Iraq Progresses To Some Of Its Worst
WASHINGTON — Despite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq.
One of the first big moves this year was the launch of a troop “surge” by the U.S. government in mid-February. The goal was to improve security in Baghdad and the western al-Anbar province, the two most violent areas. By June, an additional 28,000 troops had been deployed to Iraq, bringing the total number up to more than 160,000.
By autumn, there were over 175,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. This is the highest number of U.S. troops deployed yet, and while the U.S. government continues to talk of withdrawing some, the numbers on the ground appear to contradict these promises.
The Bush administration said the “surge” was also aimed at curbing sectarian killings, and to gain time for political reform for the government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
During the surge, the number of Iraqis displaced from their homes quadrupled, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. By the end of 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that there are over 2.3 million internally displaced persons within Iraq, and over 2.3 million Iraqis who have fled the country.
Iraq has a population around 25 million.
The non-governmental organization Refugees International describes Iraq’s refugee problem as “the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.”
In October the Syrian government began requiring visas for Iraqis. Until then it was the only country to allow Iraqis in without visas. The new restrictions have led some Iraqis to return to Baghdad, but that number is well below 50,000.
A recent UNHCR survey of families returning found that less than 18 percent did so by choice. Most came back because they lacked a visa, had run out of money abroad, or were deported.
Sectarian killings have decreased in recent months, but still continue. Bodies continue to be dumped on the streets of Baghdad daily.
One reason for a decrease in the level of violence is that most of Baghdad has essentially been divided along sectarian lines. Entire neighborhoods are now surrounded by concrete blast walls several meters high, with strict security checkpoints. Normal life has all but vanished.
The Iraqi Red Crescent estimates that eight out of ten refugees are from Baghdad.
By the end of 2007, attacks against occupation forces decreased substantially, but still number more than 2,000 monthly. Iraqi infrastructure, like supply of potable water and electricity are improving, but remain below pre-invasion levels. Similarly with jobs and oil exports. Unemployment, according to the Iraqi government, ranges between 60-70 percent.
An Oxfam International report released in July says 70 percent of Iraqis lack access to safe drinking water, and 43 percent live on less than a dollar a day. The report also states that eight million Iraqis are in need of emergency assistance.
“Iraqis are suffering from a growing lack of food, shelter, water and sanitation, healthcare, education, and employment,” the report says. “Of the four million Iraqis who are dependent on food assistance, only 60 percent currently have access to rations through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004.”
Nearly 10 million people depend on the fragile rationing system. In December, the Iraqi government announced it would cut the number of items in the food ration from ten to five due to “insufficient funds and spiraling inflation.” The inflation rate is officially said to be around 70 percent.
The cuts are to be introduced in the beginning of 2008, and have led to warnings of social unrest if measures are not taken to address rising poverty and unemployment.
Iraq’s children continue to suffer most. Child malnutrition rates have increased from 19 percent during the economic sanctions period prior to the invasion, to 28 percent today.
This year has also been one of the bloodiest of the entire occupation. The group Just Foreign Policy, “an independent and non-partisan mass membership organization dedicated to reforming U.S. foreign policy,” estimates the total number of Iraqis killed so far due to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation to be 1,139,602.
This year 894 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, making 2007 the deadliest year of the entire occupation for the U.S. military, according to ICasualties.org.
To date, at least 3,896 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
A part of the U.S. military’s effort to reduce violence has been to pay former resistance fighters. Late in 2007, the U.S. military began paying monthly wages of 300 dollars to former militants, calling them now “concerned local citizens.”
While this policy has cut violence in al-Anbar, it has also increased political divisions between the dominant Shia political party and the Sunnis - the majority of these “concerned citizens” being paid are Sunni Muslims. Prime Minister Maliki has said these “concerned local citizens” will never be part of the government’s security apparatus, which is predominantly composed of members of various Shia militias.
Underscoring another failure of the so-called surge is the fact that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad remains more divided than ever, and hopes of reconciliation have vanished.
According to a recent ABC/BBC poll, 98 percent of Sunnis and 84 percent of Shias in Iraq want all U.S. forces out of the country.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
I recently downloaded a pdf file from a government site, specifically a Veteran’s Affairs website. Here is the link. http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf Please download it, read it, distribute it, talk about it. Here are some highlights to pique your interest:
73,846 U.S. troops killed in the gulf region since 1990 (on page 8 of the pdf)
1,620,906 compensation and pension claims filed for veterans who served in the gulf region since 1990 (page 9 of the pdf)
The upshot of this is that since Papa Bush we have been at war in the gulf region, and the real human cost just in american lives is way more than the government has been publicly declaring. The real numbers are direct from the VA. Check it out.
