THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Iraqi's Book Takes on US Mismanagement

Sunday April 8, 2007 10:01 PM


By CHARLES J. HANLEY

AP Special Correspondent

NEW YORK (AP) - In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's ``shocking'' mismanagement of his country - a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had ``turned their backs on their would-be liberators.''

``The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order,'' Ali A. Allawi concludes in ``The Occupation of Iraq,'' newly published by Yale University Press.

Allawi writes with authority as a member of that ``new order,'' having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.

The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word ``ignorance'' crops up repeatedly.

First came the ``monumental ignorance'' of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without ``the faintest idea'' of Iraq's realities. ``More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society,'' he writes.

What followed was the ``rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance'' of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

- The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

- Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party - from government, school faculties and elsewhere - left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

- An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

- The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the ``commercial gangs'' of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

- Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

- The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.

In his 2006 memoir of the occupation, Bremer wrote that senior U.S. generals wanted to recall elements of the old Iraqi army in 2003, but were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Bremer complained generally that his authority was undermined by Washington's ``micromanagement.''

Although Allawi, a cousin of Ayad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister in 2004, is a member of a secularist Shiite Muslim political grouping, his well-researched book betrays little partisanship.

On U.S. reconstruction failures - in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington's own auditors - Allawi writes that the Americans' ``insipid retelling of `success' stories'' merely hid ``the huge black hole that lay underneath.''

For their part, U.S. officials have often largely blamed Iraq's explosive violence for the failures of reconstruction and poor governance.

The author has been instrumental since 2005 in publicizing extensive corruption within Iraq's ``new order,'' including an $800-million Defense Ministry scandal. Under Saddam, he writes, the secret police kept would-be plunderers in check better than the U.S. occupiers have done.

As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, ``America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise.''

About 15 months before America invaded Iraq, there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda. That relationship consisted of al-Qaeda's residence in northeastern Iraq.

The Kurdistan Region was originally established in 1970 as the Kurdish Autonomous Region following the agreement of an Autonomy Accord between the government of Iraq and leaders of the Iraqi Kurdish community. A Legislative Assembly was established in the city of Arbil with theoretical authority over the Kurdish-populated governorates of Arbil, Dahuk and As Sulaymaniyah. In practice, however, the assembly created in 1970 was under the control of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein until the 1991 uprising against his rule following the end of the Persian Gulf War. Concerns for Safety of Kurdish refugees was reflected in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 which gave birth to a safe haven, in which allied air power protected a Kurdish zone inside Iraq.[13] While the no-fly zone covered Dohuk and Irbil, it left out Sulaimaniya and Kirkuk. Then following several bloody clashes between Iraqi forces and Kurdish troops, an uneasy and shaky balance of power was reached, and the Iraqi government withdrew its military and other personnel from the region in October 1991. At the same time, Iraq imposed an economic blockade over the region, reducing its oil and food supplies.[14] The region thus gained de facto independence, being ruled by the two principal Kurdish parties - the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - outside the control of Baghdad. The region has its own flag and National Anthem.

1992-5 The Iraqi National Congress (INC), the U.S.-funded opposition to Saddam's government, uses Kurdistan as a base. Kurdish groups contribute forces to a CIA-backed rebel army. (See Talabani, Abdul Rahman on Kurdish role. Chalabi on the INC and relations with the Kurds and the U.S.)

May 1994 Open fighting breaks out between the two major Kurdish factions, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union for Kurdistan (PUK).

March 1995 The KDP, the largest Kurdish group under Mousoud Barzani (the son of the legendary Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani), breaks with the INC after the U.S. government fails to back a planned attack on Saddam's forces. (See Abdul Rahman on decision to break with the U.S., and Talabani, whose KDP faction stayed loyal to U.S.).

August 1996 KDP troops join the Iraqi Army in an attack on the INC forces based in Irbil, the largest city in Kurdistan. U.S.- backed rebels request American air support but request is denied. Iraqi troops arrest and execute hundreds of rebel leaders. (See Abdul Rahman on KDP decision to back Saddam. Talabani on lack of U.S. response to attack, which he considers another American betrayal. Also Chalabi on Kurdish infighting.)

1996-99 Kurdish groups strike autonomy deal with Saddam's government and remain skeptical of the extent to which the U.S. is serious about its support for the Iraqi opposition. (See abdul Rahman on KDP's arrangement with Saddam.)

1999 U.S. government explicitly states that an Iraqi attack on the Kurds would lead to a heavy U.S. response. State Department tries to resolve disputes between the two main Kurdish factions, the KDP and PUK, but sharp divisions remain.

