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October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 01:22:08 AM EST
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There are ten days to go, but October has been the deadliest month of the year for U.S. troops in Iraq.

For Iraqis, it's been even worse:

So far this month, at least 907 Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence, an average of 43 a day.

Senior State Department official Alberto Fernandez, in an interview with al-Jazeera, said "the U.S. had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq."

And what does Bush have to say? The other day he said we're not leaving until we win. Yesterday, he met with his advisors and the report is there will be a shift in strategy -- geared to make the Iraqis take over. Another election time shuffle:

The emerging exit strategy bears a strong resemblance to options favoured by the Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, that is due to publish its recommendations in the new year. A senior US official said the new course was likely to be implemented after the group reports, giving the Bush administration “political cover”.

What about democracy in Iraq?

Baker has also suggested that America might have to abandon its long-term ambition of bringing democracy to the Middle East in favour of “representative government, not necessarily democracy”.

Shorter version: the war in Iraq is a failure and Bush is running out of ways to hide it.

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    October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year | 28 comments (28 topical)
    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#1)
    by cpinva on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 03:08:35 AM EST
    The other day he said we're not leaving until we win.

    ok, i'll buy into that. the question on everyone's mind is, "how the heck do know when that is, and how do we accomplish it?".

    so far, we've had close to 4 years of ineptitude on that score.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#2)
    by soccerdad on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 06:34:27 AM EST
    the war in Iraq is a failure

    Nonsense. The oil and gas is still in the ground, the Iraqis are killing each other off or leaving the country, and the construction of the embassy and military bases continues unabated. The death of our soldiers and certainly those of Iraqis are of no concern to Bush and Cheney.

    You say they are failing only because to attribute to the neocons goals they never had. How can a policy fail if it was never intended never mind implemented. Wake up and smell the blood.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#26)
    by chupetin on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 01:11:17 PM EST
    Soc,
    I hope your're right sort of, at least I could say that these guys are just plain evil instead of the incompetent morons that they appear to be.

    [ Parent ]
    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#3)
    by soccerdad on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 06:35:23 AM EST
    should say "because you attribute"

    sorry

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#4)
    by Strick on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 08:58:21 AM EST
    907 Iraqis killed is still disturbing, but shouldn't the fact that it's this far into the month and that's dramatically lower than the numbers we've seen in recent months be taken as a good sign?

    There's no good news in the increase in US deaths (not unless you think that US forces are succeeding in preventing Iraqi on Iraqi attacks and that's the price we're paying to meet the Left's demand we do more, of course).  Ramadan will be over soon.  We'll see if the increase in attacks on Americans is permanent or part of a trend toward a temporary increase in attacks during the holy month.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#5)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 09:17:12 AM EST
    Strick,
    That's 907 THAT THEY TELL US ABOUT. Remember, the Iraqi govt. AND the US govt. will never give out accurate numbers. People are buried quickly by Islamic law and many are not counted before they are buried in back yards, gardens and just about anywhere else they can find a quiet spot. Suffice to say, the morgues are FULL.

    I"ve my own personal timetable for Iraq:

    Nov. 8th, redeploy.
    Nov. 9th, Impeach.

    He's not a war president, he's a war criminal.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#6)
    by Zeno on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 09:36:42 AM EST
    Right-wing propagandist Melanie Morgan penned a column for WorldNetDaily this past summer where she proclaimed that we were winning the war in Iraq because American military fatalities were falling from month to month. She rigged the numbers by using only partial August results (hey, monthly deaths are lower if you don't use the whole month!).

    I now await Morgan's follow-up column announcing that we're losing.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#7)
    by jarober on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 11:17:12 AM EST
    The uptick in violence is a timed event.  Why do you think levels were low until election season?  This is a media event, not a military one.  The attacks in question have no hope of bringing the jihadists a military victory - what they hope for is to bring a Copperhead victory here in the US.  

    The same way the Confederacy planned military operations in 1862, and again in 1864.  In 1862, we got Antietam.  In 1864, we got a raid that reached Hagerstown, Maryland (and, but for the bravery of a small cavalry unit, could have reached DC).

