Richard Lugar: Time To Focus On The Achievable in Iraq

[Nbadan]

Iraq is lost....

After a US defeat, Iraq will look very much like it does today - a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within the Arab part. Defeat will be defined by America's failure to accomplish its objective of a self-sustaining, democratic and unified Iraq. And that failure has already taken place whether you want to admit it or not, along with the increase of Iranian power in the region.

Iraq's Kurdish leaders and Iraq's dwindling band of secular Arab democrats fear that a complete US withdrawal will leave all of Iraq under Iranian influence. US Senator Hillary Clinton, Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joe Biden, and former ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke are among the prominent Democrats who have called for the US to protect Kurdistan militarily should there be a US withdrawal from Iraq. The argument for so doing is straightforward: it secures the one part of Iraq that has emerged as stable, democratic and pro-Western; it discharges a moral debt to America's Kurdish allies; it deters both Turkish intervention and a potentially destabilizing Turkish-Kurdish war; it provides US forces a secure base that can be used to strike at al-Qaeda in adjacent Sunni territories; and it limits Iran's gains.

Focus on the achievable


On June 25, without giving the press or White House any advance notice, Richard Lugar, the most respected Republican voice on foreign affairs in Congress, spoke in the Senate about "connecting our Iraq strategy to our vital interests". On the face of it, the idea is as sensible and conservative as the senator delivering the speech.

He observed that political fragmentation in Iraq, the stress suffered by the US military, and growing anti-war sentiment at home "make it almost impossible for the United States to engineer a stable, multi-sectarian government in Iraq in a reasonable time frame". Lugar noted that agreements reached with Iraqi leaders are most often not implemented, partly, as Lugar observed, because the leaders do not control their followers but also because Iraqi leaders have also discovered that telling the Bush administration what it wants to hear is a fully acceptable substitute for action.

Lugar is blunt in his description of the situation in Iraq:


Few Iraqis have demonstrated that they want to be Iraqis ... In this context, the possibility that the United States can set meaningful benchmarks that would provide an indication of impending success or failure is remote. Perhaps some benchmarks or agreements will be initially achieved, but most can be undermined or reversed by a contrary edict of the Iraqi government, a decision by a faction to ignore agreements, or the next terrorist attack or wave of sectarian killings. American manpower cannot keep the lid on indefinitely. The anticipation that our training operations could produce an effective Iraqi army loyal to a cohesive central government is still just a hopeful plan for the future.

Lugar concluded his speech by urging that Americans "refocus our policy in Iraq on realistic assessments of what can be achieved, and on a sober review of our vital interests in the Middle East". After four years of a war driven more by wishful thinking than strategy, this is hardly a radical idea, but it has produced a barrage of covert criticism of Lugar from the Bush administration and overt attack from the neo-conservatives.

Lugar's focus on the achievable runs against main currents of opinion in a nation increasingly polarized between the growing number who want to withdraw from Iraq and the diehard defenders of a failure. We Americans need to recognize, as Lugar implicitly does, that Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. In the parts where we can accomplish nothing, we should withdraw. But there are still three missions that may be achievable - disrupting al-Qaeda, preserving Kurdistan's democracy, and limiting Iran's increasing domination. These can all be served by a modest US presence in Kurdistan.

We need an Iraq policy with sufficient nuance to protect US interests. Unfortunately, we probably won't get it.

ATimes (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IG19Ak03.html)

Redefine and redeploy.

:hat

[boutons_]

dubya doesn't talk much anymore about winning but avoiding defeat, and bullshit scare-mongering about what would happen if US pulls out, but nobody really knows what will happen after a US pullout.

The prediction in VN was the domino theory (if VN fell, all the surrounding countries would fall), didn't happen.

Another VN prediction was that VN, aided by China during the war, would be taken over by China, didn't happen.

Those bullshit predictions lead to an unnecessary war of choice cost us 50K dead and 250K injured, and fucked up the US miliary for years.

Of all people, dubya and his team, who have gotten EVERYTHING wrong about Iraq, including outright lying about Iraq, have ZERO credibility as forecasters of what will happen after the US pulls out. Hell, they have no credibility as forecasters of what will happen if the US stays in.

What dubya never mentions is the building (or attempt to build) of long-term US-occupation-of-Iraq strongholds:
the huge US embassy,
4 huge Army bases, and
a huge Langley-scale/quality Air Force base.

I don't know if any of these military bases on in the Kurd region. If not, Lugar's plan of supporting the Kurds, which sounds decent and reasonable, doesn't look very practical.

[xrayzebra]

^^Well your buddy Harry (the realtor) Reid doesn't seem to want
to answer the question about what would happen in Iraq if we
pulled the troops. He just bristled and refuse to answer the
reporters question. Must be in the genes of dimm-o-craps. Gore
doesn't like to be questioned on global warming.

Oh, and boutons, I guess million people losing their lives and
millions more going into "retraining" is an okay thing with you.
You know like what happen in VN.

[Yonivore]

Iraq is lost...
You're nucking futs! And, so is Luger.

More than 200 members of Congress (Maybe Luger is one) are slated to gather at the Pentagon this morning, for a secure video teleconference (TVC) with General David Petraeus, our senior commander in Iraq, and the senior U.S. diplomatic official, Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

In preparation for that VTC, those Congressmen and Senators would be well-advised to read yesterday's interview between General Petraeus and Hugh Hewitt (http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=484182dc-bf7c-42a7-ac74-9e270a9ef0f2). As you might expect, Hugh was well-prepared for the discussion, and his questions elicited long and detailed responses from General Petraeus. A transcript and full audio of the interview can be found at Hugh's blog; a few highlights are provided below:



HH: Welcome, General. You took over command of the multinational forces in February of this year, February 10. In the past five months, how have conditions in Iraq changed?

DP: Well, obviously, we have been surging our forces during that time. We have added five Army brigade combat teams, two Marine battalions, and a Marine expeditionary unit, and some enablers, as they’re called. And over the last month, that surge of forces has turned into a surge of offensive operations. And we have achieved what we believe is a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground, gains against the principal near-term threat, al Qaeda-Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long term threat, Shia militia extremists as well. As you may have heard, that today, we announced the capture of the senior Iraqi leader of al Qaeda-Iraq, and that follows in recent weeks the detention of some four different emirs, as they’re called, the different area leaders of al Qaeda, six different foreign fighter facilitators, and a couple dozen other leaders, in addition to killing or capturing hundreds of other al Qaeda-Iraq operatives.

[snip]

HH: Now you’re due to make a report back in September, I don’t know if it’s early, mid or late September, General Petraeus, is that enough time to really get a fix on how the surge is progressing?

DP: Well, I have always said that we will have a sense by that time of basically, of how things are going, have we been able to achieve progress on the ground, where have their been shortfalls, and so forth. And I think that is a reasonable amount of time to have had all the forces on the ground, again, for about three months, to have that kind of sense. But that’s all it is going to be. But we do intend, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the ambassador here, and I, do very much intend to provide as comprehensive and as forthright an assessment as we can at that time of the progress that has been achieved, and where we’ve fallen short.

[snip]

HH: General, what about the losses on the enemy? You mentioned that hundreds of al Qaeda fighters have been killed in the last couple of months, but are they suffering losses in the thousands every month? Or is it hundred, two hundred? What kind of force reduction’s going on there?

DP: Yeah, as you know, we try to avoid body counting, but inevitably, obviously, it is something we keep track of, because we’re trying to have some sense of the damage that we are doing to al Qaeda-Iraq, its affiliates, other Sunni insurgent groups, and also certainly to the Shia militia extremist elements. And the answer to that in a general sense is that they are losing many, many hundreds of their, of these different elements each month, certainly since the onset of the surge.

[snip]

HH: Some of the arguments about Iraq in the United States argue that it’s possible for American troops to withdraw to their bases and just strike at al Qaeda, sort of an Anbar only option, I guess. Does that make any sense to you at all, General Petraeus?

