War Anniversary

A recent opinion poll suggests that only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in American and coalition troops, while 78 percent oppose their presence and 69 percent say their presence makes security worse






In the four years since the launch of the "shock and awe" military campaign just before dawn on March 20, 2003, Iraq has descended into a sectarian hell that has left tens of thousands of civilians dead.
Observers point out that the United States' war in Iraq has been longer than its involvement in World War II.
At 5:35 a.m. on that day, Tomahawk missiles and precision-guided bombs rained down on Baghdad targets as Saddam vowed that this would be "Iraq's last battle against the tyrannous villains".
On April 9, the Iraqi strongman's statue in a central square was torn down with a rope around the neck, in a premonition of his own hanging last December 30 after his conviction for crimes against humanity, following a trial which many observers in Iraq and abroad regarded as highly problematical.
His vice-president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, followed him to the gallows on March 20.
US President George W. Bush, facing growing anti-war protests, pleaded for patience last Monday with his increasingly unpopular Iraq war and Washington's revamped efforts to restore order.
"The Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages and success will take months, not days or weeks", the embattled president said.
"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home. That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating".
Despite Bush's warnings, a new poll showed US public opinion on Iraq had soured further, with just 32 percent of Americans saying they favored the war, compared to 72 percent on the eve of conflict four years ago.
And despite recent claims by the Bush Administration that the month-old US troop surge in Baghdad was beginning to work, another poll by Western media organizations told a story of Iraqi pessimism.
Only 18 percent of Iraqis had confidence in American and coalition troops, while 78 percent opposed their presence, 69 percent said their presence made security worse and 51 percent said attacks on coalition forces were justified, this poll indicated.
Protests have been staged across the United States and in several European cities and Japan, against the war, which was originally based on a premise of eliminating weapons of mass destruction that were never found. Another justification advanced for the invasion was the allegation - made by then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell in an address to the Security Council in February 2003 - that Saddam's regime was in league with Al-Qaeda, a charge that was later shown to be unfounded.
Commanders are now pouring reinforcements of 25,000 into Baghdad to quell Sunnite-Shiite fighting, the bloodiest element of the conflict and one which even the Pentagon admits amounts to civil war.
In Western and Northern Iraq, Al-Qaeda militants pursue their brutal insurgency against the US-backed government, while in the south and center Shiite militias jostle for supremacy and control of oil resources.
The launch of the joint US-Iraqi security plan in Baghdad has driven some sectarian death squads from the streets, but car bombs still explode every day, scattering bodies and bloodied debris through crowded markets.
"There has been a steady decline in the Iraq situation since the invasion. Things have gone from bad to worse", said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group.
The raw figures do not tell the whole story of a complex crisis, but they make grim reading.
Since the conflict began, at least two million Iraqis have fled the country and 1.8 million have been displaced within its borders, according to figures compiled by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties in the past four years vary widely, but the Iraq Body Count website's figure of 58,800 is among the more conservative. The Baghdad government said 1,440 people were killed in January alone.
At least 3,203 American, 132 British and 124 other coalition soldiers have also died since the invasion.
Iraqi officials point to a constitution, endorsed by referendum, and the creation of a national unity government by an elected Parliament -- with 25 percent of its members women -- as signs of progress since the dictator's fall.
American commanders, with a wary eye on plummeting public and political support for the war back home, also point to reconstruction and economic development efforts as the great untold story of the war.
Nevertheless, the violence and the corruption that has dogged Iraq's post-invasion reconstruction have delayed much progress in terms of utilities such as electricity supplies.
And a series of American security operations has so far failed to fill the security vacuum caused by Washington's decision to disband Iraq's Saddam-era armed forces which opened the field to Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed militias.
Four years on, US military seeks turning point in Iraq
Four years after the invasion, US commanders now believe a new strategy backed up by tens of thousands of extra troops has at least a chance to put an end to the sectarian slaughter.
Hard fighting and more casualties lie ahead, they warn, but with Iraqi leaders and security forces now pulling in the right direction, the military says there is reason to hope that the new security plan will prevail.
Unfortunately, these promising signs come after more than 3,200 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in the past four years, and as public support for the war in the United States itself is plummeting beyond the point of no return.
With many candidates in next year's US presidential election likely to run on a "troops out" ticket, and the entire Middle East region in state of high tension, time is running out for General David Petraeus and his soldiers.
The new US commander took over last month trailing great expectations, but he warns it will take months for his plan to make a difference to the strength of the Al-Qaeda insurgency or the savagery of the Sunnite-Shiite conflict.
"The Washington clock's ticking, and the Baghdad clock's ticking, and we wish we could wind the Baghdad clock a little faster", Petraeus said last week in the western insurgent town of Ramadi, while insisting politics would not distract him from the task.
The irony of this sudden urgency is not lost on officers in the field. While none will publicly criticize civilian officials, such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, they respond with wry smiles when asked why the new tactics employed by Petraeus' command were not adopted three years ago.
Instead, they talk enthusiastically of the so-called "surge strategy", which will see more than 25,000 extra American troops pour into Baghdad and by June bring total force numbers to 160,000 for the first time since 2003.
Most of these reinforcements will join Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law), a plan developed with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, to clear the capital of insurgents and militia fighters and then hold the ground.
Already, and for the first time, more than 25 fortified "Joint Security Stations" and around 50 "Combat Outposts" have been built to house heavily armed US units alongside their Iraqi comrades in the heart of the city.
Initial results have been promising, despite a spate of car bomb attacks by Sunnite insurgents, as Shiite militias like the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army have melted away and offered no organized resistance.
Sectarian murders and kidnappings are down dramatically -- by around two thirds -- according to General Joseph Fil of the US Army's 1st Cavalry Division, and the commander of Multinational Division Baghdad.
According to Fil, the new strategy will take longer than earlier sweeps of Baghdad, but will have a more lasting effect on security. Previous operations failed because insurgents returned in strength once US troops left.
"Sometimes when they came back it was worse than it was before. The cycle was about six weeks", he said, warning that the failure of previous initiatives had made Iraqis suspicious of the new plan.
"There's a sense of suspense in the air, a sense of suspense and anticipation among the Iraqi people, and I think it is being met by this operation", he said.
As much as on military operations such as the Fardh al-Qanoon surge, success for the US military and the Iraqi government depends on building a peaceful political consensus in the country and in the region.
Both Baghdad and Washington have been keen to blame neighboring countries for their problems in Iraq.
The White House accuses Iran of arming Shiite militias and in particular of sending components for the "explosively formed penetrator" -- an armor-piercing roadside bomb that has killed 170 American soldiers.
Meanwhile, Maliki's Shiite-led government claims that individuals in Sunnite Arab states are arming Al-Qaeda-linked groups.
Senior Maliki advisor Bassem Ridha told reporters that the insurgency "is being delivered by a fanatic cult called Al-Qaeda, and Baathists are doing the navigation for them", he said, referring to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, to which many rebels belong.
But for all the diplomatic controversy surrounding these allegations, US ground commanders warn that both the sectarian war and the insurgency are now self-sustaining and must be faced from within Iraq.
"If there are people working on ways to cut off foreign funding to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, that's good, but they shouldn't spend much time on it", one officer told reporters in Western Iraq.
Another commander, US Marine Brigadier-General John Allen, said the Sunnite insurgent movement financed itself through organized crime -- racketeering, smuggling, theft, kidnap and ransom.
Meanwhile, US officers say Iraq is awash with weapons dating from before the invasion, providing insurgents with ready materiel without the need for mass cross-border smuggling.
There is a new sense among commanders in Iraq that the new strategy is their best chance yet for victory. It's just that the window for success is tight.

