As Democrats head toward a showdown with President Bush on Iraq , a leading Republican warned that they are making an all-too-familiar mistake: not listening to seasoned commanders.
Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., said catastrophe always follows when civilians turn a deaf ear to their military officers.
In the 2003 run-up to the war, Young said in an interview, administration officials dismissed a top Army officer's estimate that securing Iraq would probably require several hundred thousand troops.
"I just don't think that it's a good idea for us here in the Congress to try to manage the conduct of the war," Young, a military appropriations expert, told his colleagues during a meeting Monday.
Gen. David Petraeus, the new Iraq commander, will try to persuade lawmakers in a private briefing this week not to set a timetable on the war.
However, House and Senate Democratic appropriators agreed Monday on a $124 billion bill that would fund the Iraq war but order troops to begin leaving by Oct. 1 with the goal of completing the pullout six months later.
Bush has promised to veto the measure, which would force lawmakers back to the drawing table. Democrats would need a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto.
"I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with Petraeus on Monday.
Democrats said they won't back down and pointed to Petraeus' past remarks that security in Iraq requires a political solution.
"Here is the bottom line," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., said in a speech in which he quoted a retired Army general who opposes Bush's policy. "Americans must come to grips with the fact that our military alone cannot establish a democracy."
Reid likened Bush to President Lyndon Johnson, saying Johnson ordered troop escalations in Vietnam in an attempt "to save his political legacy" only to watch U.S. casualties climb steadily.
"The time for patience is long past," said Reid, who last week said the war in Iraq was "lost."
Radio ads expected to air Tuesday will attack Reid as treating troops like a "political football," GOP officials said.
According to a transcript, an Iraq veteran identified as Capt. Trip Bellard says, "Senator Reid's remarks undercut the morale of our soldiers and undermine our troops on the ground."
As outlined by Democratic officials, the emerging legislation would require the withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin by Oct. 1, even earlier if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.
Another provision in the measure would withhold about $850 million in foreign aid from the Iraqis if the government does not meet those standards.
The Pentagon would be required to adhere to certain standards for the training and equipping of units sent to Iraq, and for their rest at home between deployments. Bush could waive the guidelines if necessary. Democrats assume he would, but they want him on record as doing so.
Under the nonbinding timeline, all combat troops would be withdrawn by April 1, 2008.
After that date, U.S. forces would have a redefined and restricted mission of protecting U.S. personnel and facilities, engaging in counterterrorism activities against al-Qaida and other similar organizations, and training and equipping Iraqi forces.
Democrats jettisoned some of the domestic spending that Bush has held up to ridicule, including funds for spinach growers and peanut farmers. Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others decided to include money to help farmers hit by natural disasters as well as the victims of Hurricane Katrina .
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Suicide Car Bombing in Iraq kills Nine
In one of the deadliest attacks on American ground forces since the Iraq war started more than four years ago, a suicide car bomber struck a patrol base northeast of Baghdad and killed nine U.S. soldiers and wounded 20, officials said.
An Iraqi civilian also was wounded in the attack on Task Force Lightning soldiers in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
At least 48 Iraqis were killed in seven other bombings, violence that has persisted despite a nearly 10-week-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown aimed at pacifying Baghdad.
Of the 20 wounded in the attack on the patrol base, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi were evacuated to a medical facility for further care, the military said.
It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car bomber. Militants have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower.
On Feb. 19, insurgents struck a U.S. combat post in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding 17 in what the military called a "coordinated attack." It began with a suicide car bombing followed by gunfire on soldiers pinned down in a former Iraqi police station where fuel storage tanks were set ablaze by the blast.
American troops are facing increasing danger as they step up their presence in outposts and police stations in the Baghdad area as part of the security crackdown to which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops.
Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas such as Diyala province where they have safe haven. The U.S. command also deployed an extra 700 soldiers to the area last month.
A U.S. soldier also was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite area that also is in Diyala, the military said in an earlier statement. A British soldier was shot to death while on patrol in the southern city of Basra, officials said.
The deaths raised to 85 the number of U.S. service members who died have in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American troops since December, when 112 died.
It was the single deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah.
Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on Jan. 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the investigation is still ongoing.
In other devastating attacks, 14 Marines were killed when a roadside bomb struck an amphibious assault vehicle near the western town of Haditha on Aug. 3, 2005. And a suicide bomber struck a mess tent in a base near Mosul on Dec. 21, 2004, killing 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.
On Tuesday, two car bombs exploded near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, police said. The bombs exploded within two minutes of each other at about 10 a.m. in a public parking lot located about 150 yards from the front of the Iranian Embassy, wounding six civilians but causing no damage to the embassy or its guards, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own security.
