Republicans unfazed by "Phase Two" report

The "Phase 2" intelligence report proves exactly what so many people (like me) said in the build-up to the invasion. It wasn't that there wasn't any media pointing this out, it was that one had to dig deep and go to foreign news sources to find out about the dubious claims the Administration made.

It is completely clear that the Bush Administration, and their minions in the Pentagon, went out of their way to only look for information that supported their assertions. Iraqi exiles, many of whom had not been to Iraq in decades, were used as sources (and handsomely compensated) for reports that described the inner workings and policies of Hussein's administration. These exiles were, in fact, coached in their "evidence" by being told in advance which "facts" would be paid for and which ones wouldn't, as well as being told which "facts" would discredit them as a source. Beyond that, it appears that this propensity for gullibility allowed the Iranian intelligence services to shape the "information" provided in order to facilitate Iran's goal of seeing their greatest foe, Saddam, removed from power.

The reason that so many foreign intelligence services concluded the same thing as the Bush Administration is that these foreign services were provided the same false information that the Administration presented as fact. In one case, the Niger yellowcake "fact", the British intelligence services questioned whether this assertion relied on a known-to-be-discredited report from a few years previous. In fact, the assertion did, but the Administration had simply re-packaged the discredited report and pressured some all-too-compliant flunkies to present it as something new, so that it could be said with a straight face that this was "new intelligence". Over and over again, foreign intelligence services started with the premise that the Administration's assertions were sound, and again and again "discovered" the same phony informants providing the same phony "facts" and vouched for by the U.S. In short, the Administration misled not only America, but our allies as well.

Thus, the world was led to believe that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was willing to (and planning to) give them to Al-Qaeda. The world was also led to believe that Al-Qaeda was allied with Saddam, and thus the invasion would be "payback" for 9/11. Saddam was also alleged to have nuclear weapons, though we weren't exactly sure about that. But if he did, that meant he would provide them to Al-Qaeda, wouldn't it? I mean, if Botswana had nukes, they could provide them to Al-Qaeda, so hadn't we better invade Botswana, too? This line of reasoning could be used to justify the invasion of any nation on the planet. Any country that had a brewery could, conceivably, produce biological weapons. And they could, conceivably, sell them to Al-Qaeda. Any country that had a high-school chemistry lab could produce chemical weapons, and thus could make these weapons available to Al-Qaeda.

So the Administration set up a generic, one-size-fits-all case for the invasion, occupation, and installation of a "friendly" (i.e. puppet) government of any nation. Then it created a NIE that boldly proclaimed the right of the U.S. to invade any country that could be a threat, even if it was not a threat at the time. And when the President made his statement that "you are either with us or against us", it was clear what was implied: any world leader that failed to say what they supposed to say, or do what they were expected to do, was a potential target for invasion.
And then they pointed to the support of these world leaders as some kind of vindication of their case.

It was circular logic on an astounding scale, given credence by the mistaken belief that the U.S. wouldn't actually lie so boldly, so profoundly, so comprehensively about something.
But, of course, we now know that they did. The entire world knows it, too. The foreign leaders that jostled to be first on the list to crawl up Bush's rectum have now been removed from office and discredited. Their careers are over. And if a real threat were ever to emerge, the U.S. would be hard-pressed to persuade the international community of it's credibility. Thus, Bush has made us weaker, more vulnerable, and less prepared to deal with terrorism. On the plus side, we got rid of one of several dictators in the Middle East and one of dozens in the world. In doing so, we removed the primary obstacle to Iran's regional dominance and virtually created a failed state to take Saddam's place.

Kel at The Osterley Times has video of MSNBC's report on the Phase 2 report.

You may also wish to check out the DailyKos post titled "The Two Realities" for a look at how the neo-cons and their media minions are spinning this report. An excerpt:

Basically, there are two interpretations of the report. One conclusion is that Bush, Cheney, and other war proponents drastically stretched the true meaning of what intelligence they did have in order to make a case not borne out by that evidence. They took some true intelligence, and some known-to-be-untrustworthy intelligence, and some "intelligence" that consisted of nothing more than nonsense fabricated by the administration intended to heighten the perception of imminent massive threat, and presented it to the public, and Congress, and even the United Nations in an attempt to make the case for preemptive war against a secondary power with no connection to the actual terrorist attacks we were supposedly responding to.

The other interpretation, which Hiatt elucidates masterfully, is (1) Who Cares, It's Old News, and (2) Well, They Didn't Lie About Everything, So There, and (3) You'd Better Let Them Stretch Intelligence All They Want Next Time Too Or You'll Be Sorry Because The Terrorists Will Get You.

With regard to the summary of Hiatt's points, it sounds incredibly weak.
It is "old news" precisely because the Administration has stonewalled for so long. It is relevant because, as I said before, the world (and the American public) will now be deeply suspicious of any assessment of any future threat, even if it is real. It is also relevant because the neocons and the Bush Administration continue to conflate Iraq with 9/11 and continue to assert that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has made us safer at home. This is simply another case of the Republicans diverting attention from their lies and errors by asking the world to "move on" and "stop pointing fingers", while admitting nothing. Does anyone remember how the Republicans described (and some continue to describe) those who questioned the invasion and occupation as "traitors", "America-haters", and "supporters of terrorism"? One wonders where this grandiose aversion to "finger-pointing" was then. Iraq was, and still is, the primary "achievement" of the neocons, but now they are asking us to stop looking so closely at it. It is the primary justification for the Republican efforts to circumvent the Constitution, but this is now something that is "old news" and need not be examined further. Even as McCain (and most of the other Republicans that were up for their Party's nomination) contends that Iraq is the "pre-eminent challenge of our century", they still try to dismiss the basis for it as a settled issue.

Iraq is the foundation of Republican self-identification. One cannot be taken seriously in the GOP even today without acknowledging that the invasion was necessary and fully justified, and should be pursued to whatever capricious and ever-shifting definition of "success" or "victory" the Party comes up with. Thus, it is completely relevant to discuss that the rationale for the invasion and occupation was flawed, false, and distorted. As long as the GOP continues to support, defend, and take credit for the invasion of Iraq, then the examination of the underpinnings of that policy are fair game.

Some of the "facts" that the Administration presented turned out to be untrue, but the Administration contends that it was merely the victim of faulty intelligence. However, it is clear from former Administration officials that there was an eagerness to discard contrary evidence, and to prevent anything that might lead to contrary evidence from even being examined. In short, the Bush Administration created a situation that encouraged faulty intelligence to be provided to them, and penalised those who worked to provide a contrary case. Thus, if the Administration was a victim, it was a willing victim.

Let's not lose sight of what the Bush Administration's plan was: an easy invasion and a hand-off to Ahmed Chalabi's puppet government, and a happily-ever-after ending. Then bask in the glory of success and a permanent Republican majority, backed by a police state.
The Republicans gambled and lost.
However, the mere fact they could have gambled and won is now being trotted out as some kind of lame-ass excuse for the faithful.
So if anyone takes their mortgage payment and spends it on lottery tickets, then the mortgage company is just being a bunch of small-minded bastards if they move to foreclose on you, because you could have won millions. So let's not "point fingers" at people over why we are now living in a cardboard box in the alley. Let's "move on" and focus on getting a spot a the local homeless shelter. Let's "come together" and stop the "useless bickering" over who gambled away what and who ended up suffering. And, most importantly, let's not come away from this thinking that we shouldn't try to go for those millions again, because we could win next time. Don't you want to win?

Yes, the Republicans now want the world to acknowledge the brilliance of their policies, based not on the real outcome, but rather the best possible outcome. And this has been one of the primary trademarks of the Republicans, as I have said before: The best possible outcome is the only likely outcome. If you fail to believe that, then you somehow fail to believe in America. This means you that "hate America", and everything you say can be dismissed out of hand.
Nothing has changed. The circular logic of the neo-conservatives remains a fixture and staple of the GOP. The neo-cons remain eager and ready to employ this circular logic as often as is possible, because there is simply no price to be paid when they gamble and lose.

