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POPSPetraeus goes back on promise to assess surge in Sept. As late as April 26th David Petraeus promised that we would know whether things were working out by September: General Petraeus said he and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, intended to stick by a vow to offer the White House and the Pentagon an assessment of the progress of the new strategy by early September. And he signaled that he hoped for political progress in Iraq, not just military improvements. ''We'll have seen whether in fact our efforts in these areas have helped produce the kind of progress that they are designed in fact to produce,'' he said. ''One would certainly hope that the Iraqi legislators would match that with their own hard work. That's our expectation.'' (from the New York Times, "US Commander Says Fall Pullback in Iraq Would Lead to More Sectarian Killings", by David S. Cloud and Michael R. Gordon, April 26th)
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POPSBush endangering troops by not planning for withdrawal Mark Thoma reproduces part of a National Journal article that points out that troop withdrawal can be very dangerous for the troops, and by failing to plan for it the Bush administration is increasing the odds for a chaotic, difficult, and dangerous withdrawal for the US troops when withdrawal does come.
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POPSUS officer: our generals are not worthy of our soldiers Lt. Col. Paul Yingling wrote an article in the Armed Forces Journal that says that lack of accountability has resulted in generals who are basically toadies of the civilian leadership, failed to confront the seriousness of the insurgency in Iraq, and misled the public about the situation there. Via Richard Adams at the Guardian News Blog .
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POPSWhite House backtracking on temporary surge Basra, Iraq (AHN)-During a news conference with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the top U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. George Casey estimated that the 21,500 additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq will only need to stay until around late summer . 1 ]
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POPSRiverbend is leaving Iraq Riverbend, a young woman blogger from Iraq, and her family are going to leave Iraq. They will first go to either Syria or Jordan (the only two countries that Iraqis can go to without a visa) and then somewhere else. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?
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POPSGreetings From the Red Zone - Lawrence Korb's visit to Iraq Lawrence Korb visited Iraq on behalf of the National Academy of Public Administration. His account of his five-day visit (April 7th through April 121th) talks about an Iraqi government that is totally paralyzed and beset with corruption; and the US officials there are out of touch with reality. Contractors are willing to say the place is a mess, but only as long as they don't have to go on the record. Via Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly
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POPSReports of progress in Iraq challenged If violence is down in Baghdad, analysts said, it is likely because the Shiite militias operating there are waiting out the buildup in U.S. troops, nearly all of whom are being deployed in the capital. At the same time, Sunni insurgents have escalated their operations elsewhere.
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POPSInstapundit on the fall of Muqtada al-Sadr I especially liked the one about Bush's "nuanced combination of sophisticated counter-insurgency efforts and attendant political machinations contra Moktada al-Sadr". Edit: Instapundit is the name of Glenn Reynolds' blog.
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POPSTrent Lott gets bashful According to this article, Republicans are going to wait for 2-3 months to see if there are any improvements in Iraq, before demanding a withdrawal. Via Josh Marshall
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POPSBush admin considering allying with Iraqi Shiites Laura Rozen reports on a secret mission where Stephen Hadley advocated the US drop its posture as a "neutral referee" in the Iraqi civil war and align with the Shiites to crush Sunni insurgents. This strikes me as a very, very bad idea. Via Kevin Drum
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POPSal-Sistani throws in the towel Crooks and Liars has a videoclip of journalist David Ignatius saying back in July that if al-Sistani gives up, then "this effort is over"--presumably he means the US's efforts to create a functional government and avert civil war.
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POPSBaghdad Butchery "There's only one problem with George W. Bush's policy of "more of the same" from Iraq. All he's going to get is more of the same."
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POPSIraqi Brain Drain "No country can lose 40 percent of its professionals and not have a lasting negative impact on their economic and social progress." Via ThinkProgress
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