I'll Be Damned! Check Out The Iraqi Army!!
Iraq ready for "final" battle with al Qaeda
BAGHDAD Iraqi security forces have begun a "decisive" final offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major stronghold in the north, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday.
He said Iraqi soldiers and police were being sent to Mosul, where a massive blast blamed on al Qaeda killed 40 people and wounded 220 on Wednesday, and an operations room had been set up in the city, 390 km north of Baghdad.
U.S. military commanders say al Qaeda, blamed for most big bombings in Iraq, has regrouped in the northern provinces after being squeezed out of western Anbar province and from around Baghdad during security crackdowns last year.
They describe Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, as al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
"We have set up an operations room in Nineveh to complete the final battle with al Qaeda along with guerrillas and members of the previous regime," Maliki said, referring to other Sunni militants the Shi'ite-led government says remain loyal to former leader Saddam Hussein.
"Today our forces started moving to Mosul. What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive," he said during a ceremony for victims of violence in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in southern Iraq, broadcast on state television.
Maliki gave no details of the number of Iraqi troops involved or the scale of the operation. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari did not have details but said it had been launched at Maliki's request.
"Security is very weak there and the security forces need to be reinforced," Askari said.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the Mosul push would include 3,000 extra police. Iraqi security officials in the city said no reinforcements had arrived yet.
BIGGEST THREAT
U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched a series of offensives in northern provinces this year targeting al Qaeda in Iraq.
The U.S. military calls the group, which commanders say is largely foreign-led, the biggest threat to Iraq's security. The military said this week that al Qaeda militants killed 3,870 civilians and wounded almost 18,000 in 4,500 attacks last year.
"We defeated al Qaeda, now there is just Nineveh province where they escaped to, and Kirkuk," Maliki said, referring to another northern city.
During his trip to Kerbala, Maliki met Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Karbalai was lightly wounded in a bomb attack in the city late on Thursday.
Maliki called the bombing a "criminal act."
U.S. military commanders say al Qaeda's influence in its former strongholds has been greatly diminished but that it remains a dangerous enemy in Mosul and other northern areas.
Despite frequent attacks in northern Iraq, overall violence has fallen sharply across the country, with the number of attacks down 60 percent since last June.
The fall in attacks has been credited to an extra 30,000 U.S. troops that became fully deployed last June, the growth of neighborhood police units after Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs turned against al Qaeda and better Iraqi security forces.
"Now we have a real army. The days when the militants could do anything in front of our armed forces are gone," Maliki said.
U.S. commanders in northern Iraq said Wednesday's massive blast, which left a crater the size of a multi-storey building, was in an unoccupied building they said was used by al Qaeda to store weapons and tons of explosives.
On Thursday, the Nineveh province police director was killed by a suicide bomber as he toured the site of the original blast.
Story Here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WOW! This is what OUR Troops have been doing is training the Iraqi Troops to protect themselves and it look's pretty damn good to me :-)
WAY TO GO TROOPS!!!
WAY TO GO IRAQ!!!!
SEMPER FI
BAGHDAD Iraqi security forces have begun a "decisive" final offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq to push the Sunni Islamist militants out of their last major stronghold in the north, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Friday.
He said Iraqi soldiers and police were being sent to Mosul, where a massive blast blamed on al Qaeda killed 40 people and wounded 220 on Wednesday, and an operations room had been set up in the city, 390 km north of Baghdad.
U.S. military commanders say al Qaeda, blamed for most big bombings in Iraq, has regrouped in the northern provinces after being squeezed out of western Anbar province and from around Baghdad during security crackdowns last year.
They describe Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, as al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.
"We have set up an operations room in Nineveh to complete the final battle with al Qaeda along with guerrillas and members of the previous regime," Maliki said, referring to other Sunni militants the Shi'ite-led government says remain loyal to former leader Saddam Hussein.
"Today our forces started moving to Mosul. What we are planning in Nineveh will be decisive," he said during a ceremony for victims of violence in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala in southern Iraq, broadcast on state television.
Maliki gave no details of the number of Iraqi troops involved or the scale of the operation. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari did not have details but said it had been launched at Maliki's request.
"Security is very weak there and the security forces need to be reinforced," Askari said.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf said the Mosul push would include 3,000 extra police. Iraqi security officials in the city said no reinforcements had arrived yet.
BIGGEST THREAT
U.S. and Iraqi troops have launched a series of offensives in northern provinces this year targeting al Qaeda in Iraq.
The U.S. military calls the group, which commanders say is largely foreign-led, the biggest threat to Iraq's security. The military said this week that al Qaeda militants killed 3,870 civilians and wounded almost 18,000 in 4,500 attacks last year.
"We defeated al Qaeda, now there is just Nineveh province where they escaped to, and Kirkuk," Maliki said, referring to another northern city.
During his trip to Kerbala, Maliki met Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Karbalai was lightly wounded in a bomb attack in the city late on Thursday.
Maliki called the bombing a "criminal act."
U.S. military commanders say al Qaeda's influence in its former strongholds has been greatly diminished but that it remains a dangerous enemy in Mosul and other northern areas.
Despite frequent attacks in northern Iraq, overall violence has fallen sharply across the country, with the number of attacks down 60 percent since last June.
The fall in attacks has been credited to an extra 30,000 U.S. troops that became fully deployed last June, the growth of neighborhood police units after Sunni Arab tribal sheikhs turned against al Qaeda and better Iraqi security forces.
"Now we have a real army. The days when the militants could do anything in front of our armed forces are gone," Maliki said.
U.S. commanders in northern Iraq said Wednesday's massive blast, which left a crater the size of a multi-storey building, was in an unoccupied building they said was used by al Qaeda to store weapons and tons of explosives.
On Thursday, the Nineveh province police director was killed by a suicide bomber as he toured the site of the original blast.
Story Here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WOW! This is what OUR Troops have been doing is training the Iraqi Troops to protect themselves and it look's pretty damn good to me :-)
WAY TO GO TROOPS!!!
WAY TO GO IRAQ!!!!
SEMPER FI
posted by Marie's Two Cents | 12:26 PM
12 Comments:
Awesome job! Train them and let's get out of there. They don't want U.S. bases and they want us to leave as quickly as possible.
And...look what Karzai just said:
"The fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, a very small part of it may be in Afghanistan, the bigger part is in the sanctuaries where they get trained where they get motivated that is where we should go and unless we do that this vicious circle will keep going."
I don't think he means that al-Qaeda is training in Iraq...but rather in ....Pakistan! Uh-oh!
Bin Laden is in Pakistan? Naw...
The Iraqi's want us to leave when they are able stand on their own and are able to defend themselves from an attacks. We will have bases there for many years to come.
Some of your visitors are new to this Marie and recent revelations by an FBI agent that debriefed Saddam Hussein have proved the anti war movement to be wrong about every surmise they have had on the war in Iraq. The Truth be Told. It won't matter to most on the left though they have been so thoroughly brain bleached they wouldn't know the truth it smacked them in the face like a cold mackerel as they just have.
Is Bin Laden in Pakistan or Iran? Let's ask the experts on the left where he is, they have been right so many times before they have to know. Where is Bin Laden?
Maybe it would be better if we asked a military expert like Walter Cronkite, he was so right about us being defeated in Vietnam right after the Tet Offensive. Yeah that's right, even though General Giap of the NVA was ready to throw in the towel because the NVA had just been so thoroughly and completely defeated on every front Walter Cronkite declared the war was lost for America. In actuality it was only lost in his own leftwing feeble mind. Right after that humiliating defeat General Giap was recalled to Hanoi for such a loss but the American left saved his biscuits from being burnt by surrendering instead. (True Story)
This can't ne Marie, Iraq is a failure. The Democrats are sure of it and of course they are always right" NOT"
Great post!
Semper Fi indeed Marie!!!
Awww J_G, you're still using that General Giap letter? It's not true J_G, honestly, you need to research that a bit further than rushlimbaugh.com. That's been proven repeatedly to be false for at least the last 15 years! I thought people gave up on that after the 2004 election when some tried to tie that same quote to John Kerry and his group. But, Rush always finds a way to resurrect false information and then repackage it. Nice try though!
The Iraqis do not want U.S. bases in Iraq. That is all over the news, both here and in Iraq. They want the U.S. to stay for a while but no long term bases. (True Story)
Tonight on 60 Minutes it was revealed that Iraq DID NOT HAVE WMD AND THAT SADDAM HAD NO TIES TO BIN LADEN AND/OR AL-QAEDA! That's not really news. What is news is that we SAID WE KNEW WHERE THE WMD WERE AND THAT SADDAM AND BIN LADEN WERE MATES. Tragic, really.
