Iraq quagmire update

First, a look at the Syrian border

Excerpts:

Col Davis: The information on the creation of the Desert Protect Force is accurate. Coalition forces are working to reach out to the tribal groups to provide for security and enlist new members in the Iraqi Army. Currently there are no Iraqi police units in the AO at this time. Since June, there are an increasing number of Iraqi Army brigades being incorporated into the fight in the RCT-2's area of operation as well. The Iraqi troops are magnificent in their initiative, courage, determination, will to fight and their knowledge of the culture and language is instrumental to establishing security in the region...

Col Davis: There are three levels of enemy in our area of operations - AO Denver. First there are the independent tribal fighters operating in this barren region who are traditional smugglers and are wrapped up in an assortment of criminal enterprises. There are the Baathists hardliners, the former regime elements that are fighting to rid the area of an American presence and are looking to return to power. Then there are the al Qaeda jihadist who are not interested in the stability of the region, but only interested in killing Iraqis and Americans, establishing their Islamist Caliphate and terrorizing the local population.

These various groups will work together or fight each other on any given day. The jihadists are not predominant in numbers but are providing the bulk of the leadership, the financiers that fund the terror activities and the technical knowledge of the insurgency. This area of Iraq is complex. Generations have been conditioned by Saddam to be survivalists and will do what is needed to survive. When the people become convinced we will remain to provide security and services, they cooperate with us. They hate the foreign fighters; they despise them for what they have done to their families and their towns and cities...

Saddam never controlled this region of Iraq. It is very tribal and fiercely independent. He sent in the army to kill and intimidate the population. He established two tribes in the region: the Salmanis and the Karabilah tribes, to further his goals and counter balance existing dominating tribes. The Iraqis out west, particularly in Haditha are well educated and are able to provide for their own needs. They have operated this way for centuries and can do so again with the proper security environment. We have a simple equation we use out here:

Presence = Security = Stability = the environment for self governance...

Bill: Do you think domestic elements of the insurgency would be willing to lay down their arms and enter the political process, or are they too indebted to al Qaeda?

Col Davis: al Qaeda in Iraq will not lay down their arms to enter the political process, and they must be eliminated. They are vermin. We focus our efforts on destroying their networks and hunting the leaders, financiers, technical experts, and facilitators.

There is a possibility that the Sunni moderates can reach out to the Former Regime Elements / Baathist and encourage them to join the political process. But many of these FREs may not be willing to cooperate in power sharing...

Bill: What is the morale of the Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen fighting in Anbar?

Col Davis: Sky high. There will be down days as are to be expected but the morale is high. I can clearly differentiate between Vietnam and today; I'm old enough to still hold my draft card. We have an all volunteer force that joined to serve their nation. They know the enemy they face is a threat to the United States, and want to fight them here and not back in my home town in New York or elsewhere, in the U.S.

And now, a look at the new Iraqi defense forces

Excerpt:



October 30, 2005: After two years of work, the Iraqi Sunni Arabs are seeing their worst nightmare come true. And that is an Iraqi army and police force that can do the job, and is not led by Sunni Arabs. For generations, Iraq was dominated by Sunni Arabs because Sunni Arabs held most of the leadership posts in the army and police. Kurds and Shia Arabs were often the majority of the troops and beat cops, but they nearly always took orders from a hierarchy of Sunni Arab supervisors and officers. The Sunni Arabs knew that the management and leadership skills necessary to run an army or police force were not easily acquired. It took years of training and experience. There was no way the Kurds and Shia Arabs could quickly replace those Sunni Arab officers and NCOs. Thus Sunni Arab terrorists would drive out the foreign troops, especially the deadly Americans, and, then the Sunni Arabs would take over again. But then something very, very bad (for the Sunni Arab takeover plan) happened. Battalions and brigades of Iraqi troops began to show up, commanded by Kurds, Shia Arabs, and some turncoat Sunni Arabs, that could do the job. Currently there are 207,000 Iraqi soldiers and police that are trained and equipped for operations. There are sufficient leadership to deploy 120 army and police battalions for combat operations. About three dozen of these battalions are well enough led to undertake security operations without American supervision.

Every week, these Iraqi battalions undertake more operations, each raid or cordon and search operation providing the Iraqi officers and NCOs with more practical experience, and confidence that they can do the job...

And here's more

Excerpt:

"There has been enormous progress with the Iraqi Security Forces over the course of the past 16 months in the face of a brutal insurgency," Gen. Petraeus said later at the Pentagon. "Iraqi security-force readiness has continued to grow with each passing week."

He added, "To be sure, few of these units are candidates for the 1st Marine Division or the 101st Airborne right now. However, they have come a very long way in a relatively short period of time."

Gen. Petraeus also noted that the forces are attracting more Sunnis, who ruled Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein and have been reluctant to involve themselves in the nation's postwar political structure.

The general said that since imams issued a fatwa this year saying it was the duty of male Sunnis to join security forces, more than 4,000 have signed up over the course of only a few months.

Gen. Petraeus acknowledged at a Pentagon press conference that "there was a Sunni Arab retention and recruiting problem" last year. In fact, officials told The Washington Times that Iraqi units in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province were made up almost exclusively of Shi'ites and Kurds.

But today, Gen. Petraeus said, Iraqis have fought alongside Americans to capture the northwestern city of Tal Afar and are doing the same with U.S. Marines along the Syrian border to rid towns of militants.

In case you just can't stomach all this good news, here's a grim milestone to take note of.

Excerpt:

The anti-war movement has rallied around Etta Mae Hanberg, whose son was killed in Italy early this year. She gave a speech prior to the ceremony here last night:

"It is insane that there are so many people living and working in the White House that are responsible for war crimes, high crimes and misdemeanors and other crimes against humanity and they are wandering free to enjoy their lives and live fat off of their war profits. We will probably be arrested for exercising our rights to freedom of speech and freedom to peaceably assemble."

