THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Did a majority in the Iraqi government make it clear they want the US military to leave?

If yes, let's git.

If no, let's stay until we knock off al-Qaeda in Iraq.

ican :
in case you missed my earlier post :

hbg wrote :



i think that's rather smart thinking ; if they don't do anything they can't be accused of having done anything wrong .

it reminds me of my working days when i would try and push my boss into making a decision .
"have you made a decision yet ? " , i'd ask him .
"yes " , he'd answer , "my decision is not to make one !" .
hbg

ican, You're hung-up on al Qaida. You need to educate yourself, if you can, about the current situation in Iraq - both political and the perpetrators of violence. HINT: It isn't only al Qaida.

I don't see how much clearer they can make it.

Majority of Iraqi lawmakers call for timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops, lawmaker says

Roundup of Iraq Violence - 10 May 2007

Iraq officials to push for U.S. support

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 15 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Worried Congress' support for Iraq is deteriorating rapidly, Baghdad dispatched senior officials to Capitol Hill this week to warn members one-on-one that pulling out U.S. troops would have disastrous consequences.


The lobbying push targeted Republicans and Democrats alike, but focused primarily on those considered influential on the war debate. On Thursday, hours before the House voted to limit funds for the war, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh met with more than 30 House Republicans and more than a half-dozen senators, including Sens. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

"He understands that American patience is waning," said Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), after eating lunch with Saleh, Iraqi Ambassador Samir Shakir al-Sumaidaie and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (news, bio, voting record).

But the lobbying by the Iraqis isn't the only pressure-point being applied in Washington.

Clinton said Friday she considered it "promising" that several Republican House members went to the White House and told President Bush they believe the continuing war is adversely affecting the party.

She said the GOP lawmakers told Bush pointblank that "he has to change course in Iraq." But she also said she didn't think that Bush was ready to reverse course.

Those same Iraqi government officials are going on a two month hiatus this summer while more Iraqis and US soldiers gets killed and maimed. If we look just at the averages for the past several months, that's too many! If the Iraqi government doesn't care, why should we? The real issue is their governments inability to agree amongst themselves to arrive at a compromised legislation to satisfy the Sunnis and Shias about power sharing. Even the Kurds have differences on how oil revenue will be shared. While the Iraqis talk without any progress, Bush wants our soldiers to sacrifice themselves for a goal that's not even on the radar screen. Stay the course is not a solution.

Former 'LA Times' Baghdad Chief Says Iraqis Are 'Humiliated'
Former 'LA Times' Baghdad Chief Says Iraqis Are 'Humiliated'
By Joe Strupp - E & P
Published: May 10, 2007 3:40 PM ET

Former Los Angeles Times Baghdad Bureau Chief Borzou Daragahi says he doubts the "surge" in Iraq will work, and describes Iraq citizens as "hostile" and "humiliated" after four years of war.

Asked by Brian Lamb, in a forthcoming C-SPAN interview, about his personal views on the war, he replied: "I think at this point, it just - it seems like it's become a disaster. I mean, I don't think anyone could dispute that. It's just going very, very, very, very badly." He said he had mixed feelings about the invasion but "As time wore on, though, as the bodies mounted, it just seems more and more like a really bad mistake."

The interview will be broadcast Sunday night.

Daragahi, a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, admits to deceiving his family, and editors, on some occasions about life in the war zone: "You know, there was no planning of, OK, I'm going to deceive my wife, I'm going to deceive my family. It was just, you know, you're in this crush of news and trying to get the story out....in addition to that, I had all these bureaucratic duties, because I became bureau chief. I had all these managerial duties - finances and safety issues and logistics, and so on. And so, the pressure, the amount of work was so intense that you end up perhaps sacrificing some facts when you're recounting your day to your family or your spouse, and even your editors."

Daragahi, an Iranian-born journalist who has also worked as a freelancer, plans to return to the Middle East soon as a Times' Beirut correspondent. In the interview with C-SPAN, scheduled to run Sunday night at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., he recounts life in the war-torn area, how he survived the mental and physical demand, and the difficulties of being a freelancer overseas.

