Denmark has announced that it will pull all of its troops out of Iraq in August, following the British plan to scale back its forces in the country. Tony Blair announced that troops in southern Iraq would be cut by 1,600 to 5,500 in the coming months. The UK currently has about 7,100 troops stationed in and around Basra. About 450 Danish troops are stationed in southern Iraq under British command. Meanwhile, Washington is planning to send some 21,000 troops into Iraq in addition to the 138,000 already there. But both London and Washington are citing supposedly "improved" conditions in Basra as justifying the British pull-out. (AlJazeera, Feb. 21) Following the British and Danish announcements, Lithuania stated it is planning to pull its 53 troops out of Iraq. The Lithuanians serve under Danish command, just as the Danes serve under Britain. (Reuters, Feb. 21)

From IRIN via Electronic Iraq, Feb. 20:

BAGHDAD - Umm Muhammad Jalal, 39, starts every day walking to a river 7km away from her temporary home in a displacement camp on the outskirts of Fallujah, 70km west of the capital, Baghdad. Because of severe water shortages, she and many others make the daily trip to the river to collect water for all their needs.

We strongly suspect that the front-page Feb. 19 story in the New York Times—based entirely on anonymous "studies" and quotes from anonymous "officials"—purporting huge hydrocarbon deposits in Iraq's Sunni center ("Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise" by James Glanz) is a ploy to convince Sunnis they have a secure future in a unified Iraq, and thereby chill out the "insurgents" (as the media flatteringly call them). True, your average "insurgent" probably doesn't read the New York Times, but Iraqi legislators do, and it is hoped that if they can strike a deal that gives the Sunni center a share of the oil wealth the grassroots wil be mollified. As the Times notes: "The question of where the oil reserves are concentrated is taking on still more importance as it appears that negotiators are close to agreement on a long-debated oil law that would regulate how Iraqi and international oil companies would be allowed to develop Iraq’s fields." (IHT Feb. 19)

The House passes a non-binding resolution against the "surge"; the Senate fails to. Opponents invoke the need to "support the troops." Is anybody listening to the troops and their families? From Military Families Speak Out, Feb. 5:

Military Families Urge Congress to Vote Down Bush Request for Billions to Contine Iraq War
Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) members today called on Congress to support our troops and honor the fallen by voting against President Bush's request for a supplemental appropriation that would allow the U.S. military occupation of Iraq to continue. Military Families Speak Out, an organization of over 3,200 military families opposed to the war in Iraq, is the largest organization of military families opposing a war in the history of the United States.

From the Japanese American Nichi Bei Times, Feb. 16:

On Feb. 7, the court martial of Ehren Watada, the Sansei army lieutenant from Hawai'i who refused deployment to Iraq to participate in what he considers an illegal war of aggression, ended in a mistrial. Watada, 28, may find himself back in court, however, for a retrial next month.

The Shi'ite "Cult" Militia and Iraq's Apocalypse

by Sarkis Pogossian, WW4 REPORT

What the Bush administration is calling a victory over a strange new insurgent militia in Iraq is actually a sign of the terrifying fragmentation of the war into chaotic factionalism and a general breakdown of society.

From Air Force Times, Jan. 16:

A small group of out-of-uniform active-duty service members, supported by veterans and academics, gathered inside a Norfolk, Va., church on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to hold a rally calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

In a Jan. 12 Washington Post opinion piece, the Trilateral Commission's ideological guru and Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski comments on Bush's speech pitching an escalation (oops, we mean "surge") in Iraq:

The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy.