Our Progress In Iraq

Curious after looking at still graphics of where we are in Iraq via Gateway Pundit, I thought surely MNF-I would have something more compelling addressing the progress we have made. All I found was this all too quick animated GIF with the dates hard to view at bottom leaving no time to contemplate, or sense the accomplishment. I didn't find it compelling. While I wrote MNF-I for the raw images to work with on my own, I discovered I could grab them up and produce a still shot, as well as a YouTube video demonstrating consistent, if sometimes slow progress in Iraq over the last year and a half. I also included a quick text message for our Senators, currently contemplating a surrender when we are the strongest nation with the strongest military on the face of the Earth. That in and of itself makes surrender ridiculous. We elected these people to lead and to win, not quit because of some headlines.

The still shot comparing Iraq in Jan 06 to June 07 is directly below. The YouTube video is below that. It isn't great. But it conveyed the message a little better in my opinion. Perhaps you'll agree.

As the light green fills in month by month, those are areas in which Iraqi forces are now taking the lead. As you begin to see dark green, those areas have been turned over to Iraqi forces. Watch the video below, or here - then tell me there is no progress in Iraq. And remember, Senators, America is watching you.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

Erica writes: "We invaded Iraq becuase we were told he had WMDs that Saddam was going to give to Al Qaeda - ignoring the fact he wasn't an Al Qaeda ally. There were also the lies about Iraqi 9/11 connections." Actually, there were three reasons: "The 2003 invasion of Iraq by Britain, United States, Australia, Poland and Denmark (other countries were also involved in its aftermath) began on March 20, 2003. The invasion launched the Iraq War, which is still ongoing. U.S. President George W. Bush claimed that the objective of the invasion was "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction,to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people." Erica, it has already been established here many times by me and others that the entire Western world, including President and Ms. Clinton, Gore, Kerry and other Dems, and probably even you, thought that Iraq had WMD. For God's sake let that seep into that feverish brain of yours. In order to understand the Iraq war correctly, THIS IS THE FIRST STEP. Now please say you agree to this and that you cannot say WMD statements were "lies".

[jong]

Fred Dolt:

We'd never have gone to war without the case for WMD's, the imagery of mushroom clouds and the continual drumbeat of a connection to Al Qaeda. All those have been proven FALSE.

Ah yes, the ultimate right-wing act of desperation - cite the Clintons to back up your case. But there were plenty of people warning Bush not to go to war. It's George Bush's War, not the Clinton's. He started it, hyped the evidence, manufactured BS connections to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. End of Story.

The war's gone so well, most Iraqis would preferred their life under Saddam. Something like 4 million Iraqis have been displaced and over 2 million have fled the country. By any measure, the war's a disaster for us.

***********
The head of the United Nations weapons inspectors in the run-up to the Iraq war, Hans Blix, last night undercut one of the main grounds offered by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, in his legal advice to Tony Blair.

Lord Goldsmith said there would have to be evidence that Iraq was not complying with the inspectors.

But Mr Blix, who has since retired to Sweden, said his inspectors found no compelling evidence that Iraq had a hidden arsenal or was blocking the work of the inspectors. He said there had been only small infractions by Iraq.

[Fred Beloit]

Erica writes: "By any measure, the war's a disaster for us." By any measure? How about giving me one. So, I take it your verbose answer to my question is you agree that Bush can't be said to have "lied"?

[Fred Beloit]

Blair is confident of UN support as Iraq rejects plan
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune

Monday, September 30, 2002
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said Sunday that he was confident of securing UN support for a draft resolution demanding intrusive arms inspections in Iraq on a tight timeline, but Baghdad rejected any new inspections regime and Moscow questioned whether the U.S.-British approach could work.
.
"I hope and believe we will get the resolution that we want," Blair told the British Broadcasting Corp. He coupled that comment, however, to a blunt warning to Iraq: Disarm or "action will follow."
.
Iraq on Saturday rejected U.S.-British draft language calling for new UN inspections under stringent conditions over a 30-day schedule. Officials in Baghdad said that they would accept no new rules and, if attacked, would fight back fiercely.
.
That show of defiance rankled many in the U.S. Congress, who vowed to support the sort of tough resolution sought there by President George W. Bush.

