THE U.S. IS NOT LEAVING IRAQ

"... the Obama administration is leaving behind a huge contingent from the State Department along with thousands of armed private contractors. The possibility for violence between Americans and Iraqis is very real... there are going to be 18,000 people who work for (the US) embassy. Very few of those will be diplomats. Others will be American civil service workers. A great number will be non-Iraqi contractors who do things like the laundry, mail services, cleaning, etc. Then there’s going to be a substantial component of armed private security contractors... 3,500 to 5,500 of them... if you also know that there are these armed contractors helping diplomats get from point A to point B, you win if you provoke them into violence. And it’s really easy to place an IED on a road or to open fire on a convoy. Then if there are Americans in Iraq opening fire on Iraqis — after the Iraqi leaders have said Americans are gone — that’s a major propaganda win for Iran. This is a really foreseeable disaster.... Just because we don’t have a U.S. troop presence anymore or a formal U.S. chain of command anymore, does not mean that the war is over."
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/no_the_u_s_is_not_leaving_iraq/?source=newsletter

THE WASTE OF THE IRAQ WAR
Victory is no victory

"... the largest move of military equipment we have done since World War Two... nearly 3 million pieces of equipment to be moved, from airplanes, helicopters and tanks to laptops and lights.... around 2 million pieces of equipment have been redeployed... some back to the United States, others to Afghanistan or other locations... Closing down the Iraq war has meant shutting down the U.S. military bases, which numbered 505 at the peak... The Victory Base complex in Baghdad, the heart of the war operation surrounded by 27 miles of concrete blast walls and razor wire, once hosted 40,000 troops and more than 20,000 contractors. Victory was so big it had a reverse osmosis water plant that could generate 1.85 million gallons a day, an ice plant, a 50-megawatt power generating station, stadium-sized chow halls and a laundromat with 3,000 machines able to do 36,000 loads a day... Balad, north of Baghdad, had 36,000 residents... with two 11,000-foot runways, had 27,500 takeoffs and landings a month in 2006, second only to London's Heathrow... nearly 4 million items worth $390 million had been given to Iraq, including 26,000 CHUs worth $124 million and 89,000 air conditioners worth $18.5 million..."
http://news.yahoo.com/u-withdrawal-iraq-eight-years-worth-stuff-130926527.html;_ylt=Ahgm2p5QuYR.A.ITQ53bYrTyWed_;_ylu=X3oDMTRwMGY4cHZtBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2lraXVwcmVzdARtaXQDTmV3cyBmb3IgeW91BHBrZwM3YzFjNWY2Yi05OTI5LTM4NzktYjJkYi1kMjcxOTE3MmRlMjkEcG9zAzEwBHNlYwNuZXdzX2Zvcl95b3UEdmVyA2ZlMTNhOTcwLTE3NjYtMTFlMS1iYmQ3LWQ3NDM4NjViMmM1Mw--;_ylg=X3oDMTMzMDRxZ2RpBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDOWYzMzE0MDItZmMwNC0zNTRlLWE1YWYtZGUwYWE0YTdjNWQwBHBzdGNhdAN3b3JsZHxhc2lhBHB0A3N0b3J5cGFnZQR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3

WAR CRIMES A FACTOR IN PTSD

"… CBS show "48 Hours Mystery" focused on John Needham, a young veteran from the war in Iraq… (who) claimed to have witnessed horrendous atrocities committed by his unit against Iraqis during their deployment in the country. In a letter to senior army officials… Needham wrote that he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression, described what he called war crimes, asked for an investigation and requested to be assigned to a different unit…"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/john-needham-iraq-veteran_n_1093454.html


FT. HOOD SHOOTER BOTHERED BY BY ACCOUNTS OF WAR CRIMES

"... In the weeks before the rampage, the accused gunman, Maj. Nidal M. Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, told colleagues and Army lawyers that he wanted to report soldiers who had admitted in counseling sessions that they witnessed or committed war crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan. War crimes can include acts like torture, murder, sexual assault and cruel treatment... Major Hasan’s efforts to report war crimes were first reported by ABC News..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/us/07therapists.html?_r=1&sudsredirect=true

