General: Death toll down as U.S., Iraq forces take control
NCfan
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. troop casualty figures in Iraq that jumped this spring have been gradually dropping because U.S. and Iraqi forces are stabilizing volatile and dangerous areas, a U.S. commander said Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, left, talks with Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek in Baquba, Iraq, on July 13.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, called the development in recent weeks "an initial positive sign."
"This is what we thought would happen once we get control of the real key areas that are controlled by these terrorists," Odierno said at a press conference.
At the same time, he said, "I need a bit more time to make an assessment of whether it's a true trend or not."
So far in July, 62 U.S. troops have died, according to Pentagon figures compiled by CNN.
If that pace continues, July will have the lowest monthly death toll this year, a period in which U.S. troop strength has escalated and U.S.-led offensives have been launched in Baghdad and in regions around the capital.
The previous three months were the deadliest three-month stretch in the war, with 104 deaths in April, 126 in May and 101 in June. There were 83 deaths in January and 81 each in February and March.
Odierno said troops went into regions they "had not been in for a long time and they were safe havens that had been established by extremists."
"We've now gone into those areas with Iraqi security forces and going into these areas we knew would be tough in the beginning,. We've now taken control of these areas. Since then, we've now started to see a slow, gradual reduction in casualties. And it continues in July."
Odierno, who briefed reporters with Iraqi military commander Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar, also reiterated U.S. claims that militants in Iraq are getting help from elements in Iran.
"We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortar men and rocketeers to provide accurate fires into the Green Zone and other places. We think this is directly related to training that was conducted in Iran," Odierno said. E-mail to a friend
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, left, talks with Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek in Baquba, Iraq, on July 13.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, called the development in recent weeks "an initial positive sign."
"This is what we thought would happen once we get control of the real key areas that are controlled by these terrorists," Odierno said at a press conference.
At the same time, he said, "I need a bit more time to make an assessment of whether it's a true trend or not."
So far in July, 62 U.S. troops have died, according to Pentagon figures compiled by CNN.
If that pace continues, July will have the lowest monthly death toll this year, a period in which U.S. troop strength has escalated and U.S.-led offensives have been launched in Baghdad and in regions around the capital.
The previous three months were the deadliest three-month stretch in the war, with 104 deaths in April, 126 in May and 101 in June. There were 83 deaths in January and 81 each in February and March.
Odierno said troops went into regions they "had not been in for a long time and they were safe havens that had been established by extremists."
"We've now gone into those areas with Iraqi security forces and going into these areas we knew would be tough in the beginning,. We've now taken control of these areas. Since then, we've now started to see a slow, gradual reduction in casualties. And it continues in July."
Odierno, who briefed reporters with Iraqi military commander Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar, also reiterated U.S. claims that militants in Iraq are getting help from elements in Iran.
"We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortar men and rocketeers to provide accurate fires into the Green Zone and other places. We think this is directly related to training that was conducted in Iran," Odierno said. E-mail to a friend
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Comments
But that's also a big "if."
The war drum is beating for Iran now...
-Enoch Powell
The logic of war supporters is insanely flawed and ill-conceived.
Until we address the REAL root causes of terrorism, including our buddies in the Saudi and Pakistani "governments" (i.e. U.S. financial partners) we will never stop the bullshit. Certainly invading Muslim countries unprovoked and blowing the place to shit isn't a good start.
But some people feel comforted knowing other people are being killed. As if that is some barometer in this struggle against the Jihadists. They will just keep creating more of them - they have plenty of ammunition to get these young Muslims angry, thanks in part to the Bus/Cheney cabal
A strong democracy certainly doesn't preclude a country from having Al Qaeda cells or activities. See US, Spain, England, Australia, France, etc.
Certainly true. The U.S. has had Timothy McVeigh and even Puerto Rican nationalist terrorists. Home grown.
Democracy is not terrorism repellent by any means.
-Enoch Powell
Yep and let us not forget that the whole "freedom march" crock of bullshit only was introduced after we didnt find the magical WMD's that Saddam was going to use on your children and pets from his palace halfway across the globe. The invasion was a politically and ideologically conceived idea from ppl with no military background and no horses in the race (except financiall of course).
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
Of course, let's not forget that! Most of you anti-war people are the same. It's like whack-a-mole stragety to debate you guys.
No matter what our side says, you can always fall back to we were lied to in the first place. Or even more of a stretch, that Bush stole the election in 2000. You always have something to say...
I love the whole "we weren't supposed to be there anyways" argument - as if that has any bearing on getting us out now. It's sort of like we are starving in the desert with no food, but suddenly I produce an egg and agree that we will cook it sunny-side up, but instead I give it to you srambled - and you get pissed cause i lied to you so you refuse to eat it. And I tell you that I'm sorry, but I scrambled the egg and you should eat it anyways becuase you are starving - but you won't shut up about being lied to long enough to see that what I'm saying makes sense! Or really, you know what I'm saying is true, that you should eat the egg, but you won't do it just to spite the chef cuase you don't like them.
