Category Archives: war in Iraq

ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: The Petraeus promotion

Petraeus promotion frees Cheney to threaten Iran
By Gareth Porter, Antiwar.com, April 24, 2008

The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration’s policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush’s term and possibly even beyond.

It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration’s final months. [complete article]

Petraeus’ ascension
By Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent, April 23, 2008

Reaffirming his status as his generation’s most respected general officer, David H. Petraeus was nominated today to head U.S. Central Command (Centcom), the command responsible for all U.S. military operations in the Middle East. The move puts the U.S. military’s premier advocate, theorist and practitioner of counterinsurgency operations — once shunned by a Vietnam-stung military — at the helm of the military’s most important regional command.

But many military analysts — even those closely associated with the counterinsurgency theories that Petraeus has long championed — viewed the move as a mixed blessing. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Time is running out! There’s only six months left to keeping pushing the argument that Dick Cheney is going to start another war. After that, the only hope for the war-fearmongers is a McCain or Clinton presidency… Pardon the sarcasm.

So why do I question the idea that Petraeus’ promotion lets Cheney off the leash? Firstly, I doubt that Gates had his arm twisted into doing this. Indeed, to the extent that Petraeus was guilty of promoting operations in Iraq at the expense of meeting needs in Afghanistan, this seems to present quite a strong argument in favor of his being moved to CentCom. As commander in Iraq, it wasn’t his job to be an advocate for meeting pressing needs in any other arena. But as head of CentCom, Petraeus will become answerable for both Iraq and Afghanistan. And this time around The White House is hardly likely to go around the CentCom commander and deal directly with the commander in Iraq. By appointing U.S. Army Gen. Raymond Odierno to that position, Gates has ensured that Petraeus retains control in both commands. And Petraeus’ own ambitions surely stretch beyond 2008. He won’t merely want to please this president, but he also knows he’s going to be answerable to the next.

And as William Arkin argued last month, beyond the occasional bellicose piece of rhetoric (and there really hasn’t even been much of that in recent months), there is no practical evidence that the US military is readying itself or capable of starting another war. Blaming Iran for problems in Iraq seems to have less to do with making a case for attacking Iran than it does with resisting pressure to withdraw troops.

FEATURES & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Torture and propaganda

Behind TV analysts, Pentagon’s hidden hand
By David Barstow, New York Times, April 20, 2008

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — This article describes a triangle of complicity comprising Pentagon officials, retired military leaders, and television news networks. The New York Times essentially gives the networks a free pass. The final paragraphs of the article summarize the perfunctory answers the paper received in response to questions about conflicts of interest, yet the mere fact that the networks might have been unaware about the Pentagon briefings their analysts were receiving or the way these generals were cashing in on their connections, does not explain away what was always glaringly obvious: the chasm separating war news reporting on the one hand, and the military analysis being presented by the networks’ prize generals on the other hand. The networks had no interest in closing this gap. That fact in and of itself merits another investigative report but that will only happen if mainstream journalism opens itself up to some critical self-examination — and what are the chances of that happening?!

Stress hooding noise nudity dogs
By Philippe Sands, The Guardian, April 20, 2008

When the Haynes memo reached Guantánamo on December 2 [2002], Detainee 063 was in an isolated, plywood interrogation booth at Camp X-Ray. He was bolted to the floor and secured to a chair, his hands and legs cuffed. He had been held in isolation since August 8, nearly four months earlier. He was dehydrated and in need of regular hook-ups to an intravenous drip. His feet were swollen. He was urinating on himself.

During Detainee 063’s first few months at Guantánamo, the interrogators had followed established practices for military and law enforcement interrogations. Building rapport is the overriding aim of the US Army Field Manual 34-52, the rule book for military interrogators, colloquially referred to as “FM 34-52”. Legality was also essential, which meant operating in accordance with the rules set out in the US military’s Uniform Code of Military Justice and international law, in particular the four Geneva conventions.

At the heart of them lies “Common Article 3”, which expressly prohibits cruel treatment and torture, as well as “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment”. Tactics that had conformed to these principles changed dramatically. The interrogation log describes what happened immediately after Rumsfeld signed the Haynes memo.

The pattern was always the same: 20-hour interrogation sessions, followed by four hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation appears as a central theme, along with stress positions and constant humiliation, including sexual humiliation. These techniques were supplemented by the use of water, regular bouts of dehydration, the use of IV tubes, loud noise (the music of Christina Aguilera was blasted out in the first days of the new regime), nudity, female contact, pin-ups. An interrogator even tied a leash to him, led him around the room and forced him to perform a series of dog tricks. He was forced to wear a woman’s bra and a thong was placed on his head.

Rumsfeld led the charge for war in Iraq; in part he did so because of Saddam Hussein’s contempt for human life. “Torture is systematic in Iraq, and the most senior officials in the regime are involved,” Rumsfeld said, a few months before Saddam was overthrown. “Electric shock, eye gouging, acid baths, lengthy confinement in small metal boxes are only some of the crimes committed by this regime.” He spoke those words one day after secretly signing the Haynes memo and approving his own techniques of aggressive interrogation at Guantánamo.

Ironically, it was the Iraq war – in particular, events at Abu Ghraib prison – that brought the Haynes memo into the open two years later. By the autumn of 2003, Abu Ghraib was being run by the US as a detention facility. On April 28 2004, a CBS television report revealed the nature and scale of abuse being inflicted upon Iraqi prisoners. Photographs taken by US military participants were published, including one, now notorious, showing a prisoner standing on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his fingers. Another showed Private Lynndie England holding a leash tied to the neck of a naked man on the floor.

Was there a connection between the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the Bush administration’s secret interrogation policies at other places, including Guantánamo? In June 2004, President Bush, hosting the G8 summit in Savannah, Georgia, was asked by the media if he had authorised any kind of interrogation techniques necessary to pursue the “war on terror”? No, he said, his authorisation was that anything the US did would conform to US law and be consistent with international treaty obligations. “We’re a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books.”

