his family.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-soldier-charged,0,3863756,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[Observer]

Holly,

You really don't have a clue. You quote a spokesman for Al Sadr as your news source?

I'd be willing to bet that in World War II you would have listened to Goebbels to find out how the war was going.

[HollyBaere]

Holly,

You really don't have a clue. You quote a spokesman for Al Sadr as your news source?

I'd be willing to bet that in World War II you would have listened to Goebbels to find out how the war was going.




It's not me that doesn't have a clue, Observer. All you want to hear is about how "Bush has liberated 50 million people and how free the Iraqi's are now" and it just simply is NOT TRUE!! And repeating the lie isn't going to make it so either.

No, I certainly don't rely on Al-Sadr as any source, it just happened to be one that I used to show that no matter where you look, the story is the same. I know you don't like to hear it, but it is very sadly true. Note: How you convieniently ignored the other articles.

I don't have to search for the bad things, unfortunately they are not hard to find at all. I do however, have to really search for the good things and considering what you want to believe, the ratio is pitiful at best.

Admitting you have made a mistake is a very hard thing to do. But, when you know you are wrong and you keep on making the mistake is total stupidity!

[WCP]

Pfffffffffffffffffft. ::)

[HollyBaere]

Pfffffffffffffffffft. ::)



What an ASSHOLE you are, Badnews!!

Why would I expect anything intelligent from the likes of you?? I'd probably have more chance of winning the Lottery!

[WCP]

What an ASSHOLE you are, Badnews!!

Why would I expect anything intelligent from the likes of you?? I'd probably have more chance of winning the Lottery!


Thank you. :-*

Yer an idiot. ;D

oh, yeah...and before I forget...





































Pffffffffffffffffffffft X 2 8)

[wendy]

Holly, why don't you pop some Midol and crawl back into your cave? ::)

I can usually tolerate a lot...but your whining and shrieking are getting a little old.

[Unca Walt]

Pepsi, before The Holly came in and quoted the are your ready fer this?? Al Sadr!!!! to back up her clearly anti-American position, did you get a chance to read Observer's very cogent post?

[jAfO]

Pepsi,

I haven't seen anyone advocate that only "good" news from Iraq be published. But don't you think it would be more honest of the press, and permit Americans to make better informed judgments of the situation there if some of the positive accomplishments were reported on as well, rather than plastering the press with nothing but the negative?

If you used only the major media as your information source on Iraq, do you think you would have any idea of what is actually happening on the ground?

I find it interesting that first hand reports from the troops tend to paint a very different picture from what you see and read in the "news".

Don't you?


I don't get all my news out of Iraq from the major media, I happen to have some other sources. At this time five of my former students happen to be stationed in Iraq and on top of that I have had several students who have been in iraq and returned from there. The last one I talked to personally returned about a month and a half ago to recover from wounds he received from a grenade outside of Fallujah. These soldiers don't paint a very good picture of what is going on in country today. They tell me about security situations that are getting steadily worse and a situation that has very little progress involved, they're working very hard but things aren't going the way they would like it to. Their words aren't going to make it into Stars and Stripes, but I tend to listen to them very carefully.

[LanceALott]

Pepsi, before The Holly came in and quoted the are your ready fer this?? Al Sadr!!!! to back up her clearly anti-American position, did you get a chance to read Observer's very cogent post?


Who in hell do you think you are to decide what is American or anti-American, you Nazi SOB?

[Larry_Oldtimer]

Did I just hear someone fart? Oh, just LaL, I guess. Oh well. And as to the news reports and how they are always presenting only the negative side of it all . . . that is the way news organizations do it now. Anti-Americanism is rather chic among reporters. Just remember the old adage: "It is always darkest just before dawn."

[WCP]

Did I just hear someone fart? Oh, just LaL, I guess.


;D

[Unca Walt]

As long as you don't quote KerryALott, I do not have to read about the Nazis in his bedroom. I am willing to bet a $20 bill that he used the word "Nazi" in whatever he said...

