Gelis -- I'd be interested to hear your take on a Naomi Klein column in the Nation from which the following is a quote:
Quote:Any movement serious about Iraqi self-determination must call not only for an end to Iraq's military occupation, but to its economic colonization as well. That means reversing the shock therapy reforms that US occupation chief Paul Bremer has fraudulently passed off as "reconstruction" and canceling all privatization contracts flowing from these reforms.
How can such an ambitious goal be achieved? Easy: by showing that Bremer's reforms were illegal to begin with. They clearly violate the international convention governing the behavior of occupying forces, the Hague Regulations of 1907 (the companion to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, both ratified by the United States), as well as the US Army's own code of war.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031124&s=klein
Iraq is a lost cause.
Bush should know that you can't defeat al qaida in a situation like this. Bush still hasn't found bin Laden! They killed the Italians yesterday. They will kill more of us in future. Teamed up with Ba'athists and getting all manner of help through Iraq's completely porous borders they are a formidable force.
I can't think of a more potent combination facing the coalition.
They have the manpower
They dont care about their personal safety
They have the weapons
They have the motivation
They have Allah
They seek martyrdom
They fight the Great Satan on their own streets
They have popular support
They are true fanatics
No guerilla force in history has ever had such resources, or if there was, I would like to know what and where.
Bush and Rumsfeld have blown it. Its only a matter of time before defeat is openly acknowledged.
The French Germans and Russians wisely stayed out of this mess. They are entitled to shake their heads and say "WE TOLD YOU" The "Cheese eating surrender monkeys" were right all along weren't they Mr Rumsfeld?
from the Newstatesman magazine by Andrew Stephen:-
"I saw Donald Rumsfeld on the day that 15 soldiers were killed when a CH47 Chinook helicopter was brought down over Iraq, and he was laughing. I am not suggesting that the US secretary of defence should look theatrically glum every time a disaster happens, but his apparant detachment seemed symbolic of the increasing disconnection between the wishful thinking of the Bush administration on Iraq and the reality of what is happening there. As a result I could not bring myself to go over to talk to him. Just an hour before he had grimly told a television audience: "In a long, hard war we're going to have tragic days. But they're necessary. They're part of a war thats difficult and complicated".
Gel, that World Socialist Website is full of ****. Read their article on the supposed invasion of the Solomons by Australia and New Zealand. The real story is the Solomons approved an intervention to thwart heavily armed malitia's rooted there. WSW likened it to the Iraq sitiuation and lebelled it colonialism also.
Quote:Breaking From AP via TBO
Opposition Forces in Iraq Total No More Than 5,000, Top General Says
By Matt Kelley Associated Press Writer
Published: Nov 13, 2003
WASHINGTON (AP) - The forces opposing the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq total no more than 5,000 insurgent fighters, the top American general in the region said Thursday.
Gen. John Abizaid said that despite the relatively small numbers, the insurgent forces have considerable training, funding and supplies.
Abizaid said the largest and most dangerous portion of the opposition forces consists of loyalists of ousted president Saddam Hussein. Foreign fighters also pose a threat and are entering Iraq through porous borders, Abizaid said.
"The goal of the enemy is not to defeat us militarily," Abizaid said in a news briefing from U.S. Central Command headquarters in Florida. "The goal of the enemy is to break the will of the United States of America, to make us leave."
...
Abizaid said the opposition forces can't drive the U.S.-led coalition out of Iraq through the use of military force. He said the insurgents don't have much popular support and often hire young, unemployed criminals "to do their dirty work."
"It is very important that as we progress militarily, we also progress politically and economically, so as to get these angry young men off the streets," Abizaid said.
American forces have gone on the offensive against the insurgents this week as the attacks have increased in number and lethality. Abizaid said he was confident American forces would prevail.
...
More than 100,000 Iraqis now are working as police, border guards, soldiers and militia members, Abizaid said.
...
Pentagon leaders have pointed to the increasing number of Iraqi security forces as proof the situation in Iraq is improving. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week that Iraqi forces are best suited to gathering information about the opposition forces.
That information-gathering process is key to defeating the insurgents, particularly those loyal to Saddam's Baath Party, Abizaid said.
"I would say that this group of Baathists, by far, represents the greatest threat to peace and stability, and it is very important to close with that enemy, discover their cellular structure, unravel that threat and remove it," he said.