DP: Well, first of all, al Qaeda-Iraq is throughout pretty substantial parts of Iraq, and it is a significant enough network in capability that it is not going to be dealt with just by certainly, if you will, classical counterterrorist operations. Indeed, we are doing those. Our best operators in America and in the world are here in the largest number of anywhere in the world by several multiples, and conducting a very, very high operational tempo, and doing extraordinary operations. When I think back to the operations that we did, for example, going after war criminals in Bosnia, or something like that, you know, and one of those would be a big deal, and you’d dine off that for the next several months. On a nightly basis here, you know, ten or twelve serious operations are going down by those forces.

HH: Wow.

DP: And any one of those is far more significant than we conducted for decades. They are very sophisticated, very complex, very lethal sometimes, and very effective. Having said that, although they may be the most important operations, because they can take down, as they did the senior Iraqi leader in al Qaeda-Iraq, or kill the three al Turkey brothers, or what have you, it is also the weight of the operations conducted by the, if you will, the regular special forces, the Green Berets and the others that make up the special operations task force, and operate throughout the country as a very high operational tempo, and of our conventional forces. I mean, it is conventional forces who cleared Western Baquba. Certainly, augmented by, again, our special forces and our special mission unit elements, but they’re the ones that, you know, killed the 80 or 90 confirmed kill, and perhaps another 80 or so more, and captured a couple of hundred in addition to that as well. And they’re the ones who will hold that area against attempts that have already taken place by al Qaeda and their affiliates to try to get back into those neighborhoods.
A very timely--and important read (or listen). General Petraeus doesn't attempt to sugar-coat the situation, but his comments indicate that the troop surge is producing its desired results.

Equally telling are his observations on SOF operations. The exceptionally high tempo of special forces activities suggests that they have been "unleashed" in Iraq, and are engaging the enemy with deadly efficiency. While most media reports focus on conventional units, engaged in large-scale operations (such as the recent clearing of Baquba), there is another, equally important conflict being waged in the shadows. And that's where Al Qaida is taking a major beating.



HH: You know, that…in the forward to that manual that you wrote with General Amos, it said you needed a flexible, adaptive force led by agile, well-informed, culturally astute leaders. You’re just describing that kind of a force. Is it increasing in its lethality and effectiveness on an exponential basis, General? Has it become a more…

DP: It has very much so, Hugh, yes, very, very much so. In fact, people ask, you know, what are the big changes during the sixteen months that you were gone from Iraq? I left Iraq in September, ’05, returned in February, as you noted earlier. And there were two really significant changes. One was the damage done by sectarian violence. It is undeniable, it was tragic, and it has, as I mentioned earlier, ripped the very society, the fabric of Iraqi society. It’s caused very significant fault lines between sects and ethnic groups to harden, and it has created an environment that is much more challenging that before it took place. Beyond that, though, I typically will note that our leaders and our troopers get it about what it is that we’re trying to accomplish here in a way that certainly was not the case at the outset, or even perhaps a year or two into this endeavor. The typical leader here now has had at least one tour in Iraq, some have actually had two. They have, during the time they’re back in the States, they studied this. Of course, while we were back in the States, we revamped the counterinsurgency manual, as you mentioned, published that, revamped our other doctrinal manuals, overhauled the curricula of the commissioned, non-commissioned and warrant officer education systems in the Army, Marine Corps and the other services, completely changed the scenarios at our combat training centers, the one in the Mojave desert, the one in Central Louisiana, the one in Germany, and also captured lessons learned, created the ability to virtually look over the shoulder of those who are down range through expanded pipes in the military secure internet, just a host of initiatives have been pursued, changed organizations, changed equipment, and have given us capabilities, particularly in the intelligence realm, and with the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles, much larger pipes, the ability to shoot much bigger data, if you will, down them, and so forth. All of this has enabled our troopers in a way that certainly was not the case when we did the fight for Baghdad, or even, frankly, when I was here for my previous second tour. And so again, our leaders get it, our soldiers get it, they are these flexible, adaptable, thoughtful, culturally astute, and by and large, leaders and soldiers and Marines, and they are showing that on a daily basis here. That is not to say that it is anything at all easy about this, that the complexity is anything but just sheer enormous, or that this situation is anything but the most challenging that I’ve ever seen in some 33 years in uniform.
Iraq is, indeed, lost...but not by the U.S., by al Qaeda and the insurgents.

My favorite intelligence blog, The Belmont Club (http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2007/07/look-behind-curtain.html), also covers the interview and has a lengthy opinion on the interview as well.

[George Gervin's Afro]

For sometime I have wondered how all of the dead ender war supporters have held strong in their views. Let's assume that the republican Senators and Congressman ,who are now publicly critcizing the war, have access to more information than most. Who would you believe? A blogger ? or US COngressman? I guess if the facts don't support your case a blogger will have to do. I assume Lugar has access to more up to date info Iraq than Yoni or any blogger does so I will have to defer to the US Senator.

Yes I know Yoni you believe the bloggers..

[Yonivore]

For sometime I have wondered how all of the dead ender war supporters have held strong in their views. Let's assume that the republican Senators and Congressman ,who are now publicly critcizing the war, have access to more information than most. Who would you believe? A blogger ? or US COngressman? I guess if the facts don't support your case a blogger will have to do. I assume Lugar has access to more up to date info Iraq than Yoni or any blogger does so I will have to defer to the US Senator.

Yes I know Yoni you believe the bloggers..
Well, you, then, have to ask yourself; do you believe Richard Lugar or Joe Lieberman? Harry Reid or Lindsey Graham? Richard Clarke or General Petreaus who, by the way, was the interviewee in those blogs.

It wasn't the words of the bloggers to which I paid attention but, the words of General Petreaus who, I think, knows even more than your precious politicians.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Well, you, then, have to ask yourself; do you believe Richard Lugar or Joe Lieberman? Harry Reid or Lindsey Graham? Richard Clarke or General Petreaus who, by the way, was the interviewee in those blogs.

It wasn't the words of the bloggers to which I paid attention but, the words of General Petreaus who, I think, knows even more than your precious politicians.

Or you could believe batiste?


A retired US army general has said the conduct of the Iraq war fuelled Islamic fundamentalism across the globe and created more enemies for the US.

Major General John Batiste, who commanded an infantry division in Iraq between 2004 and 2005, said the conflict had made the US 'arguably less safe now than it was on 11 September 2001'.

His views back up the assessment of US intelligence agencies which concluded that the war had made the growing militant movement more dangerous.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMPIi03wSfY


Or waht about this guy?



General: Conservatives Are ‘Absolutely The Worst Thing That’s Happened’ To The U.S. Military
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, appeared last night on HBO’s Bill Maher Show.

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” Eaton said. “Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.”

[boutons_]

As Petraeus knows (and as dubya has said, but I doubt dubya knows anything), the solution in Iraq is political, among Iraqis, not the US military kicking ass.

While the US military fights, the Iraqi politicians take the month of August on holiday, probably most of them OUT of Iraq. Tony Snow explains that Bagdad in August is too hot, 120F+, for the Iraqi politicians to work in their air-conditioned offices.


Here's a career diplomats few of the the Iraqi political situatin.

===================

The Way to Go in Iraq

By Peter Galbraith
TomDispatch.com

Tuesday 17 July 2007

This essay appears in the August 16th, 2007 issue of the New York Review of Books and is posted here with the kind permission of the editors of that magazine.

1.

On May 30, the Coalition held a ceremony in the Kurdistan town of Erbil to mark its handover of security in Iraq's three Kurdish provinces from the Coalition to the Iraqi government. General Benjamin Mixon, the U.S. commander for northern Iraq, praised the Iraqi government for overseeing all aspects of the handover. And he drew attention to the "benchmark" now achieved: with the handover, he said, Iraqis now controlled security in seven of Iraq's eighteen provinces.

In fact, nothing was handed over. The only Coalition force in Kurdistan is the peshmerga, a disciplined army that fought alongside the Americans in the 2003 campaign to oust Saddam Hussein and is loyal to the Kurdistan government in Erbil. The peshmerga provided security in the three Kurdish provinces before the handover and after. The Iraqi army has not been on Kurdistan's territory since 1996 and is effectively prohibited from being there. Nor did the Iraqi flag fly at the ceremony. It is banned in Kurdistan.