U.S. LOST OUT ON IRAQI OIL IN 2009 AUCTION

"... One of [the Neo-Cons'] key reasons to unleash the war on Iraq in 2003 was to seize control of its precious oilfields... After at least US$2 trillion spent by Washington and arguably more than a million dead Iraqis, it has come to this... (Iraq held) bids to exploit a number of vast and immensely profitable oil fields... Instead of US Big Oil getting the lion's share, strategic competitors Russia and China turned out to be big winners..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KL16Ak02.html

THE FAILURE AND COST OF IRAQ

"The United States is leaving Iraq. It is not leaving because it accomplished its mission of replacing a hostile regime in that country with a friendly regime. America is leaving because the Iraqis are kicking America’s soldiers out. The U.S. has replaced one hostile regime in Iraq with another hostile regime... (that) has aligned itself with Iran...

"America’s military is so loathed in Iraq that it is being expelled by the Iraqi government. America’s soldiers are leaving because Iraq refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement, which exempts American soldiers from local laws. These agreements are the norm in other countries where the U.S. has stationed large numbers of troops, including Japan and South Korea. They trust that the American military will punish crimes by American soldiers committed in its country. The fact that Iraq refuses to exempt U.S. soldiers from prosecution under its own laws demonstrates the extent to which the misconduct of the U.S. military and its mercenary contractors alienated the Iraqi population....

"Apart from the more than 4,000 Americans killed, the more than 30,000 Americans maimed, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who lost their lives or have been wounded, a conservative estimate of the costs of the war puts it at $1.2 trillion, although ... the long-term costs, including medical treatment for veterans, may exceed $2 trillion..."

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/25/iraq_war_mission_failed/?source=newsletter

IRAQ A NEOCON FAILURE

"The final troop withdrawal marks a complete defeat for Bush's Iraq project. The neocons' grand plan to use the 2003 invasion to turn the country into a secure pro-western democracy and a garrison for US bases that could put pressure on Syria and Iran lies in tatters..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/23/us-withdrawal-iraq-defeat-bush-neocons

5,500 MERCENARIES TO PROTECT U.S. FORTS IN IRAQ

"5,500 Mercs to Protect U.S. Fortresses in Iraq.... the State Department plans to field 5,500 private security contractors to protect up to 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq... A force of 3,650 private security guards will be stationed at the huge Baghdad embassy... The Senate report anticipates a whopping “17,000 individuals” working for the Baghdad embassy. Only 650 of them will actually be diplomats, backstopped by “hundreds” of U.S. officials from the Treasury, Justice and Agriculture departments. But they’ll “mostly” be foreign employees “working as life-support and security contractors"... The security firm SOC Inc. has a contract for protecting that embassy worth as much as $974 million.) It’ll be supplemented with mercs at four satellite installations: 600 in the Kurdish capitol of Irbil; 575 in Basra... and 335 each at Mosul and Kirkuk..."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/5500-mercs-to-protect-u-s-fortresses-in-iraq/

HOW THE WAR ENDS

"… all US troops will have to leave Iraq by 31 December, in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiated between George W. Bush and the Iraqi parliament… Bush was forced into that SOFA because US troops could not fight in Iraq without a legal cover if they were to avoid possible war crimes prosecutions and lawsuits. From June 2003 until fall of 2008, the United Nations Security Council resolutions recognized the US as the occupying power with the responsibility to provide security to the population… But the Iraqi government did not want, by 2008, to go to the UNSC for yet another such resolution… In the absence of a UNSC resolution, US troops needed a bilateral treaty to legalize their activities in Iraq. Thus, Bush had to sign what the parliament gave him…"

