Just how fast are things going in Iraq?

lance · Post by **lance** » Nov 29th 2003, 10:36 am

Hey all,

I don't know if you caught this piece of news yesterday. The army said that its 3rd infantry division did not have enough ammunition in its drive towards Bagdad last March & April. They repeatedly pressed for more ammunition but encountered more and more red tape.

I think this is significant because it again shows how this Administration loves to say how they support our troops, but when the rubber hits the road, when it is time to walk the walk, do they really support our troops?

Here is a an interesting excerpt:

"Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers," the report said. "The entire situation became utter chaos. ... The division crossed (into Iraq) short the ammunition it had declared necessary to commit to combat."

You can read more about it here:

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1103/28third.html

and here....

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1103/111103kp1.htm

and here

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... tage_x.htm

-LanceMan

lance · Post by **lance** » Dec 10th 2003, 1:12 pm

Interesting piece,

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.ph ... =0&thold=0

"Le Canard Enchaine, a French weekly, has the skinny on a story that the American media probably wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole: over 1,700 American military personnel have deserted their posts in Iraq, so far."

The idea here being that GIs are coming home on leave and simply not coming back.

-LanceMan

andrewgd · Post by **andrewgd** » Dec 12th 2003, 5:30 pm

An interesting analogy from one of the comic industries premiere painters, Alex Ross I put up on my Quotes page, but wanted to share it here:

"Everyone's asking why are we in Iraq? We were sold a bill of goods. This is a show of strength to scare the rest of the world-go after the obvious bad guy. It's like Batman going after the Penguin because he can't find the real villain, the Joker. Batman would never do that just for show-that kind of thing only works for lone justice anyway, not with countries."

Sort of belittles the importance of the world events to filter it through Batman, but it also gets the point across.

TomSpeed · Post by **TomSpeed** » Dec 14th 2003, 10:35 am

Saddam captured. I was certainly surprised to hear this news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/inter ... SSEIN.html

Sammi · Post by **Sammi** » Dec 14th 2003, 1:47 pm

I was equally as suprised. He sure does look ragged in those pictures.

fnordboy · Post by **fnordboy** » Dec 14th 2003, 4:38 pm

I am equally surprised. I figured he was on ice somewhere and Bush would cart him out a few weeks before the election. Guess I was wrong.

There is always Osama for that I guess

andrewgd · Post by **andrewgd** » Dec 14th 2003, 4:56 pm

Headline: Saddam Found - AU Bonus Materials Still MIA

hehe. Anyway, of course finding him is good. I'm glad it happened over a weekend, and not a Monday. A Monday would be pretty obvious that the timing was planned. (But as fnordboy pointed out, there's still Osama that will be found about 2 months before the election).

So this will either end the resistance, which will be a good thing, or prove Bush even more wrong, which will be another good thing, unfortunately tainted with dead soldiers.

I guess this just proves that you shouldn't buy weapons from the US, cause we'll eventually hunt you down and git ya! heheh

Hunee · Post by **Hunee** » Dec 14th 2003, 11:37 pm

i wrote for about two hours in my journal last night and i wanted to share it with you...

The world has so much beauty and joy to offer but always ruined by pain and sadness... 824 days ago the single most tragic day happend on american soil and for the first time my eyes were opened to the true reality of what kind of world i truely live in... i can remember september 10th 2001 almost as if it were yesterday... i was so excited about mariahs glitter album coming out and i wrote my mother a four page letter with a purple marker begging her to buy me the album which came out the next day... i woke up the next day and in complete shock yelled at the top of my lungs oh my god... i ran in and told my mother and she didnt believe me and then i turned on the tv and she watched in more shock then i... i realized the severity of september eleventh when the second plane hit about 15 minutes later... all i know is that i was forever changed by that day... my eyes were opened so wide that i wish i could go back and rewrite history so i can be the person i was before that day... worried about what dress im going to wear to a dance or if i should change my hair style were the least of my problems because i refused to believe anything was wrong but i think i fully understand... i want so bad for people who feel pain all over the world to be able to come to terms with there sorrow and be at peace... there is not a single person who does not derserve to find peace within there pain and i hope that today is the day it can finally start... i never realized how strongly i felt or even understood that there are so many innocent people who suffer every single day just like i do and i just hope that today can be the first step to making peace happen...

starbug · Post by **starbug** » Dec 15th 2003, 5:49 am

I'm surprised (and glad) that Saddam was found, and alive. Mostly because I hope it will bring more peace to the Iraqi nation. Iraqi immigrants here have been interviewed saying that now, finally, they are considering returning to Iraq.

