Can you spell "nothing"? The US will demand no sanctions and will veto any proposed sanctions, just like always. Opposing Israeli interests is equivalent to touching the "third rail" in US politics. There is no Israeli military action that cannot be "justified" by some unrelated minor provocation, even if it involves significant loss of civilian life.Art said:I'll be interested to see what punishment the US gov't demands for Israel flouting last August's UN resolution.
This may be the unfortunate legacy of the Bush administration and it will be a sore spot to many Iraqis and many in the Middle East for decades to come. Of course, the US will get the blame.BAGHDAD, Sept. 18 — A vast internal migration is radically reshaping Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian landscape, according to new data collected by thousands of relief workers, but displacement in the most populous and mixed areas is surprisingly complex, suggesting that partitioning the country into semiautonomous Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves would not be easy.
The migration data, which are expected to be released this week by the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization but were given in advance to The New York Times, indicate that in Baghdad alone there are now nearly 170,000 families, accounting for almost a million people, that have fled their homes in search of security, shelter, water, electricity, functioning schools or jobs to support their families.
The figures show that many families move twice, three times or more, first fleeing immediate danger and then making more considered calculations based on the availability of city services or schools for their children. Finding neighbors of their own sect is just one of those considerations.
Over all, the patterns suggest that despite the ethnic and sectarian animosity that has gripped the country, at least some Iraqis would rather continue to live in mixed communities.
The Red Crescent compiled the figures from reports filed as recently as the end of August by tens of thousands of relief workers scattered across all parts of Iraq who are straining to provide aid for an estimated 280,000 families swept up nationwide in an enormous and complex migration.
Astronuc said:September 19, 2007
Migration Reshapes Iraq’s Sectarian Landscape
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/middleeast/19displaced.html
By JAMES GLANZ and ALISSA J. RUBIN
This may be the unfortunate legacy of the Bush administration and it will be a sore spot to many Iraqis and many in the Middle East for decades to come. Of course, the US will get the blame.
I was listening to interviews with young men in Jordan, and they are angry at the US. Al Qaida and other groups are using that anger to encourage a continuing jihad against the west, although the focus seems to be on the US.
from -In February, the State Department said that as many as 7,000 Iraqi refugees who are the most vulnerable would be allowed into the United States. They include those with health problems, single moms and those targeted because they helped the U.S. government. To date, only about 850 have arrived.
Astronuc said:About 2 million Iraqis have fled the country to neighboring countries, and there are about 2 million Iraqis who are internally displaced. The US has admitted only several hundred.
from -
Iraqi Refugees Begin to Arrive in Atlanta
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14360698
Obstacles Limit Flow of Iraqis into United States http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14218089
Kreisher CongressDaily September 21, 2007 Members of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday they were saddened and appalled at the number of military officers and civilian officials implicated in as much as $6 billion in contract fraud in Iraq and by the mismanagement that left 190,000 weapons intended for Iraqi security forces unaccounted for.
Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., opened a hearing on incidents of bribery and fraud that occurred in a major contracting office in Kuwait by saying they "were so severe that I fear they represent a culture of corruption," a term repeated by others.
But a panel of senior defense acquisition and investigative officials attributed the rampant errors and abuse in contracting -- which have resulted in 10 convictions, 78 criminal indictments and audits into $88 billion in questionable contracts -- on lack of controls, poor leadership and an undermanned and untrained work force operating in a combat zone.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.
The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, and a spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Pentagon and State Department spokesmen declined to comment.
Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.
But the incidents suggest a reckless disregard for civilians/non-combatants, and they are certainly costing the US good will among Iraqis. I certainly would not be pleased with soldiers riding up and down the street outside waving guns and occasionally shooting my neighbors.WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials.
Blackwater is now the focus of investigations in both Baghdad and Washington over a Sept. 16 shooting in which at least 11 Iraqis were killed. Beyond that episode, the company has been involved in cases in which its personnel fired weapons while guarding State Department officials in Iraq at least twice as often per convoy mission as security guards working for other American security firms, the officials said.
