All right here is the 64 billion dollar question??

Did the Iraqi Army show up in the strengths that they promised. As you all remember it was said that the Iraqi's were supposed to take the lead role in this with about 10 times the troops as the US. WEll did they show or is it an empty promise?

Unfortunately, as usual, the fact that large parts of Iraq are now under Sharia law, which is the precise opposite of democratic law, is not getting the attention it deserves.

How many oceans of blood and treasure must be spilled for the sake of a pro-Hizbollah, pro-extremist-Iranian, anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Israeli, Shiite fundamentalist republic?

How is the (inadvertent) installing and maintaining of a fundamentalist Islamic republic a just response to the horrific attacks of 9/11?

[Keywords: Iraq, Islamic fundamentalists, Islamic fundamentalism, Shiite fundamentalists, Al Sadr, Al-Maliki, Al-Hakim, Bayan Jabr, Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI, Al Dawa, Death Squads]

Iraq: Bush's Islamic Republic
By Peter W. Galbraith
NYRB, Volume 52, Number 13 · August 11, 2005
[snip]

Real power in Shiite Iraq rests, however, with two religious parties: Abdel Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa ("Call," in English) of Iraq's Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. Of the two, SCIRI is the more pro-Iranian. Both parties have military wings, and SCIRI's Badr Corps has grown significantly from the five thousand fighters that harassed Saddam's regime from Iran in the decades before the war; it now works closely with Iraq's Shiite interior minister, until recently the corps' commander, to provide security and fight Sunni Arab insurgents.

SCIRI and Dawa want Iraq to be an Islamic state. They propose to make Islam the principal source of law, which most immediately would affect the status of women. For Muslim women, religious law—rather than Iraq's relatively progressive civil code—would govern personal status, including matters relating to marriage, divorce, property, and child custody. A Dawa draft for the Iraqi constitution would limit religious freedom for non-Muslims, and apparently deny such freedom altogether to peoples not "of the book," such as the Yezidis (a significant minority in Kurdistan), Zoroastrians, and Bahais.

This program is not just theoretical. Since Saddam's fall, Shiite religious parties have had de facto control over Iraq's southern cities. There Iranian-style religious police enforce a conservative Islamic code, including dress codes and bans on alcohol and other non-Islamic behavior. In most cases, the religious authorities govern—and legislate—without authority from Baghdad, and certainly without any reference to the freedoms incorporated in Iraq's American-written interim constitution—the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL).

Dawa and SCIRI are not just promoting an Iranian-style political system —they are also directly promoting Iranian interests.

Randy: Did the Iraqi Army show up in the strengths that they promised.

Why the hell would Iraqis expose themselves to the dangers involved, when they can get the US to do the ethnic cleansing ?

After over twenty years of persecution, why the hell would the fundamentalist Shi'ites suddenly espouse Jesus or Gandhi-like virtures and desire to live side by side with the Sunnis?

To think that the Iraqis will be exposed to danger instead of Americans is sheer folly and demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the situation.

Why would the iraqis show up? this is our war and occupation not theirs.

"All right here is the 64 billion dollar question?? Did the Iraqi Army show up in the strengths that they promised."
No offense, but this really isn't the 64 billion dollar question. The surge -- with or without Iraqi participation -- was not intended to achieve a military solution, which just about everyone, including in particular Gen. Petraeus, agrees is not a possibility. Instead, the surge was intended to provide a "breathing space" in which the political negotiations that just about everyone, including in particular Gen. Petraeus, see as the only possibility of a better outcome.
So the bottom line is that U.S. soldiers continue to die -- largely without the Iraqi help that was promised, but that's almost a side issue, and maybe even a good thing, given how compromised those forces are -- for no real purpose, because there is no progress on the political front.
This point is getting lost in the back and forth over whether Bagdhad is getting less violent or not, which is significant, but secondary.

Not only have Iraqi troops not shown up in the numbers promised for the surge, they have not taken the lead as promised. In March, 81 US servicemen were killed, compared with only 44 Iraqi troops. If the Iraqis were taking the lead, those numbers would be reversed.

All this 'surge" ploy does is keep everyone focused away from the key issue: that Bush and Co. are NOT LEAVING the Middle East.
Remember all the criticism about a " a failed exit strategy"? It wasn't failed, it was non-existant, because there was no plan for leaving.
There are no "benchmarks" because there is no plan for leaving.

