It's March 2006 in Iraq

"Of the 72 percent, 22 percent said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29 percent said they should withdraw “immediately.” Twenty-one percent said the US military presence should end within a year; 5 percent weren’t sure..."

With a new surge of violence in Iraq, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte expressing concerns about unrest in the Middle East, a high rate of stress disorders among Iraq vets and a new poll indicating 72 percent of U.S troops serving in Iraq think the United States should exit within the next year, the top story on last night’s (2/28/06) Hannity & Colmes was Jane Fonda’s anti-war comments.

Alan Colmes introduced the discussion by saying, “Jane Fonda is once again drawing fire from conservatives because of her stance on the war in Iraq.” Apparently Fonda called the war “despicable and disgusting” while she was in Australia. Then, in case that wasn’t newsworthy enough for a “top story,” Colmes added that Barbra Streisand’s official website called for impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

There was only one guest on hand and that was the former felon Oliver North, introduced only as the host of War Stories.

yeah, thin-skinned these guys are. At least when lefties get pissed off about rightwing assholes going off, the rightwing assholes are important enough to be featured speakers at certain rightwing conventions, etc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4286073.stm

Replacing the Dutch - who, unsurprisingly, have had enough.

Mr Jaafari cancelled a meeting with senior political leaders on Thursday, apparently to protest against a campaign to oust him.

Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders are unhappy with Mr Jaafari, and have said they will not join a national unity government with him at its head.

The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance, which nominated Mr Jaafari for the premiership, has said its sticking to its choice.

(xpost)

Mr Odah told the BBC that he felt like an old man despite being only 29.

He described a regime where young military guards routinely beat detainees who caused problems.

"If anything bad happens to the United States anywhere in the world, they immediately react to us and treat us badly, like animals," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4769604.stm

meanwhile, the propaganda will continue.

We're could be moving out "within weeks"...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1725556,00.html
Although the gov. denies this.

Meanwhile, at the same time we're stuck somewhere else.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4782398.stm

Meanwhile, the AP/Ipsos has him down to 39%.

A friend who just landed in Baghdad gives a first-person account of the scene:

"Getting here was far less complicated than I had imagined, but with 48 hours of life on the Tigris under my belt, I feel blessed with the marvelous array of experiences this city offers. Multiple encounters with white Toyota Landcruisers filled with black outfitted AK-47 totting Interior Ministry irregulars (a/k/a death squads), even more encounters with US and South African security contractors, which are even more threatening - each of these is enough to stop your heart. According to some here, the US contractors are the dumbest and the South Africans the meanest - what a hierarchy.

Today I witnessed - from a safe distance - my first car-bomb. Then went back to read reports of 13 judicially sanctioned executions, 32 extrajudicial killings discovered, 50 bodyguards taken hostage ... Westerners talk about their hotels not in terms of spa amenities and availability of Starbucks, but based on the number of blast walls between the building and the street. So imagine where on earth people would think the arrival of a massive sandstorm was a blessing. I was amused to see Condi and Rumsfeld on TV - carried live on a local TV feed. I watched it in a crowded lobby. I'll just say the reaction of those around me was derisive - no difference in that between the locals and the Americans, all of whom (except me and the journos) seem to be DOD contractors. Possibly they're even right about the use of the term "civil war." If that evokes memories of Spain in the 30's or America in the 1860's it would be misleading. What's going on here is something very different from that. It's more a communal disintegration. But 48 hours doesn't turn one into an expert."

http://kuci.org/~nraggett/bushshlub.gif

WASHINGTON, March 13 — President Bush pushed back today at critics on both the left and the right who have urged that American troops be withdrawn before they are caught in a civil war, arguing in the first of a new series of speeches that his strategy is working and declaring, "We will not lose our nerve."

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 13 — Shiite vigilantes seized four men suspected of terrorist attacks, interrogated them, beat them, executed them and left their bodies hanging from lampposts in a Shiite slum today, according to witnesses and government officials.

