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UPDATE: Al Qaida has taken responsibility for killing Sheik Sattar.   This assassination will hasten the end of Al Qaida in Iraq.  Any Sunni tribe that was on the fence before will assuredly join the awakening movement now.

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Most American have never heard of Sheik Sattar but there is few people more important in Iraq than Sheik Sattar who founded the Anbar Awakening movement. He has been the target of assassination attempts before and today the assassins were successful:

Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb planted near the tribal leader’s home in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital, said Col. Tareq Youssef, supervisor of Anbar police …

“It is a major blow to the council, but we are determined to strike back and continue our work,” said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha’s group. “Such an attack was expected, but it will not deter us.” He said the bombing took place at 3:30 p.m. as Abu Risha was returning home.

A Ramadi police officer said Abu Risha had received a group of poor people at his home earlier in the day, as a gesture of charity marking the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity out of security concerns, said authorities believed the bomb was planted by one of the visitors.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that after the first blast that killed Abu Risha, a car bomb exploded nearby. “The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy,” Khalaf said. There were no casualties from the car bomb, he added. [Robert Reid, AP]

This is a huge blow and the jury is still out on who ordered the killing. Depending on whether it was Al Qaida or a Shia militia who killed Sattar, will go a long ways to determining if reconciliation between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shias will ever be possible. No one has taken responsibility yet for the killing but the only people that would want Sattar dead more than Al Qaida is Iran. I would not put it past the Iranians sanctioning one of their Mahdi Army surrogates to kill Sheik Sattar. If proven a Shia militia did this, this could turn into the Sunni equivalent of what the Samarra Mosque Bombing was to the Shiites last year. In such a scenario the only winners will be the Iranians.

You can read more over at the The Long War Journal, Captain’s Journal, and On Point.

Via K.U. Studies comes news that President Bush may be considering a summit meeting with Kim Jong-il:

U.S. President George W. Bush would likely meet with North Korean Kim Jong-il if the Stalinist state shows its willingness to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, even if its nuclear program is not fully dismantled, a local report said Monday, quoting an unidentified U.S. diplomat.

The Washington source, quoted by the Kyunghyang Shinmun, said the Bush-Kim summit would be “doable” before the end of the Bush administration if Pyongyang is serious about the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

The source said U.S.-North Korea summit talks could take place in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. [Jung Sung-ki, Korea Times]

First of all this report is coming from the Korea Times, which is not the most reliable of newspapers.  Secondly, it is coming from the State Department which are the same people that brought us Madeline Albright toasting Kim Jong-il and what did that get us?  Thirdly, it would be political suicide for any US president to visit Pyongyang without North Korea completely and verifiably dismantling their nuclear weapons program. 

Finally, I believe no US president should visit Pyongyang if North Korea does pull back troops from the DMZ along with improving human rights conditions.  If such conditions are not met why reward Kim Jong-il with a visit to Pyongyang?  Instead demand he travel to Seoul like he promised Kim Dae-jung in 2000 that he would.  A visit by the US president without significant improvements in North Korean behavior will only serve to fulfill North Korean propaganda.  Sadly in order to keep "the myth of progress" alive, the US State Department appears willing to do this. 

If you haven’t already seen or read General Petraeus’ testimony to Congress already I have his complete testimony and accompanying Powerpoint slides posted at Forward Deployed.  Additionally I have posted the full page ad taken out in the New York Times by Moveon.org smearing General Petraeus. 

I highly recommend that everyone read my posting on this that totally destroys the leftist fantasies dreamed up in the Moveon.org ad.

Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq
General David H. Petraeus
Commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq
10-11 September 2007

(more…)

The Korea Times is reporting that President Roh may actually be thinking about extending the Zaytun deployment to Iraq:

A summit between President Roh Moo-hyun and U.S. President George W. Bush in Sydney last Friday has produced expectations that South Korean troops will stay at least for one more year in Iraq.

In his talks with Bush on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Roh said he will look for ways to help the United States as a coalition partner in Iraq, Roh’s aides said.

Roh made the remarks in response to Bush’s praise for the Korean troops’ humanitarian and reconstruction operations in the Middle Eastern country.

