AP: Iraqi troops killed 2 U.S. soldiers By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 20, 11:34 PM ET
Two California soldiers shot to death in Iraq were murdered by Iraqi civil-defense officers patrolling with them, military investigators have found.
The deaths of Army Spc. Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr. and 1st Lt. Andre D. Tyson were originally attributed to an ambush during a patrol near Balad, Iraq, on June 22, 2004.
But the Army's Criminal Investigation Command found that one or more of the Iraqis attached to the American soldiers on patrol fired at them, a military official said Tuesday.
A Pentagon spokesman knew of no other similar incident, calling it "extremely rare."
The Army has conducted an extensive investigation into the deaths but declined to provide details out of respect for relatives of the soldiers, spokesman Paul Boyce said Tuesday evening.
It was unclear whether the investigators had established a motive or arrested any suspects.
The families of McCaffrey and Tyson were to be briefed on the report's conclusions Tuesday and Wednesday by Brig. Gen. Oscar Hilman, the soldiers' commander at the time, and three other officers.
"When they come I have my list of questions ready, and I want these answers and I don't want lies," McCaffrey's mother, Nadia McCaffrey, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Soldiers who witnessed the attack have told her that two Iraqi patrolmen opened fire on her son's unit. The witnesses also said a third gunman simultaneously drove up to the American unit in a van, climbed onto the vehicle and fired at the Americans, she said.
"Nothing is clear. Nothing is clear," she said. Her son was shot eight times by bullets of various calibers, some of which penetrated his body armor, she said. She believes he bled to death.
Nadia McCaffrey has become a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, and said her son had reservations about it, too, though he served well and was promoted posthumously to sergeant.
"I really want this story to come out; I want people to know what happened to my son," she said. "There is no doubt to me that this (ambushes by attached Iraqi units) is still happening to soldiers today, but our chain of command is awfully reckless; they don't seem to give a damn about what's happening to soldiers."
Iraqi forces who had trained with the Americans had fired at them twice before the incident that killed Patrick McCaffrey, and he had reported it to his superiors, she said.
Boyce said the U.S. military remained confident in its operations with Iraqis.
"We continue to have confidence in our operations with Iraqi soldiers and have witnessed the evolution of a stronger fighting army for the Iraqi people," he said.
"The Army is committed to investigating each battlefield death and providing accurate information to families."
Patrick McCaffrey joined the National Guard the day after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his mother said.
Tyson's family could not be located, and a message left with his former unit was not immediately returned.
McCaffrey, 34, and Tyson, 33, were members of the California National Guard. Both were assigned to the Army National Guard's 579th Engineer Battalion, based in Petaluma.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., pressed the Pentagon for answers about the case when Nadia McCaffrey was unsatisfied by explanations from the military.
"Mrs. McCaffrey is set to receive a briefing from Pentagon officials (Wednesday) afternoon in California, during which we hope they will provide her with a full report of the facts surrounding Sgt. McCaffrey's death," said Natalie Ravitz, a Boxer spokeswoman.
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was one of a series of crises during an era of upheaval in the Middle East: revolution in Iran, occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students, invasion of the Great Mosque in Mecca by anti-royalist Islamicists, the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, and internecine fighting among Syrians, Israelis, and Palestinians in Lebanon. The war followed months of rising tension between the Iranian Islamic republic and secular nationalist Iraq. In mid-September 1980 Iraq attacked, in the mistaken belief that Iranian political disarray would guarantee a quick victory.
The international community responded with U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and for all member states to refrain from actions contributing in any way to the conflict's continuation. The Soviets, opposing the war, cut off arms exports to Iran and to Iraq, its ally under a 1972 treaty (arms deliveries resumed in 1982). The U.S. had already ended, when the shah fell, previously massive military sales to Iran. In 1980 the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran because of the Tehran embassy hostage crisis; Iraq had broken off ties with the U.S. during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.
Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq's main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war -- stirred by Iran's Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)
Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.
The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for a review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
One of these directives from Reagan, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, signed on July 12, 1983, is available only in a highly redacted version [Document 21]. It reviews U.S. regional interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and U.S. objectives, including peace between Israel and the Arabs, resolution of other regional conflicts, and economic and military improvements, "to strengthen regional stability." It deals with threats to the U.S., strategic planning, cooperation with other countries, including the Arab states, and plans for action. An interdepartmental review of the implications of shifting policy in favor of Iraq was conducted following promulgation of the directive.
By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.
The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well [Document 25].
What was the Reagan administration's response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack" [Document 25]. The State Department argued that the U.S. needed to respond in some way to maintain the credibility of its official opposition to chemical warfare, and recommended that the National Security Council discuss the issue.
Following further high-level policy review, Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114, dated November 26, 1983, concerned specifically with U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The directive reflects the administration's priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to defend oil facilities, and measures to improve U.S. military capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and directs the secretaries of state and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take appropriate measures to respond to tensions in the area. It states, "Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic." It does not mention chemical weapons [Document 26].
Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein," while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president [Document 28]. Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting [Document 31].
Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more" regarding the Iran-Iraq war, but "made clear that our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us, citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights." He then moved on to other U.S. concerns [Document 32]. Later, Rumsfeld was assured by the U.S. interests section that Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and that "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person" [Document 36 and Document 37].
Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in late March 1984. By this time, the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later" [Document 48]. Rumsfeld was to discuss with Iraqi officials the Reagan administration's hope that it could obtain Export-Import Bank credits for Iraq, the Aqaba pipeline, and its vigorous efforts to cut off arms exports to Iran. According to an affidavit prepared by one of Rumsfeld's companions during his Mideast travels, former NSC staff member Howard Teicher, Rumsfeld also conveyed to Iraq an offer from Israel to provide assistance, which was rejected [Document 61].
Although official U.S. policy still barred the export of U.S. military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a "don't ask - don't tell" basis. In April 1984, the Baghdad interests section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter Textron's negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be "in any way configured for military use" [Document 55]. The purchaser was the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron's Italian subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down a request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes helicopters. An allied government, South Korea, informed the State Department that it had received a similar request in June 1983 (when a congressional aide asked in March 1983 whether heavy trucks recently sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official replied "we presumed that this was Iraq's intention, and had not asked.") [Document 44]
During the spring of 1984 the U.S. reconsidered policy for the sale of dual-use equipment to Iraq's nuclear program, and its "preliminary results favor[ed] expanding such trade to include Iraqi nuclear entities" [Document 57]. Several months later, a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis said that even after the war ended, Iraq was likely to "continue to develop its formidable conventional and chemical capability, and probably pursue nuclear weapons" [Document 58]. (Iraq is situated in a dangerous neighborhood, and Israel had stockpiled a large nuclear weapons arsenal without international censure. Nuclear nonproliferation was not a high priority of the Reagan administration - throughout the 1980s it downplayed Pakistan's nuclear program, though its intelligence indicated that a weapons capability was being pursued, in order to avert congressionally mandated sanctions. Sanctions would have impeded the administration's massive military assistance to Pakistan provided in return for its support of the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.)
In February 1984, Iraq's military, expecting a major Iranian attack, issued a warning that "the invaders should know that for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it whatever the number and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide" [Document 41]. On March 3, the State Department intervened to prevent a U.S. company from shipping 22,000 pounds of phosphorous fluoride, a chemical weapons precursor, to Iraq. Washington instructed the U.S. interests section to protest to the Iraqi government, and to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "we anticipate making a public condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the near future," and that "we are adamantly opposed to Iraq's attempting to acquire the raw materials, equipment, or expertise to manufacture chemical weapons from the United States. When we become aware of attempts to do so, we will act to prevent their export to Iraq" [Document 42].
The public condemnation was issued on March 5. It said, "While condemning Iraq's chemical weapons use . . . The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims" [Document 43].
Later in the month, the State Department briefed the press on its decision to strengthen controls on the export of chemical weapons precursors to Iran and Iraq, in response to intelligence and media reports that precursors supplied to Iraq originated in Western countries. When asked whether the U.S.'s conclusion that Iraq had used chemical weapons would have "any effect on U.S. recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range, and also a willingness to open diplomatic relations," the department's spokesperson said "No. I'm not aware of any change in our position. We're interested in being involved in a closer dialogue with Iraq" [Document 52].
