Dave Lindorff: Bush's "Defining Moments"--In Iraq, and Back Home in D.C.

[marmar]

Bush's "Defining Moments"--In Iraq, and Back Home in D.C.
Mon, 03/31/2008 - 18:27 — dlindorff


Bush may not be the greatest of wordsmiths, but he certainly nailed it when he said that the battle in Basra, in which the puppet governent of Nuri al-Maliki and the Iraqi military were attacking the entrenched Mahdi Brigades of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for control of Iraq’s crucial port city, was a “defining moment” in the five-years-and-running Iraq conflict.

That battle, which saw al-Maliki fly down to the presidential palace in the country’s second largest city to direct the army’s fight, only to be spirited away by an American air rescue team when he was in danger of being captured or killed, is indeed a defining moment. (It might even have been a trial run for the eventual rescue of the US ambassador and the American commander in Iraq from the Green Zone at some future date.)

It defines the utter failure of the Bush/Cheney administration’s year-long “surge” scam, which was supposed to “give the Iraqi government time” to get on its feet, pass a law on sharing the country’s oil wealth among the various regions and tribes, and resolve the issues of power sharing between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.

A year, a thousand American deaths, uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, $150 billion in US taxpayer money and countless repetitions of the phrase “the surge is working” by administration hacks and by Republican presidential candidate John McCain later, it’s clear that the extra 30,000 troops the US shipped over or held over in Iraq accomplished nothing.

The country is still a basket case.

The battle of Basra ended—at least for now--with Moqtada al-Sadr stronger than ever, his fighters still armed and in control of the city, and of their stronghold in the slums of Sadr City, Baghdad. It concluded with a cease-fire agreement—negotiated by Iraqi governmet offials who, embarrassingly, had to go hat in hand to meet al-Sadr in his headquarters in Iran--under which the Iraqi army and police must stop attacking al-Sadr’s forces, as they have been doing for months, and must release members of his forces currently being held captive. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/?q=node/127

[theoldman]

1. A sure sign of trouble is when your troops surrender without

being asked to surrender. As most of us said a long time ago, the surge is only working when the other guys let it work.

[Supersedeas]

2. the most temporary success (until trouble can be handed to *'s successor) that taxpayer hush $$$ can

buy