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 . '/' . substr('9781595588159',-6,3) . '/' . '9781595588159' . '.jpg'; ?>)
By Dave Zirin
$18.95
By Molly Ivins
$9.72
$23
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bbc.co.uk
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American combat forces might be exiting Iraq, but a wave of deadly violence around the country Wednesday served as a grim reminder that war is likely to be a daily reality for Iraqis for a long time to come.
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Flickr/Jim Gordon
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A key overlooked fact about the much-ballyhooed “surge is working” argument in Iraq is that the U.S. military actually paid some former insurgents $10 a day to help American troops keep the peace in parts of the country. But what happens when that setup changes in volatile regions like Anbar?
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By Robert Fisk — The president’s twisting of words in an attempt to justify continuing the war has become sickening.
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AP photo / Capt. Allie Weiskopf Chase, U.S. Army, HO
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Here’s an interesting idea for dampening insurgent violence in Iraq: Pay the would-be troublemakers to temporarily join America’s side and watch the surge success reports roll in. That’s the tactic the U.S. military has employed with some 70,000 former insurgents, according to this NPR report.
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AP Photo / Gerald Herbert
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The good news, according to the United States’ main military man in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, is that American troops have succeeded in taking hold of two main insurgent hot spots, Ramadi and Baquba. The bad news: Petraeus is speculating that the situation in Iraq will get worse before it gets better—and that U.S. forces might need to stay there for many years.
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The Iraqi insurgency is now nationwide and deadlier than ever, despite the recent surge of U.S. forces. More than 30 people, many of them women and children, were reported dead and dozens wounded Friday when a suicide bomber set off explosives that released chlorine gas in Ramadi—just one of several fatal incidents this week in Iraq.
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The Army is admitting the possibility that two U.S. soldiers were killed by friendly fire in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Feb. 2. An investigation is still underway, but an Army official says it’s possible that the “confusion that you frequently find on the battlefield” may have caused the soldiers to be shot by their own side.
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The week’s deadly trend of sectarian aggression accelerated Friday and Saturday. Yet another car bomb claimed 12 lives Saturday in Ramadi. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki pledged to avenge the deaths of 14 police officers found slain in Baquba on Friday.
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By Kasia Anderson — The proliferation of conflicting, even contradictory, media accounts of Tuesday’s explosion in Ramadi is reaching head-spinning proportions. The mystery deepened Wednesday, a full day after the BBC and other news outlets originally reported that 18 children were killed and 20 others injured by a car bomb as they gathered to play football in the western Iraqi city.
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Breaking story: The BBC originally reported the deaths of at least 18 Iraqi boys who were lining up to play football today in Ramadi. However, the BBC story has apparently changed: The headline now reads “Confusion over Iraq soccer blast,” and the article cites an American official who claims that U.S. troops carried out a “controlled explosion” near a football field in the volatile western city.
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Joao Silva / The N.Y. Times
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The city of Ramadi, epicenter of the Iraqi insurgency, has already been reduced to such ruins that constantly under-fire American forces are planning to bulldoze three blocks in the center of the city and create a mini Green Zone in an attempt to gain the upper hand on the insurgents.
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Two U.S. soldiers in Iraq enact a remix of the famous “Saturday Night Live” viral video “Lazy Sunday.” In this version, “Lazy Ramadi,” the soldiers rap, “I hate Ramadi / But there’s no need to moan / Because the U.S. Army won’t let me go home.”
Posted on May 18, 2006
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