Tal Afar - V for Victory

Juan Cole on the third anniversary of the illegal Iraqi invasion Marc 20th 2003


"The US military used Kurdish and Shiite troops to attack the northern Turkmen city of Talafar in August. Kurdish troops, drawn from the Peshmerga militia, were allowed to paint lasers on targets in the city, which were then destroyed by the US air force. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed, and much of the population was displaced for some time. Shiite troops and local Shiite Turkmen informants were used to identify and interrogate alleged Sunni insurgents. Turkey was furious at the attack on ethnically related Turkmen and threatened to halt its cooperation with the US. Although the attack was allegedly undertaken to capture foreign forces allegedly based in the city, only 50 were announced apprehended. The entire operation ended up looking like a joint Kurdish-Shiite attack on Sunni Turkmen, backed by the US military. Turkmen and Kurds do not generally get along, and Turkmen accuse Kurds of wanting to ethnically clense them from Kirkuk. The entire operation was politically the worst possible public relations for the US in northern Iraq, and seems unlikely to have put a signficant dent in the guerrillas' capabilities."

President Bush at Cleveland spoker at length about Tal Afar ...White House report

he concluded..

"The strategy that worked so well in Tal Afar did not emerge overnight -- it came only after much trial and error. It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq. Yet the strategy is working. And we know it's working because the people of Tal Afar are showing their gratitude for the good work that Americans have given on their behalf. A recent television report followed a guy named Captain Jesse Sellars on patrol, and described him as a "pied piper" with crowds of Iraqi children happily chanting his name as he greets locals with the words "Salaam alaikum," which mean "peace be with you."

When the newswoman asks the local merchant what would have happened a few months earlier if he'd been seen talking with an American, his answer was clear: "They'd have cut off my head, they would have beheaded me." Like thousands of others in Tal Afar, this man knows the true meaning of liberation. "

Washington Post on his Cleveland speech..March 21st An Iraq Success Story's Sad New Chapter by Peter Baker.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032001897.html

.... a 23-year-old law student predicts that Tal Afar will return entirely to its dark past in a matter of months. "The Tal Afar mission failed," he tells the Post. "The city will turn back to how it was before the battle within two months. The Americans are busy putting cement barriers and barbed wire around their bases and no one is taking care of the infrastructure."

In his speech in Cleveland Monday, the president made it clear that Tal Afar was about as good as it gets in Iraq just now. "I wish I could tell you that the progress made in Tal Afar is the same in every single part of Iraq," he said. "It's not." He was right about that.



40 killed in bomb at US base BBC Report today

At least 40 people have been killed by a suicide bomb inside a military base housing US and Iraqi forces near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.There were no immediate details on how the bomber breached the base's security, although latest reports suggest it was a suicide car bombing.

The village of Kisk, which houses the military base, lies between Mosul and Talafar.

Both towns have been the scene of much anti-US violence and unrest in the three years since the US-led invasion of Iraq.

No comments required ... according to Dubya, Tal Afar was a major fucking victory for Hearts and Minds ... many of them strewn around their Military HQ.