Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 2, 2008 13:02:04 GMT -4
Rise, my thread: RISE! A Congressional progress report provides some numbers that show that the surge has been successful. Of paritcular interest is the chart on page 17 of the .pdf (12 on the report), which shows "Enemy-Initiatied Attacks by Month - May 2003 to May 2008". Dark gray is attacks on coalition forces, light gray is attacks on civilians, and white is attacks on Iraqi security forces. The peak was almost two years ago - just before the 2006 congressional elections when the Democrats took control of Congress. Attacks against coalition forces peaked in June of 2007 - the month that the surge went full-force. After that they dropped off steeply. Total violence has dropped by about 70 percent according to the report since last June, and attacks in May, the last month on the chart, are lower than they've been at any point since early 2004. The report indicates that "According to MNF-I, DOD and State reports, rejection of al-Qaida in Iraq by significant portions of the population and operations to disrupt AQI networks have helped decrease violence in Iraq," - in other words the population is turning against al-Qaida. Good news all around.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 2, 2008 17:01:00 GMT -4
And this report card from the Administration notes that Iraq has now completed 15 of 18 benchmarks set last year. Not bad.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 4, 2008 9:21:18 GMT -4
You forgot that house prices in Bagdad have doubled in the last few months due to the demand by people returning. Of course while some parts of Iraq are on the way to recovery, Afghanistan is going to pack.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 11, 2008 18:01:14 GMT -4
550 tons of Yellowcake removed from Iraq. An interesting piece, since it completely contradicts the idea that Saddam had no intention of ever building nukes again and no materials to do it with if he wanted to.
|
|
|
Post by LunarOrbit on Jul 11, 2008 18:53:15 GMT -4
...and given to Canada. Look out world, we're a nuclear threat now!
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 12, 2008 3:11:39 GMT -4
GW is looking for an excuse to invade you is all.
|
|
|
Post by dmundt on Jul 15, 2008 19:45:31 GMT -4
550 tons of Yellowcake removed from Iraq. An interesting piece, since it completely contradicts the idea that Saddam had no intention of ever building nukes again and no materials to do it with if he wanted to. The yellowcake removed from Iraq - which was not the same yellowcake that President George W. Bush claimed, in a now discredited section of his 2003 State of the Union address, that Saddam was trying to purchase in Africa - could be used in an early stage of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only after intensive processing would it become low-enriched uranium, which could fuel reactors producing power.www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/07/mideast/iraq.phpNot weapons grade. Not a reason to go to war.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 15, 2008 22:13:53 GMT -4
It contradicts the idea that Saddam had no intention of ever building nukes and no materials to do it with. No he didn't have material that was already weapons grade, and no he didn't have already active nukes. I'm just pointing out that he obviously did have a nuclear program and still had some of the raw materials when he was thrown out of power - something I'm sure was not in that 11,000 page "full disclosure" he tried to palm off on the UN.
|
|
|
Post by dmundt on Jul 16, 2008 11:20:35 GMT -4
What it shows is how desperate the right is to grasp at any straw, no matter how ridiculous. REPORT ON THE EIGHTEENTH IAEA ON-SITE INSPECTION IN IRAQ UNDER SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 687 (1991) 3 - 11 March 1993 With the exception of small quantities of natural uranium still to be recovered from waste at the Al Jezira site, all declared bulk uranium stock and intermediate process materials (total ~ 550 t uranium) have been verified and are maintained under seal at a single location. Most of this material, in the form of yellow cake, - about one-fifth declared after the Gulf War to have come from indigenous production and four-fifths from external sources - was never included in the pre-war safeguards inspection regime. www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/iaea-18.htmWe knew it was there all along and we knew it wasn't weapons grade. It lends no support to the idea the Saddam was trying to purchase highly enriched yellow cake. It is typical right wing confabulation.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 16, 2008 11:40:04 GMT -4
We knew it was there all along and we knew it wasn't weapons grade. It lends no support to the idea the Saddam was trying to purchase highly enriched yellow cake. It is typical right wing confabulation. I never said it was evidence that he was purchasing more. I said it was evidence that Saddam did have a nuclear program at one time and had some left over raw materials should he decide to start it up again. In any case, if 4/5ths of it was from external sources, according to this nifty report, that means he did purchase yellow cake form somewhere, doesn't it? And what is this about it "was never included in the pre-war safeguards inspection regime"? Does that mean it was or wasn't in Saddam's declaration? The earlier paragraph seems to say it was. Why does this report refer to "pre-war" if it actually dates from March 11, 2003, which was before the invasion? Unfortunately my firewall here at work won't let me follow the link, because the website is classed as an "advocacy group".
|
|
|
Post by dmundt on Jul 16, 2008 11:46:04 GMT -4
If that store of yellow cake could have been used as a WMD, the Bush administration would have been all over it leading up to the invasion of Iraq. They'd have been hollering to anyone who would listen. But it was not weapons grade and apparently wouldn't even have been good enough to use for a "dirty bomb."
It was known about before, during and after the invasion. It has nothing to do with Saddam wanting to make a bomb or Saddam threatening the United States. It lends no support to the mistaken idea that the war in Iraq was necessary.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 16, 2008 12:23:39 GMT -4
If that store of yellow cake could have been used as a WMD, the Bush administration would have been all over it leading up to the invasion of Iraq. They'd have been hollering to anyone who would listen. But it was not weapons grade and apparently wouldn't even have been good enough to use for a "dirty bomb." Yellow cake, though fairly innocuous itself, is a potential raw material for nuclear weapons, and the Bush administration did mention that Iraq was trying to obtain more before the war. Which is more likely, that Saddam had 550 tons of the stuff because he wanted to build a power plant for Iraq or that he had it because he wanted to eventually enrich it into weapons-grade material to build a few nukes with?
|
|
|
Post by dmundt on Jul 16, 2008 12:32:53 GMT -4
The Bush Administration knowingly lied about this before the war. As I showed you before, our own intelligence officials tried to warn Bush off of using the British Intelligence, because they thought it was faulty. Bush deliberately used British sources because he knew his own sources wouldn't back it up.
It is unbelievable to me that you are still repeating that crap.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Jul 16, 2008 13:56:59 GMT -4
It is unbelievable to me that you are still repeating that crap. The British still stand behind it. It can't be a knowing lie if the British still say it's true.
|
|
|
Post by dmundt on Jul 16, 2008 14:56:12 GMT -4
You are living proof that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
|
|