Baghdad today. Starbucks and Krispy Kreme

[stuartj]

"The combined forces of the US and the Iraqi Government number more than 400,000, but the country remains a lawless jungle. The Americans say they kill or capture more than 500 insurgents a week and they are defusing twice as many roadside bombs now as they were in January. But Iraqi and other agencies estimate that the death toll since the March 2003 invasion stands at 50,000 or more — the proportional equivalent of about 570,000 Americans."

An interesting piece from Paul McGeough.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-palace-shielded-from-iraqi-storm/2006/08/25/1156012740594.html

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bush 'palace' shielded from Iraqi storm
Paul McGeough, Baghdad
August 26, 2006


The plans are a state secret, so just where the Starbucks and Krispy Kreme stores will be is a mystery. But as the concrete hulks of a huge 21-building complex rise from the ashes of Saddam's Baghdad, Washington is sending a clear message to Iraqis: "We're here to stay."

It's being built in the Middle East, but George W's palace, as the locals have dubbed the new US embassy, is designed as a suburb of Washington.

An army of more than 3500 diplomatic and support staff will have their own sports centre, beauty parlour and swimming pool. Each of the six residential blocks will contain more than 600 apartments.

The prime 25-hectare site was a steal — it was a gift from the Iraqi Government. And if the five-metre-thick perimeter walls don't keep the locals at bay, then the built-in surface-to-air missile station should.

Guarded by a dozen gangly cranes, the site in the heart of the Green Zone is floodlit by night and is so removed from Iraqi reality that its entire construction force is foreign.

After almost four years, the Americans still can't turn on the lights for the Iraqis, but that won't be a problem for the embassy staffers. The same with the toilets — they will always flush on command. All services for the biggest embassy in the world will operate independently from the rattletrap utilities of the Iraqi capital.

Scheduled for completion next June, this is the only US reconstruction project in Iraq that is on track. Costing more than $US600 million ($A787 million), the fortress is bigger than the Vatican. It dwarfs the edifices of Saddam's wildest dreams and irritates the hell out of ordinary Iraqis.

On a recent visit to the real Baghdad — outside the Green Zone — a deepening sectarian separation was evident. Abu Zaman, a Shiite trucker who often updates The Age on life in the capital, had some personal news: "My daughter is upset because I blocked her wedding plans," he said. "He was a nice boy — rich and a good job — but he was a Sunni."

In Baghdad, all roads lead to the morgue. This building to the north of the city comes from the pages of Dante.

It reveals the unvarnished truth about this deepening conflict. The body count rises steadily: more than 1800 mutilated corpses were trucked in from across the capital in July, a significant increase on the June toll of almost 1600. Across the country, almost 3200 Iraqis died violent deaths in June.

Coping with this flood of suicide-bombing and mass-murder victims is an impossible task for morgue staff. In the stifling summer, the police try to get out before sunrise to gather corpses from the killers' favourite dumping spots before the broiling heat of the day.

At the morgue, the bodies are divided along sectarian lines. The viciousness of the killings is sickening. Sunni victims of Shiite violence usually have holes drilled in their heads and joints and are found near the Shiite slums of Sadr City. Shiite victims of Sunni violence are often shot in the head or decapitated and usually they are dragged from the tepid waters of the Tigris.

Up to 200 bodies are delivered to the morgue each day. Sometimes there is the dignity of a body bag, but often body parts are delivered in banana boxes discarded at city bazaars. The Iraqi Government threatens the morgue staff with reprisals if they reveal information to reporters because the statistics are such devastating indicators of the Government's — and the United States' — failure. But one of the doctors agreed to talk to The Age as long as his name was not published. "It just gets worse, especially in this heat," he said.

"The bodies have been in the sun for so long that they fall apart in our hands, just like that. It's a nightmare. At home I can't say anything about it to my family. And how can we believe it'll get any better? We don't have enough doctors to do the autopsies and we're getting more and more bodies every day."

