CNN REPORTS IRAQ WILL ROUND UP HOMELESS, MENTALLY ILL IN ATTEMPT TO STOP SUICIDE BOMBINGS

Suicide bombings in Iraq are on the rise and the Iraqi government is going to take a draconian measure and round up all the homeless and mentally ill and place them in government institutions.

What is interesting is how the mainstream media in the United States has been avoiding coverage of the war in Iraq except for "puff pieces" on how well "the surge" has been doing.

The mainstream press in the U.S. are shunning coverage of the Iraq war, but the foreign press, especially the press in the Middle East, have been reporting daily on the increase of suicide bombers, many of them women and young girls who suffer from mental problems.

This CNN story, along with a list of suicide bombings in recent days, is being carried on CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog by Bill Corcoran which covers the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan no longer covered by the mainstream press in the United States.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE

Iraq to round up homeless, mentally ill, to prevent bombings

From Mohammed TawfeeqCNN

http://tinyurl.com/2ycmnv

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi authorities plan to round up homeless and mentally ill residents on streets across the war-torn nation to prevent them from becoming used as suicide bombers, an Interior Ministry official said.

The move follows a pair of high-profile February 1 bombings that left almost 100 people dead.

The bombers, who hit a Baghdad pet market, were mentally handicapped women and the explosives strapped to their bodies were detonated by remote control, said U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

Police will hand beggars, vagrants and the mentally handicapped over to governmental institutions that can provide them with shelter and care, a high-ranking official in the interior minister's office said.

The campaign is scheduled to be launched Wednesday and is expected to last for at least a week, the official said.

"Militant groups, like al Qaeda in Iraq, have started exploiting these people in a very bad manner to kill innocents because they do not raise suspicions," Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press.

"These groups are either luring those who are desperate for money to help them in their attacks or making use of their poor mental condition to use them as suicide bombers."

The U.S. military reported last week that al Qaeda in Iraq recruited female patients from Baghdad's two psychiatric hospitals, with the help of hospital staff, for suicide missions. It is unclear whether the women understood what they were doing. Watch how using women may represent a new tactic »

American troops arrested the acting administrator of one of the hospitals after the February 1 attack, announcing an unspecified link between the man and the bombers.

And Sunday, three civilians died and 10 people, including a police officer, were wounded when a female beggar blew herself up inside an electronics store in central Baghdad, according to another Interior Ministry official.

The official said Iraqi police suspect the woman was wearing an explosive vest and tried to warn the people around her, but she ran into the store and detonated it.

Meanwhile, Iraqi authorities are investigating another deadly blast Tuesday.
A truck loaded with rockets exploded as Iraqi police tried to defuse them, killing at least 15 officers and wounding 27, an Interior Ministry official said.

Police found the truck parked in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Obeidi, a Shiite Muslim district, after a rocket attack on a nearby U.S. military post, the official said.

A number of bomb disposal experts were among the dead and wounded, the official said.
Rocket and mortar attacks remain common in Baghdad despite a marked reduction in the level of sectarian killings over the past year.

Rocket attacks around Camp Victory -- a major U.S. base at Baghdad's airport -- left five Iraqis dead and 16 people wounded, including two U.S. soldiers and at least six children.

U.S. and Iraqi troops detained six people for questioning and recovered an unexploded rocket after the attack.

MAKING IRAQ DISAPPEAR: HOW THE MEDIA PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE

The mainstream media in the United States has been complicit in helping make the Iraq War disappear from the front pages and from television newscasts.

Tom Englehardt, http://www.tomdispatch.com/, accurately points out the mainstream media has gone along with the Bush administration and buried all the news coming out of Iraq except to sing the praises of "the surge."

The PR blitz by the Bush White House in concert with the mainstream media in the United States has been a roaring success because no longer is the Iraq War uppermost on the minds of the American public according to all national public opinion polls even though the U.S. still has 160,000 troops in Iraq.

So while the mainstream press, especially the Bush White House propaganda machine, FOX NEWS, have been hailing the success of "the surge," there have been countless suicide bombings and other acts of violence going on every single day in Iraq but nobody is covering it anymore.

The average American thinks Iraq is now a sea of tranquility because they don't read or see anything about Iraq in the media.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth as Engelhardt points out in his article.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that reveals the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sans Bush White House and FOX NEWS spin.

Making Iraq Disappear

The Million Year War

How Never to Withdraw from Iraq

By Tom Engelhardt

http://www.tomdispatch.com/
Think of the top officials of the Bush administration as magicians when it comes to Iraq. Their top hats and tails may be worn and their act fraying, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Their latest "abracadabra," the President's "surge strategy" of 2007, has still worked like a charm. They waved their magic wands, paid off and armed a bunch of former Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists (about 80,000 "concerned citizens," as the President likes to call them), and magically lowered "violence" in Iraq.

Even more miraculously, they made a country that they had already turned into a cesspool and a slagheap -- its capital now has a "lake" of sewage so large that it can be viewed "as a big black spot on Google Earth" -- almost entirely disappear from view in the U.S.

Of course, what they needed to be effective was that classic adjunct to any magician's act, the perfect assistant. This has been a role long held, and still played with mysterious willingness, by the mainstream media.

There are certainly many reporters in Iraq doing their jobs as best they can in difficult circumstances.

When it comes to those who make the media decisions at home, however, they have practically clamored for the Bush administration to put them in a coffin-like box and saw it in half. Thanks to their news choices, Iraq has for months been whisked deep inside most papers and into the softest sections of network and cable news programs.

Only one Iraq subject has gotten significant front-page attention: How much "success" has the President's surge strategy had?

Before confirmatory polls even arrived, the media had waved its own magic wand and declared that Americans had lost interest in Iraq. Certainly the media people had.

The economy -- with its subprime Hadithas and its market Abu Ghraibs -- moved to center stage, yet links between the Bush administration's two trillion dollar war and a swooning economy were seldom considered. It mattered little that a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll revealed a majority of Americans to be convinced that the most reasonable "stimulus" for the U.S. economy would be withdrawal from Iraq. A total of 68% of those polled believed such a move would help the economy.

Anyone tuning in to the nightly network news can now regularly go through a typical half-hour focused on Obamania, the faltering of the Clinton "machine," the Huckabee/McCain face-off on Republican Main Street, the latest nose-diving market, and the latest campus shooting without running across Iraq at all. Cable TV, radio news, newspapers -- it makes little difference.

