Posted on 02/05/2007 7:22:13 PM PST by blam
'Take back Baghdad' surge begins
By Damien McElroy and Alex Massie in Washington
Last Updated: 2:34am GMT 06/02/2007
American and Iraqi military commanders launched the first stage of the new security strategy in Baghdad today, hours after President George W Bush won a temporary victory in the Senate against opposition to his "surge" of 21,500 soldiers.
Hours after a joint command centre was inaugurated in the Iraqi capital to direct operations ahead of the crackdown, opponents of Mr Bush failed to advance a resolution in the Senate repudiating his plan.
President Bush won a temporary victory in the Senate
While several moderate Republicans were said to have lined up behind the bipartisan motion, which urged Mr Bush to reconsider "all options", it failed to secure the 60 preliminary votes needed to back a full debate.
The resolution, while non-binding, was seen as the first serious effort in Congress to confront Mr Bush over Iraq. Democrats however warned that the subject could not be avoided forever.
"The American people do not support escalation. Last November [in the mid-term elections which saw Democrats take control of Congress], voters made it clear they want a change of course, not more of the same," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada. "The president must hear from Congress, so he knows he stands in the wrong place, alone."
"If the Republicans want to stand by their president and his policy, they shouldn't run from this debate. If they believe we should send thousands of our young soldiers into the maws of this wretched civil war, they should at least have the courage to stand and defend their position," said Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin.
The temporary reprieve however set the scene for the first day of the new security plan in the Iraqi capital. Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has ordered a phased operation to win back territory in the capital from insurgents and militias, the first of which will mainly involve Iraqi forces.
The Baghdad command centre will be led by an Iraqi general Abboud Gambar, a compromise appointment after the US military rejected Mr Maliki's first choice.
The operation splits the city into nine districts, each of which will have a detachment of 600 US troops to support thousands of Iraqi soldiers. Two Iraqi generals will oversee operations on either side of the Tigris. An American adviser to the Iraqi army, Col Doug Heckman, said: "It's going to be an operation unlike anything this city has seen."
A series of bomb and mortar attacks in Baghdad left 26 people dead and 105 injured yesterday.
The Senate voted on the opposition motion to the surge after Mr Bush sent his proposals for the new budget to Capitol Hill, including a request that Congress allocate $235.1 billion to fund the war on terror until the end of the next fiscal year, September 2008. The figure included a $93.4 billion supplementary request to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• A soldier from the 2 Bn the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment has become the 100th British soldier to die in action in Iraq after a roadside bomb attack in Basra.
After a kiss my Great Grand mom said, and I’ll never forget this, “Now go have fun, but don’t get dirty.”
Stand your Ground Mr. President!
she'd probably been watching from the kitchen window when you stole your baby brother's ice cream cone when you thouht nobody would see you.
Gee, I wonder if the bad guys know that there is a troop build up in Bagdad and we are comming after them?
They must have all left town by now.
Yes, many have left, which is good. It's not easy to run an insurgency while "redeploying." It's hard to set up IEDs from out of town. It's not easy to move your bombs, arms and other equipment in and out of your preferred area of operation. It's not easy to keep safe houses safe when you aren't around. It's risky setting up a new build shop for your VBIEDs. Every time these guys move, they are more exposed to being caught. It's hard to drive around with prohibited weapons when the Coalition stops you at checkpoints and searches your vehicle. It's even worse to travel around if you are not Iraqi, you are more likely to be noticed, especially now that Iraqis are running a lot fo the checkpoints.
I hear some have fled to Diyala. Don't you bet there are Americans in Diyala asking around, "Hey, seen any new strangers around lately?"
This is all good.
the brits are socialists, their biggest enemy is the USA. Nice statue of Marx ya got there .
Exactly right. And anyone who doesn't believe this should watch BBC International for about a week and see what world wide anti-American propaganda looks like.
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