Category: Iraq 2003 thru June 2005

Illegal trade in human organs, including visits from organ-harvesting ‘medical tourists’, emerges in occupied Iraq.

Back in the 1990s, the rushed holding of an “election” was, in several recently strife-torn countries, used as a prime exit strategy for those other nations that were eager to withdraw their peacekeepers…
In the lead-up to last January’s election in Iraq, I spelled out a few scenarios for how those elections could be used as part of a strategy for a speedy US withdrawal. The Bush administration notably failed to take that opportunity.
Then, I started thinking they were seeking to rush the Constitution-writing exercise in Iraq through with very unseemly (and in the medium-term, counter-productive) speed … with a view to using the adoption of this hastily scrawled text as their pretext for — well, if not a total exit (though that would indeed be nice, wouldn’t it?)– but at least, a significant drawdown in the US troop levels.
I wrote about the dangers of rushing the Constitution-writing project back in April, in a column in the CSM. I guess it took some other people a bit more time to see the same point. Yesterday, someone called “J Alexander Thier, director of the Project on Failed States at Stanford University” wrote an op-ed along similar lines in the NYT.
I have been thinking quite a bit more, recently, about the instructive precedent of the peace agreement “signed” between Israel and Lebanon back on May 17, 1983. That too was a political document imposed on a puppet government (in Lebanon) that had been installed by an occupying power (Israel). That agreement, too, was meant to form one of the major “political” gains that the occupying power was able to win at the end of an aggressive war of choice that had culminated in a broad occupation of the target country by the aggressor.
The May 17 agreement sketched out the terms of a “final peace agreement” between Israel and Lebanon that would have given Israel considerable control over security affairs in south Lebanon… (As such, it also contradicted the terms of the major extant UN Security Council resolution on the subject of Lebanpn, which called for an immediate and unconditional Israeli withdrawal from the whole country.)
The May 17 agreement notably did not represent the considered will of the Lebanese people, and turned out not to be worth the paper it was written on. Indeed, during the latter months of 1983, as the political tides within Lebanese society turned against the Israelis, the May 17 agreement increasingly became identified as the major obstacle to the country attaining some form of internal political accord; and in I think February 1984, President Amin Gemayyel simply abrogated it.
The same could oh, so easily happen to any Iraqi “Constitution” that is judged by the Iraqi people to have been forced down their throats by an occupying force… So why bother?
I should note here, that if the US intention is to use the Constitution-writing project as a “pretext” for a total and speedy withdrawal of US forces from the country, then I could stomach it. (Though again, why bother? Why not just do the withdrawal, and fast?) If, however, the Constitution-dictation– oops, sorry, constitution-“writing– project is being used as a ploy by the Americans to continue to exacerbate intra-Iraqi differences, then it is a very dangerous project that should be halted immediately.
Also, of course, under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying power is not supposed to change the major mechanisms of governance inside the occupied country, at all…
Back in April, I wrote:

Continue reading “Iraqi constitution as US drawdown pretext?”

There’s an excellent piece in today’s NYT about the intense manpower crunch the US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have come up against, as more and more Reserve and National Guard troops reach the (fairly firm) 24-month cap on deployment that the Bush administration has reaffirmed more than once.
Obviously, softening this cap, like moving toward a draft, would be a very politically costly move for the Prez.
The article, by Eric Schmitt and David S. Cloud, quotes Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army commander who was dispatched to Iraq last month to assess the operation there, as saying:

By next fall, we’ll have expended our ability to use National Guard brigades as one of the principal forces… We’re reaching the bottom of the barrel.

By “next fall”, I take it he means fall 2005.
Obviously, it is this manpower crunch (and just possibly also a concern for the federal budget deficit??) that is driving the serious move inside the Pentagon toward formulating a plan for the radical drawdown of US troop numbers in Iraq. As revealed in the leaked British memo discussed here yesterday.
Here in the United States, we still have to see how the Bush administration is going to package this ‘radical deployment’ of US troops inside Iraq, so it might appear that the Prez is not currently lording it over a still unfolding, major strategic setback in that country.
(Though in truth, he is.)
My guess: they’re going to rush Jaafari and Co toward making some phony announcement about having reached agreement on a “Constitution” in mid-August, and then use that as the drawdown pretext. At this point, the folks in the Pentagon and White House probably care little about either the content of this “Constitution” or whether it even holds up for more than a few months– so long as it allows them to declare “victory”, and undertake their large-scale– but still notably incomplete— drawdown of forces…
The NYT piece notes, quite rightly, that the approaching train-wreck (ouch, sorry, probably a bad metaphor these days but I can’t think of a better one) of the arrival of so many scores of thousands of 24-month deployment caps is not news, but has been calmly and clearly predicted by military manpower-watchers for some time now:

There have been warning signs of the looming shortages. In the last several months, the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, has repeatedly cautioned that the Reserve was “rapidly degenerating into a ‘broken’ force.” General Helmly declined through a spokesman to comment for this article.

