Category Archives: war in Iraq

NEWS, ANALYSIS & FEATURE: Orchestrated deception on the path to war

False pretenses
By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith, Center for Public Integrity, January 23, 2008

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war. [complete article]

See also, British government ordered to disclose draft Iraq dossier (The Guardian).

Troops felled by a ‘trust gap’
By Mark Perry, Asia Times, January 24, 2008

For many among the senior leadership at the Pentagon… the apparent successful spread of the “Awakening of the Tribes Movement” has been tempered by the realization that the initiative put in place in Fallujah and Ramadi and Babil could have been – and should have been – put into practice five years ago.

Pentagon officials are quick to blame former Iraq czar L Paul Bremer of the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) for the failure. “We’re reconstituting the Iraqi military, that’s all this is” a Pentagon official notes. “A lot of these guys in Babil that we’re paying lost their salaries when Bremer disbanded the Republican Guard and broke up the Ba’ath Party. It was a stupid move. So this is a make-good.”

Another Pentagon official remembers the opening to Gaood in 2004: “This should have been done then,” he says, “and I don’t understand why it wasn’t. Think of the blood, the enormous loss of life, the lost prestige, the failures.” Pentagon officers are also quick to point out that, while Petraeus has taken credit for the shift in strategy in Iraq, the “Awakening of the Tribes Movement” actually began long before he recommended an increase in American troops levels in the country. [complete article]

Iraq’s new law on ex-Baathists could bring another purge
By Amit R. Paley and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, January 23, 2008

Maj. Gen. Hussein al-Awadi, a former official in Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, became the commander of the Iraqi National Police despite a 2003 law barring the party from government.

But now, under new legislation promoted as way to return former Baathists to public life, the 56-year-old and thousands like him could be forced out of jobs they have been allowed to hold, according to Iraqi lawmakers and the government agency that oversees ex-Baathists.

“This new law is very confusing,” Awadi said. “I don’t really know what it means for me.”

He is not alone. More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. officials and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of U.S. hopes for the legislation.

Approved by parliament this month under pressure from U.S. officials, the law was heralded by President Bush and Iraqi leaders as a way to soothe the deep anger of many ex-Baathists — primarily Sunnis but also many Shiites such as Awadi — toward the Shiite-led government.

Yet U.S. officials and even legislators who voted for the measure, which still requires approval by Iraq’s presidency council, acknowledge that its impact is hard to assess from its text and will depend on how it is implemented. Some say the law’s primary aim is not to return ex-Baathists to work, but to recognize and compensate those harmed by the party. Of the law’s eight stated justifications, none mentions reinstating ex-Baathists to their jobs. [complete article]

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FEATURE: U.S. military breaks ranks – part one

A salvo at the White House
By Mark Perry, Asia Times, January 23, 2008

The fact that the Iraq war has been pushed off the front pages of America’s newspapers has given the US military a seeming respite from the almost endless spate of disastrous stories coming out of the Middle East, as well as the almost endless round of embarrassing questions from the press about what they intend to do about it.

But military officers say that the American public should not be fooled: the relative quiet in Iraq – and it is, after all, only a “relative quiet” – does not mean the “surge” has worked, or that the problems facing the US military have somehow magically gone away. Quite the opposite. For while the American public is consumed by the campaign for the presidency, the American military is not. Instead, they are as obsessed now, in January of 2008, with the war in Iraq as they were then, in 2003 – except that now, many military officers admit, the host of problems they face may, in fact, be much more intractable.

“Don’t let the quiet fool you,” a senior defense official says. “There’s still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the ‘surge’ has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That’s just ludicrous. There’s increasing quiet in Iraq, but that’s happened because of our shift in strategy – the ‘surge’ had nothing to do with it.” [complete article]

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NEWS & ANALYSIS: Iraq’s plundered heritage; tribal conflict

‘Ancient civilization . . . broken to pieces’
By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2008

He works as a blacksmith in one of Baghdad’s swarming Shiite slums. But at least once a month, Abu Saif tucks a pistol into his belt, hops into a minibus taxi and speeds south.

His goal: to unearth ancient treasures from thousands of archaeological sites scattered across southern Iraq.

Images of Baghdad’s ransacked National Museum, custodian of a collection dating back to the beginning of civilization, provoked an international outcry in the early days of the war in 2003.

