Olive Tree Ministries - prophetic signs, current issues, and the Messianic Jewish movement.

News Watch: Topical

The Troop Surge Was a Success
--> Posted to Iraq for July, 2008

The Troop Surge Was a Success

By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com Editor in Chief
July 02, 2008

Page 12 of a Government Accountability Office report published on June 23 features data about the war in Iraq -- drawn from the Defense Intelligence Agency -- that must be central to the debate about what the United States does next in that country.

It indicates we have started to win a war we cannot afford to lose.

The GAO report is titled, "Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq; Progress Report: Some Gains Made, Updated Strategy Needed."
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The Jihadists Admit Defeat in Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2008

The Jihadists Admit Defeat in Iraq

By Nibras Kazimi
Talisman Gate | 5/21/2008

A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year and half ago Al-Qaeda accounted for 60 percent of all jihadist activity.
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How We'll Know When We've Won in Iraq--Weekly Standard
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2008

How We'll Know When We've Won

A definition of success in Iraq.

by Frederick W. Kagan
05/05/2008,

The president's nomination of generals David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno to take command of U.S. Central Command and Multinational Force-Iraq, respectively, was obviously the right decision. By experience and temperament and demonstrated success, both men are perfectly suited to these jobs. Given the political climate in Washington, however, their nominations are likely to be attacked with the same tired arguments war critics used to try to drown out reports of progress in Iraq during the recent Petraeus-Crocker hearings. So before the shouting begins again, let us consider in detail one of the most important of these arguments: that no one has offered any clear definition of success in Iraq.

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McCain on Iraq--Sen. John McCain/Human Events
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2008

HUMAN EVENTS Exclusive: McCain on Iraq
by Sen. John McCain (more by this author)
Posted 04/07/2008 ET

At the beginning of last year, we were engaged in a great debate about what to do in Iraq. Faced with the prospect of defeat, we had two fundamental choices. We could retreat from Iraq and accept the horrible consequences of our defeat. Or we could change strategies and try to turn things around. It was a critical moment in our nation’s history, and a time of testing for our nation’s political leadership.

Within six months, our troops have made such enormous sacrifices for the rest of us and dramatically turned around the situation in Iraq. The dramatic reduction in violence has opened the way for a return to something approaching normal political and economic life for the average Iraqi. View Full Article

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4,000 Patriots--Cal Thomas
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2008

BOSTON — Following Sept. 11, 2001, a day of infamy on which nearly 3,000 died at the hands of terrorists, The New York Times began publishing the names and pictures of the dead. I made a deliberate effort to look at those pictures and to read the names and hometowns of each victim. I wanted to identify with them as much as possible.

Now the Times has published more pictures, names and ages, this time of American war dead. They are part of the 4,000 casualties to have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars began. They — and their families — deserve our gratitude.

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Iraq: The Real Story--Oliver North
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Five years ago this week, 170,000 American and coalition soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. When they commenced their attack, they were outnumbered nearly three to one by Saddam Hussein's military, yet it took U.S. troops just three weeks to liberate Baghdad. No military force in history has accomplished that much so fast with so few casualties.

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The Surge One Year Later
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2008

The Surge in Iraq: One Year Later

By Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno
The Heritage Foundation | 3/14/2008

I returned from Iraq a little over two weeks ago, and trust me, it's great to be in Washington and in your company today. After nearly 15 months in Iraq--mostly spent focusing on where we are and where we're going--it's a pleasure to step back and reflect a bit about where we've been. I'd like to speak with you about Iraq in 2007, to include the surge, its implementation, and my assessment of its impact.

Baghdad: Before the Surge

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Looking Foward in Iraq--WSJ
--> Posted to Iraq for February, 2008

Looking Forward in Iraq

February 14, 2008

On Sunday, Nancy Pelosi was asked on CNN whether she feared squandering the success of President Bush's "surge" in Iraq with a hasty withdrawal. "There haven't been gains, Wolf," the House Speaker told anchor Wolf Blitzer. "The gains have not produced the desired effect which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure."

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Iraq Not Using Oil Cash to Rebuild--Wash.Times
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2008

Increased Iraqi oil revenues stemming from high prices and improved security are piling up in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York rather than being spent on needed reconstruction projects, a Washington Times study of Iraq's spending and revenue figures has shown.

U.S. officials and outside analysts blame the collapse of the country's political and physical infrastructure for Baghdad's failure to spend the money on projects considered vital to restoring stability in the country.

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The Lessons of Iraq--WSJ
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2008

The Lessons of Iraq

January 14, 2008

While the improved security situation in Iraq is changing views about the chances for success there, one common belief has remained unchanged: that the war is eroding U.S. military capabilities.

It is true that repeated deployments have caused considerable strain on service members, equipment and our ability to respond to other contingencies. These problems, however, only tell half the story.
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Iraq in 2008
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2008

TOWN HALL: WILLILAM RUSHER

There is always much about the future that is obscure, but of one thing we can be reasonably certain: In 2008, the United States will be involved militarily in Iraq. It may be a largely peaceful involvement, centering on the military occupation of key areas, or it may have a major combat component, depending on the enemy's capability and intentions, but that America will be there, there is no doubt at all.

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Lessons from the Surge
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2007

TOWN HALL

There are lessons to be learned from the dazzling success of the surge strategy in Iraq.

Lesson one is that just about no mission is impossible for the United States military. A year ago it was widely thought, not just by the new Democratic leaders in Congress but also in many parts of the Pentagon, that containing the violence in Iraq was impossible. Now we have seen it done.

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The New Iraq--Oliver North
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2007

HUMAN EVENTS

Hillah, Iraq -- The slogan “de oppresso liber” is Latin for “free the oppressed.” It's the motto of the U.S. Special Forces, but it has also been adopted by several of the Iraqi military and police units our FOX News War Stories team has been covering here in the land between the rivers. These Special Operations troops -- Americans and their Iraqi counterparts -- have become the tip of the spear in the war against radical Islamic terror.
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Iran's Ratline Into Iraq-
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2007

The issue of Iranian complicity in the Iraqi insurgency has been contentious since US and Iraqi forces began heavily targeting the Iranian networks in late 2006. While news reports have touted Iran's role in reducing the violence, US military officers believe Iran still serves as a source of weapons and fighters in Iraq.

The Long War Journal has spoken to several mid-level and senior US military and intelligence officers, all of whom have declined to go on the record due to the sensitive nature of the Iranian issue. Based on these conversations as well as other information, The Long War Journal has learned the nature of the Qods Force operations in Iraq and how they move resources into the country.
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Sustaining the Surge--Wash.Times
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2007

Sustaining the surge

Martin L. Gross
December 4, 2007

We know there is true progress in Iraq because Democrats, who have been wishing and working for our defeat, are pretending to be more reasonable about America's efforts.

In reality, of course, this is merely a cosmetic one step backward by Democrats in their goal of completely taking over America politically to establish a Eurostyle isolationist and pacifist regime.