AP-ES-11-13-03 1156EST
The only ones the insurgents, quite small in number though well equipped and financed, are "beating" are The Pacifist, Anti-US, Anti-Bush Leftists, who have been beaten anyway since well before the onset of hostilities earlier this year. Indeed the battle has moved into a new phase, as I have been noting for some time and which is just now receiving media recognition. I know my view isn't popular among a lot of A2Kers, but I feel confident that what we are witnessing now is the beginning of the inevitable demise of the insurgents. I expect the push to re-energize the Interim Governing Council will bear fruit, and that the current Coalition offensive will do likewise. I don't expect a paradise to blossom in the next few hours, but do see a more stable, and more Coalition-supportive, Iraq to emerge in the next few weeks. Certainly, this is no more than my belief, and certainly I could be wrong. Apart from actual discovery of WMD, a matter yet unresolved one way or the other despite emotional assertions to the contrary, I've not been wrong about much regarding the conduct and progress of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That too, of course, is just my impression ... I'm sure if anyone wishes, they could find examples of a detail or circumstance on which I missed here or there, but largely, I think I've been pretty accurate, both in terms of reporting and conjecture. I have an opinion, and so do others. I am of the opinion the Negativists will be confounded yet again. We shall see.
Tartarin wrote:Gelis -- I'd be interested to hear your take on a Naomi Klein column in the Nation from which the following is a quote:
Quote:Any movement serious about Iraqi self-determination must call not only for an end to Iraq's military occupation, but to its economic colonization as well. That means reversing the shock therapy reforms that US occupation chief Paul Bremer has fraudulently passed off as "reconstruction" and canceling all privatization contracts flowing from these reforms.
How can such an ambitious goal be achieved? Easy: by showing that Bremer's reforms were illegal to begin with. They clearly violate the international convention governing the behavior of occupying forces, the Hague Regulations of 1907 (the companion to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, both ratified by the United States), as well as the US Army's
own code of war.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031124&s=klein
Hey Tartar, Remember the line espoused by the publicans when they were trying to ram the 87bil through congress? When Iraq's debt came into the picture ... they(the pubs) said 'let them collect it from Saddam'.
Well, put a stop payment on the check and tell them to send the bill to George and Dick.
This is a must-read...
washingtonpost.com
Is This Hussein's Counterattack?
Commander Says Insurgence Has Earmarks of Planning
By Vernon Loeb and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 13, 2003; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 12 -- The recent string of high-profile attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq has appeared to be so methodical and well crafted that some top U.S. commanders now fear this may be the war Saddam Hussein and his generals planned all along.
Knowing from the 1991 Persian Gulf War that they could not take on the U.S. military with conventional forces, these officers believe, the Baath Party government cached weapons before the Americans invaded this spring and planned to employ guerrilla tactics.
"I believe Saddam Hussein always intended to fight an insurgency should Iraq fall," said Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division and the man responsible for combat operations in the lower Sunni Triangle, the most unstable part of Iraq. "That's why you see so many of these arms caches out there in significant numbers all over the country. They were planning to go ahead and fight an insurgency, should Iraq fall."
In an interview Wednesday at his headquarters northwest of the capital, Swannack said the speed of the fall of Baghdad in April probably caught Hussein and his followers by surprise and prevented them from launching the insurgence for a few months. That would explain why anti-U.S. violence dropped off noticeably in July and early August but then began to trend upward.
Not everyone in Iraq agrees with that theory. An alternative view is that the current resistance was not planned in advance; rather, Hussein loyalists were in disarray after the invasion and took several months to develop a response. In either case, the insurgents clearly gathered intelligence during that time on the vulnerabilities of the U.S. occupation force.
Swannack said there is no evidence that Hussein is orchestrating the attacks. "He has to move so much that he can't do the day-to-day operational planning or direction and resourcing of the effort," he said.
Lt. Col. Oscar Mirabile, a brigade commander credited with running a sophisticated and largely successful security operation in the Sunni Triangle town of Ramadi, agreed that the Baathist attacks were long planned.
"He released criminals out onto the streets," said Mirabile, a Miami police official and former homicide detective who commands the 1st Brigade, 124th Infantry Regiment of the Florida National Guard, which has been operating in Ramadi since May. "Why would anybody do that? Saddam knew he couldn't win a war head to head against coalition forces. He was setting the stage for what you're looking at right now."
A CIA report from Iraq received over the weekend supported the commanders' views, saying that agency officers in the field believe that most of the insurgents are "former regime types" who were disorganized by the speed of the U.S. invasion but are now regrouping.
