First off, Wednesday's snapshot and this Wednesday morning entry wrongly credited "Violence Rises in Iraq's Tense North" to the New York Times' Timothy Williams when the author was Campbell Robertson. My apologies. The morning entry has been corrected and we'll note it in tomorrow's snapshot (snapshot corrections run in later snapshots, that's the policy that allows people to easily copy and paste them -- if you're confused, you're new to the policy). It was my mistake and I apologize for the error and thank community members Mia and Charlie as well as a visitor e-mailing the public account for pointing out my error.
Meanwhile, no one ever leaves, everyone stays and the fire flies . . . . Stevie Nicks' "Fireflies" appears on Fleetwood Mac Live (and the Mac is on tour right now). No one ever leaves, everyone stays . . . Remember when the UK was leaving at the end of July? Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) reports, not so fast, Iraq and England are in talks on having "a few hundred British sailors stay" beyond July "to train their Iraqi counterparts." No one ever leaves. Meanwhile Xinhau reports that US and Iraqi forces arrested/rounded up 270 'suspects' in Diyala Province. You really think the US is leaving any time soon? The press is attempting to stress Iraqi forces on that but, yet again, they couldn't pull it off on their own. Yet again, they weren't prepared to police a province they were given control of.
In the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting today, Senator Carl Levin noted, "This June, pursuant to the US-Iraq SOFA, Status Of Forces Agreement, US combat forces are supposed to be withdrawn from Iraqi urban areas, turning over the security of cities and major towns to Iraqi security forces. The agreement also sets a December 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq." This June. But an excpetion was granted for Baghdad. A base that sprawls all over is in Baghdad but out of Baghdad as well, was the ruling, so US forces will remain there . . . in Baghdad. Though everyone (except Rod Nordland of the New York Times) appears eager to pretend otherwise.
And everyone in the US appears eager to ignore Alsumaria's report which has US Maj Marc Ferrero declaring that "his forces stationed in Taji are not included in the decision of US Forces withdrawal from Iraq cities since the region is out of Baghdad Province. In 2003, Taji's population was 143,794. Cities and major towns, said Levin today.
So there is a 'withdrawal' and a SOFA is followed, if you don't mind bending definitions.
If you don't mind lying to yourself.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4284. Tonight? 4295. If you're paying attention, that is 5 away from the 4300 mark. Today the US military announced: "BAGHDAD -- A Coalition forces Soldier was killed and four injured Wednesday morning while conducting combat operations in Duluiyah, approximately 80 km northwest of Baghdad, when their unit came in contact with enemy forces. The unit was conducting operations to rid Iraq of a weapons facilitator and suicide vest cell known to be operating in the area. The Soldiers names will not be released until 24 hours after next of kin notification."
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
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