THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

BAGHDAD, April 12 (Reuters) - A car bomb killed at least 26 people outside a Shi'ite mosque north of Baghdad on Wednesday as Iraqi leaders failed to make progress towards forming a national unity government they hope can avert sectarian civil war.

The explosion in the town of Howaydir was the latest in a wave of attacks against Iraq's Shi'ite majority that Washington fears will push the country close to a full-scale communal conflict in the vacuum left by bickering politicians.

Some 70 people were wounded in the explosion, police said.

Fresh demands from the Shi'ite Alliance over the creation of a government threatened to prolong the political paralysis.

Acting parliament speaker Adnan Pachachi said Iraqi leaders would discuss a national unity government at the next session on Monday and he was optimistic of a breakthrough before then in spite of the Shi'ite Alliance's reluctance to drop its choice of Ibrahim al-Jaafari for prime minister.

"I spoke to the heads of all the political blocs and I sensed a true intent from all to push the political process forward," Pachachi said. "From now until the 17th of this month, we believe there will be an agreement on some of the problems."

Elections for the new government ended four months ago and the United States and Britain have been pressing Iraqi leaders to agree on who will lead it, fearful the widening vacuum emboldens insurgents trying to undermine the political process.

The number of leaks - highly sensitive leaks, btw, about our plans for Iran - appearing in papers these days makes me wonder if there isn't a cabal in the Pentagon and DoJ to get rid of Bushco before they do any more damage.

Four and Out?
The dangerous lesson America's wars have taught us.
by James Thayer
Daily Standard
04/06/2006 12:00:00 AM

THE SOLDIER LAY ON THE GROUND, his cheek pressed into the dirt. Thick ropes of fog hid the low trees and scrub brush and the dangers on the ridge ahead. No matter how he squinted, he couldn't see through the blind white. The soldier's name was Henry Gunther, and he was from Baltimore.

He was far from home, lying there below a ridge called the Côte Romagne. He crawled forward a few feet, his rifle cradled in his arms, then dropped back to his belly, flat as a worm. To his left, his sergeant inched along, also on the ground. A manned roadblock might be ahead, they'd been told.

Then--the record is not clear--either Gunther or the sergeant, Ernest Powell--rose first, and began walking deeper into the fog blur. The other got to his feet and followed.

Bullets suddenly split the air above them, accompanied by the hammering of a heavy machine gun somewhere up ahead in the haze. Gunther sprinted forward, toward the sound. Sergeant Powell shouted for him to stop.

A wedge of sunlight abruptly made it through the fog. A German machine gun nest was at the roadblock, startlingly close. And--the oddest thing--the German soldiers had stopped shooting, and were waving at Gunther, gesturing that he should turn back. But he continued to run toward them. They waved again, but he kept coming.

Then came a short burst, no more than five rounds. A bullet entered Gunther's head at the left temple, and he was dead before his body or his

rifle found the ground.

The time was 10:59 in the morning, November 11, 1918; one minute to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the beginning of the armistice that ended the First World War. Henry Gunther was the last American to die in that conflict.

THE U.S. MILITARY INVOLVEMENT in the Great War lasted one year and seven months.

This war and America's other wars, before and since, have taught its citizens a simple lesson. It is a lesson that is now deeply ingrained in the national consciousness, as much a part of the common knowledge as voting on Tuesdays or removing hats for the national anthem.

And it is a lesson which could lead to defeat in the war on terror.

The precise beginnings and ends to wars are sometimes hard to determine, and are often debatable, but a consensus develops over time. The War of 1812 began on June 18, 1812, when President James Madison signed a declaration of war. It was ended two and a half years later by the Treaty of Ghent.

The American Civil War began April 12, 1861 when Confederate soldiers fired on Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter, in Charleston. The South surrendered on April 9, 1865 at the Appomattox Court House. The war had lasted four years, less three days.

Between the Day that Will Live in Infamy and Victory over Japan Day (August 15, 1945), three years, eight months and eight days elapsed.

The Korean Conflict--termed a conflict by diplomats and politicians charged with parsing words, but a war by everyone who was there--began just before dawn on June 25, 1950, when 135,000 North Korean troops crossed the 38th Parallel, advancing behind a massive, rolling artillery barrage. A cease-fire was declared July 27, 1953, three years, one month, and two days later.

he lesson: Americans fight short wars.

IN ITS 230 YEARS of history the United States has engaged in only relatively quick military engagements. The last two and a third centuries have seen a world ravaged by constant, brutal hostilities, yet American military forces are in-and-out in three to four years.

There are two exceptions, of course. Precisely when the Vietnam War began for Americans is hard to say, but March 1965--when 3,500 Marines, the first combat troops--landed in South Vietnam (there were already about 20,000 U.S. advisers in the country)--is as good a moment to pinpoint as any. America's involvement ended in January 1973 when President Nixon announced the suspension of offensive action. United States troops were then quickly withdrawn. So the American portion of the war lasted about eight years. The distinction between Vietnam and the other wars listed above is that the United States lost the Vietnam War.

The other exception is the War of Independence. The first battles--Lexington and Concord--occurred in April 1775, and the war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Yet even this length of time--eight years--is short, in terms of war.

How can eight years of war be short?

War has ravaged Sudan almost without let-up for the past 51 years, first as a conflict between the Christian south and the Arab Muslim north, and now between rebel groups and the fundamentalist Khartoum government. The war is as vicious as any other: 200,000 Nuba and Southern Sudanese women and children have been stolen from their homes

and taken north into slavery. This combat has no end in sight.

Guatemala suffered 36 years of continuous war, ending in 1996, during which, by conservative estimate, 100,000 people were killed.

Further back in history: It is difficult today to remember that the French were at one time good at fighting. French Catholics battled French Huguenots for almost 50 years, ending in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. And the French fought the English in the Hundred Years War, so-named because that phrase is more mellifluous than the struggle's actual length, 116 years.

Everyone in Europe fought everyone else in Europe--the battles mostly in Germany--between 1618 and 1648 in the Thirty Years War.

The Crusades lasted from 1095 when Pope Urban II sent warriors to fight the Turks (the First Crusade) to 1291 when Acre fell, and with it the last of Christian rule in Muslim lands, at the end of the Ninth (and last) Crusade--which had been launched by Edward I of England. That's 196 years of more or less continuous war.

The Italian military (granted, not a phrase that springs readily to mind) has had only one recent success, the 1935 invasion and conquering of Ethiopia, which is to say, a desert wasteland. But at one time the Italians were warriors. The Italian Wars is a term given to a series of conflicts with names such as the War of the League of Cambria and the Hapsburg-Valois War, and even though historians have broken the hostilities into units, it was one long war, interrupted by a few months of peace here and there, involving the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, other Italian city-states, Spain, France, and who knows who else, from 1494 to 1559, a total of 65 years.

The descendents of John of Gaunt, first Duke of Lancaster, were called the House of Lancaster, and favored the red rose as their symbol. The descendants of Richard, Duke of York, were known as the House of York, whose symbol was the white rose. When the houses fought over the throne of England, it was called the War of the Roses, and it lasted 30 years, from 1455 to 1485.

IT ONLY TAKES A GLANCE at history to know that nothing intrinsic in war limits conflicts to the American experience. Due to the quirks of history or to the skill of America's military or to luck--presuming anything regarding war can be called luck--the United States has fought short wars.

Perhaps other nations, too, have been shaped by America's experience with war. By late summer 1945, Japan had been torpedoed, machine gunned, fire bombed and A-bombed virtually back to a pre-historic era. Its citizens--those who remained--looked out at the expanses of scattered bricks and muddy craters and charred wood, and declared that their nation would never fight again. Today, with muscular, imperialistic China a few miles to the west, and lunatic, bombastic North Korea even closer, the citizens of Japan are still satisfied with a military that is little more than a coast guard. The same lesson was learned by Japan's wartime ally. By the end of World War II, Germany from the Rhine to the Oder had been scythed down to the dirt by the Allies. Today--much of a century later--it is a nation that still cannot bear the thought of its soldiers wearing anything but U.N. peacekeepers' blue helmets. Germany was taught a lesson by war: that its destiny is intractable pacifism.

And Iran's new foreign minister, Manuchehr Motakki, says, "We are sure the U.S. will return to saner policies." Meaning, he's confident America will quit the war on terror soon. It's been four and a half years now since war was thrust on us, and America's patience is quickly thinning.

The United States cannot lose the war on terror militarily. Our soldiers are too good, too well-equipped, and too ferocious. But we can still lose the war, if the American people--antsy and staring at our calendars, the wrong lesson of our military history heavy upon us--order them home.

James Thayer is a frequent contributor to The Daily Standard. His twelfth novel, The Gold Swan, has been published by Simon & Schuster.

