Is Worst Yet to come in Iraq?

[leftchick]

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woiraq174307738jun17,0,7412607.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

WASHINGTON -- During a terrible week for violence in Iraq, a senior administration official yesterday warned that the worst is yet to come.

Five Marines and a sailor were killed Wednesday in attacks west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced yesterday, a day that also brought news of a suicide bomber in Baghdad who killed at least eight police officers and wounded 25 others.

"I think you'll see it continuing up, because the terrorists know what's coming," said the official, speaking as peace demonstrators chanted outside the White House.

He said that militants are "once again trying to derail" progress in Iraq, in this case the writing of a constitution and holding of elections tentatively scheduled for later this year.

"We have a rough road ahead of us," the official said in an unusual moment of openness by the Bush administration on the war. His comments appeared aimed at preparing a public - that polls show is increasingly disillusioned by the war - for even more bad news.

The official spoke after one of the bloodiest weeks in the war, in which at least 17 U.S. servicemen and 155 Iraqis have been reported killed.

[RalphReedsWreckedEm]

1. YES. Unequivocally - YES

Every day is another chance for the insurgency to kill a massive number of our men and women.

Imagine this nightmare scenario: The insurgency leadership coordinates a country-wide sniper attack to be conducted at 12:00 noon on a particular day. Our unsuspecting troops on patrol are doing their everyday jobs when - POP! 120 of our soldiers die in one horrible moment from 120 sniper shots in different cities around Iraq.

Think it can't happen?

Every day we remain in the God-forsaken hell hole, it is a horrible possibility.

[Delphinus]

30. Well,

I agree to a point.

They are not "an insurgency" - they are Iraqi citizens who are defending their homeland against foreign invaders.

[Theres-a]

2. With the recent fraggings

And operation white shield and spear I think the thing is coming to a head.

[acmejack]

3. Probably, even though it hard to conceptualize how it can be.

This is snowballing into a real fiasco. Sooner or later, they will have their revenge upon us here.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. To keep it in perspective, the daily death rate of Americans

is still less than 10 percent of what it was at the height of the Vietnam war.

[Daphne08]

31. Unfortunately, I fear you are correct

and that should frighten all thinking Americans.

[Jacobin]

4. Compare and Contrast

Dickless Cheney: "The insurgency is in its last throes"

Unidentified Admnistration official: "We have a rough road ahead of us,"

The mendacity of this administration never ceases to amaze me.

[salin]

5. More of the "increased attacks mean we are winning"

it will get tougher - but it is because "they know what's coming"...

Right - and the Tet Offensive was the last throes for the enemy in Vietnam.

Dont think that they yet realize that this orwellian logic is loosing its effect on the public - only serves to assuage the fears of the biggest diehard bushites.

[mwb970]

36. Increased attacks show we are winning, says VP Dick.

I assume that decreased insurgency attacks would also show we are winning. I guess the only way we can lose is if the rate of attacks stays exactly the same!

[patdem]

6. Maybe they will let us in on their secret, since the 'terrorists' know?

"I think you'll see it continuing up, because the terrorists know what's coming," said the official, speaking as peace demonstrators chanted outside the White House.

Our congress critters are asking 'what's coming', but only the insurgents seem to know for sure? :shrug:

[gratuitous]

20. Yeah, what the hell does that mean?

"The terrorists know what's coming"?

And as for whether the worst is yet to come, let me put it this way: If you go plowing face first into an enormous, endless pile of manure, it will just continue to get worse and worse until you adopt the simple expedient of changing direction and heading back out the way you came in. I see no indication that this corrupt administration has any thought of changing direction, getting out, or doing anything differently than what they're doing today.

So yes, it will continue to get worse and worse.

[reprobate]

25. The neocons are caught in a trap.

The longer they stay in Iraq the worse the popular support gets and the more questions are being asked about the lies that got us there.

On the other hand, a pull out will mean that all their plans, and I include their conspiracy to pull off 9/11, will have been for nothing and their goal of taking over the entire region, along with their intent of military dominance ovdr the world will be over.


So it's either going on with a failed policy, or admit failure and leave. They are unable to admit failure so this is a decision they are unable to make.