As outlined and planned in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. " the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. forces."
Remember the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). ? The National Security Strategy is the same thing.
Entire document is worth pouring over.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html

Rove and the Justice Dept. are focused on the long planned internal changes of America, doing by law what they cannot do politically, and Cheney, Wolfoitz, Rumsfield ( yes, he is still around) and etc. are focusing on the global part of the plan. )
Good overview also at
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2326.htm

whidbeygrl: Bush and Co. are NOT LEAVING the Middle East

Wrong!!

What Bush and Co. and what millions of Iraqis want, both Sunni and Shia, are precisely the opposite.

Bush and Co. will be expulsed from Iraq.

Iraq will **never** be a true ally to the USA which will also recognize Israel.

This is just a matter of time.

Al-Maliki (Al-Dawa), Al-Hakim (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), et al did NOT work for over the last TWO DECADES so that Iraq could become a vassal state of the USA.

No!

Al-Maliki (Al-Dawa), Al-Hakim (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), et al have WORKED for over the last TWO DECADES so that Iraq could become a Shiite fundamentalist republic.

Al-Dawa has been working hand-in-hand with Hizbollah for over twenty years.

They are using the US to do their dirty work.

(Remember that over twenty years ago, Hizbollah took hostages in order to release the Kuwait 17, Al-Dawa members, who had killed Americans.)

whidbeygrl says: All this 'surge" ploy does is keep everyone focused away from the key issue: that Bush and Co. are NOT LEAVING the Middle East.

No, that's not all it does. It also gives the RNC an opportunity to let some of their rubber-stampers suddenly grow a backbone and "with heavy heart" distance themselves from Bush before the '08 elections.

JEP,

I think you're right. The Iraq War is one enormous corporate welfare program. That's why, behind all these scandals like Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, and even the US Attorney firings, you'll find defense contractor pay-offs, and the Bush admin trying to tamper in cases where defense industry pay-offs are being exposed.

They're privatizing the war more and more, so government contracts can end up in the hands of private, for-profit corporations with less oversight from the federal government. That's why billions of dollars can just go "missing".

Bush did not send enough troops to quickly stabilize Iraq. He disbanded the Iraqi military which could have stabilized Iraq. I think his goal was not stability, but to maintain INSTABILITY so he could justify a US presence and keep those taxpayer dollars flowing into private corporations. That's why his only strategy is "stay the course".

I believe the increase in beheadings belongs to the tribal gangs in Anbar going after people accused of having ties to al Qaeda. Now what a twist is that? The question becomes, who is financing these tribal gangs? Saudia Arabia?

Lastly, has Iran pushed al Sadr to declare that his forces should put all of there military efforts into killing Americans? Is this why American deaths in Baghdad are soaring? Has this then become a regional war being fought out in Iraq.

"Meanwhile, Muqtada al-Sadr seems to have ended whatever semblance of cooperation he'd offered..." as the U.S. tried to stabilize Baghdad."

Correction: Better check your sources again (not AP). See Juan Cole's blog today.

The surge was underway in 2005/2006 with the addition of tens of thousands of contractors. There are now 100,000 contractors in Iraq, possibly more, doubling the number of troops. (The contractors' jobs were once held by military personnel. Now they're privatized.)

So the "surge" has already been on for some time and it hasn't worked. This new surge isn't likely to work either as the new military personnel are only replacing those who have been injured or killed. Look at the numbers:

3,259 fatalities
24,476 injuries

27,735 total

The number of troops pledged for the surge?
28,829

Data here: http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex

It would be too bad if we didn't get out of Iraq soon. We need to be spending on issues that really matter such as global poverty. According to the Borgen Project, currently only .16% of our federal budget is spent on this important issue. Let's make a change!

V LaRoche

You are so delusional.

You are far over-rating the power of the US in Iraq and Mid East.

How so?

Well, look at the Iraqi government. It is filled with Shiite fundamentalists (Al-Maliki, Al-Hakim, et al) who have been fighting to transform Iraq into Shiite fundamentalist republic for over the last twenty years. These guys are not Chalabis. They are beholden to Iran, Hizbollah, et al.

The US will be expulsed soon.

Millions of Iraqis want the US out of Iraq.

There's not a damn thing Bush can do about that.