ISOLATED, under fire from insurgents and uncertain whether the looming khaki-clad figure ahead of him is friend or foe, Donald Rumsfeld may at last be discovering what life is like for the soldiers he sent to Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders critical of rule that lets soldiers leave units at will

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 13, 2006



ABU GHRAIB, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi commanders are increasingly critical of a policy that lets Iraqi soldiers leave their units virtually at will _ essentially deserting with no punishment. They blame the lax rule for draining the Iraqi ranks to confront the insurgency _ in some cases by 30 percent or even half.

Iraqi officials, however, say they have no choice but to allow the policy, or they may gain virtually no volunteers.

Most armies threaten imprisonment or fines for soldiers who abruptly leave their units, but the Iraqi army does not require its soldiers to sign contracts. That means they can quit anytime and casually treat enlistments as temporary jobs. Soldiers can even pick up their belongings and leave during missions _ and often do without facing punishment.

In the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Division that oversees part of this district just west of Baghdad _ also the site of the notorious prison _ U.S. trainers said only about 70 percent of Iraqis were present, attributing many of the 300 truant soldiers to the policy.

The commander said a shortage of troops is the unit's biggest problem _ and pinned the blame on both the policy and unmotivated soldiers.

"Under the military agreement, they can leave anytime," said Col. Alaa Kata al-Kafage, while his troops waited for a roadside bomb to be detonated. "After (soldiers) get paid and save a little bit of money, they leave."

The Iraqi army is said to number about 111,000 with a target of 130,000 sometime next year, according to the U.S. military.

Any shortage of Iraqi troops could complicate the U.S. command's larger plans to hand more security responsibilities to Iraqi forces by year's end. Such a plan would require Iraqi soldiers to take on exponentially larger _ and more violent _ areas.

Yet it's unclear whether the Iraqi government, preoccupied with political bickering, fending off insurgent attacks and containing sectarian violence, would even have the resources to locate or prosecute truant soldiers, if it changed the policy. Iraqi police have only recently hit city streets.

Some Iraqi officers believe the casual attitude toward unauthorized absences is a good thing because it helps morale among young soldiers who have never been away from home and joined mostly because they need money.

Forcing them to stick to a rigid schedule would lead to a decline in enthusiasm, said an Iraqi colonel in Baghdad who refused to give his name for security reasons.

Added Maj. Gen. Jaafar Mustafa, an Iraqi army officer in Sulaimaniyah: "We do not want any soldier to stay against his will, because this will affect the performance and the morale of the Iraqi army. By giving the choice for the Iraqi members to stay or leave, more people will volunteer in the army."

But al-Kafage and others argue the policy needs to be changed.

"All the soldiers now, they don't care about the country. They care about the money," al-Kafage said. "It's too easy for them to quit. If someone punishes them, they can throw down their uniform and say, 'Have a nice day.'"

U.S. trainers who oversee the battalion's rookie soldiers, most from the Shiite areas south of Baghdad, echo the complaint.

"They have serious problems with retention," said Maj. Larry Daley. "That's the hardest part _ keeping guys here."

U.S. trainers also frequently criticize the Iraqi army's leave policy, which grants soldiers 10 days off a month and further trims the ranks of available troops.

Large-scale insurgent attacks have intimidated many Iraqi soldiers into abandoning their posts.

In the town of Adhaim north of Baghdad, Iraqi soldiers said two insurgent ambushes in December _ one that killed 19 troops, and another that killed eight soldiers and wounded about two dozen more _ cut their battalion of about 600 soldiers in half.

"We lost altogether about half of our battalion," said Akid, a 20-year-old soldier from Diwanayah treated for a gunshot wound at a U.S. military hospital in Balad at the time. "They gave up."

Commanders in troubled Anbar province have cited the same abandonment concerns in even larger Iraqi units. In one brigade of Iraqi soldiers stationed in Habaniyah, U.S. officials said about 500 soldiers, or more than one-quarter, had quit and gone home.

It's not just the policy or threats of violence that lead to waves of desertions: quality of life also can have an impact.

In the Qaim area near the Syrian border, dozens of soldiers complained last month that they had not been paid in months. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense has struggled to build an infrastructure to both supply and regularly pay its troops. Iraqi soldiers also often live in dilapidated barracks that are slowly being refurbished.

U.S. trainers said some units have resorted to temporarily jailing soldiers who do not return from leave. But even these punishments have been manipulated by wayward but savvy soldiers.

"They'd rather go to jail then sit out at a hot" checkpoint, said Maj. Kenneth Wilson of Chicago, a trainer.