Obama Announces End to Iraq Combat Mission in Oval Office Address, CNN, August 31, 2010, by CNN Daily Intel, excerpt quoted verbatim:

“The United States has paid a huge price to put the future of Iraq in the hands of its people,” the president said in his Oval Office speech Tuesday night, only the second time he has addressed the nation from the (newly redecorated) Oval Office. Obama formally announced the end of the U.S. combat role in the country, declaring that Operation Iraqi Freedom is “over” and it is time to ”turn the page.” About 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq, but the president said in the address that all U.S. troops will leave by the end of next year.Considering many of Obama’s previous speeches have been praised as passionate and stirring, this one was noticeably subdued, the president providing a status report in an almost professorial manner. Chatter before the speech focused on how Obama would refer to his predecessor’s role in beginning the war. While he did not specifically mention former president George W. Bush’s 2007 “surge” in troops, Obama avoided any criticism of how Bush launched the war … and he actually lauded him.

“It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.”

The president briefly mentioned the conflict in Afghanistan, noting that Al Qaeda “continues to plot against us.” He said the removal of troops in Iraq will mean additional resources for the effort in Afghanistan, though he pledged that those troops, too, will be removed from Afghanistan by the end of next year. The final act of the speech somewhat awkwardly transitioned into a discussion of the economy, as Obama claimed the country’s “most urgent task is to restore our economy” and add jobs.

Read the rest of the story, here.

An End to Combat Missions In Iraq

See Obama Declares an End to Combat Mission in Iraq, The New York Times, August 31, 2010, by Helene Cooper and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, excerpt quoted verbatim:

In a prime-time address from the Oval Office, Mr. Obama balanced praise for the troops who fought and died in Iraq with his conviction that getting into the conflict had been a mistake in the first place. But he also used the moment to emphasize that he sees his primary job as addressing the weak economy and other domestic issues — and to make clear that he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan next summer.

“We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home,” Mr. Obama said. “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.”

Seeking to temper partisan feelings over the war on a day when Republicans pointed out that Mr. Obama had opposed the troop surge generally credited with helping to bring Iraq a measure of stability, the president offered some praise for his predecessor, George W. Bush. Mr. Obama acknowledged their disagreement over Iraq but said that no one could doubt Mr. Bush’s “support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.”

Mr. Obama spoke for about 18 minutes, saying that violence would continue in Iraq and that the United States would continue to play a key role in nurturing a stable democracy there. ….

Turn the page on Mister Bush? Never

See Turn the page on Mister Bush? Never, Daily Kos, August 31, 2010, by Meteor Blades, excerpt quoted verbatim:

I’m a big believer in mercy and forgiveness. And second chances. Had people in my life failed to forgive, chosen to be merciless, rejected the idea that those who’ve gone astray can improve themselves and make amends, there’s every likelihood I’d have spent several decades in the slam or died there. Luckily, some people reached out to me, gave me a second chance, helped me rescue myself. I’ve tried to follow their lead for a lot of years.

So I understand why President Obama underscored his call to “turn the page” regarding Iraq tonight by revealing that he had phoned President Bush. “It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset,” Obama said. “Yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.”

I’d like to be able to agree. Really, I would.

However, unlike President Obama, I could and did and do doubt Bush’s support for the troops, love of country and commitment to our security. And I can wrest no mercy from the bitterness and rage that I feel every time I remember what he and the pack of thugs around him accomplished for the troops, the country and our security.

I cannot and will not turn the page until George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the others in that cabal of scorpions are brought to justice and make amends for Iraq. Which means never. No apology, much less time in the slam. I’ll go to my grave knowing Bush and the rest got away with it. In a couple of months, Bush hopes hundreds of thousands of Americans will be turning the pages of his memoir (called Decision Points– Amazon purchase page, to be released November 9, 2010, available for preorder, hardcover, $18.), a book certain to add to the plethora of lies and pathetic, murderous rationalizations with which we became so familiar during the last seven years of his presidency.

See War Is Over — for Some, The New York Times, August 31, 2010, by Maurice Decaul.

UPDATE & Flashback: See Reid: Iraq War lost, U.S. can’t win, MSNBC Politics, April 20, 2007, by Associated Press.