Although the Erbil handover was a sham that Prince Potemkin might have admired, it was not easily arranged. The Bush administration had wanted the handover to take place before the U.S. congressional elections in November. But it also wanted an Iraqi flag flown at the ceremony and some acknowledgement that Iraq, not Kurdistan, was in charge. The Kurds were prepared to include a reference to Iraq in the ceremony, but they were adamant that there be no Iraqi flags. It took months to work out a compromise ceremony with no flags at all. Thus the ceremony was followed by a military parade without a single flag - an event so unusual that one observer thought it might merit mention in Ripley's Believe it or Not.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, attended the ceremony alongside Kurdistan's prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, but the Iraqi government had no part in supervising the nonexistent handover. While General Mixon, a highly regarded strategist with excellent ties to the Kurds, had no choice but to make the remarks he did, Mowaffak al-Rubaie acknowledged Kurdistan's distinct nature and the right of the Kurds - approximately six million people, or some 20% of Iraq's population - to chart their own course.

( dubya's bogus invasion and botched occupation broke Iraq and made clear that Iraq never has realy existed. Iraq is really Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis who are identify themselves as such, as members of their tribes, as followers of their sectarian leaders, with much less loyalty to fabricated Iraq)

On July 12, the White House released a congressionally mandated report on progress in Iraq. As with the sham handover, the report reflected the administration's desperate search for indicators of progress since it began its "surge" by sending five additional combat brigades to the country in February 2007. In recent months the Bush administration and its advocates have been promoting the success of the surge in reducing sectarian killing in Baghdad and achieving a turnaround in Anbar province, where former Sunni insurgents are signing up with local militias to fight al-Qaeda.

Although reliable statistics about Iraq are notoriously hard to come by it does appear that the overall civilian death toll in Baghdad has declined from its pre-surge peak, although it is still at the extremely high levels of the summer of 2006. Moreover, the number of unidentified bodies - usually the victims of Shiite death squads - has risen in May and June to pre-surge levels. How much of the modest decline in civilian deaths in Baghdad is attributable to the surge is not knowable, nor is there any way to know if it will last.

The developments in Anbar are more significant. Tribesmen who had been attacking U.S. troops in support of the insurgency are now taking U.S. weapons to fight al-Qaeda and other Sunni extremists. Unfortunately, the Sunni fundamentalists are not the only enemy of these new U.S.-sponsored militias. The Sunni tribes also regard Iraq's Shiite-led government as an enemy, and the U.S. appears now to be in the business of arming both the Sunni and Shiite factions in what has long since become a civil war.

Against the backdrop of modest progress, much has not changed, or has gotten worse. The Baghdad Green Zone is subject to increasingly accurate mortar attacks and is deemed at greater risk of penetration by suicide bombers. Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army was a major target of Bush's surge strategy, remains one of Iraq's most powerful political figures. The military activity against his forces seems only to have enhanced his standing with the public.

Even if the surge has had some modest military success, it has failed to accomplish its political objectives. The idea behind Bush's new strategy was to increase temporarily the number of U.S. troops in Baghdad and Anbar. The aim was to provide a breathing space so that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government might enact a program of national reconciliation that would accommodate enough Sunnis to isolate the insurgents. Meanwhile, Iraqi forces, improved by their close relations with U.S. troops and additional training, would take over security.

The core of the national reconciliation program is a series of legislative and political steps that the government should take to address the concerns of Iraq's Sunnis, who feel left out of the country they dominated until 2003. These steps include

an oil revenue–sharing law (to ensure that the oil-poor Sunni regions get their share of revenue);

holding provincial elections (the Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 provincial and parliamentary elections leaving them underrepresented even in Sunni-majority provinces);

revising Iraq's constitution (the Sunnis want a more centralized state);

revising the ban on public sector employment of former Baathists (Sunnis dominated the upper ranks of the Baath Party and of the Saddam-era public service),

and a fair distribution of reconstruction funds.

Both the administration and Congress have placed great emphasis on the obligation of the Iraqi government to achieve these so-called benchmarks. Congress has, by law, linked US strategy on Iraq and financial support of the Iraqi government to progress on these benchmarks and other steps.

Iraq's government has not met one of the benchmarks, and, with the exception of the revenue-sharing law, most are unlikely to happen. But even if they were all enacted, it would not help. Provincial elections will make Iraq less governable while the process of constitutional revision could break the country apart.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, likes to talk of the disparity between the Iraqi clock and the U.S. clock, suggesting that Iraqis believe they have more time to reach agreement than the American political calendar will tolerate. Crocker is the State Department's foremost Iraq hand but, more generally, American impatience often reflects ignorance. For example, both Congress and the administration have expressed frustration that the ban on public service by ex-Baathists has not been relaxed, since this appears to be a straightforward change, easily accomplished and already promised by Iraq's leaders.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC, previously known as SCIRI), which is Iraq's leading Shiite party and a critical component of Prime Minister al-Maliki's coalition. He is the sole survivor of eight brothers. During Saddam's rule Baathists executed six of them. On August 29, 2003, a suicide bomber, possibly linked to the Baathists, blew up his last surviving brother, and predecessor as SCIRI leader, at the shrine of Ali in Najaf. Moqtada al-Sadr, Hakim's main rival, comes from Iraq's other prominent Shiite religious family. Saddam's Baath regime murdered his father and two brothers in 1999. Earlier, in April 1980, the regime had arrested Moqtada's father-in-law and the father-in-law's sister - the Grand Ayatollah Baqir al-Sadr and Bint al-Huda. While the ayatollah watched, the Baath security men raped and killed his sister. They then set fire to the ayatollah's beard before driving nails into his head. De-Baathification is an intensely personal issue for Iraq's two most powerful Shiite political leaders, as it is to hundreds of thousands of their followers who suffered similar atrocities.

Iraq's Shiite leaders are reluctant to spend reconstruction money in Sunni areas because they believe, not without reason, that such funds support the Sunni side in the civil war. In a speech in late June on the Senate floor Indiana Republican Richard Lugar reported that Iraq's Shiite-led government has gone "out of its way to bottle up money budgeted for Sunni provinces" and that the "strident intervention" of the U.S. embassy was required in order to get food rations delivered to Sunni towns.

Iraq's mainstream Shiite leaders resist holding new provincial elections because they know what such elections are likely to bring. Because the Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 elections, they do not control the northern governorate, or province, of Nineveh, in which there is a Sunni majority, and they are not represented in governorates with mixed populations, such as Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. New elections would, it is argued, give Sunnis a greater voice in the places where they live, and the Shiites say they do not have a problem with this, although just how they would treat the militant Sunnis who would be elected is far from clear. The Kurds reluctantly accept new elections in the Sunni governorates even though it means they will lose control of Nineveh and have a much-reduced presence in Diyala.

The American benchmark of holding provincial elections would also require new elections in southern Iraq and Baghdad. If they were held, al-Hakim's Shiite party, the SIIC, which now controls seven of the nine southern governorates, would certainly lose ground to Moqtada al-Sadr. His main base is in Baghdad and new elections would almost certainly leave his followers in control of Baghdad Governorate, with one quarter of Iraq's population. Iraq's decentralized constitution gives the governorates enormous powers and significant shares of the national budget, if they choose to exercise these powers. New local elections are not required until 2009 and it is hard to see how early elections strengthening al-Sadr, who is hostile to the U.S. and appears to have close ties to Iran, serve American interests. But this is precisely what the Bush administration is pushing for and Congress seems to want.

Constitutional revision is the most significant benchmark and it could break Iraq apart. Iraq's constitution, approved by 79% of voters in an October 2005 referendum, is the product of a Kurdish–Shiite deal: the Kurds supported the establishment of a Shiite-led government in exchange for Shiite support for a confederal arrangement in which Kurdistan and other regions like the one SIIC hopes to set up in the south, are virtually independent.

Since there is no common ground among the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis on any significant constitutional changes in favor of the Sunnis, such changes must come at the expense of the Kurds or Shiites. Since voters in these communities have a veto on any constitutional amendments, they are certain to fail in a referendum. A revised constitution has no chance of being enacted but its failure will exacerbate tensions among Iraq's three groups.

Constitutionally, Iraq's central government has almost no power, and the Bush administration is partially to blame for this. When the constitution was being drafted in 2005, the United Nations came up with a series of proposals that would have made for more workable sharing of power between regions and the central government. The U.S. embassy stopped the UN from presenting these proposals because it hoped for a final document as centralized as (and textually close to) the interim constitution written by the Americans.

