Daily Iraq War News - End the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

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17 US casualties; Afghan "stalemate"; Billions wasted, missing in Iraq

One U.S. service memberwas wounded by a bomb in Basra on Friday.

Seven U.S. troops died and 9 more were injured in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions. Two servicemen died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday, and three in fighting in the east the same day. The 140,000 foreign troops appear headed for more than 1,700 casualties this year according to military statistics.

There have been ten times as many Taliban casualties already this year (including 7,000 dead), however the Taliban numbers may be several times larger than that of the troops. General David Petraeus still proclaims that the Taliban are being beaten.....while at the same time claiming that the U.S. may need to remain in Afghanistan "for years" due to the fighting. Pentagon officials are beginning to use the term "Stalemate" to describe the 10-year-long war in Afghanistan.

Col. Lawrence Sellin was recently disciplined after generals read an opinion piece he had written revealing "little of substance" was done at the coalition's joint command in Afghanistan. The senior American staff officer was fired after publishing a rant against the bureaucracy and endless PowerPoint briefings at NATO's Kabul headquarters. He painted a picture of a bloated organization, swollen by the vanity of commanders, where endless slide show presentations are given to brief "cognitively challenged" generals. A spokesman for the joint command confirmed Sellin, an army reservist with a PhD who was on his second tour of Afghanistan, had been repositioned because of his remarks. "He's no longer working at the joint command, he has been sent back to his unit."

Afghan officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign aides working for a female candidate in the western province of Herat while fighting continued throughout the country. Forty-eight Afghan schoolgirls were taken to hospital after a suspected gas-poisoning attack on their school in the east of Kabul.

A bomb blast in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Monday killed a district chief and injured up to five others. Officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign aides working for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.

A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted - more than 10 percent of the roughly $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq - according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects. Investigators blamed delays on unrealistic timeframes, multiple partners and funding sources, and security problems at sites....everything except the people in the Pentagon who were in charge.

Over the weekend, there were at least 39 casualties throughout Iraq as sporadic violence continued. posted 30 August, 2010

Marine Gen. plans "Several more years" of war; 16 ISAF casualties; 470+ Iraqi casualties; 600,000 more Paks evacuated

Unwilling to concede defeat in a war that has already lasted more than 9 years, the commandant of the United States Marine Corps said Tuesday that he plans for U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan for "several more years" of war. General James Conway attributes ongoing attacks by Taliban to the expectation of U.S. withdrawal in 2011....rather than the occupation of Afghanistan by American forces. General Conway claimed his Marines, working with other foreign troops and Afghan forces, are making progress. The sons of Vietnam are repeating their fathers' mistakes.

International Security Assistance [sic] Force (ISAF) casualties continue to mount. Three Spanish soldiers were killed by an Afghan police trainee on their base in Badghis province on Wednesday. An Australian soldier was shot dead on Tuesday. Two French soldiers were killed and three more were injured in attacks on Monday. One Hungarian soldier died and three more were injured on an attack on their convoy in northeastern Baghlan province on Monday. One American died on Sunday and another was killed by an IED on Monday. Another U.S. soldier died Tuesday from injuries he received in combat.

On Thursday, Afghan fighters stormed an Afghan police post and killed eight officers in northern Kunduz province. Some civilians were also injured during the fighting. A roadside bomb killed two Afghan soldiers in southern Zabul province.

Iraqis spent Thursday cleaning up from Wednesday bomb attacks from one end of the country to another that left at least 92 Iraqis dead and another 379 injured.
One car bomb in Kut killed least 20 people and wounded 90. In Baghdad, a truck bomb killed 15 people and wounded at least 56 others. There were also bombings in Mosul, Kerbala, Dujail, Ramadi, Fallujah, Muqdadiya, Samarra, Tirkit Buhriz, and Basra.

The Pentagon claims that these attacks are evidence that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has emboldened insurgents to move into the vacuum left by American patrols. However, most of the areas where the attacks occurred have seen little of U.S. troop presence for months as those soldier retreated to their bases.

Iraqis are concerned that the spreading violence is due mostly to political opposition groups vying for power in the aftermath of U.S. withdrawal but also from "dark forces" from outside the country who want to creat havoc. Leading the list of external suspects are clandestine operatives from Iraq, Russia, Israel, Europe....and America. The U.S. has more than 50,000 paramilitary contractors and operatives from the CIA and other DHS agencies milling around in Iraq. Some Iraqis believe that America wants to remain in Iraq and will try to create an excuse for troops to stay. Others are more concerned that rival internal groups - many with external support from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere - will tear the country apart as they fight for territorial control.

Pakistan ordered the immediate evacuation of up to 600,000 people from towns and villages along southern reaches of the Indus River as unprecedented monthlong floods sweep toward the sea. “We are sitting on the roof of our office now, waiting for vehicles to help evacuate us,” Sajad Ali Shah, a local government official, said by telephone from Shahdadkot, a city of 400,000 people in northern Sindh province, as water entered streets. About 17.2 million people have already lost homes and livelihoods to inundations that have killed 1,542 people, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says. posted 26 August, 2010

13 US Casualties; US airstrikes kill Afghan police, civilians; $800+ million pledged to aid Paks

Three U.S. troops were killed and five injured in fighting in the Jaji district of eastern Paktiya province, about 12 miles from the border with Pakistan. Another soldier was killed by a homemade bomb in Southern Afghanistan. A Marine was killed on Friday and two more soldiers were pronounced dead on Saturday. The deaths bring the number of total international forces killed or injured in Afghanistan this month to 96, including 57 Americans, including 28 dead.

Also, an American solider was killed in a rocket attack near Basra, Iraq, on Sunday. The death raises to at least 4,416 the number of U.S. military personal killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

A British soldier killed in a gun battle in southern Nad-e Ali in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Saturday. Two Australian soldiers were killed, and two injured when an IED exploded near their vehicle during a patrol.

In western Afghanistan's Herat province, insurgents Saturday ambushed a convoy carrying a provincial council member running for a seat in next month's elections for the national parliament, killing the man's brother.

U.S. airstrikes mistakenly killed three Afghan policeman in Jowzjan province on Saturday. In Farah province, in western Afghanistan, a woman and two children were accidentally killed in an airstrike that was aimed at insurgents. The U.S. expressed "regrets" for both of these war crimes. A U.S. drone in Pakistan hit two vehicles in the village of Anghar Kala near Miran Shah in northern Waziristan on Saturday.

Several people were killed or injured in fighting in Kirkuk, Mosul, Mussayab Baghdad, Baqouba and Taji over the weekend as political violence caused by the war continues throughout Iraq.

Former Deputy National Security Advisor under George W. Bush took over as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq this week for the Barack Obama regime.

Neoconservatives in the U.S. are claiming "Victory" in Iraq even as more soldiers are being sent there and advocates for "global projection of force" remain in control of the Pentagon and U.S. foreign policy. Next week young men and women from Texas' 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Hood will be sent to Iraq for "training". The regiment will join Fort Hood's III Corps in Iraq, and the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team will deploy soon after. A protest and other actions, led by Iraq Veteran's Against the War (IVAW) will take place in Killeen, Texas today.

The world has given or pledged more than $800 million to help Pakistan cope with massive floods, the foreign minister said Sunday, as a surging river in the south led authorities to urge thousands more people to evacuate. The floods began in late July in the northwest after exceptionally heavy monsoon rains, expanding rivers that have since swamped eastern Punjab province and Sindh province in the south. The deluge has affected about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory, straining the civilian government as it also struggles against al-Qaida and Taliban violence. At least 6 million people have been made homeless and 20 million affected overall. posted 22 August, 2010