Monday, August 22, 2005

Iraq - not getting any better

The extension to finalize a constitution that can be voted on by the Iraqi people in October apparently wasn't enough.
In another dramatic last-minute standoff, Iraqi leaders put off a vote on a draft constitution Monday, adjourning parliament at a midnight deadline in a bid for three more days to win over the Sunni Arab minority whose support is key to stopping the insurgency.

[...]

The U.S. military said two U.S. soldiers from Task Force Liberty were killed Monday by a roadside bomb during a combat patrol north of Baghdad, and two more soldiers died Sunday when their vehicle overturned during a military operation near Tal Afar. At least 1,870 U.S. troops have died since the Iraq war started in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

  Yahoo News article

And remember, that count is only those who were pronounced dead in Iraq, and doesn't include any who breathed long enough to be evacuated to military hospitals elsewhere.

Still, I don't report the U.S. soldier death toll, because I think that is such a small fraction of the destruction and waste and shame of war. Not to mention, nobody in our reportage arena is even counting dead Iraqis. Unless it's numbers they can call terrorists, thinking it will appease or please us if we kill enough of them.

A former Halliburton Co. worker pleaded guilty late last week to taking more than $110,000 in bribes from an Iraqi company in 2004 and defrauding the United States, court documents showed.

[...]

KBR said it had terminated Powell as soon as his bribes were discovered and had refunded the improper payment to the U.S. government.

"We do not tolerate this kind of behavior by anyone at any level in any Halliburton company," Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said in an e-mail.

Another former KBR employee, Jeff Alex Mazon, was also indicted in March for devising a scheme to defraud the U.S. military of more than $3.5 million under a contract to supply fuel tankers for operations in Kuwait.

  Yahoo News article

Not Halliburton!?!

POAC

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

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