Iraq: View from the ground, Things are NOT getting better
Quotes from this WaPo article illustrate that contrary to what Bush says, Iraq is not getting better.
In the first month after the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division took over security duties in northern Iraq in late fall, roadside bombs killed or wounded more than a quarter of the 34-man platoon…
“It’s definitely more dangerous this time around,” agreed Spec. David Jones, 24, of New York, on his second tour in Iraq with the platoon. “I didn’t expect to lose so many friends so soon.”..
Heavy-handed sweeps through Baiji by U.S. forces in 2003 and 2004 left many people angry, frightened and humiliated, residents say.
“Most of the people fighting the Americans tell me they do nothing for us but destroy the houses and capture people,” Adil Faez Jeel, a director at the Baiji refinery, said of the U.S. forces. “There are no jobs, no water, no electricity.”..
“When Saddam was in power, we used to go to Mosul, to Tikrit, to Baghdad. . . . It was safer all over,” said Salah Aub Ramadan Obaydi, 65, a retired teacher.. Now “people get shot every day and no one cares.”..
“We have almost no support from the local people. We talk to 1,000 people and one will come forward.”
it continues with a somewhat gory scene
“I saw this big piece of flesh and thought it was a goat or cow. I thought, ‘Wow, these guys put an IED in a dead animal,’ ” he recalled. He went on, hoping to find his men sitting in the truck. But as he got closer, he recalled, “I didn’t see the truck. I started seeing limbs and body parts.” Goudy tripped over what was left of one soldier. Then he found the only survivor of the five soldiers in the Humvee, blinded and screaming.
“It was horrible,” Bartlett said. “We had to pick up body parts 200 meters away.” The Humvee was “ripped in half and shredded,” he said, by a monster bomb later found to contain 1,000 pounds of explosives and two antitank mines, with a 155mm artillery round on top.
The attack left the platoon outraged.
“I felt so angry and violated,” said Goudy, of Clarksville, Tenn. “We all wanted to go out and tear up the city, kick down the doors, shoot the civilians, blow up the mosque.”
It is clear that the Iraqis don’t want us there. But we have a pathological liar in the WhiteHouse. Just because he says Iraq is getting better doesn’t make it so.
What are they putting in the water of the rest of the DC politicians that they can allow this grotesque charade to continue?
* * *
