Iraq War Inquiry, Day Nine

Drip, drip, drip, ""He recalled noting that: "the dog didn't bark - it grizzled." Don't forget - this 'grizzling' for regime change was 6 months BEFORE 9/11."". drip, drip, drip, ""But there was a 'sea change' in attitude after the atrocities, with former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice targeting Iraq on the very day of the outrage."", drip, drip, drip, ""George Bush tried to make a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida in a conversation with Tony Blair three days after the 9/11 attacks, according to Blair's foreign policy adviser of the time."", drip, drip, drip, ""There was "a touching belief [in Washington] that we shouldn't worry so much about the aftermath because it was all going to be sweetness and light"."", drip, drip, drip, ""Boyce mentions the "dysfunctionalism" of Washington. He says that he would find himself briefing his American counterparts on what was happening in different parts of the US adminstration. Rumsfeld was not sharing information"", drip, drip, drip...........!

Written Transcripts by Date of each session.

The Video's of the Daily Testimony.

Trickle down information, while slow and coming in bits and pieces, does come quicker then economic trickle down capitalism.

Keep in mind as you come across the time lines in this Inquiry who was responsible for the 9/11 criminal terrorist attacks on this country,

Senate Report Revisits Osama bin Laden's Great Escape

Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, the military began bombing al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan. It was the start of a campaign orchestrated by the CIA and Special Forces troops that quickly ousted the ruling Taliban from power but led to an insurgency that continues today...>>>>>

and what the then president bush stated a few years into both and close to leaving office, about "not thinking about bin Laden much anymore!", which they really had already started to do on 9/11 and after! That should give to one the simple reason why we're still sending Ours and NATO troops into Afghanistan and still fighting a growing Insurgency and the Afghans have seen little in Actually helping them rebuild their country after decades of destructive war by Foreign Occupiers!

You can Watch the Inquiry Live when in Session

And we "Drip" into day nine with other information from the weekend:

As the British Iraq war Inquiry moves ahead, day eight was friday, new calls for investigations of issues related to the Iraq buildup and questions of the reasons given for invading are heating up!

Call for inquest into 'suicide' question

Six British doctors have begun legal action for a new coroner's inquest into the controversial death of U.N. weapons inspector David Kelly, authorities say.

Kelly's former colleagues suspect the original verdict of suicide is incorrect and should be overturned.

Kelly, a 59-year-old microbiologist died days after being revealed as the source of confidential information in a 2003 BBC story about the Iraq war, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. In it, Kelly alleged the British government "sexed up" evidence against Iraq to justify the invasion....>>>>>

An Op-Ed I caught, at least some are paying attention, across the pond, here in the states:

We've spent too much on war; seek peace

The call for peace has nothing to do with the Democratic Party or the Republican party; this is about the American people and about people of other lands who struggle to defend their homes. It makes little difference which political party is in power; both are heavily influenced by corporate elite who profit directly or indirectly from wars.

The Iraq Inquiry, currently being held in Britain and chaired by Sir John Chilcot, reveals that the American and British governments knew very well that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and no weapons of mass destruction. They were told that the invasion was illegal and unwarranted, but that made no difference.

Snip

But overall American poverty cannot compare with the poverty, destitution and pain suffered by the hundreds of thousands of people who are victims of military invasions.

The death, disease, maiming and displacement of whole populations subject to the violence of wars is unimaginable. The use of hideous weaponry that leads to hideous suffering that goes on long after an attack, destroying young and old alike, is morally indefensible and unforgivable....>>>>>

US 'neglected' southern Iraq, ambassador tells Chilcot inquiry

Edward Chaplin tells inquiry that despite billions of dollars being poured into Iraq by the US, little went to the main UK area of operations around Basra

Edward Chaplin, who in 2004 became the first British ambassador to Baghdad for 13 years, said that despite the billions of dollars being poured into Iraq by the US, little went to the south, which was the main UK area of operations.

