Headline Slide Show

In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, the government's claims about weapons of mass destruction and terrorist ties to Saddam Hussein went mostly unchallenged by the media. Four years after "shock and awe," a big question remains: how and why did the press and the public buy it? And, was everyone on the "same page?"

View the Headline Slide Show from Bill Moyers Buying The War

Ranger: Told to conceal Tillman truth

WASHINGTON - An Army Ranger who was with Pat Tillman when he died by friendly fire said Tuesday he was told by a higher-up to conceal that information from Tillman's family.

"I was ordered not to tell them," U.S. Army Specialist Bryan O'Neal told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He said he was given the order by then-Lt. Col. Jeff Bailey, the battalion commander who oversaw Tillman's platoon.

Pat Tillman's brother Kevin was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened, but didn't see it. O'Neal said Bailey told him specifically not to tell Kevin Tillman that the death was friendly fire rather than heroic engagement with the enemy.

"He basically just said, 'Do not let Kevin know, he's probably in a bad place knowing that his brother's dead,'" O'Neal said. He added that Bailey made clear he would "get in trouble" if he told.

Kevin Tillman was not in the hearing room when O'Neal spoke.

In earlier testimony, Kevin Tillman accused the military of "intentional falsehoods" and "deliberate and careful misrepresentations" in portraying Pat Tillman's death in
Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.

"We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public," Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. "Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide," he said, contending that the military's misstatements amounted to "fraud."

"Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed," Tillman said

Car bomb kills 9 U.S. soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded Monday in a suicide car bombing against a patrol base northeast of Baghdad, the military said.

The attack occurred in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting between U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, according to a statement.

The nine Task Force Lightning soldiers died of injuries sustained in the blast, which also left 20 soldiers and an Iraqi civilian wounded, the military said.

Of those wounded, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi civilian were evacuated to a medical facility for further care, it added.

Identities were not released pending notification of relatives.

It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car bomber.

House, Senate Negotiators Agree on War-Funding Bill

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement today on final war-funding legislation that would begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as early as this July, setting a goal of ending U.S. combat operations no later than March of next year.

The deal, which will come to final votes in the House and Senate Wednesday and Thursday, sets up a veto clash with President Bush by week's end. Congressional Democrats had considered making all dates for withdrawing U.S. troops advisory, hoping to persuade Bush to sign the bill, which would provide more than $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But once the president made it clear a veto was inevitable, Democratic leaders decided to stick to binding dates, at least for the initial troop pullouts.

Bush "is the only person who fails to face this war's reality -- and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq's future, but for ours," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) declared in a speech this afternoon.

The legislation would maintain House-passed language setting strict requirements for resting, training and equipping troops. But it would also grant the president the authority to waive those restrictions, as long as he publicly justifies the waivers.

The bill establishes benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet, including the establishment of a program to disarm militias. The benchmarks also require reductions in sectarian violence, the easing of rules that purged the government of all former Baath Party members, and passage of a oil revenue-sharing law.

Congress set to defy Bush on Iraq war

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fight between the U.S. Congress and President George W. Bush over the Iraq war is set to come to a head this week when Democrats are expected to send him $100 billion to pay for continuing combat while setting timetables for withdrawing troops.

Bush has promised to veto any bill setting dates for removing U.S. combat soldiers from the Iraq war, now in its fifth year.

But when a Democratic-controlled panel of Senate and House of Representatives members meets on Monday to iron out differences between their respective bills, the product is expected to contain 2008 withdrawal dates.

Many lawmakers have been speculating those dates might be nonbinding, as sketched out by a Senate-passed bill.

"The longer we continue down the president's path, the further we will be from responsibly ending this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), who on Thursday said the war in Iraq was "lost."

The Nevada Democrat, who called for a change of course in Iraq, made his remarks during a week in which he and Bush traded barbs and as violence and killings in Iraq again spiked.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois, who holds a Democratic leadership position in the House, said final touches on the Iraq war language ought to be finished by this weekend. That will be the basis for Monday's work session on the bill.

Last month, the House approved a bill setting a September 1, 2008, deadline for all U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq. The Senate's softer approach calls for some troop withdrawals this year leading to a nonbinding goal of having most of the 146,000 soldiers leave Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Nearly all Republicans in Congress voted against the deadlines.

