Monday, April 18, 2005

Check out the Iraq Occupation Watch site

Today in Iraq linked to this site: Iraq Occupation Watch which I intend to add to my news lists. The site gathers and posts articles from various sources about what is happening in Iraq.
And the news isn't very good. Check out Washington's Iraq Panic Attack :

Rumsfeld’s concern suggests much greater apprehension in US military circles over the state of Iraqi security than is apparent in the current “official” line emanating from Washington. There are five aspects of this apprehension . . . First, attacks on Iraqi security forces and on US bases are continuing with unabated ferocity . . . Second, more members of the occupying coalition are now withdrawing from Iraq . . . Third, the Pentagon is privately worried by the huge costs of the damage to equipment used in Iraq . . . up to $18 billion in replacement costs . . . Fourth, the re-emergence of Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia (often termed the Mahdi army) is a concern to American strategists. Its units have reasserted their power in many urban areas across southern Iraq . . .
Fifth, Iranian “interference” in Iraqi politics is returning to the forefront of US minds . . . Iran could, if it wished, cause major problems for the United States in Iraq . . . the United States perceives a problem in Iran’s purchase of a wide range of military equipment, much of it suited to guerrilla warfare. The US’s difficulty is that Iran can claim an internal security use for such equipment because Iran has long been engaged in a bitter war with drug smugglers on its border with Afghanistan . . . Most European countries view the bulk of Iran’s arms stockpiling as legal, and some of them also informally support Iran’s drug war on its eastern border. The United States, however, sees Iran’s efforts as raising the nightmare possibility of an Iraqi insurgency acquiring (for example) a combination of sniper rifles and night-vision equipment under Iranian tutelage – even in the absence of evidence of such an intention at present . . .

And there is this article by Jim McGovern, What I didn't see in Iraq :
If things in Iraq are so much better, why are we not decreasing the number of US forces there? Why is the insurgency showing no signs of waning? Why are we being told that in a few months the Administration will again ask Congress for billions of dollars more to fight the war? Why, according to the World Food Program, is hunger among the Iraqi people getting worse? It's time for some candor, but candor is hard to come by in Iraq.

No comments: