Violence in Baghdad cut by half: military

[Barrett808]

Violence in Baghdad cut by half: military
By Ross Colvin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violence in Baghdad has dropped by nearly half since July, after U.S.-led forces launched an operation to pacify the capital, a U.S. general said on Monday, while acknowledging a spike in bombings in the past 48 hours.

U.S. military spokesman Major General William Caldwell also said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would assume operational control of Iraq's armed forces next month in what he called a significant step toward Iraq taking responsibility for its security.

Caldwell hinted at a looming confrontation between U.S. and Iraqi forces and the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose Sadr City slum stronghold has not yet been targeted in Operation Together Forward.

"The intention is for Iraqi security forces to operate through the entire city of Baghdad," Caldwell told journalists.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060828/ts_nm/iraq_baghdad_dc

[YDogg]

1. And when the troops leave??

[damntexdem]

13. Hey, show some respect! We've turned another corner in Iraq.

And we're turning them so rapidly nowadays that it's understandable that the U.S. military is dizzy. ;-)

[saigon68]

19. FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH

Get with the program shouted the AWOL Chimpanzee

[saigon68]

26. 9 KILLED IN LAST 2 DAYS---------------- SOME SLOWDOWN

</SARCASM>

[VegasWolf]

32. Damn, we turned another one of those kerners Bubble boy keeps talking

about? With all the good news that Rummy and Bush spout, hell, you'd think all the soldiers would be home now. How many kerners are there anyway in Baghdad?

[saigon68]

35. too many KERNERS makes a CIRCLE

LOL

[frylock]

2. what, again?

:yawn:

[iconoclastic cat]

3. *coughBLLSHTcough*....nt

[Ilsa]

4. Is the reason more "Whack-a-mole?" eom

[CoffeeCat]

11. Ohmygosh...that's PERFECT...

"Wack-a-mole" describes perfectly what we are doing in Iraq.

We wack Fallujah and they turn up in Baghdad. We wack Baghdad
and where will the insurgents turn up next?

Wow. That's brilliant. It should be on the lips of every Dem.

You should write a Wack-a-mole-themed LTTE!

:)

[Ilsa]

18. Yeah, were you on vacation when John McCain said this?

I can't tell if you are teasing li'l old me. But I don't particularly want to call the military leadership "liars", so I'd rather blame it on "Whack-a mole".

[CoffeeCat]

33. No! I hadn't ever heard "whack-a-mole" before...

So, McCain said this?

Actually, I think it's a brilliant description of how the insurgents are playing us,
and how the game will never end.

I'll have to Google, and see what this is all about.

I would never tease little ol you! :) However, if you didn't come up with the analogy
I must retract my praise. ;) Ok, ok...I'm teasing a little, now.

Seriously though...I hadn't heard anything about whack-a-mole from McCain.

[Ilsa]

36. No sweat! Sometimes I disengage myself from some of the

political news because it becomes too distasteful and overwhelming. Most DUers seem to feed on it really well! :pals:

And sometimes I say the stupidest, most obvious things that I can't blame anyone for ribbing me about it. I think sometimes that I might be a wee bit autistic like my son, so I try not to get bent out of shape if I've said or done something "off".

Yeah, McCain and the other senators were questioning Rummy (that delayed testimony) and Gen Pace over the level of violence, etc in Iraq, and McCain suggested this was part of the problem: that the insurgents are certainly smart enough to move off to an area the coalition has just "secured" and left. And on a talk show, he explained that the Whack-a-mole is that game where you hammer a mole popping out of the ground and if you hit it, it just pops up from another hole.

[azurnoir]

5. One would think our Generals or Military

spokespeople would learn to STFU about turning corners, last throes, we have it under control, or any statements of the sort, every time they make one of these announcement's the "insurgency" feels compelled to prove them wrong.

[angstlessk]

6. Would this be the 'final' last throes or just the 'next' last throes?

I would LOVE to believe this, but alas we have turned so many corners and declared victory so many times before that I am too cynical to believe ANYTHING I hear any longer.

[rodeodance]

16. i get dizzy turning the corners.

[shain from kane]

7. How to compare to July? The month of August hasn't ended. The

body count will have to be corrected when this month's mass murder sites are uncovered. Besides, if measured by numbers, fewer people to kill, based on prior months' results.

[warrens]

8. Try keeping millions of people on lockdown

It ain't possible, not if they are armed. The Iraqi security forces are no match for insurgents, and never will be.