Obama Address: War in Iraq is Over

"Obama: The End of the Combat Mission in Iraq:" President Obama, speaking from a newly redecorated Oval Office, announces an end to combat operations in Iraq and speaks of the need to honor our servicemen and also improve the economy. Watch the video of the speech, here — 17:56

Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America’s Military Strategy in the Muslim World, AlterNet, August 24, 2010, by Fred Branfman, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Greatly expanded U.S. military Special Ops teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins create a threat to our security.

[General McChrystal says that] “for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.” — “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, 6/22/10.

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America’s military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more “enemies,” as Gen. McChrystal suggests — posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. General Petraeus must be replaced, and the U.S. military’s policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.

The U.S. has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing — though directed and financed by the C.I.A. — has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically.

What is unprecedented today is the vast number of Americans directly assassinating Muslims — through greatly expanded U.S. military Special Operations teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from October 2008 until July 2010, General Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary.

Never before has a nation unleashed so many assassins in so many foreign nations around the world (9,000 Special Operations soldiers are based in Iraq and Afghanistan alone) as well as implemented a policy that can be best described as unprecedented, remote-control, large-scale “mechanized assassination.” As the N.Y. Times noted in December 2009: “For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.”

This combination of human and technological murder amounts to a worldwide “Assassination Inc.” that is unique in human affairs.

The increasing shift to direct U.S. assassination began on Petraeus’s watch in Iraq,where targeted assassination was considered by many within the military to be more important than the “surge.” The killing of Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered a major triumph that significantly reduced the level of violence. As Bob Woodward reported in The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008:

“Beginning in about May 2006, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence agencies launched a series of top secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups.

A number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it.

Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al Qaeda in Iraq, (conducted) lightning-quick and sometimes concurrent operations When I later asked the president (Bush) about this, he offered a simple answer: ‘JSOC is awesome.’” [Emphasis added.]

Woodward’s finding that many “authoritative sources” believed assassination more important than the surge is buttressed by Petraeus’ appointment of McChrystal to lead U.S. forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s major qualification for the post was clearly his perceived expertise in assassination while heading JSOC from 2003-’08 (where he also conducted extensive torture at “Camp Nama” at Baghdad International Airport, successfully excluding even the Red Cross).

Another key reason for the increased reliance on assassination is that Petraeus’ announced counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan obviously cannot work. It is absurd to believe that the corrupt warlords and cronies who make up the “Afghan government” can be transformed into the viable entity upon which his strategy publicly claims to depend — particularly within the next year which President Obama has set as a deadline before beginning to withdraw U.S. troops. Petraeus is instead largely relying on mass assassination to try and eliminate the Taliban, both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The centrality of assassination to U.S. war plans is revealed by the fact that it was at the heart of the Obama review of Afghan policy last fall. The dovish Biden position called for relying primarily on assassination, while the hawkish McChrystal stance embraced both assassination and more troops. No other options were seriously considered.

A third factor behind the shift to mass assassination is that Petraeus and the U.S. military are also determined to attack jihadi forces in nations where the U.S. is not at war, and which are not prepared to openly invite in U.S. forces. As the N.Y. Times reported on May 24, “General Petraeus (has argued) that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups.”

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The most significant aspect of this new and expanded assassination policy is President Obama’s authorizing clandestine U.S. military personnel to conduct it. The N.Y. Times has also reported:

In roughly a dozen countries — from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife — the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists (Military) Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies.

Particularly extraordinary is the fact that these vastly expanded military assassination teams are not subject to serious civilian control. As the N.Y. Times has also reported, Petraeus in September 2009 secretly expanded a worldwide force of assassins answerable only to the military, without oversight by not only Congress but the president himself:

The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Unlike covert actions undertaken by the C.I.A., such clandestine activity does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress. [Emphasis added]

Although sold to the American public and Congress as targeted, selective assassination aimed only at a handful of “high value” insurgent leaders, the program has in fact already expanded far beyond that. As personnel and aircraft devoted to assassination exponentially increase, so too do the numbers of people they murder, both “insurgents” and civilians.

