Bush sending more troops as killers ravage Baghdad

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush told Americans he was sending 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq but after dozens more death squad killings in the past day, Iraqis questioned on Thursday what difference they would make.

With American voters' patience wearing thin with a war that has cost over 3,000 soldiers' lives and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, Bush bluntly told Iraq's prime minister "America's commitment is not open-ended".

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has announced his forces will mount a security crackdown in the capital that will also target militias loyal to his fellow Shi'ite leaders, a key demand of Washington and the once dominant Sunni minority who say death squad killers are trying to drive them from the city altogether.

Another 60 bodies were recovered by police on Wednesday. Sectarian rivalries that are pushing Iraqi toward all-out civil war were also running high over the killings of at least 11 Shi'ite pilgrims returning from last week's haj at Mecca.

~snip~

Adding 17,500 troops in Baghdad and 4,000 in restive Sunni Anbar province to the west over the next four months would take the U.S. force in Iraq back close to 150,000 -- the level it was at four months ago, during a previous, unsuccessful, push to quash violence in Baghdad.

more:http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-01-11T100848Z_01_MAC638878_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml

[salin]

1. wait... so this "surge" just is returning to the troop level that werre on the ground - 4 months ago

? Now that is an item that I haven't read.

[Maeve]

5. Yep, and we're into the definition of insanity

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

[salin]

6. hey lady!

I wrote these same words in a thread in GD just a few minutes ago! Good to see you! :hi:

[Maeve]

7. Hey back atcha! We've seen this rerun too many times

I thought we told them to change the channel in November :argh:

[wakeme2008]

2. We may hit 4,000 before the 4th of July

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[lapfog_1]

3. In the next two to three months...

The new Iraq commander, Patreous, promises to implement his plan to fight insurgents, and that plan is 180 degrees from the old plan of basically staying in secured bases and venturing out on raids if intelligence is developed on locations. The new plan will send our soldiers out on foot patrols to all of neighborhoods where insurgents are thought to be, and then we knock on doors and search for insurgents (I'm guessing that knocks will really be "kick that damn door down"... and later "kick the damn door down and shoot anything that moves"). Very similar to the neighborhood policing that many US cities have tried... only, well, everyone hates us, very few troops will be able to communicate with the people they meet, and the troops we will be using to do this are tired of being there and very tired of being ambushed and blown up every time they drive anywhere and there is a very well funded civil war being fought (Iran on the Shia side, Saudis on the Sunni side).

It would be like dropping 10,000 Chinese imperial troops into Virginia during OUR civil war and telling them to find "blue soldiers" or "gray soldiers" and disarm them. Only in Iraq, the blue and grey soldiers look and dress more or less the same, and they aren't hanging out in military camps... they meet up in secret and at night and then go on hunting parties to find members of the other side to butcher.

Everyone expects that the new commander is going to get a dozen or more KIA every day.

[saigon68]

4. They will be sniped at by Juba and his Buddies

Hundreds more will be killed SOLELY for Cheney's Oil Profits.

The movies of their heads being blown off will be shown on You Tube