THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Iraq success 'catastrophic': Bush
Roy Eccleston in New York
August 31, 2004
GEORGE W. Bush has admitted the US failed to plan for a speedy victory in Iraq, describing the sudden collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime as a "catastrophic success".

In a rare concession from the President, who dislikes admitting error, Mr Bush told Time magazine that his planners had not considered the prospect of a quick collapse.

"Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success - being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight another day," he said.

Mr Bush sought to blame the prolonged war - in which 969 US troops have been killed so far - on an over-quick victory that meant the US ended up having to fight "a third more" of Hussein's Baathist supporters than military planners had expected.

Ho ho. You want to run a plebiscite in Iraq, and you can't manage an election in Florida? That should be really representative.

heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee . . .
good one McT . . . okbye

Breaking my own rule about domestic politics to bring you this message from Garrison Keillor; seek out the original, it's good, and there's more ... McT

To say that Al Qaeda was 'in bed' with the Baathists is crazy.

Ican will go to his grave still searching the bottom of that barrel, it seems. Discourse with him on the issue is a bit like trying to push rain back up into the clouds.

Somewhere in Texas a village idiot is missing

Garrison was describing Democrats and substituting Republican names.

No, my friend, he was not. ...
This is not the party of Lincoln, not the party who championed the environmental protection Act under Nixon, not the party who argued for fiscal restraint in the name of sanity rather than out of pure self-rightness.

The Declaration of Independence (Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776)

...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
...

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

...

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

As an outsider, and looking at the Republican convention on the TV, I am always struck by the spectacle of American politics at work, how like showbusiness it is.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi in an apparent assassination attempt that wounded two of his bodyguards, Chalabi's spokesman said.

Chalabi's convoy was attacked in southern Baghdad as he returned from the holy city of Najaf, said spokesman Mithal al-Alusi.

Chalabi escaped unharmed but two of his bodyguards were wounded, one of them seriously, al-Alusi said.

There are a lot of angry spies at Langley, and one of the angriest is Mike Scheuer, a senior intelligence officer who led the Bin Laden station for four years. While some of his colleagues have vented their frustrations through leaks, Scheuer has done what no serving American intelligence official has ever done - published a book-length attack on the establishment.

His book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, is a fire-breathing denunciation of US counter-terrorism policy. In it, Scheuer addresses the missed opportunities of the Clinton era, but he reserves his most withering attack for the Bush administration's war in Iraq.

He describes the invasion as "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantage". He even goes so far as to call on America's generals to resign rather than execute orders that "they know [...] will produce more, not less, danger to their nation". Bin Laden, he believes, is not a lonely maverick, but draws support from much of the Islamic world, which resents the US not for what it is, but for what it does - supporting Israel almost uncritically, propping up corrupt regimes in the Arab world, garrisoning troops on the Saudi peninsula near Islam's most holy sites to safeguard access to cheap oil.

"America ought to do what's in America's interests, and those interests are not served by being dependent on oil in the Middle East and by giving an open hand to the Israelis," Scheuer argues. "If we're less open-handed to Israel over time we can cut down Bin Laden's ability to grow. Right now he has unlimited potential for growing." What makes these comments the more challenging to the Bush administration is that they come from a self-described conservative and instinctive Republican voter.

OPINION

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

No way out of no-win situation

By PAUL KRUGMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

"Everyone wants to go to Baghdad; real men want to go to Tehran." That was the attitude in Washington two years ago, when Ahmad Chalabi was assuring everyone that Iraqis would greet us with flowers. More recently, some of us had a different slogan: "Everyone worries about Najaf; people who are really paying attention worry about Ramadi."

Ever since the uprising in April, the Iraqi town of Fallujah has in effect been a small, nasty Islamic republic. But what about the rest of the Sunni triangle?

Last month a Knight Ridder report suggested that U.S. forces effectively were ceding many urban areas to insurgents. Sunday, The New York Times confirmed that while the world's attention was focused on Najaf, western Iraq fell firmly under rebel control. Representatives of the U.S.-installed government have been intimidated, assassinated or executed.

Other towns, such as Samarra, also have fallen to insurgents. Attacks on oil pipelines are proliferating. And we're still playing whack-a-mole with Muqtada al-Sadr: His Mahdi Army has left Najaf, but remains in control of Sadr City, with its 2 million people. The Christian Science Monitor reports that "interviews in Baghdad suggest that Sadr is walking away from the standoff with a widening base and supporters who are more militant than before."

For a long time, anyone suggesting analogies with Vietnam was ridiculed. But Iraq optimists have, by my count, already declared victory three times. First there was "Mission Accomplished" -- followed by an escalating insurgency. Then there was the capture of Saddam -- followed by April's bloody uprising. Finally there was the furtive transfer of formal sovereignty to Ayad Allawi, with implausible claims that this showed progress -- a fantasy exploded by the guns of August.

Now, serious security analysts have begun to admit that the goal of a democratic, pro-American Iraq has receded out of reach. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- no peacenik -- writes that "there is little prospect for peace and stability in Iraq before late 2005, if then."

Cordesman still thinks (or thought a few weeks ago) that the odds of success in Iraq are "at least even," but by success he means the creation of a government that "is almost certain to be more inclusive of Baath, hard-line religious and divisive ethnic/sectarian movements than the West would like." And just in case, he urges the United States to prepare "a contingency plan for failure."

Fred Kaplan of Slate is even more pessimistic. "This is a terribly grim thing to say," he wrote recently, "but there might be no solution to the problem of Iraq" -- no way to produce "a stable, secure, let alone democratic regime. And there's no way we can just pull out without plunging the country, the region and possibly beyond into still deeper disaster." Deeper disaster? Yes: People who worried about Ramadi are now worrying about Pakistan.

So what's the answer? Here's one thought: Much of U.S. policy in Iraq -- delaying elections, trying to come up with a formula that blocks simple majority rule, trying to install first Chalabi, then Allawi, as strongman -- can be seen as a persistent effort to avoid giving Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani his natural dominant role. But recent events in Najaf have demonstrated both the cleric's awesome influence and the limits of U.S. power. Isn't it time to realize that we could do a lot worse than Sistani and give him pretty much whatever he wants?

Here's another thought. President Bush says the troubles in Iraq are the result of unanticipated "catastrophic success." But that catastrophe was predicted by many experts. Cordesman says their warnings were ignored because we have "the weakest and most ineffective National Security Council in postwar American history," giving control to "a small group of neoconservative ideologues" who "shaped a war without any realistic understanding or plans for shaping a peace."

Bush, who took a "winning the war on terror" bus tour just a few months ago, conceded Monday that "I don't think you can win" the war on terror. But he hasn't changed the national security adviser, nor has he dismissed even one of the ideologues who got us into this no-win situation. Rather than concede that he made mistakes, he's sticking with people who will, if they get the chance, lead us into two, three, many quagmires.
Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times. Copyright 2004 New York Times News Service. E-mail: [email protected]