On Monday, two parked car bombs exploded outside the Iranian Embassy. One bomb exploded near the same public parking lot, killing one civilian and wounding another; the other parked car bomb exploded close to a police patrol near the Iranian Embassy, killing one civilian and wounding two officers, police said.
The prominent Iraqi Sunni insurgent group Islamic Ansar al-Sunnah issued a statement on its Web site claiming responsibility for Monday's bombing near the parking lot.
At least 68 Iraqis were killed or found dead Monday, according to police, including 10 in a suicide car bombing against a police station in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.
With the U.S. casualty toll mounting, Democratic leaders in Washington agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first American combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later. Bush has promised to veto any such measure as the legislative confrontation intensifies.
An Iraqi civilian also was wounded in the attack on Task Force Lightning soldiers in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
At least 48 Iraqis were killed in seven other bombings, violence that has persisted despite a nearly 10-week-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown aimed at pacifying Baghdad.
Of the 20 wounded in the attack on the patrol base, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi were evacuated to a medical facility for further care, the military said.
It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car bomber. Militants have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower.
On Feb. 19, insurgents struck a U.S. combat post in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding 17 in what the military called a "coordinated attack." It began with a suicide car bombing followed by gunfire on soldiers pinned down in a former Iraqi police station where fuel storage tanks were set ablaze by the blast.
American troops are facing increasing danger as they step up their presence in outposts and police stations in the Baghdad area as part of the security crackdown to which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops.
Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas such as Diyala province where they have safe haven. The U.S. command also deployed an extra 700 soldiers to the area last month.
A U.S. soldier also was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite area that also is in Diyala, the military said in an earlier statement. A British soldier was shot to death while on patrol in the southern city of Basra, officials said.
The deaths raised to 85 the number of U.S. service members who died have in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American troops since December, when 112 died.
It was the single deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah.
Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on Jan. 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the investigation is still ongoing.
In other devastating attacks, 14 Marines were killed when a roadside bomb struck an amphibious assault vehicle near the western town of Haditha on Aug. 3, 2005. And a suicide bomber struck a mess tent in a base near Mosul on Dec. 21, 2004, killing 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.
On Tuesday, two car bombs exploded near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, police said. The bombs exploded within two minutes of each other at about 10 a.m. in a public parking lot located about 150 yards from the front of the Iranian Embassy, wounding six civilians but causing no damage to the embassy or its guards, a police officer said on condition of anonymity out of concern for his own security.
On Monday, two parked car bombs exploded outside the Iranian Embassy. One bomb exploded near the same public parking lot, killing one civilian and wounding another; the other parked car bomb exploded close to a police patrol near the Iranian Embassy, killing one civilian and wounding two officers, police said.
The prominent Iraqi Sunni insurgent group Islamic Ansar al-Sunnah issued a statement on its Web site claiming responsibility for Monday's bombing near the parking lot.
At least 68 Iraqis were killed or found dead Monday, according to police, including 10 in a suicide car bombing against a police station in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.
With the U.S. casualty toll mounting, Democratic leaders in Washington agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first American combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later. Bush has promised to veto any such measure as the legislative confrontation intensifies.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Aftermath of Baghdad Bombing which left 135 people dead
One day after a bombing killed 135 people in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite Sadriya market, correspondent Sam Dagher visited the market. Reporting:
The most striking image, for me, was the old lady. She was wrapped in a black abaya, wandering through the wreckage of charred buses and mangled vehicles. She kept repeating: "This is doomsday. God is greatest."
I also saw utter anger and disbelief among the residents and shopkeepers. Government officials I had reached by telephone and heard on state television earlier in the day insisted that the capital's security plan was still on track, despite suffering the biggest breach since it was launched in mid-February.
The US and Iraqi forces may have reduced sectarian street fighting. But Al Qaeda is making its presence felt with major bombings. And the Iraqi government's comments only served to highlight the widening disconnect between the government based inside the well-guarded Green Zone and its people in what is commonly referred to by Westerners as the Red Zone.
At the open-air food market, I saw Iraqis desperately clutching to shreds of normalcy.
I entered Sadriya with my Iraqi colleagues through a pedestrian-only section that had been barricaded on both ends after a bombing on Feb. 3 that killed 137 people. The hustle and bustle resembled similar working-class markets I've seen in Amman, Cairo, or Damascus.
Vendors were hawking fresh lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes heaped up on wooden carts. Inside the arcades on both sides of the street, raw meat hung in the windows of butcher shops, pastry shops displayed enormous trays of syrup-drenched sweets, and the smell of grilled kabobs wafted from the many restaurants.
