Iraq: Why immediate withdrawal makes sense

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI27Ak01.html

That the United States is in a military quagmire in Iraq has become a fact of life among Americans of all political persuasions. Though Bush administration officials still sometimes speak of troop reductions in early 2006, and some top military men clearly no longer endorse "staying the course", the muted voices of reason within the military and the State Department still talk in terms of a three-to-five year drawdown of forces.

This will be followed by the "sustained presence of a large American contingent, perhaps 50,000 soldiers" who will be housed in the huge permanent bases the US is continuing to construct and upgrade in Iraq. In addition, General John P Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, recently told New York Times reporter Eric Schmitt that US air power would be flying combat missions inside Iraq "more of less indefinitely". snip

American violence in Iraq
In listing the problems faced by Iraqis ("widespread terrorism, a guerrilla war against the US occupation forces, and periodic clashes between Sunnis and Shiites"), Dreyfuss is succumbing to the reportage of the mainstream press, which rarely mentions the immense toll that American forces are taking every day inside Iraq.

In fact, the best estimate is that the occupation has been killing about 40,000 Iraqi civilians each year. These figures were first published a year ago in a path-breaking, yet largely neglected, study published in the British medical journal the Lancet by a mixed team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Iraqi universities; but careful vetting of war reports indicates that something close to these rates seems to have been maintained ever since.

That helps explain why even the distinctly limited numbers collected by US and Iraqi official sources (when released at all) almost always report that American (or other) occupation forces account for at least two-thirds of all civilian deaths in military actions, with an unknown proportion of the remainder due to the actions of the Iraqi government, not the resistance.

[rbajai]

1. Well * did what he set out to do...

create a new terrorist state in the Middle East that has actually taken away human rights instead of give them. Now we have a situation where we have two Irans and a country far worse off than when Sadaam ruled. :mad:

[snappyturtle]

2. I don't see.....

an immediate withdrawal ever happening. After all how can * give up the building of an enormous embassy, military bases and "our" oil pipeline? The number of innocent Iraqi dead is of no concern to this White House. :sarcasm: