THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Worse than the worst
The Hay audience heard from Patrick Cockburn how the difficulty of reporting Iraq means we can hardly imagine how bad things really are.
Katharine Viner

May 28, 2007
Iraq: it's worse than you can possibly imagine, and worse than we can possibly know.

That was the message when the brilliant Middle East reporter, Patrick Cockburn, spoke on stage today at Hay, publicising his book about the British and American occupation of Iraq.

Iraq, he said, is a country that's been "hollowed out". Two million people have left. At least 3,000 civilians are murdered every month. The rest live in terror.

He told of details that give a real sense of what's going on. Because there are no more open-air markets, since so many have been bombed, people have set up stalls in side streets or their back gardens instead. Before the war, there were 32,000 doctors in Iraq; now 2,000 are dead, 12,000 have left, and the remainder, who are seen as having money and are thus targets for kidnappers, must work from armed-guarded clinics.

He reminded us about the Green Zone, the giant fortified area in the centre of Baghdad - while most of the city doesn't get electricity or water or sewage disposal, the Green Zone gets plenty, so the occupiers who live there have no idea what it feels like to live anywhere else.

He discussed "one of the great thefts in history", the "enormous kleptocracy", that started with Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, which, infamously, didn't keep accounts. (They believed that all money spent would miraculously "trickle down".)

Cockburn is one of the brave few British journalists who still report from Iraq. He described just how difficult it is to do so: he can't go anywhere for more than 20 minutes; he can't make an appointment; he can't mention to anyone where he might be going, he meticulously avoids traffic jams. And those measures are just to "increase the odds in your favour", he said.

There may have been a plethora of books on Iraq, but most see the country as only a "backdrop" for what is "real and significant" - ie, Washington politics. But Cockburn, thank goodness, is different; he tries to see the occupation the way Iraqis see it.

He talked of cities that reporters rarely get to, such as Mosul and Kirkuk, where we don't know just how bad the violence is; he stressed that even the conservative official figures record that at least 3,000 civilians are murdered every month. It is a "society pulsating with fear the whole time".

Someone in the audience wondered if really the situation isn't so bad, that this is just the "Iraqi way of going about things" and it would all even itself out.

"That's baloney," said Cockburn. "This is the worst thing to happen to Iraqis since 1258, when the Mongols invaded and took Baghdad."

The seriousness of the Democrats can be judged by such hearings' non-existence.

Bush envisions U.S. presence in Iraq like S.Korea
Wed May 30, 2007

Bush envisions U.S. presence in Iraq like S.Korea

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush would like to see a lengthy U.S. troop presence in Iraq like the one in South Korea to provide stability but not in a frontline combat role, the White House said on Wednesday.

The United States has had thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea to guard against a North Korean invasion for 50 years.

Democrats in control of the U.S. Congress have been pressing Bush to agree to a timetable for pulling troops from Iraq, an idea firmly opposed by the president.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush would like to see a U.S. role in Iraq ultimately similar to that in South Korea.

"The Korean model is one in which the United States provides a security presence, but you've had the development of a successful democracy in South Korea over a period of years, and, therefore, the United States is there as a force of stability," Snow told reporters.

He said U.S. bases in Iraq would not necessarily be permanent because they would be there at the invitation of the host government and "the person who has done the invitation has the right to withdraw the invitation."

"I think the point he's trying to make is that the situation in Iraq, and indeed, the larger war on terror, are things that are going to take a long time. But it is not always going to require an up-front combat presence," Snow said.

"The president has always said that ultimately you want to be handing primary responsibility off to the Iraqis," he said.

"You provide the so-called over-the-horizon support that is necessary from time to time to come to the assistance of Iraqis but you do not want the United States forever in the front."

As best I can piece it together, Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq ran a sophisticated sting on US troops in Diyala province on Memorial Day, killing 8 GIs. First, they shot down a helicopter with small arms fire. Two servicemen died in the crash. The guerrillas knew that a rescue team would come out to the site. So they planted a roadside bomb that killed the rescuers. And, they knew that yet another rescue team would come out to see what happened to the first. So they planted roadside bombs and destroyed the second team, as well. Altogether 6 rescuers were blown up in this way. The guerrillas run this routine on Iraqi police and troops in the capital all the time. As US troops increasingly take on policing duties, they become vulnerable to the same operations that have wrought such mayhem on Iraqi security forces.

Then some other shadowy group ran a sophisticated sting on some high-powered British security guards at the Ministry of Finance (that kind of kidnapping is always in part an inside job-- someone at the ministry tipped the 40 gunmen to the presence of Britons in the ministry). I guess I just can't entirely understand how 40 guerrillas drive around downtown Baghdad, surround government ministries, and kidnap people from them. The Ministry had government police and guards. It just seems to me that this kind of thing cannot happen unless the Iraqi government security forces are in on it or wink at it.

I do wish Congress would conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about Iraq's WMD's. Also what pressure was put on the intelligence community to give the results the administration was looking for.

I know conservatives will call this a witch hunt but with over 3,000 dead Americans this is an investigation America needs. Something like this should never happen again and if it is covered up it will. You will not learn anything by being ignorant. America needs to be educated on the methodology the Bush administration used to get thousands of Americans killed for nothing but the ideology of those in power.

Who are Iraq's Mehdi Army?
By Patrick Jackson
BBC News


The Mehdi Army (MA) militia poses, in the eyes of the Pentagon, the greatest threat to Iraq's security, replacing al-Qaeda in Iraq as the country's "most dangerous accelerant of potentially self-sustaining sectarian violence".

To supporters, the MA is the military muscle of Iraq's urban Shia Muslims, fighting to protect Najaf and other Shia parts of the country.

Its membership rose from just a few thousand after the US-led invasion to some 60,000, according to a December 2006 report by the Iraqi Survey Group.

It was created in the summer of 2003, prompted by radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, who preached in his sermons the need for a new force.

Young men were recruited at offices near mosques to defend the Shia Muslim faith and their country in defiance of the US-led coalition's arms controls.

The MA's appeal is mainly to "those young and desperate Shia in Iraq's urban slums who have not seen any benefit to their lives from liberation", Dr Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the University of Warwick, told the BBC News website.

Taking its name from the Mehdi - a messianic figure in the Shia tradition - the militia is fiercely loyal to its religious founder.

"I'm not sure what the aim of the army is or when we will fight, but I will follow Sadr's orders," was how one original volunteer, 29-year-old Kathem Rissan, explained his position to the Financial Times in Baghdad in July 2003.

Since Iraq's elections and the creation of its own, Shia-dominated government, Mr Sadr's movement has continued to take on new members, feeding on dissatisfaction among Shia who initially welcomed the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the end to curbs on their faith.

It is also believed to have members across the new Iraqi security forces and administration and has been linked to sectarian attacks on Sunni Muslims.

Access to guns

The MA's potential as an armed force was first really felt when violence erupted against coalition forces in April 2004, although many of the gunmen in action on the streets of Baghdad or Najaf may not necessarily have been militia members, but ordinary Iraqis defending their neighbourhoods.





The ferocious street battles suggested the MA had access to rocket-propelled grenades as well as heavy machine-guns and the ubiquitous Kalashnikov assault rifle.

As Dr Dodge explains, weapons are widely available in a country where most men would have military training.

After three wars in close succession, Iraq was a highly militarised state at the time of the coalition invasion and arms dumps were left open for months after the old regime fell.

The MA was the first Shia militia to organise on the ground and benefited from a degree of military discipline, making it the natural choice for leading unrest in Shia areas.

The US recently accused Iran, Shia Iraqis' spiritual ally, of training, supplying and financing MA fighters.

Coalition headache

In a November 2006 report on Iraq, the Pentagon described the MA as the group "currently having the greatest negative affect on the security situation in Iraq", and particularly in Baghdad and the southern provinces.

The presence of MA members in the Iraqi police force was, the report added, fuelling "Sunni concerns about persecution".

Since the 2004 uprising, MA fighters have occasionally clashed with both US and British coalition forces.

Tension in the southern city of Basra reached a new level when the local MA leader, Abu Qadir, was killed on 25 May 2007.

Some US intelligence analysts believe that Mr Sadr's control over the MA has weakened as the militia has grown, with unpredictable consequences.

xingu wrote:

I do wish Congress would conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about Iraq's WMD's. Also what pressure was put on the intelligence community to give the results the administration was looking for.

I know conservatives will call this a witch hunt but with over 3,000 dead Americans this is an investigation America needs. Something like this should never happen again and if it is covered up it will. You will not learn anything by being ignorant. America needs to be educated on the methodology the Bush administration used to get thousands of Americans killed for nothing but the ideology of those in power.

You surprised me. I didn't think you were willing to trust Congress to make a valid investigation of anything having to do with Iraq. After all you continue to ignore some of what Congress has found about our Iraq venture in their previous investigations.

However, that said, I think it would be excellent for Congress to conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about Iraq's WMD's. I would also like Congress to conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about al-Qaeda in Iraq.

You see, we know now that Saddam did not possess any ready-to-use WMD prior to our invasion. But we also know now that al-Qaeda was located in Iraq prior to our invasion.

But we also know now that al-Qaeda was located in Iraq prior to our invasion.

ican711nm wrote:

xingu wrote:

I do wish Congress would conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about Iraq's WMD's. Also what pressure was put on the intelligence community to give the results the administration was looking for.

I know conservatives will call this a witch hunt but with over 3,000 dead Americans this is an investigation America needs. Something like this should never happen again and if it is covered up it will. You will not learn anything by being ignorant. America needs to be educated on the methodology the Bush administration used to get thousands of Americans killed for nothing but the ideology of those in power.

You surprised me. I didn't think you were willing to trust Congress to make a valid investigation of anything having to do with Iraq. After all you continue to ignore some of what Congress has found about our Iraq venture in their previous investigations.

However, that said, I think it would be excellent for Congress to conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about Iraq's WMD's. I would also like Congress to conduct a through investigation of what was known and not known prior to the invasion about al-Qaeda in Iraq.

You see, we know now that Saddam did not possess any ready-to-use WMD prior to our invasion. But we also know now that al-Qaeda was located in Iraq prior to our invasion.

But the AQ presence was so small it did not warrent an invasion of Iraq. Also Bush could have taken AQ out any time he wanted but didn't do so because he wanted to use them as one of the excuses to invade the country; just as you still do.

I get the feeling that Ican sees a picture of a giant Muslim guy who is wearing a turban that says AL QAEDA on it, when he says things like:

Quote:

But we also know now that al-Qaeda was located in Iraq prior to our invasion.

Were there terrorist groups located in Iraq prior to our invasion? Yes, there were.

Yes, they were.

Were they the same guys - or even closely affiliated with the guys - that went after us on 9/11? No, they were not.


Yes they were the same guys (i.e., al-Qaeda guys, whose now dead guys went after us on 9/11) plus those guys closely affiliated with these same al-Qaeda guys.


Critical difference

Again, you are trying to make a distinction when there is no difference.

Cycloptichorn

Lieberman talks to troops in Baghdad
By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?

Williams missed six months of his girlfriend's pregnancy when he was given six days' notice to return to Iraq for his second tour. He also missed his baby boy's birth. Three weeks ago, he went home and saw his first child.

"He looks just like me," he said. "I didn't want to come back. . . . We're waiting to get blown up."

Williams wasn't sure if he'd say how he really felt. But if he could, he'd ask about body armor.

"I don't want him to snap his fingers to get things fixed," Williams said, referring to Lieberman. "But he has influence."

Next to him, Spc. Will Hedin, 21, of Chester, Conn., thought about what he was going to say.

"We're not making any progress," Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. "It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at."

But as he waited two chairs down from where Lieberman would sit, Hedin said he'd never voice his true feelings to the senator.

"I think I'd be a private if I did," he joked. "It's just more troops, more targets."

In the past two months, the unit has lost two men. In May alone, at least 120 U.S. troops died in Iraq, the bloodiest month in 2007 and the highest number since the battles of Fallujah in 2004.

Spc. Kevin Krasco, 20, of Medford, Mass., and Spc. Kevin Adams, 20, of Moosup, Conn., chimed in with their dismay before turning the conversation to baseball.

"It's like everything else in this war," Adams said, referring to Baghdad. "It hasn't changed."

Then Lieberman walked in, wearing a pair of sunglasses newly purchased from an Iraqi market that the military had taken him to in southeast Baghdad. He'd been equipped with a helmet and flak vest when he toured the market, which he described as bustling.

Earlier, Lieberman had met briefly with Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police at a Joint Security Station; there are 31 throughout the city now. The senator, who's steadfastly supported the Iraq war along with the current surge of more than 28,000 additional American troops, said things were better.

"I think it's important we don't lose our will," he said. "To pull out would be a disaster."

The soldiers smiled and greeted him, stood with him for pictures and sat down to a lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches. It was unclear if they ever asked their questions.

