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Victory! Can the Troops Come Home Now?

By Cernig

Marie Colvin of the London Times has two linked reports today about how swimmingly things are going for the Iraqi army in Mosul, the offensive that wasn't. American pro-occupation pundits are ready to declare victory all over again (and again, and again) of course - with one even uncritically acclaiming Nour al-Napoleon's grandiose claim that "we have defeated terrorism".

Colvin is a veteran war correspondent and a very brave lady, but she tends to be biased in her reporting. Just like her puff-pieces on the Iraqi army's success against an opposition that faded away of its own accord filed from Basra, she's now being given the dog-n-pony show in Mosul and apparently falling for it entirely. What she neglects to mention is that the Mosul operation was telegraphed by two months and even the US military admits that most of the AQI bad guys melted away before it began. She also neglects to mention that US military estimates put AQI numbers in Mosul before Operation Lion's Roar (a reference to the Persian lion) at around 600 and that reports from other correspondents in Mosul say that most of the 1,000+ detained are simply non-violent Sunni critics of Maliki's government.

Moderate conservative James Joyner looks at how such reports might play in the US prersiudential race and asks, if we take Colvin and Maliki at face value, while the US is still there.

One could argue that this is good news for John McCain, one of the earliest and staunchest advocates of the Surge.  His argument that the war would have been far more successful if his calls for a larger force had been heeded years ago are buttressed. At the same time, however,Barack Obama can reasonably argue that, if AQI is defeated, the already tenuous relationship between the Iraq War and the global war on terrorism is ended.  These positive developments actually undermine the argument that his calls for rapid withdrawal amount to surrender to the terrorists and acceptance of American defeat.  If AQI is no more, then we’re left with a simple “nation building” operation.

There's considerable doubt over whether the Surge was the primary driving force in reducing levels of violence in Iraq to merely what was sufficient to cause the breakdown of what was left of society's fabric after the US invasion in 2003. However, I'd agree that there's no threat of AQI taking over Iraq - but then again, there never was. The idea that we couldn't leave Iraq in case Al Qaida took over, even in Sunni areas, was always ridiculous. The danger was that they could help heat up the simmering civil war between the various Iraqi factions scrabbling for power under cover of the US "nation building" exercize, but there's also ample evidence that the Iraqi factions are capable of doing that on their own. Meanwhile, Al Qaida continues to gain in strength in its original stronghold along the Afghan/Pakistan border and in Africa, all the while the US is distracted by the Iraqi occupation.

Right now, Iraq wonks are watching deep disagreements between the Awakening and the members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which show signs they might flare into violence akin to the feud between the Sadrists and ISCI/Dawa Shiite factions. There are reports that the Islamic Party are pre-conditioning their long-promised return to Maliki's fold on his formaly dissolving the Sons of Iraq, declaring any holdouts to be illegal militias unable to participate in provincial elections and even using the armed forces to crack down on them if they object too strenuously. Kirkuk, a powderkeg issue for Sunni/Kurd confrontation, also bears watching. And anyone writing off the Sadrists ability to create trouble for Maliki's elite is living in cloud cuckoo land.

If "victory" was ensuring AQI wouldn't control even Anbar, then it was accomplished a long time ago - even before the Surge. If "victory" is policing a multi-sided simmering civil conflict with the objective of keeping the current green Zone elite of exiles in power, then I'm not at all sure that mission can ever be accomplished. Either way, withdrawal is indicated.

On the run again

By Libby

Our overseas White House steno of record, the Times of London, recounts the latest US-Iraqi offensive, Operation Lion's Roar, in Mosul. They went in looking for insurgents and a big bomb rumored to be stored there. They found neither but the Times breathlessly announces this is clear proof, "the insurgents are on the run." Hmmm. When have I heard that before?

5/25/2008
April 14, 2008
March 24, 2008
1-10-2008
November 30, 2007
October 01, 2007
9/28/2007
July 10, 2007
24 June 2007
Jun 28, 2005
April 26, 2005
November 18, 2004
11-17-04
Jan. 14, 1980 [This one is the Russians talking about their occupation of Afghanistan]

Every get the feeling that the insurgents plan is to keep us running in circles? This from the current Times article sums it up perfectly.

The last word was left to the beleaguered people of Mosul. Sa’ad Aziz, 47, stood in his shop, with ice-cream in the freezer and fizzy drinks and sweets on the shelves, watching the search for the Zanjali bomb in virtual darkness because there was no electricity.

His concerns were far removed from Al-Qaeda’s jihad: “We have only two hours of electricity out of 10. I need it for my business. There is only a little water in this area. We need jobs. My son has a university degree but he has no work. We’re all very tired of this insurgency.”

Not to worry Sa'ad Aziz. Our experts assure us those insurgents are on the run and we're going to turn that corner any time now.

More On The US/Iraq Security Deal

By Cernig

Here's a tale of two very different reports about the same news conference. It was held by Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, in Baghdad and concerned negotiations on a US/Iraqi security agreement to extend the occupation beyond the expiry of the UN mandate in December.

The WaPo's version, written by Sudarsan Raghavan, is headlined "Progress Cited on U.S.-Iraq Pacts" and the lede runs:

The United States and Iraq are making progress on complex political and security agreements that would allow U.S. troops to operate in the country next year, Iraq's foreign minister said Wednesday.

"We have reached a comfortable stage of negotiations, and the differences have been narrowed," Hoshyar Zebari told reporters.

However, the NYT's Alissa J. Rubin has as her headline "Iraq Hints at Delay in U.S. Security Deal" and the lede is:

Declaring that there will not be “another colonization of Iraq,” Iraq’s foreign minister raised the possibility on Wednesday that a full security agreement with the United States might not be reached this year, and that if one was, it would be a short-term pact.

American officials, speaking anonymously because of the delicate state of negotiations, said they were no longer optimistic that a complete security agreement could be reached by the year’s end.

At a news conference in Baghdad, the foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told reporters that some headway had been made, but that negotiators were deadlocked over issues like the extent of Iraqi control over American military operations and the right of American soldiers to detain suspects without the approval of Iraqi authorities.

That's quite a difference in tone and content, leading one to wonder if the two Bagdad reporters witnessed a Fortean event - Zebari defying the laws of physics to appear in two places with two different messages at the same time. You have to go all the way to Raghavan's ninth paragraph before he mentions the deal-breakers Rubin led with, and then he plays them down with a weasely "Despite the progress, many hurdles remain that could delay the signing of the pacts". He also writes:

But Zebari said U.S. negotiators were open to the idea of Iraqis controlling their own airspace, as long as they have proper air power and technology.

Nice of the Bush administration to put preconditions on Iraq's exercising sovereignty over its own airspace, isn't it? Especially since the Bush administration made sure that not even a beginning has been made in providing Iraq with such air superiority aircraft, radars or SAM missiles. Indeed, they made sure that the Iraqi military's plans don't include anything of the sort until at least 2012 and probably longer.

So what happens now? Back to Rubin:

Noting that the United States cannot stay in Iraq without legal authorization, Mr. Zebari cited three options: “Either we conclude a status of forces agreement; or we have an interim agreement until a SOFA can be completed; or we go back to the Security Council at the end of the year and ask for another extension.”

An interim pact, he said, could take the form of a memorandum of understanding and related documents, which would be less extensive than a formal security agreement.

They probably would be appended to the document that President Bush and the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, signed last year that laid out the principles for a continuing relationship between the countries.