The ancient statues, intricately carved stone panels, delicate earthenware and glittering gold are now protected by locked gates and heavily armed guards. But U.S. and Iraqi experts say a tragedy on an even greater scale continues to unfold at more than 12,000 largely unguarded sites where illegal diggers like Abu Saif are chipping away at Iraq’s heritage. [complete article]

Tea and tribal conflict in Iraq
By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2008

The meeting between the Marines and the power brokers of this border region began with pleasantries, an exchange of gifts, and the drinking of small cups of tea, very hot and very sweet.

But within a few minutes the subject turned to one of crucial importance to both sides: the possible rise of militias among Sunni tribes who feel disrespected and shut out of the mild economic upturn the region is enjoying.

The power brokers — the mayor, the sheiks, and the local Iraqi army general — are from the Albu Mahal tribe, the most powerful in the region.

The Mahals were the first of the tribes to join with the U.S. in fighting the insurgency while lesser tribes stayed neutral or assisted the insurgents.

Now that the insurgency has been largely suppressed, Mahal leaders feel it is their right to share in the benefits of peace, such as the flourishing downtown market in Husaybah and the recently opened port of entry that allows a free flow of goods to and from Syria. [complete article]

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NEWS: The foreign insurgent network; Sunni rivalries in Anbar

Papers paint new portrait of Iraq’s foreign insurgents
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, January 21, 2008

Muhammad Ayn-al-Nas, a 26-year-old Moroccan, started his journey in Casablanca. After flying to Turkey and then to Damascus, he reached his destination in a small Iraqi border town on Jan. 31, 2007. He was an economics student back home, he told the al-Qaeda clerk who interviewed him on arrival. Asked what sort of work he hoped to do in Iraq, Nas replied: “Martyr.”

Algerian Watsef Mussab, 29, who arrived in Iraq via Saudi Arabia and Syria, said he had come for combat. He complained that the Syrian smugglers who brought him to the border took his money, but he contributed what he had left to the insurgent cause — a watch, a ring and an MP3 player.

Hanni al-Sagheer, a computer technician from Yemen and aspiring suicide volunteer, gave the clerk his home telephone number and also that of his brother.

Their stories are among the individual records of 606 foreign fighters who entered Iraq between August 2006 and August 2007. The cache of documents was discovered last fall by U.S. forces in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar.

Some include pictures — bearded men in a turban or kaffiyeh, some smiling and some scowling — in addition to names and aliases, home countries, birthdays and dates of entry into Iraq. Many list their occupations at home, whether plumber, laborer, policeman, lawyer, soldier or teacher. There is a “massage specialist,” a “weapons merchant,” a few “unemployed” and many students.

The youngest was 16 when he crossed into Iraq; the oldest was 54. Most expressed interest in a suicide mission.

The records [PDF] are “one of the deepest reservoirs of information we’ve ever obtained of the network going into Iraq,” according to a U.S. official closely familiar with intelligence on the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. [complete article]

In Anbar, Sunni rivalries surface
By Ned Parker and Saif Rasheed, Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2008

Hadi Hussein, a Sunni fighter working with U.S. and Iraqi forces, was receiving well-wishers Sunday when his 18-year-old cousin walked up with a box of chocolates. The teenager offered a candy, but didn’t wait for a response. He detonated hidden explosives, killing himself, Hussein and four others.

“This is life, we have two brothers, one is good, one is bad in the same family,” said Aftan Sadoun Aftan, the head of Hussein’s Sunni Arab paramilitary unit in the village of Ameriyat Fallouja in Anbar province.

Hussein had just been freed by the Americans after being wrongly detained for a week, said Aftan, who left the party a few minutes before the blast. About 20 clansmen were drinking juice and eating candies when the teen, Ali Abdullah Hussein, set off his explosives.

The bloodshed Sunday, one day after two suicide bombers killed a pair of policemen in nearby Ramadi, was a reminder of how complicated the dynamics remain in Anbar, where the violence is not just strictly a matter of tribesmen rising up against Islamic radicals. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Sadr’s shift; surge to nowhere; war comes home

The great Moqtada makeover
By Babak Dehghanpisheh, Newsweek, January 19, 2008

In the West Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriya, 25-year-old Saif Awad was known as “the Assassin.” He didn’t look like a killer. Handsome and well groomed, Awad made a show of attending prayers and Shiite religious celebrations. But, locals say, he also ran a brutal kidnapping ring linked to Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and shook down newcomers to Hurriya—even other Shiites—for protection money. In recent months he’d taken to wearing flashier clothes and flaunting his two new cars. He was driving one of them to the shop last November when three men on motorcycles roared up and riddled the Toyota with bullets, killing Awad. An eyewitness, who asked to remain anonymous for his own safety, says the killers were fellow members of the Mahdi Army. “Death is the punishment for those who disobey the Mahdi Army,” says Bassim Abdul Zahra, a Hurriya resident close to the militia. “By killing these dissenters, the leadership sends a warning.” [complete article]

Surge to nowhere
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Post, January 20, 2008

As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the “surge” is working.

In President Bush’s pithy formulation, the United States is now “kicking ass” in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that “we are winning in Iraq.” While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain’s remark captures the essence of the emerging story line: Events have (yet again) reached a turning point. There, at the far end of the tunnel, light flickers. Despite the hand-wringing of the defeatists and naysayers, victory beckons.

From the hallowed halls of the American Enterprise Institute waft facile assurances that all will come out well. AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht assures us that the moment to acknowledge “democracy’s success in Iraq” has arrived. To his colleague Michael Ledeen, the explanation for the turnaround couldn’t be clearer: “We were the stronger horse, and the Iraqis recognized it.” In an essay entitled “Mission Accomplished” that is being touted by the AEI crowd, Bartle Bull, the foreign editor of the British magazine Prospect, instructs us that “Iraq’s biggest questions have been resolved.” Violence there “has ceased being political.” As a result, whatever mayhem still lingers is “no longer nearly as important as it was.” Meanwhile, Frederick W. Kagan, an AEI resident scholar and the arch-advocate of the surge, announces that the “credibility of the prophets of doom” has reached “a low ebb.” [complete article]

An Iraq veteran’s descent; a prosecutor’s choice
By Deborah Sontag, New York Times, January 20, 2008

Not long after Lance Cpl. Walter Rollo Smith returned from Iraq, the Marines dispatched him to Quantico, Va., for a marksmanship instructor course.

Mr. Smith, then a 21-year-old Marine Corps reservist from Utah, had been shaken to the core by the intensity of his experience during the invasion of Iraq. Once a squeaky-clean Mormon boy who aspired to serve a mission abroad, he had come home a smoker and drinker, unsure if he believed in God.

In Quantico, he reported to the firing range with a friend from Fox Company, the combined Salt Lake City-Las Vegas battalion nicknamed the Saints and Sinners. Raising his rifle, he stared through the scope and started shaking. What he saw were not the inanimate targets before him but vivid, hallucinatory images of Iraq: “the cars coming at us, the chaos, the dust, the women and children, the bodies we left behind,” he said. [complete article]

Scenes from a marriage in Baghdad
By Damien Cave, New York Times, January 20, 2008

A soldier screamed out a warning. And as we began to walk slowly in each other’s footsteps, leaving a safe distance between us, I started to think about Diana. I needed to contact her, to keep her out of the fields.

Safely on the road, I grabbed a tall soldier with a radio and asked for a favor. “There’s one of our reporters with another squad, and I need to get her out,” I told him.

Sergeant Wisniewski’s unit was heading back to the base, and another squad was preparing to take its place. Humvees and soldiers swirled around us.

“Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you with this. It’s just that the reporter isn’t just a colleague. She’s also my wife.”

His eyes widened, and he said he’d help. I felt awkward raising the issue. After all, Diana and I had willingly come to Iraq for The New York Times — I’m a reporter, she’s a videographer — and we had agreed to keep our relationship out of our work, especially around soldiers who already had enough to worry about. But I couldn’t help it. [complete article]

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NEWS: White House cover-up

White House missing CIA, Iraq e-mails
AP, January 19, 2008

Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures.

The gaps — 473 days over a period of 20 months — are cited in a chart prepared by White House computer technicians and shared in September with the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee, which has been looking into reports of missing e-mail.

Among the times for which e-mail may not have been archived from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office are four days in early October 2003, just as a federal probe was beginning into the leak of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity, an inquiry that eventually ensnared Cheney’s chief of staff.

Contents of the chart — which the White House now disputes — were disclosed Thursday by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House committee, as he announced plans for a Feb. 15 hearing. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Iraq’s illusive political solution

Federalism, not partition
By Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Washington Post, January 19, 2008

Overall, Shiites see their future based on two fundamental “rights”: Power must be exercised by the political majority through control of governmental institutions, and institutional sectarian discrimination must be eliminated. Kurds see their future bound to their “rights” of linguistic, cultural, financial and resource control within Kurdistan. Sunni Arabs are driven by resistance to their loss of power, as well as fear of revenge for past wrongs and the potential for reverse discrimination.

