US Invasion of Iraq-Updates

mrmom2

mrmom2

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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: 8)

 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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OH OH !!

Massive Iraq battle brewing?
Truth About Iraqis



Monday, September 26, 2005

According to www.newschannel5.com/content/news/14622.asp" target="_blank">Nashville, TN's Channel 5 the 501st has been deployed to Iraq as of September 30.

That's 20,000 troops in all and they are not part of regular troop rotation.

Either this is part of the build-up ahead of the referendum or there is a massive military operation in the air.

Today,
residents of the Dora district in Baghdad said leaflets had been left
at their doors warning that an imminent battle was coming their way and
that they should leave the area.
Click to expand...


more savage slaughter???
 
Ocean Breeze

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aq's First Female Suicide Bomber Kills 6 By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago



BAGHDAD, Iraq - A woman disguised in a man's robes and headdress slipped into a line of army recruits Wednesday and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 — the first known suicide attack by a woman in Iraq's insurgency.

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The attack in Tal Afar near the Syrian border appeared aimed at showing that militants could still strike in a town where U.S. and Iraqi offensives drove out insurgents only two weeks ago. A female suicide bomber may have been chosen because she could get through checkpoints — at which women are rarely searched — then don her disguise to join the line of men, Iraqi officials said.

Iraq's most notorious insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement, saying it was carried out by a "blessed sister."

The bombing came a day after U.S. and Iraqi officials announced their forces killed the second-in-command of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abdullah Abu Azzam, in a raid in Baghdad over the weekend. His death has not slowed insurgent violence, with at least 84 people — including seven U.S. service members — killed in attacks since Sunday.

President Bush warned violence will increase in the days leading up to a key Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, a document that has sharply divided Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and the Sunni minority that forms the backbone of the insurgency.

"We can expect they'll do everything in their power to try to stop the march of freedom," Bush said. "And our troops are ready for it."

The U.S. military announced Wednesday that two more American soldiers and an airman were killed in violence and a Marine was killed by a non-combat gunshot. The deaths brought to 1,922 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, an attacker set off an explosion in the home of a bodyguard of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding five, al-Sadr aides and a hospital official said.

In the attack at the Tal Afar army recruitment center, the female suicide bomber was wearing a traditional white "dishdasha" robe and a checkered kaffiya headscarf — both worn only by men — to blend in with the line of Iraqi applicants, Maj. Jamil Mohammed Saleh said.

She detonated explosives packed with metal balls and hidden under her clothes, Saleh said. Six recruits were killed and 35 wounded, said hospital officials in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

In a photo of the attacker's head taken by Saleh and shown to AP, the woman appeared to be in her early 20s with dark eyes, light skin and brownish hair. Saleh said it was not known whether she was Iraqi.

U.S. and Iraqi troops swept through Tal Afar in a Sept. 8-12 offensive, with Iraqi authorities claiming nearly 200 suspected militants were killed and 315 captured, though many of the insurgents in the town escaped. Since then the bulk of the forces participating in the offensive withdrew, though a U.S. base remains.

It was the first known time that a woman has succeeded in carrying out a suicide bombing in Iraq since the insurgency began, though it was not the first attempt.

In March, four women, reportedly sent by the insurgent group Islamic Army in Iraq, were caught in a town south of the capital before they could set off explosives belts they were wearing. In the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime, just before the April 2003 fall of Baghdad, two women detonated their car near the city of Haditha, killing three American soldiers.

Gen. Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf, the regional police chief, said insurgents were exploiting the fact that women are not searched at checkpoints "because of religious and social traditions."

Women and children will now be searched at Tal Afar checkpoints, he said.

Still, the attack raised the prospect of more women bombers being used by the insurgency, a tactic difficult to defend against, especially during the referendum. Men and women turned out in large numbers to vote in parts of Iraq during January parliamentary elections, and images of veiled women flashing their ink-stained fingers after voting became an iconic symbol of hopes for democracy.

Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, intelligence head at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said the Tal Afar attack "rings danger alarms" and requires new techniques, including increased searches of women at sensitive locations.