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Denying Progress in Iraq--Limbaugh--Nov. 13
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2007

Listening to the Democrats denying our progress in Iraq is reminiscent of a high school debate where one team gets stuck with the wrong side of the issue and has to defend it valiantly anyway. But in real life, especially when life-and-death consequences are involved, such artificial, unreasonable positions are not valiant but disgraceful.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson whether his plan to withdraw all troops from Iraq was outdated now that the surge "shows signs of working." Wallace noted that U.S. casualties for October were the lowest since March 2006 and civilian casualties, murders and roadside bomb attacks have all fallen dramatically.

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Iraqi Casualties, Leftist Lies
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2007

Iraqi Casualties, Leftist Lies

By Glen Reinsford
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/8/2007

Counting bodies in Iraq has become quite the fashion these days. Most major news organizations, from CNN to the New York Times, keep an up-to-the-minute running total of the number of U.S. troops killed there. Critics note that if demoralization of the war effort is not the key motive then it is certainly odd that the number of dead terrorists is so rarely, if ever, provided as well. View Full Article

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Anbar Almost Free from al-Qaida Grip--Wash. Times
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2007

Al Qaeda terrorists have been "almost defeated" in Iraq's Anbar province, once considered the heart of the resistance to the U.S.-led coalition, a top Anbar Sunni leader said yesterday.

But Abdulsalam Mohammed, chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council, and other top Anbar officials visiting Washington said U.S. troops and billions of dollars in U.S. aid will still be needed for years to train and equip local security forces and restart the devastated local economy.

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Symposium: If We Fail in Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2007

In this special edition of Frontpage Symposium, we have invited a distinguished panel to discuss the consequences of failure in Iraq. Many anti-war critics and legislators are pressing for a premature evacuation from Iraq, but do they understand the ramifications of such a move? Do most Americans, and most political observers, truly understand what is really at stake in Iraq? We thought we would spell it all out in detail in this symposium.

Our guests are:

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Marine: Five Things I Saw That Make Me Support the War
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2007

Liberals often like to say that "violence is senseless."

That’s wrong.

Violence isn't senseless. Senseless violence is senseless. And I should know. Before being awarded the Navy Cross and having the privilege of becoming a Marine, I was a gang member. Sometimes it takes having used violence for both evil as well as good to know that there's a profound moral difference between the two.
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Iran's Plan for Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2007

Iran's Plan for Iraq

By Walid Phares
World Defense Review | 9/10/2007

[Part one of a series on "Freedom Lines," adapted from seminars conducted for the U.S. House of Representatives' Caucus on Counter Terrorism, summer 2007]

In March 2003, the United States made a strategic decision to send troops into Iraq and defeat the Saddam Hussein regime militarily. This decision is still being debated nationwide and internationally as to its legitimacy and rationality.
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Iraq to Free Thousands of Jailed Sunnis--Wash.Times
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2007

BAGHDAD — Up to 6,000 suspected Sunni insurgents will be freed from Iraqi jails in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the country's government from collapsing under the strain of sectarian infighting.

The release plan, which could put some hardened combatants back on the streets, is part of a high-stakes gamble by Iraq's Shi'ite-led government to win back the confidence of Sunni politicians after increasingly bitter squabbling and walkouts.

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If Iraq Falls--WSJ
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2007

If Iraq Falls

America might have made a mistake going in, but fleeing would be a disaster.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

In contrast to President Bush's dark comparison between Iraq and the bloody aftermath of the Vietnam War last month, there is another, comforting version of the Vietnam analogy that's gained currency among policy makers and pundits. It goes something like this:

After that last helicopter took off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon 32 years ago, the nasty strategic consequences then predicted did not in fact materialize. The "dominoes" did not fall, the Russians and Chinese did not take over, and America remained No. 1 in Southeast Asia and in the world.

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Ahmadinejad: Iran Will Fill Iraq Vacuum When U.S. Leaves--Aug. 30
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2007

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is positioning his country to fill the space that will be left when the United States pulls its forces out of Iraq - as the Democrat-controlled Senate and Congress are determined to do.

The megalomaniac in Tehran believes the situation will then be ripe for Iran to dramatically extend and entrench its influence in the Middle East.

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Maliki Government "Non Functional"--Aug. 21
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2007

'Maliki Government Non-Functional,' Says Armed Services Committee Chair

CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 21, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Returning from a trip to Iraq last weekend, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the political compromises needed for success in Iraq cannot be achieved with the current Iraqi leadership.

"The most striking feature of any visit to Iraq is the bravery and professionalism of American troops," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) during a conference-call briefing with reporters on Monday. "Their courage, along with the increased Iraqi army capability and willingness to fight, has resulted in some reduced violence in some places in Iraq.
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The Good, Bad, Ugly, in Iraq--Wash.Times
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2007

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is now "hunkered down with a small group of sycophantic cronies, increasingly detached from the business of running a government." Speaking not for attribution, this was the message conveyed by a former ranking Iraqi government official in London over the weekend. The current drift at the top, he added, could only be reversed by "a strongman at the top."

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Long Occupation Force Expected in Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for June, 2007

MSNBC

Military envisions longer stay in Iraq

Officers anticipate small 'post-occupation' force

BAGHDAD - U.S. military officials here are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years.

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Looters in Iraq Destroying Civilization's Oldest Remains--June 3
--> Posted to Iraq for June, 2007

Looters in Iraq Destroying

Civilization’s Oldest Remains

by Sanjay Talwani

In southern Iraq, organized armed gangs continue to loot the nation’s numerous archaeological sites, removing and disrupting the remains of the world’s most ancient cities and settlements.

Driven by an international black market in antiquities and a collapsed economy, thieves have hauled away tons of materials—including some of humanity’s oldest writing records and other historical relics—forever destroying much of the knowledge that might have been drawn from these sites if they had been properly excavated.
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Dear American Soldier in Iraq--Prager--May 8
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2007

Dear American Soldier in Iraq:

There are a few things you should know about how tens of millions of us back home feel about you and the fight you are waging. These things need to be said, especially now, given the fact that the head of one of America's two major political parties has announced that the war in Iraq is lost.

This war has not been lost. What has happened is that many Americans, for all sorts of reasons — some out of simple fatigue, some because they do not believe that war solves anything, some out of deep loathing for the present administration — do not believe that what you are doing is worth doing.

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Christians Fleeing Iraq--Fox
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2007

BAGHDAD — Despite the chaos and sectarian violence raging across Baghdad, Farouq Mansour felt relatively safe as a Christian living in a multiethnic neighborhood in the capital.

Then, two months ago, Al Qaeda gunmen kidnapped him and demanded that his family convert to Islam or pay a $30,000 ransom. Two weeks later, he paid up, was released and immediately fled to Syria, joining a mass exodus of Iraq's increasingly threatened Christian minority.

