IRAQ WAR

Nobel laureate slams Bush, Blair on IRAQ WAR

2005-12-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law, said Pinter, known for his outspoken criticism of U.S. foreign policy

Nobel literature laureate Harold Pinter has slammed U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a harsh award lecture at Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Wednesday, saying they should be prosecuted for the invasion of Iraq.

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? he asked, in a hoarse voice.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East, Pinter said.

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them, he said. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

Responding to the Vice President's Questions

2005-11-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

The points raised by Dick Cheney in his speeches at American Enterprise Institute in last few days summarizes the arguments used by the Right wing of the Republican Party and it follows:

“We never had the burden of proof; Saddam Hussein did."

If that was true,
- Why did this administration made a fool of themselves in front of United Nations and the rest of the world by making outrageously false assertions about mobile chemical labs, Aluminum tubes and Al Qaeda connections based on single uncorroborated sources?
- Why did they stretch the intelligence about the Aluminum tubes and ignored suggestions from the best-qualified experts (Dept of Energy scientists) on the topic in the Federal government and suggested that Iraq has “in fact” reconstituted its nuclear program.
- Why did they use flimsy allegations by Al Libi (who recanted those intelligence subsequently) to pass on as facts that Iraq had “relationships with Al Qaeda”?

The fact of the matter is, this administration decided to invade Iraq unilaterally without the support of a broader coalition. Many in the administration, including Bush and Cheney had decided to deal with Iraq long before 9/11 and there is plenty of written material on this topic. The administration clearly used 9/11 as an excuse to go into Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein without regard to stabilizing the country after the fact and unwilling to put enough boots on the ground to secure the country.

“A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further violence against free nations and a terrible blow to the future security of the US,”

Washington Post reported today that less than 10% of the insurgency is made of foreign fighters and that overwhelming majority of the insurgency is made up of Iraqis, primarily Iraqi Sunnis disenfranchised by the occupation. Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in
Washington told Post, “Interrogations and other analyses carried out in recent weeks showed that none of those captured was from outside Iraq. According to McMaster's staff, the 3rd Armored Cavalry last detained a foreign fighter in June.” Bush administration and Republican campaign machine has referred to the Iraq situation as fighting terrorism.

That is absolutely an intentional mischaracterization of Iraq War.

We are at war with terrorists around the globe. The idea is not to try and win every battle, especially not the ones at their terms. By pulling out of Iraq, we separate the Bathists and plain old thugs from real terrorists around the globe. In an effort to cleanse Iraq of foreign terrorists, Iraqis will fight these elements out of their country. Iraqis are too smart to let these thugs run their country. We would have divided the resistance against our troops and denied the sympathy and comfort provided to these so-called foreign fighters. Iraqis can separate them better than we can. Remember, plain folks make up a huge part of these Jihadists. Once we get out of Iraq, most of them will go back to their lives. As for the Al Qaeda, setting up base in Iraq, that is precisely where Murtha’s backup plan comes into play. The reason Al Qaeda was rebuffed by the people of Afghanistan following our Afghanistan offensive was, no one wants to be seen with these bad guys. They wanted freedom and security and Iraqis are not different. Besides, It’s the classic not in backyard problem. Iraq more so than other countries in the Middle East have always tried to distance themselves from Al Qaeda, so the odds are extremely good that people of Iraq will reject that notion. If that doesn’t happen we reserve the right to go back in, but it vitally important to give people of Iraq a chance to handle this problems themselves.

“Such a retreat would convince the terrorists that free nations will change our politics, forsake our friends, abandon our interest whenever we are confronted with murder and blackmail.”

No one is talking about changing our politics, forsake our friends or abandon our interests. We are talking about rescuing a failed policy of this administration, which sent our brave men and women into a mission that was flawed from the start. Iraq was not a center of terrorism and we hope that it does not remain one long after we are gone. By staying in Iraq longer, we turn that place more and more into a terrorist haven. We delay effort by the Iraqis take charge of their country and promote civil war.

It was not worth the blood of our brave men and women, close to 2100 of them have perished and more than 15000 wounded, about half of them lost limbs or sustained life-changing injuries.

