THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

if you believe that the major war against islam extremists will be decided in iraq , you might be interested in reading the article i posted in the thread :

PAKISTAN - WILL THE LID BLOW OFF SOON ?

...

ican We are seen by many Muslims as the "malignancy of the human race." Your perception is as extreme.

ican :
of course you are free to believe that pakistan is not a major base for the taleban .
you neither have to believe that many actions of the pakistani government - supported with plenty of money by the american taxpayer - are driving underpriviliged pakistanis into the taleban camp .

i believe , however , that musharref's actions of finding accomodation with the taleban are stronger than his statements of fighting the taleban actively - as he so often declares .

one of the first things i was taught after coming to canada was : WORDS ARE CHEAP ! (and that wasn't taught in school !) .

so far , we are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs .
hbg

General Petraeus will report in September both the successes and failures in Iraq. Even if he reports mostly failures,

Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."

A GAO spokesman declined to comment on the report before it is released. The 69-page draft, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is still undergoing review at the Defense Department, which may ask that parts of it be classified or request changes in its conclusions. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, normally submits its draft reports to relevant agencies for comment but makes its own final judgments. The office has published more than 100 assessments of various aspects of the U.S. effort in Iraq since May 2003.

The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Congress requested the GAO report, along with an assessment of the Iraqi security forces by an independent commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, to provide a basis for comparison with the administration's scorecard. The Jones report is also scheduled for delivery next week.

Asked to comment on the GAO draft, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are there on the ground every day in Iraq, and it's important to wait to hear what they have to say." He disputed any suggestion that the July White House assessment did not consider all internal views, noting that it resulted from "a lengthy and far-reaching process throughout the State and Defense departments and other agencies."

Johndroe emphasized that "while we've all seen progress in some areas, especially on the security front, it's not surprising the GAO would make this assessment, given the difficult congressionally mandated measurement they had to follow."

President Bush signed legislation in May that requires him to submit by Sept. 15 an assessment of whether the government of Iraq is "achieving progress" toward the benchmarks. The interim July report determined that satisfactory progress was being made toward eight of the 18 benchmarks, most of them on the security front. It found unsatisfactory progress toward eight others and presented a mixed picture on the remaining two.

The May legislation imposed a stricter standard on the GAO, requiring an up-or-down judgment on whether each benchmark has been met. On that basis, the GAO draft says that three of the benchmarks have been met while 13 have not. Despite its strict mandate, the GAO draft concludes that two benchmarks -- the formation of governmental regions and the allocation and expenditure of $10 billion for reconstruction -- have been "partially met." Little of the allocated money, it says, has been spent.

One of eight political benchmarks -- the protection of the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature -- has been achieved, according to the draft. On the others, including legislation on constitutional reform, new oil laws and de-Baathification, it assesses failure.

"Prospects for additional progress in enacting legislative benchmarks have been complicated by the withdrawal of 15 of 37 members of the Iraqi cabinet," it says. An internal administration assessment this month, the GAO says, concluded that "this boycott ends any claim by the Shi'ite-dominated coalition to be a government of national unity." An administration official involved in Iraq policy said that he did not know what specific interagency document the GAO was citing but noted that it is an accurate reflection of the views of many officials.

Overall, the draft report, titled "Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq," says that the Iraqi government has met only two security benchmarks. It contradicts the Bush administration's conclusion in July that sectarian violence was decreasing as a result of the U.S. military's stepped-up operations in Baghdad this year. "The average number of daily attacks against civilians remained about the same over the last six months; 25 in February versus 26 in July," the GAO draft states.

Iraqi security forces are also assessed more severely in the GAO study than in the administration's July report. Although the White House found satisfactory progress toward the goal of deploying three Iraqi army brigades in Baghdad, the GAO disagrees, citing "performance problems" in some units. "Some army units sent to Baghdad have mixed loyalties, and some have had ties to Shiia militias making it difficult to target Shiia extremist networks," it says.

The GAO draft also says that the number of Iraqi army units capable of operating independently declined from 10 in March to six last month. The July White House report mentioned a "slight" decline in capable Iraqi units, without providing any numbers. The GAO also says, as did the White House in July, that the Iraqi government has intervened in military activities for political reasons, "resulting in some operations being based on sectarian interests." But its discussion of Iraqi security forces is often veiled, as when it states that the determination that the security forces benchmark was not met "was based largely on classified information."

