The Truth about Tall Afar

– Since I've seen it spelled two different ways, I'm going to use Newsweek's spelling of 'Tall Afar' in this post. –

As previously mentioned, Tall Afar is the city in Iraq President Bush gave a glowing speech about in Cleveland. We heard about how US and Iraqi forces have wiped out the insurgents and created a little oasis of peace in the middle of strife-torn Iraq.

Well, yes….and no.

From Newsweek:

[...] Tall Afar, said the president, 'is today a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq.'

He showed off a letter to prove it. It was from the city's mayor to Gen. George Casey, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, calling American troops 'our lion-hearted saviors.'

[snip]

U.S. troops were able to take a small group of American reporters on a foot patrol through several neighborhoods—rare these days in central and western Iraq, and unheard of in Baghdad. Iraqis along the way were full of praise for their liberators, many of whom they recognized by name.

But just in case, two squads of heavily armed troops kept watch, front, rear and flanks, rifles at the ready, and wouldn't let the group linger more than a few minutes in any place; a helicopter gunship shadowed us overhead.

In another part of town, police later reported that an insurgent mortar attack wounded six children. A second NEWSWEEK reporter, visiting Tall Afar independently, found other neighborhoods barricaded; Iraqi police warned that he might be killed by insurgents or their supporters if he went any farther.

[snip]

'I'd say that zero percent of Bush's talk about Tall Afar is true,' said Ahmed Sami, 45, a Sunni laborer. 'They turned Shiite neighborhoods into havens, and Sunni neighborhoods into hells.'

Even in the Shia neighborhoods, people were far from satisfied. 'This is all just an outdoor prison for us,' said school teacher Abu Muhammed. 'We can't even go as far as the market street up there.' He gestured to the top of his road, where the Ottoman fortress that dominates the town is located (and which we couldn't visit due to a security scare, even though it holds the mayor's office).

'We know the American Army and the Iraqi Army are working and doing their best,' said Bakr Muhammed Bakr, a dressmaker whose shop, like most others on the streets, was open for business. 'But what are they going to do, put a soldier in front of each Sunni house?'

[snip]

'There will be American troops in and around Tall Afar at least for the better part of the coming year,' said Col. MacFarland.

That's good news to Mayor Najim Abdullah al Jubori, who said he was so proud to hear President Bush mention him and his letter that 'I could have flown without wings.'

But to be honest, he went on to explain, the point of his letter was actually a plea to Casey to keep American troops here even longer—not proof of a strategy that will, sooner or later, allow Americans to pull out.

Should Scalia Recuse Himself?

As my daughter would say: 'Ya think?!'

Did Justice Scalia miss the part of law school that tells you judges are supposed to remain open and impartial, especially before hearing arguments? (In public, at least.) Apparently so.

From Newsweek:

[...] Challenged by one audience member about whether the Gitmo detainees don't have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, Scalia shot back: 'If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy.' Scalia was apparently referring to his son Matthew, who served with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

[snip]

'This is clearly grounds for recusal,' said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human-rights group that has filed a brief in behalf of the Gitmo detainees. 'I can't recall an instance where I've heard a judge speak so openly about a case that's in front of him—without hearing the arguments.'

Other experts said it was a closer call. Scalia didn't refer directly to this week's case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, though issues at stake hinge in part on whether the detainees deserve legal protections that make the military tribunals unfair.

 

Who says things aren’t falling apart in Iraq?

Today in Iraq - presumably while some schools were being painted and a reconstruction project was being finished – a bomb exploded at a US-Iraqi base near Tal Afar, killing 15. No Americans were killed.

Tal Afar was recently used by the President as an example of US-Iraqi teamwork and coordination in putting down the insurgency, and of the media's failure to show the 'good news' of Iraq.

From NBC News:

There were no American casualties in the suicide bombing about 20 miles east of the ancient city of Tal Afar, the U.S. military told NBC News. The bomber struck shortly after noon at an Iraqi army recruiting center in front of the base.

Since the media is busy hiding the good news, we only hear more bad news:

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 21 more bodies were found — many with nooses around their neck — and mortar and bomb attacks killed at least four people.

[snip]

Details of a joint U.S.-Iraqi Special Operations attack in northeast Baghdad late Sunday continued to filter out. The military, in an updated report, said the joint operation 'killed 16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search on an objective with multiple structures.'

'They also detained 18 other individuals, discovered a significant weapons cache and secured the release of an Iraqi being held hostage,' the statement said.

AP reporters who visited the scene Monday morning said the site of the attack was clearly a neighborhood Shiite mosque complex, although the American military insisted, 'no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation.'

[snip]

AP Television News videotape shot Monday showed crumbling walls and disarray in a compound used as a gathering place for prayer. It was filled with religious posters and strung with banners denouncing the attack. Mourners were gathering for funerals for the dead.

Sunday night video showed a tangle of dead men with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam’s living quarters, attached to the mosque itself. The compound, once used by Saddam Hussein’s government, consists of a political party office, the mosque and quarters for the imam.

[snip]

The latest violence came a day after 69 people were reported killed in one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in weeks. Most of the dead appeared to be victims of the shadowy Sunni-Shiite score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

[snip]

The raid in Baghdad came a day after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad spoke out on the need to cap the sectarian, militia-inspired killing, saying, 'More Iraqis are dying today from the militia violence than from the terrorists.' He did not say which militias he meant nor did he define who the terrorists were.

Now, if only our liberal media would tell us about the good things happening in Iraq…but wait. They can't, because of 'security' concerns. 

Via Crooks and Liars, Lara Logan, CBS News:

KURTZ: But critics would say, well, no wonder people back home think things are falling apart because we get this steady drumbeat of negativity from the correspondents there. 

LOGAN:  Well, who says things aren't falling apart in Iraq?  I mean, what you didn't see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces. 

What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn't see on our screens?  I mean, we've reported on reconstruction stories over and over again…I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we're not reflecting the true picture here.  That's totally unfair and it's really unfounded. 

Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments.  You know, are there positive stories?  Can't you find them?  You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? 

Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack. Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked.

I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country….So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here?

Speaking about radio host Laura Ingraham:

LOGAN: I think it's outrageous. I mean, Laura Ingraham should come to Iraq and not be talking about what journalists are doing from the comfort of her studio in the United States, the comfort and the safety. I mean, I don't know any journalist that wants to just sit in a hotel room in Iraq.

Does anybody understand that for us we used to be able to drive to Ramadi, we used to drive to Falluja, we used to drive to Najaf. We could travel all over this country without having to fly in military helicopters. That's the only way we can move around here. So, it's when the military can accommodate us, if the military can accommodate us, then we can go out and see.