From the Washington Post October 11, 2006:
“While acknowledging that the estimate is large, the researchers believe it is sound for numerous reasons. The recent survey got the same estimate for immediate post-invasion deaths as the early survey, which gives the researchers confidence in the methods. The great majority of deaths were also substantiated by death certificates.”
Ha ha!!! Now THERE'S some investigative journalism!
So just like all things liberal, you just need to wait it out and the facts come bubbling to the surface. Now the author of that study, Gilbert Burnham, is being taken out back and worked over for his refusal to provide his methodology in creating that "study".
From ABC News:
AAPOR's standards committee chair, Mary E. Losch, said the association, acting on a member's complaint, had formally requested from Burnham "basic information about his survey, including, for example, the wording of questions he used, instructions and explanations that were provided to respondents, and a summary of the outcomes for all households selected as potential participants in the survey."
Losch said Burnham gave some partial answers but "explicitly refused to provide complete information about the basic elements of his research."
Completely owned. But don't wait for the Michael Moore's of the world to apologize. And don't hold your breath for the Dirty Liberal Media to pummel him over it. Or point out the fact ugly freakazoid George Soros pumped millions into this "study"
Sgt. Steven Tschiderer was shot by an Iraqi insurgent sniper and survived. You'l want to watch this.
"Welcome to the first-ever public Christmas celebration in Baghdad, held Saturday and sponsored by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Once thought to be infiltrated by death squads, the Ministry now is trying to root out sectarian violence as well as improve its P.R. image.Wow.
The event takes place in a public park in eastern Baghdad, ringed with security checkpoints. Interior Ministry forces deployed on surrounding rooftops peer down at the scene: a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments and tinsel; a red-costumed Santa Claus waving to the crowd, an Iraqi flag draped over his shoulders; a red-and-black-uniformed military band playing stirring martial music, not Christmas carols."
"Even before I can ask Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul Karim Khalaf a question, he greets me with a big smile. "All Iraqis are Christian today!" he says."
We finally made it to Kentucky Fried Chicken in downtown Fallujah. The quest for KFC is over!See the slide show here. Also, this previous video report:
But let me clarify: on closer inspection it turns out this is not one of Colonel Sanders’ officially sanctioned franchises. In fact, appart from the large “KFC” sign in the window you’d be hard pressed to distinguish this from many other chicken restaurants in Fallujah. The big difference though, is on the inside. Iraqis like baked chicken, and it turns out deep fried chicken is something of a novelty, and so they’ve been flocking to the restaurant over the past eight months since it opened - the local newspaper even ran a story about it, so I guess it’s not a Fox exclusive.
We were the only customers early Friday evening in KFC, so I bought enough chicken to feed the marines. In case you’re wondering, they only have one thing on the menu - a $5 meal which buys 2 pieces of fried chicken, French fries, a soda, bottle of water and 2 bread rolls.
They need to declare victory in Iraq. The media and Obama never will.
Perino: SOFA means U.S. can 'celebrate the victory' in Iraq
Aww. Poor little terrorist had a moral problem with slaughtering so he opted to shoot people in the head instead. What a stand up guy!
Well my friends on Mosul, perhaps you should speak to your government which seems hell bent on having the U.S. completely out of Iraq.
Officials in Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, have warned the terrorists will not be defeated until the border is secured.
Dureid Kashmula, the provincial governor, said: "One of the reasons that al-Qaeda is so strong here when security is improving across Iraq is that the terrorists can come across the border.
Khosro Goran, the vice-governor, said: "We have an open border with Syria and our neighbours are actively encouraging the terrorists.
An American raid on a Syrian compound it believed was housing al-Qaeda operatives last month triggered calls for repeated sweeps beyond Iraq's western borders.
An intelligence officer in Mosul said leading lieutenants of the late dictator Saddam Hussein and Islamists were directing attacks in Mosul from Syria.
The debilitating influence of the insurgent factions has sapped confidence within the security forces operating in the city, according to Captain Nabeel Mutlak, a policeman in Mosul since 1996.
Terrorist penetration of all ranks is so pervasive that his off-duty colleagues are regularly assassinated in cold blood, mostly in the street or at markets when shopping with their families.
"They just shoot and run. Sometimes they use silencers even though they are in a crowded place," he said. "But catching them is impossible because mostly they are based outside the city, even outside the country.
"They know how to identify their victims because every neighbourhood has cells that find out who is working for the police, pass the information on and identify the victims. It's impossible to stop."
Bring the noise you ignorant bastards! Bush still has a few months in office. Gonna be more to come. Read this pro-Syrian piece. I post just so you know. Not because I give a crap about these people.
More details of the daring of the alleged raid into Syria by U.S. special forces.
Syrian officials claim the US military conducted a cross-border raid into Syria from Iraqi territory.
The raid was reportedly carried out in the town of Sukkariya near Abu Kamal in eastern Syria. According to witnesses, four US helicopters crossed the border and two of the helicopters landed to drop off special operations forces.
Syrian television claimed nine people were killed and 14 were wounded during the raid. Syria claimed of those killed and wounded were construction workers.
The raid occurred close to the main border crossing point between Iraq and Syria. Al Qaeda declared an Islamic Emirate in Al Qaim right along the Iraqi border during the spring of 2005. Al Qaeda terrorized the local tribes and attempted to institute a Taliban-like rule. Al Qaim was the main infiltration route into Iraq until US Marines and Iraqi troops launched a campaign to dislodge al Qaeda from the region.
The US has neither confirmed nor denied the operation took place. If the attack occurred, it would have been carried out by Task Force 88, the special operations hunt-killer teams assigned to target al Qaeda operatives as well as Shia terrorists in Iraq.
Syria has sheltered Iraqi insurgents and foreign al Qaeda fighters, and allowed the groups to run camps inside the country. Syria also facilitates the movement of foreign fighters into the country and across the border into Iraq.
If the raid occurred, the US military must have detected a senior member of al Qaeda in Iraq in the region. Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, is reported to have left the country earlier this year after the terror group lost its sanctuaries in Diyala province.
The US military may be closing in on al Qaeda’s senior leadership. US forces killed Abu Qaswarah, al Qaeda in Iraq's second in command, during a raid in Mosul in northern Iraq on Oct. 15. The military has also killed and captured numerous al Qaeda leader and couriers over the past several weeks. The information obtained during these raids help to paint a picture of al Qaeda’s command structure inside of of Iraq as well as in neighboring countries.
A secret deal between Britain and the notorious al-Mahdi militia prevented British Forces from coming to the aid of their US and Iraqi allies for nearly a week during the battle for Basra this year, The Times has learnt.Pathetic weasels.
Four thousand British troops – including elements of the SAS and an entire mechanised brigade – watched from the sidelines for six days because of an “accommodation” with the Iranian-backed group, according to American and Iraqi officers who took part in the assault.
US Marines and soldiers had to be rushed in to fill the void, fighting bitter street battles and facing mortar fire, rockets and roadside bombs with their Iraqi counterparts.
Hundreds of militiamen were killed or arrested in the fighting. About 60 Iraqis were killed or injured. One US Marine died and sevenwere wounded.
US advisers who accompanied the Iraqi forces into the fight were shocked to learn of the accommodation made last summer by British Intelligence and elements of al-Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia Muslim cleric.
The deal, which aimed to encourage the Shia movement back into the political process and marginalise extremist factions, has dealt a huge blow to Britain’s reputation in Iraq.
Under its terms, no British soldier could enter Basra without the permission of Des Browne, the Defence Secretary. By the time he gave his approval, most of the fighting was over and the damage to Britain’s reputation had already been done.
Senior British defence sources told The Times that Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, who ordered the assault, and high-ranking US military officers had become disillusioned with the British as a result of their failure to act. Another confirmed that the deal, negotiated by British Intelligence, had been a costly mistake.
The media misreports Maliki's alleged withdrawal comments, but doesn't touch this story at all:
In Anbar, Mr Obama met militiamen of the US-backed Awakening Councils movement - a tribal alliance whose members turned against al-Qaeda last year.I hope Obama's right hand man wrote this down. I mean if ol' Reggie wasn't too busy getting tea bagged again.
Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Awakening Councils, said tribal chiefs had told Mr Obama at their meeting in Ramadi that any withdrawal of US forces from Anbar should be carried out cautiously.
H/t This Ain't Hell:
This is the information the dirty liberal media is leaving out from their giddy excitement. Apparently this "withdrawal", as it's being discussed now, is limited to withdrawal from cities, and not the country entirely. It sounds consistent with the options that have been discussed in the past.
The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq's provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country.I'm not sure that any reasonable person can expect the Iraqi government to take any other public position.
After that, the country's security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.
So far, the United States has handed control of nine of 18 provinces to Iraqi officials.
"This is what the Iraqi people want, the parliament and other Iraqi leaders," said al-Adeeb.
The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timetable and dates for a U.S. withdrawal.
However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.
Of course, we've been blogging about this for a while. It's nice to see a mainstream media outlet call Obama out. We'll see how the American media spins it. From guardian.co.uk:
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama today said he would "refine" his position on withdrawal from Iraq after meeting with military commanders there this summer, then later insisted he had not softened his commitment to remove US combat forces with 16 months of taking office.It should be noted that there were many conservative pundits who predicted that Obama would spin his Iraq position in this fashion as the election approached. And so it has come to pass.
Speaking with reporters at an airport in Fargo, North Dakota, the Illinois senator appeared open to altering his campaign pledge to have US combat troops home from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
"I am going to do a thorough assessment when I'm there,'' he said. "I'm sure I'll have more information and continue to refine my policy."
