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Title: Idiocy in D.C., Progress in Baghdad
Source:
www.weeklystandard.com
URL Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conte ... icles/000/000/013/416urcoa.asp
Published: Mar 17, 2007
Author: William Kristol
Post Date: 2007-03-17 20:20:21 by BeAChooser
Keywords: None
Views: 3286
Comments: 224
Idiocy in D.C., Progress in Baghdad The surge is working--that's what matters. by William Kristol 03/26/2007, Volume 012, Issue 27 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. Obviously, it's too early to say anything more definitive than that there are real signs of progress in Baghdad. The cocksure defeatism of war critics of two months ago, when the surge was announced, does seem to have been misplaced. The latest Iraq Update (pdf) by Kimberly Kagan summarizes the early effects of the new strategy backed up by, as yet, just one additional U.S. brigade deployed in theater (with more to be added in the coming weeks): This "rolling surge" focuses forces on a handful of neighborhoods in Baghdad, and attempts to expand security out from those neighborhoods. . . . A big advantage of a "rolling surge" is that the population and the enemy sense the continuous pressure of ever-increasing forces. Iraqis have not seen such a prolonged and continuous planned increase of U.S. forces before. . . . The continued, increasing presence of U.S. forces appears to be having an important psychological, as well as practical, effect on the enemy and the people of Iraq. . . . [Meanwhile] in Ramadi, in the belt south of Baghdad stretching from Yusifiyah to Salman Pak, and northeast in Diyala Province, . . . U.S. and Iraqi forces have deprived al Qaeda of the initiative. This sense of momentum is confirmed by many other reports in the media, and from Americans and Iraqis on the ground. But back in Washington, congressional Democrats are still mired in the fall of 2006 and seem determined to be as irresponsible as ever. They're being beaten back--in part thanks to the fighting spirit of stalwart congressional Republicans. Last week, the Senate defeated a resolution that would have restricted the use of U.S. troops in Iraq and set March 31, 2008, as a target date for removing U.S. forces from combat. On the same day, on a mostly party-line vote, the House Appropriations Committee reported out the Democratic version of a supplemental appropriations bill for the war. It was an odd piece of legislation--an appropriation to fight a war replete with provisions intended to ensure we lose it. Here's what the Democratic legislation does, according to the Washington Post: "Under the House bill, the Iraqi government would have to meet strict benchmarks. . . . If by July 1 the president could not certify any progress, U.S. troops would begin leaving Iraq, to be out before the end of this year. If Bush did certify progress, the Iraqi government would have until Oct. 1 to meet the benchmarks, or troops would begin withdrawing then. In any case, withdrawals would have to begin by March 1, 2008, and conclude by the end of that summer." Got that? Oh yes, in addition to the arbitrary timelines for the removal of troops, there's pork. As the Post explains, "Included in the legislation is a lot of money to help win support. The price tag exceeds the president's war request by $24 billion." Some of the extra money goes to bail out spinach farmers hurt by E. coli, to pay for peanut storage, and to provide additional office space for the lawmakers themselves. So much for an emergency war appropriations bill. The legislation may collapse on the floor of the House this week. It certainly deserves to. Republicans can insist on a clean supplemental--no timelines to reassure the enemy that if they just hang on, we'll be gone before long, and no pork. They can win this fight--and if they do, combined with progress in Iraq, the lasting news from March 2007 will not be Bush administration haplessness; it will be that we are on the way to success in Iraq.
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#3. To: BeAChooser (#0)
Proudly bearing the neozio war mongering standard. BAC - come on - weekly standard? I would have hoped even you might have matured to reading a news source less TelAviv inspired...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_baghdad_security "Bomb deaths have gone down 30 percent in Baghdad since the U.S.-led security crackdown began a month ago. Execution-style slayings are down by nearly half. The once frequent sound of weapons has been reduced to episodic, and downtown shoppers have returned to outdoor markets — favored targets of car bombers."
