Police Massacre at Dour Near Tikrit, 30 Dead
Iraqi Government distances Itself from US charges against Iran
Sunni Arab guerrillas deployed a truck bomb against Iraqi police in Dour near Tikrit (a Sunni city of over 100,000 north of Baghdad), killing 30 persons (many of them police) and wounding 50. Tikrit is in the province of Salahuddin, i.e., neither in Baghdad nor in al-Anbar Province, where the "surge" plan is being implemented. We may expect to see major violence in Salahuddin, Diyala, Ninevah and Babil provinces during the current "surge," since they are not included in the plans for increased security.
(On the surge, see Michael Schwartz at Tomdispatch.com)
Speaking of Diyala, US forces have been fighting at close quarters against Sunni Arab guerrillas who had taken over, and booby-trapped, the small town of Buhriz. It took 8 hours to clear a half-mile corridor. One US and one Iraqi soldier have been killed in the fighting, and one of each has been wounded. Several guerrillas were also killed, though some of the dead may have been townspeople caught in the crossfire.
The police chief of Baladruz, also in Diyala, was almost killed by a roadside bomb as his convoy was entering the provincial capital of Baquba.
All of which is not to say that all is well in Baghdad. There were two bombings and a machine gun attack in the capital, and police found 30 bodies in the streets.
In Mosul, police found 5 bodies. There was also a guerrilla attack north of Mosul, which left 8 security guards dead.
Note that Dour, Tikrit, Mosul and Buhriz are all largely Sunni Arab areas.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi government distanced itself on Sunday from US charges against Iran. Maryam al-Rayyis, National Affairs Adviser to PM Nuri al-Maliki, said that Iraq has deep respect for Iran and other neighbors. She said that the Iraqi constitution prohibits Iraq from being an arena of contestation between other countries.
The same report says that Nassar al-Rubaie, a parliamentarian of the Sadr Movement led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, insisted in an interview that his bloc has never received any support from Iran and he is sanguine that it is not included in the American allegations. (In fact, Pentagon briefers specifically mentioned the Mahdi Army, though they appeared to allow that it was splinter groups from it that set these roadside bombs that killed US troops.)
Almost all roadside bombs in Iraq are set by Sunni Arab guerrillas who deeply dislike Shiites and hate Iran.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates tried to convince NATO that it has a stake in success in Iraq.
French foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy replied that the primary issue is Iraqi sovereignty (i.e. the US should get out of Iraq and let it be an independent country.) Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin had called last week for the US to be out of Iraq by the end of 2008.
Amit Kumar Singh argues that engagement with Iran is crucial to US success in Iraq.
Lauren Frayer of AP reports on the unfinished, non-functioning Youssefiya power plant, now a US military base. I fear I don't see anything hopeful in the facts presented by the article.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is not equipped to help Iraq vets with post traumatic stress disorder, a widespread problem with returnees.
On the Iran weapons story, Al McKee writes:
"Here is my take on the US Killed In Action (KIA) statistics for 4th quarter 06:
Total US KIAs (hostile action) were 265.
Of those, Anbar 112,
Baghdad 107,
Salah al-Din 18,
Diyala 15,
Tamim [Kirkuk] 10,
Ninawa [Mosul] 3.
As you say, one can leave Anbar and the other four provinces to the north out of the equation as they are predominantly Sunni, at least in most areas where US troops are operating.
Of the Baghdad total of 107,
KIAs reported at Taji were 17,
so subtracting that from Baghdad Province yields 90 for the City itself.
The US statement was that less than a quarter of the total US casualties were as a result of these Iranian EFPs.
That equates to roughly 60 of the 265 total. Therefore 2/3 of the Baghdad city US KIAs (60/90) were caused by these Iran-produced EFPs, the implication being that they are all attacks by Shia militia.
But, we don't hear anything like 2/3rds of attacks in Baghdad are by Shia militia. Indeed, this issue continues to be very strange.
How about this as a hypothetical partial explanation. They are produced in Iran, shipped to the Badr Brigade in Iraq who stockpile them for later use. Lots of them then end up on the ubiquitous Iraqi arms black market, and most of them then end up with Sunni insurgents in Baghdad. For some reason (maybe less financial means or a result of competing factions) they don't get to Sunnis in Anbar (The Marines have reported no sign of EFPs in Anbar). I don't konw if this makes any sense, but very little does in this matter."
Patrick Cockburn pokes holes in the US Department of Defense's Sunday briefing blaming Iran for all the US troops killed in Iraq by sophisticated shaped charges.
My own take on the issue: isn't it much more likely that most shaped charges are smuggled in or made by Sunni Arab guerrillas, and that the DoD is leaping to the conclusion from a handful of Iranian ones that all are Iranian supplied? It isn't plausible that something could be made in Tehran but not in a workshop in Baghdad; Iraq is an advanced society. And, how much is left from one of those charges afterwards, that you could tell where it came from? This is the same US military that mistakenly attacked a Shiite Husayniya (mourning hall for the martyred grandson of the Prophet) as a death squad safe house, and then announced that they did not know if it was a Sunni or Shiite edifice. They also apparently don't necessarily know whether they are in Sunni or Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, or how to judge the likelihood that a shaped charge was set by a Sunni Arab guerrilla as opposed to the Shiite militias. I.e. it isn't necessary to deny that some Iranian weapons are getting in to conclude that they are a tiny proportion of the problem.
And, of course, if US troops weren't in Iraq, they wouldn't be being killed by anyone's shaped charges.