...Zebari said any agreement would be in place for perhaps a year or two and then subject to review. If no agreements are reached by the end of the year, he said, the sides would have to negotiate an interim deal.

Which, of course, is a sideways way of saying the Iraqis would rather negotiate a deal with the next US president than the current one - because that way they might actually get a deal that gave their sovereignty more than the mildest of lipservice.

And Zebari had some news for John McCain:

Mr. Zebari also indicated that even a full agreement would be short. “We are not talking about 50 years, 25 years or 10 years; we are negotiating about one or two years, so this is not going to be another colonization of Iraq,” he said.

I think Zebari just endorsed Obama. Maybe that was what the WaPo wanted to bury.

What good allies we have...

By Fester:

Good allies trust each other.  Good allies tell each other about major operations that are about to go off in shared battlespace.  Good allies don't devote significant national level surveillance assets that are in high demand and limited supply to watching their allies.  The LA Times has more on the relationship between Iraqi and US forces:

the United States is using spy satellites that ordinarily are trained on adversaries to monitor the movements of the American-backed Iraqi army, current and former U.S. officials say.

The stepped-up surveillance reflects breakdowns in trust and coordination between the two forces....
The use of the satellites puts the United States in the unusual position of employing some of its most sophisticated espionage technology to track an allied army that American forces helped create, continue to advise, and often fight alongside.

The satellites are "imaging military installations that the Iraqi army occupies," said a former U.S. military official, who said slides from the images had been used in recent closed briefings at U.S. facilities in the Middle East. "They're imaging training areas that the Iraqi army utilizes. They're imaging roads that Iraqi armored vehicles and large convoys transit."

The US military is saying through its actions that the Iraqis are standing up and capable of conducting their own operations or at least wants to mask those operations from the US until they are started and the Iraqi Army needs to get bailed out with airpower and artillery. And in order to not be suckered into fights the US does not want to fight but are forced to on the basis of freshly tied Gordian knots, the US is using assets that are very expensive in both cash outlays and much more importantly opportunity costs.  A satellite image analyst who is looking at the take of a KH-11 viewing areas south of Najaf can not be looking at images near the Khyber Pass.  Depending on orbital mechanics, some of the satellites may or may not have been pulled off of other missions to observe our allies.

What great allies we have and what great allies we are....

And A Sunni Pony Too

By Cernig

There are new reports that the Sunni bloc is about to rejoin the Iraqi government. But then again, there have been reports of their imminent rejoining on an almost weekly basis ever since they left last August and it hasn't happened yet. The last two cabinet minister lists the Sunnis put forward were rejected by Maliki for no other reason than that they weren't Shiite enough and there are signs that this list won't be any better.

(And doesn't it speak volumes that the accompanying WaPo photo of Sunni and Shiite lawmakers "at a reconciliation meeting outside Baghdad in June" shows said lawmakers only in silhouette, presumably to prevent them being identified as talking to their opposite numbers?)

Ed Morrissey is hoisting the mission accomplished banner over at Hot Air, touting this as a sign of the arrival of the reconcilliation pony, along with an AP report (I won't link to because we don't do AP here) saying that the White House has judged that the titles of laws passed can substitute for actually carrying out those laws, and so the Iraqi government has passed "15 out of 18" benchmarks. One of those benchmark ponys is agreeing to hold provincial elections on October 1st - yet anyone listening to Maliki's government already knows it has said that won't happen. According to the Iraqi government's own announcements, the elections might happen in November, might happen after status of forces agreements with the US are concluded, might happen piecemeal over the course of months...but definitely won't happen on October 1st.

As is usual with talk of reconcilliation, I'll believe it when it actually happens - not when laws are passed saying it should happen or politicians say it is going to happen. "Fool me twice...won't get fooled again."

Force Fungibility for Afghanistan and Iraq

By Fester:

The US military is pulling out the last of the surge brigades from Iraq and moving to the barely sustainable fifteen brigades in Iraq and three brigade equivilants in Afghanistan.  The five surge brigades were the US strategic deployable reserve and using them for the past year of treading political water means that the US will be operating without a deployable reserve force for the next fifteen to eighteen months.    There is no deployable US slack. 

This means that Iraq directly robs Afghanistan of deployable units, and from a certain perspective, an additional non-US soldier committed to Afganistan allows for the US to shift one man-slot to Iraq.  This was not as true when the US had a deployable reserve.  So when the US commander in Afgahnistan is calling for an extra division, US allies that support the Afghanistan mission but are opposed to the Iraq mission are seeing the US order six new brigades to Iraq and see any additional battalion or brigade they release to Afgahnistan as an enabling component of US policy in Iraq. 

Another Kind Of Iraq Briefing

By Cernig

Spencer Ackerman has gotten hold of a security contractor's briefing for its clients going to Iraq. It shows a rather different picture to the all--is-rosy one pained by McCain/Bush. Spencer writes: "It's true that this level of violence is lower than that of the bloody spring and summer of 2006, but it's also true that the trajectory of violence is increasing, not decreasing."

With charts, even. Definitely worth a look.

Blowing the Fight Against Al Qaeda

By BJ

The New York Times has a long article out today examining the less than stellar progress made by the Bush administration in fighting al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. Among other highlights are infighting between and within agencies, timidity by White House officials, accommodation to Musharraf, and my personal favourite, diversion of resources and attention to Iraq and the subsequent loss of US standing that resulted.

Some choice quotes on that last.

The story of how Al Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for “the base,” has gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.

. . .

Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.

. . .

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 added another complicating factor, by cementing a view among Pakistanis that American forces in the tribal areas would be a prelude to an eventual American occupation.

. . .

“We had to put people out in the field who had less than ideal levels of experience,” one former senior C.I.A. official said. “But there wasn’t much to choose from.”

One reason for this, according to two former intelligence officials directly involved in the Qaeda hunt, was that by 2006 the Iraq war had drained away most of the C.I.A. officers with field experience in the Islamic world. “You had a very finite number” of experienced officers, said one former senior intelligence official. “Those people all went to Iraq. We were all hurting because of Iraq.”

. . .

Intelligence reports were painting an increasingly dark picture of the terrorism threat in the tribal areas. But with senior Bush administration officials consumed for much of that year with the spiraling violence in Iraq, the Qaeda threat in Pakistan was not at the top of the White House agenda.

Add to that the story yesterday pointing out that the only way for US to increase troop strength in Afghanistan is to pull them out of Iraq since the US military has no reserve capacity in its ground forces.

The whole NYT story is well worth the read, but as the situation in the region grows ever bleaker, it is the above facts that will haunt Bush’s legacy. Even if by some magical and superhuman effort, his successors can turn Iraq into a successful state once again, the opportunity cost of the invasion and subsequent occupation will easily dwarf any of the, (so far imaginary), benefits.

Iraqis Want Court Inquest Into Shooting Deaths

By Cernig

Iraqi leader Nour al-Maliki has decided to appoint an Iraqi court to conduct what amounts to coroner's inquests into two recent incidents involving US troops, according to the L.A. Times. The first is the killing of one of prime minister Maliki's 18-year old cousins in the family's hometown over the weekend while he was guarding Maliki's sister, the second was the killing of a bank manager and two female employees on their way to Baghdad airport on Wednesday. US occupation forces say troops shot in self-defence, a claim that the Iraqis find dubious in both cases.

