Mullen Rattles Sabres at Iran;
Muqtada Reaffirms Truce
Another US soldier was killed on Thursday.
Guerrillas blew up an oil pipeline from a refinery south of Baghdad on Friday. Iraqi oil production has declined somewhat lately, according to this report.
Adm. Michael Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sharpened his rhetoric against Iran on Friday. Mullen appeared earlier to want to put the brakes on the Cheney war machine. Is he weakening?
Muqtada al-Sadr explained in his Friday sermon yesterday that the truce of his Mahdi Army militia with the Iraqi military should be maintained. His recent threat of open warfare, he said, concerned only the US military in Iraq. He called the Iraqi troops "brothers."
Muqtada is offering an olive branch to his former ally turned deadly foe, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki seems in no mood to accept it.
First the Pentagon said that the Iraqi Army needed to be 390,000 strong. Now it says Iraq needs 646,000 troops. A new audit suggests that the Pentagon has substantially over-estimated how many trained Iraqi troops the al-Maliki government has.
Iraqis speak to the US Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
The US military was criticized by Iraqis for killing innocent persons in a bombing raid on Sadr City.
Reuters reports political violence for Friday:
' * BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said on Friday it had killed 10 fighters in helicopter missile strikes and ground battles in eastern Baghdad overnight.
* BAGHDAD - The U.S. army said on Friday that a U.S. soldier was killed by a road side bomb south of Baghdad on Thursday.
* HILLA - Gunmen shot dead a man near his house overnight in Iskandariya town, 40km (25 miles) south of Baghdad and police said they arrested six people in connection with the attack.
* MOSUL - Gunmen shot dead a fisherman and wounded another while they were fishing overnight on the Tigris river where it runs through northwestern Mosul, 390km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said.
* MOSUL - A roadside bomb wounded a civilian in Tal Afar, 420 km ( 260 miles) north of Baghdad, the Iraqi army said.
* BASRA - Gunmen shot dead a news broadcaster working for al-Nakheel TV and Radio station run by a Shi'ite faction in the Qurna area, 80km northern Basra, the station's director Adnan al-Yasiri said.
* HILLA - US and Iraqi forces conducted a joint operation and arrested six people on Thursday in the Mahwaeel area, 75km (45 miles) south of Baghdad, arresting two suspects after gunmen shot and wounded an Iraqi policeman, police said.
* FALLUJA - A bomb implanted beneath a Friday prayers preacher's seat exploded in al-Raqeeb mosque in al-Julan area, northwestern Falluja, 50km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, wounding 4 people including two policemen, police said.
* ISKANDARIYA - Gunmen killed two people in al-Qariya al- Asriya in Iskandariya town, 40km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
* YUSUFIYA - A roadside bomb killed a civilian and wounded another in Yusufiya town, 15km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said on Friday it killed two gunmen and detained 18 suspects during operations targeting al-Qaeda in central Iraq on Wednesday.
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded in Adhamiya neighbourhood, northern Baghdad, on Thursday night, wounding three people, police said.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found three bodies on Thursday overnight in different areas of Baghdad, police said.
MOSUL - Iraqi police found two bodies in Mosul, one of them was beheaded, on Thursday, police said.
MOSUL - Gunmen shot dead a policeman in western Mosul, police said. '
McClatchy has late news from Thursday evening:
' Baghdad
- Thursday night, The American planes bombed the Husseiniya neighborhood (north Baghdad) .Two people were killed and 8 others were injured.
- The American army bombed Sadr city around 11 pm and 1 am .Iraqi army said 11 people were killed and 32 others were injured.
- Around 4pm, five gunmen riding a Kia mini bus opened fire on an Iraqi check point when they tried to stop them. Three Iraqi soldiers were injured .Then, the Iraqi army killed those gunmen when the soldiers in the check point opened fire on them .The gunmen’s car exploded at once as it was carrying roadside bombs and rockets .
- Police found two dead bodies in west Baghdad (Karkh bank): 1 in Saidiyah and 1 in Bayaa.
Diyala
- Around 9:30 pm, gunmen attacked an Iraqi army patrol at Al-Wajihiyah (20 km east of Baquba).One officer was killed and three soldiers were injured in that incident.
Kirkuk
- Thursday night, Iraqi army soldiers wounded a gunman who was planting a roadside bomb at Safra village of Riadh (west of Kirkuk).Then, the Iraq squad defused the bomb and the gunman ran away .
- Thursday , a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol at Al-Utheim (south Kirkuk).One officer was killed in that incident .Another roadside bomb targeted another patrol in the same area with no casualties recorded.
- Thursday, a roadside bomb targeted a police patrol at Hajaj neighborhood in Kirkuk city. One policeman was injured with a civilian who was at the site of the incident.
Salahuddin
- Around noon, an officer was killed by a bomb planted in his car while he was about to start the car’s engine inside the police Academy in Tikrit.
- In the afternoon, American planes bombed a site at Jalam (25 km north east of Samarra ) killing four gunmen of Qaeda members including a Saudi Arabian leader in that location, police said .
Anbar
- Around 11:30 am, a bomb planted under a chair in Al-Raqeeb mosque at Al-Jewlan neighborhood in downtown Falluja .The target was the orator Khalid Himoud who replaced the former orator who was killed 9 months ago. The orator survived ,but one person was killed with four others injured. '
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/25/2008 08:39:00 PM
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6 Comments:
Dr. Cole, oil prices rose yesterday on news that a US-contracted vessel fired on an Iranian vessel; is this just more Straight of Hormuz BS, or should we be concerned that we may have another Gulf of Tonkin in the making?