This article is critical. Bushie has the Democrats convinced that the war is going “well” in Iraq.
Congress’s approval rating may hit absolute zero.
Heckuva job, Bushie! Of course, the corporate press will continue to crow about the success of the surge.
Almost 30% of Iraqi children are malnourished. This is not hunger or food insecurity; this is impaired development, disease, and death.
From the Guardian: Baghdad is facing a ‘catastrophe’ with cases of cholera rising sharply in the past three weeks to more than 100, strengthening fears that the stricken sewage system and the imminent rainy season could create an epidemic. Another disaster getting little attention from the corporate press. And none from this administration which caused it.
It’s almost 2008, just think of how much worse it can get. That is not optomistic is it? ___ It’s impossible to be so as long as Bush and Cheney are in office.
Happy New Year?????????? I don’t think so.
My theory is the decrease in violence during the last three or four months is due in part to the fact that many Iraqi’s have finally exhausted the thousands of tons of explosives they recovered from the unguarded munitions dump at the beginning of the invasion. Though munitions will continue to pour into Iraq, it won’t be as easy as it was before… at least for the time being!
Another reason for a recent decrease in violence is that the country is now split into varying armed camps that are busy consolidating their power.
That over 90% of Iraqi’s want the U.S. to leave Iraq immediately despite the fact that the Bush Administration (and probably a Democratic administration as well!) has no intention of ever leaving, should be proof enough to any American of the arrogance of this imperialistic oligarchy of corporate interests, neo-cons and other ‘bought’ politicians.
Think in terms of what the occupiers have to accomplish just to break even. Just to break even, the US government has to:
1.) restore Iraqi security, services, infrastructure and economy to pre-invasion levels
2.) compensate Iraqis for the damage done starting with the 1980s proxy war against Iran
3.) re-distribute the wealth back from the war profiteers to the US treasury
4.) compensate the injuries to US soldiers
5.) hold the perpetrators accountable for the greatest foreign policy blunder in the history of the United States.
6.) While we’re at it, let’s make the perpetrators compensate Vietnam as well, out of the private holdings of the capitalist club
The US government has a very very long way to go just to break even and any reasonable estimation would reveal that it is a truly lost cause. The US economy will collapse before real justice may be served. Bankruptcy of the federal reserve and UN occupation of the “homeland” may be the solution.
Baruch: I just looked at that PDF file- I was curious about that 74k American deaths in the gulf region since 1990. I think that number doesn’t necessary say that those were troops killed in action so to speak I think that number reflects those that have died since 1990 (from natural and “other” causes.) I think that is what it says…perhaps I am wrong? Anyway, thanks for the article there!
I heard just recently on Fox News that the war against the insurgents in Iraq was almost won.
NIETZSCHE — I think I saw that Faux report:
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Amazing how people grasp at short straws and make all kinds of noise about how wonderful things can be made to appear in the moment.
Every time I hear how things are going better, I’m thinking, “Uh oh. Things are about to get a whole lot worse.”
Eventually we’ll hear, “But the surge did work. But, well, then something else happened.”
The key here is the number of displaced Iraqis skyrocketing this year. Consider: the surge occurs at the same time the reason for the sectarian violence diminishes, ie, ethnic cleansing is complete.
So maybe the two are simply coincidental (along with Americans paying Sunni tribes to no longer be al Qaeda in Iraq). Now ask yourself why the Iraqi government doesn’t want the refugees returning just yet.
Duh.
Only a matter of time before the feces hits the air conditioner once again.
I believe that the muslims are in no hurry for us to leave. The real victory for the muslims is not militarially but rather bleed the west financially. how long can we continue to spend at the level of current expeditures?
Hell, Al Qaeda won the day the misnamed Patriot Act was made law and destroyed our Constitution. Nobody has to attack the United States. They just have to sit back and watch us continue to self destruct.
We have a “Unitary Executive” (read dictator) with a bunch of SA thugs in charge, a Reichstag Rubber stamp Congress to approve everything the Unitary Executive demands, a bought bunch of judges, mainly party hacks and lackeys appointed for life, ready to do the will of the UE. The press is a closely controlled propaganda ministry that Goebbels would be proud of.
