The NY Times has posted a searchable copy of the report of the Iraq reconstruction experience.

The draft of a federal report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is now on line and searchable. Here it is.

Why was the invasion of Iraq a major mistake?

Here is a discussion of what was wrong with invading Iraq. Nothing significant has changed since this was earlier written.

Wall Street Journal reports deal to get US out of Iraq

The Bush administration is working to establish the last elements of the Bush 43 Legacy. From the front page of today's Wall Street Journal:

U.S., Iraq Are Said to Have Set
Withdrawal Timetable
By GINA CHON and YOCHI J. DREAZEN
August 21, 2008; Page A1

BAGHDAD -- U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal of combat troops from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the goal date by which U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, American troops will be leaving cities, towns and other population centers by the summer of 2009, living in bases outside of those areas, according to the draft. [Snip]

Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, cautioned that the deal was not yet complete. "Discussions are ongoing with the Iraqis to finalize a bilateral agreement," he said. "We are working to complete the agreement, but it is not final yet."

President George W. Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers. [Snip]

The security deal came together after the Bush administration made concessions on several long-held positions. The White House softened its stance over a pullout date after it became clear that Mr. Maliki was adamant that the agreement contain at least a vague timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.

The administration also dropped its insistence that American contractors remain immune from Iraqi law. Western contractors -- especially those working for Blackwater, which is under investigation for a deadly shooting last year -- are deeply unpopular in Iraq.

One of the last remaining roadblocks had been whether U.S. military personnel would enjoy immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. Mr. Humood, Iraq's chief negotiator on the agreement, said joint committees of U.S. and Iraqi officials will be formed to resolve such issues when cases arise.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander here, said in an interview that the U.S. already was focusing on turning control of the country over to Iraqis.

"We have to let go, and we're not reluctant to do that. And the Iraqis are not reluctant to take control," Gen. Petraeus said.

This agreement, if finalized, sets a time line for American troop withdrawal - first from the cities by 2009 and then getting American combat troops out of Iraq by 2011. Bush has, of course, adamantly opposed time lines for withdrawal. Yet here we get the Wall Street Journal reporting that the Bush administration has all but agreed to time lines for withdrawal while giving up legal immunity in Iraq for contractors and all but giving up legal immunity in Iraq for US military personnel. In short, the WSJ is reporting that the Bush administration has all but accepted the proposals made by Barack Obama and loudly decried by McCain and the entire right wing PR noise machine.

Spencer Ackerman points out:

That plan is right out of the Center for American Progress' "Strategic Redeployment" paper of 2005 -- get out of the cities, get less visible, move from a combat mission to a training mission, and then go. The left won the Iraq debate. Period.

Expect Republican spin to approach that of an Islamic Dervish. How does McCain spin this action reported right before his convention? He was just publicized as telling the VFW:

“Both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference — the great difference — is that I intend to win it first.”

Now, suddenly, the Bush administration is reported as accepting the position of al Malaki and of Barak Obama and agreeing to time lines for pulling the American military out of Iraq.

Did the Bush administration somehow win the occupation of Iraq and but has not yet bothered to tell McCain, the Republican nominee for President, that American military action in Iraq is no longer needed? Or worse, did they tell Obama America has won in Iraq while letting McCain go out on the limb then saw it off after him? The McCain narrative for the Iraq occupation is now in tatters.

Kevin Drum offers some thoughts on the political effects of this WSJ report here in the US:

1. This is very good news for Democrats. It means that our eventual withdrawal from Iraq will not only be a bipartisan action, it will have been the creation of a Republican president. This is going to make it almost impossible for conservatives to ramp up any kind of serious stab-in-the-back narrative against anti-war liberals.


2. Basic Obama spin: "I'm glad to see that President Bush has finally come around to my view etc. etc." This ought to be a big win for him: he visits Iraq, meets with Nouri al-Maliki, gets Maliki's endorsement for a near-term troop withdrawal, and then gets to applaud as President Bush signs on.


3. Looking ahead, it's also a big win for Obama if he wins in November. Instead of a bruising congressional battle on withdrawal starting in January, he can just continue along the path Bush has set out. At most he'll tweak it a bit, which he can do on his own and without expending a lot of political capital.


4. This is also good news for Dems in conservative districts, since it eliminates a campaign issue that potentially hurts them.


5. Basic McCain spin: "It's good news that Iraq is now secure enough that we can envision bringing our troops home etc. etc." He'll also talk about how the surge deserves all the credit and he'll claim that 2011 is a totally different thing than Obama's plan to withdraw by 2010. This isn't great spin, but it's probably the best he's got.


6. Outside of spin alley, the news for McCain is mixed. The agreement takes Iraq largely off the table as a partisan campaign issue, which might be good (the public supports withdrawal, so it's been an Achilles heel for him) or might be bad (it takes the spotlight off foreign affairs, which he considers his strong suit). Overall, though, it's got to be a negative for a guy who just a few months ago was talking about staying in Iraq for a hundred years.


7. I wonder what McCain's initial reaction to this is going to be? When rumors of an agreement like this were being floated last month, he insisted that he had talked to Maliki personally and he knew that Maliki didn't really want a timetable for withdrawal. Looks like he was wrong about that. Is he going to stick to that line, or, like Jerry Brown after Prop 13 passed in 1978, is he suddenly going to become withdrawal's greatest advocate?

Kevin's first point is extremely important. The widely anticipated right-wing cries that Iraq was lost because of some kind of stab-in-the-back by anti-war liberals is very unlikely to get traction now. Cries of "Who lost Iraq?" will be met by "Bush got us out."

As for Kevin's seventh point, I can't see McCain going into the Republican National Convention on Sept 1 without having addressed this, so we have eleven days to see his response.

As for the effects of this report in Iraq itself, Juan Cole has not yet addressed it, nor has anyone else who might be credible. We'll have to wait to find that out. But it is clear that, contrary to the spin out of the White House and out of Centcom headquarters, al Maliki has been serious all along about demanding an early withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. He is in the process of consolidating his power and will dispense with American combat troops at the earliest possible moment.

One other thought is how this will effect the US military. Unfortunately, it appears that it will only slowly free up troops to transfer into the war in Afghanistan - the war Bush didn't want to begin with and has ignored in order to fight and occupy Iraq. As combat troops are withdrawn from Iraq, much of the US military equipment there will be turned over to the Iraqis. Most of it is not worth the cost of shipping it back to the US or on to Afghanistan. The remaining US troops will be there primarily to maintain that equipment. Since that accounts for much of the Army's and Marine Corps' equipment, all of that will have to be replaced, and a good deal more sent to Afghanistan. In addition, the costs of retraining and reequipping the hollowed-out military Bush has left for his successor are going to be tremendous, so all military expenses will remain high, not counting the benefits given to casualties and veterans. The very high costs of the invasion of Iraq are, of course, lives and treasure thrown down a rat hole for no known payoff.

All of this speculation is dependent on the accuracy of the WSJ article. There is always the possibility that the Bush administration and al Maliki will quickly come out and deny the whole story and the Wall Street Journal will publish a "Whoops! We goofed." story next week. Somehow that seems to most unlikely possibility of them all.

Beyond the revamping of both the Republican and Democratic narratives for the national security issue in the run up to the Presidential election, this pretty much establishes the Bush Presidential Legacy. He stole the 2000 election in Florida, allowed 9/11 to happen, then used the events of 9/11 as permission to attack Iraq just because he wanted to attack Iraq even before becoming President. Since then he has spent more days on vacation in Crawford, TX than any prior President. He has also spent more time goofing off at Camp David than any prior President. Now, five years later he is acting to close out the war that will always remain known as "Bush's War." There is no known gain from Bush's War whatsoever.

Hell of a rotten legacy, isn't it?

---

Addendum 1:44 pm CDT
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has published an Associated Press news story that confirms the WSJ story.

A Google search of "Iraqi and U.S. negotiators have completed" shows that the AP story has been widely published today. That adds some credibility to the story itself. It doesn't show who released it or why, but it suggests that there might be some basis of truth to the story.

Moyer interviews Bacevich on the American security complex and its' failed Iraq war

Tonight at 9:00 pm Bill Moyers will air an interview with Col. Bacevich about the nature of the Imperial Presidency, the nature of the security state which has grown up since WW II, Congress' abdication of control and its new job as a perpetual job machine for Congress persons, and the way our security state has failed to stop 9/11 and failed to properly plan and organize the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Here is a short excerpt from that hour-long interview:



If this doesn't leave you thinking, then give it up. You have nothing to think with.


[H/T to Talking Points Memo.]

---

Addendum 8/16/2008 1:11 pm CDT
Here is a link to the full transcript of the show "The Imperial Presidency" which aired last night.

Here is a video of the entire show shown last night.

This is Bacevich's newest book "The Limits of Power" which is scheduled for release next Tuesday, August 19, 2008.

This is Barnes & Noble's synopsis of the book:

The Limits of Power identifies a profound triple crisis facing America:

• the economy, in remarkable disarray, can no longer be fixed by relying on expansion abroad;
• the government, transformed by an imperial presidency, is a democracy in form only;
• U.S. involvement in endless wars, driven by a deep infatuation with military power, has been a catastrophe for the body politic.

These pressing problems threaten all of us, Republicans and Democrats. If the nation is to solve its predicament, it will need the revival of a distinctly American approach: the neglected tradition of realism.

Andrew J. Bacevich, uniquely respected across the political spectrum, offers a historical perspective on the illusions that have governed American policy since 1945. The realism he proposes includes respect for power and its limits; sensitivity to unintended consequences; aversion to claims of exceptionalism; skepticism of easy solutions, especially those involving force; and a conviction that the books will have to balance. Only a return to such principles, Bacevich argues, can provide common ground for fixing America’s urgent problems before the damage becomes irreparable.
[I have added the emphasis and the bullet points. Editor WTF-o]

Libertarian solution to Iraq economy has failed (of course)

One of the goals of the invasion of Iraq was to shrink the government and let the Iraqis create a free enterprise paradise that would be a beacon to the rest of the Middle East. It's success would cause envy in the populations of the other Middle Eastern nations so that they would replace their authoritarian governments and create thriving democracies and free enterprise utopias. Remember that? That's why Jerry Bremer was staffing his Coalition Provisional Authority with his kiddie corps recruited for their ideology rather than their expertise through the American Enterprise Institute.

To implement all this, Bremer also disbanded the Iraqi Army, led the deBathification of the civil service, and canceled payment of all government pensions to retirees and their survivors. This essentially turned what remained of the government over to the Shiite parties, which they staffed with politicians and inexperienced relatives, all advised by Bremer's kiddie corps. Bremer also removed protective tariffs and import controls to allow cheap goods from nations such as China to enter Iraq, effectively wiping out what was left of the Iraqi free market. And of course, the previously socialized government of Iraq left no significant banking industry behind it.

The result was massive unemployment, with the only legal sources of employment being the government and the U.S. military. The population generally had no income, and the Sunnis were blocked from employment in the government by the Shiites. When the Iraqis looked around to find out who was to blame for the disaster that had befallen them, the answer was obvious. The American military was occupying Iraq and was the cause of all the disaster.

Combine this awareness with the fact that the American military had not taken control of the weapons left over from the Saddam military and the result was a no-brainer. Iraqis had to conduct an insurgency to remove the source of the problem. Since the Shiites had control of the government and support from their fellow Shiites in Iran and the Kurds were protected by the Americans and were already well-along in building an independent Kurdistan, the Sunnis were the logical insurgents. They were the group facing starvation and seeing no hope.

The Libertarian "solution" to the situation in Iraq (created in the first place by the idiotic invasion of Iraq pushed by the White House, the NeoConservatives, FOX News, and conservatives such as Bill Kristol to somehow solve earlier problems with Iraq) was unrealistic to begin with and has disastrously failed. That's the story told in the article Iraq Private Sector Falters; Rolls of Government Soar in the New York Times.

BAGHDAD — Hampered by years of violence, a decimated infrastructure, a lack of foreign investors and a flood of imports that undercut local businesses, Iraq’s private sector, particularly its small non-oil economy, has so far failed to flourish as its American patrons had hoped.

In its absence, the Iraqi government has been sustaining the economy the way it always has: by putting citizens on its payroll. Since 2005, according to federal budgets, the number of government employees has nearly doubled, to 2.3 million from 1.2 million.

The impetus is not only economic: In exchange for abandoning the insurgency that plunged the nation into civil war, many of the 100,000 members of civilian patrols known broadly as the Awakening movement have been promised jobs in the security forces or in reconstruction, though many Sunni Muslim members complain it is not happening quickly enough.

Is it any wonder that the current government of Iraq is demanding that the American government set an early fixed timetable for withdrawal of the military? The first step in the cure of any illness is to eliminate the source.

The American military in Iraq, besides the many other flaws it has for Iraqis, is the vector that has carried the disease of Libertarianism to ravage their country.

Desperate Army now promoting unqualified soldiers

Salon presents an article that describes the hollowed-out Army that Bush is passing on to the next President. Go read Strained by war, U.S. Army promotes unqualified soldiers.

The Army did the same thing in Vietnam. Solders entered Basic Training as Privates (E-1) and were automatically promoted to Private (E-2) upon graduation from Basic. The top 10% coming out of Basic were sent to Leadership Academy where most were promoted to PFC (E-3), and then to corporal (E-4) upon graduation. Except that the top 10% of Leadership Academy were promoted to Sergeant (E-5) upon graduation. The first time this new Sergeants were ever assigned to a company they were already wearing the three stripes of a sergeant.

At the same time they lowered the time for Second Lieutenants to be promoted to First Lieutenant from 18 months in the Army to 12 months, and shortly thereafter they lowered the time in grade as First Lieutenant to Captain from two years to one year. That means entry level Second Lieutenants were being promoted to Captain with two years total service. We called Captain's bars the second year attendance bars.

Previously promotion from entry as Second Lieutenant to Captain had taken about seven years. Since most people take at least three years in a job to become adequately proficient at it, these were people who were being thrown into combat without adequate training to keep themselves or their men alive and functioning.

Our local National Guard Artillery Battalion was reorganized as an Infantry Battalion three years ago and sent to Iraq. They became a marginal Infantry unit with no experienced Infantry leaders, while losing all the highly technical skills that had made them a very good Artillery Battalion.

This an Army that is losing effectiveness and flexibility rapidly. It's what is meant by a "hollowed out Army." The untrained and inexperienced personnel working at jobs that are over their heads are problems that are even more important than equipment shortages.

Gen. Rick Sanchez also slams Bush as a "leader"

The question I have repeatedly ask is why Bush invaded Iraq, why he refuses to draw down the number of troops in what is clearly a war that has no benefit for America or Iraq and what it means to win there. Most of us blow off the ridiculous talking point from the administration that the reason we are there is to bring democracy to Iraq in the heart of the Middle East.

It appears logical to most of us that such a goal is unattainable. But a quote from Bush reported by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez strongly suggests the we should take the administration at their word. Bush really does take the "Bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East seriously. The Washington Post has reported this quote from Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez in his new memoir that clarifies all of it:

Getting lost in the media furor over McClellan's memoir is the new autobiography of retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the onetime commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, who is scathing in his assessment that the Bush administration "led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions."

Among the anecdotes in "Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story" is an arresting portrait of Bush after four contractors were killed in Fallujah in 2004, triggering a fierce U.S. response that was reportedly egged on by the president.

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk:

"Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying. "If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

A White House spokesman had no comment.

[h\t Laura Rozen at War & Piece.]

Any good management consultant will tell you that when you see an organization in disarray - as the U.S. government clearly has been since 2001 - the first place you look for a cause is at the person at the very top.

Bush's confused pep talk demonstrates that Bush has no clue how to command troops or be a leader of any effectiveness.

---

So what does this tell us about why Bush wanted the Iraq invasion and occupation, and why he refuses to pull troops out when it is clear that they are fighting and dying for no American purpose?

What Sanchez states Bush said in his pep talk is very revealing. It clearly displays what Bush thinks the invasion and occupation of Iraq is all about.

While the White House sold the war and occupation as going after Saddam's WMD's, Bush's repeated claims that this is a war for Democracy strongly suggests that he seriously believed and probably still does believe that he is taking Democracy to the Middle East. Bush thought - and apparently still thinks - that he could turn Iraq into a demonstration project that would reform the Middle East. Not a new thought, I know, but I think that was Bush's primary reason for invading Iraq, not WMD's. But more than that, his reference to the lesson from Vietnam shows how he thinks it is going to work.

Bush's statement shows that he is a right-wing true believer who thinks America lost Vietnam because of a lack of will. He thinks that America lost in Vietnam because we did not do everything necessary to win and instead simply got tired and impatient and quit.

This is the reverse of what most of us think. Most of us think that Vietnam was unwinnable and had no purpose, so America decided that the killing and the cost was unnecessary and we left. But since Bush believed (and apparently still believes) that the lesson of Vietnam was to pull out all the stops, not allow any consideration of human rights to deter us and to never quit. A key part of that is to do whatever it takes to win - abu Ghraib and Gitmo, anyone? If we pull out all the stops, do whatever is required to win in Iraq and don't leave until we win, then we will win there. And what does he think it means to win? That's why he invaded Iraq in the first place. He intends to bring democracy to Iraq and to the Middle East. Bush thinks that the Maliki government which America installed is the democracy we are fighting for. Flawed, corrupt, but still democracy.

It explains the often repeated story about Bush believing that history will vindicate him. Bush considers himself to be the embodiment of the "will to win" and the refusal to "lose" Iraq by leaving. Bush appears to define "winning" in Iraq as creating a sustainable democracy there. Bush is fighting as very hard to influence America to stay the course even after he leaves office, and at teh same time do whatever it takes to "win". Bush sees the current period as merely being a test of America's will to win. So he is also doing everything possible to tie the hands of the next President so that he cannot pull out of Iraq either.

All of that is states or implied in the confused pep talk that Lt. Gen Sanchez has reported.

America's road to Iraq and beyond

Want to know how the U.S. got into the current mess in Iraq? Mark Kleiman quotes Andrew Bacevich:

Iraq has not been kind to the reputation of senior U.S. commanders. For a brief moment in the early '90s, for example, H. Norman Schwarzkopf seemed a likely candidate to join the ranks of history's Great Captains. No more: Schwarzkopf's failure to finish off an adversary of remarkable ineptitude left Saddam Hussein in power, his Republican Guard largely intact, and Iraqi Kurds and Shia under Saddam's boot. One result was a large, permanent, and problematic U.S. military presence to keep Saddam in his "box." Once seen as a stupendous victory, Operation Desert Storm deserves to be enshrined as a giant step down the nation's road to Persian Gulf perdition.

In 2003, General Tommy Franks set out to clean up Stormin' Norman's mess. Although Franks has modestly described the ensuing invasion of Iraq as "unequaled in its excellence by anything in the annals of war," future generations are unlikely to sustain that judgment. When it came to leaving a tangle of loose ends, Franks made Schwarzkopf look like a piker. His niche in history will always be alongside Bremer and George Tenet, fellow recipients of the Medal of Freedom--the Three Stooges who labored mightily to convert a small, unnecessary war into an epic debacle.

After Franks came the team of John Abizaid and Ricardo Sanchez (and, later, George Casey). These earnest and no doubt well-meaning men inherited a difficult situation and gave it their all, expending lives and money with abandon. Despite much huffing and puffing about "progress" and "turning points," they achieved negligible results: Iraq slowly descended toward chaos.

Petraeus is now engaged in an effort to slow and reverse that descent. Although the deluded and disingenuous may persist in pretending otherwise, his mission is not to "win" the Iraq war. Coalition forces in Iraq are not fighting to achieve victory. Their purpose is far more modest. According to Petraeus himself, U.S. troops and their allies are "buying time for Iraqis to reconcile." President Bush and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates have explicitly endorsed this new strategy, but history will remember Petraeus as its principal architect. To avoid the fate of his hapless predecessors, Petraeus must show that his strategy of buying-time-to-reconcile can produce tangible results. Yet an exploration of what the buying-time strategy actually means reveals that the prospects of its success are exceedingly slim. The cult of Petraeus exists not because the general has figured out the war but because hiding behind the general allows the Bush administration to postpone the day when it must reckon with the consequences of its abject failure in Iraq.
[Emphasis added]

This is the best thumbnail description of how the U.S. got into Iraq that I have seen.

Also, if you have read any of my posts on "winning in Iraq" you will note that I keep asking what it means for the U.S. to win. As near as I can see, there is no goal in Iraq beyond simply keeping U.S. troops there until it has ceased to be Bush's problem and becomes someone else's.

General Petraeus strikes me as the most obviously political General in the American Army since Douglas MacArthur. He appears to be building his reputation towards a run for President on the Republican ticket, much as MacArthur intended to do after Korea. If that's the case, then Petreaus is going to have to kick the Iraq can down the road to someone else who will have to take the blame for the American failure there. Has his elevation to Centcom Commander achieved that? That's an open question.

But Petreaus's fate is a minor issue compared to what will happen in Iraq. That's the big open question.

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So who is Andrew Bacevich? Here is a biography found at the bottom of the document from which the above quote was taken.

Bacevich graduated from West Point in 1969 and served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Afterwards he held posts in Germany, the United States, and the Persian Gulf up to his retirement from the service with the rank of Colonel in the early 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998.

On May 13, 2007, Bacevich's son, also named Andrew J. Bacevich, was killed in action in Iraq, when he was killed by a suicide bomber south of Samarra in Salah Ad Din Province. The younger Bacevich, 27, was a First Lieutenant.[3] He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

Bacevich also has three daughters.[3]

Writings
He has described himself as a "Catholic conservative" and initially published writings in a number of traditionally conservative American political magazines, but recent writings have professed a dissatisfaction with the Bush administration and many of its intellectual supporters on matters of American foreign policy.

Both his recent books are critical of American foreign policy in the post Cold War era, maintaining the United States has developed an overreliance on military power, in contrast to diplomacy, to achieve its foreign policy aims. He also asserts that policymakers in particular, and the American people in general, overestimate the usefulness of military force in foreign affairs. Bacevich believes romanticized images of war in popular culture (especially movies) interact with the lack of actual military service among most of the population to produce in the American people a highly unrealistic, even dangerous notion of what combat and military service is really like. Finally, he attempts to place current policies in historical context, as part of an American tradition going back to the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, a tradition (of an interventionist, militarized foreign policy) which has strong bi-partisan roots. To lay an intellectual foundation for this argument, he cites two influential historians from the 20th century: Charles Beard and William Appleman Williams.

Ultimately, Bacevich eschews the partisanship of current debate about American foreign policy as short-sighted and ahistorical. Instead of blaming only one President (or his advisors) for contemporary policies, Bacevich sees both Republicans and Democrats as sharing responsibility for policies which may not be in the nation's best interest.

In March 2003, at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bacevich wrote in the Los Angeles Times that "if, as seems probable, the effort encounters greater resistance than its architects imagine, our way of life may find itself tested in ways that will make the Vietnam War look like a mere blip in American history."[1]

John Yoo, responsibility for torture, and the Bush legacy

Recently the media took notice again of the torture that most Americans first became aware of from the Abu Ghraib pictures. We then learned that the “interrogation” techniques that were used there had migrated from Guantanamo with the approval of the entire U.S. military command structure right up to at least Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld. Most recently we have actually seen the memo that rogue conservative attorney John Yoo wrote justifying the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” that the rest of the world consider to be violations of human rights.

There are several things to consider, of which I want to address two today. One is whether the attorney who wrote legal opinions justifying the use of torture, John Yoo, is as much of a war criminal as are Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and others. Another is why the Bush administration has been so insistent about using torture in the first place.

Philippe Sands, who wrote the excellent Vanity Fair article The Green Light which described how the Bush administration directly authorized the torture of one particular prisoner at Guantanamo, recently also wrote the following:

In our system of government, lawyers play a crucial role, as gatekeepers of legality and constitutionality. When the lawyers bend, when they fail to exercise independent and professional judgment, and when they become handmaidens to policymakers, they cross a line that raises the possibility of ethics violations and possibly even criminal violations. In “Torture Team,” I describe a conversation I had with a European judge and a European prosecutor. I was told that, under their rules of criminal law, “the lawyer has the same responsibility as the interrogator,” and that, when it comes to torture authorized by a lawyer, “the lawyer who gives such legal advice is not [treated] as an accomplice, it is as though he is the author the act.” Whatever the moralities of the situation, and however much one might agree that the principal responsibility lies with the politicians who ultimately made the decisions—the secretary of defense, the vice president, and the president—the responsibility of the senior lawyers is also there. Dean Edley’s point sits uncomfortably with the underlying rationale of the 1947 judgment in United States v Altstoetter and others.

A few days later, ABC ran a story confirming the direct involvement of the most senior members of the Bush Administration in approving certain decisions on individual interrogation techniques. This was an issue I discussed with Major General Mike Dunlavey. “The Green Light” contains the following exchange:

How high up did [the decision on new tactics] go?, I asked Dunlavey.
‘It must have been all the way to the White House,’ he replied.

On April 9, ABC News reported, in relation to C.I.A. interrogations, that “the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al-Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency.” The dates are not specified.

Two days later, on April 11, President Bush confirmed the account. “Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people”, he told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. “And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.”

These important developments provide important confirmation of the thrust of my piece: that the law was circumvented, that key decisions were made at the top, that the bottom-up theory is false, and that individuals like Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, the staff judge advocate at Guantánamo, were scapegoated. The disappearance of a plausible bottom-up narrative also adds ballast to the evidence showing that the Guantánamo techniques migrated to Iraq and informed events at Abu Ghraib.

Back in early 2006 I wrote about how obvious it was that the responsibility for Abu Ghraib went very high in the military chain of command. The regular military officers carefully courts-martialed low-level individuals, preferably Reservists, as scapegoats to protect those who either directed or intentionally ignored the torture that was occurring in Abu Ghraib. Although the possibility that the White House (Bush and staff) was directly involved wasn’t as obvious then it is now clear that they were not only involved but were actively directing the very techniques used on specific prisoners in many instances.

It has also recently become clear is that just as Bush and Cheney were damned and determined to invade Iraq from day one of the Bush administration, similarly they intended to use torture to interrogate enemies from early on. Did they feel that information they needed was being hidden from them behind the (in their view unreasonable) international human rights laws? Did they feel that they had a unique and justifiable right to violate those international human rights laws? If so, then they were clearly not the first. Most iconically in the twentieth century the interrogators and their bosses in the German Gestapo felt that way, but so did others. As I wrote in May 2007 there is a long history of this kind of thinking. there is a long history of this kind of thinking by military occupiers in foreign lands.

There is an excellent history book called A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954 - 1962 by Alistair Horne which presents the history of the war of national liberation by the Algerian FLN to defeat the French Imperial occupiers. He has several Prefaces, each written for a later edition as he got further information about the Algerian war of national liberation. Just reading them is a real education.

The FLN learned a lot from Ho Chi Minh in Viet Nam, and applied it to their war against the French, since both nations had the same intent - remove the Imperialist occupier. The French kept fighting and kept wondering why the Algerians were fighting them because the French were just there to bring democracy and improve the education and economy of Algeria. The FLN realized early on that they could not defeat the French militarily in a head-to-head battle, so they developed terrorist techniques and went after the Algerian police who were attempting to stabilize Algeria.

The French recognized that they were fighting a war that required effective Intelligence to win, so they made special efforts to gather that Intelligence, using some of the nastiest torture techniques that they had developed. The Algerians responded by increased terrorism that went after civilians, men women and children with no regard for humanity.

Any of this sound familiar? Because after the French left Algeria the Palestinians used techniques developed by the Algerians to go after the Israeli occupiers during the Intifada, and the Israelis used increasingly tough interrogation techniques on the Palestinians to get effective Intelligence in a timely manner. All of this has blended into the current war in Iraq, with the two sides, American and insurgent, each patterning on the appropriate techniques for occupier and occupied developed earlier in Algeria.

Horne presents evidence that shows there is no difference between the rationale and rhetoric of the earlier Imperialist occupiers and the Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza as well as the U.S. in Iraq. The reason our military is fighting terrorists in Iraq is exactly that same as why the French were fighting the Viet Cong in Viet Nam and then later were fighting the terrorists in Algeria. The French were occupiers who did not want to leave and the Occupied wanted them out at any cost. That is similar to Bush's recent statement about there being an American presence in Iraq for the next half century, on a time scale similar to that of our troops in South Korea. That will not happen. We will leave Iraq relatively soon. The cost of staying is way too high.

America is an unwanted occupier in Iraq, and now we even have polls showing that the majority of Iraqis want us out of there immediately if not sooner.

But there is one more really significant similarity. Torture. The U.S. under George W. Bush demands good and timely Intelligence, and they will go to whatever extremes they need to get it. That is the reason for the similarities in the language describing Intelligence gathering techniques that this article started with. [The Nazis also called torture ‘Enhanced Interrogation techniques’, just as the Bush administration does.] But here is Alastair Horne's warning on the use of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques:"

[ from page 18.]

The vile hand of torture; of abuse, and counter-abuse. In the Algerian War what led -- probably more than any other single factor -- to the ultimate defeat of France was the realization, in France and the world at large, that methods of interrogation sere being used that had been condemned under the Nazi Occupation. At the dawn of the new century, the ugly ghosts of torture returned to plague France. In 2001, and eighty-three-year-old former general, Paul Aussaresses, published a book in which he unashamedly, indeed proudly, admitted to having tortured -- in a good cause, he claimed. After a trial which gripped France, the aging General got away with a fine of one hundred thousand franc, on a uniquely worded charge "in the name of respect for the victims."

Because of the slowness of communications in the 1950's and 1960's it took a year or more for the message of abuses perpetuated in Algeria to sink in. Now, with the Internet and al-Jazeera, one set of photos from Abu Ghraib is enough to inflame hatred across the Islamic world against the West, providing an excuse for all the beheadings and atrocities carried out by al-Qaeda. From the Inquisition to the Gestapo and the "Battle of Algiers," history teaches us that, in the production of reliable intelligence, regardless of the moral issue, torture is counter-productive. As a further footnote to my tenet, learned in Algeria, ... torture should never, never, never be resorted to by any Western society.

The testimony of Prefect Tietgen of Algiers - Tietgen had been informed by the Algiers police that they had intelligence of a bomb which could have caused appalling casualties. Could they put a suspect to "the question"? Himself a deportee in World War II, Teitgen ... refused.

...I trembled the whole afternoon. Finally the bomb did not go off. Thank God I was right. Because once you get into the torture business, your lost.... All our so-called civilization is covered with varnish. Scratch it, and underneath you find fear....When you wee the throats of your coplains slit, the varnish disappears."

In America under the heel of Bush, Cheney and the Congressional Conservative Republicans, the varnish is similarly gone.

If Imperialism is defined as “The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nations” it is hard to avoid recognizing that America is acting imperially as an occupying nation in Iraq. America is the occupier in Iraq just as France was also the occupier acting imperially in both Vietnam and in Algeria. The Palestinians clearly identified the Israelis as imperialist occupiers in the West Bank and adopted the same guerrilla techniques of resistance in the Intifada.

Whether the occupying nations in each case recognized their behavior as imperialism is unimportant. The occupied nations (and Palestine) recognized it, and all have used similar methods to force the occupiers out. As one reaction, the occupying nations each, in their fury at being resisted, have applied extreme “enhanced interrogation techniques” just as the Nazis did in WW II.

The public evidence from abu Ghraib is clear now. Abu Ghraib was not the actions of a few, low-level rogue individuals. Abu Ghraib was directed and controlled by the military chain of command all the way up to and including the White House and was approved by George Bush. The torture, or “enhanced interrogation techniques,” were an application of force in common with other occupying armies in the twentieth, including the Germans in France, the French in Vietnam and Algeria, and the Israelis in the West Bank, and in each instance were a direct result of an attempt to use the military to quell resistance to the occupation of a foreign land. It should also be noted that in each case when the occupiers finally did leave the occupied territory, the battle ceased. The "terrorists" DID NOT follow the occupiers home. Which brings us to the question of personal responsibility for the criminal behavior in Iraq.

John Yoo’s memo approving the torture techniques went over the line of merely legally unethical to the point that Yoo himself has become criminally responsible for the violations of international human rights laws that he wrote to justify. Yoo is directly complicit in the crimes committed by the Bush administration, not as an attorney who merely provided legal advice but as a direct participant who did his best to bend the law to the point of breaking to justify that which is clearly criminal. Yoo’s legacy will be joined with that of George Bush, Dick Chaney, Don Rumsfeld and a cast of thousands of other willing criminals.

As for Bush’s legacy, George Bush has famously said that in spite of his deep unpopularity at present, history will revise the evaluation and he will be seen in a much better light by future historians. Perhaps his God has told him so. If so, Bush's God lied.

Since Bush is directly responsible for the invasion of a foreign nation even less justified than the Mexican-American War and for criminally unleashing and directing the same interrogation techniques universally condemned when practiced by the Gestapo and the French, it seems highly unlikely that Bush’s approval by future historians will even reach the extremely low levels of the American President previously considered to be the worst America has ever had, Andrew Johnson. There are similarities between the two presidencies.

Both Andrew Johnson and George Bush have attempted to rule in opposition to the Congress after Congress became cognizant of the disaster that the President was directing. I find it interesting that in Andrew Johnson’s battles with Congress he is described as “Obstinate rather than firm it undoubtedly seemed to him that following counsel and making concessions were a display of weakness.” Sounds a lot like Bush 43.

It is unfortunate that the Democratic leadership of Congress did not see fit to impeach Bush and Cheney. Perhaps the Democratic leadership of Congress felt that they themselves were too complicit in Bush's crimes to pass judgment on him?

The new "McCain Unit" - four more years then success in Iraq

Here is Juan Cole’s comment on McCain's prediction of "success" in Iraq by 2013:

William Lind explains why McCain's fantasy of victory is highly unlikely to be fulfilled. Lind calls Iraq a 'fourth generation war' in which there is no real state capacity on which the US can build, and in which the enemy is shadowy and slips away before conventional forces (as in Basra, where rightwing commentators have mistaken the Mahdi Army's ability to melt away and lie low as a victory for the [non-existent] state). The US really only controls the ground on which its soldiers tread, and that reality may well not change during the next 4 years. If Lind is right, McCain is hanging US policy on a set of ideas out of the 1940s that have no application in Iraq today.

The "McCain unit" is already a public relations bust. It sounds like a timetable to Democrats. It is too far off for most people to take seriously. The beauty of the Friedman unit was that it seemed relatively near, but people could be depended to forget about its last use before it was invoked again. The "McCain unit" will tax the public's patience too much, not to mention their pocket books. His unit probably has a $1 trillion tax bill attached to it all at once. And his unit is too specific, calling for "victory." The Friedman unit was deliberately vague about what exactly would happen in the next six months that was "crucial" for Iraq.

McCain just loves war. Every problem that he can recognize has war as its solution. His solution to the mistaken and overlong war in Iraq is, of course, more war. and if war is not the solution to a problem, then McCain does not view that as a problem the government can deal with. S we get the McCain fantasy that after just one more McCain Unit, or four more years, of war America will find success in Iraq. Of course, other than to declare "Victory" after four more years of struggle. McCain does not say what America will have won, either.

America has nothing to gain in Iraq that is worth the cost. The usual trope is that if the U.S. leaves Iraq then al-Qaeda in Iraq will win, so we have to stay (forever?) but al-Qaeda in Iraq is a foreign-led ragtag group of Sunnis. The Maliki government will brutally destroy any al-Qaeda elements that remain in Iraq within weeks of the departure of U.S. troops. Maliki only permits them to exist as bait to induce the Bush administration and any following Republican administration to keep troops in Iraq and strengthen the hold the Maliki government has on Iraq. Maliki wants to be the new dictator of Iraq, replacing Saddam, and that's all four more years of American troop presence will gain.

The name "McCain" has become a synonym for "clueless."

"Winning" in Iraq - the lesson of al-Radhi

Let's assume for a moment that there actually is some future gain in Iraq for America that is worth the effort. That is, let's assume that there is a possibility of "winning" in Iraq and it is just that we have not been permitted to know what the true goal that constitutes winning is.

The route to such "winning" must include successful reconstruction of Iraq after the destruction we created by invading. That's obvious, right?

For all the so-called "good news" out of Iraq regarding the schools and hospitals that have been rebuilt, nothing has lasted. Why? An Iraqi corruption judge, Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, has explained to Congress in October, 2007 why reconstruction has not worked. Reconstruction has been totally stopped by the corruption of the al Maliki government.

al-Radhi, who is now seeking asylum in the U.S., stated that a whopping $18 billion has been lost to thieves in "nearly every ministry." (That's not the U.S.-provided Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund.) Corruption, he said, is not just getting worse, but has "stopped" reconstruction efforts.

Clearly a logical, rational person who wanted to "win" in Iraq would take rapid action to deal with the corruption that was blocking reconstruction there.

Rather than dealing with the corruption, the Bush administration has practiced the tactic of shooting the messenger. The Bush administration places a higher priority on preventing the American public from learning that Iraq Reconstruction is being blocked by the corruption of the government of al Maliki than it does on winning in Iraq. They appear to view the reputation of al Maliki to be critical to the reputation of the the Bush administration.

Former State Department officials told Congress earlier this week that, though Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the former head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, was able to get access into the U.S., he is not allowed to work and is living hand to mouth. Why has he fallen through the cracks? [Snip]

One of the former officials testified that "a senior State Department official had ordered agency employees not to give al Radhi references or contact him" for help with his asylum.

That might have a lot to do with the trouble that Radhi gave Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the administration. Like pointing out that corruption ran rampant under Maliki and that he'd jiggered the system so that corruption judges could not bring charges against any of his senior officials without his approval -- that was a decree on which Secretary of State Rice refused to pass judgment when she testified late last year. Rice also refused to comment on Radhi's many accusations.

It's clear that the the corruption in Iraq is matched by the corruption of the Bush administration. It's also clear that even if there were something that America could win in Iraq, this administration is making no real effort to do so. The conclusion should be that they have decided that since Iraq is unwinnable, all they want to do is avoid looking like they have failed in Iraq. That's the only reason possible why appearance is more important than success to them. They know success is impossible.

How the Pentagon has controlled the news on Iraq

We know that the TV news and media in general simply hasn't bothered to cover the news of the war of the occupation of Iraq for nearly a year-and-a-half now. But today the New York Times presents the story of how the news since before the invasion of Iraq has been manipulated by the Pentagon to present only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration want the public to hear. It's been a lot more than just Judy Miller at the New York Times.

The debate on Iraq has been one-sided since before there was a war and American occupation there. It's another failure of the American media, one slightly ameliorated by this New York Times report on that failure.

Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the story. He puts it into perspective. The story, while well-documented now, was originally reported in 2003.

Glenn also makes another point that shows the incompetence of the TV political media.

Having just watched more Sunday news shows than a human being should ever have to endure, it is striking -- though unsurprising -- that not a single one saw fit to mention this NYT story demonstrating that these news programs all fed government propaganda to their viewers. That they refuse to comment on this story and will now black it out says as much about what they really are, and what they really do, as the NYT story itself does.

This is just another nail in the coffin of the beltway TV news, added to the disaster of the ABC TV Democratic debate media "gotcha-attack" moderated by Stephanopolous and Gibson.

Add to this the clear preference the news media has shown for John McCain as a Presidential candidate along with their refusal to question his many gaffes and idiocies and it's no wonder that the American public is so uninformed. The media is extremely one-sided, spinning the positives and burying the negatives on those it supports while blowing the negative stories about those they oppose out of all proportion. In addition, the media makes a practice of building meaningless stories that show conflict just to build their own ratings and stoke the egos of the anchors.

It's a good thing we have the internet - for as long as it remains uncontrolled.

The result of the Petreaus hearings

Gen. Petreaus still can't tell us what benefit we get from the occupation of Iraq. That's the key result I have taken from yesterday's Senate hearings. What does the tremendous set of costs of our occupation of Iraq do to benefit America?

Note that McCain, when asked why we remain there, recycles an old Douglas MacArthur quote: "There is no substitute for Victory!" Apparently when the Marine Barracks in Lebanon was blown up killing about 245 Marines, Reagan should have occupied Lebanon or something, but instead he pulled the troops out of Lebanon. And the bad result was .... (crickets can be heard in the silence.)

Democracy Arsenal has a good summary of the results of the hearings. Here are some samples:

1. Petraeus and Crocker refuse to tell us what our long term strategy is in Iraq, holding to the weak excuse that they can't make predictions into the future. But they have no problem making scary predictions into the future about what will happen if we withdraw. Contradiction? We think so.

2. Senator Biden made Crocker admit that the threat from Al Qaeda central along the Afghan-Pakistan border is a higher priority than Al Qaeada in Iraq.

3. John McCain still seems to be confusing his Shi’a and his Sunnis. He seems to have this recurring problem and if he becomes President and does this in some international forum it will be REALLY REALLY bad.

4. Iran is the new Al Qaeda. A large portion of the questioning from Martinez, Lieberman, Graham was based on trying blame Iran from what happened in Basra. But as Senator Jack Reed pointed out the Iranians are actually supporting all of the various Shi’a groups in Iraq, including those in league with the central government.

Go read the summary.

Kevin Drum adds

Obama was able to hit Petraeus and Crocker very hard....He got Petraeus to agree with him that the total elimination of Al Qaeda is an impossible standard for withdrawal. Next he goes after Crocker's points about Iranian influence, pointing out that both Iran and Al Qaeda are in Iraq because we invaded and that we can not expect to eliminate Iranian involvement.

Then came the hammer. Obama pointed out that if the definition of success is put so high - no Al Qaeda, no Iranian influence, a prosperous diverse democracy we will be there forever. He then points out that we still, after 8 hours of testimony, have no definition of success....Crocker's weak response its "hard and complicated."

Essentially the White House and the American Republican Party are living in a fantasy world, and Gen. Petreaus and Crocker, as their designated men on the ground who are aware of the real facts (and who don't appear to be confusing conservative ideology for facts the way Jerry Bremer did when he headed the Coalition Provisional Government) refuse to contradict the fantastists and liars they work for.

The lesson of the hearings was that there is no possibility that the Bush administration will take any actions to get America out of the quagmire and military morass they have created in Iraq.

---

Addendum 1:24 PM
dday at Hullabaloo points out that Sen. Biden forced Amb. Crocker to admit that Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is a more important problem for America than Iraq is. Joe Biden also made the point that Congressional permission was required before America makes any long-term commitment to Iraq.

Amb. Crocker thought Maliki was going to move slowly in Basra

Ambassador Crocker learned March 21 that Maliki was going to use troops in Basra to bring order to the city, but he thought the plan was to methodically build up troops and gradually increase operations against the various Shiite militias and criminal gangs who have controlled it since the British pulled back from the city. What actually happened was that PM Maliki headed south and as the troops were still arriving he impulsively attacked. The government troops were not yet prepared for the attack they made, and did not expect the resistance they met. So the attack itself was not a surprise to American officials in Iraq, but the way it was done was not what was expected. According to Michale Gordon at the New York Times here is what happened:

The operation indicates that the Iraqi military can quickly organize and deploy forces over considerable distances. Two Iraqi C-130s and several Iraqi helicopters were also involved in the operation, an important step for a military that is still struggling to develop an air combat ability.

But interviews with a wide range of American and military officials also suggest that Mr. Maliki overestimated his military’s abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance. The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or that of his most powerful allies, the American and British military, time to prepare.

“He went in with a stick and he poked a hornet’s nest, and the resistance he got was a little bit more than he bargained for,” said one official in the multinational force in Baghdad who requested anonymity. “They went in with 70 percent of a plan. Sometimes that’s enough. This time it wasn’t.”

As the Iraqi military and civilian casualties grew and the Iraqi planning appeared to be little more than an improvisation, the United States mounted an intensive military and political effort to try to turn around the situation, according to accounts by Mr. Crocker and several American military officials in Baghdad and Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two senior American military officers — a member of the Navy Seals and a Marine major general — were sent to Basra to help coordinate the Iraqi planning, the military officials said. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were pressed into service as combat advisers while air controllers were positioned to call in airstrikes on behalf of beleaguered Iraqi units. American transport planes joined the Iraqis in ferrying supplies to Iraqi troops.

The whole operation brings into question the effectiveness of the Maliki government. News reports suggest that this brings into sharp question how well the Iraqi Army is trained. It might. The most difficult and time-consuming training is of mid-level leaders and staff members, and this doesn't look like they performed well. But even well-trained mid-level leaders would be overridden by an impulsive commander who wanted to get everything over with quickly. I'd say that the failed operation should first be blamed on Maliki and top commanders before impugning the training and experience of mid-level commanders and staffers. When the commanders make incompetent decisions, it is hard to say how well the subordinates are performing.

The other question that comes into view is what can the American occupiers of Iraq do that is of any value to America? It is clear that any quick departure by U.S. troops will very probably mean the Maliki government disappears. The very weakness of that government is a pressure on the U.S. to keep troops in Iraq.

But then you have to ask why? What do we get out of staying in Iraq beyond protecting an incompetent government that most Iraqis don't support? Aren't we really just enabling slow, lengthy chaos with no resolution in sight in order to prevent rapid chaos that will rapidly be resolved by the parties directly involved?

Battle for Basra - worse for Maliki than we thought

Kevin Drum points to reports that many of Maliki's troops refused to fire on the Mahdi Army.

Those reports shows that Maliki is in much worse political shape than earlier reports have indicated.

The response from Bush and Bush-light (McCain) is going to have to be silence, lies or misdirection. This is not politically good for the American Republican administration that created the mess in Iraq, nor for the Republican old man who wants to replace Bush.

Basra combat ending as Iran takes charge; Maliki losing power; Bush irrelevant

After a quickly called meeting to the Iranian holy city of Qom between Iraqi leaders including Mouktada al Sadr and the commander of Iran's Qods brigades, al Sadr ordered his troops to stop fighting Nouri al Maliki's troops. The fighting in Baghdad did stop. The irrelevant American leaders are nowhere to be seen.

The battle for Basra was started without any consultation or coordination with American troops, and the resolution is occurring when the Iranians declare it is time to stop fighting. Here is the report from McClatchy News Service on what happened to cause al Sadr's Sunday statement:

The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country.

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq. [Snip]

In addition to Sadr, who is in Qom pursuing religious studies, Iraqi lawmakers met Suleimani, said Osama al Nejafi, a legislator on the parliamentary committee formed to solve the Basra crisis.

"An agreement was signed," Nejafi said, referring to Sadr. "Iran was part of the problem and an effective part of the negotiations."

Sadr issued a nine-point statement Sunday saying he would renounce anyone who carried arms against the government and government forces. The statement also asked the government to halt all raids against the Mahdi army, end detentions of militia members who had not been charged and implement the general amnesty law.

To preserve the "unity" of Iraq Sadr called for an end to "all armed manifestations in Basra and in all provinces."

The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki - who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative.

So the result is that Maliki has lost a great deal of prestige just prior to regional elections, the opposite of what he wanted, while the Iranians have demonstrated they are the most important power in Iraq, notwithstanding the presence of 150,000 American troops.

Here is Juan Cole's take on what happened:

A parliamentary delegation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's own coalition (mainly now the Da`wa Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) defied him by going off to the holy seminary city of Qom in Iran and negotiating directly with Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr and with the leader of the Quds Brigades of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Qasim Sulaymani.

As a result of those parleys, Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers to stand down, though I read his statement as permitting continued armed self-defense, as at Basra where the Iraqi Army is attacking them and the US is bombing them. Significantly, he calls on the Mahdi Army to stop attacking the HQs of rival political parties. That language suggests that the parties are suffering from such attacks and are worried that party infrasture is being degraded ahead of the October 1 provincial elections. The southern parties have essentially defied al-Maliki and Bush to make a separate peace.

The entire episode underlines how powerful Iran has become in Iraq. The Iranian government had called on Saturday for the fighting to stop. And by Sunday evening it had negotiated at least a similar call from Sadr (whether the fighting actually stops remains to be seen and depends on local commanders and on whether al-Maliki meets Sadr's conditions).

Juan Cole also points to reports from McClatchy that show that the cease fire has not yet taken effect in Baghdad, Basra, Diyala, Karbala, Salahuddin, Mosul, or Kirkuk.

The lessons so far? Iraq is a mess, in spite of the surge, as it has been for the five years since Bush invaded that nation. Al Maliki, the leader Bush supports, is losing power, as al Sadr is gaining it. Iran dominates the entire Iraqi landscape too a degree that would have been impossible without the American invasion and the removal of Saddam.

Bush and Gen Petreaus are nowhere to be seen and are having no significant effect on the current violence in Iraq, although American soldiers have been sucked into the fighting.

The sole remaining purpose for American troops in Iraq now is to support the Maliki government as Maliki loses power; and to continue with a presence in Iraq until after the next American President (Democratic) is sworn in next January. This is intended by bush to give the Republicans the political talking point they will aim at the Democrats: "We Republicans didn't pull out of Iraq! You pulled out of Iraq so you Democrats lost Iraq!" Republican sound bytes will never address the fact that there is nothing there for Americans to win. We're just providing combat troops and aircraft to the maw with no prospect of any gain.

That's that state of disaster that is Bush's War in Iraq today.

The Battle for Basra - II

The New York Times points out that the Battle for Basra between al Maliki's best division (the 14th) and the Mahdi Army (Shiite militia) is not going well for Maliki's troops.

At a news briefing in Basra on Saturday, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi , conceded that the assault had not gone according to expectations. “We were surprised by a very strong resistance that made us change our plans,” he said.

The assault on Basra appears to have been poorly planned and conducted with too few troops. It is not surprising that it is not going well. Cernig at the NewsHoggers writes:

"Maliki's assault on the Sadrists, painted as a general assault on "criminal militias", but somehow managing to leave his SIIC/Badr Brigade allies well alone, is failing badly. Everywhere, the Mahdi Army are holding their own territories and even expanding the fight into new towns and neighbourhoods. Given the unreasonably small force with which Maliki launched his assault, and the estimated 60% penetration of the region's police by the Mahdi Army which has led to widespread desertions, Fester and I are convinced that Maliki had a good idea this would happen. His main purpose in mounting the assault was to ensnare US occupation forces into stepping into the lead, battling Sadr's forces for him and for his SIIC allies. {Snip]

Maliki is now in a position whereby he might - might - be able to win or stalemate the battle with American assistance, but there's no way he can win the political war he's started. He will either fall or be forced to painfully backtrack to negotiate a settlement which will favor Sadr more than it does himself. He's toast and Sadr, despite the many op-eds written over the last four years claiming the opposite, very much isn't."

Cernig's entire post is well worth reading. He also points to the ongoing war in Mosul that has lasted for months now, the flair-ups of violence in Sadr City in Baghdad as a result of this attack on the Mahdi Army in Basra, and the reports that the Turks are shelling the Kurds in Northern Iraq (if such an entity can still be said to exist.)

Then we get the report from Juan Cole:

The Times of Baghdad reports in Arabic that clashes continued on Friday between Iraqi government forces and the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the provinces of the middle Euphrates and the south, causing hundreds of casualties, including among women, children and the elderly. The fighting also did damage to Iraq's infrastructure, as well as to oil facilities and pipelines, damage that might run into the billions of dollars.

The US got drawn into the fighting on Friday. US planes bombed alleged Mahdi Army positions both in Basra and in Sadr City in Baghdad (as well as in Kadhimiya). Kadhimiya is a major Shiite shrine neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, and the spectacle of the US bombing it is very unlikely to win Washington any friends among Iraqi Shiites.

Despite the US intervention, government troops were unable to pierce Mahdi Army defenses or over-run their positions.

Al-Zaman says that the police force in Basra suffered numerous mutinies and instances of insubordination, with policemen refusing to fire on the Mahdi Army. The government response was to undertake a widespread purge of disloyal elements.

[Hmm. I wonder where fired policemen with combat training and guns could find another job . . . Maybe with the Mahdi Army?]

The Mahdi Army opened a number of new fronts in the fighting, in Nasiriya, Karbala, Hilla, and Diwaniya, as a means of reducing the pressure on its fighters in the holy city of Karbala. Local medical officials reported 36 dead in the fighting in Nasiriya.

The Mahdi Army used its position near Nasiriya to attack government troops attempting to go south to join the effort in Basra, and is said to have inflicted substantial casualties on them.

In Baghdad, Mahdi Army fighters clashed with government forces in 31 districts.

In the meantime, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for a decisive military victory and rejected calls by southern tribal sheikhs and a large number of Shiite ayatollahs for him to engage in dialogue and negotiation in order to reach a ceasefire and to save civilians who are threatened with a humanitarian catastrophe from shortages of water and food, as well as lack of medical care.

al Maliki seems to have staked his political future on the outcome of this battle with Mouktada al Sadr's forces, and it may well be that he timed it so that the American forces had to intervene on his side.

Since Gen Petreaus has been negotiating with Mouktada al Sadr, this could be Maliki's effort to force Petreaus and the American forces to support him in his internecine political battles for control of Iraq. There are indications that Dick Cheney may have known this was coming, and is playing some more of his behind the scenes politics both in the U.S. and in Iraq. Is this going to be used by Cheney and the Republicans to ratchet up the difficulties in Iraq so that the incoming Democratic President will be forced to either send in more troops to pacify that nation or remove American troops from the scene and thus be politically vulnerable in American politics to the cry of "You lost Iraq"? This goes back to my theory that the Republicans are using the Occupation of Iraq as a kubuki theater play to manipulate American politics, so that what really happens in Iraq is of almost no interest to the Republicans. All that matters is how they can spin it for American voters.

Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization, and the term "Byzantine politics" was invented to describe the way politics in Turkey and the Tigris-Euphrates valley works. The Republicans thought they could predict what would happen there as a result of "Bush's War" and they found disaster instead.

American troops will not be successful in Iraq. They will be co opted by one side or the other in their internecine wars and used to fight for things that have nothing to do with America's interests.

America should have learned that by now. The Bush administration is too stupid and proud of their conservative ideology to become aware of reality.

The Battle for Basra

Al Maliki decided on his own that he was going to take on the Mahdi Army, a militia currently in control of Basra. They have been in control of Basra since the British pulled out last year. So without consultation with the Americans, al Maliki attacked the Sadr militia in Basra using his own militia, one originally established in Iran. This is essentially a civil war between two different Shia militias for control of Iraq. Why now?

The reports coming from Iraq suggest that Moqtada al-Sadr is more popular than al Maliki. He could well replace al Maliki in the next election. We've got to ask why al Maliki decided to attack now.

Bush and the Republicans seen an American election coming in November, and al Maliki is their boy. So in spite of not being consulted in advance of the battle, the American troops are now fighting for al Maliki. Here is the report from today's Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, March 27 -- U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting. [Snip]

Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials. With little U.S. presence in the south, and British forces in Basra confined to an air base outside the city, one administration official said that "we can't quite decipher" what is going on. It's a question, he said, of "who's got the best conspiracy" theory about why Maliki decided to act now.

In Basra, three rival Shiite groups have been trying to position themselves, sometimes through force of arms, to dominate recently approved provincial elections.

The U.S. officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said that they believe Iran has provided assistance in the past to all three groups -- the Mahdi Army; the Badr Organization of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, Iraq's largest Shiite party; and forces loyal to the Fadhila Party, which holds the Basra governor's seat. But the officials see the current conflict as a purely internal Iraqi dispute.

Some officials have concluded that Maliki himself is firing "the first salvo in upcoming elections," the administration official said.

"His dog in that fight is that he is basically allied with the Badr Corps" against forces loyal to Sadr, the official said. "It's not a pretty picture."
[Emphasis added]

So although Americans were not consulted in advance, they are now carrying the battle to the Mahdi Army while al Maliki's militia sits on the sidelines.

It appears that al Maliki also has his eyes on the next American Presidential election, as well as on his own next election. By attacking the Mahdi Army now, he might be able to weaken Mudktada's support in the upcoming Iraqi elections, and at the sem time the American troops have to support his attack because Bush is President. Would a Democratic President support such an attack?

The Presidential campaign rhetoric would suggest that the answer is a lot less certain. So if al Maliki wants to be sure of American military support for his side in the civil war between the Shia militias, he had to move now, and do it without asking for military cooperation in advance.

This is a direct result of the idiocy of invading Iraq in the first place, followed by Jerry Bremer's compounding of the idiocy when he disbanded the Iraqi government and military forces. Removing Saddam might have been a reasonable goal (although the cost of the invasion certainly was not justified by that one goal) but Bremer's idea that Baathists were the same as Nazis after WW II and that he was going to deBaathify Iraq the way the allied occupiers of Germany did that country was a fantasy. The occupation of Iraq was not planned and without such an occupation, the destruction of the local government and military was simply the creation of the chaos that is Iraq today.

What used to be the nation of Iraq has been shattered and destroyed, and American troops are now fighting on one side of an Iraqi civil war in which we have no real interest beyond the protection of the prestige of George Bush and the Republican Party prior to the November 2008 Presidential election.

American troops are also in the unenviable position of protecting the Sunni militias and tribes in Anbar Province from the Shiite government of al Maliki, as well as protecting the Kurds in the North from the Shiite government.

So, having destroyed Iraq as a nation, the American military is currently preventing two civil wars from occurring and actively being sucked into taking sides in the third between the two major Shia factions.

For what? Weapons of mass destruction that did not exist and apparently an effort to display to other Middle Eastern nations that America's military was so powerful that if American didn't like how your dictator behaved, they would replace him. In other words, pure stupidity.

Stupidity that McCain wants to carry forward for some unknown reason, perhaps the honor of not retreating from a fight.

So far, 4001 Americans dead in this botched idiocy, Severely wounded over ten times as many, a nation destroyed with uncountable dead, injured and 15% of the population as either internal or external refugees. America's ground forces are of no value anywhere else in the world now, and America's reputation is in tatters.

Welcome to the Bush legacy.

Iraqis say US should leave Iraq instead of screwing it up more

Charlie Rose had two articulate Iraqi's on to explain what is happening in Iraq and what America should do to help the Iraqi people. Glenn Greenwald shows the segment. Go watch it.

The several things that I particularly recall are one of the two men saying that America first destroyed the Iraqi nation after the Persian Gulf War with the bombings of infrastructure and the sanctions, then in the 2003 invasion they did everything wrong. The Americans are responsible for unleashing the internal strife in Iraq and for destroying any government that could have controlled it.

The Americans can't do anything to improve things. They have no credibility as protectors of democracy since they support dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and they don't know what they are doing even if they had good intentions, which the one Iraqi doubts.

The Sunnis were hired to attack al Qaeda in Iraq, but before the Americans invaded in 2003, there was no al Qaeda in Iraa. The Americans created those terrorists.

There's a lot more, all negative towards the American occupation. Why is this important? As Glenn Greenwald points out strongly, the view of Iraqis themselves are simply never presented in the American media.

I am not surprised at what the two Iraqis say, since I have read Graham Greene's novel "The Ugly American." the story is as true today in the Middle East as it was in Southeast Asia in the 1950's.

I have written several times that Iraq is a great Kabuki theater that presents plays to the American audience and that our leaders interpret for their own political purposes. What's really happening behind the curtains of the stage isn't known to our leaders, nor do they want it known. The only things we are getting from the American government is the information and lies they want to feed it for internal American political responses. Besides giving Bush the opportunity to be a "War President" and Cheney the opportunity to use the American military in the Middle East to influence oil flow, nothing else in Iraq matters to the current American government, and no one in any position of power has any expertise in Iraq, nor to they want it.

When you watch the TV clip, listen especially for the description of what is really happening in Iraq and how the two Iraqi's think we got there. I'd doubt their guess as to what we might to for Iraq other than getting out ASAP is any better than the guess of the American political or military leaders. We are simply in over our heads there, and we were before we stupidly sent in troops.

Krugman on the amazing political silence on the economic crisis

Paul Krugman points to the general silence from McCain, Obama and Clinton on the current economic crisis.

He does point out the idiocy of McCain's economic advisor, Kevin Hassett, "...the co-author of “Dow 36,000” — [who] insisted that everything would have been fine if state and local governments hadn’t tried to limit urban sprawl." He does not point out that McCain's primary economic advisor, ex-Senator Phil Gramm, is the single most responsible individual (besides Alan Greenspan) for the current banking crisis. How? Gramm was the guy who pushed through the removal of the FDR era Glass-Stegall Act which separated retail banking from insurance and security banking and put retail banking under regulation to prevent the kinds of idiocies that have created the current banking crisis.

My bet is that Obama and Clinton haven't brought up the economic crisis because they essentially agree on both the causes and the cures. Such agreement is not going to create a competitive distinction between the two of them, so whichever becomes the Democratic nominee (probably Obama) will use it to distinguish between himself and the fish-in-a-barrel - uh, I mean target, McCain.

Since Bush is doing his best Herbert Hoover non-action routine as America's banking system collapses before our eyes and Ben Bernanke of the fed paddles desperately to try to shore up the mess given us by the Reagan Revolution, the Presidential election is rapidly becoming a competition between Republican fear-mongering and proposals for rational government presented by a half-Black, half-White Democratic candidate.

If America really is the great shining light on the hill that nationalists and nativists like to claim, then fear-mongering will fail completely. Since I happen to think that as great as America really is, it is also deeply flawed, unfortunately fear-mongering has a chance.

Still, I think that if he survives the campaign (I remember JFK, Martin Luther King and RFK quite well, all victims of fear) then I think we will see Barack Obama sworn in as President next January to preside over the worst Recession America has seen since the Great Depression.

But what do I know about the future? It wasn't too many months ago I thought the Presidential race was going to be between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. as for right now, it is clearly shaping up to be a race between fear-mongering, voter suppression and crooked elections on one side versus rational approaches to the difficult problems of the economy, the occupation of Iraq, and racism in America that the Bush administration no longer even addresses realistically.