The description of the Iraqi military's shortcomings contrasts with comments from many senior U.S. commanders who say that they are pleased with its progress. "Although we still have a ways to go, Iraqi security forces are making significant, tangible improvements," Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said earlier this month.

But Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who in June became the commander of the U.S. troops training and advising Iraqi army and police units, struck a more somber note yesterday in a news conference in Baghdad. "The problems that the military commanders and the minister of defense have here in generating the Iraqi army are very significant, and they shouldn't be taken lightly," he said.

August 31, 2007
Panel Will Urge Broad Overhaul of Iraqi PoliceThe commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes that the rampant sectarianism that has existed since the formation of the police force requires that its current units "be scrapped" and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that "we should start over," the official said.

A Season of Hope in Iraq
By Michael Gerson
Washington Post
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A15

The season now ending with school bells and the return of Congress was supposed to be the "Iraq Summer." A coalition of antiwar groups promised 10 weeks of phone banks, billboards, petitions and protests targeted at 40 Republican members of Congress who support the war. "It's going to be like laying asphalt in August -- hot," boasted one organizer.

By this standard, August has been remarkably mild. It brings to mind a couplet by the poet Richard Wilbur: "What is the opposite of riot? It's lots of people keeping quiet."

During their summer vacation, Americans discovered that Gen. David Petraeus doesn't take one. And his energy and urgency have shifted the Iraq debate in some fundamental ways.

A few months ago, it was the received wisdom that Iraq was in the midst of a rapidly escalating civil war. That claim is no longer plausible.

While the level of violence is still unacceptably high, the surge has disrupted the cycle of escalation and proved that progress is possible. Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno's briefing this month was an antidote to pessimism. "Total attacks," he said, "are at their lowest levels since August of 2006." Some of the most violent and lawless regions of Iraq, such as Anbar and Diyala, have been stabilized with the cooperation of local Sunni leaders who have turned against al-Qaeda thuggery. Insurgents are being pushed out of population centers and then targeted in further operations. Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing. And new sectarian provocations -- such as the al-Qaeda bombings in Nineveh -- have not resulted in the usual spiral of revenge murders.

With the surge fully in place only as of last month, the suddenness of these results is startling. Skeptical military experts have returned from Iraq with praise for the Petraeus strategy. And supporters of the war have been left to wonder: What if these approaches had been employed a year earlier?

As the summer began, it seemed that Republicans in Congress were on the verge of mass defections over the president's conduct of the war and ready to embrace Democratic timetables for withdrawal. While Sen. John Warner's recent call for symbolic troop reductions by Christmas didn't help the administration's case, it is now mainly Democrats who are recalibrating their message.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been quick to praise the accomplishments of American troops in the surge. And one Democratic House member, Washington's Brian Baird, has gone further since returning from an Iraq visit. While gains are "still precarious," the "situation on the ground in Iraq is improving in multiple and important ways," he said. "I do not know the details of what the September report will contain, but I trust and respect Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker. I have seen firsthand the progress they have made, and I firmly believe we must give them the time and resources they need to succeed."

Four months ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could confidently declare: "This war is lost." Now that is an open question. A recent Zogby poll found that a majority of Americans do not believe the war is lost. And this makes Democratic policies based on the assumption of hopelessness -- rigid timetables and funding cuts -- strategically irresponsible and politically risky. If defeat is inevitable, it makes sense to cut our losses. If defeat is only possible, preemptively ensuring it would confirm a long-standing Democratic image of weakness.

None of these shifts over the summer means that victory in Iraq is near, or even easily definable. Many political benchmarks remain unmet by the Iraqi government. But undeniable progress on the security front has some practical implications. Even if Democrats press a legislative timetable for withdrawal, it is unlikely that they will get the support of 17 Republicans in the Senate to override a presidential veto. The confrontation with Congress may be over by October. As the military has already stated, troop reductions will begin sometime early next year because the Army can't sustain the surge indefinitely. But the president will have gotten an extended period of intensified military activity before his term ends. And unless conditions deteriorate unpredictably, the next president may inherit a more manageable situation -- allowing him or her to make deliberate troop reductions as Iraqi capabilities increase, without turning parts of the country back over to extremists.

Much, of course, depends on the Iraqis themselves, because liberty is ultimately won, not given. But the summer, at least, has brought rumors of hope.

Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing.

During the seven days from 9-15 August 540 people were killed in violent incidents across Iraq.
The number of civilian deaths rose by nearly a hundred on last week's total, up from 343 to 434. This represents the second highest number of civilian casualties recorded since this series monitoring the Iraq surge began.
The death toll of over 250 is still rising from Tuesday's bombing of two Yazidi villages near Mosul. The attack is one of the worst in more than four years of war in Iraq.

Deaths of Iraqi police and soldiers also rose this week, while the number of US soldiers killed fell slightly.

Ican wrote:

Quote:

General Petraeus will report in September both the successes and failures in Iraq. Even if he reports mostly failures,

With this much riding and how much this coming report do you really expect the report from Petraeus (regardless of who writes it as there seems to some confusion now) will be other than a watered down whitewashed snow job?

Please, even his past reports haven't had any credibility, what makes you think he will report mostly failures?

...

I am sure you will dismiss this as malarkey as you do anything which does not say what you want it say, but the world and reality does not revolve around Ican's beliefs and unreality.

the BBC has detailed reports and statistics from iraq for the weekly periods from june 20 to august 15 on their website - please see link .
hbg

from one of the reports :

Quote:

During the seven days from 9-15 August 540 people were killed in violent incidents across Iraq.
The number of civilian deaths rose by nearly a hundred on last week's total, up from 343 to 434. This represents the second highest number of civilian casualties recorded since this series monitoring the Iraq surge began.
The death toll of over 250 is still rising from Tuesday's bombing of two Yazidi villages near Mosul. The attack is one of the worst in more than four years of war in Iraq.

Deaths of Iraqi police and soldiers also rose this week, while the number of US soldiers killed fell slightly.

IRAQ : MOST RECENT REPORTS AND STATS

Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing.

hamburger wrote:

the BBC has detailed reports and statistics from iraq for the weekly periods from june 20 to august 15 on their website - please see link .
hbg

from one of the reports :

Quote:

During the seven days from 9-15 August 540 people were killed in violent incidents across Iraq.
The number of civilian deaths rose by nearly a hundred on last week's total, up from 343 to 434. This represents the second highest number of civilian casualties recorded since this series monitoring the Iraq surge began.
The death toll of over 250 is still rising from Tuesday's bombing of two Yazidi villages near Mosul. The attack is one of the worst in more than four years of war in Iraq.

Deaths of Iraqi police and soldiers also rose this week, while the number of US soldiers killed fell slightly.

IRAQ : MOST RECENT REPORTS AND STATS

Hamburger, your source's Iraq statistics do not contradict these Baghdad statistics:

Quote:

Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Petraeus
Contents
[hide]
1 Background
2 Training Iraqi Security Forces
3 Resources and articles
3.1 Related SourceWatch articles
3.2 Profiles
3.3 Articles by David Petraeus
3.4 Interviews with David Petraeus
3.5 Speeches & Briefings
3.6 External articles
 3.6.1 2002
 3.6.2 2003
 3.6.3 2004
 3.6.4 2005
 3.6.5 2006
 3.6.6 2007

ican711nm wrote:

hamburger wrote:

the BBC has detailed reports and statistics from iraq for the weekly periods from june 20 to august 15 on their website - please see link .
hbg

from one of the reports :

Quote:

During the seven days from 9-15 August 540 people were killed in violent incidents across Iraq.
The number of civilian deaths rose by nearly a hundred on last week's total, up from 343 to 434. This represents the second highest number of civilian casualties recorded since this series monitoring the Iraq surge began.
The death toll of over 250 is still rising from Tuesday's bombing of two Yazidi villages near Mosul. The attack is one of the worst in more than four years of war in Iraq.

Deaths of Iraqi police and soldiers also rose this week, while the number of US soldiers killed fell slightly.

IRAQ : MOST RECENT REPORTS AND STATS

Hamburger, your source's Iraq statistics do not contradict these Baghdad statistics:

Quote:

Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing.

What is the source of that Baghdad statistic?

Cycloptichorn

A Season of Hope in Iraq
By Michael Gerson
Washington Post
Friday, August 31, 2007; Page A15

...

"Total attacks," he said, "are at their lowest levels since August of 2006." Some of the most violent and lawless regions of Iraq, such as Anbar and Diyala, have been stabilized with the cooperation of local Sunni leaders who have turned against al-Qaeda thuggery. Insurgents are being pushed out of population centers and then targeted in further operations. Sectarian murders in Baghdad have gone down by more than 50 percent in a few months, reaching their lowest levels since the Samarra mosque bombing. And new sectarian provocations -- such as the al-Qaeda bombings in Nineveh -- have not resulted in the usual spiral of revenge murders.