In recent days, however, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said Congress' debate on deadlines was helpful. In Baghdad on Thursday, he also told Iraqi leaders that the United States cannot indefinitely commit troops.

The full House could vote on Wednesday on the controversial war-funding bill, the same day Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is due to brief senators in a closed session.

Analysis: Iraq Surge May Be Extended

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, the administration is warning Iraqi leaders that the boost in forces could be reversed if political reconciliation is not evident by summer.

This approach underscores the central difficulty facing President Bush. If political progress is not possible in the relatively short term, then the justification for sending thousands more U.S. troops to Baghdad - and accepting the rising U.S. combat death toll that has resulted - will disappear. That in turn would put even more pressure on Bush to yield to the Democratic-led push to wind down the war in coming months.

If the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does manage to achieve the political milestones demanded by Washington, then the U.S. military probably will be told to sustain the troop buildup much longer than originally foreseen - possibly well into 2008. Thus the early planning for keeping it up beyond late summer.

More than half of the extra 21,500 combat troops designated for Baghdad duty have arrived; the rest are due by June. Already it is evident that putting them in the most hotly contested parts of the capital is taking a toll. An average of 22 U.S. troops have died per week in April, the highest rate so far this year.

``This is certainly a price that we're paying for this increased security,'' Adm. William Fallon, the senior U.S. commander in the Middle East, told a House committee Wednesday. He also said the United States does not have ``a ghost of a chance'' of success in Iraq unless it can create ``stability and security.''

The idea of the troop increase, originally billed by the administration as a temporary ``surge,'' is not to defeat the insurgency. That is not thought possible in the near term. The purpose is to contain the violence - in particular, the sect-on-sect killings in Baghdad - long enough to create an environment in which Iraqi political leaders can move toward conciliation and ordinary Iraqis are persuaded of a viable future.

So far the results are mixed, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week during a visit to Iraq that he wants to see faster political progress by the Iraqis. ``The clock is ticking,'' he said, referring to the limited time the administration can pursue its strategy before the American public demands an end to the war.

Gates also said he told al-Maliki that the United States will not keep fighting indefinitely.

Gates' remarks reflected the administration's effort to strike a balance between reassuring the Iraqis of U.S. support and pressuring their leaders to show they can bring the country together and avert a full-scale civil war.

Costs of the War by Congressional District

The following table lists the cost of the Iraq War, including a portion of the $100 billion current proposal, for each congressional district in the state of Ohio.

Alongside the cost is what the people of Ohio could have if the money was spent locally instead.

AMERICANS AGAINST ESCALATION RELEASES OHIO NATIONAL GUARD READINESS REPORT

For Immediate Release
Contact: Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director

COLUMBUS - Volunteers from Military Families Speak Out and ProgressOhio delivered to Sen. George Voinovich's office today a national readiness report produced by ProgressOhio partner Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. The report concludes that The National Guard and Reservists of the United States are not properly equipped or trained to go into a war zone.

In fact, in a March report to Congress, the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves reported in that nearly 90 percent of National Guard units are not ready to respond to crises at home and abroad. [1]

[1] Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, Second Report to Congress, 3/1/07

"AAEI's study indicates that lack of properly equipping troops continues to be a major concern regarding escalation of the war," said Brian Rothenberg, Executive Director of ProgressOhio.org. "Ohio will spend an additional $5.6 billion dollars on troop escalation while 90% of National Guard troops nationwide are not ready to respond at home and abroad over equipment issues."

For a full review of the report, please click the link to IRAQ READINESS REPORT. (pdf)

Sen. Voinovich's office was chosen after he had expressed reservations about troop escalation and because he is a former Governor and Commander in Chief of Ohio's National Guard. "Senator Voinovich continues to blink on actions about escalation, instead of backing up his rhetoric about his concerns over the war's escalation," said Rothenberg.

America 's hidden war dead

More than 770 civilians working for U.S. firms have lost their lives supporting the military in Iraq, and some families are now speaking out

HOUSTON -- Like thousands of other Americans who have served in Iraq since the U.S. intervention began four years ago, Walter Zbryski came home in a coffin. Only his coffin was not draped in an American flag or accompanied by a military honor guard.

Instead, the mangled body of the 56-year-old retired firefighter from New York City was shipped back to his family in June 2004 in the bloodied clothes in which he died, with half of his head blown away, according to Zbryski's brother Richard.

"I viewed the body," Richard Zbryski said. "What really upset me was that he was laying there floating in at least 6 inches of his own body fluids. They didn't even clean him up for us."

Zbryski's death was not counted among the official tally of more than 3,200 American military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, nor was it noted by the Defense Department in a news release. That's because Zbryski was not a soldier--he was a truck driver working in the private army of hundreds of thousands of contractors hired by the Pentagon to support the logistical side of the massive American war effort in Iraq.

More than 770 civilian contractors working for American companies have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began on March 20, 2003, according to an obscure office inside the U.S. Department of Labor, which loosely tracks the figures. If those deaths--of truck drivers and cooks, laundry workers and security guards--are added to the military toll, the human cost of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is nearly 25 percent higher.

Now the family members of some of those American workers killed and injured in Iraq are raising their voices, complaining that the contributions of their loved ones have been forgotten by the U.S. public. Some allege that the workers were put in harm's way without adequate protection. Others charge that their own financial and psychological hardships have been ignored by the contracting companies that promised to help them.

"I think these deaths are glossed over and swept under the carpet," said Hollie Hulett, whose husband, Stephen, 48, was killed in an ambush in Iraq on April 9, 2004, while driving a truck for KBR, formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of oil services giant Halliburton. "I don't think anybody, including the Pentagon and the companies that hire these contractors, want it to be known that it is that dangerous over there and they are sending them out into a mess."

Critics of the war, and some members of Congress, have begun pressing the Bush administration to disclose more details about the Pentagon's reliance on private contractors to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Department officials conceded in congressional testimony last year that they do not keep track of how many contractors are at work in Iraq and Afghanistan or how many casualties they have suffered.

"We want to know how many contractors and subcontractors there are, the total cost of the contracts, the number of dead and wounded contractors," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who has introduced a bill to require the Bush administration to collect and publicize such information. "This is basic information. . . . When you don't even count [the contractor deaths], you mask the cost in life of this war."

The most common estimate of the number of contractors currently working for U.S. firms in Iraq is 100,000, according to military analysts, but that figure includes unknown proportions of Americans, Iraqis and citizens of other countries.

Casualties understated?

The most recent statistic for deaths among those contractors is 770 as of the end of 2006, according to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Division of the U.S. Labor Department, which computes the figures from workers' compensation claims filed under the federal Defense Base Act.

But those figures, which also count 7,761 contract workers injured in Iraq, appear to understate the actual number of casualties because they do not include killings of off-duty workers. Nor do they specify the nationalities of the dead and wounded.

What is more clear is that KBR, the Houston-based company that holds the largest Pentagon services contract, has more than 50,000 employees and subcontractors at work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait who are driving fuel and supply trucks, cooking meals, delivering mail and generally supporting the U.S. military in the region. So far, according to the company, 99 KBR employees have been killed on the job, most of them in Iraq.

Read the rest of the story from The Chicago Tribune

4 bombs kill 157 people in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 157 people and wounding scores as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in central Baghdad, killing at least 112 people and wounding 115, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

A police official confirmed the toll, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Among the dead were several construction workers who had been rebuilding the mostly Shiite marketplace after a bombing destroyed many shops and killed 137 people there in February, the police official said.

The market is situated on a side street lined with shops and vendors selling produce, meat and other staples. It is also about 500 yards from a Sunni shrine.

About an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The explosion killed at least 30 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 45, police said.

Black smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were in a jam of cars stopped at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled over twisted metal to drag victims from the smoldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.

Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.

The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the northwestern Risafi area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.

Also in Baghdad, four policemen were killed Wednesday afternoon when gunmen ambushed their patrol south of the city center, police said. Six pedestrians were wounded in the gunfire.

U.S. officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown was launched Feb. 14. But the past week has seen several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.

17 Decomposing Bodies Found in Ramadi

BAGHDAD — Police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried beneath two schoolyards in a district that until recently was under the control of al-Qaida fighters. At least 85 people were killed or found dead across the country Tuesday.