Four days later, the administration unexpectedly declassified and released a number of documents relating to interrogation in the belief that this would reflect the thorough process of deliberation that, it was claimed, took place, and demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law. At the briefing, conducted by three lawyers from Bush’s inner circle, Alberto Gonzales, the president’s counsel, Jim Haynes from the Defence Department, and his deputy, Dan Dell’Orto, it was made clear that particular documents were crucial: the Haynes memo, and a decision taken a few months previously by the president, on February 7 2002, that none of the detainees at Guantánamo, whether Taliban or al-Qaida, could rely on any of the protections granted by the Geneva conventions, not even Common Article 3.

The second set of documents were legal opinions issued on August 1 2002. One of these, by two senior lawyers at the Justice Department, concluded that physical torture occurred only when the pain was “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death”. Mental torture required “lasting psychological harm”. The memo concluded that torture of suspected terrorists under interrogation would not be unlawful if it could be justified on grounds of necessity or self-defence.

On October 11 2002, Guantánamo had request that additional techniques beyond those in FM 34-52 be approved for use against high-value detainees, in particular a Saudi Arabian, Mohammed al-Qahtani – otherwise known as Detainee 063. The underlying message of the briefing was spelled out: Rumsfeld had merely responded to a request from Guantánamo, and in doing so had acted reasonably. By contrast, the abuses at Abu Ghraib were unauthorised and unconnected to actual policies.

Much later, in March 2006, Time magazine published on its website the interrogation log of Detainee 063. Some of the Abu Ghraib images bore a resemblance to what Detainee 063 had been through: humiliation, stress, hooding, nudity, female interrogators, shackles, dogs. Was this just a coincidence? [complete article]

EDITORIAL: Who’s really special?

Who’s really special?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 8, 2008

Is George Bush, ever so slowly, inching towards détente with Iran?

If so, it’s probably something he won’t brag about. But what on earth could hint at such a possibility?

Consider these few things:

First, an interesting piece of speculation recounted by Sami Moubayed a few days ago in Asia Times:

One theory says that Imad Mughniya, the Hezbollah commander who was assassinated in Damascus in February, had been charged by Iran to restructure the Mahdi Army. He had been one of the architects of Hezbollah in 1982 and was asked to do the same to professionalize the Sadrists. While all of this was being done, Muqtada was asked to return to his religious studies so he could rise to the rank of ayatollah and therefore gain a much stronger role in Shi’ite domestics. He would then be authorized to issue religious decrees and answer religious questions related to politics – just like Hakim.

Then suddenly something went wrong, and last week Maliki (who is now equally close to the Iranians) went to war against the Sadrists. Some claim that an under-the-table deal was hammered out in Baghdad in March between the Americans, Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian leader would let the Americans have their way – and crush the Sadrists – in exchange for softening pressure on the Iranian regime. In return, Ahmadinejad would help them bring better security to Iraq through a variety of methods stemming from Iranian cooperation.

This would please the Americans, Maliki and the Iranians, who in exchange for Muqtada’s head would enter a new relationship with the Americans. This might explain why the only people who have been lobbying heavily with Maliki – to stop the war on Muqtada – have been those opposed to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs, mainly Sunni tribes, ex-prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (who refused sanctuary in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war) and the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmud Mashadani.

On Sunday, in an interview with CNN, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki when questioned about Iran’s role in violence in Iraq said, “we understand this comes because of the background of the deep differences between Iran and the US and we are encouraging them to go back to the negotiating table with Iraqi mediation. We reject Iran using Iraq to attack the US and at the same time we reject the idea of the US using Iraq to attack Iran. We want to have peaceful positive relations with all sides.”

Maliki’s offer of mediation could be dismissed as political posturing, but it’s not hard to imagine that a prime minister who is not popular would be attracted by the idea of making himself indispensable. The role of mediation has never been dependent on strength, though if Iraq was to serve as a mediator between Iran and the US this would clearly benefit Iraq and especially the leader who had placed himself in such a pivotal position.

On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters, “We have received a new request from US officials through a formal note for holding talks on Iraq and we are looking into the issue.”

Then on Tuesday, after the main food market in Sadr City had burnt down and residents of the Shia district were fleeing American Hellfire missiles, Iran again issued another statement. Naturally it condemned US forces for indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas in Sadr City and Basra – but it didn’t stop there. It condemned attacks on the Green Zone and it praised “rightful measures taken by the Iraqi government to counter illegal armed groups.”

Could those illegal armed groups be the very same entities that have curiously been dubbed “special groups”?

What Maliki, Sadr and anyone else who might want a special relationship with Iran seems to discover sooner or later is that “special” does not mean “indispensable.” Iran, just like the United States, thinks first and foremost in terms of its national interest.

FEATURE: The price of the surge

How U.S. strategy is hastening Iraq’s demise
By Steven Simon, Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2008

The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq. Despite the current lull in violence, Washington needs to shift from a unilateral bottom-up surge strategy to a policy that promotes, rather than undermines, Iraq’s cohesion. That means establishing an effective multilateral process to spur top-down political reconciliation among the major Iraqi factions. And that, in turn, means stating firmly and clearly that most U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq within two or three years. Otherwise, a strategy adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration will only increase the likelihood of long-term debacle. [complete article]

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR – John Robertson: Mr Bush and his “legacy”

Mr Bush and his “legacy”
By John Robertson, War in Context, April 6, 2008

According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph our war-hero “Decider” president has decided that he will pull no more troops out of Iraq. According to the report, which cites Pentagon sources, he feels that showing such “resolve” will cement his legacy – which, he obviously assumes, is going to be an honorable one that will burn his glorious presidency indelibly into the pages of our national memory. A major contributor to his decision, moreover, seems to have been a report from another of our war-hero stalwarts, Fred Kagan, American Enterprise Institute all-star and an “intellectual” godfather of the “Surge.” Kagan is also a frequent contributor to William Kristol’s Weekly Standard (required reading for the – one would have hoped by now – discredited neocon faithful), where right up to the recent Basra humiliation he was serving up self-congratulatory pieces about the success of the Surge and declaring Iraq’s civil war to be “over.” Sorry, Fred, but most of the real experts (people like Juan Cole, Nir Rosen, and Patrick Cockburn – that is, people who know the country intimately, have lived there, and can read its newspapers) who’ve been reading the tea leaves suggest that, in the inimitable words of an American showman whose name I can’t recall, we “ain’t see nuthin yet.”

Please forgive me if I sound callous or flip by putting it that way, but by now it ought to be clear that the unfortunate people of Iraq have a long road to travel – and probably many years of suffering ahead – before they will be able to enjoy an existence graced by any consistency of peace, prosperity, and security. Surge notwithstanding, the Sunni Arabs of Anbar and elsewhere are no closer to being included in the governing of the Iraqi state than they were during the proconsulship of L. Paul Bremer, who marginalized them from the outset of the American occupation. The much-touted Sunni sahwa (“Sunni Awakening”) – to which the Bush-Petraeus “Surge” owed so much of its putative success – now seems, at best, to be hitting its collective snooze alarm while the US tries to keep these new militias, which are completely outside the control of the central government, paid off. Despite its ongoing entreaties, the Bush administration has been unable to convince the Shia-dominated Maliki government to incorporate them into the Iraqi army. Nor is that government making any appreciable effort to find them jobs to divert their attention and secure them some livelihood, and paychecks. It is likely only a matter of time before they bug out altogether and turn their newly obtained arms, equipment, and training on the people against whom so many of them were originally most intent on fighting in the first place: the US occupation forces and their Shia Badr Force allies.

Meanwhile, the sun seems to be setting on the hope-filled halcyon days of the Kurds’ autonomy in Iraq’s northeast, in which they were able to bask only because (after years of being sheltered and nurtured under a US-enforced no-fly zone) they supported the US invasion right down the line, while the US could point to them as Iraq’s model of stability and potential. But now the US has shown itself all too willing to sell them out when a stronger, more potentially useful ally, Turkey, put its marker down in this new “great game.” Notwithstanding the protests of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Turkish forces only recently completed major incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan to go after the PKK; only days ago, for the umpteenth time, Turkish warplanes flew bombing sorties into the region; and the Turkish republic’s leaders have reserved the right to violate the sovereignty of the KRG (and, by the standards of anybody’s interpretation of international law, the sovereignty of the state of Iraq) when and if they deem it necessary (which, given the current turmoil in the Turkish government, also translates to “politically expedient”). And as if the threat from Turkey weren’t enough, the future stability of Kurdistan faces what is perhaps an even direr threat: the possibility of civil war among Kurds, Arabs, and Turks over the ultimate control of the city and region of Kirkuk.

And speaking of civil war, it’s pretty safe to say that the violence of late March in Basra and Baghdad was only a taste of what might be in store for Iraq’s largely Shia south and center, where the scions of the powerful and prestigious al-Hakim and al-Sadr clerical lineages (along with smaller groups like the Fadhila party in Basra) are vying for political control (and in Basra, control of Iraq’s vital oil exports) as provincial elections, scheduled for October, approach. Their respective leaders – Abdulaziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr – control well-armed and inspired militias (respectively, the Badr Forces and the Jaish al-Mahdi, or “Mahdi Army”) that fought each other viciously in the holy city of Karbala only a few months ago, and in Basra and Baghdad only recently. Thanks largely to the intervention of Iran (which was spearheaded by a “terrorist” Revolutionary Guard general), Muqtada agreed to a truce, not to be mistaken for a peace treaty. Simply put, the two militias hate each other. Add then to this very combustible mix that Muqtada is the leader of a huge popular political movement that claims the support of hundreds of thousands of the poor Shia of teeming slums like Sadr City in Baghdad, and of hundreds of thousands more in Iraq’s second largest city, Basra. He has called upon his followers – and other Iraqis who want the US occupation out of Iraq – to come together next week for a million-man march. That march was originally set for the holy city of Najaf, a stronghold of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), the Shia political movement led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim. Now, however, Muqtada has decided to stage the march in Baghdad.

Keeping a lid on the tensions that will be bubbling in Baghdad next week will be the job of the Maliki “government.” This is, of course, the same Maliki government that was recently humbled by its failure in Basra and that appears ever more dysfunctional, hunkered down in the “Green Zone” (beyond which it exercises little real control) and confronted with a divided, often absentee parliament. The army Maliki commands has proved itself largely unreliable and ineffective, often including members of the Badr militia whose loyalties to the state are suspect or forced to rely on Kurdish peshmerga who are loath to be involved in inter-Arab conflicts. But it’s this army with which Maliki is entrusted with keeping a damper on the situation as Muqtada’s march approaches. Can we really believe they’re up to it?

No. Which is why US troops, air power, and special forces will be on the scene aplenty next week – and why, Mr. Bush has now decided, and why Gen. Petraeus will insist next week, they will need to be there for the foreseeable future. And it’s also why Mr. Bush will feel it justifiable and necessary to hand off the Iraq tinderbox to his successor. Given the current mood of US citizenry (of whom, a new poll indicates, more than 80 percent believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction), that successor will likely not be a member of Mr. Bush’s political party. But with a level of military effort no longer sustainable (as almost all of the top brass have insisted), and with the national economy swirling the bowl, that successor will most certainly have to begin to disengage the US from Iraq – and be left to hold the bag for the hubris, incompetence, and catastrophe of his predecessor.

Because, as US forces pull out, Iraq will most certainly fall apart even more, its misery and violence ratcheting up by several notches. With much more justification than Mr. Bush did last week, many across the world will proclaim it a “defining moment.” Some will proclaim that the American behemoth has been vanquished once and for all. Others, perhaps more reflectively, and dishearteningly, may surmise that whatever fires America might have lit for insisting on goodness and justice on the planet lie in cinders, if not altogether doused.

But Mr. Bush’s glorious page in our national memory will be completely up in smoke, wisps on the wind of history.

John Robertson is a professor of Middle East history at Central Michigan University and has his own blog, Chippshots.

NEWS, ANALYSIS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Authority in Iraq

How Moqtada al-Sadr Won in Basra
By Charles Crain, Time, March 31, 2008

The Iraqi military’s offensive in Basra was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government in Baghdad. Instead it has proven the continuing relevance of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, stood its ground in several days of heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers backed up by American and British air power. But perhaps more important than the manner in which the militia fought is the manner in which it stopped fighting. On Sunday Sadr issued a call for members of the Mahdi Army to stop appearing in the streets with their weapons and to cease attacks on government installations. Within a day, the fighting had mostly ceased. It was an ominous answer to a question posed for months by U.S. military observers: Is Sadr still the leader of a unified movement and military force? The answer appears to be yes.

In the view of many American troops and officers, the Mahdi Army had splintered irretrievably into a collection of independent operators and criminal gangs. Now, however, the conclusion of the conflict in Basra shows that when Sadr speaks, the militia listens.

That apparent authority is in marked contrast to the weakness of Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. He traveled south to Basra with his security ministers to supervise the operation personally. After a few days of intense fighting he extended his previously announced deadline for surrender and offered militants cash in exchange for their weapons. Yet in the ceasefire announcement the militia explicitly reserved the right to hold onto its weapons. And the very fact of the ceasefire flies in the face of Maliki’s proclamation that there would be no negotiations. It is Maliki, and not Sadr, who now appears militarily weak and unable to control elements of his own political coalition. [complete article]

Why al-Maliki attacked Basra
By Juan Cole, Salon, April 1, 2008

Why did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attack the Mahdi army in Basra last week?

Despite the cease-fire called Sunday by Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the millions-strong Sadr Movement, last week’s battles between the Mahdi army and the Iraqi army revealed the continued weakness and instability of al-Maliki’s government. Al-Maliki went to Basra on Monday, March 24, to oversee the attack on city neighborhoods loyal to al-Sadr. By Friday, the Iraqi minister of defense, Abdul Qadir Jasim, had to admit in a news conference in Basra that the Mahdi army had caught Iraqi security forces off guard. Most Sadrist neighborhoods fought off the government troops with rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire. At the same time, the Mahdi army asserted itself in several important cities in the Shiite south, as well as in parts of Baghdad, raising questions of how much of the country the government really controls. Only on Sunday, after the U.S. Air Force bombed some key Mahdi army positions, was the Iraqi army able to move into one of the Sadrist districts of Basra. [complete article]

Iranian who brokered Iraqi peace is on U.S. terrorist watch list
By Warren P. Strobel and Leila Fadel, McClatchy, March 31, 2008

The Iranian general who helped broker an end to nearly a week of fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in southern Iraq is an unlikely peacemaker.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to stop the fighting in Iraq’s largely Shiite south, is named on U.S. Treasury Department and U.N. Security Council watch lists for alleged involvement in terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology.

His role as peacemaker, which McClatchy first reported Sunday, underscores Iran’s entrenched political power and its alliances in Iraq, according to analysts. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — For five years, the US and its allies in Iraq have indulged in a modulated fantasy. To begin with it was that Moqtada al Sadr could be ignored — that he was an upstart deserving contempt. Once it became clear that he couldn’t be ignored, the aim turned to his destruction. Once it became clear that he and his movement could not be destroyed, hopes turned to his pacification. If he could be politically accommodated, he might lose his political fire and thence fall by the wayside. All along, the press has helped reinforce the administration’s efforts to brand Sadr by referring to him as radical, anti-American, rebel, fiery, militant, hardline, rabble-rousing, demagogue and a firebrand. What few have been willing to acknowledge is that over the span of the last five years, there is no one else in Iraq whose authority has been as durable or as demonstrable.

The American conceit was that by having ousted Saddam it acquired the ability to dispense or withhold political authority. The mistake was and remains a confusion about the difference between power and authority. For all its power, the US has never been able to wield any political authority in Iraq; it thus has no authority to dispense. Ironically, Sadr’s ability to acquire authority has in large part been assisted by the administration’s refusal to acknowledge his political weight.

Just over a month ago, US Central Command issued a press release in response to Sadr’s extension of his militia’s ceasefire. It said:

Those who continue to honor al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s pledge will be treated with respect and restraint. Those who dishonor the Sadr pledge are regrettably tarnishing both the name and the honor of the movement…. [We] welcome an opportunity to participate in dialogue with the Sadr Trend and all groups who seek to bring about reconciliation in building the new Iraq.

This might have just been empty rhetoric, but I think that it more likely reflects that the US military is slightly ahead of its political leadership in starting to recognize that it’s time to show Sadr more respect. If the idea that he was going to fade away has managed to be a very durable fantasy — especially among those who have had equally durable dreams of success in Iraq — the time to wake up to the reality of Sadr’s political authority is long overdue.

NEWS: Success of the surge in jeopardy

Battles wrack Basra, threatening success of U.S. surge
By Leila Fadel and Ali al Basri, McClatchy, March 25, 2008

With Iraq’s top leaders directing the battle, Iraq’s army and national police pressed a major operation Tuesday to wrest control of the southern port city of Basra from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. Fighting between government forces and the militia quickly spread through Iraq’s south and into Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and his defense and interior ministers took charge of the 15,000 Iraqi army troops and police units, which were deployed for what aides said was to be a three-day operation against militias in the city.

The battle at the oil-rich port began before dawn Tuesday and lasted into the early evening before subsiding slightly as the Mahdi Army, headed by firebrand cleric Muqtada al Sadr, defended positions in several neighborhoods. In the dead of night, residents reported artillery shelling, mortar rounds and guns being fired outside their homes. [complete article]

OPINION: Ordinary evil

The ultimate casualty
By Richard Cohen, Washington Post, March 25, 2008

You know him well. His nickname was Gilligan, and he was a prisoner at Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein’s vast prison transformed into a vast American one and then transformed again by the Bush administration into a vast national disgrace. Gilligan was deprived of sleep, forced to stand on a small box, hooded like some medieval apparition, wired like a makeshift lamp and told (falsely) that if he fell he would be electrocuted. He was later released. Wrong man. Sorry.

The story of Gilligan is recounted in a forthcoming book and movie, both titled “Standard Operating Procedure” because that is precisely what the abuse of prisoners was at Abu Ghraib. Much of the book, written by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris (he made the documentary) and excerpted in last week’s New Yorker, relies on the verbatim testimony of the Americans who staffed Abu Ghraib. Some of them were the very ones who took the revolting pictures — including the iconic photo of Gilligan — that stunned the world.

What the interviews make clear is how pervasive and public the abuse of prisoners had been. Physical and mental abuse was conducted in the open. Photos were taken and passed up the chain of command. “Sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sensory disorientation and the imposition of physical and psychological pain,” Gourevitch and Morris write, were all permitted under the makeshift rules of the camp.

“They couldn’t say that we broke the rules because there were no rules,” said an Army reservist named Megan Ambuhl. Others talked of something even more insidious: the growing tolerance for inflicting pain. This is the stuff of famous psychology experiments (Milgram, etc.), but it also reminds me — and I know this is the extreme case — of the willingness of ordinary German soldiers in World War II to spend whole days in the routine murder of civilians. [complete article]

OPINION: Getting out of Iraq

Thinking through withdrawal
By Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark, March 18, 2008

What would be the effects on Iraqi domestic politics of an American announcement of a full withdrawal from Iraq over a 16-18 month period? For the purposes of this memo, I consider the precise timeline of the withdrawal less important than the firm, credible, public commitment to withdrawal.

First, any plausible withdrawal scenario must consider how the major actors will respond to a coming US departure and try to pre-empt most likely flashpoints. A US withdrawal should not seen exclusively as the removal of a barrier between otherwise unchanged Iraqi actors. A US withdrawal would change the identities, interests, expectations, and behavior of all actors. These transformative effects are a major reason why a firm and credible commitment to withdrawal on a clear timetable is necessary to achieve an acceptable outcome. Without such a commitment, Iraqi and regional actors alike will continue on their current course, while recent security gains will crumble as the political window closes. Without it, a Maliki-led or Maliki-like government will not be likely to deliver substantive political accommodation. Only faced with the loss of an open-ended U.S. commitment would its calculations would change. The same is true for every other actor in the Iraqi arena: Shia and Sunni, Green Zone and local, pro-US or insurgency. [complete article]

Have five years of war in Iraq achieved anything?
By Fred Kaplan, Slate, March 18, 2008

Imagine it’s early 2003, and President George W. Bush presents the following case for invading Iraq:

We’re about to go to war against Saddam Hussein. Victory on the battlefield will be swift and fairly clean. But then 100,000 U.S. troops will have to occupy Iraq for about 10 years. On average, nearly 1,000 of them will be killed and another 10,000 injured in each of the first 5 years. We’ll spend at least $1 trillion on the war and occupation, and possibly trillions more. Toppling Saddam will finish off a ghastly tyranny, but it will also uncork age-old sectarian tensions. More than 100,000 Iraqis will die, a few million will be displaced, and the best we can hope for will be a loosely federated Islamic republic that isn’t completely in Iran’s pocket. Finally, it will turn out that Saddam had neither weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the planners of 9/11. Our intervention and occupation will serve as the rallying cry for a new crop of terrorists.

It is extremely doubtful that Congress would have authorized such a war or that the American people would have shouted, “Bring it on!” [complete article]

NEWS, OPINION & FEATURE: The cult of the suicide bomber

The cult of the suicide bomber
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 14, 2008

No one doubts that the road to Baghdad – or Tal Afar or Fallujah or Mosul – lies through Syria, and that the movement of suicide bombers from the Mediterranean coasts to the deserts of Iraq is a planned if not particularly sophisticated affair. What is astonishing – what is not mentioned by the Americans or the Iraqi “government” or the British authorities or indeed by many journalists – is the sheer scale of the suicide campaign, the vast numbers of young men (only occasionally women), who wilfully destroy themselves amid the American convoys, outside the Iraqi police stations, in markets and around mosques and in shopping streets and on lonely roads beside remote checkpoints across the huge cities and vast deserts of Iraq. Never have the true figures for this astonishing and unprecedented campaign of self-liquidation been calculated.

But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper.

This is perhaps the most frightening and ghoulish legacy of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq five years ago. Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available. Where wounded have been listed in news reports as “several”, we have made no addition to the figures. And the number of critically injured who later died remains unknown. Set against a possible death toll of half a million Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion, the suicide bombers’ victims may appear insignificant; but the killers’ ability to terrorise civilians, militiamen and Western troops and mercenaries is incalculable. [complete article]

Stuck in the Iraq loop
By Fareed Zacharia, Newsweek, March 24, 2008

There is a paradox in the current situation in Iraq. We are told that the surge has worked brilliantly and violence is way down. And yet the plan to reduce troop levels—which was at the heart of the original surge strategy—must be postponed or all hell will once again break loose. Making sense of this paradox is critical. Because in certain crucial ways things are not improving in Iraq, and unless they start improving soon, the United States faces the awful prospect of an unending peacekeeping operation—with continuing if limited casualties—for years to come.

In a brilliant and much-circulated essay written in August 2007, “Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt,” David Kilcullen, a veteran Australian officer who advised Gen. David Petraeus during the early days of the surge, wrote, “Our dilemma in Iraq is, and always has been, finding a way to create a sustainable security architecture that does not require ‘Coalition-in-the-loop,’ thereby allowing Iraq to stabilize and the Coalition to disengage in favorable circumstances.” We have achieved some security in Iraq, though even this should not be overstated. (Violence is still at 2005 levels, which were pretty gruesome.) But we have not built a sustainable security architecture. [complete article]

Iraq’s insurgency runs on stolen oil profits
By Richard A Oppel Jr., New York Times, March 16, 2008

The Baiji refinery, with its distillation towers rising against the Hamrin Mountains, may be the most important industrial site in the Sunni Arab-dominated regions of Iraq. On a good day, 500 tanker trucks will leave the refinery filled with fuel with a street value of $10 million.

