Obama administration doesn't think that it is appropriate to have a parade in NYC to honor the troops that served in Iraq

From the AP:

Bloomberg says Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey and other Army officials "made it clear" to the city "they do not think a parade is appropriate now." . . .

The day after US troops left Iraq things started falling apart

The last American troops left Iraq on December 17th. Is it really a coincidence that things fell apart as soon as American troops left?

Immediately the Shite majority put out an arrest warrant for the leading Sunni politician.

Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned that a challenge to his government by Sunni politicians could destroy the ethnic and sectarian power-sharing system that underpins Iraq's democracy—and take more power into the hands of the Shiite majority.

The threat signals the most dire political crisis Iraq has faced since an agreement on a governing coalition one year ago smoothed over a long-running conflict that has re-emerged with the official pullout this month of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The latest faceoff was triggered when a judicial panel issued a warrant for the arrest of Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on Monday, as the Ministry of Interior aired televised confessions by members of his security detail allegedly implicating him in ordering and funding attacks against Shiites. . . .

In a final tactical road march, the last U.S. troops in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait on Sunday morning, ending almost nine years of a deadly and divisive war. . . .

Lots of bombings targeting just about everyone.

Dozens of people were killed on Thursday in a series of coordinated explosions that struck several neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital, within days of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country, amid a political crisis that has renewed fears of an outbreak of sectarian and ethnic warfare.

The attacks during the morning rush hour targeted Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods, hitting mostly civilian targets, including an elementary school. Some bore the hallmarks of bombing campaigns by al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants. . . .

How to remove combat forces from Iraq: Change the name to non-combat brigades

"Combat brigades in Iraq under different name"

As the final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., entered Kuwait early Thursday, a different Stryker brigade remained in Iraq.

Soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division are deployed in Iraq as members of an Advise and Assist Brigade, the Army’s designation for brigades selected to conduct security force assistance.

So while the “last full U.S. combat brigade” have left Iraq, just under 50,000 soldiers from specially trained heavy, infantry and Stryker brigades will stay, as well as two combat aviation brigades.

Compared with the 49,000 soldiers in Iraq, there are close to 67,000 in Afghanistan and another 9,700 in Kuwait, according to the latest Army chart on global commitments dated Aug. 17. Under an agreement with the Iraqi government, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011. . . . .

The cost of the Iraq War

Fox News has some interesting numbers on the cost of the Iraq War.

According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations. . . .

Want to know the political views of Movie Reviewers?: See how they rated "The Green Zone"

I had noted privately that there was something pretty obvious about the reviews when I looked at them collected at Rotten Tomatoes. Here is a conspiracy theory about the Bush administration lying about WMD in Iraq to trick people into supporting the war. While trying to demonize a duplicitous Bush official as lying about the WMD, there is no mention that all the other security services in the world believing pretty much the same thing. Movie reviewer What Would Toto Watch? has a similar reaction here.

It looks as though the $100 million movie that is showing at 3,003 movie theaters will be a flop, bringing in $15 million the first weekend.

UPDATE: Here is what Box Office Mojo wrote about the opening weekend receipts.

Speaking of director-actor collaborations, director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon failed to replicate the box office success of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum with their third teaming, Green Zone. The Iraq-set action thriller posted a mediocre estimated $14.5 million on approximately 3,400 screens at 3,003 sites, and it will ultimately gross only a fraction of its reported $100 million production budget. This was the latest Middle East-themed movie to disappoint, landing between the opening weekends of The Kingdom ($17.1 million) and Body of Lies ($12.9 million). Instead of politics, though, Green Zone's marketing sold nondescript action and intrigue and stressed the Bourne connection, banking that that would carry the day. According to distributor Universal Pictures' exit polling, Green Zone's audience was 54 percent male and 67 percent over 30 years old, and its "B-" from moviegoer pollster Cinemascore suggests that word-of-mouth will likely be tepid at best. . . .

"Why'd Obama switch on detainee photos?: Maliki went ballistic"

The alternative explanation is based on domestic political reasons for Obama. Given all the sources here are anonymous, who can judge the credibility of the sources, but the argument is at least plausible.

President Barack Obama reversed his decision to release detainee abuse photos from Iraq and Afghanistan after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki warned that Iraq would erupt into violence and that Iraqis would demand that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq a year earlier than planned, two U.S. military officers, a senior defense official and a State Department official have told McClatchy.

In the days leading up to a May 28 deadline to release the photos in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, U.S. officials, led by Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told Maliki that the administration was preparing to release photos of suspected detainee abuse taken from 2003 to 2006.