Maliki reached the decision after U.S. troops searching for a suspect in Karbala province on Friday fatally shot an 18-year-old guard who was a distant relative of the prime minister.

As often happens, there were differing accounts. The slain man's brother said the soldiers took the victim into a house and shot him. The U.S. Army released a statement saying he came out of a building "brandishing an AK-47 held against his shoulder as if to fire."

Ill feelings were further exacerbated when Karbala Gov. Aqeel Khazali accused the Americans of conducting the raid without obtaining his approval. Karbala is one of nine provinces where the U.S. has transferred responsibility for security to local authorities.

Despite all that, Abadi said Maliki was more disturbed by the killing Wednesday of a bank manager and two female employees on their way to work at Baghdad's international airport.

The U.S. military described the three as criminals and said soldiers in a convoy fired on them only after being fired upon.

Abadi said he found that unbelievable. "That doesn't fit with these people," he said.

Haider Abadi is a member of Maliki's Dawa Party and was speaking for the prime minister when he said there would be inquests. Such hearings would create a precedent going forward into the post- UN mandate phase of the occupation which is currently being negotiated between the Bush administration and Maliki's government.

Abadi acknowledged that the judge would have no authority to convict or sentence Americans, but he said a forum is needed to provide Iraqis a sense of justice.

"It's not acceptable, Iraqis getting killed without even knowing if it is the result of a tragic incident or this is negligence on the part of the U.S. military," he said.

Abadi said he had been told the U.S. military was willing to cooperate but said he was skeptical that it would produce investigative documents or allow soldiers to testify. The military did not respond Sunday to a Times query asking whether it would participate.

The Iraqi lawmaker described the proceeding as something like an American coroner's inquest. It would allow all the evidence to be weighed in public by a judge who would decide whether there was criminal negligence.

He said he hoped the hearing would provide a way out of the impasse over immunity, which has tied up negotiations over extending the U.S. military's authorization to stay in Iraq after its United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.

Iraqi officials have been demanding legal jurisdiction to prosecute U.S. troops and contractors for their crimes. U.S. negotiators are willing to cede jurisdiction over contractors but not military personnel.

"The Iraqi side wants to have a procedure where at least the Iraqi judiciary is respected and facts are presented so that we can arrive at a conclusion," Abadi said. "At the moment we never arrive at facts. There is an Iraqi story and an American story. We just forget about it."

Abadi and Maliki shouldn't hold their breathes for US co-operation, if the experience of British coroner inquests is anything to go by. Time and again, US authorities have stalled, witheld evidence and refused to allow witnesses to testify in such inquests into deliberate shootings, accidents and "friendly fire" deaths of British soldiers and civilians, especially where the evidence was incriminatory.

US Raid Kills Maliki's Relative (Updated)

By Cernig

McClatchy reports that a US special forces raid - which was launched without consultation with local Iraqi commanders despite the province where it occured, Kerbala, supposedly having been handed to Iraqi control - has killed a relative of Iraqi prime minister Nour al-Maliki. Opponents of any long-term agreement for US occupation forces presence in Iraq have had their hand unexpectedly strengthened by the incident, with several Green Zone politicians, including some from Maliki's own party, saying it proves that US forces shouldn't have the free hand the Bush administration wants them to.

The raid occurred at dawn Friday in the town of Janaja near Maliki's birthplace in the southern, mostly Shiite Muslim province of Karbala. Ali Abdulhussein Razak al Maliki, who was killed in the raid, was related to the prime minister and had close ties to his personal security detail, according to authorities in Karbala.

The incident puts an added strain on U.S.-Iraqi negotiations to draft a Status of Forces Agreement, a long-term security pact that will govern the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq. Members of the Iraqi government and security forces said the raid only deepened their reluctance to sign any agreement that did not leave Iraqis with the biggest say on when and how combat operations are conducted.

The U.S. military handed Iraqi forces control of Karbala security in October 2007. By the end of 2007 the U.S. military had transferred nine of the country's 18 provinces to Iraqi control.

"We are afraid now of signing the long-term pact between Iraq and America because of such unjustified violations by the troops. Handing over security in provinces doesn't mean anything to the American troops," said Mohamed Hussein al Musawi, a senior Najaf-based member of the prime minister's Dawa Party. "We condemn these barbaric actions not only when they target a relative of Maliki's, but when any Iraqi is targeted in the same way."

Outrage over the mysterious operation has spread to the highest levels of the Iraqi government, which is demanding an explanation for how such a raid occurred in a province ostensibly under full Iraqi command.

"This is a Special Forces operation, an antiterrorism unit that operates almost independently so there's been no coordination with the local forces on the ground," said a high-ranking member of the Iraqi government who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue. "That's why it's so important to have a Status of Forces Agreement to regulate this relationship. As long as it's vague and open, these incidents will continue to happen."

The local military commander in the town of Janaja, where the incident occured, has said the US troops were acting on faulty intelligence when they raided the town - which is mostly populated by members of the Maliki tribe. US forces in Iraq have yet to comment on the incident.

That this raid could happen in an area which was supposedly handed to Iraqi command but without Iraqi approval makes a mockery of the notion that the occupation forces respect Iraqi sovereignty. It's a massive hearts and minds failure that couldn't have come at a worse time for the Bush administration. Now, there will be a whole new Iraqi debate - involving those of the elite who have until now looked to US forces for protection as well as those previously opposed to the occupation - on just how trustworthy occupation forces will be even if an agreement is signed.

Worse - maybe the fact that the townspeople were members of the PM's own tribe should've given someone in the US chain of command a hint that they should discuss this raid with the Iraqi government first - but they seem to have missed that hint. Now, it seems likely that Maliki and others will want to hold those who killed his relative to account - and, of course, the US answer is going to be that US troops aren't accountable to the Iraqi government or anyone else accept their own chain of command. That's going to keep this incident in the Iraqi public's minds - and those of the Green Zone elite - for a while.

Update: The Irish Times identifies the dead man.

Ali Abdel Hussein Razak al-Maliki, who was not only the first cousin of the premier but who also belonged to his personal protection unit, died when the soldiers entered his room and shot him while other members of the family were being held in another room.

Kerbala governor Aqeel al-Khazaly expressed shock at the news.

"The aerial landing and subsequent operations led to the death of an innocent civilian and the arrest of another," he said.

The detained man was identified as Hussein Nima, a visitor to the town. Mr al-Khazaly said Iraqi officials had not been informed of the operation and called it a breach of the transfer arrangement. He called for an investigation and demanded that soldiers involved should "face Iraqi courts".

Major Pleads Guilty To $9 Million In Bribes

By Cernig

I missed this yesterday, somehow, but the WaPo reported that Major John Cockerham pled guilty to receiving more than $9 million in bribes in exchange for awarding illegal contracts to supply US and Iraqi troops in Iraq. He faces up to 40 years in prison. His wife and sister also pled guilty to involvement. Cockerham and his wife did deals with prosecutors to help with ongoing enquiries, however.

We mentioned Cockerham first back in September last year. Back then, we noted that Cockerham, Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph (who also pled guilty on corruption charges recently) and Iraqi officials doing backdoor deals with the Mafia, all practised their corruption while it was General David "170,000 missing guns" Petraeus' job to conduct oversight of Iraqi procurement activities.

General Petraeus has been confirmed as the new head honcho at CentCom.

Iraqi Cabinet Takes Hardline Stance On MKO

By Cernig

The anti-Iranian group variously known as the Mujahedeen e-Kalq, MKO, People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) or National Council of Resistance of Iran has long been a pampered favorite of the neoconservative faction within the Bush administration. We've written a fair bit about the MKO here at Newshoggers over the years. They have ensured that the US has kept the group in comparative luxury in their Camp Ashraf in Iraq and used MKO members as sources of Iran intel, as interpreters or interrogators for the US military and as - allegedly - proxies for terror strikes inside Iran. However, the MKO are highly unloved by the Maliki administration as the group acted as Saddam's bully-boys, carrying out atrocities on his behalf against the Shiite population of Iraq. Thus the group's sheletered status has become a bone of contention between the US and Iraq.

Now the Iraqi cabinet has banned anyone at all from dealing with the organisation.

Iraq's cabinet has in its latest meeting stressed expulsion of the Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO) from Iraqi territory, an organization considering as "terrorist" by Iran and some other countries.

...A cabinet approval bans on any engagement with the MKO by any Iraqi or foreign organization, party, institution or person inside Iraq.

It says any person dealing with the MKO "law breakers," will be treated based on the anti-terrorism rulings and will be handed over to legal authorities under the law.

It also called on all the multinational forces (a possible indirect reference to the US forces) to stop considering themselves responsible for the MKO and cede all the checking and monitoring affairs to Iraqi authorities.

It remains to be seen if the Iraqi government will try to get US occupation forces to stop using MKO interpreters and interrogators. If they do, we may well see a dramatic drop in claims that some captured militant or other has confessed to being an Iranian agent. It also remains to be seen whether the US military will allow the Irai government to enforce arrest warrants for MKO members inside Camp Ashraf.

But maybe Ken Timmerman of NewsMax, FOX News' Ali Jafarzadeh and the folks at the Iran Policy Committee shouldn't plan any trips to visit their friends at Camp Ashraf.

No Way Forward Except The Exit

By Cernig

The Government Accountability Office has a critical new report on Iraqi glad-talk of "progress and success" from other gorvernment departments out. Here's the summary and here's the PDF of the whole thing. It says, bluntly, that the administration has been cooking the books to show that a drop in violence occassioned by the Sunni awakening, Sadrist ceasefire and the Surge of US troops has led to any great progress in reconstruction or reconcilliation.The GAO also said that "the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration's goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines."

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times cover the GAO's report today - but the WaPo hands the job off to a staff writer who underplays the report's significance while the NYT gives it to star reporter James Glanz. The latter "gets" that this report, from an organisation that is supposed to police other government departments, is more than just a disagreement about metrics. He quotes Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the accountability office.

“A strategic plan should be a plan that takes you not only through the short term,”...“If the New Way Forward only takes you through July 2008, then you don’t have any guidance for achieving an Iraq that can do everything on its own,” including dealing with the threat of terrorism and defending its own borders, Mr. Christoff said.

And there's the rub - because neither the Bush administration nor the Maliki government are all that interested in an Iraq that can do everything on its own. The Bush administration are driven by neocon wishes for a permanent US satrapy in the region from which to base operations and an energy lobby that proceeds from "we broke it, we own it" thinking to regard Iraq as the US' strategic oil reserve. The Iraqi central government is driven by a wish to have their American bodyguards stick around their Green Zone haven so that they themselves can stay in power. Thus even the GAO makes the mistake of assuming that the US should be telling common Iraqis what is best for them.

As The New Way Forward and the military surge end in July 2008, and given weaknesses in current DOD and State plans, an updated strategy is needed for how the United States will help Iraq achieve key security, legislative, and economic goals. Accordingly, we recommend that DOD and State, in conjunction with relevant U.S. agencies, develop an updated strategy for Iraq that defines U.S. goals and objectives after July 2008 and addresses the long-term goal of achieving an Iraq that can govern, defend, and sustain itself. This strategy should build on recent security and legislative gains, address the remaining unmet goals and challenges for the near and long term, clearly articulate goals, objectives, roles and responsibilities, and the resources needed and address prior GAO recommendations.

The difficulties of any such strategy are set out well by an anonymous Iraq expert guest-blogging for Marc Lynch, who notes that the primary power divide in Iraq now is between the Powers That Be (the Kurdish parties, most of PM Maliki's Da'wa, the Shiite ISCI and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party) and the Powers That Aren't (everyone else, but especially the Sadrists and the Awakening Councils).

Despite having far more power than their representation among the populace should mean:

The PTB are unified and organized as individual parties and don't break ranks when it comes to the central government.  As a coalition of groups, they have so much in common and so much to lose that they have a great deal of incentive to work together and shut everyone else out.  This is what makes them more than a coalition of factions.  That they have captured the apparatus of state and are working hard to strengthen it, especially on the security level--with the US fighting and dying to help them do just that--and that they are swimming in money gives them much to lose.

...The PTA all have a superficial commitment to nationalism and unity, but they are so Iraqi in the Ali al-Wardi, "for every two Iraqis you have three factions" sense, that there is very little hope they will actually be unified. You can talk about undoing de-Ba'thification, you can talk about integrating the Sahwa, you can talk about provincial elections--but what the PTA want is IN.  They want in.  As Abu Rumman makes clear, the resistance/insurgency is so dead and pathetic that even they want in.   PTA want a piece of the massive, kick-back laden, contract-dispensing honey pot and extortion ring that is the GOI and, increasingly, the provincial governments.  And the PTB don't want to let them in.  Why would they?

So where does the US stand in this?   They're at least apparently working hard for provincial elections and thus to give the PTA and the popular forces they represent some power.  But at the same time, their main priority appears to be buttressing the state security apparatus that belongs to the PTB, the very one that's being used to crack down on the PTA in the south ("JAM") and, if Abu Rumman is right, the PTA in the form of the Awakenings ("thank you very much, we'll take it from here!  that will be all!")  The more this process goes on and the more they drag their feet on provincial elections, by the time these elections do happen, if they do, the PTA will be so weakened and fragmented, the system likely so rigged in favor of the unified PTB parties, that they'll hardly matter.

The US is, by staying and offering their protection to the Green Zone elites, backing those with the least amount of popular support and enabling their repression of those political groups who have most. There is no amount of leverage, short of leaving entirely, that can convince Maliki and his co-conspirators to end their ever-evolving litany of excuses, punts and pretences of reconcilliation between the PTB and the PTA. But that's OK, because neither Bush nor McCain, nor even Obama, seriously want to convince them to do so in any case.

Iraq Contracting - Corruption, Cover-Ups and Complicity

By Cernig

We've written often enough here about the great big, corrupt, cash cow that the Iraq occupation has been for those with an "in" to the Bush administration. Two more stories today illustrate that the White House and it's officials have enabled that corruption.

The White House is, for instance, blocking efforts by the military to clean up notoriously poor contracting oversight.

The Office of Management and Budget, President Bush's administrative arm, has shot down a service plan to add five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance.

The boost in brass was a key recommendation from a blue-ribbon panel that last fall criticized the Army for contracting failures that undermined the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, wasted U.S. tax dollars, and sparked dozens of procurement fraud investigations.

As the Army's contracting budget ballooned _ from $46 billion in 2002 to $112 billion in 2007 _ it had too few experienced people negotiating and buying equipment and supplies, according to the panel. Worse still, there wasn't a single Army general in a job with contracting responsibilities. That meant the profession had little clout at a critical time.

