Troops head to Iraq as gloom deepens

Source: The New Zealand Herald - 6/16/07
The final contingent of United States troops in the "surge" against Iraq's resistance deployed yesterday amid deepening gloom in Washington at the military's failure to reduce violence and defeat the insurgency.
The latest US troops took up their positions as the Pentagon released the first hard assessment of President George W. Bush's gamble in stepping up the war in Iraq.
The statistical analysis of the three months from mid-February to mid-May reveals failure on most fronts in Iraq and no overall decrease in violence the President had hoped for.
Over the past three months, fresh US troops have been pouring into sections of Baghdad and Anbar province, setting up fortified positions in the areas of fiercest resistance.
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Mercenaries in Iraq 'engaged in a parallel surge'

Iraq Contractors Face Growing Parallel War As Security Work

Increases, So Do Casualties

Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Foreign Service

Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives. While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 "hostile actions" in the first four months...

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