US AND THEM: US, UN & Iraq, version 8.0

I disagree completely.

Reasons 3 and 4 are not in fact justification for invasion, 1 is false, and reason 5 has been replaced with 'Iraq's insurgents are murdering Iraqis at the rate of thousands per year.' Hardly an improvement.

Cycloptichorn

Or they will get rid of us. Once again, want to lay odds?

Cycloptichorn

Secret UK troops plan for Afghan crisis

BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR


DEFENCE chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Ministers have been warned they face a "complete strategic failure" of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan and that 5,500 extra troops will be needed within months if the situation continues to deteriorate.

An explosive cocktail of feuding tribal warlords, insurgents, the remnants of the Taliban, and under-performing Afghan institutions has left the fledgling democracy on the verge of disintegration, according to analysts and senior officers.

The looming crisis in Afghanistan is a serious setback for the US-led 'War on Terror' and its bid to promote western democratic values around the world.

Defence analysts say UK forces are already so over-stretched that any operation to restore order in Afghanistan can only succeed if substantial numbers of troops are redeployed from Iraq, itself in the grip of insurgency.

The UK contribution to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan presently stands at fewer than 500, compared with the contribution of 8,000 troops to the Coalition presence in Iraq.

Planners at the UK military's Northolt headquarters have drawn up emergency proposals to send up to 5,500 troops to Afghanistan to help avert a descent into more widespread bloodshed.

As well as increasing the British presence in Afghanistan 10-fold, it would require additional funding of almost £500m.

MoD sources confirmed last night that the secret plans have been firmed up in response to persistent concerns that the notorious rebel commander Gulbadeen Hikmatyar has teamed up with Taliban fighters in the south.

An MoD source told Scotland on Sunday: "We are going into an area where there's a civil war going on. It's dangerous and it's somewhere new.

"People within the MoD are now saying we will have to deal with this and go into the south of the country. What they are saying is, don't do it piecemeal. We will have to do it properly."

Senior army and navy officers, along with officials from the Treasury, were in the region last week to survey the options.

But American military experts last night claimed an increase in the British presence in Afghanistan would inevitably threaten the numbers committed to Iraq.

Charles Heyman, a senior analyst with the defence information group Jane's, told Scotland on Sunday: "There's no doubt whatsoever that Afghanistan is caught in a very difficult position, where it is very hard to progress without committing more forces.

"There is not enough Coalition power, or Afghan government power, to extend their writ into the areas that have proved impossible to control. This is going to be a very difficult period.

"They might struggle to cover their commitment to Iraq, but even if they do that, it would mean that the UK could not take on any further military commitments anywhere else."

Afghanistan was liberated from the oppressive grip of the Taliban following the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. American-led forces launched a ferocious assault on the regime, which was accused of harbouring Osama bin Laden and his closest allies. But they have been fighting a largely forgotten war with Afghan rebels, foreign insurgents and tribal warlords ever since.

The treacherous situation was underlined yesterday when a bomb exploded near a US military patrol in Zabul province, southern Afghanistan, killing one soldier and wounding three others.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due in Washington this week to discuss the deteriorating situation.

He is also expected to raise concerns about fresh claims that his countrymen had been abused by their US captors in Iraqi jails, allegations that provoked sustained protests around the country.

But a newspaper last night claimed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had said in a memo that a poppy eradication program aimed at Afghanistan's heroin trade was ineffective partly because of President Hamid Karzai's leadership.

Quote:

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5-17-04: News at Home

Historians vs. George W. Bush
By Robert S. McElvaine
Mr. McElvaine teaches history at Millsaps College. He is the author of EVE'S SEED: BIOLOGY, THE SEXES AND THE COURSE OF HISTORY (McGraw-Hill).

Although his approval ratings have slipped somewhat in recent weeks, President George W. Bush still enjoys the overall support of nearly half of the American people. He does not, however, fare nearly so well among professional historians.

A recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by George Mason University’s History News Network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.
...

I disagree completely.

Reasons 3 and 4 are not in fact justification for invasion, 1 is false, and reason 5 has been replaced with 'Iraq's insurgents are murdering Iraqis at the rate of thousands per year.' Hardly an improvement.

Cycloptichorn

They despise judges who legislate rather than interpret the law.

(I must of admit when I first heard that line of defense here on these threads I thought it originated here. I was surprised to hear it from Bush the other day.)

... I don't know how much evidence there is that Iraq was harboring, Cooperating, whatever fun word we want to use about it, AQ at the time. There were probably members of AQ in Iraq. I don't know how significant they were. They certainly weren't OBL or the top leaders of AQ. ... Cycloptichorn

Peace in Iraq 'will take at least five years to impose'

Richard Norton-Taylor and Michael Howard in Iraq
Wednesday May 25, 2005
The Guardian

It could take at least five years before Iraqi forces are strong enough to impose law and order on the country, the International Institute of Strategic Studies warned yesterday.
The thinktank's report said that Iraq had become a valuable recruiting ground for al-Qaida, and Iraqi forces were nowhere near close to matching the insurgency.

John Chipman, IISS director, said the Iraqi security forces faced a "huge task" and the continuing ability of the insurgents to inflict mass casualties "must cast doubt on US plans to redeploy American troops and eventually reduce their numbers".

Insurgents have killed 600 Iraqis since the new government was formed. The IISS report said: "Best estimates suggest that it will take up to five years to create anything close to an effective indigenous force able to impose and guarantee order across the country."

The report said that, on bal ance, US policy over the past year had been effective in emboldening regional players in the Middle East and the Gulf to rally against rogue states.

But it warned that the inspirational effect of the intervention in Iraq on Islamist terrorism was "the proverbial elephant in the living room. From al-Qaida's point of view, [President] Bush's Iraq policies have arguably produced a confluence of propitious circumstances: a strategically bogged down America, hated by much of the Islamic world, and regarded warily even by its allies".

Iraq "could serve as a valuable proving ground for 'blooding' foreign jihadists, and could conceivably form the basis of a second generation of capable al-Qaida leaders ... and middle-management players", the report said.

Yesterday, a statement was placed on the al-Qaida in Iraq website claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Islamist who has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, kidnappings and beheadings of foreign hostages, had been injured.

The statement, whose authenticity could not be verified, asked Muslims to pray for his recovery but did not say how or when he was injured. It said: "Let the near and far know that the injury of our leader is an honour, and a cause to close in on the enemies of God, and a reason to increase the attacks against them."

There were reports this month that the US military was investigating whether al-Zarqawi was at a Ramadi hospital and whether he was ill or wounded.

The thinktank report points to US estimates that there are between 12,000 and 20,000 hardcore insurgents in Iraq. It says that Iraqi politicians have been keen to blame the rise in sectarian violence on foreign jihadists. "But they may have overstated their case."

Insurgents demonstrated their ability to hit US forces in the heart of the Iraqi capital yesterday when a military convoy was targeted by a car bomb, killing three US troops.

A fourth US soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting as he sat atop a Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post in central Baghdad.

The US military also announced yesterday that four soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb on Monday in Haswa, 30 miles south of the capital, bringing the total number of US fatalities since Sunday to 13.

Yesterday, Iraq's new interior minister, Bayan al-Jabr, who is also a member of the ruling Shia-led alliance, met two prominent Sunni Muslim figures in an effort to reduce sectarian tensions. Officials said the meeting was designed to "curb all hateful attempts aiming to plan sectarian sedition among the Iraqi people".

Toby Dodge, senior fellow at the IISS and expert on Iraq, estimated yesterday that there were about 1,000 foreign fighters in Iraq "perfecting the use of car bombs" and causing more problems across the region, including Saudi Arabia. There seemed to be no "viable exit strategy" for foreign troops.