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Saddam and Terror: Another Link--April 11
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2007

For a regime long said to be sharply opposed to radical Islamic groups the secular Baath Party that formerly ruled Iraq has seen a conspicuously large number of its members caught in close collaboration with al Qaeda and other Islamic groups in post-invasion Iraq.

A recent arrest in Mosul identified a former Saddam Fedayeen leader as an insurgent leader responsible for al Qaeda/foreign fighter camps in Syria.

On March 23, the Tactical Report, an online Middle East intelligence service, reported that a former Saddam Hussein officer was appointed as an al Qaeda leader to set up attacks on Iraqi oil sites.

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Beyond Iraq--March 29
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2007

Beyond Iraq
Fighting terror, now and in the future.

By Victor Davis Hanson

The threat from radical Islamic terrorists will not vanish when President Bush leaves office, or if funds for the Iraq war are cut off in 2008.

A frequent charge is that we are bringing terrorists to Iraq. That is true in the sense that war always brings the enemy out to the battlefield. But it’s also false, since it ignores why killers like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (the late al Qaeda chief in Iraq), Abu Nidal, and Abu Abbas (Palestinian terrorists of the 1980s), and Abdul Rahman Yasin (involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) were already in Saddam’s Iraq when we arrived.

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Christians, Pacifism, and Iraq--March 22
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2007

After four years of war in Iraq, some Christians are more insistent in their claim that the Bible requires pacifism. Some say that if we gave peace a chance, we'd live happily ever after. Others, aware of the presence of international murderers, still say we should not resist them, for Jesus did not resist his.

What to make of this? For one thing, it runs counter to much of the Bible, where God and Israel regularly resist evil.
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Idiocy in D.C., Progress in Baghdad
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2007

WEEKLY STANDARD

In order to preserve the cosmic harmony, it seems the gods insist that good news in one place be offset by misfortune elsewhere. It may well be that Gen. David Petraeus is going to lead us to victory in Iraq. He is certainly off to a good start. If the karmic price of success in Iraq is utter embarrassment for senior Bush officials in Washington, D.C.--well, in our judgment, the trade-off is worth it. The world will surely note our success or failure in Iraq. It will not long remember the gang that couldn't shoot straight at the Justice Department--or, for that matter, the antics of congressional Democrats--unless either so weakens the administration as to undercut our mission in Iraq.

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Come to Your Senses About Iraq--Sen. Lieberman---March 17
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2007

Come to Your Senses About Iraq
By Senator Joseph Lieberman
Lieberman.Senate.Gov | March 16, 2007

Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, delivered the following speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on March 12, 2007. -- The Editors.

In the great policy discussions in Washington, I've learned, there are opponents on the one side, and on the other, there are allies, and friends, and then, there is family.

For me and many others, AIPAC is family—united in our shared history, our shared values, and our shared vision for the future. As family, we can talk frankly with each other, and that is what I would like to do with you today.

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The Doomed Plan to Doom Iraq---March 9
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2007

The Democrats unveiled their latest version of Cut and Run, which will demand a total withdrawal from Iraq by no later than the fall of 2008 -- just in time for the Presidential election. The plan forces President Bush to certify that the Iraqi government has met a series of benchmark tests, and any failure will trigger an immediate and early withdrawal:

House Democrats today unveiled a plan for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2008, introducing legislation that attaches a complex series of conditions to military spending requested by President Bush. View Full Article

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A Letter from Mosul--Cal Thomas
--> Posted to Iraq for February, 2007

"The American military has shown a stone-cold professional veneer throughout the seething debate raging over Iraq. Beneath that veneer, however, is a fuming, visceral hatred. We feel as though we have been betrayed by Congress."

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Iraq's Choice: Offered Freedom--Chose Civil War--Krauthammer---Feb. 2
--> Posted to Iraq for February, 2007

Iraq’s Choice

They were given their freedom and yet many have chosen civil war.

By Charles Krauthammer

This week the internecine warfare in Iraq, already bewildering — Sunni vs. Shiite, Kurd vs. Arab, jihadist vs. infidel, with various Iranians, Syrians, and assorted freelancers thrown into the maelstrom — went bizarre. In one of the biggest battles of the war, Iraqi troops reinforced by Americans wiped out a heavily armed, well-entrenched millenarian Shiite sect preparing to take over Najaf, kill the moderate Shiite clergy (including Grand Ayatollah Sistani) and proclaim its leader the returned messiah.
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Iran Plans to Expand Role in Iraq---Jan. 29
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2007

Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad outlined an ambitious plan on Sunday to greatly expand its economic and military ties with Iraq — including an Iranian national bank branch in the heart of the capital — just as the Bush administration has been warning the Iranians to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs.
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What I Saw in Iraq--Malkin---Jan. 17
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2007

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Last week, I embedded with U.S. Army troops at Forward Operating Base Justice in northern Baghdad. Outside the wire, we toured the slums and met with neighborhood leaders inching toward self-sufficiency in al Salam. We sipped chai with a sheikh who condemned terrorists on all sides. We watched residents bicker over a civil affairs blanket drop in Khadamiyah. We sat with slimy Mahdi Army apologists in Hurriya. We stopped by a Sunni insurgent enclave, which soldiers I patrolled with dubbed a "sniperville," in al Adil.
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A Rushed, Botched, Unholy Mess--Krauthammer---Jan. 5
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2007

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy, but a crime — against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for, and against justice itself.

In late 2005, I wrote about the incompetence of the Saddam trial and how it was an opportunity missed. Instead of exposing, elucidating and irrefutably making the case for the crimes of the accused — as was done at Nuremberg and the Eichmann trial — the Iraqi government lost control and inadvertently turned it into a stage for Saddam.
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Saddam's End: Not with a Bang but with a Wimper---Jan. 1
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2007

Once a free-spending, extravagantly-living, ruthlessly brutal ruler of a rogue nation, Saddam Hussein’s world was turned upside down in March 2003, when a US-led coalition of 39 nations provided the “serious consequences” called for by the United Nations after Iraq was found to be in “material breach” of the world body’s Resolution 1441, the seventeenth UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) he had willfully violated since the Persian Gulf War.

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Iran, Iraq, and Democrats--Limbaugh---Dec. 29
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2006

Iraq, Iran and Democrats

By David Limbaugh

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | As the end of the year always occasions retrospectives, prospectives and resolutions, it might be a worthwhile exercise to consider our experiences with Iraq as a guide to what might happen with Iran, especially since Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's saber rattling has reached a fever pitch.

While comparisons to Hitler (and the world's reaction to him) are painfully trite anymore, it's hard not to notice parallels between Hitler and his apologists and Ahmadinejad and the stubborn appeasers today.

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Baker-Hamilton Lunacy--Timmerman
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2006

Baker-Hamilton Lunacy
By Kenneth R. Timmerman

Much ink has already been spilled on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. Welcomed by liberals and condemned by conservatives, more importantly it has been rejected by just every public figure in Iraq.

Without a doubt, the report’s most controversial recommendation was the call for direct talks with the governments of Syria and Iran. What has gone unrecognized, however, are the stunning misconceptions underlying that recommendation.

(Note: the page references below all refer to the PDF version of the report, which can be downloaded here. All emphasis is my own).

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Terrorists Rejoice Over Iraq Study Group
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2006

Terrorists rejoice over Iraq Study Report

Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip welcomed the report of the Iraq Study Group, presented by former US Secretary of State James Baker, which recognizes Islam as the “new giant of the world.”

“The report proves that this is the era of Islam and of jihad,” said Abu Ayman, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad from Jenin. Islamic Jihad has been responsible for every suicide bombing in the past.
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Political Answers Won't Work in Iraq---Dec. 7
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2006

The most common cliché about the war in Iraq is now this: We didn't have a plan, and now everything is in chaos; we didn't have a plan, and now we can't win.
This is entirely wrong. We did have a plan - the problem is that the plan didn't work. And of course we can win - we just have to choose to do so.

The problem with our plan is that it wasn't actually a military plan.

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Congress Prepares to Launch "Operation Surrender"--Coulter---Dec. 7
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2006

Incoming Congress Prepares to Launch "Operation Surrender"
By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com

The "bipartisan" Iraq panel has recommended that Iran and Syria can help stabilize Iraq. You know, the way Germany and Russia helped stabilize Poland in '39.
Now that Democrats have won the House, they can concentrate on losing the war. Despite all the phony conservative Democrats who got elected as gun-totin' hawks, the Democrats will uniformly vote to dismantle every aspect of the war on terrorism. They've started a runaway train and can't stop it now.

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The Reality of Surrender--Kristol---Nov. 27
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2006

Foreign policy realism is ascendant these days, we are told. This would be encouraging if true, because our foreign policy must indeed be realistic. But what passes for "realism" today has very little to do with reality. Indeed, if you look at some of the "realist" proposals on the table, "realism" has come to be a kind of code word for surrendering American interests and American allies, as well as American principles, in the Middle East.

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Don't Bring Iran (Further) Into Iraq--Dick Morris---Nov. 22
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2006

Don't Bring Iran (Further) Into Iraq
By Dick Morris

A consensus seems to be developing that only a “regional solution” embracing Iran and Syria can extract the United States from Iraq without jeopardy to those who have stood with us and without damage to both our reputation and Bush’s place in history.

But at what price? Nobody seems willing to say what “engagement” with Iran for a regional solution would entail. We cannot ask Iran’s help while we bomb its nuclear reactors or impose tough sanctions on the country.

The price of Iranian cooperation will be complicity in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran will gladly assure Bush it does not intend to develop an atomic weapon. But we shouldn’t believe it.

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Winning Iraq is Not in the Cards--Jed Babbin---Nov. 21
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2006

With all the politicians and diplomats stirring their ideas into the pot -- the Fabulous Baker Boys, Henry Kissinger, McCain, Tony Blair and the rest -- you might think that a host of new policies to win in Iraq were just around the corner. And you'd be wrong. Let us remember Churchill's admonition that any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility to carry them out. Which brings us to the secret Pentagon study going on now that was reported in the Monday Washington Post. View Full Article

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Why Iraq is Crumbling--Krauthammer
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2006

Why Iraq is crumbling

By Charles Krauthammer

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "A republic, if you can keep it."

— Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, in answer to "What have we got?"

We have given the Iraqis a republic, and they do not appear able to keep it.

Americans flatter themselves that they are the root of all planetary evil. Nukes in North Korea? Poverty in Bolivia? Sectarian violence in Iraq? Breasts are beaten and fingers pointed as we try to somehow locate the root cause in America.

Our discourse on Iraq has followed the same pattern. Where did we go wrong? Too few troops? Too arrogant an occupation? Or too soft? Take your pick.

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Bush's War Efforts Hampered by Own Administration---Oct. 27
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2006

While President clearly knows what he wants to do, he is hard pressed to succeed

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A jihadi snuff film produced by an Iraqi group called the Islamic Army of Allah, and aired on CNN and on Wednesday in Israel, shows a jihadi sniper knocking off American soldiers one by one.

Being a propaganda flick whose goal is to demoralize Americans and their allies and recruit new soldiers to the army of jihad, not surprisingly, the video doesn't show how the US forces reacted to the sniper fire. The American forces in the film are powerless victims. If they are smart, they will cut and run before it is too late.

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Insurgents Hit Target: Washington--WSJ---Oct. 25
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2006

The Beltway Retreat
The insurgents are hitting their targets--in Washington.

We need to be realist but not defeatist. We need to understand that there is a need of utmost urgency to deal with many of the problems of Iraq but we must not give in to panic.

So said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih on Monday, in a BBC interview while in London for talks with Tony Blair. If only such statesmanship prevailed on this side of the Atlantic, where election politics and a spate of critical new books have combined to paint an increasingly desperate--and false--picture of what's happening in Iraq.
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Fighting Them Over There---Sept. 28
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2006

Jerusalem

PRESS ACCOUNTS OF the classified National Intelligence Estimate have asserted that the war in Iraq has increased Islamic radicalism. President Bush has declassified the document so that people can see for themselves what it says, with the implication that the press has cherry-picked and distorted the report's conclusions for maximum effect, but the problem here is not just partisan politics. Some people really believe that the war in Iraq is driving recruitment among jihadists, and it seems that quite a few of those people work for U.S. intelligence services.

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A War We Have to Win--Jacoby---Sept. 28
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2006

A war we have to win

By Jeff Jacoby

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The consensus in the intelligence community is that the war in Iraq has worsened the threat from radical Islamic violence and hurt US efforts to combat terrorism. So, at any rate, say The New York Times ("Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat") and The Washington Post ("Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting US Terror Fight"), which reported on the most recent National Intelligence Estimate in front-page stories on Sunday. Is it true?

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What if We Left?--Buckley---Aug. 30
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2006

The wires are heavy with the question of Iraq. The defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut was a call to outright defiance by Democrats running for re-election. They have been warned now, by the unforgiving, that they must reject the war in Iraq and labor with the single end in mind of returning American troops and dissolving U.S. commitments.

Arguments are made for staying in and completing the mission. Norman Podhoretz, writing in The Wall Street Journal, does his illuminating best to make the case. National Review posts a symposium giving the views of a half-dozen students of the contest. The Weekly Standard publishes a robust defense of the Iraq venture written by William J. Stuntz, who is a professor at the Harvard Law School. He reminds his readers that in 1968 Eugene McCarthy practically defeated incumbent president Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, bringing on the end of his presidency.

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In Incovenient Truth About Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for July, 2006

An Inconvenient Truth About Iraq
By Ralph Peters
New York Post

When I visited Baghdad in March, there was no civil war. There is no civil war in Iraq today. But it's beginning to look as if there might be one tomorrow.
Something vital has changed. In Baghdad.

For three years, the violence was about political power in post-Saddam Iraq. Sunni Arab insurgents and Shia militias may have been on opposite sides, but the conflict was only a religious war for the foreign terrorists. And the fighting wasn't between the masses of Sunnis and Shias - who were the victims of all sides.

Now it's different. The unwillingness of the Iraqi government to take on the sectarian death squads slaughtering civilians is polarizing Iraq (while the Kurds build up their own peaceful slice of the country as fast as they can).

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Saddam's WMD: Discovery and Denial
--> Posted to Iraq for July, 2006

Saddam’s WMD: Discovery and Denial
By Douglas Hanson

Two weeks ago, Senator Rick Santorum and Rep. Pete Hoekstra revealed declassified portions of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) that said Coalition forces in Iraq have recovered several hundred munitions containing degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. The report also stated that “filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

Now that our units in Iraq have discovered the smoking gun that the Left has seemingly wanted for the past three years, they have shifted the goalposts again. And one more time, the facts of Saddam’s WMD must be presented to the American people to counter the lies of the media, and regrettably, some people in our own government agencies.

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Remarkably Good News from Iraq--Rosenberg
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2006

Unprecedented religious freedom has finally come to Iraq because of U.S. military action there, and more Iraqi Muslims are becoming followers of Jesus Christ today than at any other time in the history of the country.

That was the message delivered by retired Iraqi General Georges Sada last night at a private dinner just outside of Washington, D.C., and then at McLean Bible Church in northern Virginia where Sada spoke to more than 1,000 people.

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Russian Mischief in Iraq WMD
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2006

Just recently, Saddam Hussein's former southern regional commander, Gen. Al-Tikriti, gave the first videotaped testimony confirming that Iraq had WMDs up to the American invasion in 2003 and that Russia helped removed them prior to the war. His testimony confirms numerous other sources that have pointed to Russia's secret alliance with Iraq and the co-ordinated moving of WMDs before the American liberation. Today we've invited three experts on this subject to discuss the details of Al-Tikriti's testimony and its larger significance.

Our guests today are:

John Loftus, president of the Intelligence Summit, a non-profit, non-partisan charity to support our intelligence community and a frequent commentator on terrorism for network news. For 25 years, he has been a pro bono lawyer for whistleblowers inside US and NATO intelligence.
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Those WMD: The Mystery Solved--Pipes
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2006

The great mystery of the 2003 war in Iraq - “What about the WMD?” has finally been resolved. The short answer is: Saddam Hussein’s persistent record of lying meant no one believed him when he at the last moment actually removed the weapons of mass destruction.

In a riveting book-length report issued by the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, Iraqi Perspectives Project, American researchers have produced the results of a systematic two-year study of the forces and motivations shaping Saddam Hussein and his regime. Well written, historically contexted, and replete with revealing details, it ranks with Kanan Makiya’s Republic of Fear as the masterly description of that regime. (For a condensed version, see the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs.)

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Saddam and Osama: The New Revelations
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2006

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Thomas Joscelyn, an expert on the international terrorist network. Much of his research has focused on the role that nations such as Saddam's Iraq and the mullah's Iran have played in providing support, training and funding for terrorist entities such as al Qaeda, al Qaeda's affiliates, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. He has written extensively about these connections for the Weekly Standard and in several other publications. Currently, he is organizing a research project to review and translate the millions of documents captured from the fallen Iraqi regime and the Taliban.

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Troops in Support of the War
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2006

Troops in Support Of the War
By Wade Zirkle
Washington Post

Earlier this year there was a town hall meeting on the Iraq war, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), with the participation of such antiwar organizations as CodePink and MoveOn.org. The event also featured Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who had become an outspoken critic of the war. To this Iraq war veteran, it was a good example of something that's become all too common: People from politics, the media and elsewhere purporting to represent "our" views. With all due respect, most often they don't. View Full Article

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Saddam Planned Attacks on America--Weekly Standard
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2006

IN JULY 2004, DURING THE COURSE of a little-publicized event while on a visit to Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some unusual remarks:

I can confirm that after the events of September 11, 2001, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received . . . information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations.

Putin's remarks were little noticed by the American press, coming as they did so soon after the release of the 9/11 Commission's report. Moreover, despite his strong opposition to the war in Iraq, Putin was unabashedly in favor of Bush's reelection, having earlier criticized Senator Kerry for supporting unilateral action against Serbia while opposing it with regard to Iraq. Putin went so far as to claim in October 2004 that "The goal of international terrorism is to prevent the election of President Bush to a second term."

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The Iraqi WMD That Slipped Through Our Fingers
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2006

The Iraqi WMDs That Slipped Through Our Fingers
By Jamie Glazov

Frontpage Interview’s guest is Paul (Dave) Gaubatz, a former U.S. Federal Agent (Arabic linguist/counter-terrorist specialist) who was deployed to Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His mission was to search for WMDs. Four sites he identified were not searched by ISG (Iraq Survey Group) and he has waged a three year battle to get them searched. He is currently the Chief Investigator with the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dallas, TX. He can be contacted at pdgaubatz@yahoo.com. View Full Article

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Saddam's Tapes, WMD & the Osama Connection
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2006

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, the co-author with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely on their book Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. He is a retired Air Force Fighter Pilot who has been a Fox News Military Analyst for the last four and a half years and continues to appear regularly on Fox. He just returned from his second visit to Iraq in December, 2005.

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Facing Facts in Iraq--WND
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2006

Baghdad, Iraq. On the streets of Sadr City, merchants' goods cover the sidewalks, open-air markets peddle meat and produce, and civilians go about their business much as elsewhere. The alleyways, sidewalks and fields are filled with children and their presence outdoors testifies to the residents' feeling of security. In short, by the usual measures, there is no overt civil war in this neighborhood.

In the last generation the world has seen genuine civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia, where five- and six-figure death tolls were the norm. By contrast, in Baghdad, bodies are counted "only" in tens and twenties – when episodes of violence occur. The notion that civil war is "imminent" is a fiction retailed by those cheerleading for a U.S. failure in Iraq – a group which includes, among others, hard-left Democrats, jihadis and the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

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No Reason for Optimism in Iraq?--Hal Lindsey
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2006

This week, Iraqi police discovered a minibus parked in a Sunni Arab district of Baghdad. Inside were the bodies of 18 men. All were bound and blindfolded. Most had been apparently been hanged or garroted. Much was made of the fact the bodies were discovered in the predominantly Sunni Amiriyah suburb, suggesting the dead were victims of sectarian violence.

The New York Times screamed in its headline reporting the discovery, "Religious Strife Is Pushing Iraq towards Civil War." The BBC sniffed, "No Reason for Optimism in Iraq." The Seattle Times warned, "Iraq Roiling with Ethnic Animosity."

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Iraq Weapons Made in Iran?
--> Posted to Iraq for March, 2006

U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.

They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.

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Saddam's WMD: The Syrian Connection
--> Posted to Iraq for February, 2006

Saddam's WMD's: The Syrian Connection
By Laurie Mylroie

The New York Sun is doing yeoman’s work in explaining why the latest group-think—that Saddam Hussein had no proscribed WMD—may be very wrong. Ha’aretz has lent its support, reporting that Israeli officials believe “[m]aterial was transferred to Syria in the dark of the night, on the very eve of the war,” and “[t]he Americans are the ones who are making the mistake now." That is also the view of retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, who headed the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

The little that has emerged about the Iraqi documents captured by U.S. forces supports the idea that Baghdad retained WMD programs. The Weekly Standard reports that one such document from February 2003, just before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, was entitled by U.S. translators, “Chemical, Biological Agent Destruction.” Other documents indicate that Iraq acquired anthrax and mustard gas in 2000. And Bill Tierney, who worked in Iraq both before and after OIF, recently detailed for FrontPageMagazine evidence that Iraq maintained such programs, as well as Baghdad’s efforts to hide such evidence.

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Saddam's Terror Training Camps--Weekly Standard
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2006

Saddam's Terror Training Camps

What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal--and why they should all be made public.

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials. View Full Article

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What Would Happen if We Left Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2005

What would happen if we left Iraq

By James Lileks

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The House of Representatives may have voted overwhelmingly to stay the course in Iraq, but that doesn't mean a goodly dollop of Democrats don't want to bug out tomorrow. What we don't hear is what the left thinks would happen after we scurry out of Mesopotamia.

When some Democrats insist Iraq is another Vietnam, they betray their own tone-deaf sense of history: That implies withdrawal would lead to totalitarianism, death camps, a desperate exodus and a sense of gut-shot failure piercing America's self-image. That seems OK with the left, because they promise not to spit on the vets this time. Deal?

Perhaps they're right. Perhaps immediate retreat is the best course of action. Let's consider what will surely happen.

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Iraq and al-Qaida Were No Strangers--NRO
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2005

Facts of War

Yes, there were connections between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 bad guys.

What is this baloney that there were no connections between Iraq and Osama bin Laden? Even the 9/11 Commission Report, which I believe is lacking in many respects, includes some useful findings all but ignored today by the media and war critics. Consider the following excerpts:

Page 61:

Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda — save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against 'Crusaders' during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.
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Who Is Lying About Iraq?
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2005

This article will appear in the December issue of Commentary but has been released in advance at the magazine's website, www.commentarymagazine.com]

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

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The Good News from Iraq is Not Fit to Print--Jacoby
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2005

The good news from Iraq is not fit to print

By Jeff Jacoby

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | What was the most important news out of Iraq last week?

That depends on what you consider ''important." Do you see the war against radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism as the most urgent conflict of our time? Do you believe that replacing tyranny with democratic self-government is ultimately the only antidote to the poison that has made the Middle East so dangerous and violent? If so, you'll have no trouble identifying the most significant development in Iraq last week: the landslide victory of the new Iraqi Constitution.

The announcement on Oct. 25 that the first genuinely democratic national charter in Arab history had been approved by 79 percent of Iraqis was a major piece of good news. It confirmed the courage of Iraq's people and their hunger for freedom and decent governance. It advanced the US campaign to democratize a country that for 25 years had been misruled by a mass-murdering sociopath. It underscored the decision by Iraq's Sunnis, who had boycotted the parliamentary elections in January, to pursue their goals through ballots, not bullets. And it dealt a humiliating blow to the bombers and beheaders — to the likes of Islamist butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who earlier this year declared ''a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy" and threatened to kill anyone who took part in the elections.

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Arab World Needs to Watch Saddam's Trial
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2005

“WHAT IS the latest?” Iraqis ask as they come together for tea and sympathy in these times of hope and uncertainty. And there is always someone who answers by reporting the discovery of a new mass grave where the victims of Saddam Hussein were buried.
According to the latest estimates, the remains of more than 200,000 people, the fruit of the 35-year-long rule of his Arab Socialist Baath Party, have been found in this ever expanding archipelago of death.

And yet, as the fallen dictator’s trial opens today, he faces only one charge: the massacre of 143 men, women and children in the village of Dujail in 1982. With him in the dock will be his half-brother Barzan al-Takriti, who headed his regime’s secret services, and Taha al-Jizrawi, who commanded the party’s so-called Popular Corps, an army of cut-throats.

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What if America Had Not Invaded Iraq?--Pipes
--> Posted to Iraq for September, 2005

What If the United States Had Not Invaded Iraq
by Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia Inquirer

Much would be different had George W. Bush not decided to invade Iraq.

In some ways, the situation would be worse:

The Iraqi population would still suffer under the totalitarian rule of Saddam Hussein. The shaky economy, car bombs and ethnic unrest that Iraqis face today are far lesser evils compared with the poverty, injustice, brutality and barbarism that was their fate between 1979 and 2003.

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Iraq: Let's Quit Confusing the Issues--Limbaugh
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2005

It's easy to blame President Bush for failing sufficiently to articulate his case for the war against Iraq, but he does have a nation to lead and a war to fight. Plus, he already made the case for attacking Iraq at the time it mattered – before we attacked.

He convinced Congress – overwhelmingly – and the American people. Instead of our insisting that he spend all his time responding to the Left's distractions over this, more of us should do a better job coming to his aid on the issue.

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Inside Iran's Secret War for Iraq--TIME
--> Posted to Iraq for August, 2005

Inside Iran's Secret War for Iraq

A TIME investigation reveals the Tehran regime's strategy to gain influence in Iraq--and why U.S. troops may now face greater dangers as a result

The U.S. Military's new nemesis in Iraq is named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, and he is not a Baathist or a member of al-Qaeda. He is working for Iran. According to a U.S. military-intelligence document obtained by TIME, al-Sheibani heads a network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Over the past eight months, his group has introduced a new breed of roadside bomb more lethal than any seen before; based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizballah, the weapon employs "shaped" explosive charges that can punch through a battle tank's armor like a fist through the wall. According to the document, the U.S. believes al-Sheibani's team consists of 280 members, divided into 17 bombmaking teams and death squads. The U.S. believes they train in Lebanon, in Baghdad's predominantly Shi'ite Sadr City district and "in another country" and have detonated at least 37 bombs against U.S. forces this year in Baghdad alone.

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Can We Lose in Iraq?--WND
--> Posted to Iraq for July, 2005

In previous columns I have noted that, since at least 1960, or in other words for nearly half a century, America's military ventures have been fodder for the nation's partisan battles. Forget about "politics stopping at the water's edge." Beginning with Vietnam, opposition to the country's wars has been a staple of political combat – first by leftists operating largely outside the two-party system, but increasingly between the two major parties, as the Democratic Party has progressively internalized this opposition.

You can be sure that Muslim fanatics like Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi watched with fascination as domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam swelled to a point where it simply overwhelmed Nixon (who had inherited the war from the Democrats) and a Democratic Congress finally forced the withdrawal of American forces and then cut off all further military aid to our South Vietnamese allies. Mighty America simply cut and ran.

