Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, November 8, 2009
President Obama on the milestone Health Care Legislation passed in the House of Represenatives (Video)
The President speaks to the press about House passage of health insurance reform and new progress towards autonomy in Iraq. November 8, 2009.
Home Page
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
President Obama and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Address the Press (Video)
The President sits down with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to discuss issues concerning the relationship between the United States and Iraq, and how that relationship will progress. After their meeting, the leaders briefed the press. October 20, 2009.
Transcript
Home Page
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
In case you missed it: President Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Press Conference (Video and Transcript)
U.S. on track to leave Iraq 2011 (Video)
President Barack Obama (R) and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki conduct a joint press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, July 22, 2009.
President Barack Obama said Wednesday that despite continuing violence in Iraq, the U.S. is on schedule to remove all troops by the end of 2011.
Standing in the Rose Garden alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama said the nations were in the midst of a "full transition" that would be based on mutual interest and respect.
It was Obama's first meeting with al-Maliki at the White House. He met with him in Iraq in April. U.S. concerns over the slow pace of political, religious and ethnic reconciliation in Iraq were expected to dominate President Barack Obama's talks at the White House with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. read more here...
Home Page
Monday, June 8, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Cheney states no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11
And this from the former Vice-President of the United States that went from microphone to microphone and stated there was EVIDENCE that Iraq was involved.
This just makes your stomach turn. Why anyone would listen to him is beyond me!!
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says there was “never any evidence” that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq played any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
“On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that,” Cheney said during an interview Monday night with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.
“There was some reporting early on, for example, that Mohammed Atta had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official,” Cheney said. “But that was never borne out.”
In a 2003 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney said that “the Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack.”
But Cheney added, “We’ve never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.” read more here....
Home Page
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Are the torture pictures a figment of the imagination? Or are the pictures real?
The UK Daily Telegraph has reported pictures DO EXIST showing raping of Iraqi women and graphic prisoner abuse, by American hands.
Now I am hoping this is not true and that this UK paper is just blowing smoke out of its "you know what", but criminal and horrendous things happen during the time of war.
We will see.
A former U.S. general said graphic images of rape and torture are among the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse that President Obama's administration does not want released.
Retired Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who oversaw the U.S. investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, told Britain's Daily Telegraph in an article published Wednesday that he agreed with Obama's decision not to release the pictures.
"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them," Taguba was quoted by the Daily Telegraph. "The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."
Two Obama administration officials didn't immediately respond to e-mail requests for comment Wednesday night.
Took the White House more than 24 hours to respond:
The Pentagon on Thursday denied a British newspaper report that photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse, whose release U.S. President Barack Obama wants to block, include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Daily Telegraph newspaper had shown "an inability to get the facts right".
"That news organization has completely mischaracterized the images," Whitman told reporters. "None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article."
Thursday's Telegraph quoted retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who conducted a 2004 investigation into abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, as saying the pictures showed "torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."
The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Now there is a reason for not releasing these "suspect photos" and I understand why Obama changed his mind on it. If these photos exist and this happened, it kills us overseas further as Obama is attempting to make inroads after the Bush Administration destroyed our international standing.
Again, things happen during war. For anyone to believe this possibly could not happen, take your rose colored glasses off. These things do happen and don't think we, the United States of America is above it all. After all, we waterboard, we did torture. This possiblity is not outside of the relm.
Home Page
Monday, May 18, 2009
Pentagon no longer quotes bible versus' on briefings (Video)
That GQ article was a bombshell. I posted it yesterday. It was a huge eyeopener on Rumsfeld and on Bush. Now we have the Pentagon clearing it all up.
The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible. Air Force Maj. Gen. Glen Shaffer, who was responsible for including them, retired in August 2003, according to his biography.
For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the Gospel of Peter. At the time, the reports focused largely on the war in Iraq.
The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise, according to the June issue of CQ magazine. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.
On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms — "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. ... To deliver their soul from death." — and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad. read more here.....
Obviously, it happened and all I can type is "what next to come from under the rug during the Bush years." Again, separation of church and state was WRITTEN explicitly for a reason with metric to govern. The Bush Administration just ignored it, as they did many things during their tenure.
From the Ed Show
And Pat Buchanan had a cow on Hardball over this.....
Home Page
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
WTF!!! U.S. troops vomiting due to lack of clean water in Iraq
No joke. h/t Turkana @ Daily Kos
Despite the might of your own country, despite the power of your own military, for extended periods of time you and other soldiers simply can’t get enough drinking water. And even worse, some of you are paying for it with your health.
That’s the story some U.S. soldiers are telling the 11 News Defenders about their time in Iraq. While we’ve spent billions on bullets and bombs, soldiers in different parts of that arid country, during different phases of this desert war, claim they couldn’t get enough drinkable water.