"But this will be a problem, because women are taking part in our new political life and finding large numbers of female security officers to search them is not an easy process," he told AP.

In the past, women have played only a supportive role in the insurgency, helping smuggle equipment or feed, shelter and give medical treatment to fighters, said Nora Bensahel, an insurgency expert with Rand Corp., a nonprofit research group based in Santa Monica, Calif.

"This could be a sign that the insurgency is getting greater support among a larger segment of the population, that women are getting more militant and willing to take on a greater role," Bensahel said. "It could also be a sign that the insurgents are having trouble finding male recruits."

___
Click to expand...

with women in the act now........it could get nasty ;;;
 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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aq's First Female Suicide Bomber Kills 6 By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago



BAGHDAD, Iraq - A woman disguised in a man's robes and headdress slipped into a line of army recruits Wednesday and detonated explosives strapped to her body, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 — the first known suicide attack by a woman in Iraq's insurgency.

ADVERTISEMENT

The attack in Tal Afar near the Syrian border appeared aimed at showing that militants could still strike in a town where U.S. and Iraqi offensives drove out insurgents only two weeks ago. A female suicide bomber may have been chosen because she could get through checkpoints — at which women are rarely searched — then don her disguise to join the line of men, Iraqi officials said.

Iraq's most notorious insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement, saying it was carried out by a "blessed sister."

The bombing came a day after U.S. and Iraqi officials announced their forces killed the second-in-command of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abdullah Abu Azzam, in a raid in Baghdad over the weekend. His death has not slowed insurgent violence, with at least 84 people — including seven U.S. service members — killed in attacks since Sunday.

President Bush warned violence will increase in the days leading up to a key Oct. 15 referendum on a new constitution, a document that has sharply divided Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and the Sunni minority that forms the backbone of the insurgency.

"We can expect they'll do everything in their power to try to stop the march of freedom," Bush said. "And our troops are ready for it."

The U.S. military announced Wednesday that two more American soldiers and an airman were killed in violence and a Marine was killed by a non-combat gunshot. The deaths brought to 1,922 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, an attacker set off an explosion in the home of a bodyguard of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding five, al-Sadr aides and a hospital official said.

In the attack at the Tal Afar army recruitment center, the female suicide bomber was wearing a traditional white "dishdasha" robe and a checkered kaffiya headscarf — both worn only by men — to blend in with the line of Iraqi applicants, Maj. Jamil Mohammed Saleh said.

She detonated explosives packed with metal balls and hidden under her clothes, Saleh said. Six recruits were killed and 35 wounded, said hospital officials in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

In a photo of the attacker's head taken by Saleh and shown to AP, the woman appeared to be in her early 20s with dark eyes, light skin and brownish hair. Saleh said it was not known whether she was Iraqi.

U.S. and Iraqi troops swept through Tal Afar in a Sept. 8-12 offensive, with Iraqi authorities claiming nearly 200 suspected militants were killed and 315 captured, though many of the insurgents in the town escaped. Since then the bulk of the forces participating in the offensive withdrew, though a U.S. base remains.

It was the first known time that a woman has succeeded in carrying out a suicide bombing in Iraq since the insurgency began, though it was not the first attempt.

In March, four women, reportedly sent by the insurgent group Islamic Army in Iraq, were caught in a town south of the capital before they could set off explosives belts they were wearing. In the last days of Saddam Hussein's regime, just before the April 2003 fall of Baghdad, two women detonated their car near the city of Haditha, killing three American soldiers.

Gen. Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf, the regional police chief, said insurgents were exploiting the fact that women are not searched at checkpoints "because of religious and social traditions."

Women and children will now be searched at Tal Afar checkpoints, he said.

Still, the attack raised the prospect of more women bombers being used by the insurgency, a tactic difficult to defend against, especially during the referendum. Men and women turned out in large numbers to vote in parts of Iraq during January parliamentary elections, and images of veiled women flashing their ink-stained fingers after voting became an iconic symbol of hopes for democracy.

Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, intelligence head at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, said the Tal Afar attack "rings danger alarms" and requires new techniques, including increased searches of women at sensitive locations.

"But this will be a problem, because women are taking part in our new political life and finding large numbers of female security officers to search them is not an easy process," he told AP.

In the past, women have played only a supportive role in the insurgency, helping smuggle equipment or feed, shelter and give medical treatment to fighters, said Nora Bensahel, an insurgency expert with Rand Corp., a nonprofit research group based in Santa Monica, Calif.

"This could be a sign that the insurgency is getting greater support among a larger segment of the population, that women are getting more militant and willing to take on a greater role," Bensahel said. "It could also be a sign that the insurgents are having trouble finding male recruits."

___
Click to expand...

with women in the act now........it could get nasty ;;;
 
mrmom2

mrmom2

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Reuters says U.S. troops obstruct reporting of Iraq
28 Sep 2005 11:11:24 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Barry Moody

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.

In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate. The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.

Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq."

He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".

At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003.

U.S. forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on Aug. 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military say the soldiers were justified in opening fire.

Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a U.S. sniper. "The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Schlesinger wrote.

"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the U.S. forces are unduly preventing U.S. citizens from receiving information...and undermining the very freedoms the U.S. says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits U.S. lives and U.S. dollars," the letter said.

"SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL"

Schlesinger said the U.S. military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.

The U.S. military had failed even to implement recommendations by its own inquiry into one of the deaths, that of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana who was shot dead while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003. Schlesinger said Reuters and other reputable international news organisations were concerned by the "sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by U.S. forces".

He said most of these detentions had been prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as possessing photographs and video of insurgents, whichU.S. soldiers assumed showed sympathy with the insurgency.

In most cases the journalists were held for long periods at Abu Ghraib or Camp Bucca prisons before being released without charge.

At least four journalists working for international media are currently being held without charge or legal representation in Iraq. They include two cameramen working for Reuters and a freelance reporter who sometimes works for the agency.

A cameraman working for the U.S. network CBS has been detained since April despite an Iraqi court saying his case does not justify prosecution. Iraq's justice minister has criticised the system of military detentions without charge.

Schlesinger's letter said: "It appears as though the U.S. forces in Iraq either completely misunderstand the role of professional journalists or do not know how to deal with journalists in a conflict zone, or both."

Reuters and other media organisations in Iraq had repeatedly tried to hold a dialogue with the Pentagon to establish appropriate guidelines on how to safeguard journalists. These efforts had failed "and the situation is now spiraling out of control", Schlesinger said.

He asked Warner to question Rumsfeld specifically about the rules of engagement towards professional journalists, the failure to hold independent investigations into shooting incidents and to ask what was the guidance to U.S. forces on how to distinguish legitimate journalists from insurgents.
The goverment doesn't lie do they ? :p
 
Ocean Breeze

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Breaking news-Sept 29

At least 40 people have been killed by a triple suicide car bombing in the Iraqi city of Balad north of Baghdad, officials say.
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suggestion: every amerikan that supported this insanity ....should migrate to Iraq and help rebuild what they destroyed. :evil:
 
Ocean Breeze

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Rice: Iraq must not be ceded to 'merciless killers'
Puts number of U.S. troops killed at nearly 2,000

Saturday, October 1, 2005; Posted: 4:55 a.m. EDT (08:55 GMT)


U.S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks Friday at Princeton University in New Jersey.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the United States must not abandon its mission in Iraq and Americans must realize the consequences of ceding the country to "merciless killers."

Rice told students at Princeton University on Friday that the Bush administration's focus on the spread of democracy in the Middle East was both a moral obligation and a tough-minded response to global terrorism.

"From Cairo and Ramallah to Beirut and Baghdad, they are now finding new spaces of freedom," Rice said.

The United States must not be afraid to use all its influence in the world -- political, economic, cultural and military, Rice said.

"In a world where evil is still very real, democratic principles must be backed with power in all its forms," Rice said. "Any champion of democracy who promotes principle without power can make no real difference in the lives of oppressed people."

Rice took the unusual step of noting the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq -- nearly 2,000.

"The nation will always honor their names and their sacrifices," she said.

Although that mounting death toll is helping erode support for the war in the United States, Rice said the job is worth finishing.

"Let's be clear about who they and we are fighting," Rice said.