Highlights of the interview, from a C-SPAN transcript, are below:

--On why he believes the military surge won't work:

"Because there is not - even according to General Petraeus' own guidebook for fighting counterinsurgencies, they're not using soldiers, they're not using enough troops to accomplish their goals...But also, more fundamentally, I don't think that they can do this militarily. I don't think the fundamental problems in Iraq right now are military problems."

-- On why Iraqis feel humiliated:

"Iraqis are rather hostile and feel humiliated. And that's the key thing that maybe some of our policymakers don't understand. The presence of the U.S. soldiers is very humiliating to the Iraqis. Even those who, in their minds know that it's necessary to have the soldiers there, at least some kind of force there preventing an all-out civil war from getting even worse...I don't think they appreciate American culture."

-- On charges that the press is too negative on Iraq:

Well, I would just say, show me those goods.

For example, is infant mortality going down? Is the number of attacks on U.S. and coalition forces going down?
Are the number of Iraqis who are fleeing the country declining? Is there an increase in employment? So, let's see the facts.

Is there a decrease in the number of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians being killed day to day? If there is, we've reported it. I mean, if there has been - and we put it prominently on page one.

I remember when the recent Baghdad security plan first went into effect, and there was a dramatic decline in the number of sectarian death squad executions, that was on the front page of the "Los Angeles Times."

So, I think that the people who say that criticism should at least read our product first.

--His personal feelings about the war:

I think that in the beginning, I was conflicted as to whether I was - because I had the Kurdish perspective up there, you know. And you don't fully adopt the perspective of the people that you're covering. You can't do that as a journalist. But you're at least sympathetic to it.

And from the Kurdish point of view, they were very much in favor of the war. They very much viewed it as a liberation. And that was rather infectious.

And so, I can't say that I was like completely against the invasion. I took a neutral, wait-and-see attitude....

Sort of what it's turned into in the eyes of many people in the Middle East is a war of imperial conquest gone bad, done poorly. At least the Romans granted their captives citizenship and brought them into the fold and brought stability to the lands that they conquered.

And I think, in the Arab world - and this is a really disastrous thing, they basically view this is as, you know, the Americans came in and they destroyed an Arab country. And I don't think they'll ever forgive us for that.

-- On family life and deceiving loved ones when you're trying to get the news out of Iraq:

"And so, sometimes you get in a situation where you kind of ascertain what that person wants to hear and you tell them what they want to hear...In the case of my going to Iraq, it wasn't for any other purpose other than to just make it through the day. I mean, it became a sort of day-to-day survival mechanism."

-- On his mixed feelings about going back to serve in Iraq:

"I imagine I will go back. Most 'L.A. Times' foreign correspondents do stints in Iraq, small stints, two or three weeks. Generally, we don't get to not go, even if we don't want to go....And you get kind of - I mean, maybe people think I'm crazy - but you get kind of hooked on it. You get kind of into that sort of existence."

-- On his wife visiting him in Baghdad:

She would come for a few weeks' stretch at a time and rarely as much as I was there, but she would come pretty regularly to Iraq. But as things got dangerous, she had less of a stomach for it.

I remember once, she and a friend of ours went to a supermarket, a very popular supermarket that has like Western stuff. And all of a sudden, outside of the supermarket there was like a terrifying shootout, like a gun fight.

And so, everyone in this supermarket kind of ran into the basement of the supermarket to hide, to make sure that they wouldn't get hit by any stray bullets as this gunfire continued, and then emerged. And I think that was just enough for her.

-- On Mel Gibson and Iraq:

Iraq right now, for foreigners living there, for Western journalists living there, it is a really - it's like, you know, "Road Warrior," the movie "Road Warrior" with Mel Gibson.

It's a real nightmare state to some extent, where there's basically little in the way of rule of law. Your personal security is constantly threatened.