I'm still betting Osama is in Washington DC somewhere

TomSpeed · Post by **TomSpeed** » Dec 15th 2003, 11:09 pm

Osama hasn't been forgotten. There have been members of the US armed forces in Afganistan who have been working hard every day to bring him to justice for a long time. It's not an easy job. But I think he will be found one day.

lance · Post by **lance** » Dec 18th 2003, 9:14 pm

starbug wrote:I'm surprised (and glad) that Saddam was found, and alive. Mostly because I hope it will bring more peace to the Iraqi nation. Iraqi immigrants here have been interviewed saying that now, finally, they are considering returning to Iraq.

I'm still betting Osama is in Washington DC somewhere

He hee.

I am glad that Saddam will be doing time for his crimes, one way or another.
Hopefully Osama will be found, though not as part of some "October surprise".

-LanceMan

grim4746 · Post by **grim4746** » Jan 23rd 2004, 10:30 pm

Bush's Iraq an Appointocracy--Naomi Klein wrote:“The people of Iraq are free,” declared U.S. President George W. Bush in Tuesday’s State of the Union. The day before, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to the streets of Baghdad shouting “Yes, yes to elections. No, no to selection.”...

Paul Bremer [Iraq occupation chief]wants his Coalition Provisional Authority to appoint the members of 18 regional Organizing Committees. The Organizing Committees will then select delegates to form 18 Selection Caucuses. These selected delegates will then further select representatives to a Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers who will form the new government of Iraq. This, Bush said in the State of the Union, constitutes “a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty.”
Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add to that the fact that Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and that Bush was appointed to his by the U.S. Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of the Appointocracy: rule by appointee’s appointee’s appointees’ appointees’ appointees’ selectees.

But why not give the Iraqi people real freedom soon? Klein goes on to say that it comes down to money. Bremer has an economic plan for Iraq that can only be legally executed by a sovereign Iraq not a US occupied one

A growing number of legal experts are challenging the legitimacy of Bremer’s reforms, arguing that under the international laws that govern occupying powers — the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the 1949 Geneva Conventions — the CPA can only act as a caretaker of Iraq’s economic assets, not as its auctioneer. Radical changes such as Bremer’s Order 39, which opened up Iraqi industry to 100 percent foreign ownership, violate these laws and could therefore be easily overturned by a sovereign Iraqi government.

And of course there is the spin that Bush can put on it to help him with the next election.

The White House insists that its aversion to elections is purely practical: there just isn’t time to pull them off before the June 30 deadline. So why have the deadline? The most common explanation is that Bush needs a “braggable” on the campaign trail: when his Democratic rival raises the spectre of Vietnam, Bush will reply that, the occupation is over, we’re on our way out.

It's a great article found in its entirety here.

lance · Post by **lance** » Feb 3rd 2004, 8:17 pm

Hey all,

A very detailed army report detailing the lack of supplies for the US Army on its drive toward Baghdad.

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/03/politics/03ARMY.html

"Logistics problems, which senior Army officials played down at the time, were much worse than have previously been reported...Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait with no truck drivers to take them north. Broken-down trucks were scavenged for usable parts. Artillery units cannibalized parts from captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating. Army medics foraged medical supplies from combat hospitals."

Once again the Prez proves through his actions, not his words, his true support of American military men and women.

-LanceMan

lance · Post by **lance** » Mar 26th 2004, 10:06 pm

(Sigh)

Apparently soliders going to Iraq are still having to buy their own body armor.

See:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... dy_armor_1

-LanceMan

lance · Post by **lance** » Jan 24th 2005, 6:52 pm

And yet more news....

If this news is accurate, it seems that American women soldiers are finding themselves forced into combat situations in Iraq, which if true would be in opposition to existing Department of Defense Policy. Again I am not referring to Army women in support positions who happen to find themselves under attack but rather women sent out on combat patrols.

You can read more here:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/mod ... oryid=2151

-LanceMan

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