After almost four years of trying to build Washington's democracy beachhead in the Middle East, US defence officials now concede that the violence in Iraq is at its worst — in terms of body count, public support and the ease with which Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias exploit gaps in the American forces.

At most critical points the Americans have misread the social, tribal, political and military landscape and they have wrong-footed themselves by denying evolving realities that were all too apparent.

Distrust of Washington in all of the Iraqi factions has robbed the US of what it believed was an easily won regional trump card: control of Baghdad. Iraq is a democracy in name only. The elected Parliament doesn't function and, even though they mouth support for the niceties of the democratic process, it is hard not to conclude that Iraqi leaders have more faith in achieving their goals by letting the violence run than by taking part in any US-managed national dialogue.

The dynamic has changed. Sunnis who campaigned for US forces to leave Iraq now insist they remain here to protect the Sunnis because the Shiite majority has a taste for blood.

Shiites who welcomed the Americans now declare the US to be an enemy bent on robbing them of their long-held dream of controlling the country.

It's remarkable that George Bush has reportedly waited until now to vent his frustration at the failure of the Iraqis "to appreciate the sacrifice the US has made in Iraq". Ironically, about the same time as the August 14 White House meeting at which the President wondered aloud about the ability of yet another Iraqi government to turn the tide of violence, a Baghdad factory owner was mimicking the American leader for the benefit of The Age: "We give them Pepsi, the internet and mobile phones and they're still not happy. What more do they want?"

The combined forces of the US and the Iraqi Government number more than 400,000, but the country remains a lawless jungle. The Americans say they kill or capture more than 500 insurgents a week and they are defusing twice as many roadside bombs now as they were in January. But Iraqi and other agencies estimate that the death toll since the March 2003 invasion stands at 50,000 or more — the proportional equivalent of about 570,000 Americans.

In a country trying to rebuild itself, there is another disturbing development: more than 40 per cent of its professional classes have fled since the invasion. That includes an estimated 12,000 doctors.

The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants estimates that close to 900,000 Iraqis have fled since 2003. Iraqi Airways has more than doubled flights to Damascus, bus services on the treacherous desert route to Jordan have gone from two to 50 a day, and taxi fares to Amman have increased from $US200 to $US750.

As statistics cry failure on so many fronts, Washington's stated plan for US forces in Iraq to "stand down as the new Iraqi forces stand up" is being shredded daily, along with the lives of innocent civilians. Much of the terror on the streets of Baghdad is organised by private militias that have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces.

These militias are operated by the key parties in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's administration — his government would fall without the political support of one of the worst offenders, the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

In Basra, deep in the south, there is little Sunni insurgency activity. But there is much violence as Shiite militias and local warlords fight for turf and British and American officers accuse neighbouring Iran (Shiite) and Saudi Arabia (Sunni) of arming the factions.

The country's second-biggest city becomes more Islamicised by the day — music and liquor shops have been bombed out of business, women are made to wear headscarves and board games are being outlawed.

Whatever the Americans have done in Iraq has usually been too little too late.

The June death in a US bombing raid of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Sunni insurgency leader and al-Qaeda point man in Iraq, was a victory — but his absence from the battlefield has failed to staunch the blood.

Zarqawi's stated objective was to foment unstoppable sectarian war.

In a sense, his work was done with the February bombing of a Shiite shrine at Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Unlike Mr Bush, Zarqawi could go to his grave rightly claiming: "Mission accomplished."

The two sides are dug in for the long haul. On one side, Sunni insurgency cells that now show great unity and common purpose have defeated a determined US counterinsurgency push to divide them.

On the other side, the Shiites use the resources of the US-trained and funded Iraqi security forces. A senior figure in Sadr's Mahdi Army told The Age: "We can get anything we need. We are a professional force … and after the victory for Hezbollah in Lebanon we feel stronger and more powerful because we have seen what a Shiite force can achieve.

"We will fight the Sunni till they have a clean heart towards Shiites. But we have to fight the American too, because they are with the Sunni against us."

[Dottore]

A good piece. Pity no one is interested.

