US launches new offensive around Baghdad

[rodeodance]

Source: ap



US launches new offensive around Baghdad

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 23 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military, which just days ago completed its latest troop buildup in Iraq, has launched a large offensive operation in several al-Qaida strongholds around Baghdad, the top U.S. commander said Saturday.


Gen. David Petraeus said the operation began in the last 24 hours, and will put forces into key areas surrounding Baghdad that, according to intelligence, al-Qaida is using to base some of it car bomb operations.

Petraeus, who met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a morning breakfast, also said that while he doesn't have all the American troops he might want, he knows he's got all he's going to get.

............

He said the buildup of nearly 30,000 additional forces that has just been completed allowed him to launch the latest assault. The move, he said, is allowing him to send operations for the first time into "a number of areas around Baghdad, in particular to go into areas that were sanctuaries in the past of al-Qaida."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070616/ap_on_re_mi_ea/gates;_ylt=ApDyI8MoeOjJ.rQP7kub3hMUewgF

[rodeodance]

1. lots of WH activity--this week going to Iraq!

Gates is the third top U.S. official to travel to Baghdad this week to press the Iraqi government to move more quickly toward political reconciliation and other vital reforms that many see as critical to putting a cap on the violence.

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon carried that message to the Iraqis last weekend, and John Negroponte, the No. 2 State Department official, reinforced it in a visit midweek.

Gates also was cautious in his assessment of the progress in the war. He's to give Congress an update next month, and a full review in September, of how well the buildup ordered by
President Bush has worked.

"It remains to be seen how much progress will be made over the course of the next two or three months," Gates said, adding "There are some positive trends, there are some negative trends."

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

[whistle]

2. Those areas around Baghdad wouldn't happen to include the tent cities

...and shacks that have gone up holding the returned Iraqi refugees who have fled Iraq since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003?

[Igel]

7. No.

The Sunnis go farther west, the Shi'ites go farther south, and the Kurds go north.

The outer bands to the west are almost all Sunni, and derive from two sources--Sunnis going to Baghdad for jobs, and Sunnis that were moved there to help consolidate Saddam's support in a city that had a large Shi'ite population, made more Shi'ite as Shi'ites move there to get work.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Just as Mercury goes Retrograde

Nice move, Commander AWOL -- you really are a Miserable Clueless Failure

Why don't you hire a good astrologer, like all-time Republicon hero Ronald Reagan?

[acmavm]

4. "...against several al Quaida strongholds around Baghdad..."

So, the term 'al Quaida' is now interchangable with the word 'Iraqi' whenever referring to any person born in that country apparently. The only reason I say that is because it's never the Iraqi people fighting to get the occupying forces out of their country, it's always a problem with 'al Quaida'. In fact, from what I see, every damn member of al Quaida must be renting rooms in Iraq as we speak. Anything goes wrong, well then "al Quaida did it".

What would this administration do without al Quaida? Maybe make stuff up?

:sarcasm:

[monktonman]

6. Dont forget about Al-Maliki

Al-kate-a works well for him too.
Blame it on them to make it appear like his administration is having any effect at all.

[MGKrebs]

5. We surge, they "insurge".

"STOP BEING POOR AND PISSED OFF OR WE WILL KILL YOU."

Once you stop being poor and pissed off, then we can talk about how to make you happy.

[Orsino]

8. Somebody's under orders...

...to win something, anything, maybe, in Iraq, and to do it quickly.

[bobthedrummer]

9. "We are therefore compelled to adopt a series of measures that are not essential for the war

effort in themselves, but seem necessary to maintain morale at home and at the front.

The optics of the war, that is, how things outwardly appear, is of decisive importance in this fourth year of the war.

In view of the superhuman sacrifices that the front makes each day, it has a basic right to expect that no one at home claims the right to ignore the war and its demands.

And not only the front demands this, but the overwhelming part of the homeland. The industrious have a right to expect that if they work ten or twelve or fourteen hours a day, a lazy person does not stand next to them who thinks them foolish.

The homeland must stay pure and intact in its entirety. Nothing may disturb the picture."

Excerpt from a speech given before a select military and political audience in Berlin, Germany by Joseph Goebbels 2-18-1943.

[Heidi]

10. Kick.

:kick:

[Hissyspit]

11. G.I.'s In Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al Qaeda

Source: New York Times

G.I.’s in Iraq Open Major Offensive Against Al Qaeda

By THOM SHANKER and MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: June 17, 2007
BAGHDAD, June 16 — With the influx of tens of thousands of additional combat troops into Iraq now complete, American forces have begun a wide offensive against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia on the outskirts of Baghdad, the top American commander in Iraq said Saturday.

