News from Iraq: July 13, ‘07
13th July 2007
by gordo
Iraq police colluded in Kerbala attack
A US Army investigation has concluded that Iraqi police assisted insurgents in an assault in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala in January that killed five US soldiers, USA Today reported on Thursday. USA Today said the information was contained in an investigative file made available to the newspaper and authenticated by the Army.
During the attack, guerrillas posing as Americans entered a government compound in Kerbala, killed a US soldier and drove away with four others whom they shot and killed later.
“(The American) Defence hinged on a level of trust that … early warning and Defence would be provided by the Kerbala Iraq police. This trust was violated,” said the army report, dated Feb. 27.
(At the time of that report, General Petraeus said that the militants involved in the Karbala attack were receiving support from Iran. As it turns out, though, they were receiving support from us. –g)
Iraqi Military’s Readiness Slips
Despite stepped-up training, the readiness of the Iraqi military to operate independently of U.S. forces has decreased since President Bush’s new strategy was launched in January, according to the White House progress report released yesterday. Combat losses, a dearth of officers and senior enlisted personnel, and an Iraqi army that has expanded faster than the equipment available for it have resulted in a “slight reduction” in the number of units designated at Level 1 status, or “capable of independent operations,” the report said.
U.S. troops have shot 429 Iraqi civilians in past year
U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year, according to military statistics compiled in Iraq and obtained by McClatchy. The statistics are the first official accounting of civilian shootings since the war began, and while they seem small compared with the thousands who’ve died in Iraq’s violence, they show the difficulty that the U.S. has in fulfilling its vow to protect civilians.
Former Islamic Army Militants Patrol Amiriya Alongside U.S. Troops
Former Sunni insurgents now working with U.S. forces stand at an American firebase July 12, 2007 in the Amariyah neighborhood Baghdad, Iraq. The “Amariyah Freedom Fighters” is what the United States is calling the group who rose against jihadist fighters in their neighborhood and are now loosely organized as a group allied with U.S. Army forces. Amariyah is one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods, claiming the lives of 14 U.S. soldiers in the month of May alone.
Basra, the second-largest and the richest city in Iraq, is at the brink of a major economic and political meltdown. Unless Baghdad succeeds in reaching a compromise over the country’s governmental apparatus (especially over the issue of federalism), the southern city may become the greatest threat to the future of post-Ba’athist Iraq.
Such a threat lies mainly in a struggle for power between Shi’ite militias and tribal forces who compete for control over oil resources, territorial domination and public capital (hospitals and schools), which are all leading to an erosion of security in a city that is the source of Iraq’s economic life. Although much of this turmoil is a reflection of the unstable nature of the transitional process, the current situation in Basra may represent a future scenario for Iraq that is made up of political factionalism and is devoid of a functional government.
Back in the US
Bush: Insurgents in Iraq same as 9/11 attackers
President Bush, defending his troop surge in Iraq, insisted Thursday that the insurgents attacking US troops in Iraq “are the same ones who attacked us on Sept. 11.”
Bush was speaking at a White House press conference on the same day an interim progress report on his troop surge in Iraq was released. Asked for proof of the connection between insurgents in Iraq and the 9/11 hijackers, Bush said both had pledged their allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
(In reality, bin Laden’s organization does not control any faction in the Iraq, the group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is made up primarily of Iraqis, and Al Qaeda in Mosopotamia did not exist before the invasion. –g)
Bush denies al-Qaeda has renewed
US President George W Bush has denied that al-Qaeda is as strong as it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks. He played down media coverage of a US intelligence report called Al-Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West. Intelligence analysts told Congress on Wednesday that al-Qaeda had created a safe haven in remote parts of Pakistan.
(Homeland Security Chief also contradicted the intelligence report, and also failed to provide any evidence that the report was in error. –g)
Defying Bush, House Passes New Deadline for Withdrawal From Iraq
The House voted Thursday to set an April 1, 2008, deadline for a withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq, even as President Bush insisted that more time is needed to stabilize the “young democracy” there.
After a day-long debate, the House by 223-201 passed a bill (HR 2956) that would force a change of course in Iraq. The measure would require a troop redeployment to begin within 120 days of enactment and be completed by April 1, 2008.
The vote marked the second time this year that the Democratic-controlled House has voted to set a firm deadline for a troop withdrawal. In March, the House by 218-212 passed a fiscal 2007 Iraq war supplemental funding bill (HR 1591) that set an August 2008 target. Bush vetoed a modified version of that legislation, and he has vowed to veto any bill that similarly attempts to force his hand on Iraq.
(Meanwhile, administration officials are starting to come to terms with the fact that the public has lost patience with them. –g)
Other War News
Iranian forces, Kurdish guerrillas clash
Iranian artillery shelled near Iraqi Kurd villages Thursday as Iranian troops clashed with Kurdish guerrillas making an incursion across the border, officials in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan said. It was the third day of shelling in two areas along the border in northern Iraq, said Jabbar Yawer, spokesman for the Kurdistan protection forces, or Peshmerga.
Yawer also said that the shelling began with an incursion by Kurdish guerrillas into Iran on Tuesday that sparked clashes with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. “We are not with either side, and we will not allow the lands of Iraqi Kurdistan to become a battlefield in which civilians in Kurdish villages are the victims,” he said.
The Free Life Party is a breakaway faction of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as PKK, which is dominated by Turkish Kurds but also had Iranian Kurd branches. Its fighters have sparked Iranian shelling into Iraq several times over the past two years, most recently in June. Turkey has increasingly threatened to take action in northern Iraq, complaining that the Kurdistan government and U.S. forces are not doing enough to stop PKK fighters carrying out attacks on Turkish soil.
(Both Turkey and Iran say that elements of the US-backed Peshmerga have been funneling weapons and supplies to the PKK. If that’s true, then the US is indirectly arming a militia that is conducting raids inside Iran and Turkey. Meanwhile, the US Senate ignored this provocation and voted unanimously to censure Iran for their alleged involvement in the Iraq war. –g)
AFGHANISTAN: Seventeen killed in suicide blast in Uruzgan Province
The government of Afghanistan and the UN have strongly condemned a suicide attack in Uruzgan Province, central-southern Afghanistan, which killed 17 people, including 12 schoolchildren, on 10 July.
According to Afghan officials, about 30 people were also wounded in the explosion in the province’s Dehrawod District.
“The attack was ostensibly targeted against a convoy of Dutch soldiers that was patrolling the area,” Qasim Khan, the head of Uruzgan police, told IRIN.