No Soup For You

The Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has issued a new fatwa concerning the occupation troops.
See here and here for Prof. Juan Cole's take on Sistani's recent rumblings on the approval of attacks on foreign occupation troops. The latest development is that apparently Sistani has forbidden the sale of food to occupation troops.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani replied:

' Selling foodstuffs to the Occupying Powers is not permitted.'

He is also rumoured to be preparing public statements in opposition to the new SFA between Iraq and the U.S.

Sistani is a very important Shia leader. Although Sunnis would not consider such a fatwa binding on a Sunni, it certainly carries at least symbolic weight among all of the region's Muslims. The "Awakening" (Sahwa) forces have been getting a generally raw deal from the Iraqi government for some time, and a feeling that they are working against their own long-term interests has been growing. On top of this, Maliki is not honouring his end of the truce with the Sadrists and has arrested hundreds of them during Friday prayers. These Sadrists will be held in the torture centres known as the Iraqi prison system, likely without trial. While wingnuts may applaud such a show of "strength", such an action weakens Maliki by proving that he cannot be relied upon in future truces.

Of course, the ban on food sales shouldn't seriously impact the occupation troops, but it does leave the door open for further decrees of non-cooperation with those troops. It also symbolically bolsters the support of Shia leaders such as Sadr.

Stunning "progress" in Iraq

Just a quick take on the Iraqi situation before I have to return my neighbour's laptop.

Al-Maliki is becoming the Iraqi version of Bush. He threw his Army into Basra with almost no planning and no intelligence. Who could have predicted that armoured vehicles couldn't penetrate the narrow streets of Basra? Who knew that the Basra police would desert and mutiny when it's been clear for years that they are infiltrated by the militias? Who could have possibly anticipated that the conflict would spread to other cities, or that the Army's supply lines would be harried?

Months after announcing a "decisive" battle against a nebulously-defined enemy in the northern part of the country, nothing has taken place that is any different than the routine 'indecisive' efforts of the past. Days after personally overseeing the Basra operation and making a three-day ultimatum (without mentioning the ensuing consequences), Al-Maliki then withdrew far away from the fighting and announced an additional week before the ultimatum would expire and he would then...do what, exactly?

Far from proving the Iraqi Army's "readiness", the week's unfolding scenario only illustrates Al-Maliki's readiness to follow the Administration's orders. American troops have already begun participating, and we have been providing air support for the Basra operation nearly from the start. With discontent growing among the Sunni Sahwa ("Awakening") forces, some of the Sahwa forces are going on strike to protest not being paid. If the continuation of this conflict weakens the Iraqi government's hold on other areas, we could very see our "Awakening" buddies take advantage of the situation and reject the Shia government's control of predominantly Sunni districts. The Sahwa are in this to wipe out the rival gangs, not to bolster the Iraqi government, and the government has not only failed to pay them, but it has actively moved against Sunni interests. And the longer this expensive operation continues, the longer the government loses crucial oil revenue from Basra. This could turn out to be major financial setback on top of a potentially demoralising defeat for the Iraqi government.

How can this be considered any less than a civil war? The Shia government of Al-Maliki has as its strongest ally the (Iranian-inspired) Badr Corps, and the Iraqi Army (along with the Badr Corps) are taking out their primary domestic opposition. The potential ascendance of ISCI can only increase the profile of Iran within Iraq. Just as the removal of Saddam from power took away the strongest check on Iran's regional power, this action by the Iraqi government will, if successful, only reinforce Iran's influence in the region.

Baghdad is also coming apart, and the mortar attacks on the Green Zone are not only much more intense, but have also resulted in casualties. 31 districts within Baghdad are now seeing clashes with Sadrist forces.

The Iraqi minister of defense, Abdul Qadir Jasim, admitted in a news conference in Basra that the militiamen had taken the Iraqi security forces off guard. He added that the Iraqi government had expected this operation to be routine, but was surprised at the level of resistance, and was forced to change its plans and tactics.

Does the above sound familiar? All that we need now is for Al-Maliki to start using terms like "turning the corner" and we'll know for sure that Cheney left his script there. We now have Turkish troops in Kurdistan, the Diyala "pacification is stalled, as is the Anbar reconstruction, progress in Baghdad has been set back, and the Basra conflict has spread to four new cities; this is "good news" to the Decider.

McCain really intends to campaign on the "progress" in Iraq?

Violence up in Iraq

As Senate Republicans prepare to shill for the surge again, this doesn't come as good news: more Iraqis are getting killed.

Combined with the "setback" over provincial elections, it could get tougher for those eager to crow about "progress" in Iraq. The Iraqi occupation has actually made the terrorism threat worse.

On top of that, the surge cannot really be credited with any "improvement", as John Cole points out:

McCain argues that violence is down in 17 of 18 provinces. That argument itself suggests the irrelevancy of the US to Iraq. There are no US troops to speak of in the 3 northern Kurdish provinces, or in the southern 4 provinces from which the British have largely withdrawn. There are few US troops in most of the 8 provinces where Shiites predominate. There was no troop escalation or "surge" in the Sunni al-Anbar province. So if violence has declined in 17 of 18 provinces, US policy cannot possibly have anything to do with most of that. General Petraeus has had significant successes in Baghdad, though at the unfortunate (an unintentional) cost of further turning it into a Shiite city from which most Sunnis have been ethnically cleansed.

So the areas that are the most stable are the areas where we have no or very few troops, but an increase in troops is supposed to have produced a decline in violence. Baghdad is a walled city that has been ethnically cleansed, so secatrian conflict naturally has gone down. Fallujah has banned all motor vehicles in the city for over a year, so no car bombings. This is "progress"? It's like banning cars and then taking credit for safer driving habits by pointing to a decline in car accidents.

Of course, Turkey is currently in the process of invading Kurdistan, which is hardly a sign of a stable Iraq. Basra, too, is controlled by the militias, not the Iraqi government. But it's stable, so that supposedly is a mark in favour of the surge. How is that?

The American public thought that by now the surge would be over and we would be talking about withdrawal. Instead, the surge will likely continue for the remainder of Bush's term. The Republicans are setting themselves up by presenting a rosy picture in Iraq, especially since the tensions between the "Awakening" forces and the Iraqi government are building. It's a dangerous bid, and senators up for re-election will be forced into making supportive statements that could turn against them in the months approaching the election.

story from AFP

Iraq violence surges in February

by Salam Faraj Sat Mar 1, 4:55 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The number of Iraqis killed in February rose by 33 percent over January, reversing a six-month trend of reduced violence, in a setback to the US military plan to curb the bloodshed ravaging the country.

The combined figures obtained by AFP from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that the total number of Iraqis killed in February was 721, including 636 civilians, compared with 541 dead in January.

It reverses the six-month trend of a steady fall in casualties across the country on the back of a massive US and Iraqi military assault, mainly targeting Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The February death toll is up after a steady fall in the preceding six months. The monthly tolls were 541 in January, 568 in December, 606 in November, 887 in October, 917 in September and 1,856 in August.

The number of people wounded in February was 847.

January's death toll reached a 23-month low, with US commanders saying that all types of attacks were down to levels not seen before the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra that triggered a wave of violence.

The bloodshed that erupted after the shrine attack peaked in January 2007 with 1,992 deaths reported by the three ministries.

The jump in February's toll seems to have been caused by two major attacks during the month.

On February 1, at least 98 people were slaughtered when a female suicide bomber blew herself up amid a crowd of pet lovers in Baghdad's popular al-Ghazl animal market.

And in another brazen attack last Sunday, at least 48 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of pilgrims at a rest stop in the town of Iskandiriyah, south of Baghdad.

