Posted on Thu, Jun. 21, 2007
By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
WASHINGTON - Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that the success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq should be measured not by whether violence is reduced, but by whether Iraqis feel better about their nation's future.
In their weekly news conference, both Pace and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates defended the surge, despite a rise in violence against civilians and increasing deaths among U.S. soldiers. Gates said that the increased violence is because U.S. and Iraqi troops are entering new areas.
"Our troops and the Iraqi troops are going into areas where they haven't been for some time, and they anticipated that there would be a high level of combat as they did that," Gates said.
Their comments come at a time when assessments of the situation in Iraq indicate that violence hasn't gone down with the addition of 28,500 troops in Iraq. A Defense Department assessment released last week said violence against civilians had remained unchanged in February, March and April. The new Baghdad security plan began on Feb. 15.
linkOK, Iraq is a catastrophic failure:
Dreams of college destroyed in Iraq
By Damien Cave
Published: June 4, 2007
BAGHDAD: They started college just before or after the American invasion with dreams of new friends and parties, brilliant teachers and advanced degrees that would lead to stellar jobs, marriage and children. Success seemed well within their grasp.
Four years later, Iraq's college graduates are ending their studies shattered and eager to leave the country. In interviews with more than 30 students from seven universities, all but 4 said they hoped to flee Iraq immediately after receiving their degrees. Many said they did not expect the country to stabilize for at least a decade.
"I used to dream about getting a Ph.D., participating in international conferences, belonging to a team that discovered cures for diseases like AIDS, leaving my fingerprint on medicine," said Hasan Tariq Khaldoon, 24, a pharmacy student in Mosul, north of Baghdad. "Now, all these dreams have evaporated."
"Staying here," said Karar Alaa, 25, a medical student at Babel University, south of Baghdad, "is like committing suicide."
<...>
Instead, after an initial period of hope after Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed, the students said they watched in awe as Iraq's underlying sectarian and ethnic conflicts emerged and flourished. At the country's 21 universities, the decline started with chaos. Looters stole ancient artifacts and destroyed buildings at Basra University, for instance, only days after British troops reached the area in 2003.
Violence followed. In June 2004, a geography professor at the University of Baghdad was murdered after leaving the campus. He would not be the last.
"We've lost over 200 professors, being killed," said Abid Dhiyab al-Ujayli, the minister of higher education. "A number of others have been kidnapped."
<...>
The mood was even darker last week at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. In January, two car bombs and a suicide bomber killed at least 70 people at the school. A month later, a woman laced with explosives blew herself up at the university entrance, killing 40 more.Posted
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