Since the other thread is about "peace alternatives" only,and a member has objected to curent conflict postings in it,here is a new thread,as now even the UK's Army Chief during the invasion,Gen.Jackson is attacking the US's Iraq policy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Gen Sir Mike Jackson attacks US over Iraq
By Con Coughlin and Neil Tweedie
Last Updated: 11:56am BST 01/09/2007
General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.
Audio: General Sir Mike Jackson on 45 years in the Army
Your view: Who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq?
Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
General Sir Mike Jackson: 'All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste'
The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".
Sir Mike's comments - made in his forthcoming autobiography Soldier, serialised exclusively in The Daily Telegraph - represent the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.
His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003.
Sir Mike, who took command of the British Army one month before US-led forces invaded Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq".
advertisementCrucially, the general writes, he refused to deploy enough troops to maintain law and order after the collapse of Saddam's regime, and discarded detailed plans for the post-conflict administration of Iraq that had been drawn up by the US State Department.
In the book, Sir Mike says he believes the entire US approach to tackling global terrorism is "inadequate" because it relies too heavily on military power at the expense of nation-building and diplomacy.
His outspoken remarks are likely to increase tensions between the British and US military over policy in Iraq.
Last month American officials claimed that British forces had been defeated in Basra and had surrendered control of Iraq's second city to lawless militias and criminal gangs.
Speaking on the eve of the book's publication, Sir Mike last night defended the record of Britain's military deployment in Basra.
"I don't think that's a fair assessment at all," he said of claims made by American officials that UK forces had failed.
"What has happened in the south, as throughout the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied that their state of training and development was appropriate.
"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy. It remains just in Basra for that to happen."
Even so it emerged yesterday that the Pentagon was planning to deploy extra forces to Basra to protect Iraq's crucial oil fields amid growing fears in Washington that Britain is preparing to withdraw its forces from southern Iraq.
Sir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam's overthrow was down to the Pentagon's refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military's "surge" the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure.
Sir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush's decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department.
"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters "it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army.
"Once you had decapitated Saddam Hussein's regime, a model democratic society would inevitably emerge."
He and other senior British officers were opposed to the Pentagon's decision to disband the Iraqi army after Saddam's overthrow, a decision he says "was very short-sighted … We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition."
Sir Mike also reveals that he and other senior officers had doubts about the weapons of mass destruction dossier presented by the Blair government in late 2002.
"Its release caused a stir in military circles," reveals Sir Mike, particularly the suggestion that the UK could face a threat of attack at 45 minutes' notice. "We all knew that it was impossible for Iraq to threaten the UK mainland. Saddam's Scud missiles could barely have reached our bases on Cyprus, and certainly no more distant target."
Sir Mike says he satisfied himself on the legality of invading Iraq by careful study of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and concluded that action was "legitimate under international law without a 'second' resolution.
"Having had some part to play in putting Slobodan Milosevic into a cell in The Hague, I had no wish to be his next-door neighbour."
Meanwhile,another spat between Britain and the US has developed over Britain's imminent pull-out from Basra,as the Brits say that their job there is over.The US however areattacking the Brits,saying that they're "running away",an accusation stoutly refuted by its defence secretary.
Excerpts from the same paper:
..In recent weeks US military analysts, former generals and unnamed Bush administration sources have suggested that British forces have failed in Basra and are set to flee just as they are most needed, as their US allies finally appear to be making some headway in improving security and most other members of the coalition have quit.
In response Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, have taken the unusual step of writing a rebuttal to those claims on the comment pages of the Washington Post.
“Recent weeks have brought a lot of misplaced criticism of the United Kingdom’s role in southern Iraq. It is time to set the record straight,â€
IRAQ-Current Continuing Conflict
Have British forces failedin Basra..? Well they're now leaving to fight in Afghanistan,where they're sorely needed according to the Brits,or "beating the retreat"and running for their lives,according to the Yanks! You takes your pick,but they're finally leaving and one can expect mayhem when the Yanks step into Basra,as their style does not win friendsand influences opposition.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 921892.ece
British leave last remaining Basra base
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 03 September 2007
British forces have pulled out of Basra Palace, the onetime southern residence of Saddam Hussein that became the symbol of the UK's role in the US-led invasion.
The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.
The withdrawal itself took place with no fanfare or celebration. The troops from the 4th Battalion, the Rifles have been under a virtual state of siege, with constant rocket and mortar attacks, as they trained Iraqi forces to take over their duties.
Some of the 500-strong contingent who had already left had faced attacks on their way out, and the Ministry of Defence had attempted to keep the date of the evacuation confidential in an attempt to avoid what they term a full scale "fighting withdrawal".
The decision by the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, which had carried out repeated attacks on British troops, to call a ceasefire is believed to have played a part in determining the pullout date from the palace.
The UK military will now be based at Basra airport, in the outer fringes of the city, while what remains of the British-controlled south is handed over to the Iraqi authorities. The bulk of the force will then pull out of the country, leaving a reserve unit that would only be deployed in an emergency.
The palace was originally due to be handed over to Iraqi authorities in early August. But that was delayed under pressure from the Americans who remain unhappy about the pullout. They say, it will expose their supply lines from Kuwait as they take part in President George Bush's last throw of the dice in Iraq, the "surge" in Baghdad and the central area of the country. The British decision to resist further American pressure is being increasingly seen by the Bush administration as a sign of Gordon Brown's desperate desire to disentangle his government from the Iraq imbroglio.
In turn, the criticism from the US has become more vocal and strident. American officials have charged that the British have "lost the south". British exasperation at what they consider to be "unfair" American criticism surfaced in an article in The Washington Post, in the names of Defence Secretary Des Browne and Foreign Secretary David Milliband, saying "recent weeks have brought a lot of misplaced criticism of the United Kingdom's role in southern Iraq. It is time to set the record straight".
Critics say it has been an inglorious retreat and resulted in the danger that Basra and its inhabitants have been left to the mercy of murderous Shia militias.
British officials, on the other hand, insist that the base had been handed over to the Iraqi authorities who were now capable of providing security for their own people. The vast preponderance of the violence in Basra, the argument runs, has been directed at the foreign troops and removing them would lead to a decline in the bloodshed.
The people of Basra face an uncertain future. Hassan Ibrahim, a 48-year-old teacher, said: " There was criticism of the British because people felt they did not do enough to stop the criminals, some of whom are even in the police. But a lot of people also say that things could get much worse if they leave. One thing we are uneasy about are rumours that the Americans may come to Basra to replace the British. We see what is happening in Baghdad and we don't want that here."
Basra by numbers
1,628
Number of days the conflict has been running.
655,000 Civilian deaths in Iraq since the conflict began
168Number of British servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq
Britain sent 45,000 servicemen and women to fight the war in Iraq in March 2003
18,000British troops in Iraq in May 2003 at the height of the occupation
6,800 Total number of UK personnel deployed in Iraq theatre
5,500 Number of British troops presently in Basra
In the past four months there have been around 600 rocket and mortar attacks on the Basra airstrip, where British forces are based
£5bn Overall cost to the UK of war and occupation in Iraq
12,000,000 – or 76% of the electorate – took part in Iraq's elections in 2005 345,000 Members of the Iraqi Security Forces trained by British and US forces
One Victoria Cross has been issued in Basra, to Private Johnson Beharry
212km of new water pipe laid in a £9m project which employed 2,310 people at its peak
24,478 short-term jobs created
336 schools, refurbishments and supply projects
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 921892.ece
British leave last remaining Basra base
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 03 September 2007
British forces have pulled out of Basra Palace, the onetime southern residence of Saddam Hussein that became the symbol of the UK's role in the US-led invasion.
The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.
The withdrawal itself took place with no fanfare or celebration. The troops from the 4th Battalion, the Rifles have been under a virtual state of siege, with constant rocket and mortar attacks, as they trained Iraqi forces to take over their duties.
Some of the 500-strong contingent who had already left had faced attacks on their way out, and the Ministry of Defence had attempted to keep the date of the evacuation confidential in an attempt to avoid what they term a full scale "fighting withdrawal".
The decision by the radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, which had carried out repeated attacks on British troops, to call a ceasefire is believed to have played a part in determining the pullout date from the palace.
The UK military will now be based at Basra airport, in the outer fringes of the city, while what remains of the British-controlled south is handed over to the Iraqi authorities. The bulk of the force will then pull out of the country, leaving a reserve unit that would only be deployed in an emergency.
The palace was originally due to be handed over to Iraqi authorities in early August. But that was delayed under pressure from the Americans who remain unhappy about the pullout. They say, it will expose their supply lines from Kuwait as they take part in President George Bush's last throw of the dice in Iraq, the "surge" in Baghdad and the central area of the country. The British decision to resist further American pressure is being increasingly seen by the Bush administration as a sign of Gordon Brown's desperate desire to disentangle his government from the Iraq imbroglio.
In turn, the criticism from the US has become more vocal and strident. American officials have charged that the British have "lost the south". British exasperation at what they consider to be "unfair" American criticism surfaced in an article in The Washington Post, in the names of Defence Secretary Des Browne and Foreign Secretary David Milliband, saying "recent weeks have brought a lot of misplaced criticism of the United Kingdom's role in southern Iraq. It is time to set the record straight".
Critics say it has been an inglorious retreat and resulted in the danger that Basra and its inhabitants have been left to the mercy of murderous Shia militias.
British officials, on the other hand, insist that the base had been handed over to the Iraqi authorities who were now capable of providing security for their own people. The vast preponderance of the violence in Basra, the argument runs, has been directed at the foreign troops and removing them would lead to a decline in the bloodshed.
The people of Basra face an uncertain future. Hassan Ibrahim, a 48-year-old teacher, said: " There was criticism of the British because people felt they did not do enough to stop the criminals, some of whom are even in the police. But a lot of people also say that things could get much worse if they leave. One thing we are uneasy about are rumours that the Americans may come to Basra to replace the British. We see what is happening in Baghdad and we don't want that here."
Basra by numbers
1,628
Number of days the conflict has been running.
655,000 Civilian deaths in Iraq since the conflict began
168Number of British servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq
Britain sent 45,000 servicemen and women to fight the war in Iraq in March 2003
18,000British troops in Iraq in May 2003 at the height of the occupation
6,800 Total number of UK personnel deployed in Iraq theatre
5,500 Number of British troops presently in Basra
In the past four months there have been around 600 rocket and mortar attacks on the Basra airstrip, where British forces are based
£5bn Overall cost to the UK of war and occupation in Iraq
12,000,000 – or 76% of the electorate – took part in Iraq's elections in 2005 345,000 Members of the Iraqi Security Forces trained by British and US forces
One Victoria Cross has been issued in Basra, to Private Johnson Beharry
212km of new water pipe laid in a £9m project which employed 2,310 people at its peak
24,478 short-term jobs created
336 schools, refurbishments and supply projects
The road from Basra: to some a handover, to many a retreat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2161946,00.html
Peter Beaumont
Tuesday September 4, 2007
The Guardian
British tanks leave Basra city. Photograph: Steve Follows/MoD
It seems so very long ago. On April 6 2003, the day the city of Basra was finally occupied by British troops, there was a febrile, uncertain sense of excitement.
As the paratroop column in two edgy files began to enter the city from the grounds of a university campus still littered with bodies, where the last battle with the Saddam Fedayeen had taken place, a handful of cautious bystanders emerged out of their houses to applaud.
Within an hour that handful had turned into crowds on the road that ran along the city's main canal with its little bridges. At one moment, a large pot of chai - the sweet black Arab tea - was brought, and with it a tray of glasses that was passed among the bemused soldiers, uncertain whether they should be on their guard or finally relaxing.
Yesterday the British soldiers followed the same route, as they retreated from Basra Palace in the city centre to relocate to the airbase outside the city - several miles and a whole culture away. As they left, Gordon Brown and senior officers denied it was a retreat. But for many it was a defeat all the same. Among them the residents of Basra who tired quickly of the British presence.
"We are pleased that the Iraqi army are now taking over the situation. We as an Iraqi people reject occupation. We reject colonialism. We want our freedom," one resident Rudha Muter told the Associated Press.
Yesterday as the Iraqi flag was hoisted over Basra Palace, the city that the British left, Iraq's second largest, was largely under militia control. In reality the city that was Basra in 2003 was long dead before yesterday's withdrawal, and the fragile possibilities that it promised on that morning when Saddam's rule collapsed were long ago snuffed out.
It has been suffocated by the rise of militias that took over the police, the politics and all aspects of Basra life. Even two years ago unembedded reporters would be happy to travel to Basra to escape the violence elsewhere to a place where it was still just possible to stay in local hotels and travel independently.
But now Basra has become like any other city in Iraq. It is a dark and violent place that has become a symbol for the other, barely spoken-about conflict in Iraq. It has been largely ignored among the reporting of the other more obvious violence: al-Qaida's suicide spectaculars in Baghdad and the north, the sectarian killings, and the relentless attacks directed at US troops.
Instead there has been the use of violence to secure political control of the south by the rival Shia factions - most prominent among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, backed financially by one Iranian faction, the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr. It has largely taken control of Basra's police. At one stage, more than 100 different political groups, a considerable number connected to armed fighters, populated Basra's political scene.
In 2004, the first signs of what would become inevitable became apparent.
On the hospital and university campuses these same armed groups were moving in, attempting to take over hospital wards and departments, and, when they succeeded, imposing their own religious and political views. In doing so they imposed a curiously Iraqi version of Iran's revolution back in the 1970s - religiously conservative but also violently anarchic.
What began with threatening posters, warning women what classes and clothes were appropriate for their status, has taken over the campuses. These days no one needs to tell the female students what behaviour is expected.
Professional women, professors and doctors would describe how their lives had become ever more grim. Those who had never worn a headscarf in their careers were now going veiled in the street, women students were being bullied and intimidated. All this in a city that was considered a relatively cosmopolitan outpost in Saddam's Iraq.
Other outspoken members of civil society learned to shut up or flee or risk the bullet - local journalists and judges, the heads of local NGOs. Where there was resistance to the creeping influence of the militia, hospital directors, administrators and staff were killed.
Although the British viewed what was happening as a messy little sideshow, something that would disappear as their attempts to impose democracy continued, it was the real and enduring story of Basra that only became more entrenched as the years went on.
With Shia resistance to the occupation gaining pace across Iraq, the political parties and their armed enforcers, starting in the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, engaged in a Shia political turf war which gradually transformed the city's politics. As the parties fought, and fractured, the fight for Basra and the south came to resemble a gangland war.
And in that war - as British generals acknowledged last year - British soldiers were caught in a crossfire where killing British troops was the quickest way for a faction to establish its militant credentials as anti-occupation and therefore deserving of political respect and authority. Soldiers based within Basra Palace, or employees of NGOs based nearby, would describe the constant barrage of mortars and rockets into the British positions.
What was at stake was not simply power, but cash. And not only cash derived from control of businesses by the militias, including petrol stations, car imports, cigarette smuggling, mobile phone shops and protection rackets. Also at stake was access to the suitcases of money being brought in across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran to support the groups which had found sanctuary there in Saddam's time.
In the end it does not really matter what the British army and government say. Whether they say it was a victory or a defeat. What matters is how the militias perceive it. After today they will say that they chased the British out of Basra.
· Peter Beaumont has reported from Iraq for the Observer and the Guardian since April 2003. He completed his last assignment in the country five weeks ago
War seen as lost
More than two-thirds of the public think British troops are losing the war in Iraq, and more than half believe the war is already lost, according to the results of a poll released last night. A total of 42% of those questioned said UK forces should be withdrawn as soon as possible, and 33% said their presence in the country was making the security situation worse, according to a survey for the BBC's Newsnight.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2161946,00.html
Peter Beaumont
Tuesday September 4, 2007
The Guardian
British tanks leave Basra city. Photograph: Steve Follows/MoD
It seems so very long ago. On April 6 2003, the day the city of Basra was finally occupied by British troops, there was a febrile, uncertain sense of excitement.
As the paratroop column in two edgy files began to enter the city from the grounds of a university campus still littered with bodies, where the last battle with the Saddam Fedayeen had taken place, a handful of cautious bystanders emerged out of their houses to applaud.
Within an hour that handful had turned into crowds on the road that ran along the city's main canal with its little bridges. At one moment, a large pot of chai - the sweet black Arab tea - was brought, and with it a tray of glasses that was passed among the bemused soldiers, uncertain whether they should be on their guard or finally relaxing.
Yesterday the British soldiers followed the same route, as they retreated from Basra Palace in the city centre to relocate to the airbase outside the city - several miles and a whole culture away. As they left, Gordon Brown and senior officers denied it was a retreat. But for many it was a defeat all the same. Among them the residents of Basra who tired quickly of the British presence.
"We are pleased that the Iraqi army are now taking over the situation. We as an Iraqi people reject occupation. We reject colonialism. We want our freedom," one resident Rudha Muter told the Associated Press.
Yesterday as the Iraqi flag was hoisted over Basra Palace, the city that the British left, Iraq's second largest, was largely under militia control. In reality the city that was Basra in 2003 was long dead before yesterday's withdrawal, and the fragile possibilities that it promised on that morning when Saddam's rule collapsed were long ago snuffed out.
It has been suffocated by the rise of militias that took over the police, the politics and all aspects of Basra life. Even two years ago unembedded reporters would be happy to travel to Basra to escape the violence elsewhere to a place where it was still just possible to stay in local hotels and travel independently.
But now Basra has become like any other city in Iraq. It is a dark and violent place that has become a symbol for the other, barely spoken-about conflict in Iraq. It has been largely ignored among the reporting of the other more obvious violence: al-Qaida's suicide spectaculars in Baghdad and the north, the sectarian killings, and the relentless attacks directed at US troops.
Instead there has been the use of violence to secure political control of the south by the rival Shia factions - most prominent among them the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, backed financially by one Iranian faction, the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr. It has largely taken control of Basra's police. At one stage, more than 100 different political groups, a considerable number connected to armed fighters, populated Basra's political scene.
In 2004, the first signs of what would become inevitable became apparent.
On the hospital and university campuses these same armed groups were moving in, attempting to take over hospital wards and departments, and, when they succeeded, imposing their own religious and political views. In doing so they imposed a curiously Iraqi version of Iran's revolution back in the 1970s - religiously conservative but also violently anarchic.
What began with threatening posters, warning women what classes and clothes were appropriate for their status, has taken over the campuses. These days no one needs to tell the female students what behaviour is expected.
Professional women, professors and doctors would describe how their lives had become ever more grim. Those who had never worn a headscarf in their careers were now going veiled in the street, women students were being bullied and intimidated. All this in a city that was considered a relatively cosmopolitan outpost in Saddam's Iraq.
Other outspoken members of civil society learned to shut up or flee or risk the bullet - local journalists and judges, the heads of local NGOs. Where there was resistance to the creeping influence of the militia, hospital directors, administrators and staff were killed.
Although the British viewed what was happening as a messy little sideshow, something that would disappear as their attempts to impose democracy continued, it was the real and enduring story of Basra that only became more entrenched as the years went on.
With Shia resistance to the occupation gaining pace across Iraq, the political parties and their armed enforcers, starting in the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, engaged in a Shia political turf war which gradually transformed the city's politics. As the parties fought, and fractured, the fight for Basra and the south came to resemble a gangland war.
And in that war - as British generals acknowledged last year - British soldiers were caught in a crossfire where killing British troops was the quickest way for a faction to establish its militant credentials as anti-occupation and therefore deserving of political respect and authority. Soldiers based within Basra Palace, or employees of NGOs based nearby, would describe the constant barrage of mortars and rockets into the British positions.
What was at stake was not simply power, but cash. And not only cash derived from control of businesses by the militias, including petrol stations, car imports, cigarette smuggling, mobile phone shops and protection rackets. Also at stake was access to the suitcases of money being brought in across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran to support the groups which had found sanctuary there in Saddam's time.
In the end it does not really matter what the British army and government say. Whether they say it was a victory or a defeat. What matters is how the militias perceive it. After today they will say that they chased the British out of Basra.
· Peter Beaumont has reported from Iraq for the Observer and the Guardian since April 2003. He completed his last assignment in the country five weeks ago
War seen as lost
More than two-thirds of the public think British troops are losing the war in Iraq, and more than half believe the war is already lost, according to the results of a poll released last night. A total of 42% of those questioned said UK forces should be withdrawn as soon as possible, and 33% said their presence in the country was making the security situation worse, according to a survey for the BBC's Newsnight.
Cut and run: Bush heralds cut in troops as British forces head for exit
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 924388.ece
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 04 September 2007
President George Bush flew into a US airbase in Anbar province in western Iraq yesterday to announce that recent American military successes would allow a reduction in the 160,000-strong US force in Iraq.
He said that, judging by what he had been told by US commander General David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker, "it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces."
Mr Bush chose to visit Anbar because the split between the Sunni tribes and al-Qai'da in Iraq has led to a sharp reduction in attacks on US forces in this vast western province which is mostly desert aside from the Euphrates valley.
The administration has had some success in persuading US public opinion and media that the military escalation known as "the surge" which started in February is having a measure of success. Gen Petraeus and Mr Crocker are to report on the impact of "the surge" when they testify to Congress on 10 September. Since they will be reporting on their own efforts it is likely they will report significant progress.
The reduction in American troop numbers Mr Bush suggested is probably inevitable given the strain Iraq is placing on American military resources and the public pressure domestically.
Mr Bush flew secretly to al-Asad airbase in Anbar where he met the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki whose government has been criticised by the Democrats in the US and half of whose ministers have been withdrawn.
Addressing cheering troops, Mr Bush insisted troop withdrawal would be based on a "calm assessment by military commanders on the ground not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media".
But he said that the province was an example of what could happen in the rest of Iraq. He had been told a year ago, he said, that the province was lost. "Today Anbar is really a different place," he said.
In reality, the improvement in the US position in Anbar has nothing to do with the surge and the deployment of 30,000 extra American troops. The change in the military situation in the province is a result of a split in the Sunni guerrilla movement between an al-Qa'ida umbrella organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and the rest of the Sunni guerrillas.
The Islamic State of Iraq created widespread anger among the Sunni community by killing anybody connected with the government, such as garbage collectors or lowly employees of ministries. They were also seeking to draft one young man from each Sunni family into their forces.
Bizarrely, the US is now backing and arming Sunni tribal militias who do not answer to the Iraqi government, while pressing Mr Maliki to clamp down on the Shia militias, notably the anti-American Mehdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr.
President Bush may be giving a hostage to fortune by claiming a major success in Anbar because, since the improvement in the military situation had little to do with the US, the Sunni guerrillas could compose their differences and resume the offensive.
The administration has been seeking to give the impression that the US military may at last be turning the corner in Iraq, though Iraqi politicians in Baghdad believe very little has changed on the ground.
One sign that Iraqis themselves believe security in the country is getting worse is that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes in fear of their lives has risen from 50,000 a month to 60,000 a month according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Some 4.2 million Iraqis are now refugees inside and outside the country.
Although the US has been pressing the Iraqi government to push through parliament a series of benchmark measures that would supposedly lead to reconciliation between Sunni, Shia and Kurd the different Iraqi communities are too frightened of each other to live in the same street or village.
There are other signs that violence in Iraq is not lessening. Figures compiled by AP show 1,809 Iraqi civilians were killed in August, compared with 1,760 in July. There has been a reduction in sectarian killings in Baghdad but that may be because Mr Sadr stood down the Mehdi Army, blamed for many of the killings of Sunni civilians, in February.
The number of US military killed was 81 in August, an increase of two over July but less than this year's high point of 126 in May. There is usually reduction in attacks on the US forces at this time of year when the temperature soars to 120F.
The whole question of civilian casualty figures is, in any case, far less certain than the Iraqi government claims. In one bomb attack on the Shia civilian district of Karada on 26 July the police said there were 25 dead and 100 wounded. But a week later, without any publicity, municipal andcivil defence workers pinned up the true list on a shop showing 92 had been killed and 127 wounded.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 924388.ece
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 04 September 2007
President George Bush flew into a US airbase in Anbar province in western Iraq yesterday to announce that recent American military successes would allow a reduction in the 160,000-strong US force in Iraq.
He said that, judging by what he had been told by US commander General David Petraeus and ambassador Ryan Crocker, "it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces."
Mr Bush chose to visit Anbar because the split between the Sunni tribes and al-Qai'da in Iraq has led to a sharp reduction in attacks on US forces in this vast western province which is mostly desert aside from the Euphrates valley.
The administration has had some success in persuading US public opinion and media that the military escalation known as "the surge" which started in February is having a measure of success. Gen Petraeus and Mr Crocker are to report on the impact of "the surge" when they testify to Congress on 10 September. Since they will be reporting on their own efforts it is likely they will report significant progress.
The reduction in American troop numbers Mr Bush suggested is probably inevitable given the strain Iraq is placing on American military resources and the public pressure domestically.
Mr Bush flew secretly to al-Asad airbase in Anbar where he met the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki whose government has been criticised by the Democrats in the US and half of whose ministers have been withdrawn.
Addressing cheering troops, Mr Bush insisted troop withdrawal would be based on a "calm assessment by military commanders on the ground not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media".
But he said that the province was an example of what could happen in the rest of Iraq. He had been told a year ago, he said, that the province was lost. "Today Anbar is really a different place," he said.
In reality, the improvement in the US position in Anbar has nothing to do with the surge and the deployment of 30,000 extra American troops. The change in the military situation in the province is a result of a split in the Sunni guerrilla movement between an al-Qa'ida umbrella organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and the rest of the Sunni guerrillas.
The Islamic State of Iraq created widespread anger among the Sunni community by killing anybody connected with the government, such as garbage collectors or lowly employees of ministries. They were also seeking to draft one young man from each Sunni family into their forces.
Bizarrely, the US is now backing and arming Sunni tribal militias who do not answer to the Iraqi government, while pressing Mr Maliki to clamp down on the Shia militias, notably the anti-American Mehdi Army led by Muqtada al-Sadr.
President Bush may be giving a hostage to fortune by claiming a major success in Anbar because, since the improvement in the military situation had little to do with the US, the Sunni guerrillas could compose their differences and resume the offensive.
The administration has been seeking to give the impression that the US military may at last be turning the corner in Iraq, though Iraqi politicians in Baghdad believe very little has changed on the ground.
One sign that Iraqis themselves believe security in the country is getting worse is that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes in fear of their lives has risen from 50,000 a month to 60,000 a month according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Some 4.2 million Iraqis are now refugees inside and outside the country.
Although the US has been pressing the Iraqi government to push through parliament a series of benchmark measures that would supposedly lead to reconciliation between Sunni, Shia and Kurd the different Iraqi communities are too frightened of each other to live in the same street or village.
There are other signs that violence in Iraq is not lessening. Figures compiled by AP show 1,809 Iraqi civilians were killed in August, compared with 1,760 in July. There has been a reduction in sectarian killings in Baghdad but that may be because Mr Sadr stood down the Mehdi Army, blamed for many of the killings of Sunni civilians, in February.
The number of US military killed was 81 in August, an increase of two over July but less than this year's high point of 126 in May. There is usually reduction in attacks on the US forces at this time of year when the temperature soars to 120F.
The whole question of civilian casualty figures is, in any case, far less certain than the Iraqi government claims. In one bomb attack on the Shia civilian district of Karada on 26 July the police said there were 25 dead and 100 wounded. But a week later, without any publicity, municipal andcivil defence workers pinned up the true list on a shop showing 92 had been killed and 127 wounded.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson attacks US over Iraq
By Con Coughlin and Neil Tweedie
Last Updated: 12:18am BST 02/09/2007
General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.
# Audio: General Sir Mike Jackson on 45 years in the Army
# Your view: Who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq?
# Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
General Sir Mike Jackson
General Sir Mike Jackson: 'All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste'
The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".
Sir Mike's comments - made in his forthcoming autobiography Soldier, serialised exclusively in The Daily Telegraph - represent the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.
His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003.
Sir Mike, who took command of the British Army one month before US-led forces invaded Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq".
advertisement
Crucially, the general writes, he refused to deploy enough troops to maintain law and order after the collapse of Saddam's regime, and discarded detailed plans for the post-conflict administration of Iraq that had been drawn up by the US State Department.
In the book, Sir Mike says he believes the entire US approach to tackling global terrorism is "inadequate" because it relies too heavily on military power at the expense of nation-building and diplomacy.
His outspoken remarks are likely to increase tensions between the British and US military over policy in Iraq.
Last month American officials claimed that British forces had been defeated in Basra and had surrendered control of Iraq's second city to lawless militias and criminal gangs.
Speaking on the eve of the book's publication, Sir Mike last night defended the record of Britain's military deployment in Basra.
"I don't think that's a fair assessment at all," he said of claims made by American officials that UK forces had failed.
"What has happened in the south, as throughout the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied that their state of training and development was appropriate.
"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy. It remains just in Basra for that to happen."
Even so it emerged yesterday that the Pentagon was planning to deploy extra forces to Basra to protect Iraq's crucial oil fields amid growing fears in Washington that Britain is preparing to withdraw its forces from southern Iraq.
Sir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam's overthrow was down to the Pentagon's refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military's "surge" the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure.
Sir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush's decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department.
"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters "it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army.
"Once you had decapitated Saddam Hussein's regime, a model democratic society would inevitably emerge."
He and other senior British officers were opposed to the Pentagon's decision to disband the Iraqi army after Saddam's overthrow, a decision he says "was very short-sighted … We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition."
Sir Mike also reveals that he and other senior officers had doubts about the weapons of mass destruction dossier presented by the Blair government in late 2002.
"Its release caused a stir in military circles," reveals Sir Mike, particularly the suggestion that the UK could face a threat of attack at 45 minutes' notice. "We all knew that it was impossible for Iraq to threaten the UK mainland. Saddam's Scud missiles could barely have reached our bases on Cyprus, and certainly no more distant target."
Sir Mike says he satisfied himself on the legality of invading Iraq by careful study of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and concluded that action was "legitimate under international law without a 'second' resolution.
"Having had some part to play in putting Slobodan Milosevic into a cell in The Hague, I had no wish to be his next-door neighbour."
By Con Coughlin and Neil Tweedie
Last Updated: 12:18am BST 02/09/2007
General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British Army during the invasion of Iraq, has launched a scathing attack on the United States for the way it handled the post-war administration of the country.
# Audio: General Sir Mike Jackson on 45 years in the Army
# Your view: Who is responsible for the chaos in Iraq?
# Frontline: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
General Sir Mike Jackson
General Sir Mike Jackson: 'All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste'
The former chief of the general staff said the approach taken by Donald Rumsfeld, the then US defence secretary, was "intellectually bankrupt", describing his claim that US forces "don't do nation-building" as "nonsensical".
Sir Mike's comments - made in his forthcoming autobiography Soldier, serialised exclusively in The Daily Telegraph - represent the most outspoken criticism of American military policy in Iraq to come from a senior British officer.
His attack - the first time he has revealed the depth of his anger towards the US administration - highlights the deep-seated tension between the British command and the Pentagon during the build-up to and the aftermath of the Iraq campaign in 2003.
Sir Mike, who took command of the British Army one month before US-led forces invaded Iraq, said Mr Rumsfeld was "one of those most responsible for the current situation in Iraq".
advertisement
Crucially, the general writes, he refused to deploy enough troops to maintain law and order after the collapse of Saddam's regime, and discarded detailed plans for the post-conflict administration of Iraq that had been drawn up by the US State Department.
In the book, Sir Mike says he believes the entire US approach to tackling global terrorism is "inadequate" because it relies too heavily on military power at the expense of nation-building and diplomacy.
His outspoken remarks are likely to increase tensions between the British and US military over policy in Iraq.
Last month American officials claimed that British forces had been defeated in Basra and had surrendered control of Iraq's second city to lawless militias and criminal gangs.
Speaking on the eve of the book's publication, Sir Mike last night defended the record of Britain's military deployment in Basra.
"I don't think that's a fair assessment at all," he said of claims made by American officials that UK forces had failed.
"What has happened in the south, as throughout the rest of Iraq, was that primary responsibility for security would be handed to the Iraqis once the Iraqi authorities and the coalition were satisfied that their state of training and development was appropriate.
"In the south we had responsibility for four provinces. Three of these have been handed over in accordance with that strategy. It remains just in Basra for that to happen."
Even so it emerged yesterday that the Pentagon was planning to deploy extra forces to Basra to protect Iraq's crucial oil fields amid growing fears in Washington that Britain is preparing to withdraw its forces from southern Iraq.
Sir Mike says the failure of the US-led coalition to suppress the Iraqi insurgency four years after Saddam's overthrow was down to the Pentagon's refusal to deploy enough troops. A combined force of 400,000 would be needed to control a country the size of Iraq, but even with the extra troops recently deployed for the US military's "surge" the coalition has struggled to reach half that figure.
Sir Mike is particularly critical of President Bush's decision to hand control of the post-invasion running of Iraq to the Pentagon, when all the post-war planning had been done by the State Department.
"All the planning carried out by the State Department went to waste," he writes. For Mr Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative supporters "it was an ideological article of faith that the coalition forces would be accepted as a liberating army.
"Once you had decapitated Saddam Hussein's regime, a model democratic society would inevitably emerge."
He and other senior British officers were opposed to the Pentagon's decision to disband the Iraqi army after Saddam's overthrow, a decision he says "was very short-sighted … We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition."
Sir Mike also reveals that he and other senior officers had doubts about the weapons of mass destruction dossier presented by the Blair government in late 2002.
"Its release caused a stir in military circles," reveals Sir Mike, particularly the suggestion that the UK could face a threat of attack at 45 minutes' notice. "We all knew that it was impossible for Iraq to threaten the UK mainland. Saddam's Scud missiles could barely have reached our bases on Cyprus, and certainly no more distant target."
Sir Mike says he satisfied himself on the legality of invading Iraq by careful study of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and concluded that action was "legitimate under international law without a 'second' resolution.
"Having had some part to play in putting Slobodan Milosevic into a cell in The Hague, I had no wish to be his next-door neighbour."
Liberation, France
U.S. President Bush: 'The Surge is Mine!'
U.K. Prime Minister Brown: 'The Retreat is Mine …'
Thanks to Wealthy Friends,
Bush Re-Launches His War
"The Bush Administration, which cannot use public funds to defend a political agenda that deeply divides the electorate, has created an ultra-conservative pressure group baptized 'Freedom's Watch.'"
By Philippe Grangereau
Translated by Pascaline Jay
August 30, 2007
France - Liberation - Original Article (French)
George W. Bush continues to bet on fear. The White House has launched an unprecedented television campaign to convince Americans to continue the course in Iraq. The Bush Administration, which cannot use public funds to defend a political agenda that deeply divides the electorate, has created an ultra-conservative pressure group baptized "Freedom's Watch ," financed mainly by one of the one of the world's richest man, Sheldon Adelson, owner of a conglomerate made up of large casinos in Las Vegas and Macao.
"Freedom's Watch," among others, is directed by the current director of the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, William Weidner, and former White House spokesman Ari Fleisher. In just three weeks, the ultra conservative Washington pressure group has spent $15 million to bombard America with advertisements awakening the specter of a new September 11.
'SACRIFICE'
"I know what I lost," says a wounded veteran coming out onto the porch of his home in one of the "Freedom's Watch" commercials. "I also know that if we pull out now, everything I've given in sacrifice will mean nothing." The sequence shows President Bush by his bedside putting a medal on his chest, and then footage of the two smoking towers of the World Trade Center with the title: "They attacked us WATCH ." In another ad, the wife of a dead soldier implores "Don't give up" and then says, "We've already had one September 11, we don't need another ." WATCH
'ATTACKS'
Another widow says, "I lost two family members to al-Qaeda," her uncle who was a fireman at the World Trade Center and her husband "in Iraq." My husband fought "so my children did not have to ten years from now." If Congress "switches" votes now, she claims, "will mean more attacks." The words "Other Attacks" flash on a black screen, before she adds with resolve, "Surrender is not an option! WATCH ."
This propaganda of this special interest group, which suggests the existence of a link between Osama bin Laden's organization and Iraq before 2003, explains that its "mission" consists of "leading a powerful fight against terror" and castigates "those who wish to pull out."
The ad invites the viewer to contact their members of Congress, "to tell them surrender is not an option"… A spokesperson for the group contacted by phone by Libération, asked whether the question was from someone who is "for or against the war." In the event of a negative response, the conversation was abruptly ended …
According Forbes magazine, Sheldon Adelson, the principal financial backer of Freedom's Watch, is the third richest man in the United States. The majority of other donors are extremely rich businessmen as well - who George W. Bush often rewards for contributions to his electoral campaigns by offering them posts as ambassadors. This pro-Bush group also counts as one of its members John Templeton, an anti-Darwin evangelical Christian who over the years has spent $60 million to finance projects aimed at combining science and religion.
3,700 KILLED'
On the left as well, the war in Iraq is playing out on television screens, in front of which Americans spend 65 full days per year. A campaign - if however on a smaller scale - has been launched by the coalition of "Americans against the escalation in Iraq ", which flays, "four years without seeing the end of the tunnel," the "$500 billion spent" and the "3,700 Americans killed" in the "religious civil war in Iraq." This coalition isn't demanding a withdrawal, but a "safer and responsible redeployment of American forces in Iraq." The principal Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are also being cautious, afraid of being labeled "defeatists."
U.S. President Bush: 'The Surge is Mine!'
U.K. Prime Minister Brown: 'The Retreat is Mine …'
Thanks to Wealthy Friends,
Bush Re-Launches His War
"The Bush Administration, which cannot use public funds to defend a political agenda that deeply divides the electorate, has created an ultra-conservative pressure group baptized 'Freedom's Watch.'"
By Philippe Grangereau
Translated by Pascaline Jay
August 30, 2007
France - Liberation - Original Article (French)
George W. Bush continues to bet on fear. The White House has launched an unprecedented television campaign to convince Americans to continue the course in Iraq. The Bush Administration, which cannot use public funds to defend a political agenda that deeply divides the electorate, has created an ultra-conservative pressure group baptized "Freedom's Watch ," financed mainly by one of the one of the world's richest man, Sheldon Adelson, owner of a conglomerate made up of large casinos in Las Vegas and Macao.
"Freedom's Watch," among others, is directed by the current director of the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, William Weidner, and former White House spokesman Ari Fleisher. In just three weeks, the ultra conservative Washington pressure group has spent $15 million to bombard America with advertisements awakening the specter of a new September 11.
'SACRIFICE'
"I know what I lost," says a wounded veteran coming out onto the porch of his home in one of the "Freedom's Watch" commercials. "I also know that if we pull out now, everything I've given in sacrifice will mean nothing." The sequence shows President Bush by his bedside putting a medal on his chest, and then footage of the two smoking towers of the World Trade Center with the title: "They attacked us WATCH ." In another ad, the wife of a dead soldier implores "Don't give up" and then says, "We've already had one September 11, we don't need another ." WATCH
'ATTACKS'
Another widow says, "I lost two family members to al-Qaeda," her uncle who was a fireman at the World Trade Center and her husband "in Iraq." My husband fought "so my children did not have to ten years from now." If Congress "switches" votes now, she claims, "will mean more attacks." The words "Other Attacks" flash on a black screen, before she adds with resolve, "Surrender is not an option! WATCH ."
This propaganda of this special interest group, which suggests the existence of a link between Osama bin Laden's organization and Iraq before 2003, explains that its "mission" consists of "leading a powerful fight against terror" and castigates "those who wish to pull out."
The ad invites the viewer to contact their members of Congress, "to tell them surrender is not an option"… A spokesperson for the group contacted by phone by Libération, asked whether the question was from someone who is "for or against the war." In the event of a negative response, the conversation was abruptly ended …
According Forbes magazine, Sheldon Adelson, the principal financial backer of Freedom's Watch, is the third richest man in the United States. The majority of other donors are extremely rich businessmen as well - who George W. Bush often rewards for contributions to his electoral campaigns by offering them posts as ambassadors. This pro-Bush group also counts as one of its members John Templeton, an anti-Darwin evangelical Christian who over the years has spent $60 million to finance projects aimed at combining science and religion.
3,700 KILLED'
On the left as well, the war in Iraq is playing out on television screens, in front of which Americans spend 65 full days per year. A campaign - if however on a smaller scale - has been launched by the coalition of "Americans against the escalation in Iraq ", which flays, "four years without seeing the end of the tunnel," the "$500 billion spent" and the "3,700 Americans killed" in the "religious civil war in Iraq." This coalition isn't demanding a withdrawal, but a "safer and responsible redeployment of American forces in Iraq." The principal Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are also being cautious, afraid of being labeled "defeatists."
Iraq's government has failed, but America's isn't doing so well either
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story ... 13,00.html
Even supporters of the Bush administration criticise its incompetence and the dysfunctional political system behind it
Timothy Garton Ash in Washington
Thursday September 6, 2007
The Guardian
As we approach the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, and General David Petraeus's report on the "surge" in Iraq, the question being asked here, even by staunch Republicans who share the president's goals, is: why has the Bush administration been so incompetent? Behind that is a larger question about how the American political system as a whole is failing to deliver consistent policy and good governance. In the course of three months spent in the US, I have heard this larger issue raised again and again by people with intimate experience of the ways of Washington.
Congress, the administration and senior military commanders berate the Iraqi government for failing to meet Washington's political and security "benchmarks". But the long-suffering ordinary people of Iraq are entitled to ask in return how the American government has delivered on its own promises. Take, for example, the benchmark referred to in shorthand by American politicians as "deBa'athification". What this actually means is undeBa'athification: that is, belatedly reversing the decision by the sometime US viceroy Paul Bremer to purge virtually all members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath party from the fledgling structures of the new Iraq, thus removing the competent along with the criminal and corrupt. Together with the decision to disband the Iraqi army, this is now regarded - even by many then at the highest levels of the American and British government and army - as among the most fateful mistakes made in the occupation of Iraq.
We can argue about whether these and other mistakes were actually decisive to the outcome, or whether - given its history and the legacy of Saddam's tyranny, exacerbated by years of western sanctions - Iraq was almost bound to collapse into a bloody mess. But there are now only about three people in the world (G Bush, R Cheney, D Rumsfeld) who would not acknowledge that US policy over Iraq was deeply flawed and inconsistent. The question is: why? Next week we will again be considering what the US can tell us about Iraq and its government; we should also consider what Iraq tells us about the US and its government.
Take that decision about deBa'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, for example. First of all, didn't they have anyone versed in Iraqi history and Arab politics, not to mention the history of other occupations, to warn them? If yes, why weren't they listened to? Second of all, how was the decision taken? This has been the subject of some controversy in recent days, as those involved play another favourite Washington game: pass the buck. ("I warned against it", "blame it on him!" I'm waiting for the Bob Woodward-type book which has George Bush saying "It wasn't me, it was Cheney!" Or vice versa.) What actually seems to have happened is that an initial decision, authorised by the president, to keep the Iraqi army largely intact, was then reversed by Bremer, working with the Pentagon, without any serious consultation with the national security adviser or the secretary of state. The president was informed in advance, but only in one throw-away sentence in a letter which did not spell out clearly the full extent of the intended purge, let alone its possible consequences.
What a way to run a government. With a hands-off president, a weak national security adviser, an overmighty baron at the Pentagon, and a conspiratorial vice president exercising unprecedented power, there was not one consistent Iraq policy but several competing ones, changing over time. When I discussed this with a retired senior military officer he compared it, rather originally, to the confused strategy of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the beginning of the first world war. Unable to prioritise between a number of strategic objectives (smash Serbia, fend off Russia), it ended up achieving none of them. This was the chronically confused state that the writer Robert Musil called "Kakania".
In Washington, this new Kakania, they call it the inter-agency process. Even with a stronger president, more attuned to foreign realities and more in command of the detail, there is a chronic problem of strategic coordination and of implementation. Another example, rather different in kind, is the gulf between the proclaimed goal of promoting democracy around the world, supposedly the top priority of the Bush administration in its second term, and what has actually happened. Here the problem has been less the presence of strong, competing agencies than the absence of any major agency seriously committed and equipped to pursue that goal. (The semi-autonomous National Endowment for Democracy is an honourable but small exception.) What has the United States really done to promote democracy, by peaceful means, in Egypt, Iran or Saudi Arabia over the last three years? Precious little.
The policy Kakania is compounded by the political one. The minute involvement of Congress in the entrails of government, the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and funders, and an absurdly frenetic election timetable, all further contribute to what Musil called "kakanian conditions". A new president spends his (or maybe next time her) first year getting his (or her) political appointees confirmed by Congress and their staffs put in place. Then the administration has a year to do something. Then it's the mid-term Congressional elections. Then the next presidential race begins, so a first-term president is already running for a second term, while a second-term president is a lame duck. Congressmen and women, meanwhile, having to stand for election every two years (a ludicrously short term), are no sooner re-elected than they have to start raising money for their next campaign. That also means doing favours, earmarking Congressional appropriations for clients in their districts, and other kakanian practices that the US would never dream of promoting in its development and democracy programmes around the world. (Do as we say, not as we do, is the motto.) What a way to run a country.
Ordinary Americans are getting fed up with this, though less over Iraq than over domestic issues like healthcare. Barack Obama is sure of a big cheer every time he attacks the bad old ways of "Washington insiders" - which is also not-so-subtle code for his main rival, Hillary Clinton, still clearly the Democrat front-runner. But actually there's an argument that it needs a Washington insider who understands how the complex, opaque and deceptive system works, in order to change it. And no one could be more of a consummate insider, more formidably familiar with both the issues and the instruments of US policy, than Hillary. Especially when she is aided and abetted by Bill, in a prospective role which he describes - quoting Scottish friends - as that of "first laddie".
According to her campaign website, reason number seven (of 10) for choosing Hillary is "to restore competence and end cronyism in government". (Reason number one is "to end the war in Iraq".) To start doing that, she might take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book. Brown launched his premiership with a lucid and impressive paper on "the governance of Britain". The same is badly needed for the governance of the US. Then the US government could set itself, as it has set the Iraqi government, a list of benchmarks. But who should monitor their implementation?
Timothygartonash.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story ... 13,00.html
Even supporters of the Bush administration criticise its incompetence and the dysfunctional political system behind it
Timothy Garton Ash in Washington
Thursday September 6, 2007
The Guardian
As we approach the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, and General David Petraeus's report on the "surge" in Iraq, the question being asked here, even by staunch Republicans who share the president's goals, is: why has the Bush administration been so incompetent? Behind that is a larger question about how the American political system as a whole is failing to deliver consistent policy and good governance. In the course of three months spent in the US, I have heard this larger issue raised again and again by people with intimate experience of the ways of Washington.
Congress, the administration and senior military commanders berate the Iraqi government for failing to meet Washington's political and security "benchmarks". But the long-suffering ordinary people of Iraq are entitled to ask in return how the American government has delivered on its own promises. Take, for example, the benchmark referred to in shorthand by American politicians as "deBa'athification". What this actually means is undeBa'athification: that is, belatedly reversing the decision by the sometime US viceroy Paul Bremer to purge virtually all members of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath party from the fledgling structures of the new Iraq, thus removing the competent along with the criminal and corrupt. Together with the decision to disband the Iraqi army, this is now regarded - even by many then at the highest levels of the American and British government and army - as among the most fateful mistakes made in the occupation of Iraq.
We can argue about whether these and other mistakes were actually decisive to the outcome, or whether - given its history and the legacy of Saddam's tyranny, exacerbated by years of western sanctions - Iraq was almost bound to collapse into a bloody mess. But there are now only about three people in the world (G Bush, R Cheney, D Rumsfeld) who would not acknowledge that US policy over Iraq was deeply flawed and inconsistent. The question is: why? Next week we will again be considering what the US can tell us about Iraq and its government; we should also consider what Iraq tells us about the US and its government.
Take that decision about deBa'athification and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, for example. First of all, didn't they have anyone versed in Iraqi history and Arab politics, not to mention the history of other occupations, to warn them? If yes, why weren't they listened to? Second of all, how was the decision taken? This has been the subject of some controversy in recent days, as those involved play another favourite Washington game: pass the buck. ("I warned against it", "blame it on him!" I'm waiting for the Bob Woodward-type book which has George Bush saying "It wasn't me, it was Cheney!" Or vice versa.) What actually seems to have happened is that an initial decision, authorised by the president, to keep the Iraqi army largely intact, was then reversed by Bremer, working with the Pentagon, without any serious consultation with the national security adviser or the secretary of state. The president was informed in advance, but only in one throw-away sentence in a letter which did not spell out clearly the full extent of the intended purge, let alone its possible consequences.
What a way to run a government. With a hands-off president, a weak national security adviser, an overmighty baron at the Pentagon, and a conspiratorial vice president exercising unprecedented power, there was not one consistent Iraq policy but several competing ones, changing over time. When I discussed this with a retired senior military officer he compared it, rather originally, to the confused strategy of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the beginning of the first world war. Unable to prioritise between a number of strategic objectives (smash Serbia, fend off Russia), it ended up achieving none of them. This was the chronically confused state that the writer Robert Musil called "Kakania".
In Washington, this new Kakania, they call it the inter-agency process. Even with a stronger president, more attuned to foreign realities and more in command of the detail, there is a chronic problem of strategic coordination and of implementation. Another example, rather different in kind, is the gulf between the proclaimed goal of promoting democracy around the world, supposedly the top priority of the Bush administration in its second term, and what has actually happened. Here the problem has been less the presence of strong, competing agencies than the absence of any major agency seriously committed and equipped to pursue that goal. (The semi-autonomous National Endowment for Democracy is an honourable but small exception.) What has the United States really done to promote democracy, by peaceful means, in Egypt, Iran or Saudi Arabia over the last three years? Precious little.
The policy Kakania is compounded by the political one. The minute involvement of Congress in the entrails of government, the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and funders, and an absurdly frenetic election timetable, all further contribute to what Musil called "kakanian conditions". A new president spends his (or maybe next time her) first year getting his (or her) political appointees confirmed by Congress and their staffs put in place. Then the administration has a year to do something. Then it's the mid-term Congressional elections. Then the next presidential race begins, so a first-term president is already running for a second term, while a second-term president is a lame duck. Congressmen and women, meanwhile, having to stand for election every two years (a ludicrously short term), are no sooner re-elected than they have to start raising money for their next campaign. That also means doing favours, earmarking Congressional appropriations for clients in their districts, and other kakanian practices that the US would never dream of promoting in its development and democracy programmes around the world. (Do as we say, not as we do, is the motto.) What a way to run a country.
Ordinary Americans are getting fed up with this, though less over Iraq than over domestic issues like healthcare. Barack Obama is sure of a big cheer every time he attacks the bad old ways of "Washington insiders" - which is also not-so-subtle code for his main rival, Hillary Clinton, still clearly the Democrat front-runner. But actually there's an argument that it needs a Washington insider who understands how the complex, opaque and deceptive system works, in order to change it. And no one could be more of a consummate insider, more formidably familiar with both the issues and the instruments of US policy, than Hillary. Especially when she is aided and abetted by Bill, in a prospective role which he describes - quoting Scottish friends - as that of "first laddie".
According to her campaign website, reason number seven (of 10) for choosing Hillary is "to restore competence and end cronyism in government". (Reason number one is "to end the war in Iraq".) To start doing that, she might take a leaf out of Gordon Brown's book. Brown launched his premiership with a lucid and impressive paper on "the governance of Britain". The same is badly needed for the governance of the US. Then the US government could set itself, as it has set the Iraqi government, a list of benchmarks. But who should monitor their implementation?
Timothygartonash.com
The view from Baghdad: Mounting death toll which makes a mockery of US optimism
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 950298.ece
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 11 September 2007
By the time General Petraeus had finished speaking yesterday the slaughter in Iraq for the previous 24 hours could be tallied. It was not an exceptionally violent day by the standards of Iraq: seven US soldiers lay dead and 11 injured in the capital; other instances of sectarian violence included a suicide bomb which had killed 10 and wounded scores near Mosul while 10 bodies were found in Baghdad. Three policemen were killed in clashes in Mosul, and a car bomb outside a hospital in the capital had exploded, killing two and wounding six.
In Baghdad, on the surface the overt violence appears to have diminished. There are fewer loud explosions. But, the city is now being partitioned by sectarian hatred and fear; by concrete walls and barbed wire. Claims that the US military strategy is paving the way for a stable society bear little resemblance to the reality on the ground.
The US is accused of manipulating figures relating to violence to fit their case, ignoring evidence which shows that the influx of 30,000 troops has done little to end the continuing bloodshed.
The death of Omar al-Husseini in the Huriya district of Baghdad is one of many which does not even figure in the American reckoning. His killers, masked and carrying guns, dragged him away as his mother wept and his father pleaded for mercy. That was the last time they saw their son alive. Three weeks later they heard that he had been killed.
Omar was 20. His killers were Shia, he was a Sunni, the victim of a spree of murders which has ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods through the city. But both the US military and the Iraqi police have told his parents that as far as they are concerned the abduction and killings were purely criminal acts. This means, statistically, that his death is not included by the US in the calculations for sectarian killings produced yesterday.
The causes behind the daily death toll, if addressed at all, draw conflicting accounts. Mourners carried the coffin of a young mother along the streets of Sadr City yesterday. She had been killed, said the locals, along with her two daughters when US and Iraqi government forces had stormed four homes. The US military confirmed they had exchanged small-arms fire during the operation, but insisted they had no reports of civilian casualties. Also yesterday, attendants at the Baghdad morgue did their round of collecting bodies, nameless victims of faceless killers.
Omar's father, 48-year-old Barzan, said the attack on his son came after the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia, declared that they must leave their home. " We were going to leave, we did not want any trouble. We had very excellent relations with our Shia neighbours, but they could not do anything to help us ", he said. "They [the Mehdi Army] were also saying that my two sons were involved with the insurgents. That was not true, they had nothing to do with politics. Mohammed was away when they came, but Omar was there and they took him away and shot him. The police and the Americans say he was an Ali Baba [thief] and this killing was something to do with that. But everyone knows why he died, it is because we are Sunnis."
Barzan had fled with his family to the Khadrah district where he found refuge with his cousin. They could not watch much of General Pertraeus's address on satellite TV because of a power cut. Four years after the war, electricity supply in the city has dwindled to one hour a day.
Not far away from Barzan's new home are other houses, some with singe marks on doors and windows, properties of Shia who had been terrorised and driven out the other way. The walls being put up by US contractors at a record speed are formalising this break-up of Baghdad along sectarian lines. Militias rule the roost in the newly created ghettos; armed young men with sunglasses manning checkpoints, collecting levies from passing traffic, and meting out their own justice to victims who would never make the calculations on the effects of the surge.
The Americans at first welcomed the forming of the vigilante groups, calling them "guardians"; in some areas this was described as part of the " Sunni awakening", away from the insurgency. But this began to be tempered after tales of extortion began to surface, and now some have been arrested for "suspected al-Qa'ida ties".
The purge of the neighbourhoods, however, has helped to bring down the number of violent deaths, providing fewer sectarian targets. Residents seeing their neighbours being driven out are too afraid to do anything. Ali Mohammed, a Shia in Huriya, spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. " If we say anything we will be attacked," he said. "So what can we say? We know of people being driven out, being killed, but there is no one we can go to."
Others say the surge itself had led to the rise in intimidation by the militias. Rashid Kamal, in Amariya, said: "The Americans drove out the militias, but they only went into other areas. It is this which led to the places where Sunnis and Shia were living together being split up. People who have been neighbours for generations were forced to leave in a few hours."
Since the start of the surge, the deaths of US soldiers have fallen from a peak of 120 in May to 56 in August. But there are significant discrepancies between the figures for civilian deaths presented by the US military and independent estimates. According to American authorities, 165 civilians were murdered in Baghdad in August, a slight increase on the previous two months, but a sizeable decrease since the beginning of the surge. However, figures released by Iraq's Interior Ministry suggest that at least 428 people were murdered in Baghdad last month, and 612 in July. The Associated Press's tally of civilian deaths throughout Iraq in August was 1,809, the highest this year.
Under the US military's rules, a corpse shot in the back of the head is a " sectarian" killing, while one shot through the front is deemed to be a criminal one. Even under this arbitrary criterion it would be difficult on many occasions to distinguish which particular group a death may fall under. Attendants at the Baghdad morgue point out that victims often bear multiple gunshot wounds.
Hours before General Petraeus appeared in Washington, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, gave his own assessment of the surge. "The key to reconstruction, economic development and improving peoples' standards of living is security," he said. Violence in Baghdad, he declared, had " dropped by 75 per cent". He failed, however, to provide any figures.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 950298.ece
By Kim Sengupta
Published: 11 September 2007
By the time General Petraeus had finished speaking yesterday the slaughter in Iraq for the previous 24 hours could be tallied. It was not an exceptionally violent day by the standards of Iraq: seven US soldiers lay dead and 11 injured in the capital; other instances of sectarian violence included a suicide bomb which had killed 10 and wounded scores near Mosul while 10 bodies were found in Baghdad. Three policemen were killed in clashes in Mosul, and a car bomb outside a hospital in the capital had exploded, killing two and wounding six.
In Baghdad, on the surface the overt violence appears to have diminished. There are fewer loud explosions. But, the city is now being partitioned by sectarian hatred and fear; by concrete walls and barbed wire. Claims that the US military strategy is paving the way for a stable society bear little resemblance to the reality on the ground.
The US is accused of manipulating figures relating to violence to fit their case, ignoring evidence which shows that the influx of 30,000 troops has done little to end the continuing bloodshed.
The death of Omar al-Husseini in the Huriya district of Baghdad is one of many which does not even figure in the American reckoning. His killers, masked and carrying guns, dragged him away as his mother wept and his father pleaded for mercy. That was the last time they saw their son alive. Three weeks later they heard that he had been killed.
Omar was 20. His killers were Shia, he was a Sunni, the victim of a spree of murders which has ethnically cleansed neighbourhoods through the city. But both the US military and the Iraqi police have told his parents that as far as they are concerned the abduction and killings were purely criminal acts. This means, statistically, that his death is not included by the US in the calculations for sectarian killings produced yesterday.
The causes behind the daily death toll, if addressed at all, draw conflicting accounts. Mourners carried the coffin of a young mother along the streets of Sadr City yesterday. She had been killed, said the locals, along with her two daughters when US and Iraqi government forces had stormed four homes. The US military confirmed they had exchanged small-arms fire during the operation, but insisted they had no reports of civilian casualties. Also yesterday, attendants at the Baghdad morgue did their round of collecting bodies, nameless victims of faceless killers.
Omar's father, 48-year-old Barzan, said the attack on his son came after the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia, declared that they must leave their home. " We were going to leave, we did not want any trouble. We had very excellent relations with our Shia neighbours, but they could not do anything to help us ", he said. "They [the Mehdi Army] were also saying that my two sons were involved with the insurgents. That was not true, they had nothing to do with politics. Mohammed was away when they came, but Omar was there and they took him away and shot him. The police and the Americans say he was an Ali Baba [thief] and this killing was something to do with that. But everyone knows why he died, it is because we are Sunnis."
Barzan had fled with his family to the Khadrah district where he found refuge with his cousin. They could not watch much of General Pertraeus's address on satellite TV because of a power cut. Four years after the war, electricity supply in the city has dwindled to one hour a day.
Not far away from Barzan's new home are other houses, some with singe marks on doors and windows, properties of Shia who had been terrorised and driven out the other way. The walls being put up by US contractors at a record speed are formalising this break-up of Baghdad along sectarian lines. Militias rule the roost in the newly created ghettos; armed young men with sunglasses manning checkpoints, collecting levies from passing traffic, and meting out their own justice to victims who would never make the calculations on the effects of the surge.
The Americans at first welcomed the forming of the vigilante groups, calling them "guardians"; in some areas this was described as part of the " Sunni awakening", away from the insurgency. But this began to be tempered after tales of extortion began to surface, and now some have been arrested for "suspected al-Qa'ida ties".
The purge of the neighbourhoods, however, has helped to bring down the number of violent deaths, providing fewer sectarian targets. Residents seeing their neighbours being driven out are too afraid to do anything. Ali Mohammed, a Shia in Huriya, spread his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. " If we say anything we will be attacked," he said. "So what can we say? We know of people being driven out, being killed, but there is no one we can go to."
Others say the surge itself had led to the rise in intimidation by the militias. Rashid Kamal, in Amariya, said: "The Americans drove out the militias, but they only went into other areas. It is this which led to the places where Sunnis and Shia were living together being split up. People who have been neighbours for generations were forced to leave in a few hours."
Since the start of the surge, the deaths of US soldiers have fallen from a peak of 120 in May to 56 in August. But there are significant discrepancies between the figures for civilian deaths presented by the US military and independent estimates. According to American authorities, 165 civilians were murdered in Baghdad in August, a slight increase on the previous two months, but a sizeable decrease since the beginning of the surge. However, figures released by Iraq's Interior Ministry suggest that at least 428 people were murdered in Baghdad last month, and 612 in July. The Associated Press's tally of civilian deaths throughout Iraq in August was 1,809, the highest this year.
Under the US military's rules, a corpse shot in the back of the head is a " sectarian" killing, while one shot through the front is deemed to be a criminal one. Even under this arbitrary criterion it would be difficult on many occasions to distinguish which particular group a death may fall under. Attendants at the Baghdad morgue point out that victims often bear multiple gunshot wounds.
Hours before General Petraeus appeared in Washington, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, gave his own assessment of the surge. "The key to reconstruction, economic development and improving peoples' standards of living is security," he said. Violence in Baghdad, he declared, had " dropped by 75 per cent". He failed, however, to provide any figures.
Rupert Cornwell: Never underestimate the power of a general
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commen ... 953417.ece
Published: 12 September 2007
If America is the new Rome, all one can say is that standards for Roman triumphs have dropped. Back in old republican Rome, you had to defeat a foreign enemy and bring the army home to merit this signal honour. These days, in the imperial America of George W Bush, all you have to do is stave off total disaster and make the case that the troops should stay in a faraway country even longer.