The war drum is NOT beating for Iran right now, and it pisses me off when people try to say it is.... The mother-fucking DIPLOMACY drum is beating and has been beating like made for the past 2 years!!!!
The ONLY thing that the Bush admin has done remotely hostile is to say that all options are on the table - that's it.... and you guys run away with that and say that Bush is having wet dreams at night about invading Iran. You guys just can't be taken seriously.... I mean how the hell is America supposed to find common ground and be so divided if you guys on the left are gonna be so irresponsible with your words and slander the conservative leaders???
Odierno, who briefed reporters with Iraqi military commander Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar, also reiterated U.S. claims that militants in Iraq are getting help from elements in Iran.
"We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortar men and rocketeers to provide accurate fires into the Green Zone and other places. We think this is directly related to training that was conducted in Iran," Odierno said. E-mail to a friend.
Maybe not a war drum, but at least a rimshot.
Double post
Great analogy!! Brilliant! Now simply substitute an egg for say, oh, 100,000 wounded and dead then we'll talk. Why are you so casual with lives and death>? Could it be because it doesn't affect your daliy life behind your computer?
You should head over to Iraq for a 2 year tour.
Its a volunteer army so who the fuck cares why we went there -they signed up for it!
Go to Iraq and fight then lecture me about how the anti war crowd is weak minded blah blah.
Didn't think so - much easier to support a war when you aren't the ones fighting it (also known as the Bush/Cheney routine)
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
I was going to say...the I saw CNN and figured oh here's some bullshit ...see were really winning and now we need to go to Iran to win because they are there toooooo
what a fat steaming load
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
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sweeeeeet...!!!!
I guess the occupation is over and terror has been defeated...
great news, indeed...!!
Not sure I agree that the situation is getting "worse and worse". Iraq is a place that is going to get worse before it gets better, anybody will agree on that. We are not going to wake up one day and magically everybody over there is going to get along. There will be better days, weeks and months than others, but there will always be violence in the country for a long, long time to come - no matter what anybody does.
What I see is a nation, a world that is waiting on the US. Everybody in Iraq, from the militias, to the Islamic radicals, to the ordinary citizens, to the politicians are just waiting to see what the US is going to do. Are we going to stay, or are we going to leave - this more than anything will determine the fate and future of Iraq. And in turn many people's power, wealth and life depend upon this decision. So I don't believe we will see REAL results in Iraq until America decides what we are going to do. As it looks to everyone now, it is just a matter of time before we leave.
In the US, this has been the MAIN political discourse for the past 3 years with respect to Iraq.
A solid majority of the American congress authorized the war, and a solid majority of American's supported the war. When we found out there were no WMD's, all hell broke loose and the Dems and libs saw that as their chance to pounce on a vulnerable oposition. I'm not saying this was the wrong thing to do. I believe in dissent, and I belieive in holding people accountable.
What I don't believe in is stooping to the level where the leaders of the free world are so childish, so calous, so fucking cheap with their words and rhetoric that they have totally forgot to LEAD. None of them are fucking leaders... they are all just pandering, self-centered fucks who want power and legacy. All of them!
So most Americans have been sitting around listening and watching politicians make pure asses of themselves (on both sides, at the highest levels) trying to discredit the other. And Americans are sick of it and we are lost. We are sick of Bush and his missmanagement, we are sick of the Dems taking cheap shots. And we are taking it out on each other...
The mission is noble, and it is worth it. It will save far more lives to see this through now than to leave a fractured state in the world's most important region to fester in abandonment by the West. And take note there I said 'The West", because most of Europe has abondoned this effort.
Where the fuck is the UN here? Where the fuck is NATO or the EU? If I remember correctly a few years ago, America was the one keeping Christians from murdering Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo while the Europeans did nothing.
Sometimes you have to man up and take action. If we could send overwhelming man and firepower to the region. If the whole world united behind this we wouldn't be looking at another Lebanon civil war, or Palestine 2.0 - something that we take lives and create oppresion and instability for the next 30 years.
Take action, do it now, fix what we all know is broken.
I don't like to keep harping on this... but, no one ever answers these questions...
What happens next? The greater number of troops on the ground results in a lower number of casualties... GREAT!!! But, what does that mean? Does it mean we have to sustain that number of troops? If so, for how long? What happens when we draw down? Will the violence increase? Would that mean we have to send the ones we withdraw, back in? Is this a surge or an escalation?
...
And my answer to the lower number of casualties due to the increased number of ground troops... DUH. That has ALWAYS been the case. Overwhelming numbers of troops with overwhelming firepower is needed and has always been needed. Security is the number one priority and has always been the number one priority. Nothing else can occur unless the place is secured.