From the same yahoo news article you quoted: But while many Iraqis are encouraged, they remain skeptical how long the relative calm will last. Each bombing renews fears that the horror is returning. Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents are still around, perhaps just laying low or hiding outside the city until the operation is over. U.S. military officials, burned before by overly optimistic forecasts, have been cautious about declaring the operation a success. Another reason it seems premature: only two of the five U.S. brigades earmarked for the mission are in the streets, and the full compliment of American reinforcements is not due until late May. In the months before the security operation began Feb. 14, police were finding dozens of bodies each day in the capital — victims of Sunni and Shiite death squads. Last December, more than 200 bodies were found each week — with the figure spiking above 300 in some weeks, according to police reports compiled by The Associated Press. Since the crackdown began, weekly totals have dropped to about 80 — hardly an acceptable figure but clearly a sign that death squads are no longer as active as they were in the final months of last year. In the 27 days leading up to the operation, 528 people were killed in bombings around the capital, according to AP figures. In the first 27 days of the operation, the bombing death toll stood at 370 — a drop of about 30 percent. Figures alone won't tell the story. In Vietnam, generals kept pointing to enemy body counts to promote a picture of success even when many U.S. soldiers and civilian officials realized the effort was doomed. True success will be when Iraqis themselves begin to feel safe and gain confidence in their government and security forces. Only then can the economy, long on its heels and with unemployment estimated between 25 and 40 percent, rebound and start providing jobs and a future for Baghdad's people. A long-term solution also must deal with the militias that sprang up after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Much of the relative calm may be due to a decision by Shiite cleric Muqtada al- Sadr to remove his armed militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army, from the streets. Al-Maliki warned the young cleric that he could not protect them from the Americans during the offensive. U.S. troops rolled into the Mahdi stronghold of Sadr City on March 4 without firing a shot — a radical change from street battles there in 2004. Some Mahdi Army fighters may have left the city. But Iraqis who live in Shiite neighborhoods say many others are still around, collecting protection money from shopkeepers and keeping tabs on people — albeit without their guns. When American patrols pass by, Mahdi members step into shops or disappear into crowds until the U.S. troops are gone. Sunni militants remain in some areas of the city too, although last year's sectarian bloodletting drove many Sunnis from their traditional neighborhoods, depriving extremists of a support network. If militants from both sects are indeed lying low, that suggests they may have adopted a strategy of waiting until the security operation is over, then re- emerging to fight each other for control of the capital. But positive trends in Iraq have proven hard to sustain. Hopes for reconciliation are quickly shattered. There have been a series of failed security initiatives. With so many uncertainties, public opinion appears mixed. "We gain nothing from this government. No change," said Abu Zeinab, a Shiite father of two in Baghdad's Hurriyah district. "Today is like yesterday. What is the difference?"
If the media had reported WW2 the way they've reported this war, we'd have lost WW2.
We did lose WWII. We allowed Communism to prevail, which contributed to far greater numbers of deaths than Fascism. In fact the event which triggered the start of WW II - the Germans invading Poland - speaks to our defeat - without a blink of an eye the communists claimed Poland and other Eastern European nations. The particularly sad thing about Poland was that its Christian citizens were killed by the Naziis in the same numbers as the Jews but to this day the World Jewish Congress is loathe to acknowledge that fact. "As historian Martin Gilbert pointed out, of the first 611 people who died at Auschwitz, 591 were Poles and 20 were Jews." The Poles were largely responsible for deciphering Enigma. Yet we let Stalin take Poland and its Eastern European brethren as part of his "spoils." http://www.holocaustforgott en.com/Lucaire.htm "We" hardly talk about that tragic result of WW II. Israel was born and Poland and other Eastern European nations were thrown to the communist wolves. Oh well. Substitute the words "gulag" for "concentration camp" and "Christian" for Jews" and you get the picture. Stalin and the communists walked away the big winners at the end of WW II.
