Tag: Iraq (page 13)

Secretary of defense Chuck Hagel today ordered the aircraft carrier U.S. Bush to the Arabian Gulf, along with a guided-missile cruiser and guided-missile destroyer.

The Bush will be accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the guided-missile destroyer USS Truxtun. The ships are expected to complete their transit into the Gulf later this evening.

ISIS is conducting mass executions of soldiers. Today their supporters posted photos of truckloads of captured Shia soldiers in Tikrit, with accompanying text claiming ISIS rounded up and killed 1,700 soldiers.

As ISIS continues to storm its way through Iraq, President Obama today ruled out sending ground troops to Iraq. (Transcript here.) Sounding like a stern parent, he said whatever other aid we provide will depend on the Iraqi Government getting its act together, and the U.S. will not be making any hasty decisions.

Over the past decade, American troops have made extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis and opportunity to claim their own future. Unfortunately, Iraqi leaders have been unable to overcome, too often, the mistrust and sectarian differences that have long been simmering there. And that's created vulnerabilities within the Iraqi government, as well as their security forces.

[More...]

The Wall St. Journal reported earlier today Iran has sent its Quds soldiers to Iraq to battle ISIS:

At least three battalions of the Quds Forces, the elite overseas branch of the Guards, were deployed support the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, an offshoot of al Qaeda that is swiftly conquering territory across Iraq, they said.

One Guards unit that was already in Iraq fought alongside the Iraqi army, offering guerrilla warfare advice and tactics that helped reclaim most of the city of Tikrit on Thursday. Two Guards’ units, deployed from Iran’s western border provinces on Wednesday, were tasked with protecting Baghdad and the holy Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, these security sources said.

The QUDS are the overseas branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. ISIS has reportedly seized a huge cache of U.S. military equipment. The Washington Post reports Iraq is falling apart, splintering into three factions: Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish. The Kurds have taken Kirkuk, ISIS is moving south towards Baghdad, and the Shiite-led government of Nouri al-Maliki is reduced to calling for volunteers and some help from Iran.

Has Obama's position changed? The Post quotes him as saying, “It’s fair to say . . . there will be some short-term things that need to be done militarily."

Foreign Policy says ISIS blindsided U.S. intelligence. [More...]

The media headlines are all about Bush reducing troops in Iraq. Of course troop reduction in Iraq is a good thing.

But, he also announced that he's increasing troops to Afghanistan due to "renewed resistance from the Taliban."

....the president says that a Marine battalion will be on its way there in November -- instead of going to Iraq. And an Army combat brigade will follow in January.

....Bush's plan to instead shift forces to Afghanistan may give ammunition to the argument of his critics: that while focusing on Iraq, the president paid too little attention to the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

Moving troops from one country to another is neither an end to war nor a success. Bringing all our troops home is what's needed.

Just out at The Nation:

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in.

Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors. (Hillary Clinton's staff did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or a statement on this issue.)

Bottom line, according to Obama's senior advisor:

. "I can't rule out, I won't rule out, private security contractors." He added, "I will rule out private security contractors that are not accountable to US law."

More...

As Kagro X often explains, there is a split between those who believe that motions to recommit are purely procedural and those who believe that they carry all of the meaning of a proper amendment. In this Congress, they have mostly been given the latter meaning.

In that context, the vote on the motion to recommit on tonight's Iraq supplemental funding appropriation seems especially important to me. 223 Democrats voted no on that motion, which would have given the President $50B, no questions asked. They were joined by 8 Republicans.

To me it seems obvious that the Presidednt could be in dangerous territory: the House could actually have the votes to defeat ANY clean funding bill. We might, against all odds and predictions, actually be able to end the war during this Congress.

Cross-posted at the Great Orange Satan

I'm talking to you, wingnuts, for caring more about a stupid newspaper ad (and yes it was stupid) than you do about the well-being of US soldiers.

I'm also talking to more than a few people in the progressive blogosphere.

Why?  