The adult bodies were discovered in the Anbar provincial capital after students and teachers returned to the schools a week ago and noticed an increasingly putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, Police Maj. Laith al-Dulaimi said.

He said one body had not yet been recovered from a separate burial site behind one of the schools because authorities feared it was booby-trapped with a bomb.

Ramadi had been a stronghold of Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida fighters until recently, when the U.S. forces in the region and the Iraqi government successfully negotiated with many local tribal leaders to split them off from the more militant insurgent groups.

Thousands of young Sunni men have joined the police force in Anbar province and have taken up the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella organization that includes al-Qaida.

In a sign that Shiite death squads are on the move again after more than two months of quiescence, 25 bodies, most tortured, were found dumped in Baghdad on Tuesday. Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his six Cabinet ministers Monday to quit the government.

In addition to the deaths in Baghdad and Ramadi, officials reported 43 other people were killed or found dead across Iraq Tuesday in nearly two dozen other violent incidents at sites that included Mosul, Fallujah, Baqouba and Tal Afar.

Al Qaeda group says Iraq a "university of terror"

DUBAI (Reuters) - The head of an al Qaeda-led group in Iraq said the country has become a "university of terrorism" producing highly qualified warriors since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet on Tuesday, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, said his fighters were successfully confronting U.S. forces in Iraq and have begun producing a guided missile called al-Quds 1 or Jerusalem 1.

"The largest batch of soldiers for jihad ... in the history of Iraq are graduating and they have the highest level of competence in the world," Baghdadi said.

He also sought to mend fences with other anti-U.S. insurgent groups in Iraq following reports of tensions between them.

"From the military point of view, one of the (enemy) devils was right in saying that if Afghanistan was a school of terror, then Iraq is a university of terrorism," said the leader of the group set up last year by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and some other Sunni groups.

Iraq: Sadrists to leave Cabinet

BAGHDAD - Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from
Iraq's coalition government on Monday, the head of his parliamentary bloc said.

The move, while unlikely to topple Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's regime, would deal a significant blow to the U.S.-backed leader, who relied on support from the Sadrists to gain office.

Al-Sadr's ministers will "withdraw immediately from the Iraqi government and give the six Cabinet seats to the government, with the hope that they will be given to independents who represent the will of the people," said Nassar al-Rubaie, head of al-Sadr's bloc, reading a statement from the cleric.

Al-Sadr, who wields tremendous power among Iraq's majority Shiites, has been upset about recent arrests of his Mahdi Army fighters in the U.S.-led Baghdad security crackdown. He and his followers have also criticized al-Maliki for failing to back calls for a timetable for U.S. troops to leave the country.

Meanwhile, thousands upset about poor city services marched peacefully through the streets of Iraq's second largest city on Monday, demanding the provincial governor's resignation despite calls by top government officials a day earlier to call off the protest.

Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered near the Basra mosque, then marched a few hundred yards to Gov. Mohammed al-Waili's office, which was surrounded by Iraqi soldiers and police officers. The protest ended without incident a few hours later.

Residents have complained of inadequate electricity, garbage disposal and water supplies in Basra, situated 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Iraq war's unseen injuries

Troops suffer brain traumas from repeated bombings

ENCINITAS - At a community hospital here, doctors and therapists are working to help Marines overcome what is often called the signature injury of the Iraq war: brain trauma with no visible wounds.

''It's the silent injury,'' said Jessica Martinez, an occupational therapist at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas. ''With every blast they suffer, their brain is rattling like a yolk in an egg.''

Marine Lance Cpl. Brian Vargas was a high school football player. Now, even though he looks fit, he cannot toss the football with his buddies, let alone be part of pickup games with other off-duty Marines.

''I can't catch anything,'' he said. ''I can't remember any plays.''

Vargas, 20, was subjected to innumerable mortar and roadside bomb blasts while patrolling the insurgent stronghold of Hit in the Euphrates River Valley. In mid-January he was shot in the hand and cheek by a sniper and airlifted to Germany and then the United States for treatment.

He has the classic signs of post-concussive injury.

''My thinking has gone down,'' he said. ''I can't remember what I did this morning. I have trouble putting memory and speaking together. I'm trying to learn to speak as clearly as possible.''

