Category: Iraq War

Lara Logan appears on Comedy Central with Jon Stewart and slams American Media’s coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She feels even with the American public tired of the wars after five longs years that is no excuse.

She uses the recent battles in Sadr City as an example. According to Lara there were 12 to 15 hour pitched battles in heavily populated urban areas that hardly got a mention in the American media.

Yes, Americans may be tired of hearing about the war but how much do they really know about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan? And how much do they really want to know?

What is needed is for every member of the Bush administration and all members of congress to spend a month in Iraq and Afghanistan. And not in a highly protected cushy hotel in the Green Zone but embedded in an American combat unit. After a few weeks of making the rounds with the soldiers and marines perhaps a few accurate stories of how our troops really spend their nights and days would make it back to the American media.

War is a dirty, brutal business. If more of our leaders and public truly realized just how brutal and dirty perhaps we would be less inclined to engage in war.

Those who really understand air operations know that there really is no such thing as surgical air strikes. So called surgical air strikes in Iraq are now killing civilians at increasing levels.

There are many things that can go wrong with so called surgical air strikes. One is the obvious fact that the weapons systems themselves may malfunction in some way. When released at altitude the missiles or bombs don’t have to be off course by very much, just a fraction of a degree will do it, to miss their intended target and take out another. So it is not too difficult to have a situation like the one that recently occurred in Baghdad when missiles fired at suspected insurgents from a US attack helicopter went off course and instead of hitting their target damaged a nearby Iraqi hospital and destroyed several ambulances.

A fairly common mistake is faulty intelligence. Reports come in that insurgents are hiding out in house “B”. Unfortunately, that was two days ago and the insurgents helped themselves to the use of the house while the owners were out of town. Now the insurgents are long gone and the Iraqi family who owns the house are back fearfully sleeping in their beds. Then the missiles hit the house. The US military reports mission accomplished, five more insurgents dead. After all, who really knows except the families immediate neighbors.

With the use of laser painted target guidance systems similar mistakes in misidentification can occur. A spotter team sees a group of suspicious men enter a house in a crowded urban area. Sure enough, these guys are the real deal. But they enter one house that looks like a dozen more on the same street. The spotters fix their laser beams on the identical looking house next door. A Jdam bomb released from an F-16 fighter jet is released and the systems work flawlessly. Boom, a direct hit. The house and the family living inside are totally destroyed. Too bad it was the wrong house.

Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 Pentagon war planners worried about US and coalition forces getting bogged down in murderous warfare within Baghdad’s dense urban areas. The planners worst nightmare was urban fighting within the narrow street ghetto areas of Baghdad, Iraq.

Those who know anything at all about ground combat recognize that house to house fighting in urban warfare is the most dangerous ground fighting of all. Fortunately, in 2003, for the most part Saddam’s forces chose to melt away and urban warfare in Baghdad’s narrow and winding streets in their urban ghettos did not happen. That is until now.

Here we are over five years into the conflict and over the past few weeks fierce fighting is taking place in Sadr City, a densely packed urban ghetto of mostly 2,500,000 million poor people who are squarely trapped in the crossfire between Iraqi government forces, supported by the US military, and elements of the al-Mahadi Army loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.

As described at Global Security “Subdivided into six sections, the district is one of the poorest in Baghdad. The population consists mostly of Shiite Moslems. Unemployment is rampant. Homes are in disrepair. It is also a haven for criminals released from Iraqi prisons by Saddam shortly before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sadr City, built by Saddam Hussein, was the scene of numerous confrontations between coalition forces and residents in 2003. Infrastructure problems still plague portions of the district. Electrical services are intermittent. Parts of some streets in some neighborhoods are flooded with sewage from long-neglected pipes. Trash pickup stopped during the war, and residents started dumping their trash on the medians in the potholed streets.”

The ever loyal to President George Bush one General David Petraeus is named as the next U.S. Central Command Chief, in a statement by Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense.

General Petraeus, age 55, will replace the outspoken and talented Admiral William Fallon. Admiral Fallon retired last month after a running dispute with the Bush administration over perceived policy differences on Iran hit the fan with a Fallon interview article that was published in Esquire Magazine.

In the article Fallon stated that he thought having dialogue with Iran would be more constructive at relaxing tensions with Iran rather than continuing with the Bush approach of issuing a series of threats. This line of thinking did not go over at all well with the Bush Whitehouse.

In addition, there were rumors that Fallon had clashed with Petraeus over whether to draw down troop levels in Iraq. Even thought Fallon was his boss Petraeus had the full backing of the Bush Whitehouse on carrying out the surge policy in Iraq. Petraeus was probably effective at making an end run around Fallon and communicating directly with Robert Gates and President Bush on this issue.

Petraeus is probably best known to most Americans from his appearances on national TV and the C-Span Channel in testifying before the US Senate about conditions in Iraq. Petraeus testimony said almost exactly what the Bush administration wanted to hear about the surge and the “improvement” in conditions in Iraq. Petraeus appeared with Robert Gates with a multitude of colored charts showing how well the surge was working.

Some might say that Petraeus’s testimony was a bit too accommodating to the Whitehouse. But what is an ambitious General to do when placed in such a situation? His testimony was politicized from the get go as he became in effect the President’s waterboy before congress. Petraeus had the credibility that the President’s civilian cabinet members and staffers did not have.

12 good reasons to get out of Iraq that every American should consider.

TomDispatch is a website that has provided the best read on what has and is actually going on in Iraq that I have come across on or off the Internet. Tom Engelhardt is a gifted writer and as editor of TomDispatch often uses the services of other gifted and informed writers to discuss the Iraq war and the nature of the American Empire.

Most of his guest writers have actually been to Iraq or still work there and have the type of information that you just don’t see in the mainstream, read that as controlled even if it is by their own editors, press.

It is amazing to me as to just how far Iraq has fallen off the radar screen. After five years it is almost like the war has just faded away when in truth the really hard part is just about to get under way. American troops fighting in an Urban environment are what the military planners were fearful of in 2003. Now it is becoming a reality and American troops KIA are likely to be on an upward track as long as we take on the Iraqi militias. As the following article makes very clear there is no exit plan for Iraq because the Bush administration never planned to exit.

The following is taken from today’s TomDispatch. It is a long article but well worth reading as is every issue of The TomDispatch.

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Unraveling Iraq: 12 Answers to Questions No One Is Bothering to Ask about Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt