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Crocker: Surge Has Given Iraqis 'Breathing Room' For Politics
And you thought the surge hadn't yielded tangible political gains. According to Amb. Crocker, the surge has "changed the dynamic" politically "for the better," as it has given Iraqis the "time and space to reflect on the kind of country they want." Significantly, Crocker is not conceding that reconciliation is failing, but attempting to change the terms of the debate.
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Comments (8)
JGabriel wrote on September 10, 2007 3:04 PM:Returning to Petraeus's charts and numbers, it seems clear that Petraeus has selected the worst months for different statistics (civilian deaths, IED deaths, etc.) to use for comparison to the most recent statistics.
However, that kind of manipulation will be unconvincing, even to the those with little understanding of statistice, if the current numbers are not *significantly* better than the the numbers cherry-picked for comparison.
So, in order to shore up his arguments, Petraeus *needs* good numbers for July/August.
How long do you think it will be before we discover that the July/August statistics have either been made up or grossly manipulated to provide the numbers Petraeus needed for today's presentation?
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john mccutchen wrote on September 10, 2007 3:05 PM:9 Americans died today. An ABC poll found that most Iraqis want nothing to do with AlQaeda except when they're attacking US troops. Bush is arming Sunni insurgents
Cue Howard Beale
YouTube
Hoplite wrote on September 10, 2007 3:16 PM:The Shias are not ready to `make nice' with the Baathists who murdered, raped, tortured, etc Shias for decades under the rule of Saddam Hussein, i.e. a dictator that the US once supported.
Eat shit and die Crocker!!
Iraq: The Way to Go
By Peter W. Galbraith
Volume 54, Number 13 · August 16, 2007
[snip]
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC, previously known as SCIRI), which is Iraq's leading Shiite party and a critical component of Prime Minister al-Maliki's coalition.
He is the sole survivor of eight brothers. During Saddam's rule Baathists executed six of them.
On August 29, 2003, a suicide bomber, possibly linked to the Baathists, blew up his last surviving brother, and predecessor as SCIRI leader, at the shrine of Ali in Najaf.
Moqtada al-Sadr, Hakim's main rival, comes from Iraq's other prominent Shiite religious family. Saddam's Baath regime murdered his father and two brothers in 1999.
Earlier, in April 1980, the regime had arrested Moqtada's father-in-law and the father-in-law's sister—the Grand Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr and Bint al-Huda.
While the ayatollah watched, the Baath security men raped and killed his sister.
They then set fire to the ayatollah's beard before driving nails into his head.
De-Baathification is an intensely personal issue for Iraq's two most powerful Shiite political leaders, as it is to hundreds of thousands of their followers who suffered similar atrocities.
EH wrote on September 10, 2007 3:42 PM:Did the Iraqi Parliament go on August recess last year? If not, the surge is working!
john mccutchen wrote on September 10, 2007 3:48 PM:"Flip-flops in the alley beat boots on the ground."
the truth will out wrote on September 10, 2007 5:22 PM:William Lind
If you kill off enough Iraqis, there's a lot of 'breathing room.'
ohismith wrote on September 10, 2007 5:32 PM:Crocker also said that reconciliation depends on the local provinces being able to collect taxes to ensure peace and stability. Raising taxes, recommended by a Bushie? Doesn't sound right.
steambomb wrote on September 10, 2007 11:39 PM:Yee-up. As soon as the surge was in place...
VACATION TIME! code word screw. An in "ah screw it!".