Posted on 10/25/2005 8:22:38 AM PDT by wjersey
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US death toll in Iraq reportedly hit 2,000 amid a sharp spike in violence that killed 14 Iraqis as the nation awaited results of a key vote on a charter aimed at curbing sectarian violence.
The US network CNN, quoting Pentagon sources, reported Tuesday that the number of soldiers killed since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq had reached 2,000 with the deaths of two more soldiers, a toll likely to add pressure on the US administration over its role in the violence-wracked country.
For the first time, a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do", according to a poll published in The Wall Street Journal.
Ten people were killed in a string of bombings in the Kurdish stronghold of Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq, while another four were killed in Baghdad, the day after a spectacular bombing blitz on hotels housing international reporters and contractors killed 17.
The Sulaimaniyah attacks targeted a building housing Kurdish peshmerga militamen and the convoy of a senior Kurdish politician, while security sources also defused a bomb outside a hotel used by journalists.
In Baghdad, four people were killed, including two security officials shot dead in the violent southern neighborhood of Dura.
The capital was recovering from a triple suicide car bomb attack against hotels which killed at least 17 people Monday as Iraqis sat down to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
A cement truck packed with explosives was stopped before it reached the Sheraton hotel, and disappeared in a massive flash that sent up a towering column of gray and black smoke.
The blasts rocked Firdus Square, where the statue of ousted president Saddam Hussein was pulled down when US troops marched into Baghdad in April 2003, and shook the Palestine, Sheraton and Sadir hotels.
"If the cement truck had not been stopped in time by guards who opened fire, it would have totally devastated the Sheraton," a security source said.
In the past week, almost 100 people have been killed as the number and strength of attacks surged following the start of former dictator Saddam Hussein's trial for crimes against humanity last Wednesday.
The latest blasts also underscored tension over the outcome of Iraq's draft constitution, which hung on the undeclared results of Sunni-dominated Nineveh province after a second region rejected it.
With a two-thirds majority "no" vote in three of Iraq's provinces sufficient to scuttle the document, all eyes turned to the "swing" northwestern province and its mixed capital of Mosul.
"There is no problem in this province," said senior election official Abdul Hussein Hindawi on Monday. "We don't have a result yet we will get it later today and give it tomorrow."
US and Iraqi officials hope the constitutional process will lead smoothly to general elections in mid-December and draw Sunni Arabs towards a political solution to end sectarian strife.
But the constitution, which is aimed at laying down a democratic future for Iraq, has exacerbated ethnic divisions with disaffected Sunni Arabs fearing it could lead to the break of the country and leave the country's oil wealth in the hands of Shiites and Kurds.
Growing calls for foreign troops to leave Iraq, where some soldiers and analysts say they have essentially become insurgent lightning rods, provoked comment by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"We are not going to defeat (terrorism) by getting out of Iraq, or by not taking the steps necessary to make the world more secure," Blair told Sky News television.
But Jane's Information Group analyst Charles Heymen said attrition among coalition forces would likely lead to a withdrawal at some point.
"The only people it benefits, of course, are the insurgents," he noted.
In the Wall Street Journal poll, 53 percent of those surveyed said they felt that "taking military action against Iraq was the... wrong thing to do", against 34 percent who thought it was correct.
Meanwhile, Saddam's lawyer and a team of foreign officials supporting the defense called for a UN probe into the murder of an attorney working for one of his co-defendants.
The letter emerged as Saddam's Iraqi lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi arrived in Amman to take part in talks on coordinating defense strategy for his next court hearing on November 28.
US President George W. Bush stressed it was crucial "that there will be a fair trial, which is something he didn't give many of the thousands of people he killed".
The trial against Saddam and the seven former regime officials over the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiite villagers opened on October 19.
While attending Boot Camp in the Marine Corps back in 1965, we were shown combat footage of the landing on the island of Tarawa.
It was estimated that 1,000 Marines died before the 1st Marine reached shore. Think about that, 1,000 dead in the water before the first boots hit the sand.
In Iraq, we've liberated an entire country with fewer combat losses than three days of combat on a very, very tiny atoll in the south pacific in W.W. II.....
It is AFP, so who knows. IMHO, CNN won't report it on their site or on TV until they let all the rest of the MSM know.
And that was only in the first couple days.....Remember the body bags?
