It's been a horrible year with the election of Bush so let's have Uncle Creepy dress up as Sandy Claws and wish everyone Beast Witches for the Horrordays.
Friday, December 24, 2004
MERRY CREEPMAS!
It's been a horrible year with the election of Bush so let's have Uncle Creepy dress up as Sandy Claws and wish everyone Beast Witches for the Horrordays.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Merry Christmas from Iraq!
Merry Christmas from Iraq! Enjoy the holidays and the knowledge that American soldiers are dying and being maimed INSIDE military bases NOW and that George Bush is the one that put them there based on using faulty and manipulative (he "lied" is the Missouri way of saying it) information while throwing flags in people's faces. Gee, think of the victims' families back in the states and what kind of holiday cheer this brings while you're opening your presents on Christmas day and Bing croons "White Christmas". And don't forget the soldiers who were lucky and only lost a limb, their hearing or went blind (and their faces scarred and disfigured). They'll get to go home now and remember this for every Christmas to come and all while dealing with the veterans health care crisis, stalled economy, social security's destruction, Medicare's meltdown and post-traumatic syndrome! ---Sam
Death Toll at 24 in Attack on Mosul Base
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An explosion ripped through a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Tuesday, and officials said 24 people were killed and more than 60 wounded. A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.
The dead included U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
The attack came the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and described the ongoing violence in Iraq as a "battle between democracy and terror."
Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia, told CNN that the toll was 24 dead. He added that more than 60 were wounded.
Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul said the dead included two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat at Forward Operating Base Merez. He reported 64 were wounded, and civilians may have been among them, he said.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to the cause of the blast at the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The base, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government's security forces.
Although military officials initially said rockets or mortar rounds struck the camp, Hastings said it was still under investigation.
"We do not know if it was a mortar or a place explosive," he said, describing it as a "single explosion."
The force knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.
Amid the screaming and thick smoke in the tent, soldiers turned their tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, Redmon said.
Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters, while others wandered around in a daze and collapsed, he said.
"I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.
A huge hole was blown in the roof of the tent, and puddles of blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor, Redmon reported.
Near the front entrance, troops tended a soldier with a serious head wound, but within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag, he said. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.
"It is indeed a very, very sad day," Ham said.
It made no difference whether the casualties were soldiers or civilians, Americans or Iraqis, Ham said. "They were all brothers in arms taking care of one another," he said.
Redmon and photographer Dean Hoffmeyer are embedded with the 276th Engineer Battalion, a Richmond, Va., unit that can trace its lineage to the First Virginia Regiment of Volunteers formed in 1652. George Washington and Patrick Henry were two of its early commanders. Henry created the unit's motto, "Liberty or Death."
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet. It said the attack was a "martyrdom operation" targeting a mess hall in the al-Ghizlani camp.
Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s former Taliban regime. The Sunni Muslim group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.
Mosul was the scene of the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Iraq. On Nov. 15, 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided over the city, killing 17 soldiers and injuring five. The crash occurred as the two choppers maneuvered to avoid ground fire from insurgents.
Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni Arab area have increased dramatically in the past year and particularly since the U.S.-led military operation in November to retake the restive city of Fallujah from militants.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of students demonstrated in the center of the city, demanding that U.S. troops cease breaking into homes and mosques there.
Also Tuesday, Iraqi security forces repelled another attack by insurgents trying to seize a police station in the center of the city, the U.S. military said.
On Sunday, insurgents detonated two roadside bombs and a car bomb targeting U.S. forces in Mosul in three separate attacks. Other car bombs Sunday killed 67 people in the Shiite holy cites of Najaf and Karbala.
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, warned Monday that insurgents are trying to foment sectarian civil war as well as derail the Jan. 30 elections.
During his visit, Blair held talks with Allawi and Iraqi election officials, whom he called heroes for carrying out their work despite attacks. Three members of Iraq's election commission were dragged from the car and killed this week in Baghdad.
"I said to them that I thought they were the heroes of the new Iraq that's being created, because here are people who are risking their lives every day to make sure that the people of Iraq get a chance to decide their own destiny," Blair said at a joint news conference with Allawi.