While it is reasonable to assume that expanding the number of Special Operations commandos to its present worldwide level of 13,000 will result in increasing assassinations, the secrecy of their operations makes it impossible to know how many they have murdered, how many of those are civilians, and the effectiveness of their operations. It is not known, for example, how many people U.S. military assassins murder directly, and how many they kill indirectly by identifying them for drone strikes. Much of their activity is conducted, for example, in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan which, as the N.Y. Times reported on April 4 “is virtually sealed from the outside world.”

More information, however, has emerged about the parallel and unprecedented mass mechanized assassinations being carried out by the C.I.A. drone programs. It is clear that they have already expanded far beyond the official cover story of targeting only “high-level insurgent leaders,” and are killing increasing numbers of people.

The CIA, of course, is no novice at assassination. Future CIA Director William Colby’s Operation Phoenix program in South Vietnam gave South Vietnamese police quotas of the number of civilians to be murdered on a weekly and monthly basis, eventually killing 20-50,000 people. CIA operatives such as Latin American Station Chef Duane “Dewey” Clarridge also established, trained and operated local paramilitary and death squads throughout Central and Latin America that brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousands of civilians, most notably in El Salvador where CIA-trained and -directed killers murdered Archbishop Romero and countless other Salvadorans.

But the present CIA assassination program in Pakistan and elsewhere is different not only because it is Americans who are themselves the assassins, but because of the unprecedented act of conducting mechanized mass assassination from the air. The CIA, as as Nick Turse has reported for TomDispatch.com, is exponentially increasing its drone assassination program:

“(Drone) Reapers flew 25,391 hours (in 2009). This year, the air force projects that the combined flight hours of all its drones will exceed 250,000 hours. More flight time will, undoubtedly, mean more killing.”

Read the rest of the article, here.

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OMG!! Turn on MSNBC RIGHT NOW!!, Daily Kos, August 18, 2010, by Granny Doc, with apologies to the lady, who had no way to contact her, we’re posting this verbatim:

In an exclusive, Richard Engle is riding a Stryker 15 minutes from the border with the last combat brigade to leave Iraq!!  Iraqi Freedom is over.

Two weeks early!!

That shitty do nothing Barack Obama…  He had promised to get ‘em out by the end of August.  Just another promise kept.

Here is the link to the exclusive story from MSNBC.

UPDATE:  They are at the border crossing!

I strongly recommend that you read Joanneleon’s Diary. It is chock full of facty goodness.

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Obama confirms plan for US troop withdrawal from Iraq, BBC News, August 2, 2010, by BBC News, excerpt quoted verbatim:

President Obama: “Our commitment in Iraq is changing from a military effort”

US President Barack Obama has confirmed the end of all combat operations in Iraq by 31 August.

Some 50,000 of 65,000 US troops currently in Iraq are set to remain until the end of 2011 to advise Iraqi forces and protect US interests.

Mr Obama proclaimed that the end of operations would arrive “as promised and on schedule”.

It comes amid a dispute between the US and Baghdad over the latest casualty numbers in Iraq.

Struggle for Iraq

    * Coalition questions
    * Iraq: Key facts and figures
    * Death toll dispute highlights concerns
    * Q&A: Parliamentary polls

The thrust of Mr Obama’s speech was the fulfilment of his campaign promise to end the Iraq war, which was a defining characteristic of his 2008 candidacy.

Mr Obama made his announcement in a speech to the national convention of the Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta, Georgia.

The remaining 50,000 troops will stay in the country in order to train Iraqi security forces, conduct counterterrorism operations and provide civilians with ongoing security, said Mr Obama.

An agreement negotiated with the Iraqis in 2008 states that these troops must be gone from the country by the end of next year.

But the president warned the US had “not seen the end of American sacrifice in Iraq”.

He added: “But make no mistake, our commitment in Iraq is changing – from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats.”

Meanwhile, according to the US military, 222 people died in attacks last month. Baghdad says 535 lost their lives – which would make July the deadliest month in the country for more than two years.

The US released its own figure after Baghdad’s estimate prompted concern that insurgents were exploiting a post-election power vacuum – and would wreak more havoc as the US withdrew more troops. ….