Thus it has been for David Howell Petraeus Mesopotamianus as he returned from Baghdad this week to deliver his speech to Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq in general, and the state of the Bush surge in particular.
For all their differences, everyone – be they Democrat or Republican, supporter or opponent of the war – could agree on one thing: the top US commander in Iraq, the man on whom Mr Bush has pinned his hopes of salvaging his war and his presidency, is a great guy, a straight shooting soldier, and one of the country's very finest sons.
Monday in the House of Representatives was, of course, but the first of the General's two days on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, when he went to the Senate to face Hillary, Obama, and other Democratic White House candidates, would be tougher. But first impressions count most, and the same basic rule applies – you don't mess with the troops.
The public may have lost patience with a president who has lost touch with reality in Iraq, and with a squabbling Congress unable to change his policy. But when a square-jawed general, his uniform weighed with stars and medals, strides into the hearing room, all disbelief is suspended.
The numbers in a poll on Monday in The New York Times made the point as no words could. Who, it asked, did the public most trust to bring the war to a successful end? An overwhelming 68 per cent replied, America's military commanders. The President scored a dismal 5 per cent, and Congress a scarcely more flattering 21 per cent.
But the real winner of the general's trip to Washington, paradoxically, will almost certainly be none other than Mr Bush himself. The timing, of course, was perfect, coinciding with the sixth anniversary of 9/11, and thus subliminally reinforcing the bogus connection drawn by the White House between the terrorist attacks of 2001 and its disastrous "pre-emptive" war in Iraq.
For Mr Bush, only two audiences have really mattered this week. The first, and less important, was the Republican presidential candidates. Thus far, they have been supportive, limiting criticism to the handling of the war, rather than its intrinsic merits. General Petraeus had to assure them that things were finally heading in the right direction, and he seems to have done so. The second, and by far the most important, was the dozen or so Republicans in the Senate who have expressed varying degrees of doubt about whether the US should still be in Iraq.
Not long ago, the Petraeus report was billed as the make-or-break moment. There are 49 Senate Republicans. By this summer, enough of them wobbled on Iraq to question the party's ability to muster the 41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster. Without a filibuster, the Democratic-controlled Congress would be able to bring matters to a head, with legislation demanding Mr Bush set a timetable for withdrawal.
But, the President urged, wait for Petraeus, and the thin red line held. Now it too looks stronger. The general's line that the surge is working, and that a troop drawdown can begin this year, appears to have convinced most of the doubters to give the White House more time to put Iraq in order.
So, huff and puff as they will, Congressional Democrats can do nothing, for the next few months at least. A besieged White House can meanwhile savour the the rare pleasure of watching the opposite party tear itself apart, as the anti-war Democratic base vents its frustration and fury on a leadership that cannot deliver on the promises that carried Democrats to victory in the midterm elections just 10 months ago.
Such is the Petraeus effect in the Washington political hothouse. In the real world, of soldiers coming home in coffins, of Iraqi civilians slaughtered in car bombs and a country coming apart, it is another matter.
If the general has his way, by mid-summer 2008 US troop strength in Iraq... er, 130,000 men - exactly what it was before the surge began in January.
Barring a miracle there thus will be 100,000 or more US soldiers in Iraq when President Bush passes the poisoned chalice to his (probably Democratic) successor in January 2009, even though (barring another miracle) Iraq's feuding factions will not have reached the political settlement the surge was supposed to have foster. But then again, Roman triumphs ain't what they used to be.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commen ... 953417.ece
Published: 12 September 2007
If America is the new Rome, all one can say is that standards for Roman triumphs have dropped. Back in old republican Rome, you had to defeat a foreign enemy and bring the army home to merit this signal honour. These days, in the imperial America of George W Bush, all you have to do is stave off total disaster and make the case that the troops should stay in a faraway country even longer.
Thus it has been for David Howell Petraeus Mesopotamianus as he returned from Baghdad this week to deliver his speech to Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq in general, and the state of the Bush surge in particular.
For all their differences, everyone – be they Democrat or Republican, supporter or opponent of the war – could agree on one thing: the top US commander in Iraq, the man on whom Mr Bush has pinned his hopes of salvaging his war and his presidency, is a great guy, a straight shooting soldier, and one of the country's very finest sons.
Monday in the House of Representatives was, of course, but the first of the General's two days on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, when he went to the Senate to face Hillary, Obama, and other Democratic White House candidates, would be tougher. But first impressions count most, and the same basic rule applies – you don't mess with the troops.
The public may have lost patience with a president who has lost touch with reality in Iraq, and with a squabbling Congress unable to change his policy. But when a square-jawed general, his uniform weighed with stars and medals, strides into the hearing room, all disbelief is suspended.
The numbers in a poll on Monday in The New York Times made the point as no words could. Who, it asked, did the public most trust to bring the war to a successful end? An overwhelming 68 per cent replied, America's military commanders. The President scored a dismal 5 per cent, and Congress a scarcely more flattering 21 per cent.
But the real winner of the general's trip to Washington, paradoxically, will almost certainly be none other than Mr Bush himself. The timing, of course, was perfect, coinciding with the sixth anniversary of 9/11, and thus subliminally reinforcing the bogus connection drawn by the White House between the terrorist attacks of 2001 and its disastrous "pre-emptive" war in Iraq.
For Mr Bush, only two audiences have really mattered this week. The first, and less important, was the Republican presidential candidates. Thus far, they have been supportive, limiting criticism to the handling of the war, rather than its intrinsic merits. General Petraeus had to assure them that things were finally heading in the right direction, and he seems to have done so. The second, and by far the most important, was the dozen or so Republicans in the Senate who have expressed varying degrees of doubt about whether the US should still be in Iraq.
Not long ago, the Petraeus report was billed as the make-or-break moment. There are 49 Senate Republicans. By this summer, enough of them wobbled on Iraq to question the party's ability to muster the 41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster. Without a filibuster, the Democratic-controlled Congress would be able to bring matters to a head, with legislation demanding Mr Bush set a timetable for withdrawal.
But, the President urged, wait for Petraeus, and the thin red line held. Now it too looks stronger. The general's line that the surge is working, and that a troop drawdown can begin this year, appears to have convinced most of the doubters to give the White House more time to put Iraq in order.
So, huff and puff as they will, Congressional Democrats can do nothing, for the next few months at least. A besieged White House can meanwhile savour the the rare pleasure of watching the opposite party tear itself apart, as the anti-war Democratic base vents its frustration and fury on a leadership that cannot deliver on the promises that carried Democrats to victory in the midterm elections just 10 months ago.
Such is the Petraeus effect in the Washington political hothouse. In the real world, of soldiers coming home in coffins, of Iraqi civilians slaughtered in car bombs and a country coming apart, it is another matter.
If the general has his way, by mid-summer 2008 US troop strength in Iraq... er, 130,000 men - exactly what it was before the surge began in January.
Barring a miracle there thus will be 100,000 or more US soldiers in Iraq when President Bush passes the poisoned chalice to his (probably Democratic) successor in January 2009, even though (barring another miracle) Iraq's feuding factions will not have reached the political settlement the surge was supposed to have foster. But then again, Roman triumphs ain't what they used to be.
Depressing news.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2167858,00.html
US troops who criticised Iraq war strategy killed in Baghdad
· Article claimed Bush's policy was total failure
· Deaths reported on eve of presidential address
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday September 13, 2007
The Guardian
Two US soldiers who helped write a critique from the front saying America had "failed on every promise" in the war have been killed in Iraq, it was reported yesterday.
Staff Sergeant Yance Gray, 26, and Sergeant Omar Mora, 28, were among a group of seven soldiers serving in Iraq who wrote a piece excoriating America's conduct of the war. The piece was published in the New York Times last month.
The men were killed in Baghdad when the cargo truck in which they were riding rolled over, the Associated Press and local news outlets reported yesterday. The Pentagon had yet to confirm their deaths early yesterday.
The criticism caused a flurry of public debate because of the candour with which the men, all serving in the 82nd Airborne, described the situation in Iraq.
There was also speculation they could face severe penalties for being so openly critical of the war. Another US soldier, Private Scott Beauchamp, who wrote a shocking account in New Republic magazine about a soldier treating a piece of a child's skull as a souvenir, had his mobile phone and laptop confiscated.
"Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise," the seven wrote. "When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages."
The peril of service in Iraq was underlined during the course of writing the article: one of the co-authors, a Ranger, was shot in the head and flown to the US for treatment.
The men directly challenged official claims of progress in the war, calling the debate in Washington "surreal".
They also skewered the military's only real success story from the war - much discussed this week in congressional hearings on the war - the decision by Sunni groups in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, to join the fight against al-Qaida. "Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence," the men wrote.
"We operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies."
The men's deaths were reported the day before George Bush is due to give a televised address in which he will try to persuade a war-weary public to support the war at least until the middle of next year. Mr Bush is expected to announce the withdrawal of 30,000 troops over the next nine months, which will bring US force strength to the levels earlier this year. But he is also expected to say he does not envisage the bulk of US forces leaving Iraq before he leaves the White House in January 2009.
In their testimony to Congress this week, General Davis Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, accused Iran of arming and training Shia militias to fight a "proxy war" that risks further destabilising Iraq.
Yesterday, Gen Petraeus told a press conference that Iran was attempting to create a Hizbullah-like force that was trying to exert influence in Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, amplified that warning.
"Iran is a very troublesome neighbour," she told NBC television yesterday, warning that Tehran would try to fill any power vacuum created by the withdrawal of US forces. "What we are prepared to do is to complete the security gains that we've been making, to create circumstances in which an Iraqi government and local officials can find political accommodation, as they are doing in Anbar, and to be able then, from Iraq, with allies in the war on terror, to resist both terrorism and Iranian aggression."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2167858,00.html
US troops who criticised Iraq war strategy killed in Baghdad
· Article claimed Bush's policy was total failure
· Deaths reported on eve of presidential address
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday September 13, 2007
The Guardian
Two US soldiers who helped write a critique from the front saying America had "failed on every promise" in the war have been killed in Iraq, it was reported yesterday.
Staff Sergeant Yance Gray, 26, and Sergeant Omar Mora, 28, were among a group of seven soldiers serving in Iraq who wrote a piece excoriating America's conduct of the war. The piece was published in the New York Times last month.
The men were killed in Baghdad when the cargo truck in which they were riding rolled over, the Associated Press and local news outlets reported yesterday. The Pentagon had yet to confirm their deaths early yesterday.
The criticism caused a flurry of public debate because of the candour with which the men, all serving in the 82nd Airborne, described the situation in Iraq.
There was also speculation they could face severe penalties for being so openly critical of the war. Another US soldier, Private Scott Beauchamp, who wrote a shocking account in New Republic magazine about a soldier treating a piece of a child's skull as a souvenir, had his mobile phone and laptop confiscated.
"Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise," the seven wrote. "When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages."
The peril of service in Iraq was underlined during the course of writing the article: one of the co-authors, a Ranger, was shot in the head and flown to the US for treatment.
The men directly challenged official claims of progress in the war, calling the debate in Washington "surreal".
They also skewered the military's only real success story from the war - much discussed this week in congressional hearings on the war - the decision by Sunni groups in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, to join the fight against al-Qaida. "Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence," the men wrote.
"We operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies."
The men's deaths were reported the day before George Bush is due to give a televised address in which he will try to persuade a war-weary public to support the war at least until the middle of next year. Mr Bush is expected to announce the withdrawal of 30,000 troops over the next nine months, which will bring US force strength to the levels earlier this year. But he is also expected to say he does not envisage the bulk of US forces leaving Iraq before he leaves the White House in January 2009.
In their testimony to Congress this week, General Davis Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador, accused Iran of arming and training Shia militias to fight a "proxy war" that risks further destabilising Iraq.
Yesterday, Gen Petraeus told a press conference that Iran was attempting to create a Hizbullah-like force that was trying to exert influence in Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, amplified that warning.
"Iran is a very troublesome neighbour," she told NBC television yesterday, warning that Tehran would try to fill any power vacuum created by the withdrawal of US forces. "What we are prepared to do is to complete the security gains that we've been making, to create circumstances in which an Iraqi government and local officials can find political accommodation, as they are doing in Anbar, and to be able then, from Iraq, with allies in the war on terror, to resist both terrorism and Iranian aggression."
Bush's key Iraq ally "blown to bits".
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 961318.ece
An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq
Last week George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province
This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq
Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 14 September 2007
Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of America's hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al-Qa'ida in Iraq was assassinated.
Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.
His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.
On Monday General Petraeus told the US Congress that Anbar province was "a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa'ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology".
But yesterday's assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. "It shows al-Qa'ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," General Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been killed by the many non al-Qa'ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as betraying them.
The assassination comes at a particularly embarrassing juncture for President Bush, who was scheduled to address the American people on television last night to sell the claim made by General Petraeus that the military "surge" was proving successful in Iraq and citing the improved security situation in Anbar to prove it.
Abu Risha, 37, usually stayed inside a heavily fortified compound containing several houses where he lived with his extended family. A US tank guards the entrance to the compound, which is opposite the largest US base in Ramadi.
He spent yesterday morning meeting tribal sheikhs to discuss the future of Anbar. He also received long lines of petitioners as he drank small glasses of sweet tea and chain-smoked. He carried a pistol stuck in a holster strapped to his waist and dressed in dark flowing robes.
Surprisingly, he is said to have recently reduced the number of his bodyguards because of improved security situation in Anbar, although he ought to have known that as leader of the anti al-Qai'da Anbar Salvation Council he was bound to be a target for assassins.
Iraqi police in Ramadi suspect that the bomb that killed the sheikh was planted by one of the petitioners who came to see him. "The sheikh's car was totally destroyed by the explosion. Abu Risha was killed," said a Ramadi police officer, Ahmed Mahmoud al-Alwani. Giving a different account of the assassination, the Interior Ministry spokesman said that a roadside bomb killed Abu Risha. Soon afterwards a second car bomb blew up.
"The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy," said an Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj-Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
He added that the Interior Ministry planned to build a statue to Abu Risha as a "martyr" at the site of the explosion or elsewhere. However, statues, as well as living politicians, often have a short life in Iraq.
Abu Risha's death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa'ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.
In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa'ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target.
The mass of the insurgents belong to groups that are nationalist and Islamic militants who have primarily fought the US occupation. They were never likely to sit back while the US declared victory in their main bastion in Anbar province.
There is no doubt that Abu Risha fulfilled a need and spoke for many Sunni who were hostile to and frightened by al-Qa'ida. Their hatred sprung less from the attacks on the Shia than al-Qa'ida setting up an umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq last year that sought to enforce total control in Sunni areas.
It tried to draft one young man from every Sunni family into its ranks, sought protection money and would kill Sunni who held insignificant government jobs collecting the garbage or driving trucks for the agriculture ministry as traitors.
The importance of the assassination of Abu Risha is that it once again underlines the difference between the bloody reality of Iraq as it is and the way it is presented by the US administration. He is one of a string of Iraqi leaders who have been killed in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 because they were seen as being too close to the US. These include the Shia religious leader Sayid Majid al-Khoei, murdered in Najaf in April 2003, and Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killed by a suicide bomber the same year.
In practice the surge has by itself has done little to improve security, according to Iraqis, a majority of whom say security has got worse. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has actually gone up from 50,000 to 60,000 in recent months, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Baghdad has become a largely Shia city with the Sunni pressed into smaller and smaller enclaves.
Cultivating an alliance with the Sunni tribes had been a long-term US policy since 2004 but finally caught fire because of al-Qa'ida overplayed their hand last year. It has the disadvantage that the US has, in effect, created a new Sunni tribal militia which takes orders from the US military and is well paid by it and does not owe allegiance to the Shia-Kurdish government in Baghdad. This is despite the fact that the US has denounced militias in Iraq and demanded they be dissolved.
The US success in Anbar was real but it was also overblown because the wholly Sunni province is not typical of the rest of Iraq. The strategy advocated by Washington exaggerated the importance of al-Qa'ida and seldom spoke of the other powerful groups who had not been driven out of Anbar.
Abu Risha had real support in Anbar, particularly in Ramadi where many people yesterday referred to him as "hero" and expressed sadness at his death.
But President Bush's highly publicised visit to Anbar may well have been Abu Risha's death knell. There are many Sunni who loathe al-Qa'ida, but very few who approve of the US occupation. By giving the impression that Abu Risha was one of America's most important friends, Mr Bush ensured that some of the most dangerous men in the world would try to kill him.
The testimony by General Petraeus to Congress earlier this week has proved effective from the point of view of the White House in establishing the US commander in Iraq as a credible advocate of the administration's military strategy.
But critics of General Petraeus have described him as "a military Paris Hilton" whose celebrity is not matched by his achievements. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2003-4 was lauded for re-establishing Iraqi police units only for them to desert or join the insurgents who captured most of the city after the general left.
A model for Iraq?
General David Petraeus in his testimony to Congress:
"The most significant development in the past six months likely has been the emergence of tribes and local citizens rejecting al-Qa'ida and other extremists. This has, of course, been most visible in Anbar. A year ago the province was assessed as "lost" politically. Today, it is a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa'ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology."
PS:The ancient curse,the "kiss of death", that befalls all US stooges,right from the days of the Shah,Diem,right upto Saddam,etc.etc..
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 961318.ece
An assassination that blows apart Bush's hopes of pacifying Iraq
Last week George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province
This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq
Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 14 September 2007
Ten days after President George Bush clasped his hand as a symbol of America's hopes in Iraq, the man who led the US-supported revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al-Qa'ida in Iraq was assassinated.
Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha and two of his bodyguards were killed either by a roadside bomb or by explosives placed in his car by a guard, near to his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, the Iraqi province held up by the American political and military leadership as a model for the rest of Iraq.
His killing is a serious blow to President Bush and the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who have both portrayed the US success in Anbar, once the heart of the Sunni rebellion against US forces, as a sign that victory was attainable across Iraq.
On Monday General Petraeus told the US Congress that Anbar province was "a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa'ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology".
But yesterday's assassination underlines that Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere who closely ally themselves with the US are in danger of being killed. "It shows al-Qa'ida in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy," General Petraeus said in reaction to the killing. But Abu Risha might equally have been killed by the many non al-Qa'ida insurgent groups in Anbar who saw him as betraying them.
The assassination comes at a particularly embarrassing juncture for President Bush, who was scheduled to address the American people on television last night to sell the claim made by General Petraeus that the military "surge" was proving successful in Iraq and citing the improved security situation in Anbar to prove it.
Abu Risha, 37, usually stayed inside a heavily fortified compound containing several houses where he lived with his extended family. A US tank guards the entrance to the compound, which is opposite the largest US base in Ramadi.
He spent yesterday morning meeting tribal sheikhs to discuss the future of Anbar. He also received long lines of petitioners as he drank small glasses of sweet tea and chain-smoked. He carried a pistol stuck in a holster strapped to his waist and dressed in dark flowing robes.
Surprisingly, he is said to have recently reduced the number of his bodyguards because of improved security situation in Anbar, although he ought to have known that as leader of the anti al-Qai'da Anbar Salvation Council he was bound to be a target for assassins.
Iraqi police in Ramadi suspect that the bomb that killed the sheikh was planted by one of the petitioners who came to see him. "The sheikh's car was totally destroyed by the explosion. Abu Risha was killed," said a Ramadi police officer, Ahmed Mahmoud al-Alwani. Giving a different account of the assassination, the Interior Ministry spokesman said that a roadside bomb killed Abu Risha. Soon afterwards a second car bomb blew up.
"The car bomb had been rigged just in case the roadside bomb missed his convoy," said an Interior Ministry spokesman, Maj-Gen Abdul-Karim Khalaf.
He added that the Interior Ministry planned to build a statue to Abu Risha as a "martyr" at the site of the explosion or elsewhere. However, statues, as well as living politicians, often have a short life in Iraq.
Abu Risha's death underlines the degree to which the White House and General Petraeus have cherry-picked evidence to prove that it is possible to turn the tide in Iraq. They have, for instance, given the impression that some Sunni tribal leaders turning against al-Qa'ida in Anbar and parts of Diyala and Baghdad is a turning point in the war.
In reality al-Qa'ida is only a small part of the insurgency, with its fighters numbering only 1,300 as against 103,000 in the other insurgent organisations according to one specialist on the insurgency. Al-Qa'ida has largely concentrated on horrific and cruel bomb attacks on Shia civilians and policemen and has targeted the US military only as secondary target.
The mass of the insurgents belong to groups that are nationalist and Islamic militants who have primarily fought the US occupation. They were never likely to sit back while the US declared victory in their main bastion in Anbar province.
There is no doubt that Abu Risha fulfilled a need and spoke for many Sunni who were hostile to and frightened by al-Qa'ida. Their hatred sprung less from the attacks on the Shia than al-Qa'ida setting up an umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq last year that sought to enforce total control in Sunni areas.
It tried to draft one young man from every Sunni family into its ranks, sought protection money and would kill Sunni who held insignificant government jobs collecting the garbage or driving trucks for the agriculture ministry as traitors.
The importance of the assassination of Abu Risha is that it once again underlines the difference between the bloody reality of Iraq as it is and the way it is presented by the US administration. He is one of a string of Iraqi leaders who have been killed in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 because they were seen as being too close to the US. These include the Shia religious leader Sayid Majid al-Khoei, murdered in Najaf in April 2003, and Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, killed by a suicide bomber the same year.
In practice the surge has by itself has done little to improve security, according to Iraqis, a majority of whom say security has got worse. The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has actually gone up from 50,000 to 60,000 in recent months, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees. Baghdad has become a largely Shia city with the Sunni pressed into smaller and smaller enclaves.
Cultivating an alliance with the Sunni tribes had been a long-term US policy since 2004 but finally caught fire because of al-Qa'ida overplayed their hand last year. It has the disadvantage that the US has, in effect, created a new Sunni tribal militia which takes orders from the US military and is well paid by it and does not owe allegiance to the Shia-Kurdish government in Baghdad. This is despite the fact that the US has denounced militias in Iraq and demanded they be dissolved.
The US success in Anbar was real but it was also overblown because the wholly Sunni province is not typical of the rest of Iraq. The strategy advocated by Washington exaggerated the importance of al-Qa'ida and seldom spoke of the other powerful groups who had not been driven out of Anbar.
Abu Risha had real support in Anbar, particularly in Ramadi where many people yesterday referred to him as "hero" and expressed sadness at his death.
But President Bush's highly publicised visit to Anbar may well have been Abu Risha's death knell. There are many Sunni who loathe al-Qa'ida, but very few who approve of the US occupation. By giving the impression that Abu Risha was one of America's most important friends, Mr Bush ensured that some of the most dangerous men in the world would try to kill him.
The testimony by General Petraeus to Congress earlier this week has proved effective from the point of view of the White House in establishing the US commander in Iraq as a credible advocate of the administration's military strategy.
But critics of General Petraeus have described him as "a military Paris Hilton" whose celebrity is not matched by his achievements. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2003-4 was lauded for re-establishing Iraqi police units only for them to desert or join the insurgents who captured most of the city after the general left.
A model for Iraq?
General David Petraeus in his testimony to Congress:
"The most significant development in the past six months likely has been the emergence of tribes and local citizens rejecting al-Qa'ida and other extremists. This has, of course, been most visible in Anbar. A year ago the province was assessed as "lost" politically. Today, it is a model of what happens when local leaders and citizens decide to oppose al-Qa'ida and reject its Taliban-like ideology."
PS:The ancient curse,the "kiss of death", that befalls all US stooges,right from the days of the Shah,Diem,right upto Saddam,etc.etc..
The Ambitious Delusions of George Bush and David Petraeus
John Nichols Thu Sep 13, 10:42 PM ET
The Nation -- We now learn that General David Petraeus fancies himself a Dwight Eisenhower for the 21st century.
ADVERTISEMENT
click here
According to a report in London's Independent newspaper by the reliable Middle East observer Patrick Cockburn, the U.S. military viceroy in Iraq would like very much to return from his mission and -- like the Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II and of North Atlantic Treaty Organization in its aftermath -- mount a bid for the White House.
Petraeus has apparently been so open in expressing his "long-term interest in running for the US presidency" that Sabah Khadim, a former senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry who worked closely with the general in Baghdad, recalls, "I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'."
Such are the political calculations of the man whose embrace of President Bush's war has become so complete that he and his aides have radically altered the manner in which statistics are gathered on violence in Iraq in order to foster the fantasy that the fight has taken a turn for the better.
"General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America's apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012," explains Cockburn. "His able defense of the 'surge' in US troop numbers in Iraq as a success before Congress this week has made him the best-known soldier in America. An articulate, intelligent and energetic man, he has always shown skill in managing the media."
The problem, of course, is that Petraeus's "open interest in the presidency" might, Cockburn suggests, "lead critics to suggest that his own political ambitions have influenced him in putting an optimistic gloss on the US military position in Iraq "
It is Petraeus's willingness to apply the optimistic gloss that marks him as a worthy successor to George Bush, who in Thursday night speech to the nation pronounced himself well and truly pleased with his general's recitation of the administration's talking points. Based on general's testimony, Bush is claiming "success in meeting (our) objectives."
The president's "return on success" is an empty promise that a small number of troops already scheduled for withdrawal from Iraq may, in fact, be withdrawn. At the same time, however, Bush acknowledges that this "success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my Presidency."
Translation: For all the window-dressing talk about drawing down troop levels, Bush continues to peddle the " stay-the-course" message that has been his theme since the occupation of oil-rich Iraq went awry more than four years ago. And, once more, the president is asking Congress to provide him with more money for more war.
All that has changed is that the president now has a medal-bejeweled general who is willing to gloss over the failure the naked emperor so desperately seeks to define as "success."
Bush and Petraeus have joined their ambitions -- one for a presidency that is not summed up by the word "failed," one for a presidency of his own.
Ambition is, unfortunately, the wet nurse of delusion -- a delusion so severe that Bush has seldom hesitated to compare his meandering "war on terror" with the fight against fascism.
For their own reasons, the president and Petraeus feel they can afford to maintain the war until they figure out how to rearrange the letters of the word "quagmire" to spell "victory."
That will not happen. Bush's will be a failed presidency. And Petraeus's will be not be a presidency at all.
Unfortunately, on the way to their shared fate, the commander-in-chief and his general will preside over thousands of additional American deaths, tens of thousands of additional Iraqi deaths, the continued collapse of this country's global reputation and the emptying from our treasury of the resources that might have made America and the world more secure, more functional and more humane.
Petraeus may fancy himself a latter-day Eisenhower. But he has shown none of the wisdom of the man who, recognizing the folly of turning the Cold War into a hot fight, campaigned for the presidency in 1952 on a promise to end the bloodshed on the Korean Peninsula -- and, when elected, did so quickly and honorably.
To those who suggested in 1953 that it was necessary to wage an endless ground and air war against Chinese communists who were portrayed as being every bit as diabolical as the targets of the "war on terror," Eisenhower responded, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. [...] This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
Six years later, as he was finishing a presidency that had, for the most part, maintained the peace, Eisenhower counseled against paying too much heed to the pleading of generals and politicians for new fights.
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments," Ike told British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. "Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
And where do the people stand after weeks of propagandizing by the president and his Petraeus with regard to the war to which they have attached their ambitions?
A new poll of Iraqis, conducted by ABC News, Britain's BBC, and Japan's public broadcaster NHK, finds that 70 percent of those surveyed say they believe security has worsened in regions where the Bush/Petraeus surge has been focused. Another 11 percent of the people in whose name Bush claims the occupation must continue say the buildup has had no effect.
A new poll of Americans, conducted by the Gallup organization just prior to Petraeus's testimony, 58 percent rated the surge a failure. Perhaps more significantly, at least for the general's ambitions, 59 percent predicted that history would judge the whole of Bush's preemptive war with Iraq to have been a failure.
That is a seven percent increase from a year ago, when voters were preparing to reject the war and the war president's party at the polls. And while the testimony of a general and the preaching of a president may move some poll numbers temporarily, their empty words cannot change the reality that Eisenhower was right about such endeavors. "All of us have heard this term 'preventative war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it," the 34th president told a press conference in 1953. "In this day and time... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."
Those are the words of a general who had the wisdom required to assume the presidency, and of a president who had the wisdom to serve as commander-in-chief. It is a deficit of such wisdom that disqualifies both David Petraeus and George Bush, and that ill serves both Iraq and America.
[quote]
U.S.-U.K. war of words hots up
Hasan Suroor
LONDON: The transatlantic war of words over Iraq hotted up on Friday after the British Ambassador to the United States, David Manning, claimed that Britain was misled by Americans over their post-invasion plans.
According to Mr Manning, Americans had no plans for the “morning afterâ€
U.S.-U.K. war of words hots up
Hasan Suroor
LONDON: The transatlantic war of words over Iraq hotted up on Friday after the British Ambassador to the United States, David Manning, claimed that Britain was misled by Americans over their post-invasion plans.
According to Mr Manning, Americans had no plans for the “morning afterâ€
In every conflict that the US partook in last century they printed local currency for post war stabilization. For example when they thought Imperial japan could take over Hawaii they stamped the currency with 'Hawaii' in blue so that it would be toast in the mainland USA.
Iraq was first place there was no currency markers. Either it was led by the gang that couldn't shoot straight or there were other plans. Nobody ships $100 bills by the pallet and not expect leakage back home.
Iraq was first place there was no currency markers. Either it was led by the gang that couldn't shoot straight or there were other plans. Nobody ships $100 bills by the pallet and not expect leakage back home.
-
Raju
Bush calls for permanent US military occupation of Iraq in nationally televised address
Barry Grey, WSWS
14 September 2007
President Bush’s nationally televised speech, delivered Thursday evening from the Oval Office, was the low point of a week of lies and absurdities designed to justify the United States’ bloody colonial war in Iraq. The ugly farce began with the congressional testimony Monday and Tuesday of Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Bush cited their fraudulent assessment of the "success" of the military "surge" to outline a perspective for continuing the American occupation of Iraq and transforming the country into a permanent American protectorate, whose vast oil resources will be exploited by US oil companies, and whose territory will be used as a staging ground for military attacks on Iran and a strategic base for American domination of the Middle East.
Bush was, as usual, shameless in his piling up of lie upon lie, beginning with his portrayal of a gradual reduction in the 30,000 additional combat troops sent to Iraq in the military escalation he announced last January as a "new phase" in the war that could see a significant decline in fighting and troop levels. As is well known, the phasing out of the surge is dictated by the lack of additional forces to replace troops whose tours of duty will be coming to an end.
Once again, Bush portrayed the US occupation as a struggle for "freedom" against "terrorists and extremists," denying that the real enemy of US imperialism is the broad mass of the Iraqi people, who form the backbone of the popular resistance to the hated American occupiers.
The surge, he said, was aimed at "securing the Iraqi population" and bridging "sectarian divides." In fact, recent studies have shown that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has doubled since the surge began, and the country has become far more polarized along sectarian lines, with ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad and elsewhere proceeding at an accelerated pace.