Blair, who has paid a political price for going to war in Iraq, defended the role of Britain's 8,000 troops by referring to terrorism.
"If we defeat it here, we deal it a blow worldwide," he said. "If Iraq is a stable and democratic country, that is good for the Middle East, and what is good for the Middle East, is actually good for the world, including Britain.
Blair, whose trip to Iraq hadn't been disclosed for security reasons, urged Iraqis to back next month's elections.
"Whatever people's feelings and beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror," he said.
Allawi said his government was committed to holding the elections as scheduled, despite calls for their postponement owing to the violence.
"We have always expected that the violence would increase as we approach the elections," Allawi said. "We now are on the verge, for the first time in history, of having democracy in action in this country."
Blair flew into the Iraqi capital about 11 a.m. aboard a British military transport aircraft from Jordan. A Royal Air Force Puma helicopter flew from Baghdad airport to the city center, escorted by U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.
It was Blair's first visit to Baghdad and his third to Iraq since the dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003. Blair visited British troops stationed around the southern Iraqi city of Basra in mid-2003 and in January. President Bush (news - web sites) had paid a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad at Thanksgiving in 2003.
Blair flew to Basra later Tuesday.
The British leader was a key supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam. His decision to back the U.S. offensive angered many lawmakers in his governing Labour Party and a large portion of the British public.
In other violence Tuesday, a U.S. jet bombed a suspected insurgent target west of Baghdad. Hamdi Al-Alosi, a doctor in a hospital in the city of Hit, said four people were killed and seven injured in the strike. He said the attack damaged several cars and two buildings. A U.S. military spokesman could not confirm the casualties.
Elsewhere, five American soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded when the Humvee they were traveling in was hit by a car bomb near Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
In Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, unidentified assailants shot and killed an Iraqi nuclear scientist as he was on his way to work, witnesses said. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher, a professor at Diyala University, was killed as he drove over a bridge on the Khrisan river. His car swerved and plummeted into the water.
In northern Iraq, insurgents set ablaze a major pipeline used to ship oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a principal export route for Iraqi oil, an official with the North Oil CO. said. Firefighters were on the scene, 70 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
Insurgents have often targeted Iraq's oil infrastructure, repeatedly cutting exports and denying the country much-needed reconstruction money.
___
Associated Press writers John Lumpkin in Washington and Slobodan Lekic in Baghdad contributed to this story.
Death Toll at 24 in Attack on Mosul Base
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An explosion ripped through a mess tent at a military base in Mosul where hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down to lunch Tuesday, and officials said 24 people were killed and more than 60 wounded. A radical Muslim group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.
The dead included U.S. military personnel, U.S. contractors, foreign national contractors and Iraqi army, said Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia in Mosul.
The attack came the same day that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a surprise visit to Baghdad and described the ongoing violence in Iraq as a "battle between democracy and terror."
Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia, told CNN that the toll was 24 dead. He added that more than 60 were wounded.
Jeremy Redmon, a reporter for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch embedded with the troops in Mosul said the dead included two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion, which had just sat down to eat at Forward Operating Base Merez. He reported 64 were wounded, and civilians may have been among them, he said.
Officials could not break down the toll of dead or wounded among the groups. Reports also differed as to the cause of the blast at the camp, which is based outside the predominantly Sunni Muslim city about 220 miles north of Baghdad.
The base, also known as the al-Ghizlani military camp, is used by both U.S. troops and the interim Iraqi government's security forces.
Although military officials initially said rockets or mortar rounds struck the camp, Hastings said it was still under investigation.
"We do not know if it was a mortar or a place explosive," he said, describing it as a "single explosion."
The force knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats as a fireball enveloped the top of the tent and shrapnel sprayed into the area, Redmon said.
Amid the screaming and thick smoke in the tent, soldiers turned their tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot, Redmon said.
Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters, while others wandered around in a daze and collapsed, he said.
"I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.
A huge hole was blown in the roof of the tent, and puddles of blood, lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor, Redmon reported.
Near the front entrance, troops tended a soldier with a serious head wound, but within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag, he said. Three more bodies were in the parking lot.
"It is indeed a very, very sad day," Ham said.
