Azzaman, October 4, 2009

Every statement can have more than one meaning. For example, the fact that there were only 563 attacks on U.S. troops in September in Iraq was something to celebrate from the U.S. viewpoint.

This is why its commanding officer in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno put the number of attacks on his troops in September within the context of 2007 when approximately 4000 attacks were reported.

For him, things are improving in Iraq and the figure signals the success of U.S. tactics. For us Iraqis it is a damning condemnation of the general and his administration and their ruining of a nation and a country.

The number of September attacks could mean that at least 2,000 explosions took place in the country, that is in case each attack consisted of two rockets fired at U.S. troops.

And there has been nothing as inhuman as the numbers published by the United States since its ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

U.S. troops have names and statistics. Iraqis have no names and no statistics. Therefore, the U.S. has exact numbers about its troops killed or wounded and the attacks targeting them.

The U.S. is notorious for even not counting the number of Iraqis it kills. It has no records on the number of Iraqis its armored vehicles have crushed under their tires.

We only would like the readers to imagine the massive firepower which has been used in the past seven years of the occupation and the casualties and destruction resulting from them.

The hundreds of attacks reported only in the past month is a grim reminder that the war is not over and has not ended with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities

This is the equation which the U.S. general is afraid to admit and U.S. politicians do not seem to comprehend.