Iraqi Gov't Inaction Poses Grave Risks: US Officers
17 Killed in Sunday Bombing Wave
According to the Washington Post's Tom Ricks, US officers in Iraq are saying that the failure of the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki to capitalize on the reduction of violence in Baghdad to work for political reconciliation forms a grave danger to the future of Iraq.
Al-Maliki, a fundamentalist Shiite, has lost the Sunni Arab members of his former 'national unity' government, and does not seem to have made any really serious effort to woo them back. Nor has al-Maliki succeeded in reaching out to Sunni Arabs who support or used to support the guerrilla movement, to bring them into the political process.
US officers also complain that the ministers in the government are not providing essential services to the people.
Last I knew, al-Maliki's government had $10 bn. in reserves that they are declining actually to spend. If not now, when?
US intel officers are also apparently saying that it is important to hold provincial elections. I absolutely agree and have felt this way for some time. The Sunni provincial leadership is unrepresentative, and this causes a lot of problems.
Beyond that step, though, al-Maliki really has to reach out to the Sunni Arabs. But he is not doing it, and he may be just unable, by virtue of his long years as a guerrilla, to do so.
Bombs killed 17 persons in Iraq on Sunday, including 3 US troops. The three US soldiers were killed Sunday in Baquba in a suicide bombing attack.
Reuters reports political violence for Sunday. Major incidents:
' BAGHDAD - At least nine people were killed and 20 wounded by a car bomb targeting Finance Ministry adviser Salman al-Mugotar in al-Hurriya Square in central Baghdad's Karrada district, police said. Mugotar was not hurt.
BAQUBA - A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. foot patrol in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, killed at least three children, two of them siblings, and wounded seven people, police said.
SAMAWA - The provincial governor of Muthanna province accused U.S. troops of opening fire on civilian cars south of Baghdad, wounding six people, and threatened to suspend ties with U.S. officials over the attack. A U.S. military spokesman said no information was immediately available on the incident.
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army killed four gunmen and arrested 63 others during the last 24 hours, in different parts in Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.
MOSUL - A parked car bomb killed three people, including a woman, and wounded 16 others, including four policemen, when it targeted a police patrol in central Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
TIKRIT - A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi army officer and a soldier and wounded another while they were trying to defuse it in central Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. . .
DIWANIYA - Iraqi security forces captured 47 militants, including three Mehdi Army leaders, and confiscated weapons in Diwaniya 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, a police official said.'
McClatchy has more.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/19/2007 12:30:00 AM
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According to U.N. figures, more than 2.5 million people have fled from Iraq since the invasion in 2003. Millions more have been displaced internally. This means that one-fifth of the population has been driven into homelessness. The perpetrators of this travesty dispute the figures, but by some counts, at least a million Iraqis have been killed. This tragic toll does not figure in those who have died from untreated disease and hunger, due to lack of sanitation, medical care and food.It is a human tragedy on the scale of the Holocaust. What could be won there? The current Iraqi government is hoarding money and corruption is rampant. They are not about to let go of the big bucks. When U.S. troops are finally withdrawn,that money will disappear into the mists. The fools in Washington, who are running the debacle in Iraq, can't even keep track of the monies spent by U.S. contractors. How are these idiots going to control a puppet government hell-bent on lining their own pockets. Truth to tell, it is the puppet's sweet revenge. I have said this before. Why should the Iraq government fight, when they can continue to profit from doing nothing? It's a sweetheart deal.Plus, the U.S. keeps digging its own grave, why lift a finger to help them out? It was their bad judgment to invade Iraq in the first place. To allude to Thomas Merton: Our own sins are punishing us.It is revenge for stupidity, elegant and simple. Given the death toll of Iraqis and the displacement of population,and destruction of cities and villages, the place may return to the desert sands.When the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, a lot of South Vietanmese left with a lot of gold. I personally knew a South Vietnamese Colonel who had some. It didnt come from the South Vietnamese government,legally, that is. He escaped in a small boat, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the number of his Swiss bank account. Same thing will happen in Iraq. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.Except the Bush Legacy of promoting suffering on a grand scale.
The newspapers in Finland run an article, which claims that violence is down 55% in Iraq sine the surge began. Also, they claim that civilian deaths are down 60%. The articles are based on official US government sources.
How can that be? Am I missing something? The reports I have seen here at juancole.com, in NYT, in Guardian, in Antiwar.com tell a different story.
By the way, how come the US government is able to know that civilian deaths are down 60%? So far, they have refused to count dead civilians. If they are indeed counting, could someone in the US ask for the numbers (by using the Freedom of Information Act), please.
I have to take issue with the idea that the Maliki government is to blame for the lack of progress. His government has 'reached out' to Sunnis, and those overtures have been rejected by and large.
But more to the point, it Petraeus and Bush's tactics that are not merely making reconciliation impossible, but a civil war that will be a bloodbath an inevitability.
Petraeus has negotiated a 'separate peace' with the people we were calling "Baathist terrorists" less than a year ago -- despite the fact that these Baathists are the least likely of Sunni's to find common cause with the Shiite theocrats, and are openly talking about overthrowing the elected government as soon as they can. If the US had to empower a group of 'Sunni terrorists', the people that should have been empowered were indigenous Sunni theocrats who have far more in common with the (essentially theocratic) Shiite leadership. Instead, we are providing aid, comfort, and protection to a bunch of mini-Saddams who appear to be targetting not just "al Qaeda", but anyone else within their sphere of influence who might represent a threat to their power -- including Sunni theocrats. All that one of our new best friends need to do is say "those guys are al Qaeda", and the US will let the bloodshed commence....then claim that we've had another big success in the 'war against al-Qaeda'.
