In a speech in Cleveland on March 20, US President George Bush cited the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, 60 kilometres west of Mosul, as providing a “reason for hope” that the US would win its now three-year-long war in Iraq. Last September, Tal Afar was the scene of fierce fighting between US troops and Iraqi resistance fighters who had taken control of the city a year earlier after a similar offensive. The Pentagon claimed that the second assault on the city had been a “victory” for the US forces. Since then, Bush claimed in a March 20 speech, the US troops have left the city in the “secure” hands of US-trained Iraqi security forces, and this showed that his administration’s “clear, hold and build” strategy in Iraq is working. The March 19 Baghdad Azzaman daily, however, reported that “residents say the city, home to more than 250,000 people, has fallen once again to insurgents”.

From Green Left Weekly, March 29, 2006.
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