Here's a post translated from Arabic from an Iraqi web site and map that shows their perceptions of security in Baghdad. According to the poster, the safest areas in Baghdad are those where you have a 50% chance of staying alive! Violence is attributed to both Shiite militias like the Mahdi Army in Bayya, as well as Islamic groups such as in Dora which the poster says is now an autonomous jihadist area.
The situation in different areas of Baghdad in regard to takfiri gangs of the new age: Al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, and their spiritual leaders ??? the forces of liberation.
fall into four different categories: safe, relatively safe, dangerous, and relatively dangerous. They are classified as follows:
- A safe area: where the probability of you staying alive is 50%. - A relatively safe area: where the probability of you staying alive is 40%. - A relatively dangerous area: where the probability of you staying alive is 30%. - A dangerous area: where the probability of you staying alive is 20 to 10%.
Here we go: - The Bayya??? garage, the periphery of Bayya???: No one can ever reach them because the Mahdi Army is randomly abducting people and killing them for what they say is in retaliation for the husseiniya bombing a week ago. - Shu???la: No one can reach it. - Thawra (Sadr City): No one can reach it. - Sha???ab: No one can reach it. - Amil: No one can reach it. - Jami???a and Khadhraa???: No one can reach them because Al-Qaeda fled Amiriya and Yarmouk and took refuge there. - Mishahda north of Baghdad: No one can reach it because of the presence of gangs that collectively burn people alive. - Jadiriya is relatively safe. - Karrada is relatively safe. - Mansour is relatively safe. - Harthiya is safe (because of the presence of Kurdish militias). - Yarmouk is relatively safe. - Amiriya is dangerous. - Adhamiya is relatively dangerous (in some parts of it) but there are constant clashes. - Kadhimiya is safe. - Grai???at is relatively dangerous. - Utaifiya is safe. - Haifa Street is relatively dangerous. - The highway that connects Amiriya with the Baghdad gate is relatively dangerous. - Ghazaliya is relatively dangerous because of clashes. - Iskan is safe. - Alawi is relatively dangerous. - The Suq Al-Arabi area is relatively safe. - Dora is not under the authority of the Republic of Iraq. It is currently an Islamic emirate complete with its own Islamic departments and ministers. Islamic CDs have been distributed to residents to explain the laws of the emirate. - Saidiya is dangerous. - Camp is relatively safe. - Baladiyyat is safe. - Jisr Diyala is dangerous. - Arasat is safe. - Masbah is safe. - Baghdad Al-Jedida is relatively safe. - Jezirat Baghdad is dangerous. - Abu Ghraib is relatively dangerous. - Mashtal is relatively safe. - Qadisiya is safe. - Hurriya is dangerous. - Dola???i is dangerous. - Adil is dangerous. - Zayouna is safe. - Washash is relatively dangerous. - Bab Al-Sharji is relatively dangerous. - Sa???doun Street is relatively dangerous. - Waziriya is relatively safe. - The Mohammed Al-Qassim highway is relatively safe. - Bab Al-Mu???adham is dangerous. - Fadhl is dangerous. - The Baghdad International Airport highway is relatively safe. - Hutteen or Qudhat is relatively safe. - Ma???moun is relatively safe. - The Dora intersection is dangerous. - Abu Nuwas Street is safe. - The Baghdad-Ba???quba road is bloody dangerous. - The Green Zone is safe, and sometimes it is dangerous.
I apologize if I left out any areas of our beloved Baghdad but I???m writing and racing with electricity at the same time.
As to Iraqi governorates: - The north of Iraq is safe, except the Ninewa governorate, which is dangerous. - The northern center governorates are relatively dangerous. - The southern center governorates are relatively dangerous. - The governorates of the south are safe, except for Diwaniya and Basrah, which are relatively dangerous. - The west is relatively safe, except for the western highway , which is dangerous sometimes. - The governorates of the east are all dangerous.
who said this when he was forced to resign in shame from CNN.
I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul, in addition to my time with American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arabian Gulf.
who said this when he was forced to resign in shame from CNN.
I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul, in addition to my time with American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arabian Gulf.
You tried that shit the other day. Whenever anyone critizes the administration you try to make it look like they are critisizing the troops.
Torture and suspension of Geneva Conventions and targeting journalists and discrediting journalists is not the troops doing, it is the administrtions doing.
The July/August 2007 issue of Foreign Policy magazine announced the release of the third study by the Fund For Peace on failed states. The new report ranked Iraq number 2 in failed states in the world, only behind Sudan. One of the goals of U.S. policy since the March 2003 invasion had been to create a stable and independent Iraq. As the Fund For Peace ranking points out, Iraq is far, far away from achieving that goal as the country received lower scores in almost all categories since the last report in 2006.
Fund For Peace Failed States Index[/b]
In mid-June 2007 the Fund For Peace released its third annual Index of Failed States. The group ranked 177 countries from around the world using 12 criteria. Those were the following:
1. The effects population has on a country including high density, food shortages, land disputes, youthful populations, etc.
2. Refugees both external and internal
3. Sectarian and communal violence
4. Educated and middle classes leaving
5. Disparities in wealth
6. Failing economy
7. Corruption, loss of public support for the government, and crime
8. Failing public services
9. Lack of law and order and human rights abuses
10. Militias, insurgencies, death squads
11. Break up of the ruling class
12. Foreign interference
Iraq???s Failed State[/b]
On each indicator a state was given a score of 1-10 with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. Iraq received a total score of 111.4 out of a possible 120. This was up from the score of 109.0 that it received in 2006. Here is a comparison of Iraq???s scores from 2006 to 2007, and an analysis of their causes.
1. The effects of population ??? 2006: 8.9 / 2007: 9.0
Because of the widespread violence over 2 million Iraqis have left their homes. This huge displacement of people has caused widespread shortages in food, health services, etc.
2. Refugees both external and internal ??? 2006: 8.3 / 2007: 9.0
After the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, the United Nations estimated that over 800,000 Iraqis were forced out of their homes. Additionally between 30,000 to 50,000 Iraqis are leaving the country each month. The U.N. predicts that there will be 2.3 million internal and 2 million external refugees by the end of 2007. The U.N. has called this the worst crisis since the Arab-Israeli wars created a permanent class of Palestinian refugees.
Iraq is wracked by both types of violence. The provinces in central Iraq are the most ethnically and religiously diverse and are thus, the center for sectarian killings. A wave of ethnic cleansing hit Baghdad and its surrounding environs after the February 2006 bombing in Samarra. Less well known is communal violence between Shiites in the South for control of the city of Basra and its immense oil wealth. This has led to criminal gangs, Shiite tribes, militias and their allies in the security forces conducting street battles and kidnappings against each other. In the North there is simmering tensions between Kurds who wish to annex the city of Kirkuk and its oil fields over the objections of Arabs and Turkomen who live there. While the current U.S. surge plan has reduced sectarian violence in Baghdad, it has done nothing about the simmering troubles in the North and South, and created Sunni on Sunni violence in Anbar as it tries to turn tribes against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Most of Iraq???s middle class and professions have left the country because of the violence. This has robbed Iraq of those most needed to rebuild a failing state. The young are also reluctant to stay as a study reported by the U.N. found that only 4 out of 30 Iraqi university students wanted to remain in the country. Those professionals that do are under constant threat from kidnappings and murders. For example, over 200 professors have been killed. This only exacerbates the fact that many middle class Iraqis left the country under Saddam???s dictatorship and never returned.
5. Disparities in wealth ??? 2006: 8.7 / 2007: 8.5
The Fund For Peace reports that there are widespread inequalities between Sunni and Shiite areas in Iraq. While many Shiite communities have businesses and marketplaces, Sunni neighborhoods are usually full of closed shops, and destroyed homes and infrastructure. This is exacerbated by the insurgency that usually attacks government services to make the population more dependent upon them. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has also reported that while the official unemployment rate hovers in the teens, in Sunni areas it is as high as 60%. The Shiite and Kurdish dominated government has also refused to provide services and salaries to Sunni areas. The slight decrease in this category might result from the fact that the U.S. military is now providing jobs and services to Sunnis in Anbar as part of their plan to peel off tribes from Al Qaeda in Iraq.
6. Failing economy ??? 2006: 8.2 / 2007: 8.0
Iraq???s economy is one of the few areas that received a lower score in 2007 from the previous one. This is because the country has shown steady economic growth in the last couple years. This is due to the sharp rise in the price of oil, which accounts for over 90% of Iraq???s revenues. These numbers shadow major problems within Iraq???s economy. Most of the money earned form oil is either spent on security or corruption, which siphons off billions of dollars each year. Iraq???s oil production is also consistently below benchmarks set by the United States. Production of electricity fares little better. Farming, which is the other main business in Iraq has also been faltering. Besides the unemployment already mentioned, Iraq suffers from chronic underemployment, which the Defense Department claimed stood at 38.1% in June 2007, but is probably higher. There has also been an explosion of inflation that the Pentagon claims is only now declining that eats at the buying power of the public. Because of corruption, inexperience, and incompetence, the central government is also incapable of spending much of its budget to improve its infrastructure.
7. Corruption, loss of public support for the government, and crime ??? 2006: 8.5 / 2007: 9.4
Iraq has seen a wave of corruption and crime beginning immediately after the March 2003 U.S. invasion. In 2006 the Transparency International group, which monitors corruption internationally, ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Every level of Iraqi government is wracked with corruption, as well as the security forces. The situation was made worse after Iraqi elections as government Ministries were dolled out to various political groups as prizes and filled with unqualified cronies. Government jobs and services are therefore usually given out for sectarian, tribal, or family reasons, rather than need. Baghdad is increasingly becoming irrelevant. The Maliki government has proven to be incapable of passing any meaningful legislation aimed at political reconciliation, and even if some were, there is no evidence that they could be enforced. Iraq???s parliament barley has enough members to vote on legislation anyways. As civil society breaks down, authority is being decentralized to local communities and cities. The U.S. policy in Anbar is increasing this breakdown of central authority as the new Sunni based security forces receive no support from Baghdad, and legitimize militias when Baghdad officially claims they are to be disarmed. Another source of instability are large criminal gangs that took to the streets in the post-invasion looting. They are involved in kidnapping, smuggling, the insurgency, and Shiite militias.
br /> 8. Failing public services ??? 2006: 8.3 / 2007: 8.5
The U.S. invasion disrupted an already fragile social system. Most of the country depends on daily government rations and international relief agencies. The violence has obviously made things worse. The U.N. reports that only 30-40% of children attend school. The country???s health care system has fallen apart with a May 2007 report by Save the Children reporting that 1 in 8 Iraqi children die before their fifth birthday. As already noted, the government provides services mainly based upon their religious, ethnic, and political party affiliation.
9. Lack of law and order and human rights abuses ??? 2006: 9.7 / 2007: 9.7
While the U.S. has worked hard to rebuild Iraq???s judicial system, the police are widely seen as the most corrupt and sectarian part of the country???s security forces. The majority of the police are Shiites, with a large contingent of militiamen. The police are regularly reported to not only carry out sectarian attacks, but also attacks on U.S. forces. There are also continuous reports of the police torturing prisoners, as well as incompetence and corruption amongst the Ministry of Interior. This is largely due to the ill planned rebuilding of the police force, first by the Coalition Provisional Authority and then by the U.S. military that never came up with a well thought out plan, nor the money or personnel to carry it out.
The Sunni insurgency is the most widely reported source of violence in Iraq. The U.S. likes to blame all attacks on Al Qaeda, but the insurgency is actually made up of dozens of different groups that are only loosely affiliated with each other. Recently, some of the homegrown insurgent groups have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq over their tactics. The Shiites and Kurds who hold the majority in the Iraqi government each has its own militia. Many of these have been incorporated into the Iraqi army and police, and are more loyal to their sectarian or political group rather than the central government. Shiite militias and security forces are mostly responsible for death squad activities, that have decreased in Baghdad because of the surge, but have not disappeared.
11. Break up of ruling class ??? 2006: 9.7 / 2007: 9.8
The two elections held in 2005 didn???t bring democracy to Iraq, but rather increased the sectarian and political divisions within the country. Each political party and ethnic and religious group vies for power and influence within the government to provide patronage to their supporters. Different political parties also have different visions of the future of Iraq. Moqtada Sadr is one of the only politicians who calls for a unified state under a strong central government. This is mostly due to the fact that his largest following is in Baghdad, but he is also widely considered the strongest nationalist voice in the country. The Kurds in the north and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, formerly known as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, want a federal plan for Iraq so that they can establish their own fiefdoms in the North and the South. The Fadhila party, a small Shiite party, calls for a smaller autonomous Shiite region based around Basra where they are based. The Sunnis are also divided between cooperating and fighting against the government.
The Fund For Peace gave Iraq a 10 in this category because of the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq. While formal authority has been handed over to Iraqis, the government and security forces could not function without massive U.S. assistance. The Iraqi police and army, for example, usually can???t even get gas from their government for their vehicles, and have to rely on the U.S. military instead. Many analysts believe that Americans will be in Iraq for the next 10 to 15 years trying to rebuild the state. Iran has also been the greatest beneficiary of the U.S. invasion as it removed their greatest rival in Saddam. Iran provides trade, energy, tourism, as well as weapons to Shiite militias, while the ex-Baathist insurgent leaders are mostly based in Syria. Foreign fighters also mostly flow through the latter. Less well reported is the increasing support by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Sunni insurgents.
Sources[/b]
Government Reports[/b]
Committee on Armed Services, ???Stand Up and Be Counted: The Continuing Challenge of Building the Iraqi Security Forces,??? U.S. House of Representatives, 6/26/07
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? June 2007
Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction, ???Moving Beyond the IRRF,??? 4/30/07
United States Government Accountability Office, ???Stabilizing And Rebuilding Iraq,??? 4/23/07
Think Tank and U.N. Reports[/b]
Cordesman, Anthony, ???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
Fund For Peace, ???Failed States Index Scores 2007,??? June 2007 - ???Iraq,??? June 2007
International Crisis Group, ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07 - ???Where Is Iraq Heading? Lessons From Basra,??? 6/25/07
Secretary-General of the United Nations, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United Nations Security Council, 6/5/07
Articles[/b]
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Much of Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine, ???The Failed States Index 2007,??? Foreign Policy, July/August 2007
Palmer, James, ???1 in 8 Iraqis dies before fifth birthday,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/23/07
Pincus, Walter, ???Problems for the Iraqi Oil Industry,??? Washington Post, 7/2/07 - ???Shhh ??? There Is Corruption in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/25/07
Rosen, Nir, ???The Flight From Iraq,??? New York Times, 5/13/07
add another chapter to your book report dick-breath. Don't feel bad, you can still surrender to my big fat American cock and suck it you faggot sonofabitch.
add another chapter to your book report dick-breath. Don't feel bad, you can still surrender to my big fat American cock and suck it you faggot sonofabitch.
add another chapter to your book report dick-breath. Don't feel bad, you can still surrender to my big fat American cock and suck it you faggot sonofabitch.
Its almost funny that you cite: ... the NYT but the fact that you treat these sources as authoritative is more pathetic than funny.
And it's just getting blatantly obvious that your sole purpose in posting in this thread is simply to talk shit becuase you obviously aren't reading:
From 6/26/07
Early Results From The Surge[/b]
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.
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 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.
While the current U.S. surge plan has reduced sectarian violence in Baghdad, it has done nothing about the simmering troubles in the North and South, and created Sunni on Sunni violence in Anbar as it tries to turn tribes against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
5. Disparities in wealth ??? 2006: 8.7 / 2007: 8.5
The slight decrease in this category might result from the fact that the U.S. military is now providing jobs and services to Sunnis in Anbar as part of their plan to peel off tribes from Al Qaeda in Iraq.
The Sunni insurgency is the most widely reported source of violence in Iraq. The U.S. likes to blame all attacks on Al Qaeda, but the insurgency is actually made up of dozens of different groups that are only loosely affiliated with each other. Recently, some of the homegrown insurgent groups have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq over their tactics.
In mid-September the U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are to inform the Congress on how the current surge policy is doing. Less well known is that the administration is to give a mid-term report by July 15 on 18 issues. This coincides with a sea change on Capitol Hill, where leading Republicans are beginning to break with the President. The July report and its aftermath may well determine the future of the surge and Bush???s plans for Iraq.
The July Midterm Report[/b]
When Congress voted on the last war spending bill they included 18 benchmarks the White House had to report on by mid-July 2007. Those were:
1) Creating a Constitutional Review Committee 2) Changing the de-Baathification policy 3) A new oil law 4) Creating semi-autonomous regions 5) Setting up provincial elections 6) An amnesty for insurgents 7) Disarming militias 8) Creating political and economic committees to support the surge 9) Providing 3 Iraqi army brigades for the surge 10) Making Iraqi commanders free of political interference 11) Having Iraqi police enforce the law equally 12) Making sure the surge is applied fairly 13) Lowering sectarian and militia violence 14) Creating new Iraqi-American security bases in Baghdad 15) Creating more independent Iraqi units 16) Ensuring minority rights in parliament 17) Spending $10 billion on reconstruction 18) Not allowing politicians to interfere with the security forces
According to the Associated Press, the White House will claim that Iraq has made progress on more than half of the 18, and that the U.S. has moved forward on other fronts, such as dividing Sunni tribes from Al Qaeda in Iraq, that are not included in the Congressional checklist. More importantly, the administration will argue that Congress and the public needs to wait until the September report before they judge the surge.
In reality, Iraq???s government can only be attributed to meeting four out of the 18 benchmarks. Iraq created civilian committees to go along with the military surge policy, sent 3 army brigades to Iraq, although they were not fully manned, and set up Iraqi-American security bases throughout half the neighborhoods of Baghdad. As a result of the new policy, sectarian and militia violence has gone down in the capitol. More importantly though, Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi parliament have shown no sign of being able to enact any laws that might provide political reconciliation between the country???s disparate groups, which is the goal of the surge.
Faltering Support In Congress . . .[/b]
The July report couldn???t come at a worst time for the administration because support for the war is at an all time low, which is having an impact on Congress. Currently the House and Senate are divided into three camps: Mostly Republican war supporters who will stand by the President at least until the September report, anti-war Democrats who are calling for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, and a small but growing bipartisan group that believes the surge is failing, but want to maintain some kind of U.S. troop presence. These positions are complicated by election year politics. The Democratic leadership feels that they were elected to office to end the war, and therefore plan to put forth anti-war bills each month. Many Republicans are also afraid that Iraq will drag them down in 2008. This, plus the lack of good news from Iraq has led a small number of Republicans to break with Bush recently.
This third group includes Republican Senators Richard Lugar, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith, and Lamar Alexander. Although they haven???t come to an agreed upon solution they share the following ideas: the surge is not working, U.S. troops levels need to be drawn down, a bipartisan policy like the one proposed by the Iraq Survey Group needs to be forged, and U.S. strategy should be focused upon fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq and training Iraqi troops. Senator Alexander and six other Republicans for example, have co-sponsored a bill with Democratic Senator Ken Salazar that calls on the Bush administration to adopt all of the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group while avoiding any set timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
America???s Congress however, seems to be almost as divided as Iraq???s parliament, and there seems to be little chance for compromise. Stalemate on Capitol Hill would be good for the administration because it would mean they could continue on with their policy without interference until another president is elected.
. . . And In The White House[/b]
Congress isn???t the only government body divided in Washington D.C. right now over Iraq. The Bush administration has always been known to be deeply divided and dysfunctional when it comes to foreign policy, and today things are no different. On the one side there is the ideologically driven Vice President Cheney, and on the other there is the pragmatist new Defense Secretary Gates, and the increasingly realist Secretary of State Rice. Cheney would like to stay with the surge until the end of the Bush presidency, seeing any retreat as empowering terrorists and losing face for America, while Gates and Rice are increasingly moving towards a redefined mission for Iraq that allows troops to stay long term into the next administration, but to not have such lofty goals as ending the violence or creating a democratic example for the Middle East. Bush is showing no signs of backing down, but there are more and more reports that when the current troop deployments have to be ended in the beginning of 2008, he could claim a partial victory and say that troop reductions that have to happen anyways, show that he is listening to the American public and their demands for withdrawal from Iraq. Republicans however, are afraid that the clock might be running out, and that Congress may force some kind of de-escalation on their terms, not his.
Conclusion[/b]
The July 2007 report on the surge will only exacerbate the divisions over the Iraq war. By September the president may be left standing with very few politicians supporting him. Some analysts have even said that the surge is dead politically, and this is the first step in its funeral. That would be the fourth failed U.S. policy in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In all likelihood, Congress will remain divided and Bush will be able to ???stay the course??? until a new president comes into office in 2009. That will mean U.S. troops will be left fighting and dieing waiting for another leader to define what exactly they are doing in Iraq.
Sources[/b]
Baker, Peter and DeYoung, Karen, ???Bush Plans To Stress Next Phase In Iraq War,??? Washington Post, 7/10/07
Beehner, Lionel, ???Surge Faltering, Iraq's Future Again at Issue,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 6/27/07
Burns, John, and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Envoy Offers Grim Prediction on Iraq Pullout,??? New York Times, 7/10/07
Davidson, Christina, ???Is President Bush Discussing Withdrawal???? IraqSlogger.com, 7/9/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???Baghdad's "Popular Committees": For Good or Ill?,??? 2/22/07 - ???McCain Slams Iraqi Progress on Benchmarks,??? 7/9/07 - ???Those 18 Iraq Benchmarks: What Do You Think???? 7/9/07
Kristol, William, ???Moment of Truth,??? Weekly Standard, 7/9/07
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Quietly, US strategy in Iraq shifting,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/9/07
Lando, Ben, ???Analysis: Iraq (near) united in opposition,??? UPI, 7/9/07
Murray, Shailagh, and Weisman, Jonathan, ???Democ
rats Seek GOP Support in Votes on Iraq War,??? Washington Post, 7/10/07 - ???On Iraq, No Simple Stands,??? Washington Post, 7/8/07
Mygatt, Matt and Flaherty, Anne, ???Bush loses another GOP senator,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/6/07
Novak, Robert, ??????Scouting??? the Hill on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 7/9/07
Sanger, David, ???In White House, Debate Is Rising on Iraq Pullback,??? New York Times, 7/9/07
Having Trouble In Iraq? Play The Al Qaeda Card[/b]
How can you tell when the White House is feeling the heat over Iraq? When they start playing the Al Qaeda card. As public and political pressure grows on President Bush to change course in Iraq, the administration has increasingly tried to define the conflict in terms of the fight against Al Qaeda. In the last few months, President Bush has claimed that the same enemy that attacked America on September 11 is in Iraq. He has warned that if the U.S. withdraws its troops, Al Qaeda would take over the country, and pose a threat to the entire Middle East and the homeland. There is little evidence to support these claims, and instead shows Bush politicizing the war rather than dealing with what is actually happening there.
???Al Qaeda is coming! Al Qaeda is coming!???[/b]
Like the boy that cried wolf, President Bush is playing up the role of Al Qaeda in Iraq more and more. In speech after speech, he has invoked the memory of 9/11 to justify the war. On 5/2/07 Bush said, ???For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it???s whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11.??? On the Fourth of July in a speech to an Air National Guard unit in West Virginia, the President repeated the claim when he said, ???Many of the spectacular car bombings and killings you see are as a result of al Qaeda ??? the very same folks that attacked us on September 11th. A major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day.??? Eight days later he said almost the same thing in a press conference. ???The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September 11, and that???s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.??? After these types of comments, the President then warns that if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq too soon Al Qaeda could take over the country and not only threaten the Middle East, but America itself. On 7/4/07 he warned, ???If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms ??? they would follow us here, home. If we were to allow them to gain control of Iraq, they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves ??? which they could use to fund new attacks and exhort economic blackmail on those who didn???t kowtow to their wishes.???
Why would the President be making such alarmist remarks over and over? Because he finds himself increasingly isolated over the conduct of the war. The President???s personal popularity ratings are at an all time low, over 70% of the American public is against the war, the Democrats took control of Congress largely because of these sentiments and are pushing for troop withdrawals from Iraq. During this summer, leading Republicans have even begun to call on Bush to change course in the war. Even more surprising, a poll conducted by Army Times found in December 2006, for the first time, that more U.S. soldiers opposed the war 42%, than were for it, 35%, and those who felt that it was winnable dropped from 83% to 50% in the last two years. Bringing up the Al Qaeda threat is a time proven tactic by the White House stemming back to the original build up to the war when the U.S. falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were conspiring together. Al Qaeda is a threat the American public knows, and provides an easier and more politically expedient rationale for the war, rather than trying to explain its complexities. It also scores political points with the Republican base that still supports the war on terror.
How Big Is The Al Qaeda In Iraq Threat?[/b]
Just like the claims the White House made in 2002-2003 before the U.S. invasion, these new comments hold little actual weight. The President has said that Al Qaeda in Iraq is the number one enemy the U.S. faces in the country. In fact, the Associated Press counted 30 insurgent groups fighting against the U.S. While Al Qaeda in Iraq is blamed for many of the most spectacular and gruesome bombings in the country, the U.S. military only pins 15% of the attacks upon them. Al Qaeda in Iraq is also not the same group headed by bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda in Iraq did not even exist in 2001 when New York and Washington D.C. were attacked. Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was always a rival of bin Laden, and ran his own separate Islamist organization that was originally focused upon Jordan. It wasn???t until Zarqawi established himself as a leading terrorist through a series of spectacular bombings that he pledged allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004 and changed his group???s name to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Most importantly, besides the general idea of creating an Islamic state and fighting against the West, there is little in common between Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq. On 7/19/07 Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry told reporters, that Al Qaeda in Iraq, ???Has little influence in Iraq. It???s falling apart. Their presence in Iraq is becoming negligible. ??? Their connections to Osama bin Laden is by name only. They do not take instructions from bin Laden. They are just inspired by him.???
Likewise, Bush???s statements that Al Qaeda in Iraq could take over the country if the U.S. were to withdraw too soon are overblown. Since at least December 2006, the military has been war gaming possible results of a U.S. pull out from Iraq. None of them has brought up an Al Qaeda safe haven as a result. In fact, if the U.S. were to exit, the group would probably be focused upon fighting the Shiites and Kurds who represent 80% of the population, and even some fellow Sunnis as the U.S. has been able to turn tribes against the organization in Anbar province.
Conclusion[/b]
President Bush has rarely presented a realistic picture of the problems the U.S. faces in Iraq. His new propaganda campaign about the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq is more of the same. As the last National Intelligence Estimate and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have pointed out, the U.S. is in the middle of multiple wars in Iraq, and Al Qaeda in Iraq is only part of one of them. Not only that, but by playing the Al Qaeda card and ???staying the course??? in Iraq, Bush is playing into the very hands of the group he wants to defeat. Al Qaeda and bin Laden have claimed that America is at war with Islam. For many Muslims, the invasion of Iraq proves it. Al Qaeda also wanted to draw the U.S. into long, drawn out and bloody conflicts like the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan or Somalia. Again, this is exactly the situation the U.S. now finds itself in its fourth year occupying Iraq. If the President wants to regain any of his dwindling support amongst the public and in Congress, he needs to draw a truer image of just what the U.S. is doing in Iraq and who they are fighting rather than bringing up failed themes of the past. Unfortunately, it appears that Bush will maintain his policies, claim that he is for withdrawal when he has no choice but to bring down troop levels when tours are up in early 2008, and then pass the buck to the next man or woman who occupies the White House. Like the boy that cried wolf, Bush will be remembered by the false claims he made, rather than the real threat that presents itself in Iraq.
SOURCES:[/b]
Government Documents[/b]
Office of the Press Secretary, ???President Bush Celebrates Independence Day With West Virginia Air National Guard,??? White House, 7/4/07 - ???White House ??? Press Conference by the President,??? White House, 7/12/07
Articles:[/b]
Dagher, Sam and Murphy, Dan, ???US draws new Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/19/07
DeYoung, Karen and Ricks, Thomas, ???Exit Strategies,??? Washington Post, 7/17/07
Gordon, Michael and
Rutenberg, Jim, ???Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Hoyt, Clark, ???Seeing Al Qaeda Around Every Corner,??? New York Times, 7/8/07
Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush plays al Qaeda card to bolster support for Iraq policy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/29/07
Milbank, Dana, ???It???s All About Al-Qaeda Again,??? Washington Post, 5/3/07
As usual with the Grey Lady, you have to dig for a while before you get to the truth.
New York Times:
For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.
As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, Mr. Baghdadi issued incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by an Iraqi Interior Ministry official in May that Mr. Baghdadi had been killed, he appeared to have persevered unscathed.
On Wednesday, the chief United States military spokesman here, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, provided a new explanation for Mr. Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: he never existed.
General Bergner told reporters that a senior Iraqi insurgent captured this month said that the elusive Mr. Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose declarations on audiotape were read by a man named Abu Abdullah al-Naima.
General Bergner said the ruse was devised by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Although the group is mostly Iraqi, much of its leadership is foreign, and Mr. Masri was reportedly trying to mask the outsiders' dominant role.[/b]
Petraeus Is Talking; Is Anyone Listening? By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: It's pathetic when a major political party holds a pajama party to publicize its desire to surrender during a war. But it's even worse when such shenanigans drown out a vital message from a real leader.
In the end, it was a cheap PR stunt that came undone when the Senate voted not to cut off debate on a proposal to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days.
Such maneuvers have earned the Democrat-led Congress the American public's contempt. They've rewarded this Congress with a 14% approval rating ??? the lowest ever.
Unfortunately, the noise from Congress' pajama-clad know-nothings drowned out a truly important voice in this debate: that of Gen. David Petraeus. In case you don't know, he's the innovative commander who is spearheading our war effort in Iraq and the "surge" of 28,500 additional troops.
He's worth listening to because this September he will deliver a progress report on Iraq to the American people. That report, required by Congress, will make or break our war effort. And that's why we listened carefully Wednesday as Petraeus spoke about the progress in Iraq on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show.
What he had to say, in measured, nonpartisan tones, both the good and the bad, should be of interest to every American.
After watching a parade of Democratic congressmen pursue their 15 seconds of fame on TV, it was refreshing to hear someone who genuinely knows what he's talking about ??? and wants to win.
Here's just a taste of what Petraeus said:
??? On progress in the war: "(W)e have achieved what we believe is a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground, gains against the principal near-term threat, al-Qaida Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long-term threat: Shia militia extremists."
??? On fighting al-Qaida: "(We have seen) the detention, or the capture or killing of (a) number of leaders that we have taken out in recent months . . . and the progress in terms of just clearing areas of them. . . . So there has been considerable progress against them."
??? On Iran's support for the enemy: "It has remained very substantial. . . . Iran has indeed provided substantial funding, training, equipping, arming, and even direction, in some cases, to what are called the special groups or secret cells affiliated with the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr."
??? On our troops: "Our (military) leaders get it, our soldiers get it, they are these flexible, adaptable, thoughtful, culturally astute, and by and large, leaders and soldiers and Marines, and they are showing that on a daily basis here."
As we said, balanced. But read for yourself. The entire extraordinary interview can be found at hughhewitt.townhall.com. As you'll see, Petraeus is no Pollyanna. He knows things aren't perfect. He wants to get things right.
But it's also clear from his remarks we've made significant progress in recent months in stabilizing major parts of Iraq. The surge seems to be working.
Petraeus is doing an incredible job and deserves America's support. So do the 160,000 troops now in Iraq who risk their lives daily in the war on terror ??? even as some in Congress would pull the rug out from under them, making us all less safe.
From what we've heard from Petraeus ??? and contrary to the parade of pundits and politicians urging us to withdraw ??? it seems we're winning this war.
Saw a great CNN piece on the Sunni militias that we have hired to root out Al-Qaeda in Anbar province. Seems like they are making progress in reducing attacks on American soldiers. Problem is that they are the mortal enemies of the current Iraqi administration (and its Shia militia minions). So in essence we are arming and empowering the forces that ultimately will be fighting an all out civil war with the majority ethnic political/group in Iraq. To further complicate matters, these Sunni militias were fighting and killing Americans just a few months ago. Sounds like a recipe for who's side are you on with our brave servicemen and women caught right in between.
Saw a great CNN piece on the Sunni militias that we have hired to root out Al-Qaeda in Anbar province. Seems like they are making progress in reducing attacks on American soldiers. Problem is that they are the mortal enemies of the current Iraqi administration (and its Shia militia minions). So in essence we are arming and empowering the forces that ultimately will be fighting an all out civil war with the majority ethnic political/group in Iraq. To further complicate matters, these Sunni militias were fighting and killing Americans just a few months ago. Sounds like a recipe for who's side are you on with our brave servicemen and women caught right in between.
please refrain from referring to "our brave servicemen and women" as such until after they are safely dead.
Iraqi Insurgency ??? How Important Is Al Qaeda In Iraq?
On July 16, 2007, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the leading Iraq experts in the U.S., released a short report entitled, ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida.??? The main gist of his paper was that Al Qaeda in Iraq???s role in the insurgency is overblown, and misses the diversity of groups that are fighting against the U.S. and Iraqi government.
Cordesman writes, ???Al Qa???ida is never described as the largest insurgent group in Iraq or as dominat[ing] the total number of attacks. It is described as the group that is most ruthless, that carries out many of [the] most bloody suicide attacks. Al Qa???ida is never described as largely foreign. In fact, other briefings indicate its membership is 90-95% Iraq. The foreign leadership listed has as many ties to the hard-line groups that have spun off the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as Bin Laden per se.??? He suggests that the U.S. constantly focuses upon Al Qaeda in Iraq because of 9/11, and the White House???s attempts to fend off calls for withdrawing.
A study by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, both U.S. government funded radio stations that looked at insurgents??? public statements showed the diversity of those fighting in Iraq. The study found a range of groups fighting in Iraq from those that wanted to found an Islamic state to more nationalist ones. The study found Al Qaeda in Iraq to be largely independent from bin Laden???s organization. ???The group operates with a significant amount of independence from the larger network of al-Qa???ida. It is not clear that al-Qa???ida central leadership exerts control over ISI/Al-Qa???ida.??? The study also found that Al Qaeda in Iraq ranks only third in statements claiming responsibility for attacks, 17% overall, behind the Islamic Army in Iraq???s 26% and Ansar al-Sunnah???s 20%. These findings were supported by briefings in Iraq in July 2007 that said Al Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for only 15% of attacks in the first half of 2007, being eclipsed by Shiite militias over the same period of time.
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/16/07
What Happens When The Defense Industry and Troops Start Turning On Your Policies?
Military Times, which caters to current and former troops as well as defense contractors conducted three polls on Iraq, one in December 2006, another in June 2007, and the last one in July 2007. The polling data went from being skeptical about the war in December, to supporting the surge in June, to large numbers supporting some form of withdrawal from Iraq by July.
The original December 2006 poll was on both Iraq and Afghanistan. The survey was done by mail and consisted entirely of active duty service members, the majority of which were probably officers. 48% of respondents had been deployed to Iraq at least once. The poll found that only a slight plurality supported the invasion of Iraq 47%, compared to 37% against, down from 65% in support in 2003. Likewise the number of respondents who felt that the U.S. could succeed in Iraq also took a drop from 83% in 2004 to 50% in 2007. 41% said that the U.S. was not likely to succeed or had no chance at all. Soldiers also saw the war as a long term conflict with 54% saying that the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq for 5-10+ years. While the president was still popular overall with a 52% approval rating compared to 31% disapproving, more were against his handling of the war 42%, than for 35%. This was the first time troops expressed this opinion since the war began in 2003.
The next poll was released in June 2007, but was actually conducted in March just as the surge policy was taking off. This was an on-line poll and not all of the participants were on active duty. Others were probably retired or defense contractors with subscriptions to the magazine. Out of 500 respondents, 60% said that the surge should be given more time, while 70% of 1,150 said that the new policy would help with the war.
In July, a new online poll was carried out. 5,440 responded to the question, ???When should American troops withdraw from Iraq???? Nearly 60% supported some kind of withdrawal. The differences were over when. More than 40% said that a drawdown should begin immediately. Almost the same amount, 41% agreed with the president that this should only happen after the insurgency is defeated.
The results match the general public mood. Although Bush is still held in higher regard, those related to the defense department are generally skeptical of the Iraq war, after a slight bump upwards when the surge was just underway.
Hodierne, Robert, ???Poll: More troops unhappy with Bush???s course in Iraq,??? Military.com, 1/6/07
Lowe, Christian, ???Military.com Poll: War Support Waning,??? Military.com, 7/18/07
MilitaryTimes.com, ???Military Times Poll,??? 12/29/06
With Friends Like These ??? Saudi Fighters Joining the Iraqi Insurgency
The Los Angeles Times reported that the largest number of foreign fighters to Iraq came from Saudi Arabia. According to a U.S. military source, 45% of all foreigners coming to fight in Iraq came from Arabia, compared to 15% from Syria and Lebanon and 10% from North Africa. These Saudis are believed to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other foreigners as well. The Saudi government has claimed ignorance about the ways Saudis make it to Iraq and claim they are doing all they can, but Iraqi officials do not believe them. The Iraqi government makes a number of claims against the Saudis. Some say that they are sending their young militants to Iraq to forestall the kingdoms own internal problems, that the Sunni Saudis see the Shiite government in Iraq as a tool of their arch rival Iran, or make the accusation that Saudi mosques are openly calling for jihad in Iraq and funding the insurgency. The truth is most likely somewhere in between. Saudi Arabia is very afraid of Iran???s growing influence in the region, and there are groups in the country that are funneling individuals and money to go to fight in Iraq, but the government is also trying to crack down on their travel and is attempting to build a wall along the border between the two countries to stem the chaos from spreading.
Parker, Ned, ???The Conflict In Iraq: Saudi Role In Insurgency,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/15/07
Saw a great CNN piece on the Sunni militias that we have hired to root out Al-Qaeda in Anbar province. Seems like they are making progress in reducing attacks on American soldiers. Problem is that they are the mortal enemies of the current Iraqi administration (and its Shia militia minions). So in essence we are arming and empowering the forces that ultimately will be fighting an all out civil war with the majority ethnic political/group in Iraq. To further complicate matters, these Sunni militias were fighting and killing Americans just a few months ago. Sounds like a recipe for who's side are you on with our brave servicemen and women caught right in between.
Reaching out to the Sunni tribes is a good short term policy, which should have been done right from the get go. When Bremer took over the Coalition Provisional Authority back in 2003 one of the early statements he made was that these tribes were a thing of the past and should be ignored. Many of those tribes later joined the Sunni insurgency.
You pointed out the main dilemma. In the short term, attacks in Anbar have had a dramatic drop. This is a province that not long ago a Marine intelligence officer said was "lost" to the insurgents. The U.S. is trying the same tactic in central Iraq, south of Baghdad, but the situation there is more complicated. In the long term however, it's an open question about what these groups will do. The Shiite government refuses to pay their salaries, doesn't provide services to Sunni areas, and has gone hot and cold on the policy. Many Shiite political groups see this as their time to rule Iraq and don't want to give a thing to the Sunnis, and see this new policy as just creating Sunni militias that are armed and backed by Americans.
If the U.S. were smart about it, they would use it to pressure Maliki by telling him that U.S. support isn't unlimited and that we will work with whoever delivers. It could be the beginning of changing perceptions in the country from us giving unwavering support to a Shiite take over to being more of an honest broker.
Iraq is so completely fractured, incompetent and corrupt right now though who knows if it'll work.
Saw a great CNN piece on the Sunni militias that we have hired to root out Al-Qaeda in Anbar province. Seems like they are making progress in reducing attacks on American soldiers. Problem is that they are the mortal enemies of the current Iraqi administration (and its Shia militia minions). So in essence we are arming and empowering the forces that ultimately will be fighting an all out civil war with the majority ethnic political/group in Iraq. To further complicate matters, these Sunni militias were fighting and killing Americans just a few months ago. Sounds like a recipe for who's side are you on with our brave servicemen and women caught right in between.
please refrain from referring to "our brave servicemen and women" as such until after they are safely dead.
thank you,
the mngmnt.
I will stop posting in these threads just as soon as you enlist in the United States Armed Forces, thus proving once and for all that your support for this war is not some pathetic virtual chickenhawk jerk off. Here's your local recruitment centers.
UNION SQUARE 688 6th avenue 2nd flr new york, NY 10010 212 - 255-8229
NY CITY HALL 157 chambers street new york, NY 10007 212 - 233-5770
After ten years in office, Tony Blair recently stepped down as Prime Minister of England. In the short term, his main legacy will be his role in the Iraq war. According to members of his cabinet, Blair deeply believed that Saddam Hussein was an evil man that needed to be deposed. Just as important though, seemed to be a desire to maintain a close relationship with the U.S. in the hopes that England could influence America???s future policies. While England had a hand in the occupation of Iraq it was always a junior partner, and Blair never gained much influence with Bush over any foreign policy. Here is a brief overview of the role Blair???s government played in the conflict in Iraq.
Early Propaganda Campaigns Against Saddam
In the fall and winter of 1997, when Blair was just beginning his governorship, England launched a covert propaganda campaign against Iraq. English intelligence began collecting information from the U.N. weapons inspectors and leaking the stories to the press to make it appear that Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. sanctions and resolutions.
9/11 And A Pledge On Iraq
Shortly after 9/11 on September 20, 2001 Blair traveled to America and met with Bush at the White House. Blair told Bush to concentrate on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. Bush agreed, but then said Iraq would be next. Bush asked if Blair would stand by him if he wanted to invade Iraq, and Blair said he would.
Was Iraq A Threat?
In March 2002, just as the gears were being put in motion to build support for war with Iraq, Blair???s government was wrestling with whether Iraq was a threat or not. British intelligence put together a report on Iraq???s WMD. At first analysts wanted to say that Iraq was producing WMD, but they didn???t have the evidence to prove it. Blair???s cabinet shared this view. Similarly, a September 2002 British report found that while U.N. sanctions were in place Iraq could not build a nuclear weapon.
According to the secret Downing Street memos, the threat of Iraq hadn???t changed, just perceptions had because of 9/11. Yet, the case against Iraq was ???thin??? because other countries such as Iran, Libya and North Korea had more advanced weapons programs. The problem was how to convince the public that Iraq was a more imminent threat compared to those others. Just arguing for regime change because Saddam was evil was not enough legally for war. The solution, Blair???s cabinet believed, was to convince the U.S. to go to the United Nations to sway public opinion.
Trying To Convince The U.S. To Go To The United Nations
Beginning in March 2002, the U.S. and English governments had a series of high level meetings to discuss going to the United Nations. David Manning, Blair???s foreign policy advisor and U.K. Ambassador Meyer told National Security Advisor Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz on two separate occasions that the U.S. needed a new U.N. resolution to re-introducing U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq. England believed that if Saddam refused, it would justify the war. Blair repeated the message personally to Bush on a trip to Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair thought he had convinced the president to go to the U.N., but after the Texas trip nothing happened for the next fives months. Bush???s foreign policy establishment was so divided that nothing was done about England???s suggestion. It wasn???t until September 2002 that Bush decided to go the U.N. route.
Creating An Iraq-Al Qaeda Link
Like their American counterparts, the Blair government created an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection to help argue for war. In a 3/22/02 cabinet meeting, one of Blair???s advisors said that there was no link between Iraq and bin Laden, but a month later the government was mimicking the Bush administration by warning that Iraq could give WMD to terrorists like Al Qaeda. British military and intelligence officials immediately contradicted these claims by telling the press there was no connection between the two, but the public claims continued. In February 2003 a secret British intelligence report was leaked to the BBC that found no evidence of a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. British intelligence officers, like CIA officers in America, complained that politicians were distorting their work to make the case for war.
Was The U.S. Really Ready For War And Its Aftermath?
A major concern of David Manning, England???s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and head of British intelligence MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove was whether the U.S. had really thought out its war plans for Iraq, especially the postwar situation. After meetings in the U.S. all three were worried that the U.S. was not taking the war seriously. They came away feeling that the Bush administration didn???t have any plans on how to build support for the war, what to do with Iraqi exiles, how many troops to send, and what would happen afterwards. Despite these misgivings, British officials reported in July 2002 that Bush had decided on war, to be started in January 2003, right before Congressional elections. Blair agreed to this plan in July 2002. Blair and Bush kept the decision secret however, telling their publics that no decision had been made. Blair went as far as keeping this from even some members of his cabinet. Secretary for International Development Clare Short for example, was told at least twice that Blair had not made up his mind and that there would be a cabinet meeting to discuss it. After one such reassurance by Blair in September 2002, Short found out that the Prime Minister had asked for 20,000 troops to be deployed to the Gulf. Short would later resign over her objections to the war.
Making The Public Case For War
In September 2002 Blair???s government began putting together the first of two White Papers to make a public case against Iraq. During the writing process however, Blair???s Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell didn???t believe England had any evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat. To strengthen the case then, the first white paper would go through several re-writes to ???sex it up,??? and make a more effective argument. Blair???s Chief of Communications, Alastair Campbell, a public relations expert, was put in charge of the process rather than British intelligence, which was the usual routine.
The first White Paper was finally released on 9/24/02. The 55-page document outlined Iraq???s weapons programs. It said that Iraq was manufacturing WMD and had plans to use them. Iraq also had mobile labs to produce WMD, was working on its nuclear bomb program by attempting to purchase uranium from African and buying aluminum tubes for centrifuges to enrich it. The papers most famous claim however was that Iraq could launch a WMD attack within 45 minutes. The report came from a single, unverified source, via the Iraqi exile group the Iraqi National Accord. Alastair Campbell was warned about it, but decided to use it anyway. The paper tempered this by saying that as long as U.N. sanctions remained, Iraq wouldn???t have the materials to actually make a nuclear weapon. After the war, all of these claims except the last, were proven to be untrue. A review by the House of Commons found that the White Paper was misleading and failed to note that Iraq posed no ???current or imminent threat.???
A second, and even more egregious White Paper was released in February 2003. This one claimed to outline how Iraq was deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors. British intelligence became so fed up with these reports that they leaked to the press that this document was mostly plagiarized. British news later found out that most of it was taken from a U.S. graduate student???s essay.
Misgivings about the case for war were rife throughout Blair???s government. In February 2003 Foreign Secretary Straw met with Secretary of State Powell just before his famous U.N. speech. Bot
h men worried that what they and their leaders were saying was going to blow up in their faces because their charges were based upon speculations and assumptions about Iraq rather than hard facts.
Divisions Within Blair???s Cabinet
The disagreements about the public case for war led to increasing divisions within Blair???s cabinet. In May 2002 some of Blair???s ministers warned against supporting a U.S. led war, especially if a new U.N. resolution was not secured. In September 2002, the Education Secretary Estelle Morris asked what had changed to make war against Iraq. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook was surprised when the first White Paper was released because he hadn???t seen any new intelligence that would make Iraq an immediate threat like the document claimed. Despite these divisions, Blair won a vote of confidence from his Labor Party to use force against Iraq at the end of September. Later Cook, and another minister would resign over their objections to the war.
The United Nations
England and America???s strategy in the United Nations was to come up with a single resolution that would set up strict rules for Iraq to follow with regards to a new wave of U.N. weapons inspectors. Any violation would be seen as justification for war. The actual resolution that was passed, 1441, left the door open for a second one if war was necessary.
When inspections actually started in late 2003, Hans Blix, the chief inspector, complained that England was not sharing its intelligence on Iraq???s WMD programs. In fact, England didn???t really have much to share. They claimed that most of Iraq???s weapons plants that had been destroyed during the Gulf War and by U.N. inspectors in the 90s had been rebuilt. When inspectors repeatedly went to these facilities and found nothing, the British had nothing else to offer.
War Plans
On 1/31/03 Bush and Blair had another meeting where the two agreed to attack Iraq no matter what. The biggest remaining issue was how to start it. The president was afraid that the U.N. wouldn???t find anything, and wondered if the U.S. and England couldn???t provoke an Iraqi attack or find an Iraqi defector who would come forward with some new information about Iraq???s WMD.
British intelligence was not helping the matter when the Joint Intelligence Committee???s chairman John Scarlett briefed the cabinet in February 2003. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook came away with the impression that Iraq was not a strategic threat because it had no WMD that could strike its neighbors, only tactical WMD to be used on the battlefield. When Cook later discussed the briefing with Blair in early March, the Prime Minister told him that Iraq was spending so much time hiding its WMD from U.N. inspectors it couldn???t use them. Cook walked away shocked that Blair was stressing the imminent threat of Iraq, while privately saying none existed while U.N. inspectors were in the country.
At the U.N. Blair was hoping that England could convince the Security Council to adopt a second U.N. resolution that would authorize war. Blair told the public that he was going to give Saddam one more chance to disarm peacefully, despite the fact that he had already agreed to invade Iraq no matter what in his January meeting with Bush. Blair received another vote of confidence in Parliament for his actions, but this time 122 Labor members voted against him.
On 3/14/03 Secretary Cook found out that Blair was traveling to the Azores to meet with Bush to ???seal the deal??? on war with Iraq while Blair was still telling the public that war was not inevitable. At the Azores meeting Bush and Blair said that they didn???t need a second resolution to go to war. Privately, Blair was ???puzzled??? that the world was not supporting them. On the 18th Blair won another vote in Parliament authorizing war, and this time 139 Labor members voted against it. The next day the war began.
No WMD
England had just as shaky a case against Iraq and its weapons programs as the U.S. When no WMD were found after the war Blair continued to claim that they would be. By May, Foreign Secretary Straw was repeating the same line that the U.S. had adopted, that finding WMD was not necessary to justify the invasion. Iraq was in violation of several U.N. resolutions and that was good enough. Even as late as July 2004 Blair was still saying that Iraq had WMD. That same month, a British commission stated the obvious, Iraq had no WMD, there was no cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and England had no good intelligence on Iraq and relied on faulty ones provided by Iraqi exiles. Investigations later looked into England???s pre-war claims about Iraq???s WMD. Like in the U.S., the government was acquitted. A British officer that worked with the U.N. however, told one of the investigations, the Butler Committee, that most British officials believed that Iraq was contained, and the government had exaggerated its clams to convince the public of war.
The End Results
By supporting Bush???s war in Iraq, Blair not only wanted to overthrow a bloody dictator, but also hoped to influence U.S. policy. While Saddam was gone, Blair gained little headway with Bush. The British were given control of southern Iraq. At first, the press reported that because of their experience in Northern Ireland, they were much better prepared for occupying Iraq than their American counterparts. That turned out to be a fleeting moment, as Shiite militias and political parties divided up the major city of the South Basra. British soldiers came under increasing attack as Shiite parties had open gun battles in the streets, while they and gangs stole millions of dollars in oil from the major pipeline there. More importantly, just as Blair???s cabinet ministers had warned, the Americans were not ready for the postwar situation in Iraq, and the chaos that ensued doomed any hope for a quick exit from the country. That led to the ironic situation where just as Bush declared that the U.S. would increase troop levels for his surge, Blair announced that England would be drawing down its troops. They are leaving behind an area wracked by internal divisions between Shiite parties where there is no rule of law, and Sunnis and moderates have either been killed of forced to flee. On other issues, Blair found no influence with Bush. The U.S. made no serious effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and let the situation in Afghanistan fester.
When Blair first came into office he was hailed as a new type of British politician who was going to transform the system. As he steps down, all that people can think about was why he led his country into war on charges that many of his own advisors didn???t believe in.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Isikoff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, Crown, 2006
Prados, John, Hoodwinked, The New Press, 2004
Risen, James, State Of War, Free Press, 2006
Government Documents[/b]
British Government, ???Confidential And Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05 - ???Secret - Strictly Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05 - ???Secret And Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs And Links To Terrorism And How They Compare With Preware Assessments,??? U.S. Senate, 9/8/06
Think Tank Reports[/b]
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 - ???Intelligence, Iraq, and Weapons of Mass Destruction,??? Center for International and Security Studies, 1/26/04
Cortright, David, Millar, Alistair, Gerber, Linda, ???Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq,??? Fourth Freedom Forum, June, 2003
International Crisis Group, ???International Crisis Group,??? 6/25/07
Knights, Michael and Williams, Ed, ???The Calm before the Storm; The British Experience in Southern Iraq,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February, 2007
Mukhopadhyay, Dipali, ???The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities,??? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004
Articles[/b]
BBC News, ???Blair 'delayed US strike on Iraq',??? BBCNews.com - ???Leaked report rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda link,??? BBCNews.com
Brown, Colin and McSmith, Andy, ???Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war,??? Independent U.K., 12/18/06
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David, and Wise, David, ???Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May 2004
Cowell, Alan and Marquis, Christopher, ???British report assails intelligence, clears Blair,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/15/04
Danner, Mark, ???The Secret Way to War,??? New York Review Of Books, 6/9/05
Evans, Dominic, ???Blair aide doubted level of Iraq threat,??? Boston Globe, 8/19/03
al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Basra Splits Between Warring Shias,??? Inter Press Service, 4/20/07
Frankel, Glenn, ???Blair warned of Iraq attack dangers,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/12/03 - ???Top judge absolves Britain's Tony Blair,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/29/04
Gardiner, Beth, ???Britain stands by claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/13/03
Hanley, Charles, ???Inspectors Have Covered CIA's Sites of 'concern' and Reported No Iraqi Violations,??? Associated Press, 1/18/03
Hersh, Seymour, ???Who Lied To Whom?,??? New Yorker, 3/26/03
The Independent U.K., ???Locating Iraq's weapons not vital, says UK,??? 5/14/03 - ???Top officers deny Downing Street claims over Iraq,??? 4/26/02
IraqSlogger.com, ???Bush in Book: "I'll Kiss Your Ass" After Vote,??? 7/9/07
MacAskill, Ewen and Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???How Blair was puzzled by his predicament on the eve of war with Iraq,??? Guardian of London, 10/6/03
Mackay, Neil, ???Why the CIA Thinks Bush is Wrong,??? Sunday Herald ??? Scotland, 10/13/02
Michaels, Marge, ???Q&A with the Top Sleuth,??? Time, 1/12/03
Moran, Michael, ???Bush team united Iraq front unravels,??? MSNBC.com, 7/11/03
Moyers, Bill Journal, ???Buying The War,??? PBS, 4/25/07
Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo,??? Guardian of London, 2/3/06 - ???UK spies reject al-Qaida link,??? Guardian of London, 10/10/02
Pincus, Walter, ???British memo shows pre-invasion doubts,??? Washington Post, 6/12/05
Plesch, Dan and Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Straw, Powell Had Serious Doubts Over Their Iraqi Weapons Claims,??? Guardian of London, 5/31/03
Rangwala, Dr. Glen, ???Claims and evaluations of Iraq's proscribed weapons,??? University of Cambridge, 3/18/03 - ???Focus: Part Two The Evidence,??? Independent U.K., 6/29/03
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Inspections: Can They Work This Time???? Time, 9/22/02
Rice-Oxley, Mark and Murphy, Dan, ???As US surges, British start exiting Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/22/07
Rotella, Sebastian, ???Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/4/02
What Happens When The Defense Industry and Troops Start Turning On Your Policies?
Military Times, which caters to current and former troops as well as defense contractors conducted three polls on Iraq, one in December 2006, another in June 2007, and the last one in July 2007. The polling data went from being skeptical about the war in December, to supporting the surge in June, to large numbers supporting some form of withdrawal from Iraq by July.
The original December 2006 poll was on both Iraq and Afghanistan. The survey was done by mail and consisted entirely of active duty service members, the majority of which were probably officers.
Here's a breakdown of the Dec. 2006 poll done by Military Times of the questions that related to Iraq. Military Times runs a series of magazins such as Army Times, Navy Times, etc. that are aimed at soldiers, veterans, and the defense industry. Of the recent polls they did this was the only one that exclusively dealt with active duty soldiers, and was done through a mailer sent to subscribers of Army Times.
Poll: Iraq, Afghanistan and President Bush Published Dec. 29, 2006
1) Are you on active duty? Yes 100% No 0%
2) Service branch: Army 46% Navy 21% Air Force 23% Marine Corps 9% Coast Guard 1%
3) How many times have you deployed to Iraq? Once 32% Twice 12% Three times 3% More than three times 3% Never/no response 50%
5) In total, I have deployed in support of the war in Afghanistan and/or Iraq for: Less than 2 months 3% 3-6 months 17% 7-12 months 25% 13-18 months 11% 19 or more months 9% Haven't deployed/no response 34%
6) Should the U.S. have gone to war in Iraq? Yes 42% No 37% No opinion/no answer 9% Decline to answer/no answer 11%
7) Regardless of whether you think the U.S. should have gone to war, how likely is the U.S. to succeed? Very likely to succeed 13% Somewhat likely to succeed 37% Not very likely to succeed 31% Not at all likely to succeed 10% No opinion/no answer 8%
8) How soon do you think the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops? Less than a year 2% 1-2 years 20% 3-5 years 36% 5-10 years 22% More than 10 years 12%
9) How long do you think the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq to reach its goals? Less than a year 2% 1-2 years 8% 3-5 years 26% 5-10 years 31% More than 10 years 23% No opinion/no answer 8%
10) Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq? Approve 35% Disapprove 42% No opinion 10% Decline to answer 12%
11) Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president? Approve 52% Disapprove 31% No opinion 6% Decline to answer 10%
12) Do you consider the war in Iraq to be part of the war on terrorism that began Sept. 11, 2001, or do you consider it to be an entirely separate military action? Part of the war on terrorism 47% Separate military action 47% No opinion 5%
13) We currently have 145,000 troops in Iraq and Kuwait. How many troops do you think we should have there? Zero 13% 0-50,000 7% 50,000-144,000 6% 145,000 13% 146,000-200,000 22% 200,000+ 16% No opinion/don't know 23%
Having Trouble In Iraq? Play The Al Qaeda Card[/b]
How can you tell when the White House is feeling the heat over Iraq? When they start playing the Al Qaeda card. As public and political pressure grows on President Bush to change course in Iraq, the administration has increasingly tried to define the conflict in terms of the fight against Al Qaeda. In the last few months, President Bush has claimed that the same enemy that attacked America on September 11 is in Iraq. He has warned that if the U.S. withdraws its troops, Al Qaeda would take over the country, and pose a threat to the entire Middle East and the homeland. There is little evidence to support these claims, and instead shows Bush politicizing the war rather than dealing with what is actually happening there.
Talk about riding a dead horse. Bush just gave a speech today in South Carolina at an Air Force base about how Iraq is part of the war on terror and mentioned bin Laden or Al Qaeda 111 times!
Here's what an Iraqi insurgent leader with connections to Al Qaeda in Iraq told the Washington Post in mid-July:
"The American president insisting on fighting al-Qaeda, or saying that Al Qaeda is the problem in Iraq, is just like someone who is insisting on taking diabetes medicine while he has a cardiac problem. ... Any person in the position of the American president, who has drawn himself a certain path, would be very embarrassed to change that track and confess that he has been wrong."
???Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand. ??? We were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily, ???victory,??? but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.??? Michael O???Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, ???A War We Just Might Win,??? op. ed. New York Times, 7/30/07
???In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current ???surge??? strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate.??? Senator Richard Lugar, address to Congress, 6/25/07
Is the surge working or not? A simple question, yet there are a variety of answers depending on whom you ask. To understand the current policy and whether it is working you need to look at three factors. The first is the type of war the U.S. is engaged in. Second, there needs to be a distinction between tactics and strategy. Following this, the most important indicator is the political environment in Iraq. Based upon these three criteria the U.S. is achieving some tactical victories, but facing strategic defeat.
The Wars In Iraq[/b]
???It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.??? Sun Tzu, Chinese military strategist
The first thing to understand is the nature of the war the U.S. is fighting in Iraq. If you were to believe President Bush, the U.S. is fighting bin Laden. This wasn???t true in 2002 in the lead up to the war, and is no closer to the truth today. In fact, the U.S. is facing multiple wars in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates mentioned four wars in Congressional testimony in February 2002. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the leading Iraq experts in the U.S., believes there are seven. Gates??? pointed out the following conflicts: Shia vs Shia in the south, sectarianism in the center, the Sunni insurgency, and al Qaeda, both located in the west and central parts of Iraq. To those Cordesman adds Sunni vs Sunni in the west, the Kurdish struggle for autonomy, a political struggle over religion, rule of law and human rights, and finally crime and corruption. The insistence by the president to solely focus upon Al Qaeda and the war on terror commits one of the prime mistakes Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu warned of, not knowing your enemy and confusing yourself about the battle at hand. Both he warned were the recipe for disaster.
Strategy versus Tactics[/b]
???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.??? Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military theoretician
The second issue to consider when evaluating the surge is to distinguish between tactics and strategy. Strategy refers to the overall goals that one is trying to achieve, while tactics are the means to achieving them. The surge is simply a military tactic to achieve a political goal. The strategic goals of the United States are to establish a stable Iraqi government, capable of defending itself from internal and external threats, using the tactics of classic counterinsurgency warfare in Baghdad and Anbar province. It is hoped that these tactics will give the Iraqi government breathing room to carry out a series of political accommodations to achieve the strategic goal of a secure society.
Ignore The Fighting, Focus On The Politics[/b]
"It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means" Carl von Clausewitz
As Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz pointed out, to gauge the Iraq war, one must understand the political realm rather than mistaking it for a purely military campaign. Based upon these criteria the surge is failing. The only gains that the U.S. is making are on the military front, with no movement at all towards reconciliation.
On the military front, the U.S. has had great success against Al Qaeda in Iraq and to a lesser degree in reducing sectarian violence. The U.S. has been able to divide many Sunni tribes from the insurgency and turn them against Al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. has also been able to cap sectarian violence in Baghdad and central Iraq somewhat. The numbers are continuously fluctuating however, and there is probably no way the U.S. could ever actually stop it. Iraqi civilian casualties have actually increased over the summer with 1,227 in June, and 1,753 in July. Likewise, the number of bodies found dead on the streets of Baghdad increased from 540 in June to 619 in July. The drop in casualties is largely because Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew his militia from the streets of capitol when the surge began in the hopes that the U.S. would focus upon the Sunnis. These three events are important, but are tactical gains, that have no relation to the strategic goals.
On the strategic political front, there has been absolutely no movement. In its July interim report on the surge, the White House claimed satisfactory progress on 8 benchmarks. Of those, only three dealt with politics: revising the constitution, creating semi-autonomy zones, and protecting minority political rights. In fact, Iraq achieved no success on any of these or other political benchmarks since the surge began in January 2007. A committee was formed to work on the constitution, but missed its deadlines and is still no closer to completing its work. The autonomous zones benchmark refers to the future of Kirkuk, which the Kurds would like to annex over the objections of the resident Arabs and Turkoman. No plans have been put forward to solve this looming crisis. Lastly, the idea that minority rights are protected in Iraq is a joke. Iraq is split along so many violent fault lines that no group can truly feel safe. Even the police and officials that work within the Interior Ministry don???t feel protected. Officers are afraid of assassinations both without and within the building. Like Baghdad, the Ministry has had a wave of ethnic cleansing as most of the Sunnis have been pushed out, while the Shiite parties have divided up the different agencies and forces and even floors of the building that they work in. Interior Ministry officials regularly walk through the halls with armed guards, afraid of attack by a rival group. Iraq???s parliament and Maliki???s cabinet fare no better as Sadr and Sunni blocs have continuously withdrawn their members over political disputes. On other important issues such as an oil law, debaathification, or local elections that could point to political and social stability there is no progress at all, and even the White House???s interim report gave those unsatisfactory progress marks. Not only that, but the Iraqi parliament plans on taking the month of August off for vacation, having not passed a single important piece of legislation since the surge began in January 2007.
Conclusion[/b]
???Based on the lack of political reconciliation at the government level ??? I would be concerned about whether we???d be winning or not.??? Admiral Michael Mullen, nominee to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, 7/31/07
???Becau
se a straightforward military victory in the country of Iraq is probably not achievable ??? [Petraeus] is going to try and come out with the least bad outcome that can be managed in Iraq. And that may not be very optimistic, but there???s not that much going on in Iraq that indicates that we should hope for anything better than that right now.??? Retired Colonel Kalev Sepp, assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare, and former advisor to General George Casey, military commander in Iraq 2004-2007, interview with PBS??? Frontline for ???End Game,??? 6/19/07
While its important that sectarian violence is somewhat down, and it is even more encouraging that Sunnis are turning against Al Qaeda in Iraq, these tactical successes have proven irrelevant to stabilizing Iraq and achieving America???s strategic goals in the country. Iraqi politicians and groups not only see things in zero sum terms, but feel like they are locked in a violent end all battle for control of the country. Given the current situation, there is no reason to expect the Shiites and Kurds to give any concessions to Sunnis who they see as the historical oppressors of the nation and supporters of the insurgency, not to mention coming to terms with their own internal divisions. Rather than focus on the tactics of the surge then, politics is the strategic field where success lies, and on that count, the U.S. is making no headway. That means that what you see now might be the best that the surge can produce in Iraq.
SOURCES[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Government Reports[/b]
Bush, George W., ???President Bush Celebrates Independence Day With West Virginia Air National Guard,??? Office of the Press Secretary, White House, 7/4/07 - ???Press Conference by the President,??? Office of the Press Secretary, White House, 7/12/07
Gates, Secretary of Defense Robert, and Pace, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter, ???DoD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Gen. Pace from Pentagon,??? Department of Defense, 2/2/07
Katzman, Kenneth, ???Iraq: Government Formation and Benchmarks,??? Congressional Research Service, 6/27/07
National Security Council, ???Initial Benchmark Assessment Report,??? White House, 7/12/07
United Nations Reports[/b]
United Nations Secretary General, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United Nations Security Council, 6/5/07
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Surge Faltering, Iraq???s Future Again at Issue,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 6/27/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Benchmarks in Iraq: The True Status,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/12/07 - ???Iraq and Anbar: Surge or Separation???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/29/07 - ???Iraq???s Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evolving Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07 - ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/16/07 - ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
Fund For Peace, ???Failed States Index Scores 2007,??? June 2007
Goldenberg, Ilan, ???Benchmark Report Fact Check,??? National Security Network, 7/12/07
International Crisis Group, ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07
Rahimi, Babak, ???Maliki Government Faces a Governance Crisis,??? Jamestown Foundation, 7/10/07
Articles[/b]
Abramowitz, Michael, ???White House Wants Iraqi Leaders to Reach ???Political Accommodation,?????? Washington Post, 7/22/07
Baker, Peter and DeYoung, Karen, ???Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/8/07
Branigin, William, ???Joint Chiefs Nominee Notes Toll on Military, Need to Plan for Iraq Drawdown,??? Washington Post, 8/1/07
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Burns, John and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies,??? New York Times, 6/11/07
Cave, Damien, ???Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks,??? New York Times, 6/13/07
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Much of Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Cloud, David and Burns, John, ???Bush to Declare Gains in Iraq on Some Fronts,??? New York Times, 7/12/07
Dagher, Sam, ???Iraqi government in deepest crisis,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/27/07 - ???Risky US alliances in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/17/07
Dagher, Sam and Murphy, Dan, ???US draws new Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/19/07
DeYoung, Karen, and Ricks, Thomas, ???Administration Shaving Yardstick for Iraq Gains,??? Washington Post, 7/8/07
Galbraith, Peter, ???Iraq: The Way to Go,??? New York Review of Books, 8/16/07
Gordon, Michael, and Rutbenberg, Jim, ???Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Hennessy-Fiske, Molly, ???Iraq sees drop in civilian deaths,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/07
Hurst, Steven and Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, ???Maliki-Petraeus rapport said to be deteriorating,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/29/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???Lugar Slams Bush Policy, Iraqi Progress,??? 6/26/07 - ???McCain Slams Iraqi Progress on Benchmarks,??? 7/9/07 - ??????Progress Report???: Mixed, at Best,??? 7/12/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07
Kaplan, Fred, ???Interesting, But Doomed,??? Slate.com, 7/25/07
Klein, Joe, ???Operation Last Chance,??? Time 7/9/07
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Bush fights to control Iraq strategy,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/12/07
LaFrenchi, Howard and Dagher, Sam, ??????Anbar model??? under fire,??? Christian Science Monitor, 6/26/07
Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush plays al Qaida card to bolster support for Iraq policy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/29/07
Lando, Ben, ???Analysis: Iraq (near) united in opposition,??? UPI, 7/9/07
Lubold, Gordon, ???US troop fatalities in Iraq drop sharply,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/1/07
O???Hanlon, Michael, ???Measuring Progress in Iraq,??? Wall Street Journal, 7/13/07
O???Hanlon, Michael and Pollack, Kenneth, ???A War We Just Might Win,??? New York Times, 7/30/07
Oppel, Richard, ???Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies,??? New York Times, 7/16/07
Parker, Ned, ???Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/30/07 - ???Iraq???s leader can???t get out of 1st gear,??? Los Angeles Times, 6/6/07 - ???Iraqi parliament fails to pass key legislation,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/31/07
Parker, Ned and Zavis, Alexandra, ???U.S. general says troops must stay ???a few more years,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/1/07
Partlow, Joshua, ???Body Count In Baghdad Up in June,??? Washington Post, 7/5/07 - ???Iraqi Cabinet Approves Draft Oil Legislation,??? Washington Post, 7/4/07 - ???Six Members of Sunni Block Quit Iraq Cabinet in Protest,??? Washington Post, 6/30/07
Partlow, Joshua and Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Deadlocked Sunni, Shiite Factions Block Political Progress, Iraqis Say,??? Washington Post, 7/13/07
Partlow, Joshua and Wright, Robin, ???Top Iraqi Officials Growing Restless,??? Washington Post, 6/21/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Interview Col. William Hix,??? End Game, 6/19/07 - ???Interview Col. Kalev Sepp
(Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
Reid, Robert, ???U.S. diplomat predicts progress,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/28/07
Rich, Frank, ???They???ll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Rubin, Alissa, ???Cleric Switches Tactics to Meet Changes in Iraq,??? New York Times, 7/19/07 - ???Moderates Try to Break Iraq???s Logjam,??? New York Times 7/6/07 - ???Oil Law Stalls in Iraq as Bomb Aims at Sheiks,??? New York Times, 7/23/07
Rutenberg, Jim and Mazzetti, Mark, ???President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11,??? New York Times, 7/25/07
Sanger, David and Shanker, Thom, ???Fending Off a Deadline: Bush Seeks Time on Iraq,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Iraqis Join U.S. in Fight on Al-Qaeda,??? Washington Post, 6/30/07
Youssef, Nancy, ???Old Problems Plague New Security Plan for Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/8/07
I found the article below (from the Guardian) on Gordon Brown's first visit to the US as Prime Minister to be both interesting and somewhat heartening:
________________________________
More bulldog than poodle, Brown has signalled a new special relationship[/b]
The love-ins with Bush are over, and it's not just body language. A deeper strategic shift in tackling terrorism is emerging
Jonathan Freedland Wednesday August 1, 2007 The Guardian
He should go to Washington more often. Gordon Brown may have been dreading his encounter with George Bush, knowing that every appearance Tony Blair made alongside the American president cost him votes by the crateload, but Monday's joint press conference at Camp David actually did Brown a favour. There was Bush, alternating between two of his least appealing personas: either frat-boy, mocking Nick Robinson's baldness, or cowboy, vowing his determination to track down the "cold-blooded killers" who do "evil". By turns he was condescending, telling Brown he had "proved his worthiness as a leader" during June's thwarted terror attacks, and rambling, eventually admitting that he was going on "too long". Next to Bush, Brown had only to read his script to look like a master communicator.
That's not all that went well. Brown wanted his Washington debut to look nothing like the Bush-Blair love-ins of the past, and he succeeded. Out went the groin-squeezingly tight jeans, in came the suits. No more "George", now it was Mr President. No more hugs between Laura and Cherie; this time the wives stayed at home. The backslaps were gone too, replaced by a shake of the hand. Every sign spelled out the same message: strictly business. To the naked eye it may have seemed as if these superficial matters of body language and costume were all that had changed. But a close reading of Brown's words at Camp David, and indeed the content of his entire trip to the US, including his appearance at the United Nations yesterday, suggest otherwise. They indicate a shift not only in the so-called special relationship, but a deeper, strategic rethink in what Brown pointedly does not call "the war on terror".
That much was visible in the wide cracks of daylight the prime minister opened up between himself and the president. Yes, there were multiple avowals of shared purpose and common values. But while the president said the west confronted "an ideology of darkness", Brown declared that "terrorism is not a cause; it is a crime". That immediately denies the terrorist the dignity of an enemy and casts him instead as a mere criminal, to be hunted down chiefly by policework and intelligence. Noticeable too was Brown's desire to be specific: the conflict was not with "terror" - an abstract noun - but "al-Qaida-inspired terrorism".
The differences were even clearer on Iraq. Bush still speaks with righteous zeal for the mission, but Brown offered only the flat statement that Britain had "duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep." It was left to Bush to say that "Gordon Brown understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our countries", but the prime minister said nothing to confirm that statement of his views. Bush still refers to Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terror, but Brown named Afghanistan as the "frontline".
Above all, Brown put the US on notice for an eventual withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, dependent on the word of military commanders on the ground. Since that is the same formulation Bush himself uses, he could hardly object.
It's not quite Hugh Grant sticking it to Billy Bob Thornton in Love Actually, but this is about as far as a British prime minister could reasonably be expected to go in putting an American president at arms length. No, he didn't call Bush a deranged Texan gunslinger but nor did he return a single one of Bush's copious personal compliments. While the president tried to warm the air with talk of the "humorous Scotsman", Brown said their talks had been "full and frank" - icy diplomatese for a row. If breaking the clammy hug Blair and Bush shared was the goal, it certainly worked. A headline in yesterday's Washington Post declared of Brown: "More bulldog than poodle."
The Brown team would love to see that verdict repeated on every British front page, but this is about more than political positioning, fleeing an American president whose embrace has proved so toxic. It conceals a deep shift in what has been the central geopolitical question since September 2001.
Put simply, Brown sees the struggle against radical Islamism entirely differently from Bush, and therefore Blair. While their focus was on rogue regimes that posed a threat to the west, and the use of force to remove them, Brown sees a battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. While the favoured comparison of the Bush-Blair era was the second world war against Hitler and fascism, Brown looks to the cold war with Soviet communism.
That conflict was long and, of course, had a military dimension extending to a nuclear arms race and proxy conflicts across the globe. But no less important, Brown believes, was the defeat of the intellectual case for communism. In an article in Monday's Washington Post, Brown recalled the educational and cultural links and exchanges between the west and those behind the iron curtain that steadily eroded the latter's faith in the Soviet system. This leads to an intriguing possibility, that Brown is advocating a process of systematic cultural engagement with the civil societies of the Arab and Muslim world - involving the "schools, universities, museums, churches, trade unions" whose engagement in the cold war he invokes so warmly.
Perhaps more importantly, Brown wants the west to regain the moral high ground he believes is essential to victory in any ideological struggle. He's long been an advocate on Aids, poverty and debt. But now there's an added urgency. If the west is seen to be acting justly, then it will be that much harder for Osama bin Laden to rail against wicked western imperialism. This is the right context to judge Brown's activity at the UN yesterday. With more passion than he ever showed at Camp David, he called for a "coalition of conscience" to implement the millennium development goals and for the deployment of more than 19,000 blue-helmeted UN troops in Darfur, because he believes in those moves - but also because he reckons they will blunt al-Qaida's rhetorical blade. As he wrote in the Post: "We must expose the contrast between great objectives to tackle global poverty and honour human dignity and the evils of terrorists who would bomb and maim people ... indifferent to the very existence of human life."
This amounts to a new philosophy in the conflict against jihadism. Instead of simply installing new regimes in the Muslim world, it seeks to prove itself the moral superior of violent Islamism. That would have enormous implications, invalidating almost every aspect of the "war on terror" as it has so far been conducted, from Guant??namo to Abu Ghraib to the invasion of Iraq itself. (It might also count against some of Brown's own ideas, such as extending to 56 days the period of detention without charge.)
Artfully, Brown has so far brought Bush with him, winning his backing on Darfur, for example. But he will need other allies, which is why his praise at Camp David was for America rather than the Bush administration, and why he made a point of visiting congressional leaders on Capitol Hill. From now on, the special relationship will be with the US, not the Bush White House. If only because Brown knows that Bush will be gone in 18 months - and he has every intention of staying in office much longer.
Here's an article on just how fucked up the Maliki government is. If the police commanders need to walk around with armed guards in their own building out of fear of attacks, what does that say about our Iraqi partners?
Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq The nerve center of the nation's police is not so much a government agency as an 11-story powder keg of factions. By Ned Parker Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2007
BAGHDAD ??? The colonel pulls his Mercedes into the parking lot of the drab, 11-story concrete building, scanning the scene for suspicious cars.
Before reaching for the door handle, he studies the people loitering nearby in hopes he will be able to recognize anyone still there later in the day. He grips his pistol, the trigger cocked, wary of an ambush.
He has arrived at his office.
This is Iraq's Ministry of Interior ??? the balkanized command center for the nation's police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt.
The very language that Americans use to describe government ??? ministries, departments, agencies ??? belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say.
That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a "federation of oligarchs." Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.
On the second floor is Gen. Mahdi Gharrawi, a former national police commander. Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in east Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture. The interior minister blocked an arrest warrant against the general this year, senior Iraqi officials confirmed.
The third- and fifth-floor administrative departments are the domain of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, a Shiite group.
The sixth, home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khafaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons.
The seventh floor is intelligence, where the Badr Organization and armed Kurdish groups struggle for control.
The ninth floor is shared by the department's inspector general and general counsel, religious Shiites. Their offices have been at the center of efforts to purge the department's remaining Sunni employees. The counsel's predecessor, a Sunni, was killed a year ago.
"They have some bad things on the ninth," says the colonel, a Sunni who, like other ministry officials, spoke on condition of anonymity to guard against retaliation.
The ministry's computer department is on the 10th floor. Two employees were arrested there in February on suspicion of smuggling in explosives, according to police and U.S. military officials. Some Iraqi and U.S. officials say the workers intended to store bombs there. Others say they were plotting to attack the U.S. advisors stationed directly above them on the top floor.
Months after the arrests, it's unclear whether the detainees are Sunni insurgents or followers of Muqtada Sadr, the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric whose portrait stares down from some office walls in a sign of his spreading influence in the ministry.
Partitions divide the building's hallways, and gunmen guard the offices of deputy ministers. Senior police officials march up and down stairs rather than risk an elevator. They walk the halls flanked by bodyguards, wary of armed colleagues.
"What is in their hearts? You do not know who they belong to," a senior officer said.
The factionalization of the ministry began quickly after Saddam Hussein's fall. As with most Iraqi government departments, deputy ministers were appointed to represent each of the country's main political parties. Deputies then distributed jobs among party stalwarts.
The initial winners were the Kurdish Democratic Party and the two Shiite parties, Dawa and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which sponsors the Badr Organization. The Kurdish party is one of two factions that control Iraq's northern provinces.
Sadr's Al Mahdi militia started late in the patronage game but has made significant inroads, particularly among the guard force that surrounds the ministry compound.
Parties representing the Sunni minority, which controlled Iraq in Hussein's day, have been almost entirely purged from the ministry in the last two years. Three of the ministry's longest-serving Sunni generals have been killed in the last year.
Interior Minister Jawad Bolani, a Shiite leader who took office last summer, has attempted to repair the ministry's reputation. He has removed the leaders of eight of nine national police brigades and 17 of 27 police battalions, which have been accused of killings and mass kidnappings. But change has come slowly.
"There is a lot of pressure, there is influence from everywhere, from everyone: political parties, religious groups, the government itself, from familial and tribal influences," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, who supervised the U.S. advisors to the national police until last month.
"It would be very difficult for anybody to operate as a leader in this environment, and the Iraqis do," Pittard said.
No floor has posed more of a challenge than the seventh, which houses the intelligence division. In theory, the intelligence office should be key to tracking and combating the insurgents who bomb Iraq's streets and marketplaces and attack U.S. soldiers. Instead, the division has been hobbled by a power struggle between two of America's nominal allies in Iraq, the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
The fight came to a head earlier this year with a death threat against the Kurdish deputy minister in charge of intelligence, Hussein Ali Kamal. The Kurdish leader, who controls the eastern wing of the floor, was battling for control of the intelligence apparatus with his deputy, a Badr militia commander who dominates the western side.
Several months ago, U.S. advisors warned Kamal that his life was in danger, most probably from the Badr militia, and advised him to stay in the Green Zone, away from the ministry building in east Baghdad. He stayed out of the ministry for several weeks.
The Shiite deputy, Basheer Wandi, better known as Engineer Ahmed, was appointed in the spring of 2005. Around the same time, Shiite militias began aggressive efforts to target and kill Sunnis in Baghdad, often using police cover to detain Sunnis in secret prisons and carry out assassinations.
They made little effort to hide their methods. A U.S. police advisor recalled a visit to the seventh floor in the summer of 2005, a few months after Engineer Ahmed took office.
"When we left Hussein Ali Kamal's office in the eastern wing of the ministry building, we walked down to the other end to see someone else. As we walked down, there was an Iraqi prisoner on the floor, in handcuffs, hands tied behind him, the floor was just soaked in clear fluid, he was still vomiting and gagging. It looked like he had vomited gallons," the advisor recalled.
One of Engineer Ahmed's work sites was a secret prison set up in a bunker in Baghdad's Jadriya neighborhood, U.S. officials said. In November 2005, U.S. troops uncovered the prison, finding 169 detainees, many showing signs of torture.
After the bunker was found, U.S. officials documented Engineer Ahmed's role. "There were case files written
and prepared, presented to Maliki by the Americans that laid out responsibility," said a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Top American officials eventually decided to back off the effort to hold Engineer Ahmed accountable because of the political problems involved, two Western diplomats said.
Engineer Ahmed enjoyed almost untouchable status in the Badr militia for his reputation as a fighter against Hussein.
"Someone like that is a real war hero for the Shiites. It's very hard for Maliki to allow any action to be taken against them. From our side, it becomes how much political capital do we possess in doing something Maliki is going to find very, very difficult to do," the Western diplomat said.
After the threat on Kamal's life, Engineer Ahmed was transferred. But U.S. and other Western officials, some of whom suspect Maliki's government of playing a shell game to protect militant leaders, say he is now working out of Maliki's security bureau. Shiite officials insisted that Engineer Ahmed was innocent.
U.S. military documents viewed by The Times show that Engineer Ahmed has had frequent contact with the prime minister. He even played a role in drawing up the current U.S.-Iraqi security plan for Baghdad.
Kamal, the Kurdish deputy minister, says he believes the ministry has started reining in Shiite militias but knows suspect figures still operate openly in the ministry, including Gen. Gharrawi on the second floor.
Fifty-seven warrants were issued in November after inspectors discovered evidence of torture at the police base Gharrawi controlled, but only two men have been arrested.
Interior Minister Bolani set up a committee to review the case but blocked the arrest warrant against the general after American officials failed to bring forward the accusing witnesses, Kamal said. "Now [Gharrawi] thinks he is an innocent man. We couldn't bring people to face him," Kamal said.
Western officials see Gharrawi's case as an indicator of whether the Iraqi government is willing to hold senior Shiites accountable for criminal behavior by their forces.
"He's senior enough that the question arises, if he went down, then what's the next step? The next step is for other senior generals or indeed ministers to go down as well," the Western diplomat said.
Even the remaining Sunni members of the police force respect Bolani for trying to rein in the ministry. But they know he depends on a web of fragile political alliances and wonder whether any political figure can undo the effects of several years of recruiting hard-line militia members to the ministry.
"Even if they brought the prophet Muhammad or Jesus, they couldn't control them," said a senior ministry official. "They have an agenda. They follow their parties."
President Bush is playing up the role of Al Qaeda in Iraq more and more..."If we were to allow them to gain control of Iraq, they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves ??? which they could use to fund new attacks and exhort economic blackmail on those who didn???t kowtow to their wishes.???
Comments
why dont you work up a few paragraphs on the bombs that have been going off in the UK. You dont want your report to look one sided do you?
^^^^^
does this mean you'll finally shut up?
The situation in different areas of Baghdad in regard to takfiri gangs of the new age: Al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army, and their spiritual leaders ??? the forces of liberation.
fall into four different categories: safe, relatively safe, dangerous, and relatively dangerous. They are classified as follows:
- A safe area: where the probability of you staying alive is 50%.
- A relatively safe area: where the probability of you staying alive is 40%.
- A relatively dangerous area: where the probability of you staying alive is 30%.
- A dangerous area: where the probability of you staying alive is 20 to 10%.
Here we go:
- The Bayya??? garage, the periphery of Bayya???: No one can ever reach them because the Mahdi Army is randomly abducting people and killing them for what they say is in retaliation for the husseiniya bombing a week ago.
- Shu???la: No one can reach it.
- Thawra (Sadr City): No one can reach it.
- Sha???ab: No one can reach it.
- Amil: No one can reach it.
- Jami???a and Khadhraa???: No one can reach them because Al-Qaeda fled Amiriya and Yarmouk and took refuge there.
- Mishahda north of Baghdad: No one can reach it because of the presence of gangs that collectively burn people alive.
- Jadiriya is relatively safe.
- Karrada is relatively safe.
- Mansour is relatively safe.
- Harthiya is safe (because of the presence of Kurdish militias).
- Yarmouk is relatively safe.
- Amiriya is dangerous.
- Adhamiya is relatively dangerous (in some parts of it) but there are constant clashes.
- Kadhimiya is safe.
- Grai???at is relatively dangerous.
- Utaifiya is safe.
- Haifa Street is relatively dangerous.
- The highway that connects Amiriya with the Baghdad gate is relatively dangerous.
- Ghazaliya is relatively dangerous because of clashes.
- Iskan is safe.
- Alawi is relatively dangerous.
- The Suq Al-Arabi area is relatively safe.
- Dora is not under the authority of the Republic of Iraq. It is currently an Islamic emirate complete with its own Islamic departments and ministers. Islamic CDs have been distributed to residents to explain the laws of the emirate.
- Saidiya is dangerous.
- Camp is relatively safe.
- Baladiyyat is safe.
- Jisr Diyala is dangerous.
- Arasat is safe.
- Masbah is safe.
- Baghdad Al-Jedida is relatively safe.
- Jezirat Baghdad is dangerous.
- Abu Ghraib is relatively dangerous.
- Mashtal is relatively safe.
- Qadisiya is safe.
- Hurriya is dangerous.
- Dola???i is dangerous.
- Adil is dangerous.
- Zayouna is safe.
- Washash is relatively dangerous.
- Bab Al-Sharji is relatively dangerous.
- Sa???doun Street is relatively dangerous.
- Waziriya is relatively safe.
- The Mohammed Al-Qassim highway is relatively safe.
- Bab Al-Mu???adham is dangerous.
- Fadhl is dangerous.
- The Baghdad International Airport highway is relatively safe.
- Hutteen or Qudhat is relatively safe.
- Ma???moun is relatively safe.
- The Dora intersection is dangerous.
- Abu Nuwas Street is safe.
- The Baghdad-Ba???quba road is bloody dangerous.
- The Green Zone is safe, and sometimes it is dangerous.
I apologize if I left out any areas of our beloved Baghdad but I???m writing and racing with electricity at the same time.
As to Iraqi governorates:
- The north of Iraq is safe, except the Ninewa governorate, which is dangerous.
- The northern center governorates are relatively dangerous.
- The southern center governorates are relatively dangerous.
- The governorates of the south are safe, except for Diwaniya and Basrah, which are relatively dangerous.
- The west is relatively safe, except for the western highway , which is dangerous sometimes.
- The governorates of the east are all dangerous.
http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/baghdad_danger.gif
comes from this site.
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php
whose CEO is this person
who said this when he was forced to resign in shame from CNN.
I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul, in addition to my time with American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arabian Gulf.
I wouldn't have cited it either.
who said this when he was forced to resign in shame from CNN.
I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul, in addition to my time with American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arabian Gulf.
You tried that shit the other day. Whenever anyone critizes the administration you try to make it look like they are critisizing the troops.
Torture and suspension of Geneva Conventions and targeting journalists and discrediting journalists is not the troops doing, it is the administrtions doing.
The July/August 2007 issue of Foreign Policy magazine announced the release of the third study by the Fund For Peace on failed states. The new report ranked Iraq number 2 in failed states in the world, only behind Sudan. One of the goals of U.S. policy since the March 2003 invasion had been to create a stable and independent Iraq. As the Fund For Peace ranking points out, Iraq is far, far away from achieving that goal as the country received lower scores in almost all categories since the last report in 2006.
Fund For Peace Failed States Index[/b]
In mid-June 2007 the Fund For Peace released its third annual Index of Failed States. The group ranked 177 countries from around the world using 12 criteria. Those were the following:
1. The effects population has on a country including high density, food shortages, land disputes, youthful populations, etc.
2. Refugees both external and internal
3. Sectarian and communal violence
4. Educated and middle classes leaving
5. Disparities in wealth
6. Failing economy
7. Corruption, loss of public support for the government, and crime
8. Failing public services
9. Lack of law and order and human rights abuses
10. Militias, insurgencies, death squads
11. Break up of the ruling class
12. Foreign interference
Iraq???s Failed State[/b]
On each indicator a state was given a score of 1-10 with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. Iraq received a total score of 111.4 out of a possible 120. This was up from the score of 109.0 that it received in 2006. Here is a comparison of Iraq???s scores from 2006 to 2007, and an analysis of their causes.
1. The effects of population ??? 2006: 8.9 / 2007: 9.0
Because of the widespread violence over 2 million Iraqis have left their homes. This huge displacement of people has caused widespread shortages in food, health services, etc.
2. Refugees both external and internal ??? 2006: 8.3 / 2007: 9.0
After the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, the United Nations estimated that over 800,000 Iraqis were forced out of their homes. Additionally between 30,000 to 50,000 Iraqis are leaving the country each month. The U.N. predicts that there will be 2.3 million internal and 2 million external refugees by the end of 2007. The U.N. has called this the worst crisis since the Arab-Israeli wars created a permanent class of Palestinian refugees.
3. Sectarian and communal violence ??? 2006: 9.8 / 2007: 10.0
Iraq is wracked by both types of violence. The provinces in central Iraq are the most ethnically and religiously diverse and are thus, the center for sectarian killings. A wave of ethnic cleansing hit Baghdad and its surrounding environs after the February 2006 bombing in Samarra. Less well known is communal violence between Shiites in the South for control of the city of Basra and its immense oil wealth. This has led to criminal gangs, Shiite tribes, militias and their allies in the security forces conducting street battles and kidnappings against each other. In the North there is simmering tensions between Kurds who wish to annex the city of Kirkuk and its oil fields over the objections of Arabs and Turkomen who live there. While the current U.S. surge plan has reduced sectarian violence in Baghdad, it has done nothing about the simmering troubles in the North and South, and created Sunni on Sunni violence in Anbar as it tries to turn tribes against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
4. Educated and middle classes leaving ??? 2006: 9.1 / 2007: 9.5
Most of Iraq???s middle class and professions have left the country because of the violence. This has robbed Iraq of those most needed to rebuild a failing state. The young are also reluctant to stay as a study reported by the U.N. found that only 4 out of 30 Iraqi university students wanted to remain in the country. Those professionals that do are under constant threat from kidnappings and murders. For example, over 200 professors have been killed. This only exacerbates the fact that many middle class Iraqis left the country under Saddam???s dictatorship and never returned.
5. Disparities in wealth ??? 2006: 8.7 / 2007: 8.5
The Fund For Peace reports that there are widespread inequalities between Sunni and Shiite areas in Iraq. While many Shiite communities have businesses and marketplaces, Sunni neighborhoods are usually full of closed shops, and destroyed homes and infrastructure. This is exacerbated by the insurgency that usually attacks government services to make the population more dependent upon them. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has also reported that while the official unemployment rate hovers in the teens, in Sunni areas it is as high as 60%. The Shiite and Kurdish dominated government has also refused to provide services and salaries to Sunni areas. The slight decrease in this category might result from the fact that the U.S. military is now providing jobs and services to Sunnis in Anbar as part of their plan to peel off tribes from Al Qaeda in Iraq.
6. Failing economy ??? 2006: 8.2 / 2007: 8.0
Iraq???s economy is one of the few areas that received a lower score in 2007 from the previous one. This is because the country has shown steady economic growth in the last couple years. This is due to the sharp rise in the price of oil, which accounts for over 90% of Iraq???s revenues. These numbers shadow major problems within Iraq???s economy. Most of the money earned form oil is either spent on security or corruption, which siphons off billions of dollars each year. Iraq???s oil production is also consistently below benchmarks set by the United States. Production of electricity fares little better. Farming, which is the other main business in Iraq has also been faltering. Besides the unemployment already mentioned, Iraq suffers from chronic underemployment, which the Defense Department claimed stood at 38.1% in June 2007, but is probably higher. There has also been an explosion of inflation that the Pentagon claims is only now declining that eats at the buying power of the public. Because of corruption, inexperience, and incompetence, the central government is also incapable of spending much of its budget to improve its infrastructure.
7. Corruption, loss of public support for the government, and crime ??? 2006: 8.5 / 2007: 9.4
Iraq has seen a wave of corruption and crime beginning immediately after the March 2003 U.S. invasion. In 2006 the Transparency International group, which monitors corruption internationally, ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Every level of Iraqi government is wracked with corruption, as well as the security forces. The situation was made worse after Iraqi elections as government Ministries were dolled out to various political groups as prizes and filled with unqualified cronies. Government jobs and services are therefore usually given out for sectarian, tribal, or family reasons, rather than need. Baghdad is increasingly becoming irrelevant. The Maliki government has proven to be incapable of passing any meaningful legislation aimed at political reconciliation, and even if some were, there is no evidence that they could be enforced. Iraq???s parliament barley has enough members to vote on legislation anyways. As civil society breaks down, authority is being decentralized to local communities and cities. The U.S. policy in Anbar is increasing this breakdown of central authority as the new Sunni based security forces receive no support from Baghdad, and legitimize militias when Baghdad officially claims they are to be disarmed. Another source of instability are large criminal gangs that took to the streets in the post-invasion looting. They are involved in kidnapping, smuggling, the insurgency, and Shiite militias. br />
8. Failing public services ??? 2006: 8.3 / 2007: 8.5
The U.S. invasion disrupted an already fragile social system. Most of the country depends on daily government rations and international relief agencies. The violence has obviously made things worse. The U.N. reports that only 30-40% of children attend school. The country???s health care system has fallen apart with a May 2007 report by Save the Children reporting that 1 in 8 Iraqi children die before their fifth birthday. As already noted, the government provides services mainly based upon their religious, ethnic, and political party affiliation.
9. Lack of law and order and human rights abuses ??? 2006: 9.7 / 2007: 9.7
While the U.S. has worked hard to rebuild Iraq???s judicial system, the police are widely seen as the most corrupt and sectarian part of the country???s security forces. The majority of the police are Shiites, with a large contingent of militiamen. The police are regularly reported to not only carry out sectarian attacks, but also attacks on U.S. forces. There are also continuous reports of the police torturing prisoners, as well as incompetence and corruption amongst the Ministry of Interior. This is largely due to the ill planned rebuilding of the police force, first by the Coalition Provisional Authority and then by the U.S. military that never came up with a well thought out plan, nor the money or personnel to carry it out.
10. Militias, insurgencies, death squads ??? 2006: 9.8 / 2007: 10.0
The Sunni insurgency is the most widely reported source of violence in Iraq. The U.S. likes to blame all attacks on Al Qaeda, but the insurgency is actually made up of dozens of different groups that are only loosely affiliated with each other. Recently, some of the homegrown insurgent groups have turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq over their tactics. The Shiites and Kurds who hold the majority in the Iraqi government each has its own militia. Many of these have been incorporated into the Iraqi army and police, and are more loyal to their sectarian or political group rather than the central government. Shiite militias and security forces are mostly responsible for death squad activities, that have decreased in Baghdad because of the surge, but have not disappeared.
11. Break up of ruling class ??? 2006: 9.7 / 2007: 9.8
The two elections held in 2005 didn???t bring democracy to Iraq, but rather increased the sectarian and political divisions within the country. Each political party and ethnic and religious group vies for power and influence within the government to provide patronage to their supporters. Different political parties also have different visions of the future of Iraq. Moqtada Sadr is one of the only politicians who calls for a unified state under a strong central government. This is mostly due to the fact that his largest following is in Baghdad, but he is also widely considered the strongest nationalist voice in the country. The Kurds in the north and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, formerly known as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, want a federal plan for Iraq so that they can establish their own fiefdoms in the North and the South. The Fadhila party, a small Shiite party, calls for a smaller autonomous Shiite region based around Basra where they are based. The Sunnis are also divided between cooperating and fighting against the government.
12. Foreign interference ??? 2006: 10.0 / 2007: 10.0
The Fund For Peace gave Iraq a 10 in this category because of the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq. While formal authority has been handed over to Iraqis, the government and security forces could not function without massive U.S. assistance. The Iraqi police and army, for example, usually can???t even get gas from their government for their vehicles, and have to rely on the U.S. military instead. Many analysts believe that Americans will be in Iraq for the next 10 to 15 years trying to rebuild the state. Iran has also been the greatest beneficiary of the U.S. invasion as it removed their greatest rival in Saddam. Iran provides trade, energy, tourism, as well as weapons to Shiite militias, while the ex-Baathist insurgent leaders are mostly based in Syria. Foreign fighters also mostly flow through the latter. Less well reported is the increasing support by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Sunni insurgents.
Sources[/b]
Government Reports[/b]
Committee on Armed Services, ???Stand Up and Be Counted: The Continuing Challenge of Building the Iraqi Security Forces,??? U.S. House of Representatives, 6/26/07
Department of Defense, ???Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,??? June 2007
Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction, ???Moving Beyond the IRRF,??? 4/30/07
United States Government Accountability Office, ???Stabilizing And Rebuilding Iraq,??? 4/23/07
Think Tank and U.N. Reports[/b]
Cordesman, Anthony, ???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
Fund For Peace, ???Failed States Index Scores 2007,??? June 2007
- ???Iraq,??? June 2007
International Crisis Group, ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07
- ???Where Is Iraq Heading? Lessons From Basra,??? 6/25/07
Secretary-General of the United Nations, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United Nations Security Council, 6/5/07
Articles[/b]
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Much of Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine, ???The Failed States Index 2007,??? Foreign Policy, July/August 2007
Palmer, James, ???1 in 8 Iraqis dies before fifth birthday,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 5/23/07
Pincus, Walter, ???Problems for the Iraqi Oil Industry,??? Washington Post, 7/2/07
- ???Shhh ??? There Is Corruption in Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/25/07
Rosen, Nir, ???The Flight From Iraq,??? New York Times, 5/13/07
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/...xprod=permalink
http://michaelyon-online.com/wp/baqubah-update-05-july-2007.htm
Love
Peter.
Sabbadabbadoo--
why do you care?
love,
Eric
I mean, really, is there any rung lower down on the ladder of human endeavors?
Lawyer?
Zing!
Sabadabitch another:
And it's just getting blatantly obvious that your sole purpose in posting in this thread is simply to talk shit becuase you obviously aren't reading:
From 6/26/07
From 7/5/07
In mid-September the U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are to inform the Congress on how the current surge policy is doing. Less well known is that the administration is to give a mid-term report by July 15 on 18 issues. This coincides with a sea change on Capitol Hill, where leading Republicans are beginning to break with the President. The July report and its aftermath may well determine the future of the surge and Bush???s plans for Iraq.
The July Midterm Report[/b]
When Congress voted on the last war spending bill they included 18 benchmarks the White House had to report on by mid-July 2007. Those were:
1) Creating a Constitutional Review Committee
2) Changing the de-Baathification policy
3) A new oil law
4) Creating semi-autonomous regions
5) Setting up provincial elections
6) An amnesty for insurgents
7) Disarming militias
8) Creating political and economic committees to support the surge
9) Providing 3 Iraqi army brigades for the surge
10) Making Iraqi commanders free of political interference
11) Having Iraqi police enforce the law equally
12) Making sure the surge is applied fairly
13) Lowering sectarian and militia violence
14) Creating new Iraqi-American security bases in Baghdad
15) Creating more independent Iraqi units
16) Ensuring minority rights in parliament
17) Spending $10 billion on reconstruction
18) Not allowing politicians to interfere with the security forces
According to the Associated Press, the White House will claim that Iraq has made progress on more than half of the 18, and that the U.S. has moved forward on other fronts, such as dividing Sunni tribes from Al Qaeda in Iraq, that are not included in the Congressional checklist. More importantly, the administration will argue that Congress and the public needs to wait until the September report before they judge the surge.
In reality, Iraq???s government can only be attributed to meeting four out of the 18 benchmarks. Iraq created civilian committees to go along with the military surge policy, sent 3 army brigades to Iraq, although they were not fully manned, and set up Iraqi-American security bases throughout half the neighborhoods of Baghdad. As a result of the new policy, sectarian and militia violence has gone down in the capitol. More importantly though, Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi parliament have shown no sign of being able to enact any laws that might provide political reconciliation between the country???s disparate groups, which is the goal of the surge.
Faltering Support In Congress . . .[/b]
The July report couldn???t come at a worst time for the administration because support for the war is at an all time low, which is having an impact on Congress. Currently the House and Senate are divided into three camps: Mostly Republican war supporters who will stand by the President at least until the September report, anti-war Democrats who are calling for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces, and a small but growing bipartisan group that believes the surge is failing, but want to maintain some kind of U.S. troop presence. These positions are complicated by election year politics. The Democratic leadership feels that they were elected to office to end the war, and therefore plan to put forth anti-war bills each month. Many Republicans are also afraid that Iraq will drag them down in 2008. This, plus the lack of good news from Iraq has led a small number of Republicans to break with Bush recently.
This third group includes Republican Senators Richard Lugar, Pete Domenici, George Voinovich, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith, and Lamar Alexander. Although they haven???t come to an agreed upon solution they share the following ideas: the surge is not working, U.S. troops levels need to be drawn down, a bipartisan policy like the one proposed by the Iraq Survey Group needs to be forged, and U.S. strategy should be focused upon fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq and training Iraqi troops. Senator Alexander and six other Republicans for example, have co-sponsored a bill with Democratic Senator Ken Salazar that calls on the Bush administration to adopt all of the recommendation of the Iraq Study Group while avoiding any set timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
America???s Congress however, seems to be almost as divided as Iraq???s parliament, and there seems to be little chance for compromise. Stalemate on Capitol Hill would be good for the administration because it would mean they could continue on with their policy without interference until another president is elected.
. . . And In The White House[/b]
Congress isn???t the only government body divided in Washington D.C. right now over Iraq. The Bush administration has always been known to be deeply divided and dysfunctional when it comes to foreign policy, and today things are no different. On the one side there is the ideologically driven Vice President Cheney, and on the other there is the pragmatist new Defense Secretary Gates, and the increasingly realist Secretary of State Rice. Cheney would like to stay with the surge until the end of the Bush presidency, seeing any retreat as empowering terrorists and losing face for America, while Gates and Rice are increasingly moving towards a redefined mission for Iraq that allows troops to stay long term into the next administration, but to not have such lofty goals as ending the violence or creating a democratic example for the Middle East. Bush is showing no signs of backing down, but there are more and more reports that when the current troop deployments have to be ended in the beginning of 2008, he could claim a partial victory and say that troop reductions that have to happen anyways, show that he is listening to the American public and their demands for withdrawal from Iraq. Republicans however, are afraid that the clock might be running out, and that Congress may force some kind of de-escalation on their terms, not his.
Conclusion[/b]
The July 2007 report on the surge will only exacerbate the divisions over the Iraq war. By September the president may be left standing with very few politicians supporting him. Some analysts have even said that the surge is dead politically, and this is the first step in its funeral. That would be the fourth failed U.S. policy in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In all likelihood, Congress will remain divided and Bush will be able to ???stay the course??? until a new president comes into office in 2009. That will mean U.S. troops will be left fighting and dieing waiting for another leader to define what exactly they are doing in Iraq.
Sources[/b]
Baker, Peter and DeYoung, Karen, ???Bush Plans To Stress Next Phase In Iraq War,??? Washington Post, 7/10/07
Beehner, Lionel, ???Surge Faltering, Iraq's Future Again at Issue,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 6/27/07
Burns, John, and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Envoy Offers Grim Prediction on Iraq Pullout,??? New York Times, 7/10/07
Davidson, Christina, ???Is President Bush Discussing Withdrawal???? IraqSlogger.com, 7/9/07
Espo, David, ???Bush says no Iraq shift; criticism rises,??? Associated Press, 7/10/07
Flaherty, Anne, ???Iraq report points to limited progress,??? Associated Press, 7/10/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???Baghdad's "Popular Committees": For Good or Ill?,??? 2/22/07
- ???McCain Slams Iraqi Progress on Benchmarks,??? 7/9/07
- ???Those 18 Iraq Benchmarks: What Do You Think???? 7/9/07
Kristol, William, ???Moment of Truth,??? Weekly Standard, 7/9/07
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Quietly, US strategy in Iraq shifting,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/9/07
Lando, Ben, ???Analysis: Iraq (near) united in opposition,??? UPI, 7/9/07
Murray, Shailagh, and Weisman, Jonathan, ???Democ rats Seek GOP Support in Votes on Iraq War,??? Washington Post, 7/10/07
- ???On Iraq, No Simple Stands,??? Washington Post, 7/8/07
Mygatt, Matt and Flaherty, Anne, ???Bush loses another GOP senator,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/6/07
Novak, Robert, ??????Scouting??? the Hill on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 7/9/07
Sanger, David, ???In White House, Debate Is Rising on Iraq Pullback,??? New York Times, 7/9/07
How can you tell when the White House is feeling the heat over Iraq? When they start playing the Al Qaeda card. As public and political pressure grows on President Bush to change course in Iraq, the administration has increasingly tried to define the conflict in terms of the fight against Al Qaeda. In the last few months, President Bush has claimed that the same enemy that attacked America on September 11 is in Iraq. He has warned that if the U.S. withdraws its troops, Al Qaeda would take over the country, and pose a threat to the entire Middle East and the homeland. There is little evidence to support these claims, and instead shows Bush politicizing the war rather than dealing with what is actually happening there.
???Al Qaeda is coming! Al Qaeda is coming!???[/b]
Like the boy that cried wolf, President Bush is playing up the role of Al Qaeda in Iraq more and more. In speech after speech, he has invoked the memory of 9/11 to justify the war. On 5/2/07 Bush said, ???For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it???s whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11.??? On the Fourth of July in a speech to an Air National Guard unit in West Virginia, the President repeated the claim when he said, ???Many of the spectacular car bombings and killings you see are as a result of al Qaeda ??? the very same folks that attacked us on September 11th. A major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day.??? Eight days later he said almost the same thing in a press conference. ???The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September 11, and that???s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.??? After these types of comments, the President then warns that if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq too soon Al Qaeda could take over the country and not only threaten the Middle East, but America itself. On 7/4/07 he warned, ???If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms ??? they would follow us here, home. If we were to allow them to gain control of Iraq, they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves ??? which they could use to fund new attacks and exhort economic blackmail on those who didn???t kowtow to their wishes.???
Why would the President be making such alarmist remarks over and over? Because he finds himself increasingly isolated over the conduct of the war. The President???s personal popularity ratings are at an all time low, over 70% of the American public is against the war, the Democrats took control of Congress largely because of these sentiments and are pushing for troop withdrawals from Iraq. During this summer, leading Republicans have even begun to call on Bush to change course in the war. Even more surprising, a poll conducted by Army Times found in December 2006, for the first time, that more U.S. soldiers opposed the war 42%, than were for it, 35%, and those who felt that it was winnable dropped from 83% to 50% in the last two years. Bringing up the Al Qaeda threat is a time proven tactic by the White House stemming back to the original build up to the war when the U.S. falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein and bin Laden were conspiring together. Al Qaeda is a threat the American public knows, and provides an easier and more politically expedient rationale for the war, rather than trying to explain its complexities. It also scores political points with the Republican base that still supports the war on terror.
How Big Is The Al Qaeda In Iraq Threat?[/b]
Just like the claims the White House made in 2002-2003 before the U.S. invasion, these new comments hold little actual weight. The President has said that Al Qaeda in Iraq is the number one enemy the U.S. faces in the country. In fact, the Associated Press counted 30 insurgent groups fighting against the U.S. While Al Qaeda in Iraq is blamed for many of the most spectacular and gruesome bombings in the country, the U.S. military only pins 15% of the attacks upon them. Al Qaeda in Iraq is also not the same group headed by bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda in Iraq did not even exist in 2001 when New York and Washington D.C. were attacked. Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq, was always a rival of bin Laden, and ran his own separate Islamist organization that was originally focused upon Jordan. It wasn???t until Zarqawi established himself as a leading terrorist through a series of spectacular bombings that he pledged allegiance to bin Laden in October 2004 and changed his group???s name to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Most importantly, besides the general idea of creating an Islamic state and fighting against the West, there is little in common between Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq. On 7/19/07 Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry told reporters, that Al Qaeda in Iraq, ???Has little influence in Iraq. It???s falling apart. Their presence in Iraq is becoming negligible. ??? Their connections to Osama bin Laden is by name only. They do not take instructions from bin Laden. They are just inspired by him.???
Likewise, Bush???s statements that Al Qaeda in Iraq could take over the country if the U.S. were to withdraw too soon are overblown. Since at least December 2006, the military has been war gaming possible results of a U.S. pull out from Iraq. None of them has brought up an Al Qaeda safe haven as a result. In fact, if the U.S. were to exit, the group would probably be focused upon fighting the Shiites and Kurds who represent 80% of the population, and even some fellow Sunnis as the U.S. has been able to turn tribes against the organization in Anbar province.
Conclusion[/b]
President Bush has rarely presented a realistic picture of the problems the U.S. faces in Iraq. His new propaganda campaign about the threat of Al Qaeda in Iraq is more of the same. As the last National Intelligence Estimate and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have pointed out, the U.S. is in the middle of multiple wars in Iraq, and Al Qaeda in Iraq is only part of one of them. Not only that, but by playing the Al Qaeda card and ???staying the course??? in Iraq, Bush is playing into the very hands of the group he wants to defeat. Al Qaeda and bin Laden have claimed that America is at war with Islam. For many Muslims, the invasion of Iraq proves it. Al Qaeda also wanted to draw the U.S. into long, drawn out and bloody conflicts like the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan or Somalia. Again, this is exactly the situation the U.S. now finds itself in its fourth year occupying Iraq. If the President wants to regain any of his dwindling support amongst the public and in Congress, he needs to draw a truer image of just what the U.S. is doing in Iraq and who they are fighting rather than bringing up failed themes of the past. Unfortunately, it appears that Bush will maintain his policies, claim that he is for withdrawal when he has no choice but to bring down troop levels when tours are up in early 2008, and then pass the buck to the next man or woman who occupies the White House. Like the boy that cried wolf, Bush will be remembered by the false claims he made, rather than the real threat that presents itself in Iraq.
SOURCES:[/b]
Government Documents[/b]
Office of the Press Secretary, ???President Bush Celebrates Independence Day With West Virginia Air National Guard,??? White House, 7/4/07
- ???White House ??? Press Conference by the President,??? White House, 7/12/07
Articles:[/b]
Dagher, Sam and Murphy, Dan, ???US draws new Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/19/07
DeYoung, Karen and Ricks, Thomas, ???Exit Strategies,??? Washington Post, 7/17/07
Gordon, Michael and Rutenberg, Jim, ???Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Hoyt, Clark, ???Seeing Al Qaeda Around Every Corner,??? New York Times, 7/8/07
Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush plays al Qaeda card to bolster support for Iraq policy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/29/07
Milbank, Dana, ???It???s All About Al-Qaeda Again,??? Washington Post, 5/3/07
Thompson, Mark, ???Broken Down,??? Time, 4/16/07
New York Times:
For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.
As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, Mr. Baghdadi issued incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by an Iraqi Interior Ministry official in May that Mr. Baghdadi had been killed, he appeared to have persevered unscathed.
On Wednesday, the chief United States military spokesman here, Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, provided a new explanation for Mr. Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: he never existed.
General Bergner told reporters that a senior Iraqi insurgent captured this month said that the elusive Mr. Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose declarations on audiotape were read by a man named Abu Abdullah al-Naima.
General Bergner said the ruse was devised by Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Although the group is mostly Iraqi, much of its leadership is foreign, and Mr. Masri was reportedly trying to mask the outsiders' dominant role.[/b]
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Leadership: It's pathetic when a major political party holds a pajama party to publicize its desire to surrender during a war. But it's even worse when such shenanigans drown out a vital message from a real leader.
In the end, it was a cheap PR stunt that came undone when the Senate voted not to cut off debate on a proposal to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days.
Such maneuvers have earned the Democrat-led Congress the American public's contempt. They've rewarded this Congress with a 14% approval rating ??? the lowest ever.
Unfortunately, the noise from Congress' pajama-clad know-nothings drowned out a truly important voice in this debate: that of Gen. David Petraeus. In case you don't know, he's the innovative commander who is spearheading our war effort in Iraq and the "surge" of 28,500 additional troops.
He's worth listening to because this September he will deliver a progress report on Iraq to the American people. That report, required by Congress, will make or break our war effort. And that's why we listened carefully Wednesday as Petraeus spoke about the progress in Iraq on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show.
What he had to say, in measured, nonpartisan tones, both the good and the bad, should be of interest to every American.
After watching a parade of Democratic congressmen pursue their 15 seconds of fame on TV, it was refreshing to hear someone who genuinely knows what he's talking about ??? and wants to win.
Here's just a taste of what Petraeus said:
??? On progress in the war: "(W)e have achieved what we believe is a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground, gains against the principal near-term threat, al-Qaida Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long-term threat: Shia militia extremists."
??? On fighting al-Qaida: "(We have seen) the detention, or the capture or killing of (a) number of leaders that we have taken out in recent months . . . and the progress in terms of just clearing areas of them. . . . So there has been considerable progress against them."
??? On Iran's support for the enemy: "It has remained very substantial. . . . Iran has indeed provided substantial funding, training, equipping, arming, and even direction, in some cases, to what are called the special groups or secret cells affiliated with the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr."
??? On our troops: "Our (military) leaders get it, our soldiers get it, they are these flexible, adaptable, thoughtful, culturally astute, and by and large, leaders and soldiers and Marines, and they are showing that on a daily basis here."
As we said, balanced. But read for yourself. The entire extraordinary interview can be found at hughhewitt.townhall.com. As you'll see, Petraeus is no Pollyanna. He knows things aren't perfect. He wants to get things right.
But it's also clear from his remarks we've made significant progress in recent months in stabilizing major parts of Iraq. The surge seems to be working.
Petraeus is doing an incredible job and deserves America's support. So do the 160,000 troops now in Iraq who risk their lives daily in the war on terror ??? even as some in Congress would pull the rug out from under them, making us all less safe.
From what we've heard from Petraeus ??? and contrary to the parade of pundits and politicians urging us to withdraw ??? it seems we're winning this war.
Maybe it's time the word got out.
please refrain from referring to "our brave servicemen and women" as such until after they are safely dead.
thank you,
the mngmnt.
a failed state and a failed policy
"car bomb kills 80 ,150 injured"
"58 dead bodies found this morning in and around baghdad most showing signs of torture"
"5 iraqi policeman shot and killed by gunmen wearing iraqi army uniforms"
etc etc
same shit different day
"i duddits"
if it were happening in a western country people would be outraged and it would have ended a long time ago like bosnia or sarajevo
Iraqi Insurgency ??? How Important Is Al Qaeda In Iraq?
On July 16, 2007, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the leading Iraq experts in the U.S., released a short report entitled, ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida.??? The main gist of his paper was that Al Qaeda in Iraq???s role in the insurgency is overblown, and misses the diversity of groups that are fighting against the U.S. and Iraqi government.
Cordesman writes, ???Al Qa???ida is never described as the largest insurgent group in Iraq or as dominat[ing] the total number of attacks. It is described as the group that is most ruthless, that carries out many of [the] most bloody suicide attacks. Al Qa???ida is never described as largely foreign. In fact, other briefings indicate its membership is 90-95% Iraq. The foreign leadership listed has as many ties to the hard-line groups that have spun off the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as Bin Laden per se.??? He suggests that the U.S. constantly focuses upon Al Qaeda in Iraq because of 9/11, and the White House???s attempts to fend off calls for withdrawing.
A study by Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, both U.S. government funded radio stations that looked at insurgents??? public statements showed the diversity of those fighting in Iraq. The study found a range of groups fighting in Iraq from those that wanted to found an Islamic state to more nationalist ones. The study found Al Qaeda in Iraq to be largely independent from bin Laden???s organization. ???The group operates with a significant amount of independence from the larger network of al-Qa???ida. It is not clear that al-Qa???ida central leadership exerts control over ISI/Al-Qa???ida.??? The study also found that Al Qaeda in Iraq ranks only third in statements claiming responsibility for attacks, 17% overall, behind the Islamic Army in Iraq???s 26% and Ansar al-Sunnah???s 20%. These findings were supported by briefings in Iraq in July 2007 that said Al Qaeda in Iraq was responsible for only 15% of attacks in the first half of 2007, being eclipsed by Shiite militias over the same period of time.
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/16/07
What Happens When The Defense Industry and Troops Start Turning On Your Policies?
Military Times, which caters to current and former troops as well as defense contractors conducted three polls on Iraq, one in December 2006, another in June 2007, and the last one in July 2007. The polling data went from being skeptical about the war in December, to supporting the surge in June, to large numbers supporting some form of withdrawal from Iraq by July.
The original December 2006 poll was on both Iraq and Afghanistan. The survey was done by mail and consisted entirely of active duty service members, the majority of which were probably officers. 48% of respondents had been deployed to Iraq at least once. The poll found that only a slight plurality supported the invasion of Iraq 47%, compared to 37% against, down from 65% in support in 2003. Likewise the number of respondents who felt that the U.S. could succeed in Iraq also took a drop from 83% in 2004 to 50% in 2007. 41% said that the U.S. was not likely to succeed or had no chance at all. Soldiers also saw the war as a long term conflict with 54% saying that the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq for 5-10+ years. While the president was still popular overall with a 52% approval rating compared to 31% disapproving, more were against his handling of the war 42%, than for 35%. This was the first time troops expressed this opinion since the war began in 2003.
The next poll was released in June 2007, but was actually conducted in March just as the surge policy was taking off. This was an on-line poll and not all of the participants were on active duty. Others were probably retired or defense contractors with subscriptions to the magazine. Out of 500 respondents, 60% said that the surge should be given more time, while 70% of 1,150 said that the new policy would help with the war.
In July, a new online poll was carried out. 5,440 responded to the question, ???When should American troops withdraw from Iraq???? Nearly 60% supported some kind of withdrawal. The differences were over when. More than 40% said that a drawdown should begin immediately. Almost the same amount, 41% agreed with the president that this should only happen after the insurgency is defeated.
The results match the general public mood. Although Bush is still held in higher regard, those related to the defense department are generally skeptical of the Iraq war, after a slight bump upwards when the surge was just underway.
Hodierne, Robert, ???Poll: More troops unhappy with Bush???s course in Iraq,??? Military.com, 1/6/07
Lowe, Christian, ???Military.com Poll: War Support Waning,??? Military.com, 7/18/07
MilitaryTimes.com, ???Military Times Poll,??? 12/29/06
With Friends Like These ??? Saudi Fighters Joining the Iraqi Insurgency
The Los Angeles Times reported that the largest number of foreign fighters to Iraq came from Saudi Arabia. According to a U.S. military source, 45% of all foreigners coming to fight in Iraq came from Arabia, compared to 15% from Syria and Lebanon and 10% from North Africa. These Saudis are believed to have carried out more suicide bombings than any other foreigners as well. The Saudi government has claimed ignorance about the ways Saudis make it to Iraq and claim they are doing all they can, but Iraqi officials do not believe them. The Iraqi government makes a number of claims against the Saudis. Some say that they are sending their young militants to Iraq to forestall the kingdoms own internal problems, that the Sunni Saudis see the Shiite government in Iraq as a tool of their arch rival Iran, or make the accusation that Saudi mosques are openly calling for jihad in Iraq and funding the insurgency. The truth is most likely somewhere in between. Saudi Arabia is very afraid of Iran???s growing influence in the region, and there are groups in the country that are funneling individuals and money to go to fight in Iraq, but the government is also trying to crack down on their travel and is attempting to build a wall along the border between the two countries to stem the chaos from spreading.
Parker, Ned, ???The Conflict In Iraq: Saudi Role In Insurgency,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/15/07
Reaching out to the Sunni tribes is a good short term policy, which should have been done right from the get go. When Bremer took over the Coalition Provisional Authority back in 2003 one of the early statements he made was that these tribes were a thing of the past and should be ignored. Many of those tribes later joined the Sunni insurgency.
You pointed out the main dilemma. In the short term, attacks in Anbar have had a dramatic drop. This is a province that not long ago a Marine intelligence officer said was "lost" to the insurgents. The U.S. is trying the same tactic in central Iraq, south of Baghdad, but the situation there is more complicated. In the long term however, it's an open question about what these groups will do. The Shiite government refuses to pay their salaries, doesn't provide services to Sunni areas, and has gone hot and cold on the policy. Many Shiite political groups see this as their time to rule Iraq and don't want to give a thing to the Sunnis, and see this new policy as just creating Sunni militias that are armed and backed by Americans.
If the U.S. were smart about it, they would use it to pressure Maliki by telling him that U.S. support isn't unlimited and that we will work with whoever delivers. It could be the beginning of changing perceptions in the country from us giving unwavering support to a Shiite take over to being more of an honest broker.
Iraq is so completely fractured, incompetent and corrupt right now though who knows if it'll work.
I will stop posting in these threads just as soon as you enlist in the United States Armed Forces, thus proving once and for all that your support for this war is not some pathetic virtual chickenhawk jerk off. Here's your local recruitment centers.
UNION SQUARE
688 6th avenue
2nd flr
new york, NY 10010
212 - 255-8229
NY CITY HALL
157 chambers street
new york, NY 10007
212 - 233-5770
After ten years in office, Tony Blair recently stepped down as Prime Minister of England. In the short term, his main legacy will be his role in the Iraq war. According to members of his cabinet, Blair deeply believed that Saddam Hussein was an evil man that needed to be deposed. Just as important though, seemed to be a desire to maintain a close relationship with the U.S. in the hopes that England could influence America???s future policies. While England had a hand in the occupation of Iraq it was always a junior partner, and Blair never gained much influence with Bush over any foreign policy. Here is a brief overview of the role Blair???s government played in the conflict in Iraq.
Early Propaganda Campaigns Against Saddam
In the fall and winter of 1997, when Blair was just beginning his governorship, England launched a covert propaganda campaign against Iraq. English intelligence began collecting information from the U.N. weapons inspectors and leaking the stories to the press to make it appear that Iraq was not cooperating with U.N. sanctions and resolutions.
9/11 And A Pledge On Iraq
Shortly after 9/11 on September 20, 2001 Blair traveled to America and met with Bush at the White House. Blair told Bush to concentrate on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. Bush agreed, but then said Iraq would be next. Bush asked if Blair would stand by him if he wanted to invade Iraq, and Blair said he would.
Was Iraq A Threat?
In March 2002, just as the gears were being put in motion to build support for war with Iraq, Blair???s government was wrestling with whether Iraq was a threat or not. British intelligence put together a report on Iraq???s WMD. At first analysts wanted to say that Iraq was producing WMD, but they didn???t have the evidence to prove it. Blair???s cabinet shared this view. Similarly, a September 2002 British report found that while U.N. sanctions were in place Iraq could not build a nuclear weapon.
According to the secret Downing Street memos, the threat of Iraq hadn???t changed, just perceptions had because of 9/11. Yet, the case against Iraq was ???thin??? because other countries such as Iran, Libya and North Korea had more advanced weapons programs. The problem was how to convince the public that Iraq was a more imminent threat compared to those others. Just arguing for regime change because Saddam was evil was not enough legally for war. The solution, Blair???s cabinet believed, was to convince the U.S. to go to the United Nations to sway public opinion.
Trying To Convince The U.S. To Go To The United Nations
Beginning in March 2002, the U.S. and English governments had a series of high level meetings to discuss going to the United Nations. David Manning, Blair???s foreign policy advisor and U.K. Ambassador Meyer told National Security Advisor Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz on two separate occasions that the U.S. needed a new U.N. resolution to re-introducing U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq. England believed that if Saddam refused, it would justify the war. Blair repeated the message personally to Bush on a trip to Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair thought he had convinced the president to go to the U.N., but after the Texas trip nothing happened for the next fives months. Bush???s foreign policy establishment was so divided that nothing was done about England???s suggestion. It wasn???t until September 2002 that Bush decided to go the U.N. route.
Creating An Iraq-Al Qaeda Link
Like their American counterparts, the Blair government created an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection to help argue for war. In a 3/22/02 cabinet meeting, one of Blair???s advisors said that there was no link between Iraq and bin Laden, but a month later the government was mimicking the Bush administration by warning that Iraq could give WMD to terrorists like Al Qaeda. British military and intelligence officials immediately contradicted these claims by telling the press there was no connection between the two, but the public claims continued. In February 2003 a secret British intelligence report was leaked to the BBC that found no evidence of a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. British intelligence officers, like CIA officers in America, complained that politicians were distorting their work to make the case for war.
Was The U.S. Really Ready For War And Its Aftermath?
A major concern of David Manning, England???s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and head of British intelligence MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove was whether the U.S. had really thought out its war plans for Iraq, especially the postwar situation. After meetings in the U.S. all three were worried that the U.S. was not taking the war seriously. They came away feeling that the Bush administration didn???t have any plans on how to build support for the war, what to do with Iraqi exiles, how many troops to send, and what would happen afterwards. Despite these misgivings, British officials reported in July 2002 that Bush had decided on war, to be started in January 2003, right before Congressional elections. Blair agreed to this plan in July 2002. Blair and Bush kept the decision secret however, telling their publics that no decision had been made. Blair went as far as keeping this from even some members of his cabinet. Secretary for International Development Clare Short for example, was told at least twice that Blair had not made up his mind and that there would be a cabinet meeting to discuss it. After one such reassurance by Blair in September 2002, Short found out that the Prime Minister had asked for 20,000 troops to be deployed to the Gulf. Short would later resign over her objections to the war.
Making The Public Case For War
In September 2002 Blair???s government began putting together the first of two White Papers to make a public case against Iraq. During the writing process however, Blair???s Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell didn???t believe England had any evidence that Iraq was an imminent threat. To strengthen the case then, the first white paper would go through several re-writes to ???sex it up,??? and make a more effective argument. Blair???s Chief of Communications, Alastair Campbell, a public relations expert, was put in charge of the process rather than British intelligence, which was the usual routine.
The first White Paper was finally released on 9/24/02. The 55-page document outlined Iraq???s weapons programs. It said that Iraq was manufacturing WMD and had plans to use them. Iraq also had mobile labs to produce WMD, was working on its nuclear bomb program by attempting to purchase uranium from African and buying aluminum tubes for centrifuges to enrich it. The papers most famous claim however was that Iraq could launch a WMD attack within 45 minutes. The report came from a single, unverified source, via the Iraqi exile group the Iraqi National Accord. Alastair Campbell was warned about it, but decided to use it anyway. The paper tempered this by saying that as long as U.N. sanctions remained, Iraq wouldn???t have the materials to actually make a nuclear weapon. After the war, all of these claims except the last, were proven to be untrue. A review by the House of Commons found that the White Paper was misleading and failed to note that Iraq posed no ???current or imminent threat.???
A second, and even more egregious White Paper was released in February 2003. This one claimed to outline how Iraq was deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors. British intelligence became so fed up with these reports that they leaked to the press that this document was mostly plagiarized. British news later found out that most of it was taken from a U.S. graduate student???s essay.
Misgivings about the case for war were rife throughout Blair???s government. In February 2003 Foreign Secretary Straw met with Secretary of State Powell just before his famous U.N. speech. Bot h men worried that what they and their leaders were saying was going to blow up in their faces because their charges were based upon speculations and assumptions about Iraq rather than hard facts.
Divisions Within Blair???s Cabinet
The disagreements about the public case for war led to increasing divisions within Blair???s cabinet. In May 2002 some of Blair???s ministers warned against supporting a U.S. led war, especially if a new U.N. resolution was not secured. In September 2002, the Education Secretary Estelle Morris asked what had changed to make war against Iraq. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook was surprised when the first White Paper was released because he hadn???t seen any new intelligence that would make Iraq an immediate threat like the document claimed. Despite these divisions, Blair won a vote of confidence from his Labor Party to use force against Iraq at the end of September. Later Cook, and another minister would resign over their objections to the war.
The United Nations
England and America???s strategy in the United Nations was to come up with a single resolution that would set up strict rules for Iraq to follow with regards to a new wave of U.N. weapons inspectors. Any violation would be seen as justification for war. The actual resolution that was passed, 1441, left the door open for a second one if war was necessary.
When inspections actually started in late 2003, Hans Blix, the chief inspector, complained that England was not sharing its intelligence on Iraq???s WMD programs. In fact, England didn???t really have much to share. They claimed that most of Iraq???s weapons plants that had been destroyed during the Gulf War and by U.N. inspectors in the 90s had been rebuilt. When inspectors repeatedly went to these facilities and found nothing, the British had nothing else to offer.
War Plans
On 1/31/03 Bush and Blair had another meeting where the two agreed to attack Iraq no matter what. The biggest remaining issue was how to start it. The president was afraid that the U.N. wouldn???t find anything, and wondered if the U.S. and England couldn???t provoke an Iraqi attack or find an Iraqi defector who would come forward with some new information about Iraq???s WMD.
British intelligence was not helping the matter when the Joint Intelligence Committee???s chairman John Scarlett briefed the cabinet in February 2003. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook came away with the impression that Iraq was not a strategic threat because it had no WMD that could strike its neighbors, only tactical WMD to be used on the battlefield. When Cook later discussed the briefing with Blair in early March, the Prime Minister told him that Iraq was spending so much time hiding its WMD from U.N. inspectors it couldn???t use them. Cook walked away shocked that Blair was stressing the imminent threat of Iraq, while privately saying none existed while U.N. inspectors were in the country.
At the U.N. Blair was hoping that England could convince the Security Council to adopt a second U.N. resolution that would authorize war. Blair told the public that he was going to give Saddam one more chance to disarm peacefully, despite the fact that he had already agreed to invade Iraq no matter what in his January meeting with Bush. Blair received another vote of confidence in Parliament for his actions, but this time 122 Labor members voted against him.
On 3/14/03 Secretary Cook found out that Blair was traveling to the Azores to meet with Bush to ???seal the deal??? on war with Iraq while Blair was still telling the public that war was not inevitable. At the Azores meeting Bush and Blair said that they didn???t need a second resolution to go to war. Privately, Blair was ???puzzled??? that the world was not supporting them. On the 18th Blair won another vote in Parliament authorizing war, and this time 139 Labor members voted against it. The next day the war began.
No WMD
England had just as shaky a case against Iraq and its weapons programs as the U.S. When no WMD were found after the war Blair continued to claim that they would be. By May, Foreign Secretary Straw was repeating the same line that the U.S. had adopted, that finding WMD was not necessary to justify the invasion. Iraq was in violation of several U.N. resolutions and that was good enough. Even as late as July 2004 Blair was still saying that Iraq had WMD. That same month, a British commission stated the obvious, Iraq had no WMD, there was no cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and England had no good intelligence on Iraq and relied on faulty ones provided by Iraqi exiles. Investigations later looked into England???s pre-war claims about Iraq???s WMD. Like in the U.S., the government was acquitted. A British officer that worked with the U.N. however, told one of the investigations, the Butler Committee, that most British officials believed that Iraq was contained, and the government had exaggerated its clams to convince the public of war.
The End Results
By supporting Bush???s war in Iraq, Blair not only wanted to overthrow a bloody dictator, but also hoped to influence U.S. policy. While Saddam was gone, Blair gained little headway with Bush. The British were given control of southern Iraq. At first, the press reported that because of their experience in Northern Ireland, they were much better prepared for occupying Iraq than their American counterparts. That turned out to be a fleeting moment, as Shiite militias and political parties divided up the major city of the South Basra. British soldiers came under increasing attack as Shiite parties had open gun battles in the streets, while they and gangs stole millions of dollars in oil from the major pipeline there. More importantly, just as Blair???s cabinet ministers had warned, the Americans were not ready for the postwar situation in Iraq, and the chaos that ensued doomed any hope for a quick exit from the country. That led to the ironic situation where just as Bush declared that the U.S. would increase troop levels for his surge, Blair announced that England would be drawing down its troops. They are leaving behind an area wracked by internal divisions between Shiite parties where there is no rule of law, and Sunnis and moderates have either been killed of forced to flee. On other issues, Blair found no influence with Bush. The U.S. made no serious effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and let the situation in Afghanistan fester.
When Blair first came into office he was hailed as a new type of British politician who was going to transform the system. As he steps down, all that people can think about was why he led his country into war on charges that many of his own advisors didn???t believe in.
Sources[/b]
Books[/b]
Isikoff, Michael and Corn, David, Hubris, Crown, 2006
Prados, John, Hoodwinked, The New Press, 2004
Risen, James, State Of War, Free Press, 2006
Government Documents[/b]
British Government, ???Confidential And Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05
- ???Secret - Strictly Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05
- ???Secret And Personal,??? Downing Street Memo, 6/16/05
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, ???Postwar Findings About Iraq's WMD Programs And Links To Terrorism And How They Compare With Preware Assessments,??? U.S. Senate, 9/8/06
Think Tank Reports[/b]
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
- ???Intelligence, Iraq, and Weapons of Mass Destruction,??? Center for International and Security Studies, 1/26/04
Cortright, David, Millar, Alistair, Gerber, Linda, ???Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq,??? Fourth Freedom Forum, June, 2003
International Crisis Group, ???International Crisis Group,??? 6/25/07
Knights, Michael and Williams, Ed, ???The Calm before the Storm; The British Experience in Southern Iraq,??? Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February, 2007
Mukhopadhyay, Dipali, ???The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities,??? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004
Articles[/b]
BBC News, ???Blair 'delayed US strike on Iraq',??? BBCNews.com
- ???Leaked report rejects Iraqi al-Qaeda link,??? BBCNews.com
Brown, Colin and McSmith, Andy, ???Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war,??? Independent U.K., 12/18/06
Burrough, Bryan, Peretz, Evgenia, Rose, David, and Wise, David, ???Path To War,??? Vanity Fair, May 2004
Cowell, Alan and Marquis, Christopher, ???British report assails intelligence, clears Blair,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/15/04
Danner, Mark, ???The Secret Way to War,??? New York Review Of Books, 6/9/05
Dickinson, Tim, ???West Wing Pipe Dream,??? Mother Jones, 7/28/03
Evans, Dominic, ???Blair aide doubted level of Iraq threat,??? Boston Globe, 8/19/03
al-Fadhily, Ali, ???Basra Splits Between Warring Shias,??? Inter Press Service, 4/20/07
Frankel, Glenn, ???Blair warned of Iraq attack dangers,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/12/03
- ???Top judge absolves Britain's Tony Blair,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 1/29/04
Gardiner, Beth, ???Britain stands by claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/13/03
Hanley, Charles, ???Inspectors Have Covered CIA's Sites of 'concern' and Reported No Iraqi Violations,??? Associated Press, 1/18/03
Hersh, Seymour, ???Who Lied To Whom?,??? New Yorker, 3/26/03
The Independent U.K., ???Locating Iraq's weapons not vital, says UK,??? 5/14/03
- ???Top officers deny Downing Street claims over Iraq,??? 4/26/02
IraqSlogger.com, ???Bush in Book: "I'll Kiss Your Ass" After Vote,??? 7/9/07
MacAskill, Ewen and Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???How Blair was puzzled by his predicament on the eve of war with Iraq,??? Guardian of London, 10/6/03
Mackay, Neil, ???Why the CIA Thinks Bush is Wrong,??? Sunday Herald ??? Scotland, 10/13/02
Michaels, Marge, ???Q&A with the Top Sleuth,??? Time, 1/12/03
Moran, Michael, ???Bush team united Iraq front unravels,??? MSNBC.com, 7/11/03
Moyers, Bill Journal, ???Buying The War,??? PBS, 4/25/07
Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Blair-Bush deal before Iraq war revealed in secret memo,??? Guardian of London, 2/3/06
- ???UK spies reject al-Qaida link,??? Guardian of London, 10/10/02
Pincus, Walter, ???British memo shows pre-invasion doubts,??? Washington Post, 6/12/05
Plesch, Dan and Norton-Taylor, Richard, ???Straw, Powell Had Serious Doubts Over Their Iraqi Weapons Claims,??? Guardian of London, 5/31/03
Rangwala, Dr. Glen, ???Claims and evaluations of Iraq's proscribed weapons,??? University of Cambridge, 3/18/03
- ???Focus: Part Two The Evidence,??? Independent U.K., 6/29/03
Ratnesar, Romesh, ???Inspections: Can They Work This Time???? Time, 9/22/02
Rice-Oxley, Mark and Murphy, Dan, ???As US surges, British start exiting Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 2/22/07
Rotella, Sebastian, ???Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda,??? Los Angeles Times, 11/4/02
Rush, Julian, ???Downing St dossier plagiarized,??? Channel 4 News, England, 2/6/03
San Francisco Chronicle, ???Iraq war rationale questioned anew,??? 5/31/03
Sennott, Charles, ???Iraq's germ weapons set to go, Blair says,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 9/25/02
Van Natta, Don, ???Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says,??? New York Times, 3/27/06
Webb, Al, ???U.K. dossier on Iraq weapons 'unreliable',??? United Press International, 5/29/03
Whitelaw, Kevin and Mazzetti, Mark, ???Why War???? U.S. News & World Report, 10/14/02
Woods, Audrey, ???Rumsfeld comments on Iraq weapons renew British criticism of war,??? Associated Press, 5/28/03
Zand, Bernhard, ???British Leaving Basra to the Mahdi Militia,??? Der Spiegel, 2/23/07
Here's a breakdown of the Dec. 2006 poll done by Military Times of the questions that related to Iraq. Military Times runs a series of magazins such as Army Times, Navy Times, etc. that are aimed at soldiers, veterans, and the defense industry. Of the recent polls they did this was the only one that exclusively dealt with active duty soldiers, and was done through a mailer sent to subscribers of Army Times.
Poll: Iraq, Afghanistan and President Bush
Published Dec. 29, 2006
1) Are you on active duty?
Yes 100%
No 0%
2) Service branch:
Army 46%
Navy 21%
Air Force 23%
Marine Corps 9%
Coast Guard 1%
3) How many times have you deployed to Iraq?
Once 32%
Twice 12%
Three times 3%
More than three times 3%
Never/no response 50%
5) In total, I have deployed in support of the war in Afghanistan and/or Iraq for:
Less than 2 months 3%
3-6 months 17%
7-12 months 25%
13-18 months 11%
19 or more months 9%
Haven't deployed/no response 34%
6) Should the U.S. have gone to war in Iraq?
Yes 42%
No 37%
No opinion/no answer 9%
Decline to answer/no answer 11%
7) Regardless of whether you think the U.S. should have gone to war, how likely is the U.S. to succeed?
Very likely to succeed 13%
Somewhat likely to succeed 37%
Not very likely to succeed 31%
Not at all likely to succeed 10%
No opinion/no answer 8%
8) How soon do you think the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops?
Less than a year 2%
1-2 years 20%
3-5 years 36%
5-10 years 22%
More than 10 years 12%
9) How long do you think the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq to reach its goals?
Less than a year 2%
1-2 years 8%
3-5 years 26%
5-10 years 31%
More than 10 years 23%
No opinion/no answer 8%
10) Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?
Approve 35%
Disapprove 42%
No opinion 10%
Decline to answer 12%
11) Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?
Approve 52%
Disapprove 31%
No opinion 6%
Decline to answer 10%
12) Do you consider the war in Iraq to be part of the war on terrorism that began Sept. 11, 2001, or do you consider it to be an entirely separate military action?
Part of the war on terrorism 47%
Separate military action 47%
No opinion 5%
13) We currently have 145,000 troops in Iraq and Kuwait. How many troops do you think we should have there?
Zero 13%
0-50,000 7%
50,000-144,000 6%
145,000 13%
146,000-200,000 22%
200,000+ 16%
No opinion/don't know 23%
Talk about riding a dead horse. Bush just gave a speech today in South Carolina at an Air Force base about how Iraq is part of the war on terror and mentioned bin Laden or Al Qaeda 111 times!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070724-3.html
Here's what an Iraqi insurgent leader with connections to Al Qaeda in Iraq told the Washington Post in mid-July:
"The American president insisting on fighting al-Qaeda, or saying that Al Qaeda is the problem in Iraq, is just like someone who is insisting on taking diabetes medicine while he has a cardiac problem. ... Any person in the position of the American president, who has drawn himself a certain path, would be very embarrassed to change that track and confess that he has been wrong."
???Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand. ??? We were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily, ???victory,??? but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.??? Michael O???Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, ???A War We Just Might Win,??? op. ed. New York Times, 7/30/07
???In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond. Our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world. The prospects that the current ???surge??? strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate.??? Senator Richard Lugar, address to Congress, 6/25/07
Is the surge working or not? A simple question, yet there are a variety of answers depending on whom you ask. To understand the current policy and whether it is working you need to look at three factors. The first is the type of war the U.S. is engaged in. Second, there needs to be a distinction between tactics and strategy. Following this, the most important indicator is the political environment in Iraq. Based upon these three criteria the U.S. is achieving some tactical victories, but facing strategic defeat.
The Wars In Iraq[/b]
???It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.??? Sun Tzu, Chinese military strategist
The first thing to understand is the nature of the war the U.S. is fighting in Iraq. If you were to believe President Bush, the U.S. is fighting bin Laden. This wasn???t true in 2002 in the lead up to the war, and is no closer to the truth today. In fact, the U.S. is facing multiple wars in Iraq. Secretary of Defense Gates mentioned four wars in Congressional testimony in February 2002. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the leading Iraq experts in the U.S., believes there are seven. Gates??? pointed out the following conflicts: Shia vs Shia in the south, sectarianism in the center, the Sunni insurgency, and al Qaeda, both located in the west and central parts of Iraq. To those Cordesman adds Sunni vs Sunni in the west, the Kurdish struggle for autonomy, a political struggle over religion, rule of law and human rights, and finally crime and corruption. The insistence by the president to solely focus upon Al Qaeda and the war on terror commits one of the prime mistakes Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu warned of, not knowing your enemy and confusing yourself about the battle at hand. Both he warned were the recipe for disaster.
Strategy versus Tactics[/b]
???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.??? Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military theoretician
The second issue to consider when evaluating the surge is to distinguish between tactics and strategy. Strategy refers to the overall goals that one is trying to achieve, while tactics are the means to achieving them. The surge is simply a military tactic to achieve a political goal. The strategic goals of the United States are to establish a stable Iraqi government, capable of defending itself from internal and external threats, using the tactics of classic counterinsurgency warfare in Baghdad and Anbar province. It is hoped that these tactics will give the Iraqi government breathing room to carry out a series of political accommodations to achieve the strategic goal of a secure society.
Ignore The Fighting, Focus On The Politics[/b]
"It is clear that war is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means" Carl von Clausewitz
As Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz pointed out, to gauge the Iraq war, one must understand the political realm rather than mistaking it for a purely military campaign. Based upon these criteria the surge is failing. The only gains that the U.S. is making are on the military front, with no movement at all towards reconciliation.
On the military front, the U.S. has had great success against Al Qaeda in Iraq and to a lesser degree in reducing sectarian violence. The U.S. has been able to divide many Sunni tribes from the insurgency and turn them against Al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. has also been able to cap sectarian violence in Baghdad and central Iraq somewhat. The numbers are continuously fluctuating however, and there is probably no way the U.S. could ever actually stop it. Iraqi civilian casualties have actually increased over the summer with 1,227 in June, and 1,753 in July. Likewise, the number of bodies found dead on the streets of Baghdad increased from 540 in June to 619 in July. The drop in casualties is largely because Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew his militia from the streets of capitol when the surge began in the hopes that the U.S. would focus upon the Sunnis. These three events are important, but are tactical gains, that have no relation to the strategic goals.
On the strategic political front, there has been absolutely no movement. In its July interim report on the surge, the White House claimed satisfactory progress on 8 benchmarks. Of those, only three dealt with politics: revising the constitution, creating semi-autonomy zones, and protecting minority political rights. In fact, Iraq achieved no success on any of these or other political benchmarks since the surge began in January 2007. A committee was formed to work on the constitution, but missed its deadlines and is still no closer to completing its work. The autonomous zones benchmark refers to the future of Kirkuk, which the Kurds would like to annex over the objections of the resident Arabs and Turkoman. No plans have been put forward to solve this looming crisis. Lastly, the idea that minority rights are protected in Iraq is a joke. Iraq is split along so many violent fault lines that no group can truly feel safe. Even the police and officials that work within the Interior Ministry don???t feel protected. Officers are afraid of assassinations both without and within the building. Like Baghdad, the Ministry has had a wave of ethnic cleansing as most of the Sunnis have been pushed out, while the Shiite parties have divided up the different agencies and forces and even floors of the building that they work in. Interior Ministry officials regularly walk through the halls with armed guards, afraid of attack by a rival group. Iraq???s parliament and Maliki???s cabinet fare no better as Sadr and Sunni blocs have continuously withdrawn their members over political disputes. On other important issues such as an oil law, debaathification, or local elections that could point to political and social stability there is no progress at all, and even the White House???s interim report gave those unsatisfactory progress marks. Not only that, but the Iraqi parliament plans on taking the month of August off for vacation, having not passed a single important piece of legislation since the surge began in January 2007.
Conclusion[/b]
???Based on the lack of political reconciliation at the government level ??? I would be concerned about whether we???d be winning or not.??? Admiral Michael Mullen, nominee to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, 7/31/07
???Becau se a straightforward military victory in the country of Iraq is probably not achievable ??? [Petraeus] is going to try and come out with the least bad outcome that can be managed in Iraq. And that may not be very optimistic, but there???s not that much going on in Iraq that indicates that we should hope for anything better than that right now.??? Retired Colonel Kalev Sepp, assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare, and former advisor to General George Casey, military commander in Iraq 2004-2007, interview with PBS??? Frontline for ???End Game,??? 6/19/07
While its important that sectarian violence is somewhat down, and it is even more encouraging that Sunnis are turning against Al Qaeda in Iraq, these tactical successes have proven irrelevant to stabilizing Iraq and achieving America???s strategic goals in the country. Iraqi politicians and groups not only see things in zero sum terms, but feel like they are locked in a violent end all battle for control of the country. Given the current situation, there is no reason to expect the Shiites and Kurds to give any concessions to Sunnis who they see as the historical oppressors of the nation and supporters of the insurgency, not to mention coming to terms with their own internal divisions. Rather than focus on the tactics of the surge then, politics is the strategic field where success lies, and on that count, the U.S. is making no headway. That means that what you see now might be the best that the surge can produce in Iraq.
SOURCES[/b]
Books[/b]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco; The American Military Adventure In Iraq (Penguin: New York 2006)
Government Reports[/b]
Bush, George W., ???President Bush Celebrates Independence Day With West Virginia Air National Guard,??? Office of the Press Secretary, White House, 7/4/07
- ???Press Conference by the President,??? Office of the Press Secretary, White House, 7/12/07
Gates, Secretary of Defense Robert, and Pace, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter, ???DoD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Gen. Pace from Pentagon,??? Department of Defense, 2/2/07
Katzman, Kenneth, ???Iraq: Government Formation and Benchmarks,??? Congressional Research Service, 6/27/07
National Security Council, ???Initial Benchmark Assessment Report,??? White House, 7/12/07
United Nations Reports[/b]
United Nations Secretary General, ???Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 30 of resolution 1546 (2004),??? United Nations Security Council, 6/5/07
Think Tank Reports[/b]
Beehner, Lionel, ???Surge Faltering, Iraq???s Future Again at Issue,??? Council On Foreign Relations, 6/27/07
Cordesman, Anthony, ???Benchmarks in Iraq: The True Status,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/12/07
- ???Iraq and Anbar: Surge or Separation???? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/29/07
- ???Iraq???s Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and Its Evolving Insurgency,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4/2/07
- ???Iraq???s Sunni Insurgents: Looking Beyond Al Qa???ida,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 7/16/07
- ???Still Losing? The June 2007 Edition of ???Measuring Stability in Iraq,??? Center for Strategic and International Studies, 6/20/07
Fund For Peace, ???Failed States Index Scores 2007,??? June 2007
Goldenberg, Ilan, ???Benchmark Report Fact Check,??? National Security Network, 7/12/07
International Crisis Group, ???Iraq And The Kurds: Resolving The Kirkuk Crisis,??? 4/19/07
Rahimi, Babak, ???Maliki Government Faces a Governance Crisis,??? Jamestown Foundation, 7/10/07
Articles[/b]
Abramowitz, Michael, ???White House Wants Iraqi Leaders to Reach ???Political Accommodation,?????? Washington Post, 7/22/07
Baker, Peter and DeYoung, Karen, ???Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq,??? Washington Post, 6/8/07
Branigin, William, ???Joint Chiefs Nominee Notes Toll on Military, Need to Plan for Iraq Drawdown,??? Washington Post, 8/1/07
Broder, David, ???Failure on Two Fronts,??? Washington Post, 6/17/07
Burns, John and Rubin, Alissa, ???U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies,??? New York Times, 6/11/07
Cave, Damien, ???Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks,??? New York Times, 6/13/07
Cloud, David, ???Violence Rising in Much of Iraq, Pentagon Says,??? New York Times, 6/14/07
Cloud, David and Burns, John, ???Bush to Declare Gains in Iraq on Some Fronts,??? New York Times, 7/12/07
Dagher, Sam, ???Iraqi government in deepest crisis,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/27/07
- ???Risky US alliances in Iraq,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/17/07
Dagher, Sam and Murphy, Dan, ???US draws new Iraq-Al Qaeda link,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/19/07
DeYoung, Karen, and Ricks, Thomas, ???Administration Shaving Yardstick for Iraq Gains,??? Washington Post, 7/8/07
Galbraith, Peter, ???Iraq: The Way to Go,??? New York Review of Books, 8/16/07
Gordon, Michael, and Rutbenberg, Jim, ???Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Hennessy-Fiske, Molly, ???Iraq sees drop in civilian deaths,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/2/07
Hurst, Steven and Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, ???Maliki-Petraeus rapport said to be deteriorating,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 7/29/07
IraqSlogger.com, ???Lugar Slams Bush Policy, Iraqi Progress,??? 6/26/07
- ???McCain Slams Iraqi Progress on Benchmarks,??? 7/9/07
- ??????Progress Report???: Mixed, at Best,??? 7/12/07
Kagan, Frederick, ???The New Old Thing,??? Weekly Standard, 6/11/07
Kaplan, Fred, ???Interesting, But Doomed,??? Slate.com, 7/25/07
Klein, Joe, ???Operation Last Chance,??? Time 7/9/07
LaFrenchi, Howard, ???Bush fights to control Iraq strategy,??? Christian Science Monitor, 7/12/07
LaFrenchi, Howard and Dagher, Sam, ??????Anbar model??? under fire,??? Christian Science Monitor, 6/26/07
Landay, Jonathan, ???Bush plays al Qaida card to bolster support for Iraq policy,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/29/07
Lando, Ben, ???Analysis: Iraq (near) united in opposition,??? UPI, 7/9/07
Lubold, Gordon, ???US troop fatalities in Iraq drop sharply,??? Christian Science Monitor, 8/1/07
O???Hanlon, Michael, ???Measuring Progress in Iraq,??? Wall Street Journal, 7/13/07
O???Hanlon, Michael and Pollack, Kenneth, ???A War We Just Might Win,??? New York Times, 7/30/07
Oppel, Richard, ???Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies,??? New York Times, 7/16/07
Parker, Ned, ???Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/30/07
- ???Iraq???s leader can???t get out of 1st gear,??? Los Angeles Times, 6/6/07
- ???Iraqi parliament fails to pass key legislation,??? Los Angeles Times, 7/31/07
Parker, Ned and Zavis, Alexandra, ???U.S. general says troops must stay ???a few more years,?????? San Francisco Chronicle, 8/1/07
Partlow, Joshua, ???Body Count In Baghdad Up in June,??? Washington Post, 7/5/07
- ???Iraqi Cabinet Approves Draft Oil Legislation,??? Washington Post, 7/4/07
- ???Six Members of Sunni Block Quit Iraq Cabinet in Protest,??? Washington Post, 6/30/07
Partlow, Joshua and Raghavan, Sudarsan, ???Deadlocked Sunni, Shiite Factions Block Political Progress, Iraqis Say,??? Washington Post, 7/13/07
Partlow, Joshua and Wright, Robin, ???Top Iraqi Officials Growing Restless,??? Washington Post, 6/21/07
Pascual, Carlos and Pollack, Kenneth, ???The Critical Battles: Political Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Iraq,??? Washington Quarterly, Summer 2007
PBS Frontline, ???Interview Col. William Hix,??? End Game, 6/19/07
- ???Interview Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.),??? End Game, 6/19/07
Reid, Robert, ???U.S. diplomat predicts progress,??? San Francisco Chronicle, 6/28/07
Rich, Frank, ???They???ll Break the Bad News on 9/11,??? New York Times, 6/24/07
Rubin, Alissa, ???Cleric Switches Tactics to Meet Changes in Iraq,??? New York Times, 7/19/07
- ???Moderates Try to Break Iraq???s Logjam,??? New York Times 7/6/07
- ???Oil Law Stalls in Iraq as Bomb Aims at Sheiks,??? New York Times, 7/23/07
Rutenberg, Jim and Mazzetti, Mark, ???President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11,??? New York Times, 7/25/07
Sanger, David and Shanker, Thom, ???Fending Off a Deadline: Bush Seeks Time on Iraq,??? New York Times, 7/13/07
Tyson, Ann Scott, ???Iraqis Join U.S. in Fight on Al-Qaeda,??? Washington Post, 6/30/07
Youssef, Nancy, ???Old Problems Plague New Security Plan for Iraq,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/8/07
Youssef, Nancy and Fadel, Leila, ???Critics: Arming Sunni militias undercuts Iraqi government,??? McClatchy Newspapers, 6/17/07
________________________________
More bulldog than poodle, Brown has signalled a new special relationship[/b]
The love-ins with Bush are over, and it's not just body language. A deeper strategic shift in tackling terrorism is emerging
Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday August 1, 2007
The Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gordonbrown/comment/0,,2138976,00.html
He should go to Washington more often. Gordon Brown may have been dreading his encounter with George Bush, knowing that every appearance Tony Blair made alongside the American president cost him votes by the crateload, but Monday's joint press conference at Camp David actually did Brown a favour. There was Bush, alternating between two of his least appealing personas: either frat-boy, mocking Nick Robinson's baldness, or cowboy, vowing his determination to track down the "cold-blooded killers" who do "evil". By turns he was condescending, telling Brown he had "proved his worthiness as a leader" during June's thwarted terror attacks, and rambling, eventually admitting that he was going on "too long". Next to Bush, Brown had only to read his script to look like a master communicator.
That's not all that went well. Brown wanted his Washington debut to look nothing like the Bush-Blair love-ins of the past, and he succeeded. Out went the groin-squeezingly tight jeans, in came the suits. No more "George", now it was Mr President. No more hugs between Laura and Cherie; this time the wives stayed at home. The backslaps were gone too, replaced by a shake of the hand. Every sign spelled out the same message: strictly business.
To the naked eye it may have seemed as if these superficial matters of body language and costume were all that had changed. But a close reading of Brown's words at Camp David, and indeed the content of his entire trip to the US, including his appearance at the United Nations yesterday, suggest otherwise. They indicate a shift not only in the so-called special relationship, but a deeper, strategic rethink in what Brown pointedly does not call "the war on terror".
That much was visible in the wide cracks of daylight the prime minister opened up between himself and the president. Yes, there were multiple avowals of shared purpose and common values. But while the president said the west confronted "an ideology of darkness", Brown declared that "terrorism is not a cause; it is a crime". That immediately denies the terrorist the dignity of an enemy and casts him instead as a mere criminal, to be hunted down chiefly by policework and intelligence. Noticeable too was Brown's desire to be specific: the conflict was not with "terror" - an abstract noun - but "al-Qaida-inspired terrorism".
The differences were even clearer on Iraq. Bush still speaks with righteous zeal for the mission, but Brown offered only the flat statement that Britain had "duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep." It was left to Bush to say that "Gordon Brown understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our countries", but the prime minister said nothing to confirm that statement of his views. Bush still refers to Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terror, but Brown named Afghanistan as the "frontline".
Above all, Brown put the US on notice for an eventual withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, dependent on the word of military commanders on the ground. Since that is the same formulation Bush himself uses, he could hardly object.
It's not quite Hugh Grant sticking it to Billy Bob Thornton in Love Actually, but this is about as far as a British prime minister could reasonably be expected to go in putting an American president at arms length. No, he didn't call Bush a deranged Texan gunslinger but nor did he return a single one of Bush's copious personal compliments. While the president tried to warm the air with talk of the "humorous Scotsman", Brown said their talks had been "full and frank" - icy diplomatese for a row. If breaking the clammy hug Blair and Bush shared was the goal, it certainly worked. A headline in yesterday's Washington Post declared of Brown: "More bulldog than poodle."
The Brown team would love to see that verdict repeated on every British front page, but this is about more than political positioning, fleeing an American president whose embrace has proved so toxic. It conceals a deep shift in what has been the central geopolitical question since September 2001.
Put simply, Brown sees the struggle against radical Islamism entirely differently from Bush, and therefore Blair. While their focus was on rogue regimes that posed a threat to the west, and the use of force to remove them, Brown sees a battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. While the favoured comparison of the Bush-Blair era was the second world war against Hitler and fascism, Brown looks to the cold war with Soviet communism.
That conflict was long and, of course, had a military dimension extending to a nuclear arms race and proxy conflicts across the globe. But no less important, Brown believes, was the defeat of the intellectual case for communism. In an article in Monday's Washington Post, Brown recalled the educational and cultural links and exchanges between the west and those behind the iron curtain that steadily eroded the latter's faith in the Soviet system. This leads to an intriguing possibility, that Brown is advocating a process of systematic cultural engagement with the civil societies of the Arab and Muslim world - involving the "schools, universities, museums, churches, trade unions" whose engagement in the cold war he invokes so warmly.
Perhaps more importantly, Brown wants the west to regain the moral high ground he believes is essential to victory in any ideological struggle. He's long been an advocate on Aids, poverty and debt. But now there's an added urgency. If the west is seen to be acting justly, then it will be that much harder for Osama bin Laden to rail against wicked western imperialism. This is the right context to judge Brown's activity at the UN yesterday. With more passion than he ever showed at Camp David, he called for a "coalition of conscience" to implement the millennium development goals and for the deployment of more than 19,000 blue-helmeted UN troops in Darfur, because he believes in those moves - but also because he reckons they will blunt al-Qaida's rhetorical blade. As he wrote in the Post: "We must expose the contrast between great objectives to tackle global poverty and honour human dignity and the evils of terrorists who would bomb and maim people ... indifferent to the very existence of human life."
This amounts to a new philosophy in the conflict against jihadism. Instead of simply installing new regimes in the Muslim world, it seeks to prove itself the moral superior of violent Islamism. That would have enormous implications, invalidating almost every aspect of the "war on terror" as it has so far been conducted, from Guant??namo to Abu Ghraib to the invasion of Iraq itself. (It might also count against some of Brown's own ideas, such as extending to 56 days the period of detention without charge.)
Artfully, Brown has so far brought Bush with him, winning his backing on Darfur, for example. But he will need other allies, which is why his praise at Camp David was for America rather than the Bush administration, and why he made a point of visiting congressional leaders on Capitol Hill. From now on, the special relationship will be with the US, not the Bush White House. If only because Brown knows that Bush will be gone in 18 months - and he has every intention of staying in office much longer.
Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq
The nerve center of the nation's police is not so much a government agency as an 11-story powder keg of factions.
By Ned Parker
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2007
BAGHDAD ??? The colonel pulls his Mercedes into the parking lot of the drab, 11-story concrete building, scanning the scene for suspicious cars.
Before reaching for the door handle, he studies the people loitering nearby in hopes he will be able to recognize anyone still there later in the day. He grips his pistol, the trigger cocked, wary of an ambush.
He has arrived at his office.
This is Iraq's Ministry of Interior ??? the balkanized command center for the nation's police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt.
The very language that Americans use to describe government ??? ministries, departments, agencies ??? belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say.
That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a "federation of oligarchs." Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.
On the second floor is Gen. Mahdi Gharrawi, a former national police commander. Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in east Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture. The interior minister blocked an arrest warrant against the general this year, senior Iraqi officials confirmed.
The third- and fifth-floor administrative departments are the domain of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, a Shiite group.
The sixth, home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khafaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons.
The seventh floor is intelligence, where the Badr Organization and armed Kurdish groups struggle for control.
The ninth floor is shared by the department's inspector general and general counsel, religious Shiites. Their offices have been at the center of efforts to purge the department's remaining Sunni employees. The counsel's predecessor, a Sunni, was killed a year ago.
"They have some bad things on the ninth," says the colonel, a Sunni who, like other ministry officials, spoke on condition of anonymity to guard against retaliation.
The ministry's computer department is on the 10th floor. Two employees were arrested there in February on suspicion of smuggling in explosives, according to police and U.S. military officials. Some Iraqi and U.S. officials say the workers intended to store bombs there. Others say they were plotting to attack the U.S. advisors stationed directly above them on the top floor.
Months after the arrests, it's unclear whether the detainees are Sunni insurgents or followers of Muqtada Sadr, the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric whose portrait stares down from some office walls in a sign of his spreading influence in the ministry.
Partitions divide the building's hallways, and gunmen guard the offices of deputy ministers. Senior police officials march up and down stairs rather than risk an elevator. They walk the halls flanked by bodyguards, wary of armed colleagues.
"What is in their hearts? You do not know who they belong to," a senior officer said.
The factionalization of the ministry began quickly after Saddam Hussein's fall. As with most Iraqi government departments, deputy ministers were appointed to represent each of the country's main political parties. Deputies then distributed jobs among party stalwarts.
The initial winners were the Kurdish Democratic Party and the two Shiite parties, Dawa and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which sponsors the Badr Organization. The Kurdish party is one of two factions that control Iraq's northern provinces.
Sadr's Al Mahdi militia started late in the patronage game but has made significant inroads, particularly among the guard force that surrounds the ministry compound.
Parties representing the Sunni minority, which controlled Iraq in Hussein's day, have been almost entirely purged from the ministry in the last two years. Three of the ministry's longest-serving Sunni generals have been killed in the last year.
Interior Minister Jawad Bolani, a Shiite leader who took office last summer, has attempted to repair the ministry's reputation. He has removed the leaders of eight of nine national police brigades and 17 of 27 police battalions, which have been accused of killings and mass kidnappings. But change has come slowly.
"There is a lot of pressure, there is influence from everywhere, from everyone: political parties, religious groups, the government itself, from familial and tribal influences," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, who supervised the U.S. advisors to the national police until last month.
"It would be very difficult for anybody to operate as a leader in this environment, and the Iraqis do," Pittard said.
No floor has posed more of a challenge than the seventh, which houses the intelligence division. In theory, the intelligence office should be key to tracking and combating the insurgents who bomb Iraq's streets and marketplaces and attack U.S. soldiers. Instead, the division has been hobbled by a power struggle between two of America's nominal allies in Iraq, the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
The fight came to a head earlier this year with a death threat against the Kurdish deputy minister in charge of intelligence, Hussein Ali Kamal. The Kurdish leader, who controls the eastern wing of the floor, was battling for control of the intelligence apparatus with his deputy, a Badr militia commander who dominates the western side.
Several months ago, U.S. advisors warned Kamal that his life was in danger, most probably from the Badr militia, and advised him to stay in the Green Zone, away from the ministry building in east Baghdad. He stayed out of the ministry for several weeks.
The Shiite deputy, Basheer Wandi, better known as Engineer Ahmed, was appointed in the spring of 2005. Around the same time, Shiite militias began aggressive efforts to target and kill Sunnis in Baghdad, often using police cover to detain Sunnis in secret prisons and carry out assassinations.
They made little effort to hide their methods. A U.S. police advisor recalled a visit to the seventh floor in the summer of 2005, a few months after Engineer Ahmed took office.
"When we left Hussein Ali Kamal's office in the eastern wing of the ministry building, we walked down to the other end to see someone else. As we walked down, there was an Iraqi prisoner on the floor, in handcuffs, hands tied behind him, the floor was just soaked in clear fluid, he was still vomiting and gagging. It looked like he had vomited gallons," the advisor recalled.
One of Engineer Ahmed's work sites was a secret prison set up in a bunker in Baghdad's Jadriya neighborhood, U.S. officials said. In November 2005, U.S. troops uncovered the prison, finding 169 detainees, many showing signs of torture.
After the bunker was found, U.S. officials documented Engineer Ahmed's role. "There were case files written and prepared, presented to Maliki by the Americans that laid out responsibility," said a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Top American officials eventually decided to back off the effort to hold Engineer Ahmed accountable because of the political problems involved, two Western diplomats said.
Engineer Ahmed enjoyed almost untouchable status in the Badr militia for his reputation as a fighter against Hussein.
"Someone like that is a real war hero for the Shiites. It's very hard for Maliki to allow any action to be taken against them. From our side, it becomes how much political capital do we possess in doing something Maliki is going to find very, very difficult to do," the Western diplomat said.
After the threat on Kamal's life, Engineer Ahmed was transferred. But U.S. and other Western officials, some of whom suspect Maliki's government of playing a shell game to protect militant leaders, say he is now working out of Maliki's security bureau. Shiite officials insisted that Engineer Ahmed was innocent.
U.S. military documents viewed by The Times show that Engineer Ahmed has had frequent contact with the prime minister. He even played a role in drawing up the current U.S.-Iraqi security plan for Baghdad.
Kamal, the Kurdish deputy minister, says he believes the ministry has started reining in Shiite militias but knows suspect figures still operate openly in the ministry, including Gen. Gharrawi on the second floor.
Fifty-seven warrants were issued in November after inspectors discovered evidence of torture at the police base Gharrawi controlled, but only two men have been arrested.
Interior Minister Bolani set up a committee to review the case but blocked the arrest warrant against the general after American officials failed to bring forward the accusing witnesses, Kamal said. "Now [Gharrawi] thinks he is an innocent man. We couldn't bring people to face him," Kamal said.
Western officials see Gharrawi's case as an indicator of whether the Iraqi government is willing to hold senior Shiites accountable for criminal behavior by their forces.
"He's senior enough that the question arises, if he went down, then what's the next step? The next step is for other senior generals or indeed ministers to go down as well," the Western diplomat said.
Even the remaining Sunni members of the police force respect Bolani for trying to rein in the ministry. But they know he depends on a web of fragile political alliances and wonder whether any political figure can undo the effects of several years of recruiting hard-line militia members to the ministry.
"Even if they brought the prophet Muhammad or Jesus, they couldn't control them," said a senior ministry official. "They have an agenda. They follow their parties."
Oh the irony.