When U.S. officials told Maliki, "he went pale in the face," said a U.S. military official, who along with others requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

The official said Maliki warned that releasing the photos would lead to more violence that could delay the scheduled U.S. withdrawal from cities by June 30 and that Iraqis wouldn't make a distinction between old and new photos. The public outrage and increase in violence could lead Iraqis to demand a referendum on the security agreement and refuse to permit U.S. forces to stay until the end of 2011.

Maliki said, "Baghdad will burn" if the photos are released, said a second U.S. military official. . . . .

Death Toll Rises in Iraq

The Obama policy in Iraq is yielding results.

Violence is on the rise in Iraq as American troops withdraw. A ground-level look at the handover provides one explanation: The Iraqi government is neglecting many of the successful counterinsurgency initiatives it is inheriting from the U.S. military. . . . .

With Iraq's oil selling for about $40 a barrel, Iraqi finance officials have slashed this year's budget from $80 billion to less than $60 billion. They project a $30 billion deficit. U.S. aid, which still pays for a sizeable chunk of Iraq's security forces, is also decreasing. . . . . .

The budget woes come as American withdrawal plans kick into high gear. U.S. commanders are required to pull out entirely from Iraqi cities by June 30, though some will stay in Baghdad and Mosul with Iraqi permission.

Meanwhile, violence is increasing. In January, 275 civilians died, followed by 343 in February, 408 in March and 485 in April, according to Iraq Body Count, an independent group that tracks civilian casualties via media reports.

Fatalities are still down sharply from May 2006 to August 2007, when between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians died each month. U.S. and Iraqi officials are encouraged that recent attacks haven't been followed by sectarian reprisals, as they often were in the past. . . . . .

Brookings claims that the number of civilian deaths has been flat this year. Yet, given their past problems with these types of numbers, I am dubious.

Senator Harry Reid's original statement on the war in Iraq being lost and his interview today on Meet the Press

Did it spend as much in three weeks in Iraq as seven years in Afghanistan?

Here is the breakdown for Biden's claim:

CRS Report for Congress
The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11
(found on fas.org site)

Covers FY2001 - FY2009
Afghanistan war $172 billion (8 yrs)
Iraq war $653 billion (6 years)

Let's just take average / year / week

AF: $21.5 billion / yr
IR: $109 billion / yr

7 years of AF $150.5 billion
3 weeks of IR $6.3 billion

Supposedly why the Bush Administration Kept Quite about Saddam having 550 tons of enriched uranium

The Bush administration apparently would rather have people call them liars than say something that could endanger security. Townhall has the information here:

It appears that American troops found the 550 metric tons of uranium in 2003 after invading Iraq. They had to sit on this information and the uranium itself, for fear of terrorists attempting to steal it. It was guarded and kept safe by our military in a 23,000-acre site with large sand beams surrounding the site. . . .

I thought Sadam didn't have a significant nuclear weapons program

Well, I guess that Saddam Hussein's nuclear program was real after all:

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions. . . .

A real American hero

A little from Fox News about the hero and the ceremony in his honor.

Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor was killed in battle in Iraq in September 2006, and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in April.

His funeral in Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego was attended by “nearly every SEAL on the West Coast,” President Bush said.

During the service, as Monsoor's coffin was taken from the hearse to the gravesite, Navy SEALs lined up in two columns. As the coffin passed, video shows each SEAL slapping down the gold Trident from his uniform and deeply embedding it in Monsoor's wooden coffin.

The slaps were reportedly heard across the cemetery.

The symbolic display moved many, included Bush, who during his speech in April's Medal of Honor ceremony spoke about the incident. . .

New Analysis piece up at Fox News: Is It Really a '$3 Trillion War'?

The new piece is pretty good. I spent a large amount of time doing the interviews for it. You can read the whole piece here:

What is the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? To many, the answer, at least from 2001 through 2007, is $473 billion – about a quarter of total defense expenditures over those years. It has averaged less than one percent of GDP.

$473 billion is probably an underestimate simply because the fighting has already lasted past 2007 and some wounded veterans will require long-term care. But how much more is it?

In a new book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes argue that this emphasis on what the government has already spent dramatically understates the true cost of the war. At roughly six times the defense department’s numbers, their $3 trillion estimate has generated much news coverage and controversy. . . .

I found a related piece by Amity Shlaes here.

Another anti-war movie flops: Stop-Loss

Even though this movie has been getting very positive reviews apparently there are not enough people to see this movie to get it in the top 5 films. See here:

I'm told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn't expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office. "It's not looking good," a studio source told me before the weekend. "No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It's a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that's unresolved yet. It's a shame because it's a good movie that's just ahead of its time."

The fate of other anti-war movies can be seen here. Not all these Iraq movies got as positive reviews as this one.

Soldier Wins $1 Million, Still Plans to Return to Iraq for a 3rd Tour

This is the type of story that causes you to choke up some:

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday.

Now that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime.

