CNN reported that the aid workers were let go.

Posted by: R.L. | Dec 17 2006 22:15 utc | 4

BBC Baghdad Burning

A searing account of life in Iraq drawn from the real life weblog of a young Iraqi woman known only as Riverbend. British Iraqi actress Jasmine Callan stars as the 24-year old, whose true identity remains concealed for her own protection.
Riverbend began blogging in August 2003, offering the world an eyewitness account of the realities of life during war and occupation. She tells of life in occupied Baghdad – stories of neighbours whose homes are raided by US troops, of relatives disappearing during the chaos and of her own decision not to wear the hijab- a decision that becomes unliveable as religious extremism builds.
Riverbend …… Jasmine Callan
Father …… Raad Rawi
Mother …… Badria Timimi
Cousin …… Roxana Pope
E …… Saikat Ahmed
Producer/director Claudine Toutoungi.

Posted by: annie | Dec 18 2006 1:34 utc | 6

So the aid workers were kidnapped and then let go? Just like the personel at the education department the other week?
Someone is sending messages to someone but I have long since lost track of different groups and alignments. If this was the US work who did the education department?
Good for the aid worker that they were let go. And good for Iraq. In a situation where the Red Cross/ Red Crescent is attacked it is (for lack of better worse) a very bad situation.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Dec 18 2006 3:03 utc | 8

markfromirland thinks it’s SCIRI (with US support) against Sadr. Makes sense to me for the health and the education ministry …
But the attack on the Red Cresent lacks a SCIRI motive (at least I don’t see one).

Posted by: b | Dec 18 2006 3:13 utc | 10

Some confirmation from the (Murdoch/neocon) London Times that Bush will choose the AEI strategy discussed earlier here.

President Bush is set to recommend that America sends up to 50,000 additional troops to Iraq in a last effort to stabilise the country, but will reject Tony Blair’s entreaties to start a new Middle East peace initiative.
…
Senior US officials say that Mr Bush is embracing a politically controversial plan presented to him last week by General Jack Keane, a former army vice-chief of staff, and Frederick Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. The plan focuses on a military solution in Iraq, and rejects diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbours.
General Keane and Mr Kagan told Mr Bush that a political solution in Iraq was impossible until security was established, particularly in Baghdad. The executive summary of the plan they delivered to Mr Bush begins: “Victory is still an option in Iraq”, and officials at the discussion said that Mr Bush reacted extremely positively to their proposals.

Posted by: b | Dec 18 2006 3:18 utc | 12

b:
But the attack on the Red Cresent lacks a SCIRI motive (at least I don’t see one).
All right wing governments attack liberals. This is an historic pattern. SCRI commands nothing more in Iraq than Maliki does. It is well known that the Interior Ministry does not take orders from the Iraqi government:
That post is currently occupied by Gen. Muhammad Abdullah al-Shahwani; the Iraqi government has no control or access over the IIS’s output or budget. Shahwani works directly under the auspices of the CIA station in Baghdad.
http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2006/12/would-be-iraqi-intelligence-chief.html
Sam from TII

Posted by: Sam | Dec 18 2006 4:20 utc | 14

Or to put it another way:
U.S. (not ‘coalition,’ not internationally assembled or accredited) “trainers” and “advisors” in the army, in the police, in every ministry, in the media, in the oil sector, in the parliament, throughout the judiciary, in the intelligence services. Ain’t ’sovereignty’ grand?
http://voxd.blogsome.com/2006/12/17/iraq-iio-149/

Posted by: Sam | Dec 18 2006 4:27 utc | 16

The reason SCRI cooperates:
BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) – Omar Satar Hussein — an Iraqi working as a translator for the US army — goes by the nickname “Lucky”, having survived, by his count, 37 shootings, 30 bombings and 11 mortar strikes.
His close relationship with his grandfather, however, became one more casualty of the war when public opinion in Diyala turned against the Americans in 2004.
“I met with my grandfather and he told me: ‘You have to choose between the Americans and your family’,” he said.
But by that time, it was too late.
“Everybody knew what my job was, everybody knew that I work for the army and they called me a spy, so I gave him a quick answer — the Americans. What could I do?”
“He said I was no longer part of the family. I love my dad, my mom, my brothers, but I don’t see them any more — it’s very sad.”
What is more important than family well how about breathing

Posted by: Sam | Dec 18 2006 5:08 utc | 18

The cost of a Humvee, with all the added armor, guns, electronic jammers and satellite-navigational systems, has grown seven-fold to about $225,000 a vehicle from $32,000 in 2001.
This was my favorite fact in that piece. Not the mention the fact that dem’ dar’ Humvees probably don’t have much “shelf life” in Iraq, between the bombs and the sand storms and all.

