By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:24 AM PST, November 19, 2007
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's government today said security statistics showed that Baghdad had "defeated the forces of darkness" after more than a year of sectarian warfare, and the United States said it was crucial that Iraqi leaders use the relative calm to get their political fighting under control.

The government released numbers indicating a major decline in violent attacks in Baghdad and the surrounding areas. Attacks such as bombings numbered 323 last month, compared with 850 in February, when a U.S.-led security crackdown was launched, according to the government figures.



On Sunday, the U.S. military announced a sharp drop in violence in Baghdad and the rest of the country since the start of the crackdown, which brought an extra 28,500 American forces into the country. Most of those troops have been deployed in the capital, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have set up hundreds of checkpoints to monitor vehicles for weapons and bombs.

"Certainly we still have more to do, but no one can deny that we have passed the difficult stage in Baghdad, the stage that we all had fears of sliding to a civil war," Ali Dabbagh, a government spokesman, told Arabia TV.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the government must use the slowdown in bombings, mass abductions and major street fighting to focus on legislation aimed at national reconciliation, and getting basic services such as water and electricity to all Iraqis.

Well slap Bush's flight suit on him and let's have a flyover, then declare victory and get the hell out of there! If Bush can stand with a straight face and tell us all how well the economy is, then by God he can tell us we won in Iraq and declare victory and bring our troops home. See if we encourage him and lie, like he has done for six years, he's dumb enough to believe it, so keep telling him how well it's going news media.

Sects unite to battle Al Qaeda in Iraq
BY: Doug Smith and Saif Rasheed, Los Angeles Times
11/19/2007


QARGHULIA, IRAQ " Despite persistent sectarian tensions in the Iraqi government, war-weary Sunnis and Shiites are joining hands at the local level to protect their communities from militants on both sides, U.S. military officials say.

In the last two months, a U.S.-backed policing movement called Concerned Citizens, launched last year in Sunni-dominated Anbar province under the banner of the Awakening movement, has spread rapidly into the mixed Iraqi heartland.

Of the nearly 70,000 Iraqi men in the Awakening movement, started by Sunni Muslim sheiks who turned their followers against Al Qaeda in Iraq, there are now more in Baghdad and its environs than anywhere else, and a growing number of those are Shiite Muslims.

Commanders in the field think they have tapped into a genuine public expression of reconciliation that has outpaced the elected government's progress on mending the sectarian rift.

"What you find is these people have lived together for decades with no problem until the terrorists arrived and tried to instigate the problem," said Lt. Col. Valery Keaveny, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Airborne unit in the Iskandariya area south of Baghdad. "So they are perfectly willing to work together to keep the terrorists out."

As late as this summer, there were no Shiites in the community policing groups. Today, there are about 15,000 in 24 all-Shiite groups and 18 mixed groups, senior U.S. military officials say. More are joining daily.

Here in Qarghulia, a rural community east of Baghdad, the results are palpable. Killings are down dramatically and public confidence is reviving.

"Sunnis-Shiites, no problem," said Obede Ali Hussein, 22, who stood at a checkpoint built by the U.S. Army along the Diyala River. "We want to protect our neighborhood."

For commanders in areas where Sunni-Shiite warring had brought normal life to a standstill, the unexpected flowering of sectarian cooperation has proved a boon.

Some suggestions for BJ's next post-ban moniker:

1. BoringJerklivesinDallas
2. BlistersfromJackingtoportraitofW
3. BlindlyJoiningthebandwagon
4. BorrowedJumperecablesfrommyneighboranddidntreturnthem
5. ButterandJellyaremyfavoritebreadspreads
6. BJHoneycuttismyfavoriteM*A*S*Hcharacter
7. BradJohnsonwassoooooHOTinFlightoftheIntruder
8. BrokeJackassusinglibrarycomputer

The US "Reports" are ALL LIES.

With sell out-treasonus General's like Petraeus, don't trust a thing coming out of Iraq.

