bring the personnel home

They won't want files in the hands of ISIS or the Iranians.

It sickens me...in 2002 I argued this would be the logical end at the now defunct AOL boards.

Horrible what we have done to that poor country. God have mercy upon them and us.

I vote to give McCain a rifle and a uniform. He should lead the 101 Charborne and recreate his glory days or finally slay his demons.

Of course, in jest...it ain't gonna happen. Wolfowitz sgould lead the second Chairborne division by the way, with Krystol as his XO

Are not one bit surprised.

but what's a few hundred million among friends...

The Iraqis have been treated so badly over the years by the puppet government we installed that it is NO surprise they are rising up to take back what is theirs. Yes, I know 'the jihadists' etc. I'm sure they are there, after all we BROUGHT them there.

Libya too is in turmoil, when you invade a country and slaughter the leaders, it's amazing that our brilliant leaders thought that they would simply 'settle down' and forget all the murders, the torture etc.

Don't we have about ten thousand troops in that embassy? And how many mercenaries are there still?

I remember during the Arab Spring Iraqis staged their own peaceful protests, assuming that this 'democracy' they now lived in permitted peaceful protests. The brutal crackdown on them was yet another crime. Our puppet government killed them, arrested hundreds of them and made it clear that 'democracy' doesn't include free speech.

The police we trained routinely tortured protesters, which is what began the journey taken by Chelsea Manning. She was charged with turning over people to the Iraqi police. When she realized many of them were wanted simply for making signs for a peaceful protest and were being brutally tortured and beaten after the US handed them over.

So she reported the abuses to her superiors. And she was told basically to stfu.

And she, like so many others, realized it was all a scam. And it is SHE who is sitting in jail for 35 years, while the real perpetrators, Cheney, Rummy, Bush, Rice, Wolfowitz, Ledeen et al, are living in luxury, enjoying the spoils of war.

Most left when the SOFA was not signed. Mercs ran even faster we have a Battalion, which is busy getting ready to protect helipads.

It could house a division with some armor, but it hardly has that many troops

Airc, from a few years ago, our laws only permit 'contractors' to aid the troops. If there are no troops, there cannot be US Govt financed Mercenaries.

You are correct, there are just a couple of hundred troops left in Iraq.

If we hit 3000 that is a lot.

And they already told USAID et al to bail, which means they are about to

hired by the Iraqi Govt since all this violence has been escalating. Probably why the old Blackwater crew moved over there, they were expecting more business, AND changed their name, what is it now, twice so far?

As Hillary said after Libya, this is 'how we fight wars now, with 'proxy armies'. She was quite proud that we don't always 'need boots on the ground anymore'.

Forever war, it's so profitable. Hard to give up, especially when money doesn't ever stop flowing.

Congress COULD stop it, but they don't.

Back to Vietnam!! They never ever learn.

never forget their exact words - They will greet us as liberators

Rummy told us it would all be over in 'month, weeks maybe'. Has the media sought him out and asked him how he could have been so WRONG?

I know he's probably busy living off the spoils of war, but a few minutes just to jolt the memories of those who supported this tragic disaster, wouldn't take up too much of his time.

Just one would do.

they are in danger of being prosecuted. THEN we will hear how they 'made a mistake', the 'never intended to cause harm' etc etc. But why would they do it when they know they are protected?

and to reappoint Bush's team. Fugger doesn't realize yet that ReTHUGs lost in both 2008 and 2012.
He believes is one party government - his.

We just finished building it, didn't we?

White Elephant. I remember writing on DU pointing out that it would be a perfect ReTHUG symbol - a white elephant.

If 'lil stupid me could predict that -then they knew it was always about war profits - nothing more nothing less.

For the Bush 43 administration. They should be banished. Since apparently we can't have them tried at the Hague.

And here is one from what we built at the airport.

http://wemeantwell.com/blog/2012/11/16/rebuilding-americas-infrastructure-in-the-middle-east/

The news is that the spending process is already well underway, albeit by the Pentagon, in the Middle East. TomDispatch, in an excellent piece America Begins Nation-Building at Home (Provided Your Home is the Middle East) by Nick Turse, lays out the extent of taxpayer money being spent: The Pentagon awarded $667.2 million in contracts in 2012, and more than $1 billion during Barack Obama’s first term in office for construction projects in largely autocratic Middle Eastern nations, according to figures provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Middle East District (USACE-MED). More than $178 million in similar funding is already anticipated for 2013. These contracts represent a mix of projects, including expanding and upgrading military bases used by U.S. troops in the region, building facilities for indigenous security forces, and launching infrastructure projects meant to improve the lives of local populations.

The figures are telling, but far from complete. They do not, for example, cover any of the billions spent on work at the more than 1,000 U.S. and coalition bases, outposts, and other facilities in Afghanistan or the thousands more manned by local forces. They also leave out construction projects undertaken in the region by other military services like the U.S. Air Force, as well as money spent at an unspecified number of bases in the Middle East that the Corps of Engineers “has no involvement with,” according to Joan Kibler, chief of the Middle East District’s public affairs office.

But what is a picture if not worth a few million bucks? The photo above is of the $1 billion U.S. embassy in Baghdad, bad enough but at least still in partial use. Here’s a photo of just part of the U.S.-built facility at the Baghdad Airport. Everything you see was carted to Iraq with your tax dollars, put up and maintained with your tax dollars, and then simply abandoned along with your tax dollars when the Iraq War got boring for the U.S. Have a look:

Should it ever be finished, the U.S. embassy in Iraq will stand as a colossal monument to the Bush administration’s failures

By Allen McDuffee
InTheseTimes.com,

Panic shot through the State Department and White House earlier this summer when the American architecture firm Berger Devine Yaeger posted computer-generated images and layout of the forthcoming U.S. embassy in Baghdad on its website. Ostensibly concerned with security, government officials urgently acted to remove graphics to avoid aiding potential insurgents in their plots to disrupt the embassy’s progress.

The real fear, however, may have been that the disclosure would draw public and congressional attention to everything that’s gone wrong with the embassy. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine how insurgents could be any more disruptive to the embassy’s existence than those who are building it. Allegations of mismanaged funds, shoddy workmanship, kickback schemes, exploitative labor practices, ill-gotten contracts, blocked investigations, trafficked humans and covered-up deaths have plagued the construction of the world’s largest embassy.

The planned 104-acre, 21-building compound on the Tigris River will include two office buildings, six apartment buildings, a pool, a gym, a movie theater and a food court. The embassy will be supported by its own power and water treatment plants—probably wise in a country that has, on average, one hour to four hours of electricity daily, and where 70 percent of the population lacks clean drinking water.

The White House originally requested $1.3 billion to build the compound, but Congress allocated $592 million for the project in 2005. It was a hefty sum given that the United States didn’t pay a cent to Iraq for the four-square-mile stretch of land in Baghdad’s Green Zone, roughly the size of Vatican City. By comparison, the United States paid $22 million for land that was less than one-tenth that size for a planned new embassy in Beirut, which will now no longer be built because of security concerns over its proximity to a Hezbollah stronghold.

Nevertheless, the nearly $600 million wasn’t enough for the embassy in Iraq. According to documentation provided to Congress by the State Department, an additional $144 million is needed for completion and the embassy may cost as much as $1 billion each year to operate.

CONTINUED...

http://inthesetimes.com/article/3458/empires_architecture

Is there ANYONE who can stop this obscene scam or is it too late, being that the perps are now so wealthy and powerful?

Thanks be to Trickle Down, most of it is in their pockets, per David Stockman, of all people. We got to do the jiu-jitsu thing on their NAZI asses and that requires the Truth. Hence, propaganda from Corporate McPravda 24/7 at maximum effect and all their work to shut down the Internets, Snowden, etc.

contractors "rebuilt" the obscene complexes that will now fall into the hands of the insurgents. We may have forces protecting them now but these people don' t play by the rules. They will eventually kick us out.

Watch this space, as Rachel says.

"...we must pass problems on to others..."