The CIA report also warned that if coalition forces cannot get the situation under control, Iraqi citizens may stop cooperating in the fight against the insurgents. "There was a time when the public was relieved the Saddam Hussein regime was gone, and we were the most significant force on the ground," a senior administration official in Washington familiar with the new report said Wednesday. "But now they are getting worried about retribution from them [the insurgents] more than us." He added: "When that becomes a critical mass, it all could go south."
If these observations are borne out, it would be a significant departure from previous U.S. government assessments. Before the war, the Bush administration never gave any indication that it expected to face a large-scale, planned guerrilla campaign. Just recently, U.S. officials who interrogated former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz and other former Iraqi officials said they found no evidence of such a strategy.
Whether or not the Iraqi opposition is waging a long-planned war, there is no question that enemy attacks on U.S. troops and their foreign and Iraqi allies are increasing in scope, intensity, sophistication and frequency.
As one top U.S. officer here noted, Wednesday's suicide bombing of the Italian military police headquarters in an area that had been largely quiet appears to be part of a continuing effort "to spread violence to all parts of the country."
Reflecting the U.S. military's inability to get much solid intelligence on the numbers, identity or organization of the opposition, this senior Army officer said he had almost no idea of who was behind Wednesday's attack -- Baathists or Islamic extremists, Iraqis or foreigners, centrally controlled or operating haphazardly.
While there has been talk in Washington of the impact of "foreign fighters" in Iraq, intelligence officers here have repeatedly said they believe their enemies inside Iraq are overwhelmingly Iraqi. Earlier this week, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez said that only "probably a couple of hundred" fighters have come from Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan and other countries in the region.
The quality of U.S. intelligence in Iraq has proven to be a major problem in recent months and was criticized in a recent internal Army study. While commanders generally say the volume of information coming in has increased, there are still widespread complaints about the lack of coordination and integration of the data. Trustworthy interpreters and intelligence analysts fluent in Arabic remain in short supply.
"We're not just getting the human intelligence we need to figure out some of those linkages, across regions, within regions and the national level," Swannack agreed.
The bombing Wednesday fits a pattern of attacks on anyone who publicly sides with the U.S. occupation, whether Iraqi officials, foreign troops or international organizations.
Over the past three months, Iraqi fighters have shot and killed a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, rocketed the Baghdad hotel where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz was staying, and bombed Iraqi police stations and the embassies of Jordan and Turkey, as well as offices of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. occupation official for Iraq, put it after a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, "they've tried to target people who cooperate with us: Iraqis, they've killed judges, they try to kill policemen." He added: "I don't think that that's going to work."
Overall numbers of enemy attacks also are escalating. In May and June, as the U.S. occupation force settled in, there was an average of five or six attacks a day. By late summer it was averaging about 15. Earlier this week Sanchez, the top U.S. commander inside Iraq, said that during the autumn that number has more than doubled. "It is now about 30 to 35 engagements in a day," he said.
One senior commander in Baghdad said he believes there are three levels within the insurgence, all with Baathist loyalists at the core. The smallest attacks, such as sniping on Army patrols, he said, are being carried out by perhaps eight to 10 neighborhood-based cells in Baghdad, each with about 25 members.
At the next level -- conducting attacks using improvised roadside bombs against U.S. troops -- he said he suspects there is a citywide organization of Baathists with links to criminal gangs. Finally, for the major, mass casualty suicide bomb attacks, such as the one on the Italian military police headquarters, he said he thinks that Baathists are working with foreign fighters "intent on jihad," or holy struggle.
The Iraqi fighters also show increasing sophistication. For example, this summer roadside bombs generally were controlled by wires, one Army officer said; more recently, some have been detonated by signals from cellular telephones. Likewise, some of the mortars fired on U.S. installations in Baghdad have been buried in gardens or kept under garbage cans. Attackers drop two or three shells into the buried mortar tube and then speed away on motorcycles while the shells are airborne.
Over the past two weeks, enemy fighters have killed 37 U.S. soldiers, most of them in two downings of U.S. helicopters.
"The enemy is waging a campaign against the occupation," said retired Army Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, who teaches strategy and security issues at Boston University. "In some respects, their campaign manifests greater coherence and logic than does our own."
Ricks reported from Washington. Staff writer Walter Pincus in Washington contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gautam, I guess I already knew that. (o gorgeous one?? That is a truimph of hope over reality...
