Alright, I’m being flip and disrespectful about this, but C’mon Mr. Talabani! We’ve had enough pie in the sky pronouncements from our own people. We don’t need it from someone ostensibly charged with the responsibility of working to improve the dire security situation of his people:
President Jalal Talabani said Wednesday that Iraqi forces will assume security duties for the whole country by the end of the year, taking over responsibility from U.S. and other foreign troops now policing all but one of the 18 provinces. The optimistic forecast came during a relative lull in the violence wracking Iraq. Police said nine people were slain Wednesday, a day after a wave of bombings and shootings killed more than 70.
Iraqi leaders had said previously that their goal was to be fully in control of security by the end of 2006, but Talabani’s statement was the most specific.
The president, a Kurd from northern Iraq, said the government is confident it will vanquish extremist groups, calling the recent surge in violence as “the last arrows in their pockets.”
“We are highly optimistic that we will terminate terrorism in this year,” he said.
Nearly a quarter million Iraqis have been displaced by the sectarian violence that rages on a daily basis. Death squads are running rampant in Baghdad and its environs killing more than 100 a day. You still have a Sunni insurgency with upwards of 20,000 hardened fighters setting off car bombs and IED’s. The loyalty of many of your police (not so much the army) is still suspect. And Mookie al-Sadr and his merry band of torturing thugs flips the bird at you and your government every single day.
On top of that, you have forces at work that are tearing the country apart with Kurdish separatism in the north a growing menace and Shia nationalism asserting itself in the south.
The Turks are mad as hornets at Kurdish terrorism and may invade in order to stop it while Iran and Syria laugh in the face of the United States and your government while supplying everyone who is raising a hand against you with arms.
Shall I go on?
Corruption, an inability to compromise, infrastructure problems, an intelligentsia and middle class fleeing for their lives (estimated 500,000 have left the country in the last 2 years), and an economy that is swirling down the proverbial toilet.
And you want to police all of this with what American commanders are telling us is perhaps as few as 6 or 7 brigades of competently trained soldiers?
Gimme whatever you’re smoking, Mr. President ’cause its better’n what I got ’shyear.
Seriously, this statement by the President doesn’t mean diddly. He has very little power, constitutionally speaking although he is a well respected man. He may just be reiterating the mantra chanted by other Iraqi politicians who need to get the Americans out of the country as soon as possible.
And don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere. In fact, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to start wiping the smile off Mookie al-Sadr’s face - and there will be no one to save him this time. Ditto for the Badr Brigades in the south as well as the Sunni militias not associated with the insurgency who have sprung up in Baghdad in answer to the Shia militia’s death squads.
The kidnappers, the gangs, and other criminals will be a matter for the Iraqi forces to deal with. If Prime Minister Maliki is serious about cracking down - and in many ways his life depends on him being serious - what we are about to witness in the next fortnight is what we should have done two years ago but were prevented by the Ayatollah al-Sistani - kill al-Sadr and destroy his Iranian-loving militia.
My guess is that by the end of the year, the security situation will have improved noticeably but will be no where near what it should be. It will take a long time to rid Iraq of the devils that torment her. But given time and the skills of the United States military, it will be possible.
As long as her leaders don’t act like a bunch of Pollyannas in pigtails, that is…
2:37 pm
Rick, you just described the outcome of three plus years of American military presence in Iraq. A blazing shitstorm. What facts convince you that the situation will be better by the end of the year?
6:06 pm
ed, my, you do have a way with words and you say it with such glee, could it be you don’t want us to win in Iraq, no couldn’t be……
9:16 am
Drewsmom:
I very much want Iraq to be a peaceful country and a friend of the United States. The right wing noise machine uses any criticism of the war as “not wanting us to win.” The failures Mr. Moran pointed out are our failures, we invaded, we are in charge. My comment was anything but gleeful, but rather an effort to point out that out failures have put the entire Iraq operation in danger of not achieving our desired outcomes. If the U.S. military cannot contain the situation in three years, why will 5 more months of the same strategy bring a more controlled situation, as Rick Moran proposes?
