7 Troops killed in 2 Days
Sunni Arabs warn of Paralysis
Guerrillas used roadside bombs to kill 7 US and coalition troops in the past two days in separate incidents.
Sunni Arab politicians in Iraq are complaining that the US has set up the new political system so as to favor sectarian outcomes and to produce gridlock.
The British military raided Iraqi police offices in Basra and arrested a number of police officers whom they suspected of being double agents for sectarian militias. What the Western press seldom notes is that such police were appointed by the elected governing council of Basra, which is dominated by Shiite religious parties that maintain paramilitaries. Actually, since the elected officials had a right to appoint the police under Iraqi law, whereas there is no legal instrument governing the conduct of British troops in Iraq, it is not clear from where the authority comes for the British to arrest Iraqi police officers.
The problem with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad threatening the Shiite religious parties with a withdrawal of support for training Iraqi troops is that a) the threat is not plausible and b) the US training effort can easily be replaced -- with that of Iran. The US cannot actually afford to let Iraq go down the drain, and is not going to stop training the new Iraqi military, even if the Shiites do insist on retaining the Ministery of the Interior (which they will).
The NYT reports on the massive fraud and misuse by US government personnel of funds supposedly dedicated to rebuilding in Iraq. What with the charges against DeLay and the "Abramoff and his 30 Republicans" scandal, the Republican Party kleptocracy appears to have practiced its graft on both sides of the Atlantic. Alas, when you steal from Americans, they just have less money for their families and they'll gladly vote you back in. When you steal from Iraqi reconstruction, you get thousands of Iraqis killed.
Iraq's ministry of labor announced Tuesday that 20 percent of Iraqis live in dire poverty. In addition, some 171,000 families live on $30 a month.
[Ar.] Sources in the Sadr Movement announced Tuesday that US forces had released from their prison Shaikh Abd al-Jawad al-Isawi, a Sadrist leader of Kut, after having held him for more than a year. Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist leader, heads a substantial bloc in the new parliament. Several other Sadrist leaders of Kut are still in US custody.
Iraqi petroleum production fell to only 1.5 million barrels a day in the last quarter of 2005, only about half what it was in the last years of Saddam Hussein. There is no prospect of earlier improvement, the experts say.
A small demonstration was mounted Tuesday in Samarra to protest the targeting by guerrilla fighters in the city of local young men who sought to be recruited by the police.
Patrick Boylan condemns the wanton destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage at the hands of the United States in 2003 and after. He points out that during the Gulf War and its aftermath, the US was careful on this issue, but that some sort of deliberate decision appears to have been taken to disregard it this time. Why the difference? Let me just whisper two words to Professor Boylan: "Donald Rumsfeld." Or just one word: "Philistine." Oops, now I've gone and been redundant.
Current History has a special issue out on Iraq. I have a piece about the Shiite crescent.
Dilip Hiro looks at the victory of Muslim fundamentalist parties in the various elections recently held in the Middle East.
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/25/2006 06:31:00 AM
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11 Comments:
"Philistine" is a good description of Rumsfeld, but I prefer "Reptile." Cheney might already have a lock on that one, though.
The misuse of funds is actually a lot worse than the audits since it includes legalized misuse including
1) Civil engineering subcontracts to Iraqi companies. The going rate is 10% for the Iraqis for doing the work and 90% for the Pentagon friends for doing nothing. The 10% is enough for handsome profits, greasing Iraqi officials, and sometimes goes into another level of the subcontracting scam.
2) Consultants. Mostly staying in the Green Zone or US bases playing computer games and surfing the Internet waiting days or weeks for military escorts, or just because it is too dangerous outside. They still clock 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to get the maximum from the 'cost plus' contracts. Many of the staff have been recruited in the Phillipines or Pakistan, places not renowned for high wages, but still charged at US levels. Many of theses guys seem clueless and would giggle if their "work" is questioned.
3) Meddling by American civilians. The most glaring example is Bremer: noticing the burning of gas at the oil wells, he decreed that it must be used to generate electricity. Now he knew nothing about Iraq, oil, or electricity but often sighted the decree as an example of US ingenuity benefitting the lesser Iraqis. The pipes needed to carry the gas to the generators were never built (or planned even) so the multi million dollar generators were converted, badly, to use heavy oil which busted them very quickly.
The other problem is maintenance. Contracts were drawn up by theives like KBR and Bechtel and crooks from the DoD, but must be met by the Iraqis! Sometimes, one year's fee is higher than the entire plant if bought from China which the Iraqi enginners are already trained for.
The overall benefit to Iraq may well be negative, rather than just worthless.
I think the Rummy-Philistine comment is too simple. I believe it
is more along the lines of the cultural revolution, or year zero in Cambodia. A country with no past
can have any future, including a
free market paradise with a psuedo-Israeli flag that the neocons tried
to create.
Um, Juan, don't you think it's time people stopped using the word "Philistine" as a slur? Why, we could all still be talking about "Indian givers" or people "Jewing" each other. But we don't, do we? So why does anyone continue using the term "Philistine" in this way?
Besides, equating D. Rumsfeld's worldview with that of "Philistines" is surely an affront to Palestinians everywhere!
Great Reporting Juan.
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic...The President is looking for $200 billion in budget cuts for FY 2007 and the debt ceiling is once again about to be exceeded --above the $8.184 trillion level. But should you suggest that the President is irresponsible, you are a terrorist.
Juan, read this please. More Allawi manoeuvring with the Fadillah part of the UIA this time.
http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2006/01/block-of-100-reactivates-allawis-bid.html
In response to your statement in Top Ten Mistakes, "All small terrorist groups can do damage. But it is not an epochal threat to the United States or its allies of the sort the Soviet Union was...", I wanted to draw your attention to a comment by-- of all people-- William Safire in the wake of 9/11 (New York Times, 9/27/01).
"Suicide hijackers and bombers do not pose what is coolly called an existential threat to - that is, a danger to the very existence of - the United States."
If Republican apparatchik Safire could see that while he couls still see the Trade Center smoldering, why have so few other observers comprehended this simple and obvious point?
I wonder if we're ever going to know the real story behind the looting and vandalism that happened after the "victory". I remember allegations of it being coordinated; god knows how we'd ever find out if it was or not, and who was behind it if it was.
All I know is, my gut feeling tells me there was a whole lot more to it than just some people acting out.
Re: David Ignatius' WaPo op-ed:
Whose idea was it to exclude the Sunnis (de-Baathification program)?
Whose idea was it to scrap the unitary, secular Iraqi constitution (which would have historical legitimacy if democratically stripped of Saddam's changes) and replace it with a federal Islamic state?
Re: spin proof's comment:
"The overall benefit to Iraq may well be negative, rather than just worthless."
It is certainly negative - their oil revenues were taken and they got nothing in return.
Besides, equating D. Rumsfeld's worldview with that of "Philistines" is surely an affront to Palestinians everywhere!
Steve, I very much doubt that many Palestinians would identify themselves at all with the word "Philistine". It refers to an ancient, extint tribe, who came from insular Greece to invade that region on Biblical times, not to the actual people living in Palestine, not then, and even less now. I don't know if "Philistine" has any usage at all in Arabic on the sense Juan Cole used it, as it seems to an idiomatic expression.
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