Biden & Graham Debate Iraq: 1/7/07 on Meet the Press

[Astronuc]

True, but that will be true in any event. And it is hard to see how things can improve without a huge investment in rebuilding the infrastructure.

Certainly. It would help if they had the electricity and water running - outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Truthfully, I find it hard to believe that money wouldn't matter to most. We have offered nothing but bombs and bullets to calm the violence thus far.

They need someone who can step forward and tell them - Shii do not kill Sunni, and Sunni do not kill Shii - Salaam. But it would have to be one heck of a person to pull that off.

 

[denverdoc]

Certainly. It would help if they had the electricity and water running - outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad.

They need someone who can step forward and tell them - Shii do not kill Sunni, and Sunni do not kill Shii - Salaam. But it would have to be one heck of a person to pull that off.

And likely end up in the gunsights of an operative. Feeling particularly cynical this evening as the bomb part S/N's are doing a deja vu of the aluminum tubing.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What do you think we should do?

 

[Astronuc]

This is very troubling -

Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/world/middleeast/18bucca.html
NY Times, February 18, 2007

DAMASCUS, Syria — In the early hours of Jan. 6, Laith al-Ani stood in a jail near the Baghdad airport waiting to be released by the American military after two years and three months in captivity.

He struggled to quell his hope. Other prisoners had gotten as far as the gate only to be brought back inside, he said, and he feared that would happen to him as punishment for letting his family discuss his case with a reporter.

But as the morning light grew, the American guards moved Mr. Ani, a 31-year-old father of two young children, methodically toward freedom. They swapped his yellow prison suit for street clothes, he said. They snipped off his white plastic identification bracelet. They scanned his irises into their database.

Then, shortly before 9 a.m., Mr. Ani said, he was brought to a table for one last step. He was handed a form and asked to place a check mark next to the sentence that best described how he had been treated:

“I didn’t go through any abuse during detention,” read the first option, in Arabic.

“I have gone through abuse during detention,” read the second.

In the room, he said, stood three American guards carrying the type of electric stun devices that Mr. Ani and other detainees said had been used on them for infractions as minor as speaking out of turn.

“Even the translator told me to sign the first answer,” said Mr. Ani, who gave a copy of his form to The New York Times. “I asked him what happens if I sign the second one, and he raised his hands,” as if to say, Who knows?

“I thought if I don’t sign the first one I am not going to get out of this place.”

Shoving the memories of his detention aside, he checked the first box and minutes later was running through a cold rain to his waiting parents. “My heart was beating so hard,” he said. “You can’t believe how I cried.”

It would seem that some Americans are behaving like those of Saddam Hussein's security forces. This is not going to help lead to a peaceful democratic society with a friendly disposition toward the US.


Also - I heard a report today that the quality of life in Iraq has deteriorated during the American occupation from the meager levels sustained during the last years of Saddam Husseins rule. Rather than help improve the situation in Iraq, the US occupation has made it worse. That is not success.

 

[denverdoc]

Actually my impression is that were it not for the sanctions, pre-invasion Iraq was relatively prosperous with a large middle class, and more opportunity for women than most other states in the region. Not defending Saddam, but what a mess, now with little oil flowing and the infrastructure in tatters.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This morning on Meet the Press, Richard Engel, a reporter who has been in Iraq for four years, described the Iraqi people as being in a state of shock. Engel also mentions an Iraqi friend who is losing his hair and his mind.

The show and transcripts should be online shortly
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

It was reported on MTP [and other news sources] that Jordan and Syria are now, or soon will start turning away Iraqi refugees.

 

[turbo]

Actually my impression is that were it not for the sanctions, pre-invasion Iraq was relatively prosperous with a large middle class, and more opportunity for women than most other states in the region. Not defending Saddam, but what a mess, now with little oil flowing and the infrastructure in tatters.

Yes - Saddam was a jerk, but he had little tolerance for religious radicals, and therefor women fared better in Iraq than in most neighboring countries. There were markets, schools, businesses and a large middle class with the opportunity to better their lot. Bush/Cheney have destroyed that, and it will not be possible to recover for many decades, if at all. The drain on brain and talent has got to be tremendous, as professors, doctors, and other professionals and businesspeople with the means to leave Iraq did so to get their families and themselves to relative safety. Many of their neighborhoods have been radicalized and "cleansed" of their particular sects, and they may never be able to return safely. So sad...

 

[Astronuc]

Actually my impression is that were it not for the sanctions, pre-invasion Iraq was relatively prosperous with a large middle class, and more opportunity for women than most other states in the region. Not defending Saddam, but what a mess, now with little oil flowing and the infrastructure in tatters.

The BBC radio report that I heard this morning mentioned that most Iraqis are not receiving benefits from the oil money! Also - one in three Iraqi now live in poverty.

I just found - One in three Iraqis 'in poverty'

One-third of Iraqis are now living in poverty, according to a new UN study, with 5% in extreme poverty, a sharp deterioration since the 2003 invasion.

Oil riches are not benefiting many of Iraq's people, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) study says.

The report's authors are also highly critical of US-led attempts to try to introduce a market economy quickly.

They single out education, saying things have not improved since the neglect of the Saddam years.

Other indicators show a sharper fall, with half the population having unsatisfactory water supplies and more than 40% deprived of good sanitation.

They say economic shock treatment in recent years has been naive and immature.

It should be pointed out that the study "is based on data from 2004." That leaves room for the possibility that things have improved somewhat in 2 years. Somehow though, I doubt it.

The link to the MTP transcript with Engel is - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17168627/page/6/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay, the transcript is up and here's the excerpt.

...
MR. ENGEL: It has been my life for the last four years, and I’ve had many friends who’ve had, you know, terrible things happen to them, Iraqis, and part of the, part of the purpose of this documentary is to show some of the stories that we’ve been living ourselves through, and to try and show—internalize a little bit what it, hat it has been like for me. And one of the stories I want to talk about is my Iraqi—one of my best friends there, whose father was kidnapped and he remains missing, and it’s just a very human story. He goes every day to what I think must be the worst place on the planet. It’s the main morgue in Baghdad and he sifts through the hundreds of bodies that are in terrible state of decay. These are only unidentified bodies that are brought to the morgue and he’s searching for his father, and he’s told me, “I don’t even know if I saw him I would be able to recognize him because the bodies are so badly decomposing.” And these kind of stories just, we’ve come across so many, and after four years they do have an impact. I think he, he—this young man is starting to lose his hair, I think he’s losing his mind. It’s an entire country suffering from post-traumatic stress. So our own experiences, I think, also reflect to a degree what the country has, has gone through. [continued]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17168627/page/6/

 

[Art]

Has America been backing the wrong side?

IMO The main problem the US has in Iraq at the moment is figuring out who they should be supporting.

Their more natural allies would be the Sunnis but instead because of their treatment of the secular Sunni Ba'ath party following the invasion the US has burned it's bridges there and is in the rather strange position now of at least indirectly helping the pro-Iranian Shia sect achieve it's goals whilst their affiliation to the US extends only so far as they will tolerate US forces so long as the US forces are helping them militarily against the Sunnis.

If the US move against the Shia militias as they are saying they will it is likely this fragile alliance will be broken resulting in US forces being attacked by a whole new sector of the population.

Even if all fighting stopped immediately the US would still be in the position of having removed a secular power only to have replaced it with a pro-Iranian, fundametalist Shia dominated gov't which probably doesn't bode well for US interests in the long term and certainly not for the long term stability of the Sunni dominated wider ME.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Murtha and Graham each stated their case on Meet the Press this morning.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

The biggest problem that I see with Graham's position, or anyone who wants to stay in Iraq for that matter, is that we still don't have a clear plan. How long, at what cost, and how many troops will be needed - troops that will come from, where? And again, is this completely at the expense of US national security by the continued abuse of the National Guard and Reserves? The republicans keep accusing the dems of lacking a specific plan, but I don't see that the reps have one either. Saying "stay", or "get control of Baghdad", is not a plan to success. It is at most a first step. What happens if and when Baghdad is secured?

Something else that bothered me. Graham is claiming that we are fighting the domino effect. To put Iraq on par with these other countries [Graham cites] is silly. As long as we don't invade and destabilize these areas as we did with Iraq, the situation is not so simple as Graham suggests. He completely ignores that other countries have stable governments that we can support in the war on terror. And he himself claims that most Muslims want peace. So if the majority of Muslims want peace, why would all of these other countries fall if we leave Iraq?

