Monday, July 21, 2008

WASHINGTON POST: OBAMA ARRIVES IN BAGHDAD: "SURGE" TROOPS LEAVE WITH DOUBTS THAT PEACE WILL HOLD

Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has arrived in Baghdad, and many of the "surge" troops are leaving, but according to the Washington Post the troops are not sure that peace will hold in the war torn country.

What many people don't know is the United States has been arming the various militia groups and this could lead to an all out civil war when the U.S. leaves Iraq and there is nobody left to hold the fragile peace together.

For 'Surge' Troops, Pride Mingles With Doubt: Soldiers Leave a More Secure Iraq but Are Unsure if Hard-Won Gains Will Hold

By Ernesto LondoƱo
Washington Post Foreign ServiceMonday, July 21, 2008; A01
http://tinyurl.com/6ymm6h

BAGHDAD -- This time last year, Capt. Wes Wilhite's men were getting ready to move into an abandoned house in western Baghdad wedged between cells of Sunni insurgents to the south and strongholds of Shiite militias to the north.

Violence in the Iraqi capital seemed unstoppable. U.S. military vehicles were getting attacked with armor-piercing roadside bombs almost daily, and a raging sectarian war was Balkanizing once-mixed neighborhoods.

"A slaughterhouse," is how Steve Murrani, an interpreter working with Wilhite's men, described it.

The soldiers, who came to Iraq as part of President Bush's troop increase, began returning home last week. They leave with sunburned faces, calloused hands, tattered boots. On their wrists they wear black metal bracelets inscribed with the names of five soldiers killed on a clear afternoon in March, just as progress was starting to seem irreversible.

For more from the Washington Post, click here: http://tinyurl.com/6ymm6h

1 comment:

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