Al-Qaeda presence in Iraq is overblown

In the vast and constantly shifting reasons why we must remain in Iraq, the old reliable standard that gets most of the play is that if we were to leave, Al-Qaeda would take over Iraq and make it a base.

The second most-employed 'reason' is that we have to stabilise the government of Iraq so that it can be "a strong ally in the War On Terror". This reason is slowly being abandoned, at least in practise, by betting everything on the "Awakening". By building a parallel military force that is not loyal to the Iraqi government, the Administration is effectively throwing the government, the National Police, and the Iraqi Army to the wolves. The idea seems to be that they can control the Sahwa more easily, rout Al-Qaeda, and then manipulate them into bringing the Iraqi government 'into line' or even overthrowing them in favour of a more puppet-like regime.

While there are a lot of problems with this approach, a stupid, risky, and expensive plan has never stopped the Administration before. But the premise of this scheme, the rout of Al-Qaeda, is profoundly weak. As John Cole notes in the post below, there are no more than a few hundred AQ. Nearly every day, the military posthumously dubs any number of corpses "Al-Qaeda". Basically, we 'know' they are AQ because we killed them, and we wouldn't have killed them unless they were AQ, or so the circular logic goes. Our "Awakening" buddies that have been killed by friendly fire have even been dubbed AQ until this little "mixup" was corrected later by the Sahwa.

In the post below, Mr. Cole is taking McCain to task over his utterly mistaken attack on Obama when he responded to a hypothetical scenario. McCain falls over himself in a knee-jerk reaction in which he adamantly speaks of a tremendous Al-Qaeda threat in Iraq.

post from John Cole's Informed Comment:

Moreover, the allegation that he makes about there being 'al-Qaeda in Iraq' that could well take over the country is part lie and part insanity. The Sunni Arabs are no more than 20% of the Iraqi population. How could a tiny minority from within them take over the whole?

The technical definition of al-Qaeda is operatives who have sworn fealty to Usama bin Laden. There were only a few hundred of them. I doubt whether more than a handful of such individuals are in Iraq.

So there isn't any "al-Qaeda" in Iraq in the technical sense. There are "Excommunicating Holy Warriors" (Takfiri Jihadis), i.e. devotees of political Islam who are violent and willing to deploy terror for political purposes. They declare other Muslims who disagree with them "not Muslims,"-- thus the "excommunicating" bit. But there are only a few hundred foreign fighters. A small minority of Iraqis has associated with them. They don't call themselves 'al-Qaeda in Iraq.' The major such group is "The Islamic State of Iraq." And to say that they have "bases" in Iraq is pretty grandiose. They have some safe houses and try to take and hold neighborhoods, so far with indifferent success.

The idea that this small minority of violent Muslim fundamentalists could take over Iraq is completely crazy. They haven't even been able to keep their toehold in Baghdad-- the Sunnis have been largely ethnically cleansed from the capital by Shiite militias.

So the Shiites would not allow an "al-Qaeda" takeover of Iraq. Neither would the Kurds. Nor would most Sunni Arabs (as in al-Anbar Province, where the Dulaim tribe is at daggers drawn with the Excommunicating Holy Warriors).

Moreover, the neighbors would not allow the radical Sunnis to take over. Iran would sit on its hands while Shiites were massacred in Baghdad? Secular Turkey would allow this development? Baathist Syria? Hashemite Jordan (which played a major role in tracking down and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi)?

McCain's assertions that "al-Qaeda" has a strong position in Iraq or has any chance of taking over the country if the US leaves are both inaccurate. One is an error, the other is a dark but insubstantial fantasy.

Obama replied:

'“I've got some news for John McCain, that is there was no such thing Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade.

“I've got some news for John McCain. I've got some news for John McCain. He took us into a war, along with George Bush that should have never been authorized, never been waged. They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11 and that would be Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, that is stronger now than at any time since 2001. I've been paying attention John McCain!

“John McCain may like to say that he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell. But so far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq that's cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars and that I intend to bring to an end so that we can actually start going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the hills of Pakistan, like we should have been doing in the first place. That's the news John McCain! '

Obama is correct that there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before Bush overthrew the Iraqi government. I haven't been able to get anyone interested in it, but there is proof positive that the Baath authorities were very scared of al-Qaeda and that when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed up in Iraq, they put out an APB on him and branded him dangerous. (Dick Cheney told fairy tales about how Zarqawi was put up in fancy hotels by a solicitous Saddam.)

This is something that has always irked me about the neocon claims. This is the primary "link" used by wingnuts to tie Saddam to 9/11. Al-Zarqawi was in Iraq, so Al-Qaeda was allied with Saddam.
Hell, Al-Qaeda operatives were in the U.S, Britain, Spain, etc. Does that 'tie' the U.S. to Al-Qaeda? Does that mean we should invade Spain as "payback for 9/11"? Aren't we obligated to invade Britain, a country known to have WMD, to prevent it from being used by Al-Qaeda as a base?

The likely answer, if neocons were honest, to these questions is "only if the Decider says we need to".

Iraq occupation is exhausting the military

The military is exhausted. We don't have sufficient troops to respond to new threats or make new efforts in Afghanistan. 15-month tours are taking a toll on the military.

These aren't "lefty" bloggers saying these things, but rather Bush's own Joint Chief and Defense Department making these warnings. Do they "want to lose" as well? Are they simply "traitors" and "terrorist sympathisers"? The Republican "support the troops" mantra has been turned on its head. We are less prepared to face threats due to this occupation and it's ever-shifting justifications and mirages of "victory". Recruiting standards have been lowered. World leaders ignore the Administration or snicker behind the backs of the Decider and his minions. Our allies, no longer compliant to Bush's whims, are backing away from us.

Still, the Administration continues to believe that an insurgency in an occupied country is a conventional war that can be 'won' militarily. It continues to post-humously dub thousands of corpses as "Al-Qaeda" without any evidence. It pays and arms huge militias that have no loyalty to the Iraqi government in order to promote "stability". It orders the bombing and strafing of civilians as "pacification". It arrests and consigns to torture in Iraqi prisons hundreds of Sadrists, though they have maintained a cease-fire. And it designates the clean-up of the mess as "the UN's problem".

story from McClatchy

Planned troop withdrawals won't bring much relief to U.S. military

Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: February 06, 2008 08:03:57 PM

WASHINGTON — Top Defense Department officials testified Wednesday that the Bush administration's plan to withdraw some 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq this summer will do little to relieve the stress on the Army and Marine Corps.
Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military was exhausted by the repeated deployments to Iraq.
Finding a way to reduce the amount of time troops are deployed to Iraq is critical, he said. Currently, soldiers are sent to Iraq for 15-month tours, and Marines serve seven-month stints, followed by seven months at home.
"The well is deep, but it is not infinite," Mullen said. "We must get Army deployments down to 12 months as soon as possible. People are tired."
Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appeared before the committee to discuss the administration's request for $588.3 billion in defense spending for the 2009 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.
President Bush announced last year that the U.S. would reduce the number of American troops in Iraq by five combat brigades — about 20,000 people — during the first half of this year. U.S. troop strength in Iraq has hovered above 160,000 since June, when the military completed the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops as part of the so-called surge, which was intended to restore calm to Baghdad.
But security conditions will determine whether troop strength can be further reduced, officials have warned. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, is expected to report this spring whether there can be more troop reductions.
Mullen said he favored reducing the number of troops in Iraq "sooner rather than later" so that Iraq deployments could return to 12 months. But he said that decision hasn't been made.
Others at the Pentagon doubt that the U.S. will be able to reduce troop strength in Iraq to 100,000 for some time.
"We need some time to make an assessment" of the initial troop withdrawals, said a senior Pentagon official, who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly. "We are not going to do a precipitous withdrawal again," he said, referring to past efforts to hand over security responsibility to Iraqi forces and withdraw U.S. troops.
Reducing U.S. troop strength to 10 combat brigades would hurt the United States' ability to conduct multiple operations in Iraq, said Jeffrey White, a military analyst at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a center-right policy institute.
The number of brigades could become a key issue in the presidential campaign, as that number will determine what kind of defense posture the next president can mount.
If the U.S. maintains 15 combat brigades in Iraq — the pre-surge troop presence — it won't be able to mount major military operations in places such as Iran, Afghanistan or North Korea, White said.