Thank you. Thank you for demonstrating once again how irrational 4umers can be.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four years ago, Iraqi poet Abbas Chaychan, a Shiite Muslim who'd been forced into exile during the predominantly Sunni Muslim regime of Saddam Hussein, hailed the American presence here in a poem that praised the top U.S. diplomat in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. "We have breakfasts of kabab and qaymar," he wrote, describing the new Iraq with a reference to a rich cream that's considered a sign of wealth. "We put, in your stead, Mr. Bremer / Better than a tyrant of our own flesh and blood, and his torture." Last January, shortly after Saddam was hanged, Chaychan again put words to paper. But his outlook had changed. "History is proud to write about him," he said of Saddam. "It wasn't a rope that wrapped around the neck / It was the neck that wrapped around the rope. ... "From his childhood he was a leader, stubborn and against the occupation." As the anniversary of the March 20, 2003, U.S.-led invasion of Iraq nears, many Iraqis, like Chaychan, are expressing nostalgia for the time more than 1,000 days ago when Saddam's statue stood proudly in Baghdad's Fardos Square. Chaychan's reading of his most recent work, in which he calls Saddam the Arab world's "knight" and compares his death to the eclipsing of the sun, has become a popular Iraqi destination on video-sharing services such as YouTube, where his pained voice rings out over a montage of shots of the Iraqi dictator: clenching his fist in the air, sporting his signature beret, at trial holding a Quran, with a noose around his neck. In a January interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes," President Bush told correspondent Scott Paley that the American invasion had taken "care of a source of instability in Iraq." "Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran," Bush said. "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision, in my judgment. We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. But he was a significant source of instability." In interviews across Baghdad, few Iraqis agreed, however. Instead, they displayed a collective fatigue, even as another plan to bring about security got under way. They're tired of waiting for better days when each morning brings new terrorism. Trapped in their homes, afraid that death will knock, they're worn down, they said. Law and order - even under a bloody dictator who killed thousands and tortured many others - was better than this, many said. Even those who are glad to see Saddam dead expressed a longing for more orderly times. --- Layla Mohammed, a Sunni Muslim mother of three, remembered that heady day four years ago when a noose tightened around the neck of Saddam's statue. "I felt that I was at the highest point of a roller coaster, just about to plunge into what I hoped would be an exhilarating experience," Mohammed said. "I thought, `Oh, my God, it's happening. I live to see my sons set free.'" A pharmacist, she said she'd voted in all three elections that Iraq has had since Saddam was toppled: first for an interim government, then for a new constitution, then for a permanent government. She remembers dipping her finger in purple ink - to indicate that she'd voted - with her two sons and her daughter. Together they held up their fingers and took a family photo to commemorate their future democracy. "At that moment I felt that I was, at last, a sated human being. I had an opinion and it carried weight! I shall treasure that moment all my life," she said. "If only I could have that moment back; its joy was untainted. Now I know better." The life of freedom and liberty she was promised never came. Her sons are trying to flee the country. She can't afford to keep her house warm, and no longer goes to her pharmacy in the neighborhood of Hurriyah, a once mixed-sect neighborhood that was emptied of most Sunnis in December. "I have been conned," Mohammed said. When Saddam was executed she told herself, "There goes the one man who could stop this bloodbath. I thought we would have to pay oil for freedom and democracy, but not our life's blood. It's too much." She put her hand to her head. "It's too much." --- Ahmed al Yasseri, a Shiite, also remembers his excitement at the fall of Saddam. He excitedly set up a once-forbidden satellite dish. For the first time he watched Arabic news channels and foreign stations. He bought a cell phone and subscribed to an Internet service. Then his brother, a former officer in Saddam's army, was shot as he returned from his electronics shop in 2004. Yasseri's two nephews ran outside to see their father's body riddled with bullets. Yasseri fled his neighborhood looking for somewhere safer. Three months later his uncle was killed, caught in a crossfire as he waited in a long line to buy gasoline. Yasseri moved again. "In a short time you lose your dear ones, and for what?" he asked with despair. "Believe me, for nothing." Now his current