Petraeus: "Surge" has 25% chance of success.

[Patroklos]

Isn't that called the spiraling national debt...

It is a steady upward slope on all the graphs I have seen...

[MOBIUS]

A bloody message from Iraq: nowhere is safe...
The day a suicide bomber struck at the heart of Iraq's democracy
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 13 April 2007

Nowhere is safe. Insurgents struck in the heart of the Green Zone yesterday, one of the most heavily defended places in Baghdad. The symbolism - and the bloody message - was clear with this attack on the home to the US-imposed democracy.

A suicide bomber cleared at least eight rings of security to blow himself up in the Iraqi parliament, killing eight people including three lawmakers as they were eating lunch. It was the most deadly attack mounted from within the Green Zone.

In a separate attack, the Iraqi capital was cut in two as one of the main bridges over the Tigris was blown up earlier in the day.

The Green Zone bombing was not only an assault on democracy. It was intended to undermine President George Bush's troop "surge", which is denounced as a sham by so many Iraqis.

But even Iraqis hardened to violence were shocked by the bloody scene in parliament. "I saw a ball of fire and heard a huge, loud explosion," said one witness. "There were pieces of flesh floating in the air."

The bodyguard of a Sunni member of parliament is suspected of detonating a vest packed with explosives in the restaurant beside the chamber where parliament meets. The success of a suicide bomber in penetrating one of the most tightly guarded buildings in the world could only have happened if he had help from other security men. The Iraqi parliament is well inside the heavily fortified Green Zone and is protected by eight layers of security, including at least three checks for explosives.

President Bush condemned the attack saying: "It reminds us that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people in a symbol of democracy."

The bombing is likely to increase scepticism that the two-month old American campaign to get control of Baghdad, the "surge", is achieving very much.

The suicide bombing is one of the most dramatic demonstrations of the extent to which the Sunni insurgents have infiltrated the government's own security apparatus. Other recent examples include the serious wounding of the deputy prime minister Salam al-Zubaie on 23 March by a bomber who got near him with the connivance of his own bodyguards.

The 275-member Iraqi parliament meets on the first floor of a cavernous building, originally built by Saddam Hussein to hold meetings of Islamic nations. Immediately outside the assembly hall is a restaurant. It was there, beside the cash register, that the bomber blew himself up.

The sensitivity of the US and the Iraqi government to the breach in security was apparent because all television cameras and video tapes showing the immediate aftermath of the blast were confiscated and handed to US authorities.

The only footage to be shown was by al-Hurra channel, shot seconds after the attack, it showed a dusty hallway with people screaming for help. One man is shown slumped in the dust.

Mohammed Abu Bakr, the head of media at the parliament, said: "I saw two legs in the middle of the cafeteria and none of those killed or wounded lost their legs, which means they must be the legs of the suicide attacker."

Of the three members of parliament to die, two were from Sunni parties and one from the Shia alliance. Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, said the explosion "underlines the failure of the government security plan."

"The plan is 100 per cent a failure," said Mr al-Ilyan. "It's a complete flop. The explosion means instability and the lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified."

Shia and Kurdish members of parliament have long claimed the bodyguards of Sunni politicians are infiltrated by insurgents. Some 92 per cent of Iraq's five million strong Sunni community say they support armed resistance against the US.

The Green Zone itself is four miles square in the centre of Baghdad. It is heavily defended but some 5,000 Iraqis live inside it. It is defended by a mixture of soldiers, private security personel and bodyguards of uncertain loyalty. Some weeks ago, the US military said they had found two suicide vests inside the zone.

In the US, leaders tried to give the impression that the "surge" was going ahead as planned and is, in any case, only in its initial stages.

"We've said there are going to be good days and bad days concerning the security plan," said the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, who visited Baghdad earlier in the month, said the US security plan was beginning to show modest results. He said "spectacular" attacks like that yesterday on parliament were aimed at grabbing headlines. He had earlier claimed that the media were exaggerating the collapse of security in Baghdad.

In the second attack yesterday, a truck bomb exploded on the al-Sarafiya bridge over the Tigris, which links east and west Baghdad, killing at least 10 people and injuring 26.