"And so that is the way the war ends… the US is forced to adhere to the 2008 SOFA… The US will receive no benefit from its illegal war of aggression, no permanent bases, no bulwark against Iran, no new Arab friend to Israel, no $14 a barrel petroleum– all thing things Washington had dreamed of. Dreams that turned out to be flimsy and unsubstantial and tragic."

http://www.juancole.com/2011/10/this-is-the-way-the-iraq-war-ends-with-bangs-and-wimpers.html

MASSIVE EMBASSY TO EXPAND AS SOLDIERS LEAVE

"... The embassy compound is (already) by far the largest the world has ever seen, at one and a half square miles, big enough for 94 football fields. It cost three quarters of a billion dollars to build (coming in about $150 million over budget). Inside its high walls, guard towers and machine-gun emplacements lie not just the embassy itself, but more than 20 other buildings, including residential quarters, a gym and swimming pool, commercial facilities, a power station and a water-treatment plant...."

"As the Department of Defense pulls out and its spending drops, the State Department is expecting its costs to skyrocket. State asked Congress for $2.7 billion for its Iraqi operations in fiscal year 2011, and got $2.1 billion. It wants $6.2 billion for next year. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee estimates that State's plans will cost $25 to $30 billion over the next five years...."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/16/us-embassy-iraq-state-department-plan_n_965945.html


U.S. EMBASSY IN BAGHDAD TO DOUBLE STAFF

"The US Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest in the world, is expected to double its staff after American forces pull out of the country... James Jeffrey, the US ambassador in Iraq... said the staff would increase "from 8,000 plus personnel that we have now to roughly double that by 2012"... in 2012, the American presence in Iraq will consist of up to 20,000 civilians at sites that include two embassy branches, two consulates, and three police training centres. The figure includes armed private security personnel, support staff and diplomats..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/8422912/US-Embassy-in-Baghdad-to-double-staff.html

ALL U.S. TROOPS TO LEAVE BY END OF 2011

"The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline... (because) Iraqi leaders have adamantly refused to give U.S. troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, and the Americans have refused to stay without it..."

"... there will be a massive American diplomatic presence. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world, and the State Department will have offices in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk as well as other locations around the country where contractors will train Iraqi forces on U.S. military equipment they're purchasing. About 5,000 security contractors and personnel will be tasked with helping protect American diplomats and facilities around the country... The U.S. Embassy will still have a handful of U.S. Marines for protection and 157 U.S. military personnel in charge of facilitating weapons sales to Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-us-drops-keeping-troops-iraq-212223355.html

1 IN 3 VETS SEE WAR AS WASTE

"... Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and about 1,700 in Afghanistan. Combined war costs... have topped $1 trillion.... (now) One in three U.S. veterans of the post-9/11 military believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting, and a majority think that after 10 years of combat America should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on its own problems.. "
http://news.yahoo.com/poll-1-3-vets-sees-iraq-afghan-wars-040253311.html

WAR ON TERROR BREEDS NEW TERRORISTS

"... The National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism” issued in April 2006 concluded that the war in Iraq was “breeding deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim World and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” It found that “activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.” And in a prophetic warning, it said “the operational threat from self-radicalized cells will grow in importance…particularly abroad but also at home.”

"(And) If there is one place on earth where it is obviously irrational to antagonize the male population on a long-term basis, it is the Pashtun region that straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan, with its tribal culture of honor and revenge for the killing of family and friends..."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/12

WAR ON TERROR WAS ABANDONED BY BUSH AGENCIES AS INEFFECTIVE

"... The War on Terror was based on the notion that Islamic terrorism represented a unified, ideologically coherent, and operationally centralized threat, demanding a singular and predominately military response. This notion was rejected by U.S. security officials long before the killing of Bin Laden. Indeed, it was abandoned well before the election of President Obama.

