Thousands return to safer Iraqi capital

[rodeodance]

Source: ap



Thousands return to safer Iraqi capital

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 28 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.


Saad al-Azawi, his wife and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts — west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region.

The family had been living inside a vicious and bloody turf battle between al-Qaida in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen. But Azawi said things began changing, becoming more peaceful, in August when radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to stand down nationwide.

About the same time, the Khadra neighborhood Awakening Council rose up against brutal al-Qaida control — the imposition of its austere interpretation of Islam, along with the murder and torture of those who would not comply.

.......

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

[Beerboy]

1. Yeah, right. nt.

[Newsjock]

2. Oh, Jesus Christ on a trailer hitch

And to think we've got a whole freakin' year of these lies ahead of us.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. This message is brought to you by the CIA & gop.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Um, it's not that much safer for Iraqis. nt

[rockybelt]

5. Yeah sure

Well, now that these areas have been ethnically cleansed, it is safe for everybody to be there. Hell, we are even going to have a block party and a community garage sale to celebrate the event.
What the fuck do these people use for statistics?
The wheels are coming off of this administration and the desperation is getting thick.
Look at what the Guild of Lawyers did today. Look at the responses to this shit that is going on in this administration on virtually every blog that I have read. I only hope that the awakening is in time to save what was our wonderful country.

[EFerrari]

6. So did they just print the fax or did they sex it up?

[Teaser]

7. Comedy Gold

This is hilarious journalism. The entire report is based on a claim by the Iraqi government. "Could not be independently verified."

Want to know why? Because the Iraqi government, if you want to call it that, are inveterate liars. Even more so than our own. And that is epically sad.

[Rockerdem]

8. Get ready for more of this type of reporting the next 12 months

This is just a dribble of the deluge of similar "reports" from Iraq between now and next November. Iraq will be repackaged as a big victory - messy - but a big and necessary victory. The alliance between the GOP and the DLC guarantees it.

The true anti-war candidates will be marginalized by these stories, and the ongoing killing and the torture will be downplayed as a low-grade fever. Five years from now, the next US president will still have large military forces in Iraq. Probably President Clinton. Accept it. Fait accompli.

[Javaman]

18. Water park opened in Baghdad! nt

[conspirator]

9. The only reason violence MAY have dropped is because blackwater is killing

anything that moves = Genocide

[UpInArms]

10. next headline on LBN: Iraqi official gunned down in Baghdad

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

also from the AP - :crazy:

wish they would just quit the hype and lies and propaganda for the WH and Betrayus.

:(

[SoCalDem]

11. It says they returned, but does it address WHY they returned?

I contend that they returned because , once the "others" had been purged and sent packing, to THEM, it was safe enough to go back..

Once the area has been "ethnically cleansed", the people who were too afraid to be there DURING the "mopping up", they now feel free to return to "their kind"..

Does the article address the hundreds of thousands who left in the night, with only what they could carry...and who have NOT come back??..and who NEVER will?

Even in a poor, war-torn country, there was a lot of "stuff" left behind..stuff that has value to the ones who did stay or to the ones who returned. That stuff is just being divvied up between the ones who are now claiming areas of Baghdad as THEIR OWN.. Call it a kinder-gentler form of looting and stealing.

Every war has opportunists..

[Robbien]

12. Many Iraqi refugees are returning because they have run out of money

Being a refugee is very expensive. One has to live on their savings. Getting on any relief organization's roll is almost impossible due to the massive numbers of refugees.

Both Syria and Jordan have laws which bar Iraqi refugees from obtaining employment. So once the savings runs out, there is no where for the refugees to go but back to Iraq.

[ohio2007]

14. Conditions in Iraqi refugee camps 'atrocious': UN official

many are not welcome in other provinces around Iraq as this four month old article point to the fact people have reached the breaking point. Maybe they would prefer to die at home then live in the hell they currently have;


Conditions in Iraqi refugee camps 'atrocious': UN official
June 17, 2007 |
A United Nations refugee official says "atrocious" makeshift camps for internally displaced people are beginning to sprout across Iraq because the homeless have nowhere else to go.

Andrew Harper, a co-ordinator for the UN refugee agency in Iraq, says more communities within the country are closing their doors to people fleeing violence, forcing people to create their own poorly equipped camps.

snip


one site near the holy Shia city of Najaf, which is home to 200 families, people are drinking from a polluted water source.

Women go to the toilet inside their tents because they are afraid they will be attacked outside, he said.

snip

Syria and Jordan, which host the majority of the refugees, have begun to close their borders and place tighter restrictions on incoming Iraqis.



http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/17/iraq-refugees.html?ref=rss

People are sick of living like refugees and are simply making the decision to go home

[ohio2007]

13. another shocker

http://www.alsabaah.com/paper.php?source=akbar&mlf=interpage&sid=51754

[Ilsa]

15. Excellent. Let's declare victory and leave now. nt

[olddad56]

17. you mean like "Mission Re-accomplished".

[GoddessOfGuinness]

16. It probably IS safer

than where they went. :(