Because you're talking about the wrong vote today.

There was a vote today that was important and had direct relevance to ending the Iraq war.

But, if one paid attention to the blogosphere's self-interested whining, one would think that the big news was the Moveon vote.

The vote you SHOULD be talking about described below.

Cross-posted in Orange

Last week I implored Barack Obama to step up on Iraq.

On Wednesday of this week, he will be doing just that.

Context and what to look for below the fold.

Cross-posted in orange

An open letter to Senator Barack Obama from a supporter.  

Senator Obama, in your short time in the public eye you have shown great wisdom, judgment, and vision.  Your greatest strength is the ability to fuse pragmatism with idealism.  This often means eschewing traditional showboating and playing for the cameras in order to build consensus that builds towards progressive goals.

However, no single approach works for every problem, and building consensus is not working on the problem of Iraq.  There was a time for Congress to be the steering wheel of our Iraq policy.  Now, someone needs to slam on the brakes.

[editor's note, by andgarden] Crossposted from Daily Kos

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Today Reuters brings us a standard issue article about the working relationship between the Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. There are interesting tidbits here and there about their mutual frustration with one another. The issues, such as Pelosi's failed attempt to install John Murtha as House Majority Leader and Reid's "the war is lost" musing, have been well covered elsewhere.

At the end, however, there is an important acknowledgment of the single most important factor keeping the approval ratings of Congress low: Iraq.

A poll by the Pew Research Center has since heartened the Democrats, finding that half those questioned remain happy the party took over.

The survey found Americans less than thrilled with Pelosi or Reid, however. Only 35 percent approved of Pelosi's job performance, while 37 percent disapproved. Just 21 percent approved of Reid while 33 percent disapproved.

"The biggest thing is the public's frustration with Iraq," said pollster Andrew Kohut. "People expected them to achieve things, they expected them to achieve a way out of Iraq."

more

Crossposted from Daily Kos

In his latest front page entry, Markos quotes Dick Durbin saying that he will likely be unwilling to vote against the new supplemental funding the George Bush has requested.

Even opponents of the war, as Durbin calls himself, find themselves likely to vote for the extra money, he said. "When it comes to the budget, I face a dilemma that some of my colleagues do," he said.

He voted against the war "but felt that I should always provide the resources for the troops in the field," Durbin said. "But it's now reached a point where we have got to change the way we appropriate this money."

Though he said he is likely to approve the increased request -- it would accompany a pending request for an additional $147 billion in war funding -- Durbin said he would work to attach conditions to it that would require troops to begin coming home in the spring.

In other words, Dubin plans to do nothing.

Recent history tells us that we should not be surprised. Nor, indeed, should we look for the Senate to end the war.

mcjoan highlights Paul Krugman's kudos to the Democratic base for pulling the Democratic Party to majority positions on Iraq and other issues:

Normally, politicians face a difficult tradeoff between taking positions that satisfy their party’s base and appealing to the broader public.... But a funny thing has happened on the Democratic side: the party’s base seems to be more in touch with the mood of the country than many of the party’s leaders. And the result is peculiar: on key issues, reluctant Democratic politicians are being dragged by their base into taking highly popular positions. Iraq is the most dramatic example.... It took an angry base to push the Democrats into taking a tough line in the midterm election. And it took further prodding from that base — which was infuriated when Barack Obama seemed to say that he would support a funding bill without a timeline — to push them into confronting Mr. Bush over war funding. (Mr. Obama says that he didn’t mean to suggest that the president be given "carte blanche.")

Certainly on 2006 that was true. But, is the Party listening to the "base" now on Iraq? What is the base saying? Are the Netroots clamoring for Reid-Feingold? Is the Party flocking to it?

I think Krugman is more accurate in this:

The only risk the party now faces is excessive caution on the part of its politicians. Or, to coin a phrase, the only thing Democrats have to fear is fear itself.

I think the base should think about that and consider whether it is pushing our politicians hard enough on Iraq and Reid-Feingold. I don't think we are