The graphic display of street justice was the first response to a coordinated attack on Sunday evening that killed more than 50 civilians in a Shiite market, and it seemed to only add to the seeping sense of lawlessness.

In Sadr City, the Shiite slum that is essentially a city within a city, government forces have vanished. The streets are ruled by aggressive teenagers with shiny soccer jerseys and machine guns. They poke their heads into cars and detain whom they want. Mosques blare for American troops to stay out. Increasingly, the Americans have been doing just that.

There seems to be no minimum age to join the action. A playful boy named Mustapha, who said he was 11 but looked about 8, was part of a 4-foot-tall militia of Sadr City boys struggling to drag chunks of concrete into the street to block cars.

"We're guarding the road," Mustapha explained.

He was carrying a toy pistol. Some of the other boys had real ones.

Across town in a busy shopping area in western Baghdad, a 15-minute gunfight broke out between security contractors, more evidence of the authority vacuum. According to an Iraqi interior ministry spokesman who declined to give his name, armed guards for a cellphone company killed two guards for an Iraqi politician after a roadside "misunderstanding."

i mean, if the pentagon actually thought there was anything useful in there, surely to god they would've done the work themselves instead of farming it out to the blogosphere. but i guess it lets the armchair warriors feel like they're on the front lines. how exciting for them.

"I served in Kosovo and had an up-armored humvee," says Jon Soltz, the director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America political-action committee. "Then I served in Iraq and had a humvee that wasn't armored. I lost one soldier I sent on a convoy without armor. You don't forget something like that."

Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general, was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

What We've Gained In 3 Years in Iraq

By Donald H. Rumsfeld
Sunday, March 19, 2006; Page B07

Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side"and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned."

Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates -- who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years.

The terrorists seem to recognize that they are losing in Iraq. I believe that history will show that to be the case.

Fortunately, history is not made up of daily headlines, blogs on Web sites or the latest sensational attack. History is a bigger picture, and it takes some time and perspective to measure accurately.

Consider that in three years Iraq has gone from enduring a brutal dictatorship to electing a provisional government to ratifying a new constitution written by Iraqis to electing a permanent government last December. In each of these elections, the number of voters participating has increased significantly -- from 8.5 million in the January 2005 election to nearly 12 million in the December election -- in defiance of terrorists' threats and attacks.

One of the most important developments over the past year has been the increasing participation of Iraq's Sunni community in the political process. In the volatile Anbar province, where Sunnis are an overwhelming majority, voter turnout grew from 2 percent in January to 86 percent in December. Sunni sheiks and religious leaders who previously had been sympathetic to the insurgency are today meeting with coalition representatives, encouraging Iraqis to join the security forces and waging what violent extremists such as Abu al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda followers recognize as a "large-scale war" against them.

The terrorists are determined to stoke sectarian tension and are attempting to spark a civil war. But despite the many acts of violence and provocation, the vast majority of Iraqis have shown that they want their country to remain whole and free of ethnic conflict. We saw this last month after the attack on the Shiite shrine in Samarra, when leaders of Iraq's various political parties and religious groups condemned the violence and called for calm.

Another significant transformation has been in the size, capability and responsibility of Iraqi security forces. And this is vitally important, because it is Iraqis, after all, who must build and secure their own nation.

Today, some 100 Iraqi army battalions of several hundred troops each are in the fight, and 49 control their own battle space. About 75 percent of all military operations in the country include Iraqi security forces, and nearly half of those are independently Iraqi-planned, Iraqi-conducted and Iraqi-led. Iraqi security forces have a greater ability than coalition troops to detect a foreign terrorist's accent, identify local suspects and use force without increasing a feeling of occupation. It was these Iraqi forces -- not U.S. or coalition troops -- that enforced curfews and contained the violence after the attack on the Golden Dome Shrine in Samarra. To be sure, violence of various stripes continues to slow Iraq's progress. But the coalition is doing everything possible to see this effort succeed and is making adjustments as appropriate.