When the constitution finally emerged in its present form, then U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad brokered a deal with several Sunni leaders whereby, in exchange for Sunni support for ratification, there would be a fast-track process to revise the constitution in the months following ratification to meet Sunni concerns. Like the Bush administration, the Sunnis want a more centralized state. While the U.S. insists that constitutional revision is a moral obligation, the Sunnis actually never lived up to their end of the bargain. Almost unanimously, they voted against ratification of the current constitution.

With input from the United Nations (belatedly brought back into the process last year), the Iraqi Parliament's mainly Arab Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) is considering amendments that would strip Kurdistan of many of its powers, including its right to cancel federal laws, to decide on taxes applicable in its own territory, and to control its own oil and water. The Sunni Arabs would also like Iraq declared an Arab state, a measure the non-Arab Kurds consider racist and exclusionary.

Thanks to Khalilzad's expedited procedures, constitutional revision may be the final wedge between Kurdistan and Arab Iraq. If approved by the CRC, the constitutional amendments will be subject to a vote in the parliament as a single package and then to a nationwide referendum. Kurdistan's voters are certain to reject the proposed package (or any package affecting Kurdistan's powers), and this could push tense Sunni–Kurdish relations into open conflict. Kurdish NGOs, who ran a 2005 independence referendum, are poised to make a "NO" campaign on constitutional revision a "No to Iraq" vote. In its July 12 report to Congress, the White House graded the CRC's work as "satisfactory," an evaluation that was either grossly dishonest, or, more likely, out of touch with Iraqi reality.

For the most part, Iraq's leaders are not personally stubborn or uncooperative. They find it impossible to reach agreement on the benchmarks because their constituents don't agree on any common vision for Iraq. The Shiites voted twice in 2005 for parties that seek to define Iraq as a Shiite state. By their boycotts and votes the Sunni Arabs have almost unanimously rejected the Shiite vision of Iraq's future, including the new constitution. The Kurds' envisage an Iraq that does not include them. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, 99% of them voted for Kurdish nationalist parties, and in the January 2005 referendum, 98% voted for an independent Kurdistan.

But even if Iraq's politicians could agree to the benchmarks, this wouldn't end the insurgency or the civil war. Sunni insurgents object to Iraq being run by Shiite religious parties, which they see as installed by the Americans, loyal to Iran, and wanting to define Iraq in a way that excludes the Sunnis. Sunni fundamentalists consider the Shiites apostates who deserve death, not power. The Shiites believe that their democratic majority and their historical suffering under the Baathist dictatorship entitle them to rule. They are not inclined to compromise with Sunnis, whom they see as their longstanding oppressors, especially when they believe most Iraqi Sunnis are sympathetic to the suicide bombers that have killed thousands of ordinary Shiites. The differences are fundamental and cannot be papered over by sharing oil revenues, reemploying ex-Baathists, or revising the constitution. The war is not about those things.

2.

The Iraq war is lost. Of course, neither the President nor the war's intellectual architects are prepared to admit this. Nonetheless, the specter of defeat shapes their thinking in telling ways.

The case for the war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning - a stable Iraq, democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil Iranian and Syrian regimes - but by the consequences of defeat. As President Bush put it, "The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America."

Tellingly, the Iraq war's intellectual boosters, while insisting the surge is working, are moving to assign blame for defeat. And they have already picked their target: the American people. In The Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly, a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote, "Those who believe the war is already lost - call it the Clinton-Lugar axis - are mounting a surge of their own. Ground won in Iraq becomes ground lost at home." Lugar provoked Donnelly's anger by noting that the American people had lost confidence in Bush's Iraq strategy as demonstrated by the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress. (This "blame the American people" approach has, through repetition, almost become the accepted explanation for the outcome in Vietnam, attributing defeat to a loss of public support and not to fifteen years of military failure.)

Indeed, Vietnam is the image many Americans have of defeat in Iraq. Al-Qaeda would overrun the Green Zone and the last Americans would evacuate from the rooftop of the still unfinished largest embassy in the world. President Bush feeds on this imagery. In his May 5, 2007, radio address to the nation, he explained:

If radicals and terrorists emerge from this battle with control of Iraq, they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves, which they could use to fund their dangerous ambitions and spread their influence. The al Qaeda terrorists who behead captives or order suicide bombings would not be satisfied to see America defeated and gone from Iraq. They would be emboldened by their victory, protected by their new sanctuary, eager to impose their hateful vision on surrounding countries, and eager to harm Americans.

But there will be no Saigon moment in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite-led government is in no danger of losing the civil war to al-Qaeda, or a more inclusive Sunni front. Iraq's Shiites are three times as numerous as Iraq's Sunni Arabs; they dominate Iraq's military and police and have a powerful ally in neighboring Iran. The Arab states that might support the Sunnis are small, far away (vast deserts separate the inhabited parts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia from the main Iraqi population centers), and can only provide money, something the insurgency has in great amounts already.

Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today - a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part.

Defeat is defined by America's failure to accomplish its objective of a self-sustaining, democratic, and unified Iraq. And that failure has already taken place, along with the increase of Iranian power in the region.

Iraq's Kurdish leaders and Iraq's dwindling band of secular Arab democrats fear that a complete U.S. withdrawal will leave all of Iraq under Iranian influence.

Senator Hillary Clinton, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, and former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke are among the prominent Democrats who have called for the U.S. to protect Kurdistan militarily should there be a withdrawal from Iraq. The argument for so doing is straightforward:

it secures the one part of Iraq that has emerged as stable, democratic, and pro-Western;

it discharges a moral debt to our Kurdish allies;

it deters both Turkish intervention and a potentially destabilizing Turkish–Kurdish war;

it provides U.S. forces a secure base that can be used to strike at al-Qaeda in adjacent Sunni territories;

and it limits Iran's gains.

In laying out his dark vision of an American failure, President Bush never discusses Iran's domination of Iraq even though this is a far more likely consequence of American defeat than an al-Qaeda victory.

( Iranians are Persian and Iraqi are Arab. I really wonder, after their common enemy the US is gone, if their share Shiite religion will really mean that Iran will dominate whatever non-Kurd Iraq? It could be like in VN where the VN didn't let the Chinese dominate the country after the US left) Bush's reticence is understandable since it was his miscalculations and incompetent management of the postwar occupation that gave Iran its opportunity. While opposing talks with Iran, the neoconservatives also prefer not to discuss its current powerful influence over Iraq's central government and southern region, persisting in the fantasy - notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary - that Iran is deeply unpopular among Iraq's Shiites and clerics. (At the same time, U.S. officials accuse Iran of supplying Iraqi Shiite militias with particularly lethal roadside bombs.)

3.

On June 25, without giving the press or White House any advance notice, Richard Lugar, the most respected Republican voice on foreign affairs in Congress, spoke in the Senate about "connecting our Iraq strategy to our vital interests." On the face of it, the idea is as sensible and conservative as the senator delivering the speech. He observed that political fragmentation in Iraq, the stress suffered by the U.S. military, and growing antiwar sentiment at home "make it almost impossible for the United States to engineer a stable, multi-sectarian government in Iraq in a reasonable time frame." Lugar noted that agreements reached with Iraqi leaders are most often not implemented, partly, as Lugar observed, because the leaders do not control their followers but also because Iraqi leaders have also discovered that telling the Bush administration what it wants to hear is a fully acceptable substitute for action.

Lugar is blunt in his description of the situation in Iraq:

Few Iraqis have demonstrated that they want to be Iraqis.... In this context, the possibility that the United States can set meaningful benchmarks that would provide an indication of impending success or failure is remote. Perhaps some benchmarks or agreements will be initially achieved, but most can be undermined or reversed by a contrary edict of the Iraqi government, a decision by a faction to ignore agreements, or the next terrorist attack or wave of sectarian killings. American manpower cannot keep the lid on indefinitely. The anticipation that our training operations could produce an effective Iraqi army loyal to a cohesive central government is still just a hopeful plan for the future.

Lugar concluded his speech by urging that we "refocus our policy in Iraq on realistic assessments of what can be achieved, and on a sober review of our vital interests in the Middle East." After four years of a war driven more by wishful thinking than strategy, this is hardly a radical idea, but it has produced a barrage of covert criticism of Lugar from the administration and overt attack from the neoconservatives.