Posted by: Bea | Dec 18 2006 5:45 utc | 20

JFL,
I think when all said and done the sheer size and inertia of the military industrial complex is as responsable as anything for the Iraqi debacle. The revolving door as you say is gluted with x- military, x-pentagon, and x-politicians in a dance of death with political operatives in D.C. — must in so many ways, display and strut its plumage to keep the door revolving, or in other words “they want it” and will “put out” for it.
Of all the other reasons for the mess we’re in Iraq, none sufficiantly explain why this muck-up is so much like other muck-ups before it, that we keep repeating the same mistake over and over again — except the reasoning that it flowes from the little noticed elephant (of the military industrial complex) in the room.
Because the government and the economy have developed the very co-dependent relatinship that Ike warned against and it must(and needs to) present itself as such an aphrodisiac, to be used, that the civilian leadership finds it hard to say no. Especially a sophomoric regime like we have now. Nevertheless such a 700billion a year bureaucracy mammoth, even in heat, must necessarily not be very charming and that the sheer inertia of its size makes it simultaniously alluring in its power, but stilted, inflexable, lethargic, and so taken with its past glories — that when it comes down to the real action, it is an impotent, and hamfisted, and blundering giant. That produces the same failure, for essentially the same reasons over and over again.
Why they get away with it, and the civilian leadership continues to be seduced by it — over and over again — is the question.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 18 2006 7:32 utc | 22

@JFL
Succinct ! Well put.

Posted by: DM | Dec 18 2006 8:12 utc | 24

Upps: Larry Johnson:

In June of this year one in every 20 convoys was attacked while heading from Kuwait to Baghdad. Now that figure is approaching one in every five. Most of these attacks appear to be the work of criminal gangs intent on filling their pockets. But the ease and frequency of these attacks should keep military commanders up at night. A concerted effort could effectively shut down our resupply effort.
…
The last three months in Iraq–September, October, and November–have been the most violent since George Bush announced Mission Accomplished. And December is on track to keep pace with this disturbing trend.
…
I am waiting for the Congress to wake up and realize that no one in the military has done an assessment of our “progress” in the war. So far the only written assessments have come from the CIA and the National Intelligence Council. No one in either CENTCOM, SOCOM, JCS, or DIA appears to have done an analysis of the trends. If they have it is the best protected secret in the U.S. Governement.
…
For now the focus is on Iraq, but do not imagine for a second that the neo-cons and their patrons in the Bush Administration have given up their quest to take down Iran. The dream is alive. Iran is the longterm obsession.

The Iraq Catch-22

Posted by: b | Dec 18 2006 17:49 utc | 26

From MSNBC, Jan 14, 2005:
‘The Salvador Option’
The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq
What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called “the Salvador option”—…
link