Lance Cpl. Keene Sherburne, 20, who was injured when a bomb exploded under his Humvee in Fallujah, is frustrated at the slow pace of his recovery.

''I can't read,'' he said. ''I used to love it, but now I hate it. I pick up a snowboard magazine and I get so mad because I don't understand it.''

Maj. Gen. John M. Paxton Jr., commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, said Marine leaders became concerned when they noticed that some Marines returning from Iraq were ''struggling emotionally.''

''It's like football or boxing injuries. You never know the cumulative effect,'' he said.

The surgeon general of the Army ordered a report done on traumatic brain injuries and possible treatment plans. The report is due May 1. Two battalions from Camp Pendleton have been selected for another study on brain injury assessment and treatment in Iraq.

One preliminary study at Walter Reed suggests that patients with mild traumatic brain injury are at greater risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder than patients who have suffered even greater brain injuries through direct wounds.

Many of the symptoms of mild brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder overlap: anxiety, memory loss, depression, loss of concentration.

Iraq violence slaughters 57

A car bomb slaughtered 34 people near a revered Shiite shrine in Iraq's pilgrimage city of Karbala on Saturday, two months to the day after US-led troops launched a security crackdown in Baghdad.

Another 10 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad while other attacks around the country killed 13 more people, pushing the death toll to 57 and undermining the Iraqi-US security offensive as it began a third month.

The latest carnage came just two days after a suicide bombing at parliament's cafe in Baghdad's heavily-guarded Green Zone stunned the world for its massive breach of security.

The Karbala bomb exploded in an area cluttered with market stalls around 200 metres (yards) from the Imam Hussein shrine, where hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims flock every March during the Ashura commemorations.

Costs all around to prolonging the war

It will be costly and painful to prolong the war in Iraq for another 21 months so that those who started it can hand off the harder decision of how to end it to the next occupant of the White House.

President Bush isn't extending and expanding the war in a search for victory. His dream of victory in Iraq cannot be achieved. Not by sending 30,000 more American troops. Not by making parts of Baghdad temporarily safer by billeting American troops in violent neighborhoods and pushing the slaughter into the northern and southern suburbs - or into the Green Zone where U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work.

Not by letting American soldiers bear the brunt of combat, targeted not only by our enemies, the Sunni Muslim insurgents but also by our supposed allies, the Shiite majority and the murderous militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In March, more American troops died in Iraq than Iraqi soldiers.

This is a search for a fig leaf to cover the emperor’s nakedness - a way for Bush to go home to Texas with a ringing but hollow declaration that "Iraq wasn't lost on my watch."

That this can be achieved only by fomenting a nasty, divisive and unnecessary showdown between the White House and Congress is just one more cost.

Another very high cost will be borne by the U.S. Army, whose soldiers got the word from Defense Secretary Robert Gates this week that their combat tours are being extended from 12 months to 15 months, effective immediately.

The cost to the Army National Guard will be high, too. The Guard got the word this month that 13,000 of its part-time soldiers will be recalled to active duty for their second combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan - although they'd been promised only one active duty tour every five years.

The cost will be highest of all, however, for the families of those soldiers who've already waved farewell to their loved ones two or three times.

What disheartening news for people like a young Army captain who recently told me that he'd finally had the pleasure of spending his first Christmas at home with a daughter who's almost four.

While the nation’s airwaves this past week were filled with the urgent news of who fathered Anna Nicole Smith’s baby and the spectacle of Don Imus waving goodbye to his career in broadcasting over racist and sexist remarks on the air, few seemed to notice that 10 more American troops were killed in Iraq over the weekend.

Ten young soldiers whose lives of service to the nation were terminated in an instant. Ten military sedans rolling up to the doors of families that were devastated by the news of a death in combat. Fathers, mothers, siblings, spouses, young children, fiancees, friends whose hearts were shattered in an instant.

The American military death toll in Iraq rose to almost 3,300 this week. The number of wounded and injured now tops 50,000.

Continuing this war for another two years will bring the day-to-day cost to the American taxpayer to nearly a trillion dollars. Hidden long-term costs such as medical care and disability pensions for the thousands of wounded, and mental health care for those tormented by PTSD, could add another trillion dollars or more to the tab.