Certainly, the folks over at Today in Iraq have been tracking this issue closely for some time. I have tried to when I could. And on June 19, I took very seriously this report from the excellently informed NYT correspondent John F. Burns:

whether there are too many American soldiers or too few, a feeling is growing among senior officers in Baghdad and Washington that it is only a matter of time before the Pentagon sets a timetable of its own for withdrawal…
“I think the drawdown will occur next year, whether the Iraqi security forces are ready or not,” a senior Marine officer in Washington said last week. “Look for covering phrases like ‘We need to start letting the Iraqis stand on their own feet, and that isn’t going to happen until we start drawing down’. ”

Maybe other folks who comment on the situation on Iraq should also pay closer attention to solid matters of manpower availability and other aspects of logistics?
I’m thinking in particular of those two much-published and well-paid MSM commentators Tom Friedman and Ken Pollack…

Continue reading “Drawdown in Iraq: background and present priorities”

I’ve been reading the account in today’s London Mail on Sunday of the leaked memo in which British Defence Minister John Reid last month set out plans to withdraw some 5,500 of the 8,500 troops the UK has in Iraq, between now and April 2006.
The article also said that “Emerging US plans assume 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006, allowing a reduction in [total Allied troops] from 176,000 down to 66,000.”
Monday’s Guardian has a follow-up piece on the same topic (which the Guardian also partially covered in an earlier piece, last week.)
In the UK, the calculus of military and financial realism that has driven Reid to this position seems significantly further developed than any parallel calculus is, yet, in Washington. Or maybe the planners both sides of the Atlantic are in the same place– but the willingness of their bosses to “allow” leaks of their plans is at a different stage?
Anyway, the military leakers in London– who did such a good job getting the Downing Street memo out to the public– still seem to be alive and well, getting this memo, which was marked “Secret – UK eyes only” out to the broader public in a fairly timely fashion.
It is a total delight to me to see that despite all the sad and idiotic rhetoric that the pols both sides of the Atlantic continue to voice about “staying the course” in Iraq, etc, there are smart and realistic minds at work in the British Defence Ministry who recognize an imminent strategic defeat when they see one, and are able to to start to plan appropriate actions to minimize their country’s losses.
The Mail on Sunday story, by Simon Walters, says that the document in question, which is titled Options For Future UK Force Posture In Iraq, was “prepared for Mr Blair in the past few weeks”. The Guardian account, a little more explicitly, says the doc was “put to a cabinet committee chaired by Tony Blair”. But it doesn’t say when.
The MOS reported that,

Mr Reid states that his proposal is not yet a “ministerially endorsed position” – or Government policy – though he clearly believes it should be.

Also, this:

The Ministry of Defence last night confirmed the leaked document was genuine. Mr Reid said: “This is but one of a number of papers produced over recent months covering various scenarios. We have made it plain we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed. No decisions on the future of UK forces have been taken.
“But we have always said it is our intention to hand over the lead in fighting terrorists to Iraqi security forces as their capability increases. We therefore continually produce papers outlining possible options. This is prudent planning.”

Yeah, right. So I wonder what other “options” (if any) they’ve been actively canvassing? Quite possibly, no other options. Quite possibly, this one, or something revised only very slightly from it, is IT.
So, given that defense planning in London is carried out in close coordination with that in Washington, what does this memo tell us about the state of thinking in the Pentagon?

Continue reading “Slouching toward withdrawal”

I guess I missed this news item when it happened, back on June 7. Speaking at Harvard, former CIA Director John Deutch,

challenged the views of both Republicans and Democrats who say that the United States must stay the course to stabilize the country before disengaging.
That position, Deutch said, is based on the assumption that the United States will leave a stable nation behind. But it is also possible, he said, that the United States will fail in its Iraq objectives and lose international credibility by staying the course, even as its ability to deal with other crises, such as North Korea, Iran, and the fight against international terrorism, is compromised.
“I believe that we are not making progress on our key objectives in Iraq,” Deutch said. “There may be days when security seems somewhat improved and when the Iraqi government appears to be functioning better, but the underlying destabilizing forces of a robust insurgency and warring factions supported by outside governments is undiminished.”

