Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"

On the other hand, the facts -- there are some facts. We can’t win this war. We can do what he's doing. We can bomb them into the stone ages. Here's the other horrifying, sort of spectacular fact that we don't really appreciate. Since we installed our puppet government, this man, Allawi, who was a member of the Mukabarat, the secret police of Saddam, long before he became a critic, and is basically Saddam-lite. Before we installed him, since we have installed him on June 28, July, August, September, October, November, every month, one thing happened: the number of sorties, bombing raids by one plane, and the number of tonnage dropped has grown exponentially each month. We are systematically bombing that country. There are no embedded journalists at Doha, the Air Force base I think we’re operating out of. No embedded journalists at the aircraft carrier, Harry Truman. That's the aircraft carrier that I think is doing many of the operational fights. There’s no air defense, It's simply a turkey shoot. They come and hit what they want. We know nothing. We don't ask. We're not told. We know nothing about the extent of bombing. So if they're going to carry out an election and if they're going to succeed, bombing is going to be key to it, which means that what happened in Fallujah, essentially Iraq -- some of you remember Vietnam -- Iraq is being turn into a “free-fire zone” right in front of us. Hit everything, kill everything. I have a friend in the Air Force, a Colonel, who had the awful task of being an urban bombing planner, planning urban bombing, to make urban bombing be as unobtrusive as possible. I think it was three weeks ago today, three weeks ago Sunday after Fallujah I called him at home. I'm one of the people -- I don't call people at work. I call them at home, and he has one of those caller I.D.’s, and he picked up the phone and he said, “Welcome to Stalingrad.” We know what we're doing. This is deliberate. It's being done. They're not telling us. They're not talking about it.

[more]

  thanks to Yolanda Flanagan

Water Anxiety...
by Riverbend

I have to make this fast. We have about two hours of electricity- hopefully. The water came back yesterday evening. It's just a little drizzle but it's certainly better than nothing. E. was the first to hear it. We were sitting in the living room and he suddenly jumped up, alert, "Do you hear that?" He asked. I strained my ears for either the sound of a plane or helicopter or gun shots. Nothing... except, wait... something... like a small stream of... water? Could it be? Was it back? We both ran into the bathroom where we had the faucets turned on for the last eight days in anticipation of water. Sure enough, there it was- a little stream of water that kept coming and going as if undecided. E. and I did a little victory dance in front of the sink with some celebratory hoots and clapping. This was followed by a lot of work. We spent the rest of the evening filling anything that was fillable- pots, pans, cups, bottles and buckets. The formerly empty area under the staircase is now filled with big pots of water covered with trays and mismatching pot covers to keep out stray bugs and dust.

[more]

Here comes “The Freedom”
by Dahr Jamail

My friend from Baquba visited me yesterday. He brought the usual giant lunch of home cooked food he always brings when he comes to see me. I’m still eating it, actually. I had it again for dinner tonight. Ah, the typical Iraqi meal. He owns four large tents, and rents them to people in his city to use at funeral wakes, marriage parties, tribal negotiation meetings and to cover gardens, among other things. During the Anglo-American invasion of his country back in the spring of 2003, when refugees from Baghdad sought shelter from the falling bombs, many of the families inundated his city. After his house was filled with refugees, he let others use his tents, for free of course. Refugees from Fallujah are using them now.

[more]

Criminals the lot of us
The invasion of Iraq was a crime of gigantic proportions, for which politicians, the media and the public share responsibility

But, through the invasion of Iraq, a crime of gigantic proportions has been perpetrated. If history has taught us anything, it is that it will condemn both the individuals and respective societies who not only perpetrated the crime, but also remained blind and mute while it was being committed.

[more]

"A military in extremis"
Still living in a fantasy world, the administration has no strategy for maintaining the current number of U.S. forces in Iraq for two more years.

The most penetrating critique of the realism informing President Bush's second inaugural address, a trumpet call of imperial ambition, was made one month before it was delivered, on Dec. 20, 2004, by Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve. In an internal memorandum, he described "the Army Reserve's inability under current policies, procedures and practices ... to meet mission requirements associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. The Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force." The memo continues: These "dysfunctional" policies are producing a crisis "more acute and hurtful," as the Reserve's ability to mobilize troops is "eroding daily." The U.S. force in Iraq of about 150,000 troops is composed of a "volunteer" Army that came into being with the end of military conscription during the Vietnam War. More than 40 percent are National Guard and Reserve members, most having completed second tours of duty and been sent out again. The force level has been maintained by the Pentagon only by "stop-loss" orders that coerce soldiers to remain in service after their contractual enlistment expires -- a backdoor draft. Reenlistment is collapsing, by at least 30 percent last year. The Pentagon justified this de facto conscription by telling Congress that it is merely a short-term solution that would not be necessary as Iraq quickly stabilized and an Iraqi security force filled the vacuum. But this week the Pentagon announced that the U.S. force level would remain unchanged through 2006. "I don't know where these troops are coming from. It's mystifying," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told me. "There's no policy to deal with the fact we have a military in extremis."

[more]

  thanks to Antiwar.com

Much Bigger Military Is Called For

The Bush administration is facing new calls from Democrats and Republicans, including some of its staunchest allies, to expand the size of the Army and Marines by tens of thousands of active-duty troops over the next several years.

[more]

  thanks to Information Clearing House

Here we go again
by Steve Gilliard

I'm watching Nightline's town hall on Iraq and it's the same shit in a different day. Sen. George Allen (R-VA) should never be in a room with a serious thought. Thankfully he talked so much that Richard Perle had to keep his mouth shut. Joe Wilson kept talking about "internationalization" as if any European government could survive such a vote. Marty Meehan (D-MA) made some sense about setting a time table for leaving Iraq. Two years later, it's like watching a debate frozen in amber.

[more]

Talk Of Pulling U.S. Troops Out Of Iraq Simmers In Congress

Talk of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq is simmering on Capitol Hill. It's mostly from Democrats -- Edward Kennedy on Thursday became the first senator to say "we must begin" withdrawal -- but Republicans, too, expect the discussion to increase as an Iraqi government takes shape and Congress considers more billions of dollars for the war.

[more]

  thanks to Antiwar.com