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#8)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 11:20:17 AM EST
    "representative government, not necessarily democracy".

    Hey kinda like what we have here...

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#9)
    by Dadler on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 11:29:17 AM EST
    Jarober,
    I'm happy you seem so blithely unconcerned.  Comparing the situation in Iraq to Copperheads in the Civil War, tho, strikes me as more than a bit off, to put it nicely.  Why not compare it to Vietnam, which is THE comparison here?  A stupid foreign war begun with no conceptual understanding of the battle gotten into.  The timing of attacks pales in comparison to the overall problem of going in there (without compelling reasons) with a non-existent strategy that was doomed to fail from the get-go.  Ignorance, blind fear and impatience make very destructive bedfellows.

    And they are destroying millions of lives as we speak.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#13)
    by John Mann on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 02:45:00 PM EST
    I can't help but remember an interview with former Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, who compared Iraq with Vietnam on the eve of the latest American invasion of Iraq:

    People say to me, 'You are not the Vietnamese. You have no jungles and swamps' ... I reply, 'Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles.'.

    In retrospect, he doesn't sound quite so out-to-lunch - but then again, neither does Baghdad Bob.

    [ Parent ]

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#10)
    by cpinva on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 01:50:29 PM EST
    jarober conveniently leaves out the "rest of the story": by that point in 1864, the confederacy had lost, it was only a matter of time. that raid was a desperate, last gasp effort to scare the north into doing what lincoln and grant most decidedly were never going to do: end the war by treaty. had they actually reached D.C., they'd have been slaughtered to a man, by reinforcements that grant was already moving up the potomac.

    the confederate war of attrition could only work as long as the north had someone in charge who was not a true "war general". as soon as grant took over, lee's hope died.

    the south had no replacements, the jihadists do. the south was strangled by a naval blockade, iraq isn't. the longer we're in there, the more islamic recruits come pouring over porous borders, and weapons come flooding in from iran, syria, et al.

    vietnam is a more appropriate analogy: open border with china; weapons from china and russia; new recruits from both north and south vietnam; no comprehensive, meaningful strategy for a victory on our part.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#11)
    by Edger on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 02:31:14 PM EST
    Is Cheney having the rug pulled out from under him by Bush's dad, using Baker and Hamilton and the ISG as the hit squad?

    Cheney and Baker will go toe-to-toe over Iraq after election

    After the 2006 election, whether the Democrats take back a majority of both chambers of Congress or not, former Secretary of State James Baker will report the findings of the Iraq Study Group to George W. Bush.  The President will then decide whether to take the advice of the panel -- which consists mostly of elder conservatives -- or distance himself even further from the national consensus.

    This will probably be the President's last chance to break free from the foreign policy influence of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and the rest of the ideology-based community.  Think of this as Bush Sr using his elder foreign policy team to rescue his son's presidency.

    After the election, it will turn into an all-out tug-of-war between Cheney's ideology-based community and James Baker's reality-based community -- with each side grabbing one of Bush's arms and trying to win his support...
    Some people... (none / 0) (#12)
    by John Mann on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 02:37:18 PM EST
    ...seem to think things are going pretty well.

    Article

    Re: Some people... (none / 0) (#14)
    by Edger on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 02:51:09 PM EST
    John, it's interesting that that AP article appears just a few days after this one from Reuters:

    Wed Oct 18, 2006

    BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Dozens of al Qaeda-linked gunmen took to the streets of Ramadi on Wednesday in a show of force to announce the city was joining an Islamic state comprising Iraq's mostly Sunni Arab provinces, Islamists and witnesses said.
    ...
    "We have announced the Islamic state. Ramadi is part of it. Our state will comprise all the Sunni provinces of Iraq," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

    A Baker/Cheney 15 round match should be fun to watch.

    [ Parent ]

    Re: Some people... (none / 0) (#15)
    by John Mann on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 02:57:21 PM EST
    It'd be nice to see Mr. Baker and Mr. Cheney go hunting together - in Iraq.