The sea of oil under Iraq is supposed to rebuild the nation, then make it prosper. But at least one-third, and possibly much more, of the fuel from Iraq’s largest refinery here is diverted to the black market, according to American military officials. Tankers are hijacked, drivers are bribed, papers are forged and meters are manipulated — and some of the earnings go to insurgents who are still killing more than 100 Iraqis a week.

“It’s the money pit of the insurgency,” said Capt. Joe Da Silva, who commands several platoons stationed at the refinery.

Five years after the war in Iraq began, the insurgency remains a lethal force. The steady flow of cash is one reason, even as the American troop buildup and the recruitment of former insurgents to American-backed militias have helped push the number of attacks down to 2005 levels. [complete article]

NEWS: Iraq “still terrible”; British veterans desperate for help

A week in Iraq: ‘People say things are better, but it’s still terrible here’
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, February 3, 2008

Iraq is less violent than a year ago, but the country is still the most dangerous in the world. So it was no surprise to anyone in Baghdad, where people have long dreaded a renewal of al-Qa’ida’s savage bombing campaign directed at Shia civilians, that there should be suicide attacks on two bird markets, killing 92 people on Friday.

For all President George Bush’s claims of progress, cited in his final State of the Union address last week, Baghdad looks like a city out of the Middle Ages, divided into hostile townships. Districts have been turned into fortresses, encircled by walls made out of concrete slabs. Police and soldiers check all identities at the entrances and exits.

“People say things are better than they were,” says Zainab Jafar, a well-educated Shia woman, “but what they mean is that they are better than the bloodbath of 2006. The situation is still terrible.” [complete article]

They’re back from the front line – so why are these ex-soldiers still fighting their own wars?
By Mark Townsend, The Observer, February 3, 2008

Last year, the Royal British Legion took 1,485 calls from homeless ex-service personnel desperate for help. By law, former forces personnel should be offered accommodation as a priority, yet councils fail to honour their obligations, largely because of long waiting lists. Others are denied a chance to own a home because the heightened risk of suicide among those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan means they can’t get life insurance to guarantee a mortgage.

The stories of Brown, Hayley Murdoch, Dave Hart and Andy Julien, told here for the first time, lend weight to the consensus that the military covenant – the guarantee of a duty of care between the government and the armed forces – has faltered. Collectively, they present a tale of broken marriages, thwarted careers, psychological breakdown and isolation. Next month marks the fifth anniversary of the opening salvos of an Iraqi conflict steeped in controversy and confusion. Now it is the war in Afghanistan that is muddied in a quagmire of uncertainty. The intractability of fighting in Helmand province promises British casualties for years to come. [complete article]

NEWS: The war toll

Iraq conflict has killed a million Iraqis: survey
Reuters, January 30, 2008

More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain’s leading polling groups.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB) with 2,414 adults in face-to-face interviews, found that 20 percent of people had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, rather than natural causes. [complete article]

Soldier suicides at record level
By Dana Priest, Washington Post, January 31, 2008

Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a psychiatric outpatient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who was waiting for the Army to decide whether to court-martial her for endangering another soldier and turning a gun on herself last year in Iraq, attempted to kill herself Monday evening. In so doing, the 25-year-old Army reservist joined a record number of soldiers who have committed or tried to commit suicide after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. [complete article]

Battle concussions tied to stress disorder
By Benedict Carey, New York Times, January 31, 2008

About one in six combat troops returning from Iraq have suffered at least one concussion in the war, injuries that, while temporary, could heighten their risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers are reporting. [complete article]

U.S. commanders in Iraq favor pause in troop cuts
By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, January 31, 2008

Senior U.S. military commanders here say they want to freeze troop reductions starting this summer for at least a month, making it more likely that the next administration will inherit as many troops in Iraq as there were before President Bush announced a “surge” of forces a year ago.

There are about 155,000 U.S. troops in Iraq now, with about 5,000 leaving every month; the proposed freeze would go into effect in July, when troops levels reach around 130,000. Although violence is dropping in Iraq, commanders say they want to halt withdrawals to assess whether they can control the situation with fewer troops. [complete article]

Bomb takes death toll of journalists in Iraq war to 126
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, January 31, 2008

IIraq confirmed its reputation as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this week when a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi television cameraman, Alaa Abdul-Karim al-Fartoosi, the first journalist to be killed in Iraq this year and the 126th since the start of the war. [complete article]

CAMPAIGN 08: Judgment trumps experience

Obama, Clinton and the war
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig, January 29, 2008

It should mean a great deal to progressives that in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Sen. Barack Obama over two other colleagues he has worked with in the Senate. No one in the history of that institution has been a more consistent and effective fighter than Kennedy for an enlightened agenda, be it civil rights and liberty, gender equality, labor and immigrant justice, environmental protection, educational opportunity or opposing military adventures.

Kennedy was a rare sane voice among the Democrats in strongly opposing the Iraq war, and it is no small tribute when he states: “We know the record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth.”

But that is precisely the truth that Sen. Hillary Clinton has shamelessly sought to obscure. Her supporters have accepted Clinton’s refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it. It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members—five more on Monday—and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn’t end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden. [complete article]

After mining deal, financier donated to Clinton
By Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr., New York Times, January 31, 2008

LLate on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. [complete article]

Clinton remained silent as Wal-Mart fought unions
By Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer, and Rhonda Schwartz, ABC News, January 31, 2008

In six years as a member of the Wal-Mart board of directors, between 1986 and 1992, Hillary Clinton remained silent as the world’s largest retailer waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers.

Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her.

Wal-Mart’s anti-union efforts were headed by one of Clinton’s fellow board members, John Tate, a Wal-Mart executive vice president who also served on the board with Clinton for four of her six years.

