Life in Iraq Grates on Soldiers' Morale: "So much of what happens is out of our hands."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT/AP: Life in Iraq Grates on Soldiers' Morale
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 12, 2006

RAWAH, Iraq (AP) -- Almost none has heard of the Iraq Study Group, and though a few know that Donald Rumsfeld is out as defense secretary, the name Robert Gates draws blank stares.

While much of America broods over the future of a bloody, expensive and increasingly unpopular war, the Marines and soldiers fighting it in the volatile cities and vast deserts of western Iraq say the big picture doesn't concern them -- they're just worried about accomplishing small tasks and getting home in one piece.

''You think about Iraq on a national level but so much of what happens is out of our hands -- its downfalls or successes,'' said Lance Cpl. Steven McAndrew, 21, of Columbus, Ohio.

McAndrew is a member of the Marines' 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, assigned to Rawah, a desert city of about 18,000 carved into a peninsula that juts out over the Euphrates River in the remote, northern expanses of dangerous Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

A popular retirement community for former officers of Saddam Hussein's army and high-ranking bureaucrats of his government, Rawah is considered a key staging area for insurgents, who cross into Iraq from Syria, then stop here en route to such hotbed cities as Ramadi and Fallujah.

McAndrew and the other members of Company D live in a three-story police station that looks luxurious from the outside but has no running water, power that comes for a few hours than goes out for days and very little heat -- even as temperatures plunge well below freezing....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq-Marines-Mood.html

[Jeffersons Ghost]

1. K&R the name Robrt Gates draws more than a blank stare from me...

Robert Michael Gates, Ph.D. (born September 25, 1943) was confirmed as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense on December 6, 2006, and is scheduled to be sworn in to that position on December 18. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence. After leaving the CIA, Gates became president of Texas A&M University and was a member of several corporate boards. Gates also served as a member of the bipartisan commission headed by James A. Baker III, the Iraq Study Group, that has studied the Iraq campaign. He is also the first pick by Bush to head the Department of Homeland Security, after its creation following the September 11, 2001 attacks, a position that he declined to remain President of Texas A&M University.

On November 8, 2006, after the 2006 midterm election, President George W. Bush announced his intent to nominate Gates to succeed resigning Donald Rumsfeld as U.S. Secretary of Defense. Gates has stated in a letter to students that he will continue as President of Texas A&M until completion of the confirmation process. Gates was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate Armed Services Committee on December 5, 2006, and the next day was confirmed by the full Senate by 95-2 margin.

Now, here's where he gets spooky:

At William and Mary College, Gates was an active member and president of Alpha Phi Omega (the national service fraternity) and the Young Republicans; which shows strong partisian loyalties and leanings.

Gates is still criticized for his role in the Iran-Contra affair and his role in the Iran-Iraq war. Because of his senior status in the CIA, Gates was close to many figures with significant roles in the Iran-Contra Affair and was in a position to know of their activities. In 1984, as deputy director of CIA, Gates advocated that the U.S. initiate a bombing campaign against Nicaragua and that the U.S. do everything in its power short of direct military invasion of the country to remove a democratically-elected Sandinista government.

Gates is or has been a member of the board of trustees of Fidelity Investments, and on the board of directors of NACCO Industries, Inc, Brinker International, Inc, Parker Drilling Company, Science Applications International Corporation, and VoteHere, a technology company which seeks to provide cryptography and computer software security for the electronic election industry. A White House spokeswoman has said Gates plans to sell all the stock he owns in indivdual companies and sever all ties with them if confirmed by the Senate.


Gates was nominated to become the Director of Central Intelligence (head of the CIA) in 1987. He withdrew his name after it became clear the Senate would reject the nomination due to controversy about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. As deputy director and occasionally director of this leading intelligence agency for many years, Gates failed to accurately gauge decline and disintegration of the Soviet Union, in spite of a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University. More particularly, Gates is criticized for concocting evidence to show that the Soviet Union was stronger than it actually was, and also for repeatedly skewing intelligence to promote a particular worldview. Also, according to U.S. Senate transcripts, Gates, as deputy director of CIA, vouched for the comprehensiveness of a CIA memo presented to the Senate and President Reagan alleging that the Soviet Union played a role in the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II.