DefenseLink News Article: Cartwright: Changes in Iraq Taking ‘Permanent Hold’

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany, Nov. 25, 2007 – Positive permanent changes in the Iraqi people are beginning to show, said Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright during his visit to the Central Command area of operations Nov. 21 to 24.

Cartwright traveled to Afghanistan, Iraq and Djibouti to visit deployed troops and receive updates on operations in the region. He said Iraq has seen the most notable change in operations.

“You listen to the commanders and they’re really talking about what’s changing. What they see is opportunity, with caution that at any time, it could change and go bad. But they really see that if it does, it will be short-lived, that the change in the environment out there is starting to take hold in a permanent way.

“That’s probably the biggest thing that I saw from the commanders, was an assessment that yes, they’ll have setbacks in the future, but it is moving in the right direction.”

The general said the biggest change in Iraq is attitude. “Moving around the towns and the different areas that we had the chance to go visit, you just see a change in attitude,” he said. “You can see it in the streets. They’re cleaner. People are taking stock in themselves and their businesses. They’re taking the opportunity to clean up, get themselves on a business footing for those small businesses, which you see popping up all over the place.”

The vice chairman said another big change is the looks on Iraqi faces. “You see smiles,” he said. “You don’t see people looking away from you when you move down the street. All of those things are signs that they’re taking a different attitude toward their future.”

He also said the U.S. and coalition forces showed a lot of energy, something that helps motivate him. “I tend to thrive off the energy of the people,” the general said. “They seem to be positive about their mission, about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. It’s really easy to thrive off that energy.”

While Cartwright received updates on operations, he also brought USO celebrities with him to entertain the troops. His group consisted of actor Wilmer Valderrama, model Mayra Veronica and comedian Russell Peters.

“The most important thing about this troop visit was to bring just a bit of America to these troops,” Cartwright said. He added that when he looked out in the audience, he saw not only soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, but also a lot of coalition forces watching the entertainment.

“They may not have known what our Thanksgiving is about, but they loved the entertainment and they loved the opportunity just to escape for a while,” the vice chairman said. “That was really a positive activity.”

(Air Force Tech. Sgt. Adam M. Stump is assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff public affairs office.)

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25, 6:18 PM ET



BAGHDAD - Iraq's most influential Shiite politician said Sunday that the U.S had not backed up claims that Iran is fueling violence here, underscoring a wide gap on the issue between Washington and the Shiite-led Baghdad government.

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A draft bill to ease curbs on ex-Saddam Hussein loyalists in government services also drew sharp criticism from Shiite lawmakers, opening old wounds at a time when the United States is pressing the Iraqis for compromise for the sake of national unity.

The Americans have long accused the Iranians of arming and training Shiite militias, including some linked to the U.S.-backed government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

U.S. officials have also alleged that Iran has provided weapons used to kill Americans — a charge the Iranians vehemently deny.

"These are only accusations raised by the multinational forces and I think these accusations need more proof," Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraq Council, told reporters.

Al-Hakim, who has been undergoing treatment for lung cancer in Iran, said the Iranians have insisted in meetings with Iraqi officials that "their true will is to support the Iraqi government" and to promote stability.

"They have a long history of standing by the Iraqi people and that is their official stance that is presented to the press without any hesitation," he said.

Al-Hakim spent years in exile in Iran during Saddam's regime and is considered closer to the Iranians than any of the major Iraqi Shiite leaders. His party has also closely cooperated with American authorities since the 2003 collapse of Saddam's regime, and he has met with President Bush in the Oval Office.

His comments were made ahead of a new round of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials here over ways to promote stability in Iraq and exploit the sharp downturn in violence since the U.S. sent 30,000 reinforcements early this year.

No date for the next U.S.-Iranian talks has been announced. The Americans are expected to raise concerns about Iranian influence among Shiite armed groups, although U.S. officials have said they believe the flow of Iranian arms has been curtailed.

This month, the U.S. military released nine Iranians who had been held in Iraq for months. They included two accused of being members of the elite Quds Force suspected of arming Shiite extremists.

But the U.S. military has blamed an Iranian-backed Shiite cell for a bombing Friday in a Baghdad market that killed 15 people — the deadliest attack in the heart of the capital in more than two months.

A U.S. military spokesman, Rear. Adm. Gregory Smith stressed he was not accusing Iran of ordering the attack.

Nonetheless, Iran dismissed any suggestion that it was at fault.

"Contradictory reports have been heard about the bombing. But remarks by the Americans were made with the aim of making propaganda against Iran," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry, told reporters Sunday in Tehran.

Although major Kurdish and Shiite parties maintain ties to Iran, suspicion of the Iranians runs deep within the country's Sunni Arab community, including those groups that have abandoned the insurgency and agreed to work with American forces.

Sunni fears of Iranian domination are among the obstacles standing in the way of reconciliation among Iraq's religious and ethnic communities.

Another hurdle has been Sunni complaints that they have been marginalized politically by regulations that banned former members of Saddam's Baath party from holding government jobs or running for public office.

The United States has been pressing the Iraqis to relax the ban to allow thousands of lower-ranking Baathists to regain their posts.

On Sunday, parliament began debate on the latest draft bill. But the session adjourned after Shiite legislators loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr began pounding their fists on their tables in protest.

"This law is unconstitutional and moreover, it worries about the future of the Baathists while ignoring their victims who suffered a lot because of Baath party and the regime," Nasser al-Rubaie, parliamentary leader of the 30-member Sadrist bloc, told The Associated Press.

The prospect of rehabilitating former Baathists did not sit well with Shiite lawmakers from other political parties. Many of them suffered terribly under the Sunni-dominated Saddam regime.

"This draft amounts to an unannounced general pardon by the government," said Safiya al-Suhail, a Shiite woman lawmaker whose father was assassinated by Saddam's agents in Beirut in the 1990s.

