Eideard

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared a new dawn on Saturday as Iraq celebrated the departure of American troops at a ceremony held amid tight security and without Maliki’s key political rivals…

Saturday marked the end of the 2008 security pact agreed by then-President George W. Bush and was the last day for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and allowed the Shi’ite majority to take power.

Except for a small military contingent attached to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the last of the American troops departed nearly two weeks ago.

“I declare this day, the 31st of December, on which the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq is complete, as a national day,” said Maliki in a televised ceremony, surrounded by security officials in dress uniforms.

“It is Iraq’s day. It is a feast for all Iraqis. It is the dawn of a new day in Mesopotamia … Your country is free.”

Maliki said he would work to maintain freedom and “respect political, intellectual and religious diversity…”

Read the rest of this entry »

Baghdad municipal workers remove US blast walls
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Iraq’s capital wants the United States to apologize and pay $1 billion for the damage done to the city not by bombs but by blast walls and Humvees since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The city’s government issued its demands in a statement on Wednesday that said Baghdad’s infrastructure and aesthetics have been seriously damaged by the American military. “The U.S. forces changed this beautiful city to a camp in an ugly and destructive way, which reflected deliberate ignorance and carelessness about the simplest forms of public taste,” the statement said.

“Due to the huge damage, leading to a loss the Baghdad municipality cannot afford…we demand the American side apologize to Baghdad’s people and pay back these expenses…”

Baghdad’s neighborhoods have been sealed off by miles of concrete blast walls, transforming the city into a tangled maze that contributes to massive traffic jams. Despite a sharp reduction in overall violence in recent years only 5 percent of the walls have been removed, officials said.

The heavy blast walls have damaged sewer and water systems, pavement and parks, said Hakeem Abdul Zahra, the city spokesman.

If you know the least amount of history you’d already be aware that we helped rebuild cities we destroyed in just about all of our wars since 1941. The big one, of course, being a war where we were attacked.

Staying up-to-date, we should at least declare a special war tax on everyone who voted George W. back into a second term in office.

Jadriyah Lake in better days

In the spring of 2008, Gen. David H. Petraeus decided he had spent enough time gazing from his helicopter at an empty and desolate lake on the banks of the Tigris River. He ordered the lake refilled and turned into a water park for all of Baghdad to enjoy.

The military doctrine behind the project holds that cash can be as effective as bullets. Under Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, that principle gained unprecedented emphasis, and it has become a cornerstone of the war effort in Afghanistan, now under Petraeus’s command.

But today the Baghdad park is nearly waterless, more than two years after a U.S. military inauguration ceremony that included a marching band and water-scooter rides. Much of the compound is in ruins, swing sets have become piles of twisted steel, and the personal watercraft’s engines have been gutted for spare parts…

In many cases, such as that of the Jadriyah Lake park, the investments under the plan, known as the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, have created no more than a temporary illusion of progress. They have also shown a lack of U.S. foresight and highlighted the shortcomings of an Iraqi government the Americans were trying to boost…

“We did run a danger of looking like Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burned,” Lt. Col. Dennis Yates said in a recent interview…

Bread and Circuses was the first thought I had about the project. Our military hasn’t advanced any further beyond Nero than has Congress over the Roman Senate.

Gen. Ray Odierno, who from 2007 to 2010 held each of the top two military jobs in Iraq, declined to be interviewed for this article. He has called the Commander’s Emergency Response Program one of the key factors that allowed U.S. commanders to improve security in Baghdad…

“Our efforts were often derailed by the military losing millions of dollars in CERP funding in the name of ‘If we don’t spend it, we will lose the money to the Afghanistan effort,’ ” wrote Blake Stone, an adjunct professor at the United States Naval War College.

RTFA. Several pages – brightened essentially by the ease of lifting money from the US military with no accountability. Brigands accustomed to stealing from ordinary civilian institutions in the Middle East must have felt like Iraq became the Promised Land when they saw Americans bringing in money by the pallet-load to distribute to schemes with little or no chance of bearing fruit.

Click to watch the video

This video is from the live telecast, last night, of the 4-2 Stryker Brigade, the last U.S. combat brigade leaving Iraq. They drove from Baghdad to the Kuwait border. And crossed over – clearing their weapons as they left Iraq.

There is a great deal of historic review and analysis. Chickenhawk Republicans and Democrats will hate it.

World’s leading example of bunker architecture

The largest U.S. embassy in the world has very large problems keeping track of vehicles and millions of dollars of other equipment, from cell phones to medical supplies, according to a new State Department Inspector General’s report…

One glaring problem is tracking down vehicles or even knowing how many the embassy needs, according to the report. There are 1,168 standard and armored vehicles assigned to the embassy but 159 are unaccounted for and an additional 282 don’t show up on the official database.

“Motor pool personnel have struggled to ascertain the owners and users of these vehicles to properly inventory them,” the report says. “Denying fuel and maintenance to vehicles until they are accounted for may solve this issue.”

The inspector general warns too little oversight of medical supplies, especially of controlled substances, such as morphine and oxycodone, risks “a significant vulnerability for misuse and fraud.”

Millions of dollars of communications gear are improperly tracked, according to the audit. Cell phones that are unassigned still rack up monthly charges, wasting an estimated $286,000 dollars a year.

“Some assigned phones are underused or unused, and extensive charges for overseas calls have been associated with both assigned and unassigned phones,” the report says. The investigators calculated “the embassy could save more than $740,000 by disconnecting unassigned and underused phone lines and curtailing international calls…”

In other words, Embassy Baghdad is still being run like Congress. We get to pay for both.