Blind obedience is of no more value than blind opposition.
11:24 am
Our occupation of Iraq is in gross violation of the Geneva conventions, which is why the war supporters have vociferously argued that we are not an occupying force, but a “liberating force.” The line has been, “We’ll leave when they ask us to leave.”
What is the line now, “We’ll leave when the ask us to leave, unless we don’t want to… but we’re not occupying the country!”
Sheesh.
12:39 pm
O.K., winston and ed, we’ll get the hell outta Iraq, let the mad man from Iran take even more control, gee, maybe they can kill all the Jews for the hollywierd left crowd and yall can build a bomb shelter cuz we let a bunch of hezballah out of the country when the folks were bitching about not getting out immediatley when they took their butts to a country they were warned NOT TO GO TO.
But by all means, if it makes the leftists feel better, lets pull our troops out now so when we leave they can get bigger and blow us to smitherines.!!!!!!!!!!
1:35 pm
Drewsmom,
Don’t like the “cut and run”?
I’m with you, the “stay and die” is much better, especially so since it’s not ME staying and dieing.
This war is so easy behind my keyboard and monitor.
1:35 pm
My bad, Drewsmom. I thought I was engaging in a rational dialogue. Its likely a waste of time, but here goes. 1. I did not and do not advocate “getting the hell outta Iraq”. 2. Most of the “hollyweird left crowd” ARE Jewish, 3. I have no idea what you are talking about with the hezballah and bitching comment. 4. If we complete the major goals of our intervention in Iraq, terrorism will not stop.
Feel free to exchange ideas or to criticize my ideas. If you just want to continue to throw leftover Limbaugh feces, keep them to yourself.
4:01 pm
In Vietnam by 1962, we were fighting organized military full time units at the regimental and division levels, supported by a protected nation area for R&R and funded by 1/3 of the worlds GDP.
In Iraq the insurgents have virtualy no military as opposed to terrorist capacity. Organized platoons are non existent. Part time insurgents units of but a handdful of part-timers are all that there is. Suicide and mining may disrupt but cannot defeat a Nation state although it may eventually tire foreign support such as the US.
Your estimate of 20,000 fighters came directly from the cheeks of your maximus glutumus.
Nutcase, Ted K the “UnaBomber” managed to conduct a bombing about one a month. Thirty Unabombers could do one a day or thereabouts.
Funny that is about the rate of Iraqi bombing that occurs in the four of 18 provinces that have any appreciable civil unrest. You can’t call avoiding militaries and police and rather targeting and killing civvies, any kind of effective opposition military action.
The Iraqi leader is more accurate than any of the keyboard posters. When your opponents are quitting and acepting Amnesty, Twenty One groups since Zarquawi’s death, and no one offers to challenge the Iraqi military and police units, why shouldn’t he be believed?
7:29 pm
Winston, we will LEAVE when they ask us, they HAVEN’T so our brave VOLUNTARY MILITARY are trying to help these people and ed, I’d rather be a right wing noise machine than a left wing loon who seems not to realize how much danger WE ARE ALL IN and robert, stay and die, nice one, considering our soldiers fighting there are because they believe in what they are doing and I know some brave guys over there and I pray for them every night, I doubt yall have ever been on your knees.
I’m having surgery in the a.m. so I won’t be able to respond to any more of yalls silly retoric since my arm is so numb.
Get back over to kos and codie pinkie, they must miss yall so much. And by the way, I know most of hollywierd are Jewish, you missed my point by a mile.
Go post with arrianna puffinton, maybe you can color some more blackface on Senator Lieberman …. how sick is that.!!!!
10:20 am
Just a point on whacking Mookie al-Sadr: I believe we had our chance when Sistani left the country for that surgery. I believe that was kinda his hand-washing. But for some reason we didn’t drop the hammer on Mookie when we had the chance. We kinda subdued him and thought that would suffice. Our bad! But easy to fix.