It made no difference whether the casualties were soldiers or civilians, Americans or Iraqis, Ham said. "They were all brothers in arms taking care of one another," he said.
Redmon and photographer Dean Hoffmeyer are embedded with the 276th Engineer Battalion, a Richmond, Va., unit that can trace its lineage to the First Virginia Regiment of Volunteers formed in 1652. George Washington and Patrick Henry were two of its early commanders. Henry created the unit's motto, "Liberty or Death."
The Ansar al-Sunnah Army claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on the Internet. It said the attack was a "martyrdom operation" targeting a mess hall in the al-Ghizlani camp.
Ansar al-Sunna is believed to be a fundamentalist group that wants to turn Iraq into an Islamic state like Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s former Taliban regime. The Sunni Muslim group claimed responsibility for beheading 12 Nepalese hostages and other recent attacks in Mosul.
Mosul was the scene of the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Iraq. On Nov. 15, 2003, two Black Hawk helicopters collided over the city, killing 17 soldiers and injuring five. The crash occurred as the two choppers maneuvered to avoid ground fire from insurgents.
Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, was relatively peaceful in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. But insurgent attacks in the largely Sunni Arab area have increased dramatically in the past year and particularly since the U.S.-led military operation in November to retake the restive city of Fallujah from militants.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of students demonstrated in the center of the city, demanding that U.S. troops cease breaking into homes and mosques there.
Also Tuesday, Iraqi security forces repelled another attack by insurgents trying to seize a police station in the center of the city, the U.S. military said.
On Sunday, insurgents detonated two roadside bombs and a car bomb targeting U.S. forces in Mosul in three separate attacks. Other car bombs Sunday killed 67 people in the Shiite holy cites of Najaf and Karbala.
Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, warned Monday that insurgents are trying to foment sectarian civil war as well as derail the Jan. 30 elections.
During his visit, Blair held talks with Allawi and Iraqi election officials, whom he called heroes for carrying out their work despite attacks. Three members of Iraq's election commission were dragged from the car and killed this week in Baghdad.
"I said to them that I thought they were the heroes of the new Iraq that's being created, because here are people who are risking their lives every day to make sure that the people of Iraq get a chance to decide their own destiny," Blair said at a joint news conference with Allawi.
Blair, who has paid a political price for going to war in Iraq, defended the role of Britain's 8,000 troops by referring to terrorism.
"If we defeat it here, we deal it a blow worldwide," he said. "If Iraq is a stable and democratic country, that is good for the Middle East, and what is good for the Middle East, is actually good for the world, including Britain.
Blair, whose trip to Iraq hadn't been disclosed for security reasons, urged Iraqis to back next month's elections.
"Whatever people's feelings and beliefs about the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the wisdom of that, there surely is only one side to be on in what is now very clearly a battle between democracy and terror," he said.
Allawi said his government was committed to holding the elections as scheduled, despite calls for their postponement owing to the violence.
"We have always expected that the violence would increase as we approach the elections," Allawi said. "We now are on the verge, for the first time in history, of having democracy in action in this country."
Blair flew into the Iraqi capital about 11 a.m. aboard a British military transport aircraft from Jordan. A Royal Air Force Puma helicopter flew from Baghdad airport to the city center, escorted by U.S. Black Hawk helicopters.
It was Blair's first visit to Baghdad and his third to Iraq since the dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in April 2003. Blair visited British troops stationed around the southern Iraqi city of Basra in mid-2003 and in January. President Bush (news - web sites) had paid a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Baghdad at Thanksgiving in 2003.
Blair flew to Basra later Tuesday.
The British leader was a key supporter of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam. His decision to back the U.S. offensive angered many lawmakers in his governing Labour Party and a large portion of the British public.
In other violence Tuesday, a U.S. jet bombed a suspected insurgent target west of Baghdad. Hamdi Al-Alosi, a doctor in a hospital in the city of Hit, said four people were killed and seven injured in the strike. He said the attack damaged several cars and two buildings. A U.S. military spokesman could not confirm the casualties.