I saw defiant banners signed by the local branch office of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Construction laborers were back working Thursday, rebuilding shops destroyed in February's bombing.
In one shop, Abu Ali was busy preparing round meat balls known as kubbah.
"What happened yesterday was a catastrophe. The security plan is working in some areas of the city, but not here," he told me. "But I must work to feed my children; we have no other source of income."
His business partner Abu Jassim nodded in agreement. He had been through this once already. He pulled his shirt back, displaying wounds on his shoulder sustained in the February bombing.
At the end of the street and beyond white-painted barricades, I stepped into a panorama of destruction.
The entire square was covered in soot, and hundreds of people were gathered around a crater. Behind them, there was an outer ring of burned car and bus skeletons. Revered Shiite leaders, Imam Hussein and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, stared down from giant posters on the walls.
Most of those killed Wednesday were laborers working in the market, pushing carts and running errands. They had boarded buses that were going to transport them home after a hard day's work. Most were going back to Jameela, a neighborhood within the Sadr City slum. They earned on average 10,000 dinars ($8) a day.
I walked past the crater crowd and into one of the destroyed shops on one side of the square, known to most as Al Nahda.
Jaber Saleh, an elderly bespectacled man, sobbed as he sat amid the ruins of his hardware store. His door was reduced to a surreal sculpture of twisted metal. Emptied boxes of nails and dented gallon paint cans were scattered on the floor.
"We were strangled by Saddam and now this," said Mr. Saleh as tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks. He put his hands around his neck to make the point.
His helper, Aqeel Shouli, told him to calm down.
"All the leaders are stealing, no one is clean, and we are dying," resumed Saleh.
He claimed that he'd seen policemen at checkpoints near the market were sometimes bribed to let through pickup trucks filled with heaps of vegetables or boxes without checking them.
He then pointed to the other side of the square.
"That road leads to Al-Fadhil. The Americans were there two hours before the blast and arrested people, but still they come from there to kill us," said Salih referring to a predominantly Sunni Arab area adjacent to Sadriya that is the scene of frequent clashes.
Mr. Shouli interrupts him to say, "the security plan is a failure, full stop."
Back in the square Amna Sadeq a Shiite Kurd curses Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government and parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashahdani, using words that are not fit to print.
"They have done nothing for us. They should make way for more competent people," she shouts.
At a bakery shop on another end of the square, Zaki Hashim, sits behind the counter. His face is bandaged.
"I was just handing bread out the window to a customer when a flame hit my face," he said.
He and all the other bakery shop workers are from the southern city of Nasariyah. They work in Baghdad and go back to their families once a month. They tell me they will remain in Baghdad despite the bombing and despite losing their friend three days ago to sectarian murder.
The dead man's photo is pinned to a giant poster of Imam Hussein behind the counter. Hussein ibn Ali is revered as the third Imam by Shiites, the grandson of Muhammad.
"The security forces are infiltrated and they even bombed the parliament, what do you expect," Mr. Hashim told me.
We had to wait in bakery shop until a funeral procession made its way through square. And faithful to Iraqi custom, some of those in the entourage were firing shots in the air.
Later, a trusted Interior Ministry adviser that often talks to me, without any of the official spin, agreed with the baker's assessment.
He said Iraqi forces are nearly helpless in the face of car bombs and suicide bombs. Their job was doubly made difficult by the fact that their ranks were infiltrated by insurgents, militias, and militants.
He nonetheless said the government needed to give the appearance it was making headway and winning through the media. "We have had some success in controlling roadside bombs and sectarian murders, so that's good and we need to say that loudly. It's a media war. The other side wants to grab the headlines with the mayhem its unleashing," he said.
Indeed, a report of the Sadriya bombing on state-owned Iraqiya television Wednesday night was followed by a statement from the spokesman of the Defense Ministry Mohammed al-Askari saying; "there may be bombs here and there, but the security plan is working."
After we left the Sadriya market, we saw municipal workers painting idyllic scenes of rolling pastures and galloping horses on a row of blast walls on Saadoun Street in the heart of Baghdad.
The most striking image, for me, was the old lady. She was wrapped in a black abaya, wandering through the wreckage of charred buses and mangled vehicles. She kept repeating: "This is doomsday. God is greatest."
I also saw utter anger and disbelief among the residents and shopkeepers. Government officials I had reached by telephone and heard on state television earlier in the day insisted that the capital's security plan was still on track, despite suffering the biggest breach since it was launched in mid-February.
The US and Iraqi forces may have reduced sectarian street fighting. But Al Qaeda is making its presence felt with major bombings. And the Iraqi government's comments only served to highlight the widening disconnect between the government based inside the well-guarded Green Zone and its people in what is commonly referred to by Westerners as the Red Zone.