"There is no punishment for wrongdoers," she added. "The victims of the former regime should see justice done to them. We will not accept national reconciliation at the expense of justice."

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, said parliament would discuss the draft again on Wednesday.

"I think that the bill is in general a good one," Othman said. "The country is in dire need of national reconciliation...Iraqis should abandon revenge and adopt forgiveness."

Ten people were reported killed following two bombings in the capital — a car bomb near a medical complex in Baghdad that killed nine and one in a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol. Nearly 40 people were injured in the two blasts.

Still, the carnage is well below the levels of last year, when Shiite and Sunni extremists swarmed the city, slaughtering members of the rival sect.

Ten suspected Sunni militants were killed and eight captured during a U.S. operation against al-Qaida fighters north of Samarra, the U.S. military said. The fight began when U.S. soldiers came under fire Saturday as they approached the target area, a statement said. Soldiers called for help from an unspecified aircraft, which killed eight people. Seven others were detained.

Hours later, soldiers in the same area saw three men inside a vehicle and called for them to come out. One man complied and was detained. Two others remained in the vehicle and detonated a suicide vest, which caused the vehicle to explode in flames, killing both of them, the statement said.

__________________
Cussing out low class inbreds isnt uninteligent, its honest

Good typing is not inteligent its dexiteritous.

Everything you just said is total bullshit

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8Ek...eature=related

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of US President George W. Bush has whittled its political goals for Iraq, setting achievable targets so it can continue claiming success, The New York Times said on its website late Saturday.

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Citing unnamed administration officials, the newspaper said one of these goals includes assuring passage of a 48-billion-dollar Iraqi budget that the Iraqi parliament is bound to do in any case.

The report follows a statement by US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, who said last week that all types of attacks in Iraq had dropped by 55 percent since the US troop "surge" became fully operational in June.

Smith warned, however, that progress was fragile and "far from irreversible."

Sheikh Abdul Hadi al-Mohammedawi, an aide of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr warned during Friday prayers in the central Iraqi town of Kufa that an operation by Iraqi and US forces targeting the Mahdi Army could have grave consequences.

Two bombs hidden in a carton exploded at the same time in a popular Baghdad pet market on Friday, killing 13 people, while nine people died in two bombs attacks on police in Mosul.

The Times report said other US political targets include renewing the United Nations mandate authorizing the US presence in the country and passing legislation to allow former Baath Party members to join the government.

"If we can show progress outside of the security sector alone, that will go a long way to demonstrate that we are in fact on a sustainable path to stability in Iraq," the paper quotes an unnamed senior official as saying.

__________________
Cussing out low class inbreds isnt uninteligent, its honest

Good typing is not inteligent its dexiteritous.

Everything you just said is total bullshit

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8Ek...eature=related

More Iraqis seek asylum in UK

The Home Office says it is targeting criminals first for deportation
The number of Iraqis seeking asylum in the UK has doubled in three months, according to the latest figures.
The Home Office's quarterly statistics show 530 Iraqis applied for asylum in the three months to September 2007.

That figure is double the rate of applicants from the war-torn country of just a few months earlier.

A Home Office spokesman said the overall number of 2007 applications for asylum up to the end of September - 16,700 - was the lowest since 1992.

The spokesman said it was too early in the application process to know what percentage of Iraqis were successful in their attempt to stay in the country.

So far in 2007, 16,700 people have claimed asylum, 5,890 of them in the three months from July to September - a statistic the Home Office says reflects a routine seasonal increase.

Integrity undermined

The latest figures also reflect a concerted effort by the Home Office to remove foreign criminals from the UK, but the number of voluntary removals of illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers has dropped.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said the Border and Immigration Agency had overseen a 15% increase in removals of foreign prisoners between July and September for a total of 3,500.

"In March this year I said the first people we should send home are those who break British laws," Mr Byrne said in a statement.

"Now we're removing record numbers of foreign criminals including illegal workers who risk undercutting UK wages."

Getting an asylum claim wrong can be the difference between life and death

Donna Covey, the Refugee Council

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, which campaigns against mass immigration, said the removal rate of failed asylum applicants was not good enough.

In the first nine months of this year, 9,900 failed asylum seekers and their dependents were removed, down from 14,170 for the same period in 2006.

"This failure to remove undermines the integrity of the whole system," Sir Andrew said.

The Refugee Council said they were concerned about the number of asylum seekers kept in detention and "fast-tracked" through the application process.

"And we must always remember that getting an asylum claim wrong can be the difference between life and death," said the council's Donna Covey.

__________________
Cussing out low class inbreds isnt uninteligent, its honest

Good typing is not inteligent its dexiteritous.

Everything you just said is total bullshit

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8Ek...eature=related

Its never goona work.

__________________
Cussing out low class inbreds isnt uninteligent, its honest

Good typing is not inteligent its dexiteritous.

Everything you just said is total bullshit

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8Ek...eature=related

you know they do make a pill that treats that... go see your doc.... hope is not lost little buddy..... and please go.... you have been a grumpy ass for to long

__________________
"The most important and most connected man on this forum."
"As per the Forums leftist who insist I am associated with the upper echelons of our government, corporate America and the world’s power class.
Every moon bat conspiracy leads to me. "

NOYB might be a grumpy ass, well, I'm a Cranky ass...

but gix

you're a dumbass....

All this talk about ass..... and talk about none's male performance problems.... this is turning into a DR Ruth Forum.....

__________________
"The most important and most connected man on this forum."
"As per the Forums leftist who insist I am associated with the upper echelons of our government, corporate America and the world’s power class.
Every moon bat conspiracy leads to me. "

Laughs...that's a good one!

Cant you people be happy about good news? Just a little bit?

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