[truthisfreedom]

7. we need to begin a chant about "terrorists." the administration CREATED

these terrorists. this isn't about "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here." this is about how the administration created an environment in Iraq that energized and enraged many new groups they could call "terrorists." and they did this for the sole purpose of duping the American public into letting them dump the US Treasury into the pockets of the Military Industrial Complex, the Corporate War Industries, and Big Oil.

[jukes]

8. the insurgency is in

the latter days of "phase 1"; the attack on the infrastructure and sowing dissillusionment in the "government".

follows is "phase 2"; an increase and escalation of operations against foreign troops.


same format was used in viet nam. things WILL get worse, till we're driven from their country.

[dbt]

9. "As demonstrators chanted outside the White House"

More Viet Vu about Iraq Nam!

:freak:

[leftchick]

10. More Viet speak here....

Continue to do what clearly is not working, throw in a lot of dead bodies and denial.....

~snip~


The senior official yesterday rejected any deadlines, saying they would either increase attacks or give the insurgents reason to wait for the pullout.

He said the administration remains convinced that its strategy is working, with progress on the political front as well as in training and equipping Iraqi soldiers to take over the fight themselves.

[enough]

14. And this particular form of insanity takes me back to Viet Nam years:

snip>

"Nobody denies the loss of life and the carnage that is being wreaked on the Iraqi people and on us by the terrorists," he said.

snip>



As if "we" are the victims in this hideous situation that we created.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. We cannot dishonor

the 1700+ of our own that we have already thrown into the meat grinder for no apparent reason by stopping now. No, we must throw thousands more into the same bloody mess until, until, until....


VICTORY!

[FormerOstrich]

13. I noticed that sentence, too...but....

I think they are going to blame us for the increase in violence. "They are energized by our protests." "They are stepping it up because they wish to split us." "Protesters are same as terrorists"

[dbt]

17. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

In 1969, it was "You dirty hippies are helpin' them Congs kill our boys." Bullshit back then, bullshit now.

:hippie:

[donkeyotay]

24. It's a re-run

The reporter was making the connection between losing the war and the demonstrators outside the White House.

Forget taking any responsibility for a) lying for this war, and b) running it really badly (or well, depending on your viewpoint). Forget about making us less safe, impairing our volunteer forces, emptying our treasury and dividing our country.

Forget the commandeering of television to sell it. Forget all of that.

IT'S THE LIBERALS' FAULT!

[texanshatingbush]

11. Like who's paying for this!

No doubt the war will grind on with some days worse then others. But what puzzles me is the lack of consideration by the many "experts" on how are we going to continue to maintain this war in terms of manpower and financing.

Why isn’t the middle-aged and younger howling in protest over the debt that's being racked up for them to pay out over the next 30 years? I guess they're too occupied with reality programming and Tom Cruise getting engaged

[MichiganVote]

12. Iraq is in a civil war. Period. Whether terrorists are involved is

irrelevant. The Iraqi's will detemine their fate, not the Americans.

[Demeter]

35. This Is Not Civil War

This is resistance to occupation and puppet regime. If there were no foreign troops there, THEN the case for civil war could be made...

[Village Idiot]

16. Opeation "White Flag"...er....Shield must be failing SPECTACULARLY!!!

[MidwestTransplant]

18. dick Cheney said that the insurgency was on it's last breath

LIAR

[0007]

19. It would be easier to saddle an alligator and ride the reptile

than to force a democracy on Iraq.

[faithnotgreed]

21. "how long is a 'last throe' " asked wh reporter terry moran

to scotty mclellan when scotty would not answer terrys question about how do you measure a last throe when the numbers contradict wh statements

hehe

[Barrett808]

22. And here's the graph to prove it

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

[megatherium]

26. A little statistical elaboration.

Just for fun, I've run a regression analysis (on Excel) on the monthly death toll numbers.

According to Excel, the monthly increase in deaths is predicted to be 1.247 deaths, plus or minus 0.693 deaths. A slight increase. According to Excel, the p-value for this is 0.083. This means the chance that the death toll is not really rising is 8.3% (there's so much variability in the data, the apparent upward trend could be due to chance variations of the numbers instead of a genuine upward trend). In statistics, a common criterion for significance is a p-value less than 0.1, so this fits. We conclude there is a genuine upward trend in this data.

