by TChris

More soldiers will be heading to Iraq and others will stay longer than they might have wished, as the military announced plans to increase troop strength in response to the security needs attending January's elections.

The increase, which will raise American troop strength in Iraq to about 150,000 - the highest level since the war began in March 2003 - will be accomplished by extending the combat tours of about 10,400 troops already in Iraq and sending an additional 1,500 soldiers to Iraq from their stateside posts.

The tour for members of the First Cavalry Division's Second Brigade is being extended for the second time.

by TChris

November was a deadly month for U.S. troops in Iraq.

At least 135 combat deaths were reported in Iraq between 10 a.m. New York time on Oct. 29 and the same time on Nov. 30, according to the casualty toll posted on the Department of Defense Web site. That surpasses the toll from April this year, when 131 soldiers, Marines and other military personnel were killed between March 31 and April 30, the Web site showed.

The death toll for U.S. military members in Iraq is now 1,254. More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq.

The Washington Post has obtained a non-published report of an investigation by retired Col. Stewart Harrington. The upshot: Task Force 121 was abusing Iraqi detainees and the Government knew it early on.

A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.

Herrington's findings are the latest in a series of confidential reports to come to light about detainee abuse in Iraq. Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib -- a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington's report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency -- a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort.

Time for Rumsfeld to go? Where does the buck stop, if not with him?

Raw Story reports that the Center for Constitutional Rights, the advocacy group that brought the successful lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees, is ready to strike again. The group will file suit in Germany Tuesday against Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet and others seeking an investigation into the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. According to the organization's press release:

In a historic effort to hold high-ranking U.S. officials accountable for brutal acts of torture including the widely publicized abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib, on Tuesday November 30, 2004, CCR and four Iraqi citizens will file a criminal complaint with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office at the Karlsruhe Court, Karlsruhe, Germany. Under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction suspected war criminals may be prosecuted irrespective of where they are located.

Many believe that Iraqis are worse off now than before the U.S. invasion. Jeanne at Body and Soul has the details, found at Juan Cole and Chris Bertram. Crime, for example, has skyrocketed in Baghdad.

“Our morgue was designed to cope with between five and ten bodies a day,” explained Kais Hassan, the harrassed statistician whose job it is to record the capital’s suspicious deaths. He gestured into the open door of a refrigeration unit at the stomach-turning sight of tangled corpses inside, male and female, shaded with the brown and green hues of death. “Now we’re getting 20 to 30 in here a day. It’s a disaster.”

Figures compiled at the central mortuary, on file and indisputable, shine a light through the murk of estimate and rumour surrounding casualty rates in Iraq. Of the 6,635 suspicious deaths in Baghdad recorded this year at the city’s Medical-Legal Institute, the complex incorporating the central mortuary, more than 75 per cent were killed by a bullet. Stabbing is the next most common cause of death.

Those that work in the mortuary are divided as to whether things are worse now than under Saddam. Jeanne notes perceptively:

Saving Iraqi lives is a noble cause. But to justify continued war, you need to show how the result can reasonably be attained. Without that, all you have is brutality wrapped up in nice words -- which, if I recall, was pretty much the way this war began.

So much for accountability for misdeeds that occur on your watch. The Pentagon reports that Maj. General Geoffrey Miller, who was in charge of Guantanamo prison from 2002 to 2004 as well as Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, where widespread torture and abuse occurred, has been promoted:

Miller ran Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 to March 2004 and has been credited by senior Pentagon officials with improving the amount of useful intelligence gleaned from terrorism suspects held there. In August 2003, Miller was sent to Iraq to provide advice on the screening of detainees, their interrogations and the collection of intelligence. Among his recommendations was that military police be actively involved in ``setting the conditions'' for successful interrogations.

Miller's promotion puts him in a senior staff position at the Pentagon.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller will be the Army's assistant chief of staff for installation management, with responsibility for the housing, environmental and other support operations at Army bases.

Meet the new boss in Iraq. He's Maj. Gen. William Brandenburg. His background:

.... [he was] deputy commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, based in Hawaii, since August 2003. He served much of his career in the infantry, mostly in Europe and the United States. He also was chief of staff of the Army's 5th Corps, its largest organization in Europe.

[comments closed, thread appears to have been hijacked.]

In the past two months, the number of Iraqi detainees held by the U.S. has doubled to approximately 8,300. The number is expected to increase in the coming weeks. Anxious to overcome negative perceptions caused by the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, the U.S. says it has turned over a new leaf:

Detainees in U.S. military custody are kept in recently constructed camps with climate-controlled tents, a visitation center and three hot meals a day. For the most cooperative prisoners, there are movies and a library.

The U.S. says the Red Cross is satisfied with the new procedures:

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which in the past was sharply critical of the handling of Iraqis in U.S. custody, has been "very positive" in its recent reports and expressed "no significant" concerns, Miller said. "We're down to talking about the type of toothbrush being issued to detainees," he said.

Just like the Holiday Inn? We'll wait to hear what the detainees and the Red Cross have to say when they speak for themselves.

Last week, NBC cameraman Kevin Sites, embedded with the Marines in Fallujah, wrote a startling report of a marine who shot and killed an already wounded Iraqi insurgent. On his website, Sites explains why he did it, in an open letter to marines. He wants to counter speculation that he is an anti-war activist or anything but an impartial journalist. Here's a portion of his eyewitness account of the killing:

When we arrive at the front entrance, we see that another squad has already entered before us. The lieutenant asks them, "Are there people inside?" One of the marines raises his hand signaling five. "Did you shoot them," the lieutenant asks? "Roger that, sir, " the same marine responds. "Were they armed?" The marine just shrugs and we all move inside.

Immediately after going in, I see the same black plastic body bags spread around the mosque. The dead from the day before. But more surprising, I see the same five men that were wounded from Friday as well. It appears that one of them is now dead and three are bleeding to death from new gunshot wounds.

Baghdad is a mess today as violence explodes throughout the city:

Insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead.

Some of the heaviest violence came in Azamiyah, a largely Sunni Arab district of Baghdad where a day earlier U.S. troops raided the capital's main Sunni mosque. Shops were in flames, and a U.S. Humvee burned, with the body of what appeared to be its driver inside.

In other news, Germany and the U.S. have agreed to forgive 80% of Iraq's foreign debt. Does this oil rich country really need such a big reduction?

Administration officials say they most likely will increase U.S. troops in Iraq by several thousand before the Iraqi elections in January.

Where are they going to come from? The plan now is to extend the extend the currently troops service by two months. Steve Gilliard notes:

What troops? Where are they going to come from? The brigades which can go have gone. I would be shocked if the draft doesn't get put on the table by March. Because this is reaching the bottom of the barrel. The Iranians are not worried about any invasion.

Check out Martin Van Creveld's article on Moshe Dayan in Vietnam and the parallels to Iraq today:

In other words, he who fights against the weak – and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed – and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force however rich, however powerful, however, advanced, and however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat; if U.S troops in Iraq have not yet started fragging their officers, the suicide rate among them is already exceptionally high. That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one did. Namely, with the last US troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters’ skids."

[hat tip to Fred.]

I don't know who comes up with these but this one is very funny--meet The Lie Girls .

Flag waving, bible thumping babes are waiting for you to help them spread their freedom.

If you're easily offended, skip it.