The rationale for a free and democratic Iraq is as compelling today as it was three years ago. A free and stable Iraq will not attack its neighbors, will not conspire with terrorists, will not pay rewards to the families of suicide bombers and will not seek to kill Americans.

Though there are those who will never be convinced that the cause in Iraq is worth the costs, anyone looking realistically at the world today -- at the terrorist threat we face -- can come to only one conclusion: Now is the time for resolve, not retreat.

Consider that if we retreat now, there is every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have the will to face them again. Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis. It would be as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet domination because it was too hard or too tough or we didn't have the patience to work with them as they built free countries.

What we need to understand is that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want the coalition to succeed. They want better futures for themselves and their families. They do not want the extremists to win. And they are risking their lives every day to secure their country.

That is well worth remembering on this anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The writer is secretary of defense.

Lots of play for Rumsfeld's Wa-Po comment that pulling out now would be like handing post-WW2 Germany back to the Nazis. Dr. K (also on CNN), who was actually **in** post-WW2 Germany, interpreting for the US army, shot that one down. It's astonishing to see these Germany-Japan analogies still being bandied around by people who really should know better. (a) As Dr. K said, Germany was out for the count, there was no insurgency. They were beaten, and knew it. (b) Japan even more so--we dropped two nukes on them for goodness' sake. (c) Both Germany and Japan are ethnostates, with zero potential for civil war.

I concur with Nat Helms' report on the problems with Interceptor Body Armor (IBA). The body armor we have now weighs us down like turtles. It is difficult to run fast enough if you need to catch anyone on foot. If anyone falls into water over his head, he better be a very strong swimmer or he may be as good as dead. Getting out of a cramped up-armored HUMVEEs is bad enough; it is rarely done quickly anymore. One simply does not have the flexibility. I am over six feet tall. And to get out of a HUMVEE I need to bow my head down to get past the threshold. You can't bend forward with the armor and you need to unsnap the throat protector. Many missions I have been on lately have been night operations so I have night vision goggles attached to the front of my helmet, which increases the need to duck when I get out of the HUMVEE. When I was first issued the IBA, I semi-joked that this had better stop enemy rounds because it significantly reduced my mobility. The current fiasco Helms describes reminds me of the book (and movie of the same name) The Pentagon Wars. Flexible, reusable body armor is what the troops need, not the current system. I look forward to seeing Dragon Skin (or something similar) fielded to the troops in the very near future.

--Army Captain in Ramadi, Iraq

There's a certain strategy, however, which is nakedly obvious in the release of these papers -- one which, by all accounts, was done after Bush overrode Negroponte to get them released, something which has been discussed publically by Hayes and others and which I have no reason to doubt, and which was done in these last few weeks. To my mind it was an obvious one -- an attempt to drum up support for the invasion, to show that there was a clear and present danger, etc. etc. It fits in with all these speeches Bush is wandering around the country; he's hoping something comes of it all with traction.

There's a problem here, though -- he's clearly mistaking two things, the invasion and destruction of the Hussein regime and the state of things now. He's thinking, *someone's* thinking somewhere, "Ah, of course -- we can finally demonstrate the invasion was justified after all beyond debate." But the logical response to that, if one accepts that, is, "Okay, great -- but that happened. That only took a few weeks, and if you want to stretch it fully to the capture of Saddam, until the end of 2003. But having done that, that doesn't excuse or explain everything *since* then, and how badly it's been done, and so forth."

The question is how thoroughly this is apparent among all participants. I'm not sure it is -- yet.

and as you say, none of it has anything to do with how badly we've messed up the past three years.

SFTT has just received this report from a Soldier with firsthand knowledge of the situation

" Operation Swarmer was compromised by the Iraqis. As soon as Iraqi units left their barracks, their soldiers and local police watching movements were on cell phones. Orders are not even issued to Iraqi units until 1 hr prior to loading onto trucks and slicks. The insurgents were tipped of, people we interviewed in the area stated the insurgent cells and cell leaders abruptly left 3 hrs before we even arrived. This operation was an exercise in PR on how well the Iraqi forces are taking the fight to the enemy, but had little operational success."