    [ Parent ]
    Re: Some people... (none / 0) (#16)
    by Edger on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 03:00:08 PM EST
    And who'd be left to clean up after this? ;-)

    [ Parent ]
    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#17)
    by john horse on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 07:24:31 PM EST
    Not only is October the deadliest month in Iraq this year but the Baghdad operation that many of the American soldiers fought was a failure according to Maj. General William Caldwell, the top US military spokesman in Iraq.  

    If we can't even secure Baghdad then the game is up. As John Kerry asked many years ago about another war, how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#18)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 08:14:18 PM EST
    how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

    We better hurry and figure it out. The suspense is killing them.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#19)
    by jarober on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 09:51:36 PM EST
    If you want a Vietnam analogy, fine: Tet.  It was a huge defeat for both the VC and the NVA.  In fact, the VC were basically done after that - post Tet, all the heavy lifting was done by the NVA.  

    However, the media saw the immediate chaos of Tet and branded it a huge disaster.  Like what's going on in Iraq now, it was a media victory, not a military one.

    As to the 1864 raid, it was designed to tip an election, not to bring a military victory.  Had DC been raided, it may well have done damage to Lincoln's reelection campaign - and the Democrats were campaigning on a "peace at any price" platform.

    The more things change...

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#20)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sun Oct 22, 2006 at 11:58:07 PM EST
    The more things change...

    The more the wingnuts will look for a historically bogus analogy.

    You do get credit for avoiding any WWII comparisons...so far.

    I suspect you won't be happy until we match the Vietnam death toll...or are you going for a Civil War-like one instead?

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#21)
    by jarober on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 06:55:17 AM EST
    If you look at current casualty rates, it will take a very, very long time to reach either level.  No death is good, but the cost of this war has been very light, under any historical comparison you want to pick.  

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#25)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 12:41:34 PM EST
    it will take a very, very long time to reach either level.

    Winning a "war on terror" when there is no definition of winning will take a very, very long time, if not an eternity.

    No death is good, but the cost of this war has been very light, under any historical comparison you want to pick.  

    The historical comparison I choose to pick is the one where we didn't invade Iraq.

    [ Parent ]

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#22)
    by Johnny on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 08:38:33 AM EST
    http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/22/bush-stay-the-course/

    I think the wrong-wingers voted for that most detestable of politicians...

    Cue dramatic music...

    The dreaded FLIP-FLOPPER!!!!!!!!!

    Yes, that's right, the dreaded flip-flopper has been exposed!

    This nation has been had by a man with the IQ of a developmentally disabled cockroach, and the wrong wingers continue to spout off crap like: "Well, at least not as many people have been killed."

    LMAO

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#23)
    by Edger on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 09:16:39 AM EST
    the cost of this war has been very light

    Excuse me?

    For whom?     Do you not count Iraqi's as "costs". Or maybe they just don't count?

    Re: October Deadliest Month (none / 0) (#24)
    by kdog on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 10:06:00 AM EST
    but the cost of this war has been very light

    Indeed it has...for the right people.  

    The rich got a tax cut...no cost there.  Fight the war on the Visa!

    The children of the rich and connected do not have to fight...no pesky funerals to attend.

    If you are an Iraqi, in a US military family, or a future taxpayer...the cost is astronomical.

    xx (none / 0) (#27)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 01:00:10 PM EST
    kdog - No one's children have to fight. There is no draft.

    et al - The closer we get to election day the more attacks and deaths there will be. The terrorists understand that bad war publicity help the Demos and if the Demos are elected they will be screaming for us to leave Iraq. And if the Demos do, you aint seen nothing yet coming out of the ME.

    Plainer - They will see us retreating and will attack with vigor.

    Re: October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year (none / 0) (#28)
    by Edger on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 02:00:51 PM EST
    They will see us retreating and will attack with vigor.

    Heh. You better give your hero a call and explain that to him.

    There is still time for you to pretend you were onto him the whole time.

    October Deadliest Month in Iraq This Year | 28 comments (28 topical)