)
World - Reuters
Iraqi Teenagers Watch as Americans Bleed
Wed Nov 12,10:35 AM ET
By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - If Washington doubts there is Iraqi public support for guerrillas killing its troops, it should consider the teenagers who happily watched American blood spill on Wednesday.
After a roadside bomb ripped through a military vehicle and wounded two soldiers, Iraqi boys rushed out of their homes to survey the damage.
"This is good. If they ask me, I will join the resistance. The Americans have to die," said Ali Qais, 15. "They are just here to steal our oil."
The U.S. administration has long dismissed the guerrillas as isolated "terrorists" who are Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists or foreign Islamic militants.
But the scene in the Sarafiya district of Baghdad suggests they are winning the sympathy of Iraqis, whose joy at Saddam's fall has been overshadowed by anti-American rage. Teenage boys were irritated to hear that two American soldiers were just wounded, not killed.
"I saw them pushing their hands onto one of the Americans' chest. They must have died. One soldier's friend was crying," said Abdullah Oman, 18.
His fury has been fueled by what he says is an American desire to humiliate all Iraqis.
He even believes that U.S. troops plant the bombs themselves, risking American lives to terrify and kill Iraqis.
"They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew," he said.
Guerrillas have killed 155 American soldiers since President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat over on May 1.
In the months after the war, Iraqis voiced frustration with the American failure to crack down on looters and restore basic services.
Now talk has turned increasingly violent, especially among teenagers. They have watched American soldiers arrest their fathers and body-search their mothers during intrusive raids.
Iraqis are angrier and guerrillas are carrying out more spectacular attacks such as suicide bombings and mortar strikes on the main U.S. compound in Saddam's former palace.
Shortly after Wednesday's bombing teenagers in Sarafiya picked up leaflets from a group calling itself the Army of Mohammad.
"Patience, patience Baghdad. The occupation army will be destroyed," the leaflets said.
Residents of the working-class area watched as a U.S. soldier poured water and sand over the pools of blood from his comrades.
"I want to join these Iraqi fighters. I want to hit the Americans, the infidels," said Ali Ahmed, 10.
SOURCE
We broke it, we bought it:
No Foreign Troops Not Forthcoming
Quote:U.S. Allies Rethinking Roles in Iraq
By NICK WADHAMS
In a blow to U.S. hopes for more support in rebuilding Iraq, Japan on Thursday delayed sending troops and other American allies altered plans after a surge in anti-coalition violence.
South Korea decided to cap its possible troop deployment at 3,000, rebuffing Washington's request for a bigger force. Denmark said Thursday it would not, for now, send more soldiers. And nations such as France that opposed the war that ousted Saddam Hussein again declared that the U.S.-led coalition's postwar plan must be changed.
The reassessments came a day after a suicide truck bombing at a headquarters for Italian forces in southern Iraq killed at least 31 people - the latest in a series of attacks aimed at foreigners helping the United States rebuild Iraq.
Many countries and agencies in Iraq, including Spain, the Netherlands, the United Nations and the international Red Cross, have been reconsidering their presence since they became targets.
Japan, one of Washington's most steadfast and vocal supporters, had planned to send its first troops to Iraq by the end of 2003. But after Wednesday's attack on the Italian compound, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda backed off, saying the security situation is not yet stable enough.
That means Japan will almost certainly delay deploying personnel, who would have filled non-combat roles, until sometime next year. Attacks like Wednesday's have spurred questions over whether any area can be considered safe, and the political fallout of any Japanese deaths would likely be high for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Speaking in Washington, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice said the Bush administration understood Japan's reconsidering the timing of its troop deployment. She added that out of all nations giving money to Iraq's reconstruction, Japan had pledged the most.
``We're very pleased with what Japan is able to do, and understand that countries have to make their own determinations about when they do what,'' Rice said.
In announcing South Korea's capping the number of troops it would send, President Roh Moo-hyun's office said he hopes any deployment would ``focus on assisting rehabilitation while leaving security to Iraqi police and military.''
Others also pledged to stand by the United States but said their plans - as well as the coalition's for postwar Iraq - must be rethought.
The suicide bombing against Italians in Nasiriyah prompted Portugal to send 128 elite police officers originally slated for that city to Basra instead.
Denmark's defense minister decided not to bolster the 410-strong force it already has in Iraq, rejecting a push by two Danish soldiers unions to send 100 more troops.