My concern is that by first invading Iraq, and then esp when we failed to find WMDs or any justification for the invasion, we have empowered any destablilizing elements in all other Muslim countries. I don't see how staying is going to help on this front. So in this sense, I think Graham is worried about preventing what Bush, Cheney, and Rummy, have already accomplished.

 

[BobG]

I don't think the odds favor Iraq.

Between the end of WWII and the Iraq invasion, there were about 122 civil wars. Six of these civil wars have been resolved by power sharing (3 of these are a little dubious - where the civil war was considered ended since fighting stopped for 5 years, but was followed by a new civil war around 10 years later).

'About' 122 since it's sometimes hard to decide whether a country had one real long civil war or two separate civil wars. If several groups of insurgents band together to win a civil war, but then their alliance falls apart and they start fighting among themselves, it's generally considered a new civil war; not a continuation of the first.

Afghanistan would be an example - insurgents won the civil war of 1978-1992, but a new civil war broke out among the different groups within the winners. The Taliban, with an influx of money and aid from Al-Qaeda, finally gained the upper hand, but they didn't stay in power enough to really say the post-1992 civil war has really ended. In spite of a new democratic government, you'd probably have to say Afghanistan is still fighting the post-1992 civil war and not a new one. It's still the same parties fighting each other.

Coups and revolutions make for short civil wars - a median duration of around 2.5 years with a mean of around 3.2 years.

In 'sons of soil' type civil wars - where the civil war resulted from one side exploiting the resources of ethnic minorities (or majorities), civil wars have a mean duration of 32.4 years and a mean duration of 41.4 years.

Iraq would fit this category if civil war had broken out on its own without a US invasion. It still has a lot of the traits of the 'sons of soils' type of civil wars, but maybe it should be lumped into the 'all the rest' group, which has a median duration of 10.3 years and a mean of 13.2 years. Personally, I think the pre-invasion Sunni dominance of the Kurds and Shi'ites carries a lot of baggage that makes Iraq closer to the 'sons of soil' type civil war.

The six cases where power sharing successfully resolved the civil war:

Lebanon 1958 (one of the dubious successes - the success didn't last)
Sudan 1972 (one of the dubious successes - fighting stopped for 11 years, but then an even bloodier civil war broke out)
Zimbabwe 1979 (another dubious success - a new civil war eventually broke out)
Mozambique 1992 (successful resolution of a civil war fought for political reasons, not ethnic)
South Africa 1994 (successful because of Nelson Mandela - he truly is one of the great leaders in human history)
Guatemala 1996 (a second successful resolution of ethnic civil war through power sharing - Edit: successful at least as of 2002 - it still seems to be a mix of very serious problems and some very promising hopes)

Every other civil war was resolved through one side winning a clear victory or in a stalemate imposed by external parties. Bosnia, for example. If peacekeepers leave, civil war breaks out again almost instantly. There's been no resolution even 10 years later.

Sistani hasn't turned out to be another Nelson Mandela, so the most likely successful outcome for both Iraq (and Afghanistan) is peacekeeping succeeds and succeeds for the next few decades? Or is the most successful outcome to have Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds fight it out until one side finally wins? The last method is usually the best hope for a long term solution.

http://web.mit.edu/ssp/seminars/wed_archives_06spring/kuperman.htm
http://test.cbrss.harvard.edu/NewsEvents/Seminars-WShops/PPE/papers/fearon.pdf
http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/02/civilwar925.html

 

[Astronuc]

Here's a twist -

Iraqi Insurgents Chastise Al-Qaeda
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1607603,00.html

Al-Qaeda has overstayed its welcome among a powerful group of Iraqi insurgents. One of the most influential nationalist insurgent groups in Iraq has asked Osama bin Laden to remember his religious duty to his fellow Muslims and "bring in line" his organization in Iraq. An open letter from the Islamic Army in Iraq posted on its affiliated website, Al Badil, has demanded that the new al-Qaeda-led alliance reform its ways and stop its attacks on Sunni Muslims and rival jihadi groups.