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

Iraq air campaign is backfiring on U.S.

U.S. occupation troops in Iraq are increasingly using air strikes to keep troop casualties down. However, the collateral damage is huge, both in terms of life and destruction of homes and infrastructure. Again, Bush and Petraeus are looking at short-term strategies. The "Awakening" movement is also short-term in focus. It creates huge militias with no loyalty to the Iraqi government, and only situational loyalty to the American military. In what other country would we consider the existence of huge, well-armed vigilante forces independent of the government as a sign of "stability"? In Colombia, for example, we consider the paramilitary forces as a sign of instability, and these are even nominally under the control of the government.

We have, in effect, established a warlord state in Iraq, which is a humanitarian crisis as well, and we are calling it "success" - implying it's what we planned all along.

The public, however, just wants out of Iraq. We all know it's a massive failure, and a strong majority say it wasn't worth the cost in the first place. Except for Bush's "base", the Iraq debate is over; it's a mess, it's a failure, it's time to get out.

As we see in the article below, these air strikes are creating new enemies. Instead of turning the populace agianst Al-Qaeda, we are instead showing the Iraqi people that we are willing to bomb them and strafe them as they flee, making ourselves a bigger threat to them than the "terrorists" are.

story from IPS

IRAQ: More Bombing Creates New Enemies
By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (IPS) - Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble settled, residents of a group of bombed Iraqi villages see the raid as really a U.S. loss.

Many Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill.

"The use of B1 bombers shows the terrible failure of the U.S. campaign in Iraq," Iraqi Major General Muhammad al-Azzawy, a military researcher in Baghdad, told IPS. "U.S. military and political tactics failed in this area, and that is why this massacre. This kind of bombing is usually used for much bigger targets than small villages full of civilians. This was savagery."

The attack on Juboor and neighbouring villages just south of Baghdad had begun a week earlier with heavy artillery and tank bombardment. The attack followed strong resistance from members of the mainly Sunni Muslim al-Juboor tribe against groups that residents described as sectarian death squads.

"On Jan. 10, huge aircraft started bombing the villages," Ahmad Alwan from a village near Juboor told IPS. "We took our families and fled. We have never seen such bombardment since the 2003 American invasion. They were bombing everything and everybody."

Residents said two B1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets dropped at least 40,000 pounds of explosives on the villages and plantations within a span of 10 minutes.

"The al-Qaeda name is used once more to destroy another Sunni area," Akram Naji, a lawyer in Baghdad who has relatives in Juboor told IPS. "Americans are still supporting Iranian influence in Iraq by cleansing Baghdad and surroundings of Sunnis."

The cluster of Sunni villages was bombed just weeks after the U.S. military encouraged families to return to their village after heavy bombing earlier in which scores of people were killed. Many residents had fled fearing sectarian death squads, which they say were backed by the U.S.

Few people in the village now talk the language of reconciliation of U.S. President George W. Bush and of some Iraqis in the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad.

"We have no alternative but to fight this occupation and its allies," a former army officer in Baghdad speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS. "We can see clearly now that Americans came with the idea that we, Sunni Arabs, are the enemies they have in mind no matter what we do to please them. We will fight for our existence, and this massacre will not go unpunished."

"It was a miracle that I could evacuate my family at the last minute," said Omar Hussein, who fled for Dora in Baghdad from the bombarded area. "My house and farm are on the outskirts of the village. I took my family out the minute I saw the aircraft in the sky.

"Apache helicopters later fired at the trucks that were carrying the families out of the area, and killed so many civilians. They took some wounded people to their military base. I am sure hundreds of people would have been killed. It is just like the Fallujah crime."

Thousands died in prolonged attacks on Fallujah to the west of Baghdad, particularly in 2004 and 2005.

Taha Muslih al-Joboory, his wife and three sons were among those reported killed in the bombing. Juboory was an Iraqi journalist who lived all his life in the area. Many families were reported buried under the rubble of their houses.

The U.S. military said that the aircraft which bombed the area targeted "suspected militant hide-outs, storehouses and defensive positions."

"We know they will get away with their crime now, but we will teach our children that America and the whole West are our enemies, so that they take revenge for these crimes," 35-year-old Nada, a woman who has relatives in the village told IPS.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East) (END/2008)

Through the Past, Darkly

Republicans have engaged in a revisionist history regarding Iraq for years now. It was supposed to be an easy fight, no longer than six months by Rumsfeld's assessment, and it would cost no more than $60 billion. Cocky Republicans predicted the success in Iraq would marginalise the Democratic Party for decades as Republicans essentially would say "I told you so" to the doubters of neocon wisdom. The only "bipartisan option" was, in the view of Republicans, to go along with Bush or face extinction. The arrogance was stunning back in those heady days in the build-up to war. The Bush Administration fired Lawrence Lindsey from his job in the White House for his 'pessimistic' estimate that the Iraq effort could cost as much as $200 billion. We are pretty close to a trillion dollars right now in costs.

While initially Iraq was supposed to have been quick, later on Republicans changed their tune. Of course it was difficult, they said, brushing aside the imaginary flowers and chocolates the Iraqi people had never showered on us. The "reasons" for our involvement in Iraq have been constantly shifting throughout the years, and each time a new one is set up for public consumption, Bush claims it's what they "planned all along". WMDs, fight them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here, we're there to bring democracy, Iraq is a strong ally in the GWOT, our credibility is at stake...and now, all we want is enough stability so that we can withdraw and let the Iraqis deal with the mess. Throughout the entire debacle outlined below, the Republicans will have portrayed opposition to the Iraqi occupation as treasonous, defeatist, anti-troop and pro-terrorist. Those military commanders who failed to toe the Bush line, such as Shinseki and Sanchez, were removed. Sanchez, remember, made the outrageous statement that our troops may be in Iraq past August of 2005. Shinseki said we had too few troops in Iraq, but this was before the Decider sent more troops, so he had to go.

As you read the stories from the past below, please recall how many times we have heard "the next six months will be crucial", and bear in mind how bitterly the Bush Administration has opposed anyone who has presented bad news or doubts about the Decider's vision for Iraq. Make a mental note of how many years Bush has been waiting for the Iraqi Army to "stand up", and how many years Bush has claimed 'enormous progress'.

USA TODAY 8/8/2003
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — President Bush claimed "good progress" in Iraq on Friday, 100 days after he had declared an end to major combat, but he also mourned American casualties and refused to say how long U.S. troops would stay.

"This administration will do what is necessary to win the war on terror," Bush said.

He would not say whether he agreed with Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, allied forces commander in Iraq, who said Thursday that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq at least two years.

NOTE: Bush doubts the 'pessimistic' assessment that we might be in Iraq until 8/2005.
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USA Today 8/31/2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators from both parties demanded more specifics from the Bush administration Sunday on its plans for nursing Iraq back into a viable state. They promised, however, to provide what is necessary to do the job.

"Freedom isn't free. We know this is costly," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Only Sen. Dick Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, came up with a specific figure: $30 billion over five years.

"I think that is a period of time that will bring stability and give certainty of the Iraqis that we're not going to leave," the Indiana Republican said on "Fox News Sunday."

The Lugar formula, more than $115 million weekly, is in addition to military expenses currently running about $3.9 billion a month. Pentagon officials said last week that the administration might ask this month for additional billions to supplement $62.6 billion in emergency outlays Congress voted for in April. The administration has not said how much it will request for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

NOTE: Here in 2003, Lugar is going out a limb and saying Iraq could cost $30 billion over 5 years. In turns out that we go through twice that in the first year.
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San Francisco Chronicle May 9, 2004
In late 2002, months before the Iraq war started, the Bush administration rebuked its own chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for publicly estimating that a war in Iraq might cost $100 billion to $200 billion. In December 2002, Mitch Daniels, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the cost more likely would be $50 billion to $60 billion — which now looks like a fraction of the actual expenses.

The Pentagon says the war in Iraq cost $63 billion from its beginning in March 2003 through January 2004. That involves money actually spent, rather than costs incurred and payments to which it is committed, experts say. Kosiak said it also does not include ancillary costs, such as the buildup of bases in Kuwait and other areas in the region.

The Congressional Budget Office produced an analysis last year that estimated a continuing occupation of Iraq would cost somewhere between $85 billion and $200 billion over the next nine years, depending on how large an American force is needed and how long it remains

NOTE: Here in 2004, we are finding out that Bush's initial estimates of the costs were already blown in less than a year. In over 9 years, we're imagining it could be as high as $200 billion. Ha!
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Asia Times Feb. 25, 2005
The Budget Committee report estimates are higher than previous estimates for several reasons: the war is lasting longer and is more intense, and the cost to keep US troops in the theater of operations is proving to be greater, than anyone anticipated.

Those estimates are also far higher than anyone had predicted earlier, including Lawrence Lindsey, President George W Bush's former chief economic adviser. In 2002 he predicted that the cost of a war with Iraq could range between $100 billion and $200 billion at best. The administration dismissed the figure, and Lindsey was soon fired.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global "war on terrorism", after the newest supplement is exhausted, could total about $350 billion over the next 10 years (excluding interest payments on the debt), assuming an eventual phase-down of US activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NOTE: In early 2005, we are just realising that Lindsey was guilty of grossly underestimating the costs, not over-estimating them. At this point, we were shocked that costs could reach a third of what they are now. The ten-year cost estimate would not last out that year.
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CNN May 2, 2003
The president said the United States and its allies fought to bring peace to the world.

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001, and still goes on."

Bush said that in the 19 months since the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, "nearly half of al Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed."

Bush described al Qaeda as "wounded, but not destroyed" and said the United States would continue to hunt down members of the terrorist network.

NOTE: Back in 2003, Bush switched from the WMD pretext and moved to the destruction of Al-Qaeda as the reason we are in Iraq. Nearly five years ago, Al-Qaeda was half-destroyed, by Bush's reckoning - and this is AQ worldwide, not just in Iraq. Optimistic much?
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Washington Post Nov. 7, 2003
Even as Bush asked for endurance in the Middle East for "decades to come," the Pentagon announced details of a troop-rotation plan that will reduce the U.S. force in Iraq to 105,000 in May from the current 132,000. And even as Bush spoke about a hunger in the Mideast for the American message of freedom, the State Department issued an advisory warning of "the continuing threat of anti-American violence" in the region.

Though Bush spoke of a "willingness to sacrifice," a CNN-USA Today-Gallup Poll released yesterday showed that 54 percent of respondents disapproved of Bush's Iraq policies, up from 41 percent in August.

The speech came after some division within the administration about how best to cast the hostilities in Iraq. A Republican source said some of the more politically minded of Bush's advisers argued "that the whole issue must be framed only in terms of American security."

NOTE: Already in late 2003, half of the country is disapproving of Bush on Iraq. His glory has not even lasted nine months. Bush plans troop cuts while still clinging to the idea that Iraq is about fighting terrorists. Six months later, Bush will switch to his "it's all about democracy" pretext.
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The Age Sept 17, 2002
Polls released at the weekend by Newsweek and ABC News in America found that more than two-thirds of respondents favoured military action against Iraq, with significant movement towards Mr Bush's position since his speech to the UN. Perhaps coincidentally, Democrats have begun to sound more supportive of Mr Bush's Iraq policy.

NOTE: Ah, yes, the glory days. In a little over a year, half of the country would turn against him.
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Washington Post Sept. 24 2003
At the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Bush received a polite but cool reception as he blended a gentle defense of his policies in Iraq with a request that "all nations of goodwill" lend help to the effort in Iraq and a call for the world body to move on to other issues.

Bush's remarks, which barely mentioned the U.S. need for additional funds and troops in Iraq, were an indication that the administration has reduced its hopes that a new U.N. Security Council resolution will bring it substantial relief.

NOTE: Here in late 2003, Bush's Iraq efforts have begun to stall. Before the invasion, Bush said we would go it alone in Iraq without the U.N's backing. Now Bush is realising that the UN is taking him at his word.
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Salon.com Nov 2, 2002
Twenty-three senators and 133 congressmen voted against Bush's Iraq resolution in October, authorizing the president to strike against Saddam. And in not a single case, contrary to Washington's conventional wisdom, does it appear to be hurting any of their chances for reelection. It might actually be helping them.

How can that be? After all, the polls show that a majority of Americans are behind Bush's Iraq policy. A Pew Research Center survey released last week has 55 percent of the public supporting military action against Saddam Hussein. But while such polls roughly measure the drift of public sentiment, they don't measure its intensity. "Polls are a reflection of breadth," says Wes Boyd, president of MoveOn. "We've seen polls on the Iraq resolution and administration policy, and depending on how they're worded, you get a lot of different readings." For example, in the Pew poll, only 27 percent of respondents favor attacking Iraq without our allies' support, and only 48 percent believe the president has adequately explained his reasons for war. Such polls, says Boyd, "indicate to us that the support the administration hoped was there is paper-thin, that when you probe it a little bit, the view looks very different.

NOTE: In late 2002, we see that the support for Bush's Iraq effort is highly conditional and that the Democrats who opposed it are not suffering at all.
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The Virginian Pilot Oct. 17, 2002
Amid reports of unease among senior uniformed leaders about a possible war with Iraq, one of the Bush administration's top policy makers faced a roomful of generals, admirals, diplomats and military planners Wednesday to argue that the ouster of Saddam Hussein ``will be a defeat for terrorists globally.''

But while Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz spent nearly an hour laying out the administration's case, there were signs aplenty that a corps of experienced military leaders remains skeptical about President Bush's plans to attack Iraq.

NOTE: Here we see the military expressing skepticism over Bush's invasion plans even before it took place. Surprisingly, removing Saddam had no adverse effect on "terrorists globally", but served as a fine recruiting tool.
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USA Today 10/7/2004
Faced with a harshly critical new report, President Bush conceded Thursday that Iraq did not have the stockpiles of banned weapons he had warned of before the invasion last year, but insisted that "we were right to take action" against Saddam Hussein.

Bush spoke one day after Charles Duelfer, the American weapons hunter in Iraq, presented to the Senate and the public a report that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated into only hopes and dreams by the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year. The decline was wrought by the first Gulf War and years of international sanctions, the chief U.S. weapons hunter found.

Iraq ultimately abandoned its biological weapons programs in 1995, largely out of fear they would be discovered and tougher enforcement imposed.

"Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the presidential level," according to a summary of Duelfer's 1,000-page report.

And Iraq also abandoned its nuclear program after the war, and there was no evidence it tried to reconstitute it.

Duelfer's findings contradict most of the assertions by the Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community about Iraq's threat in 2002 and early 2003. The White House had argued that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons stockpiles and production lines and had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.

The United States led an invasion into Iraq in March 2003, taking the capital, Baghdad, within weeks. Since then, the United States and its allies have fought a dangerous insurgency of Iraqis as well as Islamic extremists who have come to Iraq to kill Americans.

Some 1,196 coalition personnel have been killed since the start of the war. Of those, 1,060 are American, 67 British and 69 are from other coalition countries. Unknown numbers of Iraqis have also died on both sides of the conflict.