[fintstone]

So what exactly is the point? That US personnel should live in tents because the Iraqis are hell-bent on killing each other? Perhaps a little more help from other countries might turn things around....

[Moneyguy1]

Wow.

That is a LOT of taxpayer's $$$, ain't it? Well, if we truly want to change the mindset over there, we had better plan on the real long haul, i.e. generations. It will take that long to change, if ever, the thinking that permeates what they call "civilization" over there. Will any government over there be anything but a theocracy for the present?

I don't know, but this project reminds me of the Maginot line philosophy or the "Atlantic Wall". Stationary defenses are passe'.

Alternatives? Can't think of any at the moment, but that assumes that it is necessary in the first place.

[kach22i]

Four pages............good article, click the link in the first post to read the whole thing.

The prime 25-hectare site was a steal — it was a gift from the Iraqi Government. And if the five-metre-thick perimeter walls don't keep the locals at bay, then the built-in surface-to-air missile station should.

I was trying to get a feel where this 21 building complex actually is. The original article said in the Green Zone of Baghdad, not much else. It looks like it's one of Saddam's old palace sites.

I found this via Google.....................................

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/baghdad-green-zone.htm

The precise boundries of the "Green Zone" are difficult to determine, and indeed may change with time. The core of the Green Zone appears to be Hussein's former presidential complex.

Waterfront property, looks like a good investment to me.

[hytem]

If it looks like a civil war, walks like a civil war and quacks like a civil war, then it must be a civil war. Saying that situation is not a civil war is just plain silly.

[1967 R50/2]

It doesn't sound like a civil war to me...it sounds like a gang war.

Kidnappings, corrupt police, drive by shootings, and burning out businesses that don't support your side=Gangland.

[RoninLB]

It's like Chicago in the 1920s. It's not booze for sure. It's oil.

[azasadny]

Hey, we're too busy reading about Jon Benet to care about this trivial stuff...

[fintstone]

Let the bad guys kill each other. We can deal with the moderates that survive.

[jyl]

Won't work. The bad guys are killing everyone including good, bad, moderate, civilian, children, etc. When the bad guys stop a city bus and kill every Sunni (or Shiite) on board, you know they are not being selective.

[charleskieffner]

since the stryker brigade has been recalled to duty. there hitch was up end of july, and now they have 4 more months due to their uncanny ability to quell unrest in mosul, and now have been transferred to bagdad. REASON........they are the baddest of the BAD when it comes to GI's trained in the fine art of STREETFIGHTING a la stalingrad leningrad etc.

my friends son has now in a year gone from pfc. to sargent. has had now (3) guys including his sargent hit in head/neck by snipers with ak's from rooftops on his stryker mobile. since they entered bagdad despite media crap things have quieted down quite abit. these guys are bad asses and the populace knows they better bahave and play well with others. the risk of civil war is going away because of these guys no nonsense we aint taking your crap and we will hunt you down attitude!

[kach22i]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
the stryker brigade

I've read some great things about them, heck of a record too.

I thought they were supposed to go to Lebanon next?

I do believe that a few have been asked to sacrifice far too much for far too little.

...........and for all the wrong reasons.

[stuartj]

[i] REASON........they are the baddest of the BAD when it comes to GI's trained in the fine art of STREETFIGHTING a la stalingrad leningrad etc.

[/B]

They certainly appear to the baddest of the bad when it comes to spelling.

I always enjoy your posts.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
since the stryker brigade has been recalled to duty. there hitch was up end of july, and now they have 4 more months due to their uncanny ability to quell unrest in mosul, and now have been transferred to bagdad. REASON........they are the baddest of the BAD when it comes to GI's trained in the fine art of STREETFIGHTING a la stalingrad leningrad etc.

my friends son has now in a year gone from pfc. to sargent. has had now (3) guys including his sargent hit in head/neck by snipers with ak's from rooftops on his stryker mobile. since they entered bagdad despite media crap things have quieted down quite abit. these guys are bad asses and the populace knows they better bahave and play well with others. the risk of civil war is going away because of these guys no nonsense we aint taking your crap and we will hunt you down attitude!

