I read carefully the two accounts in the NYT of the hearing the Senate Armed Services Committee held yesterday into the administration’s Iraq policy. Michael Gordon and Mark Mazzetti wrote a fairly standard, ‘news’-type account under the title: General Warns of Risks in Iraq if G.I.’s Are Cut. The general in question being the head of Centcom, Gen. John Abizaid.
However, Abizaid was also apparently warning of “risks” if the US troop level were increased, though that didn’t quite make it to the headline. Here’s what Gordon and Mazzetti wrote:
- Gen. John P. Abizaid, made it clear that he did not endorse the phased troop withdrawals being proposed by Democratic lawmakers. Instead, he said the number of troops in Iraq might be increased by a small amount as part of new plans by American commanders to improve the training of the Iraqi Army.
General Abizaid did not rule out a larger troop increase, but he said the American military was stretched too thin to make such a step possible over the long term. And he said such an expansion might dissuade the Iraqis from making more of an effort to provide for their own security.
“We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect,” he said. “But when you look at the overall American force pool that’s available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.”
Right next to the Gordon/Mazzetti piece was another account of the same hearing, written by Kate Zernike, who was apparently much more focused on tracking the “party-political” aspects of the hearing. She wrote about the body language the various senators used, how the Republicans arrived late and left early, apparently in pique at having lost the recent election, etc etc.
But she also had this description of Abizaid’s position:
- Senator John McCain of Arizona, pressed his argument that more troops were needed in Iraq. When General Abizaid disagreed, Mr. McCain called attention to the remarks of retired military officers who characterized Congressional proposals for phased withdrawal as “terribly naïve.” Mr. McCain’s protégé, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, backed him up; when the general insisted that more troops were not the solution, Mr. Graham cut him off, saying, “Do we need less?” forcing General Abizaid to say that no, that was not the solution, either.
So what message was Abizaid trying to convey here, I ask?
Principally, I would say he was trying to undertake the classic strategy known in the Pentagon as “CYA”, refrring to the need to provide cover to a posterior body part. Boiled down, his message read: “More troops won’t work; nor will less troops.” The only thing the senators failed to ascertain is whether the present troop levels are “working”… But I guess they didn’t need to, since we see the negative answer to that question every day on the nightly news.
(More evidence that Abizaid’s main mission at the hearing was CYA was that he made a point of reminding senators that the US military’s troubles in Iraq go back to Rumsfeld having notably failed to take Gen. Shinseki’s advice on the need for much higher troop levels at the get-go, ways back in late 2002.)
I don’t want to be harsh on Gen. Abizaid, who must be agonizing over the continuing rate of US troops deaths and the understanding he seems to clearly have that there is no military way out of this problem. I just wish he had said that, explicitly and straight out: “Senators, my conclusion is that there is no purely military way out of this problem. We have always done what we were asked to do by the political leadership in this country; and now it is up to that leadership to change the politics opf their intervention in Iraq.”
JWN readers will recall that I sketched out my own main ideas on how this should be done, in this post, which I wrote last Friday. In it I wrote that the new US policy, to have any chance of success, should seek the active engagement in helping solve the Iraq problem of these three parties: Iran, the UN, and Iraq’s other neighbors.
Also speaking at yesterday’s hearing was David Satterfield, the State Department’s policy coordinator for Iraq.
According to Gordon and Mazzetti, Satterfield
- told the Senate committee that the United States was prepared “in principle” to discuss the situation in Iraq with Iran, but the timing was uncertain.
“We are prepared in principle to discuss Iranian activities in Iraq,” Mr. Satterfield said. “The timing of such a direct dialogue is one that we still have under review.”
“The timing is uncertain”???? What a load of irresponsible nonsense! The situation in Iraq, for Iraqis, continues to get worse, month by month, and the political pronlems of sectarianism, fear, violence, killing and ethnic cleansing get worse by the month, too. So when is the “right” time for Washington to reach out to Iran and other neighbors (and, crucially, the UN) in order to engage their help??? It is today– or better still, yesterday.