[NOTE: After the Viet Nam war we discovered that every tactical operation of battalion size or larger, that took place after August of 1965, was compromised. There was no, repeat no, effective OPSEC, due to the penetration of South Vietnamese military by the North Vietnamese intelligence services.]

But apparently Bush is saying nice things right now. So comforting!

SPEAKER: GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

BUSH: Thank you all. Thank you all. Please be seated.

Sanjiv, thanks for the introduction.

He called me on the phone and said, "Listen, we believe in free speech, so you're going to come and give us a speech for free."

(LAUGHTER)

Etc. etc.

someone please put me in suspended animation for the next few years.

---

Putting Cards on the Table in Iraq
By George Friedman

The clouds couldn't have been darker last week. Everyone was talking about civil war in Iraq. Smart and informed people were talking about the real possibility of an American airstrike against Iran's nuclear capabilities. The Iranians were hurling defiance in every direction on the compass. U.S. President George W. Bush seemed to be politically on the ropes, unable to control his own party. And then seemingly out of nowhere, the Iranians offered to hold talks with the Americans on Iraq, and only Iraq. With the kind of lightning speed not seen from the White House for a while, the United States accepted. Suddenly, the two countries with the greatest stake in Iraq -- and the deepest hostility toward each other -- had agreed publicly to negotiate on Iraq.

To understand this development, we must understand that Iran and the United States have been holding quiet, secret, back-channel and off-the-record discussions for years -- but the discussions were no less important for all of that. The Iran-Contra affair, for example, could not have taken place had the Reagan administration not been talking to the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's representatives. There is nothing new about Americans and Iranians talking; they have been doing it for years. Each side, for their own domestic reasons, has tried to hide the talks from public view, even when they were quite public, such as the Geneva discussions over Afghanistan prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

What is dramatically new is the public nature of these talks now, and the subject matter: Iraq.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the real players in Iraq are now going to sit down and see if they can reach some decisions about the country's future. They are going to do this over the heads of their various clients. Obviously, the needs of those clients will have to be satisfied, but in the end, the Iraq war is at least partly about U.S.-Iranian relations, and it is clear that both sides have now decided that it is time to explore a deal -- not in a quiet Georgetown restaurant, but in full view of the world. In other words, it is time to get serious.

The offer of public talks actually was not made by Iran. The first public proposal for talks came from U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, who several months ago reported that he had been authorized by Bush to open two lines of discussion: One was with the non-jihadist Sunni leadership in Iraq; the other was with Iran. Interestingly, Khalilzad had emphasized that he was authorized to speak with the Iranians only about Iraq and not about other subjects. In other words, discussion of Iran's nuclear program was not going to take place. What happened last week was that the Iranians finally gave Khalilzad an answer: yes.

Iran's Slow Play

As we have discussed many times, Iraq has been Iran's obsession. It is an obsession rooted in ancient history; the Bible speaks of the struggle between Babylon and Persia for regional hegemony. It has some of its roots in more recent history as well: Iran lost about 300,000 people, with about 1 million more wounded and captured, in its 1980-88 war with Iraq. That would be the equivalent of more than 1 million dead Americans and an additional 4 million wounded and captured. It is a staggering number. Nothing can be understood about Iran until the impact of this war is understood. The Iranians, then, came out of the war with two things: an utter hatred of Saddam Hussein and his regime, and determination that this sort of devastation should never happen again.

After the United States decided, in Desert Storm, not to move on to Baghdad and overthrow the Hussein regime -- and after the catastrophic failure of the Shiite rising in southern Iraq -- the Iranians established a program of covert operations that was designed to increase their control of the Shiite population in the south. The Iranians were unable to wage war against Hussein but were content, after Desert Storm, that he could not attack Iran. So they focused on increasing their influence in the south and bided their time. They could not take out Hussein, but they still wanted someone to do so. That someone was the Americans.