The News Coverage Index of the Project for Excellence in Journalism illustrates that point clearly. For the week of February 4-10, the category of "Iraq Homefront" barely squeaked into tenth place on its chart of the top-ten most heavily covered stories with 1% of the "newshole." First place went to "2008 Campaign" at 55%. "Events in Iraq" -- that is, actual coverage of and from Iraq -- didn't make it onto the list. (The week before, "Events in Iraq" managed to reach #6 with 2% of the newshole.)

True, you can go to Juan Cole's Informed Comment website, perhaps the best daily round-up of Iraqi mayhem and disaster on the Web, and you'll feel as if, like Alice, you had fallen down a rabbit hole into another universe. ("Two bombings shook Iraq Sunday morning. In the Misbah commercial center in the upscale Shiite Karrada district, a female suicide bomber detonated a belt bomb, killing 3 persons and wounding 10… About 100 members of the Awakening Council of Hilla Province have gone on strike to protest the killing of three of them by the U.S. military at Jurf al-Sakhr last Sunday, in what the Pentagon says was an accident… Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that officials in Baqubah are warning that as families are returning to the city, they could be forced right back out again, owing to sectarian tensions...") But how many Americans read Juan Cole every day... or any day?

On that media homefront, the Bush administration has been Houdini-esque. Left repeatedly locked in chains inside a booth full of water, George W. Bush continues to emerge to declare that things are going swimmingly in Iraq:

"…80,000 local citizens stepped up and said, we want to help patrol our own neighborhoods; we're sick and tired of violence and extremists. I'm not surprised that that happens. I believe Iraqi moms want the same thing that American moms want, and that is for their children to grow up in peace…

The surge is working. I know some don't want to admit that, and I understand. But the terrorists understand the surge is working. Al Qaeda knows the surge is working…"
Having pulled the "surge" rabbit out of his hat -- even stealing the very word out of the middle of "insurgent" -- Bush then topped that trick by making Iraq go away for weeks, if not months, on end. Talk about success!

Click on link to read full story.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN SEVERELY STRAINS U.S. MILITARY, OFFICER SAYS

There are only so many rotations our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan can take before it breaks the back of the military.

There are many officers who feel something has to be done about the strain that is being put on the military---especially the Army and Marines---who are bogged down in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The time has come for the mainstream media in the United States to come out of their self-imposed exile on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and start telling the American public the truth about what is happening to our troops in both war theaters.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.

US military severely strained, officers say

http://www.atimes.com

WASHINGTON - The US military is "severely strained" by two large-scale occupations in the Middle East, other troop deployments, and recruiting problems, according to a new survey of military officers published by Foreign Policy magazine and the centrist think-tank Center for a New American Strategy.

"They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight," said the report, "The US Military Index", which polled 3,400 current and former high-level military officers.

Sixty percent of the officers surveyed said that the military is weaker now than it was five years ago, often citing the number of troops deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We ought to pay more attention to quality," said retiredLieutenant General Gregory Newbold, who retired from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in part over objections to the invasion of Iraq, at a panel during a conference to release the data.

Go back to link to read the full story.

USE OF WOMEN AND MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS INCREASES IN IRAQ

One thing that has the Iraqi and U.S. military worried is the use of women and mentally retarded people in a series of recent attacks carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks against two pet markets in Baghdad earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment, though nothing in their records showed they had Down syndrome, as initially suggested.

He said the women had been positively identified as residents from the northeastern outskirts of Baghdad who were in their late 20s or early 30s.

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings that killed nearly 100 people was met initially with skepticism.

The mainstream media in the United States continues to ignore the FACT that attacks are increasing in Iraq, especially those aimed at the United States Marines and United States Army.

The Marine Corps Times http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_Iraq_ceasefire_080220/
is reporting there is a great deal of concern among military commanders in Iraq that the bottom is falling out of the calm that has established by "the surge" in Iraq.

Also, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.

Earlier on Wednesday rockets were fired into U.S. positions around Baghdad injuring four U.S. Army soldiers and killing an Iraqi police chief and 15 Iraqi policemen.

The Bush Administration and their puppet mouthpiece are not doing the American public justice, nor are they being honest with the 160,000 American men and women stationed in Iraq, when they continually insist that Iraq is becoming more and more peaceful.

Suicide bombings are on the increase in Baghdad and all across Iraq and bodies of Iraqi citizens are found everyday in parts of Iraq.

Adding to the instability of Iraq is the fact the Iraqi government can't seen to come to any progress with the benchmarks that were putdown by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, such as it is.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that captures what is REALLY happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and not "pep talks" by the Bush administration and FOX NEWS.

ATTACKS IN IRAQ ARE INCREASING ACCORDING TO THE MARINE CORPS TIMES

By Patrick Quinn - The Associated PressPosted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 14:31:40 EST

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_Iraq_ceasefire_080220/

BAGHDAD — With deadly attacks against American targets increasing around Baghdad, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, blamed a flurry of rocket attacks on Iranian-backed Shiites — including one on Monday against an Iraqi housing complex near the country’s main U.S. military base that killed at least five people and wounded 16, including two U.S. soldiers.

“These criminals launched 16 rockets in the direction of Baghdad International Airport, West Rashid and the Victory Base Complex,” he said, adding that they were “apparently unconcerned where these rockets would land and explode.”

He said that attack and others were carried out by “Iranian-backed Special Group criminals,” a term often used to describe groups that have either splintered away from al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or refused to respect the cease-fire he declared last August.

Iraqi police held funerals for 14 officers killed Tuesday night as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. posts in the capital.

The U.S. military has angered some Sadrist factions by carrying out raids against what it describes as Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia. There have been numerous calls from within the militia and its political wing to call off the cease-fire.

The cease-fire has been a key element in a three-piece puzzle that has come together to help reduce violence around by more than 60 percent since June — and by nearly 80 percent in Baghdad. The other two elements are the influx of thousands of U.S. troops last summer, and the creation of a Sunni-dominated force funded by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.

“Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step,” Smith told The Associated Press, using an honorific reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying the cease-fire was extended, “then that means the freeze is over.”

On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr “either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over.”

Al-Obeidi told The AP that message “has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide.”

