*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Links to video inside below link.

'Trophy' video exposes private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers

A "trophy" video appearing to show security guards in Baghdad randomly shooting Iraqi civilians has sparked two investigations after it was posted on the internet, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal. The video has sparked concern that private security companies, which are not subject to any form of regulation either in Britain or in Iraq, could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Iraqis.

Lt Col Tim Spicer is investigating the incident The video, which first appeared on a website that has been linked unofficially to Aegis Defence Services, contained four separate clips, in which security guards open fire with automatic rifles at civilian cars. All of the shooting incidents apparently took place on "route Irish", a road that links the airport to Baghdad.

The road has acquired the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous in the world because of the number of suicide attacks and ambushes carried out by insurgents against coalition troops. In one four-month period earlier this year it was the scene of 150 attacks. In one of the videoed attacks, a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. In the last clip, a white civilian car is raked with machine gun fire as it approaches an unidentified security company vehicle. Bullets can be seen hitting the vehicle before it comes to a slow stop.

There are no clues as to the shooter but either a Scottish or Irish accent can be heard in at least one of the clips above Elvis Presley's Mystery Train, the music which accompanies the video.

.....

Lt Col Spicer, 53, rose to public prominence in 1998 when his private military company Sandlines International was accused of breaking United Nations sanctions by selling arms to Sierra Leone.

The video first appeared on the website www.aegisIraq.co.uk. The website states: "This site does not belong to Aegis Defence Ltd, it belongs to the men on the ground who are the heart and soul of the company." The clips have been removed. The website also contains a message from Lt Col Spicer, which reads: "I am concerned about media interest in this site and I remind everyone of their contractual obligation not to speak to or assist the media without clearing it with the project management or Aegis London.

"Refrain from posting anything which is detrimental to the company since this could result in the loss or curtailment of our contract with resultant loss for everybody."

 

[oi2002]

Kevin Drum looks at the failings of the Iraq occupation in public choice terms:

The point of this story is not that we could have won the Vietnam war if we had stuck it out a little longer (a proposition I doubt). The point is that we learned how to do counterinsurgency. But if that's true, why have we performed so abysmally at counterinsurgency in Iraq? Why have we, in fact, not even pursued a strategy of counterinsurgency during most of the time we've been there?

Matt proposes that the answer lies in Dwight Eisenhower's military-industrial complex: Defense contractors make their money selling big ticket weapons systems and therefore spend a lot of time promoting those kinds of weapons systems as the right way to wage war. The U.S. military has fallen in line, and counterinsurgency has therefore become a Pentagon backwater.

It's a little deeper than that. The US military has a shallow Jominian view of war that neglects the primacy of policy the over the apolitical buisness generals. It concentrates on securing battlefield victories not the ultimate goal which are always political. You can see this in Tommy Franks' artful blitzkrieg hastily executed despite Doug Feith's ludicrously thin occupation planning.

It is true that during the post-Westmorland period the US developed a flexible and effective counter-insurgency campaign in Vietnam. The really odd thing is outside the USMC this is almost forgotten and we now have a US millitary in Iraq carrying out Westmorland style search and destroy missions.

Jeffrey Record in Why The Strong Lose looks at why the US wins against strong enemies but is often helpless against weak ones like the rebels in Iraq.

There are moral factors:

The stronger side’s vulnerability to defeat in protracted conflicts
against irregular foes is arguably heightened if it is a democracy. In his persuasive
study of how democracies lose such wars, Gil Merom argues that “democracies
fail in small wars because they find it extremely difficult to escalate the
level of violence and brutality to that which can secure victory.”12 For democracies,
the strategy of “barbarism” against the weaker side’s noncombatant social
and political support base is neither morally acceptable nor, over time, political
sustainable. Since 1945, wars against colonial or ex-colonial peoples have become
increasingly unacceptable to most democratic states’ political and moral
sensibilities. Merom says that “what fails democracies in small wars is the interaction
of sensitivity to casualties, repugnance to brutal military behavior,
and commitment to democratic life.” Democracies fail in small wars because,
more specifically, they are unable to resolve three related dilemmas: “how to
reconcile the humanitarian values of a portion of the educated class with the
brutal requirements of counterinsurgency warfare, . . . how to find a domestically
acceptable trade-off between brutality and sacrifice, [and] how to preserve
support for the war without undermining the democratic order.”

Another factor is the vain, sulking failure to learn lessons in defeat. In the case of Vietnam and much of the defense establishment even to acknowlege there was a military defeat to be learned from:

Perhaps worse still, conventional wisdom is dangerously narcissistic.
It completely ignores the enemy, assuming that what we do alone determines
success or failure. It assumes that only the United States can defeat the
United States, an outlook that set the United States up for failure in Vietnam
and for surprise in Iraq. Custer may have been a fool, but the Sioux did, after
all, have something to do with his defeat along the Little Big Horn.

