Violence is mounting at a time when Iraq's beleaguered government is
paralysed by political infighting.
Six Sunni Arab ministers are refusing to work with their Shiite and
Kurdish colleagues in a cabinet power-sharing dispute, and the
national assembly has taken the month off without having passed any
significant legislation.
Meanwhile, a US Government Accountability Office probe revealed the
American military cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraq's
beleaguered security forces in 2004 and 2005.
According to a July 31 report, the US military "cannot fully account
for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items
of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi
forces."
The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September
2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces
from scratch amid mounting attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite
militias.
The report warned that while more attention had since been devoted to
tracking weapons, "a review of the January 2007 property books found
continuing problems with missing and incomplete records."
A report from the US administrations Special Inspector General for
Iraqi Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said a system for transfering
completed public works projects from the US military to the Iraqi
government was "broken."
"Since June 2006, the GOI (government of Iraq) has not formally
accepted a single IRRF (Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund)
project," he said.
One project singled out for criticism was a Baghdad power station,
which was rebuilt at a cost of 90 million dollars but broke down when
inexperienced Iraqi engineers cannibalised one power plant to fix
another and broke both.
Baghdad's residents are now lucky to get two hours of electricity per
day.
Bowen's report also described a "corruption epidemic" inside the Iraqi
government which he branded as dangerous as a "second insurgency".
Meanwhile the US military said four more US troops have been killed,
bringing US losses since the March 2003 invasion to 3,652, with 82
troops killed in July, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon
figures.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070801/wl_mideast_afp/iraq_070801091932;_ylt=AkLgZW57xKXd.K5U_aFokf0UewgF
Wed Aug 1
Iraqi deaths spike five months into US troop surge
by Joseph Krauss
BAGHDAD (AFP) -
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the country's brutal civil
conflict rose by more than a third in July despite a five-month-old
surge in US troop levels, government figures showed Wednesday.
At least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, 33 percent more
than in the previous month, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi
health, defence and interior ministries and made available to AFP.
Casualties continued to mount as a massive car bomb tore through a
major Baghdad intersection -- the fifth such blast to strike the city
centre in the past week -- killing at least 10 people.
Meanwhile, two critical reports emerged pointing to weaknesses in
American efforts to rebuild and stabilise Iraq, which has been in the
grip of several overlapping civil conflicts for more than four years.
July's civilian toll was slightly higher than the number for February,
when the United States began a "surge" in troops aimed at flooding
Baghdad with reinforcements to stem Iraq's sectarian bloodletting.
The Iraqi government refuses to release official casualty figures, but
the new numbers tally with the personal experience of many Baghdad
residents, who insist the streets of the capital remain extremely
dangerous.
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That ole "surge" sure is goin' great, eh?
Harry
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