( the Exec and neocons see the Lugar's realism would probably mean the oil prize would slip for US/UK oilcos clutches)

Lugar's focus on the achievable runs against main currents of opinion in a nation increasingly polarized between the growing number who want to withdraw from Iraq and the die-hard defenders of a failure. We need to recognize, as Lugar implicitly does, that Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. In the parts where we can accomplish nothing, we should withdraw.

But there are still three missions that may be achievable -

disrupting al-Qaeda,

( not very polite of duya since dubya invited AQ into Iraq )

preserving Kurdistan's democracy,

and limiting Iran's increasing domination.


These can all be served by a modest U.S. presence in Kurdistan. We need an Iraq policy with sufficient nuance to protect American interests. Unfortunately, we probably won't get it.

====================

Peter W. Galbraith, a former US Ambassador to Croatia, is Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and a principal at the Windham Resources Group, a firm that negotiates on behalf of its clients in post-conflict societies, including Iraq. His The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End is now out in paperback. This article appears in the August 16th issue of the New York Review of Books.

[Yonivore]

Or you could believe batiste?


A retired US army general...who commanded an infantry division in Iraq between 2004 and 2005
Yeah, I'm sure he's as informed about and familiar with the Iraq of July 2007 as Petreaus.


Or waht about this guy?


Retired...who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004
Same handicap. I'm sticking with the assessment of the guy with his boot actually on the ground in Iraq.

[George Gervin's Afro]

It's very simple now. The Iraq war was won over 4 years ago. The only way that Iraq has a chance succeed is for their political leaders to step up and seal the deal. How many more US lives is this worth?

[Yonivore]

It's very simple now. The Iraq war was won over 4 years ago. The only way that Iraq has a chance succeed is for their political leaders to step up and seal the deal. How many more US lives is this worth?
Defeating al Qaeda on the central battlefield they chose, is worth whatever we expend.

We pull out of Iraq, they'll do the same thing they did in Afghanistan when the Russians pulled out or Somalia when Clinton pulled out.

Al Qaeda has picked Iraq as the place to make their stand. If we leave, it'll only confirm their strategy and embolden them to continue their quest for a global caliphate.

If we pull out now, we'll only be back -- and, that'll be after they've had an opportunity to adequately prepare for our return. It'll also give them and undisturbed base of operation from which to launch more terrorist attacks here and around the world.

That's why we need to stay. Not entirely for the sake of Iraqis but, for your family's sake as well.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Defeating al Qaeda on the central battlefield they chose, is worth whatever we expend.

We pull out of Iraq, they'll do the same thing they did in Afghanistan when the Russians pulled out or Somalia when Clinton pulled out.

Al Qaeda has picked Iraq as the place to make their stand. If we leave, it'll only confirm their strategy and embolden them to continue their quest for a global caliphate.

If we pull out now, we'll only be back -- and, that'll be after they've had an opportunity to adequately prepare for our return. It'll also give them and undisturbed base of operation from which to launch more terrorist attacks here and around the world.

That's why we need to stay. Not entirely for the sake of Iraqis but, for your family's sake as well.


I'm sorry but haven't you heard that Al-qaeda is gaining strength throughout the world? If Iraq was the place to make their stand then why have most people felt like, at most, they were 20% of the problem in Iraq? So if they did make iraq their last stand then why send so few people?

As far as keeping my family safe. There is nothing in Iraq that will stop people from trying to come the US to kill my family.


You talk with such certainty yet you know as much as everyone else. Little.

[DarkReign]

Defeating al Qaeda on the central battlefield they chose, is worth whatever we expend.

We pull out of Iraq, they'll do the same thing they did in Afghanistan when the Russians pulled out or Somalia when Clinton pulled out.

Al Qaeda has picked Iraq as the place to make their stand. If we leave, it'll only confirm their strategy and embolden them to continue their quest for a global caliphate.

If we pull out now, we'll only be back -- and, that'll be after they've had an opportunity to adequately prepare for our return. It'll also give them and undisturbed base of operation from which to launch more terrorist attacks here and around the world.

That's why we need to stay. Not entirely for the sake of Iraqis but, for your family's sake as well.

http://www.filmposters.it/imgposter/grandi/boogeyman.jpg

I guess that shit works on children, but I stopped fearing the dark, looking under the bed and wetting my pants well before the age of 5.

I will not live a life of fear in some silly-ass effort to "help fascilitate" my safety. Dont care if its the Russians, the Germans or some whacked-out Muslim extremists.

[Yonivore]

I'm sorry but haven't you heard that Al-qaeda is gaining strength throughout the world? If Iraq was the place to make their stand then why have most people felt like, at most, they were 20% of the problem in Iraq? So if they did make iraq their last stand then why send so few people?
What people? Your source?

I guess you didn't watch Zawahiri's plea for jihadists.


As far as keeping my family safe. There is nothing in Iraq that will stop people from trying to come the US to kill my family.
Okay, let's talk about it then.

Yesterday, another National Intelligence Estimate was made public, this time on "The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland." The portion of the report that has been made public is meager, consisting of two pages of "Key Judgments" and five pages of boilerplate by way of procedural explanation. Nevertheless, its release was greeted breathlessly as yet another refutation of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Of course, every time the Sun rises in the East, liberals take it as a refutation of our Iraq policy, so it's hard to get too excited. And, in fact, this NIE was a snoozer at best.

The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR2007071702007.html) led the pack in hyping the report, in this "Analysis" piece (I think "Analysis" is what the Post calls stories that are reprinted from DNC press releases):


The White House faced fresh political peril yesterday in the form of a new intelligence assessment that raised sharp questions about the success of its counterterrorism strategy and judgment in making Iraq the focus of that effort.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has been able to deflect criticism of his counterterrorism policy by repeatedly noting the absence of any new domestic attacks and by citing the continuing threat that terrorists in Iraq pose to U.S. interests.

But this line of defense seemed to unravel a bit yesterday with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate that concludes that al-Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" by reestablishing a haven in Pakistan and reconstituting its top leadership.
This is an obvious non sequitur. But let's see what the NIE really says. This is the opening "key judgment":


We judge the US Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years. The main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially alQa’ida, driven by their undiminished intent to attack the Homeland and a continued effort by these terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.
Um, yes. I think any American fourth-grader could have told us that. It's a fair paraphrase of what President Bush has said countless times.

Remember all those news stories about how a secret report -- still secret, I guess -- said that we were now in as much danger of terrorist attack as we were prior to September 11? Well, that's not what the NIE says. It says the opposite, in a paragraph that I have yet to see quoted in a newspaper:


We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11.
OK, let's add that up: the intelligence community is saying that our counterterrorism efforts have made us safer than we were before September 11, that a number of terrorist plots have been disrupted, but that al Qaeda is still a threat. And this is supposed to be inconsistent with the position of the Bush administration?

This is one of a couple of paragraphs that the Post and others deem damaging to the administration:


We assess the group [al Qaeda] has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safehaven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), operational lieutenants, and its top leadership.
Again, the news there is what, exactly? Obviously some of al Qaeda's top leadership is alive, most notably bin Laden and Zawahiri. On the other hand, much of its leadership, like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Binalshibh and many others, have been killed or captured. The fact that al Qaeda is still in business and has recruited new lieutenants is hardly news to the administration or anyone else; on the contrary, its continuing capabilities are the reason the Bush administration regards al Qaeda as a major threat.

This is the only other paragraph that has been taken as somehow inconsistent with the administration's position:


We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks.
And you want to abandon Iraq?

Another news flash: Iraq is the place to which al Qaeda has sent many of its best fighters, because al Qaeda considers the conflict there to be the centerpiece of its efforts against the civilized world. And this is supposed to be a rationale for withdrawing from Iraq? Crazy.

In addition, the intelligence community seems to be singularly obtuse; or maybe this report was written before the "surge" began. The agencies say that al Qaeda's association with al Qaeda in Iraq helps "to energize the broader Sunni extremist community." Well, sure; but al Qaeda has always been the main face of the Sunni "extremist community."

This fact seems much more important: Iraq is the place where Sunnis have seen al Qaeda extremism up close and personally. And they haven't liked it. As a result, large numbers of Sunnis have turned against Sunni extremism as manifested by al Qaeda, and have joined forces with us to defeat it. This has been the story in Anbar, Diyala and elsewhere. So the more salient point would seem to be that al Qaeda's association with AQI has served to alienate the Sunni community as a whole. One would think this is a wholesome process that should be seen through to its conclusion.

This NIE, like all the others we've seen, is a compendium of conventional wisdom that reveals no apparent secrets. There is nothing in it that would require "intelligence" to divine. Maybe the unclassified pages are more substantive. Be that as it may, the idea that this report somehow discredits either the administration's efforts in Iraq or its broader anti-terror campaign is a fantasy.


You talk with such certainty yet you know as much as everyone else. Little.
Well, unless you come up with something other than the unsupported rhetoric of retired generals and partisan Democrats, I'm going to say I'm, at least, better informed than you.

Deal.

[Yonivore]

I guess that shit works on children, but I stopped fearing the dark, looking under the bed and wetting my pants well before the age of 5.

I will not live a life of fear in some silly-ass effort to "help fascilitate" my safety. Dont care if its the Russians, the Germans or some whacked-out Muslim extremists.
Who says I'm afraid? I'm just pointing out the idiocy of claiming the war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism efforts against our homeland.

In fact, based on this vote (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0707/5000.html), I'm reassured that Democrats see this as well and all their showmanship and bloviations are just rhetorical rantings designed to posture them for the next election.


...Senate Republicans pushed through a nonbinding resolution stating that "precipitous withdrawal" from Iraq would "create a safe haven for Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, who are determined to attack the United States and (U.S.) allies." The vote was 94-3.
Last I checked, there are right around 100 Senators, total.

If the Politico is accurate in their overwhelming vote count of 94-3, then this strongly suggests that a supermajority of Democrat Senators are admitting that the withdraw plan they clamor for will result in creating "a safe haven for Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, who are determined to attack the United States and (U.S.) allies," and they still favor it.

Please tell me why these Democrat Senators will admit that they support a plan that they believe will encourage terrorism?

Well, the truth of the matter is, they don't and you're an idiot to believe they do. No one is going to pull our troops out of Iraq before the job is done there. It all bluster.

[boutons_]

"We pull out of Iraq, they'll do the same thing they did in Afghanistan when the Russians pulled out"

AQ is Sunni and mostly foreign in Iraq, that even Iraqi Sunnis are turning against.

Shiite Iraqis hold the power in non-Kurd Iraq, aided by Shiite Iran, who hates AQ (and who was very pleased that the US attacked Taleban/AQ in Afghanistan and took out the Saddam/Sunni dictatorship in Iraq).

I'm so relieved that yoni has factored in this info in predicting AQ will take over Iraq when the US pulls out.

Yoni has been suckered, again, by dubya's recently renewed harping on AQI, while dishoneslty conflating it with the AQ that hit the WTC.

[boutons_]

Who would believe Petraeus? Of course, he's going to say there is progress, just like all the failed generals who preceded him and were fired by dubya.

Petraeus' has also said the the only solution in Iraq is political,while dubya can show NO poltical progress in Iraq nor with Syria or Iran.

So even if Petraeus kicks AQI's ass, that still leaves the Sunni/Shiite civil war and the diplomatic failure of Iraq to emerge as successful state after dubya and dickhead broke it.

Notice how yoni and dubya have over-simiplified and downgraded progress in Iraq as just kicking AQI's ass, ignoring the disaster compeletely, violelence and political, independent of AQI.

[Extra Stout]

Al Qaeda has picked Iraq as the place to make their stand.
That is 100% true, if by "Iraq" you actually mean "the area around the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan."

[Yonivore]

That is 100% true, if by "Iraq" you actually mean "the area around the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan."
No, that's where they've chosen to hide.

[Yonivore]

But, back to al Qaeda in Iraq (Not the mythical organization but the real al Qaeda that are located in Iraq).

I agree the Democrats and the Mainstream media have made it very difficult for average, ordinary liberals to understand exactly what it going on in Iraq so, you can't be entirely blamed. You just pay attention to the wrong people.

For instance, this Reuters headline made it seem as if there were no al-Qaeda in Iraq: “Senior Qaeda figure in Iraq a myth: U.S. military.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1820065720070718)

Actually, the opposite is the fact.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is very much the reality. It's becoming increasingly more evident that it's the “insurgency” in Iraq, that's a sham. It is actually a bunch of foreign al Qaeda members pretending to be Iraqis. That was according to the No. 1 al Qaeda official in Iraq, whom the U.S. military captured on July 4.

Here — according to Reuters — is what Brigadier General Kevin Bergner (not retired and actually in Iraq right now) told a news conference in Iraq:


“In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al Qaeda in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq.”
Got that? The Islamic State of Iraq group is a Potemkin village of foreign nationals pretending to be Iraqi insurgents.

The insurgency is a fraud. A fake. A phony. Said the general:


“To further this myth, Masri created a fictional head of the Islamic State of Iraq known as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi,” he said.

“To make al-Baghdadi appear credible, al-Masri swore allegiance to al-Baghdadi and pledged to obey him, which is essentially pledging allegiance to himself since he knew Baghdadi was fictitious and a creation of his own,” he said.

“The rank and file Iraqis in AQI believe they are following the Iraqi al-Baghdadi. But all the while they have been following the orders of the Egyptian Abu Ayyab al-Masri.”
The AP version was some better, although Jules Crittenden of the Boston Herald (http://www.julescrittenden.com/2007/07/19/news-flash/) took exception.

Of course, the Democrats in Congress fell for this ruse (http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/78476.pdf). Hey, anything to deny that we are actually fighting al Qaeda in Iraq.

Which is why Reuters bent the straight news story like a pretzel.

The left is in denial as it clings — hope against hope — to the notion that there is no al Qaeda in Iraq, that this is all a hopeless civil war. The New York Times headline (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/world/middleeast/19baghdadi.html): “U.S. Says Insurgent Leader It Couldn’t Find Never Was.”

Apparently the copy desk at NYT thinks fictional characters can be caught. NYT:


A larger question is what influence senior Qaeda leaders, believed to be hiding in Pakistan, may have over the operations undertaken by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. General Bergner said Mr. bin Laden’s group provided guidance and general support. By way of example, he said that three foreign fighters — Khail, Khalid and Khattab al-Turki — were dispatched to Iraq by Al Qaeda to help Mr. Masri strengthen his organization in the northern part of the country.
Seems to me that a nation as large as Iraq with a cadre of torturers and the like now unemployed should be able to launch an “insurgency” without outside help.

By the way? Why is the New York Times reverting to the name Mesopotamia for Iraq? I suspect they have trouble associating al Qaeda with Iraq so, they changed the name. Maybe we should start referring to them as the New Amsterdam Times.

[Wild Cobra]

It's very simple now. The Iraq war was won over 4 years ago. The only way that Iraq has a chance succeed is for their political leaders to step up and seal the deal. How many more US lives is this worth?
I don't think anyone disagrees with your assessment on this point. I would argue we have a mess to clean up that is larger than we expected. We cannot leave until our responsibility if fulfilled.

Hindsight is 20/20. Most the troops are proud to be there. Those who dissent have left the military. Why cannot people let the troops do their jobs uninhibited?

Responsibility is a key element that separates liberals from conservatives. Most differences have opposite views on responsibility that can be illustrated.

[Oh, Gee!!]

Hey, one captured and interrogated guy in Iraq says AQ has more influence in Iraq than we previously thought, so therefore we were justified in attacking Iraq (although we have never been able to connect the dots between AQ and Saddam, or AQ's presence in Iraq pre-9/11, or WMD). It also means that there is no civil war in Iraq, although every other indication suggests that there is something nearing civil war occuring there. It also means that the surge is working, although the level of violence in Iraq especially towards civilians has remained the same. It also means that the government of Iraq is a fully functioning one, although every indication is that they're not even close to being ready to function independently. And it also means that GW is a genius. You see the word of one captured AQ, who may or may not be telling the truth, is the new justification for remaining in a war that most see as a complete and utter waste of time.

