Iraq: the crumbling coalition

The American-led coalition's failure to secure additional outside help in policing Iraq during a worsening security crisis was exposed yesterday when Japan backed away from sending troops.

The death toll in Wednesday's suicide bombing at an Italian base in Nasiriyah rose to 31, adding impetus to the efforts of George Bush and his administration to extract the United States from the worsening conflict.

Washington is more anxious than ever to hand power to Iraqis - without Iraq collapsing into chaos in the process. President Bush said last night that America wanted to speed up the transfer of power: "We want Iraqis to be more involved in the governance of their country."

Japan reacted to Wednesday's carnage by indicating that it would postpone plans to send 1,000 troops by the end of the year because of the instability. The announcement made it the latest important potential contributor of troops to refuse to send forces. India, Pakistan, and, most importantly Turkey - which would have been the first main involvement of a Muslim nation - have also declined.

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=463564&host=3&dir=75

If you are looking for votes you do not send people to get killed and then if you are blackmailed by Bush you have to think of that also.I would stick with my voters.I think we have one of thosr power plays starting in the state of Fl.

That's it. Burkina Faso, you're out of the coalition. That leaves..us.

percentagewise, the UK has suffered more KIAs than the US: .5% to .3%.
And supposedly the UK is going to send more troops. The demostrations next week might want Tony to change his mind.

US Struggles to Determine Who Is the Enemy in Iraq

Friday, November 14, 2003 2:24 p.m. ET
By Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is struggling to figure out who the enemy is in Iraq, with officials saying they remain foggy about the leadership and organization of the insurgency and analysts decrying a huge intelligence lapse.

Military commanders and U.S. intelligence officials describe resistance forces in Iraq as some combination of loyalists of toppled President Saddam Hussein's government, criminals paid by those loyalists to carry out attacks, Islamic militants from outside Iraq, and isolated Shiite radicals.

Gen. John Abizaid, responsible for military efforts in Iraq as chief of U.S. Central Command, has estimated that no more than 5,000 people have taken up arms in the resistance.

---snip---


The failure to know with better clarity who is perpetrating the attacks is "a very powerful indication of how deficient our intelligence is," said Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University international relations professor and retired Army colonel."I think it has to be unprecedented in U.S. military history to be engaged in a war of increasing intensity for this long a time and we really still don't know who the enemy is," Bacevich added.

that they have been suckered. This was planned. The
big-shot know-it-alls have been taken to the cleaners.

Saddam's translator indicated that the leader liked to read Schwartzkoff's book on the prior war and some Vietnamese book on guerilla warfare. The presence of so many arms caches in the country and the large number of irregular soldiers in the Iraqi armed forces reveal that this was planned. The way the regular forces took off their uniforms and disappeared into the population was another clue.

My understanding was that there were approximately 20,000 highly trained fedayeen fighters in the Iraqi defense forces. Now Centcom says there are only 5,000? This is propaganda for the home front. There are way more than that. The CIA estimate of 50,000 is probably a better estimate but it really doesn't matter, because they are swimming in a sea of discontented and angry millions. Each irregular can train replacement fighters as long as he isn't captured or killed. The numerically and militarily inferior force now has the large conventional force politically on the ropes. Should the conventional force regain the upper hand, it will only be temporarily. Following, the communist doctrine of popular warfare, the fighters can retire into the population wait for the occupying force to become lazy and predictable again and then reescalate the guerilla attacks.

There is no outlasting this strategy. That is their strategy. For every life we lose, they may lose 50. For every dime the guerillas spend we spend a million dollars. They have the home field advantage. They have the leverage.

I agree, although I hadn't thought of the financial angle. I read a while back that the resistance fighters were made up of part Saddam's former army, part foreign supporters, and various groups of other sympathetic fighters. When the US forces rolled in, the military dissipated and vanished into the population.

What they did next is nothing short of amazing: they were able to disband to the point of becoming 1-man directives; they didn't even need groups which could be identified and blasted to Kingdom Come by the americans. Instead, they dispersed to the smallest possible units and carried out their missions. Even if most of the members get killed, the remaining members could still carry out the plans.

The analysts at Stratfor say that this is precisely the kind of fighting which US forces can't fight. It's impossible. Too many reasons to mention here.

Another big reason why the US is at a disadvantage is that the US has to deal with increasing criticism at home, not to mention the money which will be running out at some point.

Muslim nations are supporting their resistance fighters. If you don't have your country behind you, what have you got?

1. Who are these civilians you see cheering around burned out vehicles? They on our side?
2. The insurgents make their attacks with impunity, you never hear "2 US soldiers killed in roadside bombing-4 terrorists killed after ensuing firefight" Now some of the civilians must've seen the insurgents set the thing up, they aint telling? The rocket attack on the rashid hotel for instance, was carried out in downtown Bagdad in broad daylight, and nobody saw anything?

special special people like Halliburton. Is Ahmed Chalabi gonna run things for the American interest groups. Or will they bring their good friend Chalabi back to America for protection from those ingrates.

This will be interesting to say the least. Open up your pocket books folks this is gonna get expensive.

having to "buy" it -

the rest of the world refuses to sign on for the loss of their people (which would be inevitable) and so this fool and his junta is stuck - and he has stuck "us" with the bill - in lives and treasure - for his folly.

"George's Folly" has quite a nice ring to it.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

now pay no attention to me...i so cynical about the busheviks/neocons and 'hatriots' that even i like a lil salt with my theory. It's this:
Bushinc is part of larger US/western movement, in effect a 'white in control' mainly anglo saxon tribal group that consists of most powerful people on earth; the US was and is their base. Playing fair politically means that the 'liberals' will change the rules, and non 'conservative' gain power. This was proven when the extreme right, for all its power, couldn't get rid of Clinton, even after staging impeachment....they knew that their opportunity to reset the rules was limited by time, so a loosely defined but ferociously managed (see mike Lind's 'up from conservativism') group/movement decided they better move now, in 10 years they may not be able to....thus the '00 'coup' which was primarily run using the mass media (notice piggy never really talk about the 2000 election, or the media role in it) The coup was succesful only in getting bush into WH, but the fact remained- HE ONLY WON OFFICE VIA SUPREME COURT ruling, and the supreme court was patently corrupt (see Clarence Thomas statement in 90's that it's gonna take him '43 years to get even with America!' quoted on page 360 in 'Strange Justice') Having Bush in office merely delayed inevitable, thus necessitating 911....which also served to FORCE US media managers to recall they had been main element in Bush coup to begin with...once the media managers became compromised by that deed they had no choice but to support bush. It's probably common knowlege among the ruling elite what really happened on 911 and all the following; anthrax, the murder of flight 587, Sen Wellstone, the attacks on afghanistan, Iraq etc..but they all bought bushinc and their allies only thing they care about...TIME, and caused their opponents to hesitate (see Al Gore, dashchle, even Wes Clark). The war in iraq is BS, and bushinc will pull out w/out any worry about the mess left, because they haven't even started yet, in effect, getting control of US and its wealth/power. It's the 'Sampson option' applied domestically....
OTOH maybe the truth is so wildly silly it only appears like BS and...and...and...and so on
;-)

This is the result they wanted - make sure no one comes in to help out the US.

It is working.