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A Deadly Legacy in Iraq – NYTimes.com

October 20, 2014

Peter Singhatey Middle East International Security, Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

A Deadly Legacy in Iraq – NYTimes.com.

Another chapter has been added to the dismal legacy of America’s involvement in Iraq. An investigation by C.J. Chivers, published in The Times on Wednesday, found that American and American-trained Iraqi troops discovered thousands of abandoned and highly dangerous chemical weapons left over from the rule of Saddam Hussein. These weapons, found from 2004 to 2011, wounded troops from both armies. There are now fears that some could fall into the hands of fighters for the Islamic State, which now controls much of the territory where the weapons were found.

These weapons are not the chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction that the George W. Bush administration claimed as the excuse for embarking on the Iraq war and that, it turned out, did not exist. Instead, they are aged remnants left over from an earlier chemical weapons program in the late-1970s and 1980s that was shut down in 1991. Mr. Hussein used the weapons against Iran in a war from 1980-88…

U.S. and Iran Unlikely Allies in Iraq Battle – NYTimes.com

September 1, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Conflict, International Security, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, People & Society, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, US Leave a comment

U.S. and Iran Unlikely Allies in Iraq Battle – NYTimes.com.

BAGHDAD — With American bombs raining down from the sky, Shiite militia fighters aligned with Iran battled Sunni extremists over the weekend, punching through their defenses to break the weekslong siege of Amerli, a cluster of farming villages whose Shiite residents faced possible slaughter.

The fight in northern Iraq appeared to be the first time American warplanes and militias backed by Iran had worked with a common purpose on a battlefield against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, even though the Obama administration said there was no direct coordination with the militias.

Should such military actions continue, they could signal a dramatic shift for the United States and Iran, which have long vied for control in Iraq. They could also align the interests of the Americans with their longtime sworn enemies in the Shiite militias, whose fighters killed many United States soldiers during the long occupation of Iraq…

Michael Moore – So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second…

June 11, 2014

Peter Singhatey International Security International Security, Iraq, ISIS, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey 1 Comment

Michael Moore – So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second….

So today, Mosul fell. Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq. The Iraqi government we “installed”, has now lost Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and other large swaths of the country we invaded at the cost of thousands of American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives and a couple trillion dollars. (What could your school district do with a trillion dollars?).

One more maddening day in this 11-year illegal, immoral, greedy and stupid war. Today in Mosul, that Iraqi Army YOU pay for, freaked out, threw down their guns, and literally RAN away. I have friends and acquaintances who lost sons in all three of those cities. I can only imagine what they’re feeling tonight. FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT! I am so sorry we couldn’t do anything to stop this when it started. A few million of us tried. Last week, Richard Clarke, Bush’s former head of counter-terrorism, said he now believes that his fellow members of the Bush administration committed “war crimes.” …