We don't belong in Iraq.
We never did.
These people have to solve their own problems, they are not a threat to the USA national security. If Iraq needs Peacekeepers than that is what needs to be addressed, but, in instances like this Peacekeepers are far from effective.
The USA is attempting to hold back a powder keg of civil anger against the central authority. It will inevitably explode until the ethnicities are divided into their own provinces with their own governments. That explosion will happen and the USA is simply trying to overcome any possibility of that occurring before the deadline to leave Iraq.
The violence will occur either now or sixteen months from now OR the killing fields of Iraq will go on forever so long as there are tons of munitions flowing into that country. We will continue to see these attacks and civilians will die along with our soldiers. This is insane to continue to occupy this country. There is no resolve except what the Iraqis find for themselves.
A crowd gathers at the site of a car bomb attack in the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad. Photograph: Khalid Mohammed/AP
Many killed in Baghdad bomb attacks (click here)
At least 90 injured as series of explosions targets mostly Shia neighbourhoods in Iraqi capital
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 April 2009 13.38 BST
At least 33 people have been killed in a string of bomb attacks on Shia neighbourhoods in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, today.
The attacks – including twin car bombings at a marketplace in western Baghdad – left 93 wounded, police and medical officials said.
It was the deadliest day in Iraq since bombings last month targeted tribal leaders at a market in Abu Ghraib, north of the capital, and a police academy in Baghdad.
The attacks came after Iraqi forces put down an uprising by the Sunni Awakening Council group in Baghdad, angry over the arrest of their commander on terrorism and criminal charges, last week.
Today's single deadliest attack was the double car bombing at the predominantly Shia al-Maalif market, which killed 12 people and injured 29 others, an Iraqi police official said....
A US army patrol stops to talk to an Iraqi family outside their home in Mosul
"According to unit reporting it appears to have been a target of opportunity as the ... convoy was passing the national police station, and not at the headquarters conducting training," spokesman Major Derrick Cheng told AFP.
Iraq truck bombing kills 5 U.S. soldiers (click here)
The attack outside national police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul also kills two Iraqi policemen and injures two U.S. soldiers and 20 Iraqi troops.
By Ned Parker 7:23 AM PDT, April 10, 2009
Reporting from Baghdad -- Five U.S. soldiers were killed today in a truck bombing in northern Iraq. It was the deadliest attack against American forces in Iraq in more than a year.
The bomber detonated 200 pounds of explosives outside the national police headquarters in southwest Mosul, according to a U.S. military statement. In addition to the American deaths, the blast also claimed the lives of two national policemen, the military said.
Two U.S. soldiers and 20 Iraqi troops were wounded in the attack, the statement added. Two people were arrested in the bombing, the military said.
Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, and Diyala province to the east remain rife with tension and are still considered dangerous despite dramatic reductions in violence over the last year and a half. Four U.S. soldiers and their interpreter died in a suicide bombing attack in Mosul in February. The latest bombing raised to 4,271 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since 2003.
ned parker@latimes.com
Iraqi women run past an Iraqi soldier patrolling a street in Baghdad
Women mourn the death of Haidar Tareq Sami, 25, killed along with his wife and infant son in Baghdad, Tuesday, April 7, 2009.
The article below gives a full accounting of the activities in Iraq. The USA media isn't carrying this kind of information and it is important to paint a complete picture. Kindly note, the people of Iraq are hopping mad the USA is still occupying their country. We need to leave Iraq and we need to leave Iraq now. Cut the spending to Iraq and bring the troops home.
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:25:19 GMT (click here)
A truck bomb attack has rocked the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving at least eight people killed and more than 20 others wounded.
The explosion, the latest in a new wave of bomb attacks to hit violence-wracked Iraq, took place on Friday when an explosives-laden truck rammed into a police station in the south of Mosul, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed al-Juburi told AFP.
Informed sources in the interior ministry said at least eight people were killed in the incident and another 20 were injured in the second city of Iraq.
Initial reports by Iraqi officials did not specify the nationality of the victims, but the US military later confirmed five of the dead were American forces, adding they had detained two suspects in the bombing.
Medics at Mosul's main hospital said that around 60 people were wounded in the incident and that most of them were civilians living near the site of the explosion.
Local security officials reported two separate incidents earlier in the day where roadside bomb attacks near Baghdad killed three people and wounded seven others.
The first explosion hit a family Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing a woman and wounding her husband and two children.
Two other civilians were killed and another four were wounded in a similar attack in the town of Yusifiyah south of Baghdad.
The explosions followed attacks in Baghdad on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which left at least 49 people dead and 182 others wounded. The incidents come amid growing public outrage against the US military presence in the country.
On Thursday, thousands of people took to streets in the capital to call for an immediate and complete withdrawal of all US military forces from Iraq on the six anniversary of the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
Some 1.2 million protesters from different walks of life urged an end to the "occupation" of their country and demanded the release of innocent Iraqis held in US-run prisons.
The rally also called on the government to open investigations into all the crimes committed by US soldiers during their six-year-long stay in Iraq, and warned against the restoration of the former Ba'athist officials.
The anti-occupation march came on the heels of US President Barack Obama's unexpected visit to the war-torn country on his first trip to Baghdad as commander-in-chief of US forces. Obama has ordered the withdrawal of all US troops by 2011.
At home the bitter feud between Republicans and Democrats is still taking shape along partisan lines. Of course here again the Republicans are the first to demand Democrats to 'go along' with war funding while they do nothing to endorse domestic spending to improve the lives of Americans. That kind of partisanship is disgusting and loudly confirms how Republicans don't care about Americans and use their 'so called' patriotism for aggression against other countries while raking in monies for cronies. We don't belong in Iraq. We never did.
But Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the proposal will "prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011, and it will deepen and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely. I cannot support either of these scenarios."
Nearly $76 billion of the request would go to the Defense Department, while about $7 billion would be sent to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
While most of the emergency funding is designated for military equipment and operations, the request also includes $1.6 billion for economic help and a "surge" of diplomatic and civilian personnel for Afghanistan, part of Obama's recently announced strategy for tackling the conflict there. The White House also asked for $1.4 billion for economic assistance and more diplomats and development experts for Pakistan....