[plasticsundance]

9. Do they even care what happened to Iraqis and US troops

this past weekend.

It's always a good measure of how screwed we are ever becoming in Iraq when they send out these propaganda tidbits. The US had to increase troop strength whereas they said just the opposite would be happening several months back, and they admit there has been a spike in violence over the past 48 hours, but they're trying to spin good news.

Hey US general, let me clue you in, there's a lull only because of new planning and rearming. You can't be that stupid, so you must know you're a lying sack of shit.

[Kickoutthejams23]

10. Half of a shitload is still a shitload.

[krispos42]

28. No matter how think you slice it, it's still balony n/t

[alfredo]

12. When Our troops move in, the insurgents move to

another region. When our soldiers move there, the insurgents move to another region. Each time our leaders crow about their great victories in pacifying a neighborhood or city.

Baghdad might be quiet but Kirkuk is aflame.

[Sherman A1]

14. Would that be their violence or our violence?

[Endangered Specie]

15. I think he meant cut in half as being...

people literally getting cut in half.

[Rose Siding]

17. Meanwhile, security in southern Iraq deteriorates

Whack-a-mole hasn't been a winning strategy. Bring 'em home.

[ckramer]

20. Thanks to this guy!

[wellst0nev0ter]

30. Didn't He Help The Taliban Liberate Afghanistan In The Third Movie?

boy Rambo's been a busy guy :eyes:

[daleo]

21. If you don't count days with a spike in bombings...n/t

[Rex]

22. Gosh and all this time I thought the country was called Iraq.

I'll say it again, if we are just fighting to control one city in Iraq, then we've lost the country. Just like Afghanistan. This is all thanks to Rummy and his military plans for destroying voluntary service in the military. IMO.

[Javaman]

23. Ahhh but the question that begs to be asked is...

Has violence dropped in the rest of the country??

Probably not. Actually probably went up, since the military decided to concentrate it's forces in Baghdad.

Funny how that works...

[w4rma]

24. bombings increase. violence decreases. bombings != violence? (nt)

[badgervan]

25. Liars

Yesterday ( Sunday ): 110 killed, 5 of them American soldiers. That is one day, and only what we know has been reported.

[krispos42]

27. ½ of incidences, same amount of dead

So then the attackers are getting twice as efficient?

I love to hear why this is good news!

[54anickel]

29. At least 100 die as militia force Iraqi troops out of town

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1222376.ece

At least 100 people were killed across Iraq yesterday in a day of intense gun battles and suicide bombings, contradicting US military claims that the security situation in the war-torn nation was improving.

A total of 34 bodies, including seven civilians and 25 Iraqi government soldiers, were brought into the central hospital in the town of Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, after fighting between government forces and gunmen of the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Fifty militiamen were also killed in the gunfight, according to the Iraqi defence ministry.

In a separate development, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the Interior Ministry in Baghdad during the midmorning rush hour, killing 16 people, including 13 policemen, and wounding up to 62.

On Sunday, a further 60 people were killed in attacks across the country from Kirkuk in the Kurdish-held north to Basra in the south.

snip>

More than 10,000 Iraqis - the vast majority in Baghdad - have been killed in the past four months alone, a figure that would send shockwaves through the international community were it in any other part of the world.

more...

[wellst0nev0ter]

31. Imagine The Numbers If We DID Pull Out

as some noncom in Eye-rack said last year, we can either lose and destroy our army along the way, or we can just lose.

[Matilda]

34. This article, also published Monday, gives the lie

to the statements of the U.S. military.

"In Baghdad all roads lead to the morgue. This building to the north of the city comes from the
pages of Dante.

"It reveals the unvarnished truth about this deepening conflict. The body count rises steadily:
more than 1800 mutilated corpses were trucked in from across the capital in July, a significant
increase on the June toll of almost 1600. Across the country, almost 3200 Iraqis died violent
deaths in June.

"Coping with this flood of suicide-bombing and mass-murder victims is an impossible task for morgue
staff. In the stifling summer, the police try to get out before sunrise to gather corpses from
the killers' favourite dumping spots before the boiling heat of the day."

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0828-08.htm


The article was written by Paul McGeogh, a respected Australian journalist who has been in Iraq
from the beginning of the invasion, was never "embedded", and wrote the truth from the beginning
when it wasn't fashionable to do so. I'd be inclined to believe him before I'd believe any
military spokesman, and as this was published on the same day as the military release, I find it
hard to believe there's been a sudden turnaround in a matter of days.