And finally... what is your best guess estimate of U.S. military involvement in Iraq? Mine is about 12 to 20 years at best. Multiply that by 12 billion dollars per month and factor in inflation and there is your cost of Freedom in dollars.
The cost in human lives has no dollar value, but, be sure... the death toll will increase.
Hail, Hail!!!
Nobody cheers for the bully ever...get over it...get on with it...and get the fuck out. Otherwise fire up the guns and get it over with. Have the balls to obliterate them and claim whatever you are trying to claim.
Having the inlaws live at your house longer (eat all your food and sleep in your bed) isn't going to make you love them more. Especially if they throw shit in your face every day.
duh...
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
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Secondly, we don't have to go over the course that brought us to war, but it is important to note that what we have done (whether right or wrong) is engage and push forth a situation and climate in a nation where sects, religons and people are on the brink of civil war and totally disassembling the nation as we now know it (breaking into 3 separate areas). We have help make the bed in Iraq - many of the issues where their before, some are newer or more aggressively in growth (terrorism in Iraq, sect terror, etc), but the longer we waddle our ways, the worse off we will be and the worse off Iraq will be. As for immediate solutions, our president won't allow the UN to be a part of peace keeping or transitioning over "the face" of control, so who's to blame for that? Once again - US. We refuse to put the necessary amount of troops their to truly control and make the situation proper and safe, yet leave just enough their to give the appearence that we're their and trying - that is a failed notion and truly the reason this situation is getting worse and escalating.
Lastly, the reason we can't win their is, the very leaders saying we need to stay the course and "man up" and "take action" are the same ones creating the failure by not going it 100%. Not enough troops, supplies, manpower, resources, failure to win over the people of Iraq, and the list goes on and on. If you have a test and you want an A, study, prepare and you'll get it. If I only half-study, and go about it hap-hazzardly, you're gonna get a C, or a D... and right now, that's what Iraq is, our D grade. Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.
Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
A close analogy would be - We are stranded in the desert. You have the weapons - and kill 7 members of my family, fried them and ate them - then someone fried an egg - and you said give it to that guy over there we plan to kill tomorrow - so he will be healthy enough to eat when we get hungry. The guy says - nah, I'd rather whither away than nourish you
The Nazis thought this way too in 1941. Some things never change.
WHOA!!! How did I miss this one???
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Worst analogy of the year front runner.
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Here's a better analogy that is closer along the lines of what happened and how we got where we are:
You and i are in a car and you say we need to go this way. I argue that I think we should stay on our current course to get to where we're trying to get to. You insist on your way and claim that it is a direction we need to go and that you know exactly how to get there from here... because you have already been this way (which is a lie). This is despite the warnings we heard from the gas station attendant, the coffee shop waitress, the truck driver at the roadside store and most of the people we talked to.
We go your way and the road disappears into sand and I keep on telling you that we need to change direction and get back on that road we were on but you keep on lyig to me about how this is the way we must go and insist that you know this direction well.
We continue your way and get into deeper and deeper sand... I keep harping on you and you keep lying to me as we sink up to our tires... then our windows... then our roof.
You finally say, yeah... we need to change direction. I pimp slap you for being a douchebag. Guess what? You deserve it.
Now, you ask me... how do I get us out of YOUR mess. I don't know... maybe we should begin to dig ourselves out, make it back to the surface and try to get back on the road we were on.
And don't give me any more of your lying bullshit anymore because your credibility is non-existant.
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That's a closer analogy.
Hail, Hail!!!
The U.N? You mean that international organization that the U.S lied to and then abandoned in 2003?
Tell that to the people who were held under siege in Sarejevo for 4 years whilst the West - including America - did nothing. Also tell it to the family's of all the men massacred at Screbrenica and Tusla whilst the U.N soldiers were ordered by these same governments to do nothing. Don't pretend that because the west was finally forced into acting by public demand after one more atrocity in a Sarejevo market in 1995 - thereby giving NATO a chance to flex some muscle - that we can in retrospect be regarded as saviours of those people. We failed them, as we failed Rwanda. And when I say 'we', this includes the U.S.
98 CAA
00 Virginia Beach;Camden I; Jones Beach III
05 Borgata Night I; Wachovia Center
06 Letterman Show; Webcast (guy in blue shirt), Camden I; DC
08 Camden I; Camden II; DC
09 Phillie III
10 MSG II
13 Wrigley Field
16 Phillie II
I think you missed the point.
The Nazis also thought their cause was noble and that the whole of Europe and the rest of the world would be better off if everyone followed their world view.
Hail, Hail!!!
Killing, torturing and maiming is killing, torturing and maiming. One side is no more justified than the other. When people realize this maybe this shit will stop.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde