Three more Americans were killed this weekend in Iraq, and the New York Times reports on the deaths of three Iraqis--two the result of a tanker (i.e., semi) crash, and the chief engineer of Baghdad International Airport.
Two of the dead Americans were contractors with Blackwater Security employees, that is, they were part of the shadowy world of quasi-soldiers, which still are the second largest contingent of "military" personnel on the ground in the country. The four contractors killed in Fallujah not quite a year ago helped set of the chain of events resulting in the destruction of that city.
On the subject of destruction, here's a report by the Times that underscores the unbelievable level of stupidity Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al displayed when it came to planning the invasion itself:
In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting...
The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.
[Iraqi deputy minister of industry] Sami al-Araji statements came just a week after a United Nations agency disclosed that approximately 90 important sites in Iraq had been looted or razed in that period.
Satellite imagery analyzed by two United Nations groups - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, or Unmovic - confirms that some of the sites identified by Dr. Araji appear to be totally or partly stripped, senior officials at those agencies said. Those officials said they could not comment on all of Dr. Araji's assertions, because the groups had been barred from Iraq since the invasion.
A handy graphic, which I'll link to below, numbers the sites--interestingly, they were/are all known to United Nations monitors and inspectors, and in all cases the plants were under control (i.e., sensitive material was under UN seal) until pResident Stumblebum and Defense Secretary Psychobabble (and his evil assistant Igor) decided that since flowers and kisses were to be the Iraqi reaction to invasion, a reality based assessment of forces needed to occupy the country was "wildly off the mark."
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
--Donald Rumsfeld
Well, yes you did--the UN also knew about these sites--they closed and sealed them:
Starting in 1991, the United Nations began destroying Iraq's unconventional arms and setting up a vast effort to monitor the country's industrial infrastructure to make sure that Baghdad lived up to its disarmament promises. The International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, was put in charge of nuclear sites, and Unmovic, based in New York, was given responsibility for chemical and biological plants as well as factories that made rockets and missiles.
Now, thanks to idocy on a Rumsfeldian scale, lord knows what happened to the material--it could be ANYWHERE, although I'm guessing that the explosives are likely in the hands of the insurgents where it will be used to build IED's for YEARS to come--we're talking about literally hundreds of tons of stuff that can make life miserable for US soldiers (or take it away). The bricks, mortar, and metal might well be outside the country, seeing as how scrap metal was supposed to be the new Iraqi growth industry. But the fact that KNOWN weapons sites were left unguarded is simply criminal, and it amazes me that the sheep known collectively as the media (ok, maybe I'm not all that surprised after all) haven't called Bush, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz to task on this--hey, for that matter, maybe someone in Congress could--Rummy and Wolfie show up there on a regular basis.
This gang couldn't shoot straight if you gave them a weaponized laser...
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