Defense Department, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? Report to Congress, August 2006
Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, ???Iraqi Security Forces: Review of Plans to Implement Logistics Capabilities,??? 10/28/06
Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, ???Iraqi Security Forces: Weapons Provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Using the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund,??? 10/28/06
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing, ???An Oversight Hearing on the Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq: When Will Iraqi Forces Be Able to ???Stand Up,??? So American Troops Can Begin to ???Stand Down??????? Gerald Burke, 10/12/06
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq???s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare to Prewar Assessments,??? 9/8/06
U.S. Intelligence Community, ???Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate ???Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States??? dated April 2006,??? 9/27/06
Think Tank Reports[/b]
al-Khalidi, Ashraf and Tanner, Victor, ???Sectarian Violence: Radical Groups Drive Internal Displacement in Iraq,??? Brookings Institution, October 2006
Beehner, Lionel, ???The Challenge in Iraq???s Other Cities: Basra,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/28/06 - ???The Cost of the Iraq War,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 11/8/06 - ???Iraq???s Meddlesome Neighbors,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 8/31/06 - ???Securing Baghdad,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/18/06
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq???s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War,??? 9/27/06 - ???Losing the War in Iraq???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/19/06 - ???The Evolving National Strategy for Iraq; Testimony to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and Committee on Government Reform,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/11/06
Kenneth Pollack, ???A Switch In Time; A New Strategy For America In Iraq,??? Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institute, February 2006
O???Hanlon, Michael, ???Voluntary Ethnic Relocation in Iraq???? Brookings Institute, 8/27/06
Smith, Col. Daniel, Retired, ???Repairing a Broken Iraq???? Foreign Policy In Focus, 7/3/06
White, Jeffrey, ???An Adaptive Insurgency; Confronting Adversary Networks in Iraq,??? Washington Institute For Near East Policy, September 2006
Articles[/b]
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, ???Iraqi parties work out security details,??? Associated Press, 10/10/06
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim and Keath, Lee, ???Feuding Iraq Gov???t Groups Launch Charges,??? Guardian UK, 10/10/06
Agence France Presse, ???Arrogant US Officials Made Mistakes in Iraq, Envoy Says,??? Arab News Saudi Arabia, 10/6/06
Ahrari, Ehsan, ???Iraq???s defiant but doomed democracy,??? Asia Times, 10/26/06
Al-Ali, Zaid, ???Saving Iraq: a critique of Peter W Galbraith,??? OpenDemocracy.net, 10/26/06
Al-Ansary, Khalid, and Adeeb, Ali, ???Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents,??? New York Times, 9/18/06
Al-Fadhily, Ali and Jamail, Dahr, ???An Unknown City Erupts,??? Inter Press Service, 10/9/06 - ???Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad,??? Inter Press Service, 10/19/06 - ???New Militias Push Govt Back Further,??? Inter Press Service, 10/3/06
Al-Khairalla, Mussab, ???Speaker warns Iraq has months to avert collapse,??? Reuters, 9/6/06
Al-Khairalla, Mussab and Macdonald, Alastair, ???Baghdad bombings hit new high,??? Reuters, 10/4/06
Al-Khalidi, Suleiman, ???U.S. tactics swelling Al Qaeda in Iraq-Sunni moderate,??? Reuters, 10/29/06
Alani, Dr. Mustafa, ???Iran???s presence in Iraq,??? Khaleej Times United Arab Emirates, 10/24/06
Arieff, Irwin, ???Al Qaeda gains recruits from Iraq war ??? UN study,??? Reuters, 9/27/06
Army Times, ???Time for Rumsfeld to go,??? 11/4/06
Associated Press, ???As U.S. focuses on Baghdad, al-Qaeda gains strength in Sunni heartland,??? USA Today, 8/16/06 - ???Battle for Baghdad ???a critical point??? in the war,??? MSNBC.com, 10/5/06 - ???Iraq Troops Hinder U.S. Efforts,??? Military.com, 9/25/06 - ???Sunni accuse Shiites of dirty tricks in passing controversial federalism law,??? 10/12/06 - ???U.S. general: More violence during Ramadan,??? MSNBC.com, 9/20/06
Axe, David, ???Equipment Shortages Undermine Iraqi Forces,??? National Defense, November 2006
Badkhen, Anna, ???Experts say an Iraq pullout not enough to stop jihadists,??? San Francisco, 9/28/06 - ???Experts say Iraq will find timetable difficult to meet,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06 - ???Experts see no clear options for exiting Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/9/06 - ???Foreign jihadists seen as key to spike in Afghan attacks,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/25/06 - ???General concedes failure in Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/06 - ???Shiite militias have to go experts say ??? but how???? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/19/06
Baker, Peter, ???Bechtel pulling out after 3 rough years of rebuilding work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/1/06 - ???Book stirs furor over Bush team,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/30/06 - ???Bush Is Reassuring on Iraq But Says He???s ???Not Satisfied,??? Washington Post, 10/26/06 - ???President clarifies ???stay the course,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/24/06
Branigin, William, ???Rumsfeld to Step Down as Defense Secretary,??? Washington Post, 11/8/06
Brunswick, Mark and Obeld, Zalneb, ???U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 9/8/06
Castaneda, Antonio, ???U.S. forces in Iraq stretched thin,??? Globe And Mail Canada 10/9/06
Cave, Damien, ???For Iraqis, a New Rule of Life: Don???t Trust Anyone in Uniform,??? New York Times, 8/3/06 - ???Troops Cut Death, but Not Fear, in a Bloody Baghdad Neighborhood,??? New York Times, 9/4/06 - ???Weary Iraqis Face New Foe: Rising Prices,??? New York Times, 8/26/06
CBS News, ???The Mother Of All Heists,??? CBSNews.com, 10/22/06
Cloud, David, ???U.S. setting deadlines, goals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06
Cockburn, Patrick, ???The Exodus: 1.6 m Iraqis have fled their country since the war,??? Independent UK, 10/23/06 - ???Iraq: ???The Greatest Strategic Disaster in American History,?????? AlterNet.org, 10/31/06
Colvin, Marie, ???US in Secret Truce Talks With Insurgency Chiefs,??? Sunday Times UK, 10/22/06
Daragahi, Borzou, ???Government Fissures Widening,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/16/06 - ???Gunmen leave sc
ores dead in grim end to Ramadan,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/23/06 - ???Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/9/06
Dinmore, Guy, ???Iraq???s parties reach deal on oil-sharing,??? Financial Times UK, 8/29/06
Dunham, Will, ???U.S. force in Iraq at 140,000,??? Washington Post, 8/31/06
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06 - ???Bush Reveals Secret War Report,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/06 - ???Iraq???s prime minister visiting U.S. amid worry over nonstop violence,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/06 - ???Time running out for Iraqis, study group leaders warn,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/06
Filkins, Dexter, ???Baghdad???s Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S.??? New York Times, 8/6/06
Fleishman, Jeffrey, ???A Threat That Tops Insurgency,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/27/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???Why Bush Thinks We???re Winning,??? WashingtonPost.com, 10/26/06
Galloway, Joe, ???Military Leaders Want New Iraq Strategy,??? Military.com, 9/7/06
Georgy, Michael, ???Number of Iraqi refugees from violence swells,??? Reuters, 7/31/06
Ghosh, Aparisim, ???Exclusive: Inside the Mind of Saddam???s Chief Insurgent,??? Time, 7/24/06
Glanz, James, ???An Audit Sharply Criticizes Iraq???s Bookkeeping,??? New York Times, 8/12/06 -???Audit Finds U.S. Hid Actual Cost of Iraq Projects,??? New York Times, 7/30/06 - ???Congress Is Told of Failures of Rebuilding Work in Iraq,??? New York Times, 9/29/06 - ???Some contracts in Iraq spend over 50% on overhead,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06 - ???U.S. Agency Cites Flaws in Another Iraqi Construction Project,??? New York Times, 10/12/06 - ???U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis,??? New York Times, 10/30/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Iraqi Realities Undermine the Pentagon???s Predictions,??? New York Times, 10/25/06 - ???Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order,??? New York Times, 8/29/06 - ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06 - ???Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency,??? New York Times, 10/5/06 - ???To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission,??? New York Times, 10/23/06 - ???Trying to build an army in a combat zone,??? New York Times, 8/18/06 - ???Wary Iraqis Are Recruited as Policemen,??? New York Times, 7/24/06
Graff, Peter, ???No troop cut before next summer, general says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/06
Grier, Peter, ???Iraq war draws foreign jihadists, but not in droves,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/3/06 - ???Why US effort to rebuild Iraq came up short,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/06
Grunow, Carl, ???Advising Iraqis: Building the Iraqi Army,??? Military Review, July-August 2006
Guidere, Mathieu, and Harling, Peter, ???Iraq???s resistance evolves,??? Le Monde diplomatique France, May 2006
Gulf Times Qatar, ???Anti-corruption chief battles on,??? 7/7/06
Hani, Haidar, ???Iraqis loot vacated British base,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/26/06
Hanley, Charles, ???U.S. funds for rebuilding Iraq run out,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/15/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/7/06
Hider, James, ???3,000 police are sacked as rulers remain cut off and impotent,??? Times UK, 10/18/06
Ignatius, David, ???Beyond the Coup Rumors, Options for Iraq,??? Washington Post, 10/13/06 - ???Defense Secretary We Had,??? Washington Post, 11/9/06
Inskeep, Steve, ???Fouad Ajami on What Went Wrong in Iraq,??? NPR, 8/31/06
IRIN News.org, ???Iraq: Iraqi prisons see a few improvements,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 10/7/06 - ???Iraq: Military continues to violate the rights of civilians,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 10/9/06 - ???Iraq: Slow reconstruction blamed on corruption,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 9/6/06 - ???Iraq: Unemployment and violence increase poverty,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination f Humanitarian Affairs, 10/18/06
Jamail, Dahr and al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Fallujah Under Threat Yet Again,??? Inter Press Service, 9/11/06 - ???Iraqi Militias take Refuge in Facilities Protection Service,??? AntiWar.com, 11/8/06 - ???US Military Adopts Desperate Tactics in al-Anbar,??? AntiWar.com, 11/1/06 - ???US military ???loses control??? of key Iraqi province,??? Asia Times, 9/7/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 10/25/06 - ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Insurgency Gains Alarming Support Among Iraq???s Sunni Muslims,??? ABCNews.com, 9/20/06
Khalil, Lydia, ???Iraqi Sufis Join the Fight Against Coalition Forces,??? Jamestown.com, 9/29/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Baghdad plans big expansion of city morgue,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/06 - ???British Find No Evidence Of Arms Traffic From Iran,??? Washington Post, 10/4/06 - ???Bush, Iraqi Premier Act to Close Rift After Week of Tension,??? Washington Post, 10/29/06 - ???In Balad, Age-Old Ties Were ???Destroyed in a Second,?????? Washington Post, 10/23/06 - ???Market attack in Shiite city kills 32, wounded 70,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06 - ??????Shiite Giant??? Extends Its Reach,??? Washington Post, 8/24/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen and Aldin, Muhanned Saif, ???Open sectarian war engulfs river towns,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/17/06 - ???Troops take over town Sunnis were driven from,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/18/06
Koopman, John, ???Analysts call new Iraq military work in progress,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???As violence escalates, so does talk of a divided Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 9/11/06 - ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Lenz, Ryan, ???Hearing: GIs drank and planned,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/8/06
Leys, Jeff, ???Economic Warfare: Iraq and the I.M.F.,??? Common Dreams News Center, 9/22/06
Lobe, Jim, ???A crash course on Iraq,??? Asia Times, 10/24/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???Iraq war has Bush Doctrine in tatters,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/27/06
Luo, Michael, ???Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn???t Intervene in Balad,??? New York Times, 10/17/06 - ???U.S. to Review Baghdad Plan, General Says,??? New York Times, 10/19/06
Macdonald, Alastair, ???Iraq civilian deaths hit record in Sept ??? ministry,??? Reuters, 10/1/06 - ???Iraqi army faces challenge of cohesion, competence,??? Reuters, 9/7/06
Mannion, Jim, ???US force in Iraq swells to 150,000: Pentagon,??? Agence France-Presse, 10/30/06
Mazzetti, Mark, ???Senate committee disputes claims of Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/9/06 - ???War In Iraq Fuels Islamic Radicalism, Report Says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/24/06
McDonnell, Patrick, ???Why the Numbers Don???t Add Up in Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/10/06
McDonnell, Patrick and Rong, Louise, ???A New Offensive, an Old Conundrum,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/30/06
McManus, Doyle, and Ba
rnes, Julian, ???Pliable ???benchmarks??? set for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/27/06
Miller, T. Christian, ???Army Corps Faked Budget Entries,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/23/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Deaths Drop in Iraqi Capital,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/28/06 - ???Iraq Impeding Efforts to Go After Shiite Militias, U.S. Military Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/28/06 - ???Iraq violence claims 41 lives,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06 - ???Iraqi Militias Seen as Spinning Out of Control,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/12/06 - ???Police Abuses in Iraq Detailed??? Los Angeles Times, 7/9/06 - ???U.S. military casualties surging,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/06 - ???U.S. Offers Plan to Curb Rogue Iraqi Police Forces,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/15/06
Moore, Solomon, and Barnes, Julian, ???Promised Iraqi troops slow to reach Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/06
Moore, Solomon, and Roug, Louise, ???Deaths Across Iraq Show It Is a Nation of Many Wars, With U.S. in the Middle,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/7/06
Mosher, Andy, ???Swath of North Turned Over to Iraqi Army,??? Washington Post, 8/9/06
Mosher, Andy and Mehdawi, Nasser, ???Shiite Party Leader Outlines 4 Steps for Iraq to Curb Violence,??? Washington Post, 7/25/06
Moubayed, Sami, ???A joker in the Shi???ite pack,??? Asia Times, 9/8/06
Murphy, Dan, ???Firefights mark further splintering in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/31/06 - ???How Al Qaeda views a long Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/6/06
Murphy, Dan and al-Taiee, Awadh, ???In Iraq, Shiite vs. Shiite power play,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/23/06
Murphy, Kim, ???No easy answer to ???Kurdish question,?????? Chicago Tribune, 10/27/06 - ???Tribes Heed Call to Join Battle for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/5/06
New York Times, ???Echo of Hussein: Journalists held,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/06
Norris, David, ???Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco,??? Der Spiegel Online Germany, 8/14/06
Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Iraq war was terrorism ???recruiting sergeant,?????? Guardian UK 9/28/06 - ???Take UK troops out of Iraq, senior military told ministers,??? Guardian UK 9/29/06
O???Neil, John and Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Iraqi police now bearing brunt of insurgent attacks,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/7/06
Oppel, Richard, A., ???U.N. Finds Baghdad Toll Far Higher Than Cited,??? New York Times, 9/21/06 - ???U.S. warns of aid cuts for police,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/30/06
Oppel, Richard A., and Al-Saiedi, Abdul Razzaq, ???Deal on a Constitution for Iraq Is Teetering,??? New York Times, 9/11/06
Paley, Amit, ???Diwaniay battle increases tensions,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/9/06 - ???Heralded Iraq Police Academy a ???Disaster,?????? Washington Post, 9/28/06 - ???In Baghdad, a Force Under the Militias??? Sway,??? Washington Post, 10/31/06 - ???Iraqi Hospitals Are War???s New ???Killing Fields,?????? Washington Post, 8/30/06 - ???Most Iraqis want U.S. to leave now,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/06
Paley, Amit and Ibraim, K.I., ???Federalism Plan Dead, Says Iraqi Speaker,??? Washington Post, 9/13/06 - ???Sadr Political Bloc Calls for Overhaul of Iraqi Cabinet,??? 10/2/06, Washington Post
Paley, Amit, and Sarhan, Saad, ???Troops arrest top aides to militant cleric,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/22/06
Palmer, James, ???Despite dangers, holdover court system administering justice,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/11/06
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06 - ???US efforts in Iraq embattled, but often welcomed, ???Christian Science Monitor, 11/3/06
Pincus, Walter, ???CIA knew Hussein had no ties to bin Laden,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06 - ???U.S. Officers Detail Problems With Iraqi Soldiers,??? Washington Post, 11/1/06
Polling Report.com, ???Iraq,??? November 2006
Poole, Oliver, ???Shia killers rake in ??500,000 a day from crime, says US,??? Telegraph UK 9/22/06
Price, Jay, ???Iraq???s al-Maliki sharply delineates differences with U.S. leadership,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 10/26/06
Price, Jay and Al Dulaimy, Mohammed, ???Fallujah once again beset by violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/6/06
Priest, Dana and Jordan, Mary, ???Iraq at Risk Of Civil War, Top Generals Tell Senators,??? Washington Post, 8/4/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Militias Splintering Into Radicalized Cells,??? Washington Post, 10/19/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, and Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Sadr, a Question Mark Etched in Black,??? Washington Post, 9/11/06
Rasheed, Ahmed and Graff, Peter, ???Quarter million Iraqis flee sectarian violence,??? Reuters, 9/28/06
Regan, Tom, ???Pentagon studies examine ???mistakes??? in Iraq, Afghanistan,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/16/06
Reuters, ???Iraq charges 100 over prison torture,??? 11/7/06 - ???Iraq says needs $100 bln to rebuild infrastructure,??? 10/31/06 - ???Iraqi parliament approves federal law,??? 10/11/06 - ???U.S. erred in Iraq rebuilding program: auditor,??? ABC News.com, 8/31/06 - ???U.S. says Iraqi police not behind death squads,??? 9/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. Frustrated by Pace of Change in Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/16/06 - ???U.S. Officials Undermine Baghdad, Leader Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/17/06
Richter, Paul and Wallsten, Peter, ???Bush Dismisses the Idea of Partitioning Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/16/06
Ricks, Thomas E., ???Situation Called Dire in West Iraq,??? Washington Post, 9/11/06
Rogers, Paul, ???After failure in Iraq,??? OpenDemocracy.net, 10/26/06
Rosenberg, Eric, ???Changing the standards of ???civil war,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06
Salih, Mohammed, ???Bloody fight over Kirkuk???s future,??? Asia Times, 10/7/06 - ???Kurdistan Oil Troubles,??? AntiWar.com, 10/25/06
San Francisco Chronicle, ???Britain reportedly wants out in a year,??? 10/25/06 - ???British troop pullout urged,??? 10/13/06 - ???Deadly month in Iraq,??? 8/31/06 - ???More than 40 killed in fierce fight,??? 8/29/06
Sanger, David E., ???Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq,??? New York Times, 9/29/06 - ???Cheney backs off his claim of a dying Iraq insurgency,??? International Herald Tribune, 9/12/06 - ???G.O.P.???s Baker Hints Iraq Plan Needs Change,??? New York Times, 10/9/06
Scarborough, Rowan, ???Iraqi forces concern U.S. commander,??? Washington Times, 10/16/06 - ???U.S. says Iraq poised to take control of its ground forces,??? Washington Times, 8/29/06
Semple, Kirk, ???Heavy battle between Shiite militias reveals deep split in ruling coalition,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/21/06
Semple, Kirk and Luo, Michael, ???Interior chief vows leadership shakeup,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/14/06
Senor, Dan, ???The Realities Of Trying to Rebuild Iraq,??? Washington Post, 10/10/06
Shanker, Thom and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Bush Said to Be Frustrated by Level of Public Support in Iraq,??? New York Times, 8/16/06
Smith, Doug, ???In Iraq, U.S. Touts Provisional Reconstruction Teams as a Model,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/13/06
Smith, Doug, and Rasheed, Saif, ???Pact diffuses crisis over autonomy,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/25/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Newspapers For Troops Call For Rumsfeld???s Ouster,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/06
Sterngold, James, ???U.S. may have weeks, not
months, to avert civil war, adviser warns,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/18/06
Sullivan, Anthony, ???A Bright, Shining Truth on Iraq,??? National Interest, 10/24/06
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Cleric Said to Lose Reins of Parts of Iraqi Militia,??? New York Times, 9/28/06 - ???Iraq Removes Leaders of Special Police,??? New York Times, 10/18/06 - ???Sectarian Havoc Freezes the Lives of Young Iraqis,??? New York Times, 10/8/06 - ???Shiite leader voices distrust of Sunnis within legislature,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/2/06
Tavernise, Sabrina and McNeil, Donald, ???New estimate puts death toll for Iraqi civilians at 600,000,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/11/06
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Guard, Reserves strain to meet wars??? demands,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/06 - ???Number of U.S. wounded highest since ???04,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/8/06 - ???Strife Moving Out From Baghdad to Villages,??? Washington Post, 8/16/06 - ???Tour extended for 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/26/06
USA Today, ???Iraq attacks rise 22% during Ramadan, U.S. military says,??? 10/19/06
Wilgoren, Debbi and Schneider, Howard, ???U.S. Officials: Iraqi Security Could be Ready in 12-18 Months,??? Washington Post, 10/24/06
Witte, Griff, ???Contractors Rarely Held Responsible for Misdeeds in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/4/06 - ???U.S. firm botching jobs, Congress told,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/06
Wong, Edward, ???Doubts Rise on Iraqi Premier???s Strength,??? New York Times, 9/20/06 - ???For an Iraq Cut in 3, Cast a Wary Glance at Kurdistan,??? New York Times, 8/27/06 - ???Top Iraqi???s White House Visit Shows Gaps With U.S.,??? New York Times, 7/25/06
Wong, Edward and Filkins, Dexter, ???In an About-Face, Sunnis Want U.S. to Remain in Iraq??? New York Times, 7/17/06
Wong, Edward and Zielbauer, Paul von, ???Iraq police riddled by Shiite militia,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/17/06
Woodward, Bob, ???Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism,??? Washington Post, 10/1/06
Yacoub, Sameer, ???Defiant Iraqi PM disavows timetable,??? Associated Press, 10/25/06 - ???Iraqi police unit linked to militias,??? Associated Press, 10/4/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/3/06
To Change Or Not To Change? The Future Of U.S. Policy In Iraq ??? November 2006 Update[/b]
Index[/b]
I. Introduction II. Change Or Not? III. Troop Levels IV. Training Iraqi Forces V. Regional Conference On Iraq VI. Partition of Iraq VII. The Sixth Option? VIII. Reconstruction IX. Civil War X. al-Maliki???s Government XI. Conclusion
I. Introduction
???I suggested that we were losing the war. What was astonishing to me was the number of Iraqi professional people who were leaving the country. People were voting with their feet, and I said that it looked like we needed a Plan B. I said, ???What???s the alternative? Because what we???re doing now is just losing.?????? Kenneth Adelman, member Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, Nov. 2006
One year ago in November 2005 the White House issued its ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.??? The document outlined 8 goals for victory in Iraq including defeating terrorists, moving towards a self-sufficient Iraqi army, providing the rule of law, increased support for the U.S. project, and strengthening Iraq???s economy. The plan was given much fanfare in the media, but that was the goal because it was aimed at the U.S. public as the military commanders in Iraq were not consulted about it. Since its release, none of the White House???s goals have been achieved. In fact, in many cases things have gotten worse in Iraq. The Iraqi insurgency is as strong as ever with 75% of Sunnis supporting it, Iraq???s security forces are still completely dependent upon the U.S. for supplies, ammunition and support, with the U.S. inspector general for Iraq found that there are no immediate plans to fix this problem, the Iraqi government has no real authority outside of the Green Zone, and vigilantism and violence at the hands of death squads, militias and insurgent groups rule the streets of Baghdad rather than the police or any legal system, and the Coalition of the Willing is shrinking with no new support coming. Finally sectarianism and the threat of civil war are now the major causes of violence rather than the insurgents. In November 2006, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that things could get worse in Iraq. He told the committee, ???The perception of unchecked violence is creating an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus and shaking confidence in government and security forces.???
Almost all sectors of the U.S. establishment besides the White House and the military now see the U.S. project in Iraq as a failure. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and one of Bush???s informal foreign policy advisors said, ???You don???t have to be a rocket scientist to know that what we???re seeing now would be an odd appearance for a victory.??? Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of America???s most famous foreign policy think tanks and a former Bush administration official noted the profound effect Iraq has had on the U.S.???s position in the Middle East. Before the Iraq invasion the U.S. had unprecedented power and influence in the Middle East with a string of pro-American governments, and unfettered access to oil, with no real challengers. Since then the U.S. has faced nothing but problems in the region. He wrote, ???It???s one of history???s ironies that the first war in Iraq, a war of necessity, marked the beginning of the American era in the Middle East and the second Iraq war, a war of choice, has precipitated its end.???
After the November 2006 mid-term elections for Congress, the Bush administration is now at a crossroads in its policy towards Iraq. Will it change its strategy or ???stay the course??? as Bush is fond of saying. Several reviews of Iraq policy are underway inside and outside the White House and are due to be made public around New Year???s. All signs point to Pres. Bush making cosmetic changes in tactics, while maintaining his overall vision of victory in Iraq. This will most likely result in continued failure for America, but the situation is deteriorating towards all out civil war so quickly, the question arises whether even major changes in U.S. policy could salvage Iraq now.
II. To Change Or Not To Change?
???If you mean, by ???military victory,??? an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political process of the democracies will support, I don???t believe that is possible.??? Henry Kissinger to BBC Radio, Nov. 2006
Shortly after the November 2006 elections in the U.S., Pres. Bush announced that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was stepping down. He was going to be replaced by Robert Gates, a former CIA director under Bush???s father. The president told the press that he had made the decision beforehand, but didn???t want to do it prior to the election because it would be seen as a sign of weakness. ???I didn???t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. ??? Win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee,??? Bush told the media. Many hailed the move as a beginning of a major change in U.S. policy towards Iraq, but was it?
Besides replacing his Secretary of Defense, the President was going to receive three separate reviews of U.S. Iraq policy by the New Year???s. These included a report by the independent Iraq Study Group, a military review by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an internal review within the White House. Again, the media and pundits speculated that together these would all lead to Bush modifying his stance towards Iraq.
First there is the much talked about Iraq Study group, which is to give its findings to Bush by the end of the year. The group is co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, and is made up of five Democrats and five Republicans. The group has conducted interviews with a variety of individuals both within the administration and without such as Iran???s ambassador to the U.N. and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The main effect of the group however, may not be a dramatic change in U.S. policy, but rather one that will be more susceptible to Democrats who now control Congress. As Michael Gerson, former Bush aide and speech writer and now member of the Council on Foreign Relations said, the White House ???is genuinely open to the Baker commission recommendations, not to fundamentally change, but to refine their approach in ways that will build bipartisan support??? for the project in Iraq.
At the same time the Joint Chiefs of Staff started its own review of Iraq policy in September 2006. It has come up with three general options, send in more troops, cut U.S. forces but stay longer in an advisory role, or withdraw from Iraq. The Chiefs are supposed to finish their report by December 2006. Like the Baker commission, most of its proposals appear to be only tinkering with what???s already happening in the country. For example, Iraqi forces aren???t working out so add more advisors, not enough U.S. trainers so add more, etc.
Last, President Bush ordered his own review of Iraq policy within the administration. This was probably done in case the Iraq Study Group comes up with recommendations the President doesn???t like, he can turn to his own review for alternatives. The White House report will include efforts already underway by the State Department, the Joint Chiefs work, plus reports by the CIA and National Security Council.
In the meantime, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of CENTCOM, the U.S. military command that covers the Middle East, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 to express his own views on futur
e policy towards Iraq. He warned that there were only 4-6 months left to stabilize the situation, and ultimately it was up to the Iraqis themselves and the government of Prime Minister Maliki to secure the country. The general said that he was assured that the prime minister would soon use the Iraqi army to crack down on Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army, which have been blamed for much of the sectarian violence within the country. At the same time, he said that he was considering sending in an additional 20,000 U.S. troops temporarily to help with the pacification of Baghdad. Both Republicans and Democrats were unhappy with Abizaid???s testimony. Sen. John McCain said, ???I???m disappointed that basically you???re advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American people in the last election said that it is not an acceptable condition.??? Unfortunately, the U.S. military command and the commander in chief, Pres. Bush, are set in ???staying the course??? in Iraq, rather than making any major changes.
Overall, there are five options being bandied about by government officials, Congress, and outside experts and commissions, for the White House to choose from. They are: 1) A temporary troop increase, 2) Begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces, 3) Change America???s focus from offensive operations against the insurgency to training Iraqi forces, 4) Convening a regional conference of Iraq???s neighbors, and 5) Partitioning Iraq.
III. Troop Levels
???Let???s be honest with each other. There are not enough Marines, Iraqi army or police to cover all this ground. And I can???t tell you there will be more Marines coming.??? Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, 2nd in command of Coalition forces in Western Iraq, November 2006
One of the major points of contention in the past, present, and probably into the future, is the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Some want to increase troop levels, while others argue for a withdrawal. Those who want to increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq face two major problems. First, there are few U.S. soldiers available, and second, those available are not enough to be effective.
U.S. ground forces are facing major challenges to come up with troops to send to Iraq already. This is because of the schedule the military has established for combat operations, refitting, and training. From the beginning of the occupation, the U.S. has relied more and more on Reserve and National Guard units to make up for the lack of regular Army and Marine forces available for overseas deployment. Currently, regular Army units are only spending 14 months between rotations instead of the two years that are recommended. Already many National Guard and Reserve units are nearing their 24-month limit on deployment. Most Reserve mobilizations last 18 months now, putting extreme pressure upon their families and the ability to rejoin their jobs after their service. To meet this problem the Pentagon is considering a new policy that would limit the off time soldiers are given by issuing involuntary call-ups. Neoconservatives and others have criticized the Bush administration for not expanding the size of the Army and Marines to meet the need created by dual deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. Abizaid, head of CENTCOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006, that he could only come up with 20,000 additional troops for Iraq, and that was only for a limited time. He said that he could achieve this number only by extending the tours of troops already in Iraq through involuntary extensions, sending in new units before their planned deployment, and by activating more Army Reserve soldiers, cutting down on their training and rest periods.
The second problem facing those advocating a troop increase is that there are not enough U.S. soldiers available to make a real difference in Iraq. Noted Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution told the House Subcommittee on National Security in July 2006 that a force of between 100,000-120,000 would be needed to secure a city the size of Baghdad based upon previous counterinsurgency operations. Currently there are around 43,000-42,000 Iraqi forces and 15,000 U.S. troops for a total of 58,000-59,000 in the capital. 20,000 new troops will not be enough to meet Pollack???s estimated minimum for the capital. Likewise there are 33,000 U.S. troops in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency covering 53,000 square miles and 1.2 million people. In mid-November 2006 Gen. Abizaid sent in an additional 2,000 Marines into the province that had been stationed in Kuwait. Again, 20,000 troops Abizaid wants are not enough to effectively carry out counterinsurgency operations in a province that size, and definitely not enough to do both at the same time.
The alternative proposal for U.S. troops advocated by some Democrats is to begin a phased withdrawal out of Iraq. They argue that the U.S. could reduce its troops down to 40,000-70,000. A withdrawal is necessary because the U.S. can???t sustain the current levels, it will hopefully force the Iraqi government to quit relying on the U.S. for security and take more responsibility for the country, and will reduce Iraqi perceptions that the U.S. is an occupying army. ???The reduction argument comes down to three points. Our Army and Marine Corps can???t hold up under the strain; a shrinking US presence would focus the minds of the Iraqi political leaders that they don???t have forever; and it reduces the perception of an occupying power that drives the insurgency,??? noted Michael O???Hanlon, a military specialist and Iraq expert at the Brookings Institution. Proponents of this idea do not have a unified plan on how it will work with some arguing for a phased withdrawal based upon set dates, while others want it to be based upon the situation on the ground in Iraq.
Opponents of this policy point out that it will not work because of the weakness of the Iraqi government and the threat of increased sectarian violence. They argue that the Maliki government is too weak and unwilling to take on any of Iraq???s real problems, and a U.S. withdrawal will not change that. Frederick Kagan, a military expert at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute argues that the U.S. can???t afford to reduce its troop presence because Iraqi forces will disintegrate without U.S. support, any withdrawal will be seen as a victory by insurgents and Islamists, as long as there are any U.S. forces in the country, Iraqis will see them as occupiers, and it will most likely precipitate a full-scale civil war. Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack of the Saban Center said, ???If we start pulling out troops and the violence gets worse and the control of the militias increases and people become confirmed in their suspicion that the United States is not going to be there to prevent civil war, they are going to start making decisions today to prepare for the eventuality of civil war tomorrow. That is how civil wars start.???
Arguing over troop levels either way appears to be a dead end. The U.S. does not have the forces necessary to really secure the country, while reducing troops will only increase the instability within the country. At the same time the Pentagon is planning on having some kind of presence in Iraq until at least 2010 meaning ultimately Bush and the military are going to leave the issue of U.S. deployment to Iraq to the next administration.
IV. Training Iraqi Forces
???When we first started this transition-team [training] business in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very much of a hit-and-miss proposition. The selection of individuals for duty on transition teams was probably more haphazard than any of us would have liked. The training was not standardized across the various training locations. It does not appear that it was well-resourced across the force. I think that was what led to some of the earlier criticisms, and in my view the criticism was fair and justified.
We need to do better.??? Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, new commander of Iraqi training mission, November 2006
Another option for President Bush is to shift the emphasis of U.S. forces in Iraq from offensive operations against insurgents and militias to training Iraqi security forces. Since 2004 Bush has claimed that training Iraqis has been one of his main emphases. He has often said that the U.S. will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. The military has also continuously talked about how the security of Iraq is up to Iraqis.
Having a successful training program will require some major changes for the U.S. First, any training program is a long and drawn out process. Currently there are 4,000 U.S. troops organized into 430 training teams working with Iraqis. U.S. generals have said that Iraqi forces are still 12-18 months away from being ready to operate on their own, while military analysts say that U.S. advisors could be in Iraq for the next 5-10 years. It also brings up the problem of troop levels again because the U.S. does not have enough soldiers trained for the job. U.S. military doctrine does not emphasize training programs and as an institution privileges regular combat units. The current training program therefore is undermanned, undertrained, and undersupplied. Interviews with soldiers that served as advisors in Iraq by the Army???s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the Center for Army Lessons Learned, found widespread complaints including the fact that non-combat National Guard and Reserve soldiers are usually picked for the training mission, the troops are not given enough training beforehand, and not enough supplies when in Iraq, and suffer from a lack of translators and a lack of counterinsurgency training for the Iraqi troops. For example, Lt. Col. Paul Ciesinski who served as an advisor in northern Iraq in 2005 said in his interview that, ???When we got to Iraq we could hardly shoot, we could hardly move and we could hardly communicate, because we hadn???t been trained on how to do these things.??? Major Jeffrey Allen was suppose to be in charge of a 10 man-training unit, but was only given 5, all of which were National Guard soldiers.
The administration has been talking about training Iraqi forces since Bush???s re-election campaign, but the Iraqi forces are ragged and the security situation has gotten worse. F.J. Bing West, a consultant to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, wrote an article for Military Review in which he said, ???Too many police were corrupt and controlled by Shiite militias, and senior Iraqi leaders were doing little to punish disloyalty.??? He also noted the constant problem of finding Iraqi volunteers and creating a real sense of security amongst the population when he wrote, ???How Sunni police can be effective and not be assassinated in their own cities has yet to be shown. Conversely, the Shiite police in Baghdad have lost all trust among the Sunnis.??? U.S. soldiers have also expressed concerns about whom they are training. Many have brought up the fact that the security forces are thoroughly infiltrated by both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen. Some have warned that they may be just training future fighters in an Iraqi civil war.
To try to address these problems the U.S. military has appointed a new general, Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, a former commander in Iraq, to take over the training program. They have started better programs for advisers to prepare them for the difficulties they???ll face in Iraq at Fort Riley in Kansas, and plan on using more regular Army soldiers rather than Reservists and National Guardsmen. Gen. Ham seemed to be well aware of the problems he faced with his new command when he told the New York Times, ???When we first started this transition-team business in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very much of a hit-and-miss proposition. The selection of individuals for duty on transition teams was probably more haphazard than any of us would have liked. The training was not standardized across the various training locations. It does not appear that it was well-resourced across the force. I think that was what led to some of the earlier criticisms, and in my view the criticism was fair and justified. We need to do better, and this initiative that started the training here at Fort Riley is a part of that.??? The jury is still out on whether this new effort, this late in the game will work. Many Iraq analysts and U.S. foot soldiers are openly questioning whether Iraqi forces will ever be able to overcome their problems and be ready to take over their own country.
V. Regional Conference On Iraq
???In effect, Iran is trying to initiate a dialogue with the United States ??? jointly conveying with the Syrians through the Iraqis ??? what they would be willing to do and what the conditions would be.??? Wayne White, former senior State Department analyst on Iraq, November 2006
The fourth option for the U.S. is to convene a regional conference on Iraq with its neighbors including both friends and foes alike. Such a conference would include probably Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The hope is that together these countries, along with the U.S., could create a consensus upon Iraq, therefore increasing international support.
All of these countries have interests in Iraq. Iran is hoping to expand its influence into its traditional rival Iraq with a Shiite led government. The U.S. has also often accused Iran of supplying money and weapons to the Shiite militias. At the same time Iran is afraid of the spill over effects of a civil war. Foreign fighters, money and weapons for the Sunni insurgency flow from Baathists and Islamists based in Syria. Turkey and Iran are both worried about an autonomous Kurdistan that will inspire their own Kurdish populations towards independence. There are also Kurdish guerrilla organizations based in Iraq that have conducted raids into both countries since the U.S. invasion. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states such as Kuwait are afraid of the ascendancy of Shiites to power in Iraq that might challenge their traditional Sunni rule, and also the effects of a civil war.
On the American side, the main problem with such a conference is that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney want regime change in Iran and Syria. Both think that those two countries are evil countries that support terrorism. Overcoming their ideological objections would be very difficult. Secretary of State Rice and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair however are already supporters of this proposal.
Iran has also been putting out feelers to the U.S. over a variety of issues, but has been rebuffed by the White House. Some Iranian experts think that there is actually some common ground between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq. ???They???ve not said it directly and openly as an official policy line, that they???d like the U.S. to stay [in Iraq], but I think there???s a sense among the Iranians that they understand that the U.S. cannot just leave immediately,??? said Hadi Semati, an Iranian political analyst at the Brookings Institution. Iran and Syria have actually pre-empted any conference by making diplomatic trips to Baghdad. The Syrian foreign minister went to Iraq and re-established diplomatic relations between the two nations, while Iraqi Shiite politicians have already carried out a number of trips to Iran. In November 2006 Tehran invited the leaders of Iraq and Syria to a meeting in Tehran for talks on the increasing sectarian violence. President Assad of Syria said he couldn???t attend, but President Jalal Talabani of Iraq agreed. ???They [Iran] want to cover their bases. They want to do it before Baker and Hamilton [the leaders of the Iraq Study Group] propose it so they don???t look like they???re following what the Americans tell them,??? noted Abbas Milani, co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Newspapers, analysts and members of
the Bush administration are divided over whether Syria and Iran are really serious about working with the U.S. in Iraq or whether they want to maintain their roles as anti-American leaders in the region. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies summed up the conundrum well when he said, ???I think it???s very dangerous to regard them [Iran and Syria] as rational partners who are going to perceive the situation in Iraq the same way the United States does. They have a theoretical common interest with the United States in creating a stable Iraq, but the question is what kind of stable Iraq????
VI. Partition of Iraq
???[The] conventional wisdom holds that Iraq???s breakup would be destabilizing and therefore should be avoided at all costs. Looking at Iraq???s dismal eighty-year history, it should be apparent that it is the effort to hold Iraq together that has been destabilizing. ??? I don???t believe it is possible over the long run to force people living in a geographically defined area to remain part of a state against their will.??? Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador, 2006
Another choice facing the White House is the possible partition of Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines. The South would be Shiite, the West Sunni, and the north Kurdish. The Kurds, the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Democratic Senator Joe Biden have advocated this proposal. They argue that Iraq is already dividing along sectarian and ethnic lines with deadly results, so that partition is a way to stop the violence. There might still be a central government, but it would be weak with the real power residing in the three federal regions. This option is possible under the Iraqi constitution.
Those against this proposal say that it is giving into the sectarian divisions that are destroying the country rather than attempting to solve them. Adding to this is the fact that 40% of the Iraqi population lives in mixed areas, including the Baghdad region. Sunnis in western Iraq also lack resources, especially oil, and are violently opposed to any division of the country that might leave them impoverished. This idea would therefore probably lead to more fighting in the short term as groups vie for power, resources and over the borders.
VII. The Sixth Option?
???As the security situation in Baghdad has deteriorated over the past month, there has been growing talk among Iraqi politicians about a ???government of national salvation??? ??? a coup, in effect ??? that would impose martial law throughout the country.??? Washington Post, 10/13/06
There is a sixth option for the U.S. that has floated around Baghdad for at least the last two months as sectarian violence reached new levels; another regime change in Iraq. This would mean either asking Prime Minister Maliki to step down or forcing him out with a coup. He would be replaced with a group of technocrats not attached to any of the Shiite religious parties or a strongman who would work to restore order. Any such change would mean an end to the experiment with democracy in Iraq. President Bush would probably never sign on to this plan. More importantly, it couldn???t work because any strongman or governing council would need a monopoly on violence to carry out its law and order campaign, neither of which the government has at its disposal currently.
VIII. Reconstruction
???We knew it wasn???t a matter of how many projects were completed. It was a matter of: Is the electricity flowing to Baghdad? Is there security on the streets? Is the oil flowing? Those were the things that mattered. Too often, though, from what I could see, it was all about the process ??? how many hundreds of millions of dollars you had put under contract ??? and not the product.??? Jon Bowersox, former health attach?? at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad until the summer of 2006, November 2006.
While the administration is considering changes in its Iraq policy, one phase of the U.S. project is coming to an end. The American reconstruction effort officially ended in 2006. 88% of the planned projects, about 12,000 total, had been completed, with only 4% having never been started. Dean Popps, Assistance Secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology praised the effort. ???Most Americans don???t understand something equivalent to the Marshall Plan has been accomplished in Iraq,??? he told the press. However, simply counting the number of projects is misleading because there have been many problems with the reconstruction effort. ???We knew it wasn???t a matter of how many projects were completed. It was a matter of: Is the electricity flowing to Baghdad? Is there security on the streets? Is the oil flowing? Those were the things that mattered. Too often, though, from what I could see, it was all about the process ??? how many hundreds of millions of dollars you had put under contract ??? and not the product,??? said Jon Bowersox, former health attach?? to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad until the summer of 2006. Like the development projects the U.S. and Europe promoted in the developing world in the 1960s, the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq tended to emphasize huge projects such as entire power plants or water treatment facilities that the Iraqis simply could not maintain because they lacked the personnel, money, and security. The U.S. inspector general for Iraq reported in November 2006, ???Many successful projects have been completed. Whether they are operating within a substantial Iraqi infrastructure is yet to be answered.???
These infrastructure projects were also a favorite target of the insurgency, and as sectarian violence increased, different groups would often cut production in a local facility to deny it to another. For example, the U.S. repaired 86 of 98 railway stations in Iraq, but there is little train service because of fears of insurgent attacks. Oil production has finally reached prewar levels in October 2006, but severe gas shortages plague the country as Iraq has to import millions of dollars of fuel because of insurgent attacks on pipelines and the inability of the system to deliver products efficiently throughout the nation.
There has also been widespread corruption, waste and diversion of money to security. The BBC reported that up to half of the reconstruction funds eventually ended up going towards securing sites from attacks. The U.S. inspector general for Iraq reported that nearly a quarter of the $37 million in United Nations oil for food funds that were diverted to reconstruction went missing, and was probably stolen. The U.S. also tended to hire large American firms to do the work who then hired foreign staffs, which raised costs. The companies then subcontracted out their work, which took another cut of the money, and then they others to actually do the work, which resulted in a third cut. Even some officials of those large U.S. firms went away from Iraq feeling disappointed. ???We accomplished a significant amount of work. But it was just overwhelmed by the overlay of violence. It???s hard to be optimistic,??? Clifford Mumm, former Bechtel projects manager in Iraq told the San Francisco Chronicle in November 2006. There was also plenty of mismanagement by the U.S. government as well leading to poor planning, lack of coordination, and oversight of the work. There were health care centers built with no water of sewer services, power plants were constructed with no cables to deliver the electricity, and a police station where contractors cemented over a tree to make a wall.
IX. Civil War
???The Americans were initially fighting al-Qaeda and terrorism, but then the problem turned into sectarian violence, and they found themselves stuck in the middle.??? Mahmoud Othamn, Kurdish parliamentarian, November 2006
The real threat to Iraq is no longer the Sunni insurgency it is the brewing civil war in the country. The U.S. likes
to claim that the violence is concentrated in just four provinces in central Iraq, when in fact it is spread out throughout 14 of the countries 18 provinces. Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 that the violence is threatening the very foundations of the country. ???The perception of unchecked violence is creating an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus and shaking confidence in government and security forces.??? The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency directors told Congress that the number of daily attacks has steadily increased since the beginning of 2006. The violence has gotten so bad the U.N. reports that up to 100,000 Iraqis are leaving their country each month.
U.S. military spokesmen and the White House however, continue to claim that the U.S. is making progress. In November 2006 Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said that operations against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias had reduced civilian deaths in Baghdad. Shortly afterwards the Associated Press reported that by mid-November, more people had been killed in the capital, 1,319, than in October with 1,216 Iraqis killed. AP said that November would see the highest death rate since it started collecting numbers in April 2005. After that the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) released a report finding that October had the highest civilian death rate since the U.S. invasion in 2003 with 3,709 dying that month, averaging 120 a day. Most of those deaths were due to sectarian violence in and around Baghdad, and that the actual number was probably even higher. The report found, ???Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing. Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms.??? The report continued, ???The civilian population of Iraq continues to be victims of terrorist acts, roadside bombs, drive-by shootings, cross fire between rival gangs, or between police and insurgents, kidnappings, military operations, crime and police abuse.??? The previous high had been July???s count of 3,590 deaths that occurred during the beginning of a U.S-Iraq offensive to quell violence in the capital. At that time, the U.S. military again claimed that they were being successful but the numbers proved otherwise.
The U.N. report found that the worst perpetrators of violence were the Shiite militias. These militias have thoroughly infiltrated both the Iraqi police and army who either work in tandem with them or do nothing to stop them. ???There are increasing reports of militias and death squads operating within the police ranks or in collusion with them. Its forces are increasingly accused of ... kidnapping, torture, murder, bribery ??? extortion and theft,??? UNAMI reported. The U.N. Human Rights Chief in Baghdad, Gianni Magazzeni told a news conference that things were getting worse in the country because of the lack of law order and the inability of the Iraqi government to control its own security forces. ???The more there???s impunity and no one is punished ??? the more it fuels the cycle of violence and counter violence,??? he said. CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 that the violence is only leading to more extremism, ???The longer this goes on, the less controlled the violence is, the more the violence devolves down to the neighborhood level. The center disappears, and normal people acting not irrationally end up acting like extremists.???
UNAMI also reported that torture in Iraq was ???out of control??? and again singled out the Shiite militias as being the worst, along with the Iraqi security forces and Sunni insurgents. The report found, ???Arbitrary detention, grievous conditions of detention, allegations of torture and mistreatment continue to remain an issue of serious concern in Iraq.??? Manfred Nowak, an Austrian law professor and the U.N.???s chief anti-torture expert told reporters, ???What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned in Iraq is totally out of hand. ??? The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.??? Torture continues in Iraqi prisons run by the Ministries of Interior and Defense despite Prime Minister Maliki???s promise that he had cleaned them up. The Shiite militias however are the worse as they often use drills and acid on their victims and cut off body parts of their victims.
UNAMI also noted Iraqi society as a whole was falling apart because of sectarian violence. Freedom of information was being threatened by attacks on the media, minorities such as Christians were increasingly being targeted, women are victims of extremists and ???honor killings??? because they have somehow disgraced the family, and the education system is faltering under attacks on teachers and Ministry of Education officials.
A glaring example of that was in mid-November 2006 when 80 Shiite militiamen, believed to be members of the Mahdi Army, dressed as police commandos kidnapped between 50-150 people from the Higher Education Ministry in Baghdad. It was one of the largest kidnappings in recent Iraqi history. Although Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians were amongst the missing, the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front political party, the largest Sunni block in parliament, ran the Ministry, while the area the Ministry was located in was a Mahdi Army stronghold. Five senior police officers in the area were detained as suspects in the attack, and although a few victims were released, the majority have not been heard from. In retaliation, Sunnis abducted Ammar al-Saffar, the deputy Minister of Health and a member of Prime Minister Maliki???s Shiite Dawa Party, from his home in Baghdad. A few days later, Sunnis also attacked the Health Ministry, which is run by Sadr, for two-hours, and set off five car bombs and fired mortars at Sadr City, all in Baghdad, killing at least 161 and wounding 257. In retaliation, Shiites mortared the most important Sunni shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hamifa mosque, the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a leading Sunni organization, and a Sunni neighborhood in the capital. The next day, the Mahdi Army continued by attacking 5 Sunni mosques in Baghdad, one in the city of Baquba, and the largest Sunni mosque in Kirkuk. American newspapers declared it the worst sectarian violence the country had yet seen.
It is in the middle of this general upheaval of Iraqi society that the U.S. now finds itself. ???The Americans were initially fighting al-Qaeda and terrorism, but then the problem turned into sectarian violence, and they found themselves stuck in the middle,??? noted Mahmod Othman, a Kurdish parliament member. The U.S. continues its operations against Sunni insurgents in western Iraq, but has also started to slowly but surely move against Shiite militias in Baghdad. As those operations increase the Iraqi people are increasingly blaming the U.S. for the violence, while at the same time calling for their help with security.
The most alarming development is the growing evidence that the Shiites are gearing up to win the civil war by crushing the Sunnis. Shiites are increasingly using members of the security forces to crack down on Sunnis. Diyala province was an example of this turn in events. In July the province was turned over to Iraqi control and considered a peaceful area. The Shiites dominated the government and military even though 50% of the province was Sunni. A few months after the handover sectarian violence swept through the province and the U.S. had to take back control of parts of it. The problems started when Sunnis fleeing Shiite militiamen in Baghdad moved into the province and began forcing out Shiites in retaliation. The Sunnis would also kill Shiites in re
venge for Sunnis killed in Baghdad. ???They [Shiites] kill in Baghdad, we [Sunnis] kill in Baquba [a city in Diyala province],??? said Baquba???s mayor Khalid al-Sinjariy. As a result, 6,000-8,000 Mahdi Army fighters and social workers came to the province to protect the Shiites and drive the Sunnis out.
The 5th Iraqi Division, which was controlled by Shiites, joined in on the killings. When the new commander of the 5th Division Brig. Gen. Shakir al-Kaabi arrived from Baghdad he issued a list of people he wanted to arrest, almost all of which were Sunni sheiks and political leaders who the U.S. was trying to work with. When the U.S. commander asked Gen. Shakir about the list, he said that it came from Baghdad. In September 2006 the 5th Division conducted raids arresting nearly 400 people, almost all of which were Sunnis. U.S. commanders said that hardly any of the arrests were warranted. ???Recent operations conducted by the Fifth Iraqi Army seem to be focused strictly on the Sunnis,??? remarked Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon. American suspicions about the 5th Division???s involvement in the sectarian conflict led them to tell Gen. Shakir that he could not conduct any operations without clearing it with them first, but he didn???t listen. He continued to make raids on local Sunni political leaders. An American officer noted, ???It just seems to be a deliberate attempt to make sure that the Sunnis are unable to organize politically here and represent themselves well in the next round of elections, because there is an awful lot at stake in this province.??? The same officer continued, ???I believe this is a larger plan to make Diyala a Shia province, rather than a Sunni province.??? The U.S. eventually tried to get Gen. Shakir replaced by complaining to Baghdad, but Prime Minister Maliki???s office said that they fully supported him.
The U.S. also found the province???s police running death squads. For example, in the city of Muqdadiya, the U.S. arrested the current and former commanders of the police major crimes unit and an Iraqi army battalion commander for links with death squads.
The majority of Shiite violence against Sunnis, such as in Diyala province, has been blamed on Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Sadr???s forces went through a huge expansion in the last two years. His militia however was a loose organization, so the quick growth led to factionalism as various leaders tried to create their own fiefdoms outside of the control of Sadr. At least six former militia leaders broke off and created their own forces. Sadr has tried to tighten the reins of his organization and model it after Lebanon???s Hezbollah. In fact, Sadr has sent some of his senior officials to Lebanon to study Hezbollah???s structure. Following this, he has started to give exams for new members, dismissed those who didn???t follow his orders, and set a dress code. He even executed some of his commanders to send a message. Still, there is a general lack of discipline and coordination because the Mahdi Army is based upon local cells rather than a hierarchy. As a Shiite politician said, ???They formed a militia. It expanded. Now each one is a cell. This is the dangerous thing,??? while Prime Minister Maliki told Reuters, ???We don???t know what Mahdi Army means any more.???
The Iraqi civil war has its roots in the American invasion. Some have argued that Iraq was never a ???real??? state but rather a collection of diverse people thrown together when European colonists divided up the Middle East after WWII. Iraqis however did have a sense of national identity and many areas were ethnically and religiously diverse that generally got along even under Saddam???s repression. The 2003 invasion broke the status quo and released sectarian forces. This did not happen immediately. For the first year after the invasion Shiites and Sunnis leaders were calling for unity. For example, Sunni insurgents and Sadr???s Mahdi Army supported each other during uprisings in the spring of 2004 against American and Coalition forces. Sunnis increasingly felt like the victims of the U.S. invasion as U.S. forces went after the insurgency and started its de-Baathification program. The break down of security and the U.S. sponsored elections in 2005 increased the differences. Al Qaeda in Iraq wanted to create a civil war because its leader Zarqawi did not consider Shiites real Muslims, and saw it as another way to create chaos and undermine the U.S. Increasingly they went after Shiites rather than American soldiers. The Iraqi elections, beginning in January 2005, led most Shiites to vote for religious parties who promised to protect them, rather than nationalist and secular groups. The Shiite government began recruiting militias into the security forces to ensure their new position, empowering the Mahdi Army and the other major Shiite militia, the Supreme Council for Revolution in Iraq???s Badr Brigade. The Sunnis were left feeling powerless and threatened by the new majority. Soon, tit for tat attacks and killings began between Sunnis and Shiites, especially in ethnically mixed cities such as Baghdad. As violence increased, and the government proved incapable of providing security or worse, was culpable in attacks, Sunnis and Shiites increasingly turned to militias and the insurgency for protection. New American Foundation fellow Nir Rosen wrote, ???Although the Bush administration has criticized the Iraqi government for not disarming the militias ??? this is an untenable first step. The militias exist because there is no security in Iraq. And when the Bush administration criticizes the Iraqi government for being weak, they forgot that they deliberately made it weak and dependent on their dictates. The American failure to provide security has led to the militias. The American sectarian approach has created the civil war. We saw Iraqis as Sunnis, Shias, Kurds. We designed a governing council based on a sectarian quota system and ignored Iraqis ??? who warned us against it. We decided that the Sunnis were the bad guys and the Shias were the good guys. These problems were not timeless. In many ways they are new, and we are responsible for them.???
X. al-Maliki???s Government
???It???s a government of sectarian disunity. There is distrust and dispute between ministers. The extremists on both sides are taking over.??? Adnan Pachachi, Iraqi parliamentarian, November 2006
Most experts agree upon what needs to be done to create national peace and end the violence in Iraq. The Iraqi government needs to create an oil revenue sharing plan so that Sunnis will not be shut out of the country???s wealth, crack down on the Shiite militias who are undermining the legitimacy of the government, issue an amnesty for insurgents and end the de-Baathification program so that Sunnis can fully participate in society and government, create jobs to end the high unemployment that hovers around 50% in the country, and up to 70% in Anbar province, and negotiate an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces to end the occupation. Prime Minister Maliki proposed all of these when he took power, but none of them have happened. The U.S. quickly vetoed the amnesty and withdrawal plans, while Maliki and the Shiites have not been serious about disarming their militias and reaching out to the Sunnis. For example, the government hasn???t paid many Sunni police units and refused to fund reconstruction projects in Anbar province as part of the U.S. counterinsurgency program to win hearts and minds. USA Today reported that Sunni police officers in Anbar hadn???t been paid for 3 months. ???That???s why people in Anbar think the government in Baghdad doesn???t want them to succeed. Sometimes I wonder if the government in Baghdad wants them to succeed,??? said Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, deputy commander of Coalition forces in Western Iraq. Recently the Maliki government made things worse by issuing an arrest warrant for one of the leading Sunni clerics, Harith Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association, who has been one of the leading
critics of the government and the Americans. Sunnis are increasingly talking about withdrawing from the government and parliament because democracy and elections have gotten them nothing in return for their participation. ???We are receiving a big pressure from our followers, who are calling and contacting us every day to withdraw from the process,??? said Nourdin Hiyali, a Sunni member of parliament. Sunnis also do not want to end the insurgency because they are afraid that Shiite militias will wipe them out.
The lack of progress by the Maliki government to solve the violence has led the Bush administration to lose faith in him. Both sides now have deep mistrust of each other, which was only exacerbated by public announcements by American officials right before the mid-term November Congressional elections about U.S. timetables for success in Iraq. Maliki correctly pointed out that these were purely for American public consumption, rather than real policy statements. The lack of American support for Maliki has even given rise to coup rumors in Baghdad.
Internally, the Maliki government is facing increasing divisions as well. The U.S. forced his government to include multiple political parties in an attempt at national reconciliation. Rather than bringing divergent parties together, it has made the government weak. The two main parts of the Shiite Alliance, the Sadr block and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are in a power struggle. The Shiites and Sunnis are also deeply mistrustful of each other, with the Shiites seeing the Sunni parties as just covering for the insurgency, while the Sunnis believe the Shiites are out to destroy them. ???Some people in Towafak [the largest Sunni parliamentarian bloc] are extensions of the insurgency. They have militias in their guards. They don???t believe in democracy because it doesn???t service their intents. They believe in taking power through coups,??? accused Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite politician. ???It???s a government of sectarian disunity. There is distrust and dispute between ministers. The extremists on both sides are taking over,??? observed Adnan Pachachi, an Iraqi parliamentarian. A committee was suppose to be created to smooth out the various differences, but it was never formed. By November, Maliki called for a reorganization of his cabinet to try to solve the divisions, while Sunnis and Sadr are threatening to withdraw from the government.
XI. Conclusion
Despite the downward spiral that Iraq is taking, President Bush still seems convinced that the U.S. is winning and can only lose by withdrawing. Many experts on the other hand, feel the exact opposite. ???I don???t think, in modern American history, there is another example of such egregious failure of policy and execution. We???re really seeing something unprecedented here. Even Vietnam was a slower decline, and the military forces were more in balance. ??? I don???t know anyone who thinks there is an outcome in Iraq now that is hopeful,??? summed up David Rothkopf, a national security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The President is committed to ???staying the course??? in the face of everything that is happening, probably until the end of his term. The policy options that are going to be put forward to Bush by the end of the year are nothing radical, and are more band-aids than solutions to the country???s problems. Bush will most likely agree to a temporary increase of 20,000 more troops, stepping up the training of Iraqi forces, a regional conference that may or may not include Iran and Syria, and continued pressure on Prime Minister Maliki to crack down on the Shiite militias and work on national reconciliation with the Sunnis, most of which have already been started. Iraq is falling apart so quickly however that nothing may work. Perhaps maintaining the status quo while hoping that things don???t get worse is the best the U.S. can do at this point. It will probably be up to the next administration to make a real change in American policy in Iraq.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Think Tank Reports:[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???The Cost of the Iraq War,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 11/8/06 - ???Iraq???s Post-Saddam Insurgency,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 11/14/06
Gwertzman, Bernard, ???Cordesman: Civil War Can Break Out Anytime In Iraq,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 9/5/06
Haas, Richard, ???The Withdrawal Syndrome ??? Part I,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 10/31/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Reality Check II,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/15/06 - ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06
Kagan, Robert, and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/20/06
Articles:[/b]
Ahrari, Ehsan, ???Some plain truths about Iraq,??? Asia Times, 11/17/06
Associated Press, ???Baghdad???s Morgues So Full, Bodies Being Turned Away,??? 11/12/06
Axe, David, ???Equipment Shortages Undermine Iraqi Forces,??? National Defense, November 2006
Baker, David, ???Little Scrutiny For Firms In Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/14/06
Baker, Peter, ???Bechtel pulling out after 3 rough years of rebuilding work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/1/06
Barnes, Julian, ???Army gives Rumsfeld Doctrine a rewrite,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/20/06
BBC News, ???Iraq corruption ???costs billions,?????? 11/9/06 - ???Iraq torture ???worse after Saddam,?????? 11/21/06 - ???Kidnappers seize Iraqi minister,??? 11/19/06
Boyer, Peter, ???Downfall,??? New Yorkers, 11/20/06
Branigin, William, ???Rumsfeld to Step Down as Defense Secretary,??? Washington Post, 11/8/06
Brook, Tom Vanden, ???Police in Anbar province lack protection, pay,??? USA Today, 11/16/06 - ???Sunni needs not met, general says,??? USA Today, 11/13/06
Colvin, Ross, ???Iraqis dying in record numbers, fleeing: U.N.,??? Reuters, 11/22/06
Fletcher, Martin, ???Fighting back: the city determined not to become al-Qaeda???s capital,??? Times U.K., 11/20/06
Goldberg, Jeffrey, ???End Of The Affair,??? New Yorker, 11/20/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Army Expands Training for Advisers Who Will Try to Improve Iraq???s Security Forces,??? New York Times, 11/25/06 - ???Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say,??? New York Times, 11/15/06 - ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06 - ???Military Team Undertakes a Broad Review of the Iraqi War and the Campaign Against Terror,??? New York Times, 11/11/06
Gray, Andrew and Roberts, Kristin, ???US General Says Troop Adjustments Won???t Solve Iraq,??? Reuters, 11/15/06
Gregory, Mark, ???The failure of Iraq???s reconstruction,??? BBC News, 11/10/06
Grier, Peter, ???Huge task before Iraq Study Group,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/14/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/7/06
Hurst, Steven, ???At least 700 Iraqis die in 8 days of unrelenting violence,??? Houston Chronicle, 11/19/06 - ???Iraqi puts civilian deaths at 150,000,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/10/06
Ignatius, David, ???Defense Secretary We Had,??? Washington Post, 11/9/06
Jamail, Dahr and al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Iraqi Militias take Refuge in Facilities Protection Service,??? AntiWar.com, 11/8/06 - ???US Military Adopts Desperate Tactics in al-Anbar,??? AntiWar.com, 11/1/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush???s Iraq L
egacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Sectarian Strife in Iraq Imperils Entire Region, Analysts Warn,??? Washington Post, 11/16/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Layton, Lyndsey, ???The Story Behind The Iraq Study Group,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???General asks skeptical Senate for more time,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/16/06
Mascolo, Georg, ???Richard Haass: ???Iraq Is Not Winnable,?????? Der Spiegel, 11/13/06
McManus, Doyle, ???Kissinger says Iraq isn???t ripe for democracy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Iraqi officials clash over kidnapping numbers,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Murphy, Kim, ???Iraq pullout talk makes Iran uneasy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Oppel, Richard, ???Sectarian Rifts Foretell Pitfalls of Iraqi Troops??? Taking Control,??? New York Times, 11/12/06
Parker, Ned, Evans, Michael, and Beeston, Richard, ???Handover to Iraqi Army ???set for the end of the next year,?????? Times U.K., 11/10/06
Peterson, Scott, ???Can Iran help stabilize Iraq???? Christian Science Monitor, 11/15/06 - ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06 - ???US efforts in Iraq embattled, but often welcomed,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/3/06
Pincus, Walter, ???U.S. Officers Detail Problems With Iraqi Soldiers,??? Washington Post, 11/1/06 - ???Violence in Iraq Called Increasingly Complex,??? Washington Post, 11/17/06
Price, Jay and Al Dulaimy, Mohammed, ???Fallujah once again beset by violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/6/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Blasts Kill Dozens of Iraqi Police Recruits,??? Washington Post, 11/13/06 - ???Retaliation at Sunni mosques ??? dozens killed,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/25/06 - ???Scores Kidnapped At Iraqi Ministry,??? Washington Post, 11/15/06
Reuters, ???Iraq charges 100 over prison torture,??? 11/7/06
Ricks, Thomas, ???Flaws Cited in Effort To Train Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06 - ???Pentagon May Suggest Short-Term Buildup Leading to Iraq Exit,??? Washington Post, 11/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Rosen, Nir, ???Anatomy of a Civil War,??? Boston Review, November-December 2006
Roug, Louise and Daragahi, Borzou, ???Iraq???s Shiite-led regime seeks to arrest top Sunni cleric,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/17/06
Scarborough, Rowan, ???Rebuilding in Iraq tops 4,000 projects,??? Washington Times, 11/20/06
Semple, Kirk, ???Worst Violence Yet Rips Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/24/06
Shaker, Thom, ???General Discusses Goals of His Return to Iraq,??? New York Times, 11/20/06
Solomon, Norman, ???The New Media Offensive for the Iraq War,??? Common Dreams.com, 11/16/06
Spiegel, Peter, ???Troop levels in Iraq may rise,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Education Ministry kidnappings reflect plight of Iraqi academics,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/15/06 - ???Iran summit idea could assist U.S., analysts say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21/06
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Democrats Push For Troop Cuts Within Months,??? New York Times, 11/13/06
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???American Political Shift Linked to the War Is Met With a Shrug by Baghdad???s Elite,??? New York Times, 11/10/06 - ???Influence Rises but Base Frays for Iraqi Cleric,??? New York Times, 11/13/06 - ???Revenge cycle swells hatred, distrust between Sunni, Shiite,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/20/06
Tisdall, Simon, ???US plans last big push in Iraq,??? Guardian UK, 11/16/06
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Guard, Reserves strain to meet wars??? demands,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/06
UN News Service, ???Iraq: over 3,700 civilians killed in October in New monthly high, UN reports,??? 11/21/06
Will, George F., ???Togetherness In Baghdad,??? Newsweek, 11/6/06
Witte, Griff, ???Contractors Rarely Held Responsible for Misdeeds in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/4/06 - ???Despite Billions Spent Rebuilding Incomplete,??? Washington Post, 11/12/06
Wong, Edward, ???Militants Attack Sunnis??? Mosques In 2 Iraqi Cities,??? New York Times, 11/25/06 - ???U.S. allies seek abducted guards in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/06
Wright, Robin, ???Bloody chaos as talks near,??? San Francisco Chronicle,11/25/06 - ???Bush Initiates Iraq Policy Review Separate From Baker Group???s,??? Washington Post, 11/15/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/3/06
Zakaria, Fareed, ???Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward,??? Newsweek, 11/6/06
Sir Motown As always well done with Explicit Attention to detail/reality.
I some how feel [and not to debase my fellow soulstrut brethren/sistren] that we are the wrong target audience [as you full well know] for these amazing articles. In other wordsI value the valor and tenacity you have for teaching ...but bro at this point you should be submitting these articles to Foreign Affairs[i know fuck the cfr but it's always a good read ]as is The Economist[esp] I think they would love you and you could work from home. Just my 2 cents Rock On
Sir Motown As always well done with Explicit Attention to detail/reality.
I some how feel [and not to debase my fellow soulstrut brethren/sistren] that we are the wrong target audience [as you full well know] for these amazing articles. In other wordsI value the valor and tenacity you have for teaching ...but bro at this point you should be submitting these articles to Foreign Affairs[i know fuck the cfr but it's always a good read ]as is The Economist[esp] I think they would love you and you could work from home. Just my 2 cents Rock On
Writing about politics is just a hobby. I haven't done any serious writing or publishing since I finished Grad School, which was back in 1995! I'm just trying to keep people updated while having some fun writing at the same time.
Why The U.S. Is Facing Continued Failure In Iraq[/b]
Introduction
The U.S. is facing an escalating civil war in Iraq. What started as car bombings by Al Qaeda in Iraq followed by Shiites in the police force carrying out death squad activities in retribution, has now become Shiites firing mortars at Sunni areas and Sunnis retaliating in kind, with low level ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad and entire towns in the central region of the country. Michael Ware of CNN reported in November 2006 that, ???For people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like. This is what we???re talking about. We???re talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back. We???re having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We???re seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We???re seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again.??? The U.S. must now start looking at how previous civil wars were quelled and come up with some new policies based upon those observations. Instead, the U.S. is still thinking about fighting terrorists, the insurgency, and disarming Shiite militias. The U.S. is planning for the previous battles rather than looking at the current situation on the ground and coming up with far reaching and innovative solutions to fix the problems that are sure to come up in the future with the violence increasing and the country moving towards chaos.
Failures Of Current U.S. Policy
By its own benchmarks, the Bush administration is failing in Iraq. The White House could not fulfill its November 2005 ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq??? that called for a legitimate Iraqi government that could enforce law and order through an independent security force capable of fighting terrorism and the insurgency. The government of Prime Minister Maliki has little effect outside the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, there is no law and order in Iraq except from the barrel of a gun, and the vast majority of the Iraqi security forces are neither ready nor willing to do any real fighting on their own. The U.S. military failed in its ???Clear, Hold, and Build??? counterinsurgency strategy in Anbar province started in the spring of 2006. A five-page intelligence report by Marine Col. Peter Devlin, a senior intelligence officer in Anbar from November 2006 said that Al Qaeda in Iraq has become the most powerful force in the province and that, ???The social and political situation has deteriorated to the point where [the U.S. and Iraqis] are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.??? Likewise, the summer and fall Operations Together Forward I and II to secure Baghdad collapsed in the face of increasing sectarian violence. If you listened to Washington and the U.S. military command however, the U.S. is facing a critical moment, but there are still weeks and months ahead to fix the problems. This has been repeated several times in the past however, with benchmarks having come and gone, and the U.S. leadership always giving itself more time to fix its policies.
Problems In Iraq
The realities in Iraq are far worse than what you hear from the administration. Towards the end of November 2006, Anthony Cordesman, one of the leading military experts on Iraq, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a new study, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War.??? It is probably the most critical document he has written, noting that in almost every area U.S. policy is failing in Iraq. By his analysis, the U.S. has less than a 50% change of succeeding in Iraq, in fact, he puts it as low as one in four, with things getting worse, not better within the country. Through his extensive research and trips to Iraq itself he charted the following list of issues Iraq and the U.S. now face:
- The Iraqi government has not shown the ability to actually govern the country - Prime Minister Maliki???s peace proposal has been all talk and no action - There is no real legal system and courts do not exist in many areas - The series of elections that the U.S. trumpeted as the beginning of Iraqi democracy actually divided the country rather than brought it together as voters overwhelmingly voted for sectarian groups, almost all of which are backed by militias or are connected with the insurgency - The largest bloc in parliament the Shiites, are increasingly breaking up into rival factions - The new constitution has added to these divisions more than created national unity with many of the most pressing issues such as federalism having not been resolved - The Iraqi economy???s GDP seems to be increasing, but that is because of the increase in global oil prices, when in fact, Iraq is plagued by high unemployment, corruption, and the failure of U.S. led reconstruction - Iraq finally reached pre-war levels of oil production, but is still dependent upon gas imports for more than 50% of its needs, and its oil facilities, which provide over 90% of the country???s revenues, are falling apart with no real plans to fix them - Iraq is not going to be receiving much more foreign aid to fix any of these problems
The main point of Cordesman???s report was the continued problems facing Iraqi security forces and the failure of the U.S. training program. Creating a new Iraqi army and police force has been one of the main planks of U.S. policy in Iraq. General George Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted that Iraqi forces would be ready to take over security of their own country in 12-18 months in November 2006. Cordesman notes that the reality of the situation is that ???Virtually nothing US officially says about Iraqi force development can now be taken at face value.??? He found that U.S. reporting on Iraqi forces was ???misleading to the point of being actively dishonest.??? While there have been some limited successes with individual army units, in general, the Iraqi forces are well below the numbers reported by the Pentagon, are fully infiltrated by Shiite militias, especially the police, do not act as a national force, are plagued by corruption, and partake in sectarian killings. The U.S. still only counts the number of Iraqis trained rather than how many are actually serving in their units. The U.S. claims that more and more Iraqis are taking the lead in counterinsurgency operations when in fact most are doing only guard duty and are incapable of operating for any extended period of time without massive U.S. support in basic supplies. The U.S. has also made no serious attempts at providing the Iraqis with the capability to be independent. The Americans have also constantly forced Iraqis into combat before they were ready, which has decimated them. For example, the U.S. claims that there are 134,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army, but only about 10,000 of them are actually carrying out combat operations. This puts to lie the claim by the Pentagon in October 2006 that 6 out of Iraq???s 10 divisions, 30 of its 36 brigades and 90 of its 112 battalions were ???in the lead??? in fighting. The new U.S. general in charge of the training mission within Iraq told the Army Times that it wasn???t until the Summer of 2006 that there had been a serious attempt at building up the Iraqi forces. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard said, ???We really didn???t have advisers two years ago.??? Likewise, 2006 was suppose to be the ???Year of the Police,??? but Cordesman notes that they are the most plagued by incompetence, corruption, and infiltration by the Shiite militias and partake in death squad activities. Many Iraqis join the security forces not to serve their country, but for the pay check
because the Iraqi economy provides few other job opportunities. Rather than being ready in a year or so, Iraqi forces will probably require another 3-5 years of intense U.S. support and training until they are ready because of all of the problems with the Iraqi units and the U.S. training program.
To add to this list of problems the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reported in a Human Rights Report in October 2006 that ???The civilian population of Iraq continues to be victim of terrorist acts, roadside bombs, drive-by shootings, military operations, police abuse, kidnappings, common crimes, cross fire between rival gangs, or between police and insurgents. The security environment, marked by sectarian intolerance and prejudice, further erodes the freedom to worship or manifest one???s religion or to express thoughts. Growing unemployment, poverty, discrimination and diminishing access to basic services undermine socio economic rights.??? UNAMI continued by saying that the number of internal and external Iraqi refugees is increasing, the education system is collapsing with few schools open, the country is facing a brain drain and attacks on its intellectuals, attacks on women and minorities such as Christians are increasing, that torture by the government and militias is out of control, and that large predatory criminal gangs are rampant. It seems that almost all reporting from Iraq is noting the steady collapse of all aspects of its society.
The U.S. is not in a position to make the situation any better any time soon. Because of its misguided policies past, present, and most likely into the future, it will probably contribute to the difficulties rather than solve them.
Being Behind The Curve
In Cordesman???s report he noted that the main cause of the U.S. failure in Iraq is that it has always been behind the curve when dealing with the country. ???Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the US has never implemented a realistic, self-critical, or forward-looking approach to any aspect of its policy in Iraq. ??? In practice, however, the US has neither anticipated the problems it must solve or rapidly learned and adapted to the emerging realities in Iraq. Its national security leadership has become a self-inflicted wound, and the US has lurched from delayed response to response, always reacting too slowly, with too few resources and changes, and in a state of quasi-denial.??? Signs of how the U.S. is still thinking in the past are apparent everywhere. President Bush before meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki in Jordan in late November 2006 claimed that Iraq was the central front in the war on terror because Al Qaeda was the cause of the increase in sectarian violence, when the Shiite militias are now generally blamed for most of the killings. Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute think tank and the Weekly Standard magazine have argued for a dramatic increase in U.S. troops to be sent to Baghdad to fight primarily against the Sunni insurgency when they are only one half of the problem now in a civil war with the Shiites. The Pentagon wants a temporary troop increase to try to quell sectarian violence in the capital, but in the long run to switch military operations from offensive ones to training the Iraqi security forces even though they are implicated in the sectarian violence and the Iraqi government has no means to maintain them. Democrats rightly see Iraq as being embroiled in a civil war, but their response is to withdraw and leave Iraq to the Iraqis. They claim that withdrawing will force the Iraqi government to address some of the deep-seated problems facing the country, but it is too weak to solve any of them, and will only throw the nation into greater violence. None of these policies will work because they either mistake the situation in Iraq for something else, or do not want to tackle what is happening.
Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, in a short article in the journal The National Interest points out that what has ended previous civil wars has been peacekeepers and power sharing agreements. He notes the current contradiction in U.S. policy that is still focused upon forming Iraqi security forces, when those security forces are part of the problem rather than the solution in a civil conflict. ???In this kind of war, classical counter-insurgency strategy makes things worse, not better. In particular, the effort to hand over security to an indigenous army just throws gasoline on the fire. In a civil war there is no ???national??? military that all can regard as a plausible defender of their interests: the subgroup that controls the government controls the state military; but to their rival???s population they are the enemy ??? the problem, not the solution. For Iraqi Sunnis, the ???national??? security forces look like a Shi???a-Kurdish militia with better weapons. ??? By contrast, the standard approach for terminating a communal civil war is to negotiate power-sharing deals, then to enforce this deal with neutral peacekeepers drawn from outside.??? No one in the U.S. foreign policy establishment seems to grasp this dilemma.
Because of how the U.S. handled the invasion of Iraq, no further foreign assistance is coming to pull America out of this quagmire. The U.S. could act as the honest broker and use its military and diplomatic power to work towards compromises and punish those who don???t cooperate. Some U.S. effort has been towards these goals such as U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad???s effort to bring in the Sunnis into the political process. This effort might be abandoned however. The White House began reviewing its Iraqi policy in November and one new idea put forward by the State Department is to abandon the Sunnis for the Shiites and Kurds who hold the real power in Iraq after parliamentary elections. The U.S. is also hindered because of its inability to provide security and the growing death count. As more and more bodies pile up and attacks and revenge killings increase, no side in Iraq wants to compromise and more and more people see each other locked in a fight to the death for survival. Talk about the U.S. withdrawing also undermines any efforts towards national reconciliation because many Iraqis feel like the U.S. is going to leave soon. Why would the Sunnis for example, want to broker any deals with the U.S. if it believes that the Americans will soon depart and turn over the country to their enemies the Shiites who they feel want to destroy them?
Out of the current proposals for new policies in Iraq the only one that might help to stave off the civil war is the Iraq Study Group???s idea for a regional conference. Such a meeting would have to include Syria and Iran who have influence with Shiite and Sunni groups within Iraq. These two countries might be able to use their contacts to bring about some sort of compromise about the future of the country. That would mean that the U.S. would have to give them some kind of concessions for their effort, but President Bush and Vice President Cheney are probably opposed to even sitting down with them at the same table. Once again then, U.S. policy has probably hit a dead end.
Conclusion
Each day things are getting worse in Iraq, while the U.S. is thinking about fighting past opponents such as terrorism and the insurgency, rather than looking ahead at how to stave off a full scale civil war. As more bodies pile up, the less likely the warring factions in Iraq are willing to compromise with each other. The more the U.S. pushes for fighting the insurgency and turning over security to a Shiite dominated military and police force, the more it???s seen as the enemy of the Sunni population. The more President Bush talks about ???staying the course,??? the stronger the Democrats in Congress feel the urge to push for a withdrawal of U.S. troops to leave the Iraqis to kill each other. Anthony Cordesman in his November study predicted that the U.S. probably only has about a one in four chan
ce of succeeding in Iraq. If it is to be successful it could create an Iraqi security apparatus that actually acts like a national force rather than one that is divided along sectarian lines, and bring about the political reforms and compromises necessary for an end to fighting. Most likely though Iraq will fall into three other situations, a continuing of the current status quo, a de facto separation of the country along sectarian lines, or a complete collapse of the country. In the first situation, the status quo, Iraq will continue to face sectarian violence, but just below an all out civil war with the U.S. attempting to quell the violence where it can, but with no lasting solutions to the problems. In the second scenario, sectarian fighting could lead to the de factor partition of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish areas with low level ethnic cleansing. Cordesman writes that Iraq could become the ???sick man??? of the Persian Gulf with constant interference by the U.S. and its neighbors, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria who manipulate the different factions within the country for their own gains. In the final vision of the future, Iraq could face a total collapse. The government will come apart in the face of civil war, and the country will openly split into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite areas with widespread fighting. The U.S. will withdraw in the face of this violence, and again Iraq will be the ???sick man??? of the Middle East, becoming a pawn in the struggles between its neighbors.
As the situation worsens within Iraq, the U.S. is facing fewer and fewer options. This is only made worse by the administration and military???s inability to openly address what is going on within the country. Until the White House comes out and admits that Iraq is fighting a civil war, U.S. policy will be stuck fighting against its past mistakes rather than charting a serious course for the future of both U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the fate of thousands of Iraqis. As the Prussian military theoretician Carl von Clauswitz wrote, ???The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ??? the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature.??? The administration still doesn???t want to admit to what kind of war it is fighting in Iraq, and is doomed to continued failure until it does.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
GOVERNMENT REPORTS[/b]
Zuhur, Sherifa, ???Iran, Iran, And The United States: The New Triangle???s Impact On Sectarianism And The Nuclear Threat,??? Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army, November 2006
U.N. REPORTS[/b]
U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, ???Human Rights Report,??? 1 September ??? 31 October, 2006
THINK TANK REPORTS[/b]
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil war: The Critical Problems and Failures the US Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are To Eventually Do the Job,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq ??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/27/06
ARTICLES[/b]
Associated Press, ???Iraq ministry forms unit to monitor news,??? 11/30/06
Bacevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panels??? real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Baker, Peter ???White House Wages War of Words Over ???Civil??? Term,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Baldor, Lolita, ???More Marines may be needed in terror war,??? Associated Press, 11/23/06
Bartholet, Jeffrey, ???How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq,??? Newsweek, 12/4/06
Biddle, Stephen, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Burns, John, ???Crime funding insurgency,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Burns, John, and Semple, Kirk, ???Deeper Crisis, Less U.S. Sway in Iraq,??? New York Times, 11/29/06
Cavallaro, Gina, ???General: Troops who train ???could be much better,?????? Army Times, 11/27/06
Choharis, Peter Charles, ???Forget Failure, Let???s Avoid Catastrophe,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Cloud, David, ???In Statement, Defense Choice Criticizes Iraq Planning,??? New York Times, 11/29/06
CNN, ???U.S. moving 1,600 troops into Baghdad,??? CNN.com, 11/29/06
Cockburn, Patrick, ???Slaughter in Iraq soon seems to be part of normal life,??? Independent UK, 11/28/06
Cooper, Helene, ???U.S. Diplomatic Venture Shuts Out Syria And Iran,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Danner, Mark, ???Iraq: The War of the Imagination,??? New York Review Of Books, 12/21/06
Epstein, Edward, ???Bipartisan war strategy no sure thing,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/29/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???It???s a Civil War, Stupid,??? Washington Post.com, 11/27/06
Galloway, Joe, ???Sinking Into Confusion,??? Military.com, 12/1/06
Glanz, James, ???Splintered; In Search of the Fixers,??? New York Times, 11/26/06
Gordon, Michael, ???U.S. adviser reports doubts on al-Maliki,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/29/06
Gordon, Michael and Filkins, Dexter, ???Hezbollah may be helping militias,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???At what price???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/23-29/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Pentagon Considers Moving Troops From al-Anbar Province to Baghdad,??? ABC News.com, 11/28/06
Kurtz, Howard, ???Been There, Done That,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
Landay, Jonathan, and Youssef, Nancy, ???Experts question proposals in leaked Iraq memo,??? McClathcy Newspapers, 11/29/06
Leopold, Jason, ???Report: US Still Manipulating Iraq Intelligence,??? Truthout.com, 11/29/06
Linzer, Dafna, and Ricks, Thomas, ???Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker,??? Washington Post, 11/28/06
Macke, Peg, ???ANALYSIS ??? Iraq???s oil industry in grip of despair,??? Reuters, 11/29/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Rising violence swells ranks of Iraq???s militias,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/28/06
New York Times, ???Text of U.S. Security Adviser???s Iraq Memo,??? 11/29/06
Obain, Nawaf, ???Stepping Into Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Owen, John, ???How Bad Would a Partition Be???? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraq???s deepening religious fissures,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/28/06 - ???When will Iraqi troops be ready???? Christian Science Monitor, 11/27/06
Phelps, Timothy, ???Woes for Baker Group,??? Newsday, 11/23/06
Pincus, Walter, ???Lawmakers Criticize Training And Deployment of Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 11/27/06
Pipes, Daniel, ???Tempering Ambitions,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???A Day When Mahdi Army Showed Its Other Side,??? Washington Post, 11/27/06
Ricks, Thomas, and Wright, Robin, ???As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Robin Wright, ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Rogers, Paul, ???Washington???s Iraqi sandstorm,??? Open Democracy.net, 11/30/06
Rosen, Guy, ???Baghdad or Bust,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Sanger, David, ???The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody???s Leaving Right Now,??? New York Times, 12/1/06 - ???Report suggests U.S. talk with Iran, Syria,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
Sanger, David, and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06
Sieff, Martin, ???Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis,??? UPI, 11/27/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Iran summit idea coul
d assist U.S., analysts say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21/06
Steele, Jonathan, ???American military concedes daily toll of civilians likely to rise far above 100,??? Guardian UK, 11/29/06 - ???Iraq is already enduring two wars. Could it survive a third???? Guardian UK, 12/1/06
Sullivan, Andy, ???NBC says Iraq in civil war, White House disagrees,??? Reuters, 11/27/06
Tirman, John, ???Regionalizing Iraq,??? Boston Globe, 11/26/06 - ???Ten Fallacies About the Violence in Iraq,??? AlterNet.com, 11/28/06
Trejos, Nancy, ???Violence unabated despite appeals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
USA Today, ??????Neocons??? Abandon Iraq War at White House Front Door,??? 11/27/06
Wagner, Thomas and Yacoub, Sameer, ???Al-Sadr Loyalists Boycott Iraq Government,??? Associated Press, 11/29/06
Weissert, Will, ???Iraqi army not ready to defend Fallujah,??? Associated Press, 11/27/06
Wong, Edward, ???A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War, and Who Declares It So???? New York Times, 11/26/06 - ???Some Fighters in Iraq Adopt New Tactics to Battle U.S.,??? New York Times, 11/24/06
Wright, Robin, ???U.S. Considers Ending Outreach to Insurgents,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
Zakheim, Dov, ???Focus on the Integrity of Borders,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
After the much ballyhooed release of the Iraq Study Group report and all the talk about an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces it seems that the Bush administration is heading in the opposite direction with an increase in American soldiers in another attempt to secure Baghdad. At the same time, the U.S. military is arguing for an economic approach to deny the Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias their foot soldiers. While the latter will probably be included in Bush???s ???new way forward??? in Iraq, the use of force still plays the dominant role in Bush???s view of victory. As has happened so many times in the past, the White House is looking for a military solution to Iraq, while overlooking more viable alternatives.
During the spring and summer of 2006 the U.S. and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki launched Operation Together Forward I and II to fight Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Baghdad. Both operations failed for a number of reasons including a lack of enough U.S. troops to hold more than just a few neighborhoods at a time, lack of extra Iraqi forces to help with security, and the complicity of Iraqi police in sectarian killings. Violence in the capital sky rocketed to new levels of savagery even as the U.S. military initially claimed success.
Afterwards neoconservatives such as Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard magazine, along with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and future presidential candidate Senator John McCain all began calling for a third try with up to 50,000 additional U.S. troops. Kagan and Kristol, in a series of reports, argued that with a surge of forces to Baghdad, the U.S. would finally have the numbers necessary to carry out an effective counterinsurgency operation against the Sunni insurgents. After they were subdued the Shiites could be convinced to give up their militias. In mid-December 2006 Prime Minister Maliki also signed onto this plan, only if the U.S. military focused upon the Sunnis.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, military commanders in the Middle East and Iraq, and various think tanks have all questioned this policy, believing that a military solution is no longer possible. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction noted, ???The solution in Iraq is not primarily a military one. It is primarily an economic and political solution.??? Worse yet, Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, believes that such counterinsurgency operations are exactly the opposite of what the U.S. should be conducting in a burgeoning civil war. In an article in the National Interest journal he argued that such military operations make it seem like the U.S. is helping the Shiite dominated government and security forces wipe out the Sunnis.
Instead, the Pentagon is arguing for an economic approach to Iraq. Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the field commander in Iraq, believes that unemployment is the real enemy in the country. ???We need to put the angry young men to work. ??? One of the key hindrances to us establishing stability in Iraq is the failure to get the economy going. A relatively small decrease in unemployment would have a very serious effect on the level of sectarian killing going on,??? General Chiarelli told the Washington Post. Likewise, the Pentagon???s last quarterly report to Congress on Iraq released in November 2006 found that, ???Unemployment and underemployment may make financial incentives for participating in insurgent or sectarian violence more appealing to military age males. There is a correlation between dissatisfaction over jobs and levels of violence. A decrease in unemployment may well have a significant impact on the level of sectarian violence and insurgent attacks based on analysis by the Joint Warfare Analysis Center.??? The jobless rate hovers between 30-50%, and it is reported that in some Sunni areas it is as high as 70%. The military believes that reviving Iraq???s businesses and creating jobs could have a major effect on the violence in the country.
During the summer of 2006, the Pentagon began sending teams into some of the most violent cities of the country including Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Najaf and Ramadi. There they plan to revive up to 200 state-run businesses that were shut down by the Coalition Provisional Authority in a misguided free market-privatization program that only led to higher unemployment. At the same time, the military has begun talking to several major American corporations to try to get them to start placing orders with these refurbished Iraqi businesses. Initially, the military is focusing upon 10 factories that they hope will employ up to 11,000 Iraqis by early 2007.
This approach is most likely to be included in Bush???s ???new way forward??? strategy as the White House is calling it, but it will take a back seat to the increase in troops. A sign of how little regard the plan is being given is the fact that neither the State Department nor the United States Agency for International Development, which usually handle such projects, are involved. Rather the entire plan is going to be coordinated and funded by the military.
As General Chiarelli noted to the Washington Post, ???There???s no doubt in my mind that it [fighting unemployment] has the potential to turn the tide. ??? I find it unbelievable after four years that we haven???t come to that realization. ??? To me, it???s huge. It???s as important as just about any other part of the campaign plan.??? Yet, President Bush???s preference for acting forcefully and the neoconservatives emphasis upon the use of military power to solve problems, may never allow this economic plan to reach its full potential and provide an alternative for young Iraqi men from taking up guns for money.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Government Reports[/b]
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? November 2006
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Securing Baghdad,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/18/06
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War: The Critical Problems and Failures the US Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are To Eventually Do the Job,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 10/25/06 - ???Reality Check II,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/15/06 - ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06 - ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq ??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/27/06
Kagan, Robert, and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/20/06
Articles[/b]
Al-Khairalla, Mussab and Macdonald, Alastair, ???Baghdad bombings hit new high,??? Reuters, 10/4/06
Associated Press, ???As U.S. focuses on Baghdad, al-Qaeda gains strength in Sunni heartland,??? USA Today, 8/16/06 - ???U.S. general: More violence during Ramadan,??? MSNBC.com, 9/20/06
Badkhen, Anna, ???General concedes failure in Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/06
Baker, Peter, ???President Confronts Dissent on Troop Levels,??? Washington Post, 12/21/06
Biddle, Stephen, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Brunswick, Mark and Obeld, Zalneb, ???U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 9/8/06
DeYoun
g, Karen, ???Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007,??? Washington Post, 12/18/06
Filkins, Dexter, ???Baghdad???s Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S.??? New York Times, 8/6/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Iraqi Realities Undermine the Pentagon???s Predictions,??? New York Times, 10/25/06 - ???Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order,??? New York Times, 8/29/06 - ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06 - ???To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission,??? New York Times, 10/23/06
Gray, Andrew and Roberts, Kristin, ???US General Says Troop Adjustments Won???t Solve Iraq,??? Reuters, 11/15/06
Grier, Peter, ???If US boosts troop levels in Iraq, then for how long???? Christian Science Monitor, 12/20/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush???s Iraq Legacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Korb, Lawrence, and Bergmann, Max, ???Surging to Disaster,??? American Prospect Online, 12/20/06
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Missing: a functional Iraqi state,??? Christian Science Monitor, 12/19/06 - ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???General asks skeptical Senate for more time,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/16/06
Luo, Michael, ???U.S. to Review Baghdad Plan, General Says,??? New York Times, 10/19/06
Macdonald, Alastair, ???Iraq civilian deaths hit record in Sept ??? ministry,??? Reuters, 10/1/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Deaths Drop in Iraqi Capital,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/28/06 - ???Iraq Impeding Efforts to Go After Shiite Militias, U.S. Military Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/28/06 - ???Iraq violence claims 41 lives,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06 - ???Iraqi Militias Seen as Spinning Out of Control,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/12/06 - ???U.S. military casualties surging,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/06
Moore, Solomon, and Barnes, Julian, ???Promised Iraqi troops slow to reach Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/06
Oppel, Richard, A., ???U.N. Finds Baghdad Toll Far Higher Than Cited,??? New York Times, 9/21/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Premier Wants U.S. Forces to Target Sunni Insurgents,??? Washington Post, 12/20/06
Ricks, Thomas, ???Pentagon May Suggest Short-Term Buildup Leading to Iraq Exit,??? Washington Post, 11/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Rutenberg, Jim, ???A New Phrase Enters Washington???s War of Words Over Iraq,??? New York Times, 12/21/06
Spiegel, Peter, ???Troop levels in Iraq may rise,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Bush Says He???ll Seek Larger Military,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/20/06 - ???Bush???s Tough Choice On A Troop ???Surge,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/21/06
Strobel, Warren, and Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush weighing deeper commitment in Iraq, officials say,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 12/14/06
Tisdall, Simon, ???US plans last big push in Iraq,??? Guardian UK, 11/16/06
???Just to give you one example, Rush. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, an al-Qaeda affiliate. He ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, then migrated after we went into Afghanistan and shut ???em down there, he went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then of course led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He???s the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shi???a and Sunni. This is Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, and as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. There???s no way you can segment out and say, ???Well, we???ll fight the war on terror in Pakistan or Afghanistan but we can separate Iraq. That???s not really, in any way, shape, or form related.??? It???s just dead wrong. Bin Laden has said this [Iraq] is the central battle in the war on terror.??? Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh???s Radio Show, 4/5/07
On April 5, 2007 Vice President Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh???s radio audience that Al Qaeda was operating within Iraq before the U.S. invaded in 2003 under the leadership of slain terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. This claim and many others like it, stand in the face of what U.S. intelligence was saying before and after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Not matter how many reports are issued denying that there was ever an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the administration, all the way up to the President himself, seems to cling to this fantasy to help justify the war.
Pre-War Intelligence Reports Found Contacts Between Iraq & Al Qaeda, But No Collaboration[/b]
???The relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other.??? CIA Report ???Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship,??? 6/21/02
U.S. intelligence got many things wrong about Iraq, most notably its claims about Saddam???s weapons of mass destruction, but one thing they consistently got right was that there was no working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. There were occasional meetings dating back to the mid-1990s, but there was ???no conclusive evidence of cooperation on specific terrorist operations??? according to a June 21, 2002 CIA report ???Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship.??? A later CIA report, ???Iraqi Support for Terrorism,??? from August 20, 2002 had a similar finding when it said, ???Saddam and Bin Laden are not natural partners, but have maintained cautious contacts and some shared training. The two groups nevertheless remained suspicious of each other???s motives, and to date we cannot document any operational activity between them.???
These were the same conclusions given to Pres. Bush immediately after 9/11 when he requested a report on whether Iraq was behind the attacks. In his daily intelligence briefing on 9/21/01 he was told that Iraq was not involved in 9/11 and that there was little evidence of collaboration between the two. The report went on to say that Saddam considered Al Qaeda a threat to his regime and wanted to infiltrate it to keep tabs on their activities.
U.S. intelligence didn???t believe there was a working relationship because it had found that Saddam viewed Islamists as a threat to his regime, and had sought to prevent Iraqis from joining Al Qaeda. There were also reports that Al Qaeda officials were divided over whether to work with Iraq or not, and captured Al Qaeda leaders such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Muhammad said he didn???t know of any help from Iraq, among other things.
The four most important connections they did find were meetings, beginning in the 1990s between the two, reports of two Al Qaeda operatives receiving training within Iraq, Al Qaeda fighters fleeing to Kurdish Iraq after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the presence of terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi within Iraq. Iraqi and Al Qaeda officials had several meetings beginning in 1994 but nothing seemed to come of them. The claim of training came from a captured Al Qaeda operative who said that 2 members had successfully completed training in Iraq. The CIA tended to believe the story, while the DIA did not. The Iraqi National Congress was also pushing the claim that Al Qaeda operatives had trained at a camp in Baghdad called Salman Pak, but this was all hearsay. 100-200 Al Qaeda fighters had fled into northern Iraq???s Kurdish area after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to join an affiliated Islamist group known as Ansar Al-Islam. U.S. intelligence believed that their presence was known by Baghdad, but that they were not ???official guests of the Iraq government.??? Finally, Zarqawi was in Iraq before the 2003 invasion and the CIA believed that the authorities knew of his presence. At the time however, Zarqawi was not considered a member of Al Qaeda, but rather the leader of his own independent terrorist organization.
Overall, the June 21, 2002 CIA report found that ???In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other.???
The Pentagon???s own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) produced its own reports making similar claims. For example, a July 31, 2002 assessment, ???Iraq???s Inconclusive Ties to Al-Qaida??? stated, ???Compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information.???
Likewise, the White House???s Counterterrorism Chief, Richard Clarke repeatedly told the President and administration officials verbally and in reports that Iraq and Al Qaeda were not linked beginning with his very first briefing for the new administration officials in April 2001. In national security meetings immediately after 9/11 Clarke repeated his belief that bin Laden was the major threat to the U.S. and that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attack.
White House Believes in Iraq-Al Qaeda Link[/b]
"I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point." President Bush, 9/17/01
The White House didn???t like it was hearing from the intelligence community. The neoconservatives especially, came into the government with a negative view of the CIA dating back to the Cold War, and thought that the Agency was not to be trusted.
From the beginning, officials such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq was behind Al Qaeda. After 9/11 these beliefs were only magnified. On 9/11 Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz immediately pushed for attacking Iraq, with Wolfowitz claiming that there was 10-50% change Saddam was behind the attack. The next day, Bush asked Clarke to look into whether Iraq was behind the attack. A few days later he said, ???I believe Iraq was involved, but I???m not going to strike them now. I don???t have the evidence at this point.???
Administration Creates Its Own Intelligence To Justify War[/b]
???Intelligence indicates cooperation [with al-Qaida] in all categories; mature, symbiotic relationship.??? Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group briefing ???Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda??? briefing, Department of Defense, June 2002
Frustrated with not getting any solid intelligence on an Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered his deputy Wolfowitz to have the Pentagon create its own intelligence organization. This task was given to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, on November 26, 2001. By law, his office was not authorized to conduct intelligence operations, bu
t that was exactly what they were ordered to do. This organization came to be known as the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group, sometimes referred to as the Office of Special Plans. The Group never had more than three staff members working at one time, with a total of five during its short lifespan. The original two members, David Wurmser and Michael Maloof, were not even intelligence officials, but rather neoconservatives.
Wurmser and Maloof, along with the three DIA analysts that replaced them, went through raw intelligence reports along with reports from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to try to find state sponsors of Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly they found that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a long-standing relationship and collaboration since the mid-1990s. According to their findings, ???Intelligence indicates cooperation [with al-Qaida] in all categories; mature, symbiotic relationship.??? The Group found dozens of examples of what it believed to be cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda including a meeting between 9/11 hijack leader Mohammed Atta and the chief of Iraqi intelligence in Prague, the Czech Republic in April 2001. The Group disseminated daily intelligence reports to leaders in the Pentagon on their findings.
By June 2002 the Policy Group had created a briefing that they gave to Rumsfeld on August 8, 2002, CIA Chief George Tenet and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Lowell Jacoby on August 15, 2002, and finally to Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley and Cheney???s Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby on September 16, 2002. The briefing claimed that intelligence showed that there was a close and long standing relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda dating back to the 1990s. According to the briefing, Iraq hoped to use Al Qaeda to continue the war against the United States after America invaded. In one slide, the Office claimed that Al Qaeda was an Iraqi surrogate. It failed to note that the Intelligence Community did not believe this. In fact, a slide presented to Rumsfeld, Hadley and Libby stated that the opinions of the Intelligence Community should be ignored on the issue of whether the relationship existed or not. This slide was removed from the briefing given to Tenet and Jacoby for obvious reasons.
After their briefing with Tenet, the Policy Group officials were invited to have a meeting with intelligence analysts to discuss their opposing views. At the meeting, the intelligence officials were willing to allow the Policy Group to add a footnote to the next report, but they declined because they knew they were not authorized to officially produce any intelligence, even though that was what they were already doing.
In general, the Intelligence Community disagreed with the work of the Policy Group. For example, a DIA analyst went through a memo the Policy Group had written that included 26 alleged ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in terrorist activities. The DIA analyst only agreed or partially agreed with 11 of them and disregarded the memo in general by saying that it had ???no intelligence value.???
By the fall of 2002 the Policy Group ceased to exist.
Selective Intelligence[/b]
???You can???t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.??? Pres. Bush, 9/25/02
In their public statements in the lead up to the war, the White House only used intelligence reports that supported their claim that Iraq and Al Qaeda were working together. More often than not, they used the findings of the Policy Counter Terror Group. Cheney even claimed that the Group produced the best intelligence on the alleged relationship.
From intelligence community reports the White House made public claims that Al Qaeda had received training in Iraq, that Al Qaeda fighters had fled to northern Iraq, and that Zarqawi was in Iraq because it fit their argument. From the Policy Counter Terror Group they said that Al Qaeda had a longstanding relationship with Iraq dating back to the meetings they had in the 1990s, that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader, and that Iraqi intelligence had met with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Bush told reporters, ???You can???t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.???
Even when the administration was presented with contradictory views to their public statements, they refused to back off. For example, the meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague was continuously disputed by U.S. intelligence. Bush???s 9/21/01 intelligence briefing said that it was unlikely that the meeting happened. This was followed up by other reports by both the CIA and FBI with the same findings. Yet in the winter of 2001 the story was leaked to the neoconservative former CIA chief James Woolsey and conservative columnist William Safire who each wrote editorials in the Wall St Journal and New York Times based upon it. Stories such as these helped convinced the majority of the American public that Iraq was behind 9/11, and helped facilitate the 2003 invasion.
Post-War Intelligence Finds No Connection, But the White House Doesn???t Give Up[/b]
???As a result, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy did not provide ???the most accurate analysis of intelligence??? to senior decision-makers.??? Findings of Department of Defense Inspector General report on the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Feith, 2/9/07
After the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence went through thousands of Iraqi documents, and interviewed not only dozens of top ranking Iraqi officials, but captured Al Qaeda members as well. They found that there was no connection between the two. Saddam and his Prime Minister Tarik Azziz told the FBI that Iraqi officials had met with Al Qaeda in the 1990s, but that Saddam did not trust them, tried to crack down upon Islamists that had come to his country, and issued a presidential order banning cooperation with bin Laden. The Al Qaeda operative who claimed that Iraq had provided training recanted his story after the war, and it was found that he only made it up because he was tortured and wanted to tell his interrogators what they wanted so that they would stop. The story that Iraq was training terrorists at Salman Pak turned out to be a fabrication by the Iraqi National Congress. It turned out that Saddam did know about the presence of ex-Afghanistan Al Qaeda fighters in Kurdish Iraq, but felt that their presence was a threat to his regime because they could be used to justify U.S. attacks. Finally, on Zarqawi, Saddam had tried to detain him while he was in Iraq but failed. Saddam actually considered him an enemy because he had carried out terrorist attacks in Baghdad. Not only that, but the intelligence community was right to claim that Zarqawi, while affiliated with bin Laden, was not an Al Qaeda member, but rather the leader of his own independent organization. Zarqawi did not join bin Laden until after the U.S. invasion in 2004.
All of the findings of the Policy Counter Terror Group were found to be false as well. For example, no evidence was found to prove that the meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001 occurred. The Iraqi intelligence official that supposedly met with Atta in Prague was captured by the U.S. and denied any such contact.
The lack of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda was reported again and again in official reports and findings. These included the Iraq Study Group in June 2003 who found nothing behind the Atta story upon request of Wolfowitz. The U.N. Monitoring Group on Al Qaeda that found no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda the same month. The June 2004 9/11 Commission that found no involvement by Iraq in the attacks, and two reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, one in July 2004 and the other in September 2006.
Finally, on February 9, 2007 the Department of Defense Inspector General released a report on activities of Douglas Feith???s Departmen
t of Defense unit. It found:
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers. While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the Intelligence Community. ??? As a result, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy did not provide ???the most accurate analysis of intelligence??? to senior decision-makers.
Ironically, the day that the Inspector General???s report was made public on April 7, 2007, was the same day that Vice President Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader working with Iraq before the U.S. invasion. This was only the latest example of how the administration has ignored what it???s own intelligence community has been telling it when it hasn???t fit their agenda. Instead Cheney and others have clung to Feith???s organization findings, even though they have been proven false. In doing so, they are only discrediting themselves.
Timeline of Intelligence Reports and Administration Statements on Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties[/b]
A comparison of intelligence reports and public statements by officials highlights how the White House was intent upon building a case against Iraq and Al Qaeda without solid evidence.
April 2001[/b]
White House Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke gives 1st briefing to new Bush administration on terrorism. Clarke focuses upon the threat of bin Laden.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questions why Clarke was spending so much time on Al Qaeda. Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq was the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and that it was linked with Al Qaeda. Wolfowitz also claimed that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Clarke told him there was no connection.
9/11/01[/b]
Day of attack Saddam Hussein raised the 9/11 hijackers
Within 5 hours of the 9/11 attack Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to see whether Iraq was behind it. He told Wolfowitz to look into an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. He also suggested that he U.S. attack Iraq as well as Al Qaeda in response to 9/11.
9/12/01[/b]
Clarke gave briefing to the White House on Al Qaeda. Said that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 and that Iraq was not involved.
Bush pulled over Clarke and asked him to look into a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Clarke told the President that there was no connection.
On the insistence of the President, Clarke and the FBI wrote a report saying that there was no connection between Al Qaeda, Iraq and 9/11.
National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice or her Deputy Stephen Hadley rejected the report and sent it back because it found no connection.
9/13/01[/b]
Wolfowitz asked officials if Iraq was connected to 9/11.
Wolfowitz began lobbying Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq was involved in 9/11.
Wolfowitz sent former CIA chief James Woolsey to Europe to look into whether Iraq was behind 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Woolsey found nothing. CIA and FBI had already looked into claim and found no evidence.
Wolfowitz asked DIA to look into book that claimed Iraq was behind 1993 bombing. DIA told him that there was nothing to the story. Wolfowitz told them that they had to prove that the book???s claims were true. They never did.
9/15/01[/b]
Bush held national security meeting to discuss responses to 9/11. Wolfowitz said that there was a 10-50% chance that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Saddam had to be the focus of the war on terror.
Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed Wolfowitz???s claim.
9/17/01[/b]
At National Security Council meeting Bush said that he believed Iraq was connected to 9/11 but that he didn???t have the evidence to justify an attack on them yet.
9/19/01[/b]
Bush and Cheney held meeting with CIA Chief George Tenet. Bush asked Tenet for information about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
Cheney said that he had heard that 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001. Tenet said he would look into story.
9/21/01[/b]
Bush receives first official intelligence report on 9/11 and Iraq during his daily intelligence briefing. CIA says that Iraq was not connected to 9/11 and that there was little collaboration between the two. Iraq saw Al Qaeda as a potential threat and had attempted to keep tabs on it. Also said that Atta meeting probably did not happen.
Briefing was turned into longer report and given to Bush, Cheney, Rice, her deputy Hadley, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.
Cheney did not believe report.
Fall 2001[/b]
White House officials try to confirm Atta story.
CIA and FBI both claim that meeting did not happen.
October 2001[/b]
Wolfowitz orders Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith to create Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group to look into intelligence on ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Group comes to conclude that they did cooperate.
Iraqi National Congress provides 2 Iraqi defectors that claim the 9/11 hijackers were trained in Iraq. Claim proves to be false.
Atta story is leaked to former CIA Chief James Woolsey who writes editorial about it in Wall St. Journal arguing that it was proof that Iraq was behind 9/11.
Late 2001[/b]
Atta story is leaked to conservative New York Times columnist William Safire who writes a story about it again claiming that it was proof that Iraq was behind 9/11.
November 2001[/b]
Czech Prime Minister told White House officials details about the Atta meeting in Prague in April 2001.
Cheney went on TV and said that Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague.
U.S. soldiers find documents in Afghanistan that Al Qaeda was trying to acquire WMD.
White House reported documents find to press and claimed that Iraq was the easiest place for Al Qaeda to get WMD.
December 2001[/b]
Czech Interior Minister gives more details on the Atta story to the White House. Story was based upon Arab student in Prague who was considered unreliable. Czech President Havel didn???t believe story.
CIA and FBI continue to report that they cannot confirm story. FBI found evidence that Atta was in the U.S. during the time of the Prague meeting.
12/9/01[/b]
Cheney repeats the Atta story to Meet The Press TV show.
January 2002[/b]
Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group criticized the CIA???s intelligence because it found contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda but no cooperation. Group said there was.
February 2002[/b]
State Department???s annual report on terrorism found no connection between Iraq and 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Did say that Atta story was under investigation.
CIA Chief Tenet said that Iraq was not behind any anti-Western terrorism since 1993.
Captured Al Qaeda member said that Iraq had given Al Qaeda bomb training. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believes that he???s lying. Also question whether Iraq and Al Qaeda would ever cooperate.
Early 2002[/b]
Cheney, along with his chief of staff Lewis Libby begin making a series of visits to CIA headquarters to question intelligence analysts. One question was why they couldn???t find connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
3/17/02[/b]
Wolfowitz meets with the British Ambassador to the U.S. Wolfow
itz asks whether the British knew anything about the Atta meeting. Ambassador said no. Wolfowitz told Ambassador that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
June 2002[/b]
Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group created a briefing for administration officials that claimed a long-standing relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and cooperation on terrorist activities including 9/11. Briefing included Atta story. Said that Intelligence Community reporting on non-cooperation should be ignored. Briefing given to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Tenet, DIA Director, Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley and Cheney Chief of Staff Libby during the summer of 2002.
6/12/02[/b]
White House asked for an intelligence report on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. CIA found no cooperation.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Feith had member of the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group look at the CIA report. Criticized it because it found no connections.
7/31/02[/b]
DIA issues report ???Iraq???s Inconclusive Ties to Al-Qaida.??? Said ???compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information.??? Also questioned whether the Atta meeting happened.
August 2002[/b]
Rumsfeld claimed that there were Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq and that the government knew about it.
8/9/02[/b]
DIA analyst went through memo generated by the Policy Counter Terror Group detailing Iraq-Al Qaeda terrorist cooperation. Discounted most of the claims and said that the memo had ???no intelligence value.???
8/14/02[/b]
DIA analyst wrote report saying that the Atta meeting could not be confirmed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
8/17/02[/b]
Policy Group gives briefing to CIA Chief Tenet and DIA director. Afterwards Tenet agrees to set up a meeting between Group officers and intelligence analysts to discuss Iraq-Al Qaeda connections.
Policy Group???s findings are leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard that writes a piece advocating war because it Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda.
8/20/02[/b]
Meeting held between Policy Group members and intelligence analysts. Group argued for inclusion of Atta meeting in up coming CIA report, but was rejected. Analysts agreed to allow Policy group to include a footnote to report on its alternative analysis of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, but they reject it because they are not authorized to participate in intelligence work.
8/21/02[/b]
U.S. intelligence begins investigation of connections between Islamist group Ansar al Islam in northern Kurdish Iraq, Al Qaeda and Iraqi government. Find evidence that Ansar sent fighters to Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, also that Al Qaeda fighters fled to Ansar camps after U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Rumsfled told press that Ansar al Islam was receiving Al Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan and that this could not happen without the Iraqi government knowing it.
September 2002[/b]
Wolfowitz met with FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. FBI official says that Atta meeting didn???t happen. Wolfowitz says that the meeting was at least possible.
CIA report said that Al Qaeda, through Iraqi group Ansar al Islam, was seeking WMD from Iraq.
Administration makes public Ansar-Al Qaeda ties.
9/2/02[/b]
Iraqi National Congress provided defector that claimed one of Saddam???s sons controlled 1,200 Al Qaeda fighters. Report not believed by U.S. intelligence.
U.S. intelligence on Al Qaeda fighters fleeing to Iraq from Afghanistan said that ???The Al Qaeda people are not official guests of the Iraqi government.???
Pentagon officials said that Al Qaeda fighters in northern Iraq was proof of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
Pentagon view leaked to New York Times columnist William Safire who writes piece that Ansar controlled by Iraq, that Iraq and Al Qaeda were planning assassinations, and that Iraq was giving WMD to Ansar.
CIA leaked to press that there was little evidence to support Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
9/3/02[/b]
U.S. intelligence interrogates 2 captured Al Qaeda operatives. One was Al Qaeda???s Chief of Operations who said that bin laden was opposed to working with Iraq. Other said that Al Qaeda members had gone to Iraq in 2000 for training. 2nd captive had been labeled a liar by the DIA, but his claims were still used in intelligence reports.
Late-September 2002[/b]
CIA is able to question Iraqi foreign minister while in New York. Minister says that there is no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that bin Laden is considered an enemy of the country.
9/25/02[/b]
Bush told reporters, ???You can???t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.???
Rice told PBS??? Newshour that there were long-standing contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that Al Qaeda fighters had fled to Iraq after the Afghan invasion.
9/26/02[/b]
Rumsfeld told reporters that Al Qaeda had tried to acquire WMD from Iraq and that the two had contacts going back a decade.
10/1/02[/b]
National Intelligence Estimate said that Iraq would only give WMDs to terrorists in extreme conditions. Mentioned 1994 and 1995 meetings between Iraq and Al Qaeda in Sudan, but that those led to nothing. Also noted reports that Iraq had trained Al Qaeda in bomb and poison making but it had not been confirmed. Predicted that a U.S. attack on Iraq would lead to cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda over their common enemy, America.
10/7/02[/b]
CIA Chief George Tenet sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that Al Qaeda had asked Iraq for help with WMD and that Iraq providing training to Al Qaeda in WMD. Tenet said that the chance that Iraq would give WMD to Al Qaeda was low because it would be an admission that Saddam had WMD.
Intelligence community came to the conclusion that Abu Zarqawi was not a member of Al Qaeda. Said that he led his own terrorist organization that occasionally cooperated with Al Qaeda.
In speech in Cincinnati Bush said, ???Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poison and deadly gases.??? Said that Iraq and Al Qaeda had ???high-level contacts that go back a decade,??? and that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader residing in Iraq.
10/14/02[/b]
Bush gave speech where he claimed Iraq was using Al Qaeda as its ???forward army??? in a new war.
January 2003[/b]
CIA made revised report on Iraq and terrorism saying that they couldn???t find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Stated that Iraq didn???t know about 9/11. Also that Saddam???s opposition to Saudi Wahabism, which Al Qaeda followed, made cooperation difficult. CIA interviewed two senior Al Qaeda leaders in custody about Iraq connections. They said there was no alliance. They did say that terrorist Abu Zarqawi had a good relationship with Iraq, but that bin Laden wouldn???t have agreed to an alliance with Iraq. Said that Zarqawi had been in Iraq since May 2002 with Iraqi knowledge. Reviewed claims that Al Qaeda and Iraq had met after mid-90s contacts in Sudan. Found that the reports were not reliable. Found that reports of Iraq training Al Qaeda turned out to be Al Qaeda asking for Iraqi training, which never happened. Uncorroborated reports that Iraq training Al Qaeda at Salman Pak counterterrorism training camp. Went over claims that Iraq had offered bin Laden safe haven in Iraq in 1998 and 1999 although one of those reports also said Iraq had rejected the offer. Found that Iraq had not cooperated in any Al Qaeda terrorist acts. Said that 100-200 Al Qaeda operatives had joined Ansar Al-Islam in Kurdish northern Iraq since Fall of 2001. Iraq probably knew
about their presence and allowed it. In the end, report concluded that Iraq might use terrorism if attacked, but no intelligence to support the claim.
1/28/03[/b]
In Bush???s State of the Union address he said that Iraq aids and protects Al Qaeda.
1/30/03, 1/31/03, 2/4/03 & 2/5/03[/b]
Cheney???s office and Chief of Staff Libby and Rice???s deputy Stephan Haddley lobbied Powell and the State Department to include claims that Iraq linked to 9/11 including the Atta meeting in Prague. Powell rejected the report as unsubstantiated.
February 2003[/b]
Revised CIA report on Iraq and terrorism said that 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta never met with Iraqis in Prague in 2001.
2/5/03[/b]
Defense Intelligence Agency interviewed Iraqi defector provided by the Iraqi National Congress who claimed that Iraq had given WMD training to Al Qaeda. When interviewed by the CIA he changed his story saying that he had trained Saddam Fedayeen, not Al Qaeda and that he had never dealt with WMD.
Secretary of State Powell made U.N. speech on Iraq. Claimed that Iraq and Al Qaeda had agreed to nonaggression pact in mid-1990s and that two sides had met at least 8 times. Bin Laden had met with head of Iraqi intelligence. Iraq sent agents to Afghanistan to train Al Qaeda in forging documents. Claimed in 2000 Iraq offered 2 Al Qaeda operatives WMD training but didn???t know if it happened or not. Said that Abu Zarqawi headed an Al Qaeda cell in Baghdad along with 12 other operatives. Powell claimed that Ansar Al-Islam was proof there was a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
2/6/03 & 2/8/03[/b]
Bush says that Iraq harboring Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi, Iraq and Al Qaeda had longstanding relationship which including bomb and WMD training, and that Ansar Al Islam was connected with Al Qaeda.
2/11/03[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet told Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq had trained 2 Al Qaeda operatives in forgery, bomb making, and WMD. Report was not based upon any new intelligence, but old claims that were questionable.
2/12/03[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet returned to Senate Intelligence Committee saying that CIA had not found any evidence that Iraq controlled Al Qaeda. It did find contacts, training and safe havens.
3/14/03[/b]
Cheney told Meet The Press that there were long standing connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
4/27/03[/b]
After invasion U.S. found proof that Ansar al Islam received training and troops from Al Qaeda. However no proof that group was supported by Iraqi government.
June 2003[/b]
U.N. Monitoring Group on Al Qaeda found no connection with Iraq.
Wolfowitz asked Iraq Study Group, which had been created to find Iraq???s WMD after the invasion, to see whether it could find any evidence supporting the Iraq-Atta meeting. Found nothing.
July 2003[/b]
U.S. captures Iraqi intelligence officer that allegedly met with 9/11 hijacker Atta in Prague. Denies the he ever met Atta and says that he was not in Prague at the time.
7/1/03[/b]
Former Deputy Director of CIA Richard J. Kerr testified to Congress that there was constant pressure on the CIA to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda by the White House.
9/14/03[/b]
Cheney told Meet The Press that there was a longstanding relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but he wasn???t sure whether Iraq was behind 9/11.
9/16/03[/b]
Rumsfeld said that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Rice continued to make the connection however when she told Nightline that U.S. went to war with Iraq because it was where 9/11 came from.
9/17/03[/b]
Bush repeated remark that Iraq not connected with 9/11, but that Iraq and Al Qaeda were linked.
10/10/03[/b]
Cheney told Heritage Foundation that Iraq had a relationship with Al Qaeda that included giving training in poisons, bombs and WMD.
10/27/03[/b]
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Feith sent letter to Senate Intelligence Committee claiming at least 50 contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda that proved they had a relationship. The letter was a summary of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group???s briefing.
Letter was leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard that published claims.
2004[/b]
Captive Al Qaeda member who claimed that Iraq had given Al Qaeda bomb and poison training recanted his statement.
1/21-22/04[/b]
Twice more Cheney claimed that there was overwhelming evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He told NPR that a member of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was on the Iraqi payroll.
2/24/04[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet tells Congress that CIA couldn???t prove Atta meeting took place one way or another.
3/21/04[/b]
Rice wrote op-ed piece for the Washington Post saying that it would be negligent for the U.S. to have not looked into state sponsorship of Al Qaeda, including Iraq, after 9/11.
3/22/04[/b]
Wolfowitz???s spokesman said that Al Qaeda was a major threat because it was partly sponsored by Iraq. Spokesman also said that Iraq was harboring one of the members of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.
6/14/04[/b]
Cheney again claimed a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
6/15/04[/b]
Powell said that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but that it did not involve 9/11.
6/16/04[/b]
Preliminary report of 9/11 Commission said that Iraq and Al Qaeda had met, but that there was no collaboration. Also said that 9/11 hijacker Atta never met with Iraqi intelligence. FBI and CIA agreed with finding.
When asked about the preliminary findings, Powell told al Jazeera, that there were connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said that the administration never claimed a connection between Iraq and 9/11 however.
White House repeated claim in press conference. Said that the Commission did not contradict statements by Bush and Cheney.
6/17/04[/b]
Cheney told CNBC???s Capitol Report that there was overwhelming evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. Said that Atta-Iraqi meeting was proof.
Bush also said they were connected.
6/20/04[/b]
Cheney continued to make Iraq-Al Qaeda claim and said that he had intelligence 9/11 Commission did not.
7/1/04[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet sent letter to Congress saying that Atta meeting with Iraqis unlikely.
7/7/04[/b]
Senate Intelligence Committee???s report on pre-war Iraq intelligence released. Said that there was no evidence of Iraq collaborating with Al Qaeda.
7/8/04[/b]
Senator Levin made public Tenet???s letter saying that Atta meeting didn???t happen.
Cheney???s office said that everything Cheney said about Al Qaeda-Iraq links was based upon CIA intelligence.
8/1/04[/b]
9/11 Commission's official report released. Found no evidence of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. "We have seen no evidence that [the contacts] ever developed into a collaborative operational relationshiop. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
11/4/04[/b]
In an interview with the New Yorker Wolfowitz still claimed that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.
October 2005[/b]
CIA report found that Iraq did not have a relationship with Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion.
8/21/06[/b]
Bush said that Saddam had a relationship with Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion.
9/9/06[/b]
Senate Intelligence Committee issued
new report comparing pre-war and post-war intelligence on Iraq. Found that Saddam was opposed to working with Al Qaeda, that Iraq had not harbored Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion, but actually tried to capture him unsuccessfully, and that the Atta meeting never happened.
2/9/07[/b]
Department of Defense???s Inspector General releases report on Feith???s office and the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group. Said that while it did nothing illegal, it did act inappropriately by claiming that intelligence proved an Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship to senior members of the White House without saying that this was not the opinion of the Intelligence Community.
Feith replied that his office did not conduct intelligence work and that if it did it was only under orders. Also said that he did nothing inappropriate, just criticized CIA???s findings on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
4/5/07[/b]
Inspector General???s report is made public.
Cheney tells Rush Limbaugh???s radio show that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda operative working within Iraq before the U.S. invasion.
SOURCES[/b]
Books[/b]
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack, Times, 2005
Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris, Crown, 2006
George Packer, Assassins??? Gate, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
John Prados, Hoodwinked, New Press, 2004
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco, Penguin 2006
Ron Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, Simon & Schuster, 2006
Bob Woodward, Plan Of Attack, Simon & Schuster, 2004
- State of Denial, Simon & Schuster, 2006
Government Reports[/b]
Inspector General United States Department of Defense, ???Review of the Pre-Iraqi war Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,??? Department of Defense, 2/9/07
- ???Report on Review of the Pre-Iraq War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,??? Department of Defense, 2/9/07
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq???s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare to Prewar Assessments,??? U.S. Senate, 9/8/06
- ???Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community???s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,??? U.S. Senate, 7/7/04
Non-Government Reports[/b]
Cirncione, Joseph, Mathews, Jessica, Perkovich, George, and Orton, Alexis, ???WMD in Iraq evidence and implications,??? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004
Healy, Gene, ???Why Hussein Will Not Give Weapons of Mass Destruction to al Qaeda,??? Cato Institute, 3/5/03
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, ???9/11 commission staff statement No. 15 The text as submitted to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,??? 6/16/04
Articles[/b]
Auster, Bruce, Mazzetti, Mark, and Pound, Edward, ???Truth And Consequences,??? U.S. News & World Report, 6/9/03
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David and Wise, David, ???The Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May 2004
Chivers, C.J., ???Terrorist manual may link Iraqi group to al Qaeda,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/27/03
Coile, Zachary, ???Ex-aide???s charges spark blame game on 9/11, Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/23/04
Danner, Mark, ???Iraq: The War of the Imagination,??? New York Review of Books, 12/21/06
Davidson, Christina, ???Dough Feith Begins to Mount His Defense,??? IraqSlogger.com, 3/1/07 - ???Michael Scheurer on Feith???s Qaeda-Iraq Assessment,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/14/07
Debat, Alexis, ???Vivisecting the Jihad,??? National Interest, 6/23/04
Dreyfuss, Robert and Vest, Jason, ???The Lie Factory,??? Mother Jones, January/February 2004
Duffy, Michael, ???One Expert???s Verdict: The CIA Caved Under Pressure,??? Time, 6/14/04 - ???Weapons of Mass Disappearance,??? Time, 6/9/03
Elliott, Michael and Carney, James, ???First Stop, Iraq,??? Time, 3/31/03
Fallows, James, ???Bush???s Lost Year,??? Atlantic Monthly, 10/4/04
Hayes, Stephen, ???Al Qaeda link exists ??? despite the fog,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/28/04
Hersh, Seymour, ???Selective Intelligence,??? New Yorker, 5/12/03
Isikoff, Michael and Ball, Mark Hosen, ???Cheney Ally Blasts Pentagon Report,??? Newsweek, 2/14/07
Jehl, Douglas, ???2002 report doubted Iraq-al Qaeda informer,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/05 - ???CIA doubts hijacker met with Iraq agent,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/9/04 - ???Pentagon Reportedly Skewed C.I.A.???s View of Qaeda Tie,??? New York Times, 10/22/04
Kemper, Bob, ???Experts review, poke holes in case for war,??? Chicago Tribune, 8/10/03
Kwiatkowski, Karen, ???The War Pimp,??? LewRockwell.com, 2/14/07
Leiken, Robert, ???The Truth about the Saddam ??? al Qaeda Connection,??? National Interest, November 2004
Mazzetti, Mark, ???Senate committee disputes claims of Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/9/06
McGeary, Johanna, ???Dissecting The Case,??? Time, 2/10/03
Milbank, Dana, ???War in Iraq Was ???Right Decision,??? Bush Says,??? Washington Post, 6/10/03
Miller, Greg, ???Agent claims push to link Iraq, al Qaeda,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/1/04 - ???Cheney claims al Qaeda link to Hussein,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23/04 - ???CIA chief was out of loop on Iraq special briefing,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/10/04 - ???Senate Panel Looking at Administration Claims,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/11/04
Miller, Greg and Gerstenza, James, ???White House releases spy report on Iraq arms,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/19/03
Miller, Greg and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Probe into Pentagon???s pro-war team begins,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/05
Miller, Judith, ???Ex-counterterrorism chief says Bush politicized response to 9/11,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/22/04
Pincus, Walter, ???CIA knew Hussein had no ties to bin Laden,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06 - ???Data picked to justify war, ex-official says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/10/06 - ???No proof of Powell???s arms claims,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/26/03 - ???Officials Defend Iraq Intelligence,??? Washington Post, 6/9/03 - ???Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection,??? Washington Post, 6/22/03
Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Report cites ???dubious??? pre-war findings,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/9/07
Pillar, Paul, ???Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,??? Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006
Pincus, Walter and Priest, Dana, ???Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure from Cheney Visits,??? Washington Post, 6/5/03
Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Report cites ???dubious??? pre-war findings,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/9/07
PBS Frontline, ???Chronology: The Evolution Of The Bush Doctrine,??? PBS, 2003 - ???In Their Own Words: Who Said What When,??? PBS, 10/9/03 - ???Interview: Carl Ford,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: John Brennan,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: John McLaughlin,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Lawrence Wilkerson,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Mark Danner,??? PBS, 2003 - ???Interview: Michael Maloof,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Michael Scheuer,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Paul Pillar,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Richard Clarke,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Interview: Richard Kerr,??? PBS, 6/20/06 - ???Selective Intelligence,??? PBS, 10/9/03
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Bush???s Brainiest Hawk,??? Time, 1/27/03 - ???Iraq & Al Qaeda Is there A Link???? Time, 9/2/02 - ???What???s Behind a Sinister Flirtation,??? Time, 2/17/03
Richter, Paul, ???Iraq-Al Qaeda Link Discounted,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/10/04
Risen, James, ???2-man committee put Iraq in spotlight,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/28/04
Risen, James and Wong, Edward, ???Hussein was leery of jihadist ties,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/14/04
Rosen, Nir, ???The Many Faces of Abu Musab al Zarqawi,??? Truthdig.com, 6/9/06
San Francisco Chronicle, ???Panel reveals 10-plane plot, finds no Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/17/04
Sanger, David and Toner, Robin, ???Bush insists on Iraq al-Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/18/04
Schmitt, Eric, ???Pentagon adviser denies politicizing Iraq intelligence,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/5/03
Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Hussein???s Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted,??? Washington Post, 4/6/07
Tanenhaus, Sam, ???Bush???s Brain Trust,??? Vanity Fair, July 2003
Thomas, Evan and Hosenball, Mark, ???The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush???s Mr. Wrong,??? Newsweek, 5/31/04
Uhler, Walter, ???Foreign policy and its offenders,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/25/04
Waas, Murray, ???Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel,??? National Journal, 11/22/05
Waller, Douglas and Calabresi, Massimo, ???Politics and the CIA,??? Time, 10/21/02
Whitelaw, Kevin, ???The Vanishing Case For War,??? U.S. News & World Report, 10/18/04
Whitelaw, Kevin and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Why War???? U.S. News & World Report, 10/14/02
Yost, Pete, ???Al Qaeda closer to Pakistan than Iraq, panel chair says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/21/04
I'm in the process of going through about 200 old and new articles and reports on Iraq and thought I would do something with that info so I wrote this up today in a couple hours.
Early Results From The Surge[/b]
In January 2007 President Bush announced a dramatic change in American policy towards Iraq. Rather than the previous plan of standing up Iraqi security forces so that the U.S. could eventually withdraw, the President now announced that the U.S. was going to increase the number of troops in a ???surge.??? The change was significant for a number of reasons. First it showed that the previous policy of relying on Iraqis had failed. The number of Iraqi security forces had dramatically increased in a short period of time, yet violence in Iraq had also gone up. Second it marked the end of any immediate plans for a reduction of American troops that U.S. generals had been advocating. Third it appeared to be Bush???s last great chance at finding some success in the quagmire that has become the Iraq war.
The point of the new surge plan was to follow classic counterinsurgency policies by placing U.S. troops amongst the Iraqi people to secure Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad to reduce the sectarian violence. At the same time, more troops would be sent to Anbar province to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq. This would then allow the Iraqi government to step back from the brink of outright civil war and come to some basic political compromises to end the conflict. So far there have been a few tactical and local successes, but on the more important political front the government of Prime Minister Maliki has shown no movement towards reconciliation. It???s becoming increasingly clear that the surge is proving a failure and that Iraq will be left to the next president to deal with.
Genesis of the Surge[/b]
Prior to the surge, U.S. military policy in Iraq was to rebuild Iraq???s army and police, support the formation of a new Iraqi government, and have them eventually take over control of the country. This would eventually lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces sometime during the second Bush administration. The tidal wave of sectarian violence and killings, especially after the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, killed these plans. In coming up with new ideas, President Bush was given the much ballyhooed bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, as well as reviews within his own administration by the National Security Council and the Pentagon. Out of those, Bush picked a plan drafted by Frederick Kagan, a military historian who had taught at West Point and now works at the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and retired Gen. Jack Keane, who was the Army vice chief of staff from 1999 to 2004.
The surge plan recognized that the Iraqi security forces were part of the problem not the solution. Most of the police and army were made up of Shiites and Kurds, and were seen as a threat to the Sunni community. Relying on them to create stability in Iraq was not going to work. Instead, Kagan and Keane argued that Baghdad was the most important area in the conflict that had to be secured by U.S. forces so that the Iraqi government could have the breathing space to work towards political solutions to the war. Kagan and Keane both met with President Bush in the White House and Kagan wrote a number of pieces in the neoconservative Weekly Standard magazine to argue their point. On January 10, 2007 President Bush announced that this would be his new plan called the New Way Forward.
Under the New Way Forward around 20,000 U.S. troops were sent to Baghdad and Anbar province. Rather than operate out of large bases and conduct armored patrols as had been previous policy, U.S. soldiers and Marines would now be spread out in small bases throughout neighborhoods that would also be staffed by Iraqi forces. This followed classic counterinsurgency policy that the military needed to be one with the people to protect them and wean control away form the insurgency, something that had never been systematically done in Iraq. Once these neighborhoods had been cleared of insurgents and militias, they would be held by Iraqi security, and then U.S. reconstruction teams would help revive the economy to solidify the public???s support.
Early Successes[/b]
The increase in U.S. forces resulted in two early successes. In Baghdad there was a decrease in the sectarian violence perpetrated by the Mahdi Army, and in Anbar province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, the U.S. was able to broker a deal with Sunni tribal leaders to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
First, it appeared that Prime Minister Maliki had cut a deal with his main supporter, Moqtada al-Sadr, to stand down his Mahdi Army militia during the surge so that the U.S. could concentrate on fighting the Sunni insurgency. As a sign of this new deal there were many news reports early on in the surge of Iraqi soldiers and police going before U.S. troops and warning Sadr militiamen to put away their guns and hide until they passed. Shiite roadblocks and neighborhood patrols also disappeared from many Baghdad neighborhoods. Ethnic cleansing in the capitol mostly ceased and a small number of displaced families were actually able to return to their homes. More importantly, the number of dead Sunni bodies found each day decreased in the first few months of the surge. There is also evidence that Sadr hoped to use the surge as a way to cleanse his organization of rogue units that no longer followed his commands. Thus the U.S. military began talking about ???good??? and ???bad??? elements of Sadr???s militia, i.e. those who were willing to work with the Americans and those who were not, and early on Sadr did not object to the arrest of some Shiite militiamen.
In Anbar province, the U.S. was able to take advantage of growing resentment of some Sunni tribal leaders against Al Qaeda in Iraq to make them turn on each other. A group of tribal leaders formed the Anbar Salvation Front as an umbrella organization of Sunnis against the Islamists. Violence in cities such as Ramadi dramatically decreased, and the number of Sunnis willing to sign up for the Iraqi security forces mushroomed. There were also reports that in areas south of Baghdad that some nationalist Sunni insurgent groups were also willing to align themselves with the U.S. to fight Al Qaeda.
The Problems[/b]
Despite these early successes, the main purpose of the surge, political peacemaking and renewed effort at economic reconstruction, has not occurred. The Iraqi government either is unwilling or incapable of making the necessary steps for political reconciliation. Those steps include an oil law that would divide profits among the three main sectarian groups, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, reform of the de-Baathification program, local elections, amendments to the Constitution, and a resolution of Article 140 that calls for elections to determine the fate of Kirkuk. The President???s announced plan for a new wave of provincial reconstruction teams to be the economic side of the surge has also failed to make a dent.
Early in 2007 the Iraqi parliament came up with a new Hydrocarbon law to address the first issue, but it has been sent to committee where it has gone no where. Ahmad Chalabi, the infamous leader of the Iraqi National Congress has been in charge of the de-Baathification policy since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and went to Grand Ayatollah Sistani to block any reforms. There has been no movement on this front since then. Sunnis boycotted the first round of elections and are thus under-represented in many local governments, but there has been no real move towards planning a new round of voting, especially because it would mean a loss of power for the Shiites. Changes in the Constitution are also dead in committee. In Kirkuk, the Kurds are attempting to use both carrots and sticks to get Arabs to leave the city by offering a bribe to leave, while also d
enying them government services if they stay. The Kurds seem to realize that they have gone about the wrong way in dealing with Kirkuk, but are pushing forward with the idea of an election anyway. More importantly, even if many of these laws were passed, there is little evidence that the Iraqi government could carry them out.
In his speech announcing the New Way Forward, Bush promised that 10 new provincial reconstruction teams made up of both civilians and military personnel would be created to further reconstruction efforts. This was the important ???build??? part of the strategy, so that civilians would look towards the U.S. and the Iraqi government for important services and protection rather than the insurgents and militias. The State Department and other civilian offices in the administration failed to come up with the staff for these teams. 600 new personnel were required, only 100 have come forward. The Pentagon has had to step in and fill the void. Like previous efforts, these teams lack support and expertise to be effective.
Even the two early successes of the surge are also running into problems. Sadr went into hiding when the surge began, but he has now returned and is stirring up anti-American feelings in his speeches. June has also seen an increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad. This is probably in response to the wave of bombings carried out by Sunnis. One of the unintended drawbacks of the Shiites standing down was a lessoning of checkpoints, roadblocks, and other security measures in their neighborhoods, which allowed for a series of dramatic, mass casualty terrorist attacks by insurgents. The new alliance with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar is also a big gamble. There have been signs of fracturing within the Salvation Front, and many military analysts and reporters worry that the tribes are simply making a short term alliance with the U.S. to gain legitimacy, and more importantly weapons and money to later use against the Shiites whenever the U.S. leaves. One of the stated goals of the U.S. has also been to disarm militias and make the Iraqi government the provider of security. Empowering the tribes on a local level is thus disempowering the central government. Baghdad in turn, has shown no support for the U.S. effort with the Sunnis. Despite a visit by Prime Minister Maliki to Anbar, Baghdad in general does not provide services there and refuses to pay the new Sunni police units being formed by the U.S.
The surge has also led insurgent groups to move their activities to other areas surrounding Baghdad, which have seen a surge of their own in sectarian violence. The June 2007 Pentagon report to Congress on operations in Iraq reported that the overall level of violence in the country had not changed despite the new policy. This brings into question whether Baghdad truly is the center of the fight for Iraq, if insurgents chose to simply move elsewhere to destabilize the country.
Lastly, the Iraqi security forces are still not up to the task of holding an area without heavy support of the U.S. Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesmen for the U.S. military in Baghdad, told reporters that, ???One of our planning assumptions was that the Iraqi security forces would be able to hold [territory] in all areas, and we are finding that is not always the case. ??? We are having to go back in and re-clear some areas.???
The Next President???s Problems[/b]
While there were early signs of some tactical military success when the surge began, the more important strategic change at the top with the Iraqi government has failed to materialize. It is becoming increasingly clear that Prime Minister Maliki does not have the will or the way to make meaningful political reconciliation at this point. Instead the country is fragmenting with Sunnis fighting against the U.S., Sunnis versus Sunnis in Anbar, Shiites against Sunnis in central Iraq, a violent Shiite power struggle in southern Iraq, and a potential explosion of Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Despite all this, Bush is committed to Iraq no matter what. If the surge is deemed a failure as the last security operation in Baghdad was, he will not give up. He will ???stay the course??? until his term is up, and hand off the problem to the next president. Thomas Ricks the military reporter for the Washington Post, and the author of a book about the invasion and occupation of Iraq called Fiasco, makes the analogy of Iraq to a Shakespearean tragedy. Ricks told PBS??? Frontline for their program ???End Game???, ???I think the best way to think about Iraq is to think about it as a tragedy. Shakespearean tragedies have five acts. I think we???re only in Act 3. ??? I don???t think it???s going to end well. I don???t know how it???s going to end. I think it???s going to be messy. But I think it???s a long way from here, whatever the endgame is.??? He and others predict that the U.S. will have military forces in Iraq for the next 10 to 15 years. That will be Bush???s enduring legacy, long after the final chapter on the surge has been written.
Bibliography[/b]
Books[/b]
Baker, James and Hamilton, Lee, The Iraq Study Group Report, Vintage Books, 2006
McCaffrey, Barry, ???Memorandum For: Colonel Michael Meese,??? West Point, 3/26/07
Government Reports[/b]
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? March, 2007 - ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? June, 2007
Walker, David, ???Stabilizing And Rebuilding Iraq,??? Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Defense, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, United States Government Accountability Office, 4/23/07
International Organization Reports[/b]
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, ???Human Rights Report,??? United Nations, 3/31/07
U.N. Secretary-General, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United National Security Council, 6/5/07
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Gauging the Iraq Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 3/26/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???British Defeat in the South and the Uncertain Bush "Strategy" in Iraq: "Oil Spots," "Ink Blots," "White Space," or Pointlessness???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2/21/07 - ???Iraq's Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evoling Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07 - ???Iraq's Troubled Future: The Uncertain Way Ahead,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/13/07 - ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06 - ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3/28/07 - ???Securing Baghdad With Gated Communities,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/20/07 - ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,?????? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
International Crisis Group, ???After Baker-Hamilton: What To Do In Iraq,??? 12/19/06 - ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 10/25/06
Kagan, Kimberly, ???Iraq Report,??? Institute For The Study Of War and WeeklyStandard.com, 3/30/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???Waning Chances for Stability,??? Brookings Institution, 2/28/07
Simon, Steven, ???After the Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, February, 2007
Stansfield, Gareth, ???Accepting Realities in Iraq,??? Chatham House, May, 2007
Strauss Military Reform Project, ???Analysts, U.S. Officials Express Doubt in Ability to Stabilize Iraq,??? Center For Defense Information, 3/2/07
White, Jeffrey, Exum, Andrew, and Eisenstadt, Michael, ???The Surge in
Iraq: An Early Assessment,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 5/7/07
Articles[/b]
Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith, ???Purges in Mahdi Army Organization,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/20/07
Abramowitz, Michael, ???Bush, Congress Could Face Confrontation on Issue of War Powers,??? Washington Post, 2/16/07 - ???Second Life for Study Group,??? Washington Post, 5/21/07
Ahrari, Ehasan, ???Iraq's defiant but doomed democracy,??? Asia Times, 10/26/06
Akers, Mary Ann, ???Few at Commerce Want Iraq Stints,??? Washington Post, 5/9/07
Associated Press, ???Details of Bush's New Iraq Strategy,??? 1/10/07
Badkhen, Anna, ???Corners cut in rush to add troops,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/4/07 - ???Experts say Iraq will find timetable difficult to meet,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06 - ???Security drive shaken as blast hits parliament,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/13/07
Baker, James A. III, ???A Path to Common Ground,??? Washington Post, 4/5/07
Baker, Peter and Abramowitz, Michael, ???Opposition to plan surprises Bush team,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/14/07
Baker, Peter and De Young, Karen, ???Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/8/07
Baker, Peter and Wright, Robin, ???Bush Taps Skeptic of Buildup as 'War Czar',??? Washington Post, 5/16/07
Barnes, Julian, ???Gated communities' planned for Baghdad,??? Los Angeles Times, 1/11/07
Barnes, Julian and McManus, Doyle, ???Resistance to Deadlines for Iraq is Weakening,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/31/06
Barnes, Julian and Spiegel, Peter, ???Fallback strategy for Iraq: train locals, draw down forces,??? Los Angeles Times, 3/11/07
Basevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panel's real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Bengali, Shashank, ???Death rate for American forces in Iraq rises; total reaches 3,305,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 4/17/07
Benn, Aluf, Webb, Al, Boyd, Charles, Biddle, Stephen, Looney, Robert and Etzioni, Amitai, ???Reviews and Rubuttals of the Plan,??? National Interest Online, 1/15/07
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Brulliard, Karin, ???Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged,??? Washington Post, 4/23/07 - ???Learning to Live With the Mahdi Army,??? Washington Post, 4/10/07
Brulliard, Karin and Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Sadr Urges Followers to Resist U.S. Forces; Thousands Rally,??? Washington Post, 3/17/07
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ???Five Flaws in the President's Plan,??? Washington Post, 1/12/07
Burns, John, ???Efforts to Avert Sectarian Reprisals After Shrine Attack,??? New York Times, 6/14/07 - ???Militants Said to Flee Before U.S. Offensive,??? New York Times, 6/23/07 - ???U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans,??? New York Times, 1/15/07
Burns, John and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies,??? New York Times, 6/11/07
Carter, Philip, ???There Are Four Iraq Wars,??? Slate.com, 2/9/07
Cave, Damien, ???Baghdad Violence Declines in Security Push, Iraq Says,??? New York Times, 3/15/07 - ???Iraq Rebel Cleric Reins In Militia; Motives at Issue,??? New York Times, 2/25/07 - ???Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks,??? New York Times, 6/13/07 - ???Iraqis Seek Role In Rebuilding Their Nation,??? New York Times, 3/9/07
Cave, Damien and Oppel, Richard, Jr., ???Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack,??? New York Times, 2/5/07
Chandrasekaram, Rajiv, ???Defense Skirts State in Reviving Iraqi Industry,??? Washington Post, 5/14/07 - ???Iraq Rebuilding Short on Qualified Civilians,??? Washington Post, 2/24/07 - ???On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters,??? Washington Post, 1/14/07
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Muchof Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Cloud, David and Cave, Damien, ???Commanders Say Push in Baghdad Is Short of Goal,??? New York Times, 6/4/07
Cloud, David and Gordon, Michael, ???Buildup in Iraq Needed Into '08, U.S. General Says,??? New York Times, 3/8/07
Cloud, David, Rubin, Alissa and Wong, Edward, ???Gates Presses Iraq Premier on Healing Sectarian Divide,??? New York Times, 4/20/07
Cockburn, Patrick, ???Baghdad death squads end truce to seek revenge,??? Independent, U.K., 4/20/07 - ???What the Bush Administration Has Wrought in Iraq,??? TomDispatch.com, 5/9/07
Cole, Juan, ???Misreading The Enemy,??? San Jose Mercury News, 1/14/07 - ???Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006,??? Informed Comment.com, 12/26/06 - ???University Bombing Casts Doubt on Security Plan Muqtada Calls on Iraqi Army to Act without US Help,??? Informed Comment.com, 2/26/07 - ???What's Next in Iraq? Juan Cole Interviews Ali A. Allawi,??? Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/25/07
Cooper, Helene, ???Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq,??? New York Times, 2/8/07 - ???U.S. Diplomatic Venture Shuts Out Syria And Iran,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Cooper, Helene and Sanger, David, ???Iraqis' Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan,??? New York Times, 3/15/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???The elephant gives birth to a mouse,??? Asia Times.com, 12/8/06
Dagher, Sam, ???Can US sustain Anbar success???? Christian Science Monitor, 5/4/07 - ???In Iraq, a parliament in disarray,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/16/07 - ???Is Baghdad safer? Yes and no,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/13/07 - ???Patrolling Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where 'gators' lurk,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/30/07 - ???Sunnis surge beyond Baghdad,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/2/07 - ???US forces 'tiptoe' into Sadr City,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/5/07 - ???US tries - again - to win support on embattled Baghdad street,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/16/07
Daragahi, Borzou, ???Bush plan to boost U.S. troop levels antagonizes Sunnis,??? Los Angeles Times, 1/14/07 - ???Iraq politicians will succeed, U.S. officials in Baghdad say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/16/07
Davis, Mike, ???Car-bombers defy all odds,??? Asia Times.com, 3/29/07
De Young, Karen, ???Doubts Run Deep on Reforms Crucial to Bush's Iraq Strategy,??? Washington Post, 2/4/07 - ???Military Must Fill Iraq Civilian Jobs,??? Washington Post, 2/8/07
De Young, Karen and Ricks, Thomas, ???No U.S. Backup Strategy For Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/5/07
Dehghanpisheh, Babak, ???Sadr: Spreading Havoc to New Parts of Iraq,??? Newsweek, 5/7/07
Desch, Michael, ???Bush and the Generals,??? Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007
Dorell, Oren and Jervis, Rick, ???Military says attacks in Baghdad have dropped,??? USA Today, 2/20/07
Duffy, Michael, ???Can Bush Find An Exit???? Time, 12/11/06 - ???What a Surge Really Means,??? Time, 1/15/07
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06 - ???Get ready for debate about who lost Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/5/07
Feldman, Noah, ???The Undeparted,??? New York Times, 4/8/07
Frayer, Lauren, ???U.S. Allows Shiite Militia Security Role,??? Associated Press, 5/7/07 - ???U.S. generals say Iraqis can't hold territory,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/25/07
Froomkin, Dan, ???First Benchmark Missed???? Washington Post, 2/6/07 - ???Why Bush Thinks We're Winning,??? WashingtonPost.com, 10/26/06
Galbraith, Peter, ???The Surge,??? New York Review Of Books, 3/15/07
Ghosh, Bobby, ???Why They Hate Each Other,??? Time, 3/5/07
Glanz, James, ???Iraq Attacks Stayed Steady Despite Troop Increase, Data Show,??? New York Times, 5/16/07 - ???Rebuilding Teams Would Swell Under Bush's New Iraq Plan,??? New York Times, 1/15/07
Gordon, Michael, ???In Sweep of Iraqi Town, Sectarian Fears Pe
rcolate,??? New York Times, 6/22/07 - ???Sunni Militants Disrupt Plan to Calm Baghdad,??? New York Times, 3/18/07 - ???Will It Work on the Battlefield? Options Are Based on Hope,??? New York Times, 12/7/06
Gordon, Michael and Cave, Damien, ???Military Strikes Insurgents' Base East of Baghdad,??? New York Times, 6/19/07
Gordon, Michael and Zeleny, Jeff, ???Plan Sets Series of Goals for Iraq Leaders,??? New York Times, 1/8/07
Grier, Peter, ???Counterinsurgency takes center stage in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 1/22/07 - ???Huge task before Iraq Study Group,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/14/06 - ???US task: fight to end four wars in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/27/07
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt), 11/7/06
Hirsh, Michael, ???Hirsh: Iraq After 2008,??? Newsweek, 6/7/07 - ???Why We're Staying in Iraq,??? Newsweek, 2/22/07
Hirsh, Michael and Wolffe, Richard, ???Bush and Maliki: With Friends Like These???,??? Newsweek, 1/29/07
Hoagland, Jim, ???Desperation Helps Out In Baghdad,??? Washington Post, 3/4/07
Ignatius, David, ???After the Surge,??? Washington Post, 5/22/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???April Deadliest Month of 2007 for US Forces,??? 4/30/07 - ???Baghdad's "Popular Committees": For Good or Ill???? 2/22/07 - ???Despite Claim, Militants Hold Sunni Turf,??? 4/6/07 - ???Mahdi Arrests Strengthen Sunni Militants,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/21/07 - ???Talabani: Mahdi Army Officials Left Iraq,??? 2/15/07
Jaffe, Greg and Dreazen, Yochi, ???Can the Iraq 'Surge' Be Salvaged???? Wall Street Journal, 5/31/07
Jervis, Rick, ???Abduction shatters a family in Baghdad,??? USA Today, 4/9/07 - ???Al-Maliki support eroding in Iraq,??? USA Today, 4/24/07 - ???Insurgents aim for wider-scale attacks,??? USA Today, 2/27/07 - ???Iraqi general touts area turnaround,??? USA Today, 5/8/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07 - ???Plan B? Let's Give Plan A Some Time First,??? New York Times, 5/6/07
Karl, Jonathan, ???Troop Surge Already Under Way,??? ABCNEWS.com, 1/11/07
Kasim, Zeyad, ???Death Squads Slowly Resurging in Baghdad,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/18/07 - ???Sadrist Bloc to Pull Out of Maliki Government,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/15/07
Kessler, Glenn, ???Bush's New Plan for Iraq Echoes Key Parts of Earlier Memo,??? Washington Post, 1/11/07
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Bush, Iraqi Premier Act to Close Rift After Week of Tension,??? Washington Post, 10/29/06
Kristol, William and Kagan, Frederick, ???Wrong on Timetables,??? Weekly Standard, 4/2/07
Kukis, Mark, ???Baghdad's Ground Zero,??? Time, 1/29/07
Kurtz, Howard, ???Been There, Done That,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???Iraq falling behind on 'benchmarks',??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/20/07 - ???Iraq's Al Qaeda attacks higher-impact targets,??? Christian Science Monitor, 5/14/07 - ???The missing player: a 'czar' to manage the Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/26/07 - ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Landay, Johnathan and Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqi political feuding has paralyzed Bush's strategy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 5/14/07
Lasseter, Tom, ???Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S.,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 2/1/07 - ???Soldiers in Iraq view troop surge as a lost cause,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 2/3/07
Layton, Lyndsey, ???The Story Behind The Iraq Study Group,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06
Lobe, Jim, ???Neocons Move to Preempmt Baker Report,??? Inter Press Service, 12/6/06 - ???US Surge Strategy Successful - in Shifting the Violence,??? AntiWar.com, 4/20/07
Lockhead, Carolyn, ???A cold, hard look at reality in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/7/06 - ???Congress Pushes Against Iraq Plan,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23/07 - ???Doubt Cast On Dire Exit Scenarios,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/28/07 - ???Emotional Senators Rebuff Bush's Iraq Troop Strategy,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/25/07
Londono, Ernesto, ???In Baghdad, Rice Acknowledges Frustrations in U.S.,??? Washington Post, 2/18/07
Lubold, Gordon, ???The changing complexion of troop 'surge' in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/14/07 - ???US benchmarks for Iraq may be hazy,??? Christian Science Monitor, 5/7/07 - ???US priority: managing captives in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/6/07
McManus, Doyle and Barnes, Julian, ???Bush ready to change 'tactics,' not goals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/9/06 - ???Pliable 'benchmarks' set for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/27/06
Milbank, Dana, ???It's All About Al-Qaeda Again,??? Washington Post, 5/3/07
Mohsen, Amer, ???Iraqi Papers Monday: Baghdad Streets Safer,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/18/07 - ???Iraqi Papers Saturday: Challenges to Plan Baghdad,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/23/07 - ???Iraqi Papers Saturday: Mahdi Army Scattered,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/16/07
Murphy, Bill, ???U.S. Unit Shoudlers Burden At Police Station in Baqubah,??? Washington Post, 2/23/07
Murphy, Dan and Lubold, Gordon, ???US commander in Iraq: I need more soldiers, more time,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/9/07
Naim, Moises, ???America's Learning Disability in Iraq,??? PostGlobal.com, 4/6/07
Nordland, Rod, ???Iraq: Silence of the Sadrists,??? Newsweek, 3/12/07
O'Hanlon, Michael, ???Interim Report on the Surge in Iraq,??? Washington Times, 5/11/07
Oppel, Richard, ???Attacks Surge as Iraq Militants Overshadow City,??? New York Times, 4/16/07 - ???Old Problems Undermine New Security Plan for Baghdad,??? New York Times, 2/23/07
Oppel, Richard and Rubin, Alissa, ???New U.S. Commander in Iraq Won't Rule Out Need for Added Troops,??? New York Times, 3/9/07
Panetta, Leon, ???What About Those Other Iraq Deadlines???? New York Times, 4/4/07
Parker, Ned, ???Cracks in Sadr's army,??? Los Angeles Times, 4/3/07 - ???Iraq's leader can't get out of 1st gear,??? Los Angeles Times, 6/6/07 - ???Iraqi Insurgents recruit among U.S.-held detainees,??? Los Angeles Times, 4/8/07
Parker, Ned, Evans, Michael and Beeston, Richard, ???Handover to Iraqi Army 'set for the end of next year',??? Times (U.K.), 11/10/06
Partlow, Joshua, ???Baghdad Plan Has Elusive Targets,??? Washington Post, 2/26/07 - ???Beyond Baghdad, Grass-Roots Security,??? Washington Post, 2/21/07 - ???For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort,??? Washington Post, 6/9/07 - ???Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal,??? Washington Post, 5/11/07 - ???New Detainees Strain Iraq's Jails,??? Washington Post, 5/15/07 - ???Soldiers Shift to Baghdad Outposts,??? Washington Post, 3/1/07 - ???Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe,??? Washington Post, 4/22/07 - ???U.S. Bolstering Force in Deadly Diyala,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Can the Surge Work???? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Gangs Of Iraq Transcript,??? Gangs of Iraq, 4/17/07 - ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Misreading History?,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,???
End Game, 6/19/07
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06 - ???Mixed welcome for Baghdad surge,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/20/07
Pincus, Walter, ???U.S. Holds 18,000 Detainees in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 4/15/07
Pincus, Walter and Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Big Boost In Iraqi Forces Is Urged,??? Washington Post, 6/13/07
Posen, Barry, ???Our Last Chance to Build a Governing Coalition in Iraq???? AlterNet.com, 1/24/07
Powell, Stewart, ???Bush could double force by Christmas,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/22/07 - ???Study group's push for amnesty expected to be strongly resisted,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/10/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Baghdad's Fissures and Mistrust Keep Political Goals Out of Reach,??? Washington Post, 4/26/07 - ???Basra Raid Finds Prisoners With Signs of Torture,??? Washington Post, 3/5/07 - ???For U.S. and Sadr, Wary Cooperation,??? Washington Post, 3/16/07 - ???Maliki, Petraeus Visit Insurgent Hotbed in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/14/07 - ???Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 5/23/07 - ???Officers Look back For Clues To Future,??? Washington Post, 1/15/07 - ???Sadr Blames 'Evil' U.S. for Violence,??? Washington Post, 4/9/07 - ???Sum of Death Statistics: a Perilous Iraq,??? Washington Post, 4/4/07 - ???Threats Wrapped in Misunderstandings,??? Washington Post, 12/7/06
Reid, Robert, ???Outlook mixed on Baghdad crackdown,??? Associated Press, 3/14/07
Ricks, Thomas, ???General May See Early Success in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 1/23/07 - ???Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size,??? Washington Post, 6/23/07 - ???McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/28/07 - ???Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/10/07 - ???Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort,??? Washington Post, 2/5/07 - ???Politics Colide With Iraq Realities,??? Washington Post, 4/8/07 - ???Shrine Bombing as war's Turning Point Debated,??? Washington Post, 3/13/07
Ricks, Thomas and Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Intensified Combat on Streets Likely,??? Washington Post, 1/11/07
Rich, Frank, ???They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Richter, Paul, ???Iraqi leadership's failures raise pressure on U.S.,??? Los Angeles Times, 5/21/07
Roberts, Michelle, ???Air Force fills out Army ranks in Iraq,??? Associated Press, 4/15/07
Rogers, Paul, ???Al-Qaida: time on its side,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 5/31/07 - ???Iraq: the beginning of the end,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 2/22/07 - ???Iraq's surge signals,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 3/29/07
Rubin, Alissa, ???3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work,??? New York Times, 4/22/07 - ???Demonstration in Basra Signals Growing Tensions Between Iraqi Shiites,??? New York Times, 4/18/07 - ???Frustration Over Wall Unites Sunni and Shiite,??? New York Times, 4/24/07 - ???U.S. Suspects That Iran Aids Both Sunni and Shiite Militias,??? New York Times, 4/12/07
Rubin, Alissa and Wong, Edward, ???Patterns of War Shift Amid U.S. Force Buildup,??? New York Times, 4/9/07
Sandalow, Marc, ???Analysis: Bush tries to sell plan for victory to a nation skepitcal and weary of the war,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/11/07
Sands, Phil, ???Claims of training insurgents inside Iran,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/15/07
Sanger, David, ???4 Years On, the gap Between Iraq Policy and Practice Is Wide,??? New York Times, 4/12/07 - ???The White House Scales back Talk of Iraq Progress,??? New York Times, 4/28/07
Sanger, David and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06 - ???White House Is Said to Debate '08 Cut in Iraq Combat Forces by 50%,??? New York Times, 5/26/07
Sanger, David and Shanker, Thom, ???Alternative reports may dilute general's appraisal of war,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/24/07
Santora, Marc, ???In the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time,??? New York Times, 1/23/07 - ???Iraqi Militants Launch Attack on U.S. Outpost,??? New York Times, 2/20/07 - ???Iraqi Premier Admits Errors in Introducing Security Plan in Baghdad,??? New York Times, 2/7/07 - ???Iraqis Announce New Crackdown Across Baghdad,???
Seibel, Mark, ???Administration leaving out important details on Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 1/14/07
Semple, Kirk, ???Iraq Town Struggles to Recover After Most Residents Fled,??? New York Times, 4/2/07 - ???Reclaiming Homes, Iraqis Find Peril,??? New York Times, 3/23/07 - ???Street Battles in Iraqi Cities Point to Dire Security Status,??? New York Times, 5/17/07 - ???Wave of Bombings Continues in Iraq,??? New York Times, 4/19/07
Semple, Kirk and Rubin, Alissa, ???Sweeps in Iraq Cram Two jails With Detainees,??? New York Times, 3/28/07
Semple, Kirk and Wong, Edward, ???Can They All Get Along in Iraq? The Report Says They Have To,??? New York Times, 12/8/06
Shanker, Thom, ???Pentagon to Fill Iraq Reconstruction Jobs Temporarily,??? New York Times, 2/20/07
Shanker, Thom and Cloud, David, ???Military Wants More Civilians to Help in Iraq,??? New York Times, 2/7/07
Sheehan, John, ???Why I Declined To Serve,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
Smialowski, Brendan, ???Iraq Stuedy Group Shapes White House Policy,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/6/07
Spiegal, Peter and Barnes, Julian, ???On Iraq, Gates may not be following Bush's playbook,??? Los Angeles Times, 5/6/07
Stannard, Matthew, ???Experts doubt Iraqis can make Bush plan work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/13/07 - ???Military Experts: Doubt over increase, even by some backers,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/11/07 - ???Repairing a broken society,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/5/06 - ???Second guessing begins,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/8/06
Steele, Jonathan, ???Iraqis can't be blamed for the chaos unleashed by invasion,??? Guardian of London, 12/15/06
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, ???See You in September, Whatever That Means,??? New York Times, 5/13/07
Sterngold, James, ???Problem At Home: Panel criticizes political rhetoric, deep divisions,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/7/06
Strobel, Warren, ???U.S. options in Iraq could soon narrow, ranging from unpleasant to unthinkable,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 5/13/07
al-Taiee, Awadh, ???Baghdadis invest hope in new security plan,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/13/07
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Iraqi Official Offers Terms From Militia to Avoid Fight,??? New York Times, 1/25/07
Tavernise, Sabrina and Burns, John, ???Promising Troops Where They Aren't Really Wanted,??? New York Times, 1/11/07
Tisdall, Simon, ???Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq,??? Guardian of London, 5/22/07
Tran, Mark, ???American troops suffer worst month this year,??? Guardian of London, 5/29/07
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08,??? Washington Post, 5/9/07 - ???Edging Their Way Into Sadr City,??? Washington Post, 5/21/07 - ???Gates, U.S. General Back Long Iraq Stay,??? Washington Post, 6/1/07 - ???Increase May Mean Longer Army Tours,??? Washington Post, 3/29/07 - ???Insurgents Broaden Arsenal in Battles With U.S., Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 2/23/07 - ???Iraq Troop Boost Erodes Readiness, General Says,??? Washington Post, 2/16/07 - ???Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts,??? Washington Post, 3/19/07 - ???New Strategy for War Stresses Iraqi Politics,??? Washington Post, 5/23/07 - ???Petraeus Expresses Confidence In Buildup,??? Washington Post, 1/24/07 - ???Top U.S. Officers See Mixed Results From Iraq 'Surge',??? Washington Post, 4/22/07
Tyson, Ann Scotty and Anderson, John Wa
rd, ???Attacks on U.S. Troops in Iraq Grow in Lethality, Complexity,??? Washington Post, 6/3/07
Tyson, Ann Scotty and White, Josh, ???Additional Support Troops Join Buildup in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/17/07
Vanden Brook, Tom, ???Combat deaths rise in Baghdad, fall in Anbar,??? USA Today, 4/20/07 - ???Surge' needs up to 7,000 more troops,??? USA Today, 3/2/07
White, Josh, ???Defense Secretary Sees Encouraging Signs in Baghdad,??? Washington Post, 4/6/07
Will, George F., ???A Report Overtaken by Reality,??? Washington Post, 12/7/06
Wolffe, Richard and Bailey, Holly, ???The Oval: Bush's Real Plan for Iraq,??? Newsweek, 1/10/07
Wong, Edward, ???Iraqi Widow Saves Her Home, but Victory Is Brief,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/30/07 - ???Say It Loud. Improvise. Keep Em Guessing,??? New York Times, 4/22/07
Wright, Robin, ???Iraq, 'Sinking Fast,' Is Ranked No. 2on List of Unstable States,??? Washington Post, 6/19/07 - ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Old Problems Plague New Security Plan for Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/8/07 - ???U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 4/25/07
The neoconservatives were the earliest and strongest advocates of military action against Iraq. They held important positions within Bush???s Pentagon including Paul Wolfowitz, deputy Secretary of Defense, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of State for Policy, William Luti Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia, Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, members of the Defense Policy Board, and David Wurmser and Michael Maloof who were the original members of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, which was set up within the Pentagon to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. David Frum, one of Bush???s leading speechwriters who coined the term Axis of Evil was also a believer. Together they helped shape pre and post-war Iraq policy. Looking back today, many of these leading war advocates now regret the role they played and blame President Bush for its failure.
Richard Perle was one of the original neoconservative intellects. He was a member of the first Bush administration and thought that not overthrowing Saddam in the Gulf War was a major mistake. During the Clinton administration he wrote a position paper for the Jerusalem based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies that was given to then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called ???A Clean Break,??? which argued that Israel should invade Iraq and reshape the Middle East in 1996. The next year he co-founded the Project for A New American Century, a neoconservative group that wrote a letter to Clinton saying that the U.S. should support the Iraqi National Congress to undermine Saddam. Perle believed that the Iraqi National Congress had wide support within Iraq, was capable of overthrowing the government, could set up a democracy, and would be pro-Israel, completely changing the dynamics of the Middle East. In 1998 he helped pass the Iraq Liberation Act, which established regime change as official U.S. policy. When George W. Bush was elected, Perle became the head of the Defense Policy Board, which is meant to air new ideas and advise the Secretary of Defense about them.
During the Bush presidency, Perle was one of the main advocates of a military confrontation with Iraq. In June 2001 he introduced the head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmad Chalabi to Vice President Cheney for a two-hour meeting. On September 11, 2001 he told Bush???s speechwriter David Frum that the war on terror had to include states, not just terrorist groups. Frum included that idea in Bush???s speech that night to the nation. On September 18, 2001 Perle convened a meeting of the Defense Policy Board to discuss the terrorist attacks. The discussion quickly turned to Iraq and Ahmad Chalbi was brought in to advocate for regime change. Perle claimed that as a result of that meeting, Donald Rumsfeld agreed to the idea of attacking Iraq. Perle would go on to give a series of interviews, speeches, and write articles arguing his point leading up to the war.
Ken Adelman was also a member of the Defense Policy Board and in February 2002 wrote a famous op. ed. piece for the Washington Post in which he said that overthrowing Saddam would be a ???cakewalk.??? He wrote, "Let me give simple, responsible reasons: 1. It was a cakewalk last time; 2. They've become much weaker; 3. We've become much stronger; and 4. Now we're playing for keeps.???
David Frum was one of Bush???s leading speechwriters. In December 2001 he was told to come up with some reasons to justify war with Iraq in Bush???s January 2002 State of the Union speech. It was in that address that Frum came up with the phrase Axis of Evil to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
In January 2007, David Rose of Vanity Fair published an article entitled ???Neo Culpa??? where many of these leading neoconservatives mentioned their regrets about advocating a war against Iraq and their criticism of the Bush administration???s handling of the aftermath. Before the war, Rose seemed to be closely connected to neoconservative circles and wrote a few pieces that relied heavily on the Iraqi National Congress and its string of defectors that claimed Iraq was rebuilding its WMD and nuclear programs, and was connected to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. It was no surprise then, that many of these early Iraq war hawks would be willing to talk to him about their post-war regrets.
Perle told Rose that the Bush administration was dysfunctional, which doomed its Iraq policy, but ultimately it was the president???s fault as commander in chief. ???The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn???t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly. At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible. ??? I think he was led to believe that things were chugging along far more purposefully and coherently than in fact they were. I think he didn???t realize the depth of the disputes underneath. I don???t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration and the disloyalty,??? Perle said. The people he was referring to as being in opposition and disloyal are the CIA and State Department. Perle, like the rest of the neoconservatives, were contemptuous of the CIA for missing many of the changes in the 1990s like the fall of communism, and for supporting dictators. Both the CIA and State Department also opposed the Iraqi National Congress, one of Perle???s sacred cows, as being incompetent and dishonest. According to Perle, it was this split between the CIA and State Department on the one side and the Pentagon on the other that doomed Iraq policy. Perle also criticized then National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice for being a bad manager and not resolving these problems. In the end though, it was Bush who failed because he did not make the decisions about Iraq that a president should. Perle claimed, ???The machinery of government that he [Bush] nominally ran was actually running him.???
Frum also pointed out to dysfunction as a major problem, and holds Bush responsible in the end. He told Rose that there were several different plans for how to run Iraq after the invasion, but no agreement had been made before the invasion. Rather than wait for a solid plan, the White House rushed into war anyway. Frum said, ???People were aware in February or March 2003 that the planning [for post-war Iraq] was not finished. There was not a coherent plan, and in the knowledge that there was not a coherent plan, there was not the decision made to wait.??? Like Perle, Frum ultimately holds the president responsible for the problems. According to Frum, Bush was detached from the major ideas surrounding the war. ???I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that, although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.??? It was this ???failure at the center??? by President Bush that Frum believes caused Iraq to be a failure.
Adelman went even farther in his comments condemning everyone on Bush???s foreign policy staff, especially Rumsfeld. He told Rose, ???I am extremely disappointed by the outcome in Iraq, because I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.??? He singles out Rumsfeld for major blame for the problems of post-war Iraq. ???The moment this administration was lost was when Donald Rumsfeld took to the podium and said, ???Stuff happens. This is what free people do [speaking of the looting going on after the war].??? It???s not what free people do at all: it???s what barbarians do.??? Adelman believed that not stopping the looting discredi
ted the idea of setting up a new and democratic Iraq and undermined the authority and power of the U.S. to secure the country. He further criticized Rumsfeld for trying to pass off responsibility for not effectively dealing with the insurgency. ???The problem here is not a selling job. Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq; it could only be lost in Washington. I don???t think that???s true at all. We???re losing in Iraq.???
Adelman also condemned Bush for not holding anyone responsible for the missteps after the invasion. A perfect example for him was Bush rewarding former CIA director George Tenet, architect of the Iraq invasion retired General Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer, who had headed the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Adelman said, ???The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Jerry Bremer ??? three of the most incompetent people who???ve ever served in such key posts. ??? It was then I thought, there???s no seriousness here. These are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq.???
In hindsight, all three regretted advocating an invasion of Iraq. Perle, seeing the chaos occurring in Iraq today, said. ???I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ???Should we go into Iraq???? I think now I probably would have said, ???No, let???s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.??? ??? Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have.??? Frum lamented the power of the insurgency, which may make the Iraq war unwinnable.
Adelman followed up by saying that the policy of overthrowing Saddam could have been ???absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can???t execute it, it???s useless, just useless.??? As a result of the failures of the Iraq war Adelman believes that the neoconservative movement is dead. He said, ???It???s not going to sell.??? Perle thought that this was unfair making the false claim that neoconservatives were not in decision-making positions in the Bush White House. ???Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: they were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I???m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war.??? While it???s true that people like Perle and Adelman only had advisory roles in the administration, Wolfowitz and Feith were number 2 and 3 in the Pentagon hierarchy just below Rumsfeld and did influence pre and postwar Iraq policy.
Adelman is probably right, the neoconservative movement is dead for now. The neoconservatives who sailed into power with the Bush administration in 2001 are now mostly out. The only advocate of their ideas still left is Cheney and his staff. He obviously holds a very important and influential position, but the rest of the neoconservatives have lost their offices in the administration. Secretary of State Rice is carrying out foreign policy decisions such as making deals with North Korea and opening discussions with Iran that the neoconservatives would have never agreed to before. While the neoconservatives were not the only advocates of a war with Iraq, it will be their lasting legacy to have pushed for this deeply flawed and failed policy.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Packer, George, Assassins??? Gate, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq, Penguin, 2006
Isikoff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, Crown, 2006
Articles[/b]
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David, and Wise, David, ???The Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May, 2004
CNN, ???Overthrow Hussein, U.S. group advises,??? CNN.com, 2/20/98
De Young, Karen and Pincus, Walter, ???Rhetoric Fails to Budge Policy on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 1/25/02
Dizard, John, ???How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons,??? Salon.com, 5/4/04
Dreyfuss, Robert, ???The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA,??? American Prospect, 12/16/02
Judis, John and Ackerman, Spencer, ???The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty,??? New Republic, 6/30/03
Karon, Tony, ???Iraq: The GOP War With Itself,??? Time, 8/21/02
Lemann, Nicholas, ???The Next World Order,??? New Yorker, 4/1/02
PBS Frontline, ???Gunning for Saddam Transcript,??? Gunning For Saddam, 11/8/01 - ???Interview Richard Perle,??? Gunning For Saddam, 11/8/01 - ???Interview Richard Perle,??? Truth, War and Consequences, 10/9/03 - ???Iraq, The Middle East, and Beyond???? The War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03 - ???Truth, War & Consequences: Transcript,??? Truth, War & Consequences: Transcript, 10/9/03 - ???The War Behind Closed Doors Transcript,??? War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03
Perle, Richard, ???How the CIA Failed America,??? Washington Post, 5/11/07 - ???Next Stop, Iraq,??? Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11/14/01 - ???The U.S. Must Strike at Saddam Hussein,??? New York Times, 12/28/01
Project For The New American Century, ???The Honorable William J. Clinton,??? 1/26/98
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Getting Saddam, Part II,??? Time, 3/18/02
Rose, David, ???Iraq???s Arsenal Of Terror,??? Vanity Fair, May 2002 - ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair.com, 11/3/06 - ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair, January 2007 - ???Saddam and al Qaeda the link we???ve all missed,??? Evening Standard (London), 12/9/02
Strobel, Warren and Landay, Jonathan, ???Alliance between Chalabi, U.S. conservatives now in ruins,??? Knight Ridder, 5/8/04 - ???Infighting among U.S. intelligence agencies fuels dispute over Iraq,??? Knight Ridder, 10/27/02
The Disconnect Between Bush???s Rhetoric And His Generals[/b]
???Staying the course??? was one of President Bush???s favorite phrases when describing his commitment to the war in Iraq. While Bush was talking about heading towards victory and how the U.S. was winning, his Secretary of Defense had other ideas. Rumsfeld was set on withdrawing U.S. forces as soon as possible. Rather than having a set plan for defeating the insurgency, Generals Abizaid, commander of the Central Command (CENTCOM) that covered the Middle East, and Gen. Casey, commander in Iraq, were managing the conflict until Iraqi security forces could be built up leading to a U.S. pullout. PBS???s Frontline aired a program on Iraq called ???End Game??? in mid-June 2007, which included interviews with some of the top military advisers in the Pentagon and State Department, as well as leading journalists that highlighted this disconnect between what Pres. Bush was telling the American public, and what his generals and the Pentagon were actually doing. What follows is a comparison between the public statements made by Pres. Bush on Iraq and what was actually happening on the ground, relying largely on interviews conducted by Frontline.
Mid-2004[/b]
Pres. Bush declares that the U.S. will defeat the insurgency, but the military is drawing up plans to withdraw U.S. troops, and actually decrease combat operations against the insurgents by pulling back troops to large bases. The military operations that are carried out are large conventional sweeps that increase resentment against U.S. forces.
May 24, 2004 ???America???s task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend ??? a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf.??? ??? Pres. Bush.
June 2004 Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld sends Gen. George Casey to take over command in Iraq. Since before the invasion in 2003, Rumsfeld had always planned for the U.S. military to go into Iraq as quickly as possible and then withdraw just as fast. Casey is therefore told to train Iraqi forces so that the U.S. can withdraw its troops.
August 2004 Gen. Casey formulates a new campaign plan for Iraq. It is based upon the belief, shared by Gen. Abizaid, that U.S. troops are a negative influence on the country and their presence only leads to more opposition to the occupation. Based upon that assumption, Casey???s new plan calls for U.S. troops to stay on large forward operating bases and only fight insurgents when necessary.
On Troop Withdrawal:
???Well, from the day we got in, the plan was to get out at the earliest possible opportunity. At least that was the plan in the mind of the Defense Department.??? ??? Michael Gordon, military correspondent for the New York Times, author of the book on the invasion and occupation of Iraq Cobra II
???I think the impulse that drives Rumsfeld, up until the day of his resignation really, is how to extricate the United States from Iraq, (a) because it is interfering with some of his own cherished dogma and beliefs about the efficacy of military technology, but (b) I think on a more practical level, is he recognizes that the war has become a disaster.??? ??? Lawrence Kaplan, reporter for the New Republic
???[Casey] was inclined to begin to draw troops off at the earliest opportunity. But there???s a number of good reasons for this. ??? The United States strategic reserve was right down to the bone at this point. ??? The other is that I think that Gen. Casey did understand the way that the counterinsurgency had to be approached: that this was an Iraqi problem, ultimately, and the Iraqis would have to solve it. ??? So holding back the engagement of American military forces actually made sense.??? ??? Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.), former military advisor to Gen. Casey, consultant to the Iraq Study Group, currently assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare
???I think that from the outset our emphasis was on getting out of Iraq as quickly as possible, and that had always been the president???s strategy; it had always been Secretary Rumsfeld???s approach, and it was the approach that Gen. Abizaid and Casey had. .. The objective is to get Iraq under control at a basic level, train up Iraqi security forces, turn over responsibility to the government and leave.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, former military historian at West Point, co-author of the current surge policy, resident at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute
On The Bases Strategy:
???If you bring them [U.S. forces] into the forts two things happen. First of all, you reduce the numbers of casualties because remember, the crisis that emerges in the spring of 2004 emerges because Congress is up in arms. Because their constituents are calling and complaining of the fact that their friends and relatives are being killed and wounded by the dozen in the spring of 2004. ??? So the big base strategy is tied to the notion that you???ve got to reduce casualties. Unfortunately, the big strategy also cedes the initiative to the enemy.??? ??? Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), served in U.S. Army until 2004, military analyst for Jim Lehrer, CNN, NBC, and Fox News
???[In Iraq you had] what David Kilcullen, another one of the very smart advisers on counterinsurgency, termed ???war tourism.??? ??? What he???s talking about is units based on big forward operating bases. FOBs, going out and doing patrols from Humvees, usually not foot patrols but mounted patrols, and then coming back to their base. He said if that???s the way you???re operating, you???re not in the war; you???re simply a war tourist. You???ve got to be out there.??? - Thomas Ricks, military correspondent for the Washington Post, and author of a history of the U.S. invasion and occupation Fiasco
On The Combat Operations Carried Out:
???[Casey] underwrites the notion that we should conduct, large, conventional sweeps into areas where we think the enemy is living and operating. So we move across Anbar province. We go into towns and villages. ??? We end up, ultimately, making far more enemies than we kill because we go into these areas and we kill lots of innocent people. ??? And in the meantime, because these are large, predictable operations, most of the enemy that you went in there to get is gone before you arrive, melts away. ??? He doesn???t understand that he has reinforced all the wrong things all the way along to make matters worse.??? ??? Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), military analyst
???Casey didn???t understand the situation, didn???t recognize the basic realities of what was happening in Iraq. .. The question Casey has to address is, can we dig ourselves out of this hole? ??? This is best summarized by the study that [Kalev] Sepp, [professor, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California] does for him in I think the fall of ???04. He does a list of best practices in counterinsurgency and worst practices in counterinsurgency. I think of the 12 worst practices, the major mistakes that militaries have made in trying to put down an insurgency, the United States is committing nine of the 12.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Fall 2004-2005[/b]
U.S. plans are amended to include the promotion of elections and the formation of a new Iraqi government to try to draw Sunnis away from fighting the occupation to participating in democracy. On the military side, a new emphasis is placed on building up Iraqi security forces so that as they ???stand up we will stand down.??? Rumsfeld and his generals believe that together these new policies will facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Neither proves effective, which leads to growing criticism within the administration that the U.S. has no real strategy for victory in Iraq. Bush rejects the bad news.
Fall 2004 Casey and Rumsfeld add a new part to their strat
egy. The idea is to carry out elections so that a new Iraqi government can be formed. The belief is that democracy will bring the Sunnis into the political process and eventually marginalize the insurgency.
January 2005 the first round of elections take place in Iraq, but the vast majority of Sunnis boycott them.
March 2005 New emphasis is placed on training Iraqi forces to take over security from Americans.
June 28, 2005 ???The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. ??? As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.??? ??? Pres. Bush
On Iraqi Elections:
???Their conclusion is that we???re sort of moving beyond this period of major combat operations into a counterinsurgency phase in which the process of political reconciliation, which is also being pushed aggressively by the American Embassy, is going to lead to a diminution of the insurgency over time, because we???re going to take these people who are outside the process, bring some portion of them inside the process through negotiations. There will always be rejectionists ??? we???ll be battling them forever. But the Iraqis will do most of that fight. ??? Yes, it???s longer and harder than anybody anticipated, but the trend lines are positive. That???s the picture that???s being painted by Gen. Casey, Don Rumsfeld. And the White House is accepting that picture.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???Enter George Casey, and to his credit, in the summer of ???04, after he arrived, he put together a campaign plan to get everybody on the same page. The centerpiece to that was that we were going to transition to the Iraqi security forces. ??? The political strategy was to stand up a ??? representative government, as quickly as possible. When you look back on that and analyze it, it???s a short-war strategy???. Nowhere in there is a plan to defeat the insurgency, so we had no military strategy to defeat the insurgency. We were resting on a political strategy that would hopefully stem the violence because the Sunnis would come into the political process and therefore seek a political solution to the confrontation, no longer an armed solution. We over relied on that. And then there was no forcing function, because we were not defeating the insurgents.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???What was missing in the CENTCOM strategy was an understanding of the synergy that has to exist between a kinetic strategy to defeat the insurgency as a prerequisite for convincing the insurgents that they have to play in the political process, because what you had going on was Sunni Arabs were unwilling to accept the fact that they would not control the new Iraq ??? If you don???t take that tool away from them, if you don???t make it clear to them that violence is not an option and is not going to provide them with leverage, then you???re encouraging them to continue to be violent. And this was the problem that I saw all along with CENTCOM strategy as it was playing out.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
???The only other thing I will say on this particular issue [involving the Sunnis in elections in 2005] is I don???t think that we devoted enough effort to engaging that political leadership before the fact, nor did we create conditions that would cause elements of the Sunni community to hear what their leaders were saying.??? ??? Col. William Hix, was chief strategist for Gen. Casey
On Training Iraqi Forces:
???Then, due to a whole variety of factors, including mistakes the Americans made, the insurgency emerged. And Gen. Casey???s role, his initial task was to fight that insurgency. But what I think happened was Gen. Casey and Gen. Abizaid came to the conclusion hat this insurgency was pretty resilient, wasn???t going to be defeated anytime soon. And they seemed to have made an assumption that Washington was not willing to provide the military resources and other resources that would be needed to really defeat this insurgency. So they settled on a strategy that was not intended to defeat the insurgency in the short term. Rather the emphasis was on handing over to the Iraqis so they could fight the insurgency for years, and we would then be in a supporting role. Even though officially we had a counterinsurgency campaign, the emphasis was not so much on defeating the insurgency, which would take five, six, seven, eight, 10 years traditionally; it was on transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis and putting them in the lead so they could fight this insurgency in the ensuing years.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???But when you get down to what are the forces actually doing, the purpose of those military operations [was] to help train the Iraqi security forces, to transition to them so that they could defeat the insurgency, not us.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
On Withdrawal Plans:
??????Success is simply we leave, they stay, we train them, and then we leave,??? that very narrow definition can have kind of a nice circular quality, but it kind of avoids a lot of central questions. That was a source of a lot of concern in the summer of ???06.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former adviser to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007, currently history professor at Univ. of Virginia
???The secretary of defense hadn???t stepped back from Iraq strategy, but we couldn???t really see any push to innovate the strategy in significant ways. It still seemed to be ??? an exit strategy. .. That???s really more about Americans than it is about Iraq.??? ??? Philip Zelikow
On Having No Strategy:
???As somebody put it ??? it was a-strategic. The emphasis was on transferring responsibility to the Iraqis, generating more Iraqi soldiers and police, shrinking the number of American bases, beginning to draw down American combat brigades. And to some in the State Department and maybe on the NSC staff, it looked like this process had a life of its own, and it was almost a bit disconnected from the events in Iraq.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???In the summer of ???04, our strategy, by and large, military strategy, was wrapped around killing and capturing the insurgents, the thugs, the killers who were attacking us, and beginning to think about transitioning to and the growth of the Iraqi military. ??? But there was no unified campaign plan.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???When I go and talk with officers in the Pentagon, I say: ???Well, what???s the campaign plan? What is the series of steps that will lead us to achieving our objectives???? And typically they???ll say: ???Well, here are all the metrics. Here are all the things we???re trying to achieve.??? And I said: ???Well, that???s all well and good, but what is the plan? How do we progressively go about securing the country and defeating the insurgency??????? - Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.), former military advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and consultant to the Defense Dept.
???This point???s critical ??? you have to have a strategy country wide that tells your battalion and company commanders what their jobs are. ??? That???s what [was] missing. ??? Because the commanding generals did not prepare one.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???And the success of the [January 2005] elections, while tremendously gratifying, caught the MNF-1 [the c
oalition forces] staff unprepared with how to exploit this. ??? There wasn???t anything in place to take advantage of this tremendous blow to the insurgency.??? ??? Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.), former military advisor to Gen. Casey
On Bush Rejecting Bad News:
???It???s also a time [late 2004/early 2005] I think almost of deep divisions bordering on warfare in Washington about Iraq with the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] and the CIA coming in with very pessimistic reports, and actually getting them in front of the president at the end of ???04 and through ???05, saying, ???You are not winning in Iraq,??? and Bush being a little bit taken aback: ???Who are these guys? What are they telling me this for???? The story is supposedly after one such meeting with the Baghdad station chief of CIA, Bush asked afterward, ???Is that guy a Democrat???? But these guys I think are actually doing a very honest job of trying to speak truth to power.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Late 2005[/b]
Bush announces his new ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq??? based upon the urgings of Secretary of State Rice who sees Iraq policy failing. The new plan is to implement a combined military, political and economic counterinsurgency plan called ???clear, hold and build.??? The plan is opposed by Rumsfeld and therefore brings about no actual change on the ground in Iraq.
Late 2005 Secretary of State Rice is told by her special advisor on Iraq Philip Zelikow that the U.S. is lacking an overarching strategy in Iraq. Zelikow advocates a new counterinsurgency policy called ???clear, hold and build.??? Under this plan the U.S. will clear areas of insurgents, Iraqi security forces will then hold them, and then reconstruction will begin to win over the population.
October 6, 2005 ???This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve, and we will win that victory.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 19, 2005 Secretary of State Rice tells the Senate Foreign Relations committee that the U.S. strategy in Iraq has to be ???clear, hold and build.???
October 29, 2005, Rumsfeld disagrees with Rice???s new plan, saying that the Iraqis are the ones that need to stand up and fight rather than relying on American troops.
November 30, 2005 Bush announces the ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.??? It states that the U.S. will now follow Rice???s ???clear, hold, and build??? policy. At a speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland Bush says, ???We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory,??? and repeats that ???As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down.???
December 2005 The second round of elections take place to vote on a new Constitution. The Sunnis participate for the first time, but the majority vote against the document.
On The New Strategy:
???Then you have people in Washington trying to make sense out of it and trying to figure out if this strategy of handing over and transferring to the Iraqis really fits the situation. ??? What happens over the course of 2006 is people in the State Department and on the NSC increasingly come to think that it doesn???t and that we???re behind the curve in Iraq, that the situation in Iraq is more difficult than the one that???s being portrayed by Rumsfeld and Casey.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???At the State Department we felt increasingly restless that the strategy wasn???t being articulated at home or in the field as effectively as we thought it should be, with the kind of coherent counterinsurgency approach that we thought was needed and we thought a lot of the military accepted. The White House wasn???t doing it. They preferred to write different kinds of speeches for the president. And the secretary of defense wasn???t doing it. So the secretary of state really had to make the decision to step up and accept responsibility for helping to articulate a strategy for Iraq. And Secretary Rice did that in October of ???05, which then helped spur the rest of the administration, including the White House, to unveil a much more elaborate version of the national strategy for victory in Iraq, which they did later in ???05.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???Are we ???staying the course???? Is there a ???strategy for victory???? People start talking about ???clearing, holding and building.??? Well, what does that mean? This war of the phrases, for me, was summarized most of all in ???standing down as they stand up,??? partly because when we reached the end of the rainbow, there wasn???t a pot of gold; there was nothing. It turned out that a stood-up Iraqi force couldn???t quell the violence, so the Bush administration redefined standing down as they stand up. What we knew was standing up an Iraqi government, an effective Iraqi government. That had never been the original definition. And it???s a much longer task that???s going to take several years.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
On No Change In Iraq:
???There was some positive movement, but not enough. What ended up happening was that the basic center for policy development on Iraq remained in Baghdad. And Baghdad was not fundamentally innovating the policy.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???During this time frame in late 2005 and 2006, the White House is talking about a strategy for victory. When I was out in Iraq in Anbar and in Baghdad, I always thought there was a pretty profound disconnect between the rhetoric coming out of Washington in this time frame and what was actually happening, because I don???t think we were really trying to achieve victory. In fact, my sense was that the generals then looked at the insurgency, saw it was resilient, concluded that it couldn???t be defeated in the near term, put the emphasis on building up the Iraqis and handing over to them, and that the actual strategy was premised on the assumption that there would not be a near-term victory. There would be a continued war that we would support. So my sense is we never were going all out to win. We weren???t fighting the war. We were managing the war within available resources, and this was very much the emphasis in the first part of 2006.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???Secretary Rice clearly got the president sold on clear, hold and build. ??? And the weird thing is that the president, having endorsed that particular strategy, seems to have no effect on the ground, because the president has then announced this strategy which the military then doesn???t execute. And I think Rumsfeld at one point even says, ???Oh, we???re not doing clear, hold, build. ??? What I can tell you from the outside is that???s a dysfunctional administration. Something???s not working there if you???ve got the secretary of state enunciating a policy like that, the president adhering to it and endorsing it, and then the military commanders not executing. Something is broken.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
Early 2006[/b]
After the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, sectarian violence reaches unprecedented levels, especially in Baghdad. The violence ends another planned withdrawal for the U.S.
May 27, 2006 the U.S. promises to hand over security of Baghdad to the Iraqis by the end of the year.
June 2006 On a trip to Washington D.C., Gen. Casey presents a new plan for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, but it???s derailed by increasing sectarian violence.
On The Increase In Sectarian Violence:
???I think the reason that a lot of people think Casey essentially failed is when we didn???t protect Iraqis, Iraqis, seeking to survive,
looked to see who could protect them. And the story of 2006 was, ???The militias will protect us.?????? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Summer 2006-2007[/b]
American generals are still intent on withdrawing U.S. troops, but they must address the sectarian violence. This leads to the launching of two offensives in Baghdad, Operation Together Forward I & II, which are supposed to be based upon the clear, hold and build principles. Both fail, and Iraqi forces prove not only incapable of securing areas, but are involved in sectarian attacks. The increased fighting kills plans for a U.S. draw down of troops in 2006. Pres. Bush finally accepts that the U.S. is not winning in Iraq. This leads to a policy re-evaluation within the White House, but Bush skips a major meeting at Camp David for a P.R. trip to Iraq instead. The administration still tries to keep a positive spin on things because they don???t want Republicans to suffer in November elections because of Iraq.
July to October 2006 U.S. and Iraqi forces launch Operation Together Forward II, the second attempt in 2006 to secure Baghdad. The plan fails because there are not enough U.S. troops, the Iraqis don???t provide enough forces, and even when they do they are incapable of holding an area and stopping sectarian violence form occurring.
July 4, 2006 ???You???re winning this war.??? ??? Pres. Bush to troop at Fort Bragg, N.C.
July 7, 2006 ???Americans are wondering whether or not we can win. And to those Americans, I say: Not only can we win, we are winning.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 25, 2006 ???Absolutely, we???re winning. As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 25, 2006 ???I???m interested in one thing: I???m interested in winning.??? ??? Pres. Bush
On The Cancelled Withdrawal Plans:
???There???s a very important event which happens in June [2006]. ??? Gen. Casey comes back to the United States with a plan. What does this plan call for? It???s another version of his plan to draw down American forces in Iraq. ??? And what it calls for is reducing the then-14 brigade combat teams to 12 by September, trying to get down to 10 by December, trying to get down to around seven by July ???07, and trying to get down to five or six by December ???07, while shrinking the number of bases. ??? Within a matter of weeks this plan is shelved. We???re moving in precisely the opposite direction. We???ve added 7,000 troops to Baghdad for something they call Operation Together Forward II because the sectarian violence is starting to spiral out of control.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
On the Failure Of Operation Together Forward II:
???So the U.S. answer becomes: OK, we can clear, then the Iraqi troops will hold. And we???ll achieve that when we get up to the number of trained Iraqi forces, soldiers and police that we???re supposed to have, which is about 320,000. The problem is in ???06 they achieved that number of 320,000 trained Iraqi security forces, yet the violence still increases.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
???I knew that once we had made up our minds [in the summer of 2006 with Operation Together Forward II] that we were going to clear, but we didn???t have enough resources to hold, I knew the operation would fail. So we had two bites of this apple in Baghdad, and we failed both times because we never made a commitment to secure the population, and we never had enough resources to do it. I knew that our chances to succeed in Iraq were just slipping past us.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???But when you actually are dealing with a sectarian conflict, you cannot rely on indigenous forces to put down the violence, because every single person in those indigenous forces belongs to one sect or another. And when that is the issue on the table, indigenous forces cannot be impartial imposers of peace.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
???[In October 2006] the momentum towards sectarian division is not slowing. Maliki???s government???s will to deal with the security issues impartially is uncertain. And the current political-economic-military strategy isn???t really succeeding. We focused a lot on the military side of this. But on the political side, national reconciliation wasn???t advancing as quickly as we would like. And a fundamental problem there was [that] lack of motivation on the Maliki government side, and the lack of sufficient influence or leverage on our side.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
On Re-Evaluating U.S. Policy:
???So by the time we???re really well into this so-called Operation Together Forward, there are grave doubts in Washington now. ??? Washington is now very uneasy and unsure.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???I don???t think many policymakers in Washington really appreciated the degree to which this [a lack of an overall strategy in Iraq] was missing, or perhaps in many respects didn???t fully grasp the scale of this void until late in 2006. ??? So there was a lot of pressure by the early summer of 2006 to try to get a fundamental war council in which the president would pull this up by its roots and look at it and do a thoroughgoing review of the strategy for the conduct of the war. ??? That???s what ??? Camp David was meant to be [in June 2006]. ??? But the substantive review of the strategy that some of us who had been supporting the Camp David sessions had hoped for, that didn???t really unfold [because Bush flew to Baghdad instead of participating].??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???So [Rumsfeld] asked me to come in and speak to him. And I talked to him in September [2006] ??? about what was wrong, why it???s wrong and what we needed to do to fix it. ??? But he was certainly getting it from many sides, and I think from people who he trusted, that things were just horrible, and by every indicator the strategy was failing. I think that???s what he was indicating to me in body language.??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
On Bush???s Realization That The U.S. Was Not Winning:
???Because the rhetoric that the president was evidencing in his remarks almost consistently for three years, he would use terms like ???win,??? ???We???re going to defeat the insurgents,??? ???victory.??? That all would lend itself to a military strategy whose purpose was to defeat the insurgency. We never had that as a mission in Iraq. And I don???t know if the president, through all those three years, truly understood that.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???There were people well before ???06 who went into President Bush???s office and said, ???You are not winning this war.??? He didn???t want to hear it; he tended not to believe it. ??? Finally in late ???06 the president kind of wakes up and says, ???You know, this isn???t going that well.??? He actually gives a speech, I think, where he says the present course is failing.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
On Holding On Until the November Elections:
???The first thing Casey does [in the summer of 2006] is abandon the official optimism that he had still subscribed to through much of this period, and he gives up the idea of trying to draw down U.S. troops during 2006. ??? The other thing he???s got going is the clear recognition that there???s probably going to be a shift in Iraq policy by the end of ???06/early ???07. ??? So I think what???s he???s doing is essentially trying to keep the lid on through the midterm elections.??? ??? Thomas Ric
ks, Washington Post
???They don???t want to suggest prior to the midterm election that they themselves no longer believe in their own strategy, because they think that will be politically damaging to the administration???s prospects, the Republican prospects in the election.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???I was disappointed with how the strategy developed after that point [the Camp David meeting]. I mean, I???d been disappointed with the strategy all along, but I think that we continued to drift; we continue to focus too much on training Iraqis with the belief that they would solve the problem. ??? We continued to engage in this sort of raid-patrol kind of operation, which is really antithetical to good counterinsurgency.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
January 2007[/b]
Pres. Bush announces another new strategy for Iraq termed the ???surge??? of increasing U.S. and Iraqi forces for a third attempt to secure Baghdad, and begin reconstruction, which will hopefully lead to political reconciliation. As part of this new policy Donald Rumsfeld is fired and Generals Abizaid and Casey are replaced.
Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.), former military advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalizaid and current consultant to the Pentagon finished his interview with Frontline by saying that the U.S. wasn???t serious about winning the war in Iraq. The White House was acting like everything was normal and had never asked the country to make any kind of sacrifices.
???We Americans, certainly the administration, believe that Iraq represents a critical security problem for the Unite States, but we???ve taken to a great extent very much as business-as-usual approach. There???s an enormous gap between what we feel and what we say about this war and what we???re actually doing about this war, how much we???re willing to disrupt our lives, how much we???re willing to divert resources, how much we???re willing to upset traditional patterns in the way our bureaucracy operates to actually win the war. ??? I???m saying that we???re not serious. We???re not as serious as you need to be when you undertake this kind of enterprise. War is a very serious business.???
Sources[/b]
Baker, Peter, ???Bush Is Reassuring on Iraq But Says He???s ???Not Satisfied,??? Washington Post, 10/26/06
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???Why Bush Thinks We???re Winning,??? Washington Post.com, 10/26/06
PBS Frontline, ???Gen. George Casey,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Col. William Hix,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,??? End Game, 6/19/07
White House, ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,??? 11/30/05
So now you dont even bother trying to write an article, but just cut and paste quotes from newspapers we all have access to. I mean, really, why do you even bother? And when do we get to the part of your article that offers a solution or analysis and a different approach to the problem. This is like a never ending highschool book report that just vomits up "facts". WHERE IS THE ANALYSIS?????!?!?!?!?!!
Although, i congratulate you on finding a way to avoid those plagiarism problems you were laboring under, just put everything in quotes, makes it sound authoritative too. LOL.
So now you dont even bother trying to write an article, but just cut and paste quotes from newspapers we all have access to. I mean, really, why do you even bother? And when do we get to the part of your article that offers a solution or analysis and a different approach to the problem. This is like a never ending highschool book report that just vomits up "facts". WHERE IS THE ANALYSIS?????!?!?!?!?!!
Read the previous two articles dip shit. Plenty of analysis and original writing. And I have offered different solutions in other articles as well in this thread, but you probably don't read anyways so what's the point.
Like Bush you are become more and more irrelevant.
Despite Zarqawi???s death, Al Qaeda in Iraq has actually grown. Their new leader is an Egyptian Abu Ayyub Masri who is seen as being more flexible than Zarqawi who was known for his rigid ideological views.
Los Angeles Times
The insurgency has increased ... since Zarqawi's death in June, and in some ways is stronger than when he was alive. . . . The movement lost a wily strategist, but his successor, whom U.S. officials identify as Abu Ayyub Masri, an Egyptian, appears more flexible in recruitment.
"Zarqawi was a hard-liner in his recruitment practices," said a Pentagon consultant who requested anonymity. "This [new] guy is using a big-tent approach. People who were previously excluded from Al Qaeda in Iraq because they lack exceeding levels of fanaticism are now allowed in."
I aint reading all that, can you give me the gist?
sure, motown is a plagiarist. And there's a bunch of stuff about Iraq that he copies from blogs and newspapers in there too.
wow, this has deeply shaken my faith in the case against the war and left me troubled and hurt. Im going to go over to your site, so I can be alone for a while.
I aint reading all that, can you give me the gist?
Do you want a quick summary of that last thing I wrote?
It's basically that while Bush was talking about winning and victory in Iraq, his generals and Rumsfeld actually were planning to pull out U.S. troops ASAP, and didn't have a real strategy to defeat the insurgency. Sectarian violence took off in 2006, people in the White House started freaking out and realized that there wasn't a strategy so Rumsfeld and his generals got the boot and Bush took up the surge policy and that's where we are now.
sabadadoodoo's rant: 1) Where are your sources? I don't have to listen to this! 2) Your sources are all liberal! I don't have to listen to this! 3) You are using facts from sources! I don't have to listen to this!
If I or anyone else on here wants this viewpoint we can go directly to the sources that you steal from and read them ourselves. It appears that all you do, is cut and paste information from different newspapers and blogs, change some words around, and mix it all up so that it looks original. You offer no analysis, other than that taken from some other source, and you mix-up your sources. A fact lifted from some unverified blog appears with a fact from the L.A. Times and you dont credit either or only credit the more authoratative source (or more likely the source you know someone like me will catch you stealing from).
This "essay" or whatever you want to call it, has to have to lowest percentage of original thought per word count out of anything I've ever had the misfortune of reading.
And when do we get to the part of your article that offers a solution or analysis and a different approach to the problem. This is like a never ending highschool book report that just vomits up "facts". WHERE IS THE ANALYSIS?????!?!?!?!?!!
All I get are the facts about how the broken the glass. Where is the ANALYSIS? You say the glass is broken. What is your plan to fix the glass? You have no solutions for putting the glass together.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO BREAK THE GLASS UNTIL THE GLASS FIXES ITSELF!!!!!
And when do we get to the part of your article that offers a solution or analysis and a different approach to the problem. This is like a never ending highschool book report that just vomits up "facts". WHERE IS THE ANALYSIS?????!?!?!?!?!!
All I get are the facts about how the broken the glass. Where is the ANALYSIS? You say the glass is broken. What is your plan to fix the glass? You have no solutions for putting the glass together.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO BREAK THE GLASS UNTIL THE GLASS FIXES ITSELF!!!!!
it took you all this time to come up with that lame non-analogy.
your girl is going to kill you when she comes home and finds that you broke one of her good glasses.
PBS??? Frontline show ???End Game??? aired on 6/19/07 documented how the U.S. did not have a set strategy to defeat the insurgency and win in Iraq from 2004-2007. The current surge policy is suppose to be the first comprehensive and integrated military, political and economic program put together, based upon counterinsurgency principals since the U.S. invasion in 2003. There are still some former and current military officials who do not believe this to be true.
In April 2007 it was reported that the Bush administration was looking for a ???war czar.??? They were interviewing four-star generals that would coordinate both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but at least five turned them down. National Security Advisor Stephan Hadley is suppose to be the one that coordinates the Iraq war for Pres. Bush, but the White House has been notorious for having a dysfunctional decision-making and policy process. Even today, with major changes in personnel there is still a sharp divide between the National Security Council, the Defense Department and the State Department over who is suppose to have control over Iraq. This lack of a unified command has been a major drawback since day one.
The White House eventually picked a three star general, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the war czar in May 2007.
The major problem the administration ran into in finding a candidate for the job was the belief that Bush still didn???t have a plan for winning in Iraq. This disagreement between the military and civilian leadership was made public in an op. ed. piece in the Washington Post by retired four-star Marine general John Sheehan who turned down the job. Sheehan wrote:
What I found in discussions with current and former members of this administration is that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region. In my view, there are essentially three strategies in play simultaneously.
Sheehan said of the three strategies that he found, the third, a vision of an end state in Iraq and the role of the U.S. in the entire Middle East was, ???The most important but, unfortunately, is the least developed and articulated by this administration.??? Sheehan later told the Post in an interview that the White House ???didn???t know??? what their strategy was. He said that this lack of vision was the reason why he turned down the job, and thought that a war czar was not going to solve the problem.
His view was supported by Col. Lang (Ret.) a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who still consults the government on Iraq who told the Christian Science Monitor that the four-stars who turned down the job, ???See that nothing has really changed in the Bush-Cheney approach to Iraq policy, so they decline the offer.??? Even Gen. Lute who took the job disagreed with the surge policy before he was selected.
Sources[/b]
Sheehan, John, ???Why I Declined To Serve,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
LaFranchi, Howard, ???The missing player: a ???czar??? to manage the Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/26/07
PBS Frontline, - ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,??? End Game, 6/19/07
Wright, Robin, ???Bush Taps Skeptic of Buildup as ???War Czar,?????? Washington Post, 5/16/07
U.S. policy towards Iraq is at another important crossroad. In the last four years the Bush administration went through Jay Garner???s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, Paul Bremer???s Coalition Provisional Authority, Fallujah I and II, two national elections, a new constitution, the National Strategy for Victory, and Operation Together Forward I and II, none of which proved effective. In fact, some of these increased the insurgency and sectarian differences in the country. What the U.S. is facing in Iraq is a decade or longer process of nation building under near civil war conditions that will be passed onto those presidents following Bush. Below is a brief overview of some of the plans that are under consideration for future U.S. policy towards Iraq.
Plans:[/b]
1. The Surge The surge is the current strategy of the U.S. It is a military solution to a political problem. It has called for a flow of troops into Baghdad and Anbar province to quell sectarian violence, fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, and allow the Maliki government to work towards political reconciliation by passing a number of laws on sharing oil profits, de-Baathification, amending the constitution, local elections, and the future of Kirkuk. All of these issues have been stalled in Iraq???s parliament. The oil law is the only one that has a chance of being passed, but there is no guarantee that it would be enforced due to the very limited power of the central government, or that it would have any effect. On the military side, the surge is only having limited effects on the violence. Death squad activities in Baghdad are down, but the insurgents have moved to other areas of the country, and they have still been able to carry out a bombing campaign against civilians that have kept up the death tolls.
2. South Korea Model With reports of the surge faltering, in June 2007 President Bush and Secretary of Defense Gates mentioned that South Korea might be an example for the U.S. in Iraq. The U.S. has around 30,000 troops based in South Korea to ensure its security from the North. They have been there for over 50 years since the end of the Korean War. Under this plan, the U.S. would move its troops to large bases, provide a damper to an outright civil war, deter neighbors from intervening, and continue operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq. The problem with the South Korean analogy is that the South is not in the middle of a civil war. When the U.S. withdrew troops to large bases in 2004 they gave the initiative to the insurgents who stepped up their attacks. The U.S. would be taking casualties for decades, while not really solving the conflict.
3. Partition Partition plans have been argued by Sen. Joe Biden and former U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith. The plan would divide the country up into 3 regions, the South for the Shiites, the West for the Sunnis, and the North for Kurds. U.S. forces would be used in more of a peacekeeping role protecting the movement of people to their areas, and making sure no side attacks another. The problem with this idea is that central Iraq, which includes Baghdad and around half the country???s population, is extremely mixed. After the bombing of the Shiite shrine in February 2006 there was a wave of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and its environs, but these people still remain in the area. This would be addressed by conducting land swaps, but given the size of the area and people involved this would prove to be very difficult if not impossible.
4. Political Reconciliation There are many different models that call for political reconciliation, the Iraq Study Group being the most famous, but not the sole one. These plans would emphasize political moves, rather than military operations first. All the various plans call for some kind of phased withdrawal of U.S. troops because they are not the answer. Some, like presidential candidate Bill Richardson, call for a complete withdrawal within a year or two. Others want to cut troops in half, leaving a training mission, troops to conduct operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq, perhaps a large base in the Kurdish north where they would be welcomed, and another large contingent in Kuwait that would be used in case of any un-foretold emergencies. Others have called for the U.S. to act more like peacekeepers rather than carry out anti-insurgent policies as they withdraw. On the political side, the U.S. would call for increased diplomatic efforts to bring in Iraq???s neighbors and the United Nations to work out deals between the various factions. In 2007 the Bush administration has actually started moving in this direction with regional meetings. The Iraq Study Group said that the U.S. should work with the Iraqi central government in these efforts, while others see the Baghdad government as part of the problem, not the solution. The latter call for the use of carrots and sticks with the different groups including Prime Minister Maliki. A policy paper by the Center for American Progress also emphasized that the U.S. should work on the local level to bring about visible changes in Iraq like what the U.S. is currently doing with Sunni tribes in Anbar, rather than concentrating on the Iraq government. Any negotiations would be difficult because they would need to include Syria and Iran who don???t have the same interests as the U.S. Some also call for including Moqtada Sadr because he is one of the most powerful politicians in the country, even though to this point, the U.S. has tried to marginalize him.
Conclusion[/b]
Current U.S. strategy in Iraq is based upon the surge. It is looking more and more like it will turn out to be a failure because there are not enough U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and the Maliki government is incapable of passing and enforcing any legislation. By the end of 2007 U.S. troops will have to start withdrawing unless Bush extends the tours for many troops that have already stayed passed their planned return to the States. After that, troops will probably be in a holding pattern until the U.S. presidential elections. That leaves the next president to decide Iraq policy. Whichever direction he or she takes, they must be flexible as the situation on the ground is constantly changing. For example, many analysts say that some of the suggestions of the Iraq Study Group have already been overtaken by events in Iraq. More importantly, they need to understand that this will last 10 to 15 years unless all U.S. troops are withdrawn. Either way, Iraq will probably not have a happy ending.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Baker, James and Hamilton, Lee, The Iraq Study Group Report, Vintage Books, 2006
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Gauging the Iraq Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 3/26/07 - ???What Model Should Iraq Follow after U.S. Forces Withdraw???? Council on Foreign Relations, 6/25/07
Chatham House, ???Accepting Realities in Iraq,??? May 2007
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq's Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evolving Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07 - ???Iraq's Troubled Future: The Uncertain Way Ahead,??? , Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/13/07 - ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3/28/07 - ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,?????? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
International Crisis Group, ???After Baker-Hamilton: What To Do In Iraq,??? 12/19/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???A Plan for Success in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 12/14/06 - ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 10/25/06 - ???No Third Way in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 11/6/06 - ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? Ameri
can Enterprise Institute, 11/27/06
Kagan, Frederick and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute, 11/20/06
Katulis, Brian, Korb, Lawrence, and Juul, Peter, ???Strategic Reset,??? Center for American Progress, June 2007
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???Waning Chances for Stability,??? Brookings Institution, 2/28/07
Simon, Steven, ???After the Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, February, 2007
Strauss Military Reform Project, ???Analysts, U.S. Officials Express Doubt in Ability to Stabilize Iraq,??? Center For Defense Information, 3/2/07
White, Jeffrey, Exum, Andrew, and Eisenstadt, Michael, ???The Surge in Iraq: An Early Assessment,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 5/7/07
Articles[/b]
Associated Press, ???Details of Bush's New Iraq Strategy,??? 1/10/07
Basevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panel's real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Biddle, Stephan, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ???Five Flaws in the President's Plan,??? Washington Post, 1/12/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???The elephant gives birth to a mouse,??? Asia Times, 12/8/06
Duffy, Michael, ???What a Surge Really Means,??? Time, 1/15/07
Frayer, Lauren, ???U.S. generals say Iraqis can't hold territory,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/25/07
Froomkin, Dan, ???First Benchmark Missed???? Washington Post, 2/6/07
Galbraith, Peter, ???The Case For Dividing Iraq,??? Time, 11/13/06 - ???The Surge,??? New York Review Of Books, 3/15/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07
Kagan, Frederick and Keane, Jack, ???The Right Type of 'Surge'; Any Troop Increase Must Be Large and Lasting,??? Washington Post, 12/27/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush's Iraq Legacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Troop Surge Already Under Way,??? ABCNEWS.com, 1/11/07
Lobe, Jim, ???Neocons Move to Preempt Baker Report,??? Inter Press Service, 12/6/06
Londono, Ernesto, ???In Baghdad, Rice Acknowledges Frustrations in U.S.,??? Washington Post, 2/18/07
Lugar, Senator Richard, ???Lugar Slams Bush Policy, Iraqi Progress,??? IraqSlogger.com, 6/26/07
Owen, John, ???How Bad Would a Partition Be???? National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
Rich, Frank, ???They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Sanger, David, ???Report suggests U.S. talk with Iran, Syria,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
Sanger, David and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06
Semple, Kirk and Wong, Edward, ???Can They All Get Along in Iraq? The Report Says They Have To,??? New York Times, 12/8/06
Wright, Robin, ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Comments
Government Reports[/b]
Defense Department, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? Report to Congress, August 2006
Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, ???Iraqi Security Forces: Review of Plans to Implement Logistics Capabilities,??? 10/28/06
Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, ???Iraqi Security Forces: Weapons Provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Using the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund,??? 10/28/06
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing, ???An Oversight Hearing on the Planning and Conduct of the War in Iraq: When Will Iraqi Forces Be Able to ???Stand Up,??? So American Troops Can Begin to ???Stand Down??????? Gerald Burke, 10/12/06
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq???s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare to Prewar Assessments,??? 9/8/06
U.S. Intelligence Community, ???Declassified Key Judgments of the National Intelligence Estimate ???Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States??? dated April 2006,??? 9/27/06
Think Tank Reports[/b]
al-Khalidi, Ashraf and Tanner, Victor, ???Sectarian Violence: Radical Groups Drive Internal Displacement in Iraq,??? Brookings Institution, October 2006
Beehner, Lionel, ???The Challenge in Iraq???s Other Cities: Basra,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/28/06
- ???The Cost of the Iraq War,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 11/8/06
- ???Iraq???s Meddlesome Neighbors,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 8/31/06
- ???Securing Baghdad,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/18/06
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq???s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War,??? 9/27/06
- ???Losing the War in Iraq???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/19/06
- ???The Evolving National Strategy for Iraq; Testimony to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and Committee on Government Reform,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/11/06
Kenneth Pollack, ???A Switch In Time; A New Strategy For America In Iraq,??? Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institute, February 2006
O???Hanlon, Michael, ???Voluntary Ethnic Relocation in Iraq???? Brookings Institute, 8/27/06
Smith, Col. Daniel, Retired, ???Repairing a Broken Iraq???? Foreign Policy In Focus, 7/3/06
White, Jeffrey, ???An Adaptive Insurgency; Confronting Adversary Networks in Iraq,??? Washington Institute For Near East Policy, September 2006
Articles[/b]
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, ???Iraqi parties work out security details,??? Associated Press, 10/10/06
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim and Keath, Lee, ???Feuding Iraq Gov???t Groups Launch Charges,??? Guardian UK, 10/10/06
Agence France Presse, ???Arrogant US Officials Made Mistakes in Iraq, Envoy Says,??? Arab News Saudi Arabia, 10/6/06
Ahrari, Ehsan, ???Iraq???s defiant but doomed democracy,??? Asia Times, 10/26/06
Al-Ali, Zaid, ???Saving Iraq: a critique of Peter W Galbraith,??? OpenDemocracy.net, 10/26/06
Al-Ansary, Khalid, and Adeeb, Ali, ???Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents,??? New York Times, 9/18/06
Al-Atraqchi, Firas, ???Maliki???s wishful thinking,??? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 8/31-9/6/06
Al-Fadhily, Ali and Jamail, Dahr, ???An Unknown City Erupts,??? Inter Press Service, 10/9/06
- ???Govt. Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad,??? Inter Press Service, 10/19/06
- ???New Militias Push Govt Back Further,??? Inter Press Service, 10/3/06
Al-Khairalla, Mussab, ???Speaker warns Iraq has months to avert collapse,??? Reuters, 9/6/06
Al-Khairalla, Mussab and Macdonald, Alastair, ???Baghdad bombings hit new high,??? Reuters, 10/4/06
Al-Khalidi, Suleiman, ???U.S. tactics swelling Al Qaeda in Iraq-Sunni moderate,??? Reuters, 10/29/06
Alani, Dr. Mustafa, ???Iran???s presence in Iraq,??? Khaleej Times United Arab Emirates, 10/24/06
Arieff, Irwin, ???Al Qaeda gains recruits from Iraq war ??? UN study,??? Reuters, 9/27/06
Army Times, ???Time for Rumsfeld to go,??? 11/4/06
Associated Press, ???As U.S. focuses on Baghdad, al-Qaeda gains strength in Sunni heartland,??? USA Today, 8/16/06
- ???Battle for Baghdad ???a critical point??? in the war,??? MSNBC.com, 10/5/06
- ???Iraq Troops Hinder U.S. Efforts,??? Military.com, 9/25/06
- ???Sunni accuse Shiites of dirty tricks in passing controversial federalism law,??? 10/12/06
- ???U.S. general: More violence during Ramadan,??? MSNBC.com, 9/20/06
Axe, David, ???Equipment Shortages Undermine Iraqi Forces,??? National Defense, November 2006
Badkhen, Anna, ???Experts say an Iraq pullout not enough to stop jihadists,??? San Francisco, 9/28/06
- ???Experts say Iraq will find timetable difficult to meet,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06
- ???Experts see no clear options for exiting Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/9/06
- ???Foreign jihadists seen as key to spike in Afghan attacks,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/25/06
- ???General concedes failure in Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/06
- ???Shiite militias have to go experts say ??? but how???? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/19/06
Baker, Peter, ???Bechtel pulling out after 3 rough years of rebuilding work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/1/06
- ???Book stirs furor over Bush team,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/30/06
- ???Bush Is Reassuring on Iraq But Says He???s ???Not Satisfied,??? Washington Post, 10/26/06
- ???President clarifies ???stay the course,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/24/06
Baldor, Lolita, ???Auditors want rules for Iraq aid,??? Associated Press, 10/30/06
Barnes, Julian, ???A New Assignment for Younger Troops,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/12/06
Barnes, Julian and McManus, Doyle, ???Resistance to Deadlines for Iraq is Weakening,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/31/06
BBC News, ???British launch Iraq police purge,??? 9/27/06
- ???Iraq civil war warning for Blair,??? 8/3/06
- ???Iraq corruption ???costs billions,?????? 11/9/06
- ???Iraq police rebrand to foil fakes,??? 10/9/06
- ???Iraq violence: Facts and figures,??? 8/17/06
- ???US ???cannot stay course??? in Iraq,??? 10/22/06
Bectaoros, Elena, ???Iraq Army Division Takes Over Province,??? Las Vegas Sun, 9/18/06
Bodeen, Christopher, ???Iraq delays national talks amid killings,??? Associated Press, 10/15/06
Branigin, William, ???Rumsfeld to Step Down as Defense Secretary,??? Washington Post, 11/8/06
Brunswick, Mark and Obeld, Zalneb, ???U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 9/8/06
Castaneda, Antonio, ???U.S. forces in Iraq stretched thin,??? Globe And Mail Canada 10/9/06
Cave, Damien, ???For Iraqis, a New Rule of Life: Don???t Trust Anyone in Uniform,??? New York Times, 8/3/06
- ???Troops Cut Death, but Not Fear, in a Bloody Baghdad Neighborhood,??? New York Times, 9/4/06
- ???Weary Iraqis Face New Foe: Rising Prices,??? New York Times, 8/26/06
CBS News, ???The Mother Of All Heists,??? CBSNews.com, 10/22/06
Cloud, David, ???U.S. setting deadlines, goals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06
Cockburn, Patrick, ???The Exodus: 1.6 m Iraqis have fled their country since the war,??? Independent UK, 10/23/06
- ???Iraq: ???The Greatest Strategic Disaster in American History,?????? AlterNet.org, 10/31/06
Cole, Juan, ???Four more years???? Salon.com, 10/12/06
- ???Partitioning Iraq,??? Salon.com, 10/30/06
Colvin, Marie, ???US in Secret Truce Talks With Insurgency Chiefs,??? Sunday Times UK, 10/22/06
Daragahi, Borzou, ???Government Fissures Widening,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/16/06
- ???Gunmen leave sc ores dead in grim end to Ramadan,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/23/06
- ???Shiites Press for a Partition of Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/9/06
Dinmore, Guy, ???Iraq???s parties reach deal on oil-sharing,??? Financial Times UK, 8/29/06
Dunham, Will, ???U.S. force in Iraq at 140,000,??? Washington Post, 8/31/06
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06
- ???Bush Reveals Secret War Report,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/06
- ???Iraq???s prime minister visiting U.S. amid worry over nonstop violence,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/06
- ???Time running out for Iraqis, study group leaders warn,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/06
Filkins, Dexter, ???Baghdad???s Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S.??? New York Times, 8/6/06
Fleishman, Jeffrey, ???A Threat That Tops Insurgency,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/27/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???Why Bush Thinks We???re Winning,??? WashingtonPost.com, 10/26/06
Galloway, Joe, ???Military Leaders Want New Iraq Strategy,??? Military.com, 9/7/06
Georgy, Michael, ???Number of Iraqi refugees from violence swells,??? Reuters, 7/31/06
Ghosh, Aparisim, ???Exclusive: Inside the Mind of Saddam???s Chief Insurgent,??? Time, 7/24/06
Glanz, James, ???An Audit Sharply Criticizes Iraq???s Bookkeeping,??? New York Times, 8/12/06
-???Audit Finds U.S. Hid Actual Cost of Iraq Projects,??? New York Times, 7/30/06
- ???Congress Is Told of Failures of Rebuilding Work in Iraq,??? New York Times, 9/29/06
- ???Some contracts in Iraq spend over 50% on overhead,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06
- ???U.S. Agency Cites Flaws in Another Iraqi Construction Project,??? New York Times, 10/12/06
- ???U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis,??? New York Times, 10/30/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Iraqi Realities Undermine the Pentagon???s Predictions,??? New York Times, 10/25/06
- ???Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order,??? New York Times, 8/29/06
- ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06
- ???Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency,??? New York Times, 10/5/06
- ???To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission,??? New York Times, 10/23/06
- ???Trying to build an army in a combat zone,??? New York Times, 8/18/06
- ???Wary Iraqis Are Recruited as Policemen,??? New York Times, 7/24/06
Graff, Peter, ???No troop cut before next summer, general says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/20/06
Grier, Peter, ???Iraq war draws foreign jihadists, but not in droves,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/3/06
- ???Why US effort to rebuild Iraq came up short,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/3/06
Grunow, Carl, ???Advising Iraqis: Building the Iraqi Army,??? Military Review, July-August 2006
Guidere, Mathieu, and Harling, Peter, ???Iraq???s resistance evolves,??? Le Monde diplomatique France, May 2006
Gulf Times Qatar, ???Anti-corruption chief battles on,??? 7/7/06
Hani, Haidar, ???Iraqis loot vacated British base,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/26/06
Hanley, Charles, ???U.S. funds for rebuilding Iraq run out,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/15/06
Harding, Thomas, ???Southern Iraq approaches the tipping point,??? Telegraph UK, 11/2/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/7/06
Hider, James, ???3,000 police are sacked as rulers remain cut off and impotent,??? Times UK, 10/18/06
Ignatius, David, ???Beyond the Coup Rumors, Options for Iraq,??? Washington Post, 10/13/06
- ???Defense Secretary We Had,??? Washington Post, 11/9/06
Inskeep, Steve, ???Fouad Ajami on What Went Wrong in Iraq,??? NPR, 8/31/06
IRIN News.org, ???Iraq: Iraqi prisons see a few improvements,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 10/7/06
- ???Iraq: Military continues to violate the rights of civilians,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 10/9/06
- ???Iraq: Slow reconstruction blamed on corruption,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 9/6/06
- ???Iraq: Unemployment and violence increase poverty,??? U.N. Office for the Coordination f Humanitarian Affairs, 10/18/06
Jamail, Dahr and al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Fallujah Under Threat Yet Again,??? Inter Press Service, 9/11/06
- ???Iraqi Militias take Refuge in Facilities Protection Service,??? AntiWar.com, 11/8/06
- ???US Military Adopts Desperate Tactics in al-Anbar,??? AntiWar.com, 11/1/06
- ???US military ???loses control??? of key Iraqi province,??? Asia Times, 9/7/06
Jelinek, Pauline, ???Attacks cost Iraq oil exports $16B,??? Associated Press, 9/28/06
Jervis, Rick, ???Iraq will wait to disarm militias,??? USA Today, 10/16/06
Johnson, Scott, ???Silent Sistani,??? Newsweek, 9/4/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 10/25/06
- ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Insurgency Gains Alarming Support Among Iraq???s Sunni Muslims,??? ABCNews.com, 9/20/06
Karouny, Mariam, ???Iraq imposes curfew in tense Shi???ite town,??? Reuters, 10/23/06
Khalil, Lydia, ???Iraqi Sufis Join the Fight Against Coalition Forces,??? Jamestown.com, 9/29/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Baghdad plans big expansion of city morgue,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/06
- ???British Find No Evidence Of Arms Traffic From Iran,??? Washington Post, 10/4/06
- ???Bush, Iraqi Premier Act to Close Rift After Week of Tension,??? Washington Post, 10/29/06
- ???In Balad, Age-Old Ties Were ???Destroyed in a Second,?????? Washington Post, 10/23/06
- ???Market attack in Shiite city kills 32, wounded 70,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06
- ??????Shiite Giant??? Extends Its Reach,??? Washington Post, 8/24/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen and Aldin, Muhanned Saif, ???Open sectarian war engulfs river towns,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/17/06
- ???Troops take over town Sunnis were driven from,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/18/06
Koopman, John, ???Analysts call new Iraq military work in progress,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/8/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???As violence escalates, so does talk of a divided Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 9/11/06
- ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Lenz, Ryan, ???Hearing: GIs drank and planned,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/8/06
Leys, Jeff, ???Economic Warfare: Iraq and the I.M.F.,??? Common Dreams News Center, 9/22/06
Lobe, Jim, ???A crash course on Iraq,??? Asia Times, 10/24/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???Iraq war has Bush Doctrine in tatters,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/27/06
Luo, Michael, ???Iraqis Ask Why U.S. Forces Didn???t Intervene in Balad,??? New York Times, 10/17/06
- ???U.S. to Review Baghdad Plan, General Says,??? New York Times, 10/19/06
Macdonald, Alastair, ???Iraq civilian deaths hit record in Sept ??? ministry,??? Reuters, 10/1/06
- ???Iraqi army faces challenge of cohesion, competence,??? Reuters, 9/7/06
Mannion, Jim, ???US force in Iraq swells to 150,000: Pentagon,??? Agence France-Presse, 10/30/06
Mazzetti, Mark, ???Senate committee disputes claims of Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/9/06
- ???War In Iraq Fuels Islamic Radicalism, Report Says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/24/06
McDonnell, Patrick, ???Why the Numbers Don???t Add Up in Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/10/06
McDonnell, Patrick and Rong, Louise, ???A New Offensive, an Old Conundrum,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/30/06
McManus, Doyle, and Ba rnes, Julian, ???Pliable ???benchmarks??? set for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/27/06
Miller, T. Christian, ???Army Corps Faked Budget Entries,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/23/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Deaths Drop in Iraqi Capital,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/28/06
- ???Iraq Impeding Efforts to Go After Shiite Militias, U.S. Military Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/28/06
- ???Iraq violence claims 41 lives,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06
- ???Iraqi Militias Seen as Spinning Out of Control,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/12/06
- ???Police Abuses in Iraq Detailed??? Los Angeles Times, 7/9/06
- ???U.S. military casualties surging,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/06
- ???U.S. Offers Plan to Curb Rogue Iraqi Police Forces,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/15/06
Moore, Solomon, and Barnes, Julian, ???Promised Iraqi troops slow to reach Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/06
Moore, Solomon, and Roug, Louise, ???Deaths Across Iraq Show It Is a Nation of Many Wars, With U.S. in the Middle,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/7/06
Mosher, Andy, ???Swath of North Turned Over to Iraqi Army,??? Washington Post, 8/9/06
Mosher, Andy and Mehdawi, Nasser, ???Shiite Party Leader Outlines 4 Steps for Iraq to Curb Violence,??? Washington Post, 7/25/06
Moubayed, Sami, ???A joker in the Shi???ite pack,??? Asia Times, 9/8/06
Murphy, Dan, ???Firefights mark further splintering in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/31/06
- ???How Al Qaeda views a long Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/6/06
Murphy, Dan and al-Taiee, Awadh, ???In Iraq, Shiite vs. Shiite power play,??? Christian Science Monitor, 10/23/06
Murphy, Kim, ???No easy answer to ???Kurdish question,?????? Chicago Tribune, 10/27/06
- ???Tribes Heed Call to Join Battle for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/5/06
New York Times, ???Echo of Hussein: Journalists held,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/06
Norris, David, ???Inside the Iraqi Forces Fiasco,??? Der Spiegel Online Germany, 8/14/06
Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Iraq war was terrorism ???recruiting sergeant,?????? Guardian UK 9/28/06
- ???Take UK troops out of Iraq, senior military told ministers,??? Guardian UK 9/29/06
O???Neil, John and Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Iraqi police now bearing brunt of insurgent attacks,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/7/06
Oppel, Richard, A., ???U.N. Finds Baghdad Toll Far Higher Than Cited,??? New York Times, 9/21/06
- ???U.S. warns of aid cuts for police,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/30/06
Oppel, Richard A., and Al-Saiedi, Abdul Razzaq, ???Deal on a Constitution for Iraq Is Teetering,??? New York Times, 9/11/06
Paley, Amit, ???Diwaniay battle increases tensions,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/9/06
- ???Heralded Iraq Police Academy a ???Disaster,?????? Washington Post, 9/28/06
- ???In Baghdad, a Force Under the Militias??? Sway,??? Washington Post, 10/31/06
- ???Iraqi Hospitals Are War???s New ???Killing Fields,?????? Washington Post, 8/30/06
- ???Most Iraqis want U.S. to leave now,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/06
Paley, Amit and Ibraim, K.I., ???Federalism Plan Dead, Says Iraqi Speaker,??? Washington Post, 9/13/06
- ???Sadr Political Bloc Calls for Overhaul of Iraqi Cabinet,??? 10/2/06, Washington Post
Paley, Amit, and Sarhan, Saad, ???Troops arrest top aides to militant cleric,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/22/06
Palmer, James, ???Despite dangers, holdover court system administering justice,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/11/06
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06
- ???US efforts in Iraq embattled, but often welcomed, ???Christian Science Monitor, 11/3/06
Pincus, Walter, ???CIA knew Hussein had no ties to bin Laden,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06
- ???U.S. Officers Detail Problems With Iraqi Soldiers,??? Washington Post, 11/1/06
Polling Report.com, ???Iraq,??? November 2006
Poole, Oliver, ???Shia killers rake in ??500,000 a day from crime, says US,??? Telegraph UK 9/22/06
Price, Jay, ???Iraq???s al-Maliki sharply delineates differences with U.S. leadership,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 10/26/06
Price, Jay and Al Dulaimy, Mohammed, ???Fallujah once again beset by violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/6/06
Priest, Dana and Jordan, Mary, ???Iraq at Risk Of Civil War, Top Generals Tell Senators,??? Washington Post, 8/4/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Militias Splintering Into Radicalized Cells,??? Washington Post, 10/19/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, and Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Sadr, a Question Mark Etched in Black,??? Washington Post, 9/11/06
Rasheed, Ahmed and Graff, Peter, ???Quarter million Iraqis flee sectarian violence,??? Reuters, 9/28/06
Regan, Tom, ???Pentagon studies examine ???mistakes??? in Iraq, Afghanistan,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/16/06
Reid, Robert, ???Analysis, Taking on al-Sadr Carries Risk,??? ABC News.com, 8/31/06
Reuters, ???Iraq charges 100 over prison torture,??? 11/7/06
- ???Iraq says needs $100 bln to rebuild infrastructure,??? 10/31/06
- ???Iraqi parliament approves federal law,??? 10/11/06
- ???U.S. erred in Iraq rebuilding program: auditor,??? ABC News.com, 8/31/06
- ???U.S. says Iraqi police not behind death squads,??? 9/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. Frustrated by Pace of Change in Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/16/06
- ???U.S. Officials Undermine Baghdad, Leader Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/17/06
Richter, Paul and Wallsten, Peter, ???Bush Dismisses the Idea of Partitioning Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/16/06
Ricks, Thomas E., ???Situation Called Dire in West Iraq,??? Washington Post, 9/11/06
Rogers, Paul, ???After failure in Iraq,??? OpenDemocracy.net, 10/26/06
Rose, David, ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair.com, 11/3/06
Rosenberg, Eric, ???Changing the standards of ???civil war,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/22/06
Salih, Mohammed, ???Bloody fight over Kirkuk???s future,??? Asia Times, 10/7/06
- ???Kurdistan Oil Troubles,??? AntiWar.com, 10/25/06
San Francisco Chronicle, ???Britain reportedly wants out in a year,??? 10/25/06
- ???British troop pullout urged,??? 10/13/06
- ???Deadly month in Iraq,??? 8/31/06
- ???More than 40 killed in fierce fight,??? 8/29/06
Sanger, David E., ???Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq,??? New York Times, 9/29/06
- ???Cheney backs off his claim of a dying Iraq insurgency,??? International Herald Tribune, 9/12/06
- ???G.O.P.???s Baker Hints Iraq Plan Needs Change,??? New York Times, 10/9/06
Scarborough, Rowan, ???Iraqi forces concern U.S. commander,??? Washington Times, 10/16/06
- ???U.S. says Iraq poised to take control of its ground forces,??? Washington Times, 8/29/06
Semple, Kirk, ???Heavy battle between Shiite militias reveals deep split in ruling coalition,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/21/06
Semple, Kirk and Luo, Michael, ???Interior chief vows leadership shakeup,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/14/06
Senanayake, Sumedha, ???Iraq: Sectarian Violence Increasing Internally Displaced,??? Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 10/5/06
Senor, Dan, ???The Realities Of Trying to Rebuild Iraq,??? Washington Post, 10/10/06
Shanker, Thom and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Bush Said to Be Frustrated by Level of Public Support in Iraq,??? New York Times, 8/16/06
Smith, Doug, ???In Iraq, U.S. Touts Provisional Reconstruction Teams as a Model,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/13/06
Smith, Doug, and Rasheed, Saif, ???Pact diffuses crisis over autonomy,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/25/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Newspapers For Troops Call For Rumsfeld???s Ouster,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/4/06
Sterngold, James, ???U.S. may have weeks, not months, to avert civil war, adviser warns,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/18/06
Sullivan, Anthony, ???A Bright, Shining Truth on Iraq,??? National Interest, 10/24/06
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Cleric Said to Lose Reins of Parts of Iraqi Militia,??? New York Times, 9/28/06
- ???Iraq Removes Leaders of Special Police,??? New York Times, 10/18/06
- ???Sectarian Havoc Freezes the Lives of Young Iraqis,??? New York Times, 10/8/06
- ???Shiite leader voices distrust of Sunnis within legislature,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/2/06
Tavernise, Sabrina and McNeil, Donald, ???New estimate puts death toll for Iraqi civilians at 600,000,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/11/06
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Guard, Reserves strain to meet wars??? demands,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/06
- ???Number of U.S. wounded highest since ???04,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/8/06
- ???Strife Moving Out From Baghdad to Villages,??? Washington Post, 8/16/06
- ???Tour extended for 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/26/06
USA Today, ???Iraq attacks rise 22% during Ramadan, U.S. military says,??? 10/19/06
Wilgoren, Debbi and Schneider, Howard, ???U.S. Officials: Iraqi Security Could be Ready in 12-18 Months,??? Washington Post, 10/24/06
Witte, Griff, ???Contractors Rarely Held Responsible for Misdeeds in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/4/06
- ???U.S. firm botching jobs, Congress told,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/29/06
Wong, Edward, ???Doubts Rise on Iraqi Premier???s Strength,??? New York Times, 9/20/06
- ???For an Iraq Cut in 3, Cast a Wary Glance at Kurdistan,??? New York Times, 8/27/06
- ???Top Iraqi???s White House Visit Shows Gaps With U.S.,??? New York Times, 7/25/06
Wong, Edward and Filkins, Dexter, ???In an About-Face, Sunnis Want U.S. to Remain in Iraq??? New York Times, 7/17/06
Wong, Edward and Zielbauer, Paul von, ???Iraq police riddled by Shiite militia,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/17/06
Woodward, Bob, ???Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism,??? Washington Post, 10/1/06
Yacoub, Sameer, ???Defiant Iraqi PM disavows timetable,??? Associated Press, 10/25/06
- ???Iraqi police unit linked to militias,??? Associated Press, 10/4/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/3/06
Index[/b]
I. Introduction
II. Change Or Not?
III. Troop Levels
IV. Training Iraqi Forces
V. Regional Conference On Iraq
VI. Partition of Iraq
VII. The Sixth Option?
VIII. Reconstruction
IX. Civil War
X. al-Maliki???s Government
XI. Conclusion
I. Introduction
???I suggested that we were losing the war. What was astonishing to me was the number of Iraqi professional people who were leaving the country. People were voting with their feet, and I said that it looked like we needed a Plan B. I said, ???What???s the alternative? Because what we???re doing now is just losing.?????? Kenneth Adelman, member Pentagon???s Defense Policy Board, Nov. 2006
One year ago in November 2005 the White House issued its ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.??? The document outlined 8 goals for victory in Iraq including defeating terrorists, moving towards a self-sufficient Iraqi army, providing the rule of law, increased support for the U.S. project, and strengthening Iraq???s economy. The plan was given much fanfare in the media, but that was the goal because it was aimed at the U.S. public as the military commanders in Iraq were not consulted about it. Since its release, none of the White House???s goals have been achieved. In fact, in many cases things have gotten worse in Iraq. The Iraqi insurgency is as strong as ever with 75% of Sunnis supporting it, Iraq???s security forces are still completely dependent upon the U.S. for supplies, ammunition and support, with the U.S. inspector general for Iraq found that there are no immediate plans to fix this problem, the Iraqi government has no real authority outside of the Green Zone, and vigilantism and violence at the hands of death squads, militias and insurgent groups rule the streets of Baghdad rather than the police or any legal system, and the Coalition of the Willing is shrinking with no new support coming. Finally sectarianism and the threat of civil war are now the major causes of violence rather than the insurgents. In November 2006, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that things could get worse in Iraq. He told the committee, ???The perception of unchecked violence is creating an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus and shaking confidence in government and security forces.???
Almost all sectors of the U.S. establishment besides the White House and the military now see the U.S. project in Iraq as a failure. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and one of Bush???s informal foreign policy advisors said, ???You don???t have to be a rocket scientist to know that what we???re seeing now would be an odd appearance for a victory.??? Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of America???s most famous foreign policy think tanks and a former Bush administration official noted the profound effect Iraq has had on the U.S.???s position in the Middle East. Before the Iraq invasion the U.S. had unprecedented power and influence in the Middle East with a string of pro-American governments, and unfettered access to oil, with no real challengers. Since then the U.S. has faced nothing but problems in the region. He wrote, ???It???s one of history???s ironies that the first war in Iraq, a war of necessity, marked the beginning of the American era in the Middle East and the second Iraq war, a war of choice, has precipitated its end.???
After the November 2006 mid-term elections for Congress, the Bush administration is now at a crossroads in its policy towards Iraq. Will it change its strategy or ???stay the course??? as Bush is fond of saying. Several reviews of Iraq policy are underway inside and outside the White House and are due to be made public around New Year???s. All signs point to Pres. Bush making cosmetic changes in tactics, while maintaining his overall vision of victory in Iraq. This will most likely result in continued failure for America, but the situation is deteriorating towards all out civil war so quickly, the question arises whether even major changes in U.S. policy could salvage Iraq now.
II. To Change Or Not To Change?
???If you mean, by ???military victory,??? an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political process of the democracies will support, I don???t believe that is possible.??? Henry Kissinger to BBC Radio, Nov. 2006
Shortly after the November 2006 elections in the U.S., Pres. Bush announced that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was stepping down. He was going to be replaced by Robert Gates, a former CIA director under Bush???s father. The president told the press that he had made the decision beforehand, but didn???t want to do it prior to the election because it would be seen as a sign of weakness. ???I didn???t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. ??? Win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee,??? Bush told the media. Many hailed the move as a beginning of a major change in U.S. policy towards Iraq, but was it?
Besides replacing his Secretary of Defense, the President was going to receive three separate reviews of U.S. Iraq policy by the New Year???s. These included a report by the independent Iraq Study Group, a military review by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an internal review within the White House. Again, the media and pundits speculated that together these would all lead to Bush modifying his stance towards Iraq.
First there is the much talked about Iraq Study group, which is to give its findings to Bush by the end of the year. The group is co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, and is made up of five Democrats and five Republicans. The group has conducted interviews with a variety of individuals both within the administration and without such as Iran???s ambassador to the U.N. and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The main effect of the group however, may not be a dramatic change in U.S. policy, but rather one that will be more susceptible to Democrats who now control Congress. As Michael Gerson, former Bush aide and speech writer and now member of the Council on Foreign Relations said, the White House ???is genuinely open to the Baker commission recommendations, not to fundamentally change, but to refine their approach in ways that will build bipartisan support??? for the project in Iraq.
At the same time the Joint Chiefs of Staff started its own review of Iraq policy in September 2006. It has come up with three general options, send in more troops, cut U.S. forces but stay longer in an advisory role, or withdraw from Iraq. The Chiefs are supposed to finish their report by December 2006. Like the Baker commission, most of its proposals appear to be only tinkering with what???s already happening in the country. For example, Iraqi forces aren???t working out so add more advisors, not enough U.S. trainers so add more, etc.
Last, President Bush ordered his own review of Iraq policy within the administration. This was probably done in case the Iraq Study Group comes up with recommendations the President doesn???t like, he can turn to his own review for alternatives. The White House report will include efforts already underway by the State Department, the Joint Chiefs work, plus reports by the CIA and National Security Council.
In the meantime, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of CENTCOM, the U.S. military command that covers the Middle East, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 to express his own views on futur e policy towards Iraq. He warned that there were only 4-6 months left to stabilize the situation, and ultimately it was up to the Iraqis themselves and the government of Prime Minister Maliki to secure the country. The general said that he was assured that the prime minister would soon use the Iraqi army to crack down on Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army, which have been blamed for much of the sectarian violence within the country. At the same time, he said that he was considering sending in an additional 20,000 U.S. troops temporarily to help with the pacification of Baghdad. Both Republicans and Democrats were unhappy with Abizaid???s testimony. Sen. John McCain said, ???I???m disappointed that basically you???re advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American people in the last election said that it is not an acceptable condition.??? Unfortunately, the U.S. military command and the commander in chief, Pres. Bush, are set in ???staying the course??? in Iraq, rather than making any major changes.
Overall, there are five options being bandied about by government officials, Congress, and outside experts and commissions, for the White House to choose from. They are: 1) A temporary troop increase, 2) Begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces, 3) Change America???s focus from offensive operations against the insurgency to training Iraqi forces, 4) Convening a regional conference of Iraq???s neighbors, and 5) Partitioning Iraq.
III. Troop Levels
???Let???s be honest with each other. There are not enough Marines, Iraqi army or police to cover all this ground. And I can???t tell you there will be more Marines coming.??? Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, 2nd in command of Coalition forces in Western Iraq, November 2006
One of the major points of contention in the past, present, and probably into the future, is the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. Some want to increase troop levels, while others argue for a withdrawal. Those who want to increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq face two major problems. First, there are few U.S. soldiers available, and second, those available are not enough to be effective.
U.S. ground forces are facing major challenges to come up with troops to send to Iraq already. This is because of the schedule the military has established for combat operations, refitting, and training. From the beginning of the occupation, the U.S. has relied more and more on Reserve and National Guard units to make up for the lack of regular Army and Marine forces available for overseas deployment. Currently, regular Army units are only spending 14 months between rotations instead of the two years that are recommended. Already many National Guard and Reserve units are nearing their 24-month limit on deployment. Most Reserve mobilizations last 18 months now, putting extreme pressure upon their families and the ability to rejoin their jobs after their service. To meet this problem the Pentagon is considering a new policy that would limit the off time soldiers are given by issuing involuntary call-ups. Neoconservatives and others have criticized the Bush administration for not expanding the size of the Army and Marines to meet the need created by dual deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. Abizaid, head of CENTCOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006, that he could only come up with 20,000 additional troops for Iraq, and that was only for a limited time. He said that he could achieve this number only by extending the tours of troops already in Iraq through involuntary extensions, sending in new units before their planned deployment, and by activating more Army Reserve soldiers, cutting down on their training and rest periods.
The second problem facing those advocating a troop increase is that there are not enough U.S. soldiers available to make a real difference in Iraq. Noted Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution told the House Subcommittee on National Security in July 2006 that a force of between 100,000-120,000 would be needed to secure a city the size of Baghdad based upon previous counterinsurgency operations. Currently there are around 43,000-42,000 Iraqi forces and 15,000 U.S. troops for a total of 58,000-59,000 in the capital. 20,000 new troops will not be enough to meet Pollack???s estimated minimum for the capital. Likewise there are 33,000 U.S. troops in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni insurgency covering 53,000 square miles and 1.2 million people. In mid-November 2006 Gen. Abizaid sent in an additional 2,000 Marines into the province that had been stationed in Kuwait. Again, 20,000 troops Abizaid wants are not enough to effectively carry out counterinsurgency operations in a province that size, and definitely not enough to do both at the same time.
The alternative proposal for U.S. troops advocated by some Democrats is to begin a phased withdrawal out of Iraq. They argue that the U.S. could reduce its troops down to 40,000-70,000. A withdrawal is necessary because the U.S. can???t sustain the current levels, it will hopefully force the Iraqi government to quit relying on the U.S. for security and take more responsibility for the country, and will reduce Iraqi perceptions that the U.S. is an occupying army. ???The reduction argument comes down to three points. Our Army and Marine Corps can???t hold up under the strain; a shrinking US presence would focus the minds of the Iraqi political leaders that they don???t have forever; and it reduces the perception of an occupying power that drives the insurgency,??? noted Michael O???Hanlon, a military specialist and Iraq expert at the Brookings Institution. Proponents of this idea do not have a unified plan on how it will work with some arguing for a phased withdrawal based upon set dates, while others want it to be based upon the situation on the ground in Iraq.
Opponents of this policy point out that it will not work because of the weakness of the Iraqi government and the threat of increased sectarian violence. They argue that the Maliki government is too weak and unwilling to take on any of Iraq???s real problems, and a U.S. withdrawal will not change that. Frederick Kagan, a military expert at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute argues that the U.S. can???t afford to reduce its troop presence because Iraqi forces will disintegrate without U.S. support, any withdrawal will be seen as a victory by insurgents and Islamists, as long as there are any U.S. forces in the country, Iraqis will see them as occupiers, and it will most likely precipitate a full-scale civil war. Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack of the Saban Center said, ???If we start pulling out troops and the violence gets worse and the control of the militias increases and people become confirmed in their suspicion that the United States is not going to be there to prevent civil war, they are going to start making decisions today to prepare for the eventuality of civil war tomorrow. That is how civil wars start.???
Arguing over troop levels either way appears to be a dead end. The U.S. does not have the forces necessary to really secure the country, while reducing troops will only increase the instability within the country. At the same time the Pentagon is planning on having some kind of presence in Iraq until at least 2010 meaning ultimately Bush and the military are going to leave the issue of U.S. deployment to Iraq to the next administration.
IV. Training Iraqi Forces
???When we first started this transition-team [training] business in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very much of a hit-and-miss proposition. The selection of individuals for duty on transition teams was probably more haphazard than any of us would have liked. The training was not standardized across the various training locations. It does not appear that it was well-resourced across the force. I think that was what led to some of the earlier criticisms, and in my view the criticism was fair and justified. We need to do better.??? Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, new commander of Iraqi training mission, November 2006
Another option for President Bush is to shift the emphasis of U.S. forces in Iraq from offensive operations against insurgents and militias to training Iraqi security forces. Since 2004 Bush has claimed that training Iraqis has been one of his main emphases. He has often said that the U.S. will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. The military has also continuously talked about how the security of Iraq is up to Iraqis.
Having a successful training program will require some major changes for the U.S. First, any training program is a long and drawn out process. Currently there are 4,000 U.S. troops organized into 430 training teams working with Iraqis. U.S. generals have said that Iraqi forces are still 12-18 months away from being ready to operate on their own, while military analysts say that U.S. advisors could be in Iraq for the next 5-10 years. It also brings up the problem of troop levels again because the U.S. does not have enough soldiers trained for the job. U.S. military doctrine does not emphasize training programs and as an institution privileges regular combat units. The current training program therefore is undermanned, undertrained, and undersupplied. Interviews with soldiers that served as advisors in Iraq by the Army???s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the Center for Army Lessons Learned, found widespread complaints including the fact that non-combat National Guard and Reserve soldiers are usually picked for the training mission, the troops are not given enough training beforehand, and not enough supplies when in Iraq, and suffer from a lack of translators and a lack of counterinsurgency training for the Iraqi troops. For example, Lt. Col. Paul Ciesinski who served as an advisor in northern Iraq in 2005 said in his interview that, ???When we got to Iraq we could hardly shoot, we could hardly move and we could hardly communicate, because we hadn???t been trained on how to do these things.??? Major Jeffrey Allen was suppose to be in charge of a 10 man-training unit, but was only given 5, all of which were National Guard soldiers.
The administration has been talking about training Iraqi forces since Bush???s re-election campaign, but the Iraqi forces are ragged and the security situation has gotten worse. F.J. Bing West, a consultant to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, wrote an article for Military Review in which he said, ???Too many police were corrupt and controlled by Shiite militias, and senior Iraqi leaders were doing little to punish disloyalty.??? He also noted the constant problem of finding Iraqi volunteers and creating a real sense of security amongst the population when he wrote, ???How Sunni police can be effective and not be assassinated in their own cities has yet to be shown. Conversely, the Shiite police in Baghdad have lost all trust among the Sunnis.??? U.S. soldiers have also expressed concerns about whom they are training. Many have brought up the fact that the security forces are thoroughly infiltrated by both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen. Some have warned that they may be just training future fighters in an Iraqi civil war.
To try to address these problems the U.S. military has appointed a new general, Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, a former commander in Iraq, to take over the training program. They have started better programs for advisers to prepare them for the difficulties they???ll face in Iraq at Fort Riley in Kansas, and plan on using more regular Army soldiers rather than Reservists and National Guardsmen. Gen. Ham seemed to be well aware of the problems he faced with his new command when he told the New York Times, ???When we first started this transition-team business in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it was very much of a hit-and-miss proposition. The selection of individuals for duty on transition teams was probably more haphazard than any of us would have liked. The training was not standardized across the various training locations. It does not appear that it was well-resourced across the force. I think that was what led to some of the earlier criticisms, and in my view the criticism was fair and justified. We need to do better, and this initiative that started the training here at Fort Riley is a part of that.??? The jury is still out on whether this new effort, this late in the game will work. Many Iraq analysts and U.S. foot soldiers are openly questioning whether Iraqi forces will ever be able to overcome their problems and be ready to take over their own country.
V. Regional Conference On Iraq
???In effect, Iran is trying to initiate a dialogue with the United States ??? jointly conveying with the Syrians through the Iraqis ??? what they would be willing to do and what the conditions would be.??? Wayne White, former senior State Department analyst on Iraq, November 2006
The fourth option for the U.S. is to convene a regional conference on Iraq with its neighbors including both friends and foes alike. Such a conference would include probably Turkey, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The hope is that together these countries, along with the U.S., could create a consensus upon Iraq, therefore increasing international support.
All of these countries have interests in Iraq. Iran is hoping to expand its influence into its traditional rival Iraq with a Shiite led government. The U.S. has also often accused Iran of supplying money and weapons to the Shiite militias. At the same time Iran is afraid of the spill over effects of a civil war. Foreign fighters, money and weapons for the Sunni insurgency flow from Baathists and Islamists based in Syria. Turkey and Iran are both worried about an autonomous Kurdistan that will inspire their own Kurdish populations towards independence. There are also Kurdish guerrilla organizations based in Iraq that have conducted raids into both countries since the U.S. invasion. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states such as Kuwait are afraid of the ascendancy of Shiites to power in Iraq that might challenge their traditional Sunni rule, and also the effects of a civil war.
On the American side, the main problem with such a conference is that both President Bush and Vice President Cheney want regime change in Iran and Syria. Both think that those two countries are evil countries that support terrorism. Overcoming their ideological objections would be very difficult. Secretary of State Rice and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates as well as British Prime Minister Tony Blair however are already supporters of this proposal.
Iran has also been putting out feelers to the U.S. over a variety of issues, but has been rebuffed by the White House. Some Iranian experts think that there is actually some common ground between Iran and the U.S. over Iraq. ???They???ve not said it directly and openly as an official policy line, that they???d like the U.S. to stay [in Iraq], but I think there???s a sense among the Iranians that they understand that the U.S. cannot just leave immediately,??? said Hadi Semati, an Iranian political analyst at the Brookings Institution. Iran and Syria have actually pre-empted any conference by making diplomatic trips to Baghdad. The Syrian foreign minister went to Iraq and re-established diplomatic relations between the two nations, while Iraqi Shiite politicians have already carried out a number of trips to Iran. In November 2006 Tehran invited the leaders of Iraq and Syria to a meeting in Tehran for talks on the increasing sectarian violence. President Assad of Syria said he couldn???t attend, but President Jalal Talabani of Iraq agreed. ???They [Iran] want to cover their bases. They want to do it before Baker and Hamilton [the leaders of the Iraq Study Group] propose it so they don???t look like they???re following what the Americans tell them,??? noted Abbas Milani, co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Newspapers, analysts and members of the Bush administration are divided over whether Syria and Iran are really serious about working with the U.S. in Iraq or whether they want to maintain their roles as anti-American leaders in the region. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies summed up the conundrum well when he said, ???I think it???s very dangerous to regard them [Iran and Syria] as rational partners who are going to perceive the situation in Iraq the same way the United States does. They have a theoretical common interest with the United States in creating a stable Iraq, but the question is what kind of stable Iraq????
VI. Partition of Iraq
???[The] conventional wisdom holds that Iraq???s breakup would be destabilizing and therefore should be avoided at all costs. Looking at Iraq???s dismal eighty-year history, it should be apparent that it is the effort to hold Iraq together that has been destabilizing. ??? I don???t believe it is possible over the long run to force people living in a geographically defined area to remain part of a state against their will.??? Peter Galbraith, former U.S. Ambassador, 2006
Another choice facing the White House is the possible partition of Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines. The South would be Shiite, the West Sunni, and the north Kurdish. The Kurds, the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and Democratic Senator Joe Biden have advocated this proposal. They argue that Iraq is already dividing along sectarian and ethnic lines with deadly results, so that partition is a way to stop the violence. There might still be a central government, but it would be weak with the real power residing in the three federal regions. This option is possible under the Iraqi constitution.
Those against this proposal say that it is giving into the sectarian divisions that are destroying the country rather than attempting to solve them. Adding to this is the fact that 40% of the Iraqi population lives in mixed areas, including the Baghdad region. Sunnis in western Iraq also lack resources, especially oil, and are violently opposed to any division of the country that might leave them impoverished. This idea would therefore probably lead to more fighting in the short term as groups vie for power, resources and over the borders.
VII. The Sixth Option?
???As the security situation in Baghdad has deteriorated over the past month, there has been growing talk among Iraqi politicians about a ???government of national salvation??? ??? a coup, in effect ??? that would impose martial law throughout the country.??? Washington Post, 10/13/06
There is a sixth option for the U.S. that has floated around Baghdad for at least the last two months as sectarian violence reached new levels; another regime change in Iraq. This would mean either asking Prime Minister Maliki to step down or forcing him out with a coup. He would be replaced with a group of technocrats not attached to any of the Shiite religious parties or a strongman who would work to restore order. Any such change would mean an end to the experiment with democracy in Iraq. President Bush would probably never sign on to this plan. More importantly, it couldn???t work because any strongman or governing council would need a monopoly on violence to carry out its law and order campaign, neither of which the government has at its disposal currently.
VIII. Reconstruction
???We knew it wasn???t a matter of how many projects were completed. It was a matter of: Is the electricity flowing to Baghdad? Is there security on the streets? Is the oil flowing? Those were the things that mattered. Too often, though, from what I could see, it was all about the process ??? how many hundreds of millions of dollars you had put under contract ??? and not the product.??? Jon Bowersox, former health attach?? at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad until the summer of 2006, November 2006.
While the administration is considering changes in its Iraq policy, one phase of the U.S. project is coming to an end. The American reconstruction effort officially ended in 2006. 88% of the planned projects, about 12,000 total, had been completed, with only 4% having never been started. Dean Popps, Assistance Secretary of the Army for Acquisitions, Logistics and Technology praised the effort. ???Most Americans don???t understand something equivalent to the Marshall Plan has been accomplished in Iraq,??? he told the press. However, simply counting the number of projects is misleading because there have been many problems with the reconstruction effort. ???We knew it wasn???t a matter of how many projects were completed. It was a matter of: Is the electricity flowing to Baghdad? Is there security on the streets? Is the oil flowing? Those were the things that mattered. Too often, though, from what I could see, it was all about the process ??? how many hundreds of millions of dollars you had put under contract ??? and not the product,??? said Jon Bowersox, former health attach?? to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad until the summer of 2006. Like the development projects the U.S. and Europe promoted in the developing world in the 1960s, the U.S. reconstruction effort in Iraq tended to emphasize huge projects such as entire power plants or water treatment facilities that the Iraqis simply could not maintain because they lacked the personnel, money, and security. The U.S. inspector general for Iraq reported in November 2006, ???Many successful projects have been completed. Whether they are operating within a substantial Iraqi infrastructure is yet to be answered.???
These infrastructure projects were also a favorite target of the insurgency, and as sectarian violence increased, different groups would often cut production in a local facility to deny it to another. For example, the U.S. repaired 86 of 98 railway stations in Iraq, but there is little train service because of fears of insurgent attacks. Oil production has finally reached prewar levels in October 2006, but severe gas shortages plague the country as Iraq has to import millions of dollars of fuel because of insurgent attacks on pipelines and the inability of the system to deliver products efficiently throughout the nation.
There has also been widespread corruption, waste and diversion of money to security. The BBC reported that up to half of the reconstruction funds eventually ended up going towards securing sites from attacks. The U.S. inspector general for Iraq reported that nearly a quarter of the $37 million in United Nations oil for food funds that were diverted to reconstruction went missing, and was probably stolen. The U.S. also tended to hire large American firms to do the work who then hired foreign staffs, which raised costs. The companies then subcontracted out their work, which took another cut of the money, and then they others to actually do the work, which resulted in a third cut. Even some officials of those large U.S. firms went away from Iraq feeling disappointed. ???We accomplished a significant amount of work. But it was just overwhelmed by the overlay of violence. It???s hard to be optimistic,??? Clifford Mumm, former Bechtel projects manager in Iraq told the San Francisco Chronicle in November 2006. There was also plenty of mismanagement by the U.S. government as well leading to poor planning, lack of coordination, and oversight of the work. There were health care centers built with no water of sewer services, power plants were constructed with no cables to deliver the electricity, and a police station where contractors cemented over a tree to make a wall.
IX. Civil War
???The Americans were initially fighting al-Qaeda and terrorism, but then the problem turned into sectarian violence, and they found themselves stuck in the middle.??? Mahmoud Othamn, Kurdish parliamentarian, November 2006
The real threat to Iraq is no longer the Sunni insurgency it is the brewing civil war in the country. The U.S. likes to claim that the violence is concentrated in just four provinces in central Iraq, when in fact it is spread out throughout 14 of the countries 18 provinces. Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 that the violence is threatening the very foundations of the country. ???The perception of unchecked violence is creating an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus and shaking confidence in government and security forces.??? The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency directors told Congress that the number of daily attacks has steadily increased since the beginning of 2006. The violence has gotten so bad the U.N. reports that up to 100,000 Iraqis are leaving their country each month.
U.S. military spokesmen and the White House however, continue to claim that the U.S. is making progress. In November 2006 Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq said that operations against Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias had reduced civilian deaths in Baghdad. Shortly afterwards the Associated Press reported that by mid-November, more people had been killed in the capital, 1,319, than in October with 1,216 Iraqis killed. AP said that November would see the highest death rate since it started collecting numbers in April 2005. After that the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) released a report finding that October had the highest civilian death rate since the U.S. invasion in 2003 with 3,709 dying that month, averaging 120 a day. Most of those deaths were due to sectarian violence in and around Baghdad, and that the actual number was probably even higher. The report found, ???Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing. Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms.??? The report continued, ???The civilian population of Iraq continues to be victims of terrorist acts, roadside bombs, drive-by shootings, cross fire between rival gangs, or between police and insurgents, kidnappings, military operations, crime and police abuse.??? The previous high had been July???s count of 3,590 deaths that occurred during the beginning of a U.S-Iraq offensive to quell violence in the capital. At that time, the U.S. military again claimed that they were being successful but the numbers proved otherwise.
The U.N. report found that the worst perpetrators of violence were the Shiite militias. These militias have thoroughly infiltrated both the Iraqi police and army who either work in tandem with them or do nothing to stop them. ???There are increasing reports of militias and death squads operating within the police ranks or in collusion with them. Its forces are increasingly accused of ... kidnapping, torture, murder, bribery ??? extortion and theft,??? UNAMI reported. The U.N. Human Rights Chief in Baghdad, Gianni Magazzeni told a news conference that things were getting worse in the country because of the lack of law order and the inability of the Iraqi government to control its own security forces. ???The more there???s impunity and no one is punished ??? the more it fuels the cycle of violence and counter violence,??? he said. CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden told the Senate Armed Services Committee in November 2006 that the violence is only leading to more extremism, ???The longer this goes on, the less controlled the violence is, the more the violence devolves down to the neighborhood level. The center disappears, and normal people acting not irrationally end up acting like extremists.???
UNAMI also reported that torture in Iraq was ???out of control??? and again singled out the Shiite militias as being the worst, along with the Iraqi security forces and Sunni insurgents. The report found, ???Arbitrary detention, grievous conditions of detention, allegations of torture and mistreatment continue to remain an issue of serious concern in Iraq.??? Manfred Nowak, an Austrian law professor and the U.N.???s chief anti-torture expert told reporters, ???What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned in Iraq is totally out of hand. ??? The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.??? Torture continues in Iraqi prisons run by the Ministries of Interior and Defense despite Prime Minister Maliki???s promise that he had cleaned them up. The Shiite militias however are the worse as they often use drills and acid on their victims and cut off body parts of their victims.
UNAMI also noted Iraqi society as a whole was falling apart because of sectarian violence. Freedom of information was being threatened by attacks on the media, minorities such as Christians were increasingly being targeted, women are victims of extremists and ???honor killings??? because they have somehow disgraced the family, and the education system is faltering under attacks on teachers and Ministry of Education officials.
A glaring example of that was in mid-November 2006 when 80 Shiite militiamen, believed to be members of the Mahdi Army, dressed as police commandos kidnapped between 50-150 people from the Higher Education Ministry in Baghdad. It was one of the largest kidnappings in recent Iraqi history. Although Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians were amongst the missing, the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front political party, the largest Sunni block in parliament, ran the Ministry, while the area the Ministry was located in was a Mahdi Army stronghold. Five senior police officers in the area were detained as suspects in the attack, and although a few victims were released, the majority have not been heard from. In retaliation, Sunnis abducted Ammar al-Saffar, the deputy Minister of Health and a member of Prime Minister Maliki???s Shiite Dawa Party, from his home in Baghdad. A few days later, Sunnis also attacked the Health Ministry, which is run by Sadr, for two-hours, and set off five car bombs and fired mortars at Sadr City, all in Baghdad, killing at least 161 and wounding 257. In retaliation, Shiites mortared the most important Sunni shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hamifa mosque, the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a leading Sunni organization, and a Sunni neighborhood in the capital. The next day, the Mahdi Army continued by attacking 5 Sunni mosques in Baghdad, one in the city of Baquba, and the largest Sunni mosque in Kirkuk. American newspapers declared it the worst sectarian violence the country had yet seen.
It is in the middle of this general upheaval of Iraqi society that the U.S. now finds itself. ???The Americans were initially fighting al-Qaeda and terrorism, but then the problem turned into sectarian violence, and they found themselves stuck in the middle,??? noted Mahmod Othman, a Kurdish parliament member. The U.S. continues its operations against Sunni insurgents in western Iraq, but has also started to slowly but surely move against Shiite militias in Baghdad. As those operations increase the Iraqi people are increasingly blaming the U.S. for the violence, while at the same time calling for their help with security.
The most alarming development is the growing evidence that the Shiites are gearing up to win the civil war by crushing the Sunnis. Shiites are increasingly using members of the security forces to crack down on Sunnis. Diyala province was an example of this turn in events. In July the province was turned over to Iraqi control and considered a peaceful area. The Shiites dominated the government and military even though 50% of the province was Sunni. A few months after the handover sectarian violence swept through the province and the U.S. had to take back control of parts of it. The problems started when Sunnis fleeing Shiite militiamen in Baghdad moved into the province and began forcing out Shiites in retaliation. The Sunnis would also kill Shiites in re venge for Sunnis killed in Baghdad. ???They [Shiites] kill in Baghdad, we [Sunnis] kill in Baquba [a city in Diyala province],??? said Baquba???s mayor Khalid al-Sinjariy. As a result, 6,000-8,000 Mahdi Army fighters and social workers came to the province to protect the Shiites and drive the Sunnis out.
The 5th Iraqi Division, which was controlled by Shiites, joined in on the killings. When the new commander of the 5th Division Brig. Gen. Shakir al-Kaabi arrived from Baghdad he issued a list of people he wanted to arrest, almost all of which were Sunni sheiks and political leaders who the U.S. was trying to work with. When the U.S. commander asked Gen. Shakir about the list, he said that it came from Baghdad. In September 2006 the 5th Division conducted raids arresting nearly 400 people, almost all of which were Sunnis. U.S. commanders said that hardly any of the arrests were warranted. ???Recent operations conducted by the Fifth Iraqi Army seem to be focused strictly on the Sunnis,??? remarked Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon. American suspicions about the 5th Division???s involvement in the sectarian conflict led them to tell Gen. Shakir that he could not conduct any operations without clearing it with them first, but he didn???t listen. He continued to make raids on local Sunni political leaders. An American officer noted, ???It just seems to be a deliberate attempt to make sure that the Sunnis are unable to organize politically here and represent themselves well in the next round of elections, because there is an awful lot at stake in this province.??? The same officer continued, ???I believe this is a larger plan to make Diyala a Shia province, rather than a Sunni province.??? The U.S. eventually tried to get Gen. Shakir replaced by complaining to Baghdad, but Prime Minister Maliki???s office said that they fully supported him.
The U.S. also found the province???s police running death squads. For example, in the city of Muqdadiya, the U.S. arrested the current and former commanders of the police major crimes unit and an Iraqi army battalion commander for links with death squads.
The majority of Shiite violence against Sunnis, such as in Diyala province, has been blamed on Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Sadr???s forces went through a huge expansion in the last two years. His militia however was a loose organization, so the quick growth led to factionalism as various leaders tried to create their own fiefdoms outside of the control of Sadr. At least six former militia leaders broke off and created their own forces. Sadr has tried to tighten the reins of his organization and model it after Lebanon???s Hezbollah. In fact, Sadr has sent some of his senior officials to Lebanon to study Hezbollah???s structure. Following this, he has started to give exams for new members, dismissed those who didn???t follow his orders, and set a dress code. He even executed some of his commanders to send a message. Still, there is a general lack of discipline and coordination because the Mahdi Army is based upon local cells rather than a hierarchy. As a Shiite politician said, ???They formed a militia. It expanded. Now each one is a cell. This is the dangerous thing,??? while Prime Minister Maliki told Reuters, ???We don???t know what Mahdi Army means any more.???
The Iraqi civil war has its roots in the American invasion. Some have argued that Iraq was never a ???real??? state but rather a collection of diverse people thrown together when European colonists divided up the Middle East after WWII. Iraqis however did have a sense of national identity and many areas were ethnically and religiously diverse that generally got along even under Saddam???s repression. The 2003 invasion broke the status quo and released sectarian forces. This did not happen immediately. For the first year after the invasion Shiites and Sunnis leaders were calling for unity. For example, Sunni insurgents and Sadr???s Mahdi Army supported each other during uprisings in the spring of 2004 against American and Coalition forces. Sunnis increasingly felt like the victims of the U.S. invasion as U.S. forces went after the insurgency and started its de-Baathification program. The break down of security and the U.S. sponsored elections in 2005 increased the differences. Al Qaeda in Iraq wanted to create a civil war because its leader Zarqawi did not consider Shiites real Muslims, and saw it as another way to create chaos and undermine the U.S. Increasingly they went after Shiites rather than American soldiers. The Iraqi elections, beginning in January 2005, led most Shiites to vote for religious parties who promised to protect them, rather than nationalist and secular groups. The Shiite government began recruiting militias into the security forces to ensure their new position, empowering the Mahdi Army and the other major Shiite militia, the Supreme Council for Revolution in Iraq???s Badr Brigade. The Sunnis were left feeling powerless and threatened by the new majority. Soon, tit for tat attacks and killings began between Sunnis and Shiites, especially in ethnically mixed cities such as Baghdad. As violence increased, and the government proved incapable of providing security or worse, was culpable in attacks, Sunnis and Shiites increasingly turned to militias and the insurgency for protection. New American Foundation fellow Nir Rosen wrote, ???Although the Bush administration has criticized the Iraqi government for not disarming the militias ??? this is an untenable first step. The militias exist because there is no security in Iraq. And when the Bush administration criticizes the Iraqi government for being weak, they forgot that they deliberately made it weak and dependent on their dictates. The American failure to provide security has led to the militias. The American sectarian approach has created the civil war. We saw Iraqis as Sunnis, Shias, Kurds. We designed a governing council based on a sectarian quota system and ignored Iraqis ??? who warned us against it. We decided that the Sunnis were the bad guys and the Shias were the good guys. These problems were not timeless. In many ways they are new, and we are responsible for them.???
X. al-Maliki???s Government
???It???s a government of sectarian disunity. There is distrust and dispute between ministers. The extremists on both sides are taking over.??? Adnan Pachachi, Iraqi parliamentarian, November 2006
Most experts agree upon what needs to be done to create national peace and end the violence in Iraq. The Iraqi government needs to create an oil revenue sharing plan so that Sunnis will not be shut out of the country???s wealth, crack down on the Shiite militias who are undermining the legitimacy of the government, issue an amnesty for insurgents and end the de-Baathification program so that Sunnis can fully participate in society and government, create jobs to end the high unemployment that hovers around 50% in the country, and up to 70% in Anbar province, and negotiate an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces to end the occupation. Prime Minister Maliki proposed all of these when he took power, but none of them have happened. The U.S. quickly vetoed the amnesty and withdrawal plans, while Maliki and the Shiites have not been serious about disarming their militias and reaching out to the Sunnis. For example, the government hasn???t paid many Sunni police units and refused to fund reconstruction projects in Anbar province as part of the U.S. counterinsurgency program to win hearts and minds. USA Today reported that Sunni police officers in Anbar hadn???t been paid for 3 months. ???That???s why people in Anbar think the government in Baghdad doesn???t want them to succeed. Sometimes I wonder if the government in Baghdad wants them to succeed,??? said Marine Brig. Gen. Robert Neller, deputy commander of Coalition forces in Western Iraq. Recently the Maliki government made things worse by issuing an arrest warrant for one of the leading Sunni clerics, Harith Dhari, head of the Muslim Scholars Association, who has been one of the leading critics of the government and the Americans. Sunnis are increasingly talking about withdrawing from the government and parliament because democracy and elections have gotten them nothing in return for their participation. ???We are receiving a big pressure from our followers, who are calling and contacting us every day to withdraw from the process,??? said Nourdin Hiyali, a Sunni member of parliament. Sunnis also do not want to end the insurgency because they are afraid that Shiite militias will wipe them out.
The lack of progress by the Maliki government to solve the violence has led the Bush administration to lose faith in him. Both sides now have deep mistrust of each other, which was only exacerbated by public announcements by American officials right before the mid-term November Congressional elections about U.S. timetables for success in Iraq. Maliki correctly pointed out that these were purely for American public consumption, rather than real policy statements. The lack of American support for Maliki has even given rise to coup rumors in Baghdad.
Internally, the Maliki government is facing increasing divisions as well. The U.S. forced his government to include multiple political parties in an attempt at national reconciliation. Rather than bringing divergent parties together, it has made the government weak. The two main parts of the Shiite Alliance, the Sadr block and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are in a power struggle. The Shiites and Sunnis are also deeply mistrustful of each other, with the Shiites seeing the Sunni parties as just covering for the insurgency, while the Sunnis believe the Shiites are out to destroy them. ???Some people in Towafak [the largest Sunni parliamentarian bloc] are extensions of the insurgency. They have militias in their guards. They don???t believe in democracy because it doesn???t service their intents. They believe in taking power through coups,??? accused Ali al-Adeeb, a Shiite politician. ???It???s a government of sectarian disunity. There is distrust and dispute between ministers. The extremists on both sides are taking over,??? observed Adnan Pachachi, an Iraqi parliamentarian. A committee was suppose to be created to smooth out the various differences, but it was never formed. By November, Maliki called for a reorganization of his cabinet to try to solve the divisions, while Sunnis and Sadr are threatening to withdraw from the government.
XI. Conclusion
Despite the downward spiral that Iraq is taking, President Bush still seems convinced that the U.S. is winning and can only lose by withdrawing. Many experts on the other hand, feel the exact opposite. ???I don???t think, in modern American history, there is another example of such egregious failure of policy and execution. We???re really seeing something unprecedented here. Even Vietnam was a slower decline, and the military forces were more in balance. ??? I don???t know anyone who thinks there is an outcome in Iraq now that is hopeful,??? summed up David Rothkopf, a national security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The President is committed to ???staying the course??? in the face of everything that is happening, probably until the end of his term. The policy options that are going to be put forward to Bush by the end of the year are nothing radical, and are more band-aids than solutions to the country???s problems. Bush will most likely agree to a temporary increase of 20,000 more troops, stepping up the training of Iraqi forces, a regional conference that may or may not include Iran and Syria, and continued pressure on Prime Minister Maliki to crack down on the Shiite militias and work on national reconciliation with the Sunnis, most of which have already been started. Iraq is falling apart so quickly however that nothing may work. Perhaps maintaining the status quo while hoping that things don???t get worse is the best the U.S. can do at this point. It will probably be up to the next administration to make a real change in American policy in Iraq.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Think Tank Reports:[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???The Cost of the Iraq War,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 11/8/06
- ???Iraq???s Post-Saddam Insurgency,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 11/14/06
Gwertzman, Bernard, ???Cordesman: Civil War Can Break Out Anytime In Iraq,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 9/5/06
Haas, Richard, ???The Withdrawal Syndrome ??? Part I,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 10/31/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Reality Check II,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/15/06
- ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06
Kagan, Robert, and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/20/06
Articles:[/b]
Ahrari, Ehsan, ???Some plain truths about Iraq,??? Asia Times, 11/17/06
Associated Press, ???Baghdad???s Morgues So Full, Bodies Being Turned Away,??? 11/12/06
Axe, David, ???Equipment Shortages Undermine Iraqi Forces,??? National Defense, November 2006
Baker, David, ???Little Scrutiny For Firms In Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/14/06
Baker, Peter, ???Bechtel pulling out after 3 rough years of rebuilding work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/1/06
Barnes, Julian, ???Army gives Rumsfeld Doctrine a rewrite,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/20/06
BBC News, ???Iraq corruption ???costs billions,?????? 11/9/06
- ???Iraq torture ???worse after Saddam,?????? 11/21/06
- ???Kidnappers seize Iraqi minister,??? 11/19/06
Boyer, Peter, ???Downfall,??? New Yorkers, 11/20/06
Branigin, William, ???Rumsfeld to Step Down as Defense Secretary,??? Washington Post, 11/8/06
Brook, Tom Vanden, ???Police in Anbar province lack protection, pay,??? USA Today, 11/16/06
- ???Sunni needs not met, general says,??? USA Today, 11/13/06
Colvin, Ross, ???Iraqis dying in record numbers, fleeing: U.N.,??? Reuters, 11/22/06
Fletcher, Martin, ???Fighting back: the city determined not to become al-Qaeda???s capital,??? Times U.K., 11/20/06
Goldberg, Jeffrey, ???End Of The Affair,??? New Yorker, 11/20/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Army Expands Training for Advisers Who Will Try to Improve Iraq???s Security Forces,??? New York Times, 11/25/06
- ???Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say,??? New York Times, 11/15/06
- ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06
- ???Military Team Undertakes a Broad Review of the Iraqi War and the Campaign Against Terror,??? New York Times, 11/11/06
Gray, Andrew and Roberts, Kristin, ???US General Says Troop Adjustments Won???t Solve Iraq,??? Reuters, 11/15/06
Gregory, Mark, ???The failure of Iraq???s reconstruction,??? BBC News, 11/10/06
Grier, Peter, ???Huge task before Iraq Study Group,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/14/06
Harding, Thomas, ???Southern Iraq approaches the tipping point,??? Telegraph UK, 11/2/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/7/06
Hurst, Steven, ???At least 700 Iraqis die in 8 days of unrelenting violence,??? Houston Chronicle, 11/19/06
- ???Iraqi puts civilian deaths at 150,000,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/10/06
Ignatius, David, ???Defense Secretary We Had,??? Washington Post, 11/9/06
Jamail, Dahr and al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Iraqi Militias take Refuge in Facilities Protection Service,??? AntiWar.com, 11/8/06
- ???US Military Adopts Desperate Tactics in al-Anbar,??? AntiWar.com, 11/1/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush???s Iraq L egacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Sectarian Strife in Iraq Imperils Entire Region, Analysts Warn,??? Washington Post, 11/16/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Layton, Lyndsey, ???The Story Behind The Iraq Study Group,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???General asks skeptical Senate for more time,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/16/06
Mascolo, Georg, ???Richard Haass: ???Iraq Is Not Winnable,?????? Der Spiegel, 11/13/06
McManus, Doyle, ???Kissinger says Iraq isn???t ripe for democracy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Iraqi officials clash over kidnapping numbers,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Mroue, Bassem, ???Iraq???s Shiite-led gov???t angers Sunnis,??? Associated Press, 11/19/06
Murphy, Kim, ???Iraq pullout talk makes Iran uneasy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Oppel, Richard, ???Sectarian Rifts Foretell Pitfalls of Iraqi Troops??? Taking Control,??? New York Times, 11/12/06
Parker, Ned, Evans, Michael, and Beeston, Richard, ???Handover to Iraqi Army ???set for the end of the next year,?????? Times U.K., 11/10/06
Peterson, Scott, ???Can Iran help stabilize Iraq???? Christian Science Monitor, 11/15/06
- ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06
- ???US efforts in Iraq embattled, but often welcomed,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/3/06
Pincus, Walter, ???U.S. Officers Detail Problems With Iraqi Soldiers,??? Washington Post, 11/1/06
- ???Violence in Iraq Called Increasingly Complex,??? Washington Post, 11/17/06
Price, Jay and Al Dulaimy, Mohammed, ???Fallujah once again beset by violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/6/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Blasts Kill Dozens of Iraqi Police Recruits,??? Washington Post, 11/13/06
- ???Retaliation at Sunni mosques ??? dozens killed,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/25/06
- ???Scores Kidnapped At Iraqi Ministry,??? Washington Post, 11/15/06
Reuters, ???Iraq charges 100 over prison torture,??? 11/7/06
Ricks, Thomas, ???Flaws Cited in Effort To Train Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06
- ???Pentagon May Suggest Short-Term Buildup Leading to Iraq Exit,??? Washington Post, 11/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Rose, David, ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair.com, 11/3/06
Rosen, Nir, ???Anatomy of a Civil War,??? Boston Review, November-December 2006
Roug, Louise and Daragahi, Borzou, ???Iraq???s Shiite-led regime seeks to arrest top Sunni cleric,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/17/06
Scarborough, Rowan, ???Rebuilding in Iraq tops 4,000 projects,??? Washington Times, 11/20/06
Semple, Kirk, ???Worst Violence Yet Rips Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/24/06
Shaker, Thom, ???General Discusses Goals of His Return to Iraq,??? New York Times, 11/20/06
Solomon, Norman, ???The New Media Offensive for the Iraq War,??? Common Dreams.com, 11/16/06
Spiegel, Peter, ???Troop levels in Iraq may rise,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Education Ministry kidnappings reflect plight of Iraqi academics,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/15/06
- ???Iran summit idea could assist U.S., analysts say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21/06
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Democrats Push For Troop Cuts Within Months,??? New York Times, 11/13/06
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???American Political Shift Linked to the War Is Met With a Shrug by Baghdad???s Elite,??? New York Times, 11/10/06
- ???Influence Rises but Base Frays for Iraqi Cleric,??? New York Times, 11/13/06
- ???Revenge cycle swells hatred, distrust between Sunni, Shiite,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/20/06
Tisdall, Simon, ???US plans last big push in Iraq,??? Guardian UK, 11/16/06
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Guard, Reserves strain to meet wars??? demands,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/06
UN News Service, ???Iraq: over 3,700 civilians killed in October in New monthly high, UN reports,??? 11/21/06
Will, George F., ???Togetherness In Baghdad,??? Newsweek, 11/6/06
Witte, Griff, ???Contractors Rarely Held Responsible for Misdeeds in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/4/06
- ???Despite Billions Spent Rebuilding Incomplete,??? Washington Post, 11/12/06
Wong, Edward, ???Militants Attack Sunnis??? Mosques In 2 Iraqi Cities,??? New York Times, 11/25/06
- ???U.S. allies seek abducted guards in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/06
Wright, Robin, ???Bloody chaos as talks near,??? San Francisco Chronicle,11/25/06
- ???Bush Initiates Iraq Policy Review Separate From Baker Group???s,??? Washington Post, 11/15/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqis think few U.S. troops are fighting for them,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 11/3/06
Zakaria, Fareed, ???Rethinking Iraq: The Way Forward,??? Newsweek, 11/6/06
As always well done with Explicit Attention to detail/reality.
I some how feel [and not to debase my fellow soulstrut brethren/sistren]
that we are the wrong target audience [as you full well know] for these amazing articles.
In other wordsI value the valor and tenacity you have for teaching ...but bro at this point you should be submitting these articles to Foreign Affairs[i know fuck the cfr but it's always a good read ]as is The Economist[esp]
I think they would love you and you could work from home.
Just my 2 cents
Rock On
Writing about politics is just a hobby. I haven't done any serious writing or publishing since I finished Grad School, which was back in 1995! I'm just trying to keep people updated while having some fun writing at the same time.
Introduction
The U.S. is facing an escalating civil war in Iraq. What started as car bombings by Al Qaeda in Iraq followed by Shiites in the police force carrying out death squad activities in retribution, has now become Shiites firing mortars at Sunni areas and Sunnis retaliating in kind, with low level ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad and entire towns in the central region of the country. Michael Ware of CNN reported in November 2006 that, ???For people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like. This is what we???re talking about. We???re talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back. We???re having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We???re seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We???re seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again.??? The U.S. must now start looking at how previous civil wars were quelled and come up with some new policies based upon those observations. Instead, the U.S. is still thinking about fighting terrorists, the insurgency, and disarming Shiite militias. The U.S. is planning for the previous battles rather than looking at the current situation on the ground and coming up with far reaching and innovative solutions to fix the problems that are sure to come up in the future with the violence increasing and the country moving towards chaos.
Failures Of Current U.S. Policy
By its own benchmarks, the Bush administration is failing in Iraq. The White House could not fulfill its November 2005 ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq??? that called for a legitimate Iraqi government that could enforce law and order through an independent security force capable of fighting terrorism and the insurgency. The government of Prime Minister Maliki has little effect outside the heavily protected Green Zone in Baghdad, there is no law and order in Iraq except from the barrel of a gun, and the vast majority of the Iraqi security forces are neither ready nor willing to do any real fighting on their own. The U.S. military failed in its ???Clear, Hold, and Build??? counterinsurgency strategy in Anbar province started in the spring of 2006. A five-page intelligence report by Marine Col. Peter Devlin, a senior intelligence officer in Anbar from November 2006 said that Al Qaeda in Iraq has become the most powerful force in the province and that, ???The social and political situation has deteriorated to the point where [the U.S. and Iraqis] are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.??? Likewise, the summer and fall Operations Together Forward I and II to secure Baghdad collapsed in the face of increasing sectarian violence. If you listened to Washington and the U.S. military command however, the U.S. is facing a critical moment, but there are still weeks and months ahead to fix the problems. This has been repeated several times in the past however, with benchmarks having come and gone, and the U.S. leadership always giving itself more time to fix its policies.
Problems In Iraq
The realities in Iraq are far worse than what you hear from the administration. Towards the end of November 2006, Anthony Cordesman, one of the leading military experts on Iraq, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a new study, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War.??? It is probably the most critical document he has written, noting that in almost every area U.S. policy is failing in Iraq. By his analysis, the U.S. has less than a 50% change of succeeding in Iraq, in fact, he puts it as low as one in four, with things getting worse, not better within the country. Through his extensive research and trips to Iraq itself he charted the following list of issues Iraq and the U.S. now face:
- The Iraqi government has not shown the ability to actually govern the country
- Prime Minister Maliki???s peace proposal has been all talk and no action
- There is no real legal system and courts do not exist in many areas
- The series of elections that the U.S. trumpeted as the beginning of Iraqi democracy actually divided the country rather than brought it together as voters overwhelmingly voted for sectarian groups, almost all of which are backed by militias or are connected with the insurgency
- The largest bloc in parliament the Shiites, are increasingly breaking up into rival factions
- The new constitution has added to these divisions more than created national unity with many of the most pressing issues such as federalism having not been resolved
- The Iraqi economy???s GDP seems to be increasing, but that is because of the increase in global oil prices, when in fact, Iraq is plagued by high unemployment, corruption, and the failure of U.S. led reconstruction
- Iraq finally reached pre-war levels of oil production, but is still dependent upon gas imports for more than 50% of its needs, and its oil facilities, which provide over 90% of the country???s revenues, are falling apart with no real plans to fix them
- Iraq is not going to be receiving much more foreign aid to fix any of these problems
The main point of Cordesman???s report was the continued problems facing Iraqi security forces and the failure of the U.S. training program. Creating a new Iraqi army and police force has been one of the main planks of U.S. policy in Iraq. General George Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted that Iraqi forces would be ready to take over security of their own country in 12-18 months in November 2006. Cordesman notes that the reality of the situation is that ???Virtually nothing US officially says about Iraqi force development can now be taken at face value.??? He found that U.S. reporting on Iraqi forces was ???misleading to the point of being actively dishonest.??? While there have been some limited successes with individual army units, in general, the Iraqi forces are well below the numbers reported by the Pentagon, are fully infiltrated by Shiite militias, especially the police, do not act as a national force, are plagued by corruption, and partake in sectarian killings. The U.S. still only counts the number of Iraqis trained rather than how many are actually serving in their units. The U.S. claims that more and more Iraqis are taking the lead in counterinsurgency operations when in fact most are doing only guard duty and are incapable of operating for any extended period of time without massive U.S. support in basic supplies. The U.S. has also made no serious attempts at providing the Iraqis with the capability to be independent. The Americans have also constantly forced Iraqis into combat before they were ready, which has decimated them. For example, the U.S. claims that there are 134,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army, but only about 10,000 of them are actually carrying out combat operations. This puts to lie the claim by the Pentagon in October 2006 that 6 out of Iraq???s 10 divisions, 30 of its 36 brigades and 90 of its 112 battalions were ???in the lead??? in fighting. The new U.S. general in charge of the training mission within Iraq told the Army Times that it wasn???t until the Summer of 2006 that there had been a serious attempt at building up the Iraqi forces. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard said, ???We really didn???t have advisers two years ago.??? Likewise, 2006 was suppose to be the ???Year of the Police,??? but Cordesman notes that they are the most plagued by incompetence, corruption, and infiltration by the Shiite militias and partake in death squad activities. Many Iraqis join the security forces not to serve their country, but for the pay check because the Iraqi economy provides few other job opportunities. Rather than being ready in a year or so, Iraqi forces will probably require another 3-5 years of intense U.S. support and training until they are ready because of all of the problems with the Iraqi units and the U.S. training program.
To add to this list of problems the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reported in a Human Rights Report in October 2006 that ???The civilian population of Iraq continues to be victim of terrorist acts, roadside bombs, drive-by shootings, military operations, police abuse, kidnappings, common crimes, cross fire between rival gangs, or between police and insurgents. The security environment, marked by sectarian intolerance and prejudice, further erodes the freedom to worship or manifest one???s religion or to express thoughts. Growing unemployment, poverty, discrimination and diminishing access to basic services undermine socio economic rights.??? UNAMI continued by saying that the number of internal and external Iraqi refugees is increasing, the education system is collapsing with few schools open, the country is facing a brain drain and attacks on its intellectuals, attacks on women and minorities such as Christians are increasing, that torture by the government and militias is out of control, and that large predatory criminal gangs are rampant. It seems that almost all reporting from Iraq is noting the steady collapse of all aspects of its society.
The U.S. is not in a position to make the situation any better any time soon. Because of its misguided policies past, present, and most likely into the future, it will probably contribute to the difficulties rather than solve them.
Being Behind The Curve
In Cordesman???s report he noted that the main cause of the U.S. failure in Iraq is that it has always been behind the curve when dealing with the country. ???Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the US has never implemented a realistic, self-critical, or forward-looking approach to any aspect of its policy in Iraq. ??? In practice, however, the US has neither anticipated the problems it must solve or rapidly learned and adapted to the emerging realities in Iraq. Its national security leadership has become a self-inflicted wound, and the US has lurched from delayed response to response, always reacting too slowly, with too few resources and changes, and in a state of quasi-denial.??? Signs of how the U.S. is still thinking in the past are apparent everywhere. President Bush before meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki in Jordan in late November 2006 claimed that Iraq was the central front in the war on terror because Al Qaeda was the cause of the increase in sectarian violence, when the Shiite militias are now generally blamed for most of the killings. Neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute think tank and the Weekly Standard magazine have argued for a dramatic increase in U.S. troops to be sent to Baghdad to fight primarily against the Sunni insurgency when they are only one half of the problem now in a civil war with the Shiites. The Pentagon wants a temporary troop increase to try to quell sectarian violence in the capital, but in the long run to switch military operations from offensive ones to training the Iraqi security forces even though they are implicated in the sectarian violence and the Iraqi government has no means to maintain them. Democrats rightly see Iraq as being embroiled in a civil war, but their response is to withdraw and leave Iraq to the Iraqis. They claim that withdrawing will force the Iraqi government to address some of the deep-seated problems facing the country, but it is too weak to solve any of them, and will only throw the nation into greater violence. None of these policies will work because they either mistake the situation in Iraq for something else, or do not want to tackle what is happening.
Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, in a short article in the journal The National Interest points out that what has ended previous civil wars has been peacekeepers and power sharing agreements. He notes the current contradiction in U.S. policy that is still focused upon forming Iraqi security forces, when those security forces are part of the problem rather than the solution in a civil conflict. ???In this kind of war, classical counter-insurgency strategy makes things worse, not better. In particular, the effort to hand over security to an indigenous army just throws gasoline on the fire. In a civil war there is no ???national??? military that all can regard as a plausible defender of their interests: the subgroup that controls the government controls the state military; but to their rival???s population they are the enemy ??? the problem, not the solution. For Iraqi Sunnis, the ???national??? security forces look like a Shi???a-Kurdish militia with better weapons. ??? By contrast, the standard approach for terminating a communal civil war is to negotiate power-sharing deals, then to enforce this deal with neutral peacekeepers drawn from outside.??? No one in the U.S. foreign policy establishment seems to grasp this dilemma.
Because of how the U.S. handled the invasion of Iraq, no further foreign assistance is coming to pull America out of this quagmire. The U.S. could act as the honest broker and use its military and diplomatic power to work towards compromises and punish those who don???t cooperate. Some U.S. effort has been towards these goals such as U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad???s effort to bring in the Sunnis into the political process. This effort might be abandoned however. The White House began reviewing its Iraqi policy in November and one new idea put forward by the State Department is to abandon the Sunnis for the Shiites and Kurds who hold the real power in Iraq after parliamentary elections. The U.S. is also hindered because of its inability to provide security and the growing death count. As more and more bodies pile up and attacks and revenge killings increase, no side in Iraq wants to compromise and more and more people see each other locked in a fight to the death for survival. Talk about the U.S. withdrawing also undermines any efforts towards national reconciliation because many Iraqis feel like the U.S. is going to leave soon. Why would the Sunnis for example, want to broker any deals with the U.S. if it believes that the Americans will soon depart and turn over the country to their enemies the Shiites who they feel want to destroy them?
Out of the current proposals for new policies in Iraq the only one that might help to stave off the civil war is the Iraq Study Group???s idea for a regional conference. Such a meeting would have to include Syria and Iran who have influence with Shiite and Sunni groups within Iraq. These two countries might be able to use their contacts to bring about some sort of compromise about the future of the country. That would mean that the U.S. would have to give them some kind of concessions for their effort, but President Bush and Vice President Cheney are probably opposed to even sitting down with them at the same table. Once again then, U.S. policy has probably hit a dead end.
Conclusion
Each day things are getting worse in Iraq, while the U.S. is thinking about fighting past opponents such as terrorism and the insurgency, rather than looking ahead at how to stave off a full scale civil war. As more bodies pile up, the less likely the warring factions in Iraq are willing to compromise with each other. The more the U.S. pushes for fighting the insurgency and turning over security to a Shiite dominated military and police force, the more it???s seen as the enemy of the Sunni population. The more President Bush talks about ???staying the course,??? the stronger the Democrats in Congress feel the urge to push for a withdrawal of U.S. troops to leave the Iraqis to kill each other. Anthony Cordesman in his November study predicted that the U.S. probably only has about a one in four chan ce of succeeding in Iraq. If it is to be successful it could create an Iraqi security apparatus that actually acts like a national force rather than one that is divided along sectarian lines, and bring about the political reforms and compromises necessary for an end to fighting. Most likely though Iraq will fall into three other situations, a continuing of the current status quo, a de facto separation of the country along sectarian lines, or a complete collapse of the country. In the first situation, the status quo, Iraq will continue to face sectarian violence, but just below an all out civil war with the U.S. attempting to quell the violence where it can, but with no lasting solutions to the problems. In the second scenario, sectarian fighting could lead to the de factor partition of Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish areas with low level ethnic cleansing. Cordesman writes that Iraq could become the ???sick man??? of the Persian Gulf with constant interference by the U.S. and its neighbors, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria who manipulate the different factions within the country for their own gains. In the final vision of the future, Iraq could face a total collapse. The government will come apart in the face of civil war, and the country will openly split into Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite areas with widespread fighting. The U.S. will withdraw in the face of this violence, and again Iraq will be the ???sick man??? of the Middle East, becoming a pawn in the struggles between its neighbors.
As the situation worsens within Iraq, the U.S. is facing fewer and fewer options. This is only made worse by the administration and military???s inability to openly address what is going on within the country. Until the White House comes out and admits that Iraq is fighting a civil war, U.S. policy will be stuck fighting against its past mistakes rather than charting a serious course for the future of both U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the fate of thousands of Iraqis. As the Prussian military theoretician Carl von Clauswitz wrote, ???The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ??? the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature.??? The administration still doesn???t want to admit to what kind of war it is fighting in Iraq, and is doomed to continued failure until it does.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
GOVERNMENT REPORTS[/b]
Zuhur, Sherifa, ???Iran, Iran, And The United States: The New Triangle???s Impact On Sectarianism And The Nuclear Threat,??? Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army, November 2006
U.N. REPORTS[/b]
U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, ???Human Rights Report,??? 1 September ??? 31 October, 2006
THINK TANK REPORTS[/b]
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil war: The Critical Problems and Failures the US Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are To Eventually Do the Job,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq ??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/27/06
ARTICLES[/b]
Associated Press, ???Iraq ministry forms unit to monitor news,??? 11/30/06
Bacevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panels??? real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Baker, Peter ???White House Wages War of Words Over ???Civil??? Term,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Baldor, Lolita, ???More Marines may be needed in terror war,??? Associated Press, 11/23/06
Bartholet, Jeffrey, ???How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq,??? Newsweek, 12/4/06
Biddle, Stephen, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Burns, John, ???Crime funding insurgency,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Burns, John, and Semple, Kirk, ???Deeper Crisis, Less U.S. Sway in Iraq,??? New York Times, 11/29/06
Cavallaro, Gina, ???General: Troops who train ???could be much better,?????? Army Times, 11/27/06
Choharis, Peter Charles, ???Forget Failure, Let???s Avoid Catastrophe,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Cloud, David, ???In Statement, Defense Choice Criticizes Iraq Planning,??? New York Times, 11/29/06
CNN, ???U.S. moving 1,600 troops into Baghdad,??? CNN.com, 11/29/06
Cockburn, Patrick, ???Slaughter in Iraq soon seems to be part of normal life,??? Independent UK, 11/28/06
Cooper, Helene, ???U.S. Diplomatic Venture Shuts Out Syria And Iran,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Danner, Mark, ???Iraq: The War of the Imagination,??? New York Review Of Books, 12/21/06
Epstein, Edward, ???Bipartisan war strategy no sure thing,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/29/06
Feller, Ben, ???Lawmakers Lose Patience With Iraq Government,??? Associated Press, 11/27/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???It???s a Civil War, Stupid,??? Washington Post.com, 11/27/06
Galloway, Joe, ???Sinking Into Confusion,??? Military.com, 12/1/06
Glanz, James, ???Splintered; In Search of the Fixers,??? New York Times, 11/26/06
Gordon, Michael, ???U.S. adviser reports doubts on al-Maliki,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/29/06
Gordon, Michael and Filkins, Dexter, ???Hezbollah may be helping militias,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Hemeid, Salah, ???At what price???? Al-Ahram Weekly Egypt, 11/23-29/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Pentagon Considers Moving Troops From al-Anbar Province to Baghdad,??? ABC News.com, 11/28/06
Kurtz, Howard, ???Been There, Done That,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
Landay, Jonathan, and Youssef, Nancy, ???Experts question proposals in leaked Iraq memo,??? McClathcy Newspapers, 11/29/06
Leopold, Jason, ???Report: US Still Manipulating Iraq Intelligence,??? Truthout.com, 11/29/06
Linzer, Dafna, and Ricks, Thomas, ???Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker,??? Washington Post, 11/28/06
Macke, Peg, ???ANALYSIS ??? Iraq???s oil industry in grip of despair,??? Reuters, 11/29/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Rising violence swells ranks of Iraq???s militias,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/28/06
New York Times, ???Text of U.S. Security Adviser???s Iraq Memo,??? 11/29/06
Obain, Nawaf, ???Stepping Into Iraq,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Owen, John, ???How Bad Would a Partition Be???? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraq???s deepening religious fissures,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/28/06
- ???When will Iraqi troops be ready???? Christian Science Monitor, 11/27/06
Phelps, Timothy, ???Woes for Baker Group,??? Newsday, 11/23/06
Pincus, Walter, ???Lawmakers Criticize Training And Deployment of Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 11/27/06
Pipes, Daniel, ???Tempering Ambitions,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???A Day When Mahdi Army Showed Its Other Side,??? Washington Post, 11/27/06
Ricks, Thomas, and Wright, Robin, ???As Iraq Deteriorates, Iraqis Get More Blame,??? Washington Post, 11/29/06
Robin Wright, ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Rogers, Paul, ???Washington???s Iraqi sandstorm,??? Open Democracy.net, 11/30/06
Rosen, Guy, ???Baghdad or Bust,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Sanger, David, ???The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody???s Leaving Right Now,??? New York Times, 12/1/06
- ???Report suggests U.S. talk with Iran, Syria,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
Sanger, David, and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06
Sieff, Martin, ???Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis,??? UPI, 11/27/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Iran summit idea coul d assist U.S., analysts say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/21/06
Steele, Jonathan, ???American military concedes daily toll of civilians likely to rise far above 100,??? Guardian UK, 11/29/06
- ???Iraq is already enduring two wars. Could it survive a third???? Guardian UK, 12/1/06
Sullivan, Andy, ???NBC says Iraq in civil war, White House disagrees,??? Reuters, 11/27/06
Tirman, John, ???Regionalizing Iraq,??? Boston Globe, 11/26/06
- ???Ten Fallacies About the Violence in Iraq,??? AlterNet.com, 11/28/06
Trejos, Nancy, ???Violence unabated despite appeals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
USA Today, ??????Neocons??? Abandon Iraq War at White House Front Door,??? 11/27/06
Wagner, Thomas and Yacoub, Sameer, ???Al-Sadr Loyalists Boycott Iraq Government,??? Associated Press, 11/29/06
Weissert, Will, ???Iraqi army not ready to defend Fallujah,??? Associated Press, 11/27/06
Wong, Edward, ???A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War, and Who Declares It So???? New York Times, 11/26/06
- ???Some Fighters in Iraq Adopt New Tactics to Battle U.S.,??? New York Times, 11/24/06
Wright, Robin, ???U.S. Considers Ending Outreach to Insurgents,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
Zakheim, Dov, ???Focus on the Integrity of Borders,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
After the much ballyhooed release of the Iraq Study Group report and all the talk about an eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces it seems that the Bush administration is heading in the opposite direction with an increase in American soldiers in another attempt to secure Baghdad. At the same time, the U.S. military is arguing for an economic approach to deny the Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias their foot soldiers. While the latter will probably be included in Bush???s ???new way forward??? in Iraq, the use of force still plays the dominant role in Bush???s view of victory. As has happened so many times in the past, the White House is looking for a military solution to Iraq, while overlooking more viable alternatives.
During the spring and summer of 2006 the U.S. and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki launched Operation Together Forward I and II to fight Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Baghdad. Both operations failed for a number of reasons including a lack of enough U.S. troops to hold more than just a few neighborhoods at a time, lack of extra Iraqi forces to help with security, and the complicity of Iraqi police in sectarian killings. Violence in the capital sky rocketed to new levels of savagery even as the U.S. military initially claimed success.
Afterwards neoconservatives such as Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard magazine, along with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and future presidential candidate Senator John McCain all began calling for a third try with up to 50,000 additional U.S. troops. Kagan and Kristol, in a series of reports, argued that with a surge of forces to Baghdad, the U.S. would finally have the numbers necessary to carry out an effective counterinsurgency operation against the Sunni insurgents. After they were subdued the Shiites could be convinced to give up their militias. In mid-December 2006 Prime Minister Maliki also signed onto this plan, only if the U.S. military focused upon the Sunnis.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, military commanders in the Middle East and Iraq, and various think tanks have all questioned this policy, believing that a military solution is no longer possible. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction noted, ???The solution in Iraq is not primarily a military one. It is primarily an economic and political solution.??? Worse yet, Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, believes that such counterinsurgency operations are exactly the opposite of what the U.S. should be conducting in a burgeoning civil war. In an article in the National Interest journal he argued that such military operations make it seem like the U.S. is helping the Shiite dominated government and security forces wipe out the Sunnis.
Instead, the Pentagon is arguing for an economic approach to Iraq. Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the field commander in Iraq, believes that unemployment is the real enemy in the country. ???We need to put the angry young men to work. ??? One of the key hindrances to us establishing stability in Iraq is the failure to get the economy going. A relatively small decrease in unemployment would have a very serious effect on the level of sectarian killing going on,??? General Chiarelli told the Washington Post. Likewise, the Pentagon???s last quarterly report to Congress on Iraq released in November 2006 found that, ???Unemployment and underemployment may make financial incentives for participating in insurgent or sectarian violence more appealing to military age males. There is a correlation between dissatisfaction over jobs and levels of violence. A decrease in unemployment may well have a significant impact on the level of sectarian violence and insurgent attacks based on analysis by the Joint Warfare Analysis Center.??? The jobless rate hovers between 30-50%, and it is reported that in some Sunni areas it is as high as 70%. The military believes that reviving Iraq???s businesses and creating jobs could have a major effect on the violence in the country.
During the summer of 2006, the Pentagon began sending teams into some of the most violent cities of the country including Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Najaf and Ramadi. There they plan to revive up to 200 state-run businesses that were shut down by the Coalition Provisional Authority in a misguided free market-privatization program that only led to higher unemployment. At the same time, the military has begun talking to several major American corporations to try to get them to start placing orders with these refurbished Iraqi businesses. Initially, the military is focusing upon 10 factories that they hope will employ up to 11,000 Iraqis by early 2007.
This approach is most likely to be included in Bush???s ???new way forward??? strategy as the White House is calling it, but it will take a back seat to the increase in troops. A sign of how little regard the plan is being given is the fact that neither the State Department nor the United States Agency for International Development, which usually handle such projects, are involved. Rather the entire plan is going to be coordinated and funded by the military.
As General Chiarelli noted to the Washington Post, ???There???s no doubt in my mind that it [fighting unemployment] has the potential to turn the tide. ??? I find it unbelievable after four years that we haven???t come to that realization. ??? To me, it???s huge. It???s as important as just about any other part of the campaign plan.??? Yet, President Bush???s preference for acting forcefully and the neoconservatives emphasis upon the use of military power to solve problems, may never allow this economic plan to reach its full potential and provide an alternative for young Iraqi men from taking up guns for money.
BIBLIOGRAPHY[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Government Reports[/b]
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? November 2006
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Securing Baghdad,??? Council on Foreign Relations, 7/18/06
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War: The Critical Problems and Failures the US Must Address if Iraqi Forces Are To Eventually Do the Job,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 10/25/06
- ???Reality Check II,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/15/06
- ??????Redeployment??? Will Not ???Incentivize the Iraqi Military. It Will Lead to Its Collapse,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/6/06
- ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq ??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/27/06
Kagan, Robert, and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute For Public Policy Research, 11/20/06
Articles[/b]
Al-Khairalla, Mussab and Macdonald, Alastair, ???Baghdad bombings hit new high,??? Reuters, 10/4/06
Associated Press, ???As U.S. focuses on Baghdad, al-Qaeda gains strength in Sunni heartland,??? USA Today, 8/16/06
- ???U.S. general: More violence during Ramadan,??? MSNBC.com, 9/20/06
Badkhen, Anna, ???General concedes failure in Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/06
Baker, Peter, ???President Confronts Dissent on Troop Levels,??? Washington Post, 12/21/06
Biddle, Stephen, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? The National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Brunswick, Mark and Obeld, Zalneb, ???U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 9/8/06
DeYoun g, Karen, ???Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007,??? Washington Post, 12/18/06
Filkins, Dexter, ???Baghdad???s Chaos Undercuts Tack Pursued by U.S.??? New York Times, 8/6/06
Gordon, Michael, ???Iraqi Realities Undermine the Pentagon???s Predictions,??? New York Times, 10/25/06
- ???Iraqi Soldiers Refuse to Go to Baghdad, Defying Order,??? New York Times, 8/29/06
- ???Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Towards Chaos,??? New York Times, 11/1/06
- ???To Stand or Fall in Baghdad: Capital Is Key to Mission,??? New York Times, 10/23/06
Gray, Andrew and Roberts, Kristin, ???US General Says Troop Adjustments Won???t Solve Iraq,??? Reuters, 11/15/06
Grier, Peter, ???If US boosts troop levels in Iraq, then for how long???? Christian Science Monitor, 12/20/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush???s Iraq Legacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Korb, Lawrence, and Bergmann, Max, ???Surging to Disaster,??? American Prospect Online, 12/20/06
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Missing: a functional Iraqi state,??? Christian Science Monitor, 12/19/06
- ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Lochhead, Carolyn, ???General asks skeptical Senate for more time,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/16/06
Luo, Michael, ???U.S. to Review Baghdad Plan, General Says,??? New York Times, 10/19/06
Macdonald, Alastair, ???Iraq civilian deaths hit record in Sept ??? ministry,??? Reuters, 10/1/06
Moore, Solomon, ???Deaths Drop in Iraqi Capital,??? Los Angeles Times, 8/28/06
- ???Iraq Impeding Efforts to Go After Shiite Militias, U.S. Military Says,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/28/06
- ???Iraq violence claims 41 lives,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06
- ???Iraqi Militias Seen as Spinning Out of Control,??? Los Angeles Times, 9/12/06
- ???U.S. military casualties surging,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/06
Moore, Solomon, and Barnes, Julian, ???Promised Iraqi troops slow to reach Baghdad,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/23/06
Oppel, Richard, A., ???U.N. Finds Baghdad Toll Far Higher Than Cited,??? New York Times, 9/21/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Premier Wants U.S. Forces to Target Sunni Insurgents,??? Washington Post, 12/20/06
Ricks, Thomas, ???Pentagon May Suggest Short-Term Buildup Leading to Iraq Exit,??? Washington Post, 11/20/06
Richter, Paul, ???U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/19/06
Rutenberg, Jim, ???A New Phrase Enters Washington???s War of Words Over Iraq,??? New York Times, 12/21/06
Spiegel, Peter, ???Troop levels in Iraq may rise,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/16/06
Stannard, Matthew, ???Bush Says He???ll Seek Larger Military,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/20/06
- ???Bush???s Tough Choice On A Troop ???Surge,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/21/06
Strobel, Warren, and Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush weighing deeper commitment in Iraq, officials say,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 12/14/06
Tisdall, Simon, ???US plans last big push in Iraq,??? Guardian UK, 11/16/06
Tran, Mark, ???Generals unclear on present danger,??? Guardian U.K. News Blog, 12/20/06
Trejos, Nancy, ???Exiting general says force alone won???t bring peace,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/13/06
Tyson, Ann Scott, and White, Josh, ???A Soldier???s Soldier, Outflanked,??? Washington Post, 12/21/06
White, Josh, and Witte, Griff, ???To Stem Iraqi Violence, U.S. Aims to Create Jobs,??? Washington Post, 12/12/06
???Just to give you one example, Rush. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist, an al-Qaeda affiliate. He ran a training camp in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, then migrated after we went into Afghanistan and shut ???em down there, he went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al-Qaeda operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then of course led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June. He???s the guy who arranged the bombing of the Samarra mosque that precipitated the sectarian violence between Shi???a and Sunni. This is Al-Qaeda operating in Iraq, and as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq. There???s no way you can segment out and say, ???Well, we???ll fight the war on terror in Pakistan or Afghanistan but we can separate Iraq. That???s not really, in any way, shape, or form related.??? It???s just dead wrong. Bin Laden has said this [Iraq] is the central battle in the war on terror.??? Vice President Dick Cheney on Rush Limbaugh???s Radio Show, 4/5/07
On April 5, 2007 Vice President Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh???s radio audience that Al Qaeda was operating within Iraq before the U.S. invaded in 2003 under the leadership of slain terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi. This claim and many others like it, stand in the face of what U.S. intelligence was saying before and after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Not matter how many reports are issued denying that there was ever an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the administration, all the way up to the President himself, seems to cling to this fantasy to help justify the war.
Pre-War Intelligence Reports Found Contacts Between Iraq & Al Qaeda, But No Collaboration[/b]
???The relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other.??? CIA Report ???Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship,??? 6/21/02
U.S. intelligence got many things wrong about Iraq, most notably its claims about Saddam???s weapons of mass destruction, but one thing they consistently got right was that there was no working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. There were occasional meetings dating back to the mid-1990s, but there was ???no conclusive evidence of cooperation on specific terrorist operations??? according to a June 21, 2002 CIA report ???Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship.??? A later CIA report, ???Iraqi Support for Terrorism,??? from August 20, 2002 had a similar finding when it said, ???Saddam and Bin Laden are not natural partners, but have maintained cautious contacts and some shared training. The two groups nevertheless remained suspicious of each other???s motives, and to date we cannot document any operational activity between them.???
These were the same conclusions given to Pres. Bush immediately after 9/11 when he requested a report on whether Iraq was behind the attacks. In his daily intelligence briefing on 9/21/01 he was told that Iraq was not involved in 9/11 and that there was little evidence of collaboration between the two. The report went on to say that Saddam considered Al Qaeda a threat to his regime and wanted to infiltrate it to keep tabs on their activities.
U.S. intelligence didn???t believe there was a working relationship because it had found that Saddam viewed Islamists as a threat to his regime, and had sought to prevent Iraqis from joining Al Qaeda. There were also reports that Al Qaeda officials were divided over whether to work with Iraq or not, and captured Al Qaeda leaders such as 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Muhammad said he didn???t know of any help from Iraq, among other things.
The four most important connections they did find were meetings, beginning in the 1990s between the two, reports of two Al Qaeda operatives receiving training within Iraq, Al Qaeda fighters fleeing to Kurdish Iraq after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the presence of terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi within Iraq. Iraqi and Al Qaeda officials had several meetings beginning in 1994 but nothing seemed to come of them. The claim of training came from a captured Al Qaeda operative who said that 2 members had successfully completed training in Iraq. The CIA tended to believe the story, while the DIA did not. The Iraqi National Congress was also pushing the claim that Al Qaeda operatives had trained at a camp in Baghdad called Salman Pak, but this was all hearsay. 100-200 Al Qaeda fighters had fled into northern Iraq???s Kurdish area after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to join an affiliated Islamist group known as Ansar Al-Islam. U.S. intelligence believed that their presence was known by Baghdad, but that they were not ???official guests of the Iraq government.??? Finally, Zarqawi was in Iraq before the 2003 invasion and the CIA believed that the authorities knew of his presence. At the time however, Zarqawi was not considered a member of Al Qaeda, but rather the leader of his own independent terrorist organization.
Overall, the June 21, 2002 CIA report found that ???In contrast to the patron-client pattern between Iraq and its Palestinian surrogates, the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida appears to more closely resemble that of two independent actors trying to exploit each other.???
The Pentagon???s own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) produced its own reports making similar claims. For example, a July 31, 2002 assessment, ???Iraq???s Inconclusive Ties to Al-Qaida??? stated, ???Compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information.???
Likewise, the White House???s Counterterrorism Chief, Richard Clarke repeatedly told the President and administration officials verbally and in reports that Iraq and Al Qaeda were not linked beginning with his very first briefing for the new administration officials in April 2001. In national security meetings immediately after 9/11 Clarke repeated his belief that bin Laden was the major threat to the U.S. and that Iraq was not involved in the terrorist attack.
White House Believes in Iraq-Al Qaeda Link[/b]
"I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point." President Bush, 9/17/01
The White House didn???t like it was hearing from the intelligence community. The neoconservatives especially, came into the government with a negative view of the CIA dating back to the Cold War, and thought that the Agency was not to be trusted.
From the beginning, officials such as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq was behind Al Qaeda. After 9/11 these beliefs were only magnified. On 9/11 Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz immediately pushed for attacking Iraq, with Wolfowitz claiming that there was 10-50% change Saddam was behind the attack. The next day, Bush asked Clarke to look into whether Iraq was behind the attack. A few days later he said, ???I believe Iraq was involved, but I???m not going to strike them now. I don???t have the evidence at this point.???
Administration Creates Its Own Intelligence To Justify War[/b]
???Intelligence indicates cooperation [with al-Qaida] in all categories; mature, symbiotic relationship.??? Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group briefing ???Assessing the Relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda??? briefing, Department of Defense, June 2002
Frustrated with not getting any solid intelligence on an Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ordered his deputy Wolfowitz to have the Pentagon create its own intelligence organization. This task was given to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, on November 26, 2001. By law, his office was not authorized to conduct intelligence operations, bu t that was exactly what they were ordered to do. This organization came to be known as the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group, sometimes referred to as the Office of Special Plans. The Group never had more than three staff members working at one time, with a total of five during its short lifespan. The original two members, David Wurmser and Michael Maloof, were not even intelligence officials, but rather neoconservatives.
Wurmser and Maloof, along with the three DIA analysts that replaced them, went through raw intelligence reports along with reports from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to try to find state sponsors of Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly they found that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a long-standing relationship and collaboration since the mid-1990s. According to their findings, ???Intelligence indicates cooperation [with al-Qaida] in all categories; mature, symbiotic relationship.??? The Group found dozens of examples of what it believed to be cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda including a meeting between 9/11 hijack leader Mohammed Atta and the chief of Iraqi intelligence in Prague, the Czech Republic in April 2001. The Group disseminated daily intelligence reports to leaders in the Pentagon on their findings.
By June 2002 the Policy Group had created a briefing that they gave to Rumsfeld on August 8, 2002, CIA Chief George Tenet and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Lowell Jacoby on August 15, 2002, and finally to Deputy National Security Adviser Hadley and Cheney???s Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby on September 16, 2002. The briefing claimed that intelligence showed that there was a close and long standing relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda dating back to the 1990s. According to the briefing, Iraq hoped to use Al Qaeda to continue the war against the United States after America invaded. In one slide, the Office claimed that Al Qaeda was an Iraqi surrogate. It failed to note that the Intelligence Community did not believe this. In fact, a slide presented to Rumsfeld, Hadley and Libby stated that the opinions of the Intelligence Community should be ignored on the issue of whether the relationship existed or not. This slide was removed from the briefing given to Tenet and Jacoby for obvious reasons.
After their briefing with Tenet, the Policy Group officials were invited to have a meeting with intelligence analysts to discuss their opposing views. At the meeting, the intelligence officials were willing to allow the Policy Group to add a footnote to the next report, but they declined because they knew they were not authorized to officially produce any intelligence, even though that was what they were already doing.
In general, the Intelligence Community disagreed with the work of the Policy Group. For example, a DIA analyst went through a memo the Policy Group had written that included 26 alleged ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in terrorist activities. The DIA analyst only agreed or partially agreed with 11 of them and disregarded the memo in general by saying that it had ???no intelligence value.???
By the fall of 2002 the Policy Group ceased to exist.
Selective Intelligence[/b]
???You can???t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.??? Pres. Bush, 9/25/02
In their public statements in the lead up to the war, the White House only used intelligence reports that supported their claim that Iraq and Al Qaeda were working together. More often than not, they used the findings of the Policy Counter Terror Group. Cheney even claimed that the Group produced the best intelligence on the alleged relationship.
From intelligence community reports the White House made public claims that Al Qaeda had received training in Iraq, that Al Qaeda fighters had fled to northern Iraq, and that Zarqawi was in Iraq because it fit their argument. From the Policy Counter Terror Group they said that Al Qaeda had a longstanding relationship with Iraq dating back to the meetings they had in the 1990s, that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader, and that Iraqi intelligence had met with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Bush told reporters, ???You can???t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.???
Even when the administration was presented with contradictory views to their public statements, they refused to back off. For example, the meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague was continuously disputed by U.S. intelligence. Bush???s 9/21/01 intelligence briefing said that it was unlikely that the meeting happened. This was followed up by other reports by both the CIA and FBI with the same findings. Yet in the winter of 2001 the story was leaked to the neoconservative former CIA chief James Woolsey and conservative columnist William Safire who each wrote editorials in the Wall St Journal and New York Times based upon it. Stories such as these helped convinced the majority of the American public that Iraq was behind 9/11, and helped facilitate the 2003 invasion.
Post-War Intelligence Finds No Connection, But the White House Doesn???t Give Up[/b]
???As a result, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy did not provide ???the most accurate analysis of intelligence??? to senior decision-makers.??? Findings of Department of Defense Inspector General report on the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Feith, 2/9/07
After the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence went through thousands of Iraqi documents, and interviewed not only dozens of top ranking Iraqi officials, but captured Al Qaeda members as well. They found that there was no connection between the two. Saddam and his Prime Minister Tarik Azziz told the FBI that Iraqi officials had met with Al Qaeda in the 1990s, but that Saddam did not trust them, tried to crack down upon Islamists that had come to his country, and issued a presidential order banning cooperation with bin Laden. The Al Qaeda operative who claimed that Iraq had provided training recanted his story after the war, and it was found that he only made it up because he was tortured and wanted to tell his interrogators what they wanted so that they would stop. The story that Iraq was training terrorists at Salman Pak turned out to be a fabrication by the Iraqi National Congress. It turned out that Saddam did know about the presence of ex-Afghanistan Al Qaeda fighters in Kurdish Iraq, but felt that their presence was a threat to his regime because they could be used to justify U.S. attacks. Finally, on Zarqawi, Saddam had tried to detain him while he was in Iraq but failed. Saddam actually considered him an enemy because he had carried out terrorist attacks in Baghdad. Not only that, but the intelligence community was right to claim that Zarqawi, while affiliated with bin Laden, was not an Al Qaeda member, but rather the leader of his own independent organization. Zarqawi did not join bin Laden until after the U.S. invasion in 2004.
All of the findings of the Policy Counter Terror Group were found to be false as well. For example, no evidence was found to prove that the meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001 occurred. The Iraqi intelligence official that supposedly met with Atta in Prague was captured by the U.S. and denied any such contact.
The lack of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda was reported again and again in official reports and findings. These included the Iraq Study Group in June 2003 who found nothing behind the Atta story upon request of Wolfowitz. The U.N. Monitoring Group on Al Qaeda that found no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda the same month. The June 2004 9/11 Commission that found no involvement by Iraq in the attacks, and two reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, one in July 2004 and the other in September 2006.
Finally, on February 9, 2007 the Department of Defense Inspector General released a report on activities of Douglas Feith???s Departmen t of Defense unit. It found:
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaida relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers. While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the Intelligence Community. ??? As a result, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy did not provide ???the most accurate analysis of intelligence??? to senior decision-makers.
Ironically, the day that the Inspector General???s report was made public on April 7, 2007, was the same day that Vice President Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader working with Iraq before the U.S. invasion. This was only the latest example of how the administration has ignored what it???s own intelligence community has been telling it when it hasn???t fit their agenda. Instead Cheney and others have clung to Feith???s organization findings, even though they have been proven false. In doing so, they are only discrediting themselves.
Timeline of Intelligence Reports and Administration Statements on Iraq-Al Qaeda Ties[/b]
A comparison of intelligence reports and public statements by officials highlights how the White House was intent upon building a case against Iraq and Al Qaeda without solid evidence.
April 2001[/b]
White House Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke gives 1st briefing to new Bush administration on terrorism. Clarke focuses upon the threat of bin Laden.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questions why Clarke was spending so much time on Al Qaeda. Wolfowitz claimed that Iraq was the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world and that it was linked with Al Qaeda. Wolfowitz also claimed that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Clarke told him there was no connection.
9/11/01[/b]
Day of attack Saddam Hussein raised the 9/11 hijackers
Within 5 hours of the 9/11 attack Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to see whether Iraq was behind it. He told Wolfowitz to look into an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. He also suggested that he U.S. attack Iraq as well as Al Qaeda in response to 9/11.
9/12/01[/b]
Clarke gave briefing to the White House on Al Qaeda. Said that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 and that Iraq was not involved.
Bush pulled over Clarke and asked him to look into a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Clarke told the President that there was no connection.
On the insistence of the President, Clarke and the FBI wrote a report saying that there was no connection between Al Qaeda, Iraq and 9/11.
National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice or her Deputy Stephen Hadley rejected the report and sent it back because it found no connection.
9/13/01[/b]
Wolfowitz asked officials if Iraq was connected to 9/11.
Wolfowitz began lobbying Vice President Dick Cheney that Iraq was involved in 9/11.
Wolfowitz sent former CIA chief James Woolsey to Europe to look into whether Iraq was behind 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Woolsey found nothing. CIA and FBI had already looked into claim and found no evidence.
Wolfowitz asked DIA to look into book that claimed Iraq was behind 1993 bombing. DIA told him that there was nothing to the story. Wolfowitz told them that they had to prove that the book???s claims were true. They never did.
9/15/01[/b]
Bush held national security meeting to discuss responses to 9/11. Wolfowitz said that there was a 10-50% chance that Iraq was behind 9/11 and that Saddam had to be the focus of the war on terror.
Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed Wolfowitz???s claim.
9/17/01[/b]
At National Security Council meeting Bush said that he believed Iraq was connected to 9/11 but that he didn???t have the evidence to justify an attack on them yet.
9/19/01[/b]
Bush and Cheney held meeting with CIA Chief George Tenet. Bush asked Tenet for information about Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
Cheney said that he had heard that 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague in April 2001. Tenet said he would look into story.
9/21/01[/b]
Bush receives first official intelligence report on 9/11 and Iraq during his daily intelligence briefing. CIA says that Iraq was not connected to 9/11 and that there was little collaboration between the two. Iraq saw Al Qaeda as a potential threat and had attempted to keep tabs on it. Also said that Atta meeting probably did not happen.
Briefing was turned into longer report and given to Bush, Cheney, Rice, her deputy Hadley, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.
Cheney did not believe report.
Fall 2001[/b]
White House officials try to confirm Atta story.
CIA and FBI both claim that meeting did not happen.
October 2001[/b]
Wolfowitz orders Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith to create Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group to look into intelligence on ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Group comes to conclude that they did cooperate.
Iraqi National Congress provides 2 Iraqi defectors that claim the 9/11 hijackers were trained in Iraq. Claim proves to be false.
Atta story is leaked to former CIA Chief James Woolsey who writes editorial about it in Wall St. Journal arguing that it was proof that Iraq was behind 9/11.
Late 2001[/b]
Atta story is leaked to conservative New York Times columnist William Safire who writes a story about it again claiming that it was proof that Iraq was behind 9/11.
November 2001[/b]
Czech Prime Minister told White House officials details about the Atta meeting in Prague in April 2001.
Cheney went on TV and said that Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague.
U.S. soldiers find documents in Afghanistan that Al Qaeda was trying to acquire WMD.
White House reported documents find to press and claimed that Iraq was the easiest place for Al Qaeda to get WMD.
December 2001[/b]
Czech Interior Minister gives more details on the Atta story to the White House. Story was based upon Arab student in Prague who was considered unreliable. Czech President Havel didn???t believe story.
CIA and FBI continue to report that they cannot confirm story. FBI found evidence that Atta was in the U.S. during the time of the Prague meeting.
12/9/01[/b]
Cheney repeats the Atta story to Meet The Press TV show.
January 2002[/b]
Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group criticized the CIA???s intelligence because it found contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda but no cooperation. Group said there was.
February 2002[/b]
State Department???s annual report on terrorism found no connection between Iraq and 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Did say that Atta story was under investigation.
CIA Chief Tenet said that Iraq was not behind any anti-Western terrorism since 1993.
Captured Al Qaeda member said that Iraq had given Al Qaeda bomb training. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believes that he???s lying. Also question whether Iraq and Al Qaeda would ever cooperate.
Early 2002[/b]
Cheney, along with his chief of staff Lewis Libby begin making a series of visits to CIA headquarters to question intelligence analysts. One question was why they couldn???t find connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
3/17/02[/b]
Wolfowitz meets with the British Ambassador to the U.S. Wolfow itz asks whether the British knew anything about the Atta meeting. Ambassador said no. Wolfowitz told Ambassador that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
June 2002[/b]
Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group created a briefing for administration officials that claimed a long-standing relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and cooperation on terrorist activities including 9/11. Briefing included Atta story. Said that Intelligence Community reporting on non-cooperation should be ignored. Briefing given to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Tenet, DIA Director, Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley and Cheney Chief of Staff Libby during the summer of 2002.
6/12/02[/b]
White House asked for an intelligence report on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties. CIA found no cooperation.
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Feith had member of the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group look at the CIA report. Criticized it because it found no connections.
7/31/02[/b]
DIA issues report ???Iraq???s Inconclusive Ties to Al-Qaida.??? Said ???compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and al-Qaida has not been established, despite a large body of anecdotal information.??? Also questioned whether the Atta meeting happened.
August 2002[/b]
Rumsfeld claimed that there were Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq and that the government knew about it.
8/9/02[/b]
DIA analyst went through memo generated by the Policy Counter Terror Group detailing Iraq-Al Qaeda terrorist cooperation. Discounted most of the claims and said that the memo had ???no intelligence value.???
8/14/02[/b]
DIA analyst wrote report saying that the Atta meeting could not be confirmed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
8/17/02[/b]
Policy Group gives briefing to CIA Chief Tenet and DIA director. Afterwards Tenet agrees to set up a meeting between Group officers and intelligence analysts to discuss Iraq-Al Qaeda connections.
Policy Group???s findings are leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard that writes a piece advocating war because it Iraq???s ties with Al Qaeda.
8/20/02[/b]
Meeting held between Policy Group members and intelligence analysts. Group argued for inclusion of Atta meeting in up coming CIA report, but was rejected. Analysts agreed to allow Policy group to include a footnote to report on its alternative analysis of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties, but they reject it because they are not authorized to participate in intelligence work.
8/21/02[/b]
U.S. intelligence begins investigation of connections between Islamist group Ansar al Islam in northern Kurdish Iraq, Al Qaeda and Iraqi government. Find evidence that Ansar sent fighters to Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, also that Al Qaeda fighters fled to Ansar camps after U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Rumsfled told press that Ansar al Islam was receiving Al Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan and that this could not happen without the Iraqi government knowing it.
September 2002[/b]
Wolfowitz met with FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. FBI official says that Atta meeting didn???t happen. Wolfowitz says that the meeting was at least possible.
CIA report said that Al Qaeda, through Iraqi group Ansar al Islam, was seeking WMD from Iraq.
Administration makes public Ansar-Al Qaeda ties.
9/2/02[/b]
Iraqi National Congress provided defector that claimed one of Saddam???s sons controlled 1,200 Al Qaeda fighters. Report not believed by U.S. intelligence.
U.S. intelligence on Al Qaeda fighters fleeing to Iraq from Afghanistan said that ???The Al Qaeda people are not official guests of the Iraqi government.???
Pentagon officials said that Al Qaeda fighters in northern Iraq was proof of Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
Pentagon view leaked to New York Times columnist William Safire who writes piece that Ansar controlled by Iraq, that Iraq and Al Qaeda were planning assassinations, and that Iraq was giving WMD to Ansar.
CIA leaked to press that there was little evidence to support Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
9/3/02[/b]
U.S. intelligence interrogates 2 captured Al Qaeda operatives. One was Al Qaeda???s Chief of Operations who said that bin laden was opposed to working with Iraq. Other said that Al Qaeda members had gone to Iraq in 2000 for training. 2nd captive had been labeled a liar by the DIA, but his claims were still used in intelligence reports.
Late-September 2002[/b]
CIA is able to question Iraqi foreign minister while in New York. Minister says that there is no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that bin Laden is considered an enemy of the country.
9/25/02[/b]
Bush told reporters, ???You can???t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.???
Rice told PBS??? Newshour that there were long-standing contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that Al Qaeda fighters had fled to Iraq after the Afghan invasion.
9/26/02[/b]
Rumsfeld told reporters that Al Qaeda had tried to acquire WMD from Iraq and that the two had contacts going back a decade.
10/1/02[/b]
National Intelligence Estimate said that Iraq would only give WMDs to terrorists in extreme conditions. Mentioned 1994 and 1995 meetings between Iraq and Al Qaeda in Sudan, but that those led to nothing. Also noted reports that Iraq had trained Al Qaeda in bomb and poison making but it had not been confirmed. Predicted that a U.S. attack on Iraq would lead to cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda over their common enemy, America.
10/7/02[/b]
CIA Chief George Tenet sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that Al Qaeda had asked Iraq for help with WMD and that Iraq providing training to Al Qaeda in WMD. Tenet said that the chance that Iraq would give WMD to Al Qaeda was low because it would be an admission that Saddam had WMD.
Intelligence community came to the conclusion that Abu Zarqawi was not a member of Al Qaeda. Said that he led his own terrorist organization that occasionally cooperated with Al Qaeda.
In speech in Cincinnati Bush said, ???Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poison and deadly gases.??? Said that Iraq and Al Qaeda had ???high-level contacts that go back a decade,??? and that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda leader residing in Iraq.
10/14/02[/b]
Bush gave speech where he claimed Iraq was using Al Qaeda as its ???forward army??? in a new war.
January 2003[/b]
CIA made revised report on Iraq and terrorism saying that they couldn???t find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Stated that Iraq didn???t know about 9/11. Also that Saddam???s opposition to Saudi Wahabism, which Al Qaeda followed, made cooperation difficult. CIA interviewed two senior Al Qaeda leaders in custody about Iraq connections. They said there was no alliance. They did say that terrorist Abu Zarqawi had a good relationship with Iraq, but that bin Laden wouldn???t have agreed to an alliance with Iraq. Said that Zarqawi had been in Iraq since May 2002 with Iraqi knowledge. Reviewed claims that Al Qaeda and Iraq had met after mid-90s contacts in Sudan. Found that the reports were not reliable. Found that reports of Iraq training Al Qaeda turned out to be Al Qaeda asking for Iraqi training, which never happened. Uncorroborated reports that Iraq training Al Qaeda at Salman Pak counterterrorism training camp. Went over claims that Iraq had offered bin Laden safe haven in Iraq in 1998 and 1999 although one of those reports also said Iraq had rejected the offer. Found that Iraq had not cooperated in any Al Qaeda terrorist acts. Said that 100-200 Al Qaeda operatives had joined Ansar Al-Islam in Kurdish northern Iraq since Fall of 2001. Iraq probably knew about their presence and allowed it. In the end, report concluded that Iraq might use terrorism if attacked, but no intelligence to support the claim.
1/28/03[/b]
In Bush???s State of the Union address he said that Iraq aids and protects Al Qaeda.
1/30/03, 1/31/03, 2/4/03 & 2/5/03[/b]
Cheney???s office and Chief of Staff Libby and Rice???s deputy Stephan Haddley lobbied Powell and the State Department to include claims that Iraq linked to 9/11 including the Atta meeting in Prague. Powell rejected the report as unsubstantiated.
February 2003[/b]
Revised CIA report on Iraq and terrorism said that 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta never met with Iraqis in Prague in 2001.
2/5/03[/b]
Defense Intelligence Agency interviewed Iraqi defector provided by the Iraqi National Congress who claimed that Iraq had given WMD training to Al Qaeda. When interviewed by the CIA he changed his story saying that he had trained Saddam Fedayeen, not Al Qaeda and that he had never dealt with WMD.
Secretary of State Powell made U.N. speech on Iraq. Claimed that Iraq and Al Qaeda had agreed to nonaggression pact in mid-1990s and that two sides had met at least 8 times. Bin Laden had met with head of Iraqi intelligence. Iraq sent agents to Afghanistan to train Al Qaeda in forging documents. Claimed in 2000 Iraq offered 2 Al Qaeda operatives WMD training but didn???t know if it happened or not. Said that Abu Zarqawi headed an Al Qaeda cell in Baghdad along with 12 other operatives. Powell claimed that Ansar Al-Islam was proof there was a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
2/6/03 & 2/8/03[/b]
Bush says that Iraq harboring Al Qaeda leader Zarqawi, Iraq and Al Qaeda had longstanding relationship which including bomb and WMD training, and that Ansar Al Islam was connected with Al Qaeda.
2/11/03[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet told Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq had trained 2 Al Qaeda operatives in forgery, bomb making, and WMD. Report was not based upon any new intelligence, but old claims that were questionable.
2/12/03[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet returned to Senate Intelligence Committee saying that CIA had not found any evidence that Iraq controlled Al Qaeda. It did find contacts, training and safe havens.
3/14/03[/b]
Cheney told Meet The Press that there were long standing connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
4/27/03[/b]
After invasion U.S. found proof that Ansar al Islam received training and troops from Al Qaeda. However no proof that group was supported by Iraqi government.
June 2003[/b]
U.N. Monitoring Group on Al Qaeda found no connection with Iraq.
Wolfowitz asked Iraq Study Group, which had been created to find Iraq???s WMD after the invasion, to see whether it could find any evidence supporting the Iraq-Atta meeting. Found nothing.
July 2003[/b]
U.S. captures Iraqi intelligence officer that allegedly met with 9/11 hijacker Atta in Prague. Denies the he ever met Atta and says that he was not in Prague at the time.
7/1/03[/b]
Former Deputy Director of CIA Richard J. Kerr testified to Congress that there was constant pressure on the CIA to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda by the White House.
9/14/03[/b]
Cheney told Meet The Press that there was a longstanding relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but he wasn???t sure whether Iraq was behind 9/11.
9/16/03[/b]
Rumsfeld said that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Rice continued to make the connection however when she told Nightline that U.S. went to war with Iraq because it was where 9/11 came from.
9/17/03[/b]
Bush repeated remark that Iraq not connected with 9/11, but that Iraq and Al Qaeda were linked.
10/10/03[/b]
Cheney told Heritage Foundation that Iraq had a relationship with Al Qaeda that included giving training in poisons, bombs and WMD.
10/27/03[/b]
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Feith sent letter to Senate Intelligence Committee claiming at least 50 contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda that proved they had a relationship. The letter was a summary of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group???s briefing.
Letter was leaked to the neoconservative Weekly Standard that published claims.
2004[/b]
Captive Al Qaeda member who claimed that Iraq had given Al Qaeda bomb and poison training recanted his statement.
1/21-22/04[/b]
Twice more Cheney claimed that there was overwhelming evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He told NPR that a member of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was on the Iraqi payroll.
2/24/04[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet tells Congress that CIA couldn???t prove Atta meeting took place one way or another.
3/21/04[/b]
Rice wrote op-ed piece for the Washington Post saying that it would be negligent for the U.S. to have not looked into state sponsorship of Al Qaeda, including Iraq, after 9/11.
3/22/04[/b]
Wolfowitz???s spokesman said that Al Qaeda was a major threat because it was partly sponsored by Iraq. Spokesman also said that Iraq was harboring one of the members of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.
6/14/04[/b]
Cheney again claimed a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
6/15/04[/b]
Powell said that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but that it did not involve 9/11.
6/16/04[/b]
Preliminary report of 9/11 Commission said that Iraq and Al Qaeda had met, but that there was no collaboration. Also said that 9/11 hijacker Atta never met with Iraqi intelligence. FBI and CIA agreed with finding.
When asked about the preliminary findings, Powell told al Jazeera, that there were connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said that the administration never claimed a connection between Iraq and 9/11 however.
White House repeated claim in press conference. Said that the Commission did not contradict statements by Bush and Cheney.
6/17/04[/b]
Cheney told CNBC???s Capitol Report that there was overwhelming evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. Said that Atta-Iraqi meeting was proof.
Bush also said they were connected.
6/20/04[/b]
Cheney continued to make Iraq-Al Qaeda claim and said that he had intelligence 9/11 Commission did not.
7/1/04[/b]
CIA Chief Tenet sent letter to Congress saying that Atta meeting with Iraqis unlikely.
7/7/04[/b]
Senate Intelligence Committee???s report on pre-war Iraq intelligence released. Said that there was no evidence of Iraq collaborating with Al Qaeda.
7/8/04[/b]
Senator Levin made public Tenet???s letter saying that Atta meeting didn???t happen.
Cheney???s office said that everything Cheney said about Al Qaeda-Iraq links was based upon CIA intelligence.
8/1/04[/b]
9/11 Commission's official report released. Found no evidence of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda. "We have seen no evidence that [the contacts] ever developed into a collaborative operational relationshiop. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."
11/4/04[/b]
In an interview with the New Yorker Wolfowitz still claimed that Iraq was behind the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing.
October 2005[/b]
CIA report found that Iraq did not have a relationship with Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion.
8/21/06[/b]
Bush said that Saddam had a relationship with Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion.
9/9/06[/b]
Senate Intelligence Committee issued new report comparing pre-war and post-war intelligence on Iraq. Found that Saddam was opposed to working with Al Qaeda, that Iraq had not harbored Zarqawi before the U.S. invasion, but actually tried to capture him unsuccessfully, and that the Atta meeting never happened.
2/9/07[/b]
Department of Defense???s Inspector General releases report on Feith???s office and the Policy Counter Terror Evaluation Group. Said that while it did nothing illegal, it did act inappropriately by claiming that intelligence proved an Iraq-Al Qaeda relationship to senior members of the White House without saying that this was not the opinion of the Intelligence Community.
Feith replied that his office did not conduct intelligence work and that if it did it was only under orders. Also said that he did nothing inappropriate, just criticized CIA???s findings on Iraq-Al Qaeda ties.
4/5/07[/b]
Inspector General???s report is made public.
Cheney tells Rush Limbaugh???s radio show that Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda operative working within Iraq before the U.S. invasion.
SOURCES[/b]
Books[/b]
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack, Times, 2005
Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris, Crown, 2006
George Packer, Assassins??? Gate, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
John Prados, Hoodwinked, New Press, 2004
Thomas Ricks, Fiasco, Penguin 2006
Ron Suskind, One Percent Doctrine, Simon & Schuster, 2006
Bob Woodward, Plan Of Attack, Simon & Schuster, 2004
- State of Denial, Simon & Schuster, 2006
Government Reports[/b]
Inspector General United States Department of Defense, ???Review of the Pre-Iraqi war Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,??? Department of Defense, 2/9/07
- ???Report on Review of the Pre-Iraq War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy,??? Department of Defense, 2/9/07
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq???s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare to Prewar Assessments,??? U.S. Senate, 9/8/06
- ???Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community???s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,??? U.S. Senate, 7/7/04
Non-Government Reports[/b]
Cirncione, Joseph, Mathews, Jessica, Perkovich, George, and Orton, Alexis, ???WMD in Iraq evidence and implications,??? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004
Healy, Gene, ???Why Hussein Will Not Give Weapons of Mass Destruction to al Qaeda,??? Cato Institute, 3/5/03
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, ???9/11 commission staff statement No. 15 The text as submitted to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,??? 6/16/04
Articles[/b]
Auster, Bruce, Mazzetti, Mark, and Pound, Edward, ???Truth And Consequences,??? U.S. News & World Report, 6/9/03
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David and Wise, David, ???The Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May 2004
Chivers, C.J., ???Terrorist manual may link Iraqi group to al Qaeda,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/27/03
Coile, Zachary, ???Ex-aide???s charges spark blame game on 9/11, Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/23/04
Danner, Mark, ???Iraq: The War of the Imagination,??? New York Review of Books, 12/21/06
Davidson, Christina, ???Dough Feith Begins to Mount His Defense,??? IraqSlogger.com, 3/1/07
- ???Michael Scheurer on Feith???s Qaeda-Iraq Assessment,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/14/07
Debat, Alexis, ???Vivisecting the Jihad,??? National Interest, 6/23/04
Dreyfuss, Robert and Vest, Jason, ???The Lie Factory,??? Mother Jones, January/February 2004
Duffy, Michael, ???One Expert???s Verdict: The CIA Caved Under Pressure,??? Time, 6/14/04
- ???Weapons of Mass Disappearance,??? Time, 6/9/03
Elliott, Michael and Carney, James, ???First Stop, Iraq,??? Time, 3/31/03
Fallows, James, ???Bush???s Lost Year,??? Atlantic Monthly, 10/4/04
Hayes, Stephen, ???Al Qaeda link exists ??? despite the fog,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/28/04
Hersh, Seymour, ???Selective Intelligence,??? New Yorker, 5/12/03
Isikoff, Michael and Ball, Mark Hosen, ???Cheney Ally Blasts Pentagon Report,??? Newsweek, 2/14/07
Jehl, Douglas, ???2002 report doubted Iraq-al Qaeda informer,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/6/05
- ???CIA doubts hijacker met with Iraq agent,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/9/04
- ???Pentagon Reportedly Skewed C.I.A.???s View of Qaeda Tie,??? New York Times, 10/22/04
Kemper, Bob, ???Experts review, poke holes in case for war,??? Chicago Tribune, 8/10/03
Kwiatkowski, Karen, ???The War Pimp,??? LewRockwell.com, 2/14/07
Leiken, Robert, ???The Truth about the Saddam ??? al Qaeda Connection,??? National Interest, November 2004
Mazzetti, Mark, ???Senate committee disputes claims of Iraq-al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/9/06
McGeary, Johanna, ???Dissecting The Case,??? Time, 2/10/03
Milbank, Dana, ???War in Iraq Was ???Right Decision,??? Bush Says,??? Washington Post, 6/10/03
Miller, Greg, ???Agent claims push to link Iraq, al Qaeda,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/1/04
- ???Cheney claims al Qaeda link to Hussein,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23/04
- ???CIA chief was out of loop on Iraq special briefing,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/10/04
- ???Senate Panel Looking at Administration Claims,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/11/04
Miller, Greg and Gerstenza, James, ???White House releases spy report on Iraq arms,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/19/03
Miller, Greg and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Probe into Pentagon???s pro-war team begins,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/05
Miller, Judith, ???Ex-counterterrorism chief says Bush politicized response to 9/11,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 3/22/04
Pincus, Walter, ???CIA knew Hussein had no ties to bin Laden,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/15/06
- ???Data picked to justify war, ex-official says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/10/06
- ???No proof of Powell???s arms claims,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/26/03
- ???Officials Defend Iraq Intelligence,??? Washington Post, 6/9/03
- ???Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection,??? Washington Post, 6/22/03
Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Report cites ???dubious??? pre-war findings,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/9/07
Pillar, Paul, ???Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,??? Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006
Pincus, Walter and Priest, Dana, ???Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure from Cheney Visits,??? Washington Post, 6/5/03
Pincus, Walter and Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Report cites ???dubious??? pre-war findings,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/9/07
PBS Frontline, ???Chronology: The Evolution Of The Bush Doctrine,??? PBS, 2003
- ???In Their Own Words: Who Said What When,??? PBS, 10/9/03
- ???Interview: Carl Ford,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: John Brennan,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: John McLaughlin,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Lawrence Wilkerson,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Mark Danner,??? PBS, 2003
- ???Interview: Michael Maloof,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Michael Scheuer,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Paul Pillar,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Richard Clarke,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Interview: Richard Kerr,??? PBS, 6/20/06
- ???Selective Intelligence,??? PBS, 10/9/03
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Bush???s Brainiest Hawk,??? Time, 1/27/03
- ???Iraq & Al Qaeda Is there A Link???? Time, 9/2/02
- ???What???s Behind a Sinister Flirtation,??? Time, 2/17/03
Richter, Paul, ???Iraq-Al Qaeda Link Discounted,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/10/04
Risen, James, ???2-man committee put Iraq in spotlight,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/28/04
Risen, James and Wong, Edward, ???Hussein was leery of jihadist ties,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/14/04
Rosen, Nir, ???The Many Faces of Abu Musab al Zarqawi,??? Truthdig.com, 6/9/06
San Francisco Chronicle, ???Panel reveals 10-plane plot, finds no Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/17/04
Sanger, David and Toner, Robin, ???Bush insists on Iraq al-Qaeda link,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/18/04
Schmitt, Eric, ???Pentagon adviser denies politicizing Iraq intelligence,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/5/03
Smith, R. Jeffrey, ???Hussein???s Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted,??? Washington Post, 4/6/07
Tanenhaus, Sam, ???Bush???s Brain Trust,??? Vanity Fair, July 2003
Thomas, Evan and Hosenball, Mark, ???The Rise and Fall of Chalabi: Bush???s Mr. Wrong,??? Newsweek, 5/31/04
Uhler, Walter, ???Foreign policy and its offenders,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/25/04
Waas, Murray, ???Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel,??? National Journal, 11/22/05
Waller, Douglas and Calabresi, Massimo, ???Politics and the CIA,??? Time, 10/21/02
Whitelaw, Kevin, ???The Vanishing Case For War,??? U.S. News & World Report, 10/18/04
Whitelaw, Kevin and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Why War???? U.S. News & World Report, 10/14/02
Yost, Pete, ???Al Qaeda closer to Pakistan than Iraq, panel chair says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/21/04
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
SOURCES[/b]
Where are the haters now?
This report was actually given to a joint counter-terrorism intelligence task force, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They cannot fuck with this.
Early Results From The Surge[/b]
In January 2007 President Bush announced a dramatic change in American policy towards Iraq. Rather than the previous plan of standing up Iraqi security forces so that the U.S. could eventually withdraw, the President now announced that the U.S. was going to increase the number of troops in a ???surge.??? The change was significant for a number of reasons. First it showed that the previous policy of relying on Iraqis had failed. The number of Iraqi security forces had dramatically increased in a short period of time, yet violence in Iraq had also gone up. Second it marked the end of any immediate plans for a reduction of American troops that U.S. generals had been advocating. Third it appeared to be Bush???s last great chance at finding some success in the quagmire that has become the Iraq war.
The point of the new surge plan was to follow classic counterinsurgency policies by placing U.S. troops amongst the Iraqi people to secure Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad to reduce the sectarian violence. At the same time, more troops would be sent to Anbar province to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq. This would then allow the Iraqi government to step back from the brink of outright civil war and come to some basic political compromises to end the conflict. So far there have been a few tactical and local successes, but on the more important political front the government of Prime Minister Maliki has shown no movement towards reconciliation. It???s becoming increasingly clear that the surge is proving a failure and that Iraq will be left to the next president to deal with.
Genesis of the Surge[/b]
Prior to the surge, U.S. military policy in Iraq was to rebuild Iraq???s army and police, support the formation of a new Iraqi government, and have them eventually take over control of the country. This would eventually lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces sometime during the second Bush administration. The tidal wave of sectarian violence and killings, especially after the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, killed these plans. In coming up with new ideas, President Bush was given the much ballyhooed bi-partisan Iraq Study Group, as well as reviews within his own administration by the National Security Council and the Pentagon. Out of those, Bush picked a plan drafted by Frederick Kagan, a military historian who had taught at West Point and now works at the neoconservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and retired Gen. Jack Keane, who was the Army vice chief of staff from 1999 to 2004.
The surge plan recognized that the Iraqi security forces were part of the problem not the solution. Most of the police and army were made up of Shiites and Kurds, and were seen as a threat to the Sunni community. Relying on them to create stability in Iraq was not going to work. Instead, Kagan and Keane argued that Baghdad was the most important area in the conflict that had to be secured by U.S. forces so that the Iraqi government could have the breathing space to work towards political solutions to the war. Kagan and Keane both met with President Bush in the White House and Kagan wrote a number of pieces in the neoconservative Weekly Standard magazine to argue their point. On January 10, 2007 President Bush announced that this would be his new plan called the New Way Forward.
Under the New Way Forward around 20,000 U.S. troops were sent to Baghdad and Anbar province. Rather than operate out of large bases and conduct armored patrols as had been previous policy, U.S. soldiers and Marines would now be spread out in small bases throughout neighborhoods that would also be staffed by Iraqi forces. This followed classic counterinsurgency policy that the military needed to be one with the people to protect them and wean control away form the insurgency, something that had never been systematically done in Iraq. Once these neighborhoods had been cleared of insurgents and militias, they would be held by Iraqi security, and then U.S. reconstruction teams would help revive the economy to solidify the public???s support.
Early Successes[/b]
The increase in U.S. forces resulted in two early successes. In Baghdad there was a decrease in the sectarian violence perpetrated by the Mahdi Army, and in Anbar province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, the U.S. was able to broker a deal with Sunni tribal leaders to turn against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
First, it appeared that Prime Minister Maliki had cut a deal with his main supporter, Moqtada al-Sadr, to stand down his Mahdi Army militia during the surge so that the U.S. could concentrate on fighting the Sunni insurgency. As a sign of this new deal there were many news reports early on in the surge of Iraqi soldiers and police going before U.S. troops and warning Sadr militiamen to put away their guns and hide until they passed. Shiite roadblocks and neighborhood patrols also disappeared from many Baghdad neighborhoods. Ethnic cleansing in the capitol mostly ceased and a small number of displaced families were actually able to return to their homes. More importantly, the number of dead Sunni bodies found each day decreased in the first few months of the surge. There is also evidence that Sadr hoped to use the surge as a way to cleanse his organization of rogue units that no longer followed his commands. Thus the U.S. military began talking about ???good??? and ???bad??? elements of Sadr???s militia, i.e. those who were willing to work with the Americans and those who were not, and early on Sadr did not object to the arrest of some Shiite militiamen.
In Anbar province, the U.S. was able to take advantage of growing resentment of some Sunni tribal leaders against Al Qaeda in Iraq to make them turn on each other. A group of tribal leaders formed the Anbar Salvation Front as an umbrella organization of Sunnis against the Islamists. Violence in cities such as Ramadi dramatically decreased, and the number of Sunnis willing to sign up for the Iraqi security forces mushroomed. There were also reports that in areas south of Baghdad that some nationalist Sunni insurgent groups were also willing to align themselves with the U.S. to fight Al Qaeda.
The Problems[/b]
Despite these early successes, the main purpose of the surge, political peacemaking and renewed effort at economic reconstruction, has not occurred. The Iraqi government either is unwilling or incapable of making the necessary steps for political reconciliation. Those steps include an oil law that would divide profits among the three main sectarian groups, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, reform of the de-Baathification program, local elections, amendments to the Constitution, and a resolution of Article 140 that calls for elections to determine the fate of Kirkuk. The President???s announced plan for a new wave of provincial reconstruction teams to be the economic side of the surge has also failed to make a dent.
Early in 2007 the Iraqi parliament came up with a new Hydrocarbon law to address the first issue, but it has been sent to committee where it has gone no where. Ahmad Chalabi, the infamous leader of the Iraqi National Congress has been in charge of the de-Baathification policy since the U.S. invasion in 2003 and went to Grand Ayatollah Sistani to block any reforms. There has been no movement on this front since then. Sunnis boycotted the first round of elections and are thus under-represented in many local governments, but there has been no real move towards planning a new round of voting, especially because it would mean a loss of power for the Shiites. Changes in the Constitution are also dead in committee. In Kirkuk, the Kurds are attempting to use both carrots and sticks to get Arabs to leave the city by offering a bribe to leave, while also d enying them government services if they stay. The Kurds seem to realize that they have gone about the wrong way in dealing with Kirkuk, but are pushing forward with the idea of an election anyway. More importantly, even if many of these laws were passed, there is little evidence that the Iraqi government could carry them out.
In his speech announcing the New Way Forward, Bush promised that 10 new provincial reconstruction teams made up of both civilians and military personnel would be created to further reconstruction efforts. This was the important ???build??? part of the strategy, so that civilians would look towards the U.S. and the Iraqi government for important services and protection rather than the insurgents and militias. The State Department and other civilian offices in the administration failed to come up with the staff for these teams. 600 new personnel were required, only 100 have come forward. The Pentagon has had to step in and fill the void. Like previous efforts, these teams lack support and expertise to be effective.
Even the two early successes of the surge are also running into problems. Sadr went into hiding when the surge began, but he has now returned and is stirring up anti-American feelings in his speeches. June has also seen an increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad. This is probably in response to the wave of bombings carried out by Sunnis. One of the unintended drawbacks of the Shiites standing down was a lessoning of checkpoints, roadblocks, and other security measures in their neighborhoods, which allowed for a series of dramatic, mass casualty terrorist attacks by insurgents. The new alliance with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar is also a big gamble. There have been signs of fracturing within the Salvation Front, and many military analysts and reporters worry that the tribes are simply making a short term alliance with the U.S. to gain legitimacy, and more importantly weapons and money to later use against the Shiites whenever the U.S. leaves. One of the stated goals of the U.S. has also been to disarm militias and make the Iraqi government the provider of security. Empowering the tribes on a local level is thus disempowering the central government. Baghdad in turn, has shown no support for the U.S. effort with the Sunnis. Despite a visit by Prime Minister Maliki to Anbar, Baghdad in general does not provide services there and refuses to pay the new Sunni police units being formed by the U.S.
The surge has also led insurgent groups to move their activities to other areas surrounding Baghdad, which have seen a surge of their own in sectarian violence. The June 2007 Pentagon report to Congress on operations in Iraq reported that the overall level of violence in the country had not changed despite the new policy. This brings into question whether Baghdad truly is the center of the fight for Iraq, if insurgents chose to simply move elsewhere to destabilize the country.
Lastly, the Iraqi security forces are still not up to the task of holding an area without heavy support of the U.S. Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesmen for the U.S. military in Baghdad, told reporters that, ???One of our planning assumptions was that the Iraqi security forces would be able to hold [territory] in all areas, and we are finding that is not always the case. ??? We are having to go back in and re-clear some areas.???
The Next President???s Problems[/b]
While there were early signs of some tactical military success when the surge began, the more important strategic change at the top with the Iraqi government has failed to materialize. It is becoming increasingly clear that Prime Minister Maliki does not have the will or the way to make meaningful political reconciliation at this point. Instead the country is fragmenting with Sunnis fighting against the U.S., Sunnis versus Sunnis in Anbar, Shiites against Sunnis in central Iraq, a violent Shiite power struggle in southern Iraq, and a potential explosion of Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Despite all this, Bush is committed to Iraq no matter what. If the surge is deemed a failure as the last security operation in Baghdad was, he will not give up. He will ???stay the course??? until his term is up, and hand off the problem to the next president. Thomas Ricks the military reporter for the Washington Post, and the author of a book about the invasion and occupation of Iraq called Fiasco, makes the analogy of Iraq to a Shakespearean tragedy. Ricks told PBS??? Frontline for their program ???End Game???, ???I think the best way to think about Iraq is to think about it as a tragedy. Shakespearean tragedies have five acts. I think we???re only in Act 3. ??? I don???t think it???s going to end well. I don???t know how it???s going to end. I think it???s going to be messy. But I think it???s a long way from here, whatever the endgame is.??? He and others predict that the U.S. will have military forces in Iraq for the next 10 to 15 years. That will be Bush???s enduring legacy, long after the final chapter on the surge has been written.
Bibliography[/b]
Books[/b]
Baker, James and Hamilton, Lee, The Iraq Study Group Report, Vintage Books, 2006
McCaffrey, Barry, ???Memorandum For: Colonel Michael Meese,??? West Point, 3/26/07
Government Reports[/b]
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? March, 2007
- ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? June, 2007
Walker, David, ???Stabilizing And Rebuilding Iraq,??? Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Defense, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, United States Government Accountability Office, 4/23/07
International Organization Reports[/b]
UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, ???Human Rights Report,??? United Nations, 3/31/07
U.N. Secretary-General, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United National Security Council, 6/5/07
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Gauging the Iraq Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 3/26/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???British Defeat in the South and the Uncertain Bush "Strategy" in Iraq: "Oil Spots," "Ink Blots," "White Space," or Pointlessness???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2/21/07
- ???Iraq's Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evoling Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07
- ???Iraq's Troubled Future: The Uncertain Way Ahead,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/13/07
- ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11/28/06
- ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3/28/07
- ???Securing Baghdad With Gated Communities,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/20/07
- ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,?????? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
International Crisis Group, ???After Baker-Hamilton: What To Do In Iraq,??? 12/19/06
- ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 10/25/06
Kagan, Kimberly, ???Iraq Report,??? Institute For The Study Of War and WeeklyStandard.com, 3/30/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???Waning Chances for Stability,??? Brookings Institution, 2/28/07
Simon, Steven, ???After the Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, February, 2007
Stansfield, Gareth, ???Accepting Realities in Iraq,??? Chatham House, May, 2007
Strauss Military Reform Project, ???Analysts, U.S. Officials Express Doubt in Ability to Stabilize Iraq,??? Center For Defense Information, 3/2/07
White, Jeffrey, Exum, Andrew, and Eisenstadt, Michael, ???The Surge in Iraq: An Early Assessment,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 5/7/07
Articles[/b]
Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith, ???Purges in Mahdi Army Organization,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/20/07
Abramowitz, Michael, ???Bush, Congress Could Face Confrontation on Issue of War Powers,??? Washington Post, 2/16/07
- ???Second Life for Study Group,??? Washington Post, 5/21/07
Ahrari, Ehasan, ???Iraq's defiant but doomed democracy,??? Asia Times, 10/26/06
Akers, Mary Ann, ???Few at Commerce Want Iraq Stints,??? Washington Post, 5/9/07
Associated Press, ???Details of Bush's New Iraq Strategy,??? 1/10/07
Badkhen, Anna, ???Corners cut in rush to add troops,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 2/4/07
- ???Experts say Iraq will find timetable difficult to meet,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/25/06
- ???Security drive shaken as blast hits parliament,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/13/07
Baker, James A. III, ???A Path to Common Ground,??? Washington Post, 4/5/07
Baker, Peter and Abramowitz, Michael, ???Opposition to plan surprises Bush team,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/14/07
Baker, Peter and De Young, Karen, ???Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/8/07
Baker, Peter and Wright, Robin, ???Bush Taps Skeptic of Buildup as 'War Czar',??? Washington Post, 5/16/07
Barnes, Julian, ???Gated communities' planned for Baghdad,??? Los Angeles Times, 1/11/07
Barnes, Julian and McManus, Doyle, ???Resistance to Deadlines for Iraq is Weakening,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/31/06
Barnes, Julian and Spiegel, Peter, ???Fallback strategy for Iraq: train locals, draw down forces,??? Los Angeles Times, 3/11/07
Basevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panel's real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Bengali, Shashank, ???Death rate for American forces in Iraq rises; total reaches 3,305,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 4/17/07
Benn, Aluf, Webb, Al, Boyd, Charles, Biddle, Stephen, Looney, Robert and Etzioni, Amitai, ???Reviews and Rubuttals of the Plan,??? National Interest Online, 1/15/07
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Brulliard, Karin, ???Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged,??? Washington Post, 4/23/07
- ???Learning to Live With the Mahdi Army,??? Washington Post, 4/10/07
Brulliard, Karin and Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Sadr Urges Followers to Resist U.S. Forces; Thousands Rally,??? Washington Post, 3/17/07
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ???Five Flaws in the President's Plan,??? Washington Post, 1/12/07
Burns, John, ???Efforts to Avert Sectarian Reprisals After Shrine Attack,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
- ???Militants Said to Flee Before U.S. Offensive,??? New York Times, 6/23/07
- ???U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans,??? New York Times, 1/15/07
Burns, John and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies,??? New York Times, 6/11/07
Carter, Philip, ???There Are Four Iraq Wars,??? Slate.com, 2/9/07
Cave, Damien, ???Baghdad Violence Declines in Security Push, Iraq Says,??? New York Times, 3/15/07
- ???Iraq Rebel Cleric Reins In Militia; Motives at Issue,??? New York Times, 2/25/07
- ???Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks,??? New York Times, 6/13/07
- ???Iraqis Seek Role In Rebuilding Their Nation,??? New York Times, 3/9/07
Cave, Damien and Oppel, Richard, Jr., ???Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack,??? New York Times, 2/5/07
Chandrasekaram, Rajiv, ???Defense Skirts State in Reviving Iraqi Industry,??? Washington Post, 5/14/07
- ???Iraq Rebuilding Short on Qualified Civilians,??? Washington Post, 2/24/07
- ???On Iraq, U.S. Turns to Onetime Dissenters,??? Washington Post, 1/14/07
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Muchof Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Cloud, David and Cave, Damien, ???Commanders Say Push in Baghdad Is Short of Goal,??? New York Times, 6/4/07
Cloud, David and Gordon, Michael, ???Buildup in Iraq Needed Into '08, U.S. General Says,??? New York Times, 3/8/07
Cloud, David, Rubin, Alissa and Wong, Edward, ???Gates Presses Iraq Premier on Healing Sectarian Divide,??? New York Times, 4/20/07
Cockburn, Patrick, ???Baghdad death squads end truce to seek revenge,??? Independent, U.K., 4/20/07
- ???What the Bush Administration Has Wrought in Iraq,??? TomDispatch.com, 5/9/07
Cole, Juan, ???Misreading The Enemy,??? San Jose Mercury News, 1/14/07
- ???Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006,??? Informed Comment.com, 12/26/06
- ???University Bombing Casts Doubt on Security Plan Muqtada Calls on Iraqi Army to Act without US Help,??? Informed Comment.com, 2/26/07
- ???What's Next in Iraq? Juan Cole Interviews Ali A. Allawi,??? Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/25/07
Cooper, Helene, ???Few Veteran Diplomats Accept Mission to Iraq,??? New York Times, 2/8/07
- ???U.S. Diplomatic Venture Shuts Out Syria And Iran,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/28/06
Cooper, Helene and Sanger, David, ???Iraqis' Progress Lags Behind Pace Set by Bush Plan,??? New York Times, 3/15/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???The elephant gives birth to a mouse,??? Asia Times.com, 12/8/06
Dagher, Sam, ???Can US sustain Anbar success???? Christian Science Monitor, 5/4/07
- ???In Iraq, a parliament in disarray,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/16/07
- ???Is Baghdad safer? Yes and no,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/13/07
- ???Patrolling Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where 'gators' lurk,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/30/07
- ???Sunnis surge beyond Baghdad,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/2/07
- ???US forces 'tiptoe' into Sadr City,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/5/07
- ???US tries - again - to win support on embattled Baghdad street,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/16/07
Daragahi, Borzou, ???Bush plan to boost U.S. troop levels antagonizes Sunnis,??? Los Angeles Times, 1/14/07
- ???Iraq politicians will succeed, U.S. officials in Baghdad say,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/16/07
Davis, Mike, ???Car-bombers defy all odds,??? Asia Times.com, 3/29/07
De Young, Karen, ???Doubts Run Deep on Reforms Crucial to Bush's Iraq Strategy,??? Washington Post, 2/4/07
- ???Military Must Fill Iraq Civilian Jobs,??? Washington Post, 2/8/07
De Young, Karen and Ricks, Thomas, ???No U.S. Backup Strategy For Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/5/07
Dehghanpisheh, Babak, ???Sadr: Spreading Havoc to New Parts of Iraq,??? Newsweek, 5/7/07
Desch, Michael, ???Bush and the Generals,??? Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007
Dorell, Oren and Jervis, Rick, ???Military says attacks in Baghdad have dropped,??? USA Today, 2/20/07
Duffy, Michael, ???Can Bush Find An Exit???? Time, 12/11/06
- ???What a Surge Really Means,??? Time, 1/15/07
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06
- ???Get ready for debate about who lost Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 4/5/07
Feldman, Noah, ???The Undeparted,??? New York Times, 4/8/07
Frayer, Lauren, ???U.S. Allows Shiite Militia Security Role,??? Associated Press, 5/7/07
- ???U.S. generals say Iraqis can't hold territory,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/25/07
Froomkin, Dan, ???First Benchmark Missed???? Washington Post, 2/6/07
- ???Why Bush Thinks We're Winning,??? WashingtonPost.com, 10/26/06
Galbraith, Peter, ???The Surge,??? New York Review Of Books, 3/15/07
Ghosh, Bobby, ???Why They Hate Each Other,??? Time, 3/5/07
Glanz, James, ???Iraq Attacks Stayed Steady Despite Troop Increase, Data Show,??? New York Times, 5/16/07
- ???Rebuilding Teams Would Swell Under Bush's New Iraq Plan,??? New York Times, 1/15/07
Gordon, Michael, ???In Sweep of Iraqi Town, Sectarian Fears Pe rcolate,??? New York Times, 6/22/07
- ???Sunni Militants Disrupt Plan to Calm Baghdad,??? New York Times, 3/18/07
- ???Will It Work on the Battlefield? Options Are Based on Hope,??? New York Times, 12/7/06
Gordon, Michael and Cave, Damien, ???Military Strikes Insurgents' Base East of Baghdad,??? New York Times, 6/19/07
Gordon, Michael and Zeleny, Jeff, ???Plan Sets Series of Goals for Iraq Leaders,??? New York Times, 1/8/07
Grier, Peter, ???Counterinsurgency takes center stage in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 1/22/07
- ???Huge task before Iraq Study Group,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/14/06
- ???US task: fight to end four wars in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/27/07
Hemeid, Salah, ???A volte face for Iraq???? Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt), 11/7/06
Hirsh, Michael, ???Hirsh: Iraq After 2008,??? Newsweek, 6/7/07
- ???Why We're Staying in Iraq,??? Newsweek, 2/22/07
Hirsh, Michael and Wolffe, Richard, ???Bush and Maliki: With Friends Like These???,??? Newsweek, 1/29/07
Hoagland, Jim, ???Desperation Helps Out In Baghdad,??? Washington Post, 3/4/07
Ignatius, David, ???After the Surge,??? Washington Post, 5/22/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???April Deadliest Month of 2007 for US Forces,??? 4/30/07
- ???Baghdad's "Popular Committees": For Good or Ill???? 2/22/07
- ???Despite Claim, Militants Hold Sunni Turf,??? 4/6/07
- ???Mahdi Arrests Strengthen Sunni Militants,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/21/07
- ???Talabani: Mahdi Army Officials Left Iraq,??? 2/15/07
Jaffe, Greg and Dreazen, Yochi, ???Can the Iraq 'Surge' Be Salvaged???? Wall Street Journal, 5/31/07
Jervis, Rick, ???Abduction shatters a family in Baghdad,??? USA Today, 4/9/07
- ???Al-Maliki support eroding in Iraq,??? USA Today, 4/24/07
- ???Insurgents aim for wider-scale attacks,??? USA Today, 2/27/07
- ???Iraqi general touts area turnaround,??? USA Today, 5/8/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07
- ???Plan B? Let's Give Plan A Some Time First,??? New York Times, 5/6/07
Kaplan, Fred, ???Mission Impossible,??? Slate.com, 1/8/07
- ???Promises, Promises,??? Slate.com, 1/11/07
Karl, Jonathan, ???Troop Surge Already Under Way,??? ABCNEWS.com, 1/11/07
Kasim, Zeyad, ???Death Squads Slowly Resurging in Baghdad,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/18/07
- ???Sadrist Bloc to Pull Out of Maliki Government,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/15/07
Kessler, Glenn, ???Bush's New Plan for Iraq Echoes Key Parts of Earlier Memo,??? Washington Post, 1/11/07
Knickmeyer, Ellen, ???Bush, Iraqi Premier Act to Close Rift After Week of Tension,??? Washington Post, 10/29/06
Kristol, William and Kagan, Frederick, ???Wrong on Timetables,??? Weekly Standard, 4/2/07
Kukis, Mark, ???Baghdad's Ground Zero,??? Time, 1/29/07
Kurtz, Howard, ???Been There, Done That,??? Washington Post, 12/1/06
LaFranchi, Howard, ???Iraq falling behind on 'benchmarks',??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/20/07
- ???Iraq's Al Qaeda attacks higher-impact targets,??? Christian Science Monitor, 5/14/07
- ???The missing player: a 'czar' to manage the Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/26/07
- ???Shift coming in US policy on Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/8/06
Landay, Johnathan and Youssef, Nancy, ???Iraqi political feuding has paralyzed Bush's strategy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 5/14/07
Lasseter, Tom, ???Mahdi Army gains strength through unwitting aid of U.S.,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 2/1/07
- ???Soldiers in Iraq view troop surge as a lost cause,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 2/3/07
Layton, Lyndsey, ???The Story Behind The Iraq Study Group,??? Washington Post, 11/21/06
Lobe, Jim, ???Neocons Move to Preempmt Baker Report,??? Inter Press Service, 12/6/06
- ???US Surge Strategy Successful - in Shifting the Violence,??? AntiWar.com, 4/20/07
Lockhead, Carolyn, ???A cold, hard look at reality in Iraq,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/7/06
- ???Congress Pushes Against Iraq Plan,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/23/07
- ???Doubt Cast On Dire Exit Scenarios,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/28/07
- ???Emotional Senators Rebuff Bush's Iraq Troop Strategy,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/25/07
Londono, Ernesto, ???In Baghdad, Rice Acknowledges Frustrations in U.S.,??? Washington Post, 2/18/07
Lubold, Gordon, ???The changing complexion of troop 'surge' in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/14/07
- ???US benchmarks for Iraq may be hazy,??? Christian Science Monitor, 5/7/07
- ???US priority: managing captives in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/6/07
McManus, Doyle and Barnes, Julian, ???Bush ready to change 'tactics,' not goals,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/9/06
- ???Pliable 'benchmarks' set for Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 10/27/06
Milbank, Dana, ???It's All About Al-Qaeda Again,??? Washington Post, 5/3/07
Mohsen, Amer, ???Iraqi Papers Monday: Baghdad Streets Safer,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/18/07
- ???Iraqi Papers Saturday: Challenges to Plan Baghdad,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/23/07
- ???Iraqi Papers Saturday: Mahdi Army Scattered,??? IraqSlogger.com, 2/16/07
Murphy, Bill, ???U.S. Unit Shoudlers Burden At Police Station in Baqubah,??? Washington Post, 2/23/07
Murphy, Dan and Lubold, Gordon, ???US commander in Iraq: I need more soldiers, more time,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/9/07
Naim, Moises, ???America's Learning Disability in Iraq,??? PostGlobal.com, 4/6/07
Nordland, Rod, ???Iraq: Silence of the Sadrists,??? Newsweek, 3/12/07
O'Hanlon, Michael, ???Interim Report on the Surge in Iraq,??? Washington Times, 5/11/07
Oppel, Richard, ???Attacks Surge as Iraq Militants Overshadow City,??? New York Times, 4/16/07
- ???Old Problems Undermine New Security Plan for Baghdad,??? New York Times, 2/23/07
Oppel, Richard and Rubin, Alissa, ???New U.S. Commander in Iraq Won't Rule Out Need for Added Troops,??? New York Times, 3/9/07
Panetta, Leon, ???What About Those Other Iraq Deadlines???? New York Times, 4/4/07
Parker, Ned, ???Cracks in Sadr's army,??? Los Angeles Times, 4/3/07
- ???Iraq's leader can't get out of 1st gear,??? Los Angeles Times, 6/6/07
- ???Iraqi Insurgents recruit among U.S.-held detainees,??? Los Angeles Times, 4/8/07
Parker, Ned, Evans, Michael and Beeston, Richard, ???Handover to Iraqi Army 'set for the end of next year',??? Times (U.K.), 11/10/06
Partlow, Joshua, ???Baghdad Plan Has Elusive Targets,??? Washington Post, 2/26/07
- ???Beyond Baghdad, Grass-Roots Security,??? Washington Post, 2/21/07
- ???For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort,??? Washington Post, 6/9/07
- ???Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal,??? Washington Post, 5/11/07
- ???New Detainees Strain Iraq's Jails,??? Washington Post, 5/15/07
- ???Soldiers Shift to Baghdad Outposts,??? Washington Post, 3/1/07
- ???Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe,??? Washington Post, 4/22/07
- ???U.S. Bolstering Force in Deadly Diyala,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Can the Surge Work???? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Gangs Of Iraq Transcript,??? Gangs of Iraq, 4/17/07
- ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Misreading History?,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,??? End Game, 6/19/07
Peterson, Scott, ???Iraqi prime minister asserts independence, gains stature,??? Christian Science Monitor, 11/2/06
- ???Mixed welcome for Baghdad surge,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/20/07
Pincus, Walter, ???U.S. Holds 18,000 Detainees in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 4/15/07
Pincus, Walter and Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Big Boost In Iraqi Forces Is Urged,??? Washington Post, 6/13/07
Posen, Barry, ???Our Last Chance to Build a Governing Coalition in Iraq???? AlterNet.com, 1/24/07
Powell, Stewart, ???Bush could double force by Christmas,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/22/07
- ???Study group's push for amnesty expected to be strongly resisted,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/10/06
Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Baghdad's Fissures and Mistrust Keep Political Goals Out of Reach,??? Washington Post, 4/26/07
- ???Basra Raid Finds Prisoners With Signs of Torture,??? Washington Post, 3/5/07
- ???For U.S. and Sadr, Wary Cooperation,??? Washington Post, 3/16/07
- ???Maliki, Petraeus Visit Insurgent Hotbed in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/14/07
- ???Morgue Data Show Increase In Sectarian Killings in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 5/23/07
- ???Officers Look back For Clues To Future,??? Washington Post, 1/15/07
- ???Sadr Blames 'Evil' U.S. for Violence,??? Washington Post, 4/9/07
- ???Sum of Death Statistics: a Perilous Iraq,??? Washington Post, 4/4/07
- ???Threats Wrapped in Misunderstandings,??? Washington Post, 12/7/06
Reid, Robert, ???Outlook mixed on Baghdad crackdown,??? Associated Press, 3/14/07
Ricks, Thomas, ???General May See Early Success in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 1/23/07
- ???Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size,??? Washington Post, 6/23/07
- ???McCaffrey Paints Gloomy Picture of Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/28/07
- ???Military Envisions Longer Stay in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/10/07
- ???Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort,??? Washington Post, 2/5/07
- ???Politics Colide With Iraq Realities,??? Washington Post, 4/8/07
- ???Shrine Bombing as war's Turning Point Debated,??? Washington Post, 3/13/07
Ricks, Thomas and Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Intensified Combat on Streets Likely,??? Washington Post, 1/11/07
Rich, Frank, ???They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Richter, Paul, ???Iraqi leadership's failures raise pressure on U.S.,??? Los Angeles Times, 5/21/07
Roberts, Michelle, ???Air Force fills out Army ranks in Iraq,??? Associated Press, 4/15/07
Rogers, Paul, ???Al-Qaida: time on its side,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 5/31/07
- ???Iraq: the beginning of the end,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 2/22/07
- ???Iraq's surge signals,??? OpenDemocracy.com, 3/29/07
Rubin, Alissa, ???3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work,??? New York Times, 4/22/07
- ???Demonstration in Basra Signals Growing Tensions Between Iraqi Shiites,??? New York Times, 4/18/07
- ???Frustration Over Wall Unites Sunni and Shiite,??? New York Times, 4/24/07
- ???U.S. Suspects That Iran Aids Both Sunni and Shiite Militias,??? New York Times, 4/12/07
Rubin, Alissa and Wong, Edward, ???Patterns of War Shift Amid U.S. Force Buildup,??? New York Times, 4/9/07
Sandalow, Marc, ???Analysis: Bush tries to sell plan for victory to a nation skepitcal and weary of the war,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/11/07
Sands, Phil, ???Claims of training insurgents inside Iran,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/15/07
Sanger, David, ???4 Years On, the gap Between Iraq Policy and Practice Is Wide,??? New York Times, 4/12/07
- ???The White House Scales back Talk of Iraq Progress,??? New York Times, 4/28/07
Sanger, David and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06
- ???White House Is Said to Debate '08 Cut in Iraq Combat Forces by 50%,??? New York Times, 5/26/07
Sanger, David and Shanker, Thom, ???Alternative reports may dilute general's appraisal of war,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/24/07
Santora, Marc, ???In the Vortex of Baghdad, Staying Put This Time,??? New York Times, 1/23/07
- ???Iraqi Militants Launch Attack on U.S. Outpost,??? New York Times, 2/20/07
- ???Iraqi Premier Admits Errors in Introducing Security Plan in Baghdad,??? New York Times, 2/7/07
- ???Iraqis Announce New Crackdown Across Baghdad,???
Seibel, Mark, ???Administration leaving out important details on Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 1/14/07
Semple, Kirk, ???Iraq Town Struggles to Recover After Most Residents Fled,??? New York Times, 4/2/07
- ???Reclaiming Homes, Iraqis Find Peril,??? New York Times, 3/23/07
- ???Street Battles in Iraqi Cities Point to Dire Security Status,??? New York Times, 5/17/07
- ???Wave of Bombings Continues in Iraq,??? New York Times, 4/19/07
Semple, Kirk and Rubin, Alissa, ???Sweeps in Iraq Cram Two jails With Detainees,??? New York Times, 3/28/07
Semple, Kirk and Wong, Edward, ???Can They All Get Along in Iraq? The Report Says They Have To,??? New York Times, 12/8/06
Shanker, Thom, ???Pentagon to Fill Iraq Reconstruction Jobs Temporarily,??? New York Times, 2/20/07
Shanker, Thom and Cloud, David, ???Military Wants More Civilians to Help in Iraq,??? New York Times, 2/7/07
Sheehan, John, ???Why I Declined To Serve,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
Smialowski, Brendan, ???Iraq Stuedy Group Shapes White House Policy,??? IraqSlogger.com, 4/6/07
Spiegal, Peter and Barnes, Julian, ???On Iraq, Gates may not be following Bush's playbook,??? Los Angeles Times, 5/6/07
Stannard, Matthew, ???Experts doubt Iraqis can make Bush plan work,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/13/07
- ???Military Experts: Doubt over increase, even by some backers,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/11/07
- ???Repairing a broken society,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/5/06
- ???Second guessing begins,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/8/06
Steele, Jonathan, ???Iraqis can't be blamed for the chaos unleashed by invasion,??? Guardian of London, 12/15/06
Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, ???See You in September, Whatever That Means,??? New York Times, 5/13/07
Sterngold, James, ???Problem At Home: Panel criticizes political rhetoric, deep divisions,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 12/7/06
Strobel, Warren, ???U.S. options in Iraq could soon narrow, ranging from unpleasant to unthinkable,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 5/13/07
al-Taiee, Awadh, ???Baghdadis invest hope in new security plan,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/13/07
Tavernise, Sabrina, ???Iraqi Official Offers Terms From Militia to Avoid Fight,??? New York Times, 1/25/07
Tavernise, Sabrina and Burns, John, ???Promising Troops Where They Aren't Really Wanted,??? New York Times, 1/11/07
Tisdall, Simon, ???Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq,??? Guardian of London, 5/22/07
Tran, Mark, ???American troops suffer worst month this year,??? Guardian of London, 5/29/07
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08,??? Washington Post, 5/9/07
- ???Edging Their Way Into Sadr City,??? Washington Post, 5/21/07
- ???Gates, U.S. General Back Long Iraq Stay,??? Washington Post, 6/1/07
- ???Increase May Mean Longer Army Tours,??? Washington Post, 3/29/07
- ???Insurgents Broaden Arsenal in Battles With U.S., Iraqi Forces,??? Washington Post, 2/23/07
- ???Iraq Troop Boost Erodes Readiness, General Says,??? Washington Post, 2/16/07
- ???Military Is Ill-Prepared For Other Conflicts,??? Washington Post, 3/19/07
- ???New Strategy for War Stresses Iraqi Politics,??? Washington Post, 5/23/07
- ???Petraeus Expresses Confidence In Buildup,??? Washington Post, 1/24/07
- ???Top U.S. Officers See Mixed Results From Iraq 'Surge',??? Washington Post, 4/22/07
Tyson, Ann Scotty and Anderson, John Wa rd, ???Attacks on U.S. Troops in Iraq Grow in Lethality, Complexity,??? Washington Post, 6/3/07
Tyson, Ann Scotty and White, Josh, ???Additional Support Troops Join Buildup in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 3/17/07
Vanden Brook, Tom, ???Combat deaths rise in Baghdad, fall in Anbar,??? USA Today, 4/20/07
- ???Surge' needs up to 7,000 more troops,??? USA Today, 3/2/07
White, Josh, ???Defense Secretary Sees Encouraging Signs in Baghdad,??? Washington Post, 4/6/07
Will, George F., ???A Report Overtaken by Reality,??? Washington Post, 12/7/06
Wolffe, Richard and Bailey, Holly, ???The Oval: Bush's Real Plan for Iraq,??? Newsweek, 1/10/07
Wong, Edward, ???Iraqi Widow Saves Her Home, but Victory Is Brief,??? Christian Science Monitor, 3/30/07
- ???Say It Loud. Improvise. Keep Em Guessing,??? New York Times, 4/22/07
Wright, Robin, ???Iraq, 'Sinking Fast,' Is Ranked No. 2on List of Unstable States,??? Washington Post, 6/19/07
- ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06
Yacoub, Sameer, ???Defiant Iraqi PM disavows timetable,??? Associated Press, 10/25/06
Youssef, Nancy, ???Old Problems Plague New Security Plan for Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/8/07
- ???U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 4/25/07
The neoconservatives were the earliest and strongest advocates of military action against Iraq. They held important positions within Bush???s Pentagon including Paul Wolfowitz, deputy Secretary of Defense, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of State for Policy, William Luti Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia, Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, members of the Defense Policy Board, and David Wurmser and Michael Maloof who were the original members of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, which was set up within the Pentagon to find links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. David Frum, one of Bush???s leading speechwriters who coined the term Axis of Evil was also a believer. Together they helped shape pre and post-war Iraq policy. Looking back today, many of these leading war advocates now regret the role they played and blame President Bush for its failure.
Richard Perle was one of the original neoconservative intellects. He was a member of the first Bush administration and thought that not overthrowing Saddam in the Gulf War was a major mistake. During the Clinton administration he wrote a position paper for the Jerusalem based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies that was given to then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called ???A Clean Break,??? which argued that Israel should invade Iraq and reshape the Middle East in 1996. The next year he co-founded the Project for A New American Century, a neoconservative group that wrote a letter to Clinton saying that the U.S. should support the Iraqi National Congress to undermine Saddam. Perle believed that the Iraqi National Congress had wide support within Iraq, was capable of overthrowing the government, could set up a democracy, and would be pro-Israel, completely changing the dynamics of the Middle East. In 1998 he helped pass the Iraq Liberation Act, which established regime change as official U.S. policy. When George W. Bush was elected, Perle became the head of the Defense Policy Board, which is meant to air new ideas and advise the Secretary of Defense about them.
During the Bush presidency, Perle was one of the main advocates of a military confrontation with Iraq. In June 2001 he introduced the head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmad Chalabi to Vice President Cheney for a two-hour meeting. On September 11, 2001 he told Bush???s speechwriter David Frum that the war on terror had to include states, not just terrorist groups. Frum included that idea in Bush???s speech that night to the nation. On September 18, 2001 Perle convened a meeting of the Defense Policy Board to discuss the terrorist attacks. The discussion quickly turned to Iraq and Ahmad Chalbi was brought in to advocate for regime change. Perle claimed that as a result of that meeting, Donald Rumsfeld agreed to the idea of attacking Iraq. Perle would go on to give a series of interviews, speeches, and write articles arguing his point leading up to the war.
Ken Adelman was also a member of the Defense Policy Board and in February 2002 wrote a famous op. ed. piece for the Washington Post in which he said that overthrowing Saddam would be a ???cakewalk.??? He wrote, "Let me give simple, responsible reasons: 1. It was a cakewalk last time; 2. They've become much weaker; 3. We've become much stronger; and 4. Now we're playing for keeps.???
David Frum was one of Bush???s leading speechwriters. In December 2001 he was told to come up with some reasons to justify war with Iraq in Bush???s January 2002 State of the Union speech. It was in that address that Frum came up with the phrase Axis of Evil to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
In January 2007, David Rose of Vanity Fair published an article entitled ???Neo Culpa??? where many of these leading neoconservatives mentioned their regrets about advocating a war against Iraq and their criticism of the Bush administration???s handling of the aftermath. Before the war, Rose seemed to be closely connected to neoconservative circles and wrote a few pieces that relied heavily on the Iraqi National Congress and its string of defectors that claimed Iraq was rebuilding its WMD and nuclear programs, and was connected to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. It was no surprise then, that many of these early Iraq war hawks would be willing to talk to him about their post-war regrets.
Perle told Rose that the Bush administration was dysfunctional, which doomed its Iraq policy, but ultimately it was the president???s fault as commander in chief. ???The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn???t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly. At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible. ??? I think he was led to believe that things were chugging along far more purposefully and coherently than in fact they were. I think he didn???t realize the depth of the disputes underneath. I don???t think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration and the disloyalty,??? Perle said. The people he was referring to as being in opposition and disloyal are the CIA and State Department. Perle, like the rest of the neoconservatives, were contemptuous of the CIA for missing many of the changes in the 1990s like the fall of communism, and for supporting dictators. Both the CIA and State Department also opposed the Iraqi National Congress, one of Perle???s sacred cows, as being incompetent and dishonest. According to Perle, it was this split between the CIA and State Department on the one side and the Pentagon on the other that doomed Iraq policy. Perle also criticized then National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice for being a bad manager and not resolving these problems. In the end though, it was Bush who failed because he did not make the decisions about Iraq that a president should. Perle claimed, ???The machinery of government that he [Bush] nominally ran was actually running him.???
Frum also pointed out to dysfunction as a major problem, and holds Bush responsible in the end. He told Rose that there were several different plans for how to run Iraq after the invasion, but no agreement had been made before the invasion. Rather than wait for a solid plan, the White House rushed into war anyway. Frum said, ???People were aware in February or March 2003 that the planning [for post-war Iraq] was not finished. There was not a coherent plan, and in the knowledge that there was not a coherent plan, there was not the decision made to wait.??? Like Perle, Frum ultimately holds the president responsible for the problems. According to Frum, Bush was detached from the major ideas surrounding the war. ???I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that, although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.??? It was this ???failure at the center??? by President Bush that Frum believes caused Iraq to be a failure.
Adelman went even farther in his comments condemning everyone on Bush???s foreign policy staff, especially Rumsfeld. He told Rose, ???I am extremely disappointed by the outcome in Iraq, because I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national-security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent. They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.??? He singles out Rumsfeld for major blame for the problems of post-war Iraq. ???The moment this administration was lost was when Donald Rumsfeld took to the podium and said, ???Stuff happens. This is what free people do [speaking of the looting going on after the war].??? It???s not what free people do at all: it???s what barbarians do.??? Adelman believed that not stopping the looting discredi ted the idea of setting up a new and democratic Iraq and undermined the authority and power of the U.S. to secure the country. He further criticized Rumsfeld for trying to pass off responsibility for not effectively dealing with the insurgency. ???The problem here is not a selling job. Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq; it could only be lost in Washington. I don???t think that???s true at all. We???re losing in Iraq.???
Adelman also condemned Bush for not holding anyone responsible for the missteps after the invasion. A perfect example for him was Bush rewarding former CIA director George Tenet, architect of the Iraq invasion retired General Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremer, who had headed the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Adelman said, ???The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Jerry Bremer ??? three of the most incompetent people who???ve ever served in such key posts. ??? It was then I thought, there???s no seriousness here. These are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq.???
In hindsight, all three regretted advocating an invasion of Iraq. Perle, seeing the chaos occurring in Iraq today, said. ???I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ???Should we go into Iraq???? I think now I probably would have said, ???No, let???s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.??? ??? Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have.??? Frum lamented the power of the insurgency, which may make the Iraq war unwinnable.
Adelman followed up by saying that the policy of overthrowing Saddam could have been ???absolutely right, and noble, beneficial, but if you can???t execute it, it???s useless, just useless.??? As a result of the failures of the Iraq war Adelman believes that the neoconservative movement is dead. He said, ???It???s not going to sell.??? Perle thought that this was unfair making the false claim that neoconservatives were not in decision-making positions in the Bush White House. ???Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: they were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I???m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war.??? While it???s true that people like Perle and Adelman only had advisory roles in the administration, Wolfowitz and Feith were number 2 and 3 in the Pentagon hierarchy just below Rumsfeld and did influence pre and postwar Iraq policy.
Adelman is probably right, the neoconservative movement is dead for now. The neoconservatives who sailed into power with the Bush administration in 2001 are now mostly out. The only advocate of their ideas still left is Cheney and his staff. He obviously holds a very important and influential position, but the rest of the neoconservatives have lost their offices in the administration. Secretary of State Rice is carrying out foreign policy decisions such as making deals with North Korea and opening discussions with Iran that the neoconservatives would have never agreed to before. While the neoconservatives were not the only advocates of a war with Iraq, it will be their lasting legacy to have pushed for this deeply flawed and failed policy.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Packer, George, Assassins??? Gate, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq, Penguin, 2006
Isikoff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, Crown, 2006
Articles[/b]
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David, and Wise, David, ???The Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May, 2004
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De Young, Karen and Pincus, Walter, ???Rhetoric Fails to Budge Policy on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 1/25/02
Dizard, John, ???How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons,??? Salon.com, 5/4/04
Dreyfuss, Robert, ???The Pentagon Muzzles the CIA,??? American Prospect, 12/16/02
Dreyfuss, Robert & Vest, Jason, ???The Lie Factory,??? Mother Jones, January/February, 2004
Eisenberg, Daniel, "We're Taking Him Out,??? Time, 5/5/02
Fallows, James, ???The Fifty-First State???? Atlantic Monthly, November, 2002
Judis, John and Ackerman, Spencer, ???The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty,??? New Republic, 6/30/03
Karon, Tony, ???Iraq: The GOP War With Itself,??? Time, 8/21/02
Lemann, Nicholas, ???The Next World Order,??? New Yorker, 4/1/02
PBS Frontline, ???Gunning for Saddam Transcript,??? Gunning For Saddam, 11/8/01
- ???Interview Richard Perle,??? Gunning For Saddam, 11/8/01
- ???Interview Richard Perle,??? Truth, War and Consequences, 10/9/03
- ???Iraq, The Middle East, and Beyond???? The War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03
- ???Truth, War & Consequences: Transcript,??? Truth, War & Consequences: Transcript, 10/9/03
- ???The War Behind Closed Doors Transcript,??? War Behind Closed Doors, 2/20/03
Perle, Richard, ???How the CIA Failed America,??? Washington Post, 5/11/07
- ???Next Stop, Iraq,??? Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11/14/01
- ???The U.S. Must Strike at Saddam Hussein,??? New York Times, 12/28/01
Project For The New American Century, ???The Honorable William J. Clinton,??? 1/26/98
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Getting Saddam, Part II,??? Time, 3/18/02
Rose, David, ???Iraq???s Arsenal Of Terror,??? Vanity Fair, May 2002
- ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair.com, 11/3/06
- ???Neo Culpa,??? Vanity Fair, January 2007
- ???Saddam and al Qaeda the link we???ve all missed,??? Evening Standard (London), 12/9/02
Strobel, Warren and Landay, Jonathan, ???Alliance between Chalabi, U.S. conservatives now in ruins,??? Knight Ridder, 5/8/04
- ???Infighting among U.S. intelligence agencies fuels dispute over Iraq,??? Knight Ridder, 10/27/02
Tanenhaus, Sam, ???Bush's Brain Trust,??? Vanity Fair, July, 2003
Vest, Jason, ???Saddam in the Crosshairs,??? Village Voice, 11/21-27/01
???Staying the course??? was one of President Bush???s favorite phrases when describing his commitment to the war in Iraq. While Bush was talking about heading towards victory and how the U.S. was winning, his Secretary of Defense had other ideas. Rumsfeld was set on withdrawing U.S. forces as soon as possible. Rather than having a set plan for defeating the insurgency, Generals Abizaid, commander of the Central Command (CENTCOM) that covered the Middle East, and Gen. Casey, commander in Iraq, were managing the conflict until Iraqi security forces could be built up leading to a U.S. pullout. PBS???s Frontline aired a program on Iraq called ???End Game??? in mid-June 2007, which included interviews with some of the top military advisers in the Pentagon and State Department, as well as leading journalists that highlighted this disconnect between what Pres. Bush was telling the American public, and what his generals and the Pentagon were actually doing. What follows is a comparison between the public statements made by Pres. Bush on Iraq and what was actually happening on the ground, relying largely on interviews conducted by Frontline.
Mid-2004[/b]
Pres. Bush declares that the U.S. will defeat the insurgency, but the military is drawing up plans to withdraw U.S. troops, and actually decrease combat operations against the insurgents by pulling back troops to large bases. The military operations that are carried out are large conventional sweeps that increase resentment against U.S. forces.
May 24, 2004 ???America???s task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend ??? a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf.??? ??? Pres. Bush.
June 2004 Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld sends Gen. George Casey to take over command in Iraq. Since before the invasion in 2003, Rumsfeld had always planned for the U.S. military to go into Iraq as quickly as possible and then withdraw just as fast. Casey is therefore told to train Iraqi forces so that the U.S. can withdraw its troops.
August 2004 Gen. Casey formulates a new campaign plan for Iraq. It is based upon the belief, shared by Gen. Abizaid, that U.S. troops are a negative influence on the country and their presence only leads to more opposition to the occupation. Based upon that assumption, Casey???s new plan calls for U.S. troops to stay on large forward operating bases and only fight insurgents when necessary.
On Troop Withdrawal:
???Well, from the day we got in, the plan was to get out at the earliest possible opportunity. At least that was the plan in the mind of the Defense Department.??? ??? Michael Gordon, military correspondent for the New York Times, author of the book on the invasion and occupation of Iraq Cobra II
???I think the impulse that drives Rumsfeld, up until the day of his resignation really, is how to extricate the United States from Iraq, (a) because it is interfering with some of his own cherished dogma and beliefs about the efficacy of military technology, but (b) I think on a more practical level, is he recognizes that the war has become a disaster.??? ??? Lawrence Kaplan, reporter for the New Republic
???[Casey] was inclined to begin to draw troops off at the earliest opportunity. But there???s a number of good reasons for this. ??? The United States strategic reserve was right down to the bone at this point. ??? The other is that I think that Gen. Casey did understand the way that the counterinsurgency had to be approached: that this was an Iraqi problem, ultimately, and the Iraqis would have to solve it. ??? So holding back the engagement of American military forces actually made sense.??? ??? Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.), former military advisor to Gen. Casey, consultant to the Iraq Study Group, currently assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare
???I think that from the outset our emphasis was on getting out of Iraq as quickly as possible, and that had always been the president???s strategy; it had always been Secretary Rumsfeld???s approach, and it was the approach that Gen. Abizaid and Casey had. .. The objective is to get Iraq under control at a basic level, train up Iraqi security forces, turn over responsibility to the government and leave.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, former military historian at West Point, co-author of the current surge policy, resident at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute
On The Bases Strategy:
???If you bring them [U.S. forces] into the forts two things happen. First of all, you reduce the numbers of casualties because remember, the crisis that emerges in the spring of 2004 emerges because Congress is up in arms. Because their constituents are calling and complaining of the fact that their friends and relatives are being killed and wounded by the dozen in the spring of 2004. ??? So the big base strategy is tied to the notion that you???ve got to reduce casualties. Unfortunately, the big strategy also cedes the initiative to the enemy.??? ??? Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), served in U.S. Army until 2004, military analyst for Jim Lehrer, CNN, NBC, and Fox News
???[In Iraq you had] what David Kilcullen, another one of the very smart advisers on counterinsurgency, termed ???war tourism.??? ??? What he???s talking about is units based on big forward operating bases. FOBs, going out and doing patrols from Humvees, usually not foot patrols but mounted patrols, and then coming back to their base. He said if that???s the way you???re operating, you???re not in the war; you???re simply a war tourist. You???ve got to be out there.??? - Thomas Ricks, military correspondent for the Washington Post, and author of a history of the U.S. invasion and occupation Fiasco
On The Combat Operations Carried Out:
???[Casey] underwrites the notion that we should conduct, large, conventional sweeps into areas where we think the enemy is living and operating. So we move across Anbar province. We go into towns and villages. ??? We end up, ultimately, making far more enemies than we kill because we go into these areas and we kill lots of innocent people. ??? And in the meantime, because these are large, predictable operations, most of the enemy that you went in there to get is gone before you arrive, melts away. ??? He doesn???t understand that he has reinforced all the wrong things all the way along to make matters worse.??? ??? Col. Douglas Macgregor (Ret.), military analyst
???Casey didn???t understand the situation, didn???t recognize the basic realities of what was happening in Iraq. .. The question Casey has to address is, can we dig ourselves out of this hole? ??? This is best summarized by the study that [Kalev] Sepp, [professor, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California] does for him in I think the fall of ???04. He does a list of best practices in counterinsurgency and worst practices in counterinsurgency. I think of the 12 worst practices, the major mistakes that militaries have made in trying to put down an insurgency, the United States is committing nine of the 12.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Fall 2004-2005[/b]
U.S. plans are amended to include the promotion of elections and the formation of a new Iraqi government to try to draw Sunnis away from fighting the occupation to participating in democracy. On the military side, a new emphasis is placed on building up Iraqi security forces so that as they ???stand up we will stand down.??? Rumsfeld and his generals believe that together these new policies will facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Neither proves effective, which leads to growing criticism within the administration that the U.S. has no real strategy for victory in Iraq. Bush rejects the bad news.
Fall 2004 Casey and Rumsfeld add a new part to their strat egy. The idea is to carry out elections so that a new Iraqi government can be formed. The belief is that democracy will bring the Sunnis into the political process and eventually marginalize the insurgency.
January 2005 the first round of elections take place in Iraq, but the vast majority of Sunnis boycott them.
March 2005 New emphasis is placed on training Iraqi forces to take over security from Americans.
June 28, 2005 ???The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists, and that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. ??? As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.??? ??? Pres. Bush
On Iraqi Elections:
???Their conclusion is that we???re sort of moving beyond this period of major combat operations into a counterinsurgency phase in which the process of political reconciliation, which is also being pushed aggressively by the American Embassy, is going to lead to a diminution of the insurgency over time, because we???re going to take these people who are outside the process, bring some portion of them inside the process through negotiations. There will always be rejectionists ??? we???ll be battling them forever. But the Iraqis will do most of that fight. ??? Yes, it???s longer and harder than anybody anticipated, but the trend lines are positive. That???s the picture that???s being painted by Gen. Casey, Don Rumsfeld. And the White House is accepting that picture.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???Enter George Casey, and to his credit, in the summer of ???04, after he arrived, he put together a campaign plan to get everybody on the same page. The centerpiece to that was that we were going to transition to the Iraqi security forces. ??? The political strategy was to stand up a ??? representative government, as quickly as possible. When you look back on that and analyze it, it???s a short-war strategy???. Nowhere in there is a plan to defeat the insurgency, so we had no military strategy to defeat the insurgency. We were resting on a political strategy that would hopefully stem the violence because the Sunnis would come into the political process and therefore seek a political solution to the confrontation, no longer an armed solution. We over relied on that. And then there was no forcing function, because we were not defeating the insurgents.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???What was missing in the CENTCOM strategy was an understanding of the synergy that has to exist between a kinetic strategy to defeat the insurgency as a prerequisite for convincing the insurgents that they have to play in the political process, because what you had going on was Sunni Arabs were unwilling to accept the fact that they would not control the new Iraq ??? If you don???t take that tool away from them, if you don???t make it clear to them that violence is not an option and is not going to provide them with leverage, then you???re encouraging them to continue to be violent. And this was the problem that I saw all along with CENTCOM strategy as it was playing out.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
???The only other thing I will say on this particular issue [involving the Sunnis in elections in 2005] is I don???t think that we devoted enough effort to engaging that political leadership before the fact, nor did we create conditions that would cause elements of the Sunni community to hear what their leaders were saying.??? ??? Col. William Hix, was chief strategist for Gen. Casey
On Training Iraqi Forces:
???Then, due to a whole variety of factors, including mistakes the Americans made, the insurgency emerged. And Gen. Casey???s role, his initial task was to fight that insurgency. But what I think happened was Gen. Casey and Gen. Abizaid came to the conclusion hat this insurgency was pretty resilient, wasn???t going to be defeated anytime soon. And they seemed to have made an assumption that Washington was not willing to provide the military resources and other resources that would be needed to really defeat this insurgency. So they settled on a strategy that was not intended to defeat the insurgency in the short term. Rather the emphasis was on handing over to the Iraqis so they could fight the insurgency for years, and we would then be in a supporting role. Even though officially we had a counterinsurgency campaign, the emphasis was not so much on defeating the insurgency, which would take five, six, seven, eight, 10 years traditionally; it was on transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis and putting them in the lead so they could fight this insurgency in the ensuing years.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???But when you get down to what are the forces actually doing, the purpose of those military operations [was] to help train the Iraqi security forces, to transition to them so that they could defeat the insurgency, not us.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
On Withdrawal Plans:
??????Success is simply we leave, they stay, we train them, and then we leave,??? that very narrow definition can have kind of a nice circular quality, but it kind of avoids a lot of central questions. That was a source of a lot of concern in the summer of ???06.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former adviser to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007, currently history professor at Univ. of Virginia
???The secretary of defense hadn???t stepped back from Iraq strategy, but we couldn???t really see any push to innovate the strategy in significant ways. It still seemed to be ??? an exit strategy. .. That???s really more about Americans than it is about Iraq.??? ??? Philip Zelikow
On Having No Strategy:
???As somebody put it ??? it was a-strategic. The emphasis was on transferring responsibility to the Iraqis, generating more Iraqi soldiers and police, shrinking the number of American bases, beginning to draw down American combat brigades. And to some in the State Department and maybe on the NSC staff, it looked like this process had a life of its own, and it was almost a bit disconnected from the events in Iraq.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???In the summer of ???04, our strategy, by and large, military strategy, was wrapped around killing and capturing the insurgents, the thugs, the killers who were attacking us, and beginning to think about transitioning to and the growth of the Iraqi military. ??? But there was no unified campaign plan.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???When I go and talk with officers in the Pentagon, I say: ???Well, what???s the campaign plan? What is the series of steps that will lead us to achieving our objectives???? And typically they???ll say: ???Well, here are all the metrics. Here are all the things we???re trying to achieve.??? And I said: ???Well, that???s all well and good, but what is the plan? How do we progressively go about securing the country and defeating the insurgency??????? - Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.), former military advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and consultant to the Defense Dept.
???This point???s critical ??? you have to have a strategy country wide that tells your battalion and company commanders what their jobs are. ??? That???s what [was] missing. ??? Because the commanding generals did not prepare one.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???And the success of the [January 2005] elections, while tremendously gratifying, caught the MNF-1 [the c oalition forces] staff unprepared with how to exploit this. ??? There wasn???t anything in place to take advantage of this tremendous blow to the insurgency.??? ??? Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.), former military advisor to Gen. Casey
On Bush Rejecting Bad News:
???It???s also a time [late 2004/early 2005] I think almost of deep divisions bordering on warfare in Washington about Iraq with the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] and the CIA coming in with very pessimistic reports, and actually getting them in front of the president at the end of ???04 and through ???05, saying, ???You are not winning in Iraq,??? and Bush being a little bit taken aback: ???Who are these guys? What are they telling me this for???? The story is supposedly after one such meeting with the Baghdad station chief of CIA, Bush asked afterward, ???Is that guy a Democrat???? But these guys I think are actually doing a very honest job of trying to speak truth to power.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Late 2005[/b]
Bush announces his new ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq??? based upon the urgings of Secretary of State Rice who sees Iraq policy failing. The new plan is to implement a combined military, political and economic counterinsurgency plan called ???clear, hold and build.??? The plan is opposed by Rumsfeld and therefore brings about no actual change on the ground in Iraq.
Late 2005 Secretary of State Rice is told by her special advisor on Iraq Philip Zelikow that the U.S. is lacking an overarching strategy in Iraq. Zelikow advocates a new counterinsurgency policy called ???clear, hold and build.??? Under this plan the U.S. will clear areas of insurgents, Iraqi security forces will then hold them, and then reconstruction will begin to win over the population.
October 6, 2005 ???This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve, and we will win that victory.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 19, 2005 Secretary of State Rice tells the Senate Foreign Relations committee that the U.S. strategy in Iraq has to be ???clear, hold and build.???
October 29, 2005, Rumsfeld disagrees with Rice???s new plan, saying that the Iraqis are the ones that need to stand up and fight rather than relying on American troops.
November 30, 2005 Bush announces the ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.??? It states that the U.S. will now follow Rice???s ???clear, hold, and build??? policy. At a speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland Bush says, ???We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory,??? and repeats that ???As the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down.???
December 2005 The second round of elections take place to vote on a new Constitution. The Sunnis participate for the first time, but the majority vote against the document.
On The New Strategy:
???Then you have people in Washington trying to make sense out of it and trying to figure out if this strategy of handing over and transferring to the Iraqis really fits the situation. ??? What happens over the course of 2006 is people in the State Department and on the NSC increasingly come to think that it doesn???t and that we???re behind the curve in Iraq, that the situation in Iraq is more difficult than the one that???s being portrayed by Rumsfeld and Casey.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???At the State Department we felt increasingly restless that the strategy wasn???t being articulated at home or in the field as effectively as we thought it should be, with the kind of coherent counterinsurgency approach that we thought was needed and we thought a lot of the military accepted. The White House wasn???t doing it. They preferred to write different kinds of speeches for the president. And the secretary of defense wasn???t doing it. So the secretary of state really had to make the decision to step up and accept responsibility for helping to articulate a strategy for Iraq. And Secretary Rice did that in October of ???05, which then helped spur the rest of the administration, including the White House, to unveil a much more elaborate version of the national strategy for victory in Iraq, which they did later in ???05.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???Are we ???staying the course???? Is there a ???strategy for victory???? People start talking about ???clearing, holding and building.??? Well, what does that mean? This war of the phrases, for me, was summarized most of all in ???standing down as they stand up,??? partly because when we reached the end of the rainbow, there wasn???t a pot of gold; there was nothing. It turned out that a stood-up Iraqi force couldn???t quell the violence, so the Bush administration redefined standing down as they stand up. What we knew was standing up an Iraqi government, an effective Iraqi government. That had never been the original definition. And it???s a much longer task that???s going to take several years.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
On No Change In Iraq:
???There was some positive movement, but not enough. What ended up happening was that the basic center for policy development on Iraq remained in Baghdad. And Baghdad was not fundamentally innovating the policy.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???During this time frame in late 2005 and 2006, the White House is talking about a strategy for victory. When I was out in Iraq in Anbar and in Baghdad, I always thought there was a pretty profound disconnect between the rhetoric coming out of Washington in this time frame and what was actually happening, because I don???t think we were really trying to achieve victory. In fact, my sense was that the generals then looked at the insurgency, saw it was resilient, concluded that it couldn???t be defeated in the near term, put the emphasis on building up the Iraqis and handing over to them, and that the actual strategy was premised on the assumption that there would not be a near-term victory. There would be a continued war that we would support. So my sense is we never were going all out to win. We weren???t fighting the war. We were managing the war within available resources, and this was very much the emphasis in the first part of 2006.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???Secretary Rice clearly got the president sold on clear, hold and build. ??? And the weird thing is that the president, having endorsed that particular strategy, seems to have no effect on the ground, because the president has then announced this strategy which the military then doesn???t execute. And I think Rumsfeld at one point even says, ???Oh, we???re not doing clear, hold, build. ??? What I can tell you from the outside is that???s a dysfunctional administration. Something???s not working there if you???ve got the secretary of state enunciating a policy like that, the president adhering to it and endorsing it, and then the military commanders not executing. Something is broken.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
Early 2006[/b]
After the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, sectarian violence reaches unprecedented levels, especially in Baghdad. The violence ends another planned withdrawal for the U.S.
May 27, 2006 the U.S. promises to hand over security of Baghdad to the Iraqis by the end of the year.
June 2006 On a trip to Washington D.C., Gen. Casey presents a new plan for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, but it???s derailed by increasing sectarian violence.
On The Increase In Sectarian Violence:
???I think the reason that a lot of people think Casey essentially failed is when we didn???t protect Iraqis, Iraqis, seeking to survive, looked to see who could protect them. And the story of 2006 was, ???The militias will protect us.?????? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
Summer 2006-2007[/b]
American generals are still intent on withdrawing U.S. troops, but they must address the sectarian violence. This leads to the launching of two offensives in Baghdad, Operation Together Forward I & II, which are supposed to be based upon the clear, hold and build principles. Both fail, and Iraqi forces prove not only incapable of securing areas, but are involved in sectarian attacks. The increased fighting kills plans for a U.S. draw down of troops in 2006. Pres. Bush finally accepts that the U.S. is not winning in Iraq. This leads to a policy re-evaluation within the White House, but Bush skips a major meeting at Camp David for a P.R. trip to Iraq instead. The administration still tries to keep a positive spin on things because they don???t want Republicans to suffer in November elections because of Iraq.
July to October 2006 U.S. and Iraqi forces launch Operation Together Forward II, the second attempt in 2006 to secure Baghdad. The plan fails because there are not enough U.S. troops, the Iraqis don???t provide enough forces, and even when they do they are incapable of holding an area and stopping sectarian violence form occurring.
July 4, 2006 ???You???re winning this war.??? ??? Pres. Bush to troop at Fort Bragg, N.C.
July 7, 2006 ???Americans are wondering whether or not we can win. And to those Americans, I say: Not only can we win, we are winning.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 25, 2006 ???Absolutely, we???re winning. As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done.??? ??? Pres. Bush
October 25, 2006 ???I???m interested in one thing: I???m interested in winning.??? ??? Pres. Bush
On The Cancelled Withdrawal Plans:
???There???s a very important event which happens in June [2006]. ??? Gen. Casey comes back to the United States with a plan. What does this plan call for? It???s another version of his plan to draw down American forces in Iraq. ??? And what it calls for is reducing the then-14 brigade combat teams to 12 by September, trying to get down to 10 by December, trying to get down to around seven by July ???07, and trying to get down to five or six by December ???07, while shrinking the number of bases. ??? Within a matter of weeks this plan is shelved. We???re moving in precisely the opposite direction. We???ve added 7,000 troops to Baghdad for something they call Operation Together Forward II because the sectarian violence is starting to spiral out of control.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
On the Failure Of Operation Together Forward II:
???So the U.S. answer becomes: OK, we can clear, then the Iraqi troops will hold. And we???ll achieve that when we get up to the number of trained Iraqi forces, soldiers and police that we???re supposed to have, which is about 320,000. The problem is in ???06 they achieved that number of 320,000 trained Iraqi security forces, yet the violence still increases.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
???I knew that once we had made up our minds [in the summer of 2006 with Operation Together Forward II] that we were going to clear, but we didn???t have enough resources to hold, I knew the operation would fail. So we had two bites of this apple in Baghdad, and we failed both times because we never made a commitment to secure the population, and we never had enough resources to do it. I knew that our chances to succeed in Iraq were just slipping past us.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???But when you actually are dealing with a sectarian conflict, you cannot rely on indigenous forces to put down the violence, because every single person in those indigenous forces belongs to one sect or another. And when that is the issue on the table, indigenous forces cannot be impartial imposers of peace.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
???[In October 2006] the momentum towards sectarian division is not slowing. Maliki???s government???s will to deal with the security issues impartially is uncertain. And the current political-economic-military strategy isn???t really succeeding. We focused a lot on the military side of this. But on the political side, national reconciliation wasn???t advancing as quickly as we would like. And a fundamental problem there was [that] lack of motivation on the Maliki government side, and the lack of sufficient influence or leverage on our side.??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
On Re-Evaluating U.S. Policy:
???So by the time we???re really well into this so-called Operation Together Forward, there are grave doubts in Washington now. ??? Washington is now very uneasy and unsure.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???I don???t think many policymakers in Washington really appreciated the degree to which this [a lack of an overall strategy in Iraq] was missing, or perhaps in many respects didn???t fully grasp the scale of this void until late in 2006. ??? So there was a lot of pressure by the early summer of 2006 to try to get a fundamental war council in which the president would pull this up by its roots and look at it and do a thoroughgoing review of the strategy for the conduct of the war. ??? That???s what ??? Camp David was meant to be [in June 2006]. ??? But the substantive review of the strategy that some of us who had been supporting the Camp David sessions had hoped for, that didn???t really unfold [because Bush flew to Baghdad instead of participating].??? ??? Philip Zelikow, former advisor to Secretary of State Rice on Iraq from 2005-2007
???So [Rumsfeld] asked me to come in and speak to him. And I talked to him in September [2006] ??? about what was wrong, why it???s wrong and what we needed to do to fix it. ??? But he was certainly getting it from many sides, and I think from people who he trusted, that things were just horrible, and by every indicator the strategy was failing. I think that???s what he was indicating to me in body language.??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
On Bush???s Realization That The U.S. Was Not Winning:
???Because the rhetoric that the president was evidencing in his remarks almost consistently for three years, he would use terms like ???win,??? ???We???re going to defeat the insurgents,??? ???victory.??? That all would lend itself to a military strategy whose purpose was to defeat the insurgency. We never had that as a mission in Iraq. And I don???t know if the president, through all those three years, truly understood that.??? ??? Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), former Army vice chief of staff 1999-2004, co-author of the current surge policy
???There were people well before ???06 who went into President Bush???s office and said, ???You are not winning this war.??? He didn???t want to hear it; he tended not to believe it. ??? Finally in late ???06 the president kind of wakes up and says, ???You know, this isn???t going that well.??? He actually gives a speech, I think, where he says the present course is failing.??? ??? Thomas Ricks, Washington Post
On Holding On Until the November Elections:
???The first thing Casey does [in the summer of 2006] is abandon the official optimism that he had still subscribed to through much of this period, and he gives up the idea of trying to draw down U.S. troops during 2006. ??? The other thing he???s got going is the clear recognition that there???s probably going to be a shift in Iraq policy by the end of ???06/early ???07. ??? So I think what???s he???s doing is essentially trying to keep the lid on through the midterm elections.??? ??? Thomas Ric ks, Washington Post
???They don???t want to suggest prior to the midterm election that they themselves no longer believe in their own strategy, because they think that will be politically damaging to the administration???s prospects, the Republican prospects in the election.??? ??? Michael Gordon, New York Times
???I was disappointed with how the strategy developed after that point [the Camp David meeting]. I mean, I???d been disappointed with the strategy all along, but I think that we continued to drift; we continue to focus too much on training Iraqis with the belief that they would solve the problem. ??? We continued to engage in this sort of raid-patrol kind of operation, which is really antithetical to good counterinsurgency.??? ??? Frederick Kagan, American Enterprise Institute, co-author of the current surge policy
January 2007[/b]
Pres. Bush announces another new strategy for Iraq termed the ???surge??? of increasing U.S. and Iraqi forces for a third attempt to secure Baghdad, and begin reconstruction, which will hopefully lead to political reconciliation. As part of this new policy Donald Rumsfeld is fired and Generals Abizaid and Casey are replaced.
Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.), former military advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalizaid and current consultant to the Pentagon finished his interview with Frontline by saying that the U.S. wasn???t serious about winning the war in Iraq. The White House was acting like everything was normal and had never asked the country to make any kind of sacrifices.
???We Americans, certainly the administration, believe that Iraq represents a critical security problem for the Unite States, but we???ve taken to a great extent very much as business-as-usual approach. There???s an enormous gap between what we feel and what we say about this war and what we???re actually doing about this war, how much we???re willing to disrupt our lives, how much we???re willing to divert resources, how much we???re willing to upset traditional patterns in the way our bureaucracy operates to actually win the war. ??? I???m saying that we???re not serious. We???re not as serious as you need to be when you undertake this kind of enterprise. War is a very serious business.???
Sources[/b]
Baker, Peter, ???Bush Is Reassuring on Iraq But Says He???s ???Not Satisfied,??? Washington Post, 10/26/06
Epstein, Edward, ???A somber Bush rejects timeline for Iraq pullout,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 10/26/06
Froomkin, Dan, ???Why Bush Thinks We???re Winning,??? Washington Post.com, 10/26/06
PBS Frontline, ???Gen. George Casey,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Col. William Hix,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,??? End Game, 6/19/07
White House, ???National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,??? 11/30/05
Read the previous two articles dip shit. Plenty of analysis and original writing. And I have offered different solutions in other articles as well in this thread, but you probably don't read anyways so what's the point.
Like Bush you are become more and more irrelevant.
with you, always
I believe I've proved that already.
Los Angeles Times
should i keep going?
PROVED THAT YOUR A DUNCE(independent of your latepass neo-con fetish.)
sure, motown is a plagiarist. And there's a bunch of stuff about Iraq that he copies from blogs and newspapers in there too.
wow, this has deeply shaken my faith in the case against the war and left me troubled and hurt. Im going to go over to your site, so I can be alone for a while.
1) Where are your sources? I don't have to listen to this!
2) Your sources are all liberal! I don't have to listen to this!
3) You are using facts from sources! I don't have to listen to this!
Do you want a quick summary of that last thing I wrote?
It's basically that while Bush was talking about winning and victory in Iraq, his generals and Rumsfeld actually were planning to pull out U.S. troops ASAP, and didn't have a real strategy to defeat the insurgency. Sectarian violence took off in 2006, people in the White House started freaking out and realized that there wasn't a strategy so Rumsfeld and his generals got the boot and Bush took up the surge policy and that's where we are now.
If I or anyone else on here wants this viewpoint we can go directly to the sources that you steal from and read them ourselves. It appears that all you do, is cut and paste information from different newspapers and blogs, change some words around, and mix it all up so that it looks original. You offer no analysis, other than that taken from some other source, and you mix-up your sources. A fact lifted from some unverified blog appears with a fact from the L.A. Times and you dont credit either or only credit the more authoratative source (or more likely the source you know someone like me will catch you stealing from).
This "essay" or whatever you want to call it, has to have to lowest percentage of original thought per word count out of anything I've ever had the misfortune of reading.
All I get are the facts about how the broken the glass. Where is the ANALYSIS? You say the glass is broken. What is your plan to fix the glass? You have no solutions for putting the glass together.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO BREAK THE GLASS UNTIL THE GLASS FIXES ITSELF!!!!!
All I get are the facts about how the broken the glass. Where is the ANALYSIS? You say the glass is broken. What is your plan to fix the glass? You have no solutions for putting the glass together.
WE MUST CONTINUE TO BREAK THE GLASS UNTIL THE GLASS FIXES ITSELF!!!!!
it took you all this time to come up with that lame non-analogy.
your girl is going to kill you when she comes home and finds that you broke one of her good glasses.
PBS??? Frontline show ???End Game??? aired on 6/19/07 documented how the U.S. did not have a set strategy to defeat the insurgency and win in Iraq from 2004-2007. The current surge policy is suppose to be the first comprehensive and integrated military, political and economic program put together, based upon counterinsurgency principals since the U.S. invasion in 2003. There are still some former and current military officials who do not believe this to be true.
In April 2007 it was reported that the Bush administration was looking for a ???war czar.??? They were interviewing four-star generals that would coordinate both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but at least five turned them down. National Security Advisor Stephan Hadley is suppose to be the one that coordinates the Iraq war for Pres. Bush, but the White House has been notorious for having a dysfunctional decision-making and policy process. Even today, with major changes in personnel there is still a sharp divide between the National Security Council, the Defense Department and the State Department over who is suppose to have control over Iraq. This lack of a unified command has been a major drawback since day one.
The White House eventually picked a three star general, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the war czar in May 2007.
The major problem the administration ran into in finding a candidate for the job was the belief that Bush still didn???t have a plan for winning in Iraq. This disagreement between the military and civilian leadership was made public in an op. ed. piece in the Washington Post by retired four-star Marine general John Sheehan who turned down the job. Sheehan wrote:
What I found in discussions with current and former members of this administration is that there is no agreed-upon strategic view of the Iraq problem or the region. In my view, there are essentially three strategies in play simultaneously.
Sheehan said of the three strategies that he found, the third, a vision of an end state in Iraq and the role of the U.S. in the entire Middle East was, ???The most important but, unfortunately, is the least developed and articulated by this administration.??? Sheehan later told the Post in an interview that the White House ???didn???t know??? what their strategy was. He said that this lack of vision was the reason why he turned down the job, and thought that a war czar was not going to solve the problem.
His view was supported by Col. Lang (Ret.) a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who still consults the government on Iraq who told the Christian Science Monitor that the four-stars who turned down the job, ???See that nothing has really changed in the Bush-Cheney approach to Iraq policy, so they decline the offer.??? Even Gen. Lute who took the job disagreed with the surge policy before he was selected.
Sources[/b]
Sheehan, John, ???Why I Declined To Serve,??? Washington Post, 4/16/07
LaFranchi, Howard, ???The missing player: a ???czar??? to manage the Iraq war,??? Christian Science Monitor, 4/26/07
PBS Frontline, - ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Michael Gordon,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Philip Zelikow,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Thomas Ricks,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Timeline Struggling to Find a Strategy for Success,??? End Game, 6/19/07
Wright, Robin, ???Bush Taps Skeptic of Buildup as ???War Czar,?????? Washington Post, 5/16/07
U.S. policy towards Iraq is at another important crossroad. In the last four years the Bush administration went through Jay Garner???s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, Paul Bremer???s Coalition Provisional Authority, Fallujah I and II, two national elections, a new constitution, the National Strategy for Victory, and Operation Together Forward I and II, none of which proved effective. In fact, some of these increased the insurgency and sectarian differences in the country. What the U.S. is facing in Iraq is a decade or longer process of nation building under near civil war conditions that will be passed onto those presidents following Bush. Below is a brief overview of some of the plans that are under consideration for future U.S. policy towards Iraq.
Plans:[/b]
1. The Surge
The surge is the current strategy of the U.S. It is a military solution to a political problem. It has called for a flow of troops into Baghdad and Anbar province to quell sectarian violence, fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, and allow the Maliki government to work towards political reconciliation by passing a number of laws on sharing oil profits, de-Baathification, amending the constitution, local elections, and the future of Kirkuk. All of these issues have been stalled in Iraq???s parliament. The oil law is the only one that has a chance of being passed, but there is no guarantee that it would be enforced due to the very limited power of the central government, or that it would have any effect. On the military side, the surge is only having limited effects on the violence. Death squad activities in Baghdad are down, but the insurgents have moved to other areas of the country, and they have still been able to carry out a bombing campaign against civilians that have kept up the death tolls.
2. South Korea Model
With reports of the surge faltering, in June 2007 President Bush and Secretary of Defense Gates mentioned that South Korea might be an example for the U.S. in Iraq. The U.S. has around 30,000 troops based in South Korea to ensure its security from the North. They have been there for over 50 years since the end of the Korean War. Under this plan, the U.S. would move its troops to large bases, provide a damper to an outright civil war, deter neighbors from intervening, and continue operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq. The problem with the South Korean analogy is that the South is not in the middle of a civil war. When the U.S. withdrew troops to large bases in 2004 they gave the initiative to the insurgents who stepped up their attacks. The U.S. would be taking casualties for decades, while not really solving the conflict.
3. Partition
Partition plans have been argued by Sen. Joe Biden and former U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith. The plan would divide the country up into 3 regions, the South for the Shiites, the West for the Sunnis, and the North for Kurds. U.S. forces would be used in more of a peacekeeping role protecting the movement of people to their areas, and making sure no side attacks another. The problem with this idea is that central Iraq, which includes Baghdad and around half the country???s population, is extremely mixed. After the bombing of the Shiite shrine in February 2006 there was a wave of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and its environs, but these people still remain in the area. This would be addressed by conducting land swaps, but given the size of the area and people involved this would prove to be very difficult if not impossible.
4. Political Reconciliation
There are many different models that call for political reconciliation, the Iraq Study Group being the most famous, but not the sole one. These plans would emphasize political moves, rather than military operations first. All the various plans call for some kind of phased withdrawal of U.S. troops because they are not the answer. Some, like presidential candidate Bill Richardson, call for a complete withdrawal within a year or two. Others want to cut troops in half, leaving a training mission, troops to conduct operations against Al Qaeda in Iraq, perhaps a large base in the Kurdish north where they would be welcomed, and another large contingent in Kuwait that would be used in case of any un-foretold emergencies. Others have called for the U.S. to act more like peacekeepers rather than carry out anti-insurgent policies as they withdraw. On the political side, the U.S. would call for increased diplomatic efforts to bring in Iraq???s neighbors and the United Nations to work out deals between the various factions. In 2007 the Bush administration has actually started moving in this direction with regional meetings. The Iraq Study Group said that the U.S. should work with the Iraqi central government in these efforts, while others see the Baghdad government as part of the problem, not the solution. The latter call for the use of carrots and sticks with the different groups including Prime Minister Maliki. A policy paper by the Center for American Progress also emphasized that the U.S. should work on the local level to bring about visible changes in Iraq like what the U.S. is currently doing with Sunni tribes in Anbar, rather than concentrating on the Iraq government. Any negotiations would be difficult because they would need to include Syria and Iran who don???t have the same interests as the U.S. Some also call for including Moqtada Sadr because he is one of the most powerful politicians in the country, even though to this point, the U.S. has tried to marginalize him.
Conclusion[/b]
Current U.S. strategy in Iraq is based upon the surge. It is looking more and more like it will turn out to be a failure because there are not enough U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and the Maliki government is incapable of passing and enforcing any legislation. By the end of 2007 U.S. troops will have to start withdrawing unless Bush extends the tours for many troops that have already stayed passed their planned return to the States. After that, troops will probably be in a holding pattern until the U.S. presidential elections. That leaves the next president to decide Iraq policy. Whichever direction he or she takes, they must be flexible as the situation on the ground is constantly changing. For example, many analysts say that some of the suggestions of the Iraq Study Group have already been overtaken by events in Iraq. More importantly, they need to understand that this will last 10 to 15 years unless all U.S. troops are withdrawn. Either way, Iraq will probably not have a happy ending.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Baker, James and Hamilton, Lee, The Iraq Study Group Report, Vintage Books, 2006
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Gauging the Iraq Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 3/26/07
- ???What Model Should Iraq Follow after U.S. Forces Withdraw???? Council on Foreign Relations, 6/25/07
Chatham House, ???Accepting Realities in Iraq,??? May 2007
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq's Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evolving Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07
- ???Iraq's Troubled Future: The Uncertain Way Ahead,??? , Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/13/07
- ???Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 3/28/07
- ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,?????? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
International Crisis Group, ???After Baker-Hamilton: What To Do In Iraq,??? 12/19/06
Kagan, Frederick, ???A Plan for Success in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 12/14/06
- ???Insult to Injury in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 10/25/06
- ???No Third Way in Iraq,??? American Enterprise Institute, 11/6/06
- ???We Can Put More Forces in Iraq??? And They Would Make a Difference,??? Ameri can Enterprise Institute, 11/27/06
Kagan, Frederick and Kristol, William, ???Time for a Heavier Footprint,??? American Enterprise Institute, 11/20/06
Katulis, Brian, Korb, Lawrence, and Juul, Peter, ???Strategic Reset,??? Center for American Progress, June 2007
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???Waning Chances for Stability,??? Brookings Institution, 2/28/07
Simon, Steven, ???After the Surge,??? Council On Foreign Relations, February, 2007
Strauss Military Reform Project, ???Analysts, U.S. Officials Express Doubt in Ability to Stabilize Iraq,??? Center For Defense Information, 3/2/07
White, Jeffrey, Exum, Andrew, and Eisenstadt, Michael, ???The Surge in Iraq: An Early Assessment,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 5/7/07
Articles[/b]
Associated Press, ???Details of Bush's New Iraq Strategy,??? 1/10/07
Basevich, Andrew, ???Iraq panel's real agenda: damage control,??? Boston Globe, 11/28/06
Biddle, Stephan, ???Defining Victory and Defeat in Iraq,??? National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, ???Five Flaws in the President's Plan,??? Washington Post, 1/12/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???The elephant gives birth to a mouse,??? Asia Times, 12/8/06
Duffy, Michael, ???What a Surge Really Means,??? Time, 1/15/07
Frayer, Lauren, ???U.S. generals say Iraqis can't hold territory,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/25/07
Froomkin, Dan, ???First Benchmark Missed???? Washington Post, 2/6/07
Galbraith, Peter, ???The Case For Dividing Iraq,??? Time, 11/13/06
- ???The Surge,??? New York Review Of Books, 3/15/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07
Kagan, Frederick and Keane, Jack, ???The Right Type of 'Surge'; Any Troop Increase Must Be Large and Lasting,??? Washington Post, 12/27/06
Kagan, Robert and Kristol, William, ???Bush's Iraq Legacy,??? Weekly Standard, 11/13/06
Karl, Jonathan, ???Troop Surge Already Under Way,??? ABCNEWS.com, 1/11/07
Lobe, Jim, ???Neocons Move to Preempt Baker Report,??? Inter Press Service, 12/6/06
Londono, Ernesto, ???In Baghdad, Rice Acknowledges Frustrations in U.S.,??? Washington Post, 2/18/07
Lugar, Senator Richard, ???Lugar Slams Bush Policy, Iraqi Progress,??? IraqSlogger.com, 6/26/07
Owen, John, ???How Bad Would a Partition Be???? National Interest, Nov/Dec 2006
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Interview Frederick Kagan,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
Rich, Frank, ???They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Sanger, David, ???Report suggests U.S. talk with Iran, Syria,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/27/06
Sanger, David and Cloud, David, ???Iraq panel to advise gradual pullback,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/30/06
Semple, Kirk and Wong, Edward, ???Can They All Get Along in Iraq? The Report Says They Have To,??? New York Times, 12/8/06
Wright, Robin, ???Iraq Study Group far from predictable,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 11/26/06