``It is an extremely dangerous job that our soldiers are doing,'' Defense Minister Svend Aage Jensby said Thursday, adding that it was still possible at a later time to send more forces. ``We are monitoring the events, and should the terror move to the south to our area, we would have to reconsider.''
Immediately after the attack, Italy's conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi said his country would not be intimidated and reaffirmed the country's engagement in Iraq. His coalition parties promptly agreed, yet opposition forces said the government should review its Iraq policy.
The opposition urged the government to press its European allies and the United States to speed the transition of power to Iraqis and hand the United Nations a larger role. But it stopped short of calling for a troop pullout.
Other countries were reducing their staff well before Wednesday, already finding the security situation untenable.
Spain is withdrawing much of its diplomatic staff from Iraq after a Spanish navy captain was killed in the truck bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, and a Spanish sergeant working for Spain's military intelligence was assassinated Baghdad on Oct. 9.
Two other U.S. allies, the Netherlands and Bulgaria, moved their diplomats from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, last month.
Britain, Washington's most steadfast ally, has lost 19 soldiers but Prime Minister Tony Blair has not backed down despite pressure from Britons.
Yet there are indications the United States may be considering a change or speeding up the transfer of power to Iraqis.
The top U.S. administrator in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, met with President Bush in Washington on Wednesday to review new strategies to hasten the transfer of political authority.
``We are in a very intense period as we come up on the Dec. 15 deadline'' for Iraq's interim Governing Council to set a timetable for writing a new constitution and holding democratic elections, said Bremer.
Creating a smaller body within the council, perhaps 10 people, with expanded, leading roles, or establishing one person as a leader were among options now considered by the United States, according to a senior administration official in Washington.
The attacks also emboldened countries to declare that they don't think the American postwar policies are working.
``Everyday, it is spiraling in Iraq with American, British, Polish, Spanish, Italian deaths,'' French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told Europe-1 radio Thursday. ``How many deaths does it take to understand that it is essential to change the approach?''
De Villepin added that France was prepared to help with the reconstruction of Iraq once sovereignty was awarded to a provisional Iraqi government.
``This is an extended hand that I hold out to our Americans friends, because what is at stake concerns us all. It is the security of the world we are concerned with.''
11/13/03 14:53
I heard an amazing hour today on NPR. Dick Gordon, on The Connection, on site in Baghdad, had three University students living and going to school in that city, sit in a roundtable. Calls came in from America and were answered by the students. The three were men. (The Connection had tried to get a woman university student, too, but the security problems for women moving about in Baghdad are big time, and it could not be worked out.)
The hour started off with Gordon interviewing two men (these are not the university students) who were waiting in a line of hundreds to get visas out of Iraq. One wanted to go to America and see if this freedom the US is always talking about really existed in this country. In fact, his comment was Is this just a theory or an idea, or does it really exist -- does it actually work -- in America? (A good guestion, for all of us.)
If these three men students who were the round table (age twenty-ish) are an example of who will run the country, there is hope indeed. What an awesome interview this was. Each of the men -- Osama, Uday, and el-Amin (I think) were English speakers, each at a different level of expertise therewith, and articulate to astonishment. Their personalities emerged: Uday was very religious, a devout Muslim, and, whilst not the quickest word-wise, was the philosopher. He made quiet statements such as noting that the difference post-Saddam was that , previously, Shi'a could pray but not gather. Now they could gather. This is a much larger difference, he noted, than one might think. He looks and hopes for a Muslim leader to lead Iraq. His statement was the one to end the program, and I sat in my car to hear it, although I was late for an appointment. He said, "We are a proud people with a history of 5000 years. Saddam destroyed our pride and our self-esteem, with his repression and iron-rule. Iraqis now have no pride. I hope it comes back."
The other two were equally interesting. I never did get their names straight, but I think it was Osama who is studying English (in fact, they may all have been in the English department) at University and wants to be a translator. His English was excellent, the best of all of them, and it sounded as if his teachers were American. The accent was U.S. He had sought a job with the governing Council as a translator and had been turned down. (The reason never came up.) He was grateful for the US removal of Saddam, although in a quiet way. In fact, if any one of them was a "plant" or chosen for his pro-administration views, this was the guy. Not to put down his thoughts. He is just absolutely pro going ahead and forgetting about the past. He wants to go on from here and thinks the future is bright for Iraq. He and Uday got into a bit of a dust-up about whether the Iraqis would have ever managed to get rid of Saddam without America doing it. Uday felt the Iraqis would have done it, but he was over-talked by more enthusiastic speakers.
