[Media-watch] Occupation Watch Bulletin

[David McKnight]

Occupation Watch Bulletin
www.occupationwatch.org
December 27, 2004
By Assaf Kfoury

UNWINNABLE WAR

For a fleeting moment this past week it seemed US President Bush was finally ready to admit the inevitable. At his press conference of December 20, Mr. Bush acknowledged his administration's Iraqization plan had failed. The more than 100,000 Iraqi trainees that the Pentagon had been counting on to do the dirty work of the occupation were not up to the task:

Bush Says Iraqis Aren't Yet Able to Quell Rebels
By David E. Sanger and Richard W. Stevenson 
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8401

That was a momentary lapse into reality by Mr. Bush. True to form, the US President quickly reverted to hallmark mendacity, proclaiming at the same press conference that "the idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world."  So, we were again served the call for a longer American presence, more destruction and bloodshed. Back in April 2003, a Pentagon planning session concluded the US occupation of Iraq would end in December 2004 (yes, this in 4 days as of this writing!).

U.S. Troop Level In Iraq To Grow
By Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8110

Rumsfeld Sees an Iraq Pullout Within 4 Years
By Eric Schmitt
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8172

True, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a place of tyranny, in no small measure thanks to colluding policies by the US and other Western governments in past years. But consider the obscenity of it: A man who became president in fraudulent elections proclaiming his government's right to occupy and destroy a country of 25 millions in the name of democracy. (The pretense about Iraq's WMD and connection to 9/11 is long gone.)

As if to underscore the futility of this war, one day after Mr. Bush's press conference on December 20, as if to underscore the futility of this war, a suicide bomber detonated himself in a mess tent at an American military base in Mosul, killing at least 24 people and injuring scores of others. That was the deadliest attack against US military facilities since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003:

Soldiers' daily routine shattered by flame and shrapnel
By Jeremy Redmon
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8420

As Iraq has turned into a patchwork of insurgencies and rebellions with no end in sight, the US government has lost many of its junior allies since March 2003. Thanks to the government of El Salvador this past week, the Bush administration will be able to prolong the fiction for a little longer that it leads a broad "coalition of the willing":

El Salvador May Extend Troop Deployment
By The Associated Press
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8490

El Salvador is now the only country in the Western Hemisphere besides the United States still fielding soldiers, a total of 380, in the US-led coalition. Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic have withdrawn their troops already.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, smarting from his callous response to soldiers' complaints about lack of armor protection ("you go to war with the army you have, not with the army you might want or wish to have at a later time"), went on an unannounced cheerleading tour of the troops:

U.S. Can Beat Insurgents, Rumsfeld Tells Troops
By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8483

Perhaps the hysterical encouragements of warmongers are an admission that the US is on a losing course in Iraq:

The Best Defense Is a Good Offense
By Anthony H. Cordesman
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8508

Occupation Hazards
By William Raspberry
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8509

The US corporate media, never a bastion of the anti-war movement, is now expressing concerns about an occupation that has repeatedly contradicted the Bush administration's fantasy predictions.  This past week an editorial in the Washington Post recognized "the appalling truth ... that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government."  What had been decried in past months as "abuse" by a few "rogue" members of the military is now described for what it is, torture sanctioned at the highest levels of government:

War Crimes
The Washington Post editorial
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20986-2004Dec22?language=printer

The New York Times also sounded the alarm this past week about an occupation going awry, although more cautiously. According to the Times, the elections scheduled for January 30 will not be the panacea for all that went wrong in Iraq:

Grim Realities in Iraq
The New York Times editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/opinion/22wed1.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

The lack of security is such that international observers will not even go to Iraq to monitor the elections. "They will be watching, as if through binoculars, from Jordan:"

Families Pay the Price
By Bob Herbert
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8470

To conclude this OW bulletin, we refer to saner minds to give a sober measure of what has happened in Iraq. Robert Fisk draws the balance sheet at the end of 2004:

Iraq: In This Mire Of Death, Lies And Atrocities, We Glimpse The Ghost Of Vietnam
By Robert Fisk
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8502

The evidence of an unwinnable war is there for anyone who cares to see it honestly.  With Naomi Klein, let's recall "the US isn't protecting or feeding Iraqis, it's stoking violence and hardship":

Yes, you must pull out - but also pay for the damage
by Naomi Klein
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=8503

READ DAHR JAMAIL'S DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ:
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/

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