Iraq open thread #3

Y’all know what to do.
(As for me, of course I have lots of “great thoughts” on the topic germinating here. But iron self-discipline is keeping me on task with the book.)

44 thoughts on “Iraq open thread #3”

  1. To my mind the most interesting political story from Iraq this week was the revelation that the US is so far refusing turning over control of Iraq’s intelligence services to the Iraqi government.(see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0509-02.htm) Apparently the US doesn’t trust the Iraqis and is worried that secrets will be divulged to the Iranians.
    Also, I’ve mentioned Patrick Cockburn’s excellent reporting from Baghdad before. In a May 6 article(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=636317) he alluded to a recurring undercurrent with respect to the Jan. 30 election:
    “It is almost universally believed among Shia leaders that their majority in the 30 January election was massaged downwards by electoral officials in order to increase the share of the vote of Iyad Allawi, the secular candidate and US-supported prime minister, from 7 to 8 per cent, up to 14 per cent. That was to keep the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia coalition, from getting close to the two-thirds majority that would have given it the ability to form a government alone.”
    Based on an anonymous first hand source, Scott Ritter has also claimed that the election result was manipulated. There may well be something to this.
    In any case, perceptions do matter and all of this points to increasing strains between the US and the Iraqi government.

  2. it’s like that old movie, “The Defiant Ones”…for better or worse, the Shiite leadership (Sistani, Hakim, Jaffari, et. al.) and the Americans are chained together…the former on their own couldn’t last a week against the hardened, Saddam regime-led insurgents…the latter can’t hope to accomplish its mission until a reasonably effective Iraqi security force (mostly Shiites and Kurds) is in place.

  3. “the hardened, Saddam regime-led insurgents”
    What actual evidence do you have that the “insurgents” are “Saddam regime-led”?

  4. I actually think the big story on Iraq is the memo the Sunday Times reported on last week about how Blair knew that Bush was going to go to war a year ahead of time, and that the U.S. was going to “fix” intelligence to match the case for war.
    Considering this is a smoking gun as far as the Bush Administration’s outright lies about the war, you would think this was (1) an impeachable offense, and (2) newsworthy beyond a few, periperhal, back-page articles.

  5. “85 percent of Iraqis complain of frequent power outages, only 54 percent have access to clean water and almost a quarter of Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition, a U.N.-Iraqi survey revealed Thursday.” – This is from today’s Guardian online.
    Our headlines by and large do not report the human cost of this war. Each night on the news, the names of US soldiers that have been killed are announced, (god forbid we show their coffins). But these men are volunteer soldiers who’ve been trained for battle. One quarter of the innocent children in Iraq are malnourished! What if this was the US? Should we American readers really be focusing on Ja’afari’s cabinet wrangling?

  6. “What actual evidence do you have that the “insurgents” are ‘Saddam regime-led’?”
    — when I News-Googled “insurgency” + “prepared” + “Saddam”, I pulled up 1,360 links…rather than flood this fine site with many of them, this is an excerpt from (link below) a very anti-Bush website, which just happens to be the most recent news report pulled up by Google News(filed just “one hour ago”):
    “There is new evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime carefully prepared in advance for the insurgency, with former Iraqi officers at the core of each group. They are well coordinated and have consistently adjusted their strategy…”
    http://www.occupationwatch.org/headlines/archives/2005/05/experts_iraq_ve.html

  10. Hammurabi,
    You will have to do better than that. A statement by a “former Pentagon Middle East expert” that there is evidence of something is not evidence, it is an unsupported claim.

  11. Salah,
    Sure I do know Arabic!
    I asked Hammurabi for his evidence because I know there is no evidence, and it is obvious that the Americans know nothing at all about who they are fighting in Iraq. This is obvious because one day they claim it is “Saddam supporters”, the next day they claim it is “foreign jihadis”, after that it is Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi who talks to bin Laden every day and is working together with Muqtada Al Sadr or the Iranians or both (can you imagine Muqtada or the Iranians working with this guy who would like to kill all Shi`is and wipe Shi`i Islam off the face of the earth?!), and sometimes when they run out of other ideas it is `Izzat Al Duri working with Zarqawi, or with Al Qa`eda, or with “Saddam supporters”, or all of them together.
    There are many sources of violence in Iraq. The biggest source of the biggest violence is the occupation forces and the Iraqi “security forces” they are using to do their dirty work, and ato get killed in their place. There are genuine resistance fighters who are fighting directly against the occupation. There are also extremists, including some non-Iraqis, and I believe it is some of very nasty anti-Shi`a Wahhabis who are attacking Shi`as. And there are common criminals who will kidnap or kill anyone for a money. There are a lot of different groups who have different goals and different methods, and no one knows very much about them. The Americans know less than anyone.