There are fears, especially among Sunnis, that any return to active service by the Mahdi Army could put Iraq back where it was just a year ago — in chaos and on the brink of a civil war.

“The drop in violence and the quiet which Baghdad witnesses is a clear evidence that this militia was behind all the chaos in the past,” Sunni parliament member, Asmaa al-Dulaimi, told the AP.

She said a lifting the cease-fire “will affect national reconciliation and will further deteriorate the security situation nationwide. Resuming their activities, whether against the government or civilians, will lead to a new confrontation with them.”

Smith said that under current conditions, violence was still dropping. He said the number of civilian deaths in Baghdad had fallen from 1,087 men, women and children killed in February 2007 to 178 in the first month of this year.

He also said the number of execution-style killings carried out by so-called sectarian death squads had dropped some 95 percent, from 800 in February 2007 to below 40 so far this month.

The number of suicide attacks, meanwhile, went from 12 a month last year to just four in January, and the number of roadside bombings was down more than 45 percent in the year since the U.S.-Iraqi operation began, he said.

“While the progress has been significant, we all know Baghdad is not safe from al-Qaida and other extremists,” Smith said.


Meanwhile, three Iraqi children were killed and seven others wounded when they were hit by an insurgent mortar attack while playing soccer outside a military supply area on Tuesday near Balad, the military said.

And in Diyala province north of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to push out al-Qaida in Iraq, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 17, said an official in the provincial command operation center. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

FOUR U.S. SOLDIERS INJURED IN ROCKET ATTACK ON BAGHDAD

The insurgents in Iraq are stepping up their attacks on U.S. forces stationed in the "Green Zone" in Baghdad and at military outposts around Baghdad.

Four U.S. soldiers have been injured in the latest wave of attacks with insurgents using rockets and mortars which they fire into the heavily fortified U.S. military positions in and around Baghdad.

The attacks also killed an Iraqi police chief and and 15 other Iraqi policemen as well as injuring 30.

Reported by Bill Corcoran, editor of this blog dedicated to the 160,000 men and women serving in the U.S. military in Iraq.

http://tinyurl.com/2shbej

At least 15 Iraqi policemen have been killed and nearly 30 people injured after rockets that were set for launch exploded before they could be defused.

The explosions came after two rockets were fired at US outposts in Baghdad - the second such attack in as many days - injuring four US soldiers.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but officials say they were apparently launched from Shia strongholds in the capital, raising concern about renewed activity ahead of a deadline for the anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to renew a ceasefire order.
Last august, al-Sadr ordered his al-Mahdi Army fighters to stand down for six months, but recently warned that he may not extend the ceasefire if raids against his supporters continued.

The US military has expressed hope that al-Sadr will extend the ceasefire but continues to target what it says are Iranian-backed breakaway factions in raids that have alienated his followers.

Tip-off

Iraqi police acting on a tip-off found the rockets primed for launch in the back of a truck in Obeidi in eastern Baghdad.

Explosives experts were trying to defuse the rockets when two of them detonated in quick succession.

Police confirmed that another two rockets had already been fired.

Iraqi government officials, police and medical workers said at least 27 people were wounded in the blast, but the US military gave a lower toll of three civilians killed and 17 wounded in the explosion.

A day earlier, at least five people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in a rocket attack on an Iraqi housing area near the Baghdad international airport and a nearby US military base.

Two US soldiers were also wounded in Monday's strikes, with US troops arresting six Iraqi suspects around the launch sites.

Iraqi police said the rockets were launched from Amil, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood southwest of the capital.

MORE SUICIDE BOMBINGS IN BAGHDAD AND OTHER IRAQI CITIES

Suicide bombings in Iraq are increasing as U.S. forces battle the elements and a new wave of attacks all across Iraq, including Baghdad.

Dust storms have prevented U.S. forces from going on patrol, but it hasn't stopped the suicide bombers who use the dust storms for cover as they carry out their missions.

All across Iraq the wave of violence is escalating, but still the mainstream press in the United States looks the other way.

General David Petraeus, head of U.S. forces in Iraq, has said the drawdown of troops will be delayed because of the increased security problems all across Iraq.

Below are just a few of the incidents which took place Wednesday in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

Bill Corcoran, editor of this blog devoted to telling the truth about the Iraq war and not Bush White House spin or propaganda from FOX NEWS.


Suicide bombing kills 7, injures 17 in Muqdadiya

http://tinyurl.com/2xug65


Muqdadiya, Feb 20, (VOI)- At least seven civilians were killed and 17 more were wounded on Wednesday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in central Muqdadiya, a security source said.
“A bomber blew up an explosive belt strapped to his body in al-Asri neighborhood in central Muqdadiya, northeast of Baaquba, killing seven and injuring 17,” the source, who asked anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq (VOI).Muqdadiya is 45 km northeast of Baaquba, the capital of Diala, which lies 57 km northeast of Baghdad.


#1: A dust storm that has gripped much of Iraq for the last two days kept police from identifying a booby trap that set off the initial explosion, he said. The storms, which shut down the capital's airport and sent dozens of Baghdad residents to hospitals with breathing difficulties, were expected to abate Thursday.Heavy sandstorms blanketed much of Iraq for a second day Wednesday, shutting down the capital's airport and sending dozens of Baghdad residents to hospitals with breathing difficulties. Southern Basra was also affected, as was the northern city of Kirkuk.

#2: In yet more violence, Samir al-Attar, deputy minister of Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology, was wounded Wednesday when two roadside bombs detonated near his convoy about a minute apart as he was driving through Baghdad, according to police and ministry officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't allowed to release the information.Two of al-Attar's guards and three civilian bystanders were injured, the officials said on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to release the information.

#3: Three Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers were killed at approximately 10:30 p.m. Feb. 19 when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in northwestern Baghdad.