The current political framework is based on a pluralistic democratic vision that, while admirable, is entirely unsuited to resolving this three-way divide. It ignores underlying issues and expects that a consensus will emerge simply by enacting a liberal constitutional legal order.

Pluralistic democracy will not take root unless the national political compact recognizes and accommodates the fears and aspirations of Iraq’s communities. Resolution can be achieved only through a system that incorporates regional federalism, with clear, mutually acceptable distributions of power between the regions and the central government. Such a system is in the interest of all Iraqis and is necessary if Iraq is to avoid partition or further civil strife. [complete article]

Iraq faces ‘slide back to conflict’ without rapid reconstruction
By Martin Fletcher, The Times, January 18, 2008

Iraq’s government must rapidly raise its game to cement the country’s fragile new peace, the United States ambassador in Baghdad has declared.

Iraq was “immeasurably better” than a year ago, Ryan Crocker told The Times, but Nouri al-Maliki’s administration had to provide jobs and services to undercut the militias and prevent a slide back to conflict. “Failure to consolidate security gains with progress in other areas would be highly dangerous.”

In a wide-ranging interview Mr Crocker also urged Britain to maintain a force near Basra, saying it still had an important role advising Iraqi commanders, supporting reconstruction efforts, and guarding American supply routes. [complete article]

Iraq may need military help for years, officials say
By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, January 18, 2008

Senior U.S. military officials projected yesterday that the Iraqi army and police will grow to an estimated 580,000 members by the end of the year but that shortages of key personnel, equipment, weaponry and logistical capabilities mean that Iraq’s security forces will probably require U.S. military support for as long as a decade.

“The truth is that they simply cannot fix, supply, arm or fuel themselves completely enough at this point,” said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, head of the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq.

The Iraqi government has been increasing its forces “much more aggressively” in response to the high violence levels witnessed in 2006 and early 2007, Dubik said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. [complete article]

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NEWS ROUNDUP: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Syria

Bush prods Saudi Arabia on high oil prices
By Stephen Lee Myers, New York Times, January 16, 2008

President Bush urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday to take into account the toll that high oil prices are having on the American economy, gingerly touching on an issue that has begun to color the last year of his presidency and dominate the presidential election campaign. [complete article]

U.S. offers Saudis ‘smart’ arms technology
By James Gerstenzang, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2008

The most controversial element of the sales is the offer to the Saudis of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, technology that allows standard weapons to be converted into precision-guided bombs. The deal envisions the transfer to Saudi forces of 900 upgrade kits worth about $120 million. [complete article]

Minister sees need for U.S. help in Iraq until 2018
By Thom Shanker, New York Times, January 15, 2008

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018. [complete article]

U.S. shifts Sunni strategy in Iraq
By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2008

More than 70,000 members of mostly Sunni Arab groups now work for American forces in neighborhood security programs. Transferring them to the control of the Shiite Muslim-dominated government, as policemen and members of public works crews, has taken on a new urgency as American troops begin to withdraw, officials indicated in recent interviews, meetings and briefings. [complete article]

Ex-Baathists get a break. Or do they?
By Solomon Moore, New York Times, January 14, 2008

A day after the Iraqi Parliament passed legislation billed as the first significant political step forward in Iraq after months of deadlock, there were troubling questions — and troubling silences — about the measure’s actual effects. [complete article]

Bush trip revives Israeli push for pardon of spy
By Jonathan Finer, Washington Post, January 15, 2008

A balding, bearded visage loomed over President Bush’s visit here last week, peering down from banners and from posters on buses barreling along quiet streets. The face was that of Jonathan Pollard, an American who pleaded guilty in 1986 to passing top-secret information to Israel. [complete article]

Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship
Haaretz, January 14, 2008

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples. [complete article]

Olmert faces right-wing rebellion
By Donald Macintyre, The Independent, January 15, 2008

With Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the most right-wing party in Mr Olmert’s government already threatening to walk out, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud, urged both him and the religious party Shas to do so “to stop this process”. [complete article]

Haaretz probe: Shin Bet count of Gaza civilian deaths is too low
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, January 14, 2008