Ban in Baghdad
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed confidence last week that Iraq could build a better future with international help.
True to form for top diplomatic visits to the most dangerous capital on earth, Ban's trip went unannounced until he touched down on the start of his first visit to the Middle East since taking office three months ago.
Following talks with Maliki, whose Shiite-led government is struggling to stem sectarian bloodshed, Ban praised concerted efforts by Baghdad and the international community for a better future.
"I'm confident that we'll be able to see in the near future, a more prosperous and secure and politically and democratically healthier future of the Iraqi people and government", he told a news conference with Maliki.
But just moments after Ban said the United Nations might bolster its presence in Iraq, a mortar round landed in a garden 40 meters away.
After a brief pause during which Ban recovered his composure having flinched involuntarily from the podium, the interpreter continued to translate Ban's remarks into Arabic and both men took more questions.
"As we see an improvement in the situation on the ground I'm considering to increase the presence of the United Nations", Ban had said.
The loud blast sent a column of smoke and dust into the sky near the northern edge of the Green Zone, opposite the Jumhouriya Bridge in downtown Baghdad in a heavily policed area near Maliki's office.
Under the International Compact with Iraq (ICI) initiative, nearly 90 countries and multilateral institutions review Iraq's progress in carrying out reforms in exchange for international aid and debt relief.
"We hope that the United Nations will continue its efforts in supporting Iraq through the Iraq Compact process that has now reached the final stages", Maliki told the joint news conference.
During his talks with the UN chief, Maliki's office said he asked the world body to cancel Iraqi reparations, which Baghdad is still obligated to pay for former president Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
The UN Compensation Commission has approved at least 41.3 billion dollars in war reparations for Kuwait over the invasion ordered by Saddam, whom Maliki put to death four months ago.
Ban's visit to Iraq was the first by a UN secretary-general since his predecessor, Kofi Annan, came to Baghdad in November 2005.
A bomb attack on the UN headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, 2003 killed 22 people, including UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The United Nations also upset Iraqis when in 1991 it imposed the widest-ranging set of sanctions in its history, including a ban on oil exports.
Ban's visit comes as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is arranging an April 17-18 international conference in Geneva to examine how to deal with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis displaced since the 2003 invasion.
The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned "the abhorrent terrorist attack" that marred Ban's visit to Baghdad and expressed support for UN efforts to promote national reconciliation there.
South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who chairs the council this month, read out a Russian-drafted statement, endorsed by all 15 members, stating that they "were dismayed and strongly condemned the abhorrent terrorist attack on the Iraqi prime minister's office" as Ban was taking part in a joint press conference.
"The members of the Security Council welcomed the secretary-general's visit to Baghdad. They expressed unwavering support for the efforts of the United Nations and its secretary-general to promote an inclusive and effective political process in Iraq aimed at [promoting] national reconciliation", the statement said.
The council members reaffirmed the "need to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and by all means in accordance to international law".
Earlier, Russian envoy to the UN Vitali Churkin expressed shock over the mortar attack in Baghdad.
"Obviously we are concerned and shocked that there has been this development", Churkin told reporters. "That's a reminder to all of us of the serious and difficult security situation in that country. We support the role of the United Nations in Iraq".

US Democrats push for deadline for Iraq exit
Democratic lawmakers were pushing for a deadline for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in a vote on Friday that linked funds for the war to a pullout by mid-2008.
Amid divisions within the Democratic majority, the vote in the House of Representatives was expected to be close on the binding legislation that would set an August 31, 2008, deadline for the departure of US troops from Iraq.
Democratic leaders sounded more confident about the outcome after winning key support Thursday from the most liberal members in the party who had opposed the bill on grounds it did not go far enough in bringing an end to the US presence in Iraq.
Although President Bush has made clear he would veto any timetable for a pullout, Democrats see it as a part of a campaign to force the end of US involvement in Iraq.
After winning back control of Congress in an election fueled by public anxiety over Iraq, the Democrats are eager to ratchet up the political pressure on Bush and to make life difficult for his Republican allies in Congress who must answer to voters angry over the war.
The 124-billion-dollar emergency supplemental spending package for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would tie the deployment of combat forces to strict standards for rest, equipment and training of troops. It also would create benchmarks that would hold the Iraqi government accountable for progress toward self-governance and security.
If the Iraqis fail to meet the objectives, a withdrawal of troops would begin within months.
No matter how the Iraqi government performs, the bill calls for withdrawals to begin in March 2008 and for most US combat forces to be out of Iraq by August 31, 2008.
The House and Senate versions must be reconciled, then the president must sign the measure for it to become law. To override a presidential veto, each chamber would have to secure a two-thirds majority.
Bush on Thursday urged Congress to pass his war funds bill without restrictions while his aides warned that the Democratic plan would face a presidential veto and had "zero chance" of becoming law.

More chemical attacks expected
In Baghdad security forces have said they expect more chemical bomb attacks after three dirty bombs left two policemen dead and 350 civilians sick on March 16. Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh claimed that the chlorine attacks in the restive Anbar province on March 16 were sparked by the fact that public opinion is turning against militant groups.
Insurgents detonated three trucks filled with toxic chlorine gas, putting at least 350 Iraqi civilians in hospital and killing two policemen, the US military reported, adding that six American soldiers also fell sick.
Two of the attacks came just south of the town of Fallouja and one was northeast of Ramadi, both hotbeds of Al-Qaeda militants in Anbar.
"This is the doing of terrorist organizations in Ramadi and Fallouja" Dabbagh told a news conference in Baghdad. "Public opinion in Ramadi is going against these groups, and so they threaten the people of Anbar. We were expecting such chlorine attacks. It is not easy to stop them".
The Iraqi Interior Ministry's operations director, Brigadier-General Abdelkarim Khalaf, had earlier suggested the bombings may have been launched in revenge for recent government successes against insurgents in Ramadi.
Sunnite tribes in Anbar have united in a coalition to oppose Al-Qaeda in Iraq, sending thousands of young men to join the government security forces and cooperating with US and Iraqi commanders, he indicated.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi vice-president, Tarek al-Hashemi, a Sunnite, urged that talks should be started with insurgent groups other than Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Four year on, protests seek an end to the war
In the United States, anti-war demonstrators held at least a thousand candlelight vigils around the United States last Monday (March 19), day four of protests demanding an end to the war in Iraq four years after it began.
"We can't send tens of thousands of exhausted, under-equipped and unprepared troops into the middle of an Iraqi civil war", the left-leaning organizer MoveOn.org said in a statement. It claimed that 1,100 vigils had been planned around the country.
Thousands of anti-war protesters took to New York's streets on Sunday, demanding a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, in rallies marking the fourth anniversary of the war.
Organizers of the group United for Peace and Justice said between 25,000 and 30,000 people marched in the rally, which came a day after similar mass protests in Washington and Los Angeles. Police did not estimate the turnout.
A colorful mixture of students, cyclists, Vietnam War veterans and musicians marched through midtown Manhattan, drumming and chanting slogans such as "Troops out now!" and calling for President George W. Bush to be impeached.
Waving placards reading "Drop Bush, Not Bombs", and "Four Years Too Long", the crowds braved near-freezing temperatures as they marched under clear skies down streets lined with piles of snow.
"This is not a strange, lefty movement. This is the voice of the people", suggested actor Tim Robbins, a prominent and vocal critic of the Iraq war, who was among those leading the march.
"American people want this war to end, so when are we going to start listening to them?" he asked. "The main message is to stop this immoral war".
Conscientious objector Jose Vasquez, a US Army staff sergeant who refused to be deployed to Iraq, said he believed the anti-war movement was seeing renewed vigor with the weekend protests.
"If people are willing to listen to what the troops have to say, they'll find that the military itself is turning against the war, not unlike what happened during Vietnam".
Besides groups as diverse as the Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Granny Peace Brigade, families of those killed in Iraq or those currently deployed there said it was time for the troops to come home.
"I want the war to stop, I want everyone to come home. I don't want to see people coming back hurt with brain injuries and missing limbs", said one woman who gave her name only as Michelle and whose brother was about to be deployed.
Along the route, the rally passed the offices of New York senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer. "We're telling our congressional representatives that the people want them to stand up to Bush", said Leslie Kielson, the New York coordinator for United for Peace and Justice.
"The troops must be brought home now, this war and occupation must end, and it must end now", she declared.
A demonstration was also held on Sundayin San Francisco, where several thousand protesters carried anti-war banners and chanted slogans during a march to the city's Civic Center.
The New York and San Francisco rallies followed the arrests on March 16 of about 100 people holding a vigil outside the White House who ignored police orders to disperse in a protest organized by Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
The next day, thousands marched on the Pentagon, the Defense Department's headquarters in Washington, demanding a US withdrawal.
Among those at the rally was former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, who called for Bush to be impeached over his handling of the war.
Anti-war demonstrations also took place in other cities around the world.
A new opinion poll by Newsweek magazine released on March 17 showed the president's approval rating for his handling of the Iraq war stood at only 27 percent.
Meanwhile, 59 percent of those surveyed supported Democratic legislation to require the withdrawal of US troops by the fall of 2008.

One war legacy: A softer US approach to remaining foes
Four years of devastating war in Iraq has left America's global standing in tatters, and President Bush is trying a softer approach to his remaining enemies -- North Korea, Syria and Iran.
The March 2003 invasion by a US-led coalition was designed in part to topple Saddam Hussein and create an island of pro-American democracy in an Arab world seen as the fount of global terrorism that led to September 11, 2001.
"The new Iraq was supposed to be a model for the Middle East and a threat to Iran's theocracy. Instead, Iran has emerged as the biggest winner of the United States' war", Vali Nasr, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the latest edition of the group's journal, Foreign Policy.
Multiple US tactical and strategic shifts have proven largely ineffective in ending the carnage in the country.
At the same time, Washington's moral authority has been sapped by revelations about secret CIA prisons in some 20 countries used to interrogate "high value" terror suspects.
"The fact is [Bush] squandered our credibility, our legitimacy and even respect for our power, and that is a rather serious indictment", said Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor under former President Jimmy Carter.
Bush's handling of the war has also cost his Republican Party its control over Congress and sent his own popularity ratings plunging to the point where fewer than one in three Americans feel he is doing a good job.
The setbacks were accompanied by widening criticism of Bush's unilateralist foreign policy, a message that seems to be getting through.
In the wake of November's congressional election shock, Bush sacked his hard-line defense secretary and Iraq war architect, Donald Rumsfeld, and authorized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to try some diplomatic repairs.
These involved a new US initiative to revive neglected Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
It also included tentative steps towards engagement with North Korea, Iran and Syria -- taboo diplomacy when Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney held unchallenged sway over America's policy.
Just last month, North Korea agreed to shut down key nuclear facilities in exchange for badly needed fuel, part of a broad international agreement aimed at ending the regime's controversial nuclear program.
The agreement included a US commitment to hold direct talks on diplomatic relations with North Korea and to study removing it from its list of "terrorist nations".
Meanwhile, on the sidelines of the March 10 conference on peace in Iraq, the US ambassador to Baghdad held what he described as "constructive and businesslike" talks with Iranian officials.
And a senior State Department official traveled to Damascus recently for the highest-level visit in two years as Washington pressed the limited opening to Syria begun at the Iraq conference.
Iran is not the only country to have profited from Washington's woes in Iraq, foreign policy experts say.
As Washington focussed above all on the war, China has spent the past four years spreading its influence and economic reach, including across Africa and into Latin America.
At the same time, Arab allies have gained a respite from early Bush Administration efforts to press them on human rights issues -- now deemed less important than gaining their support against Iran.
Ariel Cohen, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, says Russia has also benefited from the Iraq war to make a comeback in the Middle East, where it has gained leverage due to its close ties to Teheran and been able to build new bridges with wealthy Gulf monarchies.
"Clearly, the new Middle East -- in which US power and prestige are threatened in Iraq and where Moscow is challenging America's superpower status -- will be a more competitive and challenging environment", Cohen wrote.

Seems if it really is that dire, they would institute a draft.

If Bush thought he could get away with it I am sure he would.

I'm not arguing against the article, just stating a thought I'm sure most people would at least think. I'm pretty sure that article is close to the truth.

I believe the US should cease the occupation of Iraq and go home, they weren't invited, they're not wanted, their only achievement to date is the destruction of a secular society resulting in deaths on a massive scale.
The Bush regime continues to do more of the same but expects a different outcome.

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