Sep
13
We keep being told that the level of violence in Iraq is decreasing, but there are still daily bombings and suicide attacks across the country. In the past 24 hours: On Friday September 12th, at least 30 people were killed and 45 wounded in a suicide bombing in the town of Dujail – where as usual, the bomber targeted innocent people in a market attempting to buy food for their evening meal.
Six more people were killed and 50 wounded in Tal Afar on Saturday, September 13th where a suicide car bomber apparently staged a traffic accident in order to draw more innocent bystanders into the explosion. This is the same city where suicide bombers have attacked the market during the past month.
Also on Saturday, attackers set off bombs near two major shrines in the holy city of Karbala, killing at least three people and wounding 15 others. The bombs went off near the Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas mosques — two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims. The people killed and wounded included women and children making pilgrimages to the shrines.
Sep
9
Female Suicide Bombers increasing in Iraq
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Latest posts | Leave a Comment
The number of female suicide bombers has more than tripled in Iraq — from 8 in 2007 to 29 so far this year — according to US military officials. This alarming increase is noticeable in northern Iraq, where violence continues at high levels.
Just this week, a female suicide bomber killed six people and wounded 54 in an attack on an outdoor market in Tal Afar, in Turkomen province. This is the second suicide bomb in that market in a month — the first one killed 28 people and injured 72. It goes without saying that most of the people shopping in a market are innocent women trying to buy food ingredients to cook supper.
Meanwhile in Baghdad yesterday, another suicide bomber struck a convoy carrying former deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, The bomber missed Chalabi but killed his 6 bodyguards. Before the war, Chalabi was one of the voices who insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, an argument that precipitated the US invasion.
According to the Iraqi police, one of the difficulties they face in maintaining security is the growing number of women who are carrying out suicide missions. Some of these are almost children — Kurdish authorities captured a 17-year old girl wearing an explosives vest in Irbil province. They are being hideously exploited by cowardly extremists.
Sep
7
Since the US invasion of Iraq, the suicide rate among US troops has reached record levels.
There were 67 suicides in 2004, 87 in 2005, 102 in 2006, 115 in 2007. The Army suicide rate per 100,000 population has increased from 9.8 in 2002 to 18.1 in 2007.
By the end of August, 2008, there were already 62 confirmed suicides and 31 apparent suicides among active duty troops and guards. At a Pentagon news conference, Col. Eddie Stephens, deputy director of human resources, said that if all these suicides are confirmed as expected, the total number for 2008 will eclipse the 2007 rate.
The Army has been increasing the number of psychiatric personnel and mental health programs, but so far the situation seems to be getting worse, not better.
Aug
15
Is this any Way to Rebuild Iraq?
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Other Writing, Recent Press, War & The Economy | Leave a Comment
The country has a huge budget surplus. Why isn’t it paying for its own reconstruction?
By Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz
August 15 2008
Across the Middle East, from Abu Dhabi to Yemen, the dizzying rise in oil prices has fueled a construction and employment boom. Yet in Iraq, one-quarter of the population remains jobless, and Baghdad gets only 11 hours of electricity a day. Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes and are urgently in need of resettlement. After five years of war, the country is still desperately in need of rebuilding.
Read Bilmes and Stiglitz’ full op-ed in the LA Times.
Aug
15
What Counts as ‘Success’ in Iraq?
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Recent Press, Veterans, War & The Economy | Leave a Comment
The Boston Globe
By John Tirman
A VOLUBLE attempt to describe the Iraq war as a success is widely apparent, and will increase as the Republican National Convention nears. John McCain is staking his campaign on this assertion. There is little doubt that the level of violence in Iraq has subsided noticeably in the last 12 months. But is this “victory”?
Two notions are in play. First is whether what exists now, or will in the near term, is a favorable and sustainable outcome and is due particularly to the “surge” of US troops since early 2007. Second is whether the price of this outcome is acceptable.
On the first matter, the reductions in violence are mainly due to the withdrawal of Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia and the cooperation of many Sunni tribes in ridding Iraq of foreign extremists. A fervent debate among experts is indecisive about why Iraqis pulled back from the wicked killing of 2006 and early 2007. Some is due to a change in US strategy. But all the actors with explosives began to see the futility of their tactics, apparently, and have altered course.
No one knows how sustainable these gains might be. Will Sadr reenter the fray once US troops are drawn down? Will Sunnis return to resistance if Shia political dominance continues?
Civil wars of long standing tend to persist if a broad and enforceable political settlement cannot be reached, and so far none is in sight in Iraq. So the prognosis for more armed conflict, perhaps many years in duration at a low level, remains troubling.
One outcome that seems irreversible is the primacy of Iran. This was widely predicted before the war was started, and it is now apparent. All of Iraq’s leaders, including the president, a Kurd, are friendly with Iran and regard it as an important ally. In Bush circles, this new prominence for Iran is never linked to the war, as if occurring by itself.
So the visible political outcome in Iraq (setting aside the original target of the invasion, the nonexistent WMDs) is not usefully described as a success. There is a level of violence and political fragmentation that in other places would not be hailed as victory. And these recent gains may be temporary.
Perhaps more important are the costs of the venture. The facts are sobering. About 5,000 Americans have been killed, including military personnel, contractors, and aid workers. Another 30,000 or more are wounded, and estimates of those with post-traumatic stress disorder are as high as 300,000. The financial costs are estimated to reach $3 trillion eventually.
For Iraqis, of course, the costs are colossal. While there is a dispute among experts about how many Iraqis have died as a result of the war, the numbers range from 200,000 to one million, and very likely a mid-range estimate is correct. The Iraqi government reports one million or more war widows. About 3.5 million Iraqis have been displaced by the war, most of them living in difficult circumstances in Jordan and Syria. A new study from the Brookings Institution labels the refugees - many impoverished - as a “looming crisis” for the entire region.
More than half the school-age children in Iraq cannot attend school, due to a lack of security, and 40 percent have no access to safe water. A survey conducted in 2006 by the Ministry of Health found a doubling of mortality, much of it due to violence but about an equal amount to disease and accidents, indicating a gradual collapse of the healthcare system.
Globally, the run-up in oil prices is attributable in part to the war, which not only devastates developing countries but has also contributed to a food crisis worldwide. The war has distracted the United States from other issues, as the recent Russian muscle-flexing in the Caucasus illustrates.
Since the war is not over, no one can predict where all these gruesome figures and trends will end up. But the price everyone has paid for this war so far has been exceptionally high. The actual political results for Iraqis remain doubtful. To a dispassionate observer, this does not look like “victory.”