Two other articles of note regarding this question of timing:
- (1) This article by Robin Wright in today’s WaPo, under the title: As Pressure for Talks Grows, Iran and Syria Gain Leverage. (Duh!) and…
(2) This great and truly tragic collection of on-the-ground reports from Iraq by Nir Rosen, spanning from before the US invasion to just last April, which clearly shows how much worse the situation has gotten over the past three years.
If you don’t have the time (or perhaps, the stomach) to read Nir’s whole article, scroll down to near the end where he gives his bottom-line:
- America did this to Iraq. We divided Iraqis. We set them at war with each other. The least we can do is stop killing them and leave Iraq.
Longtime JWN readers will recall that in this summer 2005 forum on Iraq in The Nation, Nir and I both strongly advocated the speediest possible withdrawal of US troops (and Juan Cole didn’t.)
Imagine if the US, back then, had started implementing the kinds of policies I have been advocating all along: for a US withdrawal from Iraq that is (orderly), speedy, total, and generous… How much better of a situation both countries (and the whole Middle East) would most likely be in today….
Ah well. The US decision-making elite seems, however slowly, to be coming around to my viewpoint. It is just that now, extricating the US troops from Iraq is going to be a whole lot harder (and actually, the strategic/political cost exacted from Washington by the rest of the world a lot higher) than it would have been if the process had started 15 or 30 months ago.
That’s one of the reasons why everyone involved really needs to look long and hard at this point at the “Namibia approach”– that is, to have the US occupation forces work hand-in-hand with the UN in fashioning both the political and the operational modalities of how to withdraw the occupation force and support the emergence of a capable and politically legitimate indigenous successor power there. In its time, Namibia looked extremely politically complex and intracatable, too… But the transition worked.
Just one comment about Nir Rosen when he said”When Baghdad fell, on April 9, 2003, and widespread violence erupted, the primary victims were Iraq’s Sunnis. For Shias, this was justice. “It is the beginning of the separation,” one Shia cleric told me with a smile in the spring of 2003. Saddam had used Sunni Islam to legitimize his power, building one large Sunni mosque in each Shia city in the south; these mosques were seized by Shias immediately after the regime collapsed.
First I surprise that he clams of he follow Friday parrying, as far I know he is Jew and he was in Israeli few times.
Neither less the above statement just make any Muslims feel the spinning and smears fishy in his reports, it does matter in Iraqis use to be very friendly each other and in those early day of invasion nothing like that exist and the prayers there are not sensitive to this degree you can see Shi’at pray with Sunni and opposites this is just some thing he tried to pumped up, this is Iranian/Iraq poisonous behaviours all the way and JWN readers need to be careful what Nir Rosen.
” have the US occupation forces work hand-in-hand with the UN in fashioning both the political and the operational modalities of how to withdraw the occupation force and support the emergence of a capable and politically legitimate indigenous successor power there”
Ain’t gonna happen. The US position in Iraq is getting weaker and weaker. The UN has absolutely no ability to do anything whatsoever in Iraq, and to pretend otherwise is just daydreaming. There is no Iraqi army anymore, so Iraq as a country has no means of preventing sectarian militias and foreign forces from using the country as a battleground to settle their differences, which is exactly what is going to happen, with or without an American presence. The only rational course of action is to get our people out as fast as possible. But we will not act rationally, because that would require someone to assume responsibility and accept blame. So we will have to stay until the disaster is so complete and total that not even Sean Hannity or Joe Lieberman could argue in favor of sticking around for one more minute. That way, you can kind of spread the blame, say you did your best, etc.