Israeli security forces killed 810 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in 2006 and 2007, Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin reported Sunday at the weekly cabinet briefing in Jerusalem. He estimated that some 200 of those killed were not clearly linked to terrorist organizations. [complete article]

Syria rebuilds on site destroyed by Israeli bombs
By William J. Broad, New York Times, January 12, 2008

The puzzling site in Syria that Israeli jets bombed in September grew more curious on Friday with the release of a satellite photograph showing new construction there that [vaguely] resembles the site’s former main building. [complete article]

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ANALYSIS: Bush will hand his successor a fait accompli on Iraq

Bush shakes up ’08 Iraq debate
By Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, January 12, 2008

Camp Arifjan in the desert kingdom of Kuwait, America’s depot to the Iraq war, feels about as far away as you can get from South Carolina, Super Tuesday and the election-year squabbles back home. And George W. Bush, who is currently midway through his six-nation tour of the Mideast, is doing a good job of distancing himself from the politics of 2008. But as Bush rallied U.S. troops at the base here on Saturday with a “Hoo-ah” and conferred with his Iraq dream team, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, he indicated that he was setting in motion policies that could dramatically affect the presidential race–and any decisions the next president makes in 2009.

In remarks to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government modeled on the accords the United States has with Kuwait and many other countries. Crocker, who flew in from Baghdad with Petraeus to meet with the president, elaborated: “We’re putting our team together now, making preparations in Washington,” he told reporters. “The Iraqis are doing the same. And in the few weeks ahead, we would expect to get together to start this negotiating process.” The target date for concluding the agreement is July, says Gen. Doug Lute, Bush’s Iraq coordinator in the White House–in other words, just in time for the Democratic and Republican national conventions. [complete article]

Vanishing act
By Noah Feldman, New York Times, January 13, 2008

What if the United States were at war during a presidential election — and none of the candidates wanted to talk about it? Iraq has become the great disappearing issue of the early primary season, and if nothing fundamental changes on the ground there — a probable result of current policy — the war may disappear even more completely in the new year.

The reasons for Iraq’s political eclipse begin with the unfortunate fact that candidates strive to create feel-good associations, and the war is a certain downer. The film studios could barely get a Middle East movie to break even in the past 12 months (“In the Valley of Elah,” anyone?), and the political image makers have apparently taken note. [complete article]

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FEATURE: Fighting over there, then killing back here

Across America, deadly echoes of foreign battles
By Deborah Sontage and Lizette Alvarez, New York Times, January 13, 2008

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction. [complete article]

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NEWS & OPINION: Re-Baathification; Basra’s ‘misery gangs’ murdering women

Iraq eases curb for former officials of Hussein’s party
By Richard A Oppel Jr. and Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, January 13, 2008

The Iraqi Parliament passed a bill on Saturday that would allow some former officials from Saddam Hussein’s party to fill government positions but would impose a strict ban on others. The legislation is the first of the major so-called political benchmark measures to pass after months of American pressure for progress.

The measure, which is expected to be approved as a law by the presidential council, was described by its backers as opening the door for the reinstatement of thousands of low-level Baath Party members barred from office after the 2003 invasion. Since then, the Bush administration has urged the Iraqi government to reintegrate many officials in order to help mend the deep rifts between Sunni Arabs who used to control the government under Mr. Hussein and the Shiites who now dominate politics here.

However, it was unclear on Saturday how far the legislation would go toward soothing Sunni Arabs, because serious disagreements emerged in the hours after the vote about how much the law would actually do.

While the measure would reinstate many former Baathists, some political leaders said it would also force thousands of other former party members out of current government jobs and into retirement — especially in the security forces, where American military officials have worked hard to increase the role of Sunnis. One member of Iraq’s current de-Baathification committee said the law could even push 7,000 active Interior Ministry employees into retirement. [complete article]

Who is killing the women of Basra?
By Yifat Susskind, ZNet, January 10, 2008

In Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, 2008 was ushered in with an announcement of the 2007 death toll of women targeted by Islamist militias. City officials reported on December 31 that 133 women were killed and mutilated last year, their bodies dumped in trash bins with notes warning others against “violating Islamic teachings…” But ambulance drivers who are hired to troll the city streets in the early mornings to collect the bodies confirm what most residents believe: the actual numbers are much higher.

The killers’ leaflets are not very original. They usually accuse the women of being prostitutes or adulterers. But those murdered are more likely to be doctors, professors, or journalists. We know this because activists from the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) have taken on the gruesome task of visiting city morgues to try and determine the scale and pattern of the killings. According to OWFI, most of the women who have been murdered “are PhD holders, professionals, activists, and office workers.”

Their crime is not “promiscuity,” but rather opposition to the transformation of Iraq into an Islamist state. That bloody transition has been the main political trend under US occupation. It’s no secret who is killing the women of Basra. Shiite political forces empowered by the US invasion have been terrorizing women there since 2003. Within weeks of the invasion, these groups established “Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” squads, which many Iraqis refer to simply as “misery gangs.” They began by patrolling the streets, harassing and sometimes beating women who did not dress or behave to their liking. Coalition forces did nothing to stop them, and soon the militias escalated their violence to torturing and assassinating anyone who they saw as an obstacle to turning Iraq into an Islamist state. [complete article]

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Counting the dead

New estimate of violent deaths among Iraqis – 151,000
By David Brown and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, January 10, 2008

A new survey estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the three years following the U.S.-led invasion of the country. Roughly 9 out of 10 of those deaths were a consequence of U.S. military operations, insurgent attacks and sectarian warfare.

The survey, conducted by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization, also found a 60 percent increase in nonviolent deaths — from such causes as childhood infections and kidney failure — during the period. The results, which will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of the month, are the latest of several widely divergent and controversial estimates of mortality attributed to the Iraq war.

The three-year toll of violent deaths calculated in the survey is one-quarter the size of that found in a smaller survey by Iraqi and Johns Hopkins University researchers published in the journal Lancet in 2006. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The Washington Post‘s attention focuses on the fact that this number is lower than some other estimates. Another way of stating the number is to say that 151,000 people (and many more) are now dead as a result of the foreign policy that the U.S. government crafted in response to the deaths of 2,974 people on September 11, 2001. Or to put it another way: for every individual who lost his or her life on 9/11, another 50 people have died as a result. Or to put it yet another way, 50 non-Americans are supposedly worth less than one American.

U.S. bombs Iraqi insurgent hideouts
By Solomon Moore, New York Times, January 11, 2008

American bombers and fighter aircraft dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions in the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Thursday, the United States military said.

In one of the largest airstrikes in recent months, two B-1 and four F-16 aircraft dropped 38 bombs within 10 minutes near the Latifiya district south of Baghdad, the military said. The airstrikes were accompanied by a large Iraqi and American ground assault.

The air attack was part of a nationwide joint offensive that includes a continuing sweep in Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, and raids Thursday in Salahuddin Province, northwest of the capital, between Samarra and Ramadi. [complete article]

See also, Blast kills 6 as troops hunt Iraqi insurgents (WP).

For U.S., the goal is now ‘Iraqi solutions’
By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, January 10, 2008

In the year since President Bush announced he was changing course in Iraq with a troop “surge” and a new strategy, U.S. military and diplomatic officials have begun their own quiet policy shift. After countless unsuccessful efforts to push Iraqis toward various political, economic and security goals, they have decided to let the Iraqis figure some things out themselves.

From Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to Army privates and aid workers, officials are expressing their willingness to stand back and help Iraqis develop their own answers. “We try to come up with Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems,” said Stephen Fakan, the leader of a provincial reconstruction team with U.S. troops in Fallujah.

In many cases — particularly on the political front — Iraqi solutions bear little resemblance to the ambitious goals for 2007 that Bush laid out in his speech to the nation last Jan. 10. “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis,” he pledged. “Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year . . . the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.” [complete article]

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NEWS: Diyala attack too big to be secret

U.S. attack in Iraq is no surprise to many insurgents
By Stephen Farrell, New York Times, January 9, 2008

With extraordinary secrecy, and even an information blackout aimed at most of their Iraqi Army comrades, American troops began a major offensive on Tuesday to drive Sunni insurgents from strongholds in Diyala Province. But many insurgents still managed to flee the first villages the Americans went into, showing just how difficult it is to trap the elusive militants.

Because at least half the insurgents escaped before an offensive last June, American planners deliberately kept most Iraqi units in the dark before this one, a tactic that suggests they cannot fully trust the allies who are supposed to pick up more of the fighting as American troops scale back their presence this year.

The militants may have been tipped by leaks or by the visible movements of troops and machinery that precede any operation. [complete article]

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NEWS: U.S.-backed insurgents find empowering role

New leaders of Sunnis make gains in influence
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, January 8, 2008

Saad Mahami wanted more firepower. He didn’t trust the Iraqi government to give him support, so inside Patrol Base Whiskey, at the edge of this village south of Baghdad, he told U.S. commanders that his 71 Sunni fighters needed additional weapons to fight the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

As he listened to Mahami’s demand, Capt. David Underwood reminded his superiors that Mahami’s men — all members of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary movement called Sahwa, or “Awakening” — were already buying arms with U.S. reward money for finding enemy ammunition dumps. “And as we confiscate weapons, we hand them to Saad Mahami,” Underwood told Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top commander in the region, during their meeting with the Iraqi.

The United States is empowering a new group of Sunni leaders, including onetime members of former president Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, intelligence services and army, who are challenging established Sunni politicians for their community’s leadership. The phenomenon marks a sharp turnaround in U.S. policy and the fortunes of Iraq’s Sunni minority.

The new leaders are decidedly against Iraq’s U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government, which is wary of the Awakening movement’s growing influence, viewing it as a potential threat when U.S. troops withdraw. The mistrust suggests how easily last year’s security improvements could come undone in a still-brittle Iraq. [complete article]

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NEWS: Key “Sunni Awakening” leader killed

Suicide bomber kills key Sunni leader in Baghdad
By Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times, January 8, 2008

A suicide bomber assassinated a key leader of American-backed militia forces in a Sunni stronghold of Baghdad on Monday morning, the latest attack on nationalist Sunnis who have recently allied themselves with American troops. That attack, and a second bomb that exploded minutes later, killed at least six and wounded another 26 in total, hospital officials said.

The killing of the militia leader, Col. Riyadh al-Samarrai, on the fringes of north Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, was one of the most significant attacks so far on leaders of former Sunni insurgents who have banded into militias, known as Awakening groups, to fight extremist militants.

Colonel Samarrai was one of the leaders of the Sunni Awakening movement in Adhamiyah, and was also a close aide and a security adviser to the head of the Sunni Endowment, which oversees Iraq’s Sunni mosques and is one of the most powerful Sunni institutions in Iraq. [complete article]

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NEWS: The threat from the militias; divisions among Sunnis

Exit al-Qaeda. Enter the militias?
By Charles Crain, Time, January 1, 2008

In 2007 the United States military put its most dangerous enemy on the run. In 2008 it may face an even more entrenched foe. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the primary target of the American troop surge and counter-insurgency strategy, appears to be on its last legs after a year of being attacked from all sides. But Shi’ite militias, which have deep roots in Iraq’s Shi’a communities and the Shi’ite-dominated government, may now pose a more serious long-term threat.

In some ways AQI was a victim of its own success. It is practically the only organization in Iraq that all the other players in the country saw as an unacceptable threat. Both the U.S. military and the Shi’ite-dominated government had fought the Sunni jihadist group for years. By the beginning of 2007, Sunni tribal leaders and nationalist insurgents had also begun battling with their former allies in AQI in order to retake control of Sunni communities. [complete article]

Sunnis divided in Anbar province
By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times, January 3, 2008

From a podium decked in flowers and the Iraqi flag, a Sunni Muslim sheik in a pinstriped suit politely welcomed the Shiite guests who had driven up from Baghdad, before launching into a tirade about the lack of jobs and essential services in this former insurgent bastion.

The focus of his anger, however, was not the Shiite-led national government, but fellow Sunni Arabs on the Anbar provincial council.

Anbar is the success story of the U.S. strategy to combat the insurgency from the ground up by striking alliances with local leaders. But though the tribal sheiks’ rebellion against the militants they once backed has calmed the region and opened the door to political dialogue with Iraq’s majority Shiites, it has deepened divisions among Sunnis.

As violence has faded, an argument has been raging over who really speaks for Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority: the province’s largely secular and fiercely independent tribal leaders, who resisted the U.S. invasion, or the main Sunni political party, an Islamist group led by former exiles who cooperated with the Americans from the start. [complete article]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & INTERVIEW: America’s attention shifting away from Iraq

On campaign trail, domestic issues now outweigh Iraq
By Adam Nagourney, New York Times, January 3, 2008

The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are navigating a far different set of issues as they approach the Iowa caucuses on Thursday than when they first started campaigning here a year ago, and that is likely to change even more as the campaigns move to New Hampshire and across the country.