(The right will now reply on this thread that the same FBI agent said that Saddam had intentions of reconstituting the WMD program. Great, I will address this, too)
You can't invade a country on what it would like to do in the future. Holy Precedence! You'd have countries invading other countries all over the globe ("I heard that Putin said he wanted to build another long-range missile so we are going to invade." ---Signed, Sarkozy) It doesn't work that way.
J_G, you should take a page out of Wordsmith's playbook and say that Bush Doctrine supercedes international law. Although encylopedically absurd, it is far more palatable than claiming that Iraq had WMD.
To make the case that opposition to the war emboldens the enemy is so incredibly imaginative and naive that words nearly escape me. But not quite.
To blow yourself up in the name of Allah sounds to me to be fairly emboldened. But, who knows J_G? You could be right. Maybe they sit around and play Triple Yahtzee while drinking Dr. Pepper and occasionally turn on C-SPAN. Nowadays you just never know!
The federalist makes points that sound as if I were watching the anti war protests of the 1960's. The absurd notion that anti war protesters weren't a major contributing factor for losing in Vietnam can only be described as naive and childish. After the Tet offensive the NVA was almost decimated by their losses and we still had the manpower and will fight on but it was the misreporting of the news by the MSM and particularly Walter Cronkite that made LBJ decide not run again for President and embolden not only the North Vietnamese but the anti war left. At that stage the anti war left had not been effective in reducing the popular opinion of the war but afterwards LBJ was quoted saying "we lost Cronkite". You can read all claptrap you want federalist guy but you're dead wrong and you know it. Weasel words and obscuring the truth with accusations that I only get my facts from a radio talk show host shows the shallowness of your knowledge of the truth and the events as they actually happened. The Giap letter may have been a fraud perpetrated by some dishonest person but the as the general himself said "The war was fought on many fronts. At that time the most important one was American public opinion" He was then recalled in humiliation back to Hanoi for his loss, never to command a front line unit again. ouch, that smarts eh?
As far as The US invading Iraq, the world believed Saddam had WMD's, he made the world believe he had WMD's, he fooled his own Generals to believe he WMD's and we went there to disarm Saddam Hussein of his WMD's book closed. All within our own laws and permission from Congress. We have the right to defend ourselves with preemptive incursion. That's the American way, you don't like it, I don't care. Your opinions are basically worthless to me anyway because they are based on cowardice and appeasement.
President Bush has made it clear repeatedly that we could declare VICTORY in Iraq when they were able to defend theselves, govern themselves and be an ally in the war on terror.
I'd say that Iraqis have met those conditions.
I agree completely with Jennifer here, Marie.
Great post, girlfriend! Of course the liberals are taking credit for any progress we make over there. I'm sure you've heard about that absurdity.
Federalist,
Karzai is in Afghanistan!
I dont think Karzai was dictating Policy for Iraq!
Karzai meant we have to get these terrorists wherever they breed and re-group.
Like President Bush said, It's going to be a long war, like one we have never seen before.
No matter what the Democrats tell you, they are going to have to fight this war, so if they say they wont, dont believe it.
We will have Bases in Iraq, we have NEVER Liberated a Country and not left at least 1 base.
We still have Troops in Kosovo/Bosnia for Pete's sake.
Jenn,
Exactly!
LMAO! Walter Cronkite
Ken,
That's what they would have us believe isnt it?
Angel,
Thank's :-)
Mike,
I agree, and the Iraqi's will be a valuable ally in the Global War On Terror :-)
Gayle,
Well the Democrat's are dingbats! The ONLY ones who can take credit for the Surge working is the Troops themselves and General Patraeus!
Excellent work our troops have done and it looks like the Iraqi Army will be standing on it's own very soon. Maliki said a short time ago the Mosul would be the site of the decisive battle for Iraq. Seems he will be right and Iraq will win.
Indigo,
This sure looks promising doesnt it?
The Iraqi's are ready to take it to the enemy, this is awesome :-)
Anonymous,
It sure is tough to even comment to you people that know absolutely nothing about what's going on in Iraq!
If Iraq want's to branch off into 3sections that's thier business! It's thier Country!
All we do is train the Iraqi Military and keep the damn peace while the Government get's it's shit together.
When are you nutjobs ever going to get it through your thick skulls that Iraq is a sovereign Nation and what goes on there is thier own business.
the federalist said:
(The right will now reply on this thread that the same FBI agent said that Saddam had intentions of reconstituting the WMD program. Great, I will address this, too)
So? I'm waiting....
Post a Comment
<< Home