He said that the lack of assistance was "damaging", breeding resentment in an area which had been historically neglected under the rule of Saddam Hussein...>>>>>

Senior officer says he urged Tony Blair to delay invasion

Major General Tim Cross tells Chilcot panel that preparations were 'woefully thin'

"We talked for about 30 minutes or so. I was as honest about the positions as I could be, essentially briefing that I did not believe post-war planning was anywhere near ready," he said.

"I told him that there was no clarity on what was going to be needed after the military phase of the operation, nor who would provide it.

"Although I was confident that we would secure a military victory, I offered my view that we should not begin that campaign until we had a much more coherent post-war plan."

He also criticised the then-international development secretary, Clare Short – who subsequently resigned over the war – saying she would not allow one of her officials to work with him on a full-time basis because of her "well known concerns".

"This was, I am bound to say, unhelpful for me, and it was an early indicator that Whitehall was not much more joined up than Washington," he said....>>>>>

Chilcot tantalises us with documents

The cosy Iraq inquiry has an infuriating habit of referring to key evidence but not indicating when, if ever, it will be published

Snip

Observers have commented already on the cosy nature of the proceedings, the formally polite, almost oleaginous, interventions of the chairman. As important is the deeply frustrating manner in which the inquiry panel members refer to documents but do not quote from them. They do not quote even from the Downing Street documents (which appear on more than one dedicated website) leaked more than four years ago.

These make clear that senior officials and ministers were warning Tony Blair even before his private head-to-head meeting with George Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion, that military action to topple Saddam would be unlawful, that the government should first have to spend a lot of effort massaging British public opinion, and that in the notorious phrase attributed to Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, "the facts and intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" in Washington. These documents were given to the Butler review into the way intelligence was used and abused in the runup to the invasion but not published on the grounds that that inquiry had limited terms of reference...>>>>>

Blair warned over Iraq war planning

Major General Tim Cross

A senior Army officer described how he warned Tony Blair two days before the invasion of Iraq that there were insufficient preparations for dealing with the aftermath of the conflict.

Giving evidence to the official inquiry into the war, Major General Tim Cross said he told Mr Blair that he did not believe the post-war planning was "anywhere near ready" and that the situation in the country could be "chaotic".

Gen Cross said that in the weeks leading up to the invasion he had tried to raise his concerns in both London and Washington, but that his views were "not particularly warmly received" by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Snip

Gen Cross - who was attached to the US Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (Orha) which was supposed to manage the aftermath - said that he set out his concerns in a 30 minute meeting with Mr Blair in No 10 on March 18...>>>>>

Tony Blair Ignored Iraq Warning, Top General Says

U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Jones

Add Maj. Gen. Tim Cross to that growing list of people who foresaw disaster in Iraq but were ignored. The senior British liaison to the U.S. reconstruction effort warned his prime minister before the invasion that insufficient postwar planning would lead to chaos. The rest is history...>>>>>

The truth about the Iraq war finalling coming out

The current Chilcot Enquiry in the UK is at last bringing out the truth about the illegal Iraq War. The fact long known by many that there was no justification for this war and that the agenda was completely different to that purported is confirmed by Christopher Story of World Reports in his Global Analysis of 3 December 2009. ..>>>>>

Todays Inquiry is still going on as I post this, around four pm U.S. est., as they are talking to Government official of that time, didn't catch name but reports will be coming on his testimony shortly I'm sure.

Military Children Face More Emotional Challenges as Parental Deployments Grow Longer, Study Finds

Children in military families may suffer from more emotional and behavioral difficulties when compared to other American youths, with older children and girls struggling the most when a parent is deployed overseas, according to a new RAND Corporation study...>>>>>

Lets Simplify the Iraq Fiasco

Conn Hallinan who is a Foreign Policy In Focus columnist has a writeup over at Foreign Policy in Focus, go figure.