Iran had submitted a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use. The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to lobby friendly delegations in order to obtain a general motion of "no decision" on the resolution. If this was not achievable, the U.S. delegate was to abstain on the issue. Iraq's ambassador met with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, and asked for "restraint" in responding to the issue - as did the representatives of both France and Britain.
A senior U.N. official who had participated in a fact-finding mission to investigate Iran's complaint commented "Iranians may well decide to manufacture and use chemical weapons themselves if [the] international community does not condemn Iraq. He said Iranian assembly speaker Rafsanjani [had] made public statements to this effect" [Document 50].
Iraqi interests section head Nizar Hamdoon met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Placke on March 29. Hamdoon said that Iraq strongly preferred a Security Council presidential statement to a resolution, and wanted the response to refer to former resolutions on the war, progress toward ending the conflict, but to not identify any specific country as responsible for chemical weapons use. Placke said the U.S. could accept Iraqi proposals if the Security Council went along. He asked for the Iraqi government's help "in avoiding . . . embarrassing situation[s]" but also noted that the U.S. did "not want this issue to dominate our bilateral relationship" [Document 54].
On March 30, 1984, the Security Council issued a presidential statement condemning the use of chemical weapons, without naming Iraq as the offending party. A State Department memo circulating the draft text observed that, "The statement, by the way contains all three elements Hamdoon wanted" [Document 51].
On April 5, 1984, Ronald Reagan issued another presidential directive (NSDD 139), emphasizing the U.S. objective of ensuring access to military facilities in the Gulf region, and instructing the director of central intelligence and the secretary of defense to upgrade U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities. It codified U.S. determination to develop plans "to avert an Iraqi collapse." Reagan's directive said that U.S. policy required "unambiguous" condemnation of chemical warfare (without naming Iraq), while including the caveat that the U.S. should "place equal stress on the urgent need to dissuade Iran from continuing the ruthless and inhumane tactics which have characterized recent offensives." The directive does not suggest that "condemning" chemical warfare required any hesitation about or modification of U.S. support for Iraq [Document 53].
A State Department background paper dated November 16, 1984 said that Iraq had stopped using chemical weapons after a November 1983 demarche from the U.S., but had resumed their use in February 1984. On November 26, 1984, Iraq and the U.S. restored diplomatic relations. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, in Washington for the formal resumption of ties, met with Secretary of State George Shultz. When their discussion turned to the Iran-Iraq war, Aziz said that his country was satisfied that "the U.S. analysis of the war's threat to regional stability is 'in agreement in principle' with Iraq's," and expressed thanks for U.S. efforts to cut off international arms sales to Iran. He said that "Iraq's superiority in weaponry" assured Iraq's defense. Shultz, with presumed sardonic intent, "remarked that superior intelligence must also be an important factor in Iraq's defense;" Tariq Aziz had to agree [Document 60].
Conclusion
The current Bush administration discusses Iraq in starkly moralistic terms to further its goal of persuading a skeptical world that a preemptive and premeditated attack on Iraq could and should be supported as a "just war." The documents included in this briefing book reflect the realpolitik that determined this country's policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.
Most of the information in this briefing book, in its broad outlines, has been available for years. Some of it was recorded in contemporaneous news reports; a few investigative reporters uncovered much more - especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A particular debt is owed to the late representative Henry Gonzales (1916-2000), Democrat of Texas, whose staff extensively investigated U.S. policy toward Iraq during the 1980s and who would not be deterred from making information available to the public [Note 2]. Almost all of the primary documents included in this briefing book were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act and were published in 1995 [Note 3].
REAGAN'S LOUSY RECORD ON TERRORISM.
Achille Heel
by Ryan Lizza
Post date 06.11.04
Over the last week, Ronald Reagan has been rightly celebrated for his clarity and tenacity in facing down communism. Less has been said about how Reagan dealt with terrorism, the national security threat that obsesses us today. Perhaps that is because, while he was unwavering and resolute in his confrontation with the communists, he was passive and uncertain in his response to terrorists.
It's often forgotten, but Reagan's eight years in office witnessed a marked increase in acts of international terrorism. In fact, terrorists killed far more Americans during the 1980s than during the 1990s. In 1983, Hezbollah suicide bombers attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63. Later that year, in October, a 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 Americans--the most deadly terrorist strike against the United States until September 11. In March 1984, Islamic terrorists kidnapped, and eventually killed, a CIA officer. The following month, Hezbollah killed 18 American soldiers in an attack on a restaurant near an airbase in Spain. Two U.S. military personnel were killed by another truck bombing in Beirut in September 1984. Terrorists hijacked an airliner, TWA 847, in July 1985 and killed one American, Navy diver Robert Stethem, whose corpse was thrown out of the plane and onto the runway. In October came the Achille Lauro incident, in which Palestinian terrorists commandeered a cruise ship and executed Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound American tourist. In December, Abu Nidal terrorists attacked travelers simultaneously at airports in Rome and Vienna. In March 1986, terrorists killed four Americans in Greece. In April, Libyans bombed a West Berlin disco, killing two American soldiers and injuring dozens more. The Libyan attack finally elicited a military response from Reagan, who sent U.S. bombers to attack Tripoli and Benghazi. Commenting on the years of passivity preceding the Libya bombing, Reagan's biographer, Lou Cannon, observed, "For five years of his presidency, Reagan talked tough about terrorism but did virtually nothing in the way of retaliatory action to stop it."
There seems to be a bipartisan consensus today that Reagan's uncertainty in the face of these devastating blows from Islamists bolstered the nascent Al Qaeda's confidence in the early '90s. Reviewing Reagan's response to terrorism, Norman Podhoretz penned a withering critique in Commentary in 2002. Podhoretz wrote that, upon Reagan's inauguration, terrorists may have "feared that the hawkish new President might actually launch a military strike against them. Yet, if they had foreseen what was coming under Reagan, they would not have been so fearful." Richard Clarke, who served in the Reagan administration, notes in his new book, Against All Enemies, that Reagan's departure from Lebanon "gave terrorists the impression they could attack the United States with relative impunity." Even Bush administration officials have repeatedly noted how the terrorism policies of the Reagan era fed a belief that the United States would not sacrifice blood or treasure to fight Islamic militants. In her testimony before the 9/11 Commission, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice mentioned the retreat from Lebanon and the hijacking of the Achille Lauro before noting, "For more than twenty years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient."
Reagan's failures in Lebanon have long been seen as one of the worst blots on his record. Cannon noted, "If measured in loss of American lives abroad, Lebanon was the greatest disaster of the Reagan presidency." It was "a case study of foreign policy calamity" and the best illustration of "the naïveté, ignorance, and undisciplined internal conflict characteristic of the Reagan presidency." Sent on an ill-defined peacekeeping mission to restore order to the turbulent country, Reagan repeatedly pledged to stay the course. Four days after the devastating car bombing of the Marine barracks, he said "Let me ask those who say we should get out of Lebanon: If we were to leave Lebanon now, what message would that send to those who foment instability and terrorism?" Four months later, we got out of Lebanon. (It was left to Donald Rumsfeld, then Reagan's Middle East envoy, to visit Lebanon's president in his palace bunker and explain that, despite Reagan's promises, the Americans were leaving.) The message this sent to terrorists became clear in 1996, when Osama bin Laden tauntingly declared war against the United States: "We say to the Defense Secretary that his talk can induce a grieving mother to laughter! [A]nd shows the fears that had enshrined you all. Where was this false courage of yours when the explosion in Beirut took place in 1983? You were turned into scattered pits and pieces at that time; 241 mainly Marine soldiers were killed."
After the TWA 847 hijacking in 1985, the administration had been racked by so much terrorism that Reagan appointed Vice President Bush to a special commission to study the problem. But Reagan's advisers, divided along the same hawk/dove rift that defines Bush 43's administration, couldn't reach a consensus on how to respond to terrorism. The Washington Post called the disagreement "one of the most profound of Reagan's presidency" and noted that disputes "often paralyzed the administration after a terrorist attack." The split was not settled by Bush's report. When it was released in 1986, it endorsed a less aggressive response to terrorism than Reagan's rhetoric had promised. Asked about the commission's internal squabbling, Bush told reporters, "We haven't been able to solve that problem, and I wish we could have."