Posted by: Noirette | Dec 18 2006 20:39 utc | 28

While Negroponte may have made institutionalized the Salvador Option, let’s not forget that before he came onboard, the beheadings were State Political Police Operations to incite domestic bloodlust, rather like mostly naked female cheerleaders at football games to fire up the testosterone levels of the largely male crowd.
@JFL #23, while those guys may have been the Leaders of the Pack, all the Pirates were on board, as a demonstration to ME countries to show what Western Elites will do to their countries if they don’t sign on the dotted line of the Plunder Agreements. Until then Western Pirates largely shut out of ME markets. Afterwards, according to Naomi Klein, who is currently writing a bk. on “Disaste Capitalism”, they signed off.
Here’s a BRILLIANT ANALYSIS from Catherine Austin Fitts, who is wayyyy ahead of the curve in understanding the system.
The other day, a natural healing practitioner explained the strategy used by a tapeworm to prosper. A tapeworm, she said, injected a chemical into its host that triggered a craving by the host for what the tapeworm wished for its dinner. By managing its host’s desire, a tapeworm manipulated its host to set aside self-interest and please its parasite. And so the tapeworm proceeded to consume its host’s energy and health, with the host doing most of the work.
The story of how a tapeworm parasitically eats away at its ecosystem came at a moment when the math lover in me was having an adverse reaction to the description of America as the new Roman Empire that seems to be inspired by the recent occupation of Iraq. The investment economics of American imperial conquest work more along the lines of the tapeworm than of the Romans.
If my rudimentary understanding of the rise and fall of ancient empires is useful, the Roman Empire brought an advancement of science, infrastructure, technology and material progress to many of the poorer lands that it conquered. In essence, Rome’s territory grew in part from its ability to increase the ‘return on investment” of many of the places it conquered.
…
The tapeworm — a parasite that over time eats its host —can more accurately describe the demonic patterns of stripping places of intellectual capital that come with American imperial conquest. The “dumbing down” so often complained about within America’s borders is a phenomenon that our military appears to be implementing globally. We seem intent on removing spiritual power and intellectual IQ as we depopulate globally, moving out the honest and competent and putting the corrupt and bureaucratic in charge.
One of the things that is most disturbing about the American tapeworm is that it has organized its leadership around private banks and defense contractors and its governance and intellectual air cover around think tanks and private universities and their tax-exempt endowments.
…
The Tapeworm Ransacking of Iraq
The economic desperation that lead up to the invasion of Iraq has been eloquently described by Chris Sanders of Sanders Research Associates and fits the patterns that SRA colleague John Laughland and his colleagues at the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, have documented in Eastern Europe. Assuming the patterns that we have seen throughout the world apply, that tapeworm’s economic desperation will feed on Iraq as follows:
– The first meal to be harvested on Iraq is the profits of invasion — from government contracts and arms trafficking to media coverage.
– The second meal to be harvested on Iraq is the resulting control of assets, including gold, oil, bank accounts and antiquities. Iraq will be stripped, shipped, or otherwise switched to new ownership. Occupiers will use Iraqi assets to leverage more debt that generates more contracts and business for the inside companies. The antiquities in Iraq and this area of the world have a special meaning and attraction for the American and British leadership networks, so don’t underestimate the value of these. The gold bugs at LeMetropole Café reported that the Americans have captured $1 billion of gold which was quite relevant as the NY Fed Banks (particularly JP Morgan, Goldman, Citibank) are running significant short positions to suppress the gold price. Such a replenishment of their stocks (or the US Treasury whom they may be trading on the account of — they usually simply move the shorts over to the taxpayers on all these types of situations) will be quite refreshing.
– The third meal on Iraq to be harvested will be “occupation management.” If Eastern Europe is representative, America will partner with local and global organized crime and other intelligence agencies to significantly increase organized crime profits from the place. Attractive children will be culled from the population for shipment to Europe and other areas for sex slavery and pedophilia. Narcotics trafficking will increase as it has in Afghanistan. The award to CSC DynCorp of a $500 million sole source contract to run police, courts and judiciary in Iraq is an important signal. After years of research, my question is whether CSC DynCorp’s core competencies relates to enforcement infrastructure designed for places with growing financial fraud, narcotics trafficking, sex slavery and control of leadership through “control files.” These are the talents that the U.S.-based economic elites need to stripmine the assets to feed its economic desperation.
– The fourth meal to be harvested on Iraq will be “fixing” it and declaring “victory.” This will involve significant government contracts to bring “Western Civilization” as defined by building those things that ensure the assets that the private corporations and investors have now acquired have the largest increase in value at no expense to themselves. A careful analysis will show expenditure rations in the “soviet” style—that is, the U.S. government will spend much more than necessary to get anything done. The banks will acquire an entirely new market. Critical to the fixing it phase is the financing of the occupation with the requirement that Iraq use the US dollar. We will print dollars and the Iraqis will use them. This is free financing for us. Next will come the payback for the not-for -profit groups. Because Christianity is an essential political support base for legitimizing the de-population of the Muslim territories, a flow of resources to the right church groups to support an expansion of their missionary ministries is likely. Progressive groups will bid for contracts to bring the rule of law and economic development and things like “the rights of women.” There will be a flow of money from foundations and universities to study how to help Iraq and to justify what we are doing.The Tapeworm’s Triumph? Confronting the Parasitic Corporate Underpinnings of U.S. Empire

Posted by: jj | Dec 19 2006 3:31 utc | 30

@jj
great minds, and all that…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 19 2006 5:34 utc | 32

Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says

The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said.
…
Shiite militias, the Pentagon report said, also received help from allies among the Iraqi police. “Shia death squads leveraged support from some elements of the Iraqi Police Service and the National Police who facilitated freedom of movement and provided advance warning of upcoming operations,” the report said.
…
Over all, the report portrayed a precarious security situation and criticized Shiite militias for the worsening violence more explicitly than previous versions had.
It said the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal Al-Maliki has not confronted despite American pressure to do so, had had the greatest negative impact on security.
…
North of Baghdad, in Diyala and Bilad, terrorists linked to Al Qaeda have been battling the Mahdi Army, it says.