neighborhood, Mansour, once an upscale shopping district in central Baghdad, has grown dangerous as well. The crowded Shorja market, where he works, is a tempting target for bombs: A triple car bomb there killed at least 67 people a few weeks ago. He travels nowhere but the path between home and work. Every moment he worries that he'll die in the kind of bombing that fills the morgue with body parts. "We envy the people who die in one piece now," he said. --- Saddam was caught nearly nine months after the invasion, hidden in an underground hole with a pistol. Bilal Ali, 40, a Shiite, remembers that night. He pulled out an AK-47 rifle that he'd received as a gift and fired into the air in celebration - a burst of pop-pop-pops - then handed the weapon to his mother, then to his 7-year-old son. "I shot five full magazines," he said. Each held 30 bullets. "Thank God, who blessed even the hearts of the martyrs in their grave, for this gift." But it didn't bring the peace that Bilal Ali, a shopkeeper in the Shiite area of Karada, had imagined. Car bombs became prevalent in Shiite areas. Shiites were afraid to pray in their mosques, and Iraqis were afraid to shop in outdoor markets, targets of the Sunni insurgency. Shiite militias struck back. Men, mostly Sunnis, turned up in the morgue, shot in the head, hands tied behind their back, drill holes in their bodies. The perpetrators eventually were linked to the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the police. Electricity grew scarcer, at first available for eight hours, then six, then as few as three hours a day. Salaries went up, but so did the cost of living. A tank of cooking gas soared to $60 on the black market. A lower price cost a day's wait in line. The use of a generator cost $100 a month. At $300 a month, wages hardly kept pace. Still, Bilal Ali is happy that Saddam was hanged. "I had hope at that time that life would be much better after his regime's collapse," he said. "But I'm very happy with his end even if the security situation is bad." --- Every morning as Mona Ali, a single Shiite mother, prepares sandwiches and breakfast for her three children she wonders whether they won't return to her. She leaves her 4-year-old son at home and tightly grips the hands of her two young daughters. On the daily walk to school, bullets sometimes have whizzed above their heads in the Shiite Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad. "There is fear in my heart every day that my kids will go and not come back to me," she said. Daily she walks to the neighborhood marketplace. On one trip, a car bomb ripped through the vegetable stands as she approached. The blood, the dead, the injured lay in front of her and she thought, it could have been me. She had a nightmare about her children as orphans. "I remembered the fear I had for my children and I realized I might not return safely to them," she said. "Baghdad is dirty. When it gets dark everybody hides in their houses just like rats," she said. Over and over again she repeated, "Baghdad is dirty." She remembers the bombing of the gold-domed Shiite shrine in Samarra more than a year ago. She knew the attack was different from all the others. "I felt bitterness in my heart that day," she said. "I knew that things would not rest; I knew that we shall have torment for a long time, and it was true." Shiite revenge killings soared. Neighbors soon couldn't live with one another. Sunnis feared Shiite militias and their dreaded checkpoints; Shiites feared the Sunni insurgency and its bloody bombings. People fled, and families were torn apart. Many, like Ali, feel numb to the pain, cheated out of the lives they expected. On the morning Saddam was hanged, Ali said, she wept. Not for the dictator, but for the death of her hope and the loss of confidence in a government that she thinks is worse than the one that came before it. "I want safety," she said. "Saddam's time was a safe time for us." --- Abbas Chaychan never returned to Iraq after the war. He remains an exile, part of an Iraqi diaspora that grows daily. As many as 2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland since the war began, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Up to 1.7 million Iraqis have been displaced internally. It's the largest refugee movement in the Middle East since the displacement of the Palestinians in 1948, the U.N. reports. About 8 percent of Iraq's population before the war has left; up to 50,000 more Iraqis are displaced each month. Bodies are stacked at the morgue, mothers weep and children are maimed. For four years Iraqis have waited for better days, and they weep for the time lost: no liberty, no freedom, just death. Chaychan's most recent poem doesn't lament Saddam's death as much as it pines for the era when he lived. "I cried & I didn't cry for you," he wrote. "I cried for the time that put you in a tomb." McClatchy Newspapers special correspondents Laith Hammoudi, Zaineb Obeid and Sahar Issa contributed to this report. for what, this?
********* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1530526.ece From The Sunday Times March 18, 2007 Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war? Marie Colvin DESPITE sectarian slaughter, ethnic cleansing and suicide bombs, an opinion poll conducted on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq has found a striking resilience and optimism among the inhabitants. The poll, the biggest since coalition troops entered Iraq on March 20, 2003, shows that by a majority of two to one, Iraqis prefer the current leadership to Saddam Hussein’s regime, regardless of the security crisis and a lack of public services. The survey, published today, also reveals that contrary to the views of many western analysts, most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war. Officials in Washington and London are likely to be buoyed by the poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), a respected British market research company that funded its own survey of 5,019 Iraqis over the age of 18. The 400 interviewers who fanned out across Iraq last month found that the sense of security felt by Baghdad residents had significantly improved since polling carried out before the US announced in January that it was sending in a “surge” of more than 20,000 extra troops. The poll highlights the impact the sectarian violence has had. Some 26% of Iraqis - 15% of Sunnis and 34% of Shi’ites - have suffered the murder of a family member. Kidnapping has also played a terrifying role: 14% have had a relative, friend or colleague abducted, rising to 33% in Baghdad. Yet 49% of those questioned preferred life under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, to living under Saddam. Only 26% said things had been better in Saddam’s era, while 16% said the two leaders were as bad as each other and the rest did not know or refused to answer. Not surprisingly, the divisions in Iraqi society were reflected in statistics — Sunnis were more likely to back the previous Ba’athist regime (51%) while the Shi’ites (66%) preferred the Maliki government. Maliki, who derives a significant element of his support from Moqtada al-Sadr, the hardline Shi’ite militant, and his Mahdi army, has begun trying to overcome criticism that his government favours the Shi’ites, going out of his way to be seen with Sunni tribal leaders. He is also under pressure from the US to include more Sunnis in an expected government reshuffle. The poll suggests a significant increase in support for Maliki. A survey conducted by ORB in September last year found that only 29% of Iraqis had a favourable opinion of the prime minister. Another surprise was that only 27% believed they were caught up in a civil war. Again, that number divided along religious lines, with 41% of Sunnis believing Iraq was in a civil war, compared with only 15% of Shi’ites. The survey is a rare snapshot of Iraqi opinion because of the difficulty of working in the country, with the exception of Kurdish areas which are run as an essentially autonomous province. Most international organisations have pulled out of Iraq and diplomats are mostly holed-up in the Green Zone. The unexpected degree of optimism may signal a groundswell of hope at signs the American “surge” is starting to take effect. This weekend comments from Baghdad residents reflected the poll’s findings. Many said they were starting to feel more secure on the streets, although horrific bombings have continued. “The Americans have checkpoints and the most important thing is they don’t ask for ID, whether you are Sunni or Shi’ite,” said one resident. “There are no more fake checkpoints so you don’t need to be scared.” The inhabitants of a northern Baghdad district were heartened to see on the concrete blocks protecting an Iraqi army checkpoint the lettering: “Down, down with the militias, we are fighting for the sake of Iraq.” It would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago. Residents said they noted that armed militias were off the streets. One question showed the sharp divide in attitudes towards the continued presence of foreign troops in Iraq. Some 53% of Iraqis nationwide agree that the security situation will improve in the weeks after a withdrawal by international forces, while only 26% think it will get worse. “We’ve been polling in Iraq since 2005 and the finding that most surprised us was how many Iraqis expressed support for the present government,” said Johnny Heald, managing director of ORB. “Given the level of violence in Iraq, it shows an unexpected level of optimism.” Despite the sectarian divide, 64% of Iraqis still want to see a united Iraq under a central national government. One statistic that bodes ill for Iraq’s future is the number who have fled the country, many of them middle-class professionals. Baghdad has been hard hit by the brain drain — 35% said a family member had left the country. Additional reporting: Ali Rifat ORB interviewed a nationally representative sample of 5,019 Iraqi adults between February 10-22. The margin of error was +/- 1.4%.