[Oh, Gee!!]

and countdown to Yoni posting some blog (in 5...4...3...2...1)

[Wild Cobra]

Last I checked, there are right around 100 Senators, total.
Yep, two per state, but we actually only have 99 active. We can still expect senator Tim Johnson from South Dakota to be out of commission a while, maybe this entire 110th congress?

He should step down so his state can be represented.

If the Politico is accurate in their overwhelming vote count of 94-3, then this strongly suggests that a supermajority of Democrat Senators are admitting that the withdraw plan they clamor for will result in creating "a safe haven for Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, who are determined to attack the United States and (U.S.) allies," and they still favor it.
I think that too. I wonder who the two were who did not vote who should have and could have? Obama and Clinton maybe? Campaigning more important than a silly resolution?

I did a quick search for the bill number so I could see who voted NO and who didn’t vote. Gave up before finding it. Anyone know the bill number?

[xrayzebra]

It's very simple now. The Iraq war was won over 4 years ago. The only way that Iraq has a chance succeed is for their political leaders to step up and seal the deal. How many more US lives is this worth?


Why didn't you just answer his question. Who do you
believe? Which Senator? Or is it that your Senators
have better information?

[boutons_]

"Hindsight is 20/20."

absolute bullshit.

Shinsheki testied in Congress that Iraq would take 400K troops.

Some CIA/NSA analysis predicted that Iraq could fall into sectarian violence.

There was NO post-invasion planning, other than Rummy saying only 30K - 40K troops left in Iraq by Sep 03.

ALL of the negative scenarios indicating ultimate prudence,competence,and execution were ignored by the Repugs because all they could see was a weakened Saddam as an easy pushover leading to all those oil reserves.

The Repugs got EVERYTHING wrong about Iraq, BEFORE they invaded and AFTER they invaded, leading up the disaster we have now, with the "Petraeus surge" nothing but a delay to push withdrawal past 20 Jan 09.

We have a moral resposibility to Iraq now? We had a moral responsibility BEFORE we invaded and broke their country to do it with good justification (there was none) and with enough resources (there weren't enough) and with competence (there was none).

[George Gervin's Afro]

Why didn't you just answer his question. Who do you
believe? Which Senator? Or is it that your Senators
have better information?


Let me guess ray you believe the remaining dead enders? In all honesty ray it's hard to know who to believe. Unlike you i don't find someone I agree with and then base my whole argument on that person's opinion. let me ask you this question. Why should I believe people like you and yoni when you have been wrong all the way up until now? Get back to me on that one ray

[Yonivore]

Let me guess ray you believe the remaining dead enders? In all honesty ray it's hard to know who to believe. Unlike you i don't find someone I agree with and then base my whole argument on that person's opinion. let me ask you this question. Why should I believe people like you and yoni when you have been wrong all the way up until now? Get back to me on that one ray
But, at least we source our beliefs with actual facts. Where do you get your facts?

Seriously. I just pointed out in this thread, by putting two news articles next to the actual NIE language, how the media is supporting your narrative by bending the truth. So, where do you get your information, GGA?

[George Gervin's Afro]

But, at least we source our beliefs with actual facts. Where do you get your facts?

Seriously. I just pointed out in this thread, by putting two news articles next to the actual NIE language, how the media is supporting your narrative by bending the truth. So, where do you get your information, GGA?


Blaming the media again? Was it the media who didn't have a viable post war plan? which side of this argument has had to continually revise why we are there and how things are going? I have heard from day one that things are better than it is being reported..yet we have the military telling us now that the only solution to this mess is a political one.. yet you are still clinging to the notion that Iraq is Al-Qaeda's central fron to the war on terror. You are even using a terrorists as a references. Of course when these same terrorists say that iraq has been a boon to their recruiting efforts you choose to ignore that.. so again do you want to go tit for tat ? or are you goint to stick your head in the sand and blame everyone else but the people who have f*cked this up from the beginning?

[Yonivore]

Blaming the media again? Was it the media who didn't have a viable post war plan? which side of this argument has had to continually revise why we are there and how things are going? I have heard from day one that things are better than it is being reported..yet we have the military telling us now that the only solution to this mess is a political one.. yet you are still clinging to the notion that Iraq is Al-Qaeda's central fron to the war on terror. You are even using a terrorists as a references. Of course when these same terrorists say that iraq has been a boon to their recruiting efforts you choose to ignore that.. so again do you want to go tit for tat ? or are you goint to stick your head in the sand and blame everyone else but the people who have f*cked this up from the beginning?
You're rambling.

[George Gervin's Afro]

You're rambling.


And you have yet to blame the primary culprits for this mess. I don't blame you because you will have to assign blame to the same folks you are defending.

[xrayzebra]

Let me guess ray you believe the remaining dead enders? In all honesty ray it's hard to know who to believe. Unlike you i don't find someone I agree with and then base my whole argument on that person's opinion. let me ask you this question. Why should I believe people like you and yoni when you have been wrong all the way up until now? Get back to me on that one ray

I'm back. And I am not asking you to believe in what I or
Yoni believe in. I want you to believe in what you think is
correct. You have a brain, God gave it to you to use. And
you being here reading and expressing your opinion is what
you are suppose to do. But also, I would ask you to do
one more thing. Use some common sense. Place yourself
in President Bush position. We just had two of the
largest buildings in New York city destroyed by terrorist
and over 2000 people murdered and what would you do. Go to your intelligence agencies, which he did. The
opposition party had been saying and were continuing to say that one of the people we had "been" at war with for some years had WMD, they were in the same area as the
people who had ramrodded the WTC bombings and had
already given aid and comfort to the terrorist, like
$25,000.00 to families of homicide bombers. And also
were reported to being trying to obtain material for an
Atomic weapon. Now, I am not talking about what is
being said now, lets talk about what was being said then.
Okay. He did what was I consider right.

I will add something. Had things turned out differently,
I mean with the dimm-0-craps supporting our
countries efforts instead of trying to regain political power
we could have been very well at war with Iran and Syria
at this time.

Dead ender. I have no idea what that means. But
supportive of our country. Yes, I stand guilty as
accused. Wrong, well I think I answered that question
also.

[Yonivore]

And you have yet to blame the primary culprits for this mess. I don't blame you because you will have to assign blame to the same folks you are defending.
I blame the terrorists.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I'm back. And I am not asking you to believe in what I or
Yoni believe in. I want you to believe in what you think is
correct. You have a brain, God gave it to you to use. And
you being here reading and expressing your opinion is what
you are suppose to do. But also, I would ask you to do
one more thing. Use some common sense. Place yourself
in President Bush position. We just had two of the
largest buildings in New York city destroyed by terrorist
and over 2000 people murdered and what would you do. Go to your intelligence agencies, which he did. The
opposition party had been saying and were continuing to say that one of the people we had "been" at war with for some years had WMD, they were in the same area as the
people who had ramrodded the WTC bombings and had
already given aid and comfort to the terrorist, like
$25,000.00 to families of homicide bombers. And also
were reported to being trying to obtain material for an
Atomic weapon. Now, I am not talking about what is
being said now, lets talk about what was being said then.
Okay. He did what was I consider right.

I will add something. Had things turned out differently,
I mean with the dimm-0-craps supporting our
countries efforts instead of trying to regain political power
we could have been very well at war with Iran and Syria
at this time.

Dead ender. I have no idea what that means. But
supportive of our country. Yes, I stand guilty as
accused. Wrong, well I think I answered that question
also.


I get the point that it does no good to rehash how this got started. What I find most frustrating is that people like Yoni seem to blame the media and people like me for the mess in iraq. It's very clear at this point that Iraq solution is a political one. I don't see the need to waste anymore blood or treasure for situation that is out of our hands. I am insulted when people on Bush's side who have been wrong about post war iraq since day one and they somehow ignore that..

[xrayzebra]

I get the point that it does no good to rehash how this got started. What I find most frustrating is that people like Yoni seem to blame the media and people like me for the mess in iraq. It's very clear at this point that Iraq solution is a political one. I don't see the need to waste anymore blood or treasure for situation that is out of our hands. I am insulted when people on Bush's side who have been wrong about post war iraq since day one and they somehow ignore that..