By the latter years of the Bush administration, the exceptional tactics that defined the War on Terror -- preventative detentions, pain-based interrogation, ethnic and religious profiling, and widely expanded domestic surveillance powers -- were either abandoned or dramatically scaled back based on overwhelming evidence that they were ineffective. Meanwhile, the actual wars initiated in the name of the War on Terror, in Afghanistan and Iraq, rapidly evolved into counter-insurgency and then counterterrorism campaigns as military leaders recognized that the U.S. was unable to replace theocrats and autocrats with stable, western-style democracies.

The War on Terror lives on today only as political theater..."

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/who-killed-the-war-on-terror/244273/

FEMALE TRAFFICKING SOARS IN IRAQ

"... Before the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq enjoyed the highest female literacy rate across the Middle East, and more Iraqi women were employed in skilled professions, like medicine and education, than in any other country in the region... Twenty years later Iraqi women experience a very different reality... Prostitution and sex trafficking are epidemic in Iraq, where the violence of military occupation and sectarian strife have smashed national institutions, impoverished the population and torn apart families and neighbourhoods... Most of Iraq’s sex traffickers are predominantly female, running squalid brothels in neighbourhoods like the decrepit Al-Battaween district in central Baghdad.,, Iraq has a whole generation of women who are in their teens now, whose bodies have been turned into battlefields from criminal ideologies..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104911

IRAQ NOT A DEMOCRACY

"... members of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq... and other protesters were brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square on June 10 by government-sponsored mobs. What were they demonstrating for that so threatened Iraq’s government? Democracy... In the top U.S. newspapers... they didn’t even use the word “democracy” in their reports; both simply called participants “anti-government protesters”...

"Given the lack of freedom and access to political participation, and the repression facing protesters, how significant are the distinctions between Iraq’s “democracy” and its “authoritarian” neighbors?... "

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/03-6

TRUE COST OF WAR

"... Congress has allotted $1.3 trillion for war spending through fiscal year 2011 just to the Defense Department... the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq... and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American... "
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/15/120758/true-cost-of-afghan-iraq-wars.html

NEW IRAQ A NIGHTMARE FOR WOMEN

"A United Nations report on Iraq says... women's rights levels and standards have gone down. They suffer from widespread violence, especially from domestic violence... There is little legislation to prevent this from occurring and the criminal code in Iraq almost encourages these crimes... The situation is currently getting worse..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56796

US SECDEF LINKS 9/11 AND IRAQ

"US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told American troops in Baghdad on Monday that 9/11 was the reason they were in Iraq, before he was quickly corrected by his spokesman." The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda," Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base. "We've been fighting as a result of that," he said..."
http://news.yahoo.com/panetta-makes-9-11-gaffe-iraq-153134925.html

U.S. PRESENCE TO CONTINUE IN IRAQ

"... administration officials have exerted tremendous pressure on the Iraqi government to “ask” the U.S. to keep its forces in Iraq. Neither Iraqis nor Americans signed up for this kind of a deal: the permanent occupation of Iraq... But even if President Obama withdraws all our troops, which seems improbable today, America would still have tens of thousands of private contractors there, along with a huge embassy. Last February, Congress authorized the State Department to increase its embassy staff in Iraq to 17,000. This is by far the largest contingency of American embassy personnel. The embassy compound is actually an enclosed and fully functioning city within Baghdad. Embassy staff will also be placed at five additional locations across Iraq, and the embassy will operate 24 helicopters and 19 planes..."
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_iraq8_07-08-11_PAP1KCO_v7.36ddf.html

$6.6 BILLION OF CASH AIRLIFTED TO IRAQ LOST OR STOLEN
Iraq may sue US for recovery

"After the US-led invasion in March 2003, the Bush administration flooded Iraq with so much cash that a new unit of measurement was born. Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash followed by 20 other flights by May 2004 in a $12 billion haul that US officials believe to be the biggest ever international cash airlift.... despite years of investigations, US defence officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion of the cash.... Federal auditors are now suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error... Stuart Bowen, special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, said the missing $6.6 billion might be ''the largest theft of funds in national history''... Iraqi officials are threatening to go to court to reclaim the money..."
http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-iraqi-billions-probably-stolen-20110613-1g0eb.html