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/12/2007 12:27:00 AM
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Here's another circumstantial argument against the theory that Iran is actively trying to kill US troops:
Iran can function quite well within the Kurdistan region - much better in fact than Sunni insurgents. There are tens of thousands of Iranian day laborers in Suleymaniya and even in Khanaqin, drawn by higher wages on the Iraqi Kurdistan side of the border. If Iran really wanted to hurt US troops, it would be easy to infiltrate fighters into Kurdistan directly, or support local Islamists indirectly. Iranian agents killed an Iranian Kurdish dissident in Erbil about a year ago, so they can and do function here. But Kurdistan remains peaceful and US troops, although fewer than elsewhere in the country, have never been attacked.
I have some familiarity with Khanaqin, in the Kurdish-controlled part of Diyala governorate. If Iran wanted to kill Americans, they could have created unrest among the Shia' (Faily) Kurdish population in Diyala, as well as Shia' Arabs. The PUK is popular, but many Faily Kurds vote their religion and back Dawa' or their own local leaders. But everyone in Khanaqin I've talked to is convinced that the only danger to US forces in Diyala are the Sunni insurgents, not the Shia' Arabs or the Faily Kurds. If the US were at risk from Iranian-supported Shia', you would see attacks against US forces in Baladruz (Faily and Shia' Arab) rather than in Baquba or between Baquba and Baghdad, and US relief workers would be at far higher risk in Khanaqin than they actually are. If Iran really wanted to kill Americans, they could do so in Khanaqin.
A stupid, criminal neocon attack on Iran would be an unmitigated disaster for Kurdistan. First, the overwhelming majority of Kurds want friendly relations with both Iran and the US. Second, the Kurds recognize that their future depends on the US maintaining at least some regional diplomatic influence. Two years from now, a new Administration may still have some ability to insist on meaningful autonomy and security guarantees for the Kurds if Iraq stays together, or negotiate outright independence for Kurdistan if Iraq splits apart.
However, if the US attacks Iran, the US cannot succeed militarily and will be utterly devastated diplomatically - much worse than is the case now. Nobody here believes the US can defeat Iran. It is striking how uniformly this opinion is held. By attacking Iran and compounding the US military defeat and diplomatic debacle, the Bush Administration would weaken our position in the Middle East so profoundly, that we would end up screwing the Kurds once again.
The USA can, and most probably will, launch air strikes against Iran without elaborate plots. An invasion is not on the cards, so US military losses will be virtually none.
The anti-Iran rhetoric is needed for something else.
It has been known since Roman times that any nation can be mobilized against a perceived dangerous enemy. The US enjoyed huge popularity in the West when the USSR played that role.
Amazingly, the US establishment managed to portray little Iraq as a threat to the entire world after the collapse of the USSR.
After 9/11, the Americans picked al-Qaeda as the new global threat, replacing the Iraqi threat after the invasion. This has been very unsuccessful: it is impossible to imagine a bunch of Turbans in remote caves as a global threat!
Lately, the Caliphate crap has quitely disappered in favor of Iran. So, Iran is the new enemy that the Americans, and much of the world, must fear enough to get behind the US leaders.
Moreover, the Israelis desperately want the Arabs to fear Iran enough to ally themselves with Israel. The Israelis know that sooner or later a US president will dump shitty little Israel in favor of the Oil-rich third of a billion Arabs. They want to be on the same side: but all the boats and bridges have long gone!
I don't know how one can tell the IED's originated from Iran instead of some Sunni-lead country, since at least one of these countries has hinted at the need to support the Sunni Insurgency if necessary. And we know who supplies their weapons.
The administration is counting on the American public to have the same attitude as Trent Lott: "They all look the same to me." I.e., they're hoping that people will buy the preposterous notion that Shiite Iran is behind the Sunni insurgency because, come on, they're all crazed, evil Muslims.
Given that even the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is so oblivious to the difference between Sunnis and Shiites that he thinks that Al Qaeda is a shiite group (Link), I worry that they might be right.
Who left all this weaponry lying around?
Even if any of this ordnance actually turns out to be Iranian in origin, that would harldy establish hostile intention. If we held the Iranians to standards no higher than what we have observed in the matter of maintaining control and accountability of weapons in the region, they could have let loose a half million arms (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/election/2006/1030arms.htm) and done no worse than us. If you make the very reasonable counterargument that to fail to take responsibility for keeping accountability of arms is itself the height or irresponsibility, then how would you absolve this administration form a half million such failures of accuntability?
We don't know how many US-distributed arms have been used in attacks against our forces, but that's the point. We should know this because the serial numbers of all weapons we handed out should have been carefully recorded, precisely so that if they were found later being used in attacks against our forces, we would have some ability to trace the source of the diversion to the insurgents. The administration didn't record the numbers because it was well aware that allegiances and loyalties in the region are so complex and shifting that of course there would be diversion to groups eventually hostile to us. They didn't want to risk the embarrassment of arms traceable to our side being used against us. Yet now they argue against Iran as if weaponry could never fall into unintended hands.
While the American president rattles his now blunted sabre at the most accessible neighbour to Iraq, IRAN ~ equally despised and feared by Saudi Arabia (ie., 9/11 genesis) and Israel (ie., Palestine/Lebanon infamy), Hundreds of Taliban Mass : “...crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan to reinforce guerrillas attacking a key dam, a major source of electricity and irrigation, a provincial governor said on Monday.”
I am a little confused about something in the Washington Post article from the 12th ("Military ties Iran to Arms in Iraq"). In the list of weapons, the Post notes:
"Two rocket-propelled grenades, with the markings "P.G. 7-AT-1," were said to be made exclusively in Iran."
Were they really marked with Latin letters? Is that normal? I'm a lowly physicist and not an Iran expert by a long shot but I've been there a few times in the last few years and I seem to remember most numbers being in the Arabic script unless it was on something imported. (I see agonist.org has asked this with more in-depth commentary).
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