Fascinating. Now I don’t have to be the founder member of this century’s “nattering nabobs of negativism” club. John Deutch can be.
Deutch, a long-time strategic-affairs brainiac (and former MIT chemistry prof), was Clinton’s CIA Director from May ’95 thru December ’96.
It would be great if his wisdom could be heard and widely advocated by the Democratic Party leadership in the country. (If such a thing still exists.) Hearing so many of them continuing to voice the Topm friedman/ Ken Pollack argument that US troop levels in Iraq should be increased makes me really depressed.
… By the way, re the “nattering nabobs…” That was the slur voiced by Spiro Agnew back in the early 1970s against those who said the Vietnam War was unwinnable. The line was written for him by his speechwriter Bill Safire. Yes, the Bill Safire who was still cluttering up the op-ed pages of various newspapers. until recently
But now, I think it may be time for those of us who are convinced that the US’s position in Iraq is quite unwinnable to proudly reclaim the appellation. For my part, I am entirely negative on that score.
By contrast, though, I am quite positive about the opportunities in the five years ahead for the US citizenry to find a new and much healthier and more sustainable balance in its relations with the rest of the world. Let’s go for it! The debate over the craziness of the Iraq war can be our opening!

In the post I wrote yesterday outlining my 9-point exit plan from Iraq, I drew an analogy between the distinctly unsettled and unsettling situation in Kosovo today, six years after its partial amputation from Serbia, and the prospects for a Kurdistan that might similarly end up as a redoubt for US and allied armies.
There are similarities and dissimilarities between the situations of the two territories. Both are, quite significantly, landlocked. Both contain impressive mountain fastnesses within which, historically, “minority” populations had sought refuge. Both still come formally under the sovereignty of the broader polity with which they have been connected for many decades; but in both, a form of formalized or less formalized autonomy has been practiced and enjoyed for some time now.
In Kosovo, the “final outcome” of the sovereignty question is judged by the UN to be still unresolved– but with resolution promised “soon”, once UN-prescribed conditions are met in the area.
In Iraqi Kurdistan the soveriegnty question is not really, at present, on the table as such– though the question of a more dilute form of devolved, semi-autonomous rule very much is. But sovereignty could be placed very centrally in question if the US decided to regroup/concentrate some of its forces in I.K. after a withdrawal from the rest of Iraq. Of course, the landlocked nature of I.K., and the fact that surrounding states could be expected not to be happy to see a US-Kurdish power emerge there, would most likely make maintaining a US troop presence there for any length of time very costly in both financial and political/diplomatic terms.

Continue reading “Kurdistan-Kosovo”

For some reason, the Bush administration has still not taken the advice I’ve been giving it for more than two years now, quite simply to get out of Iraq. I can’t think why. Maybe they don’t know how to organize this logistical feat?
So as a free public service to them, I am happy to offer them the following handy nine-point plan for how to do it.
(1) Head south
Looking at the logistics, it seems a happy coincidence that one of the least badly-run parts of the country is the British zone in the south. Since most of the US forces will need to be “redeployed” out of the country by sea, and the only outlet to the sea is in the south, the British presence in and around Basra is rather handy. Not that Basra’s port will be able to handle anything like this volume of traffic– or, probably, much at all. But the troop convoys will most likely need to transit Basra on their way towards the ships and planes awaiting them in nearby Kuwait.
(2) Auxiliary exit routes
Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia might all also be willing to allow transit rights to the redeploying troops. I somehow suspect Syria and Iran would not be so happy to do so. However, no doubt the Iranians would be happy to negotiate some kind of an arrangement whereby– in return for some quid pro quo– they might undertake not to harass US troops leaving Iraq along routes close to Iran or its vital sea-lanes, so long as the redploying troops stick to agreed corridors and a known timetable of redeployment.
(3) One potential can of worms
Some folks in the Pentagon and elsewhere might still be tempted to leave a successor force in Iraqi Kurdistan. This seems like a real can of worms. They could easily become just as bogged down there as the UN presence is in Kosovo, six years after the US-led war to “rescue” Kosovo’s ever-fractious people. (The international-law status of both areas could become very similar– that is, Kurdistan’s could become just as murky and basically unsustainable as Kosovo’s if the US succeeds in breaking it off– but only partially– from the rest of Iraq.)
(4) How can US troops redeploying out of Iraq be assured they won’t be harrassed/attacked along the way?
This is a concern with some validity. The US authorities could negotiate an agreement on this matter with the Jaafari government. Of course, at present, the Jaafari government is not a body viewed as representative by many Iraqis, especially the more nationalistic ones. But if he could say to his compatriots: “Look, here is the plan for the total withdrawal of US troops so let’s all calm things down,” then he actually might suddenly develop nationwide credibility. And even if he didn’t gain that, simply the fact that the US troops are visibly following a well-publicized and timely withdrawal schedule would certainly mean that many other Iraqi leaders at the local level would come forward and say, “Yes, let’s make sure this goes smoothly.”