"... Witnesses testified that millions of dollars were shoved into "gunnysacks" and disbursed to Iraqi contractors on pick-up trucks, with what seemed to be little financial controls or accounting on the part of the U.S. government..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110613/us_yblog_thelookout/more-than-6-billion-in-iraq-reconstruction-funds-lost

THE NEXT FACE OF OUR OCCUPATION

"... an occupier needs shock troops. The State Department's army will be divided into two parts: those who guard fixed facilities like the embassy and those who protect diplomats as they scurry about trying to corral the mad Iraqis running the country. For static security, a company named SOC will guard the embassy facilities for up to $973 million over five years... Long-time merc group Triple Canopy will provide protection outside the embassy fortress, reputedly for $1.5 billion over a five-year span. The overall goal is for State to have its own private army in Iraq: those 5,500 hired guns, almost two full brigades worth of them... "

"... State Department Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) "Report on Department of State Planning for the Transition to a Civilian-led Mission in Iraq Performance Evaluation" explains that our diplomats will... have... a fleet of 46 aircraft, including:
- 20 medium lift S-61 helicopters (essentially Black Hawks, possibly armed).
- 18 light lift UH-1N helicopters (new models of ‘Nam era Hueys, possibly armed).
- Three light observation MD-530 helicopters (Little Birds, armed, for quick response strike teams...
- Five Dash 8 fixed-wing aircraft (50-passenger capacity to move personnel into the "theater" from Jordan).
The OIG report also notes that State will need to construct landing zones, maintenance hangars, operation buildings, and air traffic control towers, along with an independent aviation logistics system for maintenance and fueling.

"... (However) Changing the occupying force from an exhausted US Army that labored away for years... to a newly militarized Department of State will not free us from the cul-de-sac we find ourselves in... (but) downsizing our embassy radically to emphasize that we are no longer in the business of claiming more space for the American empire might very well help change the future.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF10Ak02.html

U.S. LEAVING IRAQ - NOT

"... as of October 1, 2011, full responsibility for the US presence in Iraq will officially be transferred from the military to the Department of State.... the occupation won't really end at all, even if the landlords are switched... The US mission in Baghdad remains the world's largest embassy, built on a tract of land about the size of the Vatican and visible from space. It cost $736 million to build... the State Department expects to have 17,000 personnel in Iraq at some 15 sites... 5,500 of them will be mercenaries, hired to shoot-to-kill Iraqis as needed, to maintain security. Of the remaining 11,500, most will be in support roles of one sort or another, with only a couple of hundred in traditional diplomatic jobs.... the occupation run by a heavily militarized State Department will simply continue in a new, truncated form..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF10Ak02.html

CHALABI GOT U.S. INTO IRAQ, NOW WANTS U.S. OUT

"Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who played a key role in persuading the administration of President George W. Bush to invade Iraq and overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, said Tuesday that it's time for U.S. forces to go home..."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/07/115413/iraqs-chalabi-who-sought-invasion.html

NUREMBURG'S RELEVANCE TO BIN LADEN, BUSH AND IRAQ

"... a fascinating (and shockingly articulate) 13-minute interview yesterday to the CBC in Canada about the bin Laden killing, the Nuremberg principles, and the U.S. role in the world... (by) a 92-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, American combat soldier during World War II, and a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he prosecuted numerous Nazi war criminals, including some responsible for the deaths of upward of 100,000 innocent people..."
http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1921021571