Elsewhere, five American soldiers and an Iraqi civilian were wounded when the Humvee they were traveling in was hit by a car bomb near Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
In Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, unidentified assailants shot and killed an Iraqi nuclear scientist as he was on his way to work, witnesses said. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher, a professor at Diyala University, was killed as he drove over a bridge on the Khrisan river. His car swerved and plummeted into the water.
In northern Iraq, insurgents set ablaze a major pipeline used to ship oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a principal export route for Iraqi oil, an official with the North Oil CO. said. Firefighters were on the scene, 70 miles southwest of Kirkuk.
Insurgents have often targeted Iraq's oil infrastructure, repeatedly cutting exports and denying the country much-needed reconstruction money.
___
Associated Press writers John Lumpkin in Washington and Slobodan Lekic in Baghdad contributed to this story.
Monday, December 20, 2004
No Explaining For American People For Soviet-Style Bush Presidency
Democracy is dead in America under Bush. "No negotiating with myself in public," means Bush is really saying, "@#$% the American public's right to know, I'm running the country Soviet-style!"
No 'Negotiating with Myself' for Bush
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In Washington, there are plenty of ways to say "no comment," but President Bush offered his own formulation on Monday, when he refused to "negotiate with myself in public."
Bush used the phrase to deflect a question on the future of Social Security at a televised news conference.
"Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush told the questioner. "To say, you know, "What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?
"I'm not going to do that. I don't get to write the law. I'll propose a solution at the appropriate time," Bush said.
In essence, this Bushism means the president will discuss options on such issues as Social Security with members of Congress who write the law, but not with the media.
Asked to explain one facet of his Social Security policy, Bush agreed but said, "I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself. It's a very tricky way to get me to play my cards. I understand that."
No 'Negotiating with Myself' for Bush
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In Washington, there are plenty of ways to say "no comment," but President Bush offered his own formulation on Monday, when he refused to "negotiate with myself in public."
Bush used the phrase to deflect a question on the future of Social Security at a televised news conference.
"Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public," Bush told the questioner. "To say, you know, "What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?
"I'm not going to do that. I don't get to write the law. I'll propose a solution at the appropriate time," Bush said.
In essence, this Bushism means the president will discuss options on such issues as Social Security with members of Congress who write the law, but not with the media.
Asked to explain one facet of his Social Security policy, Bush agreed but said, "I will try to explain how without negotiating with myself. It's a very tricky way to get me to play my cards. I understand that."
The Iraq War Grows Worse, Bush Supports Rumsfeld's Arrogant Folly
Our fighting men are some of the most courageous in the world. Our leaders under Bush are the most unfeeling and idiotic I have known in my time. You'll live to hear Marine and other Iraq veterans bitterly curse Bush's name in the future.
The New York Times
December 20, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
War on the Cheap
By BOB HERBERT
Greg Rund was a freshman at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 when two students shot and killed a teacher, a dozen of their fellow students and themselves. Mr. Rund survived that horror, but he wasn't able to survive the war in Iraq. The 21-year-old Marine lance corporal was killed on Dec. 11 in Falluja.
The people who were so anxious to launch the war in Iraq are a lot less enthusiastic about properly supporting the troops who are actually fighting, suffering and dying in it. Corporal Rund was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Because of severe military personnel shortages, large numbers of troops are serving multiple tours in the war zone, and many are having their military enlistments involuntarily extended.
Troops approaching the end of their tours in Iraq are frequently dealt the emotional body blow of unexpected orders blocking their departure for home. "I've never seen so many grown men cry," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former infantry platoon leader who founded Operation Truth, an advocacy group for soldiers and veterans.
"Soldiers will do whatever you ask them to do," said Mr. Rieckhoff. "But when you tell them the finish line is here, and then you keep moving it back every time they get five meters away from it, it starts to really wear on them. It affects morale."
We don't have enough troops because we are fighting the war on the cheap. The Bush administration has refused to substantially expand the volunteer military and there is no public support for a draft. So the same troops head in and out of Iraq, and then back in again, as if through a revolving door. That naturally heightens their chances of being killed or wounded.
A reckoning is coming. The Army National Guard revealed last Thursday that it had missed its recruiting goals for the past two months by 30 percent. Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, who heads the National Guard Bureau, said: "We're in a more difficult recruiting environment, period. There's no question that when you have a sustained ground combat operation going that the Guard's participating in, that makes recruiting more difficult."