#4: Two civilians were injured on Wednesday when an explosive charge went off in central Baghdad, a police source said. “An improvised explosive device went off near al-Shaab international Stadium in central Baghdad, wounding two civilians,” the source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq

#5: Around 1 p.m., a car bomb was parked at the main street of Ghazaliyah neighborhood ( in west Baghdad) near the Kamal market. One civilian was killed and two were injured.Diyala Prv:Muqdadiyah:

#1: Ten people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a market near the restive city of Baquba north of Baghdad on Wednesday, an Iraqi army officer said. "A suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up in the market of Muqdadiyah, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 others," General Ragheb al-Omayri told AFP.Samarra:

#1: Two would-be suicide bombers wearing explosives vests were killed by members of a neighbourhood security patrol as they tried to approach their checkpoint on Tuesday in the city of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Tikrit:

#1: Two Iraqi soldiers and two civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol near the town of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Dalouiya:

#1: Three policemen were injured on Wednesday in a bomb explosion near their vehicle patrol east of Dalouiya, a police source said“A roadside bomb was detonated targeting a police vehicle patrol near Peshiktin village, east of Dalouiya, wounding three policemen,” the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of IraqNinevah Prv:Mosul:

#1: In other violence in Iraq, four policemen were killed while on patrol in the main northern city of Mosul, a police officer said.Gunmen killed three policemen and wounded three others when they attacked their patrol in a drive-by shooting in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Tal Afar:

#1: And a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle in the town of Tal Afar, which lies west of Mosul towards the Syrian border, killing one woman and wounding eight other people, General Najim al-Juburi and doctor at the local hospital said.Al Anbar Prv:

#1: U.S. forces searching for al Qaeda in Iraq fighters on Tuesday discovered 16 bodies, most killed within the past three to six months, U.S. Army officials said. The bodies were uncovered as troops searched an abandoned industrial chemical storage site in the western Iraqi desert. A 3-day-old operation in pursuit of al Qaeda in Iraq yielded signs of insurgent activity, but no fighters. Afghanistan:

#1: Militants have abducted two staff of education department in Afghanistan's western Farah province, said a press release of Afghan Interior Ministry received here Wednesday. Two supervisors of the Education Department of Farah province, busy in visiting schools in Bakwa district, was kidnapped by armed men of militant leader Mullah Ibrahim, on Feb. 18, the ministry said.

#2: A journalist who brought news to Canadian television has been detained without charge at a U.S. base in Afghanistan for almost four months, his employer says, calling for his immediate release. Javed Yazamy, 22, earned the nickname Jojo while serving as a translator for the U.S. forces but spent the past two years working primarily for CTV News in Kandahar. He went missing in October when an unknown caller summoned him to Kandahar Air Field and foreign soldiers captured him in the dusty parking lot just outside the main gate.

Casualty Reports:

Chris York injured Dec. 15 in Iraq. He shipped out to Kirkuk, Iraq, last May and expected to be there until about August serving with the U.S. Army. "All we know is he was in a turret in a Humvee," said his grandmother, Karen York. The vehicle either hit a land mine or was struck by some other kind of explosive device. "They removed his spleen, one kidney, part of his stomach, part of his intestine."

Sgt. Joshua Gutierrez of the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas, was on patrol near Osut, Iraq, searching for missing U.S. soldiers on June 18, 2006, . Around midnight, in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Gutierrez unknowingly drove over a bomb, it exploded, and his Bradley caught fire. “I was unconscious about twenty seconds,” he said. “The guys in the cargo area got out. After I came to my senses, I tried getting out too, but my leg was already pretty much amputated. There was so much going on. My gunner pulled me out, and they got me away before the ammo and fuel blew (everything) up.” Doctors completed the below-the-knee amputation of his right leg, he had a mild traumatic brain injury, and he had three broken bones in his left leg. In succession, he needed medical care in Iraq, Germany, Texas, and San Diego.

Sgt. Andrew Parmley he felt his body forced backward and his left arm go numb. His weapon remained strapped to his chest in firing position, but in a split second, Parmley’s role had shifted from fighting soldier and combat medic to battlefield casualty. He looked down at his useless left arm. “My whole sleeve was bloody,” he said. Although the pain in his arm was “off the scale” and he wondered if it would eventually need to be amputated, he remembers feeling grateful to be alive. The bullet entered his upper arm and traveled through — damaging his ulnar nerve but missing the bone. On that late December morning, Parmley and his platoon had been on a routine mission in the farming community of Arab Jabour — an area south of Baghdad plagued with pockets of Al Qaeda militants.

GEN. PETRAEUS WANTS SLOWER TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

All the talk coming from the Bush White House and FOX NEWS about how troops in Iraq will be drawndown apparently was just a smokescreen.

General David Petraeus, who is in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq, is quoted in the MARINE CORPS TIMES http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/Army_Petraeus_080218w/ that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will not be as fast as the Bush White House and FOX NEWS said it was going to be.

Violence in Iraq is definitely on the rise.

Also, the Marines and Army have been having difficulty in meeting recruitment goals.

Many of the troops in Iraq are now on their fourth and fifth rotation to the war zone and the National Guard and Reserves are also stretched to the breaking point.

Adding to the confusion the military faces, the Taliban in Afghanistan is showing signs of reconstituting itself. This week alone there were three suicide bombings in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of almost 200 Afghan citizens.

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that bring readers the latest developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Petraeus backs slower drawdown from Iraq

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff WriterPosted : Tuesday Feb 19, 2008 13:40:13 EST

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/Army_Petraeus_080218w/

The U.S. military commander in Iraq said today that while “there’s every intent” to continue reducing the size of the U.S. force there after the last of the brigade combat teams that constituted the “surge” returns home this summer, it would be “sensible and prudent” to pause the drawdown once the surge units redeploy.

Gen. David Petraeus said he had discussed the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. Central Command head Adm. William Fallon, as well as with the chairman and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen and Marine Gen. James Cartwright.

“The consensus is that when you have withdrawn over one quarter of your combat forces – it’s literally a quarter of our brigade combat teams plus two Marine battalions and the Marine expeditionary unit – that it would be sensible and prudent to have a period of consolidation, perhaps some force adjustments and evaluation before continuing with further reductions,” said Petraeus during a telephone interview.

There is “every intent” to further reduce forces once the departure of the surge forces is complete in July, but the senior leaders agreed that further reductions ought to be based on conditions in Iraq once the surge forces have left, he added.

“So there should be some decision points, once the dust has settled from all those reductions, at which you assess the situation and determine recommendations for additional reductions,” he said. However, he said, U.S. leaders had yet to determine what decision point might be.

“We’re still doing the analysis to lay out how best and when best to make recommendations on further reductions,” he said.

Petraeus listed a series of factors that will influence any decisions on further withdrawals, including how enemy forces react to the departure of the surge units; local and national political developments; local and national economic developments that might “help cement some of the security gains,” as well as the prospect of elections in the early fall.