Read the full article here.

See Death toll dispute highlights Iraq security concerns, August 2, 2010, by BBC News.

See The US Must Capture the Heart of the Afghans, The Huffington Post, August 3, 2010, by Ehsan Azari Stanizai.

Also see Pakistan’s Zardari says war with Taliban being lost, Reuters, August 3, 2010, by John Irish and Daniel Flynn.

Middle East Afghanistan – Iraq News Audio Update

"Obama Reaffirms Iraq Withdrawal Timetable:" Obama said again that American troops will cease combat operations within a month, with the withdrawal of an additional 20,000 troops. — Voice of America — 3:03

"Afghanistan exit strategy remains a sticking point:" PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer — 10:55

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Iraq Withdrawal? Obama and Clinton Expanding US Paramilitary Force in Iraq, The Nation, July 22, 2010, by Jeremy Scahill, excerpt quoted verbatim:

UPDATE: In Iraq today, three private security contractors were killed in a rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone. All of them were employees of Triple Canopy, the security company hired by the Obama administration to take over much of Blackwater’s work in Iraq. Another fifteen people were wounded in the attack. The dead included two Ugandans and a Peruvian. The attack highlights the inevitable consequences of an emerging Obama administration policy wherein more contractors are going to be deployed to Iraq and many of them will be so-called third country nationals like those killed in today’s attack. The coming surge in contractors in Iraq is being done under the auspices of the State Department’s diplomatic security division, which was massively expanded under the Bush administration paving the way for the Department’s almost total reliance on private contractors for security in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

As a candidate for president, Senator Hillary Clinton vowed to ban the use of private security contractors, which she referred to as mercenaries. “These private security contractors have been reckless and have compromised our mission in Iraq,” Clinton said in February 2008. “The time to show these contractors the door is long past due.” Clinton was one of only two senators to sponsor legislation to ban these companies. Fast forward to the present and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is presiding over what is shaping up to be a radical expansion of a private, US-funded paramilitary force that will operate in Iraq for the foreseeable future–the very type of force Clinton once claimed she opposed.

The State Department is asking Congress to approve funds to more than double the number of private security contractors in Iraq with a State Department official testifying in June at a hearing of the Wartime Contracting Commission that the Department wants “between 6,000 and 7,000 security contractors.” The Department also has asked the Pentagon for twenty-four Blackhawk helicopters, fifty Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles and other military equipment. “After the departure of U.S. Forces [from Iraq], we will continue to have a critical need for logistical and life support of a magnitude and scale of complexity that is unprecedented in the history of the Department of State,” wrote Patrick Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, in an April letter to the Pentagon. “And to keep our people secure, Diplomatic Security requires certain items of equipment that are only available from the military.”

What is unfolding is the face of President Obama’s scaled-down, rebranded mini-occupation of Iraq. Under the terms of the Status of Forces agreement, all US forces are supposed to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Using private forces is a backdoor way of continuing a substantial US presence under the cover of “diplomatic security.” The kind of paramilitary force that Obama and Clinton are trying to build in Iraq is, in large part, a byproduct of the monstrous colonial fortress the United States calls its embassy in Baghdad and other facilities the US will maintain throughout Iraq after the “withdrawal.” The State Department plans to operate five “Enduring Presence Posts” at current US military bases in Basrah, Diyala, Erbil, Kirkuk and Ninewa. The State Department has indicated that more sites may be created in the future, which would increase the demand for private forces. The US embassy in Baghdad is the size of Vatican City, comprised of twenty-one buildings on a 104-acres of land on the Tigris River.

In making their case to Congress and the Defense Department for the expansion of a private paramilitary force in Iraq, State Department officials have developed what they call a “lost functionality” list of fourteen security-related tasks that the military currently perform in Iraq that would become the responsibility of the State Department as US forces draw down. ….

Read the full article here.

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U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will be on time, Vice President Biden says, The Washington Post, May 27, 2010, by Scott Wilson, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Well, here’s some encouraging news coming out of the otherwise dim lights shining over in Iraq. Vice President Biden, in charge of troop reduction efforts there, says the United States will keep to its committment to reduce troop strength according to plan. Scott Wilson of the Washington Post reports:

President Obama called Iraq his predecessor’s war of choice. Now it is his war to exit — and quickly.