Reading the transcripts of Congressional briefings by American Generals like Abu Abizaid always makes this ex-enlisted military advisor want to vomit from Vietnam Redux Deja Vu All Over Again One More Time. I can’t help remembering the notorious “Five O’Clock Follies” Saigon briefings to reporters who simply couldn’t believe the utter nonsense our top brass tends to incoherently babble at every public opportunity. In this instance, General Abizaid runs true to type, requesting neither more nor fewer troops to do neither better nor worse than they have so-far failed to do in only almost four years of … well … whatever. And General Abizaid offers us this mindless mumbo-jumbo without once specifying with any plausible accuracy the costs to America and Iraq — human, financial, and material — and who will pay those costs … and when.
Feeling frustrated, somewhere between Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Time Quake” (or “My Ten Years on Automatic Pilot”), I wrote a couple of poems last year that still sound appropriate today. Imagine them recited mournfully in the background by a classic Greek chorus the next time you see or hear an American general waste everybody’s time saying nothing at all about matters deathly important while our Congress poses petulantly and does absolutely nothing to put a stop to the madness.
(1) “Dead Metaphors”
We serve as a symbol to shield those who screw us
The clueless, crass cretins who crap on our creed
We perform the foul deeds they can only do through us
Then lay ourselves down in the dark while we bleed
Through cheap Sunday slogans they sought to imbue us
With lust for limp legacy laughably lean
Yet the Pyrrhic parade only served to undo us
We die now for duty, not “honor” obscene
We carried out plans that the lunatics drew us
Their oil-spotted, fly paper, domino dream
Then we fought for the leftover bones that they threw us
While carpetbag contractors cleaned up the cream
We did the George Custer scene Rumsfeld gave to us
We took ourselves targets to arrows and bows
While the brass punched their tickets, the Indians slew us
A “strategy” ranking with History’s lows
When veterans balked they contrived to pooh-pooh us
With sneers at our “syndrome” of Vietnam sick
When that didn’t work they set out to voodoo us
With sewer boat slanderers paid to be slick
The wad-shooting gambler comes once more to woo us
His PR team planning precise photo ops
For to sell his used war he’ll have need to construe us
As witless weak wallpaper campaign-ad props
The nuts and the dolts in their suits really blew us
They made our life’s meaning a dead metaphor
Still, no matter how Furies and Fate may pursue us
The Fig Leaf Contingent has been here before
As the years pass in darkness the graveyards accrue us
As early returns on investments gone wrong
So the next time “supporters” of troops ballyhoo us
Remember this warning: our sad silent song
(2) “Peace With Horror”
A leper knight rode into view
Astride his mangy steed
A harbinger of violence
A plague without a need
An apparition of discord
Upon which fear would feed
His unannounced arrival meant
He’d lost his leper’s bell
And yet his ugly innocence
Could not conceal the smell
His good intentions only paved
Another road to Hell
With mace and lance and sword deployed
He vowed in peace to live
Through rotting lips he promised not
To take, but only give
He swore to only kill the ones
Whom he said shouldn’t live
He did not speak the language and
He did not know the land
So why the healthy shrank from him
He could not understand
Why did they want the water when
He’d offered them the sand?
So onward to Jerusalem
He staggered as he slew
In train with sack and booty that
He only thought his due
For spreading freedom’s germs among
The last surviving few
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006
Oh, what the hell! How about one more, written earlier this year, before things got even worse than last year?
(3) “Baghdad is Broken” (with apologies to Eleanor Farjeon who wrote “Morning is Broken”)
Baghdad is broken, like with the Mongols
Sacked as a token, of a man’s raves
Praise for the moaning, praise for the wailing
Praise for the groaning, round the fresh graves
Drink from the sewers, swim in the toilets
Grim reaping hewers, feed on the pain
Bagdhad is Bedlam, journalists dying
No news from Head Ram, butting his brain
Dark the night’s falling, no light till morning
Government stalling, sits on its ass
Conquered and plundered, hear the mad mourning
George Bush has thundered, passing his gas
His is the flaunting, of his crude power
His is the taunting, of his new foes
Sell some detergents, open some markets
Damn the insurgents, in their last throes
Praise the self-tooting, praise all the lying
Let’s do some looting, of Babylon
Praise the new order, conflict and chaos
Unguarded border, just bring ’em on!