The one recommendation Reagan officials did agree on was being violated literally as the terrorism report was being printed in 1986. "The U.S. government," the task force concluded, "will make no concessions to terrorists. It will not pay ransoms, release prisoners, change its policies or agree to other acts that might encourage additional terrorism." Reagan violated that policy by paying a ransom of missiles to the Iranian mullahs in exchange for American hostages.
Ultimately, Reagan hit upon precisely the approach to terrorism that many conservatives condemn today and that John Kerry is often erroneously accused of advocating. That is, the Reagan administration began to treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem. Speaking at a conference in 1988 reviewing the administration's policies, L. Paul Bremer, then ambassador at large for counterterrorism, explained, "We are working to impose the rule of law on terrorists for their criminal actions. Good police work is catching terrorists, and they're being brought more and more to trial."
inally, it is impossible to survey Reagan's record on terrorism without looking at Afghanistan, where U.S. policy, no matter how instrumental in bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, also helped accelerate the rise of Al Qaeda. There remains a pernicious myth that Reagan's CIA specifically funded bin Laden in Afghanistan. As Peter Bergen's Holy War, Inc. and, more recently, Steve Coll's incredible chronicle of spycraft in Afghanistan, Ghost Wars, both point out, there is no evidence that the CIA had any dealings with bin Laden. But, as Clarke notes in his book, the Reagan administration either encouraged or acquiesced in the recruitment of Arabs to Afghanistan, and it looked the other way as the Saudis financed bin Laden and helped him set up his training camps. No thought was given to what would happen to all these aggrieved young Arabs from across the Middle East once the war was over.
The billions of dollars that went to the mujahedin, almost all of it by way of Pakistan's intelligence service, had other costs. Perhaps Reagan's biggest mistake was to allow Pakistan to funnel a disproportionate amount of anti-Soviet aid to the brutal Islamist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was close to bin Laden, instead of the relatively more moderate, and militarily more effective, Ahmad Shah Massoud. Even after Hekmatyar's virulent anti-Americanism became clear, Reagan did nothing to pressure the Pakistanis to cut off aid to him. (Hekmatyar is still alive and today bedevils U.S. forces in Afghanistan.) Even worse, Pakistan's newly empowered intelligence agency helped create the Taliban and eventually helped integrate Al Qaeda into the Taliban structure.
In Afghanistan, the Reagan administration was brilliant at helping deliver a devastating blow to the Soviets on the battlefield. Unfortunately, it was abysmal at thinking through what the long-term consequences of its actions might be once the war ended. Sound familiar?
Ryan Lizza is a senior editor at The New Republic.
We are at the beginning of 1983 and we are the Soviets in Afghanistan. Here is what wikipedia says about that era:
"1983
Quote:The Muslim insurgency remains locked in military stalemate against Soviet and Afghan troops. The government controls the cities, while the guerrillas control the countryside. There are conflicting reports on the success of the regime in either neutralizing the insurgency movement or crushing it with the aid of some 110,000 Soviet troops. Reports on the war are sketchy and probably biased, since they are based on accounts given either by Pakistan-based rebel groups or by journalists taken on conducted tours by the government. President Karmal is firmly in command of the ruling PDPA. Infighting between the Parcham and Khalq factions of the party is less evident in 1983 than in previous years, and it appears that the Soviets have succeeded in bringing them under control. Afghanistan continues to depend on the Soviet Union for economic aid and food assistance."
Three years later, Soviet documents show, Gorbachev had decided he could not win in Afghanistan, and that he would have to withdraw. Shortly thereafter, the CIA gave Stinger shoulder-held missiles to the Mujahidin (including to our then ally Gulbuddin Hikmatyar), and Gorbachev had to accelerate his plans. In 1988 the Soviets withdrew. A year later the Soviet empire lost its Eastern European satellites, and in 1991 it collapsed.
Would the Soviets have been better off getting out of Afghanistan in 1983? Without any doubt whatsoever. Would the chaos in the country have been worse than what eventually happened, in the 1990s? Highly unlikely.
As for Snow's contention that for the US to get out of Iraq would be a defeat in the war on terror, it is exactly the opposite. The US occupation of Iraq is now reviving the terror movement among Muslim radicals. This is the conclusion of experts such as Fawaz Gerges and Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin. Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin.
The quicker we end the miltiary occupation, the sooner we will stop inadvertently training the next generation of terrorists who want to hit us.
And, anyway, as the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi demonstrates, there is no real need to worry about terrorism flourishing in western Iraq. The neighbors-- Jordan, Syria and Turkey-- would never put up with it, for fear it would spill over onto them. And as that operation showed, the Jordanians are better at tracking down Arab terrorists than the US military (yes, it does help to know Arabic fluently).
Moreover, there is some danger of Bush's imperial over-stretch imperiling our republic. Our budget deficits, enormous indebtedness, the sinking dollar, and other effects of imperial overstretch and Republican Party irresponsibility could lead to a crisis of epochal proportions.
Everything Snow said was wrong, and most of it was insulting-- whether to my late uncle, to the greatest generation in general, or just to our intelligence.
Cycloptichorn wrote:
...
noone is setting any metrics at all about how it will happen, at what point we will have judged it will happen, and what criteria will be used to do that judging.
I think you mean no one in the Bush administration has stated "what criteria will be used to do that judging." I have repeatedly stated that the USA will leave when the newly elected Iraq government asks us to leave. I state that with conviction, despite the failure of the Bush administration to explicitly announce that criterion, because I am convinced (1) American voters (including me) would demand Bush be impeached if we didn't leave Iraq were that condition to be met, (2) a large majority of the House would vote for such impeachment under that condition, and (3) Bush is also convinced of both.
I understand that you have been offering metrics, which I appreciate. But noone in an official capacity seems to be doing so. I think that there is a feeling that none of the metrics will possibly be met, so creating any of them will be a political disaster for the Admin; so there are none created, even though we are deep into this occupation. There really should be announced metrics; this is, according to Bush's words today, an 'open democracy' after all.
Now, your 2nd to last post laid out some criteria, and I appreciate that, though I am skeptical that these will come out to be.
I think a good backup (to a chicken Iraq government's possible reluctance to see us ever leave) is the USA will leave when the violent death rate in Iraq = less than 0.02%, or currently less than 5,600 per year (or some such specific rate). But you are right to be skeptical in that no such explicit criteria have been offered by either Democrats or Republicans. Nonetheless, I still hope such an explicit criterion is soon passed in a joint Congressional resolution.
We are in perfect agreement in our hope that such criteria will be established soon; but while I think Dems would get behind it (for political reasons), I'm sure that Republicans wouldn't (for political reasons).
I think the fact that neither of you is willing to put any sort of time limit whatsoever on the occupation of Iraq belies a real truth about this conflict: we don't plan on leaving, ever. We plan on having strategic bases in Iraq in perpetuity. This isn't going to go over well with Iraqis or other Muslims in the area, I guarantee.
That's a bit of paranoia you are showing. I don't want a time limit specified for leaving Iraq; I want an explicit accomplishment(s) specified for leaving Iraq, because I think the problem must be solved according to an explicit criterion or explicit criteria.
I don't know about phrases such as must be solved. Many made the same argument about Vietnam, and things sure aren't so bad with them today; I feel that it is in our best interests to leave a pacified Iraq, but it is not critical to our nor the region's survival.
You say that a 'majority of Iraqi voters' must sign a resolution to get us to leave. But why is that? Why shouldn't the government be able to make the decision? After all, a majority of Americans didn't decide to attack Iraq in the first place, our government did.
Replace must sign in your statement with could sign and I would agree with your statement. It is after all only one more sufficient criterion.
Allrighty, though I would say that if their government asks us to leave, we should leave, regardless of any popular vote; the government is supposed to stand as the voice of the people, after all, and we should respect that the same way Americans expect other countries to respect our government's decisions.
And it's a he, by the way, none of that s/he junk.
Sorry about that. I misjudged a comment from you about something could cause your panties to be knotted. That made me unsure.
Can you show any sort of metric offered by the military or the administration? Is anyone with an official post judging how things are going in Iraq? Or is Bush just waiting to leave office so someone else can clean up his mess?