The general said that any notion that the debate over whether to pause the drawdown after the surge units leave was pitting him against the Joint Chiefs was “a vast oversimplification” of the situation.

“I very much understand the strain and the sacrifice that these long deployments have required, he said, adding that he and his family had “first-hand knowledge” of those sacrifices as he estimated that by the time he next briefs Congress in April he will have been deployed 52 months since 2001.

“We all want to reduce that strain and increase dwell time” for units at home station, he said.

HALF OF BAGHDAD WITHOUT WATER

President Bush and Fox News continue to brag about the gains "the surge" has brought to Baghdad, Iraq, but what they don't talk about is the critical nature of life in the capital city.

As we reported earlier, most of the doctors have left Irag and water and electricity are at a premium in Baghdad.

Unemployment is still one of the biggest problems in Iraq and many young Iraqi men are joining the security forces just to earn a paycheck.

Iraq is NOT getting back to normal. Car bombs, suicide bombings and the decapitating of Iraqi citizens is going on everyday in Iraq.

Reported by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ a blog dedicated to theTRUTH about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Half of Baghdad Still Without Water
By Ahmad Raheema, Azzaman. Posted February 18, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/77306/

Despite the talk of progress, Iraq remains a nightmare.

Power failures and maintenance have disrupted running water supplies to almost half of the capital, Baghdad, home to nearly 6 million people.

A Baghdad Municipality source said the project supplying drinking water to Rasafa, the eastern half of Baghdad, was temporarily idle.

The source, refusing to be named, said running water supplies may not resume for a few days.
He attributed the stoppage, which has caused large-scale popular resentment, to blackouts which have recently even affected essential utilities like water.

The stoppage has led to the closure of bakeries and restaurants in Rasafa, aggravating the suffering of Baghdad residents.

Water resumed intermittently and in inadequate quantities through household taps for half a day after a three-stoppage on Thursday.

Then the taps dried once again.

IRAQI MEDICAL SYSTEM WRECKED BY WAR

Iraq once had one of the best medical systems in the world, but when the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003 many of the top doctors and nurses fled to neighboring countries like Syria, Iran and Jordan.

The "brain drain" has been very hard on the Iraqi people who now suffer through a war without end and no means of getting treatment for themselves or their children.

President Bush and his mouthpiece FOX NEWS can talk until they are blue in the face about the success of "the surge," but the reality of life in Iraq is a far different story.

Along with a shortage of electricity and water, the Iraqi people also are faced with a shortage of medical people to attend to their family health problems.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog that brings readers the very latest on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sans the filter of the Bush White House and FOX NEWS.

Iraqi Medical System Wrecked by War

By LORI HINNANT – 17 hours ago

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5isRxoqKp0584RoRlD8iQf5msy77wD8USTJ480

BAGHDAD (AP) — Already a troubled system, Iraqi medical care has fallen to the brink of collapse since the U.S.-led invasion five years ago.

Scores of doctors have been slain, cancer patients have to hunt down their own drugs — even IV fluid is in short supply. On Tuesday, a former deputy health minister and the head of the ministry's security force will stand trial, a year after they were accused of letting Shiite death squads use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings.
Specialists are hard to find. At one point, Baghdad — a city of more than 5 million — had no neurosurgeon, said Dr. Hussein al-Hilli, director of the Ibn Albitar Hospital in Baghdad.

"This was something that was horrible because we had many head injuries, many spinal injuries," al-Hilli said. He described "big shortages of drugs, big shortages of everything" — including IV fluid. "This simple thing, we don't have."

Like so many areas of life in Iraq, the health care crisis is vast and complex, and there is no quick solution to improve conditions for doctors and patients.

According to figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry released earlier this year, 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, as well as medics and other health care workers, have been killed nationwide since 2003, among the professionals from many fields caught up in Iraq's sectarian violence.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of other medical personnel are believed to have fled to Iraq's northern semiautonomous Kurdistan region and neighboring countries.

Even with the security gains of the past several months across Iraq, it is still dangerous for doctors and their families if they dare step out of heavily guarded hospital compounds.

Drugs supplies are so low that Iraqis hospitalized for illnesses as serious as cancer are asked to track down their own medicine.

"When we need medicine, we go directly to private pharmacies," said Ahmed Khalil, the 38-year-old owner of an auto repair shop in Fallujah. "We know we're not going to get any from Fallujah hospital."
And when pharmacy shelves are bare, Iraqis turn to the black market.

"Before the invasion, we got our share of medicine through government-owned medicine depots," said a Baghdad pharmacist, who spoke about on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. He said hospitals and clinics get some drugs from the medical depots, but it's rarely enough for the number of people in need.

"Sometimes we get medicine stolen by employees who work at the depots or at hospitals," he said.

At worst, the black-market drugs are dubious knockoffs, according to patients, doctors and pharmacists alike.

The war has taken a special toll on hospitals.

Fallujah, site of one of the deadliest battles between U.S. troops and militants west of Baghdad, is slowly rebuilding as violence ebbs, but memories of the danger are acute at the city's main hospital.

"Doctors would concentrate most of the time on treating people wounded in U.S. bombings or clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces. Other patients got little attention," said one doctor at the hospital, who also declined to be identified because he also feared for his safety. "We were beaten by gunmen if we failed to save their wounded fellows."

Jassim Naseef, 52, took his pregnant wife to a private clinic three months ago, paying 20 times what the public hospital would have charged for the birth of their son: $247 compared with $12. The hospital wards, he complained, were dirty and lacked electricity.

"I chose the expensive private clinic in order to ensure that my wife and my son got the best medical care," he said.

The American military and non-governmental organizations such as the Iraqi Red Crescent do a great deal to help, al-Hilli and others said, by bringing in supplies and advisers and helping train medical staff still versed in 1970s-style medicine.

Al-Hilli also has been buoyed by the Iraqi government announcing a plan to build more hospitals. He said no new hospitals had been built since 1986, at the height of the Iran-Iraq war, more than two decades ago.

Yet there are still major problems. Iraq's Health Ministry has been in almost constant flux since the war started. Each minister has stayed "eight months or seven months or 11 months," al-Hilli said.
Then, there are the arrests of former Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili and Brig. Gen. Hameed al-Shimmari, who was in charge of the ministry's security force. Soldiers stormed their offices last February in separate raids.

U.S. officials had been complaining that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers were transforming hospitals into bases for his Mahdi militia and — were diverting medicine from state clinics to health care facilities run by the cleric's movement.

The clinics helped al-Sadr build a powerful nationwide political movement modeled in part on the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

There was another ominous development earlier this month, when the acting head of al-Rashad psychiatric hospital was arrested by the U.S. military in connection with the possible exploitation of mentally impaired women by al-Qaida in Iraq, presumably the suicide bombers who destroyed two pet markets in Baghdad and killed nearly 100 people.

The U.S. military wouldn't speculate on a motive but noted at the time of the arrest that al-Qaida often uses threats or extortion to get what it wants, which could possibly put the death of the former director, Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Ajil, in a slightly different light.

He was gunned down on his way home from work in December.

PARTIAL CURFEW FOR FALLUJA, IRAQ A WEEK AFTER FOX NEWS CALLED CITY A SAFE HAVEN

Just a week ago a Fox News reporter toured the streets of Falluja, Iraq with a U.S. Army General in a display of how safe Falluja has become since the introduction of the "surge."

However, on Monday a partial curfew of Falluja was ordered when reports surfaced insurgents and terrorists had entered the city.

The city of Falluja is the prime jewel in the Bush Administration's crown of selling the American public on the idea the "surge" has been a roaring success in Iraq.

As Falluja goes so goes Iraq is the battle cry of the Bush administration and their propaganda mouthpiece Fox News.

The United States military is going to launch a full-scale effort to seek and destroy any insurgents or terrorists who have entered Falluja.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE

Police impose partial curfew on Falluja

http://tinyurl.com/23sqlb

Falluja, Feb 18, (VOI) - Police forces on Monday imposed a partial curfew over Falluja during hunt down operations for gunmen, a police source said."Falluja police imposed a curfew on al-Muhandiseen, al-Mualimeen, and al-Wehda neighborhoods in central Falluja," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition of anonymity.

"The ban includes vehicles and pedestrians," he explained."Police patrols ordered residents via loudspeakers to remain indoors while searching some houses," the source noted."

This came after a tip-off that indicated some gunmen had entered the city," he highlighted.Falluja is 45 km west of Baghdad.

EIGHT DIE IN SUICIDE ATTACKS IN IRAQ. THREE FROM FEMALE BOMBER

The violence in Iraq shows no sign of letting up as the toll from Sunday's suicide bombings rose to eight, including three who were killed when a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a shop in central Baghdad.

The mainstream media in the United States continues to ignore the upward trend of violence in Iraq and still praises the "surge" even when there is ample proof the "surge" has not curbed the violence in Iraq and the capital city of Baghdad.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the only blog devoted entirely to bringing readers the truth about conditions in both Iraq and Afghanistan.


Toll from Iraq attacks rises to eight

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/17/content_7619362.htm

BAGHDAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Death toll from attacks in Iraq on Sunday, including a suicide bombing attack in Baghdad, rose to eight, sources with Interior Ministry and police said.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a shop in central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada on Sunday, killing up to three people and wounding eight others, an Interior Ministry source said.

Earlier, the source put the casualties at two killed and four injured.

The female suicide bomber entered the shop after being chased by Iraqi army soldiers on suspicion that she was a suicide bomber, the source said.

The blast destroyed the shop and caused damages to several nearby shops and civilian cars, he said.

In northern Iraq, a car bomb struck a police patrol in the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, damaging a police vehicle and killing a policeman aboard, the police said.

Two civilians were also killed and two others injured by the blast in the city located some 400 km north of Baghdad, they said.

In Salahudin province, a roadside bomb went off in the morning near a civilian car in the town of Beiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, killing the driver aboard, who was later appeared to be a member of the U.S.-backed Awakening Council group, which fight al-Qaida in Iraq network, a provincial police source told Xinhua.

In a separate incident, unknown gunmen stormed a house in the town of Duluiyah, 90 km north of Baghdad, and shot dead a woman before they fled the scene, the source said.

The attacks came as the Iraqi government have been emphasizing the dramatic security improvement in the war-torn country since months ago, thanks to a large influx of U.S. troops and the cooperation of Iraq's Sunnis.

However, the U.S. military commanders have doubts over security, stressing that the al-Qaida remains a serious threat.

VIOLENCE ERUPTS ACROSS IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Violence continues throughout Iraq and Afghanistan as both countries teeter on the brink of collapse again.

Despite all the flamboyant talk from the Bush administration and their puppet mouthpiece, Fox News, both Iraq and Afghanistan are in the throes of chaos as suicide bombers take their toll in both countries.

Here is just a partial list of incidents from Iraq and Afghanistan that took place Monday.


Baquba:#1: Three civilians were wounded on Monday when a booby-trapped car went off south of Baaquba targeting Popular Committees fighters, said an official police source. "A car bomb was detonated in Bahraz district, south of Baaquba, targeting a gathering of the Popular Committees fighters, injuring three civilians,” the source, who asked to remain unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq

#2: A suicide car bomb targeted the office of the local committees in Shams village south of Baquba city around 12:00 pm. No casualties were reported.Iskandariyah:#1: Gunmen killed one man and wounded another in a drive-by shooting on Sunday in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.Babel Prv:#1: The Babel provincial council vice chairman was wounded in a quarrel with the guards of the city's court of appeal on Monday and was taken to a hospital, a police source in the province said. "A quarrel occurred between Dr. Niema Jassem, who was entering the court of appeal in the city, and the guards of the court," the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) ."The court guards assaulted Jassem, breaking his right arm and causing him bruises in other parts of his body," the source said, adding "Jassem was taken to a hospital while the guards were kept under investigative custody."Basra:#1: A police officer from the internal affairs department survived unscathed an attempt on his life in central Basra on Monday while three of his guards were wounded, an official police source in Basra said. "Unidentified gunmen in a vehicle opened drive-by fire at Capt. Muhammad Nouri, an officer in the internal affairs department, in central Basra," the source, who refused to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq

Tikrit:#1: Maj. Nahi Khalaf Ahmad was killed when a roadside bomb detonated before noon outside his house in central the capital city of Tikrit, 170 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Three people were also wounded by the blast that caused damages to nearby houses and civilian cars, he said.Samarra:#1: Separately, an Iraqi police force teamed up with fighters from an Awakening Council group and raided on Sunday night al-Qaida hideouts in the open area of the al-Jallam, just east of Samarra City, some 120 km north of Baghdad, Mazin Younis, head of the Awakening group in the city, told Xinhua. During the raid the police and the Awakening Council fighters had sporadic clashes with some militant groups, which resulted in the killing of an insurgent who was wearing an explosive vest and the detention of two others, Younis said.Al Anbar Prv:Hit:

#1: Two civilians were killed and another wounded in a blast that occurred inside a store selling electrical appliances in central Hit, 70 km west of Ramadi, on Monday, a security source said. "The store owner was killed and his son wounded. Another civilian who happened to be inside the store at the time was killed," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition of anonymity.Ramadi:#1: Police patrols on Monday found two unknown corpses in the city of Ramadi, a police source said. "A police patrol found two bodies thrown on the international road in western Ramadi," the source told Aswat al-Iraq -

Voices of IraqAfghanistan:#1: It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a soldier from the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment was killed in southern Afghanistan yesterday, Sunday 17 February 2008. One other soldier was also injured in the incident but his injuries are not life threatening. Just before 2100 hrs local time soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, as part of their Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT) role, were taking part in a foot patrol with 40 Commando Royal Marines near Kajaki, Helmand Province, when they were caught in an explosion.

#2: A suicide bomber targeting a foreign military convoy in Afghanistan killed 37 civilians in an attack near the Pakistan border on Monday, the interior ministry said. The attack happened on a narrow bridge in the bustling town of Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province, a stronghold for Taliban insurgents fighting the Afghan government and its Western backers. Kandahar's governor Assadullah Kahlid told a news conference the bomber was in a car and had attacked a convoy of Canadian troops serving under NATO's command. Four Canadians were wounded, he said. But another official from the area said two foreign soldiers also died.

A suicide car bomber targeting a Canadian military convoy left three Canadian soldiers wounded at at least 37 civilians were killed. The bombing occured at a busy market in southern Afghanistan. The Canadian military released few details initially, saying only that no Canadians were killed.#3: update An Afghan governor says the death toll from a suicide bombing in Kandahar province has risen to more than 100. Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid told a mosque filled with mourners Monday that he had warned the militia commander who was the target of Sunday's attack that bombers were trying to kill him. The suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of men and boys watching a dog fighting competition.

SECOND SUICIDE BOMBING KILLS 37 IN AFGHANISTAN: 100 KILLED ON SUNDAY

Just as was anticipated the insurgents and the Taliban have shifted their attacks away from Iraq and are now targeting Afghanistan.

On Sunday 100 people were killed in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew themselves up at a dog fight, and on Monday another 37 were killed in Afghanistan when a suicide bomber set off an explosive in the middle of a foreign military convoy. The deaths were mostly Afghan civilians.

The Taliban as well as Al Queda have been showing signs of stepping up their attacks in Afghanistan where the United States military has over 25,000 troops.

There is already talk in the Bush White House and at the Pentagon of sending additional troops into Afghanistan.

Commentary: President Bush obviously bit off more than he can chew when he decided to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The resurgence of the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan is very worrisome, and military leaders in Iraq are now saying the withdrawal of troops from Iraq will probably not take place.

The United States military--especially the Army and the Marines---are stretched to the breaking point and are in dire need of more recruits to offset the rotations that find some units going back to Iraq and Afghanistan for their third fourth or fifth tour.

The "surge" in Iraq is like a band-aid and there is already talk it will not have a lasting effect on the violence in Iraq which is already showing signs of increasing.

A female suicide bomber killed three people on Sunday in Baghdad and the bodies of ten Iraqi citizens who had been decapitated were found in Baghdad.

There are also troubling signs with the Iraqi government as members of the Sunni bloc are voicing displeasure with the way the government is handling matters in Iraq.

The British government was in Iraq for 30 years with 90,000 troops and were never able to bring stability to Iraq.

There is no reason to believe the results will be any different even if the U.S. military stays in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next 100 years as Sen. John McCain has proposed.

Bill Corcoran, Chicago, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ the blog that tells the TRUTH about Iraq and Afghanistan and not Bush White House and FOX NEWS spin.

Suicide bomber kills 37 in Afghanistan

18 Feb 2008 13:42:53 GMT 18 Feb 2008 13:42:53 GMT Source: Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP294429.htm

By Mirwais Afghan and Ismail Sameem

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb 18 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber targeting a foreign military convoy in Afghanistan killed 37 civilians in an attack near the Pakistan border on Monday, the interior ministry said.

The attack, a day after more than 100 people were killed in the deadliest suspected suicide raid since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, comes as some Western politicians call for a stronger resolve to stop Afghanistan sliding back into anarchy.

"The suicide attack ... caused the killing of 37 non-combatants and wounding of 30 others," the ministry said in a statement in Kabul.

The attack happened on a narrow bridge in the bustling town of Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province, a stronghold for Taliban insurgents fighting the Afghan government and its Western backers.

Kandahar's governor Assadullah Khalid told a news conference the bomber was in a car and had attacked a convoy of Canadian troops serving under NATO's command. Four Canadians were wounded, he said. But another official from the area said two foreign soldiers also died.

A NATO spokesman in Kabul confirmed the blast, but refused to provide more details. Several fuel shops were on fire in Spin Boldak after the bombing, witnesses said.

Despite the presence of more than 50,000 foreign soldiers led by NATO and the U.S. military, as well as some 140,000 Afghan troops, Taliban militants have made a comeback in the past two years and more than 11,000 people have been killed in violence.

Sunday's attack happened as a crowd of people were watching dog fights in Arghandab, on the western outskirts of Kandahar city. Dozens of victims were buried side-by-side in a mourning ceremony on Monday.

Provincial governor Khalid has accused the Taliban of the attack, but the insurgents denied responsibility.

Khalid said he had intelligence about the attack and had tipped off the Canadian forces about it.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she saw no need to change parliamentary mandates limiting the number of troops her government can send to Afghanistan, despite mounting pressure from NATO allies.

"We are not changing the mandates as they are at the moment," Merkel told reporters. "I see no need for a change at the moment."

Germany, which has roughly 3,300 troops in Afghanistan, is under pressure from allies, particularly the United States, to send additional soldiers and shift them from the north to the more dangerous south to help battle Taliban insurgents.

