Moderador: Conselho de Moderação
EDSON escreveu:"Todos nós temos interesse na estabilidade do Iraque, e todos nós queremos ver os rebeldes do Partido dos Trabalhadores do Curdistão (PKK) ante a justiça", disse o porta-voz da Casa Branca Gordon Johndroe.
Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70%
Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry.
By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.
Washington began dispatching reinforcements to Iraq in February to try to buy Iraq's feuding political leaders time to reach a political accommodation to end violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs that has killed tens of thousands and forced millions from their homes.
While the leaders have failed to agree on key laws aimed at reconciling the country's warring sects, the troop buildup has succeeded in quelling violence.
Under the plan, U.S. troops left their large bases and set up combat outposts in neighborhoods while launching a series of summer offensives against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, other Sunni Arab militants and Shi'ite militias in the Baghdad beltway.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters that there had been a 70 percent decrease in violence countrywide in the three months from July to September over the previous quarter.
GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT
In Baghdad, considered the epicenter of the violence because of its mix of Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs, car bombs had decreased by 67 percent and roadside bombs by 40 percent, he said. There had also been a 28 percent decline in the number of bodies found dumped in the capital's streets.
In Anbar, a former insurgent hotbed where Sunni Arab tribes have joined U.S. forces against al Qaeda, there has been an 82 percent drop in violent deaths.
"These figures show a gradual improvement in controlling the security situation," Khalaf said.
However, in the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding region, there had been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence.
While the figures confirm U.S. data showing a positive trend in combating al Qaeda bombers, there is growing instability in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are fighting for political dominance.
Police said six gunmen were killed in police raids in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Some 50 people were killed in Kerbala in August in fierce clashes between fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and local police, who are seen as aligned to the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council's armed wing, the Badr Organization.
After the clashes, Sadr said he was imposing a six-month freeze on the activities of the Mehdi Army, increasingly seen as beyond his control, so that he could reorganize it.
In Baghdad, three roadside bombs killed four people, including three policemen, while in Mosul one policeman was killed when a blast hit a police patrol.
zela escreveu:Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70%
Violence in Iraq drops sharply: Ministry.
By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violence in Iraq has dropped by 70 percent since the end of June, when U.S. forces completed their build-up of 30,000 extra troops to stabilize the war-torn country, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry released the new figures as bomb blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul killed five people and six gunmen died in clashes with police in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala south of the Iraqi capital.
Washington began dispatching reinforcements to Iraq in February to try to buy Iraq's feuding political leaders time to reach a political accommodation to end violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs that has killed tens of thousands and forced millions from their homes.
While the leaders have failed to agree on key laws aimed at reconciling the country's warring sects, the troop buildup has succeeded in quelling violence.
Under the plan, U.S. troops left their large bases and set up combat outposts in neighborhoods while launching a series of summer offensives against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, other Sunni Arab militants and Shi'ite militias in the Baghdad beltway.
Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters that there had been a 70 percent decrease in violence countrywide in the three months from July to September over the previous quarter.
GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT
In Baghdad, considered the epicenter of the violence because of its mix of Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs, car bombs had decreased by 67 percent and roadside bombs by 40 percent, he said. There had also been a 28 percent decline in the number of bodies found dumped in the capital's streets.
In Anbar, a former insurgent hotbed where Sunni Arab tribes have joined U.S. forces against al Qaeda, there has been an 82 percent drop in violent deaths.
"These figures show a gradual improvement in controlling the security situation," Khalaf said.
However, in the northern province of Nineveh, where many al Qaeda and other Sunni Arab militants fled to escape the crackdown in Baghdad and surrounding region, there had been a 129 percent rise in car bombings and a corresponding 114 percent increase in the number of people killed in violence.
While the figures confirm U.S. data showing a positive trend in combating al Qaeda bombers, there is growing instability in southern Iraq, where rival Shi'ite factions are fighting for political dominance.
Police said six gunmen were killed in police raids in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad.
Some 50 people were killed in Kerbala in August in fierce clashes between fighters loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and local police, who are seen as aligned to the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council's armed wing, the Badr Organization.
After the clashes, Sadr said he was imposing a six-month freeze on the activities of the Mehdi Army, increasingly seen as beyond his control, so that he could reorganize it.
In Baghdad, three roadside bombs killed four people, including three policemen, while in Mosul one policeman was killed when a blast hit a police patrol.
FONTE: Reuters
Pablo Maica escreveu:A coisa vai feder... vamos ver como os americanos vão se comportar em relação a Turquia...
E agora sim que eles não entram mais na UE.
Um abraço e t+
.jpg)
Posted 10/29/07 12:37
Print this story
CBO: War Could Cost $2.4 Trillion
By WILLIAM MATTHEWS
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost the United States $602 billion, and they are likely to cost as much as $1.7 trillion over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports.
And since the war so far has been financed with borrowed money — since 2002 the war costs and other federal expenditures have exceeded federal revenues — interest payments on that debt will add at least $415 billion, and possibly $705 billion to war costs by 2017, the CBO reported to the House Budget Committee on Oct. 24.
In all, the wars could cost $2.4 trillion by 2017, the CBO said.
The cost estimates were presented during a hearing attended by most of the committee’s 21 Democrats, but just two of its 16 Republicans. The Democrats complained that the Bush administration refused to provide witnesses for the hearing.
And they disparaged the administration for its early claims that the wars would cost about $50 billion and would be paid for mostly with Iraqi oil revenues.
That CBO’s war cost estimates were based on the presumption that the number of U.S. personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan will decrease from about 200,000 now to 75,000 between 2013 and 2017.
If the number of U.S. troops involved in the wars can be cut to 30,000 between 2010 and 2017, war costs may be kept to $1.2 trillion, not including interest costs, CBO director Peter Orszag told the House Budget Committee Oct. 24.
The cost estimates come as Congress is considering President George W. Bush’s largest-yet war-funding supplemental budget request. Bush wants $196.4 billion to pay for the wars for 2008.
If approved, that would push total spending on the wars to almost $800 billion.
“By any yardstick, that’s a staggering sum,” said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., chairman of the Budget Committee.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are proceeding slowly on the war-funding request. Rep. David Obey, House Appropriations Committee chairman, said he does not plan to take the matter up until next year.
In the Senate, plans are being made to approve future war spending in smaller increments. That would give war opponents multiple opportunities to try to pass troop withdrawal timetables and other measures to begin reducing U.S. involvement in the wars. å
E-mail: bmatthews@defensenews.com.
F.B.I. Says Guards Killed 14 Iraqis Without Cause
By DAVID JOHNSTON and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: November 14, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.
The F.B.I. investigation into the shootings in Baghdad is still under way, but the findings, which indicate that the company’s employees recklessly used lethal force, are already under review by the Justice Department.
Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.
Patton escreveu:Violence in Iraq down 70%
Progresso e' possivel.
I TOLD YOU SO!
Agora P44 (Politbeauro44) vai churar por que Bagda' nao tem rios de sange em todas as ruas.
![8-]](./images/smilies/icon_cool.gif "Cool"){kind=icon}