Insurgents, including foreigners, kill Iraqi children receiving candy from American soldiers, and shoot schoolteachers in their classrooms, Rice said.

'Barbaric, merciless killers'
"This is not some grass-roots coalition of national resistance," Rice said. "These are barbaric, merciless killers."

Referring to the political turmoil in Iraq surrounding a constitution and upcoming elections, Rice said Iraqis will make their own choices and the world must respect them.

Rice's speech marked the 75th anniversary of the university's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The school for diplomats-in-training has a liberal tradition.

The dean, Anne-Marie Slaughter, recently criticized the way the Iraq war is being fought and compared the Abu Ghraib prison scandal to Hurricane Katrina. "We are as individual Americans ashamed," she said at a September conference sponsored by the liberal New America Foundation.

Rice's address comes as President Bush -- down in the polls and criticized as too slow in his hurricane response -- starts to turn his focus back to the fight against terrorism and to Iraq, the issues that helped him win re-election last year.

The administration's attention on Iraq comes amid negative news about soaring gasoline prices, the war and the federal response to Katrina.

Bush, Cheney speeches
Vice President Dick Cheney plans a speech on Iraq and terrorism on Monday, followed by a presidential address on Thursday.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, backed away on Wednesday from his prediction that a substantial pullout of U.S. troops could begin by next spring.

Bush has warned of an upsurge in violence before Iraqis vote October 15 on a new constitution. He said that insurgents ultimately will fail.

In an AP-Ipsos poll this month, only 37 percent approved or leaned toward approval of how Bush has handled the situation in Iraq. The percentage who disapproved strongly outweighed those who approved strongly by 46 percent to 22 percent.

Senate Democrats said in a letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that he should provide "frank answers" to the public's questions about Iraq, including the status of the training of Iraqi security forces and expected U.S. troop levels over the next year.
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no , Iraq must not cede to "merciless killers". (and that means the US and its troops. The USR "merciless killers" are the ones who started this mess. Anything else is just a reaction to the USR killing.

Interesting how the Iraqi dead , don't matter to the USR. They were PEOPLE too. (but not according to the USR. as they are dispensible. :evil: ....) One can only imagine what Iraq will be like in the future when the bushenizing is finished. Maybe the Iraqis will play the same role the native Hawaiians do...........become objects for the tourist industry.--and their long history /culture something to be marketed. (all about the buck.......USR style) :twisted: ---can't one just see the "souvenier " stands now???

Money truly IS the root of all evil.
 
Ocean Breeze

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October 2, 2005

Donald Rumsfeld continued his bloody onslaught on civilian enclaves this weekend by laying siege to the Iraqi city of Sadah. Most of the 2,000 desperately poor residents of the town have already been evacuated, leaving the city vulnerable to the vast and predictable devastation that always accompanies these unprovoked attacks. Judging by the appalling results we've seen in Qaim, Falluja and Tal Afar, we can expect that water lines, electrical power and sewage will be laid to waist as a form of collective punishment against the townspeople. The ultimate purpose of the assault is to break the back of the Sunni-dominated resistance by demolishing the "sea in which they swim"; in this case the entire Sunni heartland. In the process, the military is trying to erase whatever vestiges of Iraqi culture still exist in the cities. By sweeping away the landmarks and icons of national identity, the Pentagon hopes to assert the values of the dominant culture by force. This is the main thrust of a plan to remake Iraqi society into a "free market" economy.

As always, the western media has provided the muddled-rationale for American aggression. Associated Press reported that the attack was "aimed at rooting out al-Qaida militants who have taken hold of the village." Nothing could be further from the truth. The claim is not backed by any corroborating evidence nor does it fit with recent estimates of the number of foreign-fighters in the country.(which varies between 5 to 10%) Now that the Pentagon has systematically liquidated or detained the few independent journalists operating in Iraq, they are free to execute their information-strategy according to their own skewed objectives. The claim that Al Qaida has seized control of these small border towns is patently absurd and unworthy of further comment.