  12. Shirin
    you missed my point…of course the “resistance” includes foreign jihadists and common criminals…but the reason that Jaffari, Hakim, Sistani, Chalabi and the rest of the Shiite leadership need America to stay the course in Iraq is that the surviving professional elements of the Saddam regime that are playing key roles in the insurgency are well prepared, funded and organized…without American help, the current Iraqi government would be no match for them.

  13. Hammurabi:
    1) The “Foreign jihadis” and common criminals are not resistance.
    2) Please do NOT insult Shi`a Iraqis by including that slimey weasel Chalabi in the “Shiite leadership”.
    3) Please stop talking about the “Shiite leadership” as if they were Iraq. They are not.
    4) Please provide some real evidence (not unsupported claims by former American government officials) for your assertion regarding “surviving professional elements of the Saddam regime” (whatever that actually means).
    5) We don’t know how many, if any, former members of Saddam’s regime are in the resistance or what part they play. We DO know that many members of Saddam’s regime, including many with a great deal of Iraqi blood on their hands (among other things, the Americans sought out and recruited former Mukhabarat agents) have been recruited and hired by the Americans for various positions serving the occupation and the so-called “government”.
    6) So far American “help” as done nothing but make everything worse in Iraq. Without American “help” the worst of the violence would end. Without American “help” Iraqi security forces would be freed from their role as proxies and cannon fodder for the occupation forces, and would be able to turn their efforts to providing security for Iraqis.
    7) There is no insurgency in Iraq – that is a Bush propaganda term that has nothing to do with reality. There is resistance, there are extremist terrorists, and there are common criminals. None of this constitutes insurgency.

  14. The nitpicking about who the insurgents are is quite reminiscent of the post 9/11 denials. It cannot be Al Qaeda, it cannot be Osama. In a recent BBC documentary a London religious young character explained that Bin Laden’s mistake was solely not having condemned the 9/11 attacks right away…
    The good aspect of the insurgency is that the identity question is splved by the self-identification of one’s enemies are. It also has the side effect of gathering them all in one place. If the US has x radical enemies I’d rather have they all gathered in the Iraq theater and deal with that for good or for bad. I do not buy for a second the notion that the US actions significantly augment the value of x. The die was long cast by whatever they absorbed in their schools, their houses, and their mosques.
    David

  15. “Please do NOT insult Shi`a Iraqis by including that slimey weasel Chalabi in the “Shiite leadership.”
    you may wish otherwise, but it is a FACT that Chalabi is part of the current governing Shiite leadership.

  16. Hammurabi,
    “but the reason that Jaffari, Hakim, Sistani, Chalabi and the rest of the Shiite leadership”
    This is funny……, Please leaders of GREEN ZONE

  17. I think the big story this week came when that little Cessna got too close to the White House and (I read) thirty thousand people went running for their lives…while at the same time we continue to make life a living hell for the Iraqis. Shock and awe. Did we use Cessnas for that operation? Do we have any shame? Any honor? Any courage? Where do the Iraquis run? And how about our president, out riding his bike? They didn’t want to disturb him, just like they don’t want anyone of an opposite viewpoint disturbing him. Has there ever been another president so insecure in himself that he couldn’t stand to be disagreed with? Has there ever been another president whose bike ride couldn’t be interrupted for a “red” alert? Has there ever been another president who rode a bike with so much determination, or shall we say obsession? Has it registered with us that while thirty thousand people were running for their lives (where were they going?) the President of the United States was on an undisturned bike ride? While we continue to make war on a beaten down country, continue to lose American lives for what? Is this all a bad dream?

  18. David
    The US made enemy should be shadowy…. Faluja destroyed and Zarqawi Flee! Tel-La’afer bombed Zarqawi their..! Al-Qa’aim bombed and kills hundreds of fighters Zarqawi their..!
    Enough this joke be real see the Compleat country brought to its knees because Al-Zarqawi, if US can not get this guy What about US security inside if he is so Shadowy? I think he had doubles like SADDAM 7 doubles….!

  19. To all
    One question please responds
    Why the cars and the insurgences! Do there jobs just at day time and kill civilians Crosby? All we knew the military normally use the darkness (nights) to move their troops and support this is fact, every one knows, so why these insurgences not bombed these troops and do the fight on US army at night? Answers pleas…

  20. Hammurabi,
    Chalabi may have managed to weasel his way into the so-called “government”, but be assured that does NOT make him part of the “Shiite” leadership.

  21. Shirin
    you’re entitled to your opinions…
    but in MY opinion…
    *Chalabi IS one of the key players in the Shiite governing leadership.
    *The foreign jihadists may be responsible for many of the suicide attacks on Shiite mosques and civilians, but it is the professional cadre of former Saddam regime operatives that represents the more serious threat to the newly elected government.
    *Whatever their relationships with the Iranian mullahs or their visceral distrust of all things American, Jaafari, Hakim, Sistani & Co. know that at the present time their situation would be hopeless without the American presence.
    But you have every right to believe otherwise.