Iran responded to the 9/11 attacks in a predictable manner. First, Iran was as concerned by al Qaeda as the United States was. The Iranians saw themselves as the vanguard of revolutionary Islam, and they did not want to see their place usurped by Wahhabis, whom they viewed as the tool of another regional rival, Saudi Arabia. Thus, Tehran immediately offered U.S. forces the right to land, at Iranian airbases, aircraft that were damaged during operations in Afghanistan. Far more important, the Iranians used their substantial influence in western and northern Afghanistan to secure allies for the United States. They wanted the Taliban gone. This is not to say that some al Qaeda operatives, having paid or otherwise induced regional Iranian commanders, didn't receive some sanctuary in Iran; the Iranians would have given sanctuary to Osama bin Laden if that would have neutralized him. But Tehran's policy was to oppose al Qaeda and the Taliban, and to quietly support the United States in its war against them. This was no stranger, really, than the Americans giving anti-tank missiles to Khomeini in the 1980s.

But the main chance that Iran saw was getting the Americans to invade Iraq and depose their true enemy, Saddam Hussein. The United States was not led to invade Iraq by the Iranians -- that would be too simple a model. However, the Iranians, with their excellent intelligence network in Iraq, helped to smooth the way for the American decision. Apart from providing useful tactical information, the Iranians led the Americans to believe three things:

1. That Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction programs.

2. That the Iraqis would not resist U.S. operations and would greet the Americans as liberators.

3. By omission, that there would be no post-war resistance in Iraq.

Again, this was not decisive, but it formed an important part of the analytical framework through which the Americans viewed Iraq.

The Iranians wanted the United States to defeat Hussein. They wanted the United States to bear the burden of pacifying the Sunni regions of Iraq. They wanted U.S. forces to bog down in Iraq so that, in due course, the Americans would withdraw -- but only after the Sunnis were broken -- leaving behind a Shiite government that would be heavily influenced by Iran. The Iranians did everything they could to encourage the initial engagement and then stood by as the United States fought the Sunnis. They were getting what they wanted.

Counterplays and Timing

What they did not count on was American flexibility. From the first battle of Al Fallujah onward, the United States engaged in negotiations with the Sunni leadership. The United States had two goals: one, to use the Sunni presence in a new Iraqi government to block Iranian ambitions; and two, to split the Sunnis from the jihadists. It was the very success of this strategy, evident in the December 2005 elections, that caused Iraqi Shia to move away from the Iranians a bit, and, more important, caused the jihadists to launch an anti-Shiite rampage. The jihadists' goal was to force a civil war in Iraq and drive the Sunnis back into an unbreakable alliance with them.

In other words, the war was not going in favor of either the United States or Iran. The Americans were bogged down in a war that could not be won with available manpower, if by "victory" we mean breaking the Sunni-jihadist will to resist. The Iranians envisioned the re-emergence of their former Baathist enemies. Not altogether certain of the political commitments or even the political savvy of their Shiite allies in Iraq, they could now picture their worst nightmare: a coalition government in which the Sunnis, maneuvering with the Kurds and Americans, would dominate an Iraqi government. They saw Tehran's own years of maneuvering as being in jeopardy. Neither side could any longer be certain of the outcome.

In response, each side attempted, first, to rattle the other. Iran's nuclear maneuver was designed to render the Americans more forthcoming; the assumption was that a nuclear Iran would be more frightening, from the American point of view, than a Shiite Iraq. The Americans held off responding and then, a few weeks ago, began letting it be known that not only were airstrikes against Iran possible, but that in fact they were being seriously considered and that deadlines were being drawn up.

This wasn't about nuclear weapons but about Iraq, as both sides made clear when the talks were announced. Both players now have all their cards on the table. Iran bluffed nukes, the United States called the bluff and seemed about to raise. Khalilzad's request for talks was still on the table. The Iranians took it. This was not really done in order to forestall airstrikes -- the Iranians were worried about that only on the margins. What Iran had was a deep concern and an interesting opportunity.