They all showed that they had thought about the issues and why the Americans were there. They had thought beyond the surface and beyond today's troubles and were profoundly involved in the future of their country. Not one of them tossed out shibboleths or extreme points of view. There were a few negative comments about the two men in line for visas, whom the students put down as pleasure-lovers who were abandoning their country at a crucial time, its time of need.
Here's a link:
http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2003/11/20031113_a_main.asp
Ossama Assad, Uday Ali Abid, and Hussein Al-Askr are the names of the three students. Great link, Kara, thanks. I'm listening now.
Different term- Insurgents
Instead of terrorists the term insurgents is starting to be dominant. This shift is telling.
Quote:Whether or not the Iraqi opposition is waging a long-planned war, there is no question that enemy attacks on U.S. troops and their foreign and Iraqi allies are increasing in scope, intensity, sophistication and frequency.
Now Shrub says "Iraqies should be more involved in their own governance. "More involved'? LOL this guy amuses me. It's getting close to serious re-election grubbing, so now the policy needs to shift. I strongly feel that this strategy will escalate and in a few months there will be a transition. It will be called Mission Accomplished. Shortly afterward a civil war is likely. Three area split,perhaps three seperate countries.
Wake up people ... reality check
Quote:'We could lose this situation'
· CIA says insurgents now 50,000 strong
· Crisis talks over transfer of power
Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Thursday November 13, 2003
The Guardian
The White House yesterday drew up emergency plans to accelerate the transfer of power in Iraq after being shown a devastating CIA report warning that the guerrilla war was in danger of escalating out of US control.
The report, an "appraisal of situation" commissioned by the CIA director, George Tenet, and written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, said that the insurgency was gaining ground among the population, and already numbers in the tens of thousands.
One military intelligence assessment now estimates the insurgents' strength at 50,000. Analysts cautioned that such a figure was speculative, but it does indicate a deep-rooted revolt on a far greater scale than the Pentagon had led the administration to believe.
An intelligence source in Washington familiar with the CIA report described it as a "bleak assessment that the resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".
"It says we are going to lose the situation unless there is a rapid and dramatic change of course," the source said.
"There are thousands in the resistance - not just a core of Ba'athists. They are in the thousands, and growing every day. Not all those people are actually firing, but providing support, shelter and all that."
Although, the report was an internal CIA document it was widely circulated within the administration. Even more unusually, it carried an endorsement by Paul Bremer, the civilian head of the US-run occupation of Iraq - a possible sign that he was seeking to bypass his superiors in the Pentagon and send a message directly to President George Bush on how bad the situation has become.
Proof of the strength of the insurgents and their ability to strike anywhere in Iraq was provided in another devastating suicide bombing yesterday.
This time the target was the Italian military police barracks in the south-eastern city of Nasariya.
At least 17 Italians and eight Iraqis were killed, striking a blow at one of the few nations prepared to send troops to help the US and Britain contain the rising violence.
Following crisis talks in Washington yesterday, Mr Bremer flew back to Baghdad armed with proposals to bolster the US-backed Iraqi governing council with more powers and more resources in an attempt to speed up elections.
Under one of the proposals, the council could be expanded or transformed into a full provisional government backed by an interim constitution.
That would represent a radical reversal of earlier US policy which was to put off the transfer of real power to an Iraqi government until after elections, which in turn would have to await a comprehensive new constitution.
The new blueprint, which reverses that methodological progression and which is closer to what was done in post-war Afghanistan, emerged from an urgently arranged series of meetings between the president, his top national security advisers, and Mr Bremer, as the security situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate rapidly.
In scenes last night reminiscent of the height of the war, US forces went back on the offensive with air strikes and armoured assaults on a suspected guerrilla stronghold near Baghdad. Guerrilla attacks, meanwhile, have become more frequent, bolder and bloodier.
In public at least, the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has insisted that the attacks are the work of a few remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist party and a handful of Islamic jihadists from other Arab countries.
It is understood that Mr Bremer's administration is concerned about the impact of the decision by US forces to escalate their offensive against the insurgents, anxious that bombing and heavy-handed raids will increase popular support for the insurgency.
Mr Bremer refused to provide details of the new US plan, but US and British officials said he was carrying proposals from Mr Bush aimed at bolstering the interim Iraqi leadership in the hope of winning the confidence of Iraqis and paving the way for elections pencilled in for the end of next year. But, according to some US officials, elections could be held in four to six months.