  22. When Hammurabi uses a word it means exactly what he wants it to mean.
    To be more precise, the word may be a fact, an opinion, or a belief, but only if Hammurabi tells us so.
    Isn’t it lucky for us that the original Hammurabi was not post-modern like our present-day Ham?

  23. Hammurabi writes
    “Whatever their relationships with the Iranian mullahs or their visceral distrust of all things American, Jaafari, Hakim, Sistani & Co. know that at the present time their situation would be hopeless without the American presence.”
    Except for Sistani, I agree. They are utterly dependent on the Americans, and they wouldn’t be able to govern the Green Zone for a day without them.
    At the same time, their dependence on the Americans is their great albatross. By being so closely associated with the Americans, the so-called Iraqi government is quickly losing legitimacy. They are stuck in a terrible Catch 22 situation.

  24. “Chalabi IS one of ”
    Chalabi may have weaseled his way into the so-called “government”, but he is by no means and in no way part of the “Shiite leadership”.
    “it is the professional cadre of former Saddam regime operatives that represents the more serious threat to the newly elected government.”
    For the third time, please provide evidence for your assertion regarding “the professional cadre of former Saddam regime operatives” (whatever THAT is supposed to mean). I am not talking about a completely unsupported claim by a former U.S. government “expert”, but actual evidence.
    And for the second time, while we don’t really know to what extent, if any, and in what role, if any, former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime are involved in the resistance, we DO know that they are heavily represented in the so-called “government” in positions for which they were recruited and appointed by the Bush regime American occupation authority.
    “Jaafari, Hakim, Sistani & Co. know that at the present time their situation would be hopeless without the American presence.”
    Iraq’s situation is hopeless WITH the American presence.

  25. “By being so closely associated with the Americans, the so-called Iraqi government is quickly losing legitimacy.”
    Patrick, this so-called “government” came into being via a process that was illegitimate from start to finish. They have never had any legitimacy. What they are losing is the confidence of the Iraqi public.

  27. I think a big overlooked story is the assault on Ramadi. In a recent speech broadcast on Democracy Now Seymour Hirsch stated that there is a Fallujah-like assault going on in Ramadi which is getting no media coverage. The U.S. strategy is to be feared more then the insurgency and they want to replicate the Fallujah model in other parts of Iraq. I think it is safe to say they have no intention of winning “hearts and minds” if they ever did.

  28. مرارات الرصافي الشعرية الناقدة الحادة للدولة وأجهزة الحكم..
    إنه ينتقد كل مفردات التنظيم الحديث في بلده، مستنداً إلى انها من أفعال الأجانب المحتلين قائلاً:
    علم ودستور ومجلس أمة
    كل عن المعنى الصحيح محرّف
    أسماء ليس لنا سوى ألفاظها
    أما معانيها فليست تعرف
    وجهان فيها باطن متستر
    للأجنبي وظاهر متكشف
    ?? ولا ينفك عن مواصلة نقده السياسي حتى شخص الملك نفسه آخذاً عليه أنه لا حول ولا قوة له ولا أمر.. فهو مجرد حاكم !
    وليس له من أمره غير أنه
    يعدد أياماً ويقبض راتباً..

  29. A long way above (before the Viagra) Hammurabi said inter alia “the Shiite leadership need America to stay the course in Iraq…”
    “Stay the course?”
    “Stay the course” until what? Until total peace and order prevails? That’ll be the day!
    Until a new model of “freedom and democracy” is established, with a Big Mac and a Kentucky Fried Kebab on every corner? That’ll be the day!
    It’s like saying the French should have “stayed the course” in Indochina or Algeria, or the British should have done so in Kenya or Southern Rhodesia (Zimbzbwe now to you.)
    The British military have just complained that US military tactics in Iraq are creating more insurgents than they are killing. The infrastructure is essentially destroyed, sectarian divisions worsen by the day, crime is rampant and the Police powerless, the economy is going nowhere, the people in despair.
    “Stay the course?” Isn’t it getting a bit late for that? Why prolong the agony? If the Neo-cons plotted for a US colony in Iraq, they’ve clearly failed in their ambitions. Why not do the smart thing and follow the example of previous Imperialists, only without a lot more pointless agony?

  30. Oops, sorry about that Viagra spam. I just deleted it.
    Wow, Salah I didn’t know the software supported Arabic. It renders on my Firefox very small so I’ll have to expand the size of the type before I can read it…
    Greetings, all! By the way, I finished the book at 10 p.m. last night.

