THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

revel wrote:

Quote:

NIE

Below, some important findings:

...

source

Why
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this first source's section titled, "Below, some important findings,"

source

more negative than
is the analysis of the situation in Iraq, in this second source's section titled, "Key Judgments,"

NIE

How hard is this to figure out?

One source had extensive editing by the WH, one didn't. The one edited had to include some good information.

Cycloptichorn

My question was rhetorical!

It's not hard to figure out at all. The NIE version is the valid original version, while the
source version is the version produced from the original version by extensive editing to exclude some good information.

What September Won't Settle
By George F. Will
Washington Post
Thursday, August 23, 2007; Page A19

Come September, America might slip closer toward a Weimar moment. It would be milder than the original but significantly disagreeable.

After the First World War, politics in Germany's new Weimar Republic were poisoned by the belief that the army had been poised for victory in 1918 and that one more surge could have turned the tide. Many Germans bitterly concluded that the political class, having lost its nerve and will to win, capitulated. The fact that fanciful analysis fed this rancor did not diminish its power.

The Weimar Republic was fragile; America's domestic tranquility is not. Still, remember the bitterness stirred by the accusatory question "Who lost China?" and corrosive suspicions that the fruits of victory in Europe had been squandered by Americans of bad character or bad motives at Yalta.

So, consider this: When Gen. David Petraeus delivers his report on the war, his Washington audience will include two militant factions. Perhaps nothing he can responsibly say will sway either, so September will reinforce animosities.

One faction -- essentially, congressional Democrats -- is heavily invested in the belief, fervently held by the party's base of donors and activists, that prolonging U.S. involvement can have no benefit commensurate with the costs. The war, this faction says, is lost because even its repeatedly and radically revised objective -- a stable society under a tolerable regime -- is beyond America's military capacity and nation-building competence, and it is politically impossible given the limits of American patience.

The other faction, equal in anger and certitude, argues, not for the first time (remember the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, Iraqi voters' purple fingers, the Iraqi constitution, the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, the capture of Hussein, the killing of Zarqawi, etc.), that the tide has turned. How febrile is this faction? Recently it became euphoric because of a New York Times column by two Brookings Institution scholars, who reported:

"We are finally getting somewhere" ("at least in military terms"), the troops' "morale is high," "civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began" and there is "the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability."

But the scholars also said:

"The situation in Iraq remains grave," fatalities "remain very high," "the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark," "the Iraqi National Police . . . remain mostly a disaster," "Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position," it is unclear how much longer we can "wear down our forces in this mission" or how much longer Americans should "keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part," and "once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines."

The rapturous reception of that column by one faction was evidence of the one thing both factions share: a powerful will to believe, or disbelieve, as their serenity requires. Consider the following from the war-is-irretrievable faction:

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, House majority whip, recently said that it would be "a real big problem for us" -- Democrats -- if Petraeus reports substantial progress. Rep. Nancy Boyda, a Kansas Democrat, recently found reports of progress unendurable. She left a hearing of the Armed Services Committee because retired Gen. Jack Keane was saying things Boyda thinks might "further divide this country," such as that Iraq's "schools are open. The markets are teeming with people." Boyda explained: "There is only so much you can take until we in fact had to leave the room for a while . . . after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to."

In the other faction, there still are those so impervious to experience that they continue to refer to Syria as "lower-hanging fruit." Such metaphors bewitch minds. Low-hanging fruit is plucked, then eaten. What does one nation do when it plucks another? In Iraq, America is in its fifth year of learning the answer.

Petraeus's metrics of success might ignite more arguments than they settle. In America, police drug sweeps often produce metrics of success but dealers soon relocate their operations. If Iraqi security forces have become substantially more competent, some Americans will say U.S. forces can depart; if those security forces have not yet substantially improved, the same people will say U.S. forces must depart. Furthermore, will the security forces' competence ultimately serve the Iraqi state -- or a sect?

Petraeus's report will be received in the context of his minimalist definition of the U.S. mission: "Buying time for Iraqis to reconcile." The reconciling, such as it is, will recommence when Iraq's parliament returns from its month-long vacation, come September.

[email protected]

...
Think of it as a Jeffersonian bible; the bullshit was removed.

I think of it (i.e., the second version) as a Joseph
Goebbles bible. The good stuff is deleted.

On to an earlier conversation - what was the point of the surge?

1, to deny AQ easy sanctuaries in various parts of Iraq. This has been somewhat successfull in the areas we've been.

2, to give the Iraqi gov't time to prosper. This has been a stunning failure. This isn't necessarily the fault of any American, yet it is our problem.

I I agree that 1 was/is a goal of the surge.

I disagree that your statement of 2 was/is a goal of the surge.

The correct statement of 2 is: to give the Iraqi gov't time to by itself secure its people against mass murder and infrastructure sabotage, and deny AQ easy sanctuaries anywhere in Iraq

You must be aware of the recent calls to oust Maliki; is this a plan you think has any chance of turning things around?

Yes, I am aware of that. Yes, I think it is a plan to turn things around eventually. I anticipate that getting the Iraqi government to the point where the 2nd goal is achieved will take years not months.

And, of course, you are aware that I think we must turn things around in Iraq whatever number of years it takes.

Cycloptichorn

The invasion of Iraq may be one of the worst foreign-policy mistakes in the history of our nation. As tragic and costly as that mistake has been, a precipitous or premature withdrawal of our forces now has the potential to turn the initial errors into an even greater problem just as success looks possible.

As a Democrat who voted against the war from the outset and who has been frankly critical of the administration and the post-invasion strategy, I am convinced by the evidence that the situation has at long last begun to change substantially for the better. I believe Iraq could have a positive future. Our diplomatic and military leaders in Iraq, their current strategy, and most importantly, our troops and the Iraqi people themselves, deserve our continued support and more time to succeed

Clinton is wrong. Military success is only half of what needs to be done, but the other half has to do with the Iraqis themselves.

The sectarian divide will not heal any time soon, no matter how successful the temporary military surge has accomplished. The sects and al Qaeda knows the surge is time-limited, and they are only waiting for our soldiers to be reduced to the original 140,000.

The divisions between the sects have only grown - not minimized. You don't need to read tealeaves to know this violence will continue for decades to come; it's already lasted for over one thousand years.

Yes. The generals are all "yes" men to Bush.

The Iraqi Convergence
By Charles Krauthammer
Washington Post
Friday, August 24, 2007; Page A15

After months of surreality, the Iraq debate has quite abruptly acquired a relationship to reality. Following the Democratic victory last November, panicked Republican senators began rifling the thesaurus to find exactly the right phrase to express exactly the right nuance to establish exactly the right distance from the president's Iraq policy, while Murtha Democrats searched for exactly the right legislative ruse to force a retreat from Iraq without appearing to do so.

In the last month, however, as a consensus has emerged about realities in Iraq, a reasoned debate has begun. A number of fair-minded observers, both critics and supporters of the war, agree that the surge has yielded considerable military progress, while at the national political level the Maliki government remains a disaster.

The latest report from the battlefield is from Carl Levin, Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a strong critic of the Iraq war. He returned saying essentially what we have heard from Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution and various liberal congressmen, the latest being Brian Baird (D-Wash.): Al-Qaeda has been seriously set back as Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar, Diyala and other provinces switched from the insurgency to our side.

As critics acknowledge military improvement, the administration is finally beginning to concede the political reality that the Maliki government is hopeless. Bush's own national security adviser had said as much in a leaked memo back in November. I and others have been arguing that for months. And when Levin returned and openly called for the Iraqi parliament to vote out the Maliki government, the president pointedly refused to contradict him.

This convergence about the actual situation in Baghdad will take some of the drama out the highly anticipated Petraeus moment next month. We know what the general and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are going to say when they testify before Congress because multiple sources have already told us what is happening on the ground.

There will, of course, be the Harry Reids and those on the far left who will deny inconvenient reality. Reid will continue to call the surge a failure, as he has since even before it began. And the left will continue to portray Gen. David Petraeus as an unscrupulous commander quite prepared to send his troops into a hopeless battle in order to advance his political ambitions (although exactly how that works is not clear).

But the serious voices will prevail. When the Democratic presidential front-runner concedes that the surge "is working" (albeit very late) against the insurgency, and when Petraeus himself concedes that the surge cannot continue indefinitely, making inevitable a drawdown of troops sometime in the middle of next year, the terms of the Iraq debate become narrow and the policy question simple: What do we do right now -- continue the surge or cut it short and begin withdrawal?

Serious people like Levin argue that with a nonfunctional and sectarian Baghdad government, we can never achieve national reconciliation. Thus the current military successes will prove ephemeral.

The problem with this argument is that it confuses long term and short term. In the longer run, there must be a national unity government. But in the shorter term, our assumption that a national unity government is required to pacify the Sunni insurgency turned out to be false. The Sunnis have turned against al-Qaeda and are gradually switching sides in the absence of any oil, federalism or de-Baathification deal coming out of Baghdad.

In the interim, the surge is advancing our two immediate objectives in Iraq: (a) to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq and prevent the emergence of an al-Qaeda ministate, and (b) to pacify the Sunni insurgency, which began the post-liberation downward spiral of sectarian bloodshed, economic stagnation and aborted reconstruction.

Levin is right that we require a truly national government in Baghdad to obtain our ultimate objective of what O'Hanlon and Pollack call "sustainable stability." The administration had vainly hoped that the surge would provide a window for the Maliki government to reform and become that kind of government. It will not.

We should have given up on Nouri al-Maliki long ago and begun to work with other parties in the Iraqi parliament to bring down the government, yielding either a new coalition of less sectarian parties or, as Pollack has suggested, new elections.

The choice is difficult because replacing the Maliki government will take time and because there is no guarantee of ultimate political success. Nonetheless, continuing the surge while finally trying to change the central government is the most rational choice because the only available alternative is defeat -- a defeat that is not at all inevitable and that would be both catastrophic and self-inflicted.

What the NIE Really Says
We're making progress on Iraq.
by Frederick W. Kagan
Daily Standard
08/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

THE SUMMARY OF the findings of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released today is the predictable product of the process that created it. The consensus report of 16 intelligence agencies is full of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand paragraphs that allow partisans of either side to make their points, if they are willing to quote selectively from the 4-page document. And it is a 4-page document (not 10 pages, as some media reports have it--the first six are title pages and descriptions of the methodology, and only the last four discuss Iraq). Its findings are broad and sweeping generalizations backed by little or nothing in the way of facts (which is natural, since intelligence agencies do not generally declassify the factual basis of such estimates).

The main conclusions of the document is clear: the strategy inaugurated in January 2007 has improved security in Iraq and will continue to do so; the development of grassroots movements within the Sunni Arab community focused on fighting al Qaeda in Iraq is an extremely important and positive development; Iraqi Security Forces are fighting effectively, if not yet independently of Coalition assistance; Sunni and Shia are not yet reconciled; the Maliki government is under great pressure and is not yet able to govern the country effectively; and Iraq-wide political progress will be required to solidify the gains made by the new strategy.

Many in the media naturally raced to flag all the negatives. The Washington Post online headline was: "NIE: Iraq 'Unable to Govern' Itself Effectively"--though the article reflects

the on-the-one-hand-on-the-other presentation in the NIE more accurately than the headline. The New York Times titled its piece: "Report Cites Grave Concerns on Iraq's Government." It claimed that, "Implicitly, at least, the report questioned whether Mr. Maliki is willing or able to help the new Iraq become a fully functioning country." There is actually no basis in the declassified report for this statement. The report mentions Maliki in four places, noting that he was working to expand the size of the Iraqi Security Forces, that "divisions between Maliki and the Sadrists have increased" (which is a good thing, by the way), that Shia factions have explored alternative coalitions to the Maliki government (but have not yet formed any, we might note), that the "strains of the security situation and the absence of key leaders" have increased Maliki's vulnerability to other coalitions, but that Maliki will probably continue to benefit from the fear among his Shia rivals that attempting to replace him might paralyze the government. The Times article then features statements from a "Congressional official," Senator Harry Reid, Congressman Rahm Emmanuel, and "one official," all of whom focus on the negative statements in the report and add their own. Considering the relatively balanced nature of the declassified summary of the NIE, the Times's reporting can only be described as distorted.

The document itself is nevertheless weak. It significantly downplays important developments in Iraq on both the political and the military fronts. The NIE minimizes the efforts of the Iraqi Security Forces by focusing too heavily on the question of their ability to operate independently. It mentions only two significant ISF operations, both in Baghdad (although it notes that the ISF has met its goals for deployment of units in support of the Baghdad Security Plan, which was a Congressional benchmark), but ignores the following important activities undertaken by Iraqi Army units in recent months:

* The 8th Iraqi Army division in Diwaniyah planning and conducting large-scale operations against JAM militias with relatively little coalition support;
* The 10th IA division in Nasiriyah doing similar things;

* The 5th IA division in Diyala conducting operations together with U.S. forces in the provinces against both AQI and JAM;

* Two IA divisions and around 20k Iraqi police have been working with a little over 5,000 U.S. soldiers in all of Ninewah province, an area that includes Mosul (1.8 million people) and has been subjected to repeated AQI attacks;

* Two IA divisions have been working closely with Marine and Army forces against AQI in Anbar.

