[Vision2020] Iraqis Suspend Police Brigade

Thu Oct 5 08:27:28 PDT 2006

Tom Hansen writes: :Yes.  I supported liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein.
That was back when
> this war had a cause."
---------------------------------------------------------

Well Tom,

This war does have a cause, (I am surprised to see you admitted it ever
did).  Unfortunately that cause has been turned into a ploitical event by
the ultra libs and the far left to be used as a weapon against
conservatives.

America has lost the guts to ever win another war.  With nearly half the
poplulation firmly encamped in the mire of the far leftists, demanding
better treatment and more rights for terrorists than for our own troops,
constantly putting the face of defeat on America, calling for a cut and run
withdrawl from the war, castigating our own troops constantly and making it
perfectly clear through the media all the terrorists have to do to win the
greatest victory of their dreams, the defeat of the Great Satan (the USA) is
keep killing each other and whatever American troops they can and we will
indeed cut and run.
This, it appears to me, is the new purpose of the war, to put the Democrats
back in power and to turn our moral values over to people like George Soros.

You may be right, perhaps we should justa cut and run, bring our troops home
and let the Muslim sects kill as many of each other as possible.  Then we
should just drop the big one on the rest and turn the desert into glass all
the way to the border of Iran, sending that rogue nation a clear message
that we will no longer pamper their support of terrorism around the world.

I can't honestly tell you whether I am more sick and tired of the terrorists
in Iraq or the whinny tit politically motivated pussies here in our own
country who are doing everything in their power to hand them the greatest
victory they could ever have.

War is hell, it is not pretty.  Unfortunately, sometimes it is necessary
and, when it is, it should be fought in an all out effort to win and shorten
the carnage to people on both sides as much as possible.  That means maximum
effort and doing what it takes to secure a desireable outcome.  Or, would
you rather sit around speaking German to your grandmother, the lampshade?

Dick S
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 7:23 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Iraqis Suspend Police Brigade