Our unions are moribund, our jobs are pretty well outsourced, we are all under surveillance, we have no right of habeas corpus or a fair trial, the Bill of Rights died with the Constitution. Muslims are becoming German Jews, We the >b>People can be classified as enemy combatants for any protest of government insanity, our bank accounts and property seized and we can be renditioned. Concentration camps abound. Blackwater (the Unitary Executive’s SS)is growing as hundreds of millions of our tax money is poured into it and it is given advanced weapons and training.
Barring a declaration of martial law, the alleged elections, if held, are a bad joke, with still more fraud, caging and other illegalities in the wings. The candidates, with few exceptions are tools of the corporate raiders who currently run things from the shadows.
Naah, anybody who bombs us is just wasting ammunition. We’re doing it ourselves, and our alleged foreign policy has destroyed any friendship or sympathy we once had.
Heck of a job, Cheney et al.
It is not possible for an occupation to be a success. The big effort is to define something else as success. The media either plays down the abject failures or pumps out adulterated horse shit that claims to be some kind of success.
Unfortunately, people can’t put themselves mentally in the position of the occupied. Maybe they should picture the worst of their in-laws armed and sharing your home. Of course you have to include the lack of water, electricity, and all the other indignities directed by foreign usurpers.
There is nothing that comes out of this Administration that can be believed. I have given up trying. When the next President is elected if one actually is I may start listening again. If the Republican’s don’t steal the election again and we wind up with another Christian Nut for President!
The Bush regime and its supporting right-wing media infrastructure has been touted the “surge” as a success.
Unfortunately, after the surge has been played up, spun and spewed, US citizens may start asking questions and making demands.
If the surge is so successful, why isn’t there an immediate withdrawal of most US soldiers?
Why wasn’t the surge tactic attempted before now? Didn’t many of the members of the US high command suggest that the Iraq invasion and occupation would require much more manpower than allowed for by Bush? What happened to these commanders?
Even if it is a short-term “success” as a tactic, how has it contributed to the long-term success of the overall mission. (And please define the mission, again,)
If large walls surround many of Baghdad’s neighborhoods, doesn’t that make the city something like a large detention camp?
Part of the surge tactic was to make US soldiers function as Iraqi policeman. When will Iraq possess a police force solid and dependable enough to take over?
If you pay and arm primarily Sunni tribal units as Al-Qaida fighters, how does that contribute to a future stable, Shi’ite dominated government?
Might these “Awakening Councils” lead to the tribalization of Iraq? Isn’t the outcome of US intervention in Afghanstan and Somalia?
Any thinking person could on and on.
Tumbleweed: Don’t be fooled there is NOTHING Christian about the Republicans and they are not nuts. They are evil and diabolical. Their gods are MONEY and POWER. Unfortunately they do not openly genuflect in front of a big dollar sign. Part of their creed is to wrap themselves in whatever they can to maximize power. Haven’t you seen the filth that has rubbed off them onto the flag?, the Constitution?, the Bible? etc.
Dahr Jamail:
I don’t think this number is taking into account the unseen, unaccountable insurgency of dirty Black Water troops, which is what now, over 100,000?
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
Hi Shakker, you are completely right.
Baruch, I’ve checked the PDF. Suprise. The first column is called conflict, i think this means something directly related to iraq. Say, a soldier gets evacuated to a military hospital in Germany, and dies there the next day, he is counted in the conflict column and not in the theatre. So the US military death toll is much higher than what we get from the press, they only give us the theatre number. This is a kind of cosmetic treatment of the information. BTW, what is ERA?
“6.) While we’re at it, let’s make the perpetrators compensate Vietnam as well, out of the private holdings of the capitalist club”
Why stop there (and btw, your ‘list’ is not NEAR comprehensive enough to ‘cover all’ back to even VietNam):
What about [and this-List no whre NEAR ‘complete’, either]:
Korea
Israel vs. Palestine
WW-II
All enabled Hitlerian/Fascist crimes
Franco’s-fascism
A Depression
WW-I
The Philippines&other Spainish Suzerainties
Hawaii
Indian-genocides
and let’s not ignore ‘10-acres and a mule’ for Slavery…
…and too-many others since our illegal/criminal-’Founding’ and intentional/deliberate ‘March-since’ to mention without my puking on this-keyboard…
We were the world’s-worst ‘perpetrators’ since well-before our ‘founding’, and we have gone STRAIGHT downhill, ever-since (but ain’t we Great at masking-it-all, though — especially from Ourselves?).
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Projecting the Costs to Care for Veterans of U.S. Military Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
Summary CBO’s analysis to date indicates the following:
separated from the active component or become eligible for VA health care as reservists. In turn, one-third of those personnel (numbering 229,000) have sought VA medical care since 2002.
read
more…..