[Fred Beloit]

Friday, January 16, 1998 Published at 17:51 GMT

World

UN inspectors leave Baghdad
image: [ Going home: Scott Ritter, the American leader of Unscom in Iraq ]
Going home: Scott Ritter, the American leader of Unscom in Iraq

UN arms inspectors have left Baghdad, ending days of stalemate with Iraqi officials who had refused to let them work.

Alan Dacey, UN special commission (Unscom) comments on HMS Invincible and recent events (Dur : 2'09")
The UN said the team had planned to leave on Friday anyway and it was not surrendering to Iraqi pressure.

"We will be back," said Scott Ritter, the American inspector Iraq accused of spying.

His team left the Iraqi capital by road headed for an air base and a flight out of the country.

[ image: Richard Butler: back in Baghdad on Monday]
Richard Butler: back in Baghdad on Monday
The withdrawal puts extra pressure on the the UN's chief inspector Richard Butler, due in Baghdad on Monday.

He said he has major concerns about Iraq's willingness to comply with UN resolutions on disarmament.

He said the Iraqi Government had made considerable progress in the disarmament process which made it harder to understand why it had once again taken action which challenged the inspection operation.

It is the second time in three months the UN has withdrawn its inspectors.

The UN Special Commission (Unscom) team, led by Mr Ritter, had not worked for three days because Iraq refused to provide escorts.

Iraq said the team was dominated by Americans and Britons and accuses Mr Ritter of being a spy.

[Fred Beloit]

Saturday, September 14, 2002 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

Share this story! del.icio.us digg Reddit Furl Fark TailRank Ma.gnolia NewsVine Simpy Spurl

Iraq rejects unconditional return of inspectors

* Aziz says Bush’s speech ‘full of lies’ * Minister threatens Israel with attack * US wants UN resolution on Iraq with deadlines * Russia insists on peaceful solution through political means * Amnesty International fuming over use of background paper

DUBAI: As Bush insisted on Friday that any new UN resolution aimed at disarming Iraq must set deadlines for compliance, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Friday rejected the unconditional return of UN arms inspectors as demanded by Washington, saying the move would not avert US military designs on Baghdad.

“The return of inspectors without conditions will not solve the problem,” Aziz said in a television interview.

Meanwhile, Arab states urged Baghdad to allow the return of UN arms inspectors after US President George W Bush warned action against Baghdad was “unavoidable” unless the United Nations disarmed Iraq.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to “grab the opportunity” offered in Bush’s speech to the UN General Assembly by allowing back the weapons experts.

[jong]

Fred the Dolt:

BFD - They got back in and were doing their jobs until Bush told them to get out ending the inspection process.

United Nations, Sept 16 - Bowing to international pressure and the threat of a U.S. Invasion, Iraq has agreed to let weapons inspectors return without conditions.

Then just before the war started:

"In the clearest sign yet that war with Iraq is imminent, the United States has advised U.N. weapons inspectors to begin pulling out of Baghdad, the U.N. nuclear agency chief said Monday."

As for Ritter, who you note Iraq accused of spying on them:

Prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March, 2003, Ritter repeatedly stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Because of the prevailing political climate in the United States at the time, Ritter was widely condemned for this position, which later proved to be largely accurate.

[Rich Casebolt]

Typical gnat-straining ...

"Saddam had no WMD" ... while ignoring his history of repeatedly using them ... his mothballed programs ... his bribery of the oversight authority ... and ignoring all the others besides our current President who sincerely believed he had them.

