WP: U.S. Claims Success in Iraq Despite Onslaught

[kskiska]

Body-Count Total Is Newly Invoked

Monday, September 19, 2005; A01

BAGHDAD -- Using enemy body counts as a benchmark, the U.S. military claimed gains against Abu Musab Zarqawi's foreign-led fighters last week even as they mounted their deadliest attacks on Iraq's capital.

But by many standards, including increasingly high death tolls in insurgent strikes, Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, could claim to be the side that's gaining after 2 1/2 years of war. August was the third-deadliest month of the war for U.S. troops.

Zarqawi's guerrillas this spring and summer showed themselves to be capable of mounting waves of suicide bombings and car bombings that could kill scores at a time and paralyze the Iraqi capital. Insurgents have also launched scores of attacks every day in other parts of Iraq and laid open claim this summer to cities and towns in the critical far west, despite hit-and-run offensives by U.S. forces.

Last week, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, declared "great successes" against insurgents. But Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, where Lynch briefed reporters, was under stepped-up security screening and U.S. guard for fear of suicide bombings. Insurgents for three days running last week managed to lob mortar rounds into the Green Zone, the heart of the U.S. and Iraqi administration.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/18/AR2005091801593.html

[sam sarrha]

1. women and children are Terra'ists too.. kill em all Allah, sorts em out

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[xray s]

2. if its such a great success why can't we come home?

doesn't compute, does it?

[gratuitous]

3. Oh boy, now we're up to body counts

Just like a certain other disastrous intervention the United States committed. Remember well, foulks, that this whole magilla was to get rid of those weapons of mass destruction. Or discipline Saddam. Or liberate the Iraqi people. Or something else. Now we measure the success of the operation by how many people we kill. People who prior to March 2003 didn't mean us any harm and were no threat to us.

Is this what America means in the world? We "pre-emptively" invade a country, occupy it, and kill its citizens? Is this our noble cause?

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. I wonder who comes after Zarqawi? After all, I never really

heard much about Zarqawi until they stopped talking about Saddam and much earlier Bin Laden. I find it humorous that they use these old fashioned "metrics" like "enemy" body counts, in the same discredited fashion that they did during Vietnam. It tells me, at once, that we are probably losing and they don't want us to know it.

[libodem]

5. using insurgent body counts as success

is a far cry from democracy, infrastructure and any kind of personal safety for the people we are supposedly freeing. I want to see a panorama of all the small cities and towns in Iraq for all the new water treatment facilities, sewers, electricty, telephones, cable, homes, cars, clothes, radios, TV's oh...yeah, they hate us for our freedoms...why would they want any of that...just go back to bombin' 'em.

[rodeodance]

6. I have noticed that for months now the military is giving us a # of emeny

killed.

[BSDRebel]

7. hey, we built a few more schools...

and, and and, we built a hospital, don't forget the hospital. and and..

Arab female questioner: "excuse me, excuse me, but, what about my rights? it used to be that I could walk around in any clothes, but see this bruise here (shows ankle)? That came from some Shiite nut throwing a rock at me and telling me that I was unIslamic for showing my legs. What do you propose to do?"

U.S. Spokesman: "I'm not gonna engage in the blame game, next question!"

/sarcasm