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

SINCE U.S. INVASION, HALF OF CHRISTIANS HAVE FLED IRAQ

"A new wave of Iraqi Christians has fled to northern Iraq or abroad amid a campaign of violence against them and growing fear that the country’s security forces are unable or, more ominously, unwilling to protect them... It threatens to reduce further what Archdeacon Emanuel Youkhana of the Assyrian Church of the East called “a community whose roots were in Iraq even before Christ.”... More than half of Iraq’s Christian community, estimated to number 800,000 to 1.4 million before the American-led invasion in 2003, have already left the country... The message is very clear: to pluck Iraqi Christians from the roots and force them out of the country..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=2

U.S. STRATEGY WAS TO DEPLOY SHIA TO TORTURE SUNNI DETAINEES
Led to rise of al Qaeda influence

"... a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis... was part of a larger U.S. strategy of exploiting Shi'a sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the U.S. war. And Gen. David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi'a and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005. The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi'a and Kurdish police commandoes in areas of Sunni insurgency in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees...

"That strategy inflamed Sunni fears of Shi'a rule and was a major contributing factor to the rise of al Qaeda's influence in the Sunni areas..."

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53426

SUNNI TRIBES REJOINING AL-QAEDA

"Members of United States-allied Awakening Councils have quit or been dismissed from their positions in significant numbers... many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military — appear to have rejoined Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. ... (and) many of the Awakening fighters still on the Iraqi government payroll, possibly thousands of them, covertly aid the insurgency... (due to) the group’s marginalization by the government and its abandonment by the American military.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/middleeast/17awakening.html?_r=1

THE LEGACY OF FALLUJAH

"Antietam, Okinawa and Mutla Ridge earned their infamy because they were areas of brutal fighting and unprecedented carnage.
When historians assess the Iraq war from the far side of time, the city that will fall into the latter category will be Fallujah. The name itself became a symbol... making the place a byword for war as the most brutal of blood sports... There has been too much violence... too many dead for Fallujis to ever trust the Americans... there is no chance Fallujis could bestow forgiveness for the blood and destruction wrought by American hands..."
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2024180,00.html

U.S. TRANSFERS PRISONERS TO ABUSIVE IRAQI REGIME

"The U.S. transfer of Iraqi detainees to national authorities with a long record of human rights abuses could prove illegal under international law... Recently transferred detainees face new dangers in Iraqi custody... (in a) secret Baghdad detention facility that practiced "systematic and routine torture". Of the 300 men transferred to the Al Rusafa Detention Centre from the secret facility in the Old Muthanna airport... (there was) physical evidence like scars, prisoners were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomised. Despite... the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, some Iraqis say they would prefer U.S. detention to national prison..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52831

IRAQI SOLDIER KILLS 2 U.S. TROOPS, WOUNDS 9

"Two U.S. service members were killed and nine others were wounded when a Kurdish Iraqi soldier sprayed them with gunfire at an Iraqi army commando base..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090706766.html

OBAMA DROPS PLEDGE TO WITHDRAW COMBAT TROOPS FROM IRAQ

"Seventeen months after President Barack Obama pledged to withdraw all combat brigades from Iraq by Sep. 1, 2010, he quietly abandoned that pledge Monday, admitting implicitly that such combat brigades would remain until the end of 2011... a "senior administration official" acknowledged that the 50,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq beyond the deadline will have the same combat capabilities as the combat brigades that have been withdrawn..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52366

ELECTRIC GRID FAILS IRAQIS


"... thickets of wires as dense as a jungle canopy have become as much a part of Iraq’s cityscapes as blast walls and checkpoints..."

"... the state of electricity has been one of the most closely watched benchmarks of Iraq’s progress, and of the American effort to transform a dictatorship into a democracy... Yet Baghdad, the capital, had five hours of electricity a day in July... Before Mr. Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 20 years ago this month, Iraq had the capacity to produce 9,295 megawatts of power. By 2003, after American bombings and years of international sanctions, it was half that... Iraq does generate more electricity than it did in 2003, but nowhere near enough to match rising demand... Iraq’s electrical grid remains a patchwork of old power plants and new, supplemented with makeshift and inadequate solutions. Iraq now imports 700 megawatts from Iran..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/world/middleeast/02electricity.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&hp