And, indeed, the Bush administration is actively engaged in trying to cover up the extent of corruption and graft - for instance in the case of the 22 year old who was given a $300 million contract to provide ammunition to troops in Afghanistan, only to provide shoddy Chinese ammo that didn't work most of the time. A letter to Condi Rice from Henry Waxman states:

“The Oversight Committee has received information that the U.S. Ambassador to Albania held a late-night meeting with the Albanian Defense Minister at which the Ambassador approved removing evidence of the illegal Chinese origins of ammunition being shipped from Albania to Afghanistan by a U.S. contractor,” Waxman wrote. “The Committee has also received information that State Department officials. tried to conceal this information from the Committee.”

It is now long past the point at which the long litany of such tales can be written off as inefficiency or incompetence. The Bush administration's involvement in war profiteering and corruption can now only be described as complicity. How high does the complicity go? Senate investigators whould be following the money and establishing patterns of involvement beyond the primary players - like 20-something entrepreneurs mysteriously awarded massive procurement contracts - who are currently taking the blame. Follow the money, Mr. Waxman.

Pooch Punting Kirkuk again

By Fester:

It looks like the Iraqi reconciliation process will punt again as the perpetual problem of Kirkuk comes up again. Reuters is reporting the provincial elections may be delayed because it looks like the Kurds have enough votes in Kirkuk and at least parts of Tamin Province to break that city and its oil fields away from being governed by Baghdad and towards being governed by Irbil:

Iraq's provincial elections, seen as vital for fostering national reconciliation, could be delayed because of disputes in parliament over the electoral law, several lawmakers said on Sunday....

"There are many problems hindering us from agreeing the provincial elections law. One of the main problems is Kirkuk," Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, head of the parliamentary bloc from the ruling Shi'ite Alliance, told Reuters.

"I think it will be very difficult to hold elections on time."

The electoral commission has said the draft law must be passed by the start of July to give it three months to prepare for the polls. U.S. officials have said the elections could be delayed until November, but have not elaborated.

       

When in doubt punt.  This has been a staple play in Iraqi politics as Kirkuk was supposed to be resolved in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and now in 2008.  It will also be in a position to soon decide its fate in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2042.

As Cernig notes, this is a common play from a common playbook:

Maliki has, from necessity and probably a goodly deal of both Bush administration *and* Iranian steering, become a grand master of the ever evolving promise. He'll just keep shifting the goalposts and saying reconciliation is just around the next corner, so don't withdraw just yet.

Since 2003, the Kurds have asserted local control over Kirkuk and have helped thousands of Kurds to resettle in the city while Arab families who were relocated to Kirkuk in the past two generations are being moved out. The combination of local political control and highly probable plurality if not an outright Kurdish majority makes handling this issue near impossible as there are wildly divergent goal sets.

The problem is simple; Kirkuk is a veto point for multiple actors.  Sunni Arabs have an implicit veto over Kurdish actions by their ability to blow up the export pipelines, while they also consider  Kirkuk to be an integral part of Iraq.  The Sadrists want a reasonably strong central government that controls the oil revenue as well.  And the Kurds need Kirkuk and is infrastructure to establish a truly viable de facto state. And the Turkish government considers Kurdish control of Kirkuk for this very reason to be intolerable.  They will cloak it in concern for Turkomen rights in the city and province, but it is the viability of the Kurdish proto-state that concerns them.

So expect more punting than a Bears-Raiders game.

 

Attention Getters

By Ron Beasley

When I finally had a chance to check the Internet pipes today a few things jumped out at me. First there was this:

Kristol: Bush Might Bomb Iran If He ‘Thinks Senator Obama’s Going To Win’

Now the only thing that is reassuring about this is Bill Kristol is always wrong.

But Cheney might just do it to leave Obama with an even bigger mess.  I guess the question that will be answered is if Cheney still has that much power.  I suspect that Gates and the rest of the Pentagon residents realize that all hell will break lose in Iraq if they do attack Iran.  Does Gates have the power to stop the criminally insane Dick Cheney?

And we have this from another of the really scary people that live in the Bush/Cheney universe:

Bolton: Israel Will Attack Iran After U.S. Election But Before Inauguration, Arab States Will Be ‘Delighted’

I think if they [Israel] are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President. I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.

I see this as being more likely but the blow back will be the same and leave Obama with an insurmountable problem.

And we have this from Newsweek's Michael Isikoff:

McCain’s Boeing Battle Boomerangs

Yes, Boeing did some bad things up front but it's also obvious that McCain's indignity is in large part because he is in EADS' back pocket.

Critics, including some at the Pentagon, cite in particular two tough letters McCain wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in 2006 and another to Robert Gates, just prior to his confirmation as Defense secretary. In the first letter, dated Sept. 8, 2006, McCain wrote of hearing from "third parties" that the Air Force was about to redo the tanker competition by factoring in European government subsidies to EADS—a condition that could have seriously hurt the EADS bid. McCain urged that the Pentagon drop the subsidy factor and posed a series of technical questions about the Air Force's process. "He was trying to jam us and bully us to make sure there was competition by giving EADS an advantage," said one senior Pentagon official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a politically sensitive matter. The assumption within the Pentagon, the official added, was that McCain's letters were drafted by EADS lobbyists. "There was no one else that would have had that level of detail," the official said. (A Loeffler associate noted that he and Nelson were retained by EADS after the letters were drafted.)

And you shouldn't miss this great take down of David Broder by Steve Soto:

Broder Shows His Colors Early

Mr. Broder, who do you think bears responsibility for the fact that only 14% of the country in your paper’s own poll thinks the country is on the right track? Who bears responsibility for why 84% of the public feels the country is on the wrong track, the highest number on record? You do Mr. Broder; you and all the bipartisan members of your Beltway crowd that have tut-tutted your way through this country’s downward spiral these last eight years into a disaster capitalism economy so detached from Main Street America that 84% reject you and your crowd. And you've been there yourself, cheering along George W. Bush. But now it’s Barack Obama who is responsible for establishing the credibility of an election process you broke?

The Iraq Campaign

By Cernig

Fareed Zakaria has a long-ish op-ed in Newsweek that certainly bears reading, in which he gives his opinion on what Obama should be saying about Iraq. Mostly, it's very close to the mark as he puts words in Obama's mouth - for instance this:

"In six months, on Jan. 20, 2009, we will have a new president. But it is not clear that we will chart a new course in the ongoing war in Iraq. Senator McCain has promised a continuation of the Bush strategy—to stay in Iraq with no horizon in sight, with no benchmarks or metrics that would tell us when American troops can come home. In 2006, when levels of violence were horrifyingly high, President Bush and Senator McCain said that things were going so badly that if we left, the consequences would be tragic. Today they say that things are going so well that if we leave, the consequences would be tragic. Whatever the conditions, the answer is the same—keep doing what we're doing. How does one say 'Catch-22' in Arabic?

"I start from a different premise. I believe that the Iraq War was a major strategic blunder. It diverted us from the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan—the people who launched the attacks of 9/11 and who remain powerful and active today. We face threats in Iraq, but the two greatest ones, as General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have testified, are Al Qaeda (which is wounded but not dead) and Iran. Both are a direct consequence of the invasion. There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before 2003, and Iran's influence has expanded massively since then.

...We have to look at the situation we're in now and ask, what can we do to create the best possible outcome at an acceptable cost? Economists warn us not to dwell on 'sunk costs' and, while painful, we must move beyond the mistakes of the past and focus on the possibilities of the future.

