War isn’t ‘winding down’ - Resistance attacks rise in Iraq

Editor’s Note>: We agree with Feinberg’s analysis below. In addition to the successful operations by the Iraq resistance cited by him in this article, the Iraqi resistance army: brought down a U.S. military helicopter with a surface to air missile, in broad daylight in Salah ad-Din Province on Thursday (Mecca time), killing 11; killed 5 U.S. soldiers in morning car bombing in ar-Ramadi on Thursday (local time); killed 4 U.S. troops with a bomb attack in as-Saqlawiyah at noon Thursday; bombed a U.S. base in Al-Baghdadi in western Iraq, Thursday afternoon; ambushed a U.S. patrol in Tall ‘Afar on Thursday, killing 4 U.S. troops and killed 3 British troops in al-Basrah and 2 Iraqi police working for the U.S.

The U.S. has admitted< http://icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=3-2005
> to 36 U.S. troops killed in March and 33 already killed in April
(as of the 22nd). These do not include U.S.-paid mercenaries and troops
from troops from other countries allied with the U.S.

Meanwhile we have the corporate/state media like the Financial Times reporting, ’Iraqi Insurgency ’running out of steam’ < http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c444197a-a524-11d9-8616-00000e2511c
8.html
>. Is it the Iraqi Resistance that is ’running out of steam’ - or
public support for the war that is flagging? The purpose of reports
like the one in FT is obviously to beef up diminishing public support
as more and more people in the U.S. and Britain are turning against the
war in Iraq. We predict that Bush and Blair have only one "exit
strategy" available to them: that would be leaving Iraq much in defeat.
The U.S. is attemting to put a good face on their defeat with a puppet
government, doomed to failure, but in the final analysis, we predict
they will leave Iraq in a manner similar to their flight from Saigon on
April 30, 1970. - Les Blough, Editor

Apr 20, 2005 - Just when Washington, the Pentagon and the corporate
media thought it was safe to hype that the war in Iraq was “winding
down” because the Iraqi insurgents were being defeated, the resistance
has proved them wrong again.

This upsurge in resistance has not made headlines in the U.S.
monopolized media, which has such strong ties to the
military-industrial complex that it marches in lock-step on the war.

But here is some of the news coverage gathered from the media abroad of
attacks that targeted U.S. forces from just a two-day period-April 15
and 16.

Three GIs were killed and seven wounded in a mortar attack on the U.S. military camp in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

A suicide car bomb detonated as a Pentagon military convoy passed through Mosul.

A Turkish truck carrying supplies to refresh U.S. troops came under
siege in Baiji and was burned. Also near Baiji, in Al-Fat’ha,
insurgents attempted to attack the oil pipeline.

A military base for U.S. troops and puppet Iraqi forces in Al-Touz, north of Baghdad, came under rocket fire.

A GI died during an attack on the Pentagon base in Tikrit.

Two other U.S. troops were killed in Al-Anbar Province on April 13 and 14.

Divide and conquer tactics

Would-be emperors in Washington have borrowed a page from the military
manuals of the Roman Empire by using divide-and-conquer tactics to try
to drive wedges between Shias, Sunnis and Kurds.

The Pentagon brass ordered their troops and three battalions of Iraqi
soldiers to cordon the town of Madain on April 17. The rationale was
that there were rumors Sunni militants had kidnapped as many as 100
Shiite residents.

An estimated 1,000 families live in the town, 15 miles south of the capital. The population is half Shiite and half Sunni.

An AP photographer and a video journalist reported that the
Pentagon-led troop force sealed off the town April 17 based on the
story of “mass kidnappings” and threats of large-scale executions of
hostages inside Madain.

Inside the town, however, “People were going about their business
normally, shops were open and tea houses were full, [the video
journalist] said. Residents contacted by telephone also said everything
was normal in Madain. And American military officials said they were
unaware of any U.S. role in what had been described as a tense
sectarian standoff in which the Sunni militants were threatening to
kill their Shiite captives if all other Shiites did not leave the
town.” (AP, April 18)

Boston.com reported, “[B]ut residents disputed that, with some saying they had seen no evidence of any hostages.”

Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, spokesperson for the Sunni clerical
Association of Muslim Scholars, also refuted the claims of hostage
taking. “This news is completely untrue,” he told Al-Jazeera television.

Iraqi quisling troops, backed up by U.S. military forces, began raids in the town April 16 under the guise of freeing hostages.

The following day Haidar Khayon-an official of the U.S.-appointed
“Defense Ministry” that operates under imperialist occupation-reported
that Iraqi forces had freed about 15 Shiite families and captured five
hostage takers. “By the end of the day, however, Iraqi officials had
produced no hostages, and Iraqi military officials and police who had
given information about the troubles in Madain could not be reached for
further details.” (Boston.com)

Madain is in what the U.S. military has dubbed the “Triangle of Death”
because of the strong Sunni resistance to the imperialist occupation.

Armed with what have proven to be baseless reports in an occupation in
which all news is ultimately controlled by the Pentagon, “National
Security Minister” Qassim Dawoud announced to “Parliament” on April 17
that the U.S. and Iraqi forces sent to Madain were planning a
large-scale assault on the region by week’s end. (Guardian Unlimited,
April 18)

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