NOTE: Late 2004, and America has found out that the WMD justification was unfounded and that, rather than being defeated globally, terrorists were flocking to Iraq. As the country wonders what we got ourselves into, Bush is already planning to turn this failure into his "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" justification.
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San Francisco Chronicle May 26, 2004
Even the staunchest supporters of President Bush's Iraq enterprise were less than cheered by his speech to the nation Monday night outlining the path forward, some describing the administration as being in a state of panic.

In particular, the neoconservatives who provided the intellectual argument that an invasion of Iraq could provide a template for democracy in the Middle East are expressing open alarm that this effort is dangerously off course.

"There's no question the administration has been in total panic mode, and they don't need to be, because Iraq is salvageable," said Danielle Pletka, vice president of foreign and defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that has been a hotbed of support for the war. "But I think there is still so much indecision about what to do that it's going to be hard for them to do the right thing."

Many administration hawks were drawn from the neoconservative intellectual ranks, notably deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the chief architect of the idea that the United States could make Iraq a democratic beacon.

Their dismay comes as some Republicans in Congress fear that Bush's Iraq policy has become unhinged, given the relentless bad news coming out of Iraq: a multiheaded insurgency among Shiites and Sunnis, the assassination of the president of the Iraqi Governing Council, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the steady rise in U.S. casualties.

Others on the political right, as distinct from their more interventionist neoconservative colleagues, have begun openly attacking the administration. Wall Street Journal contributing editor Mark Helprin called Abu Ghraib "a symbol of the inescapable fact that the war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate contempt for history, strategy, and thought." He asked why the administration was trying to occupy Iraq with current troop levels, "even as one event cascading into another should make them recoil in piggy-eyed wonder at the lameness of their policy."

Some of Bush's supporters concede the administration has committed blunders over the past year. Many suggest a sharp change in course -- such as adding thousands of troops, or moving up elections or forcefully quashing insurgents -- which they contend Bush did not promise Monday.

"It was important for Bush to remind the American public of the cost of failure," said Michael Rubin, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute and another neoconservative war supporter. "Basically, Bush was letting us see the forest through the trees."

However, he said, "the devil's in the details, and with the stakes so high, we can't ignore the details."

Yet while criticizing the administration for failures of execution, few neoconservatives have abandoned their belief that the war was a good idea or that it is intimately linked, as Bush insisted Monday, with fighting terrorism.

NOTE: Early 2004, and the bottom has begun to fall out. The civil war is not yet called a civil war at this point. More than half of the country now see Iraq as a mistake. The glorious victory that was supposed to guarantee Republican dominance for decades is instead becoming a millstone around the Party's neck.
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CNN May 14, 2004
Bush's overall job approval rating fell from 49 percent to 46 percent since the last CNN/Time poll on April 8, while his disapproval rating rose from 47 percent to 49 percent -- the first time that more people disapproved of Bush's job performance than approved.

More people than not believe that going to war with Iraq was the right thing to do, but that number has declined 48 percent in this poll, compared to 53 percent in April. And 56 percent of those polled say the war is not worth U.S. lives and other costs.

On the question of the war, only 41 percent of those polled believe the United States is winning, although 60 percent said the country can win and 52 percent said the country will win.

NOTE: Public opposition to Bush and his occupation has reached the point of no return. Bush moves into his fantasy world of optimistic predictions and upbeat assessments, which will last until 11/05 when "Grim Bush" makes his appearance.
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USA Today 12/14/2004
President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three prime architects of U.S. policy in Iraq on Tuesday as the White House brushed off Democrats' complaints that the honors were undeserved.

Bush gave the medals, the nation's highest civilian honor, to retired general Tommy Franks, who directed U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, former CIA director George Tenet and former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer.

Tenet, who retired in June, was strongly criticized last summer in reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The chief conclusions: The CIA didn't respond quickly enough to the threat posed by al-Qaeda and erred in alleging that Iraq had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, an assertion that became a central justification for the war. No stockpiles have been found.

Bremer created a stir in early October after giving a speech in which he said the administration did not have enough troops in Iraq immediately after the invasion, hampering the U.S.-led occupation and its efforts to halt looting and lawlessness. Democrats such as Levin and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden argued even before the invasion for the administration to send a larger force but were rebuffed by the Pentagon.

NOTE: Bush gives a medal to the architects of his failed Iraq effort in late 2004. The Administration is still not using the words "civil war" at this point.
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USA Today 9/17/2004
While a new intelligence estimate offers a gloomy assessment of Iraq's future, President Bush talks instead about brighter days ahead under a new prime minister and the promise of free elections. "Freedom is on the march," he told a campaign rally Thursday.

Iraq is a daily theme of Bush's campaign speeches, often a springboard for attacking Democratic rival John Kerry. But Bush does not speak about the more than 1,000 U.S. deaths, the highly publicized kidnappings, executions and beheadings, or the dark scenarios outlined in the highly classified National Intelligence Estimate that was presented to him in late July. The new report offers a sobering picture of Iraq's future in terms of political, economic and security conditions.

In a worst-case scenario, it envisions developments pointing to a civil war among Iraq's three major populations, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

At best, the experts said, Iraq will have a tenuous stability. A middle-ground estimate envisions increased extremism and fragmentation that impede efforts to build a central government and adversely affect efforts to democratize the country.

Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged the White House to release the report so voters can decide if they want to continue with a president who has "gotten us into the quagmire of Iraq with no, either, plan for entry or exit." The White House said the report would not be released.

Kerry, in a speech to National Guard veterans, said Bush who was trying to persuade voters with "a fantasy world of spin" rather than telling the truth on Iraq.

"Two days ago, the president stood right here where I'm standing and didn't acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. He didn't tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, indiscriminate killings," Kerry said.

White House communications director Dan Bartlett accused Democrats of unfounded pessimism. "President Bush gets his briefings from commanders on the ground. He has reason for his optimism because of the enormous amount of progress we have made," Bartlett said.

Iraq is a troublesome issue for Bush, with voters worried about the violence and deaths and doubting that Bush has a strategy to deal with the problems.

"In Iraq, there's ongoing acts of violence," Bush said. "This country is headed toward democracy. There's a strong prime minister in place. They have a national council. And national elections are scheduled for January. It wasn't all that long ago that Saddam Hussein was in power with his torture chambers and mass graves. And today, this country is headed towards elections. Freedom is on the march."

His comments were in line with the generally upbeat tone of his remarks on the campaign trail. "We will help new leaders to train their armies, and move toward elections, and get on the path of stability and democracy as quickly as possible," Bush told the Republican convention early this month. "And then our troops will return home with the honor they have earned."

NOTE: In September of 2004, the Administration claims "enormous progress" and Bush says that "freedom is on the march". Intelligence agencies are already using the words "civil war". More than three years ago, Bush was counting on the Iraqi Army to stand up, while troop casualties were "only" 1000. National Iraqi elections will probably solve everything, won't they?
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San Diego Union-Trbune 12/20/2004
In a sobering assessment of the Iraq war, President Bush acknowledged Monday that Americans' resolve has been shaken by grisly scenes of death and destruction and he pointedly criticized the performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops. "No question about it," he said. "The bombers are having an effect."

Bush spoke a day after the deadliest attacks in Iraq since July – killing at least 54 people in Najaf and at least 13 in Karbala – and six weeks before Iraqis vote for a transitional assembly that will choose a president and a government and draft a permanent constitution. American newspapers showed chilling pictures of rebels in the heart of Baghdad executing election workers in cold blood.

"And so the American people are taking a look at Iraq and wondering whether the Iraqis are eventually going to be able to fight off these bombers and killers," Bush said in perhaps his clearest expression of frustration with Iraqi forces. Bush's strategy calls for American troops to protect Iraq while local police and soldiers are trained to do the job themselves, eventually allowing the United States to withdraw.