Re-writing history of IRAQ War

2005-11-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

Analysis of George W. Bush's speech on Veterans day, 2005
by David Corn

In a Veterans Day speech on Friday, delivered to troops and others at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, George W. Bush veered from the usual commemoration of sacrifice to strike at critics who have questioned whether he steered the country into war by using false information. This has become a tough and troubling issue for his presidency. A poll taken before his speech found that 57 percent of the respondents now believe that Bush "deliberately misled" the nation into war. That is astounding and, I assume, without precedent in history. Has there been another wartime period during which a majority of Americans believed the president had purposefully bamboozled them about the reasons for that war? Addressing this charge is tough for Bush because it calls more attention to it, and the on-ground-realities in Iraq only cause more popular unease with the war.

But Bush and his aides calculated that it was better to punch back than ignore the criticism, and that's a sign that they're worried that Bush is coming to be defined as a president who conned the nation into an ugly war.

So Bush tried. Let's break down his effort:

"Our debate at home must also be fair-minded. One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war."

Conservative who claim raising questions about the war does a disservice to the troops and is anti-American might want to keep these words in mind.

When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.

Actually, Congress did not approve Bush's decision to remove Saddam. In October 2002, the House and Senate approved a resolution that gave Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq if he deemed that appropriate. At the time, Bush and his aides were claiming it was their goal to force Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction and his WMD programs (which, we know now, did not exist). When the resolution passed---and in the weeks after---the White House insisted that Bush was not bent on "regime change" and that he was willing to work within the UN to force Saddam to accept UN inspectors (which Saddam did) in pursuit of the goal of disarming Iraq. Is Bush now saying that he had already resolved to invade Iraq at this point and all his talk about achieving disarmament through the UN process was bunk? Is he rewriting history--or telling us the real truth? In any event, when Bush did order the invasion of Iraq months later in March 2003, he did not ask Congress to vote on his decision to remove Saddam.

I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I accept the responsibilities, and the criticisms, and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.

Bush might accept "the responsibilities and criticisms," but has yet to acknowledge the mistakes he and his aides made before and after the invasion about planning for a post-invasion Iraq. He also has not insisted on any accountability for these mistakes. For instance, he gave a spiffy medal to former CIA chief George Tenet, who was responsible for the prewar intelligence failure.

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.

When was the last time Bush talked about how the war began--that is, when did he mention that his primary reason for war (protecting the American public from the supposed WMD threat posed by Saddam Hussein) was discredited by reality? Is ignoring history the same as rewriting it?

Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

This is not the full and accurate explanation of the controversy at hand. The issue of whether the Bush administration misled the nation in the run-up to the war has two components. The first is the production of the intelligence related to WMDs and the supposed al Qaeda-Sadam connection. The second is how the Bush crowd represented the intelligence to the public when trying to make the case for war. As for the first, the Senate intelligence committee report did say the committee had found no evidence of political pressure. But Democratic members of the committee and others challenged this finding. Several committee Democrats pointed to a CIA independent review on the prewar intelligence, conducted by a panel led by Richard Kerr, former deputy director of the CIA, which said, Requests for reporting and analysis of [Iraq's links to al Qaeda] were steady and heavy in the period leading up to the war, creating significant pressure on the Intelligence Community to find evidence that supported a connection. More to the point, Kerr told Vanity Fair that intelligence analysts did feel pressured by the go-to-war gang. The magazine in May 2004 reported,
"There was a lot of pressure, no question," says Kerr. "The White House, State, Defense were raising questions, heavily on W.M.D. and the issue of terrorism. Why did you select this information rather than that? Why have you downplayed this particular thing?...Sure, I heard that some of the analysts felt pressure. We heard about it from friends. There are always some people in the agency who will say, 'We've been pushed to hard.' Analysts will say, 'You're trying to politicize it.' There were people who felt there was too much pressure. Not that they were being asked to change their judgments, but there were being asked again and again to restate their judgments--do another paper on this, repetitive pressures. Do it again."
Was it a case, then, of officials repeatedly asking for another paper until they got the answer they wanted? "There may have been some of that," Kerr concedes. The requests came from "primarily people outside asking for the same paper again and again. There was a lot of repetitive tasking. Some of the analysts felt this was unnecessary pressure. The repetitive requests, Kerr made clear, came from the C.I.A.'s "senior customers," including "the White House, the vice president, State, Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Despite Bush's assertion, the question remains whether undue pressure was applied by the White House. And in his Veterans Day speech, Bush ducked the second issue: how he and his aides depicted the intelligence. This is the source of the dispute over the so-called Phase II investigation of the Senate intelligence committee. The allegation is that Bush and administration officials overstated and hyped the flawed intelligence and claimed it was definitive when they had reason to know it was not.