Pictures in batches, taken with soldiers
Pod-like he snatches, bodies asleep
Ranch recreation, hiding from mothers
His urination, on those who weep
Praise for the Pet Press, sycophants scribbling
Easy to impress, so compromised
Best keep an eye on, his true objectives
Oil, votes, and Zion; none advertised
Empty suit speeches, read from a screen crawl
Written by leeches, paid not to feel
Praise the inflation, praise the huge debt load
His defecation, on the New Deal
His but to revel, in the Inferno
His the tenth level, for him alone
Dense and obscene he mumbles his mantras
Broiled like a weenie, meat off the bone
Baghdad is busted, worse off than Saigon
No one is trusted, back in the States
Praise immigration, praise red-meat issues
Praise flagellation, of the inmates
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006
Helena,
for a US withdrawal from Iraq that is (orderly), speedy, total, and generous…
“Now, more than 3 1/2 years later, someone else is asserting that the war is about oil — President Bush.
As he barnstorms across the country campaigning for Republican candidates in Tuesday’s elections, Bush has been citing oil as a reason to stay in Iraq. If the United States pulled its troops out prematurely and surrendered the country to insurgents, he warns audiences, it would effectively hand over Iraq’s considerable petroleum reserves to terrorists who would use it as a weapon against other countries.
“Bush said extremists controlling Iraq “would use energy as economic blackmail” and try to pressure the United States to abandon its alliance with Israel.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/04/AR2006110401025.html
So any one think GWB will get out sooner or later?
Let face, the state of chaos in Iraq is US made state this from the day Sheikh Bremer but his boot on the ground in Iraq.
The only solution to get your troops out put back old Iraqi military in power and work with them this the only option for you till now other that than its just wasting time….
Helena, one point I like to add you suggested many times some examples like South Africa and other examples, I think Iraq different, Iraq was a state have its stand and its low developed the US occupation bring this state down so the cause here different when the colonial power went to Africa there was shadow states and not developed lawlessness and the colonial power start built things for the good here US doing the apposite, I can’t figure what drive you to saying that how this went off your head…
Just to highlight the state of chaos that Iraq now under even those militia/new Iraqi death squad trained by US doing these atrocities with Iraqi US just prise them by keep things down and no comment about it at all”
“ويأتي هذا الحادث في حين لا تزال قضية اختطاف العشرات من موظفي ومراجعي احدى دوائر وزارة التعليم العالي في بغداد تتفاعل مع اعلان وزير التعليم العالي عبد ذياب العجيلي ان عددا من المخطوفين تعرض للتعذيب والقتل على يد الخاطفين، مشددا على انه ماضٍ في تعليق عضويته في الحكومة الى حين الإفراج عن جميع المخطوفين. وبينت هذه القضية عمق الانقسام داخل الحكومة العراقية، اذ اتهم وزير التعليم العالي وزارة الداخلية بالتقصير، في حين حمَّلت أطراف سياسية عراقية، سنية بشكل خاص، الحكومة مسؤولية ما جرى وصولا الى حد اتهامها بـ«التواطؤ الفاضح» مع الخاطفين.
وروى مخطوفان أفرج عنهُما لـ«الشرق الاوسط» انهما تعرضا لضرب مبرح، مؤكدين ان الخاطفين من عناصر الشرطة. واشارا الى ان عددا غير قليل من المخطوفين تعرضوا لتعذيب وحشي ونقلوا الى المستشفيات بعد ان رُمِيَّ بهم في مكب للنفايات بعد الافراج عنهم.”
https://vintage.justworldnews.org/archives/002226.html
he blast occurred hours after gunmen kidnapped at least 100 people from a research institute of Iraq’s Higher Education Ministry, also in central Baghdad.
