Airborne Combat Engineer

No combat deaths in Iraq this week

George S reported on the Sunday morning news: for the first time since the invasion, there were NO COMBAT DEATHS this week.

icasualties.org confirms this, showing only one non-hostile death thus far in July.

How great is that for the week of July the 4th?

It's about time for GWB to declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and VICTORY IN IRAQ!  But, just to be safe, he should hold off a bit longer. He should probably announce we've won the war on his last day in office, and let his successor determine how many troops we need to leave there for how long.

Majority of Americans believe we'll win in Iraq

According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press ...

... 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq.

... As many voters now believe that the war is going “well” as “not well” — 48 percent each ...

Politico

Blackwater banned from Iraq

A ministry spokesman said Monday that Blackwater USA is prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities are investigating Sunday's shooting that erupted when a U.S. diplomatic convoy being escorted by the contractors came under attack in western Baghdad, leaving eight Iraqi civilians dead.

Iraqi officials say the security contractors fired randomly. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the shooting and called it a crime.

Voice of America News

The Danger Room at Wired is staying on top of this, and has a link to the incident report.

It will be interesting to see if Blackwater can patch up this rift.

It will be interesting to see if the Iraqi government can eject a force hired by the State Department to defend the US embassy. Doesn't an embassy have the right to hire whomever it likes, until the host country ejects the embassy?

The Vietnam analogy

Bush's opponents don't have a problem with Vietnam analogies. They have a problem with Vietnam analogies that undermine the case for American withdrawal. They see Vietnam as the exclusive property of the antiwar movement.

MC, The Weekly Standard

Dems acknowledge we'll be in Iraq for years to come

Rush Limbaugh is saying "See, I told your so!" as he sees the New York Times providing cover to the Democratic Party, which realizes troops must be in Iraq for years to come.

In his opinion, it's because the surge is working, and they know it.

Rush

see what Hillary had to say in the continuation

President makes killer speech in SC

Watch it at the White House site, or read the transcript.

SpanEagle UAV, F-16, & JDAM take out insurgents

Insurgents firing rockets at a British base in southern Iraq were spotted and tracked by an Australian unmanned spyplane [the Boeing-operated ScanEagle], then obliterated with a guided bomb from a US fighter jet.

In a stunning demonstration of the capabilities of the new ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle, the Australian operators tracked the insurgents for half an hour as they fired one rocket then drove to a different location to fire another.

They were not aware they had been spotted until a 227kg JDAM guided bomb exploded in their midst.

Television images of the May 1 attack have now been released to media visiting the Australian overwatch battle group base at Tallil, outside the city of Nasariyah in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province.

Courier Mail

ScanEagle, a long-endurance fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle developed by Boeing and The Insitu Group, has surpassed 10,000 combat flight hours in less than two years supporting U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy operations. Since being deployed with the First Marine Expeditionary Force in August 2004, ScanEagle has completed 8,900 combat flight hours in Iraq, providing real-time imagery to tactical commanders.

Space War

American support for Iraq war improving slightly

American support for the initial invasion of Iraq has risen somewhat as the White House has continued to ask the public to reserve judgment about the war until General David Petraeus files his report in the fall.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, 42 percent of Americans said that taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, while 51 percent said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq.

Support had been at all time low in May, when only 35 percent of Americans said the United States’ invasion of Iraq was the right thing and 61 percent said the United States should have stayed out.

NY Times

Insurgent organizations ready to negotiate US withdrawal

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - said they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.

Speaking in Damascus, the spokesmen for the three groups - the 1920 Revolution Brigades, Ansar al-Sunna and Iraqi Hamas - said they planned to hold a congress to launch a united front and appealed to Arab governments, other governments and the UN to help them establish a permanent political presence outside Iraq.

Abu Ahmad, spokesman for Iraqi Hamas said: "Peaceful resistance will not end the occupation. The US made clear it intended to stay for many decades. Now it is a common view in the resistance that they will start to withdraw within a year. "

The move represents a dramatic change of strategy for the mainstream Iraqi insurgency, whose leadership has remained shadowy and has largely restricted communication with the world to brief statements on the internet and Arabic media.

Guardian

If these groups had worked HALF as hard on making the Iraqi government work, the US would have already been gone.

Leaf blowers help uncover IEDs

U.S. forces in Iraq found that insurgents often hide roadside bombs under piles of debris. The Rapid Equipping Force devised a way to strap Buffalo Turbine's Cyclone, an industrial leaf blower, to the front of a truck in order to blow debris out of the way, making bombs easier to spot.

Business Week [h/t NS / Wired Danger Room]