Approximately 1800 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad in July -- the highest number ever, AFAIK. I wonder on what planet that represents "quieting down a bit?" Maybe just more "last throes."

[charleskieffner]

yes there are still continued bombings, but it is not nearly at the rate it was. i know for one if my town was being wasted like bagdad or beirut, i would have split along time ago. how do you conduct bizness? everyday needs, etc. when bombs are going off everywhere?

with more manpower in bagdad things will settle down. no different than law enforcement here laying down DUI checkpoints, after a couple high profile weekends NOBODY will drive drunk in that area. same goes for bad guys planting bombs. they will find some other means to raise hell granted, but it will not be in the more populaced areas.

bottom line ..........despite being republican - democrat-liberal (something im sure the GI's are arguing about daily in their tanks humvees and strykers) WE ARE THERE! and we are NOT LEAVING SOON! until unrest is quelled. sure i would love to have sunnis and shiites go for each others throats once and for all and may the better side win. at the cost of no american lives. but that would just lead to more infrastructure destoyed and we would end up rebuilding it any way as a humanitarian gesture.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
yes there are still continued bombings, but it is not nearly at the rate it was. i know for one if my town was being wasted like bagdad or beirut, i would have split along time ago. how do you conduct bizness? everyday needs, etc. when bombs are going off everywhere?

with more manpower in bagdad things will settle down. no different than law enforcement here laying down DUI checkpoints, after a couple high profile weekends NOBODY will drive drunk in that area. same goes for bad guys planting bombs. they will find some other means to raise hell granted, but it will not be in the more populaced areas.

bottom line ..........despite being republican - democrat-liberal (something im sure the GI's are arguing about daily in their tanks humvees and strykers) WE ARE THERE! and we are NOT LEAVING SOON! until unrest is quelled. sure i would love to have sunnis and shiites go for each others throats once and for all and may the better side win. at the cost of no american lives. but that would just lead to more infrastructure destoyed and we would end up rebuilding it any way as a humanitarian gesture.

Bombings and violence are at an all time high. The "unrest" you speak of wasn't there before we came. Our presence is the direct cause of some of the violence; our removing police and military control is the indirect cause of the rest. If we are there for 50 more years or 50 more days, the thousands of years-old tribal hatreds will outlive our presence.

[charleskieffner]

tech weenie i hear what your saying about tribal battles ongoing for many years. cant even argue the point. its no damn different than the crusades.

if religion is so damn pure/wonderful/ utopian/nirvanic what the hell are we fighting wars for over it! it comes down to MY GOD CAN BEAT UP YOUR GOD! what have we accomplished as a human race???????????

[stuartj]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
tech weenie i hear what your saying about tribal battles ongoing for many years. cant even argue the point. its no damn different than the crusades.

if religion is so damn pure/wonderful/ utopian/nirvanic what the hell are we fighting wars for over it! it comes down to MY GOD CAN BEAT UP YOUR GOD! what have we accomplished as a human race???????????

The violence is not, apparently, in decline. The country is under foreign military occupation, stable government was removed, and there now exists a power vacuum.

YOu state up page that if this happened in your town, you'd clear out. Clearly the Iraqis, faced with the reality of a foreign occupation, are made of sterner stuff.

[techweenie]

Originally posted by charleskieffner
tech weenie i hear what your saying about tribal battles ongoing for many years. cant even argue the point. its no damn different than the crusades.

if religion is so damn pure/wonderful/ utopian/nirvanic what the hell are we fighting wars for over it! it comes down to MY GOD CAN BEAT UP YOUR GOD! what have we accomplished as a human race???????????

Could not agree more. The area we are talking about is the birthplace of monotheism, right? And the three great religions in the area recognize some of the same prophets; share some of the same views... and focus wholly on those things that make them different.

Sad, really.

No, sad is too weak a word. Tragic.