But this:

"It is encouraging to see the Iraqi government act against Shiite militias in Basra and Sadr City, which sends a signal that they will be equal-opportunity enforcers of the law."

Is wishful thinking at best and stupidly accepting a well-spun tale at worst. And this:

"More needs to happen. Militias remain powerful in many parts of Iraq. The Sunni tribes that have switched sides must have their members enrolled in the armed forces and police (a process that has moved very slowly so far). Constitutional discussions that have been postponed again and again need to take place soon."

Really is hoping for a pony, truth be told, no matter what the US threatens to do or not do. And that's the great, gaping hole in the entire thing - the dichotomy that means American foreign policy is stuck in a tar-pit of its own creation.

Maliki has, from neccessity and probably a goodly deal of both Bush administration *and* Iranian steering, become a grand master of the ever evolving promise. He'll just keep shifting the goalposts and saying reconcilliation is just around the next corner, so don't withdraw just yet. Those who keep thinking that "we broke it" means something akin to "we own it" instead of "we should pay for it and get the hell out of the shop without breaking anything else, letting the owners run their own business as well or badly as they
wish" will fall for it.

Unfortunately, a large segment of the "Very Serious People" foreign policy set seems to want to embrace "we own it" as a philosophy, perhaps merely because it justifies them telling US politicians what they should be telling the Iraqis to do and then being able to blame the Iraqis when it isn't done. Consequently, as a result of bi-partisan pressure, the American people have largely accepted "we own it" even if they don't really want it in its broken state. The "we own it" meme keeps getting in the way, for serious policy thinkers and the public alike, of getting the hell out of the shop.

Meanwhile, Frank Rich examines how the Iraq issue will likely play out politically in the presidential elections and he too is generally on the mark. McCain is hamstrung by "his role in facilitating the fiasco in the first place" and the American public no longer care about the fairy tale that we're winning the Surge so we must stay to see the Iraqi political Surge happen .

That Mr. McCain makes an unpopular and half-forgotten war the centerpiece of his campaign may simply be a default posture — the legacy of his Vietnam service and a recognition that any war, good or bad, is still a stronger suit for him than delving into the details of health care, education, tax policy or the mortgage crisis.

Even so, it leaves him trapped in a Catch-22. If violence continues to subside in Iraq — if, as Mr. McCain has it, we keep “winning” — it will only call more attention to the internal contradictions of a policy that says success in Iraq should be punished by forcing American troops to stay there indefinitely. And if Iraq reignites, well, so much for “winning.”

However, he too seems to think US politicians should be seeking "leverage" over Malki and the Green Zone elite in pursuit of the latter making reconcilliation moves they don't believe are in their own interests. The only successful leverage must come from Iraqis themselves, and it cannot come while the US is still trying to run their shop for them to the benefit and desires of America rather than Iraq.

Vali of the Pols?

by Eric Martin

Vali Nasr is an extremely informative analyst - especially when it comes to matters related Shiite politics in the Middle East.  He literally wrote the book(s) on the subject.  Throughout the past few years, I have made a point of paying extra attention when his byline appears.  Thus, I was somewhat surprised when I read his most recent column entitled, Iran on its Heels, in that in tone and substance it marks a departure from much of Nasr's preceding analysis. 

The divergence occurs in mostly two ways: (1) Nasr has significantly lowered his estimation of the Sadrist movement's political/military strength; and (2) Nasr has significantly increased his estimation of the Sadrist movement's ties to Iran, especially vis-a-vis the parties controlling the Iraqi government (ISCI/Maliki/Dawa).

On the strength of the Sadrists:

For the first time since 2003, Iran has stumbled in Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to confront Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City last month caught Tehran off guard. The Mahdi Army lost more than face: It surrendered large caches of arms, and many of its leaders fled or were killed or captured. Crucially, the militias lost strategic terrain -- Basra and its choke-hold on the causeway between Kuwait and Baghdad and Iraq's oil exports; Sadr City and the threat it posed to Baghdad security. Visiting Basra this month, I saw city walls covered with pro-Maliki graffiti. Commerce is returning to the city center. Trouble spots remain in both places, as Tuesday's car bombings show, but the Mahdi Army's unchallenged hold has ended.

Contrast that with Nasr from late March here:

"President Bush was right that Basra marked a defining moment for Iraq, but not in the way that he intended," said Vali Nasr, a scholar of Shiite politics at Tufts University who has advised U.S. policy makers. "This is the birth of Sadrist power."

and here:

"Maliki is done," Nasr said. "On the other side, I think Moqtada comes out looking strong."

Nasr said that the U.S. military's approach to Sadr will remain interesting to watch. [...]

"We still don't know what to do with him," Nasr said. "We don't want to go to war with him and we don't want to give him Iraq. We are back to where we started."

In Nasr's defense, in the early days of the Basra siege, Maliki's forces were performing quite poorly and, prior to increased support from American firepower, the prospects were dim.  So some adjustment is to be expected (like Nasr, I too was wrongly predicting that Sadr had a good chance of withstanding Maliki's assault in those early days).  Nevertheless, Nasr's current take on the Sadrist movement's strength has swung too far in the other direction. 

He is too quick to abandon his previous admonitions about the size and popularity of a movement that comprises in the range of 10-20% of the Iraqi population.  Their power might be on the wane in certain locales, but his previous counsel against recklessly provoking such a large segment of the population remains as relevant as ever.  As Anthony Cordesman said (expressing sentiments previously found in Nasr's analysis):

The practical problem is that it is much easier to provoke an ideological and political movement [such as Sadr's] with even the most successful tactical attacks than it is to defeat it as a religious and political force. Iraq’s poorer and more religious Shi’ites will not disappear no matter how good the military gains are against the JAM. They will be a major political force in any future elections regardless of whether Sadr survives, Sadrists are allowed to run, or the elections are fair or partly rigged. No one in Iraq goes quietly into that great night.

The other shift for Nasr occurs in his reading of Iranian influence with respect to the various Shiite factions:

Iran wants U.S. forces to leave Iraq and assumes that a friendly Shiite government would then protect Iran's interests. Tehran has looked to Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, to manage its strategy of supporting Shiite unity and resisting American occupation. But these efforts do not go hand in hand. The first means supporting stability and state-building and working with Iraq's government; the second involves building violent militias that undermine government authority.

Maliki's recent push into Basra showed that Iran's policy was untenable. Not only are its two goals at war, but Iran has alienated the Maliki government and mainstream Shiites.

The first part of Nasr's analysis is both accurate and consistent with the position he has maintained previously: that Iran is actively engaging and supporting all Shiite factions in Iraq.  The difference comes in his contention that Maliki and other "mainstream Shiites" (perhaps ISCI) have grown alienated from, and antagonistic to, Iran.  While these are the sounds that many US policymakers want to hear - due to the fact that ISCI/Maliki are the only Shiite allies that the Bush administration can count on and so their alliance with Iran is awkward to say the least - that does not necessarily make them true. 

Even if they are uttered by Maliki and ISCI representatives (when they're not in Tehran on one of many frequent visits into friendly "enemy" territory).

Hidden Behind The SOFA, Contempt For Congress

By Cernig

The Washington Post reports today on statements from the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, who says that the White House has altered the wording of the proposed military agreement with Iraq so as to keep oversight of the deal away from Congress.

The alternative under discussion will pledge U.S. forces to "help Iraqi security forces to defend themselves," rather than a U.S. promise to defend Iraq, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said. Although "it's the other way around," he said, "the meaning is the same, almost."

Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed agreement, called the change "a distinction without a difference." Senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers have questioned whether the accord will constitute a defense treaty requiring congressional ratification and have accused the Bush administration of withholding information on the talks.

Zebari went on to say that Iraqi and Bush administration lawyers decided this was the best way to bypass any ratification problems.

Now, if you are I were a Congresscritter we'd be bloody mad at this obvious show of contempt  but, to paraphrase Rumsfield,  we continue in this war with the Congress we have, not the one we'd like to have. Some will question, few will act.

McCain, of course, is fully on board with the Bush plan. And there's good reason to suspect that a President Obama won't be changing the game much either:

Zebari said Obama told him. Obama "wants redeployment, he wants a timetable" for withdrawal, Zebari added. But "he is not interested to pull all the troops out. He wants a residual force" to continue fighting terrorists in Iraq, protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and possibly continue training Iraqi security forces.

And, by the by, preserve in force the Bush administrations agreement - because without such an agreement such a residual force would be illegal.

We're starting to see what that agreement is going to look like as well. Yes, there will be one despite the posturings for public consumption of Maliki and his elite - they need their American bodyguards too much. According to Zebari, joint "commissions" will deal with such issues as US independent operations ( presumably including US control of Iraqi airspace) and US detention of Iraqis - commissions that will be puppet theatres, as the US still holds all the logistical strings. Without US co-operation very little in the way of repairs, resupply, battlefield medical care, training or heavy support will get done by the Iraqi Army at all and such co-operation will doubtless be on a "you scratch my back, I'll let you scratch yours" basis. To give the Iraqi public a bone, security contractors will be made subject to Iraqi law, as just about everyone except maybe Paul Bremmer, who signed the stupid edict making them immune in the first place, now agrees they always should have been.

And so, as I've been saying since 2005, it's "satrapy without end" in the colonies.

SOFA and the Coalition

By Cernig

I've got a couple of questions for the foreign policy wonks out there. What happens to troops from the other coalition nations in Iraq come December 31st? That's when the UN mandate is due to expire and the Iraqis have already said they don't want to extend it. Stephen Biddle, at the Council on Foreign Relations, had this to say about the subject recently:

Sovereign countries do Status of Forces agreements with the U.S., they don't do UN resolutions. We didn't want that for a variety of reasons. Amongst which being, there are more countries in Iraq than just the U.S. The UN Security Council resolution is an umbrella authorization for all of them to operate in Iraq. If instead you go to a Status of Forces deal, that has to be done bilaterally for every power operating in Iraq. We failed to get the Iraqis to agree to renewing the Security Council resolution.

So as a result, we've been in a long negotiation with them over the specific content of the Status of Forces agreement to substitute for the Security Council resolution.

Now, I follow foreign news services, especially the British ones, pretty closely. If the Brits or Bulgarians or whatever are involved in their own SOFA negotiations with the Iraqi government, it isn't being mentioned. Everyone is concentrating on the US/Iraqi negotiations and apparently assuming that the other coalition forces are covered - but they aren't as a matter of course. Thus my questions:

Even if in this case they are, isn't that a massive hand-off of their own sovereignty by the other coalition nations? One that's pretty newsworthy?

And if they aren't, why is Bush over in Europe telling UK PM Gordon Brown that he shouldn't have a timetable for withdrawal? it seems to me that the British and all the other non-US members of MNF-I do indeed have a clear timetable - one that has an end date on December 31st.

So what gives? Are the Bush administration and their allies simply hoping that no-one notices?

The real legacy of liberation

By Libby

I've always thought the most dangerously ignored issue in any military conflict our country has engaged in has been the toxic weaponry that modern technology provided to more efficiently kill 'our enemies.' In Vietnam, it was Agent Orange, whose effects are still being felt in that country today. In contemporary military operations, we have even deadlier weapons of mass destruction at our disposal and as always, the toxins don't discriminate between the innocent and those who truly wish to do us harm.

FALLUJAH, Jun 12 (IPS) - Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say. The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah. In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tonnes of DU in Iraq thus far. [...]

"Many babies were born with major congenital malformations," a paediatric doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "These infants include many with heart defects, cleft lip or palate, Down's syndrome, and limb defects."

The doctor added, "I can say all kinds of problems related to toxic pollution took place in Fallujah after the November 2004 massacre."

The evidence is all anecdotal since no studies have been conducted and medical records aren't allowed to be released but the numbers suggest this not mere conjecture. Even worse, the weapons don't exempt our own troops from the toxic fallout.

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

Again, there have been few studies and the Pentagon has done its best to suppress and deny what evidence exists that our own troops pay this long range cost that is not visible to the naked eye. But again, the anecdotal evidence is strong.

For myself, I've known veterans of both Vietnam and the first Gulf War, both as friends and as patrons of the VFW where I tended bar for two years. I watched many of them deteriorate before my eyes and attended far too many funerals of once robust men who died untimely deaths from mysterious maladies beyond the drug and alcohol abuse fueled by PTSD.

It's a sorry legacy and when we tally up the cost of war, it seems to me to be very wrong not to include these souls among the war dead, even though they died far from the battlefields and long after the fighting was over.

Sadrists Won't Contest Provincial Elections

By Cernig

The Sadrist movement has said it will support independent candidates rather than contest Iraqi provincial elections in its own right, according to the Washington Post.

The movement of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said Saturday that it would not take part in provincial elections this year, one day after it formed a new paramilitary group to fight U.S. troops.

The back-to-back moves suggested that Sadr is trying to bolster his position as the chief opponent of both the American troops in the country and the Iraqi government, following a year in which he ordered his Mahdi Army militia to observe a cease-fire and moved deeper into the political process.

Sadr's aides said he is recalibrating his strategy as the American military drawdown transforms the U.S. role in Iraq.

"We don't want anybody to blame us or consider us part of this government while it is allowing the country to be under occupation," said Liwa Smeisim, head of the Sadr movement's political committee.

...Speaking about provincial elections, which are scheduled for this fall, aides to Sadr said the movement would support "technocrats and independent politicians" to prevent rival political parties from dominating local governments. But they said the movement would not put forward its own candidates.

"Sayyid Moqtada does not believe in elections or in the coming provincial governments as long as the occupation forces are here," said Salah al-Obaidi, a top aide to Sadr and his chief spokesman, using an honorific to signify Sadr's descent from the prophet Muhammad.

The WaPo's reporters go on to say that the Iraqi government's latest push, in Amara, is primarily a response to Sadr's announced intention to form a new exclusively-paramilitary wing of his organisation - but if that's the case why are the Sadrists saying they've already held negotiations with the loval authorities there to set terms which will allow a mostly peaceful government crackdown that will preserve the Sadrist movement largely intact? Whatever, something has Maliki spooked - he's also deployed tens of thousands of troops and police to protect senior clerics in the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala.

Abu Zainab al-Garawie, the head of Sadr's office in Diwaniyah, said the newly formed special companies would assert their strength by launching attacks within a month, and possibly by next week.

...Mohammad Saeed, 31, commander of a Mahdi Army company in Najaf, said thousands of militia members have been training "inside and outside Iraq." "We believe that now the time has come for these companies to be given the green light to achieve our aims," he said.

Several Mahdi Army fighters, who have been frustrated at the orders of the past year to stop fighting, welcomed the announcement and said they were eager for revenge against the American military and Iraqi forces that they believe have persecuted them.

