Guardian photographer Sean Smith is in Iraq for the fifth time. He is embedded with American troops, and makes this report:
I realise that, by being embedded, I am seeing the country through the eyes of the occupiers. There is no way I can tell the whole story. But what I can do is show the gap between the rhetoric of the government in Baghdad and the reality on the ground. There is no effective administration here and the Iraqi army is a fiction. There are Iraqi soldiers alongside the Americans, but they owe their allegiance to a unit commander who is usually someone known to them previously. They are small bands or gangs of soldiers, not a national force.
Seriously: if there's no effective army, after all this time, why does anyone think there ever will be? Our own forces are caught in the middle of a civil war, and they can't keep up with it. Is that defeatist talk? Actually, that's what an American commander in Iraq just told the Los Angeles Times:
The commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq said Friday he does not have enough troops to deal with the escalating violence in Iraq's Diyala province, an unusually frank assertion for a top officer and a sign that American military officials may be starting to offer more candid and blunt assessments of the war.
Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. "Randy" Mixon also said that the Iraqi government has failed to help the situation in the restive province, adding that it has been a hindrance at times by failing to support local army and police forces. Diyala is an eastern Iraqi region bordering Baghdad, where many insurgents are fleeing in the wake of the ongoing buildup of troops in the Iraqi capital.
Mixon's call for help coincides with a rise in the number of sectarian death squad killings in Baghdad after the U.S. had heralded a decrease in such deaths as a sign of success of the security clampdown that began Feb. 13 in the capital.
Does anyone seriously believe we are winning this war? Does anyone seriously believe we can win this war? Can anyone please coherently explain to me what exactly winning means?
And in yet another sign of the utter surreality of this disaster, the New York Times reports:
Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.
Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.
The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.
Another silly question, because I'm kind of slow. How does 100,000 to 300,000 barrels of oil a day go missing?
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times is also reporting:
Within hours of Friday prayer services' end, two suicide car bombers struck checkpoints at Baghdad bridges in quick succession, killing 23 Iraqis, injuring 57 and crippling the key passageways from the capital to the country's south. Among those killed were 10 Iraqi police officers and soldiers.
The first suicide car bomber detonated his cargo before dusk over an old two-lane bridge on the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris.
Minutes later, a tanker truck loaded with explosives rammed a second bridge on the Diyala, a four-lane metal structure built after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
More stupid questions, because I'm tired:
What are we fighting for?
Why can't we bring our troops home?