Just a few days earlier, the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, told The Dallas Morning News that recruiting was in a "precipitous decline" that, if not reversed, could lead to renewed discussions about reinstatement of the draft.
The Bush administration, which has asked so much of the armed forces, has established a pattern of dealing in bad faith with its men and women in uniform. The callousness of its treatment of the troops was, of course, never more clear than in Donald Rumsfeld's high-handed response to a soldier's question about the shortages of battle armor in Iraq.
As the war in Iraq goes more and more poorly, the misery index of the men and women serving there gets higher and higher. More than 1,300 have been killed. Many thousands are coming home with agonizing wounds. Scott Shane of The Times reported last week that according to veterans' advocates and military doctors, the already hard-pressed system of health care for veterans "is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war."
Through the end of September, nearly 900 troops had been evacuated from Iraq by the Army for psychiatric reasons, included attempts or threatened attempts at suicide. Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, an assistant secretary of defense for health affairs from 1994 to 1997, said, "I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war."
When the war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq is considered, some experts believe that the number of American troops needing mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
From the earliest planning stages until now, the war in Iraq has been a tragic exercise in official incompetence. The original rationale for the war was wrong. The intelligence was wrong. The estimates of required troop strength were wrong. The war hawks' guesses about the response of the Iraqi people were wrong. The cost estimates were wrong, and on and on.
Nevertheless the troops have fought valiantly, and the price paid by many has been horrific. They all deserve better than the bad faith and shoddy treatment they are receiving from the highest officials of their government.
And just when you think it can't get any worse...
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: December 20, 2004
The New York Times
December 20, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
War on the Cheap
By BOB HERBERT
Greg Rund was a freshman at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in 1999 when two students shot and killed a teacher, a dozen of their fellow students and themselves. Mr. Rund survived that horror, but he wasn't able to survive the war in Iraq. The 21-year-old Marine lance corporal was killed on Dec. 11 in Falluja.
The people who were so anxious to launch the war in Iraq are a lot less enthusiastic about properly supporting the troops who are actually fighting, suffering and dying in it. Corporal Rund was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Because of severe military personnel shortages, large numbers of troops are serving multiple tours in the war zone, and many are having their military enlistments involuntarily extended.
Troops approaching the end of their tours in Iraq are frequently dealt the emotional body blow of unexpected orders blocking their departure for home. "I've never seen so many grown men cry," said Paul Rieckhoff, a former infantry platoon leader who founded Operation Truth, an advocacy group for soldiers and veterans.
"Soldiers will do whatever you ask them to do," said Mr. Rieckhoff. "But when you tell them the finish line is here, and then you keep moving it back every time they get five meters away from it, it starts to really wear on them. It affects morale."
We don't have enough troops because we are fighting the war on the cheap. The Bush administration has refused to substantially expand the volunteer military and there is no public support for a draft. So the same troops head in and out of Iraq, and then back in again, as if through a revolving door. That naturally heightens their chances of being killed or wounded.
A reckoning is coming. The Army National Guard revealed last Thursday that it had missed its recruiting goals for the past two months by 30 percent. Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, who heads the National Guard Bureau, said: "We're in a more difficult recruiting environment, period. There's no question that when you have a sustained ground combat operation going that the Guard's participating in, that makes recruiting more difficult."
Just a few days earlier, the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, told The Dallas Morning News that recruiting was in a "precipitous decline" that, if not reversed, could lead to renewed discussions about reinstatement of the draft.
The Bush administration, which has asked so much of the armed forces, has established a pattern of dealing in bad faith with its men and women in uniform. The callousness of its treatment of the troops was, of course, never more clear than in Donald Rumsfeld's high-handed response to a soldier's question about the shortages of battle armor in Iraq.
As the war in Iraq goes more and more poorly, the misery index of the men and women serving there gets higher and higher. More than 1,300 have been killed. Many thousands are coming home with agonizing wounds. Scott Shane of The Times reported last week that according to veterans' advocates and military doctors, the already hard-pressed system of health care for veterans "is facing a potential deluge of tens of thousands of soldiers returning from Iraq with serious mental health problems brought on by the stress and carnage of war."