All that matters is OIL PROFITS and ARMS PROFITS.

DEAD TROOPS = HALLIBURTON PROFITS = MONEY IN DICK CHENEY'S BLOODY POCKETS.

Dead Arabs ? The US could not care less if every Arab in Iraq dies. All that matters is that the Oil PRofits wind up in Bush family Bank vaults.

Why is there no mention of the fact that Muqtada al Sadr told his troops, the Mahdi Army, to stand down temporarily while the escalation...er "surge" continues. They were responsible for the most heinous attacks against our troops and against civilians? No mention of that and how that just might be one reason casualties are a bit lower.

Once bush begins to remove those surge troops...what will al-Sadr do then?
He is still powerful and nothing will really have changed.
Why no mention of that?

The whole idea of the surge was to stabilize the country in order to give the Iraqi government "breathing space" to get it's shit together. This hasn't happened, and probably never will. There will be a power struggle the day US troops leave Iraq, resulting in another Saddam-type leader.

Republicans insist that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is a wonderful victory, and Republicans also insist that Democrats share the responsibility for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. That"s the first time I"ve ever seen Republicans so eager to share "credit" with Democrats. How uncharacteristically fair-minded of them.

So now why are we in Iraq?

Twenty years ago, the US government supported the rise and ascent of Saddam Hussein. We were Saddam Hussein's ally; the weapons of mass destruction that he possessed should have been easy to find - the Pentagon sold them to him.

Two questions:

Is Iraq a success?

if so, how is this success measured?

Things getting better in Iraq; troops stay.

Things getting worse in Iraq; troops stay.

I'll bet the troops in Iraq feel as though they've been surgically castrated and taken for a never-ending ride on Bush's Hale-Bopp comet.

In Sept. Bush said:

"One year ago much of Baghdad was under siege. Schools were closed, markets were shuttered. Sectarian VIOLENCE WAS OUT OF CONTROL".

But ONE YEAR AGO he said:

"Absolutely, we're winning. Al Qaeda is on the run"

How can we believe ANYTHING he says?

"The terrorists and the Baathists loyal to the old regime will fail because America and our allies have a strategy, and our strategy is working." President Bush November 1, 2003

"Our strategy is working." Vice President Cheney September 28, 2004

"That's our strategy. And it is working and it is going to work, for the good of the country."
President Bush June 24, 2005

"Our strategy is working." White House's "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq"
November 30, 2005

"This approach is working." President Bush
December 7, 2005

"An Iraqi first lieutenant named Shoqutt describes the transformation of his unit this way: 'I really think we've turned the corner here'" White House Transcript Naval Academy Speech 11/30/05

My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq, we are winning the war in Iraq.
(Address to nation 12/18/05)

"It is a concrete example of how our strategy is working." Frm. White House spokesman Scott McClellan March 20, 2006

"It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq. Yet the strategy is working." President Bush March 20, 2006


Q Are we winning?
THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely, we're winning. Al Qaeda is on the run (Press Conf. 10/25/06)

In a Washington Post interview on Tuesday, Bush had said of Iraq, "We're not winning, we're not losing." (12/20/06)

Look, I had a choice to make, Jim, and that is - one - do what we're doing. And one could define that maybe a slow failure (PBS Newshour 1/16/07)

Have all you "nationalists" out there noticed how "nationalistic" Russia is becoming, oh and how filthy rich as well? Just what Bush wanted I guess...

Do these spokespeople realize how imbecilic they sound, always talking about "the enemy" in Iraq?

Some desperado plants a bomb that kills American soldiers and Iraqis, and he's described as an enemy. Bad dude, right? But he lives next door to someone we're supposed to be there helping, who presumably is our friend...except that person never wanted us in Iraq, either.

We go on and on fighting enemies, but we never identify who our friends are in Iraq. That might be because we don't have any, except for a few who are making money off our occupation.