"A huge explosion shook our house and I thought it would demolish our house," said Farhan al-Sudani, a Shia businessman who lives near by. "Me and my wife jumped immediately from our bed, grabbed our three kids and took them outside."

Some 20 people who were in cars that crashed into the river after the blast were still missing last night. Among the 10 confirmed dead were four policemen whose patrol car fell into the river. All that was left of the steel bridge, built by the British authorities 75 years ago, was twisted girders.

Although President Bush has been seeking to blame Iran for supporting the insurgency in Iraq there is little evidence for that. The great majority of attacks on US forces are by Sunni guerrillas in Sunni districts. There have been battles with Shia militia but these have been intermittent. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mehdi Army, the largest Shia militia, has stood down his men and told them to avoid a confrontation with US forces.

The US is gradually increasing its forces to 173,000 by sending in five new brigades as part of the new security plan. But there is little sign the additional troops are altering the political and military balance in Iraq. The Sunni rebellion is continuing and is still highly effective.

Meanwhile, the Shia are increasingly hostile to the US occupation and Mr Sadr staged large anti-US demonstrations in the holy city of Najaf last weekend. So far, the US has balked at large confrontations with the Shia militias in Baghdad.

A citadel under siege

September 2003

Using shoulder-launched missiles, Iraqi insurgents strike the Al Rashid Hotel, often frequented by US military and government figures Only one of the rockets hits its target, which stands less than 500 yards from the concrete blast walls that surround the area, but the attack is a propaganda coup.

OCTOBER 2004

The first suicide bombing inside the Green Zone occurred when two bombers smuggled explosives into the area and detonated them in the north-eastern corner of the enclave. The blast tore through the Green Zone's bazaar, killing 10 people including four Americans.

November 2004

A mortar attack killed four employees of Global Risk Strategies, a British security firm, and wounded at least 12. The company later announced the four were former Gurkhas.

January 2005

Insurgents managed to strike the US embassy in the Green Zone by firing a salvo of rockets, killing two Americans and wounding a further four. The attack came on the eve of elections, striking a blow against the Iraqi government.

November 2006

Iraq's parliamentary speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, narrowly avoided assassination after a bomb tore through one of his cars as it passed through the Green Zone.

March 2007

Amid reports from the US Army that insurgents were stepping up mortar attacks on the Green Zone, a suicide bomber passed through security checkpoints undetected on 23 March and was able to detonate his belt next to Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie, Iraq's deputy prime minister, as he left afternoon prayers. Nine people were killed although, remarkably, Mr Zubaie survived. The attack came a day after a rocket attack on the Green Zone forced the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to duck behind a podium for cover.

Maybe next time a high ranking coalition official is visiting, they can actually target one of the people responsible for what has happened to Iraq...

Bush or Cheney got any plans for a visit soon?

[Dinner]

The Army and Marine Corp is having such difficulty finding warm bodies to take part in the surge that the Air Force and Navy are being used to fill jobs normally done by either the Army or the Marine Corp.

Apr 15, 7:08 PM EDT

Air Force Fills Out Army Ranks in Iraq

By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writer

CAMP BULLIS, Texas (AP) -- A row of rumbling flatbed trucks and Humvees outfitted with gun turrets lurches toward a mock village of cinderblock buildings where instructors posing as insurgents wait to test the trainees' convoy protection skills.

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself - one of the most dangerous in Iraq these days. But the young men and women clad in camouflage and helmets training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they're Air Force.

They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

"What we've seen is the Department of Defense continues to find ways to meet the requirements imposed by the commander in chief," said retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center in the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

No plans to expand the Air Force's role in convoy operations have been announced since Bush ordered the troop surge in Iraq, but Ryan said the Army and other branches of service have been looking at every possible job that can be shifted - from the Air Force performing convoy duty to the Navy setting up medical facilities far from waterfronts.

"I can't imagine there are any jobs that they could be doing that they aren't doing, but certainly, that doesn't mean they're not continuing to look to find every possible instance where we can use the full military to solve this problem and not just have this be an Army and Marine Corps issue," he said.

Army Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the military's chief spokesman in Iraq, said it makes sense to bring in other branches of service for routine activities such as the convoy operations, whereas "it's not something we should do to use them to clear buildings and conduct operations."

The 2,225 airmen who have been trained and sent to run convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan so far remain a relatively small part of the overall force that includes tens of thousands of soldiers, who are sent for longer stretches and more frequent deployments.

The training at Camp Bullis began nearly three years ago, without the elaborate camp that evolved with the persistent need for Air Force help and long before Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week extended active Army deployments by three months.

The Air Force is running a regular rotation of 5-week courses for airmen to work convoys between Kuwait and Iraq. Recently, separate training was created for those being deployed to Afghanistan.

Few of the airmen, who once mostly moved or fixed equipment on Air Force bases, imagined they would be sent to fight in a ground war, but course trainers say it makes little difference.

"We want to be one team, one fight. It doesn't matter which service tape you have on your uniform," said 1st Lt. Matt Addington, the course commander.

Most Air Force enlisted personnel haven't had ground combat training, and the Army has its own sets of weaponry, terminology and command chains - all of which have to be taught to the airmen.

The Camp Bullis training, in an area named for two airmen killed in Iraq convoys, includes courses on assault rifles, roadside bomb recognition, combat first aid and driving tactics. The airmen live in a camp designed like a forward operating base, sleeping on cots, eating MREs and scrambling to shelter when air raid sirens sound.

The training culminates with a 72-hour exercise that includes instructors dressed in long white shirts and tapestry caps, planting mock roadside bombs and shooting blanks at the convoy from open windows in an "urban warfare village."

Many airmen were surprised at the assignment.

"I was expecting just to be a vehicle operations troop, dealing with wreckers, forklifts - vehicles like that," said Senior Airman Robert Bledsoe, who manned a 50-caliber gun during his first deployment to Iraq. "It opened my eyes a bunch."

He completed a second round of training last week with a unit that will deploy within about a week for a 6-month tour, longer than the standard 4-month deployments for most Air Force personnel but much shorter than the 15-month tours active Army personnel now face.

Staff Sgt. Stewart Jordan, a transport instructor for the course, said even the most reluctant airmen-turned-soldiers usually come around, ultimately finding the mission fulfilling.

"Those that it's tougher on realize that they signed on the dotted line," he said.

---

Associated Press writer Sagr Meghani in Washington contributed to this report

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AIRMEN_SOLDIERS_DUTY?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[Apocalypse]

I still wonder when the serge is supposed to be exactly. From when to when.

Kinda disappointed about the whole year and a half deployment thing. I am fine with going and all, but that's just a long time. Maybe it will mean I only have one deployment though. It's just that I have training from graduation until December....and that's when the unit I will be assigned to is leaving. I am ok with going, really. I just kinda gulp at thinking I am not even going to be able to start a family for more than two years.

[Dinner]

For sure you'll only have one deployment. With 15 months in country & 3 months for mob and demob you're up to 18 months which means that basically means one routation sees out the end of the Bush Regime. Which is, of course, the reason this was announced now.

[Apocalypse]

Do they have exact lists of units and how long they will deploy yet?

[Dinner]

Not that I know of. Unless it is a unit that just got back though it will likely be either deployed or slated to deploy. Ask your unit administrator as he will likely know.

[Barnabas]

Wont the troops leave next year?
Maybe you wont have to go there, or only stay there few time

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Wont the troops leave next year?
Maybe you wont have to go there, or only stay there few time

Maybe sooner if the Dems decide to withold the money when Bush vetos the pork bill they are sending up.

[MOBIUS]

Mmmm, pork...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Maybe sooner if the Dems decide to withold the money when Bush vetos the pork bill they are sending up.

Pork isn't the reason he'll veto it.

[Drake Tungsten]

And the Dems sure as hell aren't going to cut off funding for the troops in Iraq.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Wont the troops leave next year?
Maybe you wont have to go there, or only stay there few time

Bush would be in charge for over a year after I go. Ad in that you can't just pack up and leave immediately and I don't see the deployment really getting cut short.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Pork isn't the reason he'll veto it.

It's one of the reasons he should.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It's one of the reasons he should.

While I agree with the sentiment why would Demonratic pork taste any worse than Repug pork?