“It’s engraved – Property of Halliburton Leasing”

In a confidence game that made a mockery of the United States military’s most secure compound in Iraq, a ring of Americans posing as contractors and their Nepalese drivers used tanker trucks, forged documents and sheer brazenness to steal at least $40 million worth of jet and diesel fuel from an Army depot, according to an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Virginia.

Until they were caught, the dozen or so men in the ring operated an astoundingly successful con game in a war zone, the papers contend, apparently showing up in Iraq with nothing more than fake IDs and a talent for forging official requisition forms. Each time they filled up the tanker trucks at the depot in American headquarters near the Baghdad International Airport, the men would simply drive downtown and sell the fuel on the local black market…

The operation described in the indictment contained elements of an international crime thriller and a Cheech & Chong movie: expletive-filled e-mail messages detailing payment schedules to ring members; a phony security contractor whose nickname was Bong; and the forged signature of a military contracting officer named Sergeant Bonus. The ring members said they worked for a company called Future Services.

An Army spokesman said, “…it would be inappropriate for the Army to comment at this time.”

So, what does “most secure” mean if you can simply drive in and out the gate with stolen goods? Show someone a legit looking piece of paper and you could walk off with the Pentagon bathrooms.

Universally-accepted decoration for U.S. embassies
Daylife/AFP/Getty Images

The new US embassy in Baghdad has been opened, with a dedication ceremony attended by the Iraqi president. The compound is one of the biggest and most expensive embassies the US has ever built, and was opened amid heavy security in the Iraqi capital…

The new complex, which will house a total of 4,000 staff, has been built with security very much in mind. Oh. Are we to infer the folks who live nearby, in the nation, perhaps the entire region – don’t care to lay down their lives for the United States?

The opening ceremony was led by Ambassador Ryan Crocker and attended by US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Mr Talabani thanked the US for helping to create a democratic Iraq “which will serve as a model for other peoples of the eastern world”.

There is little I might offer in comment about this spew. The United States built a command and control center to manage imperial armies throughout the Middle East. The whole nightmare was scripted by fools like Dick Cheney and Jeb Bush with his brother as front-man and flunky.

Their schedule required the handover to an Iraqi civilian government and celebration of this Maginot Zone of Democracy. The fact this has been a costly failure forced the celebration to happen with a certainty – ahead of Obama’s inauguration.

U.S. Soldiers pose for souvenir photos beneath the Crossed Sabres in Baghdad
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

U.S. officials have withdrawn from the Saddam Hussein-era palace they have occupied in Baghdad since 2003, a sign of the change of power when their troops come under Iraqi authority.

The U.S. force in Iraq, now more than 140,000 strong, has operated since 2003 under a U.N. Security Council resolution which expires at midnight on New Year’s Eve. From January 1, U.S. troops will operate with authority granted by the Iraqi government under a pact agreed by Washington and Baghdad…

U.S. and Iraqi officials are planning a ceremony for the morning of New Year’s Day to formally hand over control of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified central sector of the capital that houses Western diplomats and Iraqi government offices.

In recent weeks U.S. diplomats have gradually moved into a newly-built compound, the world’s largest U.S. embassy, leaving behind a sprawling yellow marble palace of ousted dictator Saddam, which looms over the Tigris River.

U.S. officials ruled Iraq directly from the palace for more than a year after toppling Saddam in 2003, and it has remained a symbol of what many Iraqis consider a military occupation even as their nascent elected government has gained confidence.

Some 15,000 prisoners held at U.S. military detention camps must either be charged with crimes under Iraqi law or set free, although the procedure for doing so may take many months.

Contractors working for U.S. troops will be subject to Iraqi criminal law, and U.S. soldiers can be tried in Iraqi courts in narrow circumstances for serious crimes committed off duty.

All the delights of phony independence while Big Oil sorts out the last of their own treaties.

Demonstrators carry shoes in support of al-Zaidi
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

An Egyptian man said on Wednesday he was offering his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush in Baghdad on Sunday,

The daughter, Amal Saad Gumaa, said she agreed with the idea. “This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero,” she told Reuters by telephone.

Her father, Saad Gumaa, said he had called Dergham, Zaidi’s brother, to tell him of the offer. “I find nothing more valuable than my daughter to offer to him, and I am prepared to provide her with everything needed for marriage,” he added.

Zaidi’s gesture has struck a chord across the Arab world, where President Bush is widely despised for invading Iraq in 2003 and for his support for Israel.

Zaidi’s response to the offer isn’t known. He hasn’t been allowed access to the press or public since his protest.

BTW – Security forces destroyed his shoes just in case they were ready to explode.

AFP/Getty Images

Baghdad has promised to take 20 percent of what the U.S. military estimates to be 100,000 guards across Iraq into the Iraqi security forces and give others civilian jobs or training.

But the guards, who get paid an average $300 a month by the U.S. military, are troubled about the future even though the government in Baghdad has publicly praised their contribution to improving security and said they would be looked after.

Some government officials eye the unofficial forces, which include many former Sunni Arab insurgents, with suspicion. Some guards fear they may be arrested because of their past.

“We all want jobs in the police, but we can’t be sure,” said Amir Hardan Jadoua, 23, as another fighter waved a truck though their checkpoint. “The government never talks to us, so we’re in the dark about all decisions. We’re getting worried.”

The U.S. military will start handing control of the units to the government from October 1, when Baghdad will pay tens of thousands of guards in and around the capital. Other areas are expected to follow after that.

The article has a bit more color and depth than the usual straight-up dry stuff from Reuters. Actually admits the “revisionist” Ba’athist soldiers are motivated by the $10 a day they get from Uncle Sugar. Now, if we could only get CNN and FOX to notice that?