I have come to take you for granted, Juan Cole. I assume the existence of a timely, perspicuous, well-informed gathering of the news about Iraq and other misadventures of the US government together with analysis.
Obviously I need to thank you from the bottom of my heart for constantly providing this service, of playing real good for free.
There's not much left of the United States I grew up knowing and loving, but you have kept alive an ideal that I can only admire, and thank my lucky stars for.
Thanks, Juan Cole. I hope you remain both willing and able to keep this up.
You are to "professional" journalism on Iraq and the Middle East as the young Tiger Woods was to professional golf when he strode out onto the fairways and greens in 1996. He was playing a whole other game. And so are you. Head and shoulders above the "pros".
They should be ashamed of themselves.
The professional golfers have since recovered and raised the level of their collective game to meet Tiger Woods'.
But it's a measure of the low-level of play among "journalists" that they don't even know they've been bested, that you and they are on the same course. So debased is American "journalism" that its practitioners think they are doing a good job.
Thanks again Juan Cole. Hats off. Thanks. Please keep up the good work.
Questions Linger on Scope of Iran's Threat in Iraq
By Mark Mazzetti, Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker
The New York Times
Saturday, 26 April 2008
WASHINGTON -- The United States has gathered its most detailed evidence so far of Iranian involvement in training and arming fighters in Iraq, officials say, but significant uncertainties remain about the extent of that involvement and the threat it poses to American and Iraqi forces.
Some intelligence and administration officials said Iran seemed to have carefully calibrated its involvement in Iraq over the last year, in contrast to what President Bush and other American officials have publicly portrayed as an intensified Iranian role.
It remains difficult to draw firm conclusions about the ebb and flow of Iranian arms into Iraq, and the Bush administration has not produced its most recent evidence.
But interviews with more than two dozen military, intelligence and administration officials showed that while shipments of arms had continued in recent months despite an official Iranian pledge to stop the weapons flow, they had not necessarily increased.
Iran, the officials said, has shifted tactics to distance itself from a direct role in Iraq since the American military captured 20 Iranian operatives inside Iraq in December 2006 and January 2007. Ten of those Iranians remain in American custody.
Since then, Iran seems to have focused instead on training Iraqi Shiite fighters inside Iran, though the exact number remains unclear. Some officials said only handfuls of fighters at a time had recently trained in Iran. At the same time, Iran has sought to retain political and economic influence over a variety of Shiite factions, not just the most extremist militias, known as "special groups."
Continued Here.
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Relying on Mullen or Gates to put the breaks on war is like building a house out of coffee-soaked doughnuts.
ref : “the Pentagon said that the Iraqi Army needed to be 390,000 strong. Now it says Iraq needs 646,000 troops...”
...to successfully battle ‘the insurgency’.
Upon reading this my first thought was, “Does this new statement of force requirement mean that American military leaders believe that ‘the insurgency’ in IRAQ is growing stronger-?”
My second thought was, “What the hell is this, ‘the insurgency’ in IRAQ ~ that requires over half-a-million troops to quell?”
‘the insurgency’ : “The Iraqi insurgency is composed of groups using armed resistance against the US-led Coalition that is currently in Iraq; These groups may also oppose the newly created Iraqi government; The fighting appears both as a resistance to the USA led ‘coalition’, as well as a Civil War in Iraq between diverse [ethnic/religious, tribal or criminal] groups in the population.”
So, ‘the insurgency’ is a resistance movement of Iraqi peoples fighting against the U.S. occupation of ‘IRAQ’. Our ambition, then, is to recruit, train and equip 500,000+ Iraqi people to fight against (a growing number apparent; a perpetual resistance to foreign occupation, by nature inherent) other Iraqi people fighting against American Occupation Forces. Further, how 500,000+ Iraqi people (under any flag, be it some notion of nation, ‘IRAQ’, or any organized militia) could fight against other Iraqi peoples ~ without this being the very definition of Civil War, itself ~ would indeed be a novel historical precedent {grin}
One cannot help but respond: “if there was no American Occupation of IRAQ, there would be no resistance, nor any escalation of Iraqi Army force requirement to counter ‘the insurgency’ = anti-occupation guerilla movement, whatsoever.” Therefore, in the opinion of this writer ~ the Pentagon's policy appears to be: (1) to sustain the U.S. occupation of IRAQ in perpetuity; and, (2) by doing so, accept the irony of Iraqi -v- Iraqi violence = de facto ‘Civil War’ this policy assures.
fwiw, There is a weird method within this madness ~ note that various nations in the Middle East (or for that matter, Latin America, etc.) do strive to suck into their military forces large numbers of unemployed, otherwise likely to be troublesome male youths ~ to "contain" a population of many dis-enfranchised peoples under the control of a ‘Unitary Executive’, and as well for the benefit of those privileged few who profit from the ‘War Economy’ percent of GNP required for this purpose. In reality, this may be the Pentagon's agenda for their presumption of an insurgency ‘War apparent’, Over There; which, imho is entirely in sync with what many U.S. citizens believe to be our own government's agenda ~ that has nothing in reality, in particular to do with ‘IRAQ’, per se ~ rather: ‘The War apparent’ implies the necessity for extra-ordinary executive ‘War Powers’ to occupy us in perpetuity, Over Here.
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I had a smallish job lined up at the al-Mussayyib Thermal Power generation Plant. It's near Iskandariyah, where Highway 5 crosses the Euphrates.
The electricity there is generated by burning fuel trucked in from down south.
They were hoping to switch over to feed the plant fuel from the pipeline.
Now the pipeline is broke.
The Corps of Engineers has informed me now that the job has been canceled.
They hope to do it later this year, or maybe next year.
keep on truckin'
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