For example, in his final speech to the nation before launching the war, Bush claimed that US intelligence left "no doubt" about Iraq's supposed WMDs. But there was plenty of doubt on critical issues. Intelligence analysts at the Energy Department and State Department disagreed with those at the CIA about the evidence that purportedly showed Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program: its importation of aluminum tubes and the allegation that Iraq had been uranium-shopping in Niger. (In 2002, Dick Cheney said the tubes were "irrefutable evidence," and Condoleezza Rice said they were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." But a year earlier, as The New York Times reported in 2004, "Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear expert seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons.") The CIA believed Iraq had chemical weapons. But the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that there was no evidence such stockpiles existed.

Some intelligence analysts concluded that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles that could deliver chemical or biological weapons. The experts on UAVs at the Air Force thought this was not so. Was Bush speaking accurately when he told the public--and the world--there was "no doubt"?
Also, did Bush make specific claims unsupported by the intelligence? The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, produced in October 2002, maintained that Iraq had an active biological research and development program. Bush publicly said Iraq had "stockpiles" of biological weapons. There is a difference between an R&D program (which Iraq did not have) and warehouses loaded with ready-to-go weapons (which Bush implied existed). How did an R&D program become stockpiles? This is as intriguing a question as how those sixteen words about Iraq's alleged pursuit of uranium in Africa became embedded in the State of the Union speech Bush delivered in early 2003.

On the key issue of Saddam Hussein's alleged connection to al Qaeda, Bush also made statements that went beyond the intelligence. This link was crucial to the case for war, for Bush and other hawks were arguing that Saddam Hussein could slip his WMDs to his pal Osama bin Laden. Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein was "dealing with" al Qaeda. But his intelligence agencies had not reached that conclusion. (And the 9/11 Commission later said there was no evidence of collusion between al Qaeda and Saddam.) So how did Bush come to make such a statement? Recently, Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, released formerly classified material showing that before the war when Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell and other administration officials cited evidence that Iraq had been training al Qaeda operatives in the use of bombs and other weapons, Bush and these officials were relying on the statements of a captured al Qaeda member whose claims had been discounted by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Once more, how had Bush and his senior aides come to disseminate specific and provocative information deemed unreliable by the intelligence community?
Bush's Veterans Days comments addressed none of this.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein.

The people with the most hands-on information regarding WMDs in Iraq did not. The International Atomic Energy Agency, led by recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, concluded weeks before the war (after their inspectors had returned to Iraq) that Saddam Hussein had not revived the nuclear weapons program that the IAEA had dismantled in the mid-1990s. And Hans Blix, head of the UN inspectors in Iraq, repeatedly said that his team was not finding evidence of chemical or biological weapons stockpiles.

...And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate--who had access to the same intelligence--voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

As noted above, the Democrats voted to give Bush the authority to use force when he thought he should--but only after Bush had promised to go to the United Nations in an effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, who, it turned out, was telling the truth when he denied his government possessed WMDs. Even the John Kerry quote that Bush cites contains the to-disarm condition. And several Democratic members of Congress have claimed that they did not see all the intelligence that was available to the White House.

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges.

It's hard to argue with that.

These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough.

Who said that "it's perfectly legitimate to criticize" the "decision [to go to war in Iraq] or the conduct of the war"? That was Bush, moments earlier, in the same speech. So which is it? Is it okay to criticize the conduct of the war or not?

By the way, while accusing his critics of falsifying history, Bush never conceded that he launched the war on a false premise--that Saddam Hussein was up to his neck in WMDs--and, thus, as he paid tribute to veterans of this war and others, he did not accept responsibility for sending American troops into battle for a cause that did not exist.

Did we use Chemical weapons in IRAQ WAR?

2005-11-10T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well,

You may have heard by now the Allegations made by Italian state-run broadcaster RAI that US troops used US used white phosphorus on Iraqi civilians during their offensive in Fallujah in the fall of 2004. RAI documentary showed images of bodies recovered after a November 2004 offensive by U.S. troops on the town of Falluja, which it said proved the use of white phosphorus against men, women and children who were burned to the bone.

"I do know that white phosphorus was used," said Jeff Englehart in the RAI documentary, which identified him as a former soldier in the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq.

The U.S. military says white phosphorus is a conventional weapon and says it does not use any chemical arms.

"Burned bodies. Burned children and burned women," said Englehart, who RAI said had taken part in the Falluja offensive. "White phosphorus kills indiscriminately."