  31. Ah, but the book’s not finished, only born – now it must live!
    Congratulations, Helena! Viva the new book, Viva!

  32. Since the U.S. is losing the war by any objective measure, the government and their media mouthpieces have lately taken to arguing that the insurgents “can’t win” because they lack a unifying ideology. Nevermind that the same is true of the U.S. government and population. According to this theory, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong won because people bought into their utopian vision of communist society, and preferred it to western democracy. What utter nonsense. They won because (a) the people would rather be ruled by native despots than foreign despots, (b) they had the tactical and intelligence advantages of fighting on their home turf (like being able to speak the language), (c) they had a nearly inexhaustable supply of fighters willing to die for the cause of defeating the foreign invaders, (d) neighboring countries provided plenty of money, training and weapons, and of course (e) the U.S. public eventually got tired of the pointless slaughter. The insurgents in Iraq have all of the same advantages. Why expect a different result?
    John C.

  33. “(before the Viagra) Hammurabi said…”
    please be assured that I don’t require artificial stimulants to prepare my arguments.

  35. John C, All very true. I would add that the lies about a non-attack in the Gulf of Tonkin and Iraqi nuclear weapons non-events were hyped in a way likely,though unintentionally, to motivate the slandered foreigner and disillusion the American people. If we had a military draft now we would be in a state of virtual deja vu.

  38. “we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay is time-limited”
    Who cares what the Bush administration tells the Iraqi so-called “government. Why should anyone believe anything they say? The only thing I will believe is action, and all their actions indicate that they intend an indefinite stay. Why else do they need permanent – oh, excuse me, “enduring” – military bases, and the largest “embassy” in the world? (For “embassy” read regional command and control center.)

  39. For an “embedded” journalist, Ellen Knickmeyer at the WP has been filing some pretty amazing stories lately. In today’s (5/16/05) story, she says the marines haven’t found any insurgents or foreign fighters to do battle with since May 8 – just the boobytraps they left behind. The marines told her that many of the foreign fighters fled to Husaybah, “a lawless Iraqi border town.” But then here’s the amazing part: Ellen says “the Marines lack the manpower to go into Husaybah.” They WHAT??? They lack the manpower to approach a town they know is controlled by the people they are supposedly looking for, so they just wander around in the desert for several days getting blown up by land mines. And then the government declares “Mission Accomplished” and they return to their bases.

  40. It is still possible for the current situation in Iraq to result in a democracy and prosperity. The current government in Iraq will be there for many years and has time to evolve into something better.
    I think you have to admit that the insurgency/resistance is not helping the Iraqis, as it cannot install any government, let alone a good government. Their persistant tactics of killing essentially random civilians cannot be winning them any additional support. They show no sign of being able or willing to restore employment, electricity or peace. There is no evidence that the insurgency is spreading beyond its Sunni/Baathist base among Iraqis.

  41. Two Views:
    See Christopher Hitchens in Slate about Iraq and the New York Times op-ed by James Bennet.
    I find the NYT op-ed to be more intelligent than Hitchens does, in that it is asking real questions. It is not clear that the “Insurgents” are genuinely revolutionaries seeking state power, and it may be, as the NYT suggests, that they simply lack unity and a good PR department. Yet the NYT mainly seems to be begging the “Insurgents” to issue press releases and grant interviews.
    The NYT article implicitly rejects the religious basis of the jihadist wing, insisting on understanding events in social and economic terms, when no such interpretation was forced on the perpetrators of 9/11. Hitchens is right to criticize the NYT article for this liberal prejudice. It is as if the NYT is wishing upon a star that the events in Iraq all turn out to be explainable by Class Struggle.
    For James Bennet of the NYT, the lack of words from the “Insurgents ” equates to mystery. For Hitchens, the insurgency is the Baathists (which is basically fascism) plus Zarqawi, and he is “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia” which is Islamic imperialism and a preference for death over life. Certainly Hitchens is right in that both wings are against democracy, and that the NYT missed this.
    Both of them accept the Iraqi government as democratic and legitimate. Neither of them see the insurgents as Shiites or Sadr-ists. Both of them pretty much see “Sunnis = Jihadists + Baathists + Silent Majority”, although I guess both would agree this is pretty hard to prove. Neither of them mentions indigenous Iraqi “Resistance”, and I guess both would see “Indigenous Iraqis” as mere recruitment fodder for the Jihadists and the Baathists.
    The Bennet of the NYT seems to want the “Insurgency” to be more than it is (at least a bigger story), while Hitchens describes it as beneath contempt.

  42. WarrenW – I can’t imagine what basis you have for all the assertions in your first May 17 post – maybe you could enlighten us? As to your second May 17 post, these are just word games that people like Hitchens play to amuse themselves, and pay their rent. It really doesn’t make any difference what words we use to describe the people who are kicking our ass in Iraq. They couldn’t care less.

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