Impatience threatens Iraq security gains

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Growing impatience with the slow pace of work to improve basic services like electricity and water could threaten security gains in Iraq's Anbar province, a former al Qaeda stronghold, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

With Iraq's Shi'ite-led government deadlocked on the 2008 budget and other major laws, U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said that Iraq needed to focus on improving the lives of Sunni Arabs to take advantage of security gains.

"What's necessary to come behind security are essential services ... part of that is through the central government's distribution of funds into the provinces," Smith told reporters.

"There will clearly be impatience with the level of support when you consider just how far many of these areas need to come in terms of employment and so forth," he said when asked if disaffected Sunni Arabs policing their own neighbourhoods could become militias.

Millions of Baghdad residents still receive only fitful supplies of water and electricity after sectarian fighting and a Sunni Arab-led insurgency killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and devastated infrastructure.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08786699.htm

[Newsjock]

1. What the heck kind of BS propaganda headline is that!?

Not faulting the original poster, since them's the rules, etc. But, good heavens, what happened to the "U.S. military says" part of that headline? The assertion is presented as fact,

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. It is horrible, isn't it?

I considered adding something in parentheses at the end but all I could come up with was bad headline. In the end I figured DUers would realize that without my pointing it out. If I'd been on my toes I'd have called it out for what it is as you did. Propaganda, plain and simple.

[cal04]

3. Car bomb kills 33 in Iraq, Gates visits Baghdad

A car bomb killed 33 people in northern Iraq on Sunday, security officials said, hours before U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad to assess recent security gains and discuss troop levels.

A U.S. military spokesman said the blast occurred near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the town of Balad. Iraqi Colonel Hamadi Atshan said the bomb hit a checkpoint run by Sunni Arab volunteers who have joined U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda.

It was one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq this year.

(snip)
Sunday's car bombing came as the U.S. military said impatience with slow improvements to basic services like electricity and water could reverse recent security gains

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08786699.htm