The sixth year of Bush's madness begins today. [View All]

[seafan]

Bush urges patience with Iraq as war enters 6th year



March 19, 2008
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Five years after launching the invasion of Iraq, President Bush strongly signaled Wednesday that he won't order troop withdrawals beyond those already planned because he refuses to "jeopardize the hard-fought gains" of the past year.
As anti-war activists demonstrated around downtown Washington, the president spoke at the Pentagon to mark the war anniversary. He gave a strong defense of his decision to go to war and continue it and linked the fighting there to the global battle against al-Qaida.

"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage the battle in Iraq will end in victory," he told an audience of Pentagon brass, soldiers and diplomats.

Bush made some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there. He said the increase of 30,000 troops that he ordered to Iraq last year has turned "the situation in Iraq around." He also said that "Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaida out."
"The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president said. "We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."

.....

The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year's increase.

Faster and larger withdrawals could unravel recent progress, Bush said.

"Having come so far and achieved so much, we are not going to let this happen," he said.

So we will actually have MORE troops in Iraq this summer than were there before Bush's surge last year.

How many hoodwinked, sorry Congresspeople are there now? Twelve billion dollars a month down the rathole in Iraq. Halliburton/KBR still sucking at our tax money with those sweet "cost plus" contracts for monogrammed towels for our troops, for example?

And today, the UK papers are reporting that the Pentagon is balking at screening returning troops from Iraq for mild brain injuries, the signature injury of this war, from shock waves from roadside bombs. Why?

Because the Pentagon is afraid that the extent of the problem would be as widespread as the scale of Gulf War Syndrome, from another war by another Bush.



Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings

Ed Pilkington
March 18, 2008

The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.
The head of the Pentagon's medical assessments division has told USA Today that he wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War syndrome.
He said the military feared announcing a screening programme would encourage troops to think they had a condition and make correct diagnosis more difficult.

"Some individuals will seek diagnosis from provider to provider to provider," Col Kenneth Cox said.

The first evidence of what is known as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) was discovered among soldiers in Iraq just months after the invasion in March 2003.
By January 2006 federal scientists specialising in the condition were calling for immediate screening.
Yet the Pentagon is only now gearing up to implementing the screening process, which involves soldiers being asked a series of questions designed to indicate whether they are suffering symptoms.

Those symptoms include headaches, dizziness, memory loss, nausea and convulsions.

Over the five years of the Iraq war, the extent of the problem of TBI has become better understood, and it is now classed as a "signature injury" of the war. The injuries are caused largely by roadside bombs that can send concussion waves through the brain even at a distance.
An army survey of more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan suggested that about 11% showed signs of mild TBI, though some estimates have put it closer to 20%.

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The delay in the Pentagon's screening programme has been fiercely criticised by politicians of both main parties and by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.

What a catastrophic disgrace for America, caused by an arrogant, ignorant Caligula, who has never concerned himself with anyone's suffering except for his own privileged annoyance.



Does ANYONE in a position of power CARE about this enough to DO SOMETHING NOW??? Pelosi? Reid? Hoyer? Conyers? ANYONE??



The sixth year of Bush's madness begins today.