Crackpottery in Mesopotamia

September 4th, 2007

Dubby took a little foray into the heart of his personal delusion over the holiday, and I can’t imagine that it wasn’t staged for his pleasure right down to the tiniest detail — one soldier was brave enough to give him a hint of reality, but our Decider was told, when he asked about morale, that it was “very high.” Hoo-ah!

It was reported that he visited a “dusty military base in the heart of Anbar province, 120 miles west of Baghdad” … “traveling here secretly to assess the war before a showdown with Congress.” And it looks like he “assessed” his little heart out, perhaps “changing course” just a bit [and did I tell you about the barely-used bridge I have for sale?] Come on, my reality-driven friends — Bush assessing anything in this surprise “drop in” is like taking a tour of New Orleans by being shuttled directly to the French Quarter for a nice, well presented etouffee with Emeril.

The Rightys are in fawn and apoplexy mode about the courage shown by their Dub, the raw [codpiece] leadership; you’ll find a snip from Greenwald about some of the gush they’re writing, below — good LORD, these people are crackpots!

And speaking of broken pottery, the Maliki government has had six months of surge and … gosh … they’ve managed THREE of 18 benchmarks — groovy! I’m surprised they got THREE [you’ll find David Corn’s report on the corruption in the Iraqi government last.] The Shi’ites have chased the Sunni out of Baghdad and/or killed enough of them off to bring a bit of quiet to the neighborhoods, but the cost … genocide and a mobile insurgency … hasn’t accomplished much but a rearrangement of bloody pawns. As Congress reconvenes here, Maliki’s people will come back as well — minus the Sunni and Sadr’ists who are boycotting them … just enough folks to get the lights on, I guess. Bush says Maliki is “growing” in leadership … meanwhile, it’s glaringly apparent that his boyz are planning a quick trip into the desert with Mr. M’s bones and an Allawi takeover.

The Dubby is getting his sales pitch together … he needs another 50 billion from Congress in the next days — gotta beef up the permanent bases and embassy, donchaknow. The Dubby’s visit to “reality” is just a fart in the wind … the only answer to the challenges in Iraq [political progress, diplomatic action, reconstruction and education] won’t happen any time soon. And now it’s pretty much “just us” — the Brits have come to their senses; read here, here and here.

Here’s a collection on the situation — best to be ‘fact driven’ as we approach the opening day of Congress and a storm of crockpottery. You’ll find snarky reads in here, as well as informative MSM provided by the LA Times [and stenography from other providers] — Paul Krugman and others fill out the overview.

Jude

President makes surprise visit to Iraq
MATT SPETALNICK, Capital Hill Blue
September 4, 2007

After months of stubbornly refusing even to consider cutting U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President George W. Bush has suddenly decided the idea is no longer taboo.

He raised the possibility during a surprise visit to a desert air base in Iraq’s Anbar province on Monday, saying there were signs of improved security and that some U.S. troops could be withdrawn from the country if the trend continued.

Even though he couched his words carefully and made no promises, it was the kind of concession rarely heard from Bush, who has made single-mindedness a defining trait of his presidency and of his conduct of the unpopular war in Iraq.

Bush may be trying to deflect some of the growing pressure he faces as he heads for a showdown with the Democratic-led Congress over his Iraq strategy.

Sitting down with reporters aboard Air Force One after seven hours of talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials on the ground, Bush held out the prospect that consultations on troop reductions could begin in weeks, if not days.

“The first moment that there will be any discussions about troop levels will be after General (David) Petraeus and Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker come back to Washington,” Bush said, referring to their much-anticipated testimony before Congress next Tuesday to give their assessment of the situation in Iraq.

“Any announcement one way or another will be after these folks come back to report,” he added as he flew to Sydney for an Asia-Pacific summit.

Bush would not say how many troops could be withdrawn or how soon, and he insisted, as he has repeatedly, that any decisions would be based on the judgments of military commanders, not on political considerations in Washington.

But he made clear he saw a changing situation on the ground in Anbar and other parts of Iraq that had encouraged him to “speculate on the hypothetical” prospects for troop reductions.

SHOWCASING ANBAR

Bush spoke after hearing from Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who will testify about a troop buildup the president ordered earlier this year. There are now 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including about 30,000 deployed since February.

Bush hailed what he saw as significant progress in quelling violence in Anbar, a former hotbed of the Iraq insurgency where Sunni tribal chiefs have joined with U.S. forces against al Qaeda militants.

Some Democrats say the president is trying to showcase a single area of achievement while ignoring broader failures by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-dominated government to promote national reconciliation needed to curb sectarian bloodshed.

The Bush administration has signaled it wants to maintain the higher force levels in Iraq well into 2008, but the president’s latest comments indicate he may be open to some adjustments.

Bush acknowledged at the in-flight briefing that his current view marked a softening from months past, when he insisted any U.S. pullback would bring chaos in Iraq.

He may now be facing political reality at home. Democrats in control of Congress are ready to step up pressure for a withdrawal timetable, and even some of Bush’s fellow Republicans are breaking ranks with him.

The latest was Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia who recently called for some U.S. troops to be sent home by Christmas.

Bush’s willingness to consider even modest troop reductions could prevent further Republican defections as the presidential campaign revs up and candidates worry about negative spillover from anti-war sentiment. ++

Bush Pays Surprise Visit to Reality
Andy Borowitz, HuffPo
September 3, 2007

[satire]

President George W. Bush departed from his planned itinerary on Labor Day to make a surprise visit to reality, later calling the two-hour stop in the real world “informative.”

For Mr. Bush, the visit to reality, while brief, was still significant because it represented his first visit to the real world since being elected President in 2000.

“The President has not visited reality the entire time he’s been in the White House,” one aide said. “The closest he’s come is watching ‘Survivor.’”

Mr. Bush touched down in the real world a little after dawn, delivering a brief address on the airport runway in which he attempted to put the best face on his relationship with reality, a relationship which has been frayed in recent years.

But beneath the smiles and positive statements, Mr. Bush’s aides seemed well aware that the President’s relationship with reality is complicated at best, since his approval rating in the real world currently hovers at an all-time low.

“The President deserves a lot of credit for making this visit to reality,” one aide said. “He doesn’t have a natural constituency here.”

On the whole, though, when the President’s two-hour visit was over, most of his staff seemed relieved that the potentially perilous tour of reality had passed without incident.

“It’ll be good leaving reality and going back to Washington,” one aide said.

Elsewhere, after a new study showed that only one in 1,000 Americans know what the First Amendment is, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Good, then no one will notice when it’s gone.” ++

Snipped from Glenn Greenwald at Salon:

Our country’s authoritarians are glorifying the Leader today like it’s 2003, all for his very brave (and covert) sneaking into Iraq. Jules Crittenden (cousin of David Frum) uses language typically reserved for Jesus to describe Bush’s every movement:

NPR reporting he’s landed, enroute to an econmic summit in Australia. Web reports now coming in.

AP: He’s in Anbar, landed at Al-Asad. . . . he’s expected to meet with al-Maliki and Sunni tribal leaders who’ve joined the United States and the Iraqi government against al-Qaeda.

He is risen. This is the same Jules Crittenden who, back in January on the day of the President’s speech unveiling the Surge, began his post this way: “George Bush will address us tonight, and show us the way forward.” He will show us the way forward.

Similarly, Blue Texan notes that Glenn Reynolds — in addition to linking to the Crittenden post above — also linked to a post which began this way: “Unlike the last Commander-in-chief, is there any doubt that the men and women who serve our country love President Bush.” Finally, Fred Kagan, writing in National Review, declared that Bush’s trip “should be recognized as at least the Gettysburg of this war” — at least — and that the Leader’s Glorious Visit “could well mark a key turning point in the war in Iraq and the war on terror.”

He is Jesus. He is Lincoln. He is beloved by Our Troops. He “shows us the way forward.” He is Our Leader. ++

They’re Not Even Trying at This Point
Jurrasicpork, Welcome to Pottersville
Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Check out Bush’s latest carrot on a stick pronouncement of him cutting troop levels if we make progress with the security situation in Iraq then juxtapose it with this gem that came out about Paul Bremer’s recently released letters to Bush from 2003.

Gee, you think if Bush hadn’t knowingly and willingly cut Iraq’s troop levels down to zero that perhaps there wouldn’t be so large of an insurgency for our troops to have to deal with?

The Bremer article starts off thusly:

A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.

Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.”

Hear that? It just “didn’t happen” just like every major rationale for invading this country just “didn’t jibe”, just as them darn pesky WMD’s just “didn’t materialize.”

Here’s a snippet from a letter that Bremer had sent to George Bush through Donald Rumsfeld:

I have now visited cities in the North and South and have traveled around Baghdad every day, speaking often to Iraqis on the streets or in stores. As I have moved around, there has been an almost universal expression of thanks to the US and to you in particular for freeing Iraq from Saddam’s tyranny. In the northern town of Mosul yesterday, an old man, under the impression that I was President Bush (he apparently has poor TV reception), rushed up and planted two very wet and hairy kisses on my cheeks.( Such events confirm the wisdom of the ancient custom of sending emissaries to far away lands)…

The dissolution of his chosen instrument of political domination, the Baath Party, has been very well received. Several Iraqis have told me, literally with tears in their eyes, that they have waited 30 years for this moment. While the resulting dismissal of public servants has caused some inefficiencies and griping, in most cases younger civil servants have expressed pleasure, even joy, at the measure.

I guess Bremer didn’t get the chance to get any “wet and hairy kisses” on his cheeks in Fallujah, for instance.

And ya gotta love Bremer’s blithe dismissal of laying off Iraqi state employees as having resulted in “inefficiencies and griping”. The griping resulted in more starving people forced to join the resistance when offered money by either al Qaida or a better and better-funded insurgency.

The “inefficiency” part was when people started getting body parts blown up and there suddenly being not enough doctors and nurses to tend to the wounded and dying. But hey, that’s all in the cost of doing business. And now Bush has been reduced to showing up in Iraq by surprise time and again and skulking through the desert in the dead of night with his most trusted placeholders.

Bremer voluntarily giving up these letters to the NY Times shows just how utterly arrogant these people are in their belief that everything they did to these people was right. They’re not even trying to maintain pretenses at this point. What was I saying about the inanity of evil, again? ++

“I’ll Give Some Speeches, Just to Replenish the Ol’ Coffers.”
Jerry and Joe Long, HuffPo
September 3, 2007

Just when you feel impenetrably numb to the delusional ravings of our Punk In Chief, comes a sentence so multilayered in obscenity, so richly textured with arrogance and solipsism as to make Ayn Rand look like Albert Schweitzer.

Let’s put aside the coffers of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis now eternally empty. Let’s put aside the refugees who left their coffers behind when they fled. Let’s put aside the amputees at Walter Reed who can no longer grip their coffers. Let’s even put aside that his major domestic initiative centers on denying health care to children whose coffers exceed twice the poverty limit.

No, for any student of the career of George W, the true cause for projectile vomiting can be found in the word “replenish”. This is a man who, from buying tropical plants to specializing in dry holes to responsibility-free board appointments to being given his own baseball team, has never done anything to plenish his coffers in the first place.

And…wait for it…he is going to give speeches. Speeches! Charitably, he has had perhaps three thoughts in the past seven years. And he has used them in every lip sucking spittle-encrusted yammer. Smugly flipping through his sentence per page binder, finding it “interesting” that Japan is now an ally and “fully” understanding that war is “tough”. Ahh the comatose stares around the Carlyle Group’s banquet hall, as member’s struggle not to pass out in their omelets during the brunch speaker’s power point presentation “Oceans Don’t Protect Us”. ++

Ethnic Cleansing Of Baghdad Is Complete
Newsweek, via HuffPo
September 3, 2007

It was their last stand. Kamal and a handful of his neighbors were hunkered down on the roof of a dun-colored house in southwest Baghdad two weeks ago as bullets zinged overhead. In the streets below, fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fanned out and blasted away with AK-47s and PKC heavy machine guns. Kamal is a chubby 44-year-old with two young sons, and he and his friends, all Sunnis, had been fighting similar battles against Shiite militiamen in the Amel neighborhood for months. They jumped awkwardly from rooftop to rooftop, returning fire. Within minutes, however, dozens of uniformed Iraqi policemen poured into the street to support the militiamen. Kamal ditched his AK on a rooftop and snuck away through nearby alleys. He left Amel the next day. “I lost my house, my documents and my future,” says Kamal, whose name and that of other Iraqis in this story have been changed for their safety. “I’m never going back.”

Thousands of other Sunnis like Kamal have been cleared out of the western half of Baghdad, which they once dominated, in recent months. The surge of U.S. troops–meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital–has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually “has increased the IDPs to some extent.” ++

Snow Job in the Desert
Paul Krugman, NYT
Sunday, September 02, 2007

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like “Chemical Munitions Bunker.” But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.

Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.

Until recently I assumed that the failure to find W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold the war impossible. But I was wrong. The administration, this time relying on Gen. David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the “surge” is succeeding, even though there’s not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.

Thus Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution — the author of “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq” — and his colleague Michael O’Hanlon, another longtime war booster, returned from a Pentagon-guided tour of Iraq and declared that the surge was working. They received enormous media coverage; most of that coverage accepted their ludicrous self-description as critics of the war who have been convinced by new evidence.

A third participant in the same tour, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, reported that unlike his traveling companions, he saw little change in the Iraq situation and “did not see success for the strategy that President Bush announced in January.” But neither his dissent nor a courageous rebuttal of Mr. O’Hanlon and Mr. Pollack by seven soldiers actually serving in Iraq, published in The New York Times, received much media attention.

Meanwhile, many news organizations have come out with misleading reports suggesting a sharp drop in U.S. casualties. The reality is that this year, as in previous years, there have been month-to-month fluctuations that tell us little: for example, July 2006 was a low-casualty month, with only 43 U.S. military fatalities, but it was also a month in which the Iraqi situation continued to deteriorate. And so far, every month of 2007 has seen more U.S. military fatalities than the same month in 2006.

What about civilian casualties? The Pentagon says they’re down, but it has neither released its numbers nor explained how they’re calculated. According to a draft report from the Government Accountability Office, which was leaked to the press because officials were afraid the office would be pressured into changing the report’s conclusions, U.S. government agencies “differ” on whether sectarian violence has been reduced. And independent attempts by news agencies to estimate civilian deaths from news reports, hospital records and other sources have not found any significant decline.

Now, there are parts of Baghdad where civilian deaths probably have fallen — but that’s not necessarily good news. “Some military officers,” reports Leila Fadel of McClatchy, “believe that it may be an indication that ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and that there aren’t as many people to kill.”

Above all, we should remember that the whole point of the surge was to create space for political progress in Iraq. And neither that leaked G.A.O. report nor the recent National Intelligence Estimate found any political progress worth mentioning. There has been no hint of sectarian reconciliation, and the Iraqi government, according to yet another leaked U.S. government report, is completely riddled with corruption.

But, say the usual suspects, General Petraeus is a fine, upstanding officer who wouldn’t participate in a campaign of deception — apparently forgetting that they said the same thing about Mr. Powell.

First of all, General Petraeus is now identified with the surge; if it fails, he fails. He has every incentive to find a way to keep it going, in the hope that somehow he can pull off something he can call success.

And General Petraeus’s history also suggests that he is much more of a political, and indeed partisan, animal than his press would have you believe. In particular, six weeks before the 2004 presidential election, General Petraeus published an op-ed article in The Washington Post in which he claimed — wrongly, of course — that there had been “tangible progress” in Iraq, and that “momentum has gathered in recent months.”

Is it normal for serving military officers to publish articles just before an election that clearly help an incumbent’s campaign? I don’t think so.

So here we go again. It appears that many influential people in this country have learned nothing from the last five years. And those who cannot learn from history are, indeed, doomed to repeat it. ++

Bush: ‘Fewer American forces’ possible in Iraq
CNN
9/03/07

Story Highlights

Bush warns war critics that pullout will be from “strength and success”
“Fewer American forces” may be possible in Iraq, president says
In a surprise visit, Bush rallies U.S. troops at air base in Iraq
Bush says life returning to normal in Anbar; meets with tribal leaders

AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq (CNN) — President Bush made a surprise visit to an Iraqi air base Monday, saying fewer U.S. forces may be able to maintain security at its current level.

“Gen. [David] Petraeus and Ambassador [Ryan] Crocker tell me if the kind of success we’re now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces,” Bush said during remarks at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province.

But Bush later warned Washington war critics who are pushing for quick troop withdrawals to temper their expectations.

During a rally for troops at the base, Bush said any pullout would be made from a position of “strength and success.”

The White House is due to deliver to Congress next week an assessment on Bush’s increase of 30,000 troops to Iraq this year.

“People shouldn’t jump to conclusions until the general and the ambassador report,” Bush said. Watch Bush’s remarks about U.S. troop levels in Iraq »

During a rally later for more than 600 American troops at the base, Bush warned members of Congress who might be anticipating quick reductions in U.S. forces.

“Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground, not reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media,” said Bush. “In other words, when we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from the position of fear and failure.”

Praising the troops, Bush said, “every day you show bravery under incredibly difficult circumstances. I’m incredibly proud to be the commander in chief of such a great group of men and women.”

The excited crowd responded to their commander in chief with hearty cheers and shouts of “ooh-rah!” and “hoo-ah!”

Bush met earlier with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He also met with Anbar tribal leaders hailing their cooperation with U.S. forces as a success in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.

“The level of violence is down, local governments are meeting again, police are in control of the city streets and normal life is returning,” said Bush.

The president credited Anbar citizens who “rejected the dark vision of al Qaeda” and “organized themselves and they took on the terrorists.”

“The result was that many local leaders who had once fought against our forces began to fight alongside our forces and against al Qaeda,” Bush said.

“They didn’t like idea of murderers deciding their fate,” he said.

Earlier, Air Force One touched down under a blazing sun for the six-hour visit.

After exiting the aircraft, Petraeus, the top war commander, and others welcomed Bush with smiles, salutes and handshakes in the 115- degree heat.

The White House denied the trip was a publicity visit ahead of a report about U.S. troop increases in Iraq to be delivered by Petraeus next week in Washington.

Advisers said the trip was so Bush could have face-to-face meetings with al-Maliki and local Sunni leaders in an effort to move them closer toward political reconciliation.

Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government for not reconciling with Sunni groups, but Bush has stood by the Iraqi leader and fended off calls for his resignation.

Democratic Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman Jim Manley released this statement: “Every objective assessment has shown the president’s flawed Iraq strategy is failing to deliver what it was supposed to: a political solution for Iraq.

“After nearly five years, over 3700 American lives lost, and at a cost of more than a half a trillion dollars, it is time Republicans recognize the reality on the ground, stand up to President Bush and help Democrats bring a responsible end to the war.”

Bush’s visit to Iraq “will not change the debate in Washington at all,” a Democratic leadership aide told CNN on Monday.

Many members of Congress traveled to Iraq themselves in August. Those trips and reports “about the lack of political progress in Iraq mean much more than a surprise visit by the president,” the aide said.

After commanders greeted the president on the tarmac, Bush posed for pictures before being driven in a motorcade to a concrete building on base where a Marine gave him a short briefing with about 20 other troops in fatigues.

“How is morale?” asked Bush.

“Very high, sir,” said the unidentified Marine.

Far to the south in the Iraqi city of Basra, 500 remaining British troops completed a pullout Monday, a move that Britain said did not represent a major policy shift but a long-planned handover to Iraqi forces.

Monday’s visit is Bush’s first trip to Iraq outside of Baghdad. The president also traveled to Iraq in 2003 and 2006.

Al Asad Air Base dates to the 1970s, when it was used by Iraqi forces loyal to Saddam Hussein. It houses about 10,000 U.S. troops, mostly Marines. The facility was captured in April 2003 by Australian special forces. See map showing location of base »

Measuring about 17 miles in circumference, the base is located not far from the Euphrates River between Baghdad and the Syrian border, where the Bush administration has said many foreign fighters have crossed into Iraq.

The president stopped in Iraq en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Sydney, Australia.

Bush is accompanied on the Iraq visit by Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the newly appointed White House official responsible for coordinating Iraq issues.

Also joining Bush on the Iraq visit are U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace.

The president was spirited out of the White House late Sunday and driven to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

Instead of the usual presidential motorcade, only one other car accompanied Bush’s limousine from the executive mansion to Andrews in an effort to maintain the subterfuge.

Sixteen hours before he was scheduled to leave for the Asia summit, Bush boarded Air Force One as it sat in a hanger and the aircraft departed after dark.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said a false schedule released for the news media on Monday was part of the security plan for the trip. ++

Troop buildup fails to reconcile Iraq
Baghdad’s neighborhoods continue to split along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and infighting stalls political progress
Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times
September 4, 2007

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military buildup that was supposed to calm Baghdad and other trouble spots has failed to usher in national reconciliation, as the capital’s neighborhoods rupture even further along sectarian lines, violence shifts elsewhere and Iraq’s government remains mired in political infighting.

In the coming days, U.S. military and government leaders will offer Congress their assessment of the 6-month-old plan’s results. But a review of statistics on death and displacement, political developments and the impressions of Iraqis who are living under the heightened military presence reaches a dispiriting conclusion.

Despite the plan, which has brought an additional 28,500 U.S. troops to Iraq since February, none of the major legislation that Washington had expected the Iraqi parliament to pass into law has been approved.

The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has increased, not decreased, according to the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration and Iraq’s Ministry for Displacement and Migration.

Military officials say sectarian killings in Baghdad are down more than 51% and attacks on civilians and security forces across Iraq have decreased. But this has not translated into a substantial drop in civilian deaths as insurgents take their lethal trade to more remote regions. Last month, as many as 400 people were killed in a bombing in a village near the Syrian border, the worst bombing since the war began in March 2003. In July, 150 people were reported killed in a village about 100 miles north of Baghdad.

And in a sign that tamping down Sunni-Shiite violence is no guarantee of stability, a feud between rival Shiite Muslim militias has killed scores of Iraqis in recent months. Last week, at least 52 people died in militia clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala.

At best, analysts, military officers and ordinary Iraqis portray the country as in a holding pattern, dependent on U.S. troops to keep the lid on violence.

“The military offensive has temporarily suppressed, or in many cases dislocated, armed groups,” said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. “Once the military surge peters out, which it will if there is no progress on the political front, these groups will pop right back up and start going at each other’s, and civilians’, throats again.”

Political stalemateIraq’s political stalemate and the continued violence have forced a major shift in the mind-set of U.S. officials, who had lofty visions of the plan creating conditions under which Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s Shiite-led government would foster reconciliation among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Like the Baghdad neighborhoods where Sunni and Shiite Muslims and Christians once lived side by side, the early troop-buildup “benchmarks” have been whittled down to remnants of their former selves.

Now, military and government officials highlight progress on the local, neighborhood and even street level. Much of it hinges on the future of deals struck with former insurgents who until recently were aiming their guns at U.S. forces.

“There are . . . if you will, mini-benchmarks where things are happening,” U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Aug. 21. Crocker cited Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where violence has dropped substantially since Sunni Arab leaders there began working with U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

“We’ve seen that phenomenon in different forms move through different parts of the country,” Crocker said. “It’s the steps these tribes, communities, individuals are taking. . . . You’ve got to keep an eye on that too.”

Anbar’s situation is far from solid, though. A bomber attacked a mosque in one of its main cities, Fallouja, on Aug. 27, killing at least 10 people, and scores of civilians and Iraqi security forces have died in bombings elsewhere in the province in recent months.

Anbar also represents just one particularly homogenous Sunni Arab slice. There is no indication that progress made there can be replicated on a grand enough scale to have a nationwide effect.

“It’s always easy to get the prospective loser in a civil war to agree to a cease-fire,” said Stephen Biddle, a counterinsurgency expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised military commanders in Iraq. Sunnis are a minority and far more open to switching loyalties if it ensures them a future stake in governing Iraq, he said.

“It’s a lot tougher to get the prospective winner to agree to a cease-fire,” Biddle said, referring to the majority Shiites. “Getting them to sign on is going to be harder because they see themselves in ascendancy.”

Expressing optimismPublicly, at least, U.S. military leaders express optimism.

“The effects of our surge and reconciliation efforts are beginning to pay off,” the day-to-day commander of U.S. ground troops, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, told a Pentagon news briefing Aug. 17. “Total attacks are on a monthlong decline and are at their lowest levels since August of 2006. Attacks against civilians are at a six-month low.”

President Bush and Crocker also lauded an announcement by Maliki that Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni leaders had resolved differences over some of the legislation sought by Washington. But Sunni leaders say this is not enough to make them end their boycott of parliament, which reconvenes today after a summer break.

The lack of Sunni participation would undermine the credibility of any bill passed into law.

Privately, many troops say the military buildup should have been able to do far more by now than cut the number of attacks in some neighborhoods.

Pouring troops into the capital is no doubt going to make some areas safer, said one Marine officer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the upcoming assessment.

“I don’t know anyone who said, ‘Let’s have an argument on whether 20,000 troops can have an impact on some neighborhoods,’ ” the officer said. “I heard a debate about whether a 20,000-man surge would appreciably enhance the security of the Iraqi people and end the sectarian violence so political reconciliation could occur across the country, not just in Baghdad neighborhoods.

“This is not a military contest,” he said.

The shakiness of Iraq’s capacity for reconciliation under current conditions is especially evident in Baghdad, the focus of the buildup. The sprawling capital is a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods split along sectarian lines that appears to have become more balkanized, not less, in the last six months.

“The surge now is isolating areas from each other . . . and putting up permanent checkpoints. That is what I call a failure,” said Yousif Kinany, an engineer in Hurriya, a northwestern area that has become primarily Shiite.

Sectarian ‘cleansing’People who describe their neighborhoods as calm often attribute this to the sectarian “cleansing” of Sunnis or Shiites. Many say that better security is attributable to a heavy U.S. presence in their neighborhoods and that whenever those troops scale down operations, trouble returns.

Hamid Abdul Kareem, a supermarket owner in the northeastern neighborhood of Shaab, said the area was relatively secure. He said that was because of an exodus of Sunni families from Shaab, where the Mahdi Army loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr has a strong presence.

“Sunnis still live in the region, but I think within the next year, the region will be totally Shiite,” Kareem said.

Hassan Shimari is one such Sunni. He lives in Shaab with his wife, a Shiite. He also wears a beard and is grateful for his dark complexion because it makes him look more Shiite than Sunni.

He said Shaab was quiet because Sunnis were lying low and because there was still enough of an American presence there to keep Shiite militias under control.

“If there is any weakening of the American forces here, it will be very, very bad,” said Shimari, a taxi driver. “In the last three days, I’ve driven four families at 6 in the morning to travel companies so they could leave for Syria. Those who can afford it leave.”

Civilian tollDetermining accurate civilian death tolls is virtually impossible in Iraq, where the government has no single source for reporting deaths related to the war. Whichever numbers one uses, however, it is clear that thousands of Iraqis continue to be slain or driven from their homes.

According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.

Figures from Iraqi government ministries point to far higher casualty numbers and show that this year, an average of 1,724 civilians a month have died in sectarian attacks, bombings and other war-related violence.

In February, the civilian death toll was 1,646. Last month, it was 1,773, according to numbers from officials in the ministries of Defense, Interior and Health, who cite morgue, hospital and police reports. It was the second straight month that casualties have increased since the security plan began.

Dana Graber-Ladek of the International Organization for Migration said internal displacement had escalated since the troop buildup began. The increase is partly because of people fleeing military offensives, and partly because of better record-keeping by the Ministry for Displacement and Migration, Graber-Ladek said.

But 63% of those displaced this year said they had moved because of threats to their security, according to the International Organization for Migration. One-fourth said they were forced from their homes.

The organization also said that 69% of newly displaced Iraqis had left homes in Baghdad, a sign that sectarian cleansing continues in the capital. These people had either moved to new neighborhoods in the capital or had left Baghdad altogether.

“Basically, Iraqis are fleeing because they flee for their lives,” Graber-Ladek said. “As long as the violence continues, displacement will continue.”

Opposition in U.S.Bush faces heightened opposition to the war even within his own party. That opposition probably will increase unless the report given to Congress offers a positive picture that remains elusive to most in Iraq.

But no matter how much of a letdown Iraqis say the troop buildup has been, many here say withdrawing U.S. forces would make things worse. In areas where they are present, at least, violence is at bay, most Iraqis said.

For the troops, the fear is that any gains will be lost if there is an abrupt pullout.

“As a professional soldier, you want to make sure that when you walk away, all the blood, sweat and tears you and your soldiers put in achieved something,” said Capt. Jonathan Fursman, a company commander with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, in south Baghdad’s volatile Dora neighborhood, a Sunni area. “It may be the right time for the American people, but in no shape or form is it the right time for the Iraqi people.” ++

Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes in Washington and Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad and special correspondents in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Secret Report
Corruption is “Norm” Within Iraqi Government
David Corn, The Nation via ICH
08/31/07

As Congress prepares to receive reports on Iraq from General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and readies for a debate on George W. Bush’s latest funding request of $50 billion for the Iraq war, the performance of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has become a central and contentious issue. But according to the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki’s government is “not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws,” the report says, and, perhaps worse, the report notes that Maliki’s office has impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government.