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Iraq Not Part of War on Terror?--Hal Lindsey
--> Posted to Iraq for June, 2005

President Bush appealed to the nation to stay the course in Iraq on Tuesday in a nationally televised speech that was nationally televised only when the Big Three Networks made a last minute decision to carry his comments live. Reaction was fascinating in both its scope and its idiocy.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi immediately accused the president of "exploiting 9-11" which, she informed the nation, had nothing to do with the war in Iraq.

According to Rep. Pelosi (who is actually allowed to participate in making important homeland security decisions)

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What do the Iraqi Insurgents Want?--Wash. Post
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2005

Like the people in that convoy, Iraqis are wondering why the diverse people known by the shorthand phrase "insurgents" continue to attack and what they hope to achieve. In the week since a new cabinet was formed, about 250 Iraqis have been slaughtered in car bombings and other bloody attacks, a pace as relentless and heartless as any since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years ago. And while on the ground the attacks seem indiscriminate, there is a strategy behind them.
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Symposium: The Saddam-Osama Connection
--> Posted to Iraq for February, 2005

Symposium: The Saddam-Osama Connection.
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 11, 2005

As Iraqis move toward democracy after their recent successful elections, the motives behind America’s liberation of Iraq continue to remain under intense scrutiny. Were the Bush administration’s actions influenced by a fear of Iraq’s connection with al Qaeda? What exact evidence suggested that possible link? Why can’t the top experts agree on it?

To explore this question with us today, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel. Our guests:

Rohan Gunaratna, the author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. He is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore. Before the US invasion of Iraq, based on several thousands of captured Al Qaeda documents from Afghanistan, he argued that there was no link between the Saddam regime and Al Qaeda. He predicted that the threat of terrorism would increase if the US invaded Iraq unilaterally;

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The Media: Aiding and Abetting the Enemy in Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for January, 2005

Aiding and Abetting the Enemy
By Lieutenant Colonel Tim Ryan

What if domestic news outlets continually fed American readers headlines like: "Bloody Week on U.S. Highways: Some 700 Killed," or "More Than 900 Americans Die Weekly from Obesity-Related Diseases"? Both of these headlines might be true statistically, but do they really represent accurate pictures of the situations? What if you combined all of the negatives to be found in the state of Texas and used them as an indicator of the quality of life for all Texans? Imagine the headlines: "Anti-law Enforcement Elements Spread Robbery, Rape and Murder through Texas Cities." For all intents and purposes, this statement is true for any day of any year in any state. True -- yes, accurate -- yes, but in context with the greater good taking place -- no! After a year or two of headlines like these, more than a few folks back in Texas and the rest of the U.S. probably would be ready to jump off of a building and end it all. So, imagine being an American in Iraq right now. View Full Article

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Liberals and the War in Iraq--Horowitz
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2004

Liberals, Leftists and the War in Iraq
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 10, 2004

The passions of war in a divided nation can be not only unpleasant, but dangerous as well. They can tie our hands, weaken our resolve, and make us vulnerable to those who are determined to destroy us. But when lives are at stake – and those lives are our own – it is easy to abandon common civilities and to think of our opponents as an enemy camp vying for the right and the power to determine our fates. In these circumstances it is easy to forget the ties that bind us, and that we are, when all is said and done, a nation indivisible. In these times, the worst in us can spring to the surface and the worst among us find it easier to advance to the fore. At the same time, the best are often in retreat. However, with the election over and the contest for power momentarily decided, a window of opportunity has opened in which each of us can strive to check these currents and reaffirm our common heritage, humanity and faith. This is an opportunity that presents itself to those on both sides of the debate over the war in Iraq. View Full Article

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A Plan to Defeat America in Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for December, 2004

Today we see political leaders and activists speaking out against the war in Iraq and even, though you don't hear it much anymore, against the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some, like Michael Moore and Tom Hayden, openly advocate American defeat in Iraq -- rhetoric that goes far beyond anything Vallandigham ever said. Others, including Al Gore and Ted Kennedy, rail against the war, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and others with over-the-top hyperbole similar to Vallandigham's. But they do not advocate American defeat, nor, I am sure, do they desire it.
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Why We Are In Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2004

Why We Are In Iraq
By David Horowitz

(This speech was given at Georgetown University on October 14, 2004 and broadcast on C-Span. It has been edited for inclusion on FrontPagemag.com -- The Editors)

My subject tonight is one that nobody really wants to talk about because nobody is really ready to confront it. It is what I call the "unholy alliance" between radical Islam and the American left, and its effect on the politics of the Democratic Party. My theme, in part, was announced by Osama bin Laden himself in one of his fatwas on al-Jazeera TV. On February 14, 2003 -- about six weeks before troops from the United States and Britain entered Iraq, bin Laden said: "The interests of Muslims and the interests of the socialists coincide in the war against the crusaders."

He was referring to the fact that, four weeks earlier, millions of leftists had poured into the streets of Europe's capitals and also into the streets of Washington and San Francisco and New York. Their goal was to prevent the United States and Britain from toppling Saddam Hussein. They chanted "no blood for oil"; they called the United States "the world's greatest terrorist state"; they called the American government an "Axis of Evil"; and they compared the American president to Adolph Hitler.

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Saddam: The ATM Of Al-Qaida
--> Posted to Iraq for November, 2004

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda
By Christopher S. Carson
FrontPageMagazine.com

The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al-Qaeda is a purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train, and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal fortune. Thirty million dollars is the budget of a small school district in Wisconsin, where I live.

But the 9/11 Commission didn't even bother to trace the money trails of terrorist finance that led to the catastrophe three years ago, calling the question "one of little practical significance."

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What Would Zarqawi Be Doing If He Weren't In Iraq?--Prager
--> Posted to Iraq for October, 2004

What Would Zarqawi Be Doing if He Weren't in Iraq?
By Dennis Prager

The most frequently offered argument of Sen. John Kerry and other antiwar Democrats to support their charge that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake is that Iraq has become a den of terrorists.

This claim is true. But it completely undermines the Democrats' charge that invading Iraq was a mistake.

They say this: There are far more terrorists in Iraq since the invasion, and, therefore, the invasion was a mistake.

Yet, in order to believe that the greater number of terrorists in Iraq means the invasion was a mistake, you have to believe one or both of the following -- that were it not for the invasion, the terrorists who are in Iraq would have been engaged in some peaceful work in some other country, or that they are newly minted terrorists who were perhaps selling shoes prior to the war in Iraq.

Neither scenario makes sense.

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Iraq: The Real Story
--> Posted to Iraq for July, 2004

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Karl Zinsmeister, the editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise (TAEmag.com) and author of the new book Dawn Over Baghdad: How the U.S. Military is Using Bullets and Ballots to Remake Iraq.

FP: Welcome to Frontpage Interview Mr. Zinsmeister.