Military victory is a beginning, not an end. Approaching war as an
apolitical enterprise encourages fatal inattention to the challenges of converting
military wins into political successes. It thwarts recognition that insurgencies
are first and foremost political struggles that cannot be defeated by
military means alone—indeed, that effective counterinsurgency entails the
greatest discretion in the use of force. Pursuit of military victory for its own
sake also discourages thinking about and planning for the second and by far
the most difficult half of wars for regime change: establishing a viable replacement
for the destroyed regime. War’s object is, after all, a better peace. There can be no other justification for war. “Military conflict has two dimensions,”
observe former presidential national security advisors Samuel Berger
and Brent Scowcroft, “winning wars and winning the peace. We excel in the
first, but without an equal focus on the second, combat victories can be lost.”

Another factor is the astrategic nature of Pentagon policy, which is driven by pork heavy procurement rather than any sane response to threats:

It is not enough to consider simply how to pound the enemy into submission
with stand-off forces. . . . To effect regime change, US forces must be positively
in control of the enemy’s territory and population as rapidly and continuously
as possible. That control cannot be achieved by machines, still less by bombs.
Only human beings interacting with human beings can achieve it. The only
hope for success in the extension of politics that is war is to restore the human
element to the transformation equation.
...
Whatever the arguments for the establishment of forces dedicated to
dealing with asymmetric threats (and there are serious arguments against),
they are not likely to find favor in the Pentagon, which like any other large bureaucracy
has organizational preferences based upon what it likes to do and
does well. The United States is exceptionally good at conventional warfare
but not particularly good at fighting irregular adversaries to a politically decisive
finish. Marine Corps small-war expert Thomas X. Hammes points out
that though war against an unconventional enemy “is the only kind of war
America has ever lost,” the Defense Department “has largely ignored unconventional
warfare. As the only Goliath in the world, we should be worried that
the world’s Davids have found a sling and stone that work. Yet the internal
DOD debate has largely ignored this striking difference between the outcomes
of conventional and unconventional warfare.”29 Strategic Studies Institute
analysts Steven Metz and Raymond Millen observe that while “the
strategic salience of insurgency for the United States is higher than it has been
since the height of the Cold War, [insurgency] remains challenging for the
United States because two of its dominant characteristics— protractedness
and ambiguity—mitigate the effectiveness of the American military.

This has lead to a one dimensional US military that simply isn't much good at the sort of neo-colonial wars the US is likely to fight in the 21st century:

The argument here is not that the Defense Department is hopelessly
unadaptable to the deconventionalized global strategic environment—only
that its force-structure bias toward conventional combat is long-standing and
well entrenched, and that overcoming it will entail fundamental change in
how US military forces are organized, equipped, manned, and trained.
...
Even with such military changes, strategic success is not guaranteed.
The strong, especially democracies, lose to the weak when the latter brings to
the test of war a stronger will and superior strategy reinforced by external assistance.
In the case of the United States in Vietnam, a weaker will and inferior
strategy was reinforced by an apolitical conception of war itself and a specific
professional military aversion to counterinsurgency. In the case of Iraq, the
jury remains out on the issues of will and strategy, but the unexpected political
and military difficulties the United States has encountered there seem to have
arisen in part because of a persistent view of war as a substitute for policy and
an antipathy to preparing for war with irregular adversaries.

 

[Barking_Mad]

One IED attack near Fallujah has killed 10 US soldiers.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Marine from Oregon was among the 10 Marines killed in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq that was one of the deadliest attacks against American troops in the past four months.

John Holmason, 21, of Scappoose was among those killed in an ambush Thursday near Fallujah against Marines from Regimental Combat Team 8, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., his stepmother, Paula Holmason, told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Marines were on foot patrol when an improvised explosive device, or IED, was detonated. The bomb also wounded another 11 Marines in a unit that had already suffered some of the highest casualties in the war.

 

[oi2002]

Larry Johnson comments on the Fallujah bombing.

The Marines were clearing a factory. The enormous blast that killed our Marines had been carefully placed inside over a period of time. This appears to have been an ambush. Clearly the Marines had poor intelligence about the factory and there was no control around its perimeter in the days preceding the patrol. No neighbors in the area chose to alert U.S. forces that they were walking into the jaws of death. And, more importantly, where were the damn Iraqi troops accompanying our Marines? Why didn't they fan out in advance and gather intel that might have prevented the loss of these brave troops.

 

[oi2002]

Abu Aardvark on a recent ME Telhami/Zogby Poll:

The headline findings:
"The United States has been actively advocating the spread of democracy in the Middle East especially since the Iraq war." 6% believe that this is "an important objective that will make a difference"; 16% believe that this is "an important objective, going about it the wrong way"; 69% "do not believe that democracy is a real objective."

"Did the war with Iraq bring more peace or less peace in the Middle East"? 6% more, 81% less.
"Did the war in Iraq cause more or less terrorism?" 78% more, 10% less.
"Did the war in Iraq create more or less democracy?" 9% more, 58% less.
"Are the Iraqi people better or worse off after the war?" 4% better, 77% worse.

Robin Wright mentions it in here as well WaPo:

But a new public opinion poll to be released tomorrow finds that 77 percent of those surveyed in six countries -- Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all U.S. allies -- say Iraqis are worse off than before the war began in 2003.

 

[jonH]

Rice defending treatment of terror suspects
"We cannot discuss information that would compromise the success of intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations. We expect other nations share this view."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1658214,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704

 

[Barking_Mad]

Training of Iraqi forces suffers big setback

The training of Iraqi security forces has suffered a big "setback" in the last six months, with the army and other forces being increasingly used to settle scores and make other political gains, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said Monday. Al-Yawer disputed contentions by U.S. officials, including President Bush, that the training of security forces was gathering speed, resulting in more professional troops.

Al-Yawer, a Sunni moderate, said he agreed the United States cannot pull out now because "there will be a huge vacuum," leaving Iraq in danger of falling into civil war. In particular, armed Shiite militias in the south might try to incite war if U.S.-led coalition forces leave, he said in an interview with The Associated Press and a U.S. newspaper at a conference here.

"I wish it were that simple," he said of calls to set a timetable for withdrawal or a drawdown.

But al-Yawer said recent allegations that Interior Ministry security forces dominated by Shiites have tortured Sunni detainees were evidence that many forces are increasingly politicized and sectarian. Some of the recently trained Iraqi forces focus on settling scores and other political goals rather than maintaining security, he said. In addition, some Iraqi military commanders have been dismissed for political reasons, rather than judged on merit, he said. He said the army also dominated by Shiites is conducting raids against villages and towns in Sunni and mixed areas of Iraq, rather than targeting specific insurgents a tactic he said reminded many Sunnis of Saddam Hussein-era raids.

"Saddam used to raid villages," using security forces, he said. "This is not the way to do it."

Al-Yawer also expressed grave concern that Iraqi army units might use intimidation to try to keep Sunni voters from the polls during the country's crucial Dec. 15 general election

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Torture testimony

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051207/D8EB3PNO0.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Four Kurds killed in attack

FOUR people were killed in northern Iraq today when members of a Kurdish Islamic party that is challenging the dominant Kurdish bloc in next week's Iraqi elections were attacked by mobs, party officials said.

Suicide bomber kills three in Baghdad cafe

A suicide bomber killed three people and injured at least 20 others in an attack on a Baghdad cafe, police said.

Bombing at Baghdad Police Academy kills 43

Two men strapped with explosives detonated themselves at Baghdad's police academy on Tuesday, killing at least 43 people and wounding 73 more, officials said.

 

[oi2002]

Pat Lang suspects the show trial of Saddam will only succeed in making a martyr of the old bastard:

Why are we doing this? We have enemies incarcerated all over the world without trial. This man's trial, as it is being conducted, is a major long-term victory for our enemies.

Thirty years from now kids will be buying "Saddam T-shirts" in the suqs of the arab World.

Shot in the foot again.

Now many Iraqis may be wondering why they don't feed Mr Hussein into a mincer feet first like in the good old days but there's a link over too Riverbend in the comments and I suspect she expresses what may not be an unusual Iraqi opinion:

It wasn't really like a trial. It reminded me of what we call a 'fassil' which is what tribal sheikhs arrange when two tribes are out of sorts with one another. The heads of the tribes are brought together along with the principal family members involved in the rift and after some yelling, accusations, and angry words they try to sort things out. That's what it felt like today. They kept interrupting each other and there was even some spitting at one point… It was both frustrating and embarrassing- and very unprofessional.

One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.

That last statement read like angry hype but this (from JCs link above) is oddly similar:

At Abu Ghraib, the guards stripped one of her male relatives, a deaf mute, and tied a rope to his genitals, pulling him into the cells where the women were kept, she said. Insects were everywhere - in cells and on their clothes, she said, adding that inmates used prison blankets to make underwear and fashioned shoes out of cardboard and strings.

I don't think there is a credible moral equivalence great monster like Saddam and DC but how low has Dubya dragged American honor that a mirror can be held up like that?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Britain 'trying to stall $1.3bn theft inquiry that could hurt Allawi's election chances'

The British government is trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn (£740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, senior Iraqi officials say.

The government wants to postpone the investigation to help its favoured candidate Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, in the election on 15 December. The money disappeared during his administration.

The UK's enthusiasm for Mr Allawi may have led it into promoting a cover-up of how the money was siphoned off and sent abroad. One Iraqi minister believes the investigation will be dropped when the next government is formed.

The scandal is expected to explode with renewed force in the next few weeks. The Independent has learnt of secret tape recordings of a wide-ranging conversation between a Ministry of Defence official and a businessman, naming politicians and officials involved.

"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, said. "Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal." Most of the military purchases were made in Poland and Pakistan. They included obsolete helicopters, armoured vehicles unable to stop a bullet and grossly over-priced machine guns and bullets. Payments were made in advance. Often the Ministry of Defence did not even have a copy of contracts under which it was paying hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ahmed Chalabi, the Deputy Prime Minister, says William Patey, the British ambassador in Baghdad, asked him not to give prominence to the scandal before the election because this might "politicise the investigation". Mr Patey denies he had asked for the investigation to be delayed.

A former senior British adviser was quoted as saying that Tony Blair was convinced Mr Allawi "is the best hope" for Iraq. He added that Mr Blair had sent a small team of operatives to give political help to Mr Allawi. In background briefings, British officials have heavily supported the former prime minister despite evidence that government corruption was rife under his administration.

 

[oi2002]

Bacevich on Requiem for the Bush Doctrine :

Owen Harries has noted, the conflict in
Iraq has shattered the “mystique” of US forces. All
the world now knows that an army once thought to
be unstoppable can be fought to a standstill. Thirty
years after its defeat in Vietnam, it turns out that the
United States still does not know how to counter a
determined guerrilla force. Far from overawing
other would-be opponents, the Iraq War has pro-
vided them with a template for how to fight the
world’s most powerful military to a stalemate—a
lesson that other potential adversaries from
Pyongyang to Tehran have no doubt taken to heart.

According to an ancient principle of statecraft,
the reputation of power is itself power. By deflating
the reputation of US forces, the Iraq War has con-
siderably diminished the power of the United States
and by extension has called into question the con-
tinued utility of the Bush Doctrine.
...
The Bush Doctrine assumed not only that the
United States had devised methods that endowed
coercion with unprecedented effectiveness, but also
that US forces possessed the wherewithal to employ
these methods anywhere in the world. America’s
global leadership rests, in this view, on a capacity
for global power projection. Yet the Iraq War has
revealed that the armed forces possess nothing like
the depth required to implement a policy of pre-
ventive war on a sustained basis. Our actual stay-
ing power has turned out to be far more limited
than expected.
...
The American officer corps once professed to hold
sacrosanct the principle of
command responsibility. No more. At the very least
it no longer applies to those occupying the executive
suites in Baghdad and Washington.

The US military may well be teetering on the
brink of a profound moral crisis. Another conflict
like Iraq could easily prove the tipping point. That
prospect alone ought to temper the Bush adminis-
tration’s enthusiasm for any further experiments
with preventive war. At its conception, the Bush
Doctrine represented a radical departure from the
best traditions of American statecraft. Efforts to
implement the doctrine have cost the nation and
especially its military dearly without appreciably
enhancing American security. It is too much to
expect that this administration, committed to the
proposition that it must never acknowledge error,
will officially abrogate the Bush Doctrine. But the
administration ignores reality at its peril. As it con-
templates the wreckage caused by its preventive war
in Iraq, the White House may well come to see the
wisdom of allowing the Bush Doctrine to die a quiet
and unlamented death.

 

[oi2002]

Anthony Cordesman has been one of the more gentlemanly reveiwers of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq.

Well he's not mincing his words any more as he outlines the hard lessons of Dubya's debacle:The Iraq War and Its Strategic Lessons for Counterinsurgency(PDF)

Much has been made of the intelligence failures in assessing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
These failures pale to insignificance, however, in comparison with the failure of US policy and
military planners to accurately assess the overall situation in Iraq before engaging in war, and for
the risk of insurgency if the US did not carry out an effective mix of nation building and stability
operations. This failure cannot be made the responsibility of the intelligence community. It was
the responsibility of the President, the Vice President, the National Security Advisor, the
Secretary of State, the Sectary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
All had the responsibility to bring together policymakers, military planners, intelligence experts,
and area experts to provide as accurate a picture of Iraq and the consequences of an invasion as
possible. Each failed to exercise that responsibility. The nation’s leading policymakers chose to
act on a limited and highly ideological view of Iraq that planned for one extremely optimistic
definition of success, but not for risk or failure.

There was no real planning for stability operations. Key policymakers did not want to engage in
nation building and chose to believe that removing Saddam Hussein from power would leave the
Iraqi government functioning and intact. Plans were made on the basis that significant elements
of the Iraqi armed forces would turn to the Coalitions’ side, remain passive, or put up only token
resistance.

No real effort was made to ensure continuity of government or stability and security in Iraq’s
major cities and throughout the countryside. Decades of serious sectarian and ethnic tension were
downplayed or ignored. Actions by Saddam Hussein’s regime that had crippled Iraq’s economic
development since the early years of the Iran-Iraq War -- at time when Iraq had only 17-18
million people -- were ignored. Iraq was assumed to be an oil wealthy country whose economy
could quickly recover if the oil fields were not burned, and transform itself into a modern
capitalist structure in the process.
The nation’s most senior military commanders compounded these problems by planning for the
conventional defeat of the enemy and an early exit from Iraq, by making a deliberate effort to
avoid “Phase IV” and stability operations. The fact that they did so to minimize the strain on the
US force posture, and the “waste” of US troops on “low priority” missions played a major role in
creating the conditions under which insurgency could develop and flourish.

The intelligence community and civilian and military area experts may not have predicted the
exact nature of the insurgency that followed. Analysis is not prophecy. They did, however,
provide ample warning that this was a risk that Iraqi exiles were often failing to provide a
balanced or accurate picture of, and that nation building would be both necessary and extremely
difficult. The nation’s top policymakers choose to both ignore and discourage such warnings as
“negative” and “exaggerated,” and to plan for success. They did so having seen the disintegration
of Yugoslavia and the sectarian and ethnic problems of Afghanistan.

To succeed, the US must plan for failure as well as success. It must see the development or
escalation of insurgency as a serious risk in any contingency were it is possible, and take
preventive and ongoing steps to prevent or limit it. This is an essential aspect of war planning
and no Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, service chief, or unified and specified commander can be
excused for failing to plan and act in this area. Responsibility begins directly at the top, and
failures at any other level pale to insignificance by comparison.
This is even truer because top-level policymakers failed to recognize or admit the scale of the
problem as it developed. Their failures were as much failures of reaction as prediction or
contingency planning, and failures to accurately assess and react to ongoing events are far less
excusable. There were no mysteries involving the scale of the collapse of the Iraqi government
and security forces within days of the fall of Saddam Hussein. The reaction was slow,
inadequate, and shaped by denial of the seriousness of the problem.
...
There is no way to avoid the fog of war, but there is no reason to make it a self-inflicted wound.
Counterinsurgency cannot be fought on the basis of political slogans, official doctrine, ideology,
and efforts to spin the situation in the most favorable terms. Unless warfighters and policymakers
honestly address the complexity, unique characteristics, and risks and costs of a given conflict,
they inevitably come up with solutions that, as the old joke states, are “simple, quick and
wrong.” History shows all too clearly that this “simple, quick and wrong” approach is how
Americans have created far too many past problems in US foreign policy, and that it is a
disastrous recipe for war. In retrospect, fewer US failures occurred because it lacked foresight,
than because it could not resist praising itself for progress that did not really exist and choosing
simplicity at the expense of reality...

This is pecularly sane:

There is a grimmer lesson from the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq. It is a lesson that goes
firmly against the American grain, but it is a natural corollary of limited war. If the course of the
political and military struggle shows the US that it cannot achieve the desired grand strategic
outcome, it needs to accept the fact that the US must find ways to terminate a counterinsurgency
war. Defeat, withdrawal, and acceptance of an outcome less than victory are never desirable in
limited war, but they are always acceptable. For all the arguments about prestige, trust, and
deterrence, there is no point in pursuing a limited conflict when it becomes more costly than the
objective is worth or when the probability of achieving that objective becomes too low.

This is a lesson that goes against American culture. The whole idea that the US can be defeated
is no more desirable for Americans than for anyone else, in fact, almost certainly less so. But
when the US lost in Vietnam it not only lived with the reality, it ultimately did not suffer from it.
When the US failed in Lebanon and Haiti, it failed at almost no perceptible cost. Exiting Somalia
was not without consequences, but they were scarcely critical.

This does not mean that the US should not stay in Iraq as long as it has a good chance of
achieving acceptable objectives at an acceptable cost. But, it does mean that the US can afford to
lose in Iraq, particularly for reasons that are frankly beyond its control and which the world will
recognize as such. There is no point in “staying the course” through a major Iraqi civil war, a
catastrophic breakdown of the political process, or a government coming to power that simply
asks us to leave. In all three cases, it isn’t a matter of winning or losing, but instead, facing a
situation where conditions no longer exist for staying.

On the dangers of Rovian warfare:

The sharp gap between the evolution of the insurgency described in the preceding analysis, and
the almost endless US efforts to use the media and politics to "spin" a long and uncertain
counterinsurgency campaign into turning points and instant victory, has done America, the Bush
Administration, and the American military great harm. Spin and shallow propaganda lose wars
rather than win them. They ultimately discredit a war, and the officials and officers who fight it.
Iraq shows that it is critical that an Administration honestly prepares the American people, the
Congress and its allies for the real nature of the war to be fought. To do so, it must prepare them
to sustain the expense and sacrifice through truth, not spin. But there is only so much shallow
spin that the American people or Congress will take. It isn’t a matter of a cynical media or a
people who oppose the war; rubbish is rubbish. If the US “spins” each day with overoptimistic
statements and half-truths, it embarks on a process that will sooner or later deprive itself of
credibility -- both domestically and internationally.
Iraq is also yet another warning that serious counterinsurgency campaigns often take five to
fifteen years. They don’t end conveniently with an assistant secretary or a President’s term in
office. Again and again we deny the sheer length of serious counterinsurgencies. Planners,
executers, and anyone who explains and justifies such wars needs to be far more honest about the
timescales involved, just how long we may have to stay, and that even when an insurgency is
largely over, there may be years of aid and advisory efforts.

His set of recomendations at the end are well made.

 

[nino_savatte]

This is particularly salient.

The sharp gap between the evolution of the insurgency described in the preceding analysis, and
the almost endless US efforts to use the media and politics to "spin" a long and uncertain
counterinsurgency campaign into turning points and instant victory, has done America, the Bush
Administration, and the American military great harm. Spin and shallow propaganda lose wars
rather than win them.

If you spend so much time spinning and cooking up stories for the press, it surely follows that you will end up believing your own lies.

 

[oi2002]

Bevin Alexander offers a note of optimism on the coming drawdown:

The administration is beginning to see that the role of the U.S. military is different from what it was at the outset. Today that role is, on the one hand, to assist the Iraqi government in preventing takeover of Iraq by terrorists under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or by Sunni insurrectionists. On the other hand it is to foil the breakup of Iraq into two oil-rich regions—the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south—with the minority Sunnis in the middle left with no viable state and no oil.

Since American forces are not stopping the insurgency by their presence in Iraq, the real tasks of the Americans can be carried out with far fewer losses in lives by withdrawing U.S. troops and concentrating air power and Special Ops and other fast-reaction ground forces in Kuwait and a couple of the Persian Gulf states. From there they can move on 24-hour notice to assist Iraqi government forces any time they are subjected to powerful attacks. Such an arrangement would eliminate the casualties the insurgents are able to inflict on Americans inside Iraq today with roadside bombs and rocket and mortar strikes. This in turn would undermine the antiwar movement inside the United States.
...
Even so, we have learned our lesson about invading rogue states and attempting to turn them into gems of democracy. We know from Iraq and Afghanistan that it doesn’t work. Outsiders don’t solve problems, they create problems. We will most probably not topple another state in the Middle East. We’ll try to get our way by means of air power and occasional Special Ops strikes. If our European allies and the UN fail to deter Iran in its attempt to build an A-bomb, we will have to take out Iran’s nuclear installations by aerial strikes, not by invasion.

This leaves one final danger in Iraq: the threat that the Shiite majority will create an Iranian-style theocracy in the south that will lead to the breakup of Iraq, and more chaos. This danger is not likely to come to pass.

Bill Lind shreds Dubya's vacuous strategy paper and is decidedly less sanguine about Tehran:

The information I am getting suggests that Iranian meddling and infiltration in Iraq is massive and growing, and is also encouraged and facilitated by many of the Shiite elements in the Iraqi government. The Persian camel has not just his nose but his hump already in the tent. Many of my sources suggest that a lot of the insurgency we attribute to Sunnis is actually Iranian-supported if not Iranian-controlled.

He's right about the Persian camel being in the tent but it's Iran's dense non-military instrumentalities in the Shi'a South that DC should watch; the rebellion is a trivial problem in comparison.

 

[oi2002]

Bull Moose is distressed by this add:

I do wonder how this is going to play. As it seems even the ranks of the GOP are filled with chatter of imminent drawdowns I suspect it may not be wise to have retreat and defeat plastered all over the party site. Some folks may get the subliminal message that it's all their fault.

 

[oi2002]

B.D references that shrewd old monster Kissinger who ponders the Iraqi endgame and counsels that withdrawal in whatever state will no conclude DC's buisness there:

The United States intervened in Iraq to protect the security of the region and its own. But it cannot conclude that process without anchoring it in some international consensus.

Geopolitical realities will not disappear from a region that has lived with them and suffered from them for millennia and that has drawn American military forces into their vortex into Lebanon in the 1950s and 1980s, into Afghanistan in 2001, into the Gulf in 1991 and 2003, and caused two American military alerts: over the Syrian invasion of Jordan in 1970 and the Arab-Israeli war in 1973.

The passions, convictions and rivalries of the factions in Iraq will continue. A regional system will emerge in one form or another through our interaction with these forces or through our default. In that sense, America can never withdraw politically; only its military presence may vary. It will always have to meld political and security objectives.

The countries relevant to Iraq's security and stability, or which consider their security and stability affected by the emerging arrangements, must be given a sense of participation in the next stage of Iraq policy. The developing political institutions in Iraq need to be built into an international and regional system – not out of obeisance to a theoretical multilateralism but because otherwise America would have to function alone as the permanent policeman, a role any foreseeable Iraqi government is likely to reject in the long run and which the very debate discussed in this article makes impossible.

The time has come not only to define the sense of our future in Iraq but also to broaden the base of political consultation in the region at large. A political contact group including key European allies, India (because of its Muslim population), Pakistan, Turkey and some neighbors of Iraq should be convoked after the Iraqi election. Political discussions between the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad and Iranian authorities regarding Iraq already have been authorized. These cannot be the sole contacts with Baghdad's neighbors. The functions of the contact group would be to advise on the political evolution of Iraq, to broaden the basis of legitimacy of the government, and to reflect a broad international interest in the stability and progress of the region. As time goes on, the group could become a forum to deal with other issues affecting Middle East stability, including some of the root causes of Islamic radicalism.

A political framework is not a substitute for a successful military outcome, but military success cannot be long sustained without it.

 

[oi2002]

Via Juan the SFC has a piece on Iraqi fears of the coming drawdown:

Under the Sunnis' worst-case scenario, President Bush would begin a pullout of American ground troops soon after the election, claiming the new government increasingly capable of handling the country's security. This, the Sunnis interviewed say, could lead to Shiite-led scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaigns in Sunni areas, backed by U.S. air raids, intelligence and logistics.

"This is a big danger," said Isam al-Rawi, a leader of the Islamic Clerics Association, a Sunni religious council that is thought to have connections to some insurgent groups. "The only way to stop the resistance is through negotiations and political steps, not more killing."

Faced with the prospect of the Shi'a implementing a Syrian Solution the old ruling class risks being feed into the meat grinder and that's not a metaphor.

 

[oi2002]

More in the Times on the 2006 drawdown plans:

Zalman Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Baghdad, said last week that the US military role would increasingly become one of supporting frontline Iraqi forces until it was merely “a reserve”.

“Our goal will be to leave Iraq as soon as possible but without increasing insecurity,” he said. “Our strategic goal is Iraq standing on its own feet and American troops out.”

Such open talk of a substantial withdrawal rattles Iraqi leaders, who fear that Washington and London are growing weary of the bloody and costly commitment to Iraq and may be tempted to “declare victory and get out” as some congressmen and MPs are recommending.

More from Zal:

[If the U.S. left Iraq now] "obviously, we know that there would be a civil war, and a civil war could escalate in several ways. One, in which the Kurds would move to take things into their own hands rather than follow what they have agreed to in the constitution. Out of that, regional conflicts could erupt. There's also the possibility that the sectarian war would intensify, and you could have the start of a major long-term Sunni-Shia war that could engulf the entire Middle East. You could also get an Al Qaeda rump state emerging in western Iraq, establishing a caliphate of some kind, a little Talibstan, exporting terrorism--and these scenarios are not mutually exclusive."

--Zalmay Khalilzad, United States Ambassador to Iraq, as quoted in a John Lee Anderson piece in the Dec 19th New Yorker.

Now that's hype of course, there is already an ethnic war between the Sunni and the Shi'a and AQ are entirely perripheral to it. Zal's rhetoric is aimed at scaring Iraqis into taking the long view that looks beyond ethnic interests.

 

[oi2002]

FT

The British are not the only ones who have noticed Mr Sadr’s growing power. The region’s other militia, the so-called Badr Brigade – the armed group affiliated with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition – has begun to fight back, and in August the two groups engaged in open warfare.

“Very helpfully, they attacked each other,” sighed Lt Col Edwards. “Gave us a bit of a rest.”

Although the insurgency in the Sunni heartland of central Iraq, widely characterised as a Sunni versus Shia conflict, continues to be the country’s biggest trouble spot, coalition officials throughout the south say the internecine rivalry between the two Shia groups – universally termed “Badr vs Sadr” – has become so pronounced that it has come to shape local politics and society.

 

[oi2002]

Larry Johnson hates freedoms march:

We are unwilling to come to grips with a very simple truth--the majority of people in the Middle East prefer an Islamic rather than a secular government. Economic development does not ensure a steady march towards a secular, diverse society. Heavens (irony intended) just look at us. Despite our economic prowess and alleged sophistication, religious fundamentalists in our own country have succeeded in bringing great pressure to bear on our government and our media.

So, what does all of this mean? In the coming year the Shia led government in Iraq will flex its new muscle. They will expand beyond the two torture centers already discovered and press ahead with their campaign against the Sunnis. While there are some secular Shia who willingly mingle with Sunni neighbors, the Shia activists with the guns are religiously driven and intent on ensuring the new government pays proper homage to their particular faith. Don't be surprised if we find ourselves helping out Al Zarqawi, the Jordanian Sunni who hates Shias more than he hates Americans. War can make strange bed fellows.
...
We must also be mindful that our "exit" from Iraq will be along the supply line that runs south thru Kuwait. Whether we have to fight our way out of Iraq will be determined in part by whether the new Shia rulers believe we pose a threat to their position. Our ability to expose and liberate torture centers is likely to become more compromised as the new democracy in Iraq takes hold. Why? Because at the end of the day, a majority of Shias are likely to feel quite justified in torturing the Sunnis who had inflicted pain and suffering on the Shias for so many generations. If the blood lust takes hold we will just have to remind ourselves what a wonderful thing democracy is, particularly when a majority decides to act in what it perceives as its own best interest. Power to the people.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Big turnout in iraqi elections.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051215/D8EGR3JO3.html

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051216-125650-8387r.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Many Iraqi soldiers see a civil war on the horizon

Passions run deep for the Arab and Kurdish soldiers who wear the Iraqi army uniform.

Kirkuk lies just a few miles from one of the nation's largest oil fields, worth billions of dollars. Arabs figure that the city's oil wealth should belong to Iraq, while ethnic Kurds see it as part of a future nation of Kurdistan.
"If the Kurds want to separate from Iraq it's OK, as long as they keep their present boundaries," said Sgt. Hazim Aziz, an Arab soldier who was stubbing out a cigarette in a barracks room. "But there can be no conversation about them taking Kirkuk. ... If it becomes a matter of fighting, then we will join any force that fights to keep Kirkuk. We will die to keep it."

Kurdish soldiers in the room seethed at the words.

"These soldiers do not know anything about Kirkuk," Capt. Ismail Mahmoud, a former member of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia, said as he got up angrily and walked out of the room. "There is no other choice. If Kirkuk does not become part of Kurdistan peacefully we will fight for 100 years to take it."
Five days spent interviewing Iraqi army soldiers in northern Iraq - who are overwhelmingly Kurdish - made clear that many soldiers think that a civil war is coming.

"I see Iraq gradually becoming three regions that will one day become independent," said Jafar Mustafir, a close adviser to Iraq's Kurdish interim president, Jalal Talabani, and the deputy head of Peshmerga for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two major Kurdish parties. "I see us moving toward the end of Iraq."

Achieving independence is a matter of life and death for Mahmoud, as with most other Kurdish soldiers interviewed.

His father, a Peshmerga, was killed by Sunni Arab dictator Saddam Hussein's troops in 1991 during fighting in Kirkuk. His entire neighborhood in Kirkuk, which housed some 2,000 families, was razed that year as Saddam massacred Kurds and replaced them with Arabs.

"We all left in bare feet," he said while walking through the cold mud outside the barracks. "My father was martyred for this struggle. It's my turn now, and if I don't succeed my son will continue the struggle. ... I try to explain these things to my Arab soldiers, and I hope that I do not end up fighting them."
Almost all the Kurdish soldiers interviewed expressed that sentiment.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Two US pilots die in Iraq helicopter collision

Two U.S. military pilots were killed when their AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed in west Baghdad on Monday night after a midair collision with another Apache, U.S. defense officials said on Tuesday.

Poland asks president to keep troops in Iraq for another year

Poland Poland's government wants to keep its troops in Iraq for another year. But the numbers would decline from about 15-hundred to nine-hundred.

Three bodies found in Baghdad

Three dead bodies, bearing marks of torture and bullet wounds, were found in the Shu'ula district of the capital, police said. The victims were from Kalidiya, west of Falluja, and disappeared after travelling to Baghdad a week ago, their families said.

Sultan dies of wounds in Najaf

Sultan al-Thabhawi, a member of Iraq's biggest Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, died of wounds sustained in an attack by gunmen on Monday, another member of the party said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Policeman killed, two wounded in Kirkuk

Gunmen southeast of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, killed one police officer and wounded two, Capt. Farhad Talabani said.

Seven kidnapped, one killed in Iraq

Gunmen disguised in army uniform kidnapped Tuesday the general director of a pharmaceutical company, along with six of his guards, on the main road between Al-Dor and Samarra, a police source said.

Sunni supporters rally in Iraq (includes video)

More than 5,000 people, supporters of Sunni and secular parties, which contested Dec 15 polls marched through Baghdad on Tuesday (December 27), denouncing the vote as fraudulent.

US struggles with overcrowded jails in Iraq

US military prisons in Iraq are overcrowded but the military is refusing to hand over detainees until Iraqi prisons meet US custody standards, American military authorities told the New York Times.

Five police killed in Bagdad

Clashes erupted between gunmen and Iraqi police in Baghdad, killing two policemen and two bystanders, Capt. Firas Keti said. South of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed two officers, and gunmen in southern Baghdad killed another

 

[Barking_Mad]

25 Shi'ites killed south of Baghdad

Fourteen Iraqis, men and women, were machine-gunned today while travelling in a minibus south of Baghdad. The attack took place on a small road in Latifiyah, 40km from the capital.

Insurgents kill 11 members of same Iraqi Shi'ite family

Six insurgents broke into a house just south of Baghdad on Thursday and killed 11 members of the same Shi'ite family by slitting their throats. They said the family had been warned to move out of their largely Sunni district, but had not done so.

Southern Iraqs Oil Output Down To 200,000 B/D

Iraq has reduced oil production in the oil-rich south by 89% because of a six-day period of bad weather that has closed down exports, an Iraqi oil official said Thursday.

Iraqis shutter largest oil refinery after threats of attack

Iraq has shut down its largest oil refinery in the northen town of Beiji after insurgents threatened to kill drivers and blow up trucks that distribute its oil products across Iraq, a senior Iraqi oil official said Thursday.

Uranium suspected in Iraq merc's death

The death of a Peruvian security guard who had worked in Iraq may have been caused by exposure to depleted uranium. Wilder Gutierrez Rubio, 38, died a few hours after arriving in Lima, Peru, on Dec. 6. he had been diagnosed with severe leukemia

Iraq Sunnis, Secular Groups Demand Review

Sunni Arab and secular groups refused Thursday to open discussions with the Shiite religious bloc leading in Iraq's parliamentary elections until a full review of the contested results is carried out.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Two Iraqi soldiers killed in Balad

In Balad, 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, two Iraqi soldiers were killed when gunmen opened fire on the vehicle in which they were travelling.

Head of Saklawiya police station seriously wounded

The head of Saklawiya police station was seriously wounded when gunmen attacked him while he was heading to Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

Suicide bomber in Iraqi police uniform slays 4

A suicide bomber, wearing a police uniform, killed four Iraqi policemen and wounded five at checkpoint close to the interior ministry in Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

Ten killed in U.S. air strike on Iraqi village

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. fighter jets dropped two 500-pound (225-kg) bombs on a village in northern Iraq, killing 10 Iraqis they suspected of planting explosive devices on a nearby road, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

The incident occurred on Tuesday in a small village near the town of Hawija, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, the military said.

The pilots were flying a routine patrol when they saw three men digging holes by the side of major road and planting bombs in them, a statement said.

When they heard the planes overhead, the men jumped in a car and fled. They were soon joined by another car as the jets tracked them. They drove the cars into the village and tried to hide by parking between two buildings, the statement said.

The pilots then dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs.

"They were able to destroy the vehicles while causing only minimal damage to surrounding structures," the military said.

U.S. soldiers later raided the village and found assault rifles, a machine gun and bomb-making equipment in houses near the site of the air strike. They said they also found a bomb by the side of the road where the men were first spotted.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

After getting trounced in the recent elections, Chalabi appointed to run Iraq's oil ministry

 

[oi2002]

John Robb on Fuel and Oil Disruption in Iraq.

With gas lines already a quarter mile long and a recent tripling of the consumer price for gasoline to compensate for the costs of these imports, the hit to the new government's legitimacy is already in motion. Cost of the attack (letters and potentially phone calls) = $0 (another example of global guerrilla efficiency).

In the comments they link over to the Oil Drum and the Chalabi story. That's the 2nd time Ahmad the thief has got his paws on the oil ministry. If there was a Nobel prize for lucrative corruption Ahmad would win it.