Unca Walt :) ;) 8)

[LanceALott]

As long as you don't quote KerryALott, I do not have to read about the Nazis in his bedroom. I am willing to bet a $20 bill that he used the word "Nazi" in whatever he said...

Unca Walt :) ;) 8)


Looks like Walt has a guilt complex,

Oh, well, he should.

As long as you don't quote KerryALott, I do not have to read about the Nazis in his bedroom. I am willing to bet a $20 bill that he used the word "Nazi" in whatever he said...

Unca Walt :) ;) 8)


he said, to paraphrase, he thinks its Nazi-like for you to think you can dictate what is American and what is un-American.

[LanceALott]

he said, to paraphrase, he thinks its Nazi-like for you to think you can dictate what is American and what is un-American.


If Walt is going to act and talk like a Nazi, he should be prepared to get a Swastika stuck up his ass.

And with all those twists and sharp corners on the Twisted Cross, I can see why it hurts and he can't take it.

[Conservinator]

BushyBaere:

I'm not saying that there is no good things going on in Iraq, but I would say 99% bad to 1% good is not a stellar record considering how long this "cake walk war" has been raging on.

If only Saddam were still in power...things would be so much better, wouldn't they, Holly?

That's basically what you are saying.

[jAfO]

BushyBaere:If only Saddam were still in power...things would be so much better, wouldn't they, Holly?

That's basically what you are saying.



If Saddam were still in power there would be still be no WMD threatening America. Saddam would still be weakening and would pose no threat to America. The Iraqi people would still be suffering, but considering the number and availability of Ak 47's in that country that's their own fault and it should have been up to them to overthrow their own dictator. If Saddam were still in power over 1.000 dead american soldiers would still be alive.

You seem to put a lot of store in Saddam no longer being in power, as if that in itself was reason enough for us to invade Iraq and risk the lives of our fighting men and women. I disagree, I think that we had Saddam contained and we had neutralized him as a threat and that our situation now is much more precarious than it was before. Getting rid of Saddam is a worthless gesture unless we can make Iraq a success. I pray for that success to be realized, but it becomes less likely every day.

[HollyBaere]

If Saddam were still in power there would be still be no WMD threatening America. Saddam would still be weakening and would pose no threat to America. The Iraqi people would still be suffering, but considering the number and availability of Ak 47's in that country that's their own fault and it should have been up to them to overthrow their own dictator. If Saddam were still in power over 1.000 dead american soldiers would still be alive.

You seem to put a lot of store in Saddam no longer being in power, as if that in itself was reason enough for us to invade Iraq and risk the lives of our fighting men and women. I disagree, I think that we had Saddam contained and we had neutralized him as a threat and that our situation now is much more precarious than it was before. Getting rid of Saddam is a worthless gesture unless we can make Iraq a success. I pray for that success to be realized, but it becomes less likely every day.


Unfortunately, jAfO I think you are right.

[Observer]

Unfortunately, jAfO I think you are right.

That is strong evidence that he's wrong.

[Jethro Tull]

Holly,

You really don't have a clue. You quote a spokesman for Al Sadr as your news source?

I'd be willing to bet that in World War II you would have listened to Goebbels to find out how the war was going.





Whaddya mean, "would have?" She still listens to Goebbels . . . probably masturbates to his rants.


Interesting that jAfO and Holly have both chimed in on how much better it would be to have Saddam still in power, though, isn't it? At least they are beginning to admit whose side they are on . . .

[HollyBaere]

Whaddya mean, "would have?" She still listens to Goebbels . . . probably masturbates to his rants.


Interesting that jAfO and Holly have both chimed in on how much better it would be to have Saddam still in power, though, isn't it? At least they are beginning to admit whose side they are on . . .




Jethro, I don't even know any of what Goebbels policies were or where I would even find them.

But, interestingly enough you totally avoid why I agreed with what jAfO said. NOTE: The use of the word "unfortunately"!!

I wasn't saying so much that Saddam should still be in power, but I still think The Bush Regime could have gone about it another way.

