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Baghdad To Be Re-Liberated!

Posted April 16th, 2006 by quarsan
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In a move almost beyond parody, the US is to Liberate Baghdad again once they finally get a government together that Bush approves of.

Funny that, they've been telling us for years about the great progress being made, but eventually some element of reality begins to seep into the rarified air of the White House.

But troop numbers must come down before the November elections, and for other reasons:

Lieutenant-General John Vines, who stepped down as commander of ground forces in Iraq at the beginning of this year, said it was essential to reduce the numbers.

“There is an incredible amount of stress and I’m worried about it,” said Vines. He added that soldiers were on their third or fourth tours of duty in Iraq: “The war has been going on nearly as long as the second world war and we’re asking a lot of the forces.”

Naturally the cannon fodder that is the Iraqi army will be to the fore, but the omens for this re-liberation are not good:

Vines’s replacement as commander of ground forces is Lieutenant-General Peter Chiarelli, who pioneered the use of force with Sweat to subdue Sadr city, a working-class Shi’ite district of Baghdad, in 2004. On the eve of his return to Iraq this year he described how the tactics had worked and vowed to repeat them.

Oh, those tactics... the ones that sent you into Sadr City to capture Mukhtar Al-Sadr 'dead or alive' that ended with... oh yes, Al-Sadr being a major player in Iraq politics, just a shade behind Sistani.

Chiarelli's next statement shows that he is utterly divorced from reality. Sit down and prepare youselves:

“It was not uncommon for the 1st Calvary Division to be engaged in intense urban combat in one part of the city, while just a few blocks away we had units replacing damaged infrastructure, helping to foster business growth or facilitating the development of local government,” Chiarelli said.

So, while Apache helicopters, F-16's and A-130's bomb seven bells out of a neighbourhood, next door the Chamber of Commerce is hosting tea parties for would-be businessmen.

Still, at least Baghdad gives a convincing argument in favour of compulsory ID cards:

Residents have taken to carrying two ID cards and ostentatiously religious CDs because of fears of sectarian violence. “If you are stopped at a Shi’ite checkpoint, you have to show you have a Shi’ite name, and if it is a Sunni insurgent checkpoint, it is good to show that your name is Omar,” said a Baghdad resident who had recently obtained a new ID.

hmmm.........reminds me of

On April 16th, 2006 sona says:

hmmm.........reminds me of the fiasco in the Mustafa Husainiyah mosque in northern Baghdad with over 60 people dead, one 'hostage' freed and gunmen, victims, soldiers, both US and Iraqi, impossible to trace. The US guys were acting in a supportive role, if I recall, the opertaion being planned and executed by an Iraqi special ops unit staffed by Kurdish recruits.