Iraq
(NYTimes) This graphic is clipped from a classified Centcom briefing on Iraq from Oct. 18. It's not just some random guess, but an assessment of metrics Centcom has been using for awhile. (Full graphic with the metrics accompanies the story.)(AP) 40 Shiites abducted at a checkpoint just north of Baghdad "just out of sight of U.S. soldiers who were disarming a roadside bomb nearby." (I include that last bit because that's what Iraqis will see.)
(SFChronicle) Bechtel is pulling out of Iraq.
AFP chimes in with the clearest headline on the US being ordered from their checkpoints in Sadr City yesterday, "Iraqi PM hands Sadr victory over US blockade."
(WaPo) The Air Force is asking for $50 billion in emergency funding. "Another source familiar with the Air Force plans said the extra funds would help pay to transport growing numbers of U.S. soldiers being killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan." (Certainly a statement looking for the money, but still....)
(AP) Rumsfeld OK's an increase in the size of the ISF. (A good move or not, this does offer a shifting explanation for why the ISF still isn't ready after three years. "We still have more troops to train..." Is there any reason to believe this batch will be better than the last?)
(McClatchy) The growing practice by Iraqis of getting tattoos (against Islamic law) with their name, address, and phone # so their bodies can be identified.
(Independent) Patrick Cockburn offers a different view of how Baghdad is clarifying with the Shia extending their control inside the city and the Sunnis attempting to encircle and control all the access points. (Don't know if I agree, but interesting.)
posted by mikevotes at
8:04 AM
2 Comments:
I have not read Cockburn's story, yet. But, for some time I have thought that militias and insurgents were using scare tactics and then violence to change the demographics of given areas. Time published something showing this last week, with Sadr's guys clearing a town of Sunnis. I think Zeyad of Healing Iraq posted months ago that there were a lot of stockpiled weapons in Baghdad for this sort of thing... Maybe it was an MSM source. I did not have time to dig on my blog archives today.
By
Bravo 2-1, at 9:13 PM
Yeah, the ethnic cleansing has been accelerating. Something like 7% of Iraqis have left their homes. The Time story I think you're talking about was about Balad, although there was another about a N. Baghdad neigborhood.
I'm not sure Cockburn is right, but if he is, the battle lines of the civil war are becoming more formalized. It will be the Shia sweeping the countryside trying to eliminate everyone while the Sunnis continue to bomb and impose hardship.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:45 PM
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