Ernest’s link at Post #22...Freakazoid BO is heading to Iraq. I wonder if he’ll wear the t-shirt, or a flag pin, or if he’ll try to salute anyone. Hey, has he released his DD214? Oops, you say he doesn’t have one?! Who do you suppose will go with him? What other stops might he make? Is a visit to his cuz on the itinerary? Inquiring minds want to know!
War Rages in Iraq Ahead of Obama VisitP>*********************************EXCERPT************************
By SANA ABDALLAH (Middle East Times, with agency dispatches) Published: June 26, 2008
AMMAN -- Violence continued to rage and the death toll kept rising in Iraq Thursday as Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama plans a possible trip to the war-torn country that remains high in the calculations of Americans when they go to the polls in November.
At least 38 Iraqis were confirmed killed in a suicide bombing in the Anbar province targeting pro-government Sunni members, including a local mayor, and a massive car bombing in Mosul that was preceded by a barrage of rocket fire.
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a municipal office in Garma, near the Sunni city of Fallujah, killing the town's mayor, Kamal al-Abdali, and at least 19 other senior members of the U.S.-backed, anti-Qaida "Awakening Councils." Twenty others were injured in the attack.
The attack in the Sunni Anbar province, the largest in the country, came days before the U.S. forces are due to hand over its control to the Iraqi security forces, but it was not immediately clear whether Thursday's bombing would delay the transfer that was expected in early July.
According to the independent website www.icasualties.org, 1,295 U.S. soldiers were killed in this province in western Iraq since the 2003 invasion, second to Baghdad where 1,308 troops have died.
A fierce Sunni insurgency during the first years of the U.S. occupation in Anbar, especially the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, had been subdued after raging battles and the establishment of the "Awakening Councils," set up in 2006 to confront al-Qaida and its local allies.
The Garma attack was the second targeting a municipal office, after a Tuesday bombing in the Shiite opposition stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad killed four Americans, including two soldiers and two employees, at a district council office.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb killed 18 people and injured 80 others in a market. Police sources said the provincial governor, Duraid Kashmula, was touring the market in the center of the city following an insurgent rocket attack when a car bomb exploded in the area. The governor survived.
The U.S. military says Mosul, where joint Iraqi-U.S. forces launched a major offensive in May, is the country's "last urban bastion" of al-Qaida.
The violence came a day after Obama's campaign said the Democrat candidate was planning to include Iraq in a foreign tour that could also take him to Afghanistan, Asia and Europe.
The timing and details of Obama's second visit to Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, are expected to remain confidential until the last moment for security reasons.
Obama, who has come under fire from Republican rival John McCain for visiting Iraq only once – in January 2006 – said he sought to pull out "most" of the 150,000 U.S. troops out of the country within the first 16 months of his term in office if he makes it to the White House.
The Democrat senator, who might become the first African-American commander in chief, said he would keep "some troops" in Iraq to protect the U.S. embassy and diplomats, as well as to fight al-Qaida.
"Under the circumstances, this might sound reasonable. But the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad is not a legitimate embassy, and its thousand-plus staff are not diplomatic envoys to a sovereign country," wrote Nicolas J.S. Davies Thursday in the independent Online Journal.
The embassy, a 104-acre fortified compound in the Green Zone, is said to be 10 times the size of any embassy in the world.
Davies, author of "The U.S. Invasion and Destruction of Iraq: Setting the Record Straight" due to be published in 2009, added: "American leaders must understand that their original goals in Iraq are not and will never be achievable. As long as U.S. forces, officials and contractors remain in Iraq, they will always meet political opposition and armed resistance. They will never be welcome. How could they be after what they have done to these people and their country?
"The best chance for any sort of mutually beneficial or profitable relationship in the future lies in seizing this moment to begin a complete withdrawal of occupation forces from the country, including all U.S. troops, contractors and civilian officials," Davies said.
Many Arab commentators have praised Obama for his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the outset and welcomed his promise to pull out of the country, but warn that the outgoing U.S. administration of George W. Bush was making the next president's task of revoking the occupation a difficult, if not impossible, task.
The current administration is negotiating with the Iraqi government a controversial long-term security agreement that would commit the United States to a long-term military presence in Iraq.
A lame-duck Bush administration is said to be rushing to reach a pact that would not require Congressional approval before the November polls, which a potential Obama administration would inherit. The U.S. negotiators say this agreement is needed before the U.N. mandate, which authorizes U.S. presence in Iraq, expires at the end of the year.
Some Arab analysts see a security deal as a way to consolidate the occupation, and a move that ties Obama's hands in implementing his plan to minimize the war damage done to the country.
Obama to announce foreign trip soon
1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democrat Barack Obama's White House campaign said Wednesday it planned soon to release details of an overseas trip possibly including Iraq.
Asked about a trip taking in Iraq, Afghanistan, Asia and Europe, campaign manager David Plouffe said: "We will have some information on that soon. But there's nothing more to add.
"Obviously the trip to Iraq will be Codel and we'll provide you with more details as we release them," he told reporters, referring to a Congressional delegation comprising Obama and colleagues in the Senate.
Pressed on timing, Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said details would come "in the coming days." Normally, for security reasons, trips to Iraq and Afghanistan by high-level US officials are not announced in advance.
Obama, who wants most US combat troops pulled out of Iraq and military resources diverted to Afghanistan, said on June 16 he planned to visit the two nations "before the election" in November.
The Democrat has been under fire from Republican rival John McCain for only visiting Iraq once, in January 2006.
Senator McCain, who has been to Iraq eight times, says a US military "surge" in Iraq is working and that Obama's plans to withdraw nearly all combat troops in his first year in office would trigger "chaos and genocide."
McCain last Friday gave a speech in Canada, and is due to go to Colombia next week to discuss trade and terrorism with President Alvaro Uribe.
The fat boy will remain in his villa in Iran and slop down lamb chops and attempt to concentrate on his religious studies. His ex followers in increasing numbers will understand they where had to put in with him.