Cheney in Saudi Arabia
5 US Troops Killed, 3 Missing
Iraqi Parliament Decries Walls
Cheney is trying to convince King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia not to write off the al-Maliki government or the US military surge strategy. He also tried to smooth over US/Saudi conflicts. King Abdullah is said to have concluded that Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is an Iranian puppet and a weak leader unwilling or unable to reconcile with Iraq's Sunni Arabs. Saudi Arabia champions Sunni interests.
Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked a small US convoy 20 km south of Baghdad, killing 5 GIs and a translator. Three US soldiers are missing and a search is on for them. The unit was apparently out there all by itself, 45 minutes away from reinforcements. This sort of incident underlines how little the US military controls much of Iraq.
Police found 17 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. McClatchy adds, "Around 9 a.m., a roadside bomb exploded in the Amiriya neighborhood, targeting civilians. Among the injured civilians was the son of Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashimi."
The Iraqi Parliament on Saturday passed by 138 to 88 a resolution demanding an end to the building of security walls around Baghdad neighborhoods. The walls were interpreted by many Iraqis as an American attempt to divide and rule them.
Along the same lines, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on Saturday called for a Status of Forces agreement to be concluded between the Iraqi government and the US military. To date, there has been no such SOFA and therefore the status of many of the actions of the US military in Iraq is ambiguous.
Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the Basra provincial council is still awaiting the commission that the federal parliament promised to send out to try to resolve the crisis in Basra's provincial government. The governor of Basra, Muhammad Misbah al-Wa'ili, lost a vote of confidence on the council two weeks ago, but contests the legitimacy of the vote. No new governor has been chosen. This article says that the provincial council is plagued by absenteeism. It alleges that some members from the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council are in Iran, while other members have fled to Kuwait. Basra is Iraq's main petroleum exporting area nowadays, and for it to function very long without a government seems unlikely. And if Basra falls apart, so does Iraq.
Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic on the reorganization of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. It notes that one of the planks of the party is to oppose any reinstatement of Baathists.
Making the debaathification regulations and procedures less harsh for the purposes of national reconciliation (most high Baathists had been Sunni Arabs) is one of the 4 benchmarks laid down by Bush in January for the al-Maliki government. I wouldn't count on it.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/13/2007 12:31:00 AM
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In the first paragraph , you said saudi Arabia champions the Sunni causes . im not sure about that , they have not done much about the Palestinian sunnis ! the last 50 years has seen more concessions and more land thefts and water thefts and nothing has been done for the sunni cause in Palestinian cause. the saudis are reacting this way because they are sectarian and do not want iran to be a major player in Iraq . if they cared about sunnis in iraq , it would not have helped the invasion in 2003 .
And in by no means unrelated news the Interior Ministry have decided to ban photojournalists from bombing scenes.
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Ostensibly this is to protect the journalists from being injured in follow on bombings and to protect the human rights of the bereaved.
That would be funny if it weren't such a sick joke. The one thing that is of complete unimportance both to the invaders and their local agents in any grabby colonial war such as the one launched by the USA against Irak is human rights.
If at first you don't succeed - cover up and try to stop the evidence of your failure from getting out.
"...Saudi Arabia champions Sunni interests...."
Is that why they wished Bush good luck on Iraq invasion? so he can kill 400,000 Sunni. I think they can do without his support. He is, like his ilk’s in the Moslem and Arab world an IRRELEVANT.
Cheney knows that, but he is out to peddle the sale of obsolete weapons that are stockpiled in U.S. inventory.
ref : “guerrillas attacked a US convoy 20 km south of Baghdad...”
Reuters : “More than 4,000 troops backed by helicopters and jets combed orchards, searched farms and threw up roadblocks in a massive hunt for the missing soldiers west of the town of Mahmudiya...”
Dr. Cole : “This sort of incident underlines how little [of IRAQ] the US military controls...”
even moreso, professor ~ the subsequent massive hunt, abrupt mobilization and presumed re-deployment / diversion of scarce resources ~ as a result of one pinprick attack (albeit, one made to the Achille's Heel of American Occupation Forces, its colossal global convoy supply lines), illustrates not only the vulnerability of line-level operations but also the stunning failure of staff-level Officer Corps to maintain a singular strategic focus.
That one insurgent incident, truly, David with a slingshot causing Goliath to suffer a handful of KIA, WIA and MIA casualties ~ can seduce an entire Command to lurch to and fro, as some dim-witted ogre, struck by a rock, thus...
...if not a painful example of negligent Command judgement, is certainly a pathetic spectacle for all of us to witness.
Night patrol, two Humvees, eight troops, 12.5 miles from Baghdad. Distance from nearest American post unknown. Distance to reinforcements unknown. Explosions heard, radio contact lost. Response: 15 minutes for UAV launch, 60 minutes for arrival of reinforcing unit, average speed: 12 miles an hour.
Pretend this was an exercise. What grade do you give the US military in communications, chain of command, decision-making, response time, and response efficacy? To what degree did the attackers neutralize the advantages of the US military? If there is a lesson here, what needs to change? To what degree was the intent of this patrol tactic military in origin, and to what degree was it driven by civilian political goals? If you were an infantry soldier, what would be the effect on your motivation and confidence knowing that an eight member night-time patrol in an “insurgent stronghold” could not expect reinforcements for an hour? If you were the parent of a patrol member of the most advanced military on the planet, would you think the risk your child was taking was reasonable if reinforcements couldn’t be expected for an hour?
I wonder how close Abdullah's opinions are to those being expressed by the Jordanian writers. Were there any other bold statements made by other ME newspapers like those of Jordan?
Hmmm blogger evidently doesn't like the Arabic character set:
The English language version of that report on Aswat Al Iraq can be found here:
Media banned from approaching attack scenes
Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked a small US convoy 20 km south of Baghdad, killing 5 GIs and a translator. Three US soldiers are missing and a search is on for them.
Apparently, the attack was the work of The Islamic State In Iraq, a group the AP calls an "al-Qaida front group," and Reuters calls "a group led by al Qaeda."
Either way, the American Public is going to view what happens to those soldiers as the work of al-Qaeda. I wonder if this is the kind of incident that can tip American public opinion one way or the other, or, if the American public, like Senator Chuck Hagel on Face The Nation this morning, will view the incident as terrible, but inevitable as long as we continue the occupation.
The Detroit Freep story does not place the location as clearly as the Chicago Tribune source:
"Mahmoudiya is about 20 miles south of Baghdad in an al-Qaida-dominated area known as the "triangle of death." Two U.S. soldiers were massacred there last year after they disappeared at a checkpoint."
There was another horrible incident at Mahmoudiya:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_incident
Along the same lines, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on Saturday called for a Status of Forces agreement to be concluded between the Iraqi government and the US military. To date, there has been no such SOFA and therefore the status of many of the actions of the US military in Iraq is ambiguous.
What ambiguous !! The US illegally invaded a country who wasn't threatening her and her situation in Iraq is ambiguous !! talk about an euphemism.. You really have to be flooded by government spin to think the situation is ambiguous. The US has to be tried for war crimes, because she invaded Iraq in order to steal its oil. Any other country invading another would be condemned by the international court and condemned to pay due compensations. How come the US can avoid this ? or better how long will the US be able to avoid it ? Even if there was an invitation by the puppet/fig leaf government the US installed in Iraq, it won't change anything to the illegal presence of the US.
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