The Republican party leapt at the comments and accused Obama of reversing himself, and at a press conference later, Obama sought to clarify his remarks.
"Let me be as clear as I can be: I tend to end this war," he said. "I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring out troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades per month," with all out within 16 months. "This is the same position that I had four months ago."
Obama founded his campaign on a strident anti-war message, which dates back to a speech he gave in Chicago in 2002, while still a state senator.
Republican nominee John McCain was an early supporter of the troop surge in Iraq and has backed the war from the beginning.
He said he will keep US forces there to maintain the security gains the surge has facilitated. He has said he plans to have most US combat troops home by the end of his first term.
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, one of the most prominent Democrats in the 2008 presidential field, proposed for the first time setting a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq, as part of a broader plan aimed at bolstering the freshman senator's foreign policy credentials.What changed in Iraq between then and now? Oh, I know. Victory happened. Wake up America! You don't want Obama on that wall!
Obama's legislation, offered on the Senate floor last night, would remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008. The date falls within the parameters offered by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended the removal of combat troops by the first quarter of next year.
I expect my government to do creepy things. Point of fact, I demand it.
U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.More than a year ago it was reported that both the Saudi and U.S. governments were funding covert operations within Iran:
The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine's July 7 and 14 issue, centers around a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.
"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."
Hersh has written previously about possible administration plans to go to war to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including an April 2006 article in the New Yorker that suggested regime change in Iran, whether by diplomatic or military means, was Bush's ultimate goal.
Funding for the covert escalation, for which Bush requested up to $400 million, was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources.
Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. U.S. Special Operations Forces have been conducting crossborder operations from southern Iraq since last year, the article said.
These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in Bush's war on terrorism, who may be captured or killed, according to the article.
Among groups inside Iran benefiting from U.S. support is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, according to former CIA officer Robert Baer. Council on Foreign Relations analyst Vali Nasr described it to Hersh as a vicious organization suspected of links to al Qaeda.
The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United States are working with other states in the Middle East to sponsor covert action against Iran, according to a report in this month's edition of The Atlantic. The report also suggests that covert attacks may occur against Iran's oil sector.
David Samuels, in a lengthy article on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East, reports that the US is promoting a campaign against Iran that includes covert action.
Last fall, he writes, "Rice and her colleagues in the administration decided to embark on a daring and risky third course: a coordinated campaign, directed with the help of the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates....The bill for the covert part of this activity, which has involved funding sectarian political movements and paramilitary groups in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, is said to amount to more than $300 million. It is being paid by Saudi Arabia and other concerned Gulf states, for whom the combination of a hasty American withdrawal from Iraq and a nuclear-armed Iran means trouble."
Samuels suggests that Iran has already faced a variety of internal attacks as a consequence of this covert program.
"They pointed to an upsurge in antigovernment guerrilla activity inside Iran, including a bomb in Zahedan, the economic center of the province of Baluchistan, that killed 11 soldiers in the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on February 14; the mysterious death of the Iranian scientist Ardashir Hosseinpour, who worked on uranium enrichment at the Isfahan nuclear facility; and the defection of a high-ranking Iranian general named Ali Asgari, a former deputy minister of defense who was also the Revolutionary Guard officer responsible for training and supplying Hezbollah during its war against the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the 1980s," Samuels notes.
More than that, Samuels warns that these covert actions may soon target Iran's petroleum sector.
AQ's fall from grace continues:
The leader of the tribal confederation that has fought to expel Al Qaeda from most of Iraq's Anbar province is offering his men to help gin up a rebellion against Osama bin Laden's organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.Amazing there are any Muslims thinking this way. Not to mention Sunni Muslims.
In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said: "I have no problem with this; if they ask me, I will do it."
"Al Qaeda is an ideology," Sheik Ahmad said. "We can defeat them inside Iraq and we can defeat them in any country." The tribal leader arrived in Washington last week. All of his meetings, including an audience with President Bush, have been closed to the public, in part because the Anbari sheiks, while likely to win future electoral contests, are not themselves part of Iraq's elected government.
BREAKING NEWS!
Two border villages in Sulaymanyah province, 365 kilometers north of Baghdad, came under heavy Iranian artillery shelling on Friday morning, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdistan region's guard forces said.Someone give me a heads up when this story makes the mainstream media.
"No information is yet available on possible casualties resulting from the shelling," the source was quoted as telling VOI.
Meanwhile, a local resident told VOI by phone that the two villages had earlier been evacuated due to the incessant Iranian fire. Only shepherds remained in the area, the source said.
Iran has been aiming to oust a Kurdish nationalist group in the region.
Because it's Friday...and you need to be reminded that there are some really good folks doing some really dangerous things so that you can sit in comfort and watch this video.
Apache AH-64 engages 8 armed terrorists iith Hellfire and 30mm in Iraq.
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