Bush spoke of peace and security breaking out in regions, such as Anbar and Diyala, which have been "cleared"—a euphemism for bloody repression and military violence. He gave an absurd picture of an almost idyllic Baghdad, with schools and markets reopening and sectarian violence receding. In fact, large parts of Baghdad have been turned into virtual concentration camps, enclosed by high concrete walls, patrolled by US armored vehicles, and kept under permanent curfew.
The so-called "security" of the Iraqi people has taken the form of tens of thousands of additional people rousted from their homes and thrown into prisons. So hellish is the situation that a recent poll of Iraqis reported 79 percent favoring the withdrawal of US troops and 59 percent supporting violent attacks against them.
Bush again warned that the withdrawal of American troops would result in a "humanitarian nightmare," an apt description of the social destruction and human horror that US is perpetrating every day it remains in the country.
At times Bush’s pronouncements seemed delirious, as when he thanked the "36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq."
Perhaps the greatest absurdity is the claim, made by Petraeus and Crocker and repeated by Bush, that Sunni Anbar province proves the success of the surge and vindicates the US strategy in Iraq. In fact, the US has achieved a fragile peace with Sunni sheiks in the province by bribing them with tens of millions of dollars in "reconstruction" funds.
If anything, the turn to an alliance with Sunni forces is more a sign of desperation and perplexity than of strategic foresight. Less than a year ago, US strategy in Iraq was based on an alliance with Shia sectarian forces, who continue to dominate the puppet government in Baghdad. When that policy collapsed, the US turned to its opposite, laying the basis for a further division of the country along sectarian lines and an intensification of civil warfare.
Just how stable the US position in Anbar really is was demonstrated by the assassination only hours before Bush’s speech of the Sunni sheik who had led the tribal leaders aligned with the US, and with whom Bush had met ten days previously.
The heart of Bush’s speech was an allusion to the perspective of permanent US military and political control over Iraq. Iraqi leaders, Bush said, "understand that their success will require US political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America."
The speech was punctuated by threats against Iran, pointing to the growing danger that the war cabal in Washington will expand the conflict, with incalculable and tragic consequences. Bush spoke of "Iranian-backed militants" and "the destructive ambitions of Iran," and declared that the "efforts by Iran and Syria to undermine [the Iraqi] government must end."
The fact that Bush feels himself in a position to even make such a speech is due, above all, to the cowardice and complicity of the Democratic Party. Ten months after congressional elections in which the electorate voted against the Bush administration and the war and brought the Democratic Party into power in both houses of Congress, troop levels are substantially higher and all talk within the political establishment of an early end to the war has virtually ceased.
In his speech, Bush made a calculated appeal to the Democrats, knowing that their opposition to the war is fraudulent and that sections of the congressional Democrats are looking for a way to back the administration. Addressing "members of the United States Congress," he said, "Let us come together on a policy of strength in the Middle East. I thank you for providing crucial funds and resources for our military. And I ask you to join me in supporting the recommendations General Petraeus has made and the troop levels he has asked for."
In the Democratic response, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed failed to even mention the November 2006 elections. He spoke of "redefining" and "changing" the US mission in Iraq, not ending it. This is in line with the decision of the Democratic congressional leadership to drop any demand for deadlines or timetables for withdrawing troops.
As one CNN commentator aptly noted, the actual difference between the Bush administration and the Democrats comes down to whether troop levels by the end of the current administration should be 130,000 or 100,000.
The Democratic Party, which provided Bush with the votes he needed for congressional authorization of the war, has supported every request for war funding, and is preparing to support another $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats have worked deliberately and systematically since gaining control of Congress to divert, contain and exhaust popular opposition to the war.
On the eve of Bush’s speech, the Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $459.6 billion Pentagon funding bill, including a $40 billion increase in military programs. Combined with the $190 billion in supplemental war funds, the total military budget for the new fiscal year will be $650 billion—an 11 percent increase over current levels and, in real terms, far higher than total defense spending at the height of the Vietnam War.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep20 ... -s14.shtml
Barry Grey, WSWS
14 September 2007
President Bush’s nationally televised speech, delivered Thursday evening from the Oval Office, was the low point of a week of lies and absurdities designed to justify the United States’ bloody colonial war in Iraq. The ugly farce began with the congressional testimony Monday and Tuesday of Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
Bush cited their fraudulent assessment of the "success" of the military "surge" to outline a perspective for continuing the American occupation of Iraq and transforming the country into a permanent American protectorate, whose vast oil resources will be exploited by US oil companies, and whose territory will be used as a staging ground for military attacks on Iran and a strategic base for American domination of the Middle East.
Bush was, as usual, shameless in his piling up of lie upon lie, beginning with his portrayal of a gradual reduction in the 30,000 additional combat troops sent to Iraq in the military escalation he announced last January as a "new phase" in the war that could see a significant decline in fighting and troop levels. As is well known, the phasing out of the surge is dictated by the lack of additional forces to replace troops whose tours of duty will be coming to an end.
Once again, Bush portrayed the US occupation as a struggle for "freedom" against "terrorists and extremists," denying that the real enemy of US imperialism is the broad mass of the Iraqi people, who form the backbone of the popular resistance to the hated American occupiers.
The surge, he said, was aimed at "securing the Iraqi population" and bridging "sectarian divides." In fact, recent studies have shown that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has doubled since the surge began, and the country has become far more polarized along sectarian lines, with ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad and elsewhere proceeding at an accelerated pace.
Bush spoke of peace and security breaking out in regions, such as Anbar and Diyala, which have been "cleared"—a euphemism for bloody repression and military violence. He gave an absurd picture of an almost idyllic Baghdad, with schools and markets reopening and sectarian violence receding. In fact, large parts of Baghdad have been turned into virtual concentration camps, enclosed by high concrete walls, patrolled by US armored vehicles, and kept under permanent curfew.
The so-called "security" of the Iraqi people has taken the form of tens of thousands of additional people rousted from their homes and thrown into prisons. So hellish is the situation that a recent poll of Iraqis reported 79 percent favoring the withdrawal of US troops and 59 percent supporting violent attacks against them.
Bush again warned that the withdrawal of American troops would result in a "humanitarian nightmare," an apt description of the social destruction and human horror that US is perpetrating every day it remains in the country.
At times Bush’s pronouncements seemed delirious, as when he thanked the "36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq."
Perhaps the greatest absurdity is the claim, made by Petraeus and Crocker and repeated by Bush, that Sunni Anbar province proves the success of the surge and vindicates the US strategy in Iraq. In fact, the US has achieved a fragile peace with Sunni sheiks in the province by bribing them with tens of millions of dollars in "reconstruction" funds.
If anything, the turn to an alliance with Sunni forces is more a sign of desperation and perplexity than of strategic foresight. Less than a year ago, US strategy in Iraq was based on an alliance with Shia sectarian forces, who continue to dominate the puppet government in Baghdad. When that policy collapsed, the US turned to its opposite, laying the basis for a further division of the country along sectarian lines and an intensification of civil warfare.
Just how stable the US position in Anbar really is was demonstrated by the assassination only hours before Bush’s speech of the Sunni sheik who had led the tribal leaders aligned with the US, and with whom Bush had met ten days previously.
The heart of Bush’s speech was an allusion to the perspective of permanent US military and political control over Iraq. Iraqi leaders, Bush said, "understand that their success will require US political, economic and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency. These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America."
The speech was punctuated by threats against Iran, pointing to the growing danger that the war cabal in Washington will expand the conflict, with incalculable and tragic consequences. Bush spoke of "Iranian-backed militants" and "the destructive ambitions of Iran," and declared that the "efforts by Iran and Syria to undermine [the Iraqi] government must end."
The fact that Bush feels himself in a position to even make such a speech is due, above all, to the cowardice and complicity of the Democratic Party. Ten months after congressional elections in which the electorate voted against the Bush administration and the war and brought the Democratic Party into power in both houses of Congress, troop levels are substantially higher and all talk within the political establishment of an early end to the war has virtually ceased.
In his speech, Bush made a calculated appeal to the Democrats, knowing that their opposition to the war is fraudulent and that sections of the congressional Democrats are looking for a way to back the administration. Addressing "members of the United States Congress," he said, "Let us come together on a policy of strength in the Middle East. I thank you for providing crucial funds and resources for our military. And I ask you to join me in supporting the recommendations General Petraeus has made and the troop levels he has asked for."
In the Democratic response, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed failed to even mention the November 2006 elections. He spoke of "redefining" and "changing" the US mission in Iraq, not ending it. This is in line with the decision of the Democratic congressional leadership to drop any demand for deadlines or timetables for withdrawing troops.
As one CNN commentator aptly noted, the actual difference between the Bush administration and the Democrats comes down to whether troop levels by the end of the current administration should be 130,000 or 100,000.
The Democratic Party, which provided Bush with the votes he needed for congressional authorization of the war, has supported every request for war funding, and is preparing to support another $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democrats have worked deliberately and systematically since gaining control of Congress to divert, contain and exhaust popular opposition to the war.
On the eve of Bush’s speech, the Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee approved a $459.6 billion Pentagon funding bill, including a $40 billion increase in military programs. Combined with the $190 billion in supplemental war funds, the total military budget for the new fiscal year will be $650 billion—an 11 percent increase over current levels and, in real terms, far higher than total defense spending at the height of the Vietnam War.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/sep20 ... -s14.shtml
The "Annexation of Iraq"! That is the stark fact,because right from the start,the entire sordid episode has been about looting Iraq's OIL.To pay the bill for the military and political mess,without burdening the US taxpayer,the US has tried to bring around the Iraqi "Govt. of the Green Zone",Malikki and Co. to signing away for generations the oil rights to US and select western oil companies.Unfortunately,Moqtadar and the Sunnis are derailing this grandest example of international larceny ever perpetrated since the looting of wealth conducted by all sides in WW2.So Marshal Dubya and his Deputy Dick-the-p**k-Cheney plan to stay on until the natives and the camel drivers affix their chop,or chopped finger, on the stationery of the White House.
To perpetuate the war in the Gulf,even after the Bush term is over,the gameplan is to generate enough chaos in the region and security worries for the international community that will rally Americans around the flag around election day,so that another Republican candidate can squeak in,defeating a woman (unsuitable leader in wartime for Yanks)candidate,Hilary.Iran's nuclear ambitions have proven most handy for the Bush bandwagon and their warmongering propaganda machine.Iran's alleged aid to the insurgents in Iraq is easy to pin on Ahmed-in-a jam too.
..and the looting of its history,the "History of humanity" itself!
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2970762.ece
It is the death of history
Special investigation by Robert Fisk
Published: 17 September 2007
2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein's regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures.
In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, armies of looters moved in on the desert cities of southern Iraq and at least 13 Iraqi museums were plundered. Today, almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters.
In a long and devastating appraisal to be published in December, Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh says that armies of looters have not spared "one metre of these Sumerian capitals that have been buried under the sand for thousands of years.
"They systematically destroyed the remains of this civilisation in their tireless search for sellable artefacts: ancient cities, covering an estimated surface area of 20 square kilometres, which – if properly excavated – could have provided extensive new information concerning the development of the human race.
"Humankind is losing its past for a cuneiform tablet or a sculpture or piece of jewellery that the dealer buys and pays for in cash in a country devastated by war. Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."
Ms Farchakh, who helped with the original investigation into stolen treasures from the Baghdad Archaeological Museum in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, says Iraq may soon end up with no history.
"There are 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. In the Nassariyah area alone, there are about 840 Sumerian sites; they have all been systematically looted. Even when Alexander the Great destroyed a city, he would always build another. But now the robbers are destroying everything because they are going down to bedrock. What's new is that the looters are becoming more and more organised with, apparently, lots of money.
"Quite apart from this, military operations are damaging these sites forever. There's been a US base in Ur for five years and the walls are cracking because of the weight of military vehicles. It's like putting an archaeological site under a continuous earthquake."
Of all the ancient cities of present-day Iraq, Ur is regarded as the most important in the history of man-kind. Mentioned in the Old Testament – and believed by many to be the home of the Prophet Abraham – it also features in the works of Arab historians and geographers where its name is Qamirnah, The City of the Moon.
Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working. Fifteen hundred years later – in what has become known as "the age of the deluge" – Ur produced some of the first examples of writing, seal inscriptions and construction. In neighbouring Larsa, baked clay bricks were used as money orders – the world's first cheques – the depth of finger indentations in the clay marking the amount of money to be transferred. The royal tombs of Ur contained jewellery, daggers, gold, azurite cylindrical seals and sometimes the remains of slaves.
US officers have repeatedly said a large American base built at Babylon was to protect the site but Iraqi archaeologist Zainab Bah-rani, a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, says this "beggars belief". In an analysis of the city, she says: "The damage done to Babylon is both extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect it, placing guards round the site would have been far more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition military headquarters in the region."
Air strikes in 2003 left historical monuments undamaged, but Professor Bahrani, says: "The occupation has resulted in a tremendous destruction of history well beyond the museums and libraries looted and destroyed at the fall of Baghdad. At least seven historical sites have been used in this way by US and coalition forces since April 2003, one of them being the historical heart of Samarra, where the Askari shrine built by Nasr al Din Shah was bombed in 2006."
The use of heritage sites as military bases is a breach of the Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954 (chapter 1, article 5) which covers periods of occupation; although the US did not ratify the Convention, Italy, Poland, Australia and Holland, all of whom sent forces to Iraq, are contracting parties.
Ms Farchakh notes that as religious parties gain influence in all the Iraqi pro-vinces, archaeological sites are also falling under their control. She tells of Abdulamir Hamdani, the director of antiquities for Di Qar province in the south who desperately – but vainly – tried to prevent the destruction of the buried cities during the occupation. Dr Hamdani himself wrote that he can do little to prevent "the disaster we are all witnessing and observing".
In 2006, he says: "We recruited 200 police officers because we were trying to stop the looting by patrolling the sites as often as possible. Our equipment was not enough for this mission because we only had eight cars, some guns and other weapons and a few radio transmitters for the entire province where 800 archaeological sites have been inventoried.
"Of course, this is not enough but we were trying to establish some order until money restrictions within the government meant that we could no longer pay for the fuel to patrol the sites. So we ended up in our offices trying to fight the looting, but that was also before the religious parties took over southern Iraq."
Last year, Dr Hamdani's antiquities department received notice from the local authorities, approving the creation of mud-brick factories in areas surrounding Sumerian archaeological sites. But it quickly became apparent that the factory owners intended to buy the land from the Iraqi government because it covered several Sumerian capitals and other archaeological sites. The new landlord would "dig" the archaeological site, dissolve the "old mud brick" to form the new one for the market and sell the unearthed finds to antiquity traders.
Dr Hamdani bravely refused to sign the dossier. Ms Farchakh says: "His rejection had rapid consequences. The religious parties controlling Nassariyah sent the police to see him with orders to jail him on corruption charges. He was imprisoned for three months, awaiting trial. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage defended him during his trial, as did his powerful tribe. He was released and regained his position. The mud-brick factories are 'frozen projects', but reports have surfaced of a similar strategy being employed in other cities and in nearby archaeological sites such as the Aqarakouf Ziggarat near Baghdad. For how long can Iraqi archaeologists maintain order? This is a question only Iraqi politicians affiliated to the different religious parties can answer, since they approve these projects."
Police efforts to break the power of the looters, now with a well-organised support structure helped by tribal leaders, have proved lethal. In 2005, the Iraqi customs arrested – with the help of Western troops – several antiquities dealers in the town of Al Fajr, near Nasseriyah. They seized hundreds of artefacts and decided to take them to the museum in Baghdad. It was a fatal mistake.
The convoy was stopped a few miles from Baghdad, eight of the customs agents were murdered, and their bodies burnt and left to rot in the desert. The artefacts disappeared. "It was a clear message from the antiquities dealers to the world," Ms Farchakh says.
The legions of antiquities looters work within a smooth mass-smuggling organisation. Trucks, cars, planes and boats take Iraq's historical plunder to Europe, the US, to the United Arab Emirates and to Japan. The archaeologists say an ever-growing number of internet websites offer Mesopotamian artefacts, objects anywhere up to 7,000 years old.
The farmers of southern Iraq are now professional looters, knowing how to outline the walls of buried buildings and able to break directly into rooms and tombs. The archaeologists' report says: "They have been trained in how to rob the world of its past and they have been making significant profit from it. They know the value of each object and it is difficult to see why they would stop looting."
After the 1991 Gulf War, archaeologists hired the previous looters as workers and promised them government salaries. This system worked as long as the archaeologists remained on the sites, but it was one of the main reasons for the later destruction; people now knew how to excavate and what they could find.
Ms Farchakh adds: "The longer Iraq finds itself in a state of war, the more the cradle of civilisation is threatened. It may not even last for our grandchildren to learn from."
A land with fields of ancient pottery
By Joanne Farchakh, archaeologist
Iraq's rural societies are very different to our own. Their concept of ancient civilisations and heritage does not match the standards set by our own scholars. History is limited to the stories and glories of your direct ancestors and your tribe. So for them, the "cradle of civilisation" is nothing more than desert land with "fields" of pottery that they have the right to take advantage of because, after all, they are the lords of the land and, as a result, the owners of its possessions. In the same way, if they had been able, these people would not have hesitated to take control of the oil fields, because this is "their land". Because life in the desert is hard and because they have been "forgotten" by all the governments, their "revenge" for this reality is to monitor, and take, every single money-making opportunity. A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a cuneiform tablet earns $50 (£25) and that's half the monthly salary of an average government employee in Iraq. The looters have been told by the traders that if an object is worth anything at all, it must have an inscription on it. In Iraq, the farmers consider their "looting" activities to be part of a normal working day.
To perpetuate the war in the Gulf,even after the Bush term is over,the gameplan is to generate enough chaos in the region and security worries for the international community that will rally Americans around the flag around election day,so that another Republican candidate can squeak in,defeating a woman (unsuitable leader in wartime for Yanks)candidate,Hilary.Iran's nuclear ambitions have proven most handy for the Bush bandwagon and their warmongering propaganda machine.Iran's alleged aid to the insurgents in Iraq is easy to pin on Ahmed-in-a jam too.
..and the looting of its history,the "History of humanity" itself!
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2970762.ece
It is the death of history
Special investigation by Robert Fisk
Published: 17 September 2007
2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein's regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures.
In the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, armies of looters moved in on the desert cities of southern Iraq and at least 13 Iraqi museums were plundered. Today, almost every archaeological site in southern Iraq is under the control of looters.
In a long and devastating appraisal to be published in December, Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh says that armies of looters have not spared "one metre of these Sumerian capitals that have been buried under the sand for thousands of years.
"They systematically destroyed the remains of this civilisation in their tireless search for sellable artefacts: ancient cities, covering an estimated surface area of 20 square kilometres, which – if properly excavated – could have provided extensive new information concerning the development of the human race.
"Humankind is losing its past for a cuneiform tablet or a sculpture or piece of jewellery that the dealer buys and pays for in cash in a country devastated by war. Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."
Ms Farchakh, who helped with the original investigation into stolen treasures from the Baghdad Archaeological Museum in the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, says Iraq may soon end up with no history.
"There are 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. In the Nassariyah area alone, there are about 840 Sumerian sites; they have all been systematically looted. Even when Alexander the Great destroyed a city, he would always build another. But now the robbers are destroying everything because they are going down to bedrock. What's new is that the looters are becoming more and more organised with, apparently, lots of money.
"Quite apart from this, military operations are damaging these sites forever. There's been a US base in Ur for five years and the walls are cracking because of the weight of military vehicles. It's like putting an archaeological site under a continuous earthquake."
Of all the ancient cities of present-day Iraq, Ur is regarded as the most important in the history of man-kind. Mentioned in the Old Testament – and believed by many to be the home of the Prophet Abraham – it also features in the works of Arab historians and geographers where its name is Qamirnah, The City of the Moon.
Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working. Fifteen hundred years later – in what has become known as "the age of the deluge" – Ur produced some of the first examples of writing, seal inscriptions and construction. In neighbouring Larsa, baked clay bricks were used as money orders – the world's first cheques – the depth of finger indentations in the clay marking the amount of money to be transferred. The royal tombs of Ur contained jewellery, daggers, gold, azurite cylindrical seals and sometimes the remains of slaves.
US officers have repeatedly said a large American base built at Babylon was to protect the site but Iraqi archaeologist Zainab Bah-rani, a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, says this "beggars belief". In an analysis of the city, she says: "The damage done to Babylon is both extensive and irreparable, and even if US forces had wanted to protect it, placing guards round the site would have been far more sensible than bulldozing it and setting up the largest coalition military headquarters in the region."
Air strikes in 2003 left historical monuments undamaged, but Professor Bahrani, says: "The occupation has resulted in a tremendous destruction of history well beyond the museums and libraries looted and destroyed at the fall of Baghdad. At least seven historical sites have been used in this way by US and coalition forces since April 2003, one of them being the historical heart of Samarra, where the Askari shrine built by Nasr al Din Shah was bombed in 2006."
The use of heritage sites as military bases is a breach of the Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954 (chapter 1, article 5) which covers periods of occupation; although the US did not ratify the Convention, Italy, Poland, Australia and Holland, all of whom sent forces to Iraq, are contracting parties.
Ms Farchakh notes that as religious parties gain influence in all the Iraqi pro-vinces, archaeological sites are also falling under their control. She tells of Abdulamir Hamdani, the director of antiquities for Di Qar province in the south who desperately – but vainly – tried to prevent the destruction of the buried cities during the occupation. Dr Hamdani himself wrote that he can do little to prevent "the disaster we are all witnessing and observing".
In 2006, he says: "We recruited 200 police officers because we were trying to stop the looting by patrolling the sites as often as possible. Our equipment was not enough for this mission because we only had eight cars, some guns and other weapons and a few radio transmitters for the entire province where 800 archaeological sites have been inventoried.
"Of course, this is not enough but we were trying to establish some order until money restrictions within the government meant that we could no longer pay for the fuel to patrol the sites. So we ended up in our offices trying to fight the looting, but that was also before the religious parties took over southern Iraq."
Last year, Dr Hamdani's antiquities department received notice from the local authorities, approving the creation of mud-brick factories in areas surrounding Sumerian archaeological sites. But it quickly became apparent that the factory owners intended to buy the land from the Iraqi government because it covered several Sumerian capitals and other archaeological sites. The new landlord would "dig" the archaeological site, dissolve the "old mud brick" to form the new one for the market and sell the unearthed finds to antiquity traders.
Dr Hamdani bravely refused to sign the dossier. Ms Farchakh says: "His rejection had rapid consequences. The religious parties controlling Nassariyah sent the police to see him with orders to jail him on corruption charges. He was imprisoned for three months, awaiting trial. The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage defended him during his trial, as did his powerful tribe. He was released and regained his position. The mud-brick factories are 'frozen projects', but reports have surfaced of a similar strategy being employed in other cities and in nearby archaeological sites such as the Aqarakouf Ziggarat near Baghdad. For how long can Iraqi archaeologists maintain order? This is a question only Iraqi politicians affiliated to the different religious parties can answer, since they approve these projects."
Police efforts to break the power of the looters, now with a well-organised support structure helped by tribal leaders, have proved lethal. In 2005, the Iraqi customs arrested – with the help of Western troops – several antiquities dealers in the town of Al Fajr, near Nasseriyah. They seized hundreds of artefacts and decided to take them to the museum in Baghdad. It was a fatal mistake.
The convoy was stopped a few miles from Baghdad, eight of the customs agents were murdered, and their bodies burnt and left to rot in the desert. The artefacts disappeared. "It was a clear message from the antiquities dealers to the world," Ms Farchakh says.
The legions of antiquities looters work within a smooth mass-smuggling organisation. Trucks, cars, planes and boats take Iraq's historical plunder to Europe, the US, to the United Arab Emirates and to Japan. The archaeologists say an ever-growing number of internet websites offer Mesopotamian artefacts, objects anywhere up to 7,000 years old.
The farmers of southern Iraq are now professional looters, knowing how to outline the walls of buried buildings and able to break directly into rooms and tombs. The archaeologists' report says: "They have been trained in how to rob the world of its past and they have been making significant profit from it. They know the value of each object and it is difficult to see why they would stop looting."
After the 1991 Gulf War, archaeologists hired the previous looters as workers and promised them government salaries. This system worked as long as the archaeologists remained on the sites, but it was one of the main reasons for the later destruction; people now knew how to excavate and what they could find.
Ms Farchakh adds: "The longer Iraq finds itself in a state of war, the more the cradle of civilisation is threatened. It may not even last for our grandchildren to learn from."
A land with fields of ancient pottery
By Joanne Farchakh, archaeologist
Iraq's rural societies are very different to our own. Their concept of ancient civilisations and heritage does not match the standards set by our own scholars. History is limited to the stories and glories of your direct ancestors and your tribe. So for them, the "cradle of civilisation" is nothing more than desert land with "fields" of pottery that they have the right to take advantage of because, after all, they are the lords of the land and, as a result, the owners of its possessions. In the same way, if they had been able, these people would not have hesitated to take control of the oil fields, because this is "their land". Because life in the desert is hard and because they have been "forgotten" by all the governments, their "revenge" for this reality is to monitor, and take, every single money-making opportunity. A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a cuneiform tablet earns $50 (£25) and that's half the monthly salary of an average government employee in Iraq. The looters have been told by the traders that if an object is worth anything at all, it must have an inscription on it. In Iraq, the farmers consider their "looting" activities to be part of a normal working day.
Iraq bans US security firm Blackwater
Last Updated 18/09/2007, 10:57:37
Last Updated 18/09/2007, 10:57:37
Apparently, US Senators wont go to Baghdad without Blackwater's cover.. Wonder what the Marines think... DisgustingThe Iraqi Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bolani, has ordered the cancellation of the operating licence of one of the United States' largest private security firms, Blackwater USA, after it was involved in a shootout that killed 11 people.
Iraqi security officials say Blackwater contractors, while accompanying a US diplomatic convoy, came under attack and returned fire while travelling in central Baghdad.
According to the government, 11 people were killed and 13 wounded.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned a 'criminal operation' by the firm.
The interior ministry's director of operations says Blackwater is now prohibited from operating anywhere in Iraq.
The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she's contacted the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about the ban on Blackwater.
Iraqi authorities say many of the dead were bystanders and officials in Baghdad want to prosecute some of the security guards involved.
A spokesman for the US State Department, Sean McCormack, says Dr Rice wanted to convey her regrets for the loss of innocent life.
"At this point we're still investigating what happened. We want to determine all the facts as best as we can.
"We have committed to sharing the results of our investigation with the Iraqi Government." {yeah! kick the can and business continues..}
Alan Greenspan Seeks to Clarify Controversial Iraq War Comments
Monday, September 17, 2007
WASHINGTON — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says comments he wrote in his new book about the Iraq war lead-up should not be taken to mean that oil was the Bush administration's primary reason for going to war.
"I was not saying that that's the administration's motive. ... I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential," Greenspan told The Washington Post, according to a story published Monday.
Greenspan remains one of the most influential global economic voices more than a year after leaving the Fed, the nation's bank of last resort. His new memoir, released Monday, has caused a stir with his statements about the Iraq war.
In the book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan writes, "the Iraq war is largely about oil." The comments, released before publication, put Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the defensive as he made the Sunday talk-show rounds following major recommendations on war policy last week.
Related
"I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't don't believe it's true," Gates said, appearing on ABC's "This Week."
Greenspan also told The Post that he never heard either President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney say "basically, 'We've got to protect the oil supplies of the world.'" Greenspan said that did not stop him from airing his views to the commander in chief.
His book appears on shelves Monday.
Aptly named Balckwater in hot water!
A very private war
There are 48,000 'security contractors' in Iraq, working for private companies growing rich on the back of US policy. But can it be a good thing to have so many mercenaries operating without any democratic control? Jeremy Scahill reports
Wednesday August 1, 2007
The Guardian
Private security men from Blackwater in a helicopter over Baghdad. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty images
It was described as a "powder keg" moment. In late May, just across the Tigris river from Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, a heavily armed convoy of American forces was driving down a street near the Iraqi Interior Ministry. They were transporting US officials in what is known widely among the occupation forces as the "red zone" - essentially, any area of Iraq that does not fall inside the US-built "emerald city" in the capital. The American guards were on the look-out for any threat lurking on the roads. Not far from their convoy, an Iraqi driver was pulling out of a petrol station. When the Americans encountered the Iraqi driver, they determined him to be a potential suicide car bomber. In Iraq it has become common for such convoys to fire off rounds from a machine gun at approaching Iraqi vehicles, much to the outrage of Iraqi civilians and officials. The Americans say this particular Iraqi vehicle was getting too close to their convoy and that they tried to warn it to back off. They say they fired a warning shot at the car's radiator before firing directly into the windshield of the car, killing the driver. Some Iraqi witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the ensuing chaos, the Americans reportedly refused to give their names or details of the incident to Iraqi officials, sparking a tense standoff between the Americans and Iraqi forces, both of which were armed with assault rifles. It could have become even more bloody before a US military convoy arrived on the scene.
A senior US adviser to the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence division told the Washington Post that the incident threatened to "undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There's a lot of angry people up here right now."
While there is ongoing outrage between Iraqis and the military over such deadly incidents, this one came with a different, but increasingly common, twist: The Americans involved in the shooting were neither US military nor civilians. They were operatives working for a secretive mercenary firm based in the wilderness of North Carolina. Its name is Blackwater USA.
It was hardly the company's first taste of action in Iraq, where it has operated almost since the first days of the occupation. Its convoys have been ambushed, its helicopters brought down, its men burned and dragged through the streets of Falluja, giving the Bush administration a justification for laying siege to the city. In all, the company has lost about 30 men in Iraq. It has also engaged in firefights with the Shia Mahdi Army, and succeeded by all means necessary in keeping alive every US ambassador to serve in post-invasion Iraq, along with more than 90 visiting US congressional delegations.
Just one day before the May shooting, in almost the exact same neighbourhood, Blackwater operatives found themselves in another gun battle, lasting an hour, that drew in both US military and Iraqi forces, in which at least four Iraqis are said to have died. The shoot-out was reportedly spurred by a well-coordinated ambush of Blackwater's convoy. US sources said the guards "did their job", keeping the officials alive.
In another incident that has caused major tensions between Baghdad and Washington, an off-duty Blackwater operative is alleged to have shot and killed an Iraqi bodyguard of the Shia vice-president Adil Abdul-Mahdi last Christmas Eve inside the Green Zone. Blackwater officials confirm that after the incident they whisked the contractor safely out of Iraq, which they say Washington ordered them to do. Iraqi officials labelled the killing a "murder". The company says it fired the contractor but he has yet to be publicly charged with any crime.
Iraqi officials have consistently complained about the conduct of Blackwater and other contractors - and the legal barriers to their attempts to investigate or prosecute alleged wrongdoing. Four years into the occupation, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations. They have not been subjected to military justice, and only two cases have ever reached US civilian courts, under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers some contractors working abroad. (One man was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, in a case that has yet to go to trial, while the other was sentenced to three years for possession of child-***** images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison.) No matter what their acts in Iraq, contractors cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts, thanks to US-imposed edicts dating back to Paul Bremer's post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority.
The internet is alive with videos of contractors seemingly using Iraqi vehicles for target practice, much to the embarrassment of the firms involved. Yet, despite these incidents, and although 64 US soldiers have been court-martialled on murder-related charges, not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for any crime, let alone a crime against an Iraqi. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have a motto: "What happens here today, stays here today."
At home in America, Blackwater is facing at least two wrongful-death lawsuits, one stemming from the mob killings of four of its men in Falluja in March 2004, the other for a Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan in November 2004, in which a number of US soldiers were killed. In both cases, families of the deceased charge that Blackwater's negligence led to the deaths. (Blackwater has argued that it cannot be sued and should enjoy the same immunity as the US military.) The company is also facing a mounting Congressional investigation into its activities. Despite all of this, US State Department officials heap nothing but words of praise on Blackwater for doing the job and doing it well.
There are now 630 companies working in Iraq on contract for the US government, with personnel from more than 100 countries offering services ranging from cooking and driving to the protection of high-ranking army officers. Their 180,000 employees now outnumber America's 160,000 official troops. The precise number of mercenaries is unclear, but last year, a US government report identified 48,000 employees of private military/security firms.
Blackwater is far from being the biggest mercenary firm operating in Iraq, nor is it the most profitable. But it has the closest proximity to the throne in Washington and to radical rightwing causes, leading some critics to label it a "Republican guard". Blackwater offers the services of some of the most elite forces in the world and is tasked with some of the occupation's most "mission-critical" activities, namely keeping alive the most hated men in Baghdad - a fact it has deftly used as a marketing tool. Since the Iraq invasion began four years ago, Blackwater has emerged out of its compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina as the trendsetter of the mercenary industry, leading the way toward a legitimisation of one of the world's dirtiest professions. And it owes its meteoric rise to the policies of the Bush administration.
Since the launch of the "war on terror", the administration has funnelled billions of dollars in public funds to US war corporations such as Blackwater USA, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. These companies have used the money to build up private armies that rival or outgun many of the world's national militaries.
A decade ago, Blackwater barely existed; and yet its "diplomatic security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone, total more than $750m (£370m). It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as well as visiting Congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security forces, and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up a "command and control" centre just miles from the Iranian border. The company was also hired to protect emergency operations and facilities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where it raked in $240,000 (£120,000) a day from the American taxpayer, billing $950 (£470) a day per Blackwater contractor.
Yet this is still just a fraction of the company's business. It also runs an impressive domestic law-enforcement and military training system inside the US. While some of its competitors may have more forces deployed in more countries around the globe, none have organised their troops and facilities more like an actual military.
At present, Blackwater has forces deployed in nine countries and boasts a database of 21,000 additional troops at the ready, a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gun-ships, and the world's largest private military facility - a 7,000-acre compound in North Carolina. It recently opened a new facility in Illinois (Blackwater North) and is fighting local opposition to a third planned domestic facility near San Diego (Blackwater West) by the Mexican border. It is also manufacturing an armoured vehicle (nicknamed the Grizzly) and surveillance blimps.
The man behind this empire is 38-year-old Erik Prince, a secretive, conservative Christian who once served with the US Navy's special forces and has made major campaign contributions to President Bush and his allies. Among Blackwater's senior executives are J Cofer Black, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA; Robert Richer, former deputy director of operations at the CIA; Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon inspector general; and an impressive array of other retired military and intelligence officials. Company executives recently announced the creation of a new private intelligence company, Total Intelligence, to be headed by Black and Richer. Blackwater executives boast that some of their work for the government is so sensitive that the company cannot tell one federal agency what it is doing for another.
In many ways, Blackwater's rapid ascent to prominence within the US war machine symbolises what could be called Bush's mercenary revolution. Much has been made of the administration's "failure" to build international consensus for the invasion of Iraq, but perhaps that was never the intention. Almost from the beginning, the White House substituted international diplomacy with lucrative war contracts. When US tanks rolled into Iraq in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of "private contractors" ever deployed in a war.
While precise data on the extent of American spending on mercenary services is nearly impossible to obtain, Congressional sources say that the US has spent at least $6bn (£3bn) in Iraq, while Britain has spent some £200m. Like America, Britain has used private security from firms like ArmorGroup to guard Foreign Office and International Development officials in Iraq. Other British firms are used to protect private companies and media, but UK firms do their biggest business with Washington. The single largest US contract for private security in Iraq has for years been held by the British firm Aegis, headed by Tim Spicer, the retired British lieutenant-colonel who was implicated in the Arms to Africa scandal of the late 1990s, when weapons were shipped to a Sierra Leone militia leader during a weapons embargo. Aegis's Iraq contract - essentially coordinating the private military firms in Iraq - was valued at approximately $300m (£1147m) and drew protests from US competitors and lawmakers.
At present, a US or British special forces veteran working for a private security company in Iraq can make $650 (£320) a day, after the company takes its cut. At times the rate has reached $1,000 (£490) a day - pay that dwarfs that of active-duty troops. "We got [tens of thousands of] contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," John Murtha, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, recently said. "How in the hell do you justify that?"
In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers, from driving trucks to doing laundry. These services are provided through companies such as Halliburton, KBR and Fluor and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But increasingly, private personnel are engaged in armed combat and "security" operations. They interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials - including some commanding US generals - and in some cases have taken command of US and international troops in battle. In an admission that speaks volumes about the extent of the privatisation, General David Petraeus, who is implementing Bush's troop surge, said earlier this year that he has, at times, not been guarded in Iraq by the US military but "secured by contract security". At least three US commanding generals are currently being guarded in Iraq by hired guns.
"To have half of your army be contractors, I don't know that there's a precedent for that," says Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a member of the House oversight and government reform committee, which has been investigating war contractors. "There's no democratic control and there's no intention to have democratic control here."
The implications, still unacknowledged by many US lawmakers and world leaders four years into this revolution, are devastating. "One of the key tenets of managing international crises in the aftermath of the cold war was established in the first Gulf war," says a veteran US diplomat, Joe Wilson, who served as the last US ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf war. "It was that management of these crises would be a coalition of like-minded nation states under the auspices of a United Nations Security Council resolution which gave the exercise the benefit of international law." This time, "there is no underlying international legitimacy that sustains us throughout this action that we've taken."
Moreover, this revolution means the US no longer needs to rely on its own citizens and those of its nation-state allies to staff its wars, nor does it need to implement a draft, which would have made the Iraq war politically untenable. Just as importantly, perhaps, it reduces the figure of "official" casualties. In Iraq alone, more than 900 US contractors have been killed, with another 13,000 wounded. The majority of these are not American citizens and these numbers are not counted in the official death toll at a time when Americans are increasingly disturbed by their losses.
In Iraq, many contractors are run by Americans or Britons and have elite forces staffed by well-trained veterans of powerful militaries for use in sensitive actions or operations. But lower down, the ranks are filled by Iraqis and third-country nationals. Hundreds of Chilean mercenaries, for example, have been deployed by US companies such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, despite the fact that Chile opposed the invasion and continues to oppose the occupation of Iraq. Some of the Chileans are alleged to be seasoned veterans of the Pinochet era.
Some 118,000 of the estimated 180,000 contractors in Iraq are Iraqis. The mercenary industry points to this as encouraging: we are giving Iraqis jobs, albeit occupying their own country in the service of a private corporation hired by a hostile invading power. As Doug Brooks, the head of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, argued early in the occupation, "Museums do not need to be guarded by Abrams tanks when an Iraqi security guard working for a contractor can do the same job for less than one-50th of what it costs to maintain an American soldier. Hiring local guards gives Iraqis a stake in a successful future for their country. They use their pay to support their families and stimulate the economy. Perhaps most significantly, every guard means one less potential guerrilla."
In many ways, however, it is the exact model used by multinational corporations that depend on poorly paid workers in developing countries to staff their highly profitable operations. This keeps prices down in the industrialised world and consumers numb to the reality of how the product ends up in their shopping basket.
"We have now seen the emergence of the hollow army," says Naomi Klein, whose forthcoming book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, explores these themes. "Much as with so-called hollow corporations such as Nike, billions are spent on military technology and design in rich countries while the manual labour and sweat work of invasion and occupation is increasingly outsourced to contractors who compete with each other to fill the work order for the lowest price. Just as this model breeds rampant abuse in the manufacturing sector - with the big-name brands always able to plead ignorance about the actions of their suppliers - so it does in the military, though with stakes that are immeasurably higher."
In the case of Iraq, what is particularly frightening is that the US and UK governments could give the public the false impression that the occupation was being scaled down, while in reality it was simply being privatised. Indeed, shortly after Tony Blair announced that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from Basra, reports emerged that the British government was considering sending in private security companies to "fill the gap left behind".
Outsourcing is increasingly extending to extremely sensitive sectors, including intelligence. The investigative blogger RJ Hillhouse, whose site TheSpyWhoBilledMe.com regularly breaks news on the clandestine world of private contractors and US intelligence, recently established that Washington spends $42bn (£21bn) annually on private intelligence contractors, up from $18bn in 2000. Currently, that spending represents 70% of the US intelligence budget.
But the mercenary forces are also diversifying geographically: in Latin America, the massive US firm DynCorp is operating in Colombia, Bolivia and other countries as part of the "war on drugs" - US defence contractors are receiving nearly half the $630m in US military aid for Colombia; in Africa, mercenaries are deploying in Somalia, Congo and Sudan and increasingly have their sights set on tapping into the hefty UN peacekeeping budget; inside the US, private security staff now outnumber official law enforcement. Heavily armed mercenaries were deployed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while there are proposals to privatise the US border patrol. Brooks, the private military industry lobbyist, says people should not become "overly obsessed with Iraq", saying his association's member companies "have more personnel working in UN and African Union peace operations than all but a handful of countries".
Most worryingly of all, perhaps, powers that were once the exclusive realm of national governments are now in the hands of private companies whose prime loyalty is to their shareholders. CIA-type services, special operations, covert actions and small-scale military and paramilitary forces are now on the world market in a way not seen in modern history.
While the private military/security industry rejects the characterisation of their forces as mercenaries, Blackwater executives have turned the grey area in which they operate into a brand asset. The company has been quietly marketing its services to foreign governments and corporations through an off-shore affiliate, Greystone Ltd, registered in Barbados.
In early 2005, Blackwater held an extravagant, invitation-only Greystone "inauguration" at the swanky Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, DC. The guest list for the seven-hour event included weapons manufacturers, oil companies and diplomats from the likes of Uzbekistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Romania, Indonesia, Tunisia, Algeria, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Kenya, Angola and Jordan. Several of those countries' defence or military attaches attended. "It is more difficult than ever for your country to successfully protect its interests against diverse and complicated threats in today's grey world," Greystone's promotional pamphlet told attendees. "Greystone is an international security services company that offers your country or organisation a complete solution to your most pressing security needs."
Greystone said its forces were prepared for "ready deployment in support of national security objectives as well as private interests". Among the "services" offered were mobile security teams, which could be employed for personal security operations, surveillance and countersurveillance. Applicants for jobs with Greystone were asked to check off their qualifications in weapons: AK-47 rifle, Glock 19, M-16 series rifle, M-4 carbine rifle, machine gun, mortar and shoulder-fired weapons. Among the skills sought were: Sniper, Marksman, Door Gunner, Explosive Ordnance, Counter Assault Team.
While Blackwater has become one of the most powerful and influential private actors in international conflict since the launch of the war on terror, in many ways it is like a small, high-end boutique surrounded by megastores such as DynCorp, ArmourGroup and Erynis, operating in a $100bn industry. In fact, experts say, there are now more private military companies operating internationally than there are member nations at the UN.
"I think it's extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force ... in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives," says Wilson. The billions of dollars being doled out to these companies, he says, "makes of them a very powerful interest group within the American body politic and an interest group that is, in fact, armed. And the question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?"
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat and a leading member of the House select committee on intelligence, echoes those fears. "The one thing the people think of as being in the purview of the government is the use of military power. Suddenly you've got a for-profit corporation going around the world that is more powerful than states".
At war with the Pentagon
How Rumsfeld paved the way for Blackwater
The world was a very different place on September 10 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld stepped on to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as defense secretary under President George W Bush. For most Americans, there was no such thing as al-Qaida, and Saddam Hussein was still the president of Iraq. Rumsfeld had served in the post once before - under President Gerald Ford, from 1975 to 1977 - and he returned to the job in 2001 with ambitious visions. That September day, in the first year of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of overseeing the high-stakes business of defence contracting - managing the Halliburtons, DynCorps and Bechtels. The secretary stood before a gaggle of former corporate executives from Enron, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation whom he had tapped as his top deputies at the department of defense, and he issued a declaration of war.
"The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America," Rumsfeld thundered. "This adversary is one of the world's last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defence of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk."
Pausing briefly for dramatic effect, Rumsfeld - himself a veteran cold warrior - told his new staff, "Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary's much closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy."
Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old department of defense bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. The problem, Rumsfeld said, was that unlike businesses, "governments can't die, so we need to find other incentives for bureaucracy to adapt and improve." The stakes, he declared, were dire - "a matter of life and death, ultimately, every American's."
That day, Rumsfeld announced a major initiative to streamline the use of the private sector in the waging of America's wars and predicted his initiative would meet fierce resistance. "Some might ask, 'How in the world could the secretary of defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people?'" Rumsfeld told his audience. "To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself."
The next morning, the Pentagon would literally be attacked as American Airlines Flight 77 - a Boeing 757 - smashed into its western wall. Rumsfeld would famously assist rescue workers in pulling bodies from the rubble. But it didn't take long for him to seize the almost unthinkable opportunity presented by 9/11 to put his personal war on the fast track.
· An extract from Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (published by Serpent's Tail, price £12.99). © 2007 Jeremy Scahill. To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.
A very private war
There are 48,000 'security contractors' in Iraq, working for private companies growing rich on the back of US policy. But can it be a good thing to have so many mercenaries operating without any democratic control? Jeremy Scahill reports
Wednesday August 1, 2007
The Guardian
Private security men from Blackwater in a helicopter over Baghdad. Photograph: Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty images
It was described as a "powder keg" moment. In late May, just across the Tigris river from Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, a heavily armed convoy of American forces was driving down a street near the Iraqi Interior Ministry. They were transporting US officials in what is known widely among the occupation forces as the "red zone" - essentially, any area of Iraq that does not fall inside the US-built "emerald city" in the capital. The American guards were on the look-out for any threat lurking on the roads. Not far from their convoy, an Iraqi driver was pulling out of a petrol station. When the Americans encountered the Iraqi driver, they determined him to be a potential suicide car bomber. In Iraq it has become common for such convoys to fire off rounds from a machine gun at approaching Iraqi vehicles, much to the outrage of Iraqi civilians and officials. The Americans say this particular Iraqi vehicle was getting too close to their convoy and that they tried to warn it to back off. They say they fired a warning shot at the car's radiator before firing directly into the windshield of the car, killing the driver. Some Iraqi witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the ensuing chaos, the Americans reportedly refused to give their names or details of the incident to Iraqi officials, sparking a tense standoff between the Americans and Iraqi forces, both of which were armed with assault rifles. It could have become even more bloody before a US military convoy arrived on the scene.
A senior US adviser to the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence division told the Washington Post that the incident threatened to "undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There's a lot of angry people up here right now."
While there is ongoing outrage between Iraqis and the military over such deadly incidents, this one came with a different, but increasingly common, twist: The Americans involved in the shooting were neither US military nor civilians. They were operatives working for a secretive mercenary firm based in the wilderness of North Carolina. Its name is Blackwater USA.
It was hardly the company's first taste of action in Iraq, where it has operated almost since the first days of the occupation. Its convoys have been ambushed, its helicopters brought down, its men burned and dragged through the streets of Falluja, giving the Bush administration a justification for laying siege to the city. In all, the company has lost about 30 men in Iraq. It has also engaged in firefights with the Shia Mahdi Army, and succeeded by all means necessary in keeping alive every US ambassador to serve in post-invasion Iraq, along with more than 90 visiting US congressional delegations.
Just one day before the May shooting, in almost the exact same neighbourhood, Blackwater operatives found themselves in another gun battle, lasting an hour, that drew in both US military and Iraqi forces, in which at least four Iraqis are said to have died. The shoot-out was reportedly spurred by a well-coordinated ambush of Blackwater's convoy. US sources said the guards "did their job", keeping the officials alive.
In another incident that has caused major tensions between Baghdad and Washington, an off-duty Blackwater operative is alleged to have shot and killed an Iraqi bodyguard of the Shia vice-president Adil Abdul-Mahdi last Christmas Eve inside the Green Zone. Blackwater officials confirm that after the incident they whisked the contractor safely out of Iraq, which they say Washington ordered them to do. Iraqi officials labelled the killing a "murder". The company says it fired the contractor but he has yet to be publicly charged with any crime.
Iraqi officials have consistently complained about the conduct of Blackwater and other contractors - and the legal barriers to their attempts to investigate or prosecute alleged wrongdoing. Four years into the occupation, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations. They have not been subjected to military justice, and only two cases have ever reached US civilian courts, under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers some contractors working abroad. (One man was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, in a case that has yet to go to trial, while the other was sentenced to three years for possession of child-***** images on his computer at Abu Ghraib prison.) No matter what their acts in Iraq, contractors cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts, thanks to US-imposed edicts dating back to Paul Bremer's post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority.
The internet is alive with videos of contractors seemingly using Iraqi vehicles for target practice, much to the embarrassment of the firms involved. Yet, despite these incidents, and although 64 US soldiers have been court-martialled on murder-related charges, not a single armed contractor has been prosecuted for any crime, let alone a crime against an Iraqi. US contractors in Iraq reportedly have a motto: "What happens here today, stays here today."
At home in America, Blackwater is facing at least two wrongful-death lawsuits, one stemming from the mob killings of four of its men in Falluja in March 2004, the other for a Blackwater plane crash in Afghanistan in November 2004, in which a number of US soldiers were killed. In both cases, families of the deceased charge that Blackwater's negligence led to the deaths. (Blackwater has argued that it cannot be sued and should enjoy the same immunity as the US military.) The company is also facing a mounting Congressional investigation into its activities. Despite all of this, US State Department officials heap nothing but words of praise on Blackwater for doing the job and doing it well.
There are now 630 companies working in Iraq on contract for the US government, with personnel from more than 100 countries offering services ranging from cooking and driving to the protection of high-ranking army officers. Their 180,000 employees now outnumber America's 160,000 official troops. The precise number of mercenaries is unclear, but last year, a US government report identified 48,000 employees of private military/security firms.
Blackwater is far from being the biggest mercenary firm operating in Iraq, nor is it the most profitable. But it has the closest proximity to the throne in Washington and to radical rightwing causes, leading some critics to label it a "Republican guard". Blackwater offers the services of some of the most elite forces in the world and is tasked with some of the occupation's most "mission-critical" activities, namely keeping alive the most hated men in Baghdad - a fact it has deftly used as a marketing tool. Since the Iraq invasion began four years ago, Blackwater has emerged out of its compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina as the trendsetter of the mercenary industry, leading the way toward a legitimisation of one of the world's dirtiest professions. And it owes its meteoric rise to the policies of the Bush administration.
Since the launch of the "war on terror", the administration has funnelled billions of dollars in public funds to US war corporations such as Blackwater USA, DynCorp and Triple Canopy. These companies have used the money to build up private armies that rival or outgun many of the world's national militaries.
A decade ago, Blackwater barely existed; and yet its "diplomatic security" contracts since mid-2004, with the State Department alone, total more than $750m (£370m). It protects the US ambassador and other senior officials in Iraq as well as visiting Congressional delegations; it trains Afghan security forces, and was deployed in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region, setting up a "command and control" centre just miles from the Iranian border. The company was also hired to protect emergency operations and facilities in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where it raked in $240,000 (£120,000) a day from the American taxpayer, billing $950 (£470) a day per Blackwater contractor.
Yet this is still just a fraction of the company's business. It also runs an impressive domestic law-enforcement and military training system inside the US. While some of its competitors may have more forces deployed in more countries around the globe, none have organised their troops and facilities more like an actual military.
At present, Blackwater has forces deployed in nine countries and boasts a database of 21,000 additional troops at the ready, a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gun-ships, and the world's largest private military facility - a 7,000-acre compound in North Carolina. It recently opened a new facility in Illinois (Blackwater North) and is fighting local opposition to a third planned domestic facility near San Diego (Blackwater West) by the Mexican border. It is also manufacturing an armoured vehicle (nicknamed the Grizzly) and surveillance blimps.
The man behind this empire is 38-year-old Erik Prince, a secretive, conservative Christian who once served with the US Navy's special forces and has made major campaign contributions to President Bush and his allies. Among Blackwater's senior executives are J Cofer Black, former head of counterterrorism at the CIA; Robert Richer, former deputy director of operations at the CIA; Joseph Schmitz, former Pentagon inspector general; and an impressive array of other retired military and intelligence officials. Company executives recently announced the creation of a new private intelligence company, Total Intelligence, to be headed by Black and Richer. Blackwater executives boast that some of their work for the government is so sensitive that the company cannot tell one federal agency what it is doing for another.
In many ways, Blackwater's rapid ascent to prominence within the US war machine symbolises what could be called Bush's mercenary revolution. Much has been made of the administration's "failure" to build international consensus for the invasion of Iraq, but perhaps that was never the intention. Almost from the beginning, the White House substituted international diplomacy with lucrative war contracts. When US tanks rolled into Iraq in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of "private contractors" ever deployed in a war.
While precise data on the extent of American spending on mercenary services is nearly impossible to obtain, Congressional sources say that the US has spent at least $6bn (£3bn) in Iraq, while Britain has spent some £200m. Like America, Britain has used private security from firms like ArmorGroup to guard Foreign Office and International Development officials in Iraq. Other British firms are used to protect private companies and media, but UK firms do their biggest business with Washington. The single largest US contract for private security in Iraq has for years been held by the British firm Aegis, headed by Tim Spicer, the retired British lieutenant-colonel who was implicated in the Arms to Africa scandal of the late 1990s, when weapons were shipped to a Sierra Leone militia leader during a weapons embargo. Aegis's Iraq contract - essentially coordinating the private military firms in Iraq - was valued at approximately $300m (£1147m) and drew protests from US competitors and lawmakers.
At present, a US or British special forces veteran working for a private security company in Iraq can make $650 (£320) a day, after the company takes its cut. At times the rate has reached $1,000 (£490) a day - pay that dwarfs that of active-duty troops. "We got [tens of thousands of] contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," John Murtha, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, recently said. "How in the hell do you justify that?"
In part, these contractors do mundane jobs that traditionally have been performed by soldiers, from driving trucks to doing laundry. These services are provided through companies such as Halliburton, KBR and Fluor and through their vast labyrinth of subcontractors. But increasingly, private personnel are engaged in armed combat and "security" operations. They interrogate prisoners, gather intelligence, operate rendition flights, protect senior occupation officials - including some commanding US generals - and in some cases have taken command of US and international troops in battle. In an admission that speaks volumes about the extent of the privatisation, General David Petraeus, who is implementing Bush's troop surge, said earlier this year that he has, at times, not been guarded in Iraq by the US military but "secured by contract security". At least three US commanding generals are currently being guarded in Iraq by hired guns.
"To have half of your army be contractors, I don't know that there's a precedent for that," says Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a member of the House oversight and government reform committee, which has been investigating war contractors. "There's no democratic control and there's no intention to have democratic control here."
The implications, still unacknowledged by many US lawmakers and world leaders four years into this revolution, are devastating. "One of the key tenets of managing international crises in the aftermath of the cold war was established in the first Gulf war," says a veteran US diplomat, Joe Wilson, who served as the last US ambassador to Iraq before the 1991 Gulf war. "It was that management of these crises would be a coalition of like-minded nation states under the auspices of a United Nations Security Council resolution which gave the exercise the benefit of international law." This time, "there is no underlying international legitimacy that sustains us throughout this action that we've taken."
Moreover, this revolution means the US no longer needs to rely on its own citizens and those of its nation-state allies to staff its wars, nor does it need to implement a draft, which would have made the Iraq war politically untenable. Just as importantly, perhaps, it reduces the figure of "official" casualties. In Iraq alone, more than 900 US contractors have been killed, with another 13,000 wounded. The majority of these are not American citizens and these numbers are not counted in the official death toll at a time when Americans are increasingly disturbed by their losses.
In Iraq, many contractors are run by Americans or Britons and have elite forces staffed by well-trained veterans of powerful militaries for use in sensitive actions or operations. But lower down, the ranks are filled by Iraqis and third-country nationals. Hundreds of Chilean mercenaries, for example, have been deployed by US companies such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, despite the fact that Chile opposed the invasion and continues to oppose the occupation of Iraq. Some of the Chileans are alleged to be seasoned veterans of the Pinochet era.
Some 118,000 of the estimated 180,000 contractors in Iraq are Iraqis. The mercenary industry points to this as encouraging: we are giving Iraqis jobs, albeit occupying their own country in the service of a private corporation hired by a hostile invading power. As Doug Brooks, the head of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, argued early in the occupation, "Museums do not need to be guarded by Abrams tanks when an Iraqi security guard working for a contractor can do the same job for less than one-50th of what it costs to maintain an American soldier. Hiring local guards gives Iraqis a stake in a successful future for their country. They use their pay to support their families and stimulate the economy. Perhaps most significantly, every guard means one less potential guerrilla."
In many ways, however, it is the exact model used by multinational corporations that depend on poorly paid workers in developing countries to staff their highly profitable operations. This keeps prices down in the industrialised world and consumers numb to the reality of how the product ends up in their shopping basket.
"We have now seen the emergence of the hollow army," says Naomi Klein, whose forthcoming book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, explores these themes. "Much as with so-called hollow corporations such as Nike, billions are spent on military technology and design in rich countries while the manual labour and sweat work of invasion and occupation is increasingly outsourced to contractors who compete with each other to fill the work order for the lowest price. Just as this model breeds rampant abuse in the manufacturing sector - with the big-name brands always able to plead ignorance about the actions of their suppliers - so it does in the military, though with stakes that are immeasurably higher."
In the case of Iraq, what is particularly frightening is that the US and UK governments could give the public the false impression that the occupation was being scaled down, while in reality it was simply being privatised. Indeed, shortly after Tony Blair announced that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from Basra, reports emerged that the British government was considering sending in private security companies to "fill the gap left behind".
Outsourcing is increasingly extending to extremely sensitive sectors, including intelligence. The investigative blogger RJ Hillhouse, whose site TheSpyWhoBilledMe.com regularly breaks news on the clandestine world of private contractors and US intelligence, recently established that Washington spends $42bn (£21bn) annually on private intelligence contractors, up from $18bn in 2000. Currently, that spending represents 70% of the US intelligence budget.
But the mercenary forces are also diversifying geographically: in Latin America, the massive US firm DynCorp is operating in Colombia, Bolivia and other countries as part of the "war on drugs" - US defence contractors are receiving nearly half the $630m in US military aid for Colombia; in Africa, mercenaries are deploying in Somalia, Congo and Sudan and increasingly have their sights set on tapping into the hefty UN peacekeeping budget; inside the US, private security staff now outnumber official law enforcement. Heavily armed mercenaries were deployed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while there are proposals to privatise the US border patrol. Brooks, the private military industry lobbyist, says people should not become "overly obsessed with Iraq", saying his association's member companies "have more personnel working in UN and African Union peace operations than all but a handful of countries".
Most worryingly of all, perhaps, powers that were once the exclusive realm of national governments are now in the hands of private companies whose prime loyalty is to their shareholders. CIA-type services, special operations, covert actions and small-scale military and paramilitary forces are now on the world market in a way not seen in modern history.
While the private military/security industry rejects the characterisation of their forces as mercenaries, Blackwater executives have turned the grey area in which they operate into a brand asset. The company has been quietly marketing its services to foreign governments and corporations through an off-shore affiliate, Greystone Ltd, registered in Barbados.
In early 2005, Blackwater held an extravagant, invitation-only Greystone "inauguration" at the swanky Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, DC. The guest list for the seven-hour event included weapons manufacturers, oil companies and diplomats from the likes of Uzbekistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Romania, Indonesia, Tunisia, Algeria, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Kenya, Angola and Jordan. Several of those countries' defence or military attaches attended. "It is more difficult than ever for your country to successfully protect its interests against diverse and complicated threats in today's grey world," Greystone's promotional pamphlet told attendees. "Greystone is an international security services company that offers your country or organisation a complete solution to your most pressing security needs."
Greystone said its forces were prepared for "ready deployment in support of national security objectives as well as private interests". Among the "services" offered were mobile security teams, which could be employed for personal security operations, surveillance and countersurveillance. Applicants for jobs with Greystone were asked to check off their qualifications in weapons: AK-47 rifle, Glock 19, M-16 series rifle, M-4 carbine rifle, machine gun, mortar and shoulder-fired weapons. Among the skills sought were: Sniper, Marksman, Door Gunner, Explosive Ordnance, Counter Assault Team.
While Blackwater has become one of the most powerful and influential private actors in international conflict since the launch of the war on terror, in many ways it is like a small, high-end boutique surrounded by megastores such as DynCorp, ArmourGroup and Erynis, operating in a $100bn industry. In fact, experts say, there are now more private military companies operating internationally than there are member nations at the UN.
"I think it's extraordinarily dangerous when a nation begins to outsource its monopoly on the use of force ... in support of its foreign policy or national security objectives," says Wilson. The billions of dollars being doled out to these companies, he says, "makes of them a very powerful interest group within the American body politic and an interest group that is, in fact, armed. And the question will arise at some time: to whom do they owe their loyalty?"
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat and a leading member of the House select committee on intelligence, echoes those fears. "The one thing the people think of as being in the purview of the government is the use of military power. Suddenly you've got a for-profit corporation going around the world that is more powerful than states".
At war with the Pentagon
How Rumsfeld paved the way for Blackwater
The world was a very different place on September 10 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld stepped on to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as defense secretary under President George W Bush. For most Americans, there was no such thing as al-Qaida, and Saddam Hussein was still the president of Iraq. Rumsfeld had served in the post once before - under President Gerald Ford, from 1975 to 1977 - and he returned to the job in 2001 with ambitious visions. That September day, in the first year of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of overseeing the high-stakes business of defence contracting - managing the Halliburtons, DynCorps and Bechtels. The secretary stood before a gaggle of former corporate executives from Enron, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation whom he had tapped as his top deputies at the department of defense, and he issued a declaration of war.
"The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America," Rumsfeld thundered. "This adversary is one of the world's last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defence of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk."
Pausing briefly for dramatic effect, Rumsfeld - himself a veteran cold warrior - told his new staff, "Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary. The adversary's much closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy."
Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, supplanting the old department of defense bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector. The problem, Rumsfeld said, was that unlike businesses, "governments can't die, so we need to find other incentives for bureaucracy to adapt and improve." The stakes, he declared, were dire - "a matter of life and death, ultimately, every American's."
That day, Rumsfeld announced a major initiative to streamline the use of the private sector in the waging of America's wars and predicted his initiative would meet fierce resistance. "Some might ask, 'How in the world could the secretary of defense attack the Pentagon in front of its people?'" Rumsfeld told his audience. "To them I reply, I have no desire to attack the Pentagon; I want to liberate it. We need to save it from itself."
The next morning, the Pentagon would literally be attacked as American Airlines Flight 77 - a Boeing 757 - smashed into its western wall. Rumsfeld would famously assist rescue workers in pulling bodies from the rubble. But it didn't take long for him to seize the almost unthinkable opportunity presented by 9/11 to put his personal war on the fast track.
· An extract from Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (published by Serpent's Tail, price £12.99). © 2007 Jeremy Scahill. To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.
Latest milestone of achievement in Bush's New Iraq.Apart from the oil wholescale looting and the antiquities looting,the latest is given below!
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 976691.ece
Baghdad revealed as bank robbery capital of the world
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 19 September 2007
The attack had been planned with military precision. Twelve men, masked and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles stormed into the al-Sanik branch of the Bank of Baghdad, disarmed the guards, tied them up and then terrified the staff by firing into the ceiling. About $800,000 (£400,000) in US dollars and Iraqi dinars was grabbed before the gang drove away in three cars, untroubled by the many checkpoints in the area.
The raid was just the latest of a long and lucrative line that sees, on average, a million dollars a month being taken at gunpoint. Bank executives have been kidnapped from their homes for ransoms as high as $6mn. Amid the bombs and gunfire, there is one "industry" is doing remarkably well – Baghdad is now the bank robbery capital of the world.
Iraq holds the world record for both the first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies. Top of the league is the estimated $800m removed from the Central Bank by Saddam Hussein's son, Qusay, in the dying days of the regime as US tanks were rolling into Baghdad.
In second position is the heist, just two months ago, at the Dar al-Salam Bank at Sadoun Street in central Baghdad when three guards turned on their employers and left with $282m.
Other banks hit recently has been the al-Rafidian which lost $1.2m; the Industry Bank, which had $784,000 taken; Iraqi Trade Bank, $1.8m ; the Bank of Baghdad, $ 1.6m; al-Warka Bank, $750,000; The Middle East Investment Bank, $1.32m... the list goes on.
Four years after "liberation" and the coming of the free market, Iraq is almost entirely a cash economy with a mushrooming group of private banks and vast sums of money being moved daily across the country.
The US authorities praised the rise of the private banking sector as one of the success stories of Iraq.
But the upsurge in robberies has meant that some branches have been unable to pay customers because of lack of cash.
One thing Iraq is not short of is men with guns. The banks, and their money convoys, are easy pickings. The security forces have their hands full with the insurgency and Shia militia groups and, in any case, are themselves suspected of carrying out many of the robberies.
Firas Ali Suleiman, a driver for the Bank of Baghdad described how a van carrying $1.6m from its Hilla branch to Baghdad was ambushed. "It was a Kia van and it was not armoured, but we had four guards with the money inside," he said.
"We were stopped at a checkpoint in Audiya run by the Ministry of Interior commandos. They ordered the back door to be opened and saw the money. The guards were called out and then put in handcuffs and hooded. I could hear them talking about the money and then they took the money out. I was told to drive away and I called the manager on my mobile and told him what happened.
"The next roadblock was by the Mehdi Army (Shia militia). I think they, too, were expecting to get some money but, by then, of course, it was gone. The police were called later but they did nothing."
Khalid Mohammed, the manager called by Mr Suleiman, is convinced most of the robberies take place with inside help. "I have been at a bank branch when the men with guns came. They knew exactly where the money was and, when they left, they went straight past all the checkpoints, no one searched their cars or asked any questions.
"Before the war we just had a few banks, now there are lots of private ones, so less security, and more opportunity for stealing."
Armed convoys, with darkened windows move through Baghdad every day.. They could be ministerial escorts, private security firms, or, as the police point out, robbers – and it is impossible for police to tell which is which.
Iraq's biggest heists
1: Central Bank (2003): $800m (£400m)
2: Dar al-Salam (2007): $282m
3. Iraqi Trade Bank (2007): $1.8m
4: Bank of Baghdad (2007): $1.6m
5: MEI Bank (2007): $1.32m
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 976691.ece
Baghdad revealed as bank robbery capital of the world
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 19 September 2007
The attack had been planned with military precision. Twelve men, masked and carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles stormed into the al-Sanik branch of the Bank of Baghdad, disarmed the guards, tied them up and then terrified the staff by firing into the ceiling. About $800,000 (£400,000) in US dollars and Iraqi dinars was grabbed before the gang drove away in three cars, untroubled by the many checkpoints in the area.
The raid was just the latest of a long and lucrative line that sees, on average, a million dollars a month being taken at gunpoint. Bank executives have been kidnapped from their homes for ransoms as high as $6mn. Amid the bombs and gunfire, there is one "industry" is doing remarkably well – Baghdad is now the bank robbery capital of the world.
Iraq holds the world record for both the first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies. Top of the league is the estimated $800m removed from the Central Bank by Saddam Hussein's son, Qusay, in the dying days of the regime as US tanks were rolling into Baghdad.
In second position is the heist, just two months ago, at the Dar al-Salam Bank at Sadoun Street in central Baghdad when three guards turned on their employers and left with $282m.
Other banks hit recently has been the al-Rafidian which lost $1.2m; the Industry Bank, which had $784,000 taken; Iraqi Trade Bank, $1.8m ; the Bank of Baghdad, $ 1.6m; al-Warka Bank, $750,000; The Middle East Investment Bank, $1.32m... the list goes on.
Four years after "liberation" and the coming of the free market, Iraq is almost entirely a cash economy with a mushrooming group of private banks and vast sums of money being moved daily across the country.
The US authorities praised the rise of the private banking sector as one of the success stories of Iraq.
But the upsurge in robberies has meant that some branches have been unable to pay customers because of lack of cash.
One thing Iraq is not short of is men with guns. The banks, and their money convoys, are easy pickings. The security forces have their hands full with the insurgency and Shia militia groups and, in any case, are themselves suspected of carrying out many of the robberies.
Firas Ali Suleiman, a driver for the Bank of Baghdad described how a van carrying $1.6m from its Hilla branch to Baghdad was ambushed. "It was a Kia van and it was not armoured, but we had four guards with the money inside," he said.
"We were stopped at a checkpoint in Audiya run by the Ministry of Interior commandos. They ordered the back door to be opened and saw the money. The guards were called out and then put in handcuffs and hooded. I could hear them talking about the money and then they took the money out. I was told to drive away and I called the manager on my mobile and told him what happened.
"The next roadblock was by the Mehdi Army (Shia militia). I think they, too, were expecting to get some money but, by then, of course, it was gone. The police were called later but they did nothing."
Khalid Mohammed, the manager called by Mr Suleiman, is convinced most of the robberies take place with inside help. "I have been at a bank branch when the men with guns came. They knew exactly where the money was and, when they left, they went straight past all the checkpoints, no one searched their cars or asked any questions.
"Before the war we just had a few banks, now there are lots of private ones, so less security, and more opportunity for stealing."
Armed convoys, with darkened windows move through Baghdad every day.. They could be ministerial escorts, private security firms, or, as the police point out, robbers – and it is impossible for police to tell which is which.
Iraq's biggest heists
1: Central Bank (2003): $800m (£400m)
2: Dar al-Salam (2007): $282m
3. Iraqi Trade Bank (2007): $1.8m
4: Bank of Baghdad (2007): $1.6m
5: MEI Bank (2007): $1.32m
Deccan Chronicle, 20 Sept., 2007
Keep Iraq operation, but seek cooperation
By Henry A. Kissinger
Two realities define the range of a meaningful debate on Iraq policy: The war cannot be ended by military means alone. But neither is it possible to "end" the war by ceding the battlefield, for the radical jihadist challenge knows no frontiers.
An abrupt withdrawal from Iraq will not end the war; it will only redirect it. Within Iraq, the sectarian conflict could assume genocidal proportions; terrorist base areas could re-emerge.
Under the impact of American abdication, Lebanon may slip into domination by Iran’s ally, Hezbollah; a Syria-Israel war or an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities may become more likely as Israel attempts to break the radical encirclement; Turkey and Iran will probably squeeze Kurdish autonomy; and the Taliban in Afghanistan will gain new impetus. That is what is meant by "precipitate" withdrawal — a withdrawal in which the US loses the ability to shape events, either within Iraq, on the anti-jihadist battlefield or in the world at large.
The proper troop level in Iraq will not be discovered by political compromise at home. If reducing troop levels turns into the litmus test of American politics, each withdrawal will generate demands for additional ones until the political, military and psychological framework collapses.
An appropriate strategy for Iraq requires political direction. But the political dimension must be the ally of military strategy, not a resignation from it.
Symbolic withdrawals, urged by such wise elder statesmen as Senators John Warner, Republican of Virginia, and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, might indeed assuage the immediate public concerns. They should be understood, however, as palliatives.
The argument that the mission of US forces should be confined to defeating terrorism, protecting the frontiers, preventing the emergence of Taliban-like structures and staying out of the civil-war aspects is also tempting. In practice, it will be very difficult to distinguish among the various aspects of the conflict with any precision.
Some answer that the best political result is most likely to be achieved by total withdrawal. In the end, political leaders will be held responsible — often by their publics, surely by history — not only for what they hoped but for what they should have feared. Nothing in West Asian history suggests that abdication confers influence. Those who urge this course of action need to put forward what they recommend if the dire consequences of an abrupt withdrawal foreseen by the majority of experts and diplomats occur.
The missing ingredient has not been a withdrawal schedule but a political and diplomatic design connected to a military strategy. The issue is not whether Arab or Muslim societies can ever become democratic; it is whether they can become so under American military guidance in a timeframe for which the US political process will stand.
In homogeneous societies, a minority can aspire to become a majority as a result of elections. That outcome is improbable in societies where historic grievances follow existing ethnic or sectarian lines.
Iraq is multiethnic and multisectarian. The Sunni sect has dominated the majority Shia and subjugated the Kurdish minority for all of Iraq’s history of less than a hundred years.
American exhortations for national reconciliation are based on Constitutional principles drawn from the western experience. But it is impossible to achieve this in a six-month period defined by the American troop surge in an artificially created State wracked by the legacy of a thousand years of ethnic and sectarian conflicts.
Experience should teach us that trying to manipulate a fragile political structure — particularly one resulting from American-sponsored elections — is likely to play into radical hands. Nor are the present frustrations with Baghdad’s performance a sufficient excuse to impose a strategic disaster on ourselves.
However much Americans may disagree about the decision to intervene or about the policy afterward, the United States is now in Iraq in large part to serve the American commitment to global order and not as a favour to the Baghdad government.
It is possible that the present structure in Baghdad is incapable of national reconciliation because its elected constituents were elected on a sectarian basis. A wiser course would be to concentrate on the three principal regions and promote technocratic, efficient and humane administration in each. More efficient regional government leading to substantial decrease in the level of violence, to progress toward the rule of law and to functioning markets could then, over a period of time, give the Iraqi people an opportunity for national reconciliation — especially if no region was strong enough to impose its will on the others by force.
Failing that, the country may well drift into de facto partition under the label of autonomy, such as already exists in the Kurdish region. That very prospect might encourage the Baghdad political forces to move toward reconciliation.
The second and ultimately decisive route to overcoming the Iraqi crisis is through international diplomacy. Today the US is bearing the major burden for regional security militarily, politically and economically. Yet many other nations know that their internal security and, in some cases, their survival will be affected by the outcome in Iraq and are bound to be concerned that they may all face unpredictable risks if the situation gets out of control.
That passivity cannot last. The best way for other countries to give effect to their concerns is to participate in the construction of a civil society. The best way for us to foster it is to turn reconstruction step-by-step into a cooperative international effort under multilateral management.
It will not be possible to achieve these objectives in a single, dramatic move. The military outcome in Iraq will ultimately have to be reflected in some international recognition and some international enforcement of its provisions. The international conference of Iraq’s neighbours, including the permanent members of the Security Council, has established a possible forum for this. A UN role in fostering such a political outcome could be helpful.
Such a strategy is the best road to reduce America’s military presence in the long run.
None of these objectives can be realised, however, unless two conditions are met: The US needs to maintain a presence in the region on which its supporters can count and which its adversaries have to take seriously. And above all, the country must recognise that bipartisanship has become a necessity, not a tactic.
Henry A. Kissinger, former US secretary of State, heads the consulting firm Kissinger & Associates
The "pot ofgold" is getting cold! The contract killers must now find another killing field,perhapsAfghanoistan,where the NATO (North Asian Treaty Org.) forces are under severe pressure from the Talibs. What agreat achievement of George Dubya Bush.He has set the world afire with his new industry of "disaster capitalism" and has happily "outsourced"all his dirty work in the world's trouble spots to his cronies' companies ,raking in billions!
Iraq's hired hands under fire as the pot of gold starts to run low
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2174510,00.html
Security boom ends amid complaints about civilian killings and immunity
Ewen MacAskill in Washington, Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday September 22, 2007
The Guardian
They needed to be hired fast after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With too few US soldiers on the ground, demand for private security guards was at a level not seen since the mercenary heyday of Congo in the 1960s. Former special forces soldiers from the US and Britain, with their wrap-around shades and swagger, had to be supplemented by Chileans, Colombians and Jordanians.
Iraq was awash with billions of dollars from the US, and company profits soared, while those on the ground were earning much more than US and British soldiers.
But the Iraq boom for private security firms is coming to an end, even without the Blackwater shooting row, according to those in the trade.
"It will not be the same again," said Andy Bearpark, former director of operations and infrastructure for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and now director-general of the recently formed British Association of Private Security Companies. The $18bn (£9bn) the US paid out for Iraqi reconstruction will not be repeated, he said.
Richard Fenning, chief executive of Control Risks, the British company which has 200 employees in southern Iraq, mainly protecting officials from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, echoed the point. "The situation has deteriorated. American money has dried up on reconstruction. So there is a lull," he said. "It sounds counterintuitive, but Iraq has got too dangerous for security companies to boom there."
British companies estimate that combined contracts increased from £320m in 2003 to nearly £2bn in 2004. They put the annual global value of contracts handed out to private military companies at £44.5bn.
Blackwater, which was set up by a former US navy Seal, Erik Prince, is one of the biggest and most notorious. And, for many Iraqis, the most hated.
Its reputation for aggression was reinforced last Sunday when Blackwater was providing protection for a US diplomatic convoy travelling through Baghdad. Blackwater says the convoy was attacked and guards returned fire. The Iraqi government says Blackwater opened fire first and wants it expelled. The US government, which relies on Blackwater to protect its ambassador, diplomats and reconstruction workers, is trying to keep them in the country.
An Iraqi interior ministry spokesman said yesterday an investigation had concluded that Blackwater guards opened fire in Nisoor Square when a vehicle failed to stop. The guards thought they were under attack, according to the report. "They started shooting randomly from four positions in the square, killing 11 civilians and injuring 12 others. The first one who was killed was a driver who failed to stop and then his wife," he said. The report recommended ending immunity for foreign security companies and replacing them with Iraqi firms.
Between Monday and Thursday, US diplomats were confined to the Green Zone amid the uncertainty over the status of Blackwater. But yesterday, despite the Iraqi government's order to expel them, the US embassy confirmed that Blackwater guards were back on the streets of Baghdad on "limited" missions.
Christian Stalberg, a spokesman for BlackwaterWatch, which monitors its activities, said yesterday: "It is out of control and needs to be brought under control. It is a menace internationally and domestically."
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, said: "There have been 64 courts martial of US soldiers. There is not been a single charge against any contractor. In the case of Blackwater, there have been a number of incidents and nothing has happened."
Democrats in the US senate yesterday held an emergency committee hearing into Blackwater.
Among the witnesses was Katy Helvenston-Wettengel. Her son Scotty worked for Blackwater and was one of four killed in Falluja in 2004, their bodies dragged round the city and suspended from a bridge. She has a lawsuit against the company. "They have a callous disregard for life. They [the four] were sent into Falluja, though it was a Code Black, as dangerous as it gets, to pick up kitchen equipment, plastic utensils, forks and knives," she said ahead of giving testimony.
The men working for the security companies, while reluctant to talk in public, have their own online chat-rooms, where they exchange views on what they refer to as "the sandpit" - Iraq. They resent portrayals of them as trigger-happy cowboys.
A former member of Blackwater yesterday defended his former colleagues. He portrayed the men as disciplined, many of them, like him, former members of US special forces. "We would never, goddamn, shoot at people indiscriminately," he said. "We have an honour system just like anyone else."
He was suspicious and nervous about talking to the media, partly because Blackwater slaps a lifelong, non-disclosure contract on employees that includes a $250,000 penalty. But he admitted there were problems with guards employed on the cheap who lack training. "We grew too fast and [took on] too many people who had not been in conflict situations," he said.
No exodus
British companies were yesterday reluctant to comment on Blackwater. However, one described the company as being at the "aggressive end of the market", and expressed surprise that the state department still employed them.
But there are still profits to be made in Iraq. Earlier this month the Pentagon renewed its contract with Aegis, a British company run by Tim Spicer, a former colonel in the Scots Guards, at $475m over two years, the biggest single deal in Iraq, to provide "reconstruction security support services".
All the directors of British private security companies said business will improve when the security situation improves.
"There is no great exodus, nothing to panic about," said William James, spokesman for the Olive Group.
Companies are looking at work in other countries, such as Afghanistan and Sudan. Blackwater is diversifying into training US law enforcement officers. Some companies may also move into helping protect humanitarian work, though aid organisations are nervous about this.
John Hilary, War on Want's director of campaigns and policy, said: "There is a massive difference between the provision of security and paramilitary services and the hearts and minds work of delivering humanitarian aid. They are not compatible industries."
As for Iraq, the private security guards are largely unrepentant about their role over the last four years. One of them said: "Someone had to fill the void."
PS:Prediction.The "contract killers" to whom the work was "outsourced" in the first place will now look for cheaper "sub-contractors" from the "turd world".Suitable changes in policy to allow the equivalent of "Johnny Gurkha"(who defends British interests worldwide for a pittance,far less than his white British comrades),to do the dirty work from now on.Watch how efforts will be made to recruit manpower from the Indian sub-continent,especially as some of these crony capitalist front companies have started investing heavily in India!
Iraq's hired hands under fire as the pot of gold starts to run low
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2174510,00.html
Security boom ends amid complaints about civilian killings and immunity
Ewen MacAskill in Washington, Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday September 22, 2007
The Guardian
They needed to be hired fast after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With too few US soldiers on the ground, demand for private security guards was at a level not seen since the mercenary heyday of Congo in the 1960s. Former special forces soldiers from the US and Britain, with their wrap-around shades and swagger, had to be supplemented by Chileans, Colombians and Jordanians.
Iraq was awash with billions of dollars from the US, and company profits soared, while those on the ground were earning much more than US and British soldiers.
But the Iraq boom for private security firms is coming to an end, even without the Blackwater shooting row, according to those in the trade.
"It will not be the same again," said Andy Bearpark, former director of operations and infrastructure for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and now director-general of the recently formed British Association of Private Security Companies. The $18bn (£9bn) the US paid out for Iraqi reconstruction will not be repeated, he said.
Richard Fenning, chief executive of Control Risks, the British company which has 200 employees in southern Iraq, mainly protecting officials from the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, echoed the point. "The situation has deteriorated. American money has dried up on reconstruction. So there is a lull," he said. "It sounds counterintuitive, but Iraq has got too dangerous for security companies to boom there."
British companies estimate that combined contracts increased from £320m in 2003 to nearly £2bn in 2004. They put the annual global value of contracts handed out to private military companies at £44.5bn.
Blackwater, which was set up by a former US navy Seal, Erik Prince, is one of the biggest and most notorious. And, for many Iraqis, the most hated.
Its reputation for aggression was reinforced last Sunday when Blackwater was providing protection for a US diplomatic convoy travelling through Baghdad. Blackwater says the convoy was attacked and guards returned fire. The Iraqi government says Blackwater opened fire first and wants it expelled. The US government, which relies on Blackwater to protect its ambassador, diplomats and reconstruction workers, is trying to keep them in the country.
An Iraqi interior ministry spokesman said yesterday an investigation had concluded that Blackwater guards opened fire in Nisoor Square when a vehicle failed to stop. The guards thought they were under attack, according to the report. "They started shooting randomly from four positions in the square, killing 11 civilians and injuring 12 others. The first one who was killed was a driver who failed to stop and then his wife," he said. The report recommended ending immunity for foreign security companies and replacing them with Iraqi firms.
Between Monday and Thursday, US diplomats were confined to the Green Zone amid the uncertainty over the status of Blackwater. But yesterday, despite the Iraqi government's order to expel them, the US embassy confirmed that Blackwater guards were back on the streets of Baghdad on "limited" missions.
Christian Stalberg, a spokesman for BlackwaterWatch, which monitors its activities, said yesterday: "It is out of control and needs to be brought under control. It is a menace internationally and domestically."
Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, said: "There have been 64 courts martial of US soldiers. There is not been a single charge against any contractor. In the case of Blackwater, there have been a number of incidents and nothing has happened."
Democrats in the US senate yesterday held an emergency committee hearing into Blackwater.
Among the witnesses was Katy Helvenston-Wettengel. Her son Scotty worked for Blackwater and was one of four killed in Falluja in 2004, their bodies dragged round the city and suspended from a bridge. She has a lawsuit against the company. "They have a callous disregard for life. They [the four] were sent into Falluja, though it was a Code Black, as dangerous as it gets, to pick up kitchen equipment, plastic utensils, forks and knives," she said ahead of giving testimony.
The men working for the security companies, while reluctant to talk in public, have their own online chat-rooms, where they exchange views on what they refer to as "the sandpit" - Iraq. They resent portrayals of them as trigger-happy cowboys.
A former member of Blackwater yesterday defended his former colleagues. He portrayed the men as disciplined, many of them, like him, former members of US special forces. "We would never, goddamn, shoot at people indiscriminately," he said. "We have an honour system just like anyone else."
He was suspicious and nervous about talking to the media, partly because Blackwater slaps a lifelong, non-disclosure contract on employees that includes a $250,000 penalty. But he admitted there were problems with guards employed on the cheap who lack training. "We grew too fast and [took on] too many people who had not been in conflict situations," he said.
No exodus
British companies were yesterday reluctant to comment on Blackwater. However, one described the company as being at the "aggressive end of the market", and expressed surprise that the state department still employed them.
But there are still profits to be made in Iraq. Earlier this month the Pentagon renewed its contract with Aegis, a British company run by Tim Spicer, a former colonel in the Scots Guards, at $475m over two years, the biggest single deal in Iraq, to provide "reconstruction security support services".
All the directors of British private security companies said business will improve when the security situation improves.
"There is no great exodus, nothing to panic about," said William James, spokesman for the Olive Group.
Companies are looking at work in other countries, such as Afghanistan and Sudan. Blackwater is diversifying into training US law enforcement officers. Some companies may also move into helping protect humanitarian work, though aid organisations are nervous about this.
John Hilary, War on Want's director of campaigns and policy, said: "There is a massive difference between the provision of security and paramilitary services and the hearts and minds work of delivering humanitarian aid. They are not compatible industries."
As for Iraq, the private security guards are largely unrepentant about their role over the last four years. One of them said: "Someone had to fill the void."
PS:Prediction.The "contract killers" to whom the work was "outsourced" in the first place will now look for cheaper "sub-contractors" from the "turd world".Suitable changes in policy to allow the equivalent of "Johnny Gurkha"(who defends British interests worldwide for a pittance,far less than his white British comrades),to do the dirty work from now on.Watch how efforts will be made to recruit manpower from the Indian sub-continent,especially as some of these crony capitalist front companies have started investing heavily in India!
Disgusting!
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 996115.ece
Weapons left by US troops 'used as bait to kill Iraqis'
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 25 September 2007
US soldiers are luring Iraqis to their deaths by scattering military equipment on the ground as "bait", and then shooting those who pick them up, it has been alleged at a court martial. The highly controversial tactic, which has hitherto been kept secret, is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of a number of Iraqis who were subsequently classified as enemy combatants and used in statistics to show the "success" of the "surge" in US forces.
The revelation came in court documents, obtained by The Washington Post , related to murder charges against three US soldiers who are alleged to have planted incriminating evidence on civilians they had killed. In a sworn statement, Captain Matthew Didier, the officer in charge of a sniper platoon, said: "Basically we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against the US forces."
Capt Didier, of the 1st Battalion 501st Infantry Regiment, said members of the US military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later supplied ammunition boxes filled with "drop items" to be used " to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming coalition forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."
Within months of the introduction of the strategy, three snipers in Capt Didier's platoon were charged with murder for allegedly using the "baits " to try to cover up unprovoked shootings. Specialist Jorge Sandoval and Staff Sgt Michael Hensley are accused of placing a spool of wire, sometimes used to detonate roadside bombs, in the pocket of a man who had been cutting grass with a rusty sickle after he was killed on 27 April this year.
Sgt Evan Vela is accused of shooting an Iraqi prisoner twice in the head with a 9mm pistol on the orders of Staff Sgt Hensley. The two soldiers told investigators that the man was carrying an AK-47 rifle. Other soldiers have testified that the rifle was planted next to the Iraqi after he was shot.
In earlier testimony Pte David Petta said he believed that "classified" items were to be placed on people killed by the sniper unit "if we killed somebody that we knew was a bad guy but didn't have the evidence to show for it".
The court martial of Spc Sandoval is due to start in Baghdad this week. His father, Curtis Carnahan, accused the US military of holding the proceedings in a war zone to try to minimise publicity.
"I feel you can't prosecute our soldiers for acts of war and threaten them with years and years of confinement when this ["bait"] programme, if it comes to the light of day, was clearly coming from higher levels."
A US military spokes-man said: "We don't discuss specific methods of targeting enemy combatants. The accused are charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals. There are no classified programmes that authorise the murder of local nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear legally justified."
A US military source said "baits" had been left by a number of units. "The guys picking them up are sometimes bad guys. But how do you know each time?"
Robert Emerson, a British security analyst, said: "This seems a highly arbitrary and suspect way of carrying out counter-insurgency operations."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 996115.ece
Weapons left by US troops 'used as bait to kill Iraqis'
By Kim Sengupta in Baghdad
Published: 25 September 2007
US soldiers are luring Iraqis to their deaths by scattering military equipment on the ground as "bait", and then shooting those who pick them up, it has been alleged at a court martial. The highly controversial tactic, which has hitherto been kept secret, is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of a number of Iraqis who were subsequently classified as enemy combatants and used in statistics to show the "success" of the "surge" in US forces.
The revelation came in court documents, obtained by The Washington Post , related to murder charges against three US soldiers who are alleged to have planted incriminating evidence on civilians they had killed. In a sworn statement, Captain Matthew Didier, the officer in charge of a sniper platoon, said: "Basically we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against the US forces."
Capt Didier, of the 1st Battalion 501st Infantry Regiment, said members of the US military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later supplied ammunition boxes filled with "drop items" to be used " to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming coalition forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."
Within months of the introduction of the strategy, three snipers in Capt Didier's platoon were charged with murder for allegedly using the "baits " to try to cover up unprovoked shootings. Specialist Jorge Sandoval and Staff Sgt Michael Hensley are accused of placing a spool of wire, sometimes used to detonate roadside bombs, in the pocket of a man who had been cutting grass with a rusty sickle after he was killed on 27 April this year.
Sgt Evan Vela is accused of shooting an Iraqi prisoner twice in the head with a 9mm pistol on the orders of Staff Sgt Hensley. The two soldiers told investigators that the man was carrying an AK-47 rifle. Other soldiers have testified that the rifle was planted next to the Iraqi after he was shot.
In earlier testimony Pte David Petta said he believed that "classified" items were to be placed on people killed by the sniper unit "if we killed somebody that we knew was a bad guy but didn't have the evidence to show for it".
The court martial of Spc Sandoval is due to start in Baghdad this week. His father, Curtis Carnahan, accused the US military of holding the proceedings in a war zone to try to minimise publicity.
"I feel you can't prosecute our soldiers for acts of war and threaten them with years and years of confinement when this ["bait"] programme, if it comes to the light of day, was clearly coming from higher levels."
A US military spokes-man said: "We don't discuss specific methods of targeting enemy combatants. The accused are charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals. There are no classified programmes that authorise the murder of local nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear legally justified."
A US military source said "baits" had been left by a number of units. "The guys picking them up are sometimes bad guys. But how do you know each time?"
Robert Emerson, a British security analyst, said: "This seems a highly arbitrary and suspect way of carrying out counter-insurgency operations."
US blame Britain!
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/pol ... 938970.ece
Britain 'backed US decision to disband Saddam's army'
By Leonard Doyle in Washington and Kim Sengupta in Basra
Published: 07 September 2007
The British Government and military high command fully supported the controversial US policy of disbanding Saddam Hussein's armed forces after the 2003 invasion, according to Washington's former proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer.
Stung by remarks from President George Bush that he alone had been responsible for one of the most disastrous mistakes of the war while running the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Mr Bremer went to some lengths to set the record straight yesterday and provided previously unknown details of British support for the US policy.
British military officers were also enthusiastic supporters of the policy of de-Baathification – or sacking members of Saddam's Baath party from the security services, according to Mr Bremer. The policy, which he still defends, has been blamed for creating a security vacuum which enabled a Sunni as well as an al-Qa'ida insurgency to take hold. In a searing opinion article in yesterday's New York Times, Mr Bremer tried to defend himself from becoming the scapegoat for the administration's failures in Iraq.
He described a visit to London by the CPA's national security adviser, Walter Slocombe. "On 13 May, en route to Baghdad, Mr Slocombe briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognised that the demobilisation of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli," Mr Bremer wrote. He said Mr Slocombe's report added that "if some UK officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old RA [Republican Army], they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector."
His words flatly contradict General Sir Mike Jackson's recent autobiography in which he lays the blame for the sectarian bloodbath in Iraq at the door of the US.
"We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition," wrote General Jackson. "To what extent the Government communicated our concerns to the Americans I have no idea."
Mr Bremer's reflections are also at odds with Major- General Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in the post-war planning. He claims to have raised concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but says they were dismissed by the former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the post-war plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," General Cross said.
But Mr Bremer makes clear that far from opposing the policy, British officials, including the military high command, were enthusiastic backers.
There were, he says, "no organised Iraqi military units left" after the invasion and the disappearance of Saddam's old army rendered irrelevant any pre-war plans to use that army.
At that point General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the US Army's Central Command, decided to build a new army open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. In mid-May 2003, Mr Slocombe was sent from Iraq to secure Washington's backing as well as that of unnamed senior British officials and military officers.
Mr Bremer argues that the decision not to recall Saddam's army was thoroughly debated at the highest echelons of government – in the US and the UK.
He says the first doubts he heard about the policy came towards the end of 2003 as the insurgency began to strike hard.
Defiant to the end, he says: "We were right to build a new Iraqi army. Despite all the difficulties encountered, Iraq's new professional soldiers are the country's most effective and trusted security force. By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect."
Senior British officers dealing with Iraq in the aftermath of the war described Mr Bremer's assertions yesterday as "disingenuous and manipulation of what happened".
The American General Jay Garner and his British number two, General Cross, were forced into leaving their posts, paving the way for Mr Bremer, they said, precisely because they refused to carry out a wholesale de-Baathification process. At the same time efforts by Generals Garner and Cross to organise civic government was, it is claimed, blocked by elements in the White House.
One senior officer, who was in Baghdad at the time, and had extensive involvement in the matter, said "This is pretty disingenuous. Of course there was broad agreement that the most extreme and senior elements of the Baath party should be got rid of. But what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld's people wanted, egged on by some Shia politicians, was a form of blanket culling of Baath party people.
"We knew this was a grave mistake and we repeatedly told the Americans that valuable time was being lost in reconstruction and building a civic society while they pursued this line. But they had their political agenda, Bremer came in and the rest is history. Bremer now appears to be trying to manipulate what actually what happened."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/pol ... 938970.ece
Britain 'backed US decision to disband Saddam's army'
By Leonard Doyle in Washington and Kim Sengupta in Basra
Published: 07 September 2007
The British Government and military high command fully supported the controversial US policy of disbanding Saddam Hussein's armed forces after the 2003 invasion, according to Washington's former proconsul in Baghdad, Paul Bremer.
Stung by remarks from President George Bush that he alone had been responsible for one of the most disastrous mistakes of the war while running the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Mr Bremer went to some lengths to set the record straight yesterday and provided previously unknown details of British support for the US policy.
British military officers were also enthusiastic supporters of the policy of de-Baathification – or sacking members of Saddam's Baath party from the security services, according to Mr Bremer. The policy, which he still defends, has been blamed for creating a security vacuum which enabled a Sunni as well as an al-Qa'ida insurgency to take hold. In a searing opinion article in yesterday's New York Times, Mr Bremer tried to defend himself from becoming the scapegoat for the administration's failures in Iraq.
He described a visit to London by the CPA's national security adviser, Walter Slocombe. "On 13 May, en route to Baghdad, Mr Slocombe briefed senior British officials in London who told him they recognised that the demobilisation of the Iraqi military is a fait accompli," Mr Bremer wrote. He said Mr Slocombe's report added that "if some UK officers or officials think that we should try to rebuild or reassemble the old RA [Republican Army], they did not give any hint of it in our meetings, and in fact agreed with the need for vigorous de-Baathification, especially in the security sector."
His words flatly contradict General Sir Mike Jackson's recent autobiography in which he lays the blame for the sectarian bloodbath in Iraq at the door of the US.
"We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition," wrote General Jackson. "To what extent the Government communicated our concerns to the Americans I have no idea."
Mr Bremer's reflections are also at odds with Major- General Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in the post-war planning. He claims to have raised concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but says they were dismissed by the former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the post-war plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," General Cross said.
But Mr Bremer makes clear that far from opposing the policy, British officials, including the military high command, were enthusiastic backers.
There were, he says, "no organised Iraqi military units left" after the invasion and the disappearance of Saddam's old army rendered irrelevant any pre-war plans to use that army.
At that point General John Abizaid, the deputy commander of the US Army's Central Command, decided to build a new army open to both vetted members of the old army and new recruits. In mid-May 2003, Mr Slocombe was sent from Iraq to secure Washington's backing as well as that of unnamed senior British officials and military officers.
Mr Bremer argues that the decision not to recall Saddam's army was thoroughly debated at the highest echelons of government – in the US and the UK.
He says the first doubts he heard about the policy came towards the end of 2003 as the insurgency began to strike hard.
Defiant to the end, he says: "We were right to build a new Iraqi army. Despite all the difficulties encountered, Iraq's new professional soldiers are the country's most effective and trusted security force. By contrast, the Baathist-era police force, which we did recall to duty, has proven unreliable and is mistrusted by the very Iraqi people it is supposed to protect."
Senior British officers dealing with Iraq in the aftermath of the war described Mr Bremer's assertions yesterday as "disingenuous and manipulation of what happened".
The American General Jay Garner and his British number two, General Cross, were forced into leaving their posts, paving the way for Mr Bremer, they said, precisely because they refused to carry out a wholesale de-Baathification process. At the same time efforts by Generals Garner and Cross to organise civic government was, it is claimed, blocked by elements in the White House.
One senior officer, who was in Baghdad at the time, and had extensive involvement in the matter, said "This is pretty disingenuous. Of course there was broad agreement that the most extreme and senior elements of the Baath party should be got rid of. But what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld's people wanted, egged on by some Shia politicians, was a form of blanket culling of Baath party people.
"We knew this was a grave mistake and we repeatedly told the Americans that valuable time was being lost in reconstruction and building a civic society while they pursued this line. But they had their political agenda, Bremer came in and the rest is history. Bremer now appears to be trying to manipulate what actually what happened."
The "Ramzan " offensive continues.
CNN.com
Wave of bombings, shootings sweeps Iraq, kills at least
Attacks raise fears al-Qaeda has launched a promised new offensive
Police reported at least six car bombings around the country
Deadliest suicide bombing killed 10, wounded 9 near Sinjar
Next Article in World »
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A wave of bombings and shootings swept Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 50 people and raising fears that al-Qaeda had launched a promised new offensive. The U.S. military acknowledged that violence was on the upswing and blamed it on the terror movement.
A technician looks through plaster molds of amputees' limbs at a hospital in Najaf.
Also Wednesday came the announcement that Iraqi and American troops raided the Iraqi military academy the day before and arrested cadets and instructors allegedly linked to the kidnap-slaying of the former superintendent and the abduction of his replacement, who was later freed.
Police reported at least six car bombings around the country Wednesday, an increase over the pattern of attacks in recent weeks, though U.S. officials insisted that violence was still below levels of last year.
Wednesday's deadliest attack occurred when a suicide driver detonated an explosives-laden truck close to the home of a Sunni Arab tribal leader near Sinjar, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Sinjar hospital director Kifah Mohammed said 10 people were killed and nine wounded, including the sheik. The sheik's son, who worked as a government contractor, was killed, the director said. The U.S. military said the sheik had spoken out against al-Qaeda.
Six civilians were killed and 28 were wounded when a pair of car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad's southwestern district of Baiyaa, police said. Shiite militias have driven thousands of Sunnis from Baiyaa this year.
Don't Miss
$190 billion war funding request sets up Washington showdown
Al-Maliki: Reconciliation stronger than terrorism
24 die in Iraq peace meeting blast
Pentagon probes $6B in Iraq, Afghanistan contracts
The private National Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified police official as saying 32 people were killed in the blast, but officers at two nearby police stations disputed the figure.
In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a suicide car bomb struck a court building under construction, killing three people and wounding about 30, police said.
Three civilians died when a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in Mosul, police Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jubouri said.
In the south, a bomb exploded near the main gate of a Sunni mosque in the town of Abu al-Khaseeb, about 12 miles south of Basra, killing five worshippers and wounding 10 others, police reported.
The blast may have been in retaliation for a suicide bombing the day before against the police headquarters in Basra, an attack which killed three policemen and wounded 20 other people. Nearly all the Basra police are Shiites.
In Baghdad, gunmen ambushed a car carrying two senior police officers -- Maj. Gen. Ayad Jassim Mohammed and Col. Imad Kadim -- in the Qadisiyah district, killing both of them, police said.
A Shiite adviser to the Iraqi parliament, Thamir Abid Ali Hassoun, was gunned down in eastern Baghdad when assailants blocked an alley near his home and sprayed his car with bullets, police said.
The other victims were either found dead in Baghdad and Kut or died in bombings and shootings in Tikrit, Basra and Diyala province, where U.S. troops have been battling al-Qaeda militants.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. command announced that an American soldier had been killed the day before by small-arms fire in eastern Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced its troops had prevented a suicide attack Tuesday by two bomb-laden trucks against a dam on Lake Tharthar. It said the trucks were driven by Afghans. There have been persistent reports that al-Qaeda might target dams to flood Baghdad and other cities.
In a Web posting on September 15, the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda front group, announced a new offensive for the ongoing Islamic holy month of Ramadan in memory of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed last year in a U.S. airstrike.
The statement said the Islamic State would hunt down tribal sheiks and officials who cooperate with the Americans. Nine days later, a suicide bomber struck a Shiite-Sunni reconciliation meeting in Baqouba, killing 24 people, including the city police chief.
Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy interior minister, said security officials had warned the Iraqi government a few days ago "that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials. He said the threat came from al-Qaeda and supporters of the late President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner acknowledged Wednesday that "we have seen an upturn in levels of violence in the last few days" and said the military would step up efforts "to keep pressure on extremist networks."
"This is a specific period of time ... that the insurgents will try to increase the levels of violence," he said, referring to Ramadan.
Bergner confirmed the raid on the Iraqi military academy at Rustamiyah, saying it was carried out by Iraqi soldiers with American advisers. Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said those detained faced charges of murder, kidnapping and corruption.
"These suspects were criminal gangs, not militiamen, working for their own interests by using their posts in the Defense Ministry," al-Askari said.
Iraqi military officials said the six-hour raid started at 10 a.m. Tuesday and was carried out by a special unit under exclusive American command. Scores of cadets and instructors were detained, officials said, giving no figures.
A Defense Ministry official said the suspects were linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, and were believed to be part of a network smuggling weapons from Iran. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
At the United Nations, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned the General Assembly that instability in Iraq would bring "disastrous consequences" to the Middle East and the world.
Al-Maliki said his country had reduced sectarian killings and brought stability to some regions, such as Anbar province in the west. He said thousands of displaced families have been able to return home.
However, an official of the International Organization for Migration told reporters in Geneva that an estimated 60,000 Iraqis were fleeing their homes every month to escape sectarian violence, intimidation and economic deprivation.
Displacement "has not decreased since the surge," said the official, Dana Graber Ladek. She was referring to the increase of more than 28,000 American troopers which President Bush ordered this year. E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All About Al Qaeda • Iraq War • Iraq
CNN.com
Wave of bombings, shootings sweeps Iraq, kills at least
Attacks raise fears al-Qaeda has launched a promised new offensive
Police reported at least six car bombings around the country
Deadliest suicide bombing killed 10, wounded 9 near Sinjar
Next Article in World »
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A wave of bombings and shootings swept Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 50 people and raising fears that al-Qaeda had launched a promised new offensive. The U.S. military acknowledged that violence was on the upswing and blamed it on the terror movement.
A technician looks through plaster molds of amputees' limbs at a hospital in Najaf.
Also Wednesday came the announcement that Iraqi and American troops raided the Iraqi military academy the day before and arrested cadets and instructors allegedly linked to the kidnap-slaying of the former superintendent and the abduction of his replacement, who was later freed.
Police reported at least six car bombings around the country Wednesday, an increase over the pattern of attacks in recent weeks, though U.S. officials insisted that violence was still below levels of last year.
Wednesday's deadliest attack occurred when a suicide driver detonated an explosives-laden truck close to the home of a Sunni Arab tribal leader near Sinjar, 240 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Sinjar hospital director Kifah Mohammed said 10 people were killed and nine wounded, including the sheik. The sheik's son, who worked as a government contractor, was killed, the director said. The U.S. military said the sheik had spoken out against al-Qaeda.
Six civilians were killed and 28 were wounded when a pair of car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad's southwestern district of Baiyaa, police said. Shiite militias have driven thousands of Sunnis from Baiyaa this year.
Don't Miss
$190 billion war funding request sets up Washington showdown
Al-Maliki: Reconciliation stronger than terrorism
24 die in Iraq peace meeting blast
Pentagon probes $6B in Iraq, Afghanistan contracts
The private National Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified police official as saying 32 people were killed in the blast, but officers at two nearby police stations disputed the figure.
In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a suicide car bomb struck a court building under construction, killing three people and wounding about 30, police said.
Three civilians died when a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol in Mosul, police Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jubouri said.
In the south, a bomb exploded near the main gate of a Sunni mosque in the town of Abu al-Khaseeb, about 12 miles south of Basra, killing five worshippers and wounding 10 others, police reported.
The blast may have been in retaliation for a suicide bombing the day before against the police headquarters in Basra, an attack which killed three policemen and wounded 20 other people. Nearly all the Basra police are Shiites.
In Baghdad, gunmen ambushed a car carrying two senior police officers -- Maj. Gen. Ayad Jassim Mohammed and Col. Imad Kadim -- in the Qadisiyah district, killing both of them, police said.
A Shiite adviser to the Iraqi parliament, Thamir Abid Ali Hassoun, was gunned down in eastern Baghdad when assailants blocked an alley near his home and sprayed his car with bullets, police said.
The other victims were either found dead in Baghdad and Kut or died in bombings and shootings in Tikrit, Basra and Diyala province, where U.S. troops have been battling al-Qaeda militants.
Also Wednesday, the U.S. command announced that an American soldier had been killed the day before by small-arms fire in eastern Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced its troops had prevented a suicide attack Tuesday by two bomb-laden trucks against a dam on Lake Tharthar. It said the trucks were driven by Afghans. There have been persistent reports that al-Qaeda might target dams to flood Baghdad and other cities.
In a Web posting on September 15, the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaeda front group, announced a new offensive for the ongoing Islamic holy month of Ramadan in memory of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed last year in a U.S. airstrike.
The statement said the Islamic State would hunt down tribal sheiks and officials who cooperate with the Americans. Nine days later, a suicide bomber struck a Shiite-Sunni reconciliation meeting in Baqouba, killing 24 people, including the city police chief.
Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy interior minister, said security officials had warned the Iraqi government a few days ago "that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials. He said the threat came from al-Qaeda and supporters of the late President Saddam Hussein.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner acknowledged Wednesday that "we have seen an upturn in levels of violence in the last few days" and said the military would step up efforts "to keep pressure on extremist networks."
"This is a specific period of time ... that the insurgents will try to increase the levels of violence," he said, referring to Ramadan.
Bergner confirmed the raid on the Iraqi military academy at Rustamiyah, saying it was carried out by Iraqi soldiers with American advisers. Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said those detained faced charges of murder, kidnapping and corruption.
"These suspects were criminal gangs, not militiamen, working for their own interests by using their posts in the Defense Ministry," al-Askari said.
Iraqi military officials said the six-hour raid started at 10 a.m. Tuesday and was carried out by a special unit under exclusive American command. Scores of cadets and instructors were detained, officials said, giving no figures.
A Defense Ministry official said the suspects were linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, and were believed to be part of a network smuggling weapons from Iran. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
At the United Nations, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned the General Assembly that instability in Iraq would bring "disastrous consequences" to the Middle East and the world.
Al-Maliki said his country had reduced sectarian killings and brought stability to some regions, such as Anbar province in the west. He said thousands of displaced families have been able to return home.
However, an official of the International Organization for Migration told reporters in Geneva that an estimated 60,000 Iraqis were fleeing their homes every month to escape sectarian violence, intimidation and economic deprivation.
Displacement "has not decreased since the surge," said the official, Dana Graber Ladek. She was referring to the increase of more than 28,000 American troopers which President Bush ordered this year. E-mail to a friend
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
All About Al Qaeda • Iraq War • Iraq
-
Raju
Saddam asked Bush for $1bn to go into exile
Saddam asked Bush for $1bn to go into exile
Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night. Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion).
The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch. The White House refused to comment on the report last night.
But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.
Only yesterday, the Bush administration asked Congress for another £100billion to finance the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
URL
Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night. Fearing defeat, Saddam was prepared to go peacefully in return for £500million ($1billion).
The extraordinary offer was revealed yesterday in a transcript of talks in February 2003 between George Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the President's Texas ranch. The White House refused to comment on the report last night.
But, if verified, it is certain to raise questions in Washington and London over whether the costly four-year war could have been averted.
Only yesterday, the Bush administration asked Congress for another £100billion to finance the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
URL
-
Scofield
- BRFite -Trainee
- Posts: 13
- Joined: 15 Jul 2007 00:11
- Location: sipping champagne at jianggezhuang
Southern Iraq ceded?
Has the U.S. Ceded Southern Iraq?
U.S. military officers in Iraq often wonder about the possible presence of Iranian operatives in cities south of Baghdad like Karbala and Najaf, two key strongholds for Shi'ite militias thought to have links to Tehran. Many soldiers believe those two cities, home to more than 1.5 million people altogether, are where Shi'ite militants gather, train and arm themselves with help from Iran for attacks against U.S. forces farther north. Some intelligence even suggests that Iran's elite military force, the Revolutionary Guard, has opened training camps in the area for Iraqi guerrillas. But getting a clear picture of the happenings there and in other cities in that region is hard for one simple reason: U.S. troops don't go there anymore.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week announced his plan to reduce the British force around the southern city of Basra from 5,000 to 2,500 by next spring. Drawing less attention, however, is the extent to which American forces have quietly withdrawn from the rest of southern Iraq. By so doing, the U.S. is ceding huge swaths of territory to shaky provincial governments that have to face increasingly powerful Shi'ite militias very much alone.
Small contingents of U.S. soldiers enter Karbala and Najaf only for brief visits with local officials these days, and much of the rest of southern Iraq has no American troops at all. Focused on saving Baghdad, U.S. forces keep up a regular presence with patrols and combat outposts chiefly around the southern reaches of the capital. Meanwhile, the drawdown of British forces in Basra — where the troops have relocated to the local airport outside the city — leaves yet another southern city, with a population of roughly 2 million, unattended by the U.S.-led coalition. That means virtually all of the vast, populous and oil-rich territory stretching from Karbala to Basra is up for grabs.
Since 2004, American soldiers have treaded lightly in southern Iraq, even though all the territory north of Basra has been ostensibly the responsibility of U.S. forces. An uneasy truce prevailed in the area between U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia headed by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Both sides seemed eager to avoid a repeat of the open clashes that erupted in 2004 in Karbala and Najaf, where Sadr's militia holds sway. So U.S. troops generally stayed away.
In the fall of 2005, U.S. troops handed bases in Karbala and Najaf to Iraqi military units. As of late 2006, the only U.S. soldiers in Karbala were a small team of Army trainers and civil affairs officers working with local officials and area police. That ended in January, however, when an attack by unknown gunmen left five U.S. soldiers dead. Since then, all the population centers in southern Iraq have become virtual blind spots for U.S. forces struggling to keep tabs on the weapons and fighters thought to be moving through the area. The military's provincial reconstruction teams carry on some work in southern Iraq. And in Diwaniya, a town east of Najaf, military trainers continue to work with local security forces. But for all practical purposes the Americans and the British have essentially left a region quickly becoming more turbulent in the wake of their departure.
In recent months, U.S. military officials overseeing southern Iraq have gotten sketchy information indicating that Iranian operatives may be entering Iraq to train Iraqi guerrillas at sites in and around Karbala and Najaf. American commanders in Iraq have long asserted that Iran operates guerrilla training facilities for Iraqi militants near Tehran. Indeed, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, is in reality a member of the Revolutionary Guards. Increasingly, U.S. soldiers are wondering if handlers from Iran's elite security forces have begun schooling and organizing fighters in the very areas American forces nominally control.
Capt. Brandon Thompson, an intelligence officer at a combat outpost roughly 30 miles south of Baghdad, says the reports are plausible — but not proven. "I think it's very possible that individuals from Iran come in and train groups," says Thompson, an officer at Forward Operating Base Kalsu about 30 miles south of Baghdad. "But with no facts yet to back it up, the assessment would be that it's a good possibility."
Outwardly, the main cities in the south are in the hands of Iraqi authorities answering to the central government in Baghdad. In reality, Karbala, Najaf, Basra and the provinces they sit in are now a struggling ground between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, a rival Shi'ite militia also though to have links to Iran. American forces remained on the sidelines as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade waged bloody campaigns against one another across southern Iraq this summer. On August 28, gunmen from the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade battled in the streets of Karbala for hours in fighting that left more than 50 people dead. And a series of assassinations of local leaders across southern Iraq in recent months is widely thought to be a campaign by the Mahdi Army to kill off Iraqi officials with links to the political wing of the Badr Brigade, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Even Iraq's most revered Shi'ite religious figure, the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been caught up in the violence; several of his aides have been gunned down near his home in Najaf.
Last weekend Sadr and the leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, announced a truce. In a statement aired with much publicity, the two leaders pledged to cease violence. Whether the pact holds remains to be seen, especially in Basra. Tensions between the two factions there have lately been especially high following the British pullout to the airport outside the city. Regardless, U.S. forces are unlikely to play a meaningful role in shaping the outcome. With no evident plans to reenter southern areas, the U.S.-led coalition leaves the fate of some of Iraq's most important territory to others.
U.S. military officers in Iraq often wonder about the possible presence of Iranian operatives in cities south of Baghdad like Karbala and Najaf, two key strongholds for Shi'ite militias thought to have links to Tehran. Many soldiers believe those two cities, home to more than 1.5 million people altogether, are where Shi'ite militants gather, train and arm themselves with help from Iran for attacks against U.S. forces farther north. Some intelligence even suggests that Iran's elite military force, the Revolutionary Guard, has opened training camps in the area for Iraqi guerrillas. But getting a clear picture of the happenings there and in other cities in that region is hard for one simple reason: U.S. troops don't go there anymore.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week announced his plan to reduce the British force around the southern city of Basra from 5,000 to 2,500 by next spring. Drawing less attention, however, is the extent to which American forces have quietly withdrawn from the rest of southern Iraq. By so doing, the U.S. is ceding huge swaths of territory to shaky provincial governments that have to face increasingly powerful Shi'ite militias very much alone.
Small contingents of U.S. soldiers enter Karbala and Najaf only for brief visits with local officials these days, and much of the rest of southern Iraq has no American troops at all. Focused on saving Baghdad, U.S. forces keep up a regular presence with patrols and combat outposts chiefly around the southern reaches of the capital. Meanwhile, the drawdown of British forces in Basra — where the troops have relocated to the local airport outside the city — leaves yet another southern city, with a population of roughly 2 million, unattended by the U.S.-led coalition. That means virtually all of the vast, populous and oil-rich territory stretching from Karbala to Basra is up for grabs.
Since 2004, American soldiers have treaded lightly in southern Iraq, even though all the territory north of Basra has been ostensibly the responsibility of U.S. forces. An uneasy truce prevailed in the area between U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army, the militia headed by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Both sides seemed eager to avoid a repeat of the open clashes that erupted in 2004 in Karbala and Najaf, where Sadr's militia holds sway. So U.S. troops generally stayed away.
In the fall of 2005, U.S. troops handed bases in Karbala and Najaf to Iraqi military units. As of late 2006, the only U.S. soldiers in Karbala were a small team of Army trainers and civil affairs officers working with local officials and area police. That ended in January, however, when an attack by unknown gunmen left five U.S. soldiers dead. Since then, all the population centers in southern Iraq have become virtual blind spots for U.S. forces struggling to keep tabs on the weapons and fighters thought to be moving through the area. The military's provincial reconstruction teams carry on some work in southern Iraq. And in Diwaniya, a town east of Najaf, military trainers continue to work with local security forces. But for all practical purposes the Americans and the British have essentially left a region quickly becoming more turbulent in the wake of their departure.
In recent months, U.S. military officials overseeing southern Iraq have gotten sketchy information indicating that Iranian operatives may be entering Iraq to train Iraqi guerrillas at sites in and around Karbala and Najaf. American commanders in Iraq have long asserted that Iran operates guerrilla training facilities for Iraqi militants near Tehran. Indeed, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, is in reality a member of the Revolutionary Guards. Increasingly, U.S. soldiers are wondering if handlers from Iran's elite security forces have begun schooling and organizing fighters in the very areas American forces nominally control.
Capt. Brandon Thompson, an intelligence officer at a combat outpost roughly 30 miles south of Baghdad, says the reports are plausible — but not proven. "I think it's very possible that individuals from Iran come in and train groups," says Thompson, an officer at Forward Operating Base Kalsu about 30 miles south of Baghdad. "But with no facts yet to back it up, the assessment would be that it's a good possibility."
Outwardly, the main cities in the south are in the hands of Iraqi authorities answering to the central government in Baghdad. In reality, Karbala, Najaf, Basra and the provinces they sit in are now a struggling ground between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, a rival Shi'ite militia also though to have links to Iran. American forces remained on the sidelines as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade waged bloody campaigns against one another across southern Iraq this summer. On August 28, gunmen from the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade battled in the streets of Karbala for hours in fighting that left more than 50 people dead. And a series of assassinations of local leaders across southern Iraq in recent months is widely thought to be a campaign by the Mahdi Army to kill off Iraqi officials with links to the political wing of the Badr Brigade, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Even Iraq's most revered Shi'ite religious figure, the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been caught up in the violence; several of his aides have been gunned down near his home in Najaf.
Last weekend Sadr and the leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, announced a truce. In a statement aired with much publicity, the two leaders pledged to cease violence. Whether the pact holds remains to be seen, especially in Basra. Tensions between the two factions there have lately been especially high following the British pullout to the airport outside the city. Regardless, U.S. forces are unlikely to play a meaningful role in shaping the outcome. With no evident plans to reenter southern areas, the U.S.-led coalition leaves the fate of some of Iraq's most important territory to others.
[quote="DH Edit"]The way ahead: US and Iraq's oil economy
Once most US troops leave Iraq, Iran will fill the vacuum and would control the Iraqi government, writes Alok Ray.
The death toll of US soldiers in Iraq is mounting everyday and no victory of whatever kind is in sight. As a result, more and more Americans are questioning the wisdom of continuing the US military involvement in Iraq. By now, many of them also realise that the war started on the basis of a bunch of lies – the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were never there and Iraq was not involved in any kind of terrorist activity against the US. Though, paradoxically, now that is happening after the US invasion of Iraq. These truths are being brought home by the media before an increasing number of Americans.
General Petraeus, the current US army chief in Iraq, recently presented evidence before the US Congress to show some improvement after the infusion of more American troops into Iraq in February 2007. He tried to show that the number of deaths due to sectarian violence in Iraq has come down, terrorist incidents are occurring less in Baghdad. In addition, ordinary Iraqis are getting fed up with the trouble created by foreign al-Qaeda terrorists and are cooperating more with Americans and local administration.
At the same time, the General and the US ambassador in Iraq both concede that the level of violence, though less than before, is still alarmingly high. They also made it clear that victory is by no means certain. It is only in the realm of possibilities – which, of course, is not saying much.
The sceptics are even questioning the significance of the statistics presented. They argue that sectarian violence has come down because millions of Iraqis have either left the country or moved to safer areas where their own people are in the majority. Further, though the violence has come down in Baghdad, it has increased in other areas. This is because of the infusion of more US troops in Baghdad. It follows that as soon as US troops withdraw, sectarian violence on a much bigger scale would erupt. some leaders of warring groups of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, there is no real progress towards political reconciliation and an unified national government at the centre. Every group wants to have an assured share of the oil revenue and a role in administration which others are not willing to give.
Basically, there are three possible models for the future. A strong centralised Iraq, a loose federation of areas ruled by the three groups or a breakup of the country into a number of independent states. But, then, as one commentator put it: “US has already killed the only person who could make the first model work, namely Sadam Hussein.â€
Once most US troops leave Iraq, Iran will fill the vacuum and would control the Iraqi government, writes Alok Ray.
The death toll of US soldiers in Iraq is mounting everyday and no victory of whatever kind is in sight. As a result, more and more Americans are questioning the wisdom of continuing the US military involvement in Iraq. By now, many of them also realise that the war started on the basis of a bunch of lies – the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were never there and Iraq was not involved in any kind of terrorist activity against the US. Though, paradoxically, now that is happening after the US invasion of Iraq. These truths are being brought home by the media before an increasing number of Americans.
General Petraeus, the current US army chief in Iraq, recently presented evidence before the US Congress to show some improvement after the infusion of more American troops into Iraq in February 2007. He tried to show that the number of deaths due to sectarian violence in Iraq has come down, terrorist incidents are occurring less in Baghdad. In addition, ordinary Iraqis are getting fed up with the trouble created by foreign al-Qaeda terrorists and are cooperating more with Americans and local administration.
At the same time, the General and the US ambassador in Iraq both concede that the level of violence, though less than before, is still alarmingly high. They also made it clear that victory is by no means certain. It is only in the realm of possibilities – which, of course, is not saying much.
The sceptics are even questioning the significance of the statistics presented. They argue that sectarian violence has come down because millions of Iraqis have either left the country or moved to safer areas where their own people are in the majority. Further, though the violence has come down in Baghdad, it has increased in other areas. This is because of the infusion of more US troops in Baghdad. It follows that as soon as US troops withdraw, sectarian violence on a much bigger scale would erupt. some leaders of warring groups of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, there is no real progress towards political reconciliation and an unified national government at the centre. Every group wants to have an assured share of the oil revenue and a role in administration which others are not willing to give.
Basically, there are three possible models for the future. A strong centralised Iraq, a loose federation of areas ruled by the three groups or a breakup of the country into a number of independent states. But, then, as one commentator put it: “US has already killed the only person who could make the first model work, namely Sadam Hussein.â€
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=15124608
U.S. Contractors in Iraq Rely on Third-World Labor
U.S. Contractors in Iraq Rely on Third-World Labor
If you thought all contractors in Iraq were gun-toting American mercenaries, think again. Only a fraction of the estimated 180,000 contractors working on behalf of the U.S. government are security contractors — and the overwhelming majority aren't even from the U.S.
n military parlance, they're known as "TCNs" or "third country nationals," but they might as well be called third-world nationals. Most of the cheap U.S. labor in Iraq comes from places like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Philippines and India. The average wage for these workers is about $20 a day; most work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.
The Pentagon and the State Department, under fire for the use of security contractors, have largely ignored the issue of fair labor practices among its contractors and subcontractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently noted contractors "take the place of soldiers" to do other, more pressing work.
Bush's buddy's firm Blackwater and its "Contract Killers" are now being accused of war crimes!
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 052374.ece
Blackwater faces war crimes inquiry after killings in Iraq
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 12 October 2007
The American firm Blackwater USA has been served notice that it faces investigations for war crimes after 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed in a hail of bullets by its security guards in Baghdad.
The killings last month put the spotlight on the private security firms whose employees are immune from prosecution, unlike professional soldiers who are subject to courts martial. In the second such incident in less than a month, involving the Australian contractor Unity Resources Group this week, two Armenian Christian women were shot dead after their car approached a protected convoy. Their car was riddled with 40 bullets.
Ivana Vuco, the most senior UN human rights officer in Iraq, spoke yesterday about the shootings by private security guards, which have provoked outrage among Iraqis. "For us, it's a human rights issue," she said. "We will monitor the allegations of killings by security contractors and look into whether or not crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed."
An Iraqi who was wounded in the 16 September shooting, and the relatives of three people killed in the attack, filed a court case in Washington yesterday accusing Blackwater of violating American law by committing "extrajudicial killings and war crimes."
Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly US and European security companies in the country, with estimates of the number of American contractors running at 100,000. Many Iraqis see the firms as little more than trigger-happy private armies, and the latest incidents have strained relations between Iraq and the US, which has ordered a full security review.
Iraqi authorities have accused Blackwater of the "deliberate murder" of Iraqi civilians in the shooting in a crowded city square, and are demanding millions of dollars in compensation and the removal of the company from the country within six months. The security firm says its guards returned fire at threatening targets and responded lawfully to a threat against a convoy it was guarding.
Ms Vuco said human rights laws applied equally to contractors and other parties in a conflict. "We will be stressing that in our communications with US authorities. This includes the responsibility to investigate, supervise and prosecute those accused of wrongdoing," she said at the launch in Baghdad of the latest UN human rights report, covering the period from April to June. It described the human rights situation in Iraq as "very grim".
Said Arikat, the UN mission spokesman, urged the Bush administration to hold accountable those involved in indiscriminate shooting; "to apply the rules of engagement and prosecute them". He added: "There cannot be rogue elements that are above the law. Definitely, we will be driving that point home time and again."
In the most recent shooting, on Tuesday, a woman taxi driver, Marany Awanees, and her front-seat passenger were killed. Unity Resources Group said its guards feared a suicide attack and fired only after issuing several warnings. The guards were protecting financial and policy experts working under contract for the US Agency for International Development.
Private security firms benefit from immunity under a 2004 law promulgated by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 052374.ece
Blackwater faces war crimes inquiry after killings in Iraq
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
Published: 12 October 2007
The American firm Blackwater USA has been served notice that it faces investigations for war crimes after 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed in a hail of bullets by its security guards in Baghdad.
The killings last month put the spotlight on the private security firms whose employees are immune from prosecution, unlike professional soldiers who are subject to courts martial. In the second such incident in less than a month, involving the Australian contractor Unity Resources Group this week, two Armenian Christian women were shot dead after their car approached a protected convoy. Their car was riddled with 40 bullets.
Ivana Vuco, the most senior UN human rights officer in Iraq, spoke yesterday about the shootings by private security guards, which have provoked outrage among Iraqis. "For us, it's a human rights issue," she said. "We will monitor the allegations of killings by security contractors and look into whether or not crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed."
An Iraqi who was wounded in the 16 September shooting, and the relatives of three people killed in the attack, filed a court case in Washington yesterday accusing Blackwater of violating American law by committing "extrajudicial killings and war crimes."
Iraq says there are more than 180 mainly US and European security companies in the country, with estimates of the number of American contractors running at 100,000. Many Iraqis see the firms as little more than trigger-happy private armies, and the latest incidents have strained relations between Iraq and the US, which has ordered a full security review.
Iraqi authorities have accused Blackwater of the "deliberate murder" of Iraqi civilians in the shooting in a crowded city square, and are demanding millions of dollars in compensation and the removal of the company from the country within six months. The security firm says its guards returned fire at threatening targets and responded lawfully to a threat against a convoy it was guarding.
Ms Vuco said human rights laws applied equally to contractors and other parties in a conflict. "We will be stressing that in our communications with US authorities. This includes the responsibility to investigate, supervise and prosecute those accused of wrongdoing," she said at the launch in Baghdad of the latest UN human rights report, covering the period from April to June. It described the human rights situation in Iraq as "very grim".
Said Arikat, the UN mission spokesman, urged the Bush administration to hold accountable those involved in indiscriminate shooting; "to apply the rules of engagement and prosecute them". He added: "There cannot be rogue elements that are above the law. Definitely, we will be driving that point home time and again."
In the most recent shooting, on Tuesday, a woman taxi driver, Marany Awanees, and her front-seat passenger were killed. Unity Resources Group said its guards feared a suicide attack and fired only after issuing several warnings. The guards were protecting financial and policy experts working under contract for the US Agency for International Development.
Private security firms benefit from immunity under a 2004 law promulgated by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Divide and Contend
Word of the Cze
October 11, 2007
You know, before Iraq was sent to the scrapheap, Saddam had an immigration problem. People were trying to get into Iraq by the truckload; it was the most liberal Arab state.
Iraq was the only Arab nation that allowed Christians in high level government positions
Iraq was the only Arab nation that women could walk around without Muslim garb of any sort.
You could get a drink in the heart of Baghdad.
You could buy guns in the middle of Baghdad.
Iraq also complied with all the UN inspections. In 1998, Clinton bombed Iraq, and the inspectors had to get out for fear of safety. Saddam openly wanted the inspectors back. He even invited them in during the final days leading up to the war. Bush painted it as irrelevant. America edited the inspector reports, to cover up US involvement.
For those who compare Iraq to Vietnam, they consider only the military dimension.
Think hard, when else in history was there a great imperialistic power which desperately sought a way to exit a country it occupied, but faced the prospect of endless ethnic conflict if it did so and ended up partitioning the land to preempt fighting over the land?
Hint: Think white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. (They never learn their lessons, do they?)
Answer: British Empire, India.
There are lessons to be learnt from there. I shall not go through them, but know that it is extremely interesting and relevant.
What if the USA is to exit Iraq tomorrow?
Unlike what many analysts claim, I do not expect Iran to fill the power vacuum.
The Saudis for one will not simply stand by and let the Shiite crescent march up to their doorstep. At the very least they will want some buffer state replace Iraq. Although their armed forces count for practically nothing before the elite Special Revolutionary Guards Corps, Saudi intelligence services ought not be underestimated. Do not forget they were the ones who produced Osama and built the Al-Qaeda network back when they were still US allies.
Not to mention perpetually having to deal with Israel’s Mossad.
They can and will forment a Sunni uprising in any Iran-dominated Iraq. The end result may well be partition if left to the 2. The Saudis will accede to partition in order to avoid direct confrontation with the Shia.
However, there is 1 other in the region……
Turkey.
The Turks certainly object to partition, since a Kurdish nation will definitely form in the north, and thereby incite secessionist sentiment in Turkey’s own Kurdish south.
Not only so, but the Turks also have the necessary military might to meet the Iranians in the field and fight things out if it comes to that. Unlike Saudi Arabia, which depends entirely on US support, Turkey maintains a strong and independent army which is also charged with defending the secular Constitution. In short, Turkey has no tolerance for the religious zeal of the Shia. Note also that religious terrorism in Turkey is weak, so strong the public support for secularism. Also, strong popularity with the Home Front means that Turkish army can wage war with much less worry than an ideologically-oriented but divided Iran.
Too bad Iran, no proxies to fight for you in Istanbul.
Of course, one may contend that Turkey will find itself outflanked by Syria in its rear……
As I mentioned in a previous post, Israel is very, very trigger-happy about Syria. That country has no scruples about manipulating allegiances, and the Turks can certainly count on the help of the Jews to keep the Syrians quiet.
Not to mention also that Turkey has great incentive to thwart Iran.
Consider its pending bid to join the European Union……
How can Europe possibly deny entry to the 1 force in the region capable of keeping the Shia in check should the US withdraw?
Not saying that Turkey will side Saudi Arabia over Iran, of course. The Turks value their ability to make independent decisions, and will detest working too closely with the Sunnis, as that means taking orders from Washington.
Considering the Iranians, the Saudis and the Turks, it is unlikely that Iraq will tear itself apart should the USA exit tomorrow. A sort of tenuous peace will be sustained with sporadic fighting that continues. There should significantly less intense fighting, since common bogeyman Uncle Sam is gone. Any united front the militants had will splinter, and the 3 contending powers have no interest in a chaotic Iraq that may spill unrest over their borders.
Between Iran’s rallying rhetoric, Saudi Arabia’s spy services and Turkey’s roughshod military, Iraq will maintain its national identity without sovereignty.
The result is a broken Iraq, with a weak central government and de facto regional autonomy for the ethnic areas while the 3 contenders maintain a delicate balance of power in the country.
So we will end up in exactly the same state as now, sans Americans.
Looks like the only real casualty is American prestige.
Well, Bush, that worth the death toll?
Piaroh-Cze:
The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.
Wonder where those brave-hearts are now who supported the Iraq war and patted dubya's back when he claimed "Mission Accomplished". Eh!
==============================================
Ex-general: Iraq a 'nightmare' for US
By STEVEN KOMAROW, Associated Press Writer,
46 minutes ago, Oct. 13, 2007
The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.
He called current strategies — including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year — a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez told a group of journalists covering military affairs.
Sanchez avoided singling out at any specific official. But he did criticize the State Department, the National Security Council, Congress and the senior military leadership during what appeared to be a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership to oppose them.
Such assessments — even by former Pentagon brass — are not new, but they have added resonance as debates over war strategy dominate the presidential campaign.
The Bush administration didn't directly address Sanchez's critical views.
"We appreciate his service to the country," said White House spokesman Trey Bohn. He added that as U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker have said: "There is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq and that's what we're focused on now."
Sanchez retired from the Army last year, two years after he completing a tumultuous year as commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq. As he stepped down, he called his career a casualty of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
He was never charged with anything but he was not promoted in the aftermath of the prisoner abuse reports. He was criticized by some for not doing more to avoid mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
Sanchez told the gathering that he thought he had made mistakes and said he didn't always fully appreciate the secondary affects of actions the military took.
He did deny reports that he and then-Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer were not on speaking terms. He said they spoke every day.
The retired soldier stressed that it became clear during his command that the mission was severely handicapped because the State Department and other agencies were not adequately contributing to a mission that could not be won by military force alone.
When asked when he saw that the mission was going awry, he responded: "About the 15th of June 2003" — the day he took command.
"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope" that things are going to change, he said.
Sanchez went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current U.S. strategy against extremists will make lasting gains, but said a full-scale withdrawal also was not an option.
"The American military finds itself in an intractable situation ... America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq," said Sanchez, who works as a consultant training U.S. generals.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
==============================================
Ex-general: Iraq a 'nightmare' for US
By STEVEN KOMAROW, Associated Press Writer,
46 minutes ago, Oct. 13, 2007
The U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today, a former chief of U.S.-led forces said Friday.
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded coalition troops for a year beginning June 2003, cast a wide net of blame for both political and military shortcomings in Iraq that helped open the way for the insurgency — such as disbanding the Saddam-era military and failing to cement ties with tribal leaders and quickly establish civilian government after Saddam was toppled.
He called current strategies — including the deployment of 30,000 additional forces earlier this year — a "desperate attempt" to make up for years of misguided policies in Iraq.
"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," Sanchez told a group of journalists covering military affairs.
Sanchez avoided singling out at any specific official. But he did criticize the State Department, the National Security Council, Congress and the senior military leadership during what appeared to be a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership to oppose them.
Such assessments — even by former Pentagon brass — are not new, but they have added resonance as debates over war strategy dominate the presidential campaign.
The Bush administration didn't directly address Sanchez's critical views.
"We appreciate his service to the country," said White House spokesman Trey Bohn. He added that as U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker have said: "There is more work to be done, but progress is being made in Iraq and that's what we're focused on now."
Sanchez retired from the Army last year, two years after he completing a tumultuous year as commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq. As he stepped down, he called his career a casualty of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
He was never charged with anything but he was not promoted in the aftermath of the prisoner abuse reports. He was criticized by some for not doing more to avoid mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
Sanchez told the gathering that he thought he had made mistakes and said he didn't always fully appreciate the secondary affects of actions the military took.
He did deny reports that he and then-Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer were not on speaking terms. He said they spoke every day.
The retired soldier stressed that it became clear during his command that the mission was severely handicapped because the State Department and other agencies were not adequately contributing to a mission that could not be won by military force alone.
When asked when he saw that the mission was going awry, he responded: "About the 15th of June 2003" — the day he took command.
"There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope" that things are going to change, he said.
Sanchez went on to offer a pessimistic view on the current U.S. strategy against extremists will make lasting gains, but said a full-scale withdrawal also was not an option.
"The American military finds itself in an intractable situation ... America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq," said Sanchez, who works as a consultant training U.S. generals.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
US 'delayed' British withdrawal from Basra
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 063824.ece
By Kim Sengupta and Anne Penketh
Published: 16 October 2007
British forces were prevented from pulling out of their last base in Basra City for five months because the Americans refused to move their consulate, according to senior military sources.
The US warned that a brigade of troops would be sent from Baghdad to take "appropriate action" to maintain security. The delay in withdrawal resulted in some of the fiercest fighting faced by British forces since the invasion of 2003, leading to the deaths of 25 British soldiers and injuries to 58 others, as well as dozens of Iraqi casualties. Two of the British dead were at the base, Basra Palace, while at least 10 others died in supporting operations.
Downing Street deemed it to be politically unacceptable for the Americans to replace British troops in Basra, as it would glaringly expose the growing differences between the two countries over Iraq. The British had decided that the end of March to early April would be an optimum time to hand over Basra Palace to the Iraqi authorities – after the completion of Operation Sinbad, aimed at militant groups.
But the Americans maintained that withdrawing the coalition presence from Basra, Iraq's second city, would pave the way for Iranian agents to move in. They claimed to have definite intelligence that elements of the al-Quds force were poised to infiltrate across the border from Iran when the British left. The British assessment did not support this scenario, holding that nationalism among the Shia population would supersede any affinity they felt with Shia Iran and that withdrawing from the palace would lessen violence.
A senior defence source involved in planning the pull-back to Basra airport said: "The decision to stay on was made in London; it was a political and not a logistical one. The Americans flatly refused to pull out their consulate and it was them informing us that they intended to send down a brigade which decided matters in London."
In the end the decision for the eventual pull-out, in early September, was made after a strong request from General Mohan al-Furayji, who had been sent by the government of Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad to take over security in the south.
Yesterday, a member of the Iraqi government appeared to concede that the British troops had pulled back after suffering defeat to the Shia militias. "For me, I think the British couldn't do the job as they liked to do it, so for that reason they pulled out. They didn't control the situation, they couldn't improve the situation," the Human Rights minister, Wijdan Mikha'il Salim, told journalists in London. Pressed on whether the British had been defeated, she replied: "It's a hard question," before nodding.
A senior British commander in Basra recalled: "General Mohan sat in my office and said that our presence in Basra Palace was confusing Shia loyalties. Withdrawing from there, he said, would reduce violence and not increase it. That is what has happened so far since."
But Mrs Salim said that the same level of tensions had remained in Basra since the pull out.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/mid ... 063824.ece
By Kim Sengupta and Anne Penketh
Published: 16 October 2007
British forces were prevented from pulling out of their last base in Basra City for five months because the Americans refused to move their consulate, according to senior military sources.
The US warned that a brigade of troops would be sent from Baghdad to take "appropriate action" to maintain security. The delay in withdrawal resulted in some of the fiercest fighting faced by British forces since the invasion of 2003, leading to the deaths of 25 British soldiers and injuries to 58 others, as well as dozens of Iraqi casualties. Two of the British dead were at the base, Basra Palace, while at least 10 others died in supporting operations.
Downing Street deemed it to be politically unacceptable for the Americans to replace British troops in Basra, as it would glaringly expose the growing differences between the two countries over Iraq. The British had decided that the end of March to early April would be an optimum time to hand over Basra Palace to the Iraqi authorities – after the completion of Operation Sinbad, aimed at militant groups.
But the Americans maintained that withdrawing the coalition presence from Basra, Iraq's second city, would pave the way for Iranian agents to move in. They claimed to have definite intelligence that elements of the al-Quds force were poised to infiltrate across the border from Iran when the British left. The British assessment did not support this scenario, holding that nationalism among the Shia population would supersede any affinity they felt with Shia Iran and that withdrawing from the palace would lessen violence.
A senior defence source involved in planning the pull-back to Basra airport said: "The decision to stay on was made in London; it was a political and not a logistical one. The Americans flatly refused to pull out their consulate and it was them informing us that they intended to send down a brigade which decided matters in London."
In the end the decision for the eventual pull-out, in early September, was made after a strong request from General Mohan al-Furayji, who had been sent by the government of Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad to take over security in the south.
Yesterday, a member of the Iraqi government appeared to concede that the British troops had pulled back after suffering defeat to the Shia militias. "For me, I think the British couldn't do the job as they liked to do it, so for that reason they pulled out. They didn't control the situation, they couldn't improve the situation," the Human Rights minister, Wijdan Mikha'il Salim, told journalists in London. Pressed on whether the British had been defeated, she replied: "It's a hard question," before nodding.
A senior British commander in Basra recalled: "General Mohan sat in my office and said that our presence in Basra Palace was confusing Shia loyalties. Withdrawing from there, he said, would reduce violence and not increase it. That is what has happened so far since."
But Mrs Salim said that the same level of tensions had remained in Basra since the pull out.
Here comes Turkey, to add more fuel to the fire:
Turkish Govt Gives Approval to Invade Iraq
Haha, with a Turkish invasion of the north, then Iraq will go from the frying pan into the fire. Turkey's interests will bring it into conflith with the US.
A Turkish invasion will create a groundswell of support amongst Kurds which will spill northward across the border into Southern Turkey.
A Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq would be the equivalent of Pakistan invading Southern Afghanistan. Turkish military power will be hamstrung as it gets bogged down in insurgency warfare. Turkish military's latitude will be curtailed by the fact that they have to deal with the American presence in Iraq. The same types of mistrust and mutual recriminations between Pakistan and USA will now surface between Turkey and USA.
Meanwhile, oil prices are going through the roof.
Russia must be laughing all the way to the bank, and I don't blame them.
If I were them, I'd support the Kurds to undermine regional rival Turkey, and force the Turks to curtail their interventions in the Caucasus.
This is the nightmare scenario that the Atlanticists have been dreading, and it's why they were the first to come out against the war, even early on after 9/11.
Turkish Govt Gives Approval to Invade Iraq
Haha, with a Turkish invasion of the north, then Iraq will go from the frying pan into the fire. Turkey's interests will bring it into conflith with the US.
A Turkish invasion will create a groundswell of support amongst Kurds which will spill northward across the border into Southern Turkey.
A Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq would be the equivalent of Pakistan invading Southern Afghanistan. Turkish military power will be hamstrung as it gets bogged down in insurgency warfare. Turkish military's latitude will be curtailed by the fact that they have to deal with the American presence in Iraq. The same types of mistrust and mutual recriminations between Pakistan and USA will now surface between Turkey and USA.
Meanwhile, oil prices are going through the roof.
Russia must be laughing all the way to the bank, and I don't blame them.
If I were them, I'd support the Kurds to undermine regional rival Turkey, and force the Turks to curtail their interventions in the Caucasus.
This is the nightmare scenario that the Atlanticists have been dreading, and it's why they were the first to come out against the war, even early on after 9/11.
A pithy retort from the Turkish PM,in answer to US criticism of Turkey.Neat and to the point.The Rev.Dubya Bush,head of the "Church of Latter Day Morons",as some wags put it,should practice what he preaches.
Despite the US demand that there be no attack, Mr Erdogan is critical of the US saying at a rally in Istanbul last weekend: "Nobody can give us lessons on beyond-border operations. Did the US consult us when it entered Iraq from tens of thousands of thousands of kilometres away?"
Despite the US demand that there be no attack, Mr Erdogan is critical of the US saying at a rally in Istanbul last weekend: "Nobody can give us lessons on beyond-border operations. Did the US consult us when it entered Iraq from tens of thousands of thousands of kilometres away?"
A pithy retort from the Turkish PM,in answer to US criticism of Turkey.Neat and to the point.The Rev.Dubya Bush,head of the "Church of Latter Day Morons",as some wags put it,should practice what he preaches.
Despite the US demand that there be no attack, Mr Erdogan is critical of the US saying at a rally in Istanbul last weekend: "Nobody can give us lessons on beyond-border operations. Did the US consult us when it entered Iraq from tens of thousands of thousands of kilometres away?"
PS:Some more controversy about alleged abuse of Iraqis by UK troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2193429,00.html
Lawyers take MoD to court over Iraqi mutilation claims
Calls for independent inquiry into allegations of abuse in aftermath of ferocious gun battle
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday October 18, 2007
The Guardian
Doctors in Amara on the 2004 videotape point out an Iraqi victim's injuries.
The Ministry of Defence will come under fresh pressure tomorrow to launch an independent inquiry into allegations of abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers after a fierce gun battle with insurgents three years ago.
Papers to be handed to the high court include witness statements, death certificates and a video taken by relatives of dead Iraqis showing bodies being taken to a hospital in Amara and bodybags being opened.
The statements were taken last month in Damascus from hospital workers who say they saw the bodies of Iraqis handed over by the soldiers for burial. They claim the bodies show evidence of gouged-out eyes, serious injuries to genitals, asphyxiation and hanging.
A detainee released by the soldiers says in a statement he was "continuously punched and kicked" and that he saw blood in the water under his feet coming from nearby toilets. The statement, from Hussein Abbas, was taken by telephone this week from Amara.
The five-minute video shows pictures of bodies being taken to hospital, some in Red Crescent ambulances, and close-ups of some bodies after bodybags had been unzipped. It is understood there has been no independent assessment of the injuries since they were caught on camera.
Earlier this week, lawyers acting for the Iraqis were granted legal aid to help them pursue the case in the British courts where they are hoping to force the military into an independent inquiry.
The MoD has consistently denied any wrongdoing by soldiers.
A number of Iraqis were killed, and others seized by British troops, after one of the fiercest firefights involving British troops on the road from Amara to Basra, near Majar al-Kabir, on May 14 2004.
The MoD said at the time that 14 Iraqis were known to have been killed but that there could have been more.
Witnesses said that between nine and 15 others were rounded up and taken to a British base near Amara, 13 miles to the north. The following day at least nine were transferred to the Shaibah detention centre near Basra.
Allegations of ill-treatment of the Iraqis first surfaced in the media shortly after the incident, which began when British troops were ambushed by insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Guardian saw death certificates written by Dr Adel Salid Majid, director of the hospital in Majar al-Kabir, the day after the battle. Seven of the certificates stated that corpses handed to hospital authorities by British troops showed signs of "mutilation" and "torture".
Dr Majid's conclusions were questioned by a senior doctor at the Amara general hospital, 15 miles to the north. Speaking anonymously to the Guardian, he disputed Dr Majid's claims after examining one of the seven corpses in question.
After the media reports, the Royal Military Police (RMP) special investigation branch conducted a year-long internal inquiry into the allegations. The Ministry of Defence said yesterday: "The RMP carried out a thorough investigation and found no evidence of deliberate mutilation of corpses by the British army."
Emphasising the word "deliberate", defence officials said damage to the skull of at least one body occurred when it was being loaded on to a Warrior armoured vehicle. They also pointed out that the kind of multiple weapons systems used in the gun battle could cause very nasty injuries.
The MoD said last night that the military police saw the video as part of their investigation into the allegations.
The RMP's full report, however, has not been published. Government lawyers acting for the MoD have told Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, the firm acting for the Iraqis, that he could see a summary of it "with redactions as appropriate and as necessary to protect operational information" but only for the purpose of any legal proceedings.
Mr Shiner is acting for relatives of a number of Iraqis who died as well as the detainee, Mr Abbas. He was granted legal aid this week to pursue the case which will be presented by two leading human rights QCs, Rabinder Singh and Michael Fordham. They want the high court to order an inquiry into the allegations as required, they say, by the Human Rights Act.
Mr Shiner said the case raised "the most serious allegations" which demanded independent scrutiny.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "It's been four months since [in a separate incident] we saw photos of Baha Mousa's dead body tortured with 93 injuries while in British custody. In the face of this new evidence, the government still resists calls for an independent inquiry into the post-conflict treatment of civilians in Iraq."
She added: "Some will call us unpatriotic for seeking transparency of this kind but surely the contrary is true? We owe this inquiry as much to the dozens of British soldiers who gave their lives in good faith as to the grieving families."
Human rights lawyers say the courts have maintained that it is the duty of the state to set up a full independent inquiry in cases where a suspicion of deliberate wrongdoing exists.
In a witness statement taken by Public Interest Lawyers in Damascus last month, Assad Mozan, a hospital worker, says he was one of those who went to collect the bodies.
One of the dead was Ali al-Mouzani. "I was amazed as I had seen him yesterday with the British troops and he was not injured at all," he says. He adds that Mouzani had been "severely beaten in the genital area and his reproductive organs were swollen because of the severe bruising". He also refers to corpses with missing eyes.
In another witness statement also taken last month in Damascus, Khuder al-Sweady, who describes himself as a laboratory doctor, claims the genitals of one dead man, Haidar al-Lami, had been mutilated.
He also says he saw the body of his nephew, Hamid, whose cause of death, he says, was "asphyxiation".
"It was clear he had been hanged," he said. "His neck was broken, and there was also blood in his ears, which are also consistent with this diagnosis."
The high court will decide whether the MoD has a case to answer.
Despite the US demand that there be no attack, Mr Erdogan is critical of the US saying at a rally in Istanbul last weekend: "Nobody can give us lessons on beyond-border operations. Did the US consult us when it entered Iraq from tens of thousands of thousands of kilometres away?"
PS:Some more controversy about alleged abuse of Iraqis by UK troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2193429,00.html
Lawyers take MoD to court over Iraqi mutilation claims
Calls for independent inquiry into allegations of abuse in aftermath of ferocious gun battle
Richard Norton-Taylor
Thursday October 18, 2007
The Guardian
Doctors in Amara on the 2004 videotape point out an Iraqi victim's injuries.
The Ministry of Defence will come under fresh pressure tomorrow to launch an independent inquiry into allegations of abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers after a fierce gun battle with insurgents three years ago.
Papers to be handed to the high court include witness statements, death certificates and a video taken by relatives of dead Iraqis showing bodies being taken to a hospital in Amara and bodybags being opened.
The statements were taken last month in Damascus from hospital workers who say they saw the bodies of Iraqis handed over by the soldiers for burial. They claim the bodies show evidence of gouged-out eyes, serious injuries to genitals, asphyxiation and hanging.
A detainee released by the soldiers says in a statement he was "continuously punched and kicked" and that he saw blood in the water under his feet coming from nearby toilets. The statement, from Hussein Abbas, was taken by telephone this week from Amara.
The five-minute video shows pictures of bodies being taken to hospital, some in Red Crescent ambulances, and close-ups of some bodies after bodybags had been unzipped. It is understood there has been no independent assessment of the injuries since they were caught on camera.
Earlier this week, lawyers acting for the Iraqis were granted legal aid to help them pursue the case in the British courts where they are hoping to force the military into an independent inquiry.
The MoD has consistently denied any wrongdoing by soldiers.
A number of Iraqis were killed, and others seized by British troops, after one of the fiercest firefights involving British troops on the road from Amara to Basra, near Majar al-Kabir, on May 14 2004.
The MoD said at the time that 14 Iraqis were known to have been killed but that there could have been more.
Witnesses said that between nine and 15 others were rounded up and taken to a British base near Amara, 13 miles to the north. The following day at least nine were transferred to the Shaibah detention centre near Basra.
Allegations of ill-treatment of the Iraqis first surfaced in the media shortly after the incident, which began when British troops were ambushed by insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
The Guardian saw death certificates written by Dr Adel Salid Majid, director of the hospital in Majar al-Kabir, the day after the battle. Seven of the certificates stated that corpses handed to hospital authorities by British troops showed signs of "mutilation" and "torture".
Dr Majid's conclusions were questioned by a senior doctor at the Amara general hospital, 15 miles to the north. Speaking anonymously to the Guardian, he disputed Dr Majid's claims after examining one of the seven corpses in question.
After the media reports, the Royal Military Police (RMP) special investigation branch conducted a year-long internal inquiry into the allegations. The Ministry of Defence said yesterday: "The RMP carried out a thorough investigation and found no evidence of deliberate mutilation of corpses by the British army."
Emphasising the word "deliberate", defence officials said damage to the skull of at least one body occurred when it was being loaded on to a Warrior armoured vehicle. They also pointed out that the kind of multiple weapons systems used in the gun battle could cause very nasty injuries.
The MoD said last night that the military police saw the video as part of their investigation into the allegations.
The RMP's full report, however, has not been published. Government lawyers acting for the MoD have told Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, the firm acting for the Iraqis, that he could see a summary of it "with redactions as appropriate and as necessary to protect operational information" but only for the purpose of any legal proceedings.
Mr Shiner is acting for relatives of a number of Iraqis who died as well as the detainee, Mr Abbas. He was granted legal aid this week to pursue the case which will be presented by two leading human rights QCs, Rabinder Singh and Michael Fordham. They want the high court to order an inquiry into the allegations as required, they say, by the Human Rights Act.
Mr Shiner said the case raised "the most serious allegations" which demanded independent scrutiny.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "It's been four months since [in a separate incident] we saw photos of Baha Mousa's dead body tortured with 93 injuries while in British custody. In the face of this new evidence, the government still resists calls for an independent inquiry into the post-conflict treatment of civilians in Iraq."
She added: "Some will call us unpatriotic for seeking transparency of this kind but surely the contrary is true? We owe this inquiry as much to the dozens of British soldiers who gave their lives in good faith as to the grieving families."
Human rights lawyers say the courts have maintained that it is the duty of the state to set up a full independent inquiry in cases where a suspicion of deliberate wrongdoing exists.
In a witness statement taken by Public Interest Lawyers in Damascus last month, Assad Mozan, a hospital worker, says he was one of those who went to collect the bodies.
One of the dead was Ali al-Mouzani. "I was amazed as I had seen him yesterday with the British troops and he was not injured at all," he says. He adds that Mouzani had been "severely beaten in the genital area and his reproductive organs were swollen because of the severe bruising". He also refers to corpses with missing eyes.
In another witness statement also taken last month in Damascus, Khuder al-Sweady, who describes himself as a laboratory doctor, claims the genitals of one dead man, Haidar al-Lami, had been mutilated.
He also says he saw the body of his nephew, Hamid, whose cause of death, he says, was "asphyxiation".
"It was clear he had been hanged," he said. "His neck was broken, and there was also blood in his ears, which are also consistent with this diagnosis."
The high court will decide whether the MoD has a case to answer.
This is unexpected!
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/229868.html
Iran and China enter in Iraq!
[quote]
Iran, China take ‘contract’ route into Iraq, US worried
New York Times
Posted online: Friday, October 19, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST
BAGHDAD, October 18
Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said on Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.
The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
The expansion of ties between Iraq and Iran comes as the United States and Iran clash on nuclear issues and about what American officials have repeatedly said is Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq.
American officials have charged that Iranians, through the international military wing known as the Quds Force, are particularly active in support of elite elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia largely controlled by Sadr.
An American military official in Baghdad said that while he had no specific knowledge of the power plant contracts, any expansion of Iranian interests was a concern for the military here.
“We are of course carefully watching Iran’s overall presence here in Iraq,â€
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/229868.html
Iran and China enter in Iraq!
[quote]
Iran, China take ‘contract’ route into Iraq, US worried
New York Times
Posted online: Friday, October 19, 2007 at 0000 hrs IST
BAGHDAD, October 18
Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said on Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.
The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
The expansion of ties between Iraq and Iran comes as the United States and Iran clash on nuclear issues and about what American officials have repeatedly said is Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq.
American officials have charged that Iranians, through the international military wing known as the Quds Force, are particularly active in support of elite elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia largely controlled by Sadr.
An American military official in Baghdad said that while he had no specific knowledge of the power plant contracts, any expansion of Iranian interests was a concern for the military here.
“We are of course carefully watching Iran’s overall presence here in Iraq,â€
A Turkish invasion of Iraq could tear it away from the West:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/d ... id=9987685
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/d ... id=9987685