The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a news conference in Baghdad along with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said the operation was intended to take the fight to Al Qaeda’s hide-outs in order to cut down the group’s devastating campaign of car bombings.

The comments by General Petraeus were a signal that the United States military had yet again entered a new phase in Iraq, four months after the start of the so-called troop surge and a security plan focused on dampening sectarian violence within Baghdad. They reflected an acknowledgment that more has to be done beyond the city’s bounds to halt a relentless wave of insurgent attacks that have undercut attempts at political reconciliation.

The offensive also comes at a time in the war when there are increasing American casualties and rising domestic pressure to show results or begin troop withdrawals, and just three months before a formal assessment of the military buildup President Bush ordered.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[daleo]

12. Five years later, and everything is a disaster

Bush ought to be impeached for this. It is all so corrupt.

[Purveyor]

13. Tried before a Internatioal Court for War Crimes is more fitting and in any 'just world' necessary..

[aquart]

14. And they can recognize al qaida by....

their uniforms? their buttons? their bombs? their hostility?

How does one identify "al qaida"?

[uppityperson]

15. Easy. Anyone who...

runs, doesn't run, looks suspicious, turns away, closes their door, walks into a shop, is male, female, young, old, in-between, is not wearing a USA uniform and even then, you just never know. You know, "them". Sigh with a heavy heart. I worry not only about what is going on right now, but also what will happen when these hyper-vigilant military returns to civilian life.

[fed-up]

16. anyone who is ...an easy target :( nt

[aquart]

17. Yep.

[sanskritwarrior]

18. LOL like I said earlier

most REAL AQIZ fighters wear an armband with this on it.......their flag



In 2004 we would just find these flags in safehouses, on walls, etc..........Now (since early 2006) AQIZ flys them over neighborhoods they control, also most of their vehicles fly this flag off the antennas, they fly it at homes they use for bases......Like I said I don't talk about my experiences in Iraq much, but the Urban Legend that we can never find AQIZ is ludicrous. They fly this flag, they wear armbands with the same design, they advertise who they are.....that's why when the coalition says they have killed X number of AQIZ fighters, I believe them, because the last time I was in Iraq we would kill guys with this flag on their arms, on their cars, on their houses...........So it's literally quite easy to find out who they are....If some idiot flies this flag in Iraq and he isn't AQIZ then he has a death wish as most ordinary non shia Iraqis are very familiar with this flag and its meaning.......

[wtmusic]

19. Don't forget: this is against AL QAEDA. The perps of 9/11.

It is not directed, in any way, against Iraqis who are defending their country against an illegal foreign invasion.

Surprised, that the Times accepts the idea this offensive is against Al Qaedaat face value without any corroborating evidence except for Petraeus' comment. :eyes:

[Heidi]

20. Kick.

:kick:

[grytpype]

21. G.I.’s in Iraq Open Big Offensive Against Al Qaeda (Petreus: "that is really it, right now")

Source: NYT

BAGHDAD, June 16 — With the influx of tens of thousands of additional combat troops into Iraq now complete, American forces have begun a wide offensive against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia on the outskirts of Baghdad, the top American commander in Iraq said.

...

The decision to mount more attacks in the Sunni belts is a trade-off in a military sense because it will limit the number of American forces available to secure neighborhoods in the capital. General Petraeus appeared to allude to that on Saturday.

“There has never been a military commander in history who wouldn’t like to have more of something or other,” he said. “That characterizes all of us here.

“The fact is, frankly, that we have all that our country is going to provide us in terms of combat forces — that is really it, right now.”

...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html?bl&ex=1182225600&en=9787e6bdefb10c60&ei=5087%20#0.7803590833934331

---

The article is about going after al Qaeda, but I've quoted the most important part.

I think Petreus is giving up on pacifying Baghdad and is shifting forces toward going after al Qaeda.

Probably trying to follow up on the recent progress in Anbar where we (apparently) co-opted Sunni insurgents and recruited them to go after al Qaeda (a strategy that is going to blow up in our faces later).

And Petreus admits he has all the forces we can commit, there isn't going to be any further escalation. So if this doesn't work, that will be the end.

[marmar]

22. The surge within the surge....

Haven't we seen this movie before? Can't we already predict the ending?

[tabasco]

23. There is little concern for security in the cities.

You can bet your ass the oil fields are secure.