LAT: Sovereign Iraq Just As Deadly to U.S. Forces (attacks UP 20%)

[DeepModem Mom]

Sovereign Iraq Just as Deadly to U.S. Forces
With attacks more frequent, the hand-over of power has not mollified insurgents

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer


BAGHDAD — Two months after the U.S. handed sovereignty back to Iraq amid hopes of reduced violence, more than 110 U.S. troops have been killed and much of the country remains hostile territory. The toll of U.S. dead since the war began last year is fast approaching 1,000.

Although attention in recent weeks has focused on Najaf, where U.S. forces battled Shiite Muslim militiamen, most of the deadly confrontations for American troops in newly independent Iraq have occurred in the Baghdad area and the so-called Sunni Triangle to the north and west.

The concentration of attacks in those areas is a reminder that the fiercest and most organized opposition to U.S. forces and the U.S.-backed interim government continues to be in Sunni-dominated cities, such as Fallouja. Nationwide, U.S. forces are being attacked 60 times per day on average, up 20% from the three-month period before the hand-over....

***

....many of the underlying grievances that have stoked the insurgency, such as the presence of U.S. troops and the slow pace of reconstruction, remain. The number of fighters — including loyalists of former President Saddam Hussein, religious militants and others dissatisfied enough to take up a gun or plant a bomb — shows no sign of decreasing....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-military31aug31,1,3787593.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[jackofhearts]

1. So then the question is...

Why the fuck are we not pulling out? We have Hussien...there are no WMD (never were), we even have our puppet goverment in place so why would there not be a decision to SAVE AMERICAN SOLDIERS LIVES and GET THE FUCK OUT? This more than anything shows what the neocons true agenda is. Our troops should be pulled immediately yet the neocons could care less about our troops...they just want control of the country and the oil. Its obvious that the forces against the occupation will never give up...ever.

So get used to it America...get used to our children dying in Iraq. Get used to seeing the silent moments on the national news broadcasts honoring our troops. Apparently not even the democrats are ready to pull our troops out of the chaos and save their lives.

[priller]

2. Wouldn't that be MORE deadly?

Oh, I see, that's ATTACKS up 20%, not necessarily deaths.

The NYTimes had a very revealing article Sunday saying that nearly the whole country west of Baghdad has been given over to rebel control, that the Allawi and US appointed leaders are being killed and kidnapped on a regular basis. Nary a word of this is heard on TV news, of course.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. "In Western Iraq Fundamentalists Hold U.S. at Bay"

Post by Halliburton:

NYT: In Western Iraq Fundamentalists Hold U.S. at Bay

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 28 - While American troops have been battling Islamic militants to an uncertain outcome in Najaf, the Shiite holy city, events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq.

Both of the cities, Falluja and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias, with American troops confined mainly to heavily protected forts on the desert's edge. What little influence the Americans have is asserted through wary forays in armored vehicles, and by laser-guided bombs that obliterate enemy safe houses identified by scouts who penetrate militant ranks. Even bombing raids appear to strengthen the fundamentalists, who blame the Americans for scores of civilian deaths.
<snip>

There also appears to be an error in this article:
<snip>
"Among militants in Falluja, there has been one point of agreement with the Americans - that many of the bombing raids have hit militant safe houses, and with pinpoint accuracy. A clue as to how this has been possible is given in the tapes of the beheadings of Mr. Mar'awi, the national guard commander, and of the Egyptian, a man in his mid-30's who identifies himself on the tape as Muhammad Fawazi. Both men confess to having planted electronic homing "chips" for the Americans. As they speak, the tapes show a man wearing a red-checkered kaffiyeh headdress holding a rectangular device, colored green and encased in clear plastic, about the size of a matchbox."
<snip>
Pinpoint accuracy? I don't call killing civilians and blowing up homes "pinpoint accuracy." Everytime one of these bombings have occured everything I have read from AP and Reuters say that the bombings only killed or injured civilians.

http://nytimes.com/2004/08/29/international/middleeast/29province.html?hp

[pinniped]

3. Well, better take their so-called "sovereignty" away so the attacks...

go down 20%.

[llmart]

5. But the major news outlets don't give this any air time...

They don't want the sheeple to know this or see it on TV. It might upset their little lives to know that Bush has caused death and destruction with his little war for oil folly. But you wait until their little Johnny or Suzie is up for the draft and see how they start paying attention.