Note this quote: "If Saddam were still in power there would be still be no WMD threatening America. Saddam would still be weakening and would pose no threat to America. The Iraqi people would still be suffering, but considering the number and availability of Ak 47's in that country that's their own fault and it should have been up to them to overthrow their own dictator. If Saddam were still in power over 1.000 dead american soldiers would still be alive."

Almost ALL of the reasons that The Bush Regime used to promote this war turned out to be UNTRUE. So, until proven other wise, like a DIRECT QUOTE from "The BIG PIG" himself (Ariel Sharon), I as others will believe and maintain that the U.S. is in Iraq ONLY because Israel felt threatened by Saddam. And they couldn't wait any longer for the sanctions to work and for the pipeline to open from Mousul to Haifa.

The ONE and ONLY reason we are "reshaping" the Middle East is not for The protection of the U.S., it is for Israel. And I say that if Israel wants this, let their soldiers die! They are the ones that have made EVERY Arab country that surrounds them an enemy, and now they think the U.S. is going to foot the bill to save their ass with the cost of money and American lives.

And NOW.....they want the U.S. to invade Iran??

Go ahead! Prove me wrong! (ONLY facts please!) I have heard enough of you opinionated drivel!

[jAfO]

Whaddya mean, "would have?" She still listens to Goebbels . . . probably masturbates to his rants.


Interesting that jAfO and Holly have both chimed in on how much better it would be to have Saddam still in power, though, isn't it? At least they are beginning to admit whose side they are on . . .


I don't know whose side Holly is on, and frankly i don't care, but I am firmly on America's side. I take the interests of this country above everyone else in the world, our people and our system are paramount to me. We know whose side you folks take, you take George Bush's side. No matter how bad it is for this nation you folks will back Bush, you are putting the interests of the Republican party and Bush above the best interests of this nation as a whole.

Saddam was a bastard, but it was not and is not in the best interests of this nation to be where we are now. Maybe you would like to actually show how we are better off now than we were with Saddam in power, I'll bet you can't do it.

[Conservinator]

Bushybaere:

I wasn't saying so much that Saddam should still be in power, but I still think The Bush Regime could have gone about it another way.

You have in the past said that you think Saddam should still be in power!

You also have said before that there was another way that Saddam could have been removed from power. This comes as no surprise, of course, since you routinely talk out of both sides of your mouth.

If there was another way to remove Saddam from power, then what is it? Even after invading his country, Saddam wouldn't leave until our troops were in Baghdad.

Oh, I just remembered...you once said that the CIA should have assassinated Saddam in lieu of using military force...is that the "other way" that you are referring to?

[Conservinator]

Hollybush:

Go ahead! Prove me wrong! (ONLY facts please!) I have heard enough of you opinionated drivel!

No amount of facts presented will deter you from the psychotic fantasies you believe in.

[Larry_Oldtimer]

This whole thing is rather like immunization. One prevents getting a disease with serious consequences, but will probably suffer some minor discomfort, perhaps mild illness as part of the process. And there is no certainty that one would have gotten the disease if not having been inoculated, and indeed, frequently, the person wouldn't have. There is also some cost and inconvenience involved in the immunization process. Nevertheless, wise people choose to be immunized. I would never be willing to take the risks that jAFo and the rest of his ilk would take (and would force the rest of us to take, had he his choice) when it can be avoided. ???

[jAfO]

This whole thing is rather like immunization. One prevents getting a disease with serious consequences, but will probably suffer some minor discomfort, perhaps mild illness as part of the process. And there is no certainty that one would have gotten the disease if not having been inoculated, and indeed, frequently, the person wouldn't have. There is also some cost and inconvenience involved in the immunization process. Nevertheless, wise people choose to be immunized. I would never be willing to take the risks that jAFo and the rest of his ilk would take (and would force the rest of us to take, had he his choice) when it can be avoided. ???


Unfortunately those of you can't see beyond the empty promises given by Bush may not realize that this cure has a very real possibility of being worse than the disease it was meant to cure.