The disclosure came as the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had sent a team of officials to Iraq to get answers to questions about the use of American security contractors there.
The State Department keeps reports on each case in which weapons were fired by security personnel guarding American diplomats in Iraq. Officials familiar with the internal State Department reports would not provide the actual statistics, but they indicated that the records showed that Blackwater personnel were involved in dozens of episodes in which they had resorted to force.
The officials said that Blackwater’s incident rate was at least twice that recorded by employees of DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, the two other United States-based security firms that have been contracted by the State Department to provide security for diplomats and other senior civilians in Iraq.
That "scrubby group of farmers" included men of all professions, and many of them were seasoned veterans. They had been required to form militias to come to the defense of the King's interests in the New World, and many had taken part in military expeditions against the French in the Hudson valley and in Nova Scotia. Some of the early battles in the conflict were fought as these militia-men defended their stores of arms and ammunition from confiscation by the British troops. The milita-men were the backbone of the continental army, and they were fighting professional soldiers from England and Germany.Bloomberg said the comparison occurred to him when he visited his mother recently and was driving through Lexington, Mass., where a scrubby group of farmers rose up against a well-trained militia more than 200 years ago.
edward said:Was their a cover-up of the contractor fraud in Iraq? It appears that there was and it was done at the highest levels. The intention was apparently to protect the Bush administration from political embarrassment.
NPR.org, September 25, 2007 · With more than $800 million in contracts, Blackwater USA, led by Erik Prince, is among the biggest companies providing armed guards for U.S. officials and government contractors in Iraq.
Prince, the heir to a Michigan auto-parts fortune, has close ties to the Republican Party and conservative Christian groups. He began his career with a stint as an officer in the U.S. Navy SEALs, and co-founded Blackwater in 1997 with other former commandos. His family's wealth made it possible for the then 27-year-old Prince to fund the Blackwater start-up with his own money.
Prince and his firm have drawn scrutiny from members of Congress after Blackwater guards were accused of opening fire on civilians in Baghdad in an incident that left at least nine people dead.
Astronuc said:Report: Bush Discussed War Weeks Before it Began
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14798235
Nothing new there.
So it would appear that the only people firing were Blackwater mercenaries.BAGHDAD, Oct. 2 — It started out as a family errand: Ahmed Haithem Ahmed was driving his mother, Mohassin, to pick up his father from the hospital where he worked as a pathologist. As they approached Nisour Square at midday on Sept. 16, they did not know that a bomb had gone off nearby or that a convoy of four armored vehicles carrying Blackwater guards armed with automatic rifles was approaching.
Moments later a bullet tore through Mr. Ahmed’s head, he slumped, and the car rolled forward. Then Blackwater guards responded with a barrage of gunfire and explosive weapons, leaving 17 dead and 24 wounded — a higher toll than previously thought, according to Iraqi investigators.
Interviews with 12 Iraqi witnesses, several Iraqi investigators and an American official familiar with an American investigation of the shootings offer new insights into the gravity of the episode in Nisour Square. And they are difficult to square with the explanation offered initially by Blackwater officials that their guards were responding proportionately to an attack on the streets around the square.
The new details include these:
¶A deadly cascade of events began when a single bullet apparently fired by a Blackwater guard killed an Iraqi man whose weight probably remained on the accelerator and propelled the car forward as the passenger, the man’s mother, clutched him and screamed.
¶The car continued to roll toward the convoy, which responded with an intense barrage of gunfire in several directions, striking Iraqis who were desperately trying to flee.
¶Minutes after that shooting stopped, a Blackwater convoy — possibly the same one — moved north from the square and opened fire on another line of traffic a few hundred yards away, in a previously unreported separate shooting, investigators and several witnesses say.
But questions emerge from accounts of the earliest moments of the shooting in Nisour Square.
