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[unsung]

The short and long of American forign policy in IRAQ...

Now you know. Nothing left to be said.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I doubt they could ever come up with a fiesable definition of victory, but one thing's for sure - so long as they fail to define what victory means, they're headed for an abysmal failure.

[igotthisguitar]

Iraq war was 'blatant state terrorism': Nobel laureate Pinter
Wed Dec 7, 2:03 PM ET
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - In a fierce critic ahead of the Nobel awards ceremony, literature laureate Harold Pinter branded the war on Iraq "an act of blatant state terrorism" and demanded the prosecutions of US President George W. Bush and Britain's Tony Blair.



"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law," Pinter said in a pre-recorded lecture broadcast by the Swedish Academy.

The Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, aired the interview, recorded Sunday in London, because Pinter is too sick to travel to Sweden for the lecture or pick up the award in person at Saturday's ceremony.

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?" Pinter asked.

"One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice," he added.

The 75-year-old British playwright was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in December 2002.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/nobelliterature;_ylt=ApODLIGiv2FSJvl0mZtxRQNhr7sF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[igotthisguitar]

First transmitted Channel 4 November 21st

Peter Oborne, political editor of the Spectator, reports on the West's exit strategy for Iraq. He believes the invasion of Iraq is proving to be the greatest foreign policy failure since Munich.

Oborne argues that the plan to transform Iraq into a unified liberal democracy, a beacon of hope in the Middle East, is pure fantasy. Reporting on location with US troops in Sadr City, and through interviews with leading figures in Britain and the US, Oborne argues that the coalition and its forces on the ground are increasingly irrelevant in determining the future of Iraq - a future that's unlikely to be either unified, liberal or democratic.

The film includes interviews with Richard Perle, Peter Galbraith, Deputy Chief of Army staff General Jack Keane.

Oborne also interviews Rory Stewart, who worked as a deputy governor in Nasyriah and witnessed first hand the rise of the pro-Iranian fundamentalist parties that are now at the heart of the Iraqi government.

http://indybay.org/uploads/iraq_reckoning.rm

[bucheon bum]

does anyone read igotthisguitar's posts?

[igotthisguitar]

[igotthisguitar]

Analysis: 16,000 Americans wounded in Iraq
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The week of Iraq's parliamentary election was not the lull that many reports described it as being. For even though Sunni insurgents allowed the electoral process on Dec. 15 to go ahead smoothly, they did not let up in their attacks on American forces.

The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq last week was significantly down, but the number wounded -- always a broader and statistically more reliable indicator to the scale and intensity of the insurgency, was significantly up.

As of Monday, Dec. 19, the total number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the start of U.S. operations to topple Saddam Hussein on March 19, 2003, was 2,158 according to official figures issued by the Department of Defense, a rise of 14 in seven days. Therefore, over the past week, U.S. soldiers were being killed at a rate of two a day in Iraq. This was a slight improvement on the rate of 2.1 per week at which they were being killed during the previous period of eight days.

Also on Monday, in a grim reminder of the insurgents' still-lethal capabilities, four U.S. soldiers from Fort Riley, Kan. serving in the U.S. Army's 3rd Brigade were killed when a bomb exploded under their M-113 in Malahma in predominantly Sunni Muslim central Iraq.

The attack fitted the pattern whereby improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or roadside bombs, continued to account for more than half the total casualties inflicted on U.S. troops -- an ominous indicator that the technical expertise of the insurgents.

The rate of deaths during the Dec. 8-14 period was significantly below the 2.4 killed per day in mid-November, a figure that had previously been heralded as a sign of improvement. In late October the casualty rate was three times higher; troops were being killed at a rate of six per day.

However, the rate at which U.S. troops were being injured in Iraq very seriously rose during the week of the elections. The number of U.S. troops wounded in action from the beginning of hostilities on March 19, 2003, through Dec. 19, was 16,061, the Pentagon said.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051219-060339-3200r