The concern was that the situation in Iraq was spinning out of its control. The United States was no longer predictable, the Sunnis were no longer predictable, and even the Iranians' Shiite allies were not playing their proper role. The Iranians were playing for huge stakes in Iraq and there were suddenly too many moving pieces, too many things that could go wrong.

The Iranians also saw an opportunity. Bush's political position in the United States had deteriorated dramatically. As it deteriorated, his room for maneuver declined. The British had made it clear that they were planning to leave Iraq. Bush had really not been isolated before, as his critics always charged, but now he was becoming isolated -- domestically as well as internationally. Bush needed badly to break out of the political bind he was in. The administration had resisted pressure to withdraw troops under a timetable, but it no longer was clear whether Congress would permit Bush to continue to resist. The president did not want his hands tied by Congress, but it seemed to the Iranians that was exactly what was happening.

From the Iranian point of view, if ever a man has needed a deal, it is Bush. If there are going to be any negotiations, they are to happen now. From Bush's point of view, he does need a deal, but so do the Iranians -- things are ratcheting out of control from Tehran's point of view as well. For domestic Iraqi players, the room to maneuver is increasing, while the room to maneuver for foreign players is decreasing. In other words, the United States and Iran have, for the moment, the unified interest of managing Iraq, rather than seeing a civil war or a purely domestic solution.

The Next Phase of the Game

The Iranians want at least to Finlandize Iraq. During the Cold War, the Soviets did not turn Finland into a satellite, but they did have the right to veto members of its government, to influence the size and composition of its military and to require a neutral foreign policy. The Iranians wanted more, but they will settle for keeping the worst of the Baathists out of the government and for controls over Iraq's international behavior. The Americans want a coalition government within the limits of a Finlandic solution. They do not want a purely Shiite government; they want the Sunnis to deal with the jihadists, in return for guaranteed Sunni rights in Iraq. Finally, the United States wants the right to place a force in Iraq -- aircraft and perhaps 40,000 troops -- outside the urban areas, in the west. The Iranians do not really want U.S. troops so close, so they will probably argue about the number and the type. They do not want to see heavy armored units but can live with lighter units stationed to the west.

Now obviously, in this negotiation, each side will express distrust and indifference. The White House won the raise by expressing doubts as to Tehran's seriousness; the implication was that the Iranians were buying time to work on their nukes. Perhaps. But the fact is that Tehran will work on nukes as and when it wants, and Washington will destroy the nukes as and when it wants. The nukes are non-issues in the real negotiations.

There are three problems now with negotiations. One is Bush's ability to keep his coalition intact while he negotiates with a member of the "axis of evil." Another is Iran's ability to keep its coalition together while it negotiates with the "Great Satan." And third is the ability of either to impose their collective will on an increasingly self-reliant Iraqi polity. The two major powers are now ready to talk. What is not clear is whether, even together, they will be in a position to impose their will on the Iraqis. The coalitions will probably hold, and the Iraqis will probably submit. But those are three "probablies." Not good.

All wars end in negotiations. Clearly, the United States and Iran have been talking quietly for a long time. They now have decided it is time to make their talks public. That decision by itself indicates how seriously they both take these conversations now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1737660,00.html

The US ambassador to Iraq has told Shia leaders that the US government does not want Ibrahim Jaafari to remain prime minister, senior Shia politicians say.

Zalmay Khalilzad said President George W Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" the retention of Mr Jaafari, Rida Jawad al-Takki said.

Mr Jaafari's spokesman accused the US of trying to subvert Iraqi sovereignty.

The Shia United Iraqi Alliance chose Mr Jaafari as its candidate in February after winning December's election.

But Kurdish and Sunni Arab parties have rejected the UIA's nomination and have threatened to boycott a national unity government unless it is withdrawn.

This is, how you say, interesting.

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/03/29/PH2006032901340.jpg

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