Even though polls show that Iowa Democrats still consider the war in Iraq the top issue facing the country, the war is becoming a less defining issue among Democrats nationally, and it has moved to the back of the stage in the rush of campaign rallies, town hall meetings and speeches that are bringing the caucus competition to an end. Instead, candidates are being asked about, and are increasingly talking about, the mortgage crisis, rising gas costs, health care, immigration, the environment and taxes.

The shift suggests that economic anxiety may be at least matching national security as a factor driving the 2008 presidential contest as the voting begins. [complete article]

Edwards calls for quick end to Iraq training
By Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, January 2, 2008

John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months.

Mr. Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who is waging a populist campaign for the Democratic nomination, said that extending the American training effort in Iraq into the next presidency would require the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to provide logistical support and protect the advisers.

“To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq,” he said in a 40-minute interview on Sunday aboard his campaign bus as it rumbled through western Iowa. [complete article]

Attacker bombs pro-U.S. Sunnis in Iraq
By Solomon Moore, New York Times, January 3, 2008

A suicide bomber in turbulent Diyala Province detonated an explosive vest on Wednesday at a checkpoint operated by armed Sunni Arab tribesmen who have turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and pledged support to the United States military.

The bomber emerged from behind a fruit stand near the checkpoint in downtown Baquba, leapt onto the hood of a BMW and detonated the explosives, killing Abu Sadjat, a local tribal chief who had just left a meeting with American military officials. The Iraqi police said the blast killed at least six Iraqis and wounded 22 others. [complete article]

Seven questions: Gen. David Petraeus on winding down the surge
Foreign Policy interview with Gen. David Petraeus, January, 2008

Foreign Policy: These days when you speak about the surge, you always highlight positive developments but you also appear very cautious. What are your concerns?

Gen. David Petraeus: We are trying to be cautious as we describe the progress that is taking place in Iraq. It has been substantial. We have seen a consistent reduction in the level of violence—a reduction of 60 percent since June, really to a level not seen since the spring of 2005. There has been a corresponding reduction in the loss of civilian lives, Iraqi, and coalition force casualties. Having said all that, it is a fragile achievement, and there are a number of concerns that we do have. We feel as if we’ve knocked al Qaeda to the canvas, but we know that, like any boxer, they can come back up off that canvas and lend a big, right-hand punch. We also have concerns about the militias and the elements of the [Mahdi Army] militia that have not been honoring Moqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire pledge.

FP: Based on the experience of the British, who as they draw down are leaving a lot of instability behind them in southern Iraq, how can you can be confident going forward as U.S. forces withdraw?

DP: We have already begun a reduction, and we’ll reduce another number over the course of the next seven months. We do that with a reasonable degree of confidence because our surge is taking place and the Iraqi surge is taking place as well, and it amplifies what we have done. In fact, the Iraqis have formed 160,000 police, soldiers, border police, and other security force elements during the past year. To be sure, there’s an uneven nature to their quality, to their capability, and to their level of training and equipping, but they’re significant in quantity. And quantity does mean quality in counterinsurgency operations, because you’ve got to secure so many infrastructures against the terrorist and insurgent and militia elements. We think that what we have been handing over has been winnowed down in terms of the nature of the problem in a way that they can handle it. And only when they can handle it we will have this transfer. [complete article]

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NEWS: Old and new year in Iraq

In a safer Baghdad, Iraqis party for 2008
By Peter Graff, Reuters, December 31, 2007

On New Year’s Eve Ridaa al-Azzawi squeezed into his pointy snakeskin boots, his tight black sweater and his snazzy corduroy flared jeans, hustled down to a Baghdad hotel ballroom and partied for peace.

2008 arrived in a less-violent Baghdad, and residents said it was the first real party they had seen in years.

At the stroke of midnight, exuberant locals fired into the air with automatic rifles, sending red tracer fire streaking over the city, as fireworks lit up the sky. [complete article]

Iraq deaths surged and also fell in 2007
By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2008

December emerged as possibly the safest month for U.S. forces in Iraq since the 2003 invasion and the least deadly for Iraqi civilians in the last 12 months, but overall 2007 was the bloodiest year of the war, according to figures released Monday.

The Iraqi Ministry of Health said 481 civilians died nationwide last month in war-related violence such as bombings, mortar attacks and sectarian slayings. It said 16,232 civilians died last year. The 2006 death toll was 12,320. [complete article]

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