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

Icann, there seems to be a disparity between the fact that the commission found that Al Quaeda was significantly disrupted, and the fact that last year was the worse terrorism year in a long time, much of which was planned and executed by.... Al Quaeda.

This is one reason I hold most of the media in less than high regard.

Foreign Policy Research Institute

IRAQ: THE NEXT STAGE
by Keith W. Mines

June 28, 2004

Keith Mines is a Political-Military Officer in the U.S.
Embassy in Budapest. He was assigned to service with the
Coalition Provisional Authority from August 2003 to January
2004. The views expressed in this essay are those of the
author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the
U.S. government.

Quote:

IRAQ: THE NEXT STAGE

by Keith W. Mines

SUMMARY
Nestled between the two key events on the road to full Iraqi
sovereignty - the selection of the Interim Government in May
2004 and elections in January 2005, there is an obscure
event that has to date been treated as mere window dressing.
In reality, the national gathering envisioned by Ambassador
Brahimi for July 2004 may be the key to the entire process.
It deserves far more attention than it has been given.
There are several disconnects in the current Iraqi political
progression. First, the presence of foreign security forces
is provoking the very instability that must diminish in
order for the process to work. Second, there is a veritable
chasm between the international selection of the new Iraqi
leaders, which lacks legitimacy, and national elections,
which are still many months and innumerable hurdles away.
The national gathering could help to bridge these gaps and
disconnects, and should be strongly promoted with the new
Iraqi leadership. A national gathering that legitimizes the
selection of the new leadership and captures the attention
of the Iraqi people with a major Iraqi-run political event,
tied directly to the phased, scheduled withdrawal of the
coalition security forces into cantonments, would set the
conditions for successful elections. Without this it is
difficult to see how the end-state of a stable, self-
governing Iraq will be reached.

HURDLES TO STABILITY
I would badly like to be optimistic for Iraq and believe
that the new interim government will see the country through
to elections and a stable government in six months. It is
possible that this will happen; initial soundings are that
many Iraqis find the method of selecting the new government
troublesome, but are pleased that it is finally their
government and will give it a chance. But the hurdles to
this government leading the country to viable elections and
a stable transition are still immense.

First, there is an innate disconnect between the requirement
for security that the coalition forces must stay to implant,
and the instability that the presence of these same forces
causes. This disconnect will continue to grow. With the
military setbacks of Kufa, Najaf and Fallujah, in which
insurgents and irregular forces skillfully combined
fanatical, if militarily unskilled fighting, with the use of
religious terrain to battle the coalition to a standstill,
Iraqis now know that the U.S. can be beaten. This combines
with the inflammatory photos from Abu Ghraib to ignite
widespread willingness to fight the coalition, or at least
to give sanctuary to those who fight. This trend of
increasing combativeness will likely grow, loosely coupled
with the growing desire of foreign fighters to see the
coalition, and anything associated with it, fail.

Second, the political body we have ceded sovereignty to will
have little national legitimacy and an inability, due to
security concerns, to travel and perform even the most basic
functions of government. While there was hope at one point
that this would be a new body with legitimacy among the
Iraqi people, in the end it is essentially a remake of the
Governing Council, and will likely be the same kind of Green
Zone government as its predecessor. It is clear now that
any governing body that can be traced back to the coalition
will lack the essential legitimacy to govern effectively.

Third, it is difficult to envision how anything even
remotely resembling a credible national election could be
held in six months time without a significant boost to
security and stability. The extreme security conditions and
the associated problems they bring to travel, especially for
foreigners, will make it difficult for election teams to
physically prepare the country for elections, and the same
security concerns and questions of legitimacy will seriously
limit the participation of key elements of society in the
electoral process.

A FIREBREAK
If this is to work, what is needed is to implant a firebreak
between the coalition and the ultimate Iraqi government that
emerges from elections, and to radically enhance popular
support for the process. One source of our failure to date
stems from an inability to go beyond the Coalition selection
of leaders (who ultimately lack legitimacy) as we wait for
the legitimate election of new leaders (which is still many
months away). An interim step is needed, a mechanism
whereby Iraqis see that the process of selecting their
leadership and the decision on the ultimate form of
government they embrace, has been fully ceded to them, not
continually manipulated by outside forces. Until they see
this they will not cooperate in the provision of security
and without security we will end up with a long and bloody
six month lead-up to elections that in turn yields a weak
and unstable government at the end of the process.

There is a natural mechanism for this firebreak in the
second of the three key events that have been laid out on
the path to full Iraqi sovereignty. Nestled between the
US/UN selection of the IIG but before national elections in
January 2005, there is talk of a national conference to be
held in July 2004. This gathering, which appears to be mere
window dressing to the more important events, could in
reality be the keystone to the entire process. A national
gathering, properly held, could provide Iraq with the
security and political stability it needs to make it through
the national election with a functional government.

To fully capitalize on the national gathering it should be
tied directly to a declared, phased withdrawal of coalition
troops back to cantonments, and ultimately out of the
country. These two events, properly stage-managed, could
capture the attention and the support of the Iraqi middle
ground and rapidly start to squeeze out the operating space
of the insurgents.