It's titled Basra: Echoes of Vietnam, and while some is about the recent cheney debacle in Basra, and yep he had to have requested the Iraqi action in his resent visit, looks too much like what he's done these past 7plus years, in short it shows the ignorance and failed policy decisions, once again, that this Nation has been subject to as we destroy others.

Let me first go to something he wrote near the bottom of the piece, that frankly has been said over and over by many others in almost the exact same way or in other ways to get the point across, especially by us 'Nam Vets who saw, and lived, what was going on.

As it did in Vietnam, the United States looks at Iraq though the lens of firepower and troop deployments. But war is not just about things that blow up, and occupiers always ignore the point of view of the occupied.

People, people, people, when one invades anothers country, than occupy those who were invaded, we're in Their Country, it's Their Traditions, Their Heritage, Their Patriotism, Their Homes, Their Families, Their Friends, Their Neighbors, Their Lifestyles, Their Religions, Their Histories, and any other Theirs you can think of that are Invaded and Destroyed, so One Better Have A Real Damn Good Reason To Invade to begin with, otherwise the Enemies, as we like to call those in their own countries, Increase In Numbers, and their once friends and neighbors get targetted if there's collaboration with the invaders, that's the way it is.

Who suffers the most? The Innocents in their own countries, from the actions of the invaders and occupiers to those, mostly but not always nationalists, fighting the invaders, and all the while the propaganda machines, on both sides, spew out the rethoric to cause the fears and hype needed to gain support of the already failed policies.

Mr. Hallinan puts this near the beginning:

But while a single battle may not end a conflict, it can illuminate an underlying reality.

And that reality has been voiced over and over and over......................... since even before the debacle was unleashed!

In his section Remembering Tet, which by the way gives you the reason for the title, as these years and this invasion have given us 'Nam vets the sense of DeJa-Vu and Total Outrage, as most of us said we would never allow that to happen again, he refers to a few others. Like an Op-Ed by Frank Rich on Tet, and spokesman for General Petraeus Rear Admiral Gregory Smith talking about the success{?} being made.

“There is a parallel to Tet here,” says military historian Jack Radey. “’We have won the war, violence is down, the surge works’ [the U.S. told itself], and then Kaboom! The Green Zone is taking incoming.”

Reality Bites!!

Now on Tet, 'Nam, and Guierilla/Insurgent Warfare:

“It is more likely proof that you have lost track of him, and he will, at his own chosen time, find ways to remind you of his presence.”

Time is a Weapon in Guerilla Warfare, including Years! Lessons quickly forgotten!!

According to historian Gareth Porter, the United States mistakenly concluded that the ceasefire Sadr declared six months ago was a sign that the Mahdi army was vulnerable.

Our arrogance rules over the reality of the time, and Sadr isn't the only one, we're paying others to fight the gangs calling themselves al Qaeda of Iraq, when will they Bite Back or has that begun already with the continuation of the fighting with the Mahdi army.

He than goes into Other Analogies which give an almost perfect picture of the present clashing with the not so far back past:

But Tet is not the only relevant Vietnam analogy. The other parallel was Operation Lam Son, the 1971 invasion of Laos by the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN). The United States pushed South Vietnam to attack Laos in order to demonstrate that the ARVN could stand on its own two feet, and to make the point prior to the upcoming 1972 U.S. elections that Nixon’s policy of “Vietnamization” was working
Instead, U.S. audiences watched as panicked ARVN troops clung to helicopter landing skids in their desperation to escape from Laos. Lam Son “was a disaster,” writes historian A.J. Langguth in Our Vietnam: The War, 1954-1975: “Vietnamization became one more doomed fantasy. After 10 years of training and costly equipment, South Vietnam’s troops seemed to be no match for the Communists.”

With abit more added.

Than he has In Basra

As Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar points out in the Asia Times, the principal outcome of the fighting is that “the Bush Administration’s triumphalism over the so-called Iraqi ‘surge’ strategy has become irredeemably farcical.”