As Lieberman walked out, he said that congressionally mandated withdrawal would be a "victory for al-Qaida and a victory for Iran."

"They're not Pollyannaish about this," he said referring to the young soldiers he ate lunch with. "They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."

It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.

"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.

One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study international affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protesters on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America's standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve.

Accordingly, their arguments are less striking than the fact that it is Ross and Brzezinski who are making them. Those who have been listening to the antiwar movement since 2002 will nod along at this assessment of the Iraq adventure:

Quote:

It is hard to exaggerate the Bush administration's fundamental miscalculations on Iraq, including but not limited to unrealistic policy objectives; fundamental intelligence failures; catastrophically poor understanding of what would characterize the post-Saddam period, and completely unrealistic planning as a result; denial of the existence of an insurgency for several months; and the absence of a consistent explanation to the American people or the international community about the reasons for the war.

Small wonder that after nearly four years of warfare, Iraq has been a disaster, costing thousands of lives, requiring the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, stretching our forces and reserve system to the breaking point, and becoming a magnet for terrorists and hostility toward the United States throughout the Muslim world.

Yet that verdict comes not from some Venusian in Paris or Berlin but from Brzezinksi, that hardheaded Martian creature of Washington. Lest there be any doubt, the former national security adviser to Jimmy Carter issues a report card on the three presidencies since the end of the cold war. George H.W. Bush gets a B, praised for his calm management of the expiration of the Soviet Union and the united international front he constructed for his own desert confrontation with Saddam. Clinton manages a C, credited for effective championing of globalization and oversight of NATO enlargement, but debited for allowing too many important matters, especially nuclear proliferation, to drift. Bush's son is slapped with an unambiguous F.

That verdict is rooted in the administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq, which can't help but form the heart of both books. Judged even by the lights of Bush's own "war on terror" it has been a spectacular failure. It took a country that had been free of jihadist militants and turned it into their most fecund breeding ground; it took a country that posed no threat to the United States and made it into a place where thousands of Americans, not to mention many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis, have been killed. And it diverted resources from the task that should have been uppermost after September 11, namely the hunting down of Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, allowing them to slip out of reach.

What's more, Bush's "war on terror" did bin Laden's work for him. Brzezinksi is not alone in suggesting that it was a mistake to treat September 11 as an act of war, rather than as an outrageous crime; in so doing, the administration endowed al-Qaeda with the status it craved. What followed was a series of missteps that seemed bent on vindicating the jihadists' claim of a war of the West against Islam. Whether it was the invasion of Iraq or the early talk of a "crusade" or the abuses at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration fed violent Islamism all it needed to recruit young men the world over. What began as a fringe sect has become, thanks in no small measure to the Bush administration, a global movement able to draw on deep wells of support.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, is visiting Iraq during the Memorial Day recess and he likes what he sees.


"Overall, I would say what I see here today is progress, significant progress from the last time I was here in December. And if you can see progress in war that means you're headed in the right direction."

When a reporter asked him about May which saw the highest number of U.S. military deaths this year, Lieberman responded:

"That's of course, that's the heartbreaking part of it. That the casualties that the American military have been taking have been high this month. Part of that, as I've been told today, is because our military is out here not just in camps but we're out in in the city and other cities but particularly in the capital city, and we're having a positive effect..."

Lieberman wore sunglasses which appeared not to be rose-colored.

I wish some transcriber, er, reporter would ask Lieberman to define this supposed "progress" he's seen. Maybe he was actually in an Indiana farmer's market and got confused, the two are so similar.

There is a difference, sorry.

It's like saying 'all criminals are members of the same super-organization, with the same plans and goals.'

Ridiculous assertion unsupported by fact or logic. There was no evidence of an operational relationship between the different groups prior to 9/11. There was no evidence that members of AQ fled to Iraq after 9/11.

Big difference...

Cycloptichorn

Congressional Intelligence Report 09/08/2006
REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
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 Baghdad had not controlled since 1991.

Let me get this straight.

There's an AQ camp in an area of Iraq that Saddam Hussein has no control over. So in order to get rid of the AQ camp we decide to invade and overthrow the leader of Iraq who has no control over the territory the AQ camp was located.
...

"There's an AQ camp in an area of Iraq that Saddam Hussein has no control over."

You at least got that much straight, but you didn't get the rest straight.