White House report cites Iraq govt. shortfalls (Roundup)

The Times list of -experts-Sep 16th, 2007 - 19:20:34

RE: Gee, are these the same 'experts on Iraq' that the New York times gave a cut rate to in order to smear Petraeus?

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Did you READ the names, or just go off on a rant without actually reading anything? These were valid questions that should have been asked; not criticisms. The White House had months to get this dog-and-pony show together, complete with charts, and the Democracts should have marshalled their own facts and questions, rather than working independently. That lack of cohesion is the Dem's biggest problem right now - there would have been time to ask those key questions by distributing them beforehand amongst the questioners, and using the time to pound on Petraeus and Crocker for answers, instead of trying to nibble away at them. Nothing was going to change policy, but the public would have gotten better information. When one question about America's safety got an 'I don't know' answer from Petraeus, it was evident that Petraeus was being honest, and that should have been taken advantage of by having questions lined up in advance, rather than the ad-hoc performance we got. Neither party has served the public well at this point (and propagandists and loonies like you, less so), and America has suffered as a result. People sense they're not getting the 'whole truth', which is why polling numbers are so poor.

========== The Times panel for the article =============

— Nathaniel Fick, a Marine infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan and the author of “One Bullet Away.”

— Paul D. Eaton, a retired Army major general who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.

— Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy from July 2001 to August 2005.

— Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

— Anthony H. Cordesman, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

— Max Hastings, British military historian and author of “Warriors: Portraits From the Battlefield.”

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Iraqi government degrades; like your brainSep 16th, 2007 - 19:27:41

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091600652.ht ml

(As this article details, there no longer IS a functioning government in Iraq. The 'surge' was intended to allow a government to fulfill Iraq's own benchmarks in terms of policy, and at this point, factional interests totally supercede the notion of a unified Iraq. This is a country flying apart. The notion in the 2nd paragraph below may result in reshuffling, but with the resulting opposite sides further apart than they are now. The Sunni Sheiks we're supporting are demanding MORE influence in the government, vs. the other Sunni factions. When you feed strays, they always look for more.)

' ... Tribal sheiks who have abandoned al-Qaida in Iraq and are now working with the Americans are demanding a greater voice in Sunni politics at the expense of the Sunni parties now represented in parliament. ...'

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'BAGHDAD -- Muqtada al-Sadr's decision to withdraw from the Shiite bloc is the most dramatic sign of the transformation in Iraqi politics. Old alliances are fraying, new ones are forming.

That makes any progress on U.S.-sought political deals even less likely until the power shuffling plays itself out. On the bright side, the reshuffling could eventually have a positive effect, setting up firmer coalitions more willing to compromise.

But the delay is likely to add to frustration over the war within the United States, which had hoped that the 'government of national unity' would encourage Sunni and Shiite extremists to stop fighting and join the political process.

With politics in flux, however, laws cannot be pushed through after deals with a handful of powerbrokers _ including power-sharing agreements crucial to the long-term stability that will allow American troops to leave.

'I would say that laws will not pass that easily from now on, and those who were counting on a number of seats, these are now just imaginary seats,' said Mohammed al-Dayni, a Sunni legislator. 'If laws do not serve the Iraqi people, then they will never be approved.'

At the core of the problem is a lack of shared vision of Iraq, even among sectarian groups themselves, and the absence of leaders capable of reaching out beyond their narrow constituencies.

Instead, the trend 'has been toward greater fragmentation of political and religious authority,' wrote Michael Eisenstadt of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

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Now contractors blamed as wellSep 16th, 2007 - 19:34:09

www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/16/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Contractors-Shooting. php

(This problem was expected, as the contractors are not controlled in the same way as the troops, and there's a large number of them engaged in security missions. While they certainly have a right to protect themselves as well as those being escorted, the inevitable civilian deaths ruin our position insofar as our stated mission of protecting the Iraqi people. WE become the problem. This is far from the first such incident).

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BAGHDAD: Security contractors opened fire in western Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least nine civilians and wounding 18, Iraqi police said. The U.S. Embassy said contractors working for the State Department were involved in an incident but provided no further details.

The shootings happened about 12:30 on Nisoor Square in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Mansour, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. The security contractors were in a convoy of six SUVs and left the scene after the shooting. The policeman said he did not have more details, but a witness said the shooting erupted after an explosion.

The U.S. Embassy said State Department contractors were involved in an incident in Baghdad but released no details saying an investigation was under way.

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Petraeus has problems with own superiorsSep 16th, 2007 - 19:42:37

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003886852_infight16.html

(I have no idea where Admiral Fallon sits in the policy on Iraq in terms of who BUSH is listening to, but clearly Petraeus is being influenced by Bush and Cheney, rather than the inverse. Petraeus will come out the goat for this, in the end, and that's a shame - he's an honorable guy trying to fulfill a mission badly designed from the start; as McCain states when discussing Rumsfeld. Where we are now is a direct result of the miserable early planning, and we're in a hole 10 feet deep, trying to dig our way out by going deeper, rather than buying a ladder. We should be concerned about Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Iraq has been nothing but a resource drain, and an endless money pit.)

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WASHINGTON — For two hours, President Bush listened to contrasting visions of the U.S. future in Iraq. Gen. David Petraeus dominated the conversation by video link from Baghdad, making the case to keep as many troops as long as possible. Adm. William Fallon, his superior, argued instead for taking more risks to have enough forces available to confront other potential threats.

The discussion this month masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Mideast, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. He soon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops. One plan, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. forces in Iraq from 169,000 to about 35,000 by 2010.