A LOYA JIRGA AND A PHASED WITHDRAWAL
I would envision a three-step step process following the
transfer of sovereignty on June 28:

1) A large national gathering for July or August is
announced prior to the handover. The rough parameters of
this gathering would be as follows:

* 50 persons per province selected through a
caucus system run by Iraqis (each province would
be different, in some the Governor has enough
credibility to manage a popular selection, in
others the current Provincial Council has adequate
legitimacy to simply show up, in some the
judiciary could run a new process).

* Gathering held on a secure location in Iraq (one
of the isolated air bases such as Al Asad for
example).

* Internal security provided exclusively by Iraq
security forces, with coalition providing an
outer, invisible cordon.

* Secretariat selected by the gathering; no
foreign presence, even of observers, except such
technical experts that are invited by the body.

* Gathering would develop its own mandate, but its
first task would be to approve the current interim
administration and change any ministers or leaders
who do not meet the body's approval.
* No time limits on how long the body would take
to conduct its work (four weeks would be a good
planning figure).

* All open proceedings televised on Iraqi
television and international networks. Major
political theater.

* The gathering would finish its work by voting
itself down to an interim parliament of
approximately 100-200 individuals which would have
a transitional mandate alongside the interim
government. This would not be an advisory body,
but would have real power.

2) Coalition forces would agree that with the successful
conclusion of this process the force would withdraw into
approximately 10 cantonments, with a further reduction
announced, say to 7 in January, then 5, then 3, where it
would end in the spring of 2005. The assumption that a
withdrawal of the coalition would leave a security vacuum is
highly questionable. Most of the current violence is
directed against the coalition and those who are aligned
with it. Coalition forces are not only not stopping most of
the violence, they are the active force which is provoking
it. Their withdrawal would leave many areas more passive,
not more unstable. Their main mission by the winter of 2005
would be to ensure there is no massing of insurgent and
anti-regime forces, focused on the survival of the regime,
not street security per se. A force of this type could be
much smaller than the current force and would travel far
less. This would at the same time remove the provocation
that the current force brings with it, while allowing the
withdrawal to take place on our terms, lest our enemies feel
they chased us out of the country. If the force ultimately
falls under a UN mandate and is blue helmeted, it should be
made to appear as an entirely new force. The latter would,
on the other hand, leave considerably more options in terms
of how it is deployed and used.

3) In partnership with the UN, the new government and
national assembly would work for the holding of elections.
If the national gathering has yielded a strong, legitimate
transitional government, the date for elections could be
delayed beyond January 2005. This would be the sovereign
decision of the legitimate Iraqi government. This may be
essential as it is not at all clear that elections will be
possible while the coalition is still in Iraq. If the level
of violence will not diminish until the coalition departs,
this national assembly could buy the time that is required
to allow for a withdrawal and preparations for proper
elections.

SUPPORT TO THE POLITICAL PROCESS
A national gathering for Iraq will provide a number of key
supports to the political process.

First, it will allow for the natural emergence of national
leaders. To date leaders in Iraq have either been local or
have been hopelessly tainted by their association with the
coalition. The fact that there is no Karzai in Iraq is
troublesome, but perhaps more troublesome is the fact that
even if there were a Karzai he would have no way to gain a
national platform. This process would help provide that.

Second, the Iraqi people would, for the first time, be able
to see their nation as a nation. It would not always be
pretty. There would be speeches of recrimination and much
finger-wagging. There would be displays of tribalism and
contention, walk-outs and protests. There may be violence
to try to disrupt the gathering. But through all of it
there would be Iraqi leaders sitting down with other Iraqi
leaders and finding national solutions to their people's
problems. The visuals alone would be worth the effort.

Third, the process would have legitimacy. I managed a
provincial council caucus in January 2004 that brought
together over 5,000 Iraqis to select Al Anbar's leadership
and learned a good deal about how Iraqis view the question
of legitimacy. What many of us found locally, was that if
Iraqis were given a framework for caucuses which they agreed
to, they would accept them as legitimate. But it had to be
a system with their full involvement and participation,
where outsiders provided only the framework, not the actual
end-state. This has worked fairly well at the local level
and has led to strong local bodies. It should be replicated
at the national level.

Fourth, a national conference would jump-start the national
political process, which is moribund. It would bring
together parties, civic organizations, professional
groupings, tribal organizations, and allow for controlled
cross-over of ethnic and tribal groups. It would be a
testing for these groups and allow the stronger and more
dynamic organizations and leaders to gain prominence while
the less dynamic among them fade away.

CONCLUSION
A Loya Jirga is not a panacea for Iraq, there are still a
host of things that can and will go wrong and many reasons
why the entire project could still fail. But a properly
supported national gathering, well-publicized and televised
within Iraq and to the outside world, could provide the
crucial bridge between the selection of the interim
government and the ultimate election of new leadership by
the Iraqi people. It would also refurbish some of the
tarnished image of the coalition at a crucial time. By
visibly shifting the locus of Iraq's political development
away from international actors and to large numbers of
Iraqis, it could provide a crucial boost that will tamp down
the violence while strengthening the very fragile political
process, giving the new government that emerges from all
this a chance of success.