The main mandate, due to expire in October, allows Germany to send a maximum of 3,500 soldiers to Afghanistan. German media have reported Merkel's government seeks to increase the number of troops.

IED BOMBS DOWN IN IRAQ BUT UP IN AFGHANISTAN

Senator John McCain, the likely Republican candidate for POTUS, has an expression for it. He calls it "whack-a-mole."
What McCain is referring to is how when U.S. forces seem to be getting the upper hand on IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) in Iraq they pop in Afghanistan.

This has been the MO (Modus Operandi) of the insurgents and Al Qaeda since the U.S. invaded and occupied both Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence is putdown in one area only to pop up in another area.

A study release by Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) spells out what is working and what isn't working in the ongoing effort to stop IED attacks.

It is worth reading.

Bill Corcoran, editor CORKSPHERE http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that brings readers the latest developments in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.

Improvised Bombs: Down in Iraq, Up in Afghanistan; Tech Barely a Factor

By Sharon Weinberger February 14, 2008 1:40:00 PMCategories: Bomb Squad

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/ieds-down-in-ir.html
There's good news in Iraq: improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against coalition forces in Iraq have dropped dramatically over the last year. Not only is the use of IEDs dropping off, but more IEDs are being found before they go off, and more Iraqis are alerting forces of possible attacks.

That's all good news, but as noted in the just released Fiscal Year 2007 Annual Report of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), while IEDs are declining in Iraq, "the opposite trend has been observed in Afghanistan." The report notes, "In that theater, an emboldened, increasingly aggressive enemy has increased the use of IEDs. The number of IEDs employed against U.S. forces in FY07 reached an all-time high, more than doubling over the last half of the fiscal year."

More interesting are the reasons cited for this turnaround. It's not a silver bullet technology, or frankly, anything specifically the JIEDDO has done (though no doubt it's contributed in some areas). Rather, the report points to four major factors:

1) "The decision of many local faction to support coalition force efforts."
2) "The sustained presence of coalition forces throughout the Baghdad security zones that have greatly reduced the monthly number of IED incidents in Baghdad."
3) "The success of numerous locally focused brigade and regimental-level operations against networks."
4) "Relentless efforts to disrupt the event chain which enables activities."

If operational tactics dealt the biggest blow to the IED threat, how, then, has JIEDDO contributed to the drop-off? Well, protective capabilities, which JIEDDO has supported, have played a role, the report notes, so too has better training. Also, JIEDDO has been involved in a number of efforts to disrupt IED networks (cited above as a contributing factor to the overall decrease). The reports notes that over the last year, insurgents have had to employ six IEDs to bring about one coalition casualty. On the flip side, IEDs that do go off have become more lethal, demonstrating how insurgents are adapting. But the report makes clear that it's military operations that have played the greatest role in this turnaround.

What hasn't worked? Well, nifty gimmickry doesn't always pan out. JIEDDO says over the past year it's canceled Alexis and Electra-C, systems that emitted wave forms to pre-detonate IEDs. They interfered with the counter-IED jammers. That's not good. Warlock Dragon, which uses high-power microwaves against IEDs, also ended up being something of a dud. Despite promising tests, it didn't work well in the field (because insurgents were using countermeasures, JIEDDO says).

Interestingly, although the report appears to place heavy emphasis on the success of things like attacking the IED network, counter-IED systems still gets the lion's share of JIEDDO funding ($2.57 billion out of $4.77 billion) for fiscal 2008. This could simply be because technology is cash-intensive, while efforts to attack the network are not. But, it's still an interesting data point.

80 KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN BY SUICIUDE BOMBER: 2 U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ: FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 3

The violence has shifted back to Afghanistan where on Sunday 80 people were killed while attending a dog fight.

Meanwhile, in Iraq there is no sign of a letup in the violence that continues throughout the country.

Here is what happened on Sunday in Iraq:

TWO U.S. SOLDIERS ARE KILLED IN IRAQ. FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 3

Diyala Province, unspecified locationTwo U.S. soldiers killed by small arms fire, one injured and medically evacuated. No further details at this time.

BaghdadFemale suicide bomber kills three, injures 10. Attack in predominantly Shiite Masbah district appears to have been partially thwarted by police. I presume this is the same attack reported by VoI, in which a female suicide bomber targeting a police checkpoint is said to have injured four people in Karada. McClatchy apparently explains the contradiction by noting that MNF said there were only injuries, but Iraqi police reported three killed. MNF typically minimizes the casualties from these incidents. I can't find "Masbah" on my map of Baghdad, but perhaps it is part of Karada. For those who don't know, Karada is on the peninsula formed by a sharp bend in the Tigris, across from the Green Zone.

Two bodies found dumped on Saturday in different places.al-Khalidiya (near Ramadi)U.S. forces kill a cab driver who got too close to them at an intersection. No comment from MNF.

MosulRemotely detonated car bomb, apparently targeting police, kills one police officer and two civilians, two more civilians injured.Six civilians injured by mortar and small arms attack in al-Thawra neighborhood.

BaijiRoadside bomb kills three people in a market on Saturday.Reuters also reports a police officer killed by another bomb on the same day.Baqubaa 17-year-old girl named Nadia Jameel was killed near her house in Al-Katoon neighborhood, west Baquba, apparently by a stray bullet.


80 die in bombing at Afghan dog fight

By ALLAUDDIN KHAN, Associated Press Writer 56 minutes ago

http://tinyurl.com/2rmrwd

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A suicide bombing at an outdoor dog fighting competition killed 80 people and wounded scores on Sunday, an Afghan governor said. It appeared to be the deadliest terror attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

A prominent militia commander who stood up against the Taliban was killed in the attack and officials said he may have been the target.

Several hundred people, including Afghan militia leaders, had gathered to watch the competition on the western edge of the southern city of Kandahar. Witnesses reported gunfire from bodyguards after the blast but it was not immediately clear how many of the casualties might have been caused by bullets.

Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid said 80 people had been killed in the attack. Abdullah Fahim, a Health Ministry spokesman, said 70 were wounded.

Khalid blamed the attack on "the enemy of Afghanistan," which typically means the Taliban. The attack's apparent target, Abdul Hakim Jan, served as a commander of an auxiliary police force, a government-backed security force made of area tribesmen that is often shorthand for a local militia operating with government approval.