I cannot show that anyone in the administration has as yet offered a metric. I know that many in the administration profess to be judging how things are going, but none so far as I know are judging by a metric or metrics ... except how many Iraqi troops are and must be battle ready to take over from USA troops. I too think that kind of metric unsatisfactory because it measures capability and not results.
I haven't even been able to find a 'must be' ready metric from any official capacity. And I'm not sure if the number of 'ready' units is increasing or not, though I have read much more about the IA conducting operations in Baghdad lately.
Cycloptichorn
Iraq: US may be asked to leave
Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor
21jun06
In an exclusive interview with The Australian, former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has given a gloomy assessment of the situation.
"The British used to make a big deal of walking around in their berets in the south," he said. "Now they won't even go to the latrines without their helmets. The south has got much rougher, it's mainly Shia on Shia violence."
Mr Armitage said much of the violence came from differences over how the Islamic religion should be interpreted.
And he said he believed the Iraqis would soon ask the US to leave their country.
The most optimistic scenario following a US withdrawal would be that Iraq would become a loose federation -- although the term federation would not be used because it upsets neighbouring Turkey -- with a weak central government.
"The difficulty then will be to stop them (the Iraqis) causing violence for their neighbours," Mr Armitage said.
This was because almost all of Iraq's neighbours had restive Shia minorities and the governments of both Iraq and Iran would come under pressure to intervene on their behalf.
Mr Armitage believed the Shi'ites and Sunnis had not sated their appetite for violence against each other. But there were signs of the essential compromises necessary to make Iraq stable in the negotiations taking place inside the new Iraqi Government.
Mr Armitage said he hoped there could be a draw-down of US and other coalition troops in Iraq in the next 12 to 18 months.
Although George W. Bush had a good week, with the death of al-Qa'ida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and progress with the Iraqi Government , Mr Armitage believes Iraq is still a big drag on Republicans.
He said "many Republicans are running away from the President" as they prepared for the forthcoming mid-term congressional elections.
Mr Armitage was equally gloomy about Afghanistan, especially in the south, where violence was worsening and Australia was deploying a new provincial reconstruction team. "It'll be heavy lifting for them," he said. "Five years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the ordinary people don't see much change in their lives."
Several factors were driving the renewed violence in Afghanistan including drugs which provided money for numerous warlords.
"At the same time, some in Pakistan may believe that the Taliban may come back. The Talibs also see us handing over to NATO and they see some NATO countries as weaker than us."
But Mr Armitage identified the US-Australian alliance as one of the success stories in Bush foreign policy. He paid the ultimate compliment to the Australian Prime Minister: "Howard got everything he wanted."
...
I don't know about phrases such as must be solved. Many made the same argument about Vietnam, and things sure aren't so bad with them today; I feel that it is in our best interests to leave a pacified Iraq, but it is not critical to our nor the region's survival.
...
Cycloptichorn
You absolutely know I think otherwise, so why say something so silly??
My post was not directed exclusively to you. Nevertheless, I'm happy with your comments and do appreciate them.
I sincerely hope everyone else opposed to the USA invasion of Iraq also thinks those comments of mine you just refered to are "so silly."
The US created many of the problems we face today through our policies over the last 25 years, but that doesn't mean that those who put those policies into place (which had some consequences) are murderers the same way that a terrorist is a murderer.
Yes, the USA did create many of the problems we face today through our policies over the last 25 years. In particular, the past USA policy of containment, stabilization, and, in some cases, support for tyrannies in the middle east created many of the problems that now exist in the middle east.
Cycloptichorn
Now you answer the question: When is enough, enough?
'Cut and Run?' Reduced to talking points, Tico?
It isn't 'cutting and running,' because it isn't a war. We won the war a long time ago.
What we are currently experiencing is an occupation. And the question is, at what point does the occupation fail in the cost/benefit equation?
What criteria can be used to judge this? Is it possible to judge this, or do you think we are irrevocably committed to our course of action?
ps. There is no doubt that a large part of the Iraqi population actively supports what is going on in their country right now, both on the Sunni violence side and the Shiite violence side. This was forseeable in many ways, and was one of the reasons that I was against this war - thought it would cost too much, and not benefit enough - at t-75 days of attack.