"Besides asking him for What Noble Cause did he kill 250,000 of our wonderful and brave young people, I would also like to ask Franklin Delanodamngood Roosevelt what he is sacrificing. Is he even sacrificing a good night's sleep? Is he sacrificing his future with his child? He is not sacrificing anything. He and his cabal of warmongering crooks are asking us Americans to give up our lives and our children's lives for his lies and mistakes and I am sure the grim milestone is barely causing a blip in their souls. Franklin Delano Rosenfeld, the syphillitic Dutch Jew, and his wealthy buddies don't even have to pay more taxes for the horror in Europe or to rebuild Houston and Galveston [referring to last year's devastating hurricane, about which the White House and the War Department have suppressed almost all news], which is another Rosenfeld horror."




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... P&CA

Free Iraq is a nation now

After all these decades, a fully legitimate government
Excerpt:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Election results showing Iraqis have ratified a new U.S.-backed constitution by a large margin are accurate and should be trusted, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

Speaking after Iraq's Electoral Commission released final results showing 79 percent approval for the constitution in the October 15 referendum, Carina Perelli said the balloting process adhered to the highest standard.

"Yes, it has been audited, controlled. It has been done really in a very professional way," Perelli, head of the U.N. team providing technical assistance to the Iraqi government, told reporters.

"The result is accurate. It has been checked according to the processes that we all follow when we have elections."

Iraqi officials had earlier said they were auditing early results which indicated more than 90 percent of voters backing "Yes" in certain areas, leading some opponents of the charter to question whether the results were being fixed.

I say:

Well, if the UN admits it, it must be true.

All sarcasm aside, this is better than I had hoped for. The trouble with this process, as I saw it, was it required the approval of the Sunni Arabs. This was the same group who, under Saddam Hussein, waged constant war against the rest of this arbitrary chunk of the old Ottoman Empire, as well as neighboring nation states. This is the same part of the country that harbored the Ba'athist dead-enders the press calls 'insurgents." Why should the former oppressors have any say in the affairs of their rcently freed victims?

Well, I didn't think it was worth it. But Stephen Den Beste was more sanguine.

Excerpt:

If the new government ends up totally dominated by the Shiite majority, and if they in turn use it to repress the Sunnis, then it would be seen elsewhere in the region as "the new boss, same as the old boss". Political backlash by Shiites against the Sunnis in response to that bombing would therefore have been a major victory for al Qaeda. Violent attacks against Sunnis by Shiites would have been frosting on the cake.

Fortunately, saner heads among the Shiites recognized the attack for what it was, and strongly discouraged such a response.

I say:

He was right, and I was overly pessimistic. This is one case where I'm happy to be proven slighly wrong. Only slightly, because most of the SUnnis voted against it. The vast (78 percent) majority that approved it was the *rest* of the country. That is, the former victims. But here's the thing: enough Sunnis voted in favor to get over the hurdle. So all's well that ends well.

This won't stop the terrorism of the insurgency, at least not instantly. Remember, these people are dead enders. They have no option but to fight to the death. Their fearless leader is on trial for his life. They're surrounded by enemies of their own making. In the past they've had help from al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. That's getting harder to find lately. Now their own people - the Sunni Arabs - have deserted them. Where can they go? Syria, maybe. But Assad has his own problems right now.

So there will continue to be terror attacks, until the insurgents are exterminated. Yes, exterminated. Already, Iraqi soldiers have been working with Americans to chase the murderers to the Syrian border and beyond. Now that Iraq has a fully, unquestionably legitimate government of its own, expect Iraqis to take an ever greater role. That means our boys come home. Not all at once. Gradually, over the years. Not that this will make the "anti-war" crowd happy. The ones screaming for "our boys" to come home were trying to prevent them from finishing their job. For them to come home having done the job is the last thing they'll want to see. Ramsey Clark and the Workers' World Party nomenklatura will be beside themselves.

There are two kinds of appeasement: when the non-evil appease the evil, and when the evil appease the victorious good. The first always ends in disaster. The second comes about when we eschew the first. The Sunni Arabs are now trying to appease the other 80 percent of Iraq, by giving up the Ba'athists as a sacrifice. So much for loyalty. It serves the purposes of decent people to accept their surrender. But they'd better behave themselves from now on.

I've pointed out many times that there is no such thing as the Iraqi people. And at the time I said it, it was true. But with the high turnout and relatively low violence of this ratification vote, I'm starting to think that this is changing. We may be witnessing the birth of a national identity. This arbitrary chunk of a defunct empire is finally becoming a nation. And it happens to be a democracy. How about that. A democracy where once there was only genocide and corruption, and strategically located to spread freedom throughout the region. The despots of Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia now sit uneasy upon their thrones.

And there's nothing the haters of democracy can do about it. They've already tried everything they could think of - lies, murder, corruption, more lies, more murder. None of it worked. Now there's nothing left to try.

Oh, and here's another burn, for the Bush haters: history is going to give Dubya the credit. And history will remember all who opposed him on this. For the rest of your lives, people will ask you *why*. I wonder if you'll have a good answer.

For now, your best bet is to lay on the sour grapes with a trowel. Maybe use the mention of Islamic law, together with a heap of exaggeration and hysteria (you guys are so good at that!) to make some fears of theocracy. Give us the old "Just You Wait!(TM)" that was such a great stall in the past. It won't help much at this point, but it's all you've got. So go for it.

Keep shouting "quagmire! Quagmire!" while your betters just go right on draining the swamp.


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