Brownwood: Is this being discussed at your dinner table ?
Iraq Creating New Breed of Jihadists, says CIA
by Ewen MacAskill, Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor
The war in Iraq is creating a new breed of Islamic jihadists who could go on to destabilize other countries, according to a CIA report.
The CIA believes Iraq to be potentially worse than Afghanistan, which produced thousands of jihadists in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the recruits to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida had fought in Afghanistan.
The sobering caution came as a senior British anti-terrorism source warned that those trained in terror techniques in Iraq could use their newly-acquired skills in Britain at the end of the war.
The CIA report, completed last month, remains classified. But a CIA source yesterday confirmed that its broad conclusions, disclosed by the New York Times yesterday, were accurate.
The concern expressed in the CIA report contrasts with the optimism of US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld two years ago when he welcomed the prospect of Iraq as a magnet for jihadists.
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Pentagon Creating Student Database
Recruiting Tool For Military Raises Privacy Concerns
By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 23, 2005; Page A01
The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.
The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.
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" According to the Pentagon, less than 1 per cent of the army has deserted from the Iraq war. Of those 6,000 soldiers, 150 are believed to be seeking refugee status in Canada. "
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U.S. Army slips further behind recruiting goals
By Will Dunham Fri Jun 10, 5:06 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has slipped further behind its recruiting goals amid the Iraq war, figures released on Friday showed, as officials developed proposals to double cash bonuses and offer mortgage aid for enlisting.
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Abizaid disputes Cheney's insurgency claim
June 23, 2005
BY LIZ SIDOTI ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON-- The top American commander in the Persian Gulf told Congress on Thursday that the Iraqi insurgency has not grown weaker over the past six months, despite a claim by Vice President Dick Cheney that it was in its "last throes."
Gen. John Abizaid's testimony came at a contentious Senate Armed Services Committee hearing at which Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld clashed with members of both parties, including a renewed call by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts for him to step down.
Citing what he called repeated "gross errors and mistakes" in the U.S. military campaign in Iraq, Kennedy told Rumsfeld: "In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the secretary of defense?"
"Isn't it time for you to resign?" Kennedy asked.
"I've offered my resignation to the president twice," Rumsfeld shot back, saying that President Bush had decided not to accept it. "That's his call," he said.
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How Cheney Fooled Himself
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A21
President Bush planted the seeds of the destruction of his Iraq policy before the war started. Salvaging the venture will require an unprecedented degree of candor and realism from a White House that was never willing to admit -- even to itself -- how large an undertaking it was asking the American people to buy into.
The notion that the president led the country into war through indirection or dishonesty is not the most damaging criticism of the administration. The worst possibility is that the president and his advisers believed their own propaganda. They did not prepare the American people for an arduous struggle because they honestly didn't expect one.
How else to explain the fact that the president and his lieutenants consistently played down the costs of the endeavor, the number of troops required, the difficulties of overcoming tensions among the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds? Were they lying? The more logical explanation is that they didn't know what they were talking about.
Because the White House failed to prepare Americans for what was to come, the administration now faces a backlash. Over the weekend Bush said that the terrorists in Iraq were seeking to "weaken our nation's resolve." But the rising impatience about which Bush complains is a direct result of the administration's blithe dismissal of those who warned just how tough the going could get.
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Posted on Thu, Jun. 23, 2005
Iraq sees increase in car bombings
PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A 12-year-old, his left leg missing below the knee, sat screaming on the sidewalk in a howling sandstorm as a man offered comfort. Laith Falah was buying bread just after daybreak Thursday when he was wounded by one of eight car bombs that struck the capital since dusk - a furious pace all too familiar in today's Iraq. Falah was lucky to be alive; 38 others were killed by the attacks over the 12-hour period.
Car bombers have struck Iraq 479 times in the past year, and a third of the attacks followed the naming of a new Iraqi government two months ago, according to an Associated Press count based on reports from police, military and hospital officials.
The unrelenting attacks, using bombs that can cost as little as a carton of American cigarettes each, have become the most-favored weapon of the government's most-determined enemies - Islamic extremists.
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Troop morale in Iraq hits 'rock bottom'
Soldiers stress is a key concern as the Army ponders whether to send more forces.
By Ann Scott Tyson | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – US troops facing extended deployments amid the danger, heat, and uncertainty of an Iraq occupation are suffering from low morale that has in some cases hit "rock bottom."
Even as President Bush speaks of a "massive and long-term" undertaking in rebuilding Iraq, that effort, as well as the high tempo of US military operations around the globe, is taking its toll on individual troops.
Some frustrated troops stationed in Iraq are writing letters to representatives in Congress to request their units be repatriated. "Most soldiers would empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home," said one recent Congressional letter written by an Army soldier now based in Iraq. The soldier requested anonymity.
In some units, there has been an increase in letters from the Red Cross stating soldiers are needed at home, as well as daily instances of female troops being sent home due to pregnancy.
"Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit rock bottom," said another soldier, an officer from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.
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Poll: In wake of Iraq war, allies prefer China to U.S.
Friday, June 24, 2005; Posted: 7:28 a.m. EDT (11:28 GMT)
The Iraq war and wariness about U.S. foreign policy caused a slip in world opinion, an international poll says.
Image:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States' image is so tattered overseas two years after the Iraq invasion that communist China is viewed more favorably than the U.S. in many long-time Western European allies, an international poll has found.
The poor image persists even though the Bush administration has been promoting freedom and democracy throughout the world in recent months -- which many viewed favorably -- and has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in relief aid to Indian Ocean nations hit by the devastating December 26 tsunami.
"It's amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which surveyed public opinion in 16 countries, including the United States.
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Neocon's 7-Year March to Iraq
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" Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? -- Barbara Bush, former First Lady, on ABC/Good Morning America, March 18, 2003 speaking about the prospect of news coverage of the war prior to the invasion of Iraq."
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Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,589 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,220 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
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“Change the channel”
- Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.
[NYT 12th April 2004]
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Soldier challenges the War Planners ( in Brownwood he'd be called a Communist Liberal by the Neo-con Republican supporters! )
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