So, after three years and $22 billion in training and equipment, the Iraqi army got shellacked. The only thing that prevented a full-scale rout was the intervention of U.S. troops and air support.

Guess what, the same Damn Thing happened in Vietnam!

His closing section, though the whole thing isn't that long, he calls It's the Oil Stupid

Rather than as an assault on “criminal militias,” virtually every independent observer saw the attack as an effort by Maliki and the Americans to take control of Basra’s oil resources preliminary to turning them over to private oil conglomerates. Standing in the way of both those goals was the nationalist-minded Mahdi army as well as Iraq’s oil and dockworkers unions.

Those damn Nationalists combined with the Oil and Dockworkers Unions, of guess where, if Iraq You're Right, no prize though just Our Shame and Guilt, they got in the way and one upped everyone's Big Plans, and are now still fighting because our leadership{?} and the puppets didn't get the point. Now more will die and get maimed, more will be destroyed, and the hatreds will grow, leading to more 'blowback' and more death and destruction.

For starters, people don’t like losing control of their country. With the exceptions of the Kurds and Maliki and his allies, Iraqis are overwhelmingly opposed to the occupation. That disconnect between occupied and occupiers was summed up by Luu Doan Huynh, a Vietnamese veteran of the war against the Japanese, the French, and the Americans, and one of the key diplomats in the Vietnam peace talks. “The Americans thought that Vietnam was a war,” he said. “We knew that Vietnam was our country.”

Which, because it's now and not the Vietnamesse, will lead to further 'blowback' that our children now will contend with and possibly their children, pandora's box has been destroyed and only the People, not the so called powerful, can try and glue the pieces back together!

From Mosaic

Link TV

Basra Breaking?

A few days ago we get this:

U.S. Wants British 'Surge' In S. Iraq: Paper

And why, because:

It quoted an unnamed senior U.S .military source saying: "Three big militias are currently engaged in a particularly bloody battle in southern Iraq.

And the U.S.

"If they do not have enough troops, then they will be offered U.S .Marines to help out.

"The feeling is that if southern Iraq is hugely unstable, it will affect the success of the surge in the north and destabilize the whole country."

Today we get this:

Heavy fighting in southern Iraqi oil hub

Heavy fighting erupted on Tuesday in the southern oil city of Basra where Iraqi security forces launched a major operation at dawn against powerful militias, military officials and witnesses said.

"There are clashes in the streets. Bullets are coming from everywhere and we can hear the sound of rocket explosions. This has been going on since dawn," resident Jamil told Reuters by telephone as he cowered in his home.

Who was it that said Iraq is Stable?

Two powerful factions of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Mehdi Army militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, are fighting for power in Basra along with a smaller Shi'ite party, Fadhila.

Basra is Iraq's second city and gateway to the Gulf. Its oil fields are the source of most government revenues.

Will these unstable questionable alliances be starting to break down?

And can the Iraq Governments?? forces gain control or stalemate or join the fighting factions?

Holloway said Iraqi troops had been sent from across Iraq to reinforce the 14th Iraqi Army division in Basra.

Where will this leave the rest of the country?

al-Sadr Spoke, and......

Series of rockets fired on Baghdad's Green zone
Attacks come a day after al-Sadr orders extension of cease-fire

BAGHDAD - A series of rockets or mortars were fired toward the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Saturday, a day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia fighters to cease attacks for another six months.

Anybody want to guess who will be blamed for these?

The U.S. military blamed what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite militias for a series of deadly rocket attacks in Baghdad earlier this week, including one against U.S. outposts in Baghdad that wounded three American soldiers.

Gee, Iran and Shiite militias, seems they can't claim al-Qaeda, wonder why that universal label wasn't used, must be the big bad Iranian involvement?, you think!

The military said the extremists were among factions that have broken with al-Sadr and refused to follow his cease-fire order.

al-Sadr is a Nationalist and wants the U.S. occupation to end and the troops out of his country as do most of the Iraqi's, especially those in these varied militias.

