1,300 Iraqis Fired For Refusing To Fight

Iraqi Police, Army Members Dismissed After Deserting In Face Of Basra Militias Last Month

The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight during last month's offensive against Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra, officials said Sunday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.

The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread.

Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.

Since then, government officials have revealed that about 1,000 members of the security forces - including an entire infantry battalion - had mutinied, on some cases handing over vehicles and weapons to the militias.

The majority of Iraqi soldiers and police are Shiites.

Speaking in Basra, Khalaf said those dismissed included 421 police officers and 500 soldiers who had not returned to duty in the southern port city and would be tried by military courts.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/13/iraq/main4011648.shtml
 
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Iraq: State Of Corruption

Steve Kroft Reports On Widespread Corruption In Iraq's Government

 

General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told Congress this past week that there has been substantial progress, but not enough to begin withdrawing American troops. There are questions about the readiness of the new Iraqi army and the competence of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government, which is fraught with ethnic and religious divisions.

Electricity is still in short supply, medicines are available mainly through the black market, and there are long lines for fuel in a country that has the third largest oil reserves in the world. One of the biggest problems is corruption, which is robust even by Middle Eastern standards. According to U.S. and Iraqi officials, bribery and outright theft are flourishing in virtually every Iraqi ministry, and some of those ill-gotten gains are being used to kill American troops.
This story begins 18 months ago, in the fall of 2006, when correspondent Steve Kroft first reported that more than a billion dollars from the previous Iraqi Defense Ministry had been wasted, stolen or misappropriated. The money was supposed to supply the new Iraqi army with desperately-needed equipment to fight the growing insurgency. But according to audits conducted by the Iraqi government, and to Judge Radhi al Radhi, Iraq's top anti-corruption official, millions were misspent on old and antiquated equipment and the rest simply disappeared.

Judge Radhi told Kroft that he estimated that "more than half" of the $1.3 billion had been stolen. "As we hear from some friends abroad, that they never heard of such corruption and embezzlement to such a degree," he said.
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/60minutes/main4009328.shtml
 
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Military Releases High Casualty Figures

Department Of Defense's Latest Numbers: 31,590 Troops Wounded On Battle Field

The Department of Defense has released its latest American military causality numbers for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the figures reveal non-fatal casualties that go well beyond the more than 4,000 U.S. troops who have died so far.

As of April 5, a total of 36,082 members of the U.S. military have been wounded in action and killed in Iraq, since the beginning of the war in March 2003, and in Afghanistan, where the war there began in October 2001. The 36,082 number breaks down to 4,492 deaths and 31,590 wounded. According to the same DoD "casualty" counts, an additional 38,631 U.S. military personnel have also been removed from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan for "non-hostile-related medical air transports."

"That's a tremendous number," said Paul Sullivan, the president of the advocate group Veterans for Common Sense, who believes these latest figures paint a more realistic picture of the true cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He is concerned troop casualties, including those who have been wounded, killed and medically transported, is now nearing 75,000.
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/14/cbsnews_investigates/main4012249.shtml
 
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{ These three articles show the reality of Iraq today! Iraqi troops that will not fight for their government or country, overwhelming corruption that neither the Iraqi or American government can control much less end and a shocking number of American troops wounded on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The dead and the wounded, the corruption and the inability of the Iraqis to deal with the problems and destabilization brought on by the Bush/Cheney invasion is the legacy of this administration. It is the "albatross" they will carry around their necks for all time. The "Neocon necklace".
 
Very few Americans believe in the war anymore or in this administration. Mostly it is the extreme right wing who refuse to leave the sinking ship or give up the immoral, illogical and unethical dreams they followed under the dark star of neoconism.
 
I rather doubt a new Democratic held White House even combined with a democratic congress after the next election will result in an early exodus from Iraq. The Bush/Cheney administration have dug us so deeply into this hole it may well take years to work our way out of it. Sooner or later we will have to leave and when that happens all hell will break out. Civil war and foreign invasion will chop what is left of the country into bloody pieces. Oil and blood will flow in the desert sands together.
 
Democracy never had a chance in Iraq. The iraqi people didn't have it with Saddam and they don't have it with Nouri al-Maliki. The "purple finger of democracy" meant nothing. Democracy is much more then just voting. Democracy also means a government that can lead and make the necessary compromises to solve the countries problems. It means law and order, the rule of law and not the rule of militia's and a free and responsible legal system and press. It needs a constitution that works and represents equality for all the people. It need religious tolerance and a sharing of resources. Efforts to bring all this about have failed.

I fear our eventual exit from Iraq will be reminiscent of our exit from Vietnam. Postponed way past any point of common sense and then rushed, undignified, desperate and humiliating. I think the writing is on the wall but many of us can't bear to look at it......again.

What do you think?}

Rose