"Saddam had no ties to Al Quada" ... while ignoring the presence of Zarqawi's organization in the Land of the Ultimate Control Freaks ... while ignoring all the OTHER terrorism he supported ... while ignoring the future benefit to Saddam's aspirations for conquest of having others do his dirty work for him as he maintained plausible deniability.

"Saddam was no threat ... we could bomb him anytime" ... while ignoring the damage to Iraq such containment was causing; not so much the bombs, but the starvation and misery derived from Saddam's diversion of Oil-For-Food funds ... while ignoring the clear holes in any weapons-inspection protocol in a nation with plenty of places to hide WMD ... while ignoring that Saddam had a clear example -- South Africa -- to follow, regarding how to credibly disarm under oversight ... and while ignoring the fact that the only thing containing him was our presence in-theater, which was not guaranteed in perpetuity.

You strain at every gnat of discrepancy between what we thought was there, and what we found ... while ignoring the limits of the weapons-inspection process when applied to a duplicitous and uncooperative regime .... while ignoring the bloody history -- foreign and domestic -- of Saddam & Sons ... while ignoring his capability to cause future trouble.

Then, you bring up Ritter, whom we have since found out was under contract to a firm who was trying to put Saddam's Iraq in the best light.

Even if this Administration had said NOTHING about WMD and ties to Al Quada, THERE WAS MORE THAN ENOUGH EVIDENCE THAT SADDAM HUESSEIN, AS LONG AS HE RULED IRAQ, WAS A CLEAR AND PRESENT THREAT TO THE PEACE AND STABILITY OF MODERN GLOBAL CIVILIZATION.

Only those who are mired in the conventional wisdom of the 20th century could miss that, jong ... apparently, you didn't learn a damn thing from the events of 11 September 2001, regarding just how vulnerable our civilization is to terrorism ... and how the rules have changed.

Answer my questions.

[Rich Casebolt]

Answer my questions ... if you dare.

Expose your lack of wisdom even more to us ... for anyone who would consider an expansionist butcher like Saddam a lesser concern than the elected President of a checked-and-balanced, rights-respecting republic when assessing threats, lacks even the most basic of wisdom.

Methinks your war against Bush started, not in March 2003, but in November 2000 ... and it doesn't matter how many butchers get away to kill even more, as long as you get Bush.

[jong]

Uh, you didn't ask any questions. Questions end with a ?. So it's kinda hard to answer what you didn't ask. And most of your statements are the same as Fred Dolt's: ill-informed or completely contradicted by fact. But I'll try to educate you a bit. In the words of our president, 'it's hard work'.

And what's really cool is your time travel trick because Zaraqawi didn't even go to Iraq until AFTER WE INVADED in 2003. So it's a little hard to use his presence to justify the Iraq War - it would help if he were actually there. But why let facts interfere with your argument when you can just make sh** up.

Yeah, bombing Iraq certainly resulted in the death of innocent civilians. But it was nowhere near the carnage going on there now.

As for WMDs, every US, British and UN agency agrees there weren't any:

"Iraq had no stockpiles of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons before last year's US-led invasion, the chief US weapons inspector has concluded."

"Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer said Iraq's nuclear capability had decayed not grown since the 1991 war."

Yeah, Saddam was a bad guy. We knew that when we made him an ally back in the 80s and found out he was using chemical weapons on the Kurds and Iranians but we gave him a pass becuase he was our ally.

But there's lots of bad guys around. That's not justification enough to start a war. Particularly when you've alread got your hands full hunting down Bin Laden. Gee, six years later, he's still running around free. Now THAT's a fu**ing embarassment.

[Rich Casebolt]

Jong ... thanks for proving my point.

The questions I asked ... and you are not willing to answer.

1> If a few dozen guys with $1M could perpetrate the events of 11 September 2001, why does it make ANY sense to trust someone of like mind regarding the respect of others' life and liberty, with absolute control of an entire, resource-rich, relatively-advanced nation?

