MISSOURI AND WASHINGTON, D.C. GIS LATEST FATALITIES FROM IRAQ WAR

A soldier from St. Charles Mo and another from Washington D.C. are the latest casualties from the war in Iraq.

Their deaths were reported on http://icasualties.org/oif/, the most reliable source for news of casualties from the Iraq war.

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD:
3970
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation:
2
Total
3972DoD Confirmation List

Latest Coalition Fatality: Feb 24, 2008
02/25/08 DoD Identifies Marine Casualty
Lance Cpl. Drew W. Weaver, 20, of St. Charles, Mo., died Feb. 21 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force...

02/25/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. Keisha M. Morgan, 25, of Washington, D.C., died Feb. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of a non-combat related cause. She was assigned to the Division Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

02/24/08 MND-B Soldier attacked by small-arms fire
A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier was killed by small-arms fire during combat operations in southern Baghdad Feb. 24.

02/24/08 MNF: MND-B Soldier attacked by IED
A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier was killed when an improvised explosive device struck the Soldier’s vehicle during a combat patrol in northern Baghdad Feb. 24.

DON'T BOTHER WITH U.S. MEDIA IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IRAQ WAR

This former intel analyst found out what I have known for better than a year.

Namely, if you want to know what is happening in the Iraq war forget about looking for it in the mainstream media in the United States. The print and electronic media in the U.S. have long ago abandoned covering the Iraq war. Inside U.S. newsroooms they call it "IRAQ FATIGUE."

The media in the United States have made a decision that Americans are tired of reading and hearing about the Iraq War.

To learn what is happening in Iraq, this former reporter and columnist has found you have to search out foreign web sites where news about the war in Iraq is reported sans the filter of the Bush White House and most of all avoid at all costs watching FOX NEWS which is nothing more than a propaganda branch of the Bush Administration and Department of Defense.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.


Intel Analyst: Don't Bother with U.S. Media If You Want to Know About Iraq

By Alex Rossmiller, Presidio PressPosted on February 22, 2008, Printed on February 25, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/77372/

My new book, Still Broken, recounts my time working as an intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, from the halls of the Pentagon to the palaces of Baghdad. It addresses the strategic shortcomings in our efforts to defend this country from enemies overseas, from explaining how the Bush administration continues to mismanage the war in Iraq and turn our intelligence efforts into an ineffective political apparatus to describing my first-hand experience dealing with detainees likely guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I wrote the book because I think it is important that people know the truth about what is happening with our military and intelligence structures in Washington and in Iraq, and I think there are too few reality-based voices speaking out about these issues. In particular, one of the greatest challenges to an informed national dialogue on Iraq is the lack of accurate and insightful news from much of the mainstream media, especially conservative outlets. In the following excerpt, a part of the conclusion of the book, I explain how the media appeared to me while I was inside the system, and what might be done to improve the information flow.
***
Most Americans remain unaware of the depth and breadth of the ongoing problems in the intelligence community, and even of just how bad things are in Iraq. To some extent, the lack of information about the changes in U.S. intelligence and military strategy is directly related to the dearth of news reporting on these issues. It is difficult to find credible, timely, and relevant news on Iraq, and even on intelligence and military policy in general. I was one of very few analysts who augmented classified reporting with unclassified information, and I was constantly scouring the media for insightful information. Television news was unhelpful, as always, a flow of talking heads with little knowledge and even less interest in getting into details or subtleties. Print media was inconsistent at best.

For whatever reason, the television idea of "balance" was, for a long time, to report casualties on our side (Bad News) and reconstruction or casualties on their side (Good News). There was even a grim cyclical nature to the reports; invariably we could count on "School Built in Iraq" to become, a few weeks later, a casualty report: "3 Coalition Soldiers, 18 Iraqis Dead in New School Blast." Broadcast media also reported major events, such as elections, government formation, and particularly relevant statements, but rarely explained the "how" and "why" along with the "what." Some long-form TV news managed to address some of the finer points, but mostly television presented a flood of events without context. And in any case, most people can read faster than others can talk, so people can consume far more news in print form than through broadcast, making TV doubly useless.

In turning to print media, I would at least peruse mainstream news outlets: The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times,and magazines such as Time and Newsweek.There was some value there, but they, too, often reported events without conextual explanation. So if I read a piece about the latest surge in Shia-Sunni violence in the Times, the same story with minor variations was often repeated in all the major outlets. Still, I skimmed several corporate media websites every day: CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, the Post, LA Times, and Fox News, among others, to get a sense of the news cycle. Some commentators, primarily political conservatives, have criticized corporate media for neglecting to cover the good news in Iraq, but I found that the larger problem was not that the media didn't cover the good news, but that it did not cover much of anything of real depth in Iraq. While the debate went on over whether the media spent too much time reporting on casualties, a civil war raged. While the media dutifully reported the drafting of the Iraqi constitution, it failed to explain the many problems the document would likely cause. And so on.

