"On visit to Iraq, Biden warns ethnic violence will turn US away" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times | July 4, 2009
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden told Iraqi leaders yesterday that he and President Obama were committed to helping them resolve their political differences, but he warned that the United States would be unlikely to remain engaged in Iraq if the country reverted to sectarian violence, US officials said.
Hey, Iraqis (Biden's gesture)!!
Biden spent the day in closed meetings to assess Iraq’s political and security situation as part of his new role as an unofficial envoy for the Obama administration....
The vice president made clear that if Iraq returned to ethnic violence, the United States would be unlikely to remain engaged, “because one, the American people would have no interest in doing that, and as he put it, neither would he or the president.’’
WTF? We have had NO INTEREST in BEING THERE for YEARS and yet we are STILL THERE!!!!
Underscoring the challenges that remain, Iraqi police officers in still-violent Diyala province engaged in a shootout yesterday when they tried to arrest some men at a wedding, provincial officials said.
They couldn't have used BETTER JUDGMENT? A shootout at a WEDDING?
Biden’s visit spotlights the difficult line the Obama administration is walking in Iraq.
As Iraq advances to what one official called “real sovereignty,’’ both Biden and Obama have expressed concerns that the security situation is fragile and that Iraqi leaders are not doing enough to reconcile their differences over the sharing of political power and oil revenues. Biden is here trying to move that process along.
You know, THEY HAD THAT BEFORE we INVADED the place!
Two US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the vice president’s private meetings, said Iraqi leaders seemed open to US involvement....
Translation: WE AREN'T LEAVING and NEVER WERE!
The PAPER LIED TO YOU again, American!
The relationship between Washington and Baghdad is not without tension. When the troops officially withdrew Tuesday, Maliki irked US officials by giving a speech that did not credit the United States for helping to create a more stable Iraq....
More POLITICAL FOOLEYS for 'murkn consumption?
--more--"
BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden celebrated the Fourth of July with his son and other American troops in Iraq yesterday, a day after warning Iraqi leaders that US assistance will be jeopardized if the country reverts to ethnic and sectarian violence.
Biden began Independence Day by greeting more than 200 US troops from 59 countries who were becoming American citizens at a naturalization ceremony in a marble domed hall at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces at Camp Victory, the US military headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad....
Whadda ya know? AmeriKa is a bunch of HESSIANS!
In telling the brigade about the naturalization ceremony, the vice president used some of his characteristic colorful language. “We did it in Saddam’s palace,’’ he said. “That S.O.B. is rolling over in his grave right now.’’
Btw, they LIED ABOUT THAT, too!
Yes, readers, the WHOLE THING is a STAGE PRODUCTION in one form or fashion!
Biden was wrapping up an unusually long three-day trip to Baghdad aimed at fostering political reconciliation, just days after US combat troops withdrew from Iraqi cities....
Even though we didn't really withdraw. I'm so tired of the same lies being repeatedly shoveled out in the MSM.
It was Biden’s first visit as vice president and as Obama’s new unofficial point man on Iraq, although he has been to the country several times as a senator.... While Biden stressed America’s commitment to Iraq’s progress in his public remarks, a senior US official said the vice president warned the Iraqis that America won’t be able to stay involved if Iraq falls back into the cycle of sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.
“That’s not something that would make it likely that we would remain engaged because, one, the American people would have no interest in doing that, and, as he put it, neither would he nor the president,’’ the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks are considered confidential.
“There also wasn’t any appetite to put Humpty Dumpty back together again if, by the action of people in Iraq, it fell apart,’’ the official added.You SURE that is WHO it is, Joe?
--more--"
Oh, you mean LIKE THESE, Joe?
"Bombings kill three in Baghdad area" by Associated Press | July 3, 2009
BAGHDAD - Bombings killed at least three people in the Baghdad area yesterday in the first significant violence since Iraqi forces assumed responsibility for securing cities after the withdrawal of US combat troops from urban areas earlier this week.
A car bomb near the northern city of Kirkuk also killed one man and wounded six others, police said. In Baghdad, the violence began when a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi Army patrol, killing a soldier and wounding seven other people, police and hospital officials said. The attack occurred near a bridge used to access the walled-off Green Zone in central Baghdad.
A car bomb exploded later near a market on the highway south of Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 15, according to a police officer at the regional command. On Tuesday - the official day of the withdrawal, which the Iraqi government dubbed National Sovereignty Day - a car bomb killed more than 30 people in the northern city of Kirkuk.
But yesterday’s bombings were the first deadly attacks recorded in Baghdad after the Iraqis officially assumed responsibility for securing the cities and most of the 130,000 US troops in Iraq pulled back from urban areas to large bases on the outskirts. Persistent violence has raised concerns about the readiness of Iraqi forces to take over their own security.
At least 447 Iraqi civilians were killed in June, double the toll from the previous month, according to an Associated Press tally....
I'm surprised they bothered to count at all.
Oh, and LOOK what GOODIES we are LEAVING BEHIND, 'murka!!!
"Iraq far behind in mine clearance; Weapons remain buried, scattered" by Patrick Quinn, Associated Press | July 2, 2009
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government’s failure to grasp the scope of its land mine and bomb problem has derailed efforts to clear what is considered one of the world’s most contaminated countries, two United Nations agencies said yesterday.
A government decision to ban all civilian land mine clearance because of military fears that the old weapons will wind up in the hands of militants has threatened Iraq’s chances of meeting its internationally mandated obligation to clear the country of land mines and unexploded remnants of war by 2018.
“They are in the same league as Afghanistan in terms of saturation,’’ said Kent Paulusson, the United Nations Development Fund’s senior mine action adviser for Iraq during a presentation yesterday. “The government needs to recognize the size of the problem and deal with it.’’
Iraq’s land mine problem is a result of the war with Iran in the 1980’s, Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and the 2003 invasion, Paulusson said. While the problem has been overshadowed by the internal strife and near civil war that broke out three years ago, the deadly weapons remain buried and scattered across the country and along its borders. The UN said they affect the lives of 1.6 million Iraqis.
The problem areas are spread across the country, and a partial survey published in a report jointly presented in Baghdad by the UN Development Program and UNICEF indicates that so far they have identified 4,000 contaminated hazard areas totaling 670 square miles. Although the number of remaining mines is unclear, an Iraqi report submitted to the UN last year said that 20 million anti-personnel mines were sown by Iraq’s military alone on the borders and the southern oil fields during the various wars.
The two wars against the United States also littered many parts of the southern desert along the borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with cluster bombs, in addition to the mines laid by Saddam Hussein’s forces. The UN overview cited a report that 50 million cluster sub-munitions were used in Iraq from 1991 to 2006.
The number of victims from land mines and other unexploded remnants of war was also unclear because of a lack of an adequate reporting mechanism in Iraq in recent years. According to the UN report, land mines and unexploded remnants of war have also prevented economic development of some areas, including potential oil fields....
Paulusson said that to clear the areas that have already been identified, Iraq needs 19,000 de-miners working for the next 10 years. But it has only 300 for the whole country, excluding the Kurdish north, and they have been banned by the government from operating. Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government has been running its own de-mining program since 1993.
Yeah, we only start wars; we don't clean them up.
The government banned civilian de-miners because of security concerns, as mines and unexploded ordnance are the primary materials for the manufacture of car and roadside bombs, and is relying instead on the military....
The Iraqi military has said it can do the job. It does not want civilian involvement and says that private companies in the past have proven questionable - a veiled reference to private security firms.
And they called it liberation.
