THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

...
I want to leave Iraq b/c the Iraqis have no intention of 'defending themselves,' with or without our help.

I'm more worried about AQ training camps in Pakistan than in Iraq, yes.

Cycloptichorn

www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
A summary of Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi July 9, 2005.
*The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.
*The war will not end with an American departure.
*The strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.

Ok, let's suppose you are correct in alleging: "the Iraqis have no intention of 'defending themselves,' with or without our help."

Furthermore, let's suppose you are correct in alleging Al Qaeda is now allowed sanctuary in Pakistan.

FACT: Al-Qaeda is in Iraq and Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan.

Or if we leave Iraq and do not invade al-Qaeda in Pakistan, wouldn't al-Qaeda be in an excellent position to invade and mass murder us, after they complete training of sufficient suicidal jihadists.

Q: What went wrong with the Coalition's attempt to build democracy in Iraq? Could we have done it better?
A: We made many mistakes, but in the end, having seen Iraq up close, I think the intervention was always going to create a mess. Better planning and better tactical decisions might have improved things slightly, but they were never going to make us successful. The two fundamental problems were the political culture of Iraqi coalitions and the nature of Iraqi society. Neither the military nor civilian coalition bodies were very effective at post-conflict reconstruction; this was partly because the military was focused on winning battles, the foreign service officers were focused on diplomatic negotiations, and the development people were focused on alleviating poverty. None of them had the skills or the stomach for the uncomfortable politics and compromises involved in reconstructing a traumatized Islamic state.

Nor, in Iraq, did they encounter a forgiving and cooperative local population that was prepared to take a generous view of their failings. Fifty years of nationalism and anti-colonial propaganda, spiced with radical Islamic ideologies, left Iraqis very suspicious of foreign intervention. If the electricity did not work, people immediately assumed that it was a deliberate conspiracy to humiliate the Iraqi people, rather than simply a result of the Coalition's incompetence. Iraqi society had also been hollowed out by Saddam?-all power lay in the center and all security was enforced by his brutal secret services. The Coalition was forced to abolish those services in order to dissociate itself from the worst atrocities of Saddam's regime, but neither the police nor the army could fill the void. Simultaneously, criminal forces, conservative tribal forces, and religious forces?-often newly arrived from Iran?-were flourishing, and there were few liberal figures at a local level prepared to take political power and fight against them.

Our errors were many. We probably should have stopped the looting, not abolished the army or the Baath party, or held elections much sooner?-but even if we had gotten these things right, the situation would not have been much better. The best thing, I think, in retrospect, would have been to empower local political leaders much more quickly rather than struggling through our own very limited institutions to forge Iraq in the Coalition's own image.

...
Al Qaeda will never be in an 'excellent' position to invade and mass murder America, ever. You are slipping into hyperbole here.

And their position would be hurt even more if we'd bother to do a little defense here at home....

Cycloptichorn

if we leave Iraq and do not invade al-Qaeda in Pakistan, wouldn't al-Qaeda be in an excellent position to invade and mass murder us, after they complete training of sufficient suicidal jihadists?

if we leave Iraq and do not invade al-Qaeda in Pakistan, wouldn't al-Qaeda be in an excellent position to invade and mass murder America, after they complete training of sufficient suicidal jihadists?

Al Qaeda will never be in an 'excellent' position to invade and mass murder America, ever. You are slipping into hyperbole here.

...
I'm not sure that 'Al Qaeda' actually runs operations in Iraq, if we're talking about the Bin Laden run Al Qaeda. I've seen many references to 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' which is a group which was run separately from OBL's operation and didn't start calling themselves this until after the war began.

I would say honestly that the more dangerous members of AQ - the ones who plan and carry out operations which could impact the US outside of Iraq - most likely are not located in Iraq, but Afghanistan and Pakistan.
...
Cycloptichorn

http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE ON POSTWAR FINDINGS ABOUT IRAQ'S WMD PROGRAMS AND LINKS TO TERRORISM AND HOW THEY COMPARE WITH PREWAR ASSESSMENTS together with ADDITIONAL VIEWS; 09/08/2006.
...
computer page 112 of 151 pages (report page 109),
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghadha had not controlled since 1991.

American Soldier," by General Tommy Franks, 7/1/2004
"10" Regan Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
page 483:
"The air picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges an a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Isla terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] bashing. Soon Special Forces and [Special Mission Unit] operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted."
page 519:
"[The Marines] also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Lybia who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. Those foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all. "

ANSAR AL-ISLAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam (Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam and holy war. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq it controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border. It has used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.

Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Ansar al-Islam fortified a number of villages along the Iranian border, with Iranian artillery support. [1]
Ansar al-Islam quickly initiated a number of attacks on the peshmerga (armed forces) of the PUK, on one occasion massacring 53 prisoners and beheading them. Several assassination attempts on leading PUK-politicians were also made with carbombs and snipers.
Ansar al-Islam comprised about 300 armed men, many of these veterans from the Afghan war, and a proportion being neither Kurd nor Arab. Ansar al-Islam is alleged to be connected to al-Qaeda, and provided an entry point for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other Afghan veterans to enter Iraq.

www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
A summary of Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi July 9, 2005.
*The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.
*The war will not end with an American departure.
*The strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), more than two million Iraqis have fled the country since the start of the US-led invasion in 2003 and a further 1.8 million have been displaced within Iraq.

By the end of 2007 the UN estimates that nearly one in 10 of a population of almost 27 million Iraqis will have fled their homes. It has described Iraq as experiencing the largest movement of civilians in the Middle East since the exodus of Palestinians in the late 1940s after the creation of Israel.

Syria has carried the brunt of this migration and granted sanctuary to at least one million Iraqis, with Jordan taking another 750,000. Egypt, Iran, Lebanon and Turkey host tens of thousands each.

Outside the Middle East only Sweden has taken large numbers ?- 11,300 in the past two years. The US recently agreed to accept 7,000 refugees this year, a dramatic increase on the 463 refugees it has so far accepted. Just 1,000 Iraqi refugees arrived in Britain in 2006, where gaining asylum has been made much more difficult in recent years. Yesterday Jordan introduced regulations to stem the tide of Iraqis, requiring them to carry a new passport available only since 2006, which is hard to obtain outside Baghdad and often at the cost of a bribe of more than $1,000.

Unlike some countries in the region, Syria has always had an open-door policy to refugees. But Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR representative in Syria, believes the situation facing Iraqis has become dramatically worse in the last six months. "Many cannot sell their homes or they get robbed on their way here," he said.

Backward savage arabs.

Let's bomb more of them, to advance civilisation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/27math.html?em&ex=1172898000&en=79e4609069da8428&ei=5087%0A

In the beauty and geometric complexity of tile mosaics on walls of medieval Islamic buildings, scientists have recognized patterns suggesting that the designers had made a conceptual breakthrough in mathematics beginning as early as the 13th century.
...
The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Science, are a reminder of the sophistication of art, architecture and science long ago in the Islamic culture. They also challenge the assumption that the designers somehow created these elaborate patterns with only a ruler and a compass. Instead, experts say, they may have had other tools and concepts.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...
I'm not sure that 'Al Qaeda' actually runs operations in Iraq, if we're talking about the Bin Laden run Al Qaeda. I've seen many references to 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' which is a group which was run separately from OBL's operation and didn't start calling themselves this until after the war began.

I would say honestly that the more dangerous members of AQ - the ones who plan and carry out operations which could impact the US outside of Iraq - most likely are not located in Iraq, but Afghanistan and Pakistan.
...
Cycloptichorn

We disagree!

Quote:

http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE ON POSTWAR FINDINGS ABOUT IRAQ'S WMD PROGRAMS AND LINKS TO TERRORISM AND HOW THEY COMPARE WITH PREWAR ASSESSMENTS together with ADDITIONAL VIEWS; 09/08/2006.
...
computer page 112 of 151 pages (report page 109),
Conclusion 6. Postwar information indicates that the Intelligence Community accurately assessed that al-Qa'ida affiliate group Ansar al-Islam operated in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Iraq, an area that Baghadha had not controlled since 1991.

American Soldier," by General Tommy Franks, 7/1/2004
"10" Regan Books, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
page 483:
"The air picture changed once more. Now the icons were streaming toward two ridges an a steep valley in far northeastern Iraq, right on the border with Iran. These were the camps of the Ansar al-Isla terrorists, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had trained disciples in the use of chemical and biological weapons. But this strike was more than just another [Tomahawk Land Attack Missile] bashing. Soon Special Forces and [Special Mission Unit] operators, leading Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, would be storming the camps, collecting evidence, taking prisoners, and killing all those who resisted."
page 519:
"[The Marines] also encountered several hundred foreign fighters from Egypt, the Sudan, Syria, and Lybia who were being trained by the regime in a camp south of Baghdad. Those foreign volunteers fought with suicidal ferocity, but they did not fight well. The Marines killed them all. "

ANSAR AL-ISLAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansar_al-Islam
Ansar al-Islam (Supporters or Partisans of Islam) is a Kurdish Sunni Islamist group, promoting a radical interpretation of Islam and holy war. At the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq it controlled about a dozen villages and a range of peaks in northern Iraq on the Iranian border. It has used tactics such as suicide bombers in its conflicts with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and other Kurdish groups.

Ansar al-Islam was formed in December 2001 as a merger of Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), led by Abu Abdallah al-Shafi'i, and a splinter group from the Islamic Movement in Kurdistan led by Mullah Krekar. Krekar became the leader of the merged Ansar al-Islam, which opposed an agreement made between IMK and the dominant Kurdish group in the area, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Ansar al-Islam fortified a number of villages along the Iranian border, with Iranian artillery support. [1]
Ansar al-Islam quickly initiated a number of attacks on the peshmerga (armed forces) of the PUK, on one occasion massacring 53 prisoners and beheading them. Several assassination attempts on leading PUK-politicians were also made with carbombs and snipers.
Ansar al-Islam comprised about 300 armed men, many of these veterans from the Afghan war, and a proportion being neither Kurd nor Arab. Ansar al-Islam is alleged to be connected to al-Qaeda, and provided an entry point for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other Afghan veterans to enter Iraq.

www.dni.gov/release_letter_101105.html
A summary of Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi July 9, 2005.
*The war in Iraq is central to al Qa'ida's global jihad.
*The war will not end with an American departure.
*The strategic vision is one of inevitable conflict with a call by al-Zawahiri for political action equal to military action.

...
I have seen no persuasive evidence that Ansar Al-Islam, or 'Al Qaeda in Iraq,' represents a greater threat to American lives than the AQ headed by Bin Laden and Zawahiri - who have planned many successful operations against US interests and have promised to do so again.

I have seen no credible evidence that there ever was such a letter sent from Zawarhiri to Zarqawi; it's just a little too close to the Republican line for me to really believe it.

Cycloptichorn

Spreading democracy is no quick fix, but it's our noble duty

A remarkable new poll finds slightly more respondents favor Congressional defunding of the entire Iraq war than favor continued funding. The new Fox News poll asked a stark question, devoid of any nuance: "If you were a member of Congress, would you vote for continued funding of the Iraq war or would you vote against funding the war altogether to try to force a withdrawal?" Forty-five percent said they'd vote against funding, while 44% said they'd vote to fund the war. While this is a virtual tie, it suggests that the political atmosphere is far more favorably disposed towards Congressional defunding of the war ?- or at least the escalation ?- than the conventional wisdom of commentators, and the actions thus far by Congressional Democrats, would suggest.

The march of freedom has suffered setbacks. Doubts have emerged. Especially at this time of deep divisions, Americans must remain united in faith in our values and confidence in our future. As former Secretary of State George Shultz has said, "Cathedrals are not built by cynics."