The answer to the search for news both current and analytical, I found, often lay in nontraditional online media. Among corporate media, often the most interesting and helpful articles were op-eds, which actually took the time to proffer assessment of the news rather than just transcription of events. Some were better than others -- I avoided Tom Friedman like the plague, for example, but regularly read Fareed Zakaria -- but they were the best place to get unique and insightful perspectives on Iraq, the Middle East, and the so-called War on Terror. The logical extension of op-eds in traditional media was to online magazines and blogs. There were former intelligence professionals, professors, think-tank fellows, and people actually in the countries I worked on who wrote regularly online, and I sought out the best ones to inform my thinking, for both general knowledge and professional analysis.

BAGHDAD EXPLODES IN VIOLENCE DESPITE "THE SURGE"

Baghdad was one of the cities the Bush Administration and their puppet propaganda network, FOX NEWS, were claiming the violence was brought under control by "the surge," but on Monday Baghdad exploded with violence including the death of two more American soldiers.

Ten rockets and mortar rounds were fired into the heavily guarded "Green Zone" in Baghdad on Saturday. The "Green Zone" is the seat of the Iraqi government as well as the United States and British embassies. "Camp Victory," home to thousands of U.S. military personnel deployed to Baghdad, is situated nearby the "Green Zone."

There were other incidents of violence in other provinces and cities in Iraq as unrest and chaos are on the rise in the war torn country.

Meanwhile, back in the United States the mainstream media has turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the escalation of violence in Baghdad and all across Iraq.

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ the blog that brings readers the TRUTH about conditions in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq and not Bush White House "spin" or propaganda by the Bush White House public relations tool, FOX NEWS.

TWO MORE GIS KILLED IN BAGHDAD AS VIOLENCE SWEEPS ACROSS IRAQ

MAN IN WHEELCHAIR BLOWS HIMSELF UP OUTSIDE A POLICE STATION

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in an IED attack in a northern neighborhood of Baghdad on Sunday, February 24th. MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier from a small-arms fire attack in a southern neighborhood of Baghdad on Sunday, February 24th.

The Danish Ministry of Defense is reporting the death of a soldier in a training accident in Helmand province in Afghanistan on Sunday, February 24th. Here's the ISAF statement.Security incidents:Baghdad:#1:

Also Monday, a roadside bomb exploded in the middle of a crowd of Shiite Muslims in southeastern Baghdad on Monday, killing three and wounding 15, an Interior Ministry official told CNN. The strike, in the Zafaraniya district, is the latest in a flurry of attacks against pilgrims trekking to Karbala for al-Arbaeen, one of the holiest days of the Shiite religious calendar. It falls on Wednesday this year.

#2: An Iraqi militant group has posted a video on the internet showing the killings of 12 Nepalese men who worked for a Nepalese company with a US contract. In 2004, an Iraqi militant group killed 12 Nepali hostages who had gone to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm. It showed pictures of one being beheaded and the others with bullet wounds to the head and back.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has dismissed news reports of killing of 12 Nepali workers in Iraq by Islamic insurgents. MoFA spokesperson Hira Bahadur Thapa told Nepalnews that Nepali embassies in Islamabad and Saudi Arabia reported to the ministry, after being asked to find out the truth, that so far no proof had been found to corroborate the news.

#2: A traffic policeman was wounded when two improvised explosive devices went off simultaneously in downtown Baghdad, Baghdad operations command said on Monday. "Two roadside explosive charges detonated simultaneously on Muhammad al-Qasim highway while an Iraqi police patrol was passing the location, wounding a traffic cop who was close to the scene of the blast," a spokesman for the operations command, Major General Qassim Ata, told Aswat al-Iraq, Voices of Iraq,Around 12:30 p.m., two roadside bombs exploded at the Qasim highway near the Shaab stadium (east Baghdad).

Two people were injured in that incident.#3: Around 7:30 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded at Zafaraniyah neighborhood (east Baghdad) near Al-Noor mosque. No casualties recordedDiyala Prv:Baquba:

#1: Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed a house and killed a woman near Baquba, police said.

#2: Police found the decomposing bodies of eight women who had been blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the head, in a grave in a town just north of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#3: "Unidentified gunmen killed two persons near a garage in central Baaquba," the source, who declined to reveal his name, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of IraqIskandariya:#1: (update) The death toll from Sunday's suicide bomb attack on Iraqi pilgrims heading to a Shi'ite festival south of Baghdad has risen to 63, a health official said on Monday.Basra:

#1: This morning, gunmen opened fire on three oil company guards at Bahadriya of Abu Al-Khaseeb, southeast of Basra. One guard was killed and the other two were seriously injured.

