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Al Jazeera (English)
    Baghdad Burning Blog (by Riverbend, an Iraqi civilian girl)
            Dahr Jamail's Blog from Baghdad
                Imad Khadduri's blog "Free Iraq" (scroll down for English version)

Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Troop Shortage Requires Navy to Station Sailors Ashore in Iraq
(Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes, June 23, 2005)
U.S. Navy leaders are ready to pluck more sailors off ships and deploy them to Iraq to bolster U.S. efforts in training Iraqi forces, the chief of the U.S. Navy Reserve said Wednesday. . . . "Are we going to take some sailors from the sea and put them ashore to answer this call?" Vice Adm. John Cotton said during an interview in Naples on Wednesday. "The answer to that is a resounding yes." . . . "If that means moving more Air Force and Navy personnel to Army billets to free them up for this mission, we need to do this," Skelton said. "We need to accomplish this mission as quickly as possible because time is not on our side." . . . Cotton did not elaborate on when more sailors may be sent to Iraq, but he pointed out that the Navy Reserve already has added cargo handlers to ground missions in Kuwait." . . . The naval reserve is comprised of about 77,000 sailors, officers and enlisted, of which about 3,300 currently are mobilized, Cotton said. . . . A huge challenge is mitigating the stress put on personnel who repeatedly fill key Navy jobs and have been activated and deployed time and again, Cotton said, citing Seabees, intelligence officials, coastal warfare specialists and civil affairs as examples. . . . "What we’re doing now is focusing recruiting efforts on the communities that are stressed — so a hospital corpsman, a Seabee, an intel professional -- these are the kind of people we want to recruit, either from the active component or directly off the street to relieve the stress."

[FULL DISCLOSURE by Lorenzo: Ordering the Navy Reserve into ground combat in Iraq hits close to home. Although I'm now too old to be called back to active duty (I hope :-), I formerly served as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve.]

posted by Lorenzo 10:54 AM