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he did not recall white phosphorus being used in Falluja. "I do not recall the use of white phosphorus during the offensive operations in Falluja in
the fall of 2004," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan said.

An incendiary device, white phosphorus is used by the military to conceal troop movements with smoke, mark targets or light up combat areas. The use of incendiary weapons against civilians has been banned by the Geneva Convention since 1980. The United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York said.

The Falluja offensive aimed to crush followers of al Qaeda's Iraq leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said to have linked up with local insurgents in the Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad. Some Western newspapers reported at the time that white phosporus had been used during the offensive.

In the documentary called "Falluja: The Hidden Massacre," RAI also said U.S. forces used the Mark 77 firebomb, a weapon similar to napalm, on military targets in Iraq in 2003. It cited a letter it said came from British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram, claiming 30 MK 77 weapons were used on military targets in Iraq between March 31 and April 2, 2003.
RAI posted a copy of the document at: http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/foto/documento_ministero.jpg.
RAI posted the full report, including television images, at http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/

What is wrong with President Bush’s Iraq WAR Argument

2005-10-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Bush said today at the “National Endowment for Democracy” that Iraq is crucial in global war on terror. The radical Islamists have made Iraq their base of operations and their objective is to overthrow moderate muslim governments in the middle east. That is one way of looking at it. The problem with that scenario is, we know for a fact that majority of these foreign fighters that president is referring to, came to that country because we’re in there, to fight what they think are Infidels. Will they go to Iran or Syria if we went there, you betcha. They went after Kobar towers while in Saudi Arabia, Beirut embassy while in Lebanon and so on. If there is a weak government and lax security and we are shooting targets, they will come. What we have done is provide them with a live battlefield to train their comrades and then disperse around the world to terrorize places of their choice. They’ve got best of both worlds; plenty of footage and target to create more appealing recruiting propaganda to brainwash young Muslims around the world and a battlefield to train them. If the President is looking for a battlefield to fight these terrorists, Iraq is as good or bad a country as any other in the Middle East. Does that mean we hold Iraqis hostage? Secondly, majority of the insurgents are local Iraqis. If they can fight us in their homeland, they can certainly fight the terrorists to rid their country of this menace. Iraq was known to be one of the liberal countries in the region and majority Iraqis are better educated and nationalists. The more serious issue in my opinion is to settle age-old disputes between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Our forces have become lightning rod for the Sunni insurgents and target objects for fundamentalist terrorist organizations bent on embarrassing us. The only we can avoid getting deeper and deeper into this mess, is to get out at an earliest possible time.

President Bush promised to rebuild the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina, adding “What ever it takes”. We are reaching $300 Billion in expenses on Iraq war. The budget deficit is skyrocketing, and currently costs $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America and that number is going by the minute. We cannot afford to experiment on President Bush’s ideas.

If Iraq was secured after fall of Saddam with sufficiently large troops presence, infiltration could have been managed and insurgency weakened. The commander-in-chief and secretary told us time and again that if the commanders on the field requested it, they would get what they want. That is passing the buck as far as I am concerned. President Bush, his cabinet and other members of the executive branch have been so blatantly wrong on so many important issues, that I do not believe a word this administration puts out.

Please support out troops, join the Parade

2005-09-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

You’ve heard this over and over. Our friends from all over the world are descending on Washington streets tomorrow, my hometown. Those brave souls deserve all our support in sending a clear message to this tone-deaf administration. Please support our troops, help anti war coalition send a clear message to the white house that they cannot continue to ignore the wishes of majority of people. Please join the march tomorrow. For more information, check this site http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=6793

During a visit to Washington, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Faisal told reporters that his government has warned the Bush administration of the dangers of Iraq's unraveling because of tensions between rival ethnic and religious groups, which he said were never as bad during former President Saddam Hussein's rule as they are today. That’s an up close view of how things are progressing in Iraq. In light of recent hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Gulf coast and an anticipated destruction from Rita, it is absolutely clear that we would need to fund hundreds of Billion’s of dollars in reconstructing the Gulf Coast. We cannot have guns and butter at the same time. Fed is clearly worried about the inflation and is on March in raising interest rates. With huge deficits at far as eye can see, we cannot pile on more debt.

Does this still look like “Fuzzy Math”?

US could withdraw 50,000 troops by year end: Talabani

2005-09-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The United States could withdraw as many as 50,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year because there are enough Iraqi forces ready to begin taking control of parts of the country, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/12/AR2005091201986.html).