That's tens of thousands of Iraqi Army soldiers, National Police, and local police fighting on the front lines against both al Qaeda and JAM. Can they sustain themselves logistically, move themselves, etc.? No. But that's only the metric of success if your objective is to withdraw. If your objective is to win, then what matters is how well they're fighting. Remember that most American allies depend heavily on the U.S. for many sorts of logistics, fire support, command and control, and so forth. The Iraqis have a way to go, of course, but we need to be realistic about the bar we're trying to set, and the obsession with the ability of Iraqi units to fight without any American help is foolish.

The assertion that there is "widespread Sunni unwillingness to accept a diminished political status," widely quoted in the media, is also

problematic. It is probably true of the Sunni parties in the Council of Representatives, but it's becoming very clear that they do not represent the positive trends occurring within the Sunni community. It's also probably true if you look at Baathist websites. But the atmosphere in many Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, Anbar, and throughout Central Iraq strongly suggests that the Sunni increasingly understand that they've lost this round. And the key point is that Sunni Arabs who want to fight AQI are not asking to be set up in their own militias or local defense forces, but are asking to join the Iraqi Security Forces. Given the heavily Shia character of those forces, the Sunni will find it hard to turn their young soldiers and police into some sort of coup or civil war force. If they were asking to set up regional militias outside of the regular channels, that would be cause for concern. But their determination to participate in the government security apparatus is an indication of passive reconciliation that is underplayed in the report. It does not at all support the assertion that the Sunni Arabs are unwilling as a community to accept a role in the developing political process.

Sunni Arab demands to join the ISF also naturally increase the pressure on the current government, which is being asked to take thousands of former insurgents into its security forces in a matter of weeks. That is one of the reasons for the "precariousness" of the Maliki government, and it is understandable. The pressure on that government will increase in the coming months, not decrease. Considering the pressures already on it, what's amazing is that it has not fallen yet. Should we be concerned if it does fall? Iraq has a parliamentary system. When we talk about the "government falling," what we mean is a parliamentary reshuffle that replaces the Prime Minister and his cabinet. This is a normal part of any parliamentary system. If the Iraqis have a peaceful reshuffle that replaces Maliki with someone else, that's probably a positive development--depending on who the new guy is. It may or may not make passage of benchmark legislation easier, but it probably would--the point of a reshuffle is to replace a PM who can't get things done with one who can. It's not inherently a problem for us if the Iraqis try to do that.

The key negative conclusion in the report is that the Iraqi Government has not yet made the political progress necessary to secure grassroots reconciliation initiatives. That fact should have been obvious to everyone and, in fact, it is. It has formed the basis of domestic discussions about Iraq for months.

The first question that follows is: can the government make such progress? The answer, of course, is we can't know. The NIE notes that the security situation is one of the major factors that is delaying such progress. That should be no surprise--it was always a core assumption of the new strategy that political progress would follow, rather than precede or accompany, the establishment of greater security. The NIE notes that we are establishing greater security. That means that at some point in the future we can reasonably expect to see greater political progress. Considering that the major military operations of the surge have been underway for a little over two months, it's not surprising that we haven't yet reached that point.

The second question is: how long do we have before failure to achieve national reconciliation begins to undermine local, grassroots movements? That question can't be answered either, of course, but there are some points worth noting. The grassroots movement has developed rapidly and spontaneously, and it continues to spread rapidly and spontaneously. It has now grown into important movements in almost all of Central Iraq. The Sunni Arab community may continue to be fragmented, as the NIE notes, but what is new is the appearance of groups of local Sunni leaders who are both willing to negotiate with the Coalition and able to deliver on their promises. This means the emergence of a new Sunni leadership that is likely to press its demands and desires on recalcitrant Sunni politicians in the Parliament, who were selected before the Sunni Arab community had decided to participate actively in Iraqi politics. The NIE notes dourly that "Broadly accepted political compromises required for sustained security, long-term political progress, and economic development are unlikely to emerge unless there is a fundamental shift in the factors driving Iraqi political and security developments." But there is such a shift underway--a tectonic shift within the community that had been the most committed to undermining the political process. And the shift is accelerating--more sheikhs and young Sunni men are negotiating with U.S. forces and volunteering for the ISF every day. There is no sign that the movement is being undermined at this point by the lack of national political progress.