Scores of gunmen dressed in police commando uniforms and driving government vehicles were involved in the kidnap raid on the institute in the Karradah district. Police say they forced people into about 20 vehicles and drove off.
A short time later, Iraq’s Higher Education Minister, Abid Dhiyab, suspended all classes at Baghdad’s universities and complained that his requests for improved security had been ignored by the defense and interior ministries.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/11/mil-061114-voa01.htm
Michael, once again, I really love your poems and appreciate you contributing them here.
Salah, I realize there are many specificities to the Iraqi situation (as to every other country’s situation.) However, there are also many common threads between the current US actions in Iraq and many colonial campaigns of the past… I really do think the way the UN helped S. Africa to extract itself from namibia is a good example that might be followed in this case.
Really, though, I’d love it if you helped us think through alternative ways in which the US might be extricated from Iraq. I think for the Iraqis’ sake you’d want the US withdrawal not to be chaotic– from the US’s side or from anybody else’s… because a wounded US could and probably would impose heavy suffering on Iraqis as they left. So it’s worth being a little bit smart about how to get them (us) out through a workable negotiation formula.
I found Abizaid’s comments to the armed services committee absolutely incredulous. The highest commanding officer in Iraq and an alleged expert on the Middle East basically said that he also has no f*****g idea what to do there. Why do I say that? Tie together four comments he made with his proposed solution:
1. A short term withdrawal is not advised as it will increase the violence in Iraq.
2. An increase of 20,000 US troop would “achieve a temporary effect” but is not sustainable and would dissuade the Iraqis from making more of an effort to provide their own security.
3. There is a window of 4 – 6 months to contain the sectarian violence or it would surge out of control.
4. ”Ultimately, capable, independent Iraqi forces, loyal to an equally capable, independent Iraqi government, will set the conditions for the withdrawal of our major combat forces… Well, maybe it’s a dumb bet. But I don’t think so.”
And against this background, this brilliant general’s proposal is to mildly increase the number of US advisors in Iraqi units, allegedly to achieve a capable, loyal, independent army able to replace US troops. And given his comments about the window of opportunity – 4 to 6 months – this incredible transformation of the Iraqi armed forces, after three years of training and development which has brought it to a barely capable and sorry state so far, is going to happen in 4 – 6 months. Yeah right!
If this is the best our best military leader has to offer, then it really aint much more than more clueless gibberish.
Helena,
So it’s worth being a little bit smart about how to get them (us) out through a workable negotiation formula.
Ok, If your “brilliant generals” failed for 4 years to establishing “US loyal, independent Iraqi army” all we got a Militia / Death Squads running wildly in Iraq right now, I still believe it need “a little bit smart” to relies the mistaken done by Sheikh Bremer signature when he dismantled Iraqi army and Iraqi police, I assure you 90% of Military at that time hate the regime but they love Iraq , my prove its my work in Iraqi military of some years and my some family members and military friends I was from time to time meet with them.
Yes there were regime / Tikrity commanders who are loyal to the regime and commanding the military divisions but those run away on the day of invasion and the rest of Iraqi army preferred not fights for dead and brutal regime so they stayed home when the US forces advanced toward Baghdad.
Just to remind you that Al-Anbar / Faluja and the west Iraq military commanders accepted and met the US army commander and they did not to fights, same in other places as Kirkuk and Mussel in the north.
I tell you Helena nor Iran neither UN and other neighbours can make peace for Iraq and Iraqis, simply each of them (UN not included) has his agenda of interfering Iraq stability / democracy, they fear from Iraq to be looked as prosperous nation helped to get out by US. You need to read those ugly heads around Iraq you will understand what they fear from.
So the smart move is call Iraqi army give them the weapons and tools they will secure Iraqi borders which US failed to do the job, and then control all the miss in main towns and secure the political system with “through a workable negotiation formula.” with them