In an interview with the newspaper that was published on Tuesday, Talabani said he would discuss reductions in U.S. forces during a private meeting with President George W. Bush and said he thought the United States could pull some troops out immediately. "We think that America has the full right to move some forces from Iraq to their country because I think we can replace them [with] our forces," Talabani said. "In my opinion, at least from 40,000 to 50,000 American troops can be [withdrawn] by the end of this year."

Whereas the official lines changed dramatically just hours later. In a press conference following their meeting, Talabani said, "We will set no timetable for withdrawal," Talabani said at the news conference, with Bush standing at a podium beside him. He said a timetable for withdrawal of American troops from his country would only "help the terrorists" and give them a "signal they can defeat us."

It is not hard figure out that what Talabani said earlier spoke to reality on the gound and what he said after meeting with Bush is an official jargon. What do you think will happen come end of this year or latest by Spring?

Pull out of Najaf

2005-09-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

Najaf is a good start. We are a country of finite resources and have plenty higher priorities than Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, was not an imminent threat to us and is not a front of “war on terror”; we made it to be one. The terrorists will follow is to any Middle Eastern country, not just Iraq. I believe strongly that Iraqis are capable of securing their own country. Iraqis make up more than 90% of current insurgency. They would not have anyone to fight but the foreign fighters, once we leave. Let the Sunnis and Shia (including the Kurds) workout their age-old differences. United States would have done its job once the new government is in place after December elections. In order to make this transition smooth we need to begin RIGHT NOW and build on the precedent set by Najaf.

Hurricane Katrina has highlighted some of the priorities for this administration, poverty alleviation, and healthcare, emergency preparedness among others. We all know by now the shear incompetence of this administration. I believe it should learn from its failures Iraq and New Orleans and focus one or two things that it is capable of reacting well to, like the Healthcare for all Americans and Emergency preparedness. Four years after a catastrophic attack by a determined enemy, Bush administrations reaction to a well-predicted and anticipated event with plenty of warning, speaks volumes about competence and priorities of this administration. Imagine 4 more New Orleans under this administration!

George Bush's Vietnam

2005-08-29T06:05:00.000-07:00

In the Baghdad of 2005, as in the Saigon of four decades ago, my government tells me that by staying the course, we'll cut out a vicious tumor metastasizing through the body of Western democracy.

Today's cancer is terrorism, not the red menace. But the singular constant remains this: Armies and governments at war all lie. They tell us that we're winning hearts and minds, that the troops will be home for Christmas, that the mission is accomplished. They did it then, and they're doing it now.
What would "winning" in Iraq mean, anyway? A democratic society that's free to elect an anti-American, pro-Iranian, fundamentalist Islamic government? A land of gushing oil wells feeding international oil company profits at U.S. taxpayers' expense? Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis joining hands to end terrorism around the world? Since, in my judgment, we were wrong to go in, I'm afraid there's no good way to get out.
Americans didn't know what "winning" meant in Vietnam, either. Most didn't understand the enemy, its objectives or the lengths to which it was prepared to go to attain them. We had a fuzzy notion of communist "world domination," and the "domino theory" and no realization that what the Vietnamese wanted, south and north, was independence. They didn't want to take over Southeast Asia. They didn't want to invade Los Angeles. They wanted to run their own country. They wanted us out.

Nor do we understand Iraq. The truth -- that Iraq was not a terrorist haven before we invaded, but we're making it into one today -- has been thickly painted over with unending coats of misinformation.
The enemy body-count fiasco at Saigon's daily "5 o'clock follies" -- as military briefings were dubbed by a derisive press corps -- has been replaced by meaningless claims of dead insurgents. Lyndon Johnson's vision of "light at the end of the tunnel" has evolved into Dick Cheney's embarrassing "last throes." Where 392 Americans were killed in action in Vietnam from 1962 through 1964, the first three years of the war, (and 58,000 by the time of the U.S. withdrawal in 1975), after 2 1/2 years in Iraq we have nearly 1,900 American KIAs. Where 2 million Vietnamese were killed by the war's end, we have no idea how many Iraqis have died since we unleashed "shock and awe." Is it 10,000, 20,000, 30,000? More? Who knows? Who in America cares?
This blithe American disregard for their lives infuriates Iraqis. After President Bush recently congratulated soldiers at Fort Bragg for fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we wouldn't have to face them here at home, a Baghdad University professor told an interviewer that Bush was saying that Iraqis had to die to make Americans safe.
What we failed to understand in Vietnam -- that people who want foreign occupiers out of their country are willing and prepared to withstand any kind of privation and risk for however long it takes -- we are failing, once again, to grasp in Iraq.