And you took this poll yourself, creep?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1530762.ece From The Sunday Times March 18, 2007 Iraqis: life is getting better Marie Colvin MOST Iraqis believe life is better for them now than it was under Saddam Hussein, according to a British opinion poll published today. The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week. One in four Iraqis has had a family member murdered, says the poll by Opinion Research Business. In Baghdad, the capital, one in four has had a relative kidnapped and one in three said members of their family had fled abroad. But when asked whether they preferred life under Saddam, the dictator who was executed last December, or under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, most replied that things were better for them today. Only 27% think there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with 61% who do not, according to the survey carried out last month. By a majority of two to one, Iraqis believe military operations now under way will disarm all militias. More than half say security will improve after a withdrawal of multinational forces. Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, said the findings pointed to progress. “There is no widespread violence in the four southern provinces and the fact that the picture is more complex than the stereotype usually portrayed is reflected in today’s poll,” she said.
Take a look at this: In Iraq there is a second structural imperative for the violence, equally compelling, though much less candid. Despite public utterances, there is good reason to think that one of the goals of the US occupation has been the political dismemberment of the country. The notion of a federal structure had been agreed at the London conference before the invasion took place under the guiding hand of current US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzid. The idea has been repeatedly endorsed in the pages of the New York Times (25 November 2003, 1 May 2006) by president emeritus of the Council for Foreign Affairs, Leslie H Gelb, a guru of US imperial strategy. A sectarian framework was superimposed on the new Iraqi state from the outset of the occupation, with political representatives made to take their place within government according to their language, religion, sect and ethnicity rather than by political programmes. Most importantly, the US installed as National Security Advisor (probably the most senior Iraqi military post in the land) Mowaffak al-Rubaie, a dedicated champion of partition, who has contemplated as many as six statelets within a loose federal structure. Now, with the growing backing of powerful political figures in the US such as leading Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Joseph R Biden Jr and the de facto endorsement of the outgoing British ambassador, the break-up of Iraq seems close at hand. With Iraq holding the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, it’s not hard to see why three fractionalized polities might appear a more desirable outcome than a strong, centralized Iraqi state. Very interesting read: http://www.brusselstr ibunal.org/FullerJadiriyah.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/340944.stm Sci/Tech As debate intensifies over the use of depleted uranium (DU) weapons in the Balkan conflict, a former Pentagon adviser has come out against them. He is Dr Doug Rokke, a US health physicist who led the DU clean-up in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq immediately after the Gulf War. In 1994, Dr Rokke, an Army Reserve captain, was appointed director of the Pentagon's DU project, a job he left in 1997. He helped develop an education and training programme, and conducted tests on DU explosives in the Nevada desert. The Pentagon has confirmed that A-10 aircraft are using DU rounds in the war with Serbia. They are extremely heavy, and are used for their armour-piercing capability. Veterans from the 1991 conflict believe DU, which is both radioactive and toxic, may help to explain the existence of Gulf War Syndrome. Levels of radioactivity They point to reports from southern Iraq of much higher levels of stillbirths, birth defects, leukaemia and other child cancers. And the Rand Corporation says its study of DU "found little documented evidence of adverse effects", from either radiation or toxicity. It points out that DU is much less radioactive than natural uranium. 'Burning dust' But Dr Rokke told BBC News Online it had been mislead by Major Baggio. Dr Rokke says the force of the impact of a DU round converts much of it into a spray of burning uranium dust. "Consequently, we have DU dust which is a radioactive, heavy, metal poison on or within the equipment", and it is scattered up to 25 or 50 metres away. He says anyone who has inhaled or ingested this dust, or who has let it enter a wound, will need immediate medical treatment. A senior officer of the US Defense Nuclear Agency said in 1991 that radiation from fragments and intact DU rounds was "a serious health threat". He said there was "a possible exposure rate of 200 millirems per hour on contact". "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's maximum limit ... is 100 millirems per year."
ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Doug Rokke is NOT a health physicist. His claim that he was is a LIE. As is most everything he told your source, robin. But I guess since you bozo'd yourself, you shall remain clueless. And now you want Diana to join you in that state.