Continue reading “How to exit from Iraq”

A horrible connection here in Martinborough, New Zealand. I’ll leave this thread here for you all to discuss Iraq, Bush’s Tuesday speech, etc.
I have reams of things I’ve written about NZ on my laptop but I can’t transfer it onto this hotel computer which doesn’t appear to have a spare USB port for my thumbstick. Grrr.
I’ll do what I can connection-wise over the next few days. But I’ll be home in Virginia on July 3 so normal posting on JWN will definitely resume then… maybe before.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the US position in Iraq is, quite literally, unwinnable. (This is the case despite the absence of any defintive statement from the US command authorities regarding what it would be that would actually constitute a US “victory” there.) We therefore all need to pay close attention to the implications and the possible modalities of the US defeat that will be unfolding there over the months and years ahead.
One of the first things to bear in mind is that, whereas the US has shown in the past that it is capable of being a (relatively) generous, gracious, and far-sighted winner, these are qualities that it has notably not shown when faced with defeat. In Cuba, in 1961, the invasion that President Kennedy launched at the Bay of Pigs was repulsed by the island’s Cuban defenders– and the US has consistently, through every single change of administration in Washington ever since, continued to try to punish Fidel Castro and the Cuban people for having done that. In Vietnam, in 1975, the nationalist forces were also able– after a long and difficult struggle– to force the last remaining US forces to quit Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in a very humiliating form of disorganized scramble. And for 20 years after that, the US continued to try to punish the Vietnamese people for having inflicted that defeat on them…
I am not saying here that the anti-US forces in Iraq will necessarily be able to inflict that same kind of “decisive” defeat on the US forces there– though I wouldn’t rule that out completely. What I am saying is that if the US is forced to withdraw forces from Iraq in some form of disorder, as now seems extremely likely, then we should expect that withdrawal to be accompanied (“covered”) by the US taking some extremely vindictive actions against the country. These would have two aims:

Continue reading “US/Iraq: dimensions of the pullback to come”

Great writing from embedded WaPo journo Ann Scott Tyson. (Formerly of the CSM.) She was with a combat unit in Ramadi.
Short excerpt:

When the platoon medic sees that insurgents have taken out another of her “boys,” she swears, grabs her medic’s bag and walks back to her Humvee, slamming the side of it with her fist. Then she pulls out the gray body bag she has learned to carry at all times, and waits for a vehicle to evacuate Miller’s body.
Hayes and Dermer ride back to camp in their M-113, the roses still tied to the back. They’ve barely cleaned the blood off the vehicle when frustration begins to erupt that afternoon over what seemed to some a flawed, futile mission.
Their faces dusty and streaked with sweat, the soldiers huddle to talk through the incident, raising more questions than answers. Why had the engineers been operating in daylight, when insurgents could easily “template” their position? Why had the infantry left them vulnerable? Why hadn’t they caught the sniper who killed Miller?
“What sucks the most,” says Miller’s platoon leader, Lt. Tom Lafave, of Escanaba, Mich., “is we sweep an area and five hours later an IED goes off in the same spot.”
Miller’s squad leader, Staff Sgt. Steve “Shaggy” Hagedorn, is more blunt. “We spent three days clearing a route and I guarantee it’s worse now than when we started,” he says. “So everyone’s asking, ‘What are we doing it for?’ Everyone’s asking, ‘Am I next?’ ”

Anyway, read the whole thing. It’s great reporting.
But why does the WaPo put it in the (generally more frivolous) “Style” section?
Give the woman a Pulitzer.
Hat-tip to Kebot who sent it to me. Being “down under” I’d missed it.