The challenge for Obama, whose opposition to the Iraq invasion helped propel him to the presidency, is sticking to his timeline for a U.S. military withdrawal despite a jump in violence and continued wrangling among Iraqi politicians over who will lead the country.

The sensitive departure is being managed by Vice President Biden, who says the U.S. military will reduce troop levels to 50,000 this summer, even if no new Iraqi government takes shape.

“It’s going to be painful; there’s going to be ups and downs,” Biden said in a 40-minute interview in his West Wing office this month. “But I do think the end result is going to be that we’re going to be able to keep our commitment.”

White House officials say Iraqis are increasingly relying on politics, rather than violence, to deal with disputes, diminishing the need for U.S. forces. But the situation on the ground demonstrates that Iraq remains fractured.

Rival factions have yet to establish a new government, nearly three months after close national elections, and politicians have begun warning of a power vacuum as neighboring Iran works to influence the outcome. Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq’s vice presidents, urged all parties this month to agree quickly on a new leader to head off attempts by “terrorist gangs to use the circumstances in the country to hurt the Iraqi people and the armed forces.”

Some recent attacks have had sectarian hallmarks that Iraqis fear could revive the divisions within their security forces that existed during the 2006 civil war. Iraq’s factions also have yet to resolve such essential long-term issues as how to share oil revenue among regions and how to settle territorial disputes rooted in history.

Speaking Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Obama said that the U.S. commitment to Iraq endures and that, as U.S. troops depart, “a strong American civilian presence will help Iraqis forge political and economic progress.” He also reiterated his definition of success: “an Iraq that provides no haven to terrorists; a democratic Iraq that is sovereign and stable and self-reliant.” On the day Obama spoke, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq dipped below the number in Afghanistan for the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Biden, once a leading skeptic of U.S. involvement in Iraq, is now among the country’s most ardent cheerleaders. He is seeking to balance Obama’s determination to leave Iraq against growing concerns among some conservative critics that the current circumstances make a swift U.S. withdrawal too dangerous.

Read the full article, here.

Seymour Hersh on Obama Being “Dominated” by the U.S. Military, Michael Moore.com, May 8, 2010, by Seymour Hersch, quoted verbatim:

Seymour Hersh spoke at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Geneva on April 24, 2010:

REPORTER: You didn’t include Obama in your list of liar presidents. I’m wondering if you would include him also?

HERSH: To use a basketball or a football analogy, American football, fourth quarter – he may have a game plan. At this point he’s in real trouble. Because the military are dominating him on the important issues of the world: Iraq, Iran, Afghan and Pakistan. And he’s following the policies of Bush and Cheney almost to a fare-thee-well. He talks differently. And he’s much brighter, he’s much more of the world. So one only hopes he has a game plan that will include doing something, but he’s in real trouble, in terms of – he’s in real trouble.

In Iraq I don’t have to tell anybody the prospects – in the American press they never mention Moqtada Sadr, but look out. He’s going to be the kingmaker of that country. He’s now studying in Iran. And he’s going to be the next ayatollah-to-be. I don’t know how he’ll work it out with Sistani. But he’s going to be the force, the Shia. And so this is going to be very complicated for us because the two men we talk about, Allawi and Maliki, have about as much to do with the average Iraqi – they’re both ex-pats. Allawi, let’s see, he was certainly an American agent and a British agent, the MI-6, the CIA, the Jordanians ran him probably for Mossad. I’m not telling you anything that is not a fact. So who knows?

So Iraq is very problematical. There’s going to be much more violence. Whether it’s civil war or not it’s going to be much more violence.

He’s never going to win, whatever that means, in Afghanistan. The only solution in Afghanistan is a settlement with the Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar, and he’s become another Hitler to the American public. So how we’re going to do that and survive politically?

And the same in Pakistan. He’s got the wrong policy there. So it is – and again for Obama, Iran’s not resolved, in terms of, the Iranians have come out of this crisis stronger than ever. We don’t want to believe that.

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