Now there is a large amount of variation in the monthly figures. Excel reports that the R-squared value is 0.115, which means that 11.5% of the variability in the numbers is explained by the upward trend.

[Barrett808]

27. Great analysis, thanks!

You might want to discuss with the author of the graphs, Ed Stephan:

[e-mail]
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan

[Voltaire99]

28. Quickest way to end the war: Draft

People are disillusioned, sure.

But there's no political pressure to change things, and what pressure did exist was stupidly squelched by Kerry's pro-war election campaign.

Draft middle class kids. Then you'll see Murricans suddenly developing a lot more concern about the war.

Worse, the Democratic Party has been facilitating the war from Day One, and obediently acquiesces whenever another funding request is put before it.

Some members of the party even like to use the war as a backdrop for their political futures.

For example, Hillary's still very pro-war, even given to going on a recet sightseeing tour in Iraq.

Funny thing about such pols: they'd never let their own sons or daughters near the war.

Draft Chelsea and watch Hillary get the peace religion, quick.

[truthisfreedom]

29. who is funding these fighters? i can only figure it's our own money being

used against us somehow. the whole war has been so corrupt, i wouldn't be surprised if our own tax dollars aren't being used to fund the "insurgents."

[Jose Diablo]

32. Yes, we ain't seen nothin' yet

There are many that state that we must fix Iraq before leaving. Here is the deal, we cannot 'fix' Iraq, no matter what we do. The Iraqi people themselves will have to 'fix' the problems. All we are doing by staying there is reminding them how bad we have and are screwing them over.

In the end, we will pack our bags and just leave with all the fanfare of a defeated enemy. Might as well get used to the idea, because this is how it will play out.

[leftchick]

33. John McCain will be on MTP with Timmy tomorrow

I am sure he will explain how we can fix Iraq in about 10 to 15 years and another 250,000 US troops. :(

[Demeter]

34. How CAN Iraq Get Worse?

unless Bush pulls a Hiroshima on Baghdad?

[Don Claybrook]

37. Not to worry, they're in the last throes

As Terry Moran asked, about how long does a throe last?

[ckramer]

38. Insurgents are Iraqis, are they not?

Why would Iraqis kill Americans who "liberated them"? The other side of the coin is why would Iraqis not kill Americans who "invaded them"?

Who has got the truth? Who is framing the war? The Iraqis or Americans? When more and more Iraqis say we are the invaders then "Houston we've got a problem".

If the Iraqi elites wanted to kill us, there's nothing we can do about it or stop that. It doesn't matter if 80% of the population were throwing flowers to us. Bush's illegal invasion gave them a good cause.

Get out of the Iraq quick or more young kids will die in Iraq. But why our Bush are not learning?

Trying to save face only leads to more deaths.

This IS the new Vietnam.

It would be a shame to see USA military get defeated by insurgents, but that's a possibility and that would be a real damper to the dreams of Bush imperialism.

[Roland99]

39. And Andrea Mitchell says she knew along that * lied about WMDs

What a stupid lying #$^%%&!!

IOW, that means the media has KNOWN for 2 years that * lied but they were lying to us about knowing * lied? :wtf:


And Cheney needs to have a red-hot poker shoved so far up his arse it pokes out of his nose! "Last throes" my ass.

[ElectroPrincess]

40. I heard an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) RW crony state ...

as a matter of factly, that the only thing that proves the insurgency is effective is an elevated body count.

How STUPID he must believe the American public to be. Duh!!! Yes, even the average sheeple can process DEAD PEOPLE = BAD whether they're our precious USA Troops or Innocent Iraqis.

What an arrogant buffoon! Anytime a conference or an individual is designated as from AEI, I tune out because I know it's going to be pure propaganda about Iraq dressed up like "lipstick on a pig."

The Warmongers are going to have a vice grip on Iraq even beyond that proved during the Vietnam War. Well that almost goes without saying: It's OUR OIL they have under their sand. :puke: