Iranian Troops Come into Kurdistan
Iranian troops came into the Iraqi territory of Kurdistan, seeking revenge on the PEJAK faction of Kurds that has launched terror attacks on Iranian soil.
Senator John Warner called Thursday for Bush to take out 5,000 US troops from Iraq before Christmas Day. Although Warner protrayed the move as symbolic,, insofar as it would signal to the region that the US was serious about getting out, most analysts felt that his position was so foreign to Bush that it had little chance of acceptance.
McClatchy reports political violence on Thursday:
' Baghdad . . .
- Around 9 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded at Na’iriya area of New Baghdad neighborhood ( east Baghdad) killing 1 person and injuring 5 others.
- Soldiers from Troop C, 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, were targeted by insurgents while patrolling in Jisr Diyala, southeast of Baghdad, Aug. 21. U.S. Soldiers were unhurt, but two local children were caught in a roadside bomb explosion, killing one child and injuring another. . .
Anbar
- On Tuesday ( August 21) , a suicide bomber targeted a police check point at Dam street in Falluja (62 km west of Baghdad) injuring two people and he was killed by police.
Kirkuk
- Wednesday night, a car bomb targeted a convoy for a member of Hawija council board ( west of Kirkuk) injuring one guard who was transferred to hospital.
- Wednesday night, police arrested the media man of 1920th battalions in Kirkuk during a raid in Wahid Huzayran ( June 1st ) neighborhood in Kirkuk city. . .
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/24/2007 12:25:00 AM
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4 Comments:
The Media is playing-up Warner's comments as a big deal. Of course, it is another one of those "a day late and a dollar short" statements. Nevertheless, it is somewhat gratifying to hear Warner state the obvious: that the surge is NOT working; and a new direction is needed. Unfortunately, I can't see Bush paying any more attention to Warner than he has to the long line of men and women, who have tried to advise Bush for quite some time. I hope I am wrong. Lives depend on it. But, Bush has a "kissmyass" attitude. His obstinancy is pathological. His flunkies and sycophants are out in force reinforcing the Bush/Cheney deranged denial policies. They have organized an ad campaign using widows and the wounded to deliver the usual fearmongering and patriotic chest-thumping. I feel much sympathy for these folks. They have lost much and they have sacrificed much. Still, I get a feeling from them that misery loves company; and if you have made an enormous sacrifice, you must justify it to yourself. They are welcome to their views. More deaths and dismemberments will not "win" the war in Iraq, stop global terrorism, or make the United States safe. As the oft-quoted line from Pogo goes:"We have seen the enemy, and it is us." The terrorists need not lift a hand against us. Our shakey debt-ridden economy, our burgeoning deficit, our failing infrastructure, our environmental pollution, our 45 million without healthcare, our poisoned food, toys, and god knows what else, our workplace safety violations, and our craven Congress will do us in quite nicely. If the rumors about an attack on Iran come true, that will be all she wrote.
Withdrawing 5,000 soldiers will signal that the US wants to reduce the numbers, which everone knows already. It will not in any way signal an end to the occupation.
We've had reductions before. The number was down to 109,000 in 2005 but that encouraged the resistance and the number had to go up again.
One US soldier in Iraq is one too many. The Americans invent foot-print and visibility and what have you because they think they are clever, which is not supported by the evidence.
Secondly, there will be a much larger reduction because the US is co-operating with the Sunnis. Bush and Co want to use the current pessimism to his advantage when he declares the reduction.
Anbar is getting all the attention but Mosul was the prototype. The USA replaced the Kurdish police there with Arab Jubours, and made some big changes to the Army so it is no longer purely Peshmerga militias. The pay-off has been a reduction of US troops to few hundred only from 20,000+ in 2004.
Diyala and Tikrit are heading the same way despite the deafening squealing of the government.
As for the south, the fighting between the Iran supported militias is not something the US wants to quell, never mind send any serious number of troops there.
Not sure I like the formulation of Iranian troops "seeking revenge" on terror groups. If the US troops had gone after such groups, we wouldn't use such terminology, would we?
Actually, "seeking revenge" is exactly what the American public "demanded" in response to 9/11 as reflected in opinion polls.
That 9/11 was a counter-attack against longstanding US Goverment Policies seldom entered into the public "conversation."
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