Free Republic

<p>This is, by far, one of the best series of reports on what is really happening in Iraq that I have seen. In the comments section underneath I will provide the links to the reports. It is long, but well worth the read.</p> <p>Right now let’s to go Baghdad for the real story in Iraq and MSNBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, Bob Arnot.</p> <p>Bob, thank you for joining us. It’s in the middle of the night over there. I want to ask you, are we getting anywhere in Iraq?</p> <p>Excerpted.</p>

 OUR ORWELL: Is there any journalist one trusts more than John F. Burns to tell us what is going on in Iraq? Somehow, Burns is untainted with the cynicism and reflexive anti-Americanism of many of his journalistic peers, and yet is open to the nuances of a complicated and often surprising world. His despatch from Iraq today in the NYT is peerless. Not just beautifully written, deep while never seeming less than conversational, it makes a couple of really important points. First off: The amiability that greets a Westerner almost everywhere outside the Sunni triangle, and even there when American...

An American businessman working for the United States Army in Iraq has mysteriously disappeared while driving his car along an isolated road in the country's "Sunni Triangle". Fears are growing that Kirk von Akermann, 37, a contractor, may have been abducted and murdered after his car was found abandoned between the towns of Tikrit and Kirkuk. His satellite mobile telephone, laptop, and a briefcase containing about $40,000 (£24,000) were found inside his vehicle, suggesting that he had not been the victim of a robbery. There was no sign of a struggle at the scene. Since his disappearance on October 9,...

TIKRIT, IRAQ - In at least one troublesome area of Iraq, the US military is shifting from peacekeeping and nationbuilding to the work it is designed and trained to do: fight wars. Responding to attacks that have killed 150 of their brethren during the six-month occupation, American forces over the weekend adopted a more aggressive approach to the so-called "Sunni triangle" - the region north and west of Baghdad where most attacks against the occupation are occurring. US authorities are wagering that security-starved Iraqis won't protest the crackdown in the triangle, a focal point of support for the otherwise widely...

<p>The news has not been good from Iraq of late. The recent Ramadan bombings and Sunday's tragic downing of a Chinook helicopter is further evidence that remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and Islamist radicals are still an effective guerilla force. Yet we mustn't let the steady drip, drip, drip of bad news from Iraq keep us from fulfilling the obligations we have assumed there.</p>

I'm all for it. If it stops the US troops from being target practice to the "resistance" (Baathist terrorists with Al Qaida help), hey, let the Shiites and Kurds rock and roll in Tikrit and Fallujah!!! It'd be fun to watch.

Fri October 31, 2003 11:07 AM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division was killed in a bomb attack Friday near the Iraqi town of Khaldiya in the hostile "Sunni triangle" area west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokeswoman said. The attack brought to 118 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action since Washington declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1. During the war in Iraq in March and April, 114 U.S. soldiers were killed in combat, according to Pentagon figures. The spokeswoman said a 1st Armored Division patrol was also attacked...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq — A series of car bomb attacks on Monday killed 34 people, excluding the homicide bombers, in Baghdad, shattering what should have been a solemn day as Iraq began observing the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.</p> <p>About 12 people were killed at the International Committee of the Red Cross (search) building in central Baghdad and 27 others were slain in attacks on three police stations. Most of the victims were Iraqis. The U.S. military said one American soldier was killed in one of the police station attacks.</p>

<p>Much of the discourse on Iraq continues to be dominated by myths - provable falsehoods that happen to confirm the prejudices of the antiwar crowd and/or those disposed to think our mission is failing now.</p> <p>The mythos now culminates in the notion that a patriotic Iraqi "resistance" is slowly gaining ground against a hated occupation. But the distortions go back much farther.</p>

For an Arab world resistant to political reform, the new Iraq taking shape under U.S. tutelage is a troubling harbinger. In the five months since U.S. forces rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's rule, the country's ethnically and religiously diverse people have, in one giant leap, overturned decades of social and political injustice, replaced a brutal one-party system with a multitude of groups advocating a rich range of ideologies and created a free press. Shiite Muslims, a majority in Iraq oppressed for decades by a Sunni minority favored by past colonial masters and later by Saddam, are now free to worship...

Two U.S. soldiers were killed and seven wounded when a pre-dawn raid on Friday turned into a heavy gunbattle in a restive zone of Iraq where support for deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is strongest. Witnesses at the blood-smeared, bullet-scarred scene of the raid in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, said three Iraqis had also died, but this could not be confirmed.

BAGHDAD, Aug 26 (Reuters) - U.S. troops hunting guerrillas and criminals raided homes overnight in Iraq's restive "Sunni triangle," the Army said on Tuesday, as tension simmered among ethnic groups in the north and Shi'ite factions in the south. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division said hundreds of soldiers had raided homes around Khalis, north of Baghdad, on Monday night, looking for a gang accused of crimes in the area. Officers said several people had been detained. U.S. forces have mounted scores of raids in Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland around Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, looking for the fugitive ex-dictator, his...

Clear Skies in the Sunni Triangle The 101st Airborne got into the fight yesterday, attacking the RG (republican guard) south of Baghdad with Apache Longbow attack helicopters joined by Air Force and Navy fixed wing warplanes. US Army spokesman, Major Hugh Cate, said 30 Apaches destroyed at least 25 Iraqi tanks and other armored vehicles belonging to the Medina Division of the RG near Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. Today, warplanes pressed the attacks, aiming to attrit the RG by 50% before ground forces attack. Bounded by the cities of Baghdad, Najaf and Kut, the Sunni triangle covers 1,200 square miles...