US senator speaks nonsense

a plane with senators was shot at, while leaving Iraq:

Sen. James M. Inhofe says terrorists' attempt to shoot down the C-130 military transport plane carrying him and other lawmakers in Iraq demonstrated the progress of the U.S. military campaign.

"Al Qaeda's unsuccessful attempt to shoot down this C-130 aircraft was a futile effort to influence its losing fight in Iraq, and served to underscore the reality that terrorism is still a threat and that there is still work to be done," the Oklahoma Republican said. "The crew’s impeccable training and flawless performance ensured the safety of the aircraft and all personnel on board."

so, being shot at, is a sign of progress these days...

on Deltoid meanwhile Robert Chang exposed David Kane, who wrote a piece about the Lancet study on iraqi mortality. it turns out, that he doesn t know how to do the basic calculations...

David, once again, you have shown that you are eager, determined, self-confident, clueless, misguided, and incompetent. Your entire argument is built on: "I can't figure it out, so no one can; since no one can figure it out, why bother asking anyone else?" David, you're spanked. You're drubbed, whupped, and schooled. You deserve all of it. You need to read this.

One more thing: "Michael Fumento! Michelle Malkin! Tim Curtin! Shannon Love! Can you hear me? Your boy took a hell of a beating! Your boy just took one hell of a beating!"

Kanes Paper found plenty of response among right wing bloggers. will they correct this error?

Corruption is norm in Iraq

this report is devestating. please take a look at individual entries!

But according to the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki's government is "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws," the report says, and, perhaps worse, the report notes that Maliki's office has impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government.

again i wonder, how will this look in the september report?
"some progress has been made in fighting corruption, but there s more work to be done?!?"

look at this part:

The Ministry of the Interior, which has been a stronghold of Shia militias, stands out in the report. The study's authors say that "groups within MOI function similarly to a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) in the classic sense. MOI is a 'legal enterprise' which has been co-opted by organized criminals who act through the 'legal enterprise' to commit crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, bribery, etc." This is like saying the mob is running the police department. The report notes, "currently 426 investigations are hung up awaiting responses for documents belonging to MOI which routinely are ignored." It cites an episode during which a CPI officer discovered two eyewitnesses to the October 2006 murder of Amer al-Hashima, the brother of the vice president, but the CPI investigator would not identify the eyewitnesses to the Minister of the Interior out of fear he and they would be assassinated. (It seemed that the killers were linked to the Interior Ministry.) The report adds, "CPI investigators assigned to MOI investigations have unanimously expressed their fear of being assassinated should they aggressively pursue their duties at MOI. Thus when the head of MOI intelligence recently personally visited the Commissioner of CPI…to end investigations of [an] MOI contract, there was a clear sense of concern within the agency."

or this:

Over at the Defense Ministry, the report notes, there has been a "shocking lack of concern" about the apparent theft of $850 million from the Iraqi military's procurement budget. "In some cases," the report says, "American advisors working for US [Department of Defense] have interceded to remove [Iraqi] suspects from investigations or custody." Of 455 corruption investigations at the Defense Ministry, only 15 have reached the trial stage. A mere four investigators are assigned to investigating corruption in the department. And at the Ministry of Trade, "criminal gangs" divide the spoils, with one handling grain theft, another stealing transportation assets.

no surprise, after this:

Part of the problem, according to the report, is Maliki's office: "The Prime Minister's Office has demonstrated an open hostility" to independent corruption investigations. His government has withheld resources from the CPI, the report says, and "there have been a number of identified cases where government and political pressure has been applied to change the outcome of investigations and prosecutions in favor of members of the Shia Alliance"-which includes Maliki's Dawa party.

more Iraq developments, needing Petraeus spin

looks like the the Cholera is spreading out in northern Iraq.

Lack of clean drinking water and poor sanitation has led to 5,000 people in northern Iraq contracting cholera.

The outbreak is among the most serious signs yet that Iraqi health and social services are breaking down as the number of those living in camps and poor housing increases after people flee their homes.

"The disease is spreading very fast," Dr Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan's health ministry, told a UN agency. "It is the first outbreak of its kind here in the past few decades."

what sort of an improvement brings back such an illness? how much more improvement, before we reintroduce the pest again?

as a sideeffect, the number of refugees is rising as well:

The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has risen from 50,000 to 60,000 a month, the UN High Commission for Refugees reported earlier this week.

IHT has a good piece about the fighting between shii factions:

Rivalries and violence between Shiite factions are threatening to overshadow progress U.S. forces have made against al-Qaida in Iraq and other extremists just weeks before the top American commander and diplomat in Iraq report to Congress.

a main problem is, that the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq and it s Badr militias are dominating the police forces in certain areas. unfortunetely we are following this recipe to desaster in sunni areas now as well.

the article has this outstanding description on Sadr as well:

In many ways, the Sadrists are leading a social revolution," said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director of the International Crisis Group, a respected research agency based in Brussels, Belgium.

"It is a struggle against the traditional political class and the wealthy merchants of the Shiite shrine cities who support the Council," Hiltermann said"

casualty numbers???

some people ask questions, about the "lower casualty numbers":

* "The average number of daily attacks against civilians remained about the same over the last six months" states a draft version of the Government Accountability Office provided to the Washington Post. [Washington Post, 8/30/07 ]

* The Associated Press has reported that sectarian violence has actually doubled in 2007 [AP, 8/26/07 ]

* Iraqi government has refused to report civilian death toll numbers to the United Nations agency responsible for collecting this information since January. This means more than 8 months of civilian deaths have gone unreported by an outside observer.

* The Iraq Study Group confirmed that in the past U.S. military officials routinely underreported civilian death. [McClatchy, 12/06/06 ]

* Disparities in death tolls reported by the government and eyewitness accounts cause some to charge that the government is intentionally downplaying or trying to cover up the number of dead. [Christian Science Monitor, 8/03/07 ]

* U.S. officials have claimed that death tolls have diminished in Baghdad, but have failed to provide documentation to the media that would support this assertion. [McClatchy, 8/15/07 ]

i fear we wont get answers, though...

GAO report finds little progress in Iraq

the WaPo got aversion of the GAO report to congress, BEFORE it went via the department of defense filter.

the results are devestating:

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
...
"While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved." "Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised.

no surprise, to anyone who s following the news.

meanwhile shia on shia violence made 1 mio pilgrims ordered out of karbala.

and there is a cholera outbreak in northern iraq.

Iraq deathtoll higher than 2006

the AP did a count:

The findings:

Iraq is suffering about double the war-related deaths countrywide compared with last year - an average daily toll of 62 so far this year, as against 33 in 2006.

Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The UN and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

i wonder how Petraeus is going to spin this numbers in his september report..

new UNITY seems to be a photo event:

this week there seemed to be movement in iraqi political benchmarks, finally:

Iraqi Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have signed a reconciliation deal, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says.

but it looks like this was more of an photo operation:

Mr Alayan said Mr Hashemi had joined the other four leaders in announcing the latest political move in his capacity as a "vice-president and not as leader of the Front".

Even Omar Abdul Sattar, a leader of Mr Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party, dismissed the agreement as stage-managed.

"It was an irrelevant media production," he said.

we will see, whether Bush will manage to at least strong arm the oil law through iraqi parliament...