The White House has repeatedly insisted that the United States has “no desire for permanent bases” in Iraq. Nevertheless, the Bush administration is seeking to leave its footprint on Iraq through other means. The AP reports that the Pentagon is backing a $5 billion dollar plan to “transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone” into a “centerpiece for Baghdad’s future,” resulting in “big paydays for early investors:“ 

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a “zone of influence” around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year. 

“When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time,” said Navy Capt. Thomas Karnowski, who led the team that created the development plan. 

An incentive for the project, which would include hotels, resorts, and commercial development in the Green Zone, appears to be lining the pockets of investors and allies rather than re-building Iraq’s economy. In fact, Karnowski acknowledged that American officials would vet potential investors because of a “vested interest” - mirroring the cronyism of Saddam’s Hussein’s regime. 

Pentagon Backs Plan To Build "Zone Of Influence" In Iraq

Bush gives up golf 'in solidarity with troops'

The US president, George Bush, today revealed he had given up playing golf because it "sent out the wrong signal" to the families of soldiers fighting overseas.

In an online interview for the Yahoo News and Politico websites, the US forces' commander in chief said hearing about soldiers' deaths was "tough".

He said he relied on his Christian faith to help him through the realities of war and tried to empathise with the grief being experienced by soldiers' loved ones.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.

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Gus: "not going to war and playing golf" would be the right thing to do for this president. A wrong war and a fake or felt solidarity for "mom" (what about dad?) do not make things right. A stupid war is still a stupid war from a stupid president. May be this prez should go play golf anyway and stop fiddling with things he's going to mess up some more. That may be more appropriate. Building a golf course in the green zone? That sends out the wrong message too...

"If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust under the United States." - H L Mencken.

The pre-emptive war in Iraq, started with lies and falsehoods, has gone on for more than five years now.

It has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and fighters, killed either in clashes with US troops or other attacks, and many more driven from their homes.

More than 4,000 troops have been killed as a result of the war, tens of thousands have been injured, and the total cost of the war to US taxpayers will run, by one highly respected economist's estimate, up to three trillion dollars.

But George Bush has also sacrificed something for the war effort: Golf.

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Gus: gees, I wish little Bonsai had been on the piss and played golf rather than go to war... Unless the little mongrel, pissed as a newt, placed his elbow carelessly on the little red button designed to annihilate the whole world...  phew. So far so good.

Doubt, Distrust, Delay
The Inside Story of How Bush's Team Dealt With Its Failing Iraq Strategy

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 7, 2008; A01

During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq. "Violence has acquired a momentum of its own and is now self-sustaining," she wrote July 20, quoting from an intelligence assessment.

Her dire evaluation contradicted the upbeat assurances that President Bush was hearing from Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq. Casey and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were pushing to draw down American forces and speed the transfer of responsibility to the Iraqis. Despite months of skyrocketing violence, Casey insisted that within a year, Iraq would be mostly stable, with the bulk of American combat troops headed home.

Publicly, the president claimed the United States was winning the war, and he expressed unwavering faith in Casey, saying, "It's his judgment that I rely upon." Privately, he was losing confidence in the drawdown strategy. He questioned O'Sullivan that summer with increasing urgency: "What are you hearing from people in Baghdad? What are people's daily lives like?"

"It's hell, Mr. President," she answered, determined not to mislead or lie to him.

read more at The Washington Post

see toon at top

Killings force 13,000 Christians to flee Mosul
• UN agency sends aid to beleaguered community
• Sunni Arabs and Kurds blamed for violence

    * Aidan Jones
    * The Guardian,
    * Saturday October 25 2008

The full scale of the persecution of Christians in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul became apparent last night when the UN's refugee agency said about 13,000 had been hounded from their homes this month - more than half of the city's Christian community.

The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said it was sending aid to thousands of Christian refugees fleeing Mosul after a three-week campaign of killing and intimidation. About a dozen Christians have reportedly been killed in the recent violence, prompting many members of the community to seek sanctuary in churches and homes in outlying villages, or in Syria. "Many left with little money and need help," said Ron Redmond, UNHCR spokesman, in a briefing from Geneva. Christian neighbourhoods had been bombarded with threatening phone calls, letters and messages pinned to doors for months, but the killing began a few weeks ago, he said.

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Gus: since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan started quite a few years have passed and some of the younger new readers on this site may not know the true world dynamics of the lies that went with their purpose...

The geography of Baghdad is walls, built one barrier at a time, along streets and around neighborhoods, through intersections and over bridges. For some, the gray of freshly poured concrete long ago gave way to the city's more dominant ochers. Many are painted. Others are decorated with plastic flowers, gathering dust. A few bear murals.

But they remain walls, dividing a city from itself, in an attempt to stanch violence.

"Welcome to the city of Sadiya," the wall here reads, with no sense of irony.

"The walls are the most hated thing. I swear to God, they're despised," said Hussein Abbas Hassan, plastering posters for a candidate with his two sons, Yasser and Samir. "I wish God would descend from heaven and tear them down."

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read more at the Washington Post and see toon at top...