There's constant tragedies, a constant flow of tragedies that you hear about that touch you, in terms of things happening to Iraqis you know and even things happening to Westerners that you know. So, it's unlike anything that is out there in the world.

Thinking outside the box; a great idea
A Modest Proposal: Benchmarks or Green Zone Eviction
by Art Levine
05.11.2007

The President's tentative agreement to include benchmarks in upcoming funding bills -- although he plans to veto the Democrats' latest bill -- still leaves open how the administration plans to enforce key benchmarks that will lead to a genuine political settlement in Iraq among the rival ethnic and religious factions.

While the Bush administration dithers, and experts call for important but hard-to-achieve long-range solutions, I've got a quicker way to get the warring factions to compromise on oil revenues and political power.

My solution? Tell all the legislators and ministers they've got three months to come up with legislative solutions that will stick, or the U.S. won't offer them protection anymore inside the Green Zone. In short, as the clock keeps ticking until a deadline for reconcilliation, U.S. troops should start backing up moving trucks to the Iraqis' protected residences, and we make it clear that until all the key measures are passed, they'll be evicted and forced to return to their own homes in the wilds of the free-fire zone that is the rest of Iraq. Maliki will have to drive out of the Green Zone in his own car to his original home in Baghdad -- and securing his protection from roving bands of fanatics and insurgents will be his personal responsibility if he wants to stay alive. But unless real progress towards a political settlement is made, we won't pay for his protection or body-guards any longer.

Sure it's extreme, but it may be more likely to produce results than what our government is currently considering. As the IraqSlogger website pointed out:

"The president said his chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, would try to 'find common ground on benchmarks' for the Iraqi government in his negotiations with lawmakers.

"Bush specifically mentioned the passage of Iraqi legislation to share oil revenues, the future division of power in Iraq, and the opening of some government jobs to former members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein as items requiring attention.

"Despite the President's rhetorical support of benchmarks, he insists the performance of the Iraq government not be tied to any punitive consequence for failure to achieve the stated goals."(Emphasis added.)

Unfortunately, there's little sign that, in reality, the Iraqi legislature or the Maliki government will actually move to implement these changes. A grim, pragmatic article in Thursday's Washington Post by Rend Al-Rahim, a former Iraqi representative to the U.S., underscores all the real-world obstacles standing in the way of the political settlement needed to restore a semblance of stability:

"Last June, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a 24-point plan for national reconciliation. Since then there have been meetings of clerics, tribal elders, army officers, civic organizations -- all with much fanfare but little result. Less-public meetings with dissident Sunnis, especially in Amman, Jordan, have had little tangible impact on the political and security situations.

"The United States has placed much emphasis on laws deemed necessary for Iraqi national reconciliation. Two significant laws, part of Maliki's 24-point plan, are stalled. The draft of a new, less draconian de-Baathification law has languished because Shiite factions oppose it. A draft oil law, designed to ease Sunni fears, is opposed by the Kurds. The review of the constitution, scheduled to be completed by May 15, is another benchmark on the path to national reconciliation, but the deadline probably won't be met. Dialogue with armed Sunni groups is deadlocked because the parties to the coalition government cannot agree on which groups are acceptable.

"Meanwhile, regional diplomacy has intensified. On March 10 the Iraqi government hosted a meeting in Baghdad that brought together Iraq's neighbors, members of the U.N. Security Council and other regional and international participants. A follow-up meeting of foreign ministers took place last week in Egypt.

"But as useful as regional and international agreements may be, they cannot provide a solution. Countries in the region can exploit opportunities for mischief provided by the fissures within Iraq, but they cannot mend these fissures. The paramount problem in Iraq is the disagreement among Iraqis themselves and their reluctance to compromise, and what is needed first and foremost is an agreement among Iraqi social and political groups. Only then will regional and international agreements be relevant. Similarly, the attention the United States pays to the legal aspects of national reconciliation puts the cart before the horse: Laws and constitutional revision must be outcomes of a national agreement, not conditions for one."

His solution is a complex Dayton-style settlement like the one imposed on the warring Bosnian factions:

"The United States must focus above all on an Iraqi compact. In 1995, after a war that left hundreds of thousands dead, a frustrated international community finally decided that the parties to the conflict in Bosnia had to be brought to the negotiating table. The Serbs, Croats and Bosnians were pressed to convene in Dayton and pressured by other nations to stay at it. The Dayton Accords were ratified by the key parties and overseen by the international community, and they have kept the peace in Bosnia.

"The differences between Iraq and Bosnia should not deter us from using the Dayton process as a model. Many countries have high stakes in Iraq's stability. These countries must coax, persuade and otherwise induce Iraqis to engage in sustained negotiations in which they spell out disagreements, aspirations and fears, and reach compromises or solutions that determine who rules and how."

That's all well and good, but if Iraqi leaders have the sure knowledge that Maliki will be booted ouf of the Green Zone along with the rest of the legislature and cabinet unless they all make concessions might be more likely to prod them into action. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, the prospect of being forced to live outside the Green Zone "powerfully concentrates the mind."

Benchmarks is the only solution; not Bush's stay the course until the Iraqis decide on a political solution - which will never happen.

Roundup of violence in Iraq
Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2007
Roundup of violence in Iraq
McClatchy Newspapers

The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported.

BAGHDAD

-Around 9:50 a.m., an improvised explosive device exploded near a textile factory in the Khadimya neighborhood. The explosion targeted a car convoy; one car was destroyed. There were no reports of casualties.

-Around 10 a.m., an IED exploded in the al-Wishash neighborhood; no casualties were reported.

-Around 11 a.m., a mortar shell hit al-Baladyat neighborhood without casualties.

SAMARA

-Around afternoon, gunmen killed Brig. Amar Kareem Khlaf of the joint operations office in downtown Samara.

BASRA

One civilian was injured by an IED that was targeting a U.S. convoy on a highway west of Basra that was used only by multi-national forces to carry the logistics equipment.

The Doonesbury cartoon series is quite good at the moment on this topic.

Your excerpt from that article makes it clear to me too.

But I'm confused. Why hasn't Congress, at least the Democrats, made more of this? Why are they even bothering to talk about benchmarks? Why aren't the Democrats proposing a resolution to get us out of Iraq ASAP? What the hell is going on?



Which is true?
(1) lawmaker says?
(2) lawmakers said?

Did only one Iraq lawmaker say this, or did several Iraq lawmakers say this?

Maybe Congress in general, or the Democrats in particular, do not know or do not believe that such an endorsement has actually been made by a majority of Iraq lawmakers.

ican :
the iraqi lawmakers say : "we are taking two months vacation , maybe , maybe not - "but said it should be of no concern to U.S. lawmakers" .
you know what it means , don't you ?
"none of your beeswax' or more directly : "B-GGER OFF !" .
hbg





VACATION TIME !

Yesterday the House voted on exactly this, and did not garner enough votes to pass it.

This comes from a combination of Republicans who are unwilling to cut the legs out from under Bush, and Dems who believe the hype about branding cowardice - pushed of course by the same Republicans.

They did however pass a bill granting the money until July, and requiring another vote then. So it isn't as if they aren't trying....

Cycloptichorn

The question is,WHAT are they trying?

Sorry i couldnt read the 120 pages of posts and articles

smthg struck me on p.117 tho, one article said :

many Sunnis are increasingly hostile to al-Qa'ida in Iraq. At the same time, the Sunni community as a whole continues to support armed resistance to the US-led occupation.

Which made me think about this article i had seen

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/248.php?nid=&id=&pnt=248&lb=brme


Do you guys know who performs these bombings (suicide or not) we often hear about? AQ, or armed resistants ?

If the latter, how can we associate random killing of innocent civilians with armed resistance?

Thanks

I forgot another question i had.

heres what a republican poster on another forum had to say about the Iraq war :

Is it possible that the war in Iraq might be lost one day? Yes, thanks to the Democrats and the Liberal media not George W. Bush.

Who wanted this war to end the day we started getting into hard times? Who wants to cut and run and who had to bribe others in the house to a deadline by adding 25 billion with a "B" in pork to get support and who is now trying to peace meal funds to a war that our troops are in right now?

Who, in ur opinion,would be to blame for a US defeat, or pullout without pacification of Iraq?

Another piece of evidence that ican doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to al Qaida. ican is not only a bore, but an ignorant one.

All Iraqi Ethnic Groups Overwhelmingly Reject al Qaeda
But Groups Vary on Iran, Syria, Hezbollah

Full Report
Questionnaire/Methodology
Transcript of Brookings Saban Center Event

A new poll of Iraqis shows that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are rejected by overwhelming majorities of Shias and Kurds and large majorities of Sunnis.

Shias have mildly positive views of Iran and its President, while Kurds and Sunnis have strongly negative views. Shias and Kurds have mostly negative views of Syria, while Sunnis are mildly positive. Shias have overwhelmingly positive views of Hezbollah, while Kurds and Sunnis have negative views.

The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Ltd. / D3 Systems, Inc. A nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults was surveyed September 1-4.

A Few Reminders
by Charley Reese

A few reminders: Iraq is not our country. Our invasion and occupation are illegal, being in violation of both international law and our own traditions. We were lied into war. We are still being lied to. Both the Bush administration and the Democrats intend to maintain American troops in Iraq indefinitely.

The catchy little phrase "If you break it, you own it" might apply to unpurchased merchandise, but it definitely does not apply to nation-states. You don't gain title to your neighbor's house just because you blow it up. We definitely broke Iraq, but that only gives us the burden of sin. It does not entitle us to the country.

It's easy to forget that when you listen to American politicians in both parties talk about what Iraq has to do or ought to do or should do. The Iraqi government does not have to do anything we tell it, and so far it hasn't, despite promises to the contrary.

The phrase now being heard most often around Baghdad is "Iraq is finished." That's according to Pepe Escobar, a correspondent for Asia Times Online. I urgently recommend his piece "Baghdad: Up Close and Personal." He and two Iraqi journalists toured the "Red Zone," which is all of Baghdad except the heavily fortified Green Zone. Compare what he saw and heard with what you hear from the talking heads in Washington.

And, by the way, they traveled in a plain car without armored vehicles, troops and helicopters hovering overhead, which is how American big shots travel. They got shot at and arrested but otherwise survived.

We need to get out of Iraq right now. This folly has already cost us 3,300 American lives, $500 billion in tax money, 30,000 wounded, and there is not so much as a faint glow at the end of the tunnel.

The reason I say both Democrats and Republicans intend a long-term military presence is because that's what they say if you listen closely. The so-called withdrawal deadline of the Democrats stipulates some troops left in country. To quell an insurgency, if you can do it at all, usually requires about 10 years.

You can see by the casualty figures - overwhelmingly Iraqi - that we are not doing the main fighting. We lose people daily, but so far in the single digits. And we will go on losing people no matter what tactics we employ as long as we stay there while the Iraqis fight a civil war. We can, with our sick devotion to legalese, say it is not an occupation, but the Iraqis call it an occupation, and they don't like it worth a toot.

When American politicians say if we leave, there will be chaos, that's a joke. There is chaos there now. Another joke is that we can democratize the Middle East. Still another joke is the belief that we can deal with terrorism without solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

If I thought the people in Washington were smart enough, I'd say we intended to destroy the country and leave it in the wreck it is. I don't think they're that smart, though. I think they really believed we could waltz in, topple Saddam Hussein and waltz out. That's what happens when you let a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals from universities and think tanks set policy. Only people who have worn muddy boots and heard the sounds of gunfire should be consulted on the issues of war and peace. Such people are darned scarce in Washington these days, even at the Pentagon.

The present policy sins daily against the Iraqi people, wastes the lives of American military people, adds to the financial burden of future generations and demonstrates to the world that we are a nation led by fools.

May 8, 2007

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese358.html