The UN security council has given the Iraqi governing council until December 15 to come up with a constitutional blueprint and organising elections.
The council, deeply divided by internal disputes, has shown little sign of meeting that deadline, but the new US proposals would put it under pressure to accelerate its work and the transfer of power.
One of the options discussed in the White House yesterday was replacing the governing council with a new body.
The council was hand-picked by Washington after the war, largely from returning exiles, but it has since disappointed US officials by its slow progress. Many of its 24 members fail to turn up to its meetings, and the CIA report said the council had little support among the Iraqi population.
However, the secretary of state, Colin Powell insisted: "We are committed to the governing council and are prepared to help them in any way we can."
"We're looking at all sorts of ideas, and we do want to accelerate the work of reform," Mr Powell said.
"We want to accelerate the work of putting a legal basis under the new Iraqi government and we are doing everything we can to get the governing council equipped with everything they need."
Special report
Iraq
SOURCE
I'm not against this war/occupation for what it WAS (although it WAS unnecessary ask the UN) or immoral (ask the Archbishop of Canterbury) or illegal (ask a lawyer) or unjustified (where are the WMD?), I'm against it for what it IS.
And what it IS, is a complete and unmitigated military political financial tactical and strategic disaster.
The military have failed to defeat Saddam. The very thing it was vital to prevent i.e. the marriage of remnants of a brutal military regime with the dangerous religious lunatics of al Qaida has happened. How was this allowed to come about?
Without peace and security nothing else stands. You can't hold elections, you can't form a government, you can't uphold the law, and so you can't attract investment. In short you can't build a new Iraq.
It so happens that the leading commanders in this endeavour are mostly American. If that means I'm anti-American in the view of some then so be it. But the truth is that those political and military leaders screwed up. Its not their nationality I object to, but their policies AND their incompetence.
If I get the chance next week, I will be demonstrating against Bush with Americans holding placards saying "Proud of my Country, Ashamed of my President". (You should be able to spot their red white and blue placards near the front, I'll try and wave
).
PS just heard veteran broadcaster Walter Cronkite on the radio with some interesting parallels (and non parallels) with Vietnam.
Quote:It so happens that the leading commanders in this endeavour are mostly American. If that means I'm anti-American in the view of some then so be it. But the truth is that those political and military leaders screwed up. Its not their nationality I object to, but their policies AND their incompetence.
If I get the chance next week, I will be demonstrating against Bush with Americans holding placards saying "Proud of my Country, Ashamed of my President". (You should be able to spot their red white and blue placards near the front, I'll try and wave ).
Steve, I too object to what it IS. I marched for peace, before we attacked Iraq, but I wouldn't know what to march for at this moment. It would be cowardly and immoral to leave Iraq now, having had our way with her. We need more troops on the ground, and we need vastly better intelligence. You can't make up a democracy out of whole cloth. It takes time and patience, if it is to work at all. How does one march for that?
If Bush pushes to hand over power to the Council -- power that they have long complained that they don't have -- he is making a fool's decision and totally on political grounds. (Rove wants those body bags out of sight before the campaign ads begin running about the glorious accomplishments of the Bush administration.)
The US has dug itself into a great big hole. Leave too soon, and they'll be accused of a pointless act of mass murder. Stay too long, and they'll be accused of taking over a mineral rich country for their own purposes. In the meantime, the national debt is going to keep growing at rocket pace, with a billion a week going into the Iraq debacle. And I think that after not "needing" the UN in the beginning, you can be damned sure the rest of the world won't be coming to rescue the US any time soon.
It all got so complicated, didn't it, Wilso? Blew up in our faces. And we had pushed all of our friends away and pandered to a perverted patriotism and to our worst instincts -- like freedom fries, for god's sake, and Power of Pride on every bumper and American flags pasted on our rear view mirrors so we couldn't see what was overtaking us. Gazing at our navels, most of us haven't a clue as to how the rest of the planet sees this formerly benign country, nor do most Americans care. We are superman, so we're all right, Jack...
Bushand Cheney have to resign, forcibly if neccessary!
The US have to pull their troops to Afghanistan and mop up ..... their very presence in Iraq is incendiary!
The US must turn over the keys to the rest of the world!
Ge, the rest of the world don't want the keys. Why should they pay to clean up the US' mess?