The U.S. Troops, and any Iraqi's working with them are considered their enemies, than we have those religious extremists wanting to push their ideological religious beliefs on others, which wasn't happening untill We Invaded! Also, as in any society, you have a criminal element that attempts to take advantage of the situation, a situation We Created! There are many twists and turns in a War Theater, especially one that has created the problems of Ethnically Cleansed Area's, Refugee's by the Millions, within and outside of Their Country, which once again is the situations We Created!

Is this a picture of what Iraq will face, as we Occupy, or if we leave, which We Created, it already is and not only in Basra.

Ominous Signs Remain in City Run by Iraqis

BASRA, Iraq — This southern port city has been, in effect, on its own since September, when British forces here moved to the outskirts, yielding authority to local leaders. British and American officials say Basra’s experiment in self-rule could serve as a model for Iraq’s future, but if so — many locals and outside advisers say — that future remains dark.

Basra has the nation’s best economic base, little ethnic tension within a homogeneous Shiite population and no Western occupation force to inflame nationalist tensions.

Lets see, Shiite's, followers of al-Sadr.

Disappearances of doctors, teachers and other professionals are common, as are some clashes among competing militias, most of which are linked to political parties. Murder victims include judicial investigators, politicians and tribal sheiks. One especially disturbing trend is the slaying of at least 100 women in the last year, according to the police. The Iraqi authorities have blamed Shiite militiamen for many of those killing, saying the militants had probably deemed the women to be impious.

How many of the Shiite followers will heed al-Sadrs decree for another six month ceasefire?

As the first link might show the answer came rather quickly, as it was meant to, by Iraqi Nationalists!

How many of the Nationalist will look at the Turkish Invasion, of the North, as another Invasion of their country by an outside foreign force. Wether Kurd or not, they all lived within the borders established as Their Country. And with the seemingly Green Light by the U.S. what will be the 'Blowback' to Occupation Forces by the Turkish Invasion, big extremely dangerous question that only time will show, but it seems that question might have been answered as well with the attack on the Green Zone.

We've made Sadr the present poster boy in a F**KED UP situation We Created, who will be the next poster boy next week or the following weeks, now that Sadr has spoken!

How many of those, we now are paying, eventually turn back on our troops?

You might want to listen to this NPR Freshair interview, aired on thursday the 21st, before Sadrs decree was made public, Journalist Patrick Cockburn on Iraq's Tenuous Calm

The cease-fire that's kept Iraq's Shiite militias in check for months is in danger of unraveling. At the same time, there's a growing restlessness among some of the Sunni militias backed by the United States in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. Patrick Cockburn, author and Iraq correspondent for The Independent in London, joins Fresh Air to discuss what he sees as a tenuous calm in Iraq.
You can listen to the interview with this link, and there's an excerpt from his book at the site link.

It's way past 5yrs. overdue to try and correct what happened in the past and now this present Huge Historic, of the U.S., Foreign Policy Debacle, that will shape, and already has, the future this World now faces, especially this country!

Get all of Iraqs neighbors together and Seek their Help, religious and ethnic, in the attempt to bring Stability to this country We Destroyed. Stop condemning the Governments and those leaders, thus Condemning the people of, those at the receiving end will, and are, taking the steps of escalation needed, as they see the policies unfolding, to protect their countries and people, some of those people fully back the escalations of weapontry and forces!

The failed foreign policies of the past brought about the hatreds of the present, and the present failed policies bring on more and more hatreds!

No Blame should be placed on our Military Troops, for they are Us, and anything that Happens, especially the Atrosities Of War, in Our Created War Theater, is Done In Our Names!

A Nation cannot give Cheer to perceived Victory's, in Wars of Choice, and be in Denial of All that Happens to those we've Destroyed, personally and as a country!

Start finally being what We As A Nation say we are, and Condemn what we've done in the past, Especially the Recent Past!!

“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself."
- Daisaku Ikeda