{"id":2948,"date":"2008-02-23T17:13:51","date_gmt":"2008-02-23T23:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2948"},"modified":"2008-02-23T17:13:51","modified_gmt":"2008-02-23T23:13:51","slug":"iraq-in-tatters-beneath-a-surge-of-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2948","title":{"rendered":"IRAQ:  In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span class=\"marron\">Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipsnews.net\/news.asp?idnews=41308\">*<\/a><\/span><\/strong><br \/>\n<span class=\"texto1\"><br \/>\n<strong>BAGHDAD, Feb 22 (IPS) &#8211; What the U.S. has been calling the success of a &#8220;surge&#8221;, many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where U.S. forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And when U.S. forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the U.S. military, riding the &#8220;surge&#8221; in security forces and their activities.<\/p>\n<p>The death toll is high, according to the website icasualties.org, which provides reliable numbers of Iraqi civilian and security deaths.<\/p>\n<p>In January this year 485 civilians were killed, according to the website. It says the number is based on news reports, and that &#8220;actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The average month in 2005, before the &#8220;surge&#8221; was launched, saw 568 civilian deaths. In January 2006, the month before the &#8220;surge&#8221; began, 590 civilians died.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the killings have taken place in the most well guarded areas of Baghdad. And they have continued this month. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipsnews.net\/news.asp?idnews=41308\">Read the report<\/a>]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail* BAGHDAD, Feb 22 (IPS) &#8211; What the U.S. has been calling the success of a &#8220;surge&#8221;, many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where U.S. forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2948\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-Ly","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}