#2: Police found the body of the engineer Ali Mahmoud at Hamdan neighborhood in south Basra. Ali was kidnapped a month ago from his house at a residential compound by gunmen who were wearing police uniforms.Samarra:

#1: A disabled, wheelchair-bound man blew himself up on Monday in a northern Iraqi police station, killing a top police official and wounding six police officers, police told CNN. The attack, which occurred in Samarra in Salaheddin province. A high-ranking official with Samarra police said that the man came to meet with Brig. Gen. Abdul Jabbar Rabei Muttar, the deputy commander of security, at the security operations building in the city. The pair met last week as well. The man was searched when he entered the building, but police didn't look under his wheelchair seat, where the explosives had been placed. The man detonated the explosives when Muttar approached him.

In a separate attack on Monday, a handicapped man in a wheel chair wearing an explosives vest blew himself up inside a police building in the central city of Samarra, killing three policemen, including a general, officials said.Hawija:

#1: A civilian was killed and nine people were wounded (6 of them are Sahwa members including the leader of Sahwa Colonel Hussein Khalaf Ali and a commander of battalion in Sahwa) when a car bomb exploded targeting Sahwa members in Hawija town south of Kirkuk on Monday morning. Kirkuk:

#1: In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a police commander, General Sarhad Qadir, escaped an assassination attempt, according to security officials. A bomb went off as the general's motorcade was driving by the main hospital in central Kirkuk. In Kirkuk, police chief Brigadier Sarhad Qader escaped injury when a roadside explosive device detonated as his convoy passed, KUNA reported. Mosul:

#1: In the northern city of Mosul, three people from the same family including a child, and four women were injured in a blast. An object fell on a house in the Tal al-Roman area, in western Mosul, causing the blast, security sources told VOI. A mortar shell killed three and wounded four civilians.

#2: Also in Mosul, four policemen were killed in an attack by gunmen on their patrol in the eastern Muarid district, VOI reported.

THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR IRAQ WAR

The cost of fighting the Iraq war is staggering, however most Americans haven't got a clue what it is costing to fight the war in Iraq.

It is costing the U.S. taxpayer 9 Billion dollars a month for the war in Iraq. It costs upwards of $400,000 for each soldier deployed to Iraq and the United States has 160,000 soldiers in Iraq.

The money to pay for the war is being borrowed and despite the enormous cost of the Iraq War the Bush administration has seen fit to lower taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

One of the worst aspects of the Iraq war has been the loss of nearly 4,000 young men and women who have been killed in Iraq with another almost 30,000 seriously wounded with injuries that will leave them disabled for life.

The cost of the Iraq war in human treasure and money is staggering and will leave Americans paying for the Iraq war for generations.

NO END IN SIGHT FOR RISING COSTS OF FIGHTING THE IRAQ WAR


By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, The Times of London UK

Posted on February 25, 2008, Printed on February 25, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/77663/

The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.

The cost of direct US military operations -- not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans -- already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War.

The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion. With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.

Most Americans have yet to feel these costs.

The price in blood has been paid by our voluntary military and by hired contractors. The price in treasure has, in a sense, been financed entirely by borrowing. Taxes have not been raised to pay for it -- in fact, taxes on the rich have actually fallen.

Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed, that we can have both guns and butter. But of course the laws are not repealed.

The costs of the war are real even if they have been deferred, possibly to another generation.

Click on link above to read the full story.

TWO U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IN BAGHDAD

Two more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Baghdad following the announcement late last week of five U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraqi capital city.

Baghdad supposedly has been brought under control by "the surge," however a recent series of attacks on U.S. forces in Baghdad leave the question of the success of "the surge" seriously in doubt.

Two U.S. soldiers killed in Baghdad-army

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Monday , 25 /02 /2008 Time 10:43:00

Aswat Aliraq

Baghdad, Feb 25, (VOI)- The U.S. army, late on Sunday, said two service members were killed in two separate attacks in the Iraqi capital.

"A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier was killed when an improvised explosive device struck the Soldier’s vehicle during a combat patrol in northern Baghdad Feb. 24.," the U.S. army said in a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI).

In another press release, the U.S. army admitted the killing of a second soldier by small-arms fire during combat operations in southern Baghdad Feb. 24.

The deaths bring the number of the U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to 3,972 according to statistics released by the U.S. army.

Of this number, 28 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far in January 2008.