Why? Why should this misbegotten war continue for another two or three years? The president’s men say that if we leave Iraq as it is now, it will erupt into all-out civil war, and the flames would spread to other tinderbox nations in the Middle East. Perhaps, but perhaps not.

There were those who were certain that if we left Vietnam and it fell to the Communists, the other nations of Southeast Asia would topple like dominos.

We left. The Communists took power in the three countries of what had been French Indochina: South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The dominos of Southeast Asia are all still standing.

It was our preemptive invasion of Iraq that loosed the dogs of war there. It was our negligence that set off sectarian slaughter. It is our continued military presence in Iraq _ where a majority wants us to leave now _ that fans the flames of war.

What if we left, and our departure forced the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and others to find some way to live in peace with each other, or at least alongside one another? What if our leaving isn't the worst possible outcome but the best?

Maybe we'll finally find out after George W. Bush and Dick Cheney go home to Texas and Wyoming, and those whom we choose to succeed them decide to try the one thing that Bush and Cheney have never considered.

Commentary
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

Bomb Rocks Iraq Parliament Killing Lawmakers

“A bomb rocked Iraq’s parliament building in the heavily fortified Green Zone Thursday, killing at least two lawmakers in a stunning security breach in the third month of a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown on violence in the capital … The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations.”

Pentagon Extends Tours For All 145,000 Iraq Troops

From The AP:

WASHINGTON — Beginning immediately, all active-duty Army soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will serve 15-month tours _ three months longer than the usual standard, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

It was the latest move by the Pentagon to cope with the strains of fighting two wars simultaneously and maintaining a higher troop level in Iraq as part of President Bush's revised strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.

"This policy is a difficult but necessary interim step," Gates told a Pentagon news conference, adding that the goal is to eventually return to 12 months as the standard length of tour in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said the new policy does not affect the other main components of the U.S. ground force in Iraq: the Marines, whose standard tour is seven months, or the Army National Guard or Army Reserve, which will continue to serve 12-month tours.

4 Years Ago April 9, 2003

YOU DECIDE!

YOU DECIDE!

We’ve had a number of groups discuss having an Ohio day of action against the escalation of the Iraq War.

We also know, that thousands of Ohio progressives will be in town on Saturday May 12, when Hillary Rodham Clinton, progressive Ohio elected officials and other potential progressive candidates are expected to address a crowd of 4,000 at the State Fair Grounds that evening.

So, this is your chance to help us decide:

Rally Against War Escalation
on May 12?

Cast Your Vote Now!

WILL YOU BE IN COLUMBUS MAY 12th?
IF WE HOLD A RALLY WILL YOU ATTEND?

Sign Up Here!

U.S. military deaths in Iraq at 3,267

As of Friday, April 6, 2007, at least 3,267 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,634 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is seven higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 140 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 19; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six;
El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, one death each.

12,000 Guard soldiers To Be Called Up To Go To Iraq

The Pentagon will call up 12,000 National Guard soldiers for service in Iraq to fill gaps in the overworked army, a news report said Thursday.

The National Guard is a volunteer militia, but, said NBC News, they will receive an involuntary call-up to report for duty in Iraq.

Guard units are based in each US state. Four states will provide the troops from four brigades, the television network said, citing unnamed Defense Department sources.

The call-up follows closely President George W. Bush's controversial "surge" of 21,000 troops, meant to quell the sectarian violence among Iraqis as well as Al-Qaeda fighters determined to sow chaos.

However, US troops are being rotated in and out of Iraq, sometimes without the customary training, sometimes without the customary 12 months' rest at US bases.

Emotional Reunion: Sailor Suprises 6 year old Son at School

McCain "Walks Freely" Through Baghdad Market, Accompanied By 100 Soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, 2 Apache Gunships

Sen. John McCain strolled briefly through an open-air market in Baghdad today in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what’s going on in Iraq.

NBC’s Nightly News provided further details about McCain’s one-hour guided tour. He was accompanied by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead.” Still photographs provided by the military to NBC News seemed to show McCain wearing a bulletproof vest during his visit.

McCain recently claimed that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.” In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed “walk freely” in some areas of Baghdad.