At the open-air food market, I saw Iraqis desperately clutching to shreds of normalcy.
I entered Sadriya with my Iraqi colleagues through a pedestrian-only section that had been barricaded on both ends after a bombing on Feb. 3 that killed 137 people. The hustle and bustle resembled similar working-class markets I've seen in Amman, Cairo, or Damascus.
Vendors were hawking fresh lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes heaped up on wooden carts. Inside the arcades on both sides of the street, raw meat hung in the windows of butcher shops, pastry shops displayed enormous trays of syrup-drenched sweets, and the smell of grilled kabobs wafted from the many restaurants.
I saw defiant banners signed by the local branch office of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Construction laborers were back working Thursday, rebuilding shops destroyed in February's bombing.
In one shop, Abu Ali was busy preparing round meat balls known as kubbah.
"What happened yesterday was a catastrophe. The security plan is working in some areas of the city, but not here," he told me. "But I must work to feed my children; we have no other source of income."
His business partner Abu Jassim nodded in agreement. He had been through this once already. He pulled his shirt back, displaying wounds on his shoulder sustained in the February bombing.
At the end of the street and beyond white-painted barricades, I stepped into a panorama of destruction.
The entire square was covered in soot, and hundreds of people were gathered around a crater. Behind them, there was an outer ring of burned car and bus skeletons. Revered Shiite leaders, Imam Hussein and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, stared down from giant posters on the walls.
Most of those killed Wednesday were laborers working in the market, pushing carts and running errands. They had boarded buses that were going to transport them home after a hard day's work. Most were going back to Jameela, a neighborhood within the Sadr City slum. They earned on average 10,000 dinars ($8) a day.
I walked past the crater crowd and into one of the destroyed shops on one side of the square, known to most as Al Nahda.
Jaber Saleh, an elderly bespectacled man, sobbed as he sat amid the ruins of his hardware store. His door was reduced to a surreal sculpture of twisted metal. Emptied boxes of nails and dented gallon paint cans were scattered on the floor.
"We were strangled by Saddam and now this," said Mr. Saleh as tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks. He put his hands around his neck to make the point.
His helper, Aqeel Shouli, told him to calm down.
"All the leaders are stealing, no one is clean, and we are dying," resumed Saleh.
He claimed that he'd seen policemen at checkpoints near the market were sometimes bribed to let through pickup trucks filled with heaps of vegetables or boxes without checking them.
He then pointed to the other side of the square.
"That road leads to Al-Fadhil. The Americans were there two hours before the blast and arrested people, but still they come from there to kill us," said Salih referring to a predominantly Sunni Arab area adjacent to Sadriya that is the scene of frequent clashes.
Mr. Shouli interrupts him to say, "the security plan is a failure, full stop."
Back in the square Amna Sadeq a Shiite Kurd curses Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government and parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashahdani, using words that are not fit to print.
"They have done nothing for us. They should make way for more competent people," she shouts.
At a bakery shop on another end of the square, Zaki Hashim, sits behind the counter. His face is bandaged.
"I was just handing bread out the window to a customer when a flame hit my face," he said.
He and all the other bakery shop workers are from the southern city of Nasariyah. They work in Baghdad and go back to their families once a month. They tell me they will remain in Baghdad despite the bombing and despite losing their friend three days ago to sectarian murder.
The dead man's photo is pinned to a giant poster of Imam Hussein behind the counter. Hussein ibn Ali is revered as the third Imam by Shiites, the grandson of Muhammad.
"The security forces are infiltrated and they even bombed the parliament, what do you expect," Mr. Hashim told me.
We had to wait in bakery shop until a funeral procession made its way through square. And faithful to Iraqi custom, some of those in the entourage were firing shots in the air.
Later, a trusted Interior Ministry adviser that often talks to me, without any of the official spin, agreed with the baker's assessment.
He said Iraqi forces are nearly helpless in the face of car bombs and suicide bombs. Their job was doubly made difficult by the fact that their ranks were infiltrated by insurgents, militias, and militants.
He nonetheless said the government needed to give the appearance it was making headway and winning through the media. "We have had some success in controlling roadside bombs and sectarian murders, so that's good and we need to say that loudly. It's a media war. The other side wants to grab the headlines with the mayhem its unleashing," he said.
Indeed, a report of the Sadriya bombing on state-owned Iraqiya television Wednesday night was followed by a statement from the spokesman of the Defense Ministry Mohammed al-Askari saying; "there may be bombs here and there, but the security plan is working."
After we left the Sadriya market, we saw municipal workers painting idyllic scenes of rolling pastures and galloping horses on a row of blast walls on Saadoun Street in the heart of Baghdad.
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