The NIE is at best a snapshot of the current situation in Iraq. It should be a surprise to no one that significant problems remain, since neither the administration nor any of the supporters of this new strategy imagined or suggested that all of Iraq's problems would be solved by September 15th. The questions to ask are: Has the new strategy succeeded in accomplishing the goals it set out to achieve at this point? And are the trends positive or negative? The answer to the first is: definitely. The initial goals of the surge were to stabilize and then reduce sectarian and terrorist violence in Iraq, and that is happening. The answer to the second is: the trends are mostly positive. The NIE and many observers predict with confidence that security will continue to improve in Iraq, and the current trend of the grassroots movement toward reconciliation is both positive and important. There's no way to know for sure if or when the Iraqi Government will make the necessary national-level moves to secure the progress made to date, but the progress itself is unquestionable.

Finally, let's recall the purpose of this discussion. America's leadership will decide in a few weeks whether or not to continue with the strategy that has brought this progress. The NIE is unequivocal on that point:

"We assess that changing the mission of Coalition forces from a primarily counterinsurgency and stabilization role to a primary combat support role for Iraqi forces and counterterrorist operations to prevent AQI from establishing a safehaven would erode security gains achieved thus far Recent security improvements in Iraq, including success against AQI, have depended significantly on the close synchronization of conventional counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. A change of mission that interrupts that synchronization would place security improvements at risk."
Critics of the current strategy can use parts of the NIE to raise concerns about the political process in Iraq. Using those concerns to justify abandoning the current strategy, as the NIE itself clearly states, will jeopardize the enormous progress already made against al Qaeda in Iraq, which remains a potent threat that could reconstitute itself rapidly if we lifted the pressure from it. The fact that we have achieved a great deal without yet achieving all of our objectives is not grounds for abandoning a successful strategy. It is grounds for continuing it.

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

Quote:

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

He's also the author of the 'surge' strategy. Which makes his opinion as to its' success or failure to be, at best, irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

He's also the author of the 'surge' strategy. Which makes his opinion as to its' success or failure to be, at best, irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, Kagan's opinions is far more credible than yours ... especially your opinions about the credibility of the opinions of others.

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

He's also the author of the 'surge' strategy. Which makes his opinion as to its' success or failure to be, at best, irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, Kagan's opinions is far more credible than yours ... especially your opinions about the credibility of the opinions of others.

Why?

What gives him credibility?

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

He's also the author of the 'surge' strategy. Which makes his opinion as to its' success or failure to be, at best, irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, Kagan's opinions is far more credible than yours ... especially your opinions about the credibility of the opinions of others.

Why?

What gives him credibility?

Cycloptichorn

You should mean: what gives him relatively more credibity than yours? The fact that you don't know is by itself sufficient explanation.

Here's another article authored by Frederick Kagan. He tires to justify Iraq compared to the Civil War and WWII. If he can't even get that right, how can he possibly have any credibility about Iraq?

Don't Abandon the Iraqis
The high stakes of the war.
Weekly Standard
Frederick W. Kagan

From time to time, nations face fundamental tests of character. Forced to choose between painful but wise options, and irresponsible ones that offer only temporary relief from pain, a people must decide what price they are willing to pay to safeguard themselves and their children and to do the right thing. America has faced such tests before. Guided by Abraham Lincoln, we met our greatest challenge during the Civil War and overcame it, despite agonizing doubts about the possibility of success even into 1864. The Greatest Generation recovered from the shock of Pearl Harbor and refused to stop fighting until both Germany and Japan had surrendered unconditionally. A similar moment is upon us in Iraq. What will we do? America has vital national interests in Iraq. The global al Qaeda movement has decided to defeat us there--not merely to establish a base from which to pursue further tyranny and terror, but also to erect a triumphant monument on the ruins of American power.

There are no "similar moments" from comparing the Civil War and WWII with Iraq. Iraq has had internal conflict for over 1400 years. Where's the comparison?

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Finding the Target: The Transformation of the American Military (Encounter).

He's also the author of the 'surge' strategy. Which makes his opinion as to its' success or failure to be, at best, irrelevant.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo, Kagan's opinions is far more credible than yours ... especially your opinions about the credibility of the opinions of others.

Why?

What gives him credibility?

Cycloptichorn

You should mean: what gives him relatively more credibity than yours? The fact that you don't know is by itself sufficient explanation.

Sorry, but the answer is not self-evident. He has no real military experience, and there's no reason to believe that he is more credible then anyone else when it comes to military matters.

In addition, as a signatory member of the PNAC, he cannot honestly be seen as an entity seperate from the Bush WH. He was wrong about WMD in Iraq. He was wrong about the aftermath of the Iraq war. Why should anyone believe anything he has to say? Credibility is earned, not assumed.

Cycloptichorn