Pressure to cut costs, troops strains “surge”
WASHINGTON (IPS) - Growing impatience in Congress over the enormous costs being racked up by the Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success of the George W. Bush administration's "surge" strategy to the test. Although the House of...The ten commandments of Iraq
The Iraq war is over. The failure of Bush's surge to produce political reconciliation in Iraq, combined with the unsustainable stress on our military and Congress' unwillingness to keep writing checks for $12 billion a month, all point in one direction: withdrawal. Even if John McCain is somehow elected president and for that to...The new walls of Baghdad
The new "surge" strategy in Iraq, led by General David Petreaus, has been heavily marketed as an example of the U.S. military's application of the "lessons of history" from previous counterinsurgencies to Iraq, foremost among them the need to win the population over from insurgents through cultivating human relationships, addressing...
Iraqi chaos hardening sectarian fiefdoms
April 18th, 20080 To the extent that a government in Iraq exists, it provides services on a sectarian basis WASHINGTON (IPS) There are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organizations?...
Reality ignored in hearings on Iraq
April 11th, 20080 Sure, Arizona Senator John McCain's campaign may still be selling him as some kind of "maverick" or "independent thinker" and most of the media may still be buying that ridiculous line. But when it comes to the fundamental foreign policy issue of the 2008 race whether to continue the war in Iraq, and at what cost McCain's a...Iraqi Olympians dodge violence and politics on the path to Beijing
A sprinter and an archer two of the four Iraqis who have qualified so far struggle to train amid sectarian divides and a dearth of equipment. BAGHDAD It's a glorious spring day and sprinter Dana Hussein Abdul-Razzaq is busy stretching and warming up ahead of her morning training routine. Nearby, under the shade of...Basra battles: What reporters omitted and fabricated
The latest battles in Basra, Iraqs largest city and a vital oil port, provide ample examples of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, which deliberately confuses the reader by giving no real indication or...Iraq still a quagmire say experts
WASHINGTON (IPS) Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, "the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world," according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group...Ghosts from the land of milk and honey
NEW YORK (IPS) Somewhere in Baghdad, a family sits down to dinner. Heaped plates of food line the long table. A man sits at the head, fork in hand. Beside him, a youngish woman with immaculately shaped eyebrows turns to speak with a young girl. Forks and spoons face upwards on still empty flowered plates. Somewhere in Baghdad,...Iraq lawmakers seek help from Iran
BAGHDAD (IPS) Despite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure. The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation. Fighting had...
Fierce fighting shows failure of Petraeus strategy
March 28th, 20080 WASHINGTON The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shi'a rivals, which could mark the end of Moqtada al-Sadr's self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes Gen. David Petraeus's strategy for controlling Sadr's forces as a failure. Petraeus reacted immediately to Sunday's rocket attacks on the Green Zone by...Iraqi Christians cling to last refuges
BARTELLA The bullets lay on the desk amid Bibles and rosaries. They're for two pistols owned by Father Ayman Danna. "The only solution left for our people is to bear arms. We either live or die. We must be strong," says the Syriac Catholic priest at the Church of Saint George in Bartella, a northern Iraqi town in a swath of...Strategic alliances in Iraq remain elusive
WASHINGTON (IPS) The George W. Bush administration has ballyhooed recent legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament as a sign that its troop escalation strategy has indeed created space for political reconciliation. But observers say a closer look at the legislation in the context of the grander Iraqi quagmire suggests that the...U.S. detention of Iraqis grows without end
The United States is, once again, expanding the size of its largest detention center in Iraq. According to an October 31 report by the military paper Stars and Stripes, U.S. forces will be increasing the capacity of detainees at Camp Bucca from 20,000 to 30,000. A policeman checks the papers of newly released prisoners in...U.S. troops to stay in Iraq beyond 2008
WASHINGTON U.S. forces will remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2008, but a continued U.S. troop presence will not tie the hands of a future U.S. president, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in a newspaper column this week. "It is clear ... that U.S. forces will need to operate in Iraq beyond the......
Assad meets top U.N. official on Iraqi refugees
DAMASCUS Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres this week to discuss the plight of Iraqi refugees in Syria, official news agency SANA reported. They discussed "cooperation between the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Syria with regard to improving the conditions (of refugees)...U.S.-backed groups challenge government
BAQUBA (IPS) U.S. backed Sunni militants have challenged the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad, and demanded political power after two women were killed by government forces. Tensions rose earlier this month when men dressed in Iraqi security personnel uniforms kidnapped two women. Their naked bodies were found later. After the...The tragic future of Iraq
Any analysis of the current state of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq that relied solely on the U.S. government, the major candidates for president or the major media outlets in the United States for information would be hard pressed to find any bad news. In a State of the Union address which had everything except a "Mission...Iraq: Police and army getting sidelined
BAQUBA (IPS) New military operations in Diyala province north of Baghdad have exacerbated a growing conflict between U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the one hand and Iraqi army and police forces on the other. The U.S. military commenced a large military operation Jan. 8 in the volatile Diyala province. Seven U.S. battalions led an......
Awakened to a new danger in Iraq
Credited with reducing violence, forces have actually sown new conflict BAGHDAD (IPS) The newly formed "Awakening" forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people here. For months now the U.S. military has been actively building what it calls "Awakening" forces and "Concerned Local Citizens" in an effort to...Nationalists stirring in Iraq
Country may have a chance if U.S. gets out of way On January 13, an emerging Sunni-Shi'a nationalist bloc in Iraq signed a groundbreaking agreement aimed at ending Iraq's civil war, blocking the privatization of Iraq's oil industry and checkmating the breakaway Kurdish state. It's a big step forward, and it could change the......
New Year begins unhappily in Iraq
WASHINGTON (IPS) The end of 2007 produced a telltale indication of what the New Year seems likely to bring to Iraq."We the Iraqi members of parliament signing below demand a timetable for withdrawal of the occupation forces (MNF) from our beloved Iraq," 144 members of the 275-member parliament, a clear majority, wrote in a declaration...Depending on paper police for security
'Power in Iraq will soon be turned to tribal leaders' BAGHDAD (IPS) In a country with no security and no jobs, just about anyone can work as a policeman. "To survive in Iraq under U.S. occupation, there are only two jobs; police and garbage collection," Baghdad journalist Mohammad al-Dulaymi told IPS. "Unemployment is leading many......