Zinsmeister: It's a pleasure to be here.

FP: Congratulations on your new book. It took quite a bit of personal bravery to write it, seeing that you spent three months in combat zones with American soldiers in Iraq doing your research. First things first, share a story with us about your experience.

Zinsmeister: I began as an embedded reporter during the hot war which toppled Saddam a little more than a year ago. I had an incredible string of experiences with everyone from very impressive line soldiers of all sorts, to the top generals in the country, to English-speaking Iraqi civilians pinned down next to me by sniper fire. I came home and wrote the first book about the invasion, called Boots on the Ground: A Month With the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq, which was out in August 2003.

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Saddam's Saviors
--> Posted to Iraq for June, 2004

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is proud to define itself as "an impartial, neutral and independent organization." The ICRC is the self-appointed guardian of the standards set forth by the Geneva Conventions. Seven fundamental principles are purportedly at the base of the ICRC: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. The group says its mission is to bring emergency relief to victims of disasters and conflicts and to improve basic living conditions of those in deprived areas of the world. However, a spokeswoman for the ICRC has taken a pointedly non-neutral stance regarding Saddam Hussein and his imprisonment.

On June 14th, The Guardian reported that Nada Doumani, a spokesperson for ICRC, had challenged America?s continued imprisonment of Saddam Hussein, the captured former president of Iraq. In the interview, Ms. Doumani said, "The United States defines Hussein as a prisoner of war. At the end of an occupation POWs have to be released provided they have no penal charges against them." The only Iraqis given POW status are senior officials of Saddam's regime and Saddam Hussein himself. "When the conflict ends the prisoners of war should be released," Ms Doumani further explained. She expressed concern for the deposed murderous tyrant, saying, "no one should be left not knowing their legal status."

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Saddam Had WMD--The Left Could Care Less--Gafney
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2004

Saddam Had WMDs; The Left Couldn't Care Less

One could be forgiven for thinking that the detonation of two "improvised explosive devices" equipped with toxic chemical agents would be seen as confirmation that there are still Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq. These events might even be seen as rebuttals to those who have derided the Bush administration for its prior inability to substantiate pre-war claims that such weapons in Saddam's hands constituted an intolerable threat to the United States.

Unfortunately, such thinking fails to appreciate a stand-by of Washington Beltway politics: "moving the goalposts." Whenever the opposing team comes close to proving its point, one simply relocates the end zone to a point out of reach
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Hunting Saddam's Torturers--In America
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2004

Hunting Saddam's Torturers'in America

Within the past few weeks, the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested two suspected modern day war criminals. One a Vietnamese who is alleged to have tortured political prisoners under the Vietnamese Communist regime and the other a Rwandan alleged to have been a local leader of the inter-tribal genocide committed in that war-torn country in 1994, and wanted by the UN international Rwandan war crimes tribunal. Both these suspects were arrested on felony immigration fraud violations under ICE's evolving but increasingly aggressive Operation No Safe Haven, which seeks to identify, investigate and apprehend foreign human rights violators and war criminals who find their way into the United States.

These two arrests, ironically coinciding with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, are demonstrative of the US Government's genuine commitment to doing the right thing in the arena of human rights. The timing of the events also highlights what may be an important and perhaps previously unconsidered area of targeting for Operation No Safe Haven ...Iraqi human rights violators who may have entered and settled in the United States.

Statistics from the Bureau of US Citizenship and Immigration Services website reveals that between 1989 and 2000, nearly 23,000 Iraqis refugees and asylum seekers were granted Lawful Alien Permanent Resident status within the United States. That number, of course, does not include those who may have entered the US as immigrants based on regular family status or employment permanent visas, nor those who entered as nonimmigrant visitors or students and subsequently overstayed their time or perhaps "adjusted" to permanent legal status via the tried and true method of marrying an American citizen or finding a willing American employer to file a visa petition. Even so, those 23,000 refugee immigrants, given the chain migration multiplier effect (spouses, children and siblings) would likely at least double the original number in real terms. The true picture of the number Iraqis in the United States over the past fifteen years or so is significant.

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Who Are The Shiites In Iraq?
--> Posted to Iraq for May, 2004

The Shiites are so dangerous because they hold most of the trump cards.

They comprise 60% of Iraq's 25 million people. Their powerful leadership can fill streets with rage on a single decree. Their militias are well armed, organized and ready for action.

What's more, the prospect of self-rule after 14 centuries of often-brutal political and religious oppression has infused the Shiites with a sense that their historic moment of self-determination has arrived.

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American Purposes In Iraq--Pipes
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2004

American Purposes In Iraq
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun

What should be the U.S. goal in Iraq? The American government is clear on this point: it is "a free and peaceful Iraq," which it presents as critical to the stability of the Middle East, which, in turn, "is critical to the security of the American people."

A free and peaceful Iraq is one in the American image:democratic, liberal, capitalist, under the rule of law. While completely sympathetic to this vision, who could not be, I worry both that Iraqis do not welcome American guidance and that such an ambition ultimately is unrealistic.

My thoughts on the second of these worries are clarified by Samuel P. Huntington's remarkable new book, Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity, forthcoming in May. In it, the Harvard professor analyzes the impact other civilizations are having on America via immigration, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the denationalization of American elites. He argues eloquently for the need to reassert core American values in the face of this challenge.

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Iran Operates 18 Spy Centers In Iraq
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2004

IRAN OPERATES 18 SPY CENTERS IN IRAQ

LONDON [MENL] -- Iranian intelligence has been operating at least 18 covert centers in Iraq as well as targeting Shi'ites deemed as aligned with the United States in a nearly $1 billion effort to prevent the spread of democracy in that Arab country.

A former Iranian official in Teheran's intelligence community publicly disclosed the first details on Iran's intelligence presence in Iraq. The defector said Iran has bolstered its intelligence presence throughout Iraq where Teheran has sought to exacerbate ethnic tensions and encourage a nationwide revolt against the United States.

The centers have been located in Baghdad, Basra, Karbala, Najaf, Nasseriya and Suleimaniya, the Iranian defector said. The centers, operating under the cover of charities, have also been used to recruit Iraqis to spy for Iran.

The defector, identified as Haj Saidi and who fled Iran in late 2003, told the London-based daily A-Sharq Al Awsat on April 3 that Iran has sent hundreds of intelligence agents into Iraq over the last 18 months. Many of them came under the guise of Iranian pilgrims and Iraqi refugees. He said more than 300 Iranian agents -- benefiting from about 2,700 safe houses in 14 cities -- were operating in Iraq.

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Iraq And The Prince Of Persia--Kinsella
--> Posted to Iraq for April, 2004

"But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days." (Daniel 10:13-14)

The United States military forces in Iraq are currently conducting combat operations against a Shi'ite militia in Fallujah under the control of a radical Muslim cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr. The Pentagon decided to retaliate -- hard -- for the killing and mutilation of four American civilian security contractors there last week.