P
PadawanBater
Guest
You two are probably the MOST partisan members who post, so these responses don't really surprise me, close your eyes and dismiss the facts, Bush was a national hero... yeah, sure he was...
These are the facts;
The Iraq Study Group Report was released on December 6, 2006. Iraq Study Group, made up of people from both of the major US parties, was led by former US Secretary of State James BakerDemocratic congressman Lee Hamilton. It concluded that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating" and "U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end."
On December 18, a Pentagon report found that insurgent attacks were averaging about 960 a week, the highest since the reports had begun in 2005.
More than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country for the first time. 144 of the 275 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition that would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from Parliament before it requests an extension of the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, which expires at the end of 2008. It also calls for a timetable for troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of foreign forces. The U.N. Security Council mandate for U.S.-led forces in Iraq will terminate "if requested by the government of Iraq."[195] Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution called for by a majority of lawmakers.[196] 59% of those polled in the U.S. support a timetable for withdrawal.
On April 9, 2009, the sixth anniversary of Baghdad's fall to coalition forces, tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged Baghdad to mark the sixth anniversary of the city's fall and to demand the immediate departure of coalition forces. The crowds of Iraqis stretched from the giant Sadr City slum in northeast Baghdad to the square around 5 km (3 miles) away, where protesters burned an effigy featuring the face of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and also the face of Saddam.
(such an international hero!)
On April 30, 2009, the United KingdomPrime Minister Gordon Brown characterized the operation in Iraq as a "success story" because of UK troops' efforts.
(OH!! So that's what makes it a success!... efforts)
The withdrawal of U.S. forces began at the end of June, with 38 bases to be handed over to Iraqi forces. On June 29, 2009, U.S. forces withdrew from Baghdad. On November 30, 2009, Iraqi Interior Ministry officials reported that the civilian death toll in Iraq fell to its lowest level in November since the 2003 invasion.
(But if we leave the violence would really start!!
)Subsequently, in 2008, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity has enumerated a total of 935 false statements made by George Bush and six other top members of his administration in what it termed a "carefully launched campaign of misinformation" during the two year period following 9-11, in order to rally support for the invasion of Iraq.
Many soldiers came to oppose the invasion, especially after the administration's claims that Iraq held WMD turned out to be entirely false. A group calling itself, Iraq Veterans against the War, quickly developed a membership of well over 1,000 soldiers and veterans. In January 2006, over 1,000 soldiers signed a petition, An Appeal for Redress, which was delivered to Congress asking for a "prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq."A February 2006 Zogby poll discovered that 72 perecent of soldiers who served in Iraq felt that the U.S. should withdraw within one year.
In a report entitled "Civilians without Protection: The Ever-Worsening Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq", produced well after the stepped-up US-led military operations in Baghdad began in February 14, 2007, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said that millions of Iraqis are in a disastrous situation that is getting worse, with medical professionals fleeing the country after their colleagues were killed or abducted. Mothers are appealing for someone to pick up the bodies on the street so their children will be spared the horror of looking at them on their way to school.
Between June 18 and July 18, 2007, up to 592 unidentified bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. Most of the approximately 20 per day found by the police have been bound, blindfolded and shot execution style. The police attribute these deaths to Sunni and Shiite death squads. According to Baghdad medical sources, many have also shown signs of torture and mutilation. Despite official Iraqi and U.S. statements to the contrary, the reports indicated that the number of unidentified bodies in the capital rose to pre-surge levels in July.
Iraq's health has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, said Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. "They were at the forefront", he said, referring to health care just before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Now they're looking more and more like a country in sub-Saharan Africa."[5] Malnutrition rates have risen from 19% before the US-led invasion to a national average of 28% four years later.[6] Some 60-70% of Iraqi children are suffering from psychological problems.[7] 68% of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water. A cholera[8] As many as half of Iraqi doctors have left the country since 2003.
Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that official government statistics revealed that five million (or 35%) of Iraqi children were orphans.
There are more than 4.7 million refugees of Iraq, more than 16.3% of the population.
An estimated 331 school teachers were slain in the first four months of 2006, according to Human Rights Watch, and at least 2,000 Iraqi doctors have been murdered and 250 kidnapped since the 2003 U.S. invasion.
According to a January 2007 BBC World Service poll of more than 26,000 people in 25 countries, 73% of the global population disapproves of the US handling of the Iraq War.
According to an April 2004 USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll, only a third of the Iraqi people believed that "the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger."
in 2005 when asked directly, 8287% of the Iraqi populace was opposed to the US occupation and wanted US troops to leave. 47% of Iraqis supported attacking US troops.
Another poll conducted on September 27, 2006, found that seven out of ten Iraqis want US-led forces to withdraw from Iraq within one year. Overall, 78% of those polled said they believed that the presence of US forces is "provoking more conflict than it's preventing."
53% of those polled believed the Iraqi government would be strengthened if US forces left Iraq (versus 23% who believed it would be weakened), and 71% wanted this to happen in 1 year or less.
- 64% described their family's economic situation as being somewhat or very bad, up from 30% in 2005.
- 88% described the availability of electricity as being either somewhat or very bad, up from 65% in 2004.
- 69% described the availability of clean water as somewhat or very bad, up from 48% in 2004.
- 88% described the availability of fuel for cooking and driving as being somewhat or very bad.
- 58% described reconstruction efforts in the area in which they live as either somewhat or very ineffective, and 9% described them as being totally nonexistent.
The US National Intelligence CouncilDavid B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, indicated that the report concluded that the war in Iraq provided terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills... There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."
Just to name a few...
(am I the only one who notices the strange coincidence that people who make such statements believe in some higher authority...?)
