The New York Times is reporting that Blackwater Executives started paying Iraqi officials around $1 million in 2007 to silence them about the shooting death of 17 Iraqi civilians. The information was provided by four former Blackwater executives in interviews. You can read the entire article here.
It looks like Iraq wants us out by date certain now: Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday no security agreement with the United States could be reached unless it included a “specific deadline” for the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. Last week, U.S. and Iraqi officials said the two sides had agreed tentatively […]
The Green Zone has been hit yet again: Shiite militants are hammering the U.S.-protected Green Zone with rockets and mortars for the fourth day this week. Thick, black smoke is billowing from inside the heavily fortified home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government. And Shiites are protesting in huge numbers: Tens of thousands of […]
Twelve Army captains that have served in Iraq penned an op-ed in today’s Washington Post calling for the immediate withdrawal of our troops. Here are some highlights from it: What does Iraq look like on the ground? It’s certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable […]
That is an article in Today’s Washington Post, which describes sheets our troops are given to describe lawmakers visiting: The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) […]
John Boehner said it would only take 60-90 days to know if the surge is working. Last week, we past that 60 day mark and are on the way to the 90 day mark. So does this article indicate success in Iraq? The U.S. military death toll in March, the first full month of the […]
The New York Times: The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded. […]
John Mark Karr, Katrina, new hurricanes, Tom Cruise, and now Warren Jeffs. Wow with all that going on in the world, it is no wonder why little stories like this get buried: Police found more than two dozen bodies across the capital Tuesday and the government said 73 people had died in fighting in the […]
There’s a war in Iraq? I thought the only thing going on was with the John Mark Karr character. Well it must be going well over there then since our great news doesn’t say anything about it. Violence in Iraq left nearly 50 people dead Monday in a suicide car bombing and clashes between Shiite […]
We dare not call what is happening in Iraq a civil war, even though this news does support that claim: July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June […]