U.S. BEGINS TO HAND OVER COMMAND TO IRAQI FORCES

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/february/02_24_2.html

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has begun to transfer authority to Iraqi security forces.

Officials said the U.S.-led coalition has been quietly handing over the command to Iraq's military and security units in the four most violent provinces in the country. Fourteen of the 18 provinces have already been under Iraqi security control.

In the latest move, the U.S. military has transferred control to the Iraq Army in Baghdad. The U.S. Army's First Cavalry Division has handed over authority in several areas to Baghdad to the Iraq Army's 40th Brigade.

"We have reached a certain stage," Iraqi Brig. Gen. Jalil Khalaf said at the handover ceremony on Feb. 21. "The Americans are very accurate. They saw that we reached a certain stage in advanced training and in take over responsibilities."

Great now the country is getting ready to plunge into chaos.

It's fucking chaos, has been, will be, and then it'll be the meanest goddamn theocracy the Middle East has.

Way to go, President Fuckface.

<saluting>

It's connected to 'worldtribune.com', another right-wing site (and plenty biased). WorldTribune's president is Robert Morton, managing editor of the Moonie-financed Washington Times.

Just a head's up.

Let's declare victory and bring our troops home.
:mad:

for Iran. :eyes:

"Patriotic Purple"?

give it to the untrained Iraqi forces to do it???

What a plan!

LOL!

They're new guys so break 'em in gently, eh? Kee-rist! :wtf:

six o'clock snooze....

...will NEVER fall under Iraqi control as long as the Fourth Reich occupies them. Additionally, no U. S. military unit will ever fall under the command of any Iraqi.

More smoke and mirrors from the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe.

ChimpCo did not create the Iraqi Army to defend Iraq.

It created the Iraqi Army to suppress the Iraqi people on its behalf .

ChimpCo will never allow the Iraqi Army to acquire the military equipment needed to defend the country from outside threats (the reasons most countries have armies in the first place).

That's the real reason for the 14 "enduring" bases.

And...let us not forget that ChimpCo's CIA is creating an Iraqi Secret Police force with $3 billion of your tax money.

Why does a free and democratic Iraq need a CIA-run Secret Police service????

Is it to protect ChimpCo's petroleum interests and to suppress anti-US dissent????

Say it ain't so.

Free Iraq = US petroleum protectorate.

period.

planted lies and half truths.

Their game hasn't changed, just the dates, some names and faces.

unless of course they get in the way of something our army is doing.

I know I'm in the minority around here but I don't think there will be a draft. There will be instead a declaration of victory by the Republicans, a phased pullout of the troops, and then a cold shoulder turned when the civil war proper heats up. The Bushies desperately want out but they are waiting for a chance to save face. Unfortunately, they only need to save enough face to keep the base from splitting. Bush is going to extricate himself from this man-made quagmire and fiddle while Baghdad burns.

We'll keep enough troops there to man the bases and take potshots here and there against whoever they think are the bad guys as the civil war gets rolling but I believe they're getting out of the nation-building game.

Invading, destroying & occupying seem to be the plan.

Someone better tell the chimp....

He's "nation-building" in the worst sense.

...your response on the issue at that point in time.

Once Bush steals a toy he never gives it back

not nation building. If you think the USA is going to leave BILLIONS of dollars worth of Communications equipment along with those 14 bases for the Iraqis well, I got some land in FL to sell you...It will take more than a token amount of US military to defend all of those fancy expensive targets as well. Yes Virginia, there will be a draft.

~snip~

While the exact figure may change, suspicions of undisclosed US imperial plans--exemplified by permanent military bases--rightfully linger. Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested moving US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia into Iraq. In October, a survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found that two-thirds of respondents disapproved of a permanent military presence, even though more than half thought the US would build the bases anyway.

Now comes a report in the New York Sun by Eli Lake revealing that the Pentagon is building a permanent military communications system in Iraq, a necessary foundation for any lasting troop presence. The new network will comprise twelve communications towers throughout Iraq, linking Camp Victory in Baghdad to other existing (and future) bases across the country, eventually connecting with US bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan.

"People need to get realistic and think in terms of our presence being in Iraq for a generation or until democratic stability in the region is reached," Dewey Clarridge, the CIA's former chief of Arab operations (and Iran-contra point man), told the Sun.

The fabled "exit strategy" may be not to exit. Thomas Donnelly, a defense specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the new communication system resembles those built in West Germany and the Balkans, places where American troops remain today. "The operational advantages of US bases in Iraq should be obvious for other power-projection missions in the region," Donnelly wrote in an AEI policy paper.

Next time the Bush Administration hints at withdrawing troops, keep these grand plans in mind.


http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=2132

is why an exit strategy wasn't important. Anyone who thinks this was about spreading freedom is delusional.

that the Army has been tasked with a lot, and will be tasked with even more.

Just like Rummy undersetimated the number of troops for the occupation, he is probably doing the same for the "Pipeline Security" phase. The Iraqis have become very good at bombing the pipeline. It will become clear that it was an oil war after all as Iraq becomes more chaotic, and US forces do nothing to intervene. It was all about the oil from day one and it still is.

It will take at least as many troops as we have there now to secure oil profits for the Bush cronies. Don't expect a mass redeployment.

they won't be able to protect them during a civil war. Imagine a pipeline running from North Carolina to D.C. and every square foot had to be guarded. We don't have enough troops now to protect the pipeline so by your logic we will see a draft because this is all about oil. My logic, contrary to the vast majority here, is that instead of being a near-fascist growing cabalistic death-star like threat, this administration is horribly--almost perfectly--incompetent. They want the oil and they want to protect the oil and they can't and they won't be able to because of the holy hell clusterfuck quagmire they have built almost from scratch in less than two years.

invade Iran, that's why. This Administration is moving all too fast.

It's feeling really drafty here.:scared:

Then, we can all imagine that everything is peaceful and democratic, just like Afghanistan.

No news = no war.

I thought this is what the Repubs were all against Kerry for - because HE WOULD CUT & RUN in Iraq and not finish the job??? Wouldn't this be considered cutting & running?????

No problem.

As if.
Uh, huh.
I'm sure.
Whatever.

Until we remove the bases we set up and stop building others, we are still occupiers under a fake election.