"From now on, there will be violent unexpected actions that will astonish the Iraqi people, the Iraqi government and even the occupation forces," he said. "Now we will be assigned to fight openly, and we will fight till the last drop of our blood."

Some will see these new developments as proof that Sadr is a spent force - "pulling out of the elections to avoid embarrassing losses and keeping most of the Mahdi Army from fighting so that it will not face defeat by U.S. and Iraqi troops" - although it seems more likely that Sadr is making these moves so that his movement doesn't become a spent force. If it doesn't contest elections or get involved in violence then it won't face attrition by US and Iraqi central government military pressure and will be well placed later to assume more power in post-occupation Iraq. Others will see these developments as proof that Iran is jerking everyones strings to keep the US bogged down in Iraq.

I'm curious to see what the experts make of all this, I must say.

Update: Spencer Ackerman, who isn't exactly an Iraq wonk but has plenty of access to people who are, writes:

The permanent-occupation deal is only barely getting covered in the U.S., but those two Iraqi parliamentarians who came here two weeks ago, Juan Cole and Marc Lynch and others tell me that it’s a massive issue in Iraq. And it was so disastrous for Maliki that on Friday he himself opted not to sell the country out. But it’s hard to wash out the stain. Look at what Sadr is doing. He’s creating “Special Companies” that will attack U.S. forces (!) but not Iraqi troops or police. What does that mean? It means he’s drawing a contrast with the puppet Maliki. Look, Sadr will say, only Maliki will draw Iraqi blood, and he does so on behalf of the occupiers. Such are the wages of government under occupation, and I want no part of it. If you’re a Shiite Iraqi soldiering in the Army and, after this, you’re ordered to attack Sadrists, do you obey orders?

Now, I could be totally wrong about all of this. A much simpler explanation — that we’re sure to hear endlessly in the coming weeks — is that Sadr is operating from a position of weakness; he would have lost the elections; Maliki is everything the left has asked for in an independent Iraqi leader; shut up; why can’t you accept that all this is working? And, you know, maybe. But at every single stage over the last five years when Sadr was counted out he’s come back twice as strong. It would be self-defeating foolishness to discount him now.

And Dr. iRack at Abu Muqawama, who is an Iraq wonk albiet one using a pseudonym, agrees with Spencer:

The goal is to solidify his brand as the true "outsider" nationalist opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq, avoid any association with the Maliki government, and seek to gain power over the long-term (in the national elections in 2009?) as U.S. forces draw down....And, in the meantime, Sadr will probably still put up supporters in the provincial elections, although they just won't be labelled "Sadrists" and his movement will undoubtedly deny any direct affiliation with these politicians (i.e., the "inside" part of an outside-inside game).

...In other words, it is not a genuine effort to boycott the elections, it is an end-around Maliki's threat to ban the Sadrists from the elections unless JAM is disbanded.

Maliki's New Push In Amara

By Cernig

Reuters is reporting that the Iraqi Army is readying a new crackdown on Shiite militias in the Sadrist stronghold of Amara. But, just like the last three offensives - Basrah, Sadr City and Mosul - it's being telegraphed far in advance so that the targets of the crackdown have enough time to hide their weapons and go to ground.

The operation is the latest stage in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's drive to stamp his government's authority on areas of the country previously controlled by Shi'ite militias or Sunni Arab insurgents.

"The decision to undertake the operation has been taken, but the zero hour has not been set yet," Adel al-Muhoudir, governor of Maysan province, told Reuters.

Iraqi tanks were seen on major streets in Amara. Iraqi security forces patrolled and many checkpoints had been set up in the city.

The city is a stronghold of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who agreed to a ceasefire after U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a major crackdown on his Mehdi Army militia in Basra in March.

The security official, who asked not to be named, said the aim of the operation was to arrest wanted people and collect "heavy" weapons. It would also target armed groups and some members of the Mehdi Army, he said.

A spokesman for U.S. forces declined to give details of the operation, saying it was "Iraqi-led and planned".

Helicopters have dropped thousands of leaflets warning of the crackdown and although Iraqi Army armor and troops are taking up visible positions all over the city - one of Iraq's poorest but capital of an oil-rich region - they haven't yet begun any searches or checks.

There's definitely an element of kabuki in the crackdown, as the Sadrists have already been in negotiation with the provincial government over methods and "red lines".

Sadr ordered a delegation of clerics to go to Amara for talks with regional officials on how the operation would be carried out, said Sayyid Kareem al-Battat, a delegation member.

Battat said the delegation carried instructions from Sadr for Mehdi Army members to respect the ceasefire ordered by the cleric.

He said the provincial governor had promised security forces would respect human rights and that a committee of tribal leaders would supervise the operation.

"We have no objection to implementing the law and arresting wanted people. We don't think that the operation is directed at Sadr partisans because we are all brothers in the city," Battat said.

The scene is thus set for a repeat performance of the three previous "crackdowns" under even more controlled circumstances and without any embarassing running to Iran to broker ceasefires. The Sadrists will go to ground after hiding their heavy weapons and thus preserve their claim to be a legitimate part of the political scene, the security forces will control the city with little if any fighting and Maliki will have another easy victory to point to as he makes the case that his government has everything under control.

All of this suggests to me that Maliki, by carefully arranging this easy victory, is not quite as overconfident in his security forces as I've previously thought. I now would tend to agree with Dr. iRack at Abu Muqawama, who writes today that Maliki is talking tough on the SOFA talks as if he is truly "willing to play chicken with the talks because a crash—i.e., the collapse of the talks—would no longer be the end of the world" but is actually more concerned, as are others like the ISCI, about growing public anger at leaks of the Bush administration's excessive demands.

So they are feigning outrage as a prophylactic against nationalist sentiment, while they really hope to reach some accord that is a watered down version of the original one. They will then exaggerate the “concessions” they get out of the Americans and play up the end of the “humiliating” UNSCR to blunt public outcry and get the agreement through the Iraqi parliament. If they can’t get enough concessions out of the Bush administration, they will perhaps support a re-up on the UNSCR and restart talks with the next U.S. administration.

Pre-arranged almost-bloodless "victories" in places like Amara strengthen Maliki's hand in negotiations, preserve Sadr's claim to political legitimacy while ridding him of some of his movements more mercurial and belligerent members and give an illusion of peace. What's not to like? Well, maybe the fact that all that will happen is that the wide factional cracks in the Shiite majority will just be punted down the road a ways rather than defused.

Maliki's Other Option

By Cernig

From McClatchy:

"Iraq has another option that it may use," Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."

You see, the Bushies want to see the US in Iraq for a long time after they leave office just as much as Maliki's elite wants them to stay to provide them with protection from large segments of their own populace. But he might just have managed to convince himself into believing his own propaganda that the Iraqi security forces could do the job on their own.

Where the Bush administration has gone wrong so far is in assuming they held all the high cards. They don't - Maliki holds the trump card. I fully expect there will now be a climbdown from the Bush administration from their original excessive demands, spun as "just the come and go of negotiations", whereas until now all reports have been that they've been assuming they would succeed in hammering their demands through.

Prison Break in Afghanistan

By Fester:

The Guardian is reporting a massive prison break has occurred in Khandahar, Afghanistan:

militants have attacked the main prison in the southern city of Kandahar with a car bomb and rockets, killing police and setting nearly all of an estimated 1,150 prisoners free.....