The draft–over 70 pages long–was obtained by The Nation, and it reviews the work (or attempted work) of the Commission on Public Integrity (CPI), an independent Iraqi institution, and other anticorruption agencies within the Iraqi government. Labeled “SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED/Not for distribution to personnel outside of the US Embassy in Baghdad,” the study details a situation in which there is little, if any, prosecution of government theft and sleaze. Moreover, it concludes that corruption is “the norm in many ministries.”

The report depicts the Iraqi government as riddled with corruption and criminals-and beyond the reach of anticorruption investigators. It also maintains that the extensive corruption within the Iraqi government has strategic consequences by decreasing public support for the U.S.-backed government and by providing a source of funding for Iraqi insurgents and militias.

The report, which was drafted by a team of U.S. embassy officials, surveys the various Iraqi ministries. “The Ministry of Interior is seen by Iraqis as untouchable by the anticorruption enforcement infrastructure of Iraq,” it says. “Corruption investigations in Ministry of Defense are judged to be ineffectual.” The study reports that the Ministry of Trade is “widely recognized as a troubled ministry” and that of 196 corruption complaints involving this ministry merely eight have made it to court, with only one person convicted.

The Ministry of Health, according to the report, “is a sore point; corruption is actually affecting its ability to deliver services and threatens the support of the government.” Investigations involving the Ministry of Oil have been manipulated, the study says, and the “CPI and the [Inspector General of the ministry] are completely ill-equipped to handle oil theft cases.” There is no accurate accounting of oil production and transportation within the ministry, the report explains, because organized crime groups are stealing oil “for the benefit of militias/insurgents, corrupt public officials and foreign buyers.”

The list goes on: “Anticorruption cases concerning the Ministry of Education have been particularly ineffective….[T]he Ministry of Water Resources…is effectively out of the anticorruption fight with little to no apparent effort in trying to combat fraud….[T]he Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs is hostile to the prosecution of corruption cases. Militia support from [Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr] has effectively made corruption in the Ministry of Transportation wholesale according to investigators and immune from prosecution.” Several ministries, according to the study, are “so controlled by criminal gangs or militias” that it is impossible for corruption investigators “to operate within [them] absent a tactical [security] force protecting the investigator.”

The Ministry of the Interior, which has been a stronghold of Shia militias, stands out in the report. The study’s authors say that “groups within MOI function similarly to a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) in the classic sense. MOI is a ‘legal enterprise’ which has been co-opted by organized criminals who act through the ‘legal enterprise’ to commit crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, bribery, etc.” This is like saying the mob is running the police department. The report notes, “currently 426 investigations are hung up awaiting responses for documents belonging to MOI which routinely are ignored.” It cites an episode during which a CPI officer discovered two eyewitnesses to the October 2006 murder of Amer al-Hashima, the brother of the vice president, but the CPI investigator would not identify the eyewitnesses to the Minister of the Interior out of fear he and they would be assassinated. (It seemed that the killers were linked to the Interior Ministry.) The report adds, “CPI investigators assigned to MOI investigations have unanimously expressed their fear of being assassinated should they aggressively pursue their duties at MOI. Thus when the head of MOI intelligence recently personally visited the Commissioner of CPI…to end investigations of [an] MOI contract, there was a clear sense of concern within the agency.”

Over at the Defense Ministry, the report notes, there has been a “shocking lack of concern” about the apparent theft of $850 million from the Iraqi military’s procurement budget. “In some cases,” the report says, “American advisors working for US [Department of Defense] have interceded to remove [Iraqi] suspects from investigations or custody.” Of 455 corruption investigations at the Defense Ministry, only 15 have reached the trial stage. A mere four investigators are assigned to investigating corruption in the department. And at the Ministry of Trade, “criminal gangs” divide the spoils, with one handling grain theft, another stealing transportation assets.

Part of the problem, according to the report, is Maliki’s office: “The Prime Minister’s Office has demonstrated an open hostility” to independent corruption investigations. His government has withheld resources from the CPI, the report says, and “there have been a number of identified cases where government and political pressure has been applied to change the outcome of investigations and prosecutions in favor of members of the Shia Alliance”-which includes Maliki’s Dawa party.

The report’s authors note that the man Maliki appointed as his anticorruption adviser–Adel Muhsien Abdulla al-Quza’alee–has said that independent agencies, like the CPI, should be under the control of Maliki. According to the report, “Adel has in the presence of American advisors pressed the Commissioner of CPI to withdraw cases referred to court.” These cases involved defendants who were members of the Shia Alliance. (Adel has also, according to the report, “steadfastly refused to submit his financial disclosure form.”) And Maliki’s office, the report says, has tried to “force out the entire leadership of CPI to replace them with political appointees”–which would be tantamount to a death sentence for the CPI officials. They now live in the Green Zone. Were they to lose their CPI jobs, they would have to move out of the protected zone and would be at the mercy of the insurgents, militias, and crime gangs “who are [the] subjects of their investigations.”

Maliki has also protected corrupt officials by reinstating a law that prevents the prosecution of a government official without the permission of the minister of the relevant agency. According to a memo drafted in March by the U.S. embassy’s anticorruption working group-a memo first disclosed by The Washington Post–between September 2006 and February 2007, ministers used this law to block the prosecutions of 48 corruption cases involving a total of $35 million. Many other cases at this time were in the process of being stalled in the same manner. The stonewalled probes included one case in which Oil Ministry employees rigged bids for $2.5 million in equipment and another in which ministry personnel stole 33 trucks of petroleum.

And in another memo obtained by The Nation–marked “Secret and Confidential”-Maliki’s office earlier this year ordered the Commission on Public Integrity not to forward any case to the courts involving the president of Iraq, the prime minister of Iraq, or any current or past ministers without first obtaining Maliki’s consent. According to the U.S. embassy report on the anticorruption efforts, the government’s hostility to the CPI has gone so far that for a time the CPI link on the official Iraqi government web site directed visitors to a pornographic site.

In assessing the Commission on Public Integrity, the embassy report notes that the CPI lacks sufficient staff and funding to be effective. The watchdog outfit has only 120 investigators to cover 34 ministries and agencies. And these investigators, the report notes, “are closer to clerks processing paperwork rather than investigators solving crimes.” The CPI, according to the report, “is currently more of a passive rather than a true investigatory agency. Though legally empowered to conduct investigations, the combined security situation and the violent character of the criminal elements within the ministries make investigation of corruption too hazardous.”

CPI staffers have been “accosted by armed gangs within ministry headquarters and denied access to officials and records.” They and their families are routinely threatened. Some sleep in their office in the Green Zone. In December 2006, a sniper positioned on top of an Iraqi government building in the Green Zone fired three shots at CPI headquarters. Twelve CPI personnel have been murdered in the line of duty. The CPI, according to the report, “has resorted to arming people hired for janitorial and maintenance duty.”

Radhi al-Radhi, a former judge who was tortured and imprisoned during Saddam Hussein’s regime and who heads the CPI, has been forced to live in a safe house with one of his chief investigators, according to an associate of Radhi who asked not to be identified. Radhi has worked with Stuart Bowen Jr., the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, who investigates fraud and waste involving U.S. officials and contractors. His targets have included former Defense Minister Hazem Shalaan and former Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae. And Radhi himself has become a target of accusations. A year ago, Maliki’s office sent a letter to Radhi suggesting that the CPI could not account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses and that Radhi might be corrupt. But, according to the US embassy report, a subsequent audit of the CPI was “glowing.” In July, the Iraqi parliament considered a motion of no confidence in Radhi-a move widely interpreted as retaliation for his pursuit of corrupt officials. But the legislators put off a vote on the resolution. In late August, Radhi came to the United States. He is considering remaining here, according to an associate.

Corruption, the report says, is “one of the major hurdles the Iraqi government must overcome if it is to survive as a stable and independent entity.” Without a vigorous anticorruption effort, the report’s authors assert, the current Iraqi government “is likely to loose [sic] the support of its people.” And, they write, continuing corruption “will likely fund the violent groups that our troops are likely to face.” Yet, according to the report, the U.S. embassy is providing “uncertain” resources for anticorruption programs. “It’s a farce,” says a U.S. embassy employee. “There is a budget of zero [within the embassy] to fight corruption. No one ever asked for this report to be written. And it was shit-canned. Who the hell would want to release it? It should infuriate the families of the soldiers and those who are fighting in Iraq supposedly to give Maliki’s government a chance.”

Beating back corruption is not one of the 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for Iraq and the Maliki government. But this hard-hitting report-you can practically see the authors pulling out their hair-makes a powerful though implicit case that it ought to be. The study is a damning indictment: widespread corruption within the Iraqi government undermines and discredits the U.S. mission in Iraq. And the Bush administration is doing little to stop it. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Entry Filed under: Political Waves

Crackpottery in Mesopotamia

September 4th, 2007

Dubby took a little foray into the heart of his personal delusion over the holiday, and I can’t imagine that it wasn’t staged for his pleasure right down to the tiniest detail — one soldier was brave enough to give him a hint of reality, but our Decider was told, when he asked about morale, that it was “very high.” Hoo-ah!

It was reported that he visited a “dusty military base in the heart of Anbar province, 120 miles west of Baghdad” … “traveling here secretly to assess the war before a showdown with Congress.” And it looks like he “assessed” his little heart out, perhaps “changing course” just a bit [and did I tell you about the barely-used bridge I have for sale?] Come on, my reality-driven friends — Bush assessing anything in this surprise “drop in” is like taking a tour of New Orleans by being shuttled directly to the French Quarter for a nice, well presented etouffee wi