At the same time, the US is making it virtually impossible for the factionized Shiite-led government to reconcile themselves. SIIC is more concerned with exploiting the US antipathy toward al-Sadr than in Sunni/Shia reconciliation, and our constant sabre-rattling toward Iran isn't going to make the Iranians terrible enthusiatic about Iraqi reconciliation when instability in Iraq is the main reason the US isn't attacking Iran.
Petraeus isn't stupid, and like everyone else with a clue he knew that 30,000 troop surge wasn't going to change the political dynamic in Iraq in six months time. He had to know going in that the "public" strategy was doomed to failure -- but it didn't matter to him.
The only rational explanation for the last 11 months of US policy in Iraq is that Petraeus designed a strategy that had the best chance of running out the clock for Bush while making Petraeus himelf look like "Presidential material" for 2012 or 2016. You don't design a military tactics that are counter-productive to the strategic purpose behind the mission, and then redefine the 'mission' from 'political reconciliation' to "victory over al Qaeda in Iraq' by mistake --- it has to be done knowing full well that the consequences will be neither in the interests of the Iraq government or Iraqi people, nor in long term US security interests.
This was deliberate -- it was bait and switch, and America fell for it hook, line and sinker. Bush gets to pass the Iraq problem to the next administration, Petraus gets to pin a lot more medals to his chest -- and American troops and the Iraqi people are stuck paying for their venality.
Provincial elections may help, but may make things worse as factions fight over lucrative posts, worth tens to hundreds of millions in bribery and plain theft.
Even if they help, it is tinkering with limited effect rather than getting the Iraqi ayarwm to work.
Time is running out, and clearly the answer is radical surgery now. Whether that entails UN rule, military rule, or whatever, it is time for hard choices. The current Iraqi ruling class must go.
Related to the Washington Post story, the Times of London had a news report on November 11 about how Prime Minister al-Maliki has appointed Ahmed Chalabi to restore essential services in Baghdad: Reborn Mr Fix-it, Ahmed Chalabi, pulls Iraq out of darkness.
According to the report, Chalabi is "one of the few senior politicians in Iraq with connections across the sectarian divide. ... He still sees Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the Shi’ite spiritual leader, and is relatively trusted by the radical cleric, Moqtadr al-Sadr, who has sought his advice on several occasions during the past three years when his Mahdi Army has run into trouble. ... Sunni tribal leaders who denounced Chalabi as a stooge of the Americans now visit his fortified compound in Mansour, a plush suburb of Baghdad, hoping his influence with the American military will secure them extra resources to fight the remnants of Al-Qaeda."
The 11/15 Ricks/WaPo article was outstanding by comparison to most daily press war analysis.
MNF-Iraq generals are offering cautious tactical optimism, not crowing about a strategic tipping point. Ricks tells us to watch for Sunni Arab ambassadors coming to Baghdad. None so far!
US Tactical progress in Baghdad, thru the leverage afforded by 30-40,000 extra combat troops for a year, is not the same as reaching waypoints towards geo-strategic political goals in a limited time-window.
So far US troops, with our training and an eventual ticket home, have had huge trouble stepping between the sectarian warriors without taking sides. Expecting the Iraqi police and army to succeed at that task next year may be a bridge too far.
What does US officer's criticism of the Iraqi PM on not reaching political reconciliation mean?
Surely they are not interested in unifying various Iraq faction. As this would mean a united front with common aim of getting rid of occupation of Iraq.
"Political reconciliation" seems to me to be the Orwellian Language to refer to passing of the Oil laws to give private companies long term access to Iraqi oil.
It is interesting how SO MUCH happens in Iraq each day but the TV news media does not even seem to give it 1 minute. Even al-Jazeera (both Arabic and English) has really cut down on the Iraq coverage.
Our humanity strikes again.This articl in the NY Times reports that the UN considers Somalia to be in the worst shape of any part Africa,including Darfur.
The article goes on to explain the major role the US anti al Queda operations had in creating much of this misery. According to the article, the Islamists we helped throw out of the country were the only political entity that had done the country any good, and the people want them back.
9/11 was a very bad thing, but it pales in badness compared to the global violent revenge we have taken. Who will cry for Somalians, or Iraqis, or Aghans? Very few Americans.
Time is running out, and clearly the answer is radical surgery now. Whether that entails UN rule, military rule, or whatever, it is time for hard choices. The current Iraqi ruling class must go.
While I agree with your first two lines. The conclusion I draw from all this is "Americans go home", take all your troops, all your diplomates and all your counselors out. Just pay due compensations for all the destruction and death you have caused and let the Iraqi find the best solution they can. Given the "divide and rule" policy you have waged since almost five years, there won't be any easy solution, but the Iraqi will be better off without you.
I agree with Paul Lukasiak that Al' Maliki isn't the one to blame for the lack of political reconciliation in Iraq. However I don't think the only cause is Petraeus dreams to become a presidential candidate. The real cause is rather that the US is waging a divide and rule politic in Iraq since the beginning, because she has a colonial project for Iraq and the ME.
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