Current Iraqi Government

• In 2003, The Ba’ath party ruled over Iraq with Sadaam Hussein as the Leader.

• Today, the Current Government in Iraq is the INA (Iraqi National Assembly).

• The ITG (Iraqi Transitional Government) was created to stay in power until the INA took office on May 20, 2006

• The Current Leader of Iraq is the Prime Minister who’s name is Nouri al-Maliki. He holds the most Power.

• The President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, holds little power compared to the Prime Minister.

• The Vice Presidents or Iraq are Tariq al-Hashami and Adel Abdul Mehdi

• The Current Party in power is the ISCI ( Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq)

De Ba’athification•Definition: The United States policy of removing Baath party members from Iraqi government positions following the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. •Bremer's first order led to the firing of about 30,000 ex-Ba’athists from various ministries •About 15,000 were eventually permitted to return to work after they won their appeals •In April 2004, Bremer announced a plan to allow "vetted senior officers from the former regime" back into the military services. •All military officers above the rank of colonel were barred from returning to work, including 100,000 members of Iraq's various intelligence services. •Many ex-Ba’athists were brought back into the Iraqi government because Bremer did not want to keep good politicians from playing a role in the new Iraq.

Disbanding Iraqi Military

• Paul Bremer III signed the second coalation which in turn, disbanded the entire Iraqi military, defied the Bush administration’s consensus view that 150,000 home-grown troops would be necessary in occupying postwar Iraq .

• By the summer, tens of thousands of now-unemployed armed Baathists—formerly lead by Saddam Hussein—lay siege to Coalition troops

Iraqi War-US Troops Statistics

• 124,000 U.S. troops as of September 30, 2009 in Iraq.• U.S. Troop Casualties - 4,352 US troops

• 98% Male• 82% Active duty• 74% Caucasian• 11% Latino• 72% were from the US Army

• 91 % Non-Officers • 11% National Guard• 9% African-American• 19% Killed by Non-Hostile Causes

• 54% of US Casualties were under 25 Years Old

Iraqi War- US Money Statistics

• U.S. Spending per Second - $5,000 in 2008 • U.S. 2008 Monthly Spending in Iraq - $12 billion • U.S. 2009 Monthly Spending in Iraq - $7.3 billion as of Oct 2009

• Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $800 billion of US taxpayers' funds spent or approved formid-2009• $76 billion requested by President Obama and approved by Congress.

The “Surge”• The “Surge” was introduced during a television speech by Bush

under the name “ The New Way Forward”.• The “New Way Forward” was by Bush who ordered the

deployment of more than 20,000 soldiers into Iraq, five additional brigades, and sent the majority of them into Baghdad.

• Bush also extended the tour of 4,000 Marines already in the Anbar province area.

• The President stated that the surge would then provide the time and conditions conducive to reconciliation among political and ethnic factions.

• The major element of the strategy was a change in focus for the US military "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the

Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security".

Abu Gharib • Abu Gharib was a torture chamber run by American Soldiers.• Forms of torture included accounts of physical, psychological, and

Sexual Abuse, including Torture, Rape, Sodomy, and Homocide of prisoners

• Many soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military justice with prisoner abuse

•Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, demoted for her lack of oversight regarding the abuse, estimated later that 90% of detainees in the prison were innocent

•The United States Department Of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery.

Questions

1. Some things that surprised me the most while watching the film No End In Sight was how the US military entered into Iraq and Afghanistan and only protected things that would be beneficial to us such as Oil and not things that would help the Iraqis such as Libraries and Archives of their history.

2. The things that angered me the most about the documentary No End In Sight was the way that the US Military treated the Iraqis after entering their country and how they worked against the Iraqis instead of with them.

3. Some things I believe that every American should learn about the Iraq War is that there are good people in Iraq and bad people in Iraq and not everyone living in that country is guilty of a crime and should not be unjustfully punished for it.

Questions

4. Some questions that I still have are why the American Soldiers tortured innocent people in Abu Gharib and what is the importance of staying in Iraq and Afghanistan if they already have set up a new government.

5. I believe that there are lessons we have learned with the Iraq war that can be applied to new situations such as not assuming that one person in a culture is bad, every person in that culture is bad.

6. Some precautions that we should take when entering into other foreign countries is that the people of those countries have their own beliefs and we should respect them in their decisions as long as they are morally correct.

The End

Works Cited

• http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Iraq

• http://www.cfr.org/publication/7853/iraq.html

• http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/history-altering-decisions/iraqi-army-disbanded.html

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_troop_surge_of_2007