"Now I would call the results mixed in terms of standing up Iraqi units who are willing to fight," Bush said in a candid assessment. "There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield. That's unacceptable. Iraq will never secure itself if they have troops that, when the heat gets on, they leave the battlefield." What is needed, he said, is a better military command structure.

Polls show an erosion in Americans' confidence that a stable, democratic government will be established in Iraq. "Polls change. Polls go up, polls go down," Bush said.

He said he understands why Americans have doubts about Iraq's ability. "They're looking on your TV screen and seeing indiscriminate bombings, where thousands of innocent – or hundreds of innocent Iraqis are getting killed ..." But Bush said those pictures do not reflect that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces are relatively stable and that small businesses are starting up. "Life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein."

NOTE: 12/04, and we are still ostensibly backing up the Iraqi Army - that's the big plan, anyway. While "polls go up , polls go down", polls will never recover for Bush and his Iraq effort. Clouds have begun to darken Bush's fantasy world, as he realises that people actually have doubts over his 'vision'. A year later and his 'plan' will remain essentially unchanged and elections will not not have improved anything.
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President Bush's address 12/18/2005
"This work has been especially difficult in Iraq -- more difficult than we expected. Reconstruction efforts and the training of Iraqi security forces started more slowly than we hoped. We continue to see violence and suffering, caused by an enemy that is determined and brutal -- unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war.

Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another day. I don't believe that. Our military commanders do not believe that. Our troops in the field, who bear the burden and make the sacrifice, do not believe that America has lost. And not even the terrorists believe it. We know from their own communications that they feel a tightening noose -- and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq."

"We have put in place a strategy to achieve this goal -- a strategy I have been discussing in detail over the last few weeks. This plan has three critical elements:

First, our coalition will remain on the offense -- finding and clearing out the enemy, transferring control of more territory to Iraqi units, and building up the Iraqi security forces so they can increasingly lead the fight. At this time last year, there were only a handful of Iraqi army and police battalions ready for combat. Now, there are more than 125 Iraqi combat battalions fighting the enemy, more than 50 are taking the lead and we have transferred more than a dozen military bases to Iraqi control.

Second, we are helping the Iraqi government establish the institutions of a unified and lasting democracy, in which all of Iraq's peoples are included and represented. Here also, the news is encouraging. Three days ago, more than 10 million Iraqis went to the polls -- including many Sunni Iraqis who had boycotted national elections last January.

Iraqis of every background are recognizing that democracy is the future of the country they love -- and they want their voices heard. One Iraqi, after dipping his finger in the purple ink as he cast his ballot, stuck his finger in the air and said: "This is a thorn in the eyes of the terrorists." Another voter was asked, "Are you Sunni or Shia?" He responded, "I am Iraqi."

Third, after a number of setbacks, our coalition is moving forward with a reconstruction plan to revive Iraq's economy and infrastructure -- and to give Iraqis confidence that a free life will be a better life. Today in Iraq, seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well -- and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead. Despite the violence, Iraqis are optimistic -- and that optimism is justified."

NOTE: This is the outline of the pre-surge plan: kill the bad guys, more democracy, and rebuild. In spite of his presentation of this plan as something new, it has already been in effect for well over a year at this point, only now elections have come and gone. In spite of two-thirds of Iraqis expecting improvement in another year, instead the situation will have collapsed into civil war and Bush will propose the surge.
Two years later, Bush will have abandoned the idea of crushing the insurgency, and will instead co-opt them in an "awakening" that bypasses the feeble Iraqi military...which still will not have 'stood up". Reconstruction will still be on hold, and those elections Bush bragged about in 12/05 will only have produced an impotent, fractious, and worthless government that the Bush Administration will instead blame for the lack of progress. 64% of Americans will oppose the surge a year after it was proposed, and more than half of the nation will continue to think going into Iraq was a mistake. Half of the country will strongly disapprove of Bush, with only 17% strongly approving. The British will have given up, and the Coalition in Iraq will have become a fiction two years after this speech in 12/05. Cholera will break out, food rations will be cut, and refugees will have been sent back to Iraq against their will in the intervening years.
More than two years after this 12/05 speech, the best estimates are that it will take another ten years before Iraq is stabilised.

Iraq 'progress' now includes starvation

That beacon of prosperity, freedom, and democracy known as Iraq will soon get another valuable neocon lesson: starvation.

With a lack of safe drinking water, child malnutrition a serious problem, more than 40% of the population in absolute poverty and about half unemployed, and a cholera epidemic burdening the tattered shreds of what passes for a health care system, the obvious thing to do is to teach Iraqis a little self-reliance by starving them to death.

Half of those who receive food rations will no longer be eligible, and the quantities of food for those that still receive rations will be cut by half. And this comes after more than 30% cuts in those eligible for rations over the past three years.

Generally, Republicans can be counted upon to wring their hands in concern and wipe away tears as they contemplate what would happen to the poor, innocent Iraqi people should we withdraw. Yet, something like this gets a smiling thumbs-up. This is because Republicans abandoned the idea of Iraq being anything more than a failed state with Third-World metrics years ago. It's really all about Al-Qaeda now, and those crazy brown people who don't even worship the right God can die off for all they care. A few may come in handy for the requisite photos of smiling Iraqis embracing the beloved American troops, but the main thing is to boot out Al-Qaeda and keep a government in power that knows who the "boss" is. Besides, once Al-Qaeda is gone, everyone knows things will be great. After all, the Iraqis voted, didn't they?

It's pretty unfathomable to me how having another five million people in an unstable country with an unpopular government going without regular meals will help much. I guess this another one of those things that is the U.N's problem. We just deal in bombs and bullets these days.

"No security, no food, no electricity, no trade, no services. So life is good," said one resident, who would not give his name.

There you go. The perfect neocon dream government. How could this plan possibly fail?


story from IPS

IRAQ: Saddam Provided More Food Than the U.S.
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

BAQUBA, Dec 27 (IPS) - The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive.

The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008.

Iraq's food rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein government in 1991 in response to the UN economic sanctions. Families were allotted basic foodstuffs monthly because the Iraqi Dinar and the economy collapsed.

The sanctions, imposed after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait, were described as "genocidal" by Denis Halliday, then UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. Halliday quit his post in protest against the U.S.-backed sanctions.

The sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children, and as many adults, according to the UN. They brought malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicines. Iraqis became nearly completely reliant on food rations for survival. The programme has continued into the U.S.-led occupation.

But now the U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the essential items in the ration because of "insufficient funds and spiralling inflation."

The cuts, which are to be introduced in the beginning of 2008, have drawn widespread criticism. The Iraqi government is unable to supply the rations with several billion dollars at its disposal, whereas Saddam Hussein was able to maintain the programme with less than a billion dollars.

"In 2007, we asked for 3.2 billion dollars for rationing basic foodstuffs," Mohammed Hanoun, Iraq's chief of staff for the ministry of trade told al-Jazeera. "But since the prices of imported foodstuff doubled in the past year, we requested 7.2 billion dollars for this year. That request was denied."

The trade ministry is now preparing to slash the list of subsidised items by half to five basic food items, "namely flour, sugar, rice, oil, and infant milk," Hanoun said.

The imminent move will affect nearly 10 million people who depend on the rationing system. But it has already caused outrage in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

"The monthly food ration was the only help from the government," local grocer Ibrahim al-Ageely told IPS. "It was of great benefit for the families. The food ration consisted of two kilos of rice, sugar, soap, tea, detergent, wheat flour, lentils, chick-peas, and other items for every individual."

Another grocer said the food ration was the "life of all Iraqis; every month, Iraqis wait in queues to receive their food rations."

According to an Oxfam International report released in July this year, "60 percent (of Iraqis) currently have access to rations through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004."

The report said that "43 percent of Iraqis suffer from absolute poverty," and that according to some estimates over half the population are now without work. "Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now."