Through the end of September, nearly 900 troops had been evacuated from Iraq by the Army for psychiatric reasons, included attempts or threatened attempts at suicide. Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, an assistant secretary of defense for health affairs from 1994 to 1997, said, "I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war."
When the war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq is considered, some experts believe that the number of American troops needing mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
From the earliest planning stages until now, the war in Iraq has been a tragic exercise in official incompetence. The original rationale for the war was wrong. The intelligence was wrong. The estimates of required troop strength were wrong. The war hawks' guesses about the response of the Iraqi people were wrong. The cost estimates were wrong, and on and on.
Nevertheless the troops have fought valiantly, and the price paid by many has been horrific. They all deserve better than the bad faith and shoddy treatment they are receiving from the highest officials of their government.
And just when you think it can't get any worse...
At Least 64 Dead as Rebels Strike in 3 Iraqi Cities
Published: December 20, 2004
AGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 19 - Only days into Iraq's six-week election campaign, car bombers struck crowds in Najaf and Karbala on Sunday, killing at least 61 people and wounding about 120 in those two holy Shiite cities. In the heart of Baghdad, about 30 insurgents hurling grenades and firing machine guns pulled three election officials from their car in the midst of morning traffic and killed them with shots to the head.
Taken together, the attacks represented the second-worst daily civilian death toll from insurgent mayhem in Iraq since the American military occupation transferred formal sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government nearly six months ago.
The worst attack was on July 28, when as many as 70 people were killed by a suicide bomber near a police recruiting center in the city of Baquba, north of Baghdad.
The attacks raised the specter of exactly the kind of violence that American and Iraqi officials have been hoping to minimize ahead of assembly elections on Jan. 30 that are a watershed in the American-inspired blueprint for democracy in Iraq.
Iraqi politicians arguing for a delay in the elections to allow for renewed mediation efforts with Sunni insurgents have repeatedly warned of the risks of a wave of sectarian killings, as well as attacks on election officials and candidates.
In Najaf and Karbala, Shiite clerics and government officials attributed the bombings to Sunni extremists seeking to ignite sectarian strife with the country's Shiite majority. The bombings took place within two hours of each other in crowded areas in the center of the cities near the Shiite sect's holiest shrines.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi Election Commission, supervising the campaign, described the victims of the ambush on Baghdad's notoriously lawless Haifa Street as martyrs and appealed urgently to all Iraqis to "support the lives of our officials."
The bombings in Najaf and Karbala seemed calculated to cause maximum loss of life and a wave of anger among Shiites, who constitute about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
In Karbala, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle amid minibuses at the entrance to the city's bus terminal. In Najaf, a car bomb exploded in a central square crowded with people watching a tribal leader's funeral procession, among them the provincial governor and the city's police chief, both of whom escaped unhurt.
Accounts filed by an Iraqi employee of The New York Times and Western news agencies told of residents pulling bodies from the rubble of shops around Maidan Square in the heart of Najaf's Old City, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.
An Associated Press report quoted Yousef Munim, an official at the city's Al Hakim Hospital, as saying that the hospital's preliminary account showed 47 people killed and 69 wounded. The blast occurred a few hundred yards from the Imam Ali Shrine, one of the most sacred in Shiite Islam, which was the center of an American-led offensive in August that cleared the city of rebels loyal to the rebel Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, but at a heavy cost in civilian lives and damage to buildings near the shrine.
In Karbala, about 50 miles north of Najaf, the bombing took place within a short walk of the Imam Hussein Shrine, another sacred site, outside of which another bomb exploded last Wednesday that killed 12 people and wounded dozens of others, including a close aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric.
Ali al-Ardawi, an assistant to the director of Al Hussein Hospital, said 14 people were killed and 52 wounded.
Shiite religious and political leaders said it was clear that Sunni insurgents were responsible. "They are trying to ignite a sectarian civil war and prevent elections from going ahead on time," said Muhammad Bahr al-Uloum, a moderate cleric who has worked with American officials to smooth the way for the elections. He added: "They have failed before, and they will fail again. The Shiites are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to more violence. We are determined on elections, as Ayatollah Sistani has made clear."
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