“I will seek ways to contribute (to the stability in Iraq) through consultations with the National Assembly as the troops’ mission expires at the end of the year under a parliamentary motion,” Roh said.  […]

The state-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analysis has already submitted a report calling for extending the troops stay in Iraq, while reducing the their size to 400, citing the alliance with the United States and economic benefits in the future. [Jung Sung-Ki, Korea Times]

Just for the record I have been against the Zaytun deployment since before the unit was ever deployed because I figured the unit would not be allowed to do much of anything meaningful which is evident by the fact they can’t even go to a local market place to buy supplies in the highly friendly and secure Kurdish region of Iraq.  They did do a good job with the toilets though.  Plus if there was a mass casualty attack or as we saw with the Taliban, a pro-longed hostage crisis, the anti-US groups, politicians, and media would waste no time capitalizing on it.  Additionally, the Korean government would expect unrealistic political benefits from the dispatch. 

I’m not the only thinking this way either; Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki has already hinted that he would prefer 2,300 Korean businessmen instead of 2,300 Zaytun soldiers.  The Kurds are literally laughing at the Zaytun "occupation force".  Plus soldiers that have served in the Zaytun unit have voiced their frustrations with the deployment, which has been echoed by the Korean media as well. 

The Korean "occupation force" has out lived it’s usefulness and the American government should allow the Zaytun unit redeploy.  The hostage crisis should have been a wake up call to the US government that the Korean participation in Iraq is not worth the potential negative side effects we saw of such a participation in Afghanistan.  Let them go home. 

More over at the Marmot’s Hole.

UPDATE: Another good read over at Korean Unification Studies on the North Korean attempt to drive a wedge between the US and Japan.

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I’m shocked I tell you, the North Koreans lied:

North Korea remains on a list of states that sponsor terrorism, a senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday, dismissing North Korean claims that Washington decided to remove the designation.

“No, they haven’t been taken off the terrorism list,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told Japanese reporters as he arrived in Australia‘s business capital for a meeting of Pacific Rim nations. A State Department press officer separately confirmed the remarks.

Hill’s comments were the first U.S. denial since North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried Monday by the country’s official news agency, said that Washington decided to scotch the terror designation and with it related economic sanctions. [Charles Hutzler, AP]

What still worries me though is that there may be a grain of truth to this such as Christopher Hill promising to fast track them off the terrorism list by allowing them for example to not have to come clean on the Japanese abduction issue.

More over at Marmot, DPRK Studies, OFK, and Nomad.

If you haven’t already make sure you watch this photo essay from Michael Gordon.  What is interesting about the essay is that Gordon embedded with the unit of the infamous Beauchamp.  No pictures of melted women, dogs being run over, or soldiers running around with skulls.  Just soldiers doing a dangerous and difficult mission and getting slow, but steady results.

The big news today was that North Korea agreed to disclose and disable all their nuclear facilities and for some reason everyone is excited about this.  Why am I not excited and jumping with joy that peace is about to break out on the Korean peninsula?  Well because we have been here before just this past February when North Korea promised the same thing that they are promising now.  They then made new demands which the US met and the North Koreans have yet to meet their side of the agreement anyway. 

Now we are being told that the North Koreans are going to disclose all their nuclear facilities again and what did the US give the North Koreans this time for their promise to do something they had already promised to do?  Well this:

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that the United States has decided to remove the communist country from its list of terror-sponsoring nations and make political and economic measures for "compensation," such as lifting a trade ban.

The decision was made at a working-level meeting between the two nations in Geneva over the weekend, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the North’s Korean Central News Agency.
"As a consequence, a foundation for making progress in the next round of six-party talks (on the North’s nuclear ambitions) was paved, the spokesman said. [Yonhap]

The North Koreans have never atoned for their various terrorist attacks like Libya did and yet the Bush administration is going to reward them with removing them from the state sponsored terrorism list.  They are agreeing to do this as an incentive to do something the North Koreans have been promising to do for the last thirteen years stretching all the way back to 1994 when the first Agreed Framework was signed during the Clinton Administration. 

The US governments desperation to perpetuate the "Myth of Progress" is truly astounding.  I really hope the "Six Party Charade" and the sell out of a sound North Korea policy is worth the setting of conditions to bomb Iran.

Make sure to read OFK’s take on this.

I have uncovered another leftist plant in the military that was featured in the New York Times recently.  The list continues to grow.  You can read about it over at Forward Deployed.