In an interview, Fallon disputed that description but declined to offer details. Nonetheless, his efforts offended Petraeus' team and exacerbated a schism between the two.

'Bad relations?' a senior civilian official laughed. 'That's the understatement of the century. ... If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it.'

The Bush administration has presented a united front, but senior officials remain split over whether Bush's strategy will work in the long term.

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Very good analysis says it all - no progressSep 16th, 2007 - 19:56:54

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091501452.ht ml?hpid=topnews

(The public would like some middle-ground solution where we insure that the troops are safe, and at the same time the numbers are reduced, and we get out of there. There is no such solution, since the sheer logistics of drawing down safely, including extraction of equipment, are overwhelming. Bush dug us firmly in without any exit strategy, and no reasonable one will be found. Meanwhile, nothing can create a working Iraqi government out of factions out solely for themselves, and the country will have to eventually divide, with local rule of some kind, and a weak central structure, in order to function. The oil revenues are the problem, because the Sunnis come up short, and it requires a central government to allocate those revenues to all parties. The Kurds just want their own country, including chunks of Iran and Turkey.

Per the prior:

' ... Tribal sheiks who have abandoned al-Qaida in Iraq and are now working with the Americans are demanding a greater voice in Sunni politics at the expense of the Sunni parties now represented in parliament. ...'

We are simply enabling different factions to go after bettering their own position in the government, and the Shia will be next at the trough to get some of that American money.)

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What seems increasingly clear is that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq -- at least until President Bush leaves office in 16 months. Following long-awaited congressional hearings, progress reports and presidential speeches, the prospect of a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever.

'The headline for the last week is that the war is pretty much going to be on a stay-the-course path and clearly is going to be passed on to the next president, and there isn't going to be an awful lot done in the Congress to change that,' said Leon E. Panetta, a former Clinton White House chief of staff who served on the Iraq Study Group that tried to forge a bipartisan agreement last year.

With razor-thin majorities, advocates for changing course do not appear to have the capacity to muster veto-proof votes to impose their will on Bush. While many Republicans have grown dissatisfied with the war, not enough have signaled willingness to break with the president on the overarching policy. Where change advocates may be able to influence policy, at least for now, is more on the margins, such as legislating more resting time for troops between deployments.

Moreover, the political calendar works against any possible war accord between the parties. With presidential primaries barely three months off, Democratic candidates such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) are competing to be more aggressive in confronting Bush and Republicans. Even if they could find a compromise that enough Republicans would accept, it is not clear that the candidates would agree to anything but a hard-line position given the antiwar fervor in the party base.

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Key problem is with Iraqi security forcesSep 16th, 2007 - 20:54:14

www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070909/17iraq_3.htm

(Page 3 of a very good 4-page analysis of the issues - those Security forces are what were supposed to 'stand up, as we stand down'. Those are the forces that will fulfill the mission of the Iraqi government, in lieu of our perpetual presence.)

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Security Forces. A key question now is whether the de facto Sunni militias, supported by U.S. military forces, can be brought into the Iraqi government security forces. Such a scenario is, suffice it to say, not a dream come true for the Shiite Maliki, no friend to former Baathists. The U.S. strategy now is to force Maliki to accept more Sunni participation in the government. The jury is still out on whether Maliki will drop the sectarian agenda, but slowly—very slowly—the prime minister may be coming around. The Iraqi government has started to quietly bring former Iraqi Army officers back into the armed forces, and the U.S. military continues to push for Sunnis who have signed up for U.S.-paid guard duty in their neighborhoods to be incorporated into the Shiite-dominated police force.

It's a crucial development. While 2006 was widely touted as the 'Year of the Police,' the 25,000-strong national police force remains broken—beyond repair, some say. U.S. military officials say it is unlikely that the force will be disbanded, as the Jones report recommends. 'There are clearly challenges there,' says the senior military official in Baghdad. 'But I don't think scrubbing a system and starting again is the way to go. We're well beyond that point.' National police, some U.S. officials are quick to add, are a small portion of the country's security forces.

After the surge, most scenarios put the U.S. training of Iraqi security forces at the center of future efforts. It is a 'back to the future' scenario, a repeat of the pre-surge mantra that as Iraqi forces stand up, American forces can stand down. There are two key factors that determine the ability of Iraqi security forces to support U.S. forces in operations—and to eventually operate on their own: readiness and reliability. The Jones report concluded that the Iraqi Army, which consists of about 152,000 troops, is 'increasingly effective,' but while the commission expects to see continued improvement in the next 12 to 18 months, this will not include, the report adds, the ability to operate independently or to 'secure Iraqi borders against conventional military and external threats.'

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Iraq boots BlackwaterSep 17th, 2007 - 20:36:57

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-blackwater18sep18,1,3358790.st ory?coll=la-headlines-world

(As I posted earlier, these contractors are on their own mission, and out of control - the Iraqi government moved quickly on this one, as our entire mission in Iraq is dependent on third-party work done by these very expensive hired hands)

'BAGHDAD -- Iraq's Interior Ministry canceled the license of controversial American security firm Blackwater USA today after Iraqi officials charged that eight civilians were shot by company bodyguards accompanying a U.S. State Department motorcade the day before in Baghdad.

'It has been revoked,' said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry. 'They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action.'

The decision marks Iraq's boldest step yet to assert itself against foreign security contractors, who arrived in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen accused by many Iraqis of speeding through Baghdad's streets and shooting wildly at anyone seen as a threat.'

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