Inconvenient News: 50% Fewer Iraqi Deaths in September

This will make for some interesting times. Maybe I will watch the next Democratic Presidential debate. If it continues it will certainly favor Hillary Clinton over Obama. It certainly cannot hurt the Republicans. Could there be a Republican dark horse out there?

PETRAEUS FOR PRESIDENT

Violence and civilian deaths drop in Iraq
By Felix Lowe and agencies
Last Updated: 8:46am BST 01/10/2007 Telegraph

The number of civilians killed during violence in Iraq dropped by almost 50 per cent in September, US figures reveal.

Violence during Ramadan also dropped by almost 40 per cent from last year, despite warnings from al-Qa'eda that it would increase operations during the Muslim holy month.

The Pentagon figures also show 72 American military deaths last month, the lowest monthly figure since July last year, when Washington poured an extra surge of 30,000 US troops into the war-torn country.

The US figures showed that 884 Iraqi civilians were killed in September, which was the lowest level recorded this year and down from 1,773 in August.The number of injured civilians was also down to 850 from 1,559.

Officials also announced that US and Iraqi forces had killed more than 60 insurgents and militia fighters in intense battles over the weekend.

"Coalition forces have dealt significant blows to al-Qa'eda Iraq in recent months, including the recent killing of the Tunisian head of the foreign fighter network in Iraq and the blows struck in the past 24 hours," military spokesman Col Steven Boylan said.

A US soldier, however, became the 72nd victim in Iraq this month after he was killed by gunfire in east Baghdad yesterday.

The overall toll of American losses since the March 2003 invasion now stands at 3,803.

US military officials attributed the reduction of violence during Ramadan to the change of strategy of moving troops out of large bases and into smaller combat zones.

September figures were also not skewed by large individual terrorist attacks, such as the massive truck bombings which killed 411 people in the minority Yazidi community in northern Iraq on Aug 14.

A Must Read Article at New York Times

A lot of interesting news this morning, but none as important as this article about the complications we find ourselves involved with in Iraq. At the very time the surge is beginning to have some effect, the Democrats and many Republicans are ready to throw in the towel. There simply is no simple resolution to the dilemma we face in Iraq. We stay, we face years of hell. We leave and Iraq achieves a critical mass and explodes with consequences unknown. Never say things cannot get any worse. They can.

Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies the New York Times (Hat tip: Doug)

NASR WA SALAM, Iraq, July 10 — Abu Azzam says the 2,300 men in his movement include members of fierce Sunni groups like the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade and the Mujahedeen Army that have fought the American occupation. Now his men patrol alongside the Americans, who want to turn them into a security force that can bring peace to this stretch between Baghdad and Falluja.

A few miles away, in the town of Abu Ghraib, Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Hiti and his brigade of Iraqi Army soldiers also have the support of the American military. But they have a different ambition, some American commanders here say: doing everything they can to undermine Abu Azzam’s men, even using a stolen membership list to single them out for wrongful detention.

General Nassir, a 37-year-old former special forces officer, denies that, but says he has strict orders not to support “unofficial” groups and to arrest armed men, no matter who they are. He says he supports those who join the security forces but objects to “those who have Iraqi blood on their hands and who kill our soldiers.”

The gulf between Abu Azzam’s men and the Iraqi soldiers remains vast, with American troops sometimes having to physically intercede. And it is an unmistakable caution that the full depths of the problems facing Iraq cannot be measured in the statistics about insurgent attacks and sectarian killings that carry so much weight in Washington.

The United States has placed great hope in its deepening ties with Sunni leaders like Abu Azzam who have vowed to fight Islamist militants. But his mostly Sunni group, the Volunteers, is different from the American-allied tribes in the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province, in part because it patrols only 40 minutes from central Baghdad and close to large Shiite districts. So American commanders view this as a crucial test case for whether Shiite leaders will tolerate new alliances with Sunni groups.

If General Nassir’s unit, the Muthanna Brigade, is any indication, the outlook is not promising, said Lt. Col. Kurt Pinkerton, a 41-year-old California native who has spent the past months cultivating his relationship with Abu Azzam.

About a month ago, the Iraqi brigade, which is predominantly Shiite, was assigned a new area and instructed to stay away from Nasr Wa Salam, Colonel Pinkerton said. But he said he believed that the Iraqi soldiers remain intent on preventing Sunni Arabs, a majority here, from controlling the area. He cites a pattern of aggression by Iraqi troops toward Abu Azzam’s men and other Sunnis, who he believes are often detained for no reason.

Recently, and without warning, Colonel Pinkerton said, 80 Iraqi soldiers in armored vehicles charged out of their sector toward Nasr Wa Salam but were blocked by an American platoon. The Iraqis refused to say where they were going and threatened to drive right through the American soldiers, whom they greatly outnumbered.

Eventually, with Apache helicopter gunships circling overhead and American gunners aiming their weapons at them, the Iraqi soldiers retreated. “It hasn’t come to firing bullets yet,” Colonel Pinkerton said.

A few weeks ago, he said, a Sunni detainee was beaten to death while in custody of the Muthanna Brigade. And in the past year, he said, Muthanna soldiers detained two of Abu Azzam’s brothers, both of whom said they were abused, and raided Abu Azzam’s house.

the complete article here

A swerve in the surge. Al-Maliki says wall will stoke Sunni-Shiite tensions.

Iraqi PM orders halt to Baghdad barrier

Qassim Abdul-Zahra, The Associated press; with files from The Los Angeles Times
Published: Monday, April 23, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt - Iraq's prime minister yesterday ordered a halt to the U.S. military's construction of a barrier separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shia areas in Baghdad after criticism over the project at home.
The challenge to the U.S. initiative came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began a regional tour to shore up support from mostly Sunni Arab nations for his Shia-dominated government as sectarian violence persists despite a nearly 10-week-old security crackdown.

The U.S. military announced last week that it was building a five-kilometre-long, 3.5-metre-tall concrete wall in Azamiyah, a Sunni stronghold in northern Baghdad whose residents have often been the victims of retaliatory mortar attacks by Shia militants following bombings usually blamed on Sunni insurgents.

U.S. and Iraqi officials defended plans for the barrier as an effort to protect the neighbourhood, but residents and Sunni leaders complained it was a form of discrimination that would isolate the community. A large protest was scheduled for today in the area.

In his first public comments on the issue, Mr. al-Maliki said yesterday that he had ordered the construction to stop.

"I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop," he said during a joint news conference with the secretary-general of the Arab League in Cairo. "There are other methods to protect neighbourhoods, but I should point out that the goal was not to separate, but to protect."
He did not elaborate, but added "this wall reminds us of other walls that we reject, so I've ordered it to stop and to find other means of protection for the neighbourhoods." He wasn't more specific, but apparently was referring to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War and Israel's construction of a barrier in the West Bank to keep out suicide bombers.

U.S. military spokesman Lt.-Col. Christopher Garver declined to comment on whether construction of the wall would stop, saying only that all security measures were constantly under discussion.

Sectarian bloodshed continued in Iraq yesterday, with at least 72 people killed or found dead.

In the most unsettling incident, a forbidden love affair that ended with a young woman's death by stoning led to more religiously motivated killings when gunmen dragged members of a tiny religious minority off a bus and killed 23 of them, police and witnesses said.

The incident in the northern city of Mosul was shocking in its brutality and frightening for the spectre it raised -- violence between Muslims and non-Muslims aggravating the already volatile conflict involving Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds.
The victims were Yazidis, a sect that is neither Christian nor Muslim and whose followers have faced persecution from a succession of rulers.