The letter comes at a time of upheaval inside insurgent circles in Iraq. In the fall, al- Qaeda created a new jihadi super-group called the Islamic State of Iraq to unite the disparate cells fighting the U.S. and Shi'ite militias in the country. Al-Qaeda demanded all insurgent groups swear loyalty to the new organization, but some of the most active Iraqi nationalist groups refused. These included the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution and the Mujahideen Army, all of which include many well-trained military officers of the former regime. These groups tend to shun sectarian warfare and are more focused on attacking the U.S. and the current Iraqi government with the objective of ending the occupation and restoring a Sunni-led regime.

Over the past several months, al-Qaeda has retaliated by targeting the leaders of these independent groups and killing their members. Al-Qaeda "went too far," says the letter, "by killing 30 mujahideen brothers." In doing so, al-Qaeda is beginning to spark a wildfire of tribal vendettas that will be difficult to put out. Two weeks ago, the assassination of Harith Thahir al-Dari, the son of the sheik of the Zoba tribe, turned the powerful clan against al-Qaeda. Al-Dari is also the nephew of the leader of the Islamic Scholars Association, Harith al-Dari, and was a commander of the nationalist insurgent group the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution.

. . . .

Al Qaeda is clearly the problem. I think one needs to distinguish between insurgents fighting on their own territory, ostensibly on behalf of their liberty, and terrorists who simply employ violence for the sake of violence and use violence as a political tool. In theory, eventually an insurgent/freedom-fighter would realize non-violence is the only viable option for stability and progress.

 

[Astronuc]

America's Broken-Down Army
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1606888,00.html

For most Americans, the Iraq war is both distant and never ending. For Private Matthew Zeimer, it was neither. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 2, Zeimer had his first taste of combat as he scrambled to the roof of the 3rd Infantry Division's Combat Outpost Grant in central Ramadi. Under cover of darkness, Sunni insurgents were attacking his new post from nearby buildings. Amid the smoke, noise and confusion, a blast suddenly ripped through the 3-ft. concrete wall shielding Zeimer and a fellow soldier, killing them both. Zeimer had been in Iraq for a week. He had been at his first combat post for two hours.

If Zeimer's combat career was brief, so was his training. He enlisted last June at age 17, three weeks after graduating from Dawson County High School in eastern Montana. After finishing nine weeks of basic training and additional preparation in infantry tactics in Oklahoma, he arrived at Fort Stewart, Ga., in early December. But Zeimer had missed the intense four-week pre-Iraq training—a taste of what troops will face in combat—that his 1st Brigade comrades got at their home post in October. Instead, Zeimer and about 140 other members of the 4,000-strong brigade got a cut-rate, 10-day course on weapon use, first aid and Iraqi culture. That's the same length as the course that teaches soldiers assigned to generals' household staffs the finer points of table service.

The Army and the White House insist the abbreviated training was adequate. "They can get desert training elsewhere," spokesman Tony Snow said Feb. 28, "like in Iraq." But outside military experts and Zeimer's mother disagree. The Army's rush to carry out President George W. Bush's order to send thousands of additional troops more quickly to Iraq is forcing two of the five new brigades bound for the war to skip standard training at Fort Irwin, Calif. These soldiers aren't getting the benefit of participating in war games on the wide Mojave Desert, where gun-jamming sand and faux insurgents closely resemble conditions in Iraq. "Given the new policy of having troops among the Iraqis," says Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon personnel chief, "they should be giving our young soldiers more training, not less." Zeimer's mother was unaware of the gap in her son's training until TIME told her about it on April 2. Two days later the Army disclosed that Zeimer may have been killed by friendly fire. "They're shipping more and more young kids over there who don't know what they're getting into," Janet Seymour said quietly after learning what her son had missed. "They've never seen war other than on the TV."

The truncated training—the rush to get underprepared troops to the war zone— . . . . <continued>

It seem that the Bush administration has undermined the military, despite repeated assertions of "doing all that is necessary for the troops". Words and deeds of the administration are diametrically opposed.

So what about the money spent on private security/defense contractors? What about money spent on Halliburton and other corporations? What of the $10's billions for which there is no account?

 

[kyleb]

Al Qaeda is clearly the problem. I think one needs to distinguish between insurgents fighting on their own territory, ostensibly on behalf of their liberty, and terrorists who simply employ violence for the sake of violence and use violence as a political tool.

Al Qaeda is certainly a problem, but all sides are using violence as a political tool. As the article you quoted explains, the insurgency employs violence to oppose our political goals:

These groups tend to shun sectarian warfare and are more focused on attacking the U.S. and the current Iraqi government with the objective of ending the occupation and restoring a Sunni-led regime.

In theory, eventually an insurgent/freedom-fighter would realize non-violence is the only viable option for stability and progress.

So, respecting the fact that they have a different vision of stability and progress than we have been pushing; what alternative means do you theorize they would turn to while we continue to impose our own vision of stability and progress though violence? Or would you rather agree that both sides will need to renounce the use of force in imposing our respective wills before a peaceful resolution can be reached?

 

[Astronuc]

So, respecting the fact that they have a different vision of stability and progress than we have been pushing; what alternative means do you theorize they would turn to while we continue to impose our own vision of stability and progress though violence? Or would you rather agree that both sides will need to renounce the use of force in imposing our respective wills before a peaceful resolution can be reached?

Who is the 'we' to whom one is referring. I certainly haven't been imposing any vision of stability and progress through violence.

It take two or more sides to make a war/conflict. It also takes the same to make peace.

I advocate non-violence, but then I know fully well that a host of people (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Saddam, Al Qaida, Ahmadinejad, Hamas, Hezbollah, . . .) have a vested interest in violence.

 

[kyleb]

Who is the 'we' to whom one is referring. I certainly haven't been imposing any vision of stability and progress through violence.

Our adminstration is and I am a party to that as I pay my taxes, surely you as well?

 

[Astronuc]

I certainly pay taxes to the federal government, as required by law. I do not however support the Bush administration and its violent policies.

 

[BobG]

Here's a twist -

Iraqi Insurgents Chastise Al-Qaeda
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1607603,00.html



Al Qaeda is clearly the problem. I think one needs to distinguish between insurgents fighting on their own territory, ostensibly on behalf of their liberty, and terrorists who simply employ violence for the sake of violence and use violence as a political tool. In theory, eventually an insurgent/freedom-fighter would realize non-violence is the only viable option for stability and progress.

Al Qaeda is one of the problems. The three groups mentioned in the article are another. The key to insurgents/freedom-fighters realizing non-violence is the only viable option is defeat. As long as they're provided some means to fight, they usually continue to fight.

The classic civil war would be http://www.cfr.org/publication/9272/. Funded by drug trafficking, the insurgents/freedom-fighters have been fighting since 1963 and 1966 (two separate insurgent groups fighting their own independent civil war against the Columbian government).

Another would be http://www.sierra-leone.org/heartmatter.html . It's only lasted since 1991, but it's funded by (and to a large extent, even motivated by) the diamond trade.

The importance of funding is reflected in Afghanistan. When in power, the Taliban went to great efforts to control the opium trade in Afghanistan, since it would be a source of funding for its rivals. Now an insurgent group itself, the Taliban has a little closer relationship with the opium trade.

So, one key to making the insurgent groups realize non-violence is the only option is to deny any way of funding the insurgency. That's going to complicate a peaceful solution where oil revenue is shared equitably with Sunni regions. Do you defeat the insurgents before sharing revenue, thereby increasing Sunni sympathy for the insurgency or do you make a good faith effort by sharing oil revenues that lessen Sunni sympathy for the insurgency knowing a portion of that revenue will still be rerouted into funding the insurgency?

Concentrating on denying funding isn't a guarantee, either. There's two civil wars longer than Columbia's: the civil war in the Manipur region of India and the civil war in the Karen region of Myanmar. I don't know enough about those two wars to know how they keep fighting.

I think the most realistic option is going to be something similar to Bosnia. Ten years after outside forces brought peace, the country is finally transitioning to self-government. In other words, thinking Iraq could establish a functioning democracy including three ethnic groups so quickly was unrealistic if history is any guide. Current efforts have probably been counter-productive since we're probably going to have to step back from relying on Iraqi self-governance.

 

[Astronuc]

Al Qaeda is one of the problems.

I probably should have written one of the major problems.

I see the schism between Sunni and Shii as the other. There was an article in Time magazine regarding this matter.

I would somehow hope that there would be some council of leaders who would find away to sit down and address this historic conflict and find away to stop it. Otherwise we will simply endure a never-ending cycle of senseless violence - and no sane person would find that acceptable.

 

[kyleb]

I certainly pay taxes to the federal government, as required by law. I do not however support the Bush administration and its violent policies.

We do support them financially though paying our taxes, and that is all I meant by "we", as in us as Americans and the administration we have in office.

But my point is simply that the insurgents took up arms because we upset the balance of power out of their favor. It isn't senseless violence to them, and the stability and progress that non-violence would get them isn't anything they are prepared to settle for.

 

[denverdoc]

Maybe the question should be which others have offered indirectly, what if we did nothing? Say we left tomorrow. Would the world be in peril?

 

[drankin]

Yeah, as it always is. We just wouldn't be involved in that particular chaotic event. It's going to be chaos if we stay and even more chaos when we leave. You can't convince people (militants in Iraq for example) that peace is good if they really want war.

Just a thinking out loud but it seems that many of those folks just want something to live for because the "good life" as we know it has never been a reality. And if protecting their homeland from foriegn invaders is preached to them in the mosques then that becomes something to live for. Something worthwhile to die for. Right or wrong. If I lived in Iraq I'd be out there shooting at Americans, mostly because I wouldn't know that life can be any better and I'm living for something and not seeing much else to live for.

 

[Astronuc]

Well some/many(?) Iraqis want the US to leave. Maybe they should hold a vote.

Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html

BAGHDAD, April 9 — Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting “Death to America!”

Residents said that the angry, boisterous demonstration was the largest in Najaf, the heart of Shiite religious power, since the American-led invasion in 2003. It took place on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, and it was an obvious effort by Mr. Sadr to show the extent of his influence here in Iraq, even though he did not appear at the rally. Mr. Sadr went underground after the American military began a new security push in Baghdad on Feb. 14, and his whereabouts are unknown.

Mr. Sadr used the protest to try to reassert his image as a nationalist rebel who appeals to both anti-American Shiites and Sunni Arabs. He established that reputation in 2004, when he publicly supported Sunni insurgents in Falluja who were battling United States marines, and quickly gained popularity among Sunnis across Iraq and the region. But his nationalist credentials have been tarnished in the last year, as Sunni Arabs have accused Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, of torturing and killing Sunnis.

. . . continued

Well if the US pulls out, all h*** would probably break loose - but maybe it has to. The damage has been done, and the Bush administration is probably in a prolonged no-win situation.

Meanwhile - Ayad Allawi has published his perspective on US failures in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_insider_s_account

NEW YORK - In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators."

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.

. . . .

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

• The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

• The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

• Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

• The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.

. . . . continued

Bremer blames others in Bush Administration for interfering with the CPA, while other sources indicate that Bremer acted unilaterally and arbitrarily, despite advice which contradicted Bremer's actions.

 

[Art]

Bremer blames others in Bush Administration for interfering with the CPA, while other sources indicate that Bremer acted unilaterally and arbitrarily, despite advice which contradicted Bremer's actions.

I don't know about the other points but I saw Bremer on tv recently saying he argued strongly against disbanding the Iraqi military but was over-ruled by Rumsfeld.

 

[Astronuc]

I don't know about the other points but I saw Bremer on tv recently saying he argued strongly against disbanding the Iraqi military but was over-ruled by Rumsfeld.

That is possible. Or Cheney-Rumsfeld. Apparently it was verbal (?) so there is no written record - for purposes of plausible deniability - i.e. no accountability.

Interesting that the CPA has not been considered an entity of the US government.

 

[denverdoc]

Well some/many(?) Iraqis want the US to leave. Maybe they should hold a vote... <snip>

Well if it were held, I'm sure someone in the admin insist they use the finest electronic voting machines--Diebold maybe?

 

[Astronuc]

The March 5, 2007 issue of Time Magazine ran a cover story "Why They Hate Each Other", which provides an overview of one of the conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere. It is worth reading.