The car in which the first people were killed did not begin to closely approach the Blackwater convoy until the Iraqi driver had been shot in the head and lost control of his vehicle. Not one witness heard or saw any gunfire coming from Iraqis around the square. And following a short initial burst of bullets, the Blackwater guards unleashed an overwhelming barrage of gunfire even as Iraqis were turning their cars around and attempting to flee.
As the gunfire continued, at least one of the Blackwater guards began screaming, “No! No! No!” and gesturing to his colleagues to stop shooting, according to an Iraqi lawyer who was stuck in traffic and was shot in the back as he tried to flee. The account of the struggle among the Blackwater guards corroborates preliminary findings of the American investigation.
. . . .
Then who does bear responsibility for the killing of innocent people. Who gave authority and immunity to Blackwater and RTI to operate in Iraq? Who is paying these mercenaries?BAGHDAD, Oct. 9 — Two women died here on Tuesday when their white Oldsmobile was riddled by automatic gunfire from guards for a private security company, just weeks after a shooting by another company strained relations between the United States and Iraq.
The guards involved in the Tuesday shooting were working for an Australian-run security company. But the people they were assigned to protect work under the same United States government agency whose security guards sprayed bullets across a crowded Baghdad square on Sept. 16, an episode that caused an uproar among Iraqi officials and is still being investigated by the United States.
In the Tuesday shooting, as many as 40 bullets struck the car, killing the driver and the woman in the front seat on the passenger side. A woman and a boy in the back seat survived, according to witnesses and local police officials in the Karada neighborhood, where the shooting took place on a boulevard lined with appliance stores, tea shops and money changers.
American government officials said the guards had been hired to protect financial and policy experts working for an organization under contract with the United States Agency for International Development, a quasi-independent State Department agency that does extensive aid work in Iraq.
The organization, RTI International, is in Iraq to carry out what is ultimately a State Department effort to improve local government and democratic institutions. But a Bush administration official said the State Department bore no responsibility for overseeing RTI’s security operations.
I have another question: If our government can afford to pay over $400,000/year/mercenary, why cannot we afford to train our own military to operate security details? Maybe they'd even be disciplined and sane enough not to kill innocent civilians indiscriminately. Just a thought.Astronuc said:Then who does bear responsibility for the killing of innocent people. Who gave authority and immunity to Blackwater and RTI to operate in Iraq? Who is paying these mercenaries?
turbo-1 said:I have another question: If our government can afford to pay over $400,000/year/mercenary, why cannot we afford to train our own military to operate security details? Maybe they'd even be disciplined and sane enough not to kill innocent civilians indiscriminately. Just a thought.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/13/iraq.sanchez/index.htmlWASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former commander of coalition forces in Iraq issued a harsh assessment of U.S. management of the war, saying that American political leaders cost American lives on the battlefield with their "lust for power."
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, coalition commander in 2003 and 2004, called the Iraq war "a nightmare with no end in sight," for which he said the Bush administration, the State Department and Congress all share blame.
Sanchez told a group of military reporters in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday that such dereliction of duty by a military officer would mean immediate dismissal or court martial, but the politicians have not been held accountable.
He said the Iraq war plan from the start was "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic," and the administration has not provided the resources necessary for victory, which he said the military could never achieve on its own.
Still, he said, the U.S. cannot pull out of Iraq without causing chaos that would have global implications. [continued]
turbo-1 said:Why is it that US commanders cannot/will not object to the machinations of politicians until they're retired? Is it to protect their pensions? How can they be silent as they watch the men and women under their command be be sacrificed for the sake of oil, political power, and partisanship? At some point, don't these commanders have a duty to the US citizens that transcends their loyalty to the president?
Ricardo Sanchez, retired US General, who commanded US troops in Iraq has launched a verbal assault against the Bush administration.