Leyde was driving near his home in Mead, Washington when he stopped at a store on the side of the road and bought a ticket.

"I decided to walk into a local Zip Trip. I got a Coke and beef jerky and walked up to the counter and thought I'd pick up a few scratch tickets and try my luck. I was on my way out when the lady said, 'Do you have a lucky scratch coin?'

"I said 'no, you gave me a dime and nickel back.'"

"She said 'no, try this,'" handing Leyde a penny. "On my way home I started scratching tickets. They were losers. I'm thinking, boy, that lady didn't know what she was talking about."

Leyde couldn't believe it when he scratched a winning ticket, but he still plans to return to Iraq. . . .

Infamous Lancet Study Funded by George Soros

Right before the 2006 general election, the Lancet came out with a study claiming that 650,000 Iraqis had died in the war and it aftermath. The study got worldwide attention, much of it unquestioning. Well, it turns out that almost half the study was "funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros." My problem isn't the funding, my problem is that the source of the funding wasn't revealed when the study came out immediately before the election. What is even worse is that this fact is not considered newsworthy by most of the media now. A Google news search on the term "Lancet Soros study 650,000" got only six news hits (The Times of London, The Spectator in the UK, The New York Post, Fox News, Wired News, and one other minor source). Trying "Soros Lancet Iraq" got only 15 news hits, but some of those were columnists and not news stories.

Michael Medved reviews "Redacted": The "Could be the Worst Movie that I have ever seen"

Redacted is another critical movie on the Iraq war. Michael spares little in his critique: "Could be the Worst Movie that I have ever seen . . . none more disgusting than Redacted . . . close to vomitting . . . nothing quite like this . . . Mark Cuban . . . ought to be ashamed . . ." This is a pretty amazing discussion by Medved.

Movies that have attempted to Attack the War in Iraq are bombing

I am not sure what this means. It could either be that people don't want to listen to this type of political lecturing or that the opposition to the war is not that deep. After 10 days in the US (including two weekends), Lions for Lambs has earned $11.6 million. At tickets going for $10, that is only about 1,160,000 people going to see the movie. BEOWULF earned about that just this last Saturday. The BEE MOVIE has been out a week longer than Lions for Lambs, but it earned as much on Friday and Saturday in each third week as Lions for Lambs has made over each entire 10 days.

LIONS FOR LAMBS
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
RENDITION

The Lancet estimate of 650,000 Iraqis Dying a Fraudulent Claim?

The statistics made headlines all over the world when they were published in The Lancet in October last year. More than 650,000 Iraqis – one in 40 of the population – had died as a result of the American-led invasion in 2003. The vast majority of these “excess” deaths (deaths over and above what would have been expected in the absence of the occupation) were violent. The victims, both civilians and combatants, had fallen prey to airstrikes, car bombs and gunfire.

Body counts in conflict zones are assumed to be ballpark – hospitals, record offices and mortuaries rarely operate smoothly in war – but this was ten times any other estimate. Iraq Body Count, an antiwar web-based charity that monitors news sources, put the civilian death toll for the same period at just under 50,000, broadly similar to that estimated by the United Nations Development Agency.

The implication of the Lancet study, which involved Iraqi doctors knocking on doors and asking residents about recent deaths in the household, was that Iraqis were being killed on an horrific scale. The controversy has deepened rather than evaporated. Several academics have tried to find out how the Lancet study was conducted; none regards their queries as having been addressed satisfactorily. Researchers contacted by The Times talk of unreturned e-mails or phone calls, or of being sent information that raises fresh doubts. . . . .

"Denying self-defense to GIs in Iraq"

It would be an interesting study to see what hapens to the number of troop deaths before and after the adoption of these rules. You raise the cost of defending people and it makes them more likely targets.

As part of President Bush's troop surge now under way in Iraq, he insisted that Iraqi leaders "lift needless restrictions on Iraqi and coalition forces." That's an important step, but a deeply ironic one, because it overlooks other unreasonable restrictions imposed on US soldiers – by the US government.

In 2005, the Pentagon amended its Standing Rules of Engagement (ROE). The new rules make it harder for US troops to boldly counter hostile acts, and they specifically allow commanders to limit the right of soldiers to defend themselves!

The United States seeks to bring peace to Iraq by winning the "hearts and minds" of the civilian population. Unnecessary collateral damage and innocent civilian deaths undermine this effort. Presumably, the new ROE, which allow unit commanders to "limit individual self-defense by members of their unit" after notifying the secretary of Defense, were adopted with a noble purpose in mind: to lessen civilian casualties. However, limiting the right of self-defense is too drastic and it puts soldiers at risk.

Commanders take these restrictions seriously. Newsweek magazine recently quoted Marine Capt. Rob Secher, who complained that "anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force." . . . .