Online - Behind the Sunni-Shi'ite Divide
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1592849,00.html

What will it take to stop the violence?

What will it take to reconcile perceived differences?

Where are the peacemakers?

 

[Astronuc]

G.O.P. Senator in Spotlight After a Critical Iraq Speech
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/washington/28smith.html?ex=1324962000&en=744a73cc8aed6842&ei=5088&

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 — At the close of the Senate’s lame-duck session, in between formulaic tributes to senators departing voluntarily or otherwise, a Republican backbencher suddenly rose to give one of the most passionate and surprising speeches about the war in Iraq yet delivered in Congress.

Skip to next paragraph For a solid Republican who had originally voted for the war, the words spoken by the senator, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, on the evening of Dec. 7 were incendiary and marked a stunning break with the president.

“I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day,” Mr. Smith said. “That is absurd. It may even be criminal.”

Two book of interest on the subject are:

Peter Galbraith, The End of Iraq, 2006 and

Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilization, The Conquest of the Middle East, 2005. Too bad this book wasn't published in 2000, or at least the material before the Iraq War and Occupation.

And this interview of Thomas Friedman offers a first hand appraisal by a US correspondent who has lived in the Middle East (Lebanon) and covered it for the NY Times. I posted this also in the Bush/Cheney thread.

Thomas Friedman on Syria's Role in the Mideast Conflict
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5597591

 

[edward]

I don't think that we will be leaving Iraq entirely in the foreseeable future. We are not about to leave behind the huge permanent bases which are under construction. The bases are complete with their own runways, movies, and fast food restaurants.

Raytheon is ready to start shipment of a new weapon . It is a 155mm artillery shell that has an extended range of 26 miles and is satellite guided. It is supposed to be accurate to within 20 ft.

http://www.azstarnet.com/business/179060.php

 

[devil-fire]

Has anyone else been watching the 'America at a crossroads' series on PBS? I've been finding it extremely informative. FRONTLINE just did a show in conjunction with the series called 'gangs of Iraq' http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gangsofiraq/ . Its about how the process of training the Iraq police and armed forces and apparently its been a catastrophe.

There was this assumption that if the occupying forces trained the police/armed forces that these forces would be loyal to the Iraqi federal government as a matter of course. everyone in the coalition was counting on it actually. As it turns out though, we just gave them weapons, body armor, training and vehicles to pursue their own agendas.

"It remains to be seen if the American trainers can build a truly national Iraqi police and army, or if these new forces are merely fueling the sectarian conflict. "We have been going about pumping out so many individuals, with weapons, with uniforms," says Matt Sherman, a former adviser to the Ministry of Interior. "My greatest fear is that in our effort to train and equip the Iraq security forces, what we've been doing is equipping Iraqis for civil war." "

I was vary surprised at how closely the Americans and Iraqis worked together and yet how far apart they were in regards to sharing information. In one scene an American tells an Iraq policeman to disarm a car bomb but it becomes quite obvious the Iraqi has no idea what he's doing or even exactly what he's looking for, except the instructions of "cut some wires" given to him by the American. Thankfully the Iraqi refuses to play with the bomb and the American bomb squad is called into deal with it. Later in the scene the camera man films several Iraqi police talking among themselves about a large arms cache near by. The police don't mention this to the Americans and the video was translated much later, so the larger cache went unfound


The battle for the hearts and minds of Iraqis has been quite apparently lost and the race to train a police force has backfired. I don't mean to be pessimistic here but is there any way in which the occupation has not been a total failure? or even some reason to hope it will not continue to be a total failure?

 

[trajan22]

Ive been watching the series as well and also found it to be one of the most informative programs about the war. Does anyone know if it will also be available online like the frontline program is?

 

[Astronuc]

Here is a link to the PBS America at the Crossroads webpage - http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_1_americaatacrossroads_2007-04-20

There is a preview video, but it does not appear to be online for now. Perhaps in the future, but it is likely to come out in video/DVD first.

 

[edward]

According to the Gangs of Iraq link it will be available for viewing on April 23.

Online viewing of "Gangs of Iraq" is temporarily suspended. It will be restored in its entirety on Monday, April 23.

 

[edward]

Gates has just given Iraq a warning.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=52270