When reading information about Iraq a prudent man would remember that since Iraq is quite dangerous our intrepid journalists tend to get their information from the MNF-I PR flack of the day or from Bu$h malAdministration sources currently occupying our White House.

Both of these sources have been proven in the past to be inaccurate, as a charitable man might say.

Further on the Anbar question” Gorilla’s Guides has a good piece on the conditions in Anbar today.

RAMADI, Iraq, Nov 29 (IPS) - A semblance of calm belies an undercurrent of violence, detentions and fear across Iraq’s volatile al-Anbar province.

The province — which occupies one-third of Iraq’s geographic area — has been a bane to authorities since the beginning of the occupation.

"The Americans talked about our province as the deadliest enemy, and suddenly they are marketing us as their best friends," Sa’doon Khalifa, an independent politician in the capital city of al-Anbar Province, Ramadi — 110 km west of Baghdad — told IPS. "They were lying to their people and to the world in both cases as we were never terrorists nor their friends now," he stressed.

I tend to believe the writers at Guides, not because they’re on the same side of the ideological coin as I am, but because when I first started reading their work, I made a point of cross-checking what they wrote against other sources and verifying their statements.

Khalifa explained that resistance fighters in al-Anbar did fight occupation forces, but now they are standing down from launching new attacks against U.S. forces.

This is due in large part to U.S. military payments to collaborating tribal sheikhs — already totalling over 17 million dollars. The money funds tribal fighters who are paid 300 dollars per month to patrol their areas, particularly against foreign fighters.

The military refers to these men as "Concerned Local Citizens," "Awakening Force," or simply "volunteers," even though it is well known that most of them used to carry out attacks against the occupation forces.

"Those Americans thought they would decrease the resistance attacks by separating the people of Iraq into sects and tribes," a 32-year-old man from Ramadi — speaking on terms of anonymity — told IPS, "They know they are going deeper into the moving sand, but the collaborators are fooling the Americans right now, and will in the end use this strategy against them."

"It is true that hundreds of fighters were killed or detained by the so-called Awakening Forces, but there are thousands who will never quit fighting until this occupation is ended," Ali Khamees, a former major of the Iraqi army told IPS in Ramadi.

Khamees believes that the de-escalation is a "new technique by the resistance to reduce the suffering of people in al-Anbar and move somewhere else to fight."

Attacks against U.S. forces have increased in other Iraqi provinces — like Diyala, Saladin and Mosul.

The U.S. army reported dozens of soldiers killed throughout November while local reports insisted that the U.S. casualties are much higher than declared.

A fact that seems to escape our never-right brethren and sistren on the Dark Side is that they would fight just as damned hard if the US was occupied by some other country. (Well, I hope they would; I know I would. Possibly the right wing in this country is actually just a pack of cowardly collaborators. I don’t know. I hope we never have to depend on them.)

Lowballing Iraqi casualties would be very easy for MNF-I which is where most of our news comes from, ultimately. It would be more difficult for them to lie about deaths because local newspapers carry obituaries and I’m confident someone somewhere is tabulating those totals. This method would be necessary since Mr Bu$h has denied Americans the privilege of honoring and welcoming their valiant dead home at Andrews Air Base.

Our dead soldiers are sneaked in under cover of night, like thieves attempting to avoid police.

Yet one more indignity these criminals have heaped upon my Army.

That part of the resistance in Iraq that has been erroneously designated as “Al Qaeda” used harsh methods when attacking the occupying forces. The Mahdi Army was also cruel in its treatment of Sunnis during its ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods and districts of Iraq. Torture and beheadings were common. But in Anbar,

Iraqis across the province are complaining about harsh tactics being meted out by the new "Awakening Forces" supported by the U.S.

"We will behead anyone who carries a gun in this province," Wussam Hardan, a senior leader of the Awakening Forces in Ramadi told sources very close to IPS in the city. "No court, no lawyers, no nothing. We have our own ways to get those criminals to confess," Hardan said.

Ooops.

The people of the province fear the recent developments, despite the relative improvement in the security situation.

"It is quieter because the Americans stopped many of their activities in al- Anbar," Shakir Mahmood, a human rights activist in Ramadi told IPS — on condition that his false name be used. "There were so many arrests by U.S. forces, police and the Awakening during the past month and we cannot even talk about it because we feel threatened by all three of them," he said.

"So many of the detainees are well known to be innocent people taken into custody according to false information by others who have a personal feud with them or their families," Mahmood added, "It is the same old story being repeated and God knows what is going to happen next."

The bottom line is that as long as US deaths are down, the Bu$hies are happy. Lower casualties equates to a quieter domestic political climate, and that is their only yardstick.