[snip]
Part of the problem: Many soldiers say they were rationed to just two 1.5 liter bottles a day or about half a gallon of water. Turns out, the Army’s own training manuals say in desert environments, the body can lose up to four gallons a day.
As a result, some soldiers claim they regularly saw dehydration causing sickness on the battlefield, things like fainting and vomiting.
Obama, we know that the Bush Administration neglected the troops, we know that, now please clean this up.
Home Page
Monday, May 11, 2009
U.S. Soilder kills 5 of his comrades, now in custody
This story is as sad as it comes.
US military says 5 US soldiers killed in shooting at American base in Baghdad; Shooter Is Now in Custody.Source
Five U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in a shooting at an American base in Baghdad, the U.S. command said.
A brief U.S. statement said the shooting occurred about 2 p.m. at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport but gave no further details on the attack.
The toll was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in the northern city of Mosul.
On May 2, two American soldiers died after an attacker wearing an Iraqi army uniform opened fire near the northern city of Mosul. The assailant was also killed.
Huffington Post
Home Page
OMG, A stressed out U.S. soilder killed 4 of his comrades and himself (UPDATE)
Too much. Too much. We need to end this and get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
A U.S. service member opened fire on fellow members of the military, killing four and wounding several others, at the main U.S, base in Baghdad, officials told NBC News on Monday.
NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported the assailant took his own life after the violent outburst. The attacker was described as a "stressed out" U.S. soldier.
The military said in a statement that the shooting occurred about 2 p.m. Monday at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport.
Source
UPDATE
Per military, the shooter is in custody and killed 5 of his comrades.
Home Page
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Mr. "Former" Vice President, You Need to Listen to Fmr. Brig. Gen Janet Karpinski from Countdown with Keith Olbermann, (Video)
She tells it like it is. We need an INDEPENDENT COUNCIL to investigate this, NOT CONGRESS. Because congress has their fingerprints on this torture mess, too.
4-Star General Calls for Probe of Bush White House
Home Page
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Obama's Speech on Withdrawing Troops from Iraq by 2010 and all by 2011 in North Carolina (Video and Transcript)
Out of Iraq, sort of....
Out of Iraq by 2010, with only 35,000 to 50,000 residual troops left on the ground.
President Barack Obama planned to declare on Friday that the United States would end its bloody and costly combat mission in Iraq by late summer of 2010, but a dramatic force reduction was not expected until after the country's national elections at the end of this year, senior administration officials said.
The president was to announce the Aug. 31, 2010, conclusion of the mission Friday morning at the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Even with the end of the combat mission, three months later than Obama pledged during his presidential campaign, a force numbering between 35,000 to 50,000 Americans forces will stay behind, with the final troops not slated to leave until Dec. 31, 2011.
Source
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Obama Briefing from Biden, Graham on Iraq (Video)
Biden tells Obama Afghanistan war will get worse
Home Page
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Bush "An Utter Failure"
This is not new to me or a surprise to me, nor should it be to you. The Iraq War was not a necessary war, but a war of Bush's choice. A war that Bush will have to live with and wonder if it diminishes his already tawdry legacy.
Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of President George W. Bush as an "utter failure" that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.
In an interview published on Saturday in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Allawi found fault with American management of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 as well as the government of present Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Even with the shifty al-Maliki in power, one has to question, "How long will Iraq last?" Sure, they indicate they want us out, but what will happen to this country that we spent and wasted billions of US dollars on. I know, well I feel I should care, but I don't. We wasted too much money, time and lives in a country that had NOTHING to do with the 9/11 attacks. We had a bush league president who took us irresponsibly into war and along with it destroyed this economy. I really am not feeling ANYTHING for Iraq right now. Nada, nothing, zilch.
"Yes, Bush's policies failed utterly," said Allawi, describing the U.S. administration that once backed him. "Utter failure. Failure of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, including fighting terrorism and economic policy."
"His insistence on names like 'democracy' and 'open elections', without giving attention to political stability, was a big mistake. It cast shadows on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt, and I believe this will be remembered in history as President Bush's policy," he said.
Many people echoed the same sentiments back THEN, well look where we are now. And Saddam Hussein? He was a terror, a walking killer, in my opinion, but there are many Napoleonic dictators running around this world as bad as or worse than Saddam, and I don't see us forcing our will on them.
"Ending Saddam's regime was essential, but replacing the Saddam regime with extreme chaos was not right," he said. "I did not imagine the political process would eat itself from inside or that it would abandon the rule of law and establish political sectarianism."
Iraq, what a wonderful state we created.
Source
Home Page
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Share