The assault on the defenseless cities is intended to maximize human suffering and discourage greater participation in the resistance. The strategy emerges from a civilian leadership that has produced nothing but bloody failures and continues to conduct operations that eliminate any possibility for a political solution. This blind adherence to violence and overwhelming force is what led retired General William Odom to recently refer to Iraq as the "greatest strategic disaster in United States history".

While Rumsfeld continues his terror-campaign on the Syrian border, fellow-traveler Condi Rice has been defending the merits of unprovoked-carnage to an audience at Princeton University; Rumsfeld's alma mater. Rice said that the use of military force to advance the cause of democracy and liberty is "the only guarantee of true stability and lasting security."
Rice, of course, failed to cite any examples of the "stability and lasting security" produced by Bush's savage war on terror. "Let's be clear about who they and we are fighting," Rice opined.

"Insurgents, including foreigners, kill Iraqi children receiving candy from American soldiers, and shoot schoolteachers in their classrooms. This is not some grass-roots coalition of national resistance," Rice said. "These are barbaric, merciless killers."

Yes, but which "barbaric, merciless killers" are we talking about?

Rice's ignores the widespread suspicion among Iraqis that American and British Intelligence are directly involved in the terrorist attacks on civilians to achieve their goal of partitioning Iraq. The incident in Basra, where 2 British commandos were arrested with explosives in the trunk of their vehicle casts a pall over the nattering of the Secretary of State, whose credibility is already at its nadir.

The recent alleged "suicide bombing" outside Baghdad illustrates the problem with America's credibility on this issue. 60 people were killed when "three suicide attackers detonated car bombs nearly simultaneously."
No one from al Qaida or any other terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the bombings. So, we must ask ourselves; 'who benefits' by the random murder of innocent civilians?

Certainly, not al Qaida who must curry support from the local population to carry out operations while remaining concealed from the occupying forces.
Or, is it possible that the same people who brought us Abu Ghraib, "Shock and Awe", Falluja, and myriad other atrocities, are now engaged in a massive black-ops program to incite civil war?

Don't expect the embedded media to help answer this disturbing question. As global managing editor, David Schlesinger, admitted last week; reporters are under attack nearly as much as Iraqi civilians. Schlesinger said that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiraling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public. Schlesinger noted "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq". He stopped short of saying that journalists were being intentionally killed by American troops, but the reader can draw his own conclusions. (Especially those of you who know the damning details of some of the particular incidents)

66 journalists have been killed so far, and countless others have been detained without explanation. Schlesinger stated that the military's conduct, "creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall."

Well, duh!

Rumsfeld has no intention of allowing the free media to chronicle and photograph the orgy of terror he has engendered in Iraq. The American people must never see the countless lives that are sacrificed or ruined so they pedal-about in their behemoth luxury-vehicles.

An iron curtain has been drawn around Iraq, allowing the invading power to wreak havoc across the country with complete impunity. Nearly a full year has passed since Falluja was leveled in a drunken fit of revenge and still the apocryphal "free press" hasn't produced pictures of the devastation for their American audience.

Is there any greater proof of the media's complicity than that?
And doesn't the EU's support of Washington's resolution against Iran prove that they tacitly back the ongoing decimation of Iraqi society?
Why else would they risk the same butchery in Iran by standing with the superpower?

The bloodshed in Sadah is just the latest chapter in the "most cowardly war in history". (Arundhati Roy) The lumbering military-goliath is simply stepping on anything and anyone in its path. While 57% of Americans now believe the "U.S. should assume the implementation of democracy is achieved and begin a process of withdrawing troops," (according to a poll by Knowledge Networks for the Council on Foreign Relations) the recalcitrant Bush administration refuses to even budge. Elites on both sides of the aisle have circled-the-wagons and will not alter the direction of the current catastrophic policy.

The American experiment has reached its zenith; the nation's elected representatives have rejected the will of the people, and the peaceful channels for political change have been foreclosed. We're facing a steady and irreversible decline in prestige, power and moral authority. Iraq is America's crossroads; a war that was best summarized by British Colonel Tim Collins as "a right rollicking cock-up".
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Iraq "invasion"="a right rollicking COCK-UP for damned sure

( It always sounds better when the Brits "say " it ;-)
 
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