2> Name one totalitarian (not authoritarian ... totalitarian, as in a regime that has no checks and balances against taking your life and liberty for ANY reason) that, once they had the will and capability to expand their rule, stopped on their own ... without the CREDIBLE confrontation of lethal force being placed in their way.

RE: Zarqawi -- by your own standards, you are a liar, sir:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3483089.stm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2006/06/iraq-060609-rferl01.htm

Both sources show Zarqawi in Iraq, well before the invasion.

And those agencies can say there was no WMD, only because GEORGE W. BUSH FACILITATED THE ONLY COMPREHENSIVE WEAPONS INSPECTION EVER IMPOSED UPON IRAQ. Your quote, I note, is after-the-fact.

And like I said, it is people like you who persuaded our leaders to NOT use our forces directly to deal with enemies throughout the 20th century ... and as a result, they resorted to proxies to make the best of a bad situation.

If we propped them up (and like I said, our support for Saddam was quite limited, especially compared to France/Germany/Russia) ... isn't it incumbent upon us to take thugs like Saddam down.

But no ... that would mean that Mr. Bush would get credit for doing something right.

And that is your greatest fear, jong.

"But there's lots of bad guys around. That's not justification enough to start a war."

When said bad guys ...
... have a history of totalitarian expansionism laced with brutality.
... have a history of fomenting terrorism and supporting terrorist surrogates whose actions produce instability said bad guys can capitalize upon.
... sit in a location where major interconnections of our global civilization -- interconnections essential for the continuation of peace and posperity in the world -- must either be left open to attack, or be continually defended via passively (read: unreliably) at a high cost to both the defenders outside, and the innocent within, the sphere of control of said bad guys.
... have ONLY that external, passive defense acting as a check-and-balance against their brutal whims ... while still being able to plan and plot behind a cloak of national soverignty.
... have bribed organizations entrusted with watching the nations of said bad guys to cooperate with them, with the plausible outcome being the removal of the passive defense above.
... have acted with duplicity towards other oversight authorities, regarding the verification of their offensive capabilities.

... IN A POST-911 WORLD, WHERE IT IS QUITE EVIDENT THAT IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO WREAK HAVOC UPON OUR CIVILIZATION, THE ABOVE IS MORE THAN ENOUGH JUSTIFICATION TO GO TO WAR.

Only those who lack wisdom would disagree.

[congressive]

Oh goody. The Iraq Army completely controls what THIS MAP http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/middle_east_and_asia/iraq_land_use_2003.jpg describes as predominantly "wasteland" and THIS MAP http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/middle_east_and_asia/iraq_pop_2003.jpg shows as largely unpopulated, while THIS MAP http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/middle_east_and_asia/baghdad_nima_2003.jpg shows they've lost control of the more populated northern Baghdad while gaining control in the less-populated south.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics... carry on.

[Fred Beloit]

Erica jong writes: "Gee, six years later, he's still running around free. Now THAT's a fu**ing embarassment(sic)." Hahahahah. Running around free? If the dead can walk, I suppose they can run. But even if he is clinging to life in some cave, he sure ain't "running around free". Erica has the same utter disregard for the truth as winger, that is why I suspect they are one and the same. Wild exaggeration to the point of a lie. That's her. And of course if we wanted to go and find his broken body, we would have to go into Pakistan. That would have to be without the permission of that country's leader, an act of war. Does jong favor war with Pakistan? <-------See my question mark, Erica; that means I'm asking you a question.

[Scandinavia]

Try this all you "Iraq progress", "good vs evil" conservatives:
At what point would you consider your war entourage as a failure? Is there such a point? Is it not possible that you might be wrong?

Try and define your own problems please. In that way (using self-criticism without pointing on outside factors) it might be a little easier to understand your self-focused arguments.

Thank you. And with respect.

[IraqVideos.net]

I hope so bad they will take their lands back and get the mass muders out soon. It is all so very sad for the Iraqi people.