"... what is clear is that Bush's crimes are grave, of historic proportion, and it's simply impossible for anyone who believes in the Nuremberg Principles to deny that. His invasion of Iraq caused the deaths of at least 100,000 (and almost certainly more) innocent Iraqis: vastly more than bin Laden could have dreamed of causing. It left millions of people internally and externally displaced for years. It destroyed a nation of 26 million people. It was without question an illegal war of aggression: what the lead prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials -- as Ferencz just reminded us -- called the "the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together." And that's to say nothing of the worldwide regime of torture, disappearances, and black sites created by the U.S during the Bush years..."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/13/nuremberg/index.html

IRAQ WAR SAVED BIN LADEN'S LIFE

"Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not. We haven’t heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He's just a person who’s been marginalized. … I don’t know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."
--Pres. George W. Bush, at 25 and 120 seconds into press conference six months after 9/11:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o

"... the Bush administration essentially dropped its bin Laden hunt to plan and execute its war with Iraq... a number of times U.S. military officials were asked for troops or equipment to go after bin Laden, and didn't provide it, at least partly because they were distracted by Iraq."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2011/05/10/iraq_war_saved_bin_laden&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%20Newsletter%20%28Not%20Premium%29_7_30_110

BIN LADEN -- WE ENABLED ONE MAN TO COST U.S. $3 TRILLION

"... bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down... What do we have to show for that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt, which threatens to hobble the economy..."

"The... expense we can attribute to bin Laden comes from policymakers' response to 9/11. The invasion of Afghanistan was clearly a reaction to al-Qaida's attacks. It is unlikely that the Bush administration would have invaded Iraq if 9/11 had not ushered in a debate about Islamic extremism and weapons of mass destruction. Those two wars grew into a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign that cost $1.4 trillion in the past decade—and will cost hundreds of billions more. The government borrowed the money for those wars, adding hundreds of billions in interest charges to the U.S. debt..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110506/pl_yblog_exclusive/the-cost-of-bin-laden-3-trillion-over-15-years

BAGHDAD WANTS $1 BILLION FOR U.S. DAMAGE TO CITY

"Iraq's capital wants the United States to apologize and pay $1 billion for the damage done to the city... by blast walls and Humvees... said Baghdad's infrastructure and aesthetics have been seriously damaged by the American military... Baghdad's neighborhoods have been sealed off by miles of concrete blast walls, transforming the city into a tangled maze that contributes to massive traffic jams... only 5 percent of the walls have been removed... The heavy blast walls have damaged sewer and water systems, pavement and parks... U.S. military Humvees, driven on street medians and through gardens, have also caused major damage... "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110217/wl_nm/us_iraq_usa_damages

DEFECTOR ADMITS TO WMD LIES THAT STARTED WAR

"... As Curveball watched Powell make the US case to invade Iraq, he was hiding an admission that he has not made until now: that nearly every word he had told his interrogators from Germany's secret service, the BND, was a lie. Everything he had said about the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons programme was a flight of fantasy - one that, he now claims was aimed at ousting the Iraqi dictator... Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi – codenamed Curveball by the CIA – explains why he lied about Saddam's chemical weapons capability:
Video at -- http://gu.com/p/2mqcb

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam
and
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_iraq_curveball

IRAQI SOLDIER KILLS 2 U.S. TROOPS

"Two U.S. troops were killed Saturday by an Iraqi soldier who apparently smuggled real bullets into a training exercise and opened fire, raising fresh concerns about insurgents worming into the nation's security forces as the Americans prepare to leave by the year's end... The Mosul attack underscores the threats that U.S. forces continue to face in Iraq even though most of the estimated 47,000 troops no longer go on regular combat missions. The vast majority of American troops left – down from nearly 170,000 in 2007 – are all but confined to bases where they help train Iraqi police, soldiers and pilots..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/15/us-soldiers-shot-dead-by-_n_809486.html

U.S. WILL HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IRAQ WAR

"... After one trillion dollars and 5,000 casualties, America will leave Iraq with nothing to show for its Quixotic commitment to build a nation in the Mesopotamian sand... The pro-Iranian government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will eliminate America's role in Iraq after America's scheduled withdrawal..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LL23Ak04.html