While salaries have increased since the invasion of March 2003, they have not kept pace with the dramatic increase in the prices of food and fuel.

"My salary is 280 dollars, and I have six children," 49-year-old secondary school teacher Ali Kadhim told IPS. "The increase in my salary was neutralised by an increase in the price of food. I cannot afford to buy the foodstuffs in addition to the other necessary expenses of life."

"The high increase in food prices led people to condemn the delays in the ration every month," Salah Kadhim, an employee in the directorate-general of health for Diyala province told IPS. "The jobless just cannot afford to buy food."

"The food ration still represents a big part of the domestic budget," Muneer Lafta, a 51-year-old employee at the health directorate told IPS. Without the ration, she said, families have to go to the market. Because Iraqi families are large, usually six to 12 people, shopping for food is simply unaffordable.

"I and my wife have five boys and six girls, so the ration costs a lot when it has to be bought," 55-year-old resident Khalaf Atiya told IPS. "I cannot afford food and also other expenses like study, clothes, doctors."

People in Baquba, living with violence and joblessness for long, are now preparing for this new twist.

"No security, no food, no electricity, no trade, no services. So life is good," said one resident, who would not give his name.

Many fear the food ration cuts can spark unrest. "The government will commit a big mistake, because providing enough food ration could compensate the government's mistakes in other fields like security," a local physician told IPS. "The Iraq will now feel that he, or she, is of no value to the government."

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who has reported extensively from Iraq and the Middle East) (END/2007)

British military in crisis

Once again, a senior commander in the British military is saying that the service is in danger of collapse.
Boldly following the Decider into a two-front military effort is pushing the military to the limit. Blair's yes-man mentality is slowly fading from prominence among senior commanders, and the truth is coming out about what poor condition the services are really in.

Of course, Britain's steadfast ally, the Bush Administration, has seen fit to show its gratitude by implying the the British military is full of cowards and pansies. Meanwhile, Bush asks for more troops and money for the Afghan campaign from exhausted and reluctant allies. Remember, the Afghan effort was supposed to be a walk in the park - primarily peacekeeping, training, and reconstruction. At the end was a pat on the head from the Decider for all the allies' hard work, while Bush would take the credit for his "vision".

Like Iraq, the reconstruction never came. Desperate farmers are now forced to grow drug crops and pay the Taliban for protection. The perpetually-broke puppet, Karzai, can't even pay his civil servants. Areas that were fiercely won seem to slip back into militants' control almost as soon as the Coalition leaves. Air strikes have produced high-profile civilian casualties, and the Coalition shows a callous, arrogant, and dismissive view of these casualties. Some allies have opted out of combat altogether, and Bush can't seem to browbeat them as effectively as he once did. Coalition troops are finding increasing reluctance and resistance among the Afghan population.

American politicians, such has Rep. Lantos, have hardly helped by telling our allies that they owe us big-time for WW2 and letting them know that we expect a lot more help from them. At what point does an ally become an enabler for an incompetent leader that sees bombings and bullets as the solution to every problem?

With Bush now building up the charge for yet another war with Iran, one wonders how this exhausted British military will be able to handle a third front. Nothing has gone as the Decider said it would in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but somehow our allies are supposed to believe that Bush has it all figured out with Iran.

With Pakistan's tribal areas becoming a de-facto independent state, the challenge only increases for the British military. Thumbs-up, smiley-faced assessments may be good for domestic consumption, but are worthless for planning military campaigns. It remains to be seen if Gordon Brown will continue to be led by the nose into presiding over the collapse of his country's army.

See also here, here, here and here for more stories on the British military's disaster.

Our forces can't carry on like this, says General Sir Richard Dannatt

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent

Last Updated: 1:30am GMT 18/11/2007

The head of the Army has warned that years of Government under-funding and overstretch have left troops feeling "devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue", The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, reveals in a top-level report that the present level of operations is "unsustainable", the Army is "under-manned" and increasing numbers of troops are "disillusioned" with service life.

Gen Dannatt states that the "military covenant is clearly out of kilter", and the chain of command needs to improve standards of pay, accommodation and medical care.

"We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do not underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned and with less robust establishments than I would like."

The report, a copy of which has been seen by this newspaper, reveals for the first time the general's concerns on virtually every aspect of the Army, from levels of pay to the quality of food in canteens.

Gen Dannatt came to public prominence last year when, within weeks of taking over as head of the Army, he said the Iraq war was causing security problems in Britain.

In the new report, he says that operations on the two fronts of Iraq and Afghanistan are putting soldiers and their families under "great pressure", and that the long-term impact of operations is "damaging" and is "mortgaging the goodwill of our people".

In terms of "overstretch", the report says, "the tank of goodwill now runs on vapour; many experienced staff are talking of leaving".

Last week, Lt Col Stuart Tootal, 42, who commanded the Parachute Regiment in Afghanistan, resigned from the Army over the "shoddy" treatment of injured troops. In a letter to defence chiefs, he was reported to have criticised levels of pay, a lack of training equipment and the appalling housing - all issues raised in Gen Dannatt's report.

The report lays bare how a lack of funding, resources and manpower are forcing defence chiefs into making decisions once considered unthinkable.

One such move includes sending "medically downgraded" or injured troops and soldiers as young as 17 to guard the Falkland Islands to release fit troops for operations - a move Gen Dannatt says he wholly supports.

The report adds:

• Delays to military inquests are a disgrace

• Military housing estates are unsafe and being overrun by immigrant families

• Poor food quality is creating a "pot-noodle and sandwich" culture among junior soldiers

• Work-life balance is an increasing concern

• Soldiers are "going sick" to get out of the Army

• Leave is often cancelled or constrained because of operational overstretch

• Harmony guidelines - the time between operational tours - are becoming meaningless

• The Army is no longer fun

• Fitness in the Army is tailing off and more soldiers are medically downgraded

The report's findings follow months of interviews with thousands of soldiers and their families from 47 units.

Entitled Chief of the General Staff's Briefing Team Report (2007), the findings are described by Gen Dannatt as a "comprehensive, vivid and accurate" picture of Army life.

He writes that "improvements need to be made in accommodation, pay and medical services" and that the "chain of command must still improve things" if more soldiers are to be recruited.

The general accepts the view that delays in holding military inquests are a "disgrace" and writes: "I share the frustration and know that many families feel let down by the process. The delays are unacceptable and I will continue to press for improvements."

Military housing is an area singled out for criticism. "Estates are becoming less safe and more run down. Some are degenerating - in Germany it is reported that many of the neighbouring areas are occupied by immigrant families with hordes of children.

This is of particular concern for wives when their husband is deployed [on operations]." In Britain, some service families' accommodation areas have "ex-married quarters owned by housing associations, and disruptive civilian families have moved in, causing concerns over vandalism and theft".

The report strongly criticises the "Pay As You Dine" policy of making soldiers pay for what they eat, which many in the Army call a "disaster".

It says: "There are real concerns about the new eating habits of some soldiers due to Pay As You Dine. A "pot noodle and sandwich" culture is being created and soldiers are cooking rations over gas burners in their rooms. There are apocryphal stories of soldiers flaking during PT sessions from a lack of nutrients".

The report adds: "Pay As You Dine was sold as a strap line of new restaurants, better choice and good quality. The reality is very different - for most, the only investment has been a till."

There is a growing problem of troops "going sick" to get out of the Army.

There is a lack of "training areas, range availability, shortages of ammunition, spares and manpower - which is limiting the amount of meaningful training that can be undertaken. There are insufficient serviceable aircraft for parachute training. Apache flying hours are limited by lack of serviceable aircraft".

Patrick Mercer, a Tory MP and former infantry commander, said: "These problem areas existed 10 years ago. Now we have a crisis and it is a disgrace that senior officers and ministers have allowed this to happen. I am staggered that the head of the Army thinks it acceptable to send kids and those medically unfit for war to guard the Falklands."