The status quo in Iraq IS chaos that HAS global implications - NOW and for a long time to come.Still, he said, the U.S. cannot pull out of Iraq without causing chaos that would have global implications.
turbo-1 said:Why is it that US commanders cannot/will not object to the machinations of politicians until they're retired? Is it to protect their pensions? How can they be silent as they watch the men and women under their command be be sacrificed for the sake of oil, political power, and partisanship? At some point, don't these commanders have a duty to the US citizens that transcends their loyalty to the president?
baywax said:Maybe its a good idea to let someone else help "re-build" Iraq.
"Iraqi Contracts With Iran and China Concern U.S."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/middleeast/18grid.html?ref=todayspaper
Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.
edward said:From the link:
Where is Iraq getting the money?? My best guess would be China.
OOPS at the bottom of the article it states that the loans will come from Iran and the Chinese will do the building. LOL so where is Iran getting the money? Probably from China.
turbo-1 said:I wasn't suggesting a coup, BobG. It would be nice to see some openness and honesty, though. What would have happened if our military commanders had said "we don't have enough resources to pull this off", "we need to have a diplomatic effort running parallel to the military occupation", etc. You know, the kind of stuff they feel free to say after they retire. The president may be commander-in-chief, but no president is infallible, and when the president is committed to sacrificing our soldiers in an open-ended military campaign, the generals in the field should show some degree of loyalty and responsibility to the men and women who are paying the price.
And one wonders why the US is failing in Iraq.Close to midnight last Christmas Eve, a Blackwater security contractor named Andrew Moonen emerged from a boozy party in Baghdad's Green Zone and took a wrong turn on the way back to his hooch. There is as yet no satisfactory explanation for what happened next. An Iraqi guard named Raheem Khalif, who was protecting the compound of Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, was fatally shot three times. TIME interviewed three Iraqi guards who were on duty that night and reviewed two signed witness statements: all say the shooter was a white male, wearing an ID badge typically used by security contractors. The day after the shooting, Moonen was fired by Blackwater and flown out of Iraq. His name was not directly linked to the incident until earlier this month, when a Seattle lawyer told the New York Times he was representing Moonen, 27, a former Army paratrooper, in connection with the investigation into the shooting.
The killing of Khalif barely registered outside the Green Zone. For Iraqis, it was just another in a long series of stories — stretching back to the early days of the U.S. occupation — about how private security contractors seem to operate with impunity in their country. Brought into Iraq because an undermanned U.S. military couldn't guard vital facilities and top American officials, contractors were armed with a decree by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer that made them practically exempt from prosecution under Iraq law. They quickly earned a reputation as cowboys, the kind that shoot first and never have to answer any questions afterward. As the number of contractors has grown, so has the volume and frequency of Iraqi complaints. A report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that Blackwater alone has been involved in 195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005.
But these went largely unnoticed outside Iraq until Sept. 16, when a Blackwater security convoy shot and killed 17 civilians at a major traffic intersection in western Baghdad. The company claimed its men were responding to an attack on the convoy, but an investigation by the Iraqi Ministry of Interior the week of the shooting said the contractors had fired first. The incident sparked furor in the U.S., where it was seized upon by Bush Administration critics as yet more proof of botched planning of the Iraq war and the consequence of outsourcing too many military tasks.
Art said:I'd have thought if Iran had nuclear weapons it would make war in the ME less likely. If the US and USSR had not both had nuclear weapons I think the cold war would have become a hot one very quickly and the same is likely true of the ME. The same is true of India and Pakistan who used to go to war with each other at the drop of a hat. Now they both have nuclear weapons they are far more inclined towards diplomacy than previously when the stakes were not so high.
Israel wouldn't attack a country which possessed nuclear weapons and neither would those countries attack Israel because of the principle of mutually assured destruction. Likewise and for much the same reasons countries such as the US would be far less likely to pursue an aggressive foreign policy in the area as bullying doesn't work when the victim can hurt you nearly as much as you can hurt him.