> >From today's (October 5, 2006) Los Angeles Times -
>
> BRING OUR TROOPS HOME ! ! !
>
> Yes.  I supported liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein.  That was back when
> this war had a cause.
>
> Our troops are currently being killed at a rate that exceeds any time
> previously.  There is no end in sight.  There is no defined goal.  Our
> troops are fighting a split insurgency (Suuni and Shiite) in a civil war
> that we do not belong.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Iraqis Suspend Police Brigade
> The Interior Ministry acts after the force based in Baghdad is linked to
> abductions and killings.
> By Kim Murphy and Doug Smith
> Times Staff Writers
>
> October 5, 2006
>
> BAGHDAD - Iraqi authorities said Wednesday that they have suspended an
> entire brigade of as many as 1,200 police officers for suspected
connections
> to kidnappings and executions.
>
> The Interior Ministry said it would recall and retrain the national
police's
> 8th Brigade, based in the capital, after witnesses reported that men
wearing
> police uniforms were behind the kidnapping Sunday of 26 workers at a south
> Baghdad meat processing plant.
>
> Six of the workers later were found dead. One who had been shot and left
for
> dead apparently crawled away to a military checkpoint, authorities said.
>
> The decommissioning comes after street protests erupted at one of the
police
> unit's checkpoints in the capital, and U.S. military officials requested
> that one of the three battalions in the brigade be recalled.
>
> "There is clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death
> squad elements to move freely, when in fact they were supposed to be
> impeding their movement, that perhaps they did not respond as rapidly when
> reports were made," said Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman
> for the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.
>
> He said the Iraqi government had "lost trust and confidence in the .
> division's ability to serve the public due to their poor performance and
> alleged criminal wrongdoings."
>
> The decommissioning is the latest in a series of moves being undertaken by
> Iraqi and U.S. military authorities to combat the possible infiltration of
> Iraq's army and security services by insurgents or sectarian combatants.
>
> The crackdown on the police came on another deadly day for U.S. troops,
four
> of whom were killed by small-arms fire while on patrol northwest of
Baghdad,
> according to U.S. military authorities. A fifth soldier died of wounds
> sustained a day earlier near Kirkuk, bringing the total since Saturday to
21
> U.S. military fatalities.
>
> Nationwide, nine Iraqi police officers died in violence. Six were killed
by
> a roadside bomb in Baghdadi, in Al Anbar province. One was killed and
three
> were wounded during a demonstration at a police station in central
Baghdad.
> Two more died in an attack on a police patrol in Baqubah, north of the
> capital.
>
> In Baghdad, a car bomb apparently aimed at a convoy belonging to Industry
> Minister Fawzi Hariri killed 14 civilians and injured more than 70. Hariri
> wasn't in the car.
>
> Ministry of Health statistics released Wednesday show that 2,667 civilians
> died violently in September, and 2,994 were injured, a level consistent
with
> the summer's high monthly tallies. A substantial number of them fell
victim
> to death squads, which often pull passersby off sidewalks, seize people
from
> their homes, or drag motorists out of their cars. Their bodies often are
> found bearing gunshot wounds and signs of torture.
>
> Authorities said they had documented a near-record number of bomb attacks,
> including both car bombs and roadside explosives.
>
> Government and military officials increasingly fear that the police and
> other security services have links to corruption and sectarian violence.
> Since June, the Interior Ministry has fired 1,700 officers suspected of
> corruption, abuse of authority or other violations, a ministry spokesman
> told The Times.
>
> In the incident Sunday at the frozen-meat processing plant in the south
> Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, about half a dozen men claiming to be police
> officers entered and began asking employees for identification cards
before
> ordering most of them into a truck and driving away.
>
> At another location, the employees were beaten and then separated into
> Sunnis and Shiites, with the Shiites permitted to leave, according to a
> survivor who was interviewed by investigators from the 172nd Stryker
Brigade
> Combat Team.
>
> A military source said the kidnappers asked one man, "Why are you working
> with these Sunnis?" before releasing him.
>
> All of the shooting victims were Sunnis.
>
> Cartridge casings found at the scene of the kidnapping match those used in
> handguns carried by Iraqi police, but differ from those most commonly used
> on the street, military investigators said.
>
> Wednesday's actions came after Army Lt. Col. John Norris, commander of the
> 172nd Stryker Brigade's 23rd forward battalion, issued a request to
> decommission the first of the Iraqi unit's three battalions.
>
> U.S. military officials said the Interior Ministry already had opened an
> investigation of possible connections or cooperation between the brigade
and
> death squads operating in the capital, and it moved to decommission the
unit
> after the protests and Norris' request.
>
> "The case that was building against the 8th Brigade of the Iraqi national
> police that works in Amil was based on corruption, infiltration,
complacency
> and possibly committing sectarian murders in their area of
responsibility,"
> Norris said in an interview.
>
> "They set up checkpoints throughout the town, they run patrols throughout
> their area of responsibility, so the question that begs to be answered is,
> why were they having such a spike in murders in their area?" he said.
"When
> they have a significant number of checkpoints that should facilitate
> controlling traffic and providing security."
>
> He said the apparent disparity raised a question: "Are they contributing
to
> security, or are they causing the poor security conditions?"
>
> Interior Ministry spokesman Alaa Taie said the decommissioning and
> retraining would allow the government to determine whether charges lodged
> against the unit had any basis.
>
> "Were there deficiencies and failures that resulted in the kidnapping .
and
> is it true that there was cooperation between the police and the militias?
> This is what we hope to find out," he said.
>
> A report for the Council on Foreign Relations last year said there was
> "widespread" infiltration of security forces by insurgents, including
> hard-core fighters who slipped through the hiring checks and sympathizers
> who helped militias and insurgents. Some police appeared to help the
> insurgents out of intimidation and fear, the report said.
>
> U.S. authorities who were overseeing the early formation of the police
> forces were forced to rely on local expertise in evaluating who was
> suitable, said report author Sharon Otterman, former associate director of
> the council.
>
> "The other big issue is who, exactly, were they trying to keep out of the
> forces? At the beginning, it was more a concern of looking for former
> Baathists," she said. "Now what we're seeing is infiltration of every kind
> of group - the Shia militias, not to mention the Sunnis, and everybody
> else."
>
> Sunni lawmakers have complained of Shiite infiltration of security
services
> not only in Baghdad, but also in many quarters of Iraq. Others complain
that
> Sunni Arab militias are working hand in hand with the police to target
other
> groups.
>
> "The security has deteriorated, and the fact is clear that these
> infiltrations are partly responsible," said Mohammed Daini, a Sunni member
> of parliament. Daini has alleged that senior army officers in the Diyala
> region appear to have connections to Shiite militias or the Iranian
> Revolutionary Guard.
>
> "There is an outrageous intervention by Iranian intelligence [in the
> police]," Daini said. "We can say that death squads are inside the Iraqi
> government, through their existence in the army and the police. And this
is
> known to the Americans."
>
> U.S. military officials said members of the 8th Brigade would be retrained
> by Iraqis under U.S. guidance, and some officers might lose their jobs or
> face prosecution.
>
> Taie said authorities had not received any direct evidence that sectarian
> militias had infiltrated the police brigade, but he said the issue of
> infiltration was "natural" with a police force formed under conditions of
> chaos, constant threat and sectarian violence.
>
> "When you try to found an institution under terrible circumstances of
> disturbed security, infiltrations can be possible," he said. "But it's
> important that the Ministry of Interior and the elected government are
> working to restore security and follow up on not only the corruptors, but
> the terrorists."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Vandalville, Idaho
>
> "The Muslim world has been killing each other for centuries over sectarian
> stupidity.  I doubt anythng will ever change that."
>
>  - dick Sherwin (October 5, 2006)
>
>
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