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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Baghdad deaths drop 60% 



The number of civilians killed in Baghdad dropped from 1,222 in December to 494 in February, according to Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain.

McCain said U.S. forces have moved out of large bases to take up positions in small outposts as part of the shift in strategy being implemented under the auspices of General David Petraeus (see his comments below).

"Contrary to predictions, this has not increased U.S. casualties. And, not surprisingly, our presence has resulted in a dramatic increase in actionable intelligence about terrorists," McCain said.
The speech on the Senate floor was of course pitched to stymie Democrat calls for an early withdrawal of troops. It also coincided with simultaneous mass murders of at least 48 Iraqi civilians outside Baghdad, and with Iran's taking British hostages apparently in response to the capture of Iranians working with terrorists in Iraq.

The Arizona Republican said President Bush's decision to dispatch additional troops last winter "is working far better than even the most optimistic supporter had predicted. Progress is tangible in many key areas despite the fact that only 40 percent of the planned forces are in Iraq," he added.

Reports on Iraqi TV confirm that significant indents have recently been made by American forces into terrorist networks. According to Iraq the Model:

"Ahmed Farhan Hassan has been captured. This operative (who admits to some 300 murders and about 200 kidnapping incidents since he joined al-Qaeda three years ago )is described as a senior aide to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of al-Qaeda’s so-called Islamic State in Iraq.

"Local Iraqi TV aired recorded confessions ... Hassan, ... and I’m paraphrasing:

'I have four emirs operating under my command. I receive money directly from Abu Omar and then I distribute it among the members of my units according to the number and size of operations they carry out.'

The blog site's writer makes some hard observations about the blinkered Democrat "anti-war" behemoth being confronted by McCain:

"We've been watching the debate in America about redeployment of troops and identifying the real front we must focus on.

"… Al-Qaeda and terrorists in general didn't hide their position in this respect—despite the fact that they still operate in many parts of the world, they are clearly redirecting most effort and resources to the war in Iraq.

"Al-Qaeda and its supporters are using most of the capabilities of their propaganda machine to cover their effort in Iraq, and so is the case with financial resources ….

"(S)ome of the prominent lieutenants of al-Qaeda left Afghanistan to fight in Iraq. One example I remember was Omar al-Farouk who escaped from Bagram to be later captured in Basra!

"Al-Qaeda itself boasts about the great "sacrifices" of more than 4,000 "martyrs" to emphasize the importance of the war here. And the hundreds of suicide bombers preferred to blow themselves up in Iraq than anywhere else should remind us that if al-Qaeda considers this the main war then why talk about redeployment?

Walking away from the main war is not redeployment, it's quitting.

Iraq … rich-relatively-with resources and scientific base is a greater temptation than Afghanistan, and at the same time the possibility of a democracy arising in Iraq posed a great threat to the ideology of caliph state. …

"Can we compare the opium fields with the massive oilfields of Mesopotamia?

... "The other point is ... military technology (which) almost doesn't exist in Afghanistan ... Saddam celebrated 17 years ago (the launch of) a rocket to space.

"The same "accomplishment' Iran claimed to have made just days ago."




// posted by spinbad @ 27.3.07