Iraq

After General Petraeus’ meeting at 10 Downing Street with Defense Secretary Des Browne and Sir Jock Stirrup (defense chief of staff), the general agreement was that the 4,000 strong British troop contingent would remain stationed outside of Basra for the time being. When asked about a specific time range the General replied, “The answer right now is we don’t know … We need to work [it] out in the next month or two as we look at the so-called troop-to-task analysis.” This means that the intention of drawing down the contingent to 2,500 is out the window.

General Petraeus also took the opportunity to discuss Iranian arms flowing into Iraq again, in the Guardian’s piece linked above. The U.S. military really seems to be taking the lead on this media offensive, with the last month having seen Secretary Gates, Major General Lynch, and Pentagon spokesperson Morrell among others, making statement after statement on the accusation. Even officials speaking on condition of anonymity never offer any hard proof, they simply continuously state the fact that weapons caches have been found bearing recent Iranian stamps/insignia. The military must show their smoking gun, because to the rest of the world, it sounds like a drumbeat towards war.

My fellow blogger Daniel Graeber has published his own piece on Basra titled “Analysis: A Hornet’s Nest in Basra”. He points out that “the violence between rival…factions could shape the new threat environment.” He gives a great rundown of the recent history of Prime Minister Maliki’s alliance with Sadr and the US’ support of the Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim, who heads up the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. Definitely a recommended read.

The New York Times has a great piece on the dismissal of 1,300 soldiers and policemen in the wake of the Basra offensive. Stephen Farrell writes that there have been revelations “more than 1,000 members of the security forces had laid down their weapons during the fight“. There were a multitude of reasons behind the refusals to fight: basically, it is impossible to say that all of these policemen and soldiers were on the sympathetic to the Mehdi Army (although some invariably were). The highest rank dismissed was brigadier general, according to the report.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley (a remarkably quiet NSA when compared with his predecessor) has joined the chorus of voices from the Bush administration condemning Iran’s influence in Iraq. According to Hadley, “I think that one of the interesting developments of Prime Minister Maliki’s offensive in Basra is that it has revealed to the Shia, particularly, in the Iraqi government, the level of Iranian malign influence in the south and on their economic heartline through Basra”. He was speaking on Fox News Sunday (a full transcript of the interview is available here).

Well, we’re five years in folks. There is a ton of press coverage, the tone varies from publication to publication. First off, I would like to bring your attention to the Washington Post’s ‘Five Years in Iraq‘ section, which has interviews with people as wide ranging as an Iraq war protester, an infantry officer, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, in addition to having a longer (and quite thoughtful) piece by Karen DeYoung. The London Times has a quick piece called (in true British style) ‘Iraq: Five Years Hence’, which details what needs to happen to have an established Iraq by 2013. In fact, the entire Iraq section in the London Times definitely has a very critical slant, and it’s an interesting perspective to see it from the British POV.

The Guardian has an incredible, interactive timeline that brings you from the date of the invasion to the present day while highlighting the major events that have marked the war. It’s pretty amazing. The Middle Eastern press in general is still discussing Cheney’s visit, with this scathing piece by the Daily Star in Lebanon that starts out with “US Vice President Dick Cheney’s regional tour would carry a lot more credibility if he had not played such an instrumental role in fomenting the multiple crises that he now seeks to resolve.” Ouch. The New York Times has a whole section devoted to its ‘Baghdad Bureau Blogs’, which have wide ranging articles on many aspects of the insurgency and the effects on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Christian Science Monitor’s extensive piece on the anniversary is more tempered, with points about relative increase in freedom of press and religion.

Brian O’Neill from the FPA Middle East Blog (whom I don’t envy at all having to cover an entire region) sent this wonderful link my way, it’s a piece in the World Affairs Journal by George Packer that highlights the realities on the Iraqi street. It’s called Over Here: Iraq the Place vs. Iraq the Abstraction. Also, our wonderful FPA War Crimes Blogger, Daniel Graeber, has a great piece published in UPI, called ‘Analysis: Marriage of Convenience in Iraq’.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a trip to Iraq (finally!) this weekend, with Al Jazeera English calling it ‘a landmark visit’. The New York Times points out that his trip overlaps with Adm. Mike Mullen’s trip to Baghdad, but makes sure to note that there were no plans for the two of them ‘to cross paths, and the timing of their visits appeared to be coincidental’. Thank you, dears at the NYT. The London Times has a great piece analyzing the situation (by Deborah Haynes) called “The Day the Former Foes Became Friends” that discusses President Ahmadinejad’s visit in depth and its more strategic ramifications.

The BBC details the President’s speech in which he blames the United States for bringing terrorism to the region with its invasion of Iraq. The article has commentary from the BBC’s correspondents in Iraq which note that many Iraqis see this as part of a ‘normalization process’ of ties with Iran, and still more Iraqis blame Iran for funding and training militias that have caused so much violence and havoc in the Iraq. The reaction from the Iraqi citizens is clearly mixed.

Iraqi security officials have been ordered to round up homeless people, beggars, and vagrants in effort at preventive counter terrorism. This is a result of the suicide bombings several weeks ago which were supposedly carried out by two women with Down’s Syndrome, but recent statements made by US and Iraqi forces indicate that this was probably not the case. According to the New York Times piece published yesterday, the psychiatric records of the women were parsed, and no information on Down’s Syndrome was ever mentioned in the paperwork found. However, they were noted to have suffered depression and schizophrenia. The fear is that Al-Qaeda will target these vulnerable people and recruit them to the insurgency, using them as suicide bombers (as was allegedly done in the case of the two female bombers).

In this vein, Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf says that beggars and homeless people would be taken to state-run shelters, while the mentally disabled would be hospitalized. This is a wonderful idea and it shows that the Iraq government is taking preemptive steps to crack down on the militancy. However, the hospitals in general are overloaded with patients already with very serious physical injuries from the almost daily attacks in Iraq. These hospitals are understaffed, underfunded, and ill-equipped. I have difficulty believing that this is a long term solution to a problem that runs far deeper than simply getting vulnerable people off the streets. If there is no proper hospital or shelter to take care of these people, then what’s the point? If the conditions in the shelters or hospitals are bad, there is no stopping them from going back out onto the streets. In the end, this could lead to a waste of time and energy of the security forces and may well breed more resentment against them by the local populace.

An article written by the Associated Press is very clear in its description of the decrepit state of the Iraqi medical system today, with doctors being caught up in the sectarian violence, and IV’s and basic medical supplies being in short demand. The black market for legitimate drugs and medication is thriving, while the pharmacy shelves and the hospitals are empty. My point is, if the basic necessities for violent physical injuries is lacking, how can Iraqi hospitals expect to spare staff, facilities, and equipment for large amounts of mentally disabled people? If the government can’t fund these hospitals, how are they going to find spare funding for psychiatric hospitals? Although this promise by the Iraqi government to step up their efforts is promising, it seems to be short-sighted and it is not backed up by any credible institutions to sustain the attempt.

The pause in troops that has been touted by General Petraeus and Secretary Gates as necessary to judge and consolidate security gains from the surge has been universally panned by Democrats. The reasoning behind the ‘pause’ (Pause: it’s pop culture’s new ’surge’, I can just feel it) is that “We have momentum, and we must maintain this momentum. Without a pause to assess trends, we could make a serious mistake,” says an anonymous US officer to the New York Times.

I am uncomfortable with standing with the Democrats in reviling this announcement, because if you have followed the Iraqi political and security situation in any amount of detail or for any amount of time, you will have learned that the political and security situation stops and starts its progression. For example, the handover in Basra from British to Iraqi forces was de facto, as the British had withdrawn to the airport and to their base outside the city. The current head of the Basra provincial police chief has openly remarked on the infiltration of his forces by militant groups. Garrett Therolf’s LA Times piece provides insight into a former Sunni Iraqi SWAT commander’s claims that he was tortured under the orders of Maj. Gen. Ghanim Quraishi, the Shi’ite head of the Diyala police force. He claims that the torture was part of an orchestrated campaign to eradicate Sunni Muslims from the police and security force.

My point in all this is that the current security situation is not conducive to a peaceful society for which humans are expected to live. Not only are militants terrorizing the general population, but the police forces have been infiltrated and/or are largely complicit in these crimes. Then again, the argument can also be shifted to: How is that different from many other places in the developing world? Take Pakistan for example. Not exactly the epitome of democracy and strong state institutions. But their history and political situation with the US is quite different.

In the background of all of this, Ambassador Ryan Crocker has hailed the Iraqi parliament’s passage of three new bills today as, “important steps forward.” This is after weeks and weeks of gridlock during which only the Ba’ath party bill (the Accountability and Justice Law, a link at the bottom of this page provides a PDF of the English translation of the text of the legislation itself) was passed allowing for the reinstatement of former Ba’ath party bureaucrats into their old posts. The three major bills have been a $48 billion national budget, an amnesty law, and legislation allowing for provincial elections on October 1. Speaker of the Parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, has called this ‘a day of celebration for Iraq’.

I guess we should be pleased that there is some slow, inching progress towards stability, although I loathe to all it ‘reconciliation’. That will take generations, as many experts have pointed out. The problem is that the US as a whole has a very short memory, while the rest of the world’s memory is decidedly longer. They remember their enemies’ foul-ups for many generations, as well as the United States’ and this is not promotive of quick peace initiatives that coincide with our election schedules.

In a small but symbolic step forward today, the Iraqi parliament approved a change to the Iraqi national flag, removing the stars the represented Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. This is a temporary change and a new flag design will be brokered in a years’ time. I think at this point, the Iraq people need much, much more than symbolic changes. The flag on top is the new design.