"A Tale of Two Wars"
In Baghdad, I Hear Echoes of Saigon in '67

By Lewis M. Simons
Washington Post, Outlook Sunday August 28, 2005.

Are you listening, Mr. President?

2005-08-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

A daily news of carnage coming from Iraq is sickening not only from Coalition casualties perspectives but also high rates of casualties on Iraqi population, both civilian and military families and ruined lives of Iraqis in large numbers. 60% job less rate in many provincs of Iraq. No power for hours every day in major cities and Oil output still below what it was prior to the war. No clean drinking water in several jurisdictions, an weakened economy and most of all no sense of security in the Sunni triangle and other hot spots around the country.

ALL THIS, FOR WHAT?

"WMD and Mushroom clouds in one of our cities .. ", We know that Saddam Hussain has reconstituted a neuclear program
OOPS, Uh... Saddam had WMD programs...
May be not How about we bring Democracy to Iraq and that it becomes a shining example of Freedom and democracy for the rest of the Middle East ...
Let me think now ...

As for Bush, Recent Polls show consistently that about 36% of those polled support the way he is handling his job. Anywhere from 54 to 56% of folks believe it was wrong to invade IRAQ and 56% believe we should start drawing down the troop levels soon. This Republican congress is considered loyal to this President, but yet leading elected officials have recently indicated that the Bush administration start thinking of EXIT strategy for bringing our troops back. A large number of military families who have loved ones serving in IRAQ have finally started speaking out against this war. Bush said yesterday, that Cyndi Sheehan does not speak for all military families. He's right, but all indications are that she does speak to most of them. Bush administration has chosen time and again to try to discredit the messenger than to work on real solutions. Whether it was justifications for going to war (which included - WMD and mushroom clouds, to programs designed to produce WMDs and then to bring democracy to Iraq, all the while suppressing intelligence and whistle blowers from within their own administration to Joseph Wilson and now Cyndi Sheehan. How many times do they think they can fool American people?) or staying after “Mission Accomplished”. We’re not making progress, as he keeps saying over and over. We’re not making progress in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure as he claims, we’re not improving their economy so young folks can earn a living and not end up as Jihadists as a result of unemployment or constant humiliation caused by foreign occupation, we’re not making progress on the political arena because Sunni’s don’t trust us to be mediators in the process.

I think it is non-sense to believe that a ratified constitution and elections in IRAQ will amount to anything more than buying time in IRAQ. I believe that US troops presence in IRAQ is a magnet for Jihadists to congregate in IRAQ, the heart of Middle East where Islamic Terrerists have an easy passage into. If we can not control our borders to the South, how in the world are we going to control hostile borders of Cyria and Iran. Everyday that we spend in IRAQ, we create Jihadists out of decent muslims who would otherwise not be in this business in addition to attracting hard core terrorists and criminal elements. Hey, most people hate us there remember! It is absolutely clear that Pentagon is looking for a political (not military) solution for this conflict and have been floating trial baloons to see if they can start drawing down troops next Spring while the Neocons continue to grumble and dream about mysterious wins in IRAQ. IRAQ is already in some form of Civil War. The Constitution building process has made the stark social and political differences between Sunnis, Shia and Kurds crystal clear. What would all the un-employed Baathist and Saddam loyalists do? Many of them are ex soldiers who abandoned their posts during the war and were later laid off by Paul Bremer.
I agree completely with Republican senator Chuck Hagel that Bush administration should start thinking about Exit strategy. I think Iraqis are fully capable of running affairs of their own country. Once we leave, the Jihadists will not have reasons to right. From all estimates the foreign fighters in that country are less than 10% and rest are Iraqi Insurgents. There is a clear indications that Iraqis dislike foreign fighters killing innocent Iraqis and once we withdraw, Iraqi insurgents will turn against foreign fighters if they ever decide to continue to stay and setup bases for their terrorist campaigns. We all know, IRAQ is a secular country where the citizenry is more interested in better way of life than to die for religion. They are nationalists not religious zealots!

President Bush has clearly demonstrated time and again that he only serves his right wing constituency, it’s time to serve the country. I am part of that 56%, that wants him to bring our troops back. I’m one of those who want to know, why are our Kids, someone’s father or a spouse is dying.

Are you listening Mr. President?