Tate was fond of repeating, as he did at a managers meeting in 2004 after his retirement, what he said was his favorite phrase, “Labor unions are nothing but blood-sucking parasites living off the productive labor of people who work for a living.” [complete article]

Obamania in action
By Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 2008

Is endorsing Barack Obama the new cool? Not long ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the seemingly inevitable front-runner for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Obama was the insurgent. He was pulling in young voters, independents and new voters, but he lacked the blessing of the party’s heavyweights.

That’s changed. Obama’s success in moving beyond the traditional party base — combined with serious Clinton fatigue — is leading many seasoned Democratic leaders to rethink their earlier assumptions. John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Claire McCaskill and Tom Daschle, among others, have lined up behind Obama, and the last few days brought Obama a surge of new, high-profile endorsements from such luminaries as Ted Kennedy and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.

His endorsers are right to see Obama as their party’s best hope for 2008. Though skeptics contend that Obama lacks “experience,” this concern makes sense only if you think you have to be a Washington insider to be qualified to run for president. Obama began his career as a community organizer and civil rights attorney in Chicago — relevant background for someone who will have to deal with tough economic and social justice issues as president. He was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 and the U.S. Senate in 2004; in all, he’s spent 11 years being directly accountable to voters (that’s four more than Clinton). [complete article]

Volcker joins list of Obama backers
By Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2008

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the latest big name to endorse Sen. Barack Obama, could give the Illinois Democrat a boost by lending his gravitas in the financial world to a presidential candidate whose biggest hurdle is to convince voters he is experienced enough.

“After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The time has come to overcome that reluctance,” Volcker, a Democrat, said in a statement today. “However, it is not the current turmoil in markets or the economic uncertainties that have impelled my decision. Rather, it is the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad. Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach.” [complete article]

Obama’s $32 million haul
By eff Zeleny, New York Times, January 31, 2008

A $32 million month.

That’s how much Senator Barack Obama has raised so far in January, according to his campaign manager, David Plouffe, who announced the first fund-raising tally of 2008. The campaign attracted 170,000 new contributors during the month, he said.

“Obviously this contest could go on for some time in the primary.’’ Mr. Plouffe said, speaking to reporters on a conference call earlier this morning. “We think the strength of our financial position and the number of donors does speak to financial sustainability.” [complete article]

OPINION: Terrorism, Iraq, and the facts on the ground

Normalizing air war from Guernica to Arab Jabour
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, January 29, 2008

For those who know something about the history of air power, which, since World War II, has been lodged at the heart of the American Way of War, that 100,000 figure [– the quantity of explosives dropped on Arab Jabour south of Baghdad last week –] might have rung a small bell.

On April 27, 1937, in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (a prelude to World War II), the planes of the German Condor Legion attacked the ancient Basque town of Guernica. They came in waves, first carpet bombing, then dropping thermite incendiaries. It was a market day and there may have been as many as 7,000-10,000 people, including refugees, in the town which was largely destroyed in the ensuing fire storm. More than 1,600 people may have died there (though some estimates are lower). The Germans reputedly dropped about 50 tons or 100,000 pounds of explosives on the town. In the seven decades between those two 100,000 figures lies a sad history of our age. [complete article]

The state of the (Iraqi) union
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, January 30, 2008

The George W Bush-sponsored Iraqi “surge” is now one year old. The US$11 billion-a-month (and counting) Iraqi/Afghan joint quagmire keeps adding to the US government’s staggering over $9 trillion debt (it was “only” $5.6 trillion when Bush took power in early 2001).

On the ground in Iraq, the state of the union – Bush’s legacy – translates into a completely shattered nation with up to 70% unemployment, a 70% inflation rate, less than six hours of electricity a day and virtually no reconstruction, although White House-connected multinationals have bagged more than $50 billion in competition-free contracts so far. The gleaming reconstruction success stories of course are the Vatican-sized US Embassy in Baghdad – the largest in the world – and the scores of US military bases.

Facts on the ground also attest the “surge” achieved no “political reconciliation” whatsoever in Iraq – regardless of a relentless US corporate media propaganda drive, fed by the Pentagon, to proclaim it a success. The new law to reverse de-Ba’athification – approved by a half-empty Parliament and immediately condemned by Sunni and secular parties as well as former Ba’athists themselves – will only exacerbate sectarian hatred. [complete article]

Al Qaeda loves Bush: Thanks for the free advertising
By William M. Arkin, Washington Post, January 29, 2008

It shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point that the president uses al Qaeda as code. Last night, in his State of the Union address, he mentioned al Qaeda 10 times, terrorism 23, extremism eight, Osama bin Laden once. Sure we are fighting a war against terrorism, and al Qaeda is always a ready reminder of Sept. 11. But the president uses this code as much to describe our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, in that, he purveys a brand of confusion and surrender.

First, confusion: Al Qaeda in Iraq, whatever it is, is just one of many organized groups fighting the United States and its military coalition, fighting the Iraqi government, and seeking to create enough chaos and insecurity to defeat both. Since the very beginning of the Iraq war, when Donald Rumsfeld dismissed those attacking U.S. troops as “dead enders” and Baathists, the American description of the enemy in Iraq has contained an element of self-deception: if the enemy were just Saddam recalcitrants, then we could convince ourselves that everyone else welcomed us and was on our side.

Since Iraq started going downhill, we have described those fighting against U.S. forces as Shia and Sunni extremists, Iranian-backed militias, foreign fighters, even criminals and opportunists. By the time Abu Musab al-Zarqawi emerged as an identifiable leader, al Qaeda had stuck as the most useful label. It didn’t always apply, and it unfortunately connoted command and control of the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. occupation from some mountain headquarters in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but U.S. spokesmen have become extremely careful never to say Iraqis attacked U.S. forces. [complete article]

NEWS: Change or war

‘If there is no change in three months, there will be war again’
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, January 28, 2008

A crucial Iraqi ally of the United States in its recent successes in the country is threatening to withdraw his support and allow al-Qa’ida to return if his fighters are not incorporated into the Iraqi army and police.

“If there is no change in three months there will be war again,” said Abu Marouf, the commander of 13,000 fighters who formerly fought the Americans. He and his men switched sides last year to battle al-Qa’ida and defeated it in its main stronghold in and around Fallujah.

“If the Americans think they can use us to crush al-Qa’ida and then push us to one side, they are mistaken,” Abu Marouf told The Independent in an interview in a scantily furnished villa beside an abandoned cemetery near the village of Khandari outside Fallujah. He said that all he and his tribal following had to do was stand aside and al-Qa’ida’s fighters would automatically come back. If they did so he might have to ally himself to a resurgent al-Qa’ida in order to “protect myself and my men”. [complete article]

FEATURE: Conflict labor

Iraq contractors tap Latin America’s needy
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2008

Sometimes he wakes up with a shudder, thinking he needs to take cover, fast. At other moments he dreams he’s running and the mortar shell strikes again, fiery shards of metal ripping through his flesh.

“I take pills to help me sleep,” Gregorio Calixto says, proffering a box of cheap over-the-counter medication, the only kind he can afford.

In the United States, Calixto might be under treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder from his time in Iraq, receiving daily physical therapy and counseling. Here he’s an unemployed street vendor, renting a spartan room and struggling to recover physically and emotionally from severe shrapnel wounds.

He is one of several thousand Latin Americans who have taken jobs with U.S. contractors as security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 1,200 Peruvians are in Iraq, mostly guarding sites in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Chileans, Colombians, Salvadorans and Hondurans have also served as part of the polyglot assemblage providing “conflict labor” in U.S. war zones.

Although most appear to have returned to Latin America safely and with enough cash to buy houses, taxis and businesses, others, such as Calixto, have been unlucky: seriously injured in Iraq and left to negotiate a labyrinthine and what he terms inadequate U.S. insurance system. [complete article]

NEWS: Bush administration still ambivalent about Iraqi sovereignty

U.S. asking Iraq for wide rights on war
By Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, January 25, 2008

With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

At the same time, the administration faces opposition from Democrats at home, who warn that the agreements that the White House seeks would bind the next president by locking in Mr. Bush’s policies and a long-term military presence. [complete article]

Iraq seeks sharp reduction in U.S. military role
NBC, January 24, 2008

… a senior member of the Iraqi negotiating team, which has been almost completely appointed, said they would seek to have U.S. troops — who for five years have conducted aggressive combat missions across the country against al-Qaida and other radical Muslim militias — largely confined to their bases.

U.S. troops would have only limited freedom of movement off base under Iraq’s position, leaving only when requested to provide intelligence, air support, equipment and other logistical support, the Iraqi negotiator said.

Plan would let Iraq fight its own battles
U.S. officials have long maintained that the Iraqi army is “all teeth and no tail,” meaning it is entirely focused on combat but is unable to operate independently because of equipment and intelligence shortfalls. The agreement, as envisioned by Iraq, would shift military operations inside the country to emphasize Iraq’s combat strength with sophisticated background support from U.S. units. [complete article]

NEWS: Getting out of Iraq; the Awakening under threat

Attacks imperil U.S.-backed militias in Iraq
By Solomon Moore and Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times, January 24, 2008

American-backed Sunni militias who have fought Sunni extremists to a standstill in some of Iraq’s bloodiest battlegrounds are being hit with a wave of assassinations and bomb attacks, threatening a fragile linchpin of the military’s strategy to pacify the nation.

At least 100 predominantly Sunni militiamen, known as Awakening Council members or Concerned Local Citizens, have been killed in the past month, mostly around Baghdad and the provincial capital of Baquba, urban areas with mixed Sunni and Shiite populations, according to Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani. At least six of the victims were senior Awakening leaders, Iraqi officials said.

Violence is also shaking up the Awakening movement, many of whose members are former insurgents, in its birthplace in the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province. On Sunday, a teenage suicide bomber exploded at a gathering of Awakening leaders, killing Hadi Hussein al-Issawi, a midlevel sheik, and three other tribesmen.

Born nearly two years ago in Iraq’s western deserts, the Awakening movement has grown to an 80,000-member nationwide force, four-fifths of whose members are Sunnis. American military officials credit that force, along with the surge in United States troops, the Mahdi Army’s self-imposed cease-fire and an increase in Iraqi security forces, for a precipitous drop in civilian and military fatalities since July.

But the recent onslaught is jeopardizing that relative security and raising the prospect that the groups’ members might disperse, with many rejoining the insurgency, American officials said. [complete article]

A lesson in how to create Iraqi orphans. And then how to make life worse for them
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, January 24, 2008

It’s not difficult to create orphans in Iraq. If you’re an insurgent, you can blow yourself up in a crowded market. If you’re an American air force pilot, you can bomb the wrong house in the wrong village. Or if you’re a Western mercenary, you can fire 40 bullets into the widowed mother of 14-year-old Alice Awanis and her sisters Karoon and Nora, the first just 20, the second a year older. But when the three girls landed at Amman airport from Baghdad last week they believed that they were free of the horrors of Baghdad and might travel to Northern Ireland to escape the terrible memory of their mother’s violent death.

Alas, the milk of human kindness does not necessarily extend to orphans from Iraq – the country we invaded for supposedly humanitarian reasons, not to mention weapons of mass destruction. For as their British uncle waited for them at Queen Alia airport, Jordanian security men – refusing him even a five-minute conversation with the girls – hustled the sisters back on to the plane for Iraq. [complete article]

Democrats attack Iraq security proposal
By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post, January 24, 2008

The leading Democratic presidential candidates and their allies on Capitol Hill have launched fierce attacks in recent days on a White House plan to forge a new, long-term security agreement with the Iraqi government, complaining that the administration is trying to lock in a lasting U.S. military presence in Iraq before the next president takes office.

Among the top critics is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). She has used the past two Democratic presidential debates to blast President Bush for his effort, as she put it Monday in South Carolina, “to try to bind the United States government and his successor to his failed policy.”

Her concerns have been echoed by Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and other Democratic lawmakers who are focusing their fire on the administration’s plans for a long-term commitment to Iraq, after gaining little traction for their efforts to force a faster withdrawal of U.S. combat troops there. [complete article]