This is the left's take on McCarthyism. That he boasted of a list of known communists and when push came to shove his claims were ignored. There WERE communists working for the government and in public sector professions like schools. There WERE communists agitating on behalf of the Soviet Union. THIS part of the lesson gets ignored in schools.
Now there is a new chapter to the lesson. Zogbyism (media manipulated political smears) has replaced McCarthyism. Whether it is "Bush's Draft", "10,000 war dead", "Iraqi Prison Rape" (using photos from porn sites or staged shots of a British soldier urinating on a "prisoner"), "Bush's Air National Guard service memo", The NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, CBS, Washington Post, et al manufacturing news items to smear Bush and conservatives (e.g. the "Bill Bennett" redacted soundbite).
THIS is the witchhunt (even more than Clinton's smear of the Right after the OKC bombing). We haven't done anything wrong, let alone illegal, but conservativism itself is being criminalized.
And then there is Saddamite Michael Moore's (Miserable Failure)outburst (just days before Nick Berg's decapitation):
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? [snip]I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.
I recently discovered just how far gone the left is. Not only do they hate the soldiers serving in Iraq, they hate the veterans of any war that America has fought.
One nutjob explained that America could have avoided fighting WWII if we had been willing to provide a "humane" means of exterminating the Jews in Europe. He applied all of todays left wing nutjob theories to WWII. This guy claims that Germany never had any intent to attack America and the long range America bomber being developed was a fabrication "just like Bush". He even suggests that the planes that bombed Pearl Harbor weren't really piloted by Japanese pilots.
The left wing mind is a rotton maggot covered slime.
Any word on when, at the rate we're going, the deaths in Iraq will approach the number of those on Sept. 11th?
They hate America and Western Civilization. I suspect in some cases it is because they hated their parents and still never got over their petty nature.
Certainly it was the case with some of the wealthy agitators in the 1960s.
Quote: "THIS is the witchhunt (even more than Clinton's smear of the Right after the OKC bombing). We haven't done anything wrong, let alone illegal, but conservativism itself is being criminalized."
I actually see it as more akin to Stalinism than McCarthyism (as the left defines it). It really boils down to this. After 1994, the dems were willing to accept the voters giving Republicans power as an anamoly, a freak occurence that would be reversed. But, as time has gone on, the dems are no longer willing to accept the voter's decisions. In short, democracy has become an inconvenience to the democrat party (read United Social Party).
Look at what is happening now, Judges acting as legislators, local prosecutors investigating and indicting Republicans (and their allies) on trumped up charges, and re-re-re-re-re counting election results that don't go the dems way. All these activities aided and abetted by a media that doesn't even attempt to mask its bias anymore. A propaganda machine that Josef Goebbels would envy and admire.
Even more alarming is what will happen if the dems get power back. You can kiss freerepublic, and any other medium that does not tout the dems line, goodbye. Picture this, a dem congress an election and the voters return the Republicans to power. I can see the dems either by congressional action or by going to some friendly liberal court, overturning the results of the election, wholesale. Sounds crazy? I wonder, prior to 2000 could anyone envision a candidate trying to pull off what Gore did?
The question is, what are
Ooops. Add What are we going to do about it? I personally think the left is driving us to another civil war.
ping for photo
Here's the CNN story --
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/25/iraq.main/
Bush made a GREAT speech today. Totally nuked this before the fact. The speech to the Military Families was just one of Bush's superior performances
Omaha Beach-Normandy France-June 6,1944.
They would be wise to keep in mind which side has most the Combat vets, most of the guns and all the moral courage. It will be the shortest war in history.
Any word on when, at the rate we're going, the deaths in Iraq will approach the number of those on Sept. 11th?
About 1.5 more years assuming the violance at a constant rate which is doubtful since it is all ready down since January
Interestingly, in some ways, that 2000 is too low. Lots of people are surviving with unpeakably horrible medical problems, when they would have died before (just years earlier from today, even)-- sort of a quality of life deal. The medical costs for taking care of these injured soldiers is almost the same as caring for a lot more of the previous generation's soldiers-- because the injuries are so much more serious.
Quote: "They would be wise to keep in mind which side has most the Combat vets, most of the guns and all the moral courage. It will be the shortest war in history."
Ahh, but the left doesn't see it that way. Besides, they will just de facto amend the constitution to remove the second amendment.
They still got to come get them.
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