Summer 1999 U.S. government refuses to give Kurdish leaders security guarantees that would enable them to hold a general meeting of the Iraqi opposition inside Kurdistan. Instead, the meeting is held in New York City in October, 1999.

We are propping up a shaky local regime in a civil war. Our local allies are of dubious loyalty, and the surrounding population is not friendly. Our lines of communication, supply and retreat all run south, to Kuwait, through Shiite militia country. They then extend on through the Persian Gulf, which is called that for a reason. If those lines are cut, many of our troops have only one way out, the same way Xenophon took, up through Kurdish country and Asia Minor (now Turkey) to the coast.

"The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people," said Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of Sadr's bloc in parliament, as he marched. "After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded."

A senior official in al-Sadr's organization in Najaf, Salah al-Obaydi, called the rally a "call for liberation." "We're hoping that by next year's anniversary, we will be an independent and liberated Iraq with full sovereignty," he said.

Iraqi soldiers in uniform joined the crowd, which was led by at least a dozen turbaned clerics, including one Sunni. Many marchers danced as they moved through the streets.

Thirty members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, travelled several hundred kilometers northward from Basra to attend the rally alongside Sadrists from their hometown. "We came to join our brothers from al-Sadr's bloc, to reject the foreign occupation. We call on the Americans and other multinational forces to withdraw from Iraq," said Alla Nasir, a Sunni sheik.

So allegedly the Iraqis want America to leave. Then tell the Iraqis to quickly tell their government to tell us to leave.

ican wrote :

Quote:

So allegedly the Iraqis want America to leave. Then tell the Iraqis to quickly tell their government to tell us to leave.

i assume that the iraqi government leaders might have become aware of the demomstrations taking place .
so i think the iraqi people have told their government , but is the government listening or perhaps suffering from a slight hearing impairment caused from IED's going off ?
i'm also assuming that the government leaders might be somewhat concerned that if the u.s. troops leave they'll have to run to the border or hope that the americans will take them back with them . perhaps they could be given asylum in the unites states ?
hbg

revel, But isn´t it funny that Bush now thinks he´s the only one that knows best for America. There´s probably some good adjectives for such people. I hope he destroys the republican party for the next decade.

Bush was elected by a large enough of a majority to win the election. A majority of Americans want the US to leave Iraq, yet Bush keeps on giving the same tired excuses of why we can't leave Iraq. Just because a President or Prime Minister is elected in a democratically held election is no guarantee the elected official will do what the electorates wants.

revel, But isn´t it funny that Bush now thinks he´s the only one that knows best for America. There´s probably some good adjectives for such people. I hope he destroys the republican party for the next decade.

GEORGE SOROS in his 1995 book, page 145, [i]Soros on Soros[/i], wrote:

I do not accept the rules imposed by others. If I did, I would not be alive today. I am a law-abiding citizen, but I recognize that there are regimes that need to be opposed rather than accepted. And in periods of regime change, the normal rules don't apply. One needs to adjust one's behavior to the changing circumstances.

Bruck, in The World According to Soros, page 58, wrote:

Tividar [George Soros's father] saved his family by splitting them up, providing them with forged papers and false identities as Christians, and bribing Gentile families to take them in. George Soros took the name Sandor Kiss, and posed as the godson of a man named Baumbach, an official of Hungary's fascist regime. Baumbach was assigned to deliver deportation notices to Jews and confiscate Jewish property. [Baumbach] brought young Soros with him on his rounds.

Michael Kaufman in his biography of George Soros, page 293, [i]Soros [/i], wrote:

My goal is to become the conscience of the world

GEORGE SOROS in his 2000 book, page 337, [i]Open Society[/i], wrote:

Usually it takes a crisis to prompt a meaningful change in direction.

GEORGE SOROS in the Washington Post, page A03 of November 11, 2003, wrote:

Ousting Bush from the White House is the central focus of my life. It's a matter of life and death.

GEORGE SOROS in the 2003 edition of his book, page 15, [i]The Alchemy of Finance[/i], wrote:

My greatest fear is that the Bush Doctrine will succeed--that Bush will crush the terrorists, tame the rogue states of the axis of evil, and usher in a golden age of American supremacy. American supremacy is flawed and bound to fail in the long run.

What I am afraid of is that the pursuit of American supremacy may be successful for a while because the United States in fact employs a dominant position in the world today.

GEORGE SOROS on June 10, 2004 to the Associated Press, wrote:

These are not normal times.

GEORGE SOROS in his 2004 book, page 159, [i]The Bubble of American Supremacy[/i], wrote:

The principles of the Declaration of Independence are not self-evident truths but arrangements necessitated by our inherently imperfect understanding.

Quote:

In April 2005 the Soros funded Campus Progress web site posted this headline: "An Invitation to Help Design the Constitution in 2020" (This was an invitation to a Yale law School Conference on "The Constitution of 2020: a progressive vision of what the Constitution ought to be.")

Sam Hananel in his associated Press article, December 10, 2004, wrote:

On December 9, 2004, Eli Pariser, who headed Soros's group Moveon PAC, boasted to his members, "Now the Democratic Party is our party. We bought it, we own it."

Quote:

If the Soros $influenced$ news media succeeds in persuading more than 50% of Americans to oppose Bush's plan, it will boost our enemy's effort and it will defeat America in Iraq regardless of whether Bush's modified strategy can work or not.[/I]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 06, 2007
WHITE HOUSE

Is there any truth to 'the enemy would follow us here?'
By William Douglas
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - It's become President Bush's mantra, his main explanation for why he won't withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq anytime soon.

In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that "this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here."

The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on American streets.

But is it true?

Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn't. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.

"The president is using a primitive, inarticulate argument that leaves him open to criticism and caricature," said James Jay Carafano, a homeland security and counterterrorism expert for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization. "It's a poor choice of words that doesn't convey the essence of the problem - that walking away from a problem doesn't solve anything."

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States.

Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they're believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center.

"Attacks by terrorist groups account for only a fraction of insurgent violence," said a February DIA report.

While acknowledging that terrorists could commit a catastrophic act on U.S. soil at any time - whether U.S. forces are in Iraq or not - the likelihood that enemy combatants from Iraq might follow departing U.S. forces back to the United States is remote at best, experts say.

James Lewis, a U.S. foreign policy analyst at CSIS, called Bush's assertion oversimplistic, but added that there's a slight chance a few enemy combatants could make their way to the United States after a U.S. troop withdrawal.

"There's a grain of truth in Bush saying it's better to fight them there rather than here, but it's also overstated," Lewis said. "It's not like there's going to be gun battles in the United States."

Daniel Benjamin, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, agreed.

"There are very few foreign fighters who are going to be leaving the area because they don't have the skills or languages that would give them access to the United States," said Benjamin, who served as the National Security Council's director for transnational threats from 1998 to 1999. "I'm not saying events in Iraq aren't going to embolden jihadists. But I think the president's formulations call for a leap of faith."

"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials. "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."

Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they're much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are try to penetrate America.

Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce.

"The danger is not that they'll follow us home," Carafano said. "The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists."

Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into.

"The United States is a distant (fourth)," he said.

Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.

The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.

The system has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past, and its inauguration in Iraq is as much a sign of American desperation at the country's continued descent into civil conflict as it is of US determination to "win" the war against an Iraqi insurgency that has cost the lives of more than 3,200 American troops. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success.

But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.

The latest "security" plan, of which The Independent has learnt the details, was concocted by General David Petraeus, the current US commander in Baghdad, during a six-month command and staff course at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Those attending the course - American army generals serving in Iraq and top officers from the US Marine Corps, along with, according to some reports, at least four senior Israeli officers - participated in a series of debates to determine how best to "turn round" the disastrous war in Iraq.

The initial emphasis of the new American plan will be placed on securing Baghdad market places and predominantly Shia Muslim areas. Arrests of men of military age will be substantial. The ID card project is based upon a system adopted in the city of Tal Afar by General Petraeus's men - and specifically by Colonel H R McMaster, of the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment - in early 2005, when an eight-foot "berm" was built around the town to prevent the movement of gunmen and weapons. General Petraeus regarded the campaign as a success although Tal Afar, close to the Syrian border, has since fallen back into insurgent control.

So far, the Baghdad campaign has involved only the creation of a few US positions within several civilian areas of the city but the new project will involve joint American and Iraqi "support bases" in nine of the 30 districts to be "gated" off. From these bases - in fortified buildings - US-Iraqi forces will supposedly clear militias from civilian streets which will then be walled off and the occupants issued with ID cards. Only the occupants will be allowed into these "gated communities" and there will be continuous patrolling by US-Iraqi forces. There are likely to be pass systems, "visitor" registration and restrictions on movement outside the "gated communities". Civilians may find themselves inside a "controlled population" prison.

In theory, US forces can then concentrate on providing physical reconstruction in what the military like to call a "secure environment". But insurgents are not foreigners, despite the presence of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. They come from the same population centres that will be "gated" and will, if undiscovered, hold ID cards themselves; they will be "enclosed" with everyone else.

A former US officer in Vietnam who has a deep knowledge of General Petraeus's plans is sceptical of the possible results. "The first loyalty of any Sunni who is in the Iraqi army is to the insurgency," he said. "Any Shia's first loyalty is to the head of his political party and its militia. Any Kurd in the Iraqi army, his first loyalty is to either Barzani or Talabani. There is no independent Iraqi army. These people really have no choice. They are trying to save their families from starvation and reprisal. At one time they may have believed in a unified Iraq. At one time they may have been secular. But the violence and brutality that started with the American invasion has burnt those liberal ideas out of people ... Every American who is embedded in an Iraqi unit is in constant mortal danger."

The senior generals who constructed the new "security" plan for Baghdad were largely responsible for the seminal - but officially "restricted" - field manual on counter-insurgency produced by the Department of the Army in December of last year, code-numbered FM 3-24. While not specifically advocating the "gated communities" campaign, one of its principles is the unification of civilian and military activities, citing "civil operations and revolutionary development support teams" in South Vietnam, assistance to Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq in 1991 and the "provincial reconstruction teams" in Afghanistan - a project widely condemned for linking military co-operation and humanitarian aid.

FM 3-24 is harsh in its analysis of what counter-insurgency forces must do to eliminate violence in Iraq. "With good intelligence," it says, "counter-insurgents are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact." But another former senior US officer has produced his own pessimistic conclusions about the "gated" neighbourhood project.

"Once the additional troops are in place the insurrectionists will cut the lines of communication from Kuwait to the greatest extent they are able," he told The Independent. "They will do the same inside Baghdad, forcing more use of helicopters. The helicopters will be vulnerable coming into the patrol bases, and the enemy will destroy as many as they can. The second part of their plan will be to attempt to destroy one of the patrol bases. They will begin that process by utilising their people inside the 'gated communities' to help them enter. They will choose bases where the Iraqi troops either will not fight or will actually support them.

"The American reaction will be to use massive firepower, which will destroy the neighbourhood that is being 'protected'."

The ex-officer's fears for American helicopter crews were re-emphasised yesterday when a military Apache was shot down over central Baghdad.

The American's son is an officer currently serving in Baghdad. "The only chance the American military has to withdraw with any kind of tactical authority in the future is to take substantial casualties as a token of their respect for the situation created by the invasion," he said.

"The effort to create some order out of the chaos and the willingness to take casualties to do so will leave some residual respect for the Americans as they leave."

FM 3-24: America's new masterplan for Iraq

FM 3-24 comprises 220 pages of counter-insurgency planning, combat training techniques and historical analysis. The document was drawn up by Lt-Gen David Petraeus, the US commander in Baghdad, and Lt-Gen James Amos of the US Marine Corps, and was the nucleus for the new US campaign against the Iraqi insurgency. These are some of its recommendations and conclusions:

* In the eyes of some, a government that cannot protect its people forfeits the right to rule. In [parts] of Iraq and Afghanistan... militias established themselves as extragovernmental arbiters of the populace's physical security - in some cases, after first undermining that security...

* In the al-Qa'ida narrative... Osama bin Laden depicts himself as a man purified in the mountains of Afghanistan who is inspiring followers and punishing infidels. In the collective imagination of Bin Laden and his followers, they are agents of Islamic history who will reverse the decline of the umma (Muslim community) and bring about its triumph over Western imperialism.

* As the Host Nation government increases its legitimacy, the populace begins to assist it more actively. Eventually, the people marginalise insurgents to the point that [their] claim to legitimacy is destroyed. However, victory is gained not when this is achieved, but when the victory is permanently maintained by and with the people's active support...

* Any human rights abuses committed by US forces quickly become known throughout the local populace. Illegitimate actions undermine counterinsurgency efforts... Abuse of detained persons is immoral, illegal and unprofessional.

* If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace and contact maintained.

* FM 3-24 quotes Lawrence of Arabia as saying: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."

* FM 3-24 points to Napoleon's failure to control occupied Spain as the result of not providing a "stable environment" for the population. His struggle, the document says, lasted nearly six years and required four times the force of 80,000 Napoleon originally designated.

* Do not try to crack the hardest nut first. Do not go straight for the main insurgent stronghold. Instead, start from secure areas and work gradually outwards... Go with, not against, the grain of the local populace.

* Be cautious about allowing soldiers and marines to fraternise with local children. Homesick troops want to drop their guard with kids. But insurgents are watching. They notice any friendships between troops and children. They may either harm the children as punishment or use them as agents.