GGA who do you negotiate with. Who, by that I
mean what political group, will abide by any terms negotiated. You are dealing with thugs and hoodlums.
Don't believe me. Look at Palestine. Two groups of
terrorist and they can't even get along. And how many
times has our government, Egypt and Israel tried to
come to terms with them, politically? Look at
Pakistan and the tribes in the outback of that country.
You are not dealing with normal governments or
people. You are dealing with religious fanatics and
thugs that are in this thing for power and money, like
Arafat.

[Wild Cobra]

I get the point that it does no good to rehash how this got started.
I also think it helps to move past that.

What I find most frustrating is that people like Yoni seem to blame the media and people like me for the mess in iraq.
I am with Yoni on that. The media definitely bends the truth for sensationalism and their political bias.

As for people like you, I'm not sure what to say. Most of us conservatives are so opposite when it comes to some things. I think it goes back to what I see as a primary difference between conservatives and liberals in the sense of responsibility. We are not satisfied with what other people say without verifying things, and that takes some responsibility to check things out. Liberals tend to only do what is fun, expedient, etc. To support liberal propaganda with real facts.... How? I’d really like to see that.

It's very clear at this point that Iraq solution is a political one.
Politics is definitely needed to keep things on the correct course, but how do you negotiate with terrorists? They simply need to be destroyed. We still need the military there, probably for some time still.

I don't see the need to waste anymore blood or treasure for situation that is out of our hands.
So you are a quitter when the going gets rough. Let the actions of those who have stayed in the military and still enlist and reenlist think for themselves. They know the risks and don’t want you to protect them from harm.

Glad you were not involved in the revolutionary war.

I am insulted when people on Bush's side who have been wrong about post war iraq since day one and they somehow ignore that..
Who is 100% correct all the time? Are you right all the time? My God. Blame the man for being human. Can you show intentional deception? No. You can try and repeat propaganda, but there is a clear and valid counter argument, so let’s not go over that again please.

I see very few people who do not acknowledge things are different than planned. I am insulted by the people who use this as an excuse to do more Bush Bashing. Believe me, I really dislike many of this presidents actions, but I still have respect for him. He does what he says he will do. Can you show me any liberal democrat with the same moral character?

[George Gervin's Afro]

GGA who do you negotiate with. Who, by that I
mean what political group, will abide by any terms negotiated. You are dealing with thugs and hoodlums.
Don't believe me. Look at Palestine. Two groups of
terrorist and they can't even get along. And how many
times has our government, Egypt and Israel tried to
come to terms with them, politically? Look at
Pakistan and the tribes in the outback of that country.
You are not dealing with normal governments or
people. You are dealing with religious fanatics and
thugs that are in this thing for power and money, like
Arafat.


There is no one to negotiate with. I will tell you what I would do in regards to iran. I would call mr aghmanidinazda(sp?) to the White House for a friendly chat. I would proceed the following way:

Mr Iranian president we would like to co exist with you in the world today. We can live together and respect eachother's rights, especailly living without worry of being attacked and wiped off the face of the earth. Should you decide that you will continue to try and garner the materials to threaten any peace loving country you will pay the very gravest consequences. Let me explain to you what these consequences are beginning your country being wiped off the face of the earth. make no mistake about it that you and your people will pay for YOUR actions. we will let it be known to the world that you hold the power to allow others to live free. Let me remind you of a very important moment in our nation's history. On december 7, 1941 we were attacked by a foreign foe and the words that our foe muttered, " I am afraid that we have awoken a sleeping giant". You may see our country today as splintered but let me very clear that the one way to gather our nation's attention is to attack us or one of our allies. We know that you are meddling in Iraq today and causing us great harm in the process. We have shown great restraint up until now. Starting today if we find that any of your weapons or fighters spill an ounce of American or Iraqi blood you will begin to lose key parts of your infrastructure. Should that not dissuade you from your continual interference your losses in your homeland will mount to the point of living in darkness and despair. A free and peaceful Iraq is in your best interest as well as for the entire region. Consider today's meeting our last formal request for you to be a responsible and engaing partner in our world today. Should you choose otherwise let me assure you that you will be the first person to pay with their life. It is up to you whether your country will see the next decade.

[Wild Cobra]

Wow George. You would kill all the good people of Iran just to destroy its corrupt government? Aren't you one that dislike casualties of war?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Wow George. You would kill all the good people of Iran just to destroy its corrupt government? Aren't you one that dislike casualties of war?


If Iran is the primary reason that Iraq is failing then they need to be held accountable. I(have a hard time saying this) can accept casualties in a war that I feel is just and right.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I also think it helps to move past that.

I am with Yoni on that. The media definitely bends the truth for sensationalism and their political bias.

As for people like you, I'm not sure what to say. Most of us conservatives are so opposite when it comes to some things. I think it goes back to what I see as a primary difference between conservatives and liberals in the sense of responsibility. We are not satisfied with what other people say without verifying things, and that takes some responsibility to check things out. Liberals tend to only do what is fun, expedient, etc. To support liberal propaganda with real facts.... How? I’d really like to see that.

Politics is definitely needed to keep things on the correct course, but how do you negotiate with terrorists? They simply need to be destroyed. We still need the military there, probably for some time still.

So you are a quitter when the going gets rough. Let the actions of those who have stayed in the military and still enlist and reenlist think for themselves. They know the risks and don’t want you to protect them from harm.

Glad you were not involved in the revolutionary war.

Who is 100% correct all the time? Are you right all the time? My God. Blame the man for being human. Can you show intentional deception? No. You can try and repeat propaganda, but there is a clear and valid counter argument, so let’s not go over that again please.

I see very few people who do not acknowledge things are different than planned. I am insulted by the people who use this as an excuse to do more Bush Bashing. Believe me, I really dislike many of this presidents actions, but I still have respect for him. He does what he says he will do. Can you show me any liberal democrat with the same moral character?

I'm beyond bush bashing.. bush made the mistake starting this without any foresight and he will have to live with all of this death and misery until he dies.

[Wild Cobra]

I'm beyond bush bashing.. bush made the mistake starting this without any foresight and he will have to live with all of this death and misery until he dies.
I really think overall, history will treat president Bush very well. At least far better than his opponents will be treated by history!

Only time will tell.

[Wild Cobra]

If Iran is the primary reason that Iraq is failing then they need to be held accountable. I(have a hard time saying this) can accept casualties in a war that I feel is just and right.
Then why cannot you accept the losses we take for the noble effort of making Iraq safe for her citizens, or would you rather see the days of torture and mass murder return over there?

[George Gervin's Afro]

Then why cannot you accept the losses we take for the noble effort of making Iraq safe for her citizens, or would you rather see the days of torture and mass murder return over there?


Because this never should have started to begin with. it is up to them now. We have scarificed enough..

[boutons_]

"I also think it helps to move past that."

Of course you would. your team has fucked up Iraq. The team that fucked Iraq is still running the war, so the past is still present.

"We are not satisfied with what other people say without verifying things"

Like verifying all the Repug "reasons" for the Iraq war?

"Who is 100% correct all the time?"

The Repugs has been wrong or incompetent or dishonest since Jan 2001.

"He does what he says he will do"

Even when it's the wrong thing to,
when it's done incompetently,
when it's done dishonestly.

[Wild Cobra]

Because this never should have started to begin with. it is up to them now. We have scarificed enough..
But we are there now. Didn't you say "I get the point that it does no good to rehash how this got started." Point is, we are there now, and cannot leave the place in the mess that would occur should we leave.

What is this "WE" stuff? I find very few with your attitiude towards the war a member or former member of the military.

[Yonivore]

If Iran is the primary reason that Iraq is failing then they need to be held accountable. I(have a hard time saying this) can accept casualties in a war that I feel is just and right.
Amazing, Ahmahdenijad sounds a lot like Saddam Hussein of 1992-2003.

[Yonivore]

Because this never should have started to begin with. it is up to them now. We have scarificed enough..
And what of al Qaeda in Iraq?

[boutons_]

"Saddam Hussein of 1992-2003"

... was bluffing, his Army destroyed in the Gulf War, but you got suckered into the lies that Saddam was a threat to the USA, worked with AQ, and was tied to WTC.

Iran is emboldened by dubya's tying down and fucking up the US military in Iraq.