Category Archives: Iraq

It seems I wasn't real clear in the previous post. I don't mean to suggest that the right answer to the Fallujah crisis was starting a major urban campaign and killing lots of civilians. I do mean to say that:

1. If this is the end state, the seige was a blunder.

2. But, because I don't think the administration is willing to accept the likely consequences of this move — it will be seen as the weakness that it is — I fear even more what this seems likely to lead to, which is bloodier consequences in Fallujah and especially elsewhere. And I suspect that the US administration's response to those facts — when faced with possible widespread chaos as Iraqis decide the US can be driven out — will end up with more casualties on both sides. Therefore, I think that leaving in these circumstances has very bad side-effects. That doesn't mean that turning up the violence (“going in” to urban warfar) made any sense either.

3. Putting a Baathist in charge doesn't seem real smart unless he's a very unusal one. Is this a calculation that Baathists are better than Islamicists? Is the best-case exit scenario now reduced to a Saddam-like regime without Saddam? Is Saddam lite really the best we can do?

George W. Bush today, defending the famous flight suit speech announcing the end of major combat operation in Iraq:

“we're making progress, you bet” in bringing stability to Iraq.

What the grunts say about about today's pullout from Fallujah, turning the town over to a Baathist general (source: UK Daily Telegraph, Saddam's man takes over in Fallujah )(reg. req.):

Many ordinary marines said they did not believe the initiative would work and it could endanger their lives when they had to revert to the “plan A” of a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah.

“Honestly, I don't think they're going to be able to do it,” said Cpl Elias Chavez, 28.

“We had the insurgents cordoned off, they couldn't go anywhere, we had a chance to get them. Now they can flee wherever they want and we're still going to have to deal with them.”

He said the new force, largely made up of Fallujah residents, would be unlikely to apprehend or clamp down on anti-coalition fighters.

By leaving without defeating the insurgents, their deployment since April 5, following the killing and mutilation of four US defence contractors, “was a waste of time, of resources and of lives”.

“Everyone feels the same, especially those who know someone who was killed.”

L Cpl Julius Wright, 20, said: “Now it's going to get worse. We pulled out when we should of gone in.”

I'm with the grunts on this one. This is “progress”?

The White House's overriding goal for Iraq is to keep the lid on it until after the election. This is not easy. Cutting and running would, in the best case, leave Islamic fundamentalists in charge (bad TV), and in the worst case lead quickly to civil war (very bad TV if reporters are brave).

Staying in charge leads to casualties like we are seeing. They can keep the images off TV, but probably not the newspapers. Staying in charge incites the militants.

The original plan was to transfer sovereignty on June 30, declare victory, and bring a few thousand troops home. This would allow Bush to say that the rest would be home soon — see the downpayment. Meanwhile, in the background, there would be a Status of Forces agreement with the new Chalabi government in which the US got to have nice forward bases well suited for defending or quietly (or not quietly) menacing strategic oil reserves. [The very original plan had been to sign the SoF agreement with the current Governing Council, but that proved too raw for everyone.]

That's all gone pear shaped. The administration is now reduced to forlornly chanting that it is staying on schedule for a handover of sovereignty, although it no longer has control over to whom that will be, the initiative having passed either to the UN or to the arab street (funny we don't hear about that street these days, isn't it? that meme was all over the papers a year ago).

One obvious consequence of handing over sovereignty in ten weeks to unknown parties is that it's no longer certain they will be the tame poodle that the administration persists in believing it has in Chalabi (despite the contrary evidence). If serious Islamicists are going to be in charge, or even in partial charge, they are not going to sign a status of forces agreement, and they are not going to do what the US tells them.

The writing being on the wall, it is being read. And folks in the administration don't like what it says. Thus, the logical next move is to float the trial balloon that maybe the handover — still on schedule, you understand — will be somewhat more formal and less substantive than in version 1.0.

White House Says Iraq Sovereignty Could Be Limited. The Bush administration's plans for a new caretaker government in Iraq would place severe limits on its sovereignty, including only partial command over its armed forces and no authority to enact new laws, administration officials said Thursday.

Sovereignty without meaningful control. A 'sovereign' government that can neither change existing laws nor command the armed forces. Sounds like Cuba in Guantanamo to me. The administration's position in front of the Supreme Court this week was that the Cubans have 'sovereignty' over the base, but the US has control. In this view, as a result of the lack of this metaphysical 'sovereignty' the US courts have no power there … but neither do the Cubans.

It appears that the administration now proposes a transfer of 'sovereignty' for Iraq that will give the recipients the same great powers over their country that Castro enjoys over Guantanamo—and for the same sorts of reasons. The locals cannot be trusted to do what they are told.

How nice that we are instructing the Middle East on the finer points of democracy. What a shame that the lesson is so expensive, especially in lives, both for us and for them.

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Spanish PM Jose Zapatero announced today he's pulling Spain's militarily small but politically significant contingent out of Iraq.

BBC—Full text: Spain's PM calls troops back: Good evening. This morning, once the defence minister [Jose Bono] was sworn in, I gave him the order to make the necessary arrangements for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq to return home in the shortest time, and with the greatest security possible.

Combine this with the British commander in southern Iraq saying The moment that Sayid Ali says, 'We don't want the Coalition here', we might as well go home, plus the very confused reports as to whether negotiations are going well, poorly, or not at all, and it doesn't look good.

It now appears that the Bush 'strategy' is to hand off the whole mess to anyone who will take it and cut and run on June 30. The theory being that no amount of Islamic zealotry on TV from Iraq (a three day wonder at best) could be as bad as the endless casualty news. The original plan was to keep bases in country after June 30 under a status of forces agreement, but it looks certain there will be none — so the only fig leaf left would be protecting whatever international contingent stepped in for the US. If one does.

This sort of tail-between-the-legs defeat—which although not inevitable looks more likely today than it ever has yet—would be an international political disaster for the US, and I would say a domestic disaster for the Iraqis who would most likely end up with civil war or theocracy. What's so awful to contemplate is the real possibility that this disaster would be better than any of the alternatives (for the US) that may be on offer next as soon as next week if the simmering civil war boils over. (Optimistic fact: the Iraqi community leaders appear to understand how much they all have to lose if this happens.)

Perhaps it's more fair to say that if the US suffers a political defeat it will be the realization — in the economic sense of the term — of the political disaster that Iraq has been for the US since the decision was made to invade without UN backing. It has also in some sense been a military disaster, not in terms of military defeat, but in counting the cost in lives, resources, and attention better spent elsewhere.

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I have no idea if it is true that US forces in Iraq are acting like a bunch of racist Rambos; I would hate to have it be so. But even if it isn't true, it ought to worry people just a little that our closest allies, the British, a people not renowned for their progressive attitudes about foreigners and non-whites, believe it to be true.

British commanders condemn US military tactics – Iraq

Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate.

One senior officer said that America's aggressive methods were causing friction among allied commanders and that there was a growing sense of “unease and frustration” among the British high command.

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen – the Nazi expression for “sub-humans”.

Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: “My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are.”

(via Juan Cole)

The American Street links to The Alamo is over-rated as a tourist attraction, dammit by 'A View from A Broad' — a livejournal blog by a woman in the field of fire in Iraq.

Very compelling reading.