Hey did you see on Drudge today the developing Cable wars? I think I'll start a new thread on it. Should be fun

George W. Bush On the Record

In a conversation in the Oval Office, President Bush told Readers Digest about his hopes and goals for a second term.

RD: Are you concerned about the growing anti-Americanism in the Arab world and elsewhere?
Bush: By leading us toward a more peaceful world, America at times will create enemies. We're asking people to change, to listen to the voices of others in their countries. And some don't want to do that. Anti-Americanism also occurs because people don't like that America is powerful. We're leading the world in fighting HIV/AIDS, in feeding the hungary, in opening up markets to poor nations. We're not only a strong nation, but a compassionate one. And our position sometimes gives people a great opportunity to shout at the big guy. But so long as our actions convey our hearts and our ideals, we'll be fine in the long run.

RD: What is your vision for Iraq's future?
Bush: The problem is that there has not been the freedom there that encourages civic participation or schools to flourish or health care systems that answer to people's needs. So there's been resentment, and resentment breeds hostility, and hostility breeds terror. So our policy is one that says Iraq will be a free democratic country. Now it doesn't have to be a Western-style democracy, and its not going to happen immediately. But stability will come when the Iraqi people have a stake in the future of their country.
And think about it. A free Iraq will embolden people who love freedom in Iran. We're also setting the example for how a Palestinian state can, and I believe will emerge. I'm trying to convey my sense of what I call "realistic idealism."

RD: With gas and oil prices so volatile, people are worrying about fuel and energy costs. What can we do about that?
Bush: Look, we need an energy plan. We are dependent on foreign oil. I've been saying this for three years, but we can't get our plan out of Congress.
Here's what that plan is based on. One, we've got to encourage conservation--get people to buy fuel efficient cars. Two, we have to promote alternative sources of energy, like ethanol and bio-diesel. We ought to have safe nuclear energy, and I believe we have the technologies to do so. We need to promote clean coal technology. And we need to modernize our electricity grid.
In the long term, technology is going to help us. For example, we're spending billions on a hydrogen powered automobile. That'll change our dependence on foreign sources of energy when we get this automobile up and running.

RD: How do you propose to make health care more affordable to more people?
Bush: First, we need medical liability reform. There are a lot of frivolous lawsuits against doctors that run up medical costs. Second, small businesses must be allowed to pool risk in order to reduce the cost of their health insurance premiums. Third, we must ensure that tax-free health savings accounts enable consumers to make wise choices about what they spend on medicine and how they treat their bodies. Fourth, we need to use information technology to more efficiently deliver services. I know of one dad who took his daugter to various specialists because she had a rare form of leukemia. And he had to carry his daughters files from doctor to doctor, which is incredibly costly. There are practical ways to bring costs under control without federalizing health care, which would be wrong for the country.

RD: It looks like abortion will be front and center as an issue in this campaign.
Bush: It probably will because there are a lot of strong opinions on the subject. My attitude on abortion is that the President needs to promote what I call a culture of life. Our children ought to be welcomed to life and protected by law. Abortion laws will change when people's hearts change, and therefore a President's job is to aim for the ideal world in which people respect every life and we make abortions more scarce in America.

RD: What is the biggest difference between you and your opponent in this election?
Bush: I really don't want to get into that sort of debate. I'll just tell you what my vision is.
Look, I want to win. That's what you've got to know. Because I've got a job to do, and I know how to do it. I want to win the war on terror--and we are winning. And it's essential that the United States never yield, because if we begin to yield, other nations will grow weak.
Nearly every world problem makes it to this desk in the Oval Office, and you have to have a clear vision about what the world ought to look like. And you must speak clearly. You can't double-talk. You can't hedge. When an American President speaks, the world listens. And the world is a better and more peaceful place when America acts on the words spoken.

I agree Ican with everything except 'the envious will get what they want'. They'll find, however, that is they' win', they will win nothing since it is the 'rooters' who actually make it all work. Without the rooters, the house of cards collapses.

You know what Ican? I know in my heart he means every word of this. I just wish he was a better verbal communicator so the whole country could catch his vision.

An eloquent dumbass is no better than one that sounds as retarded as he actually is.

You know what Ican? I know in my heart he means every word of this. I just wish he was a better verbal communicator so the whole country could catch his vision.

Foxfyre wrote:

You know what Ican? I know in my heart he means every word of this. I just wish he was a better verbal communicator so the whole country could catch his vision.

Me too! But that's the way his cards were dealt. We who have nonetheless caught his vision because it is our vision too, have extra work to do as a result.

I see his vision perfectly. It is the part where his vision is unattainable, counter-productive, and myopic that I disagree with. I would dissect that interview piece by piece if only there were some substance to it. Instead, he chooses to respond to concrete questions with vague pseudo-patriotic rhetoric. Not that Kerry is any less guilty in that department.

For those that keeps claiming there's a Iraq and al Qaeda connection, please read this article. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=2&u=/nm/20040709/pl_nm/iraq_intelligence_qaeda_dc