There is a big contradiction here:
– “Shia death squads supported by police” are most likely Badr/SCIRI forces as SCIRI controls the police
– The “Sadr Mahdi Army is battleing Al Qaeda” which should be good from a US point of view
– But the report blames the Mahdi Army as “the greatest negative impact on security.”
Any idea how that is supposed to fit?

Posted by: b | Dec 19 2006 7:06 utc | 34

Iraqi Ex-Minister Escapes Jail in Green Zone

Iraq’s former electricity minister, the most senior official arrested on corruption charges here, made a brazen escape Sunday afternoon from an Iraqi jail in the heavily fortified Green Zone.
…
Iraqi officials initially blamed the Americans and later claimed that a private security detail used by Mr. Alsammarae when he was a minister was responsible, saying that a fleet of S.U.V.’s filled with “Westerners” pulled up to the jail and spirited him away, perhaps with the complicity of some of his jailers.
…
Western officials familiar with the investigation into his escape said that there may have been confusion about the involvement of American or other foreign private security forces because, hours before Mr. Alsammarae disappeared, a fleet of S.U.V.’s did stop by the prison.
However, the official said, they were there to pick up two Iraqi policemen for a joint search of a suspected weapons cache elsewhere in the Green Zone. The official said Mr. Alsammarae was seen at least an hour after those vehicles left.

Weapons cache WITHIN the Green Zone???

Posted by: b | Dec 19 2006 7:20 utc | 36

Uncle, I thght. so, but it was awhile ago & bears repeating. She’s so far ahead of everyone else, that it takes awhile for it to soak in – see JFL’s post. We haven’t assimilated it yet. Be Very Interesting if Fitts teamed up w/Naomi Klein for a book 🙂
visit MfI’s blog where his colleagues are keeping track of developments. errrrr…..whose blog?

Posted by: jj | Dec 19 2006 8:17 utc | 38

What’s the mission?
White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
…
The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.
The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn — then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.
…
The idea of a much larger military deployment for a longer mission is virtually off the table, at least so far, mainly for logistics reasons, say officials familiar with the debate. Any deployment of 40,000 to 50,000 would force the Pentagon to redeploy troops who were scheduled to go home.
…

They will end up with a “compromise” of sending some 15-20,000 for a few month without getting any result but more death. After that a “new strategy to victory” will be found.

Posted by: b | Dec 19 2006 8:29 utc | 40

From the NYT yesterday:

Overall, the report, which covers the period from early August to early November, described a worsening security environment in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq.
The rise in attacks was a jump of nearly 160 a week compared to the weekly average in the previous three months. Civilian casualties reached an all-time high of more than 90 a day, the report said. While the majority of attacks were directed at American forces, most of the casualties were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.

One way to see the so called “surge” in troops, judging from the above, is that over the last 3 months there has been a 20% increase in attacks on U.S. troops. In order to meet the new levels of attack, a matching 20% increase from the 150,000 troop level would be about the 30,000 increase they’ve been talking about. In all probability things are worse than we know and they need more troops just to keep up with increased challenge.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 19 2006 9:09 utc | 42

SKOD, I just read on the Wikipedia thing that “Praziquantel works by causing severe spasms and paralysis of the worms’ muscles.”
What did someone say about Maliki, or another US ally had political presence in Baghdad but no forces, they were based in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Not looking too good in Iraq there.
I am starved for information re: British, US, Netherlands, French and other forces in Afghanistan, and of course my country’s Canadian forces as well.
They don’t seem to be winning either, with a Taliban resurgence predicted for the Spring. Yes I know Taliban is another name for Afghanistan’s last stable period.

Posted by: jonku | Dec 19 2006 12:11 utc | 44