Strikes in Iraq
Attack, bomber, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Baghdadi, a strike destroyed two ISIL artillery pieces and an ISIL vehicle.
-- Near Bashir, two strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL supply cache.
-- Near Fallujah, three strikes struck three separate ISIL tactical units; destroyed five ISIL fighting positions, four ISIL vehicles, two ISIL vehicle bombs, an ISIL heavy machine gun and six ISIL light machine guns; damaged two separate ISIL fighting positions; and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Qayyarah, eight strikes struck an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL weigh station; destroyed three ISIL mortar systems, 10 ISIL rocket rails, two ISIL vehicle bomb facilities and an ISIL assembly area; damaged an ISIL mortar system; and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Ramadi, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle bomb storage facility and an ISIL anti-air artillery piece.
-- Near Sinjar, four strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed two ISIL assembly areas, an ISIL rocket rail, an ISIL tactical vehicle, two ISIL vehicles, an ISIL fighting position, and an ISIL storage area.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike suppressed an ISIL bunker.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.
As the bombings continue, efforts at diplomacy continue to be forgotten by the US government.
At The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kirk H. Sowell examines the current situation in Iraq:
A mob loyal to Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr sacked Iraq’s parliament on April 30, exacerbating the country’s seemingly permanent political crisis and bringing the tenure of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to a new low. The government’s political paralysis is severe even by Iraqi standards, with parliament struggling to make quorum, and the legal legitimacy of its leadership in question. While a new military operation to free Fallujah from terrorist control has temporarily grabbed media attention, Iraq’s political crisis continues.
Several misconceptions surround the origins of this paralysis—including that Abadi’s efforts to create a cabinet of technocrats were a reaction to Sadrist protests, that these demonstrations can be broadly identified with last summer’s anti-corruption protests, and that the fight between Abadi and rival figures within the political elite is substantially related to his efforts to push anti-corruption reforms. Rather, while both the Abadi and Sadr “reform” initiatives failed, the current crises facing both the parliament and Abadi’s cabinet result from a struggle for power and all sides’ disregard for the rule of law.
Abadi had announced various reforms in response to popular protests in August 2015, but the only one that was actually implemented and had wide-ranging impact was his August 16 decree deleting four ministries, merging eight other ministries into four, and effectively firing eleven cabinet members.1 Abadi did not submit a request to parliament but simply took the action by decree. All other parliamentary blocs correctly argued that this was unconstitutional—according to Article 75, the prime minister can remove ministers only with parliament’s approval—and uniformly opposed it.
Confused?
We've noted repeatedly that Haider's actions were unconstitutional.
We've noted that the US State Dept has praised these actions.
And that whenever there's an action it doesn't like, it insists that action goes against the Constitution but this supposed concern for the Iraqi Constitution is just a lie.
US government concern's always been a joke.
That link was posted by BBC NEWS today.
It goes to their 2012 report on the assault on Iraq's LGBT community.
And it's worth recalling that the US government turned a blind eye to those assaults.
Yes, some in Congress objected but where was the US government condemning it?
Where was the US government telling the Iraqi government that either this persecution stopped or US weapons and monies dried up?
The US government did nothing to protect Iraq's gay community, not even empty words were offered.
Meanwhile the Sunni civilians continue to be persecuted in Iraq.
- Anbar Governor al-Rawi said 49 Iraqi sunni civilian killed & 643 Sunni civilian Missing by Shia Militias #warcrimes
#IRAQ شمرية العراق 
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4517 (including 20 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 3 Iraq War fatalities).
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