See information in my message #121. Btw, I checked into Rokke's official military records - he has them posted on various sites - and as of 86/06/05 under the "Principal Duty" column, the US Military refers to him as NUC Med Sc Off and then on 91/03/25 he is referred to as "Theatre Health Physicist" and as of 92/09/15 he was referred to as EXECUTIVE OFFICER and as of 94/08/01 he is referred to as Project Director ( USACMLS) and from 95/11/30 to 98/11/20 he is referred to again as NUC MED SCIENCE OFF. So go figure Dr. Rokke must have been held in high regard by the US Military - he got promotions. Also I read an official letter of introduction of 1LT Rokke to CPT's Armstrong, Brannon and Carter dated 12 Dec 90 and the letter seems to be quite flattering about specifically "the technical expertise" of 1 LT. Rokke, a 68B with the 12th PVNTMED.
So go figure Dr. Rokke must have been held in high regard by the US Military - he got promotions. Also I read an official letter of introduction of 1LT Rokke to CPT's Armstrong, Brannon and Carter dated 12 Dec 90 and the letter seems to be quite flattering about specifically "the technical expertise" of 1 LT. Rokke, a 68B with the 12th PVNTMED. very good Smear tactics are all that's left, the facts are plain.
#144. To: robin, scrapper2, ALL (#140)
robin ... listening to only one side of a debate yet thinking she has the whole story. ROTFLOL! Say robin ... be sure to ask scrapper to a link for what he CLAIMS.
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#11. To: scrapper2, ALL (#3)
Proudly bearing the neozio war mongering standard.
#19. To: BeAChooser (#11)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_baghdad_security
#21. To: scrapper2, ALL (#19)
But while many Iraqis are encouraged, they remain skeptical how long the relative calm will last. Each bombing renews fears that the horror is returning. Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents are still around, perhaps just laying low or hiding outside the city until the operation is over.
#39. To: BeAChooser (#21)
(Edited)
If the media had reported WW2 the way they've reported this war, we'd have lost WW2.
#50. To: scrapper2, ALL (#39)
We did lose WWII.
#64. To: BeAChooser (#50)
demonstrating once again how irrational 4umers can be.
4 years after invasion, many Iraqis look back with longing
By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers
HE has my respect.
#66. To: hammerdown, ALL (#64)
for what, this?
#67. To: BeAChooser (#66)
Despite the sectarian divide, 64% of Iraqis still want to see a united Iraq under a central national government.
#68. To: Dakmar, ALL (#67)
#95. To: BeAChooser, scrapper2, hammerdown, FormerLurker, robin, All (#68)
(Edited)
The survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis found the majority optimistic despite their suffering in sectarian violence since the American-led invasion four years ago this week.
#112. To: Diana (#95)
Pentagon's man in uranium warning
A-10 tankbuster: They are now firing DU weapons over Kosovo
By Environment Correspondent Alex Kirby 
But Nato says DU is no more dangerous than any other heavy metal. Its spokesman, Major Dan Baggio, says a DU round contained about as much uranium as would go into "a glow-in-the-dark type of watch". ![[ image: DU munitions are
highly effective armour penetrators]](/olmedia/340000/images/_340944_tank.jpg)
DU munitions are highly effective armour penetrators
He believes that Pentagon officials have made "a political decision and are totally unwilling to recognise that there are health consequences of the use of DU". ![[ image: What sort of
Kosovo will the refugees return to?]](/olmedia/340000/images/_340944_people.jpg)
What sort of Kosovo will the refugees return to?
#128. To: robin, Diana, ALL (#112)
He is Dr Doug Rokke, a US health physicist
#130. To: BeAChooser, robin, diana (#128)
ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Doug Rokke is NOT a health physicist. His claim that he was is a LIE. As is most everything he told your source, robin.
#140. To: scrapper2 (#130)
Btw, I checked into Rokke's official military records - he has them posted on various sites - and as of 86/06/05 under the "Principal Duty" column, the US Military refers to him as NUC Med Sc Off and then on 91/03/25 he is referred to as "Theatre Health Physicist" and as of 92/09/15 he was referred to as EXECUTIVE OFFICER and as of 94/08/01 he is referred to as Project Director ( USACMLS) and from 95/11/30 to 98/11/20 he is referred to again as NUC MED SCIENCE OFF.
Replies to Comment # 140. Smear tactics are all that's left, the facts are plain
End Trace Mode for Comment # 140.