Iraq

The death toll from a Thursday evening blasts in Baghdad has risen to 68 with over 120 wounded, according to Al Jazeera English. The dual bombs were set off in a crowded market, and no one has yet claimed responsibility. They were set off one right after another, with a New York Times piece quoting witnesses as saying that the first bomb was hidden in a trash can, with the second possibly originating from a suicide vest.

Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung have written an excellent piece in Washington Post called “Officials Lean Toward Keeping Next Iraq Assessment Secret“, in which Director of National Intelligence Mitch McConnell writes his recommendation to Senator John Warner (R-VA) that the next Iraq report be kept classified. It is to be presented in April before Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testify before Congress on the state of the Iraq war. With the previous assessments from intelligence agencies having massive coverage from the media, this may be a way for the administration to create a buffer between them and the public before making their final Iraq decisions now at the end of their tenure. Two further estimates are due by fall on the state of the Afghanistan war and the ‘terrorist threat to the homeland’.

According to an AFP report picked up by Lebanon’s Daily Star, women are bearing the brunt of violence in Iraq according to ‘Women for Women International‘, womens’ rights group. 64% of women surveyed by the organization have reported increased amounts of violence against them in the past five years. Many more women are being threatened because of leaving their homes without wearing the veil. Iraq’s Minister for Womens’ Rights (a Kurd) has stated that the greatest threat for women comes from extremist Islamic groups.

There have been some new books published in the past week on the Iraq situation, with The Financial Times reviewing one called “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes (Columbia and Harvard professors). The FT’s review is scathing in its criticism, saying that their numbers are highly politicized and flawed, and saying, “The “cost” of the Iraq war is in the eye of the beholder. Our two beholders here are anti-war and so their assertions, it should be understood, are made to bolster the case for the Democrats in the forthcoming US presidential election.”

Another book entitled “So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits –and the President — Failed on Iraq” by Greg Mitchell (an editor at ‘Editor and Publisher’, a newspaper trade journal) has been reviewed by ‘Editor and Publisher’ and the Kirkus Reviews. An interview posted on Iraqslogger with the author mentions the book as well, calling it “provocative” and “a must-read”. The book criticizes the media, especially New York Times’ Judith Miller’s closeness with the Bush administration. He also criticizes MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on his remarks made on the day of the Bush administration’s assertion that the war was won.

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.

US soldiers have killed three members of a family in Tikrit, after US officials said that the troops were fired on before entering the house. However, The New York Times is reporting that an AP correspondent quoted a relative as alleging that the US soldiers kicked open the door of the house and began firing with no warning. This is comes on the heels of yesterday’s statement from the US that the nine civilians killed in Iskandariyah were in fact not insurgents, but mostly checkpoint guards. The Tikrit area is north of Baghdad, unlike Iskandariyah which is to the south and not the focus of the US insurgent clean-up.

The US is dealing with a string of accusations of abuse lately that are dominating the headlines far more than the political logjam of the country or of the intra-Shi’ite fighting in the south of the country. After the twin bombings in Baghdad, the heat is on for the US to polish their lacklustre campaign in Iraq this year.  Despite US assertions that violence levels and casualties are going down, the headlines suggest something quite different.

The big story out of Iraq this weekend was the admission by the United States that it had killed nine civilians accidentally in an airstrike targeting Al-Qaeda forces in Iskanadariya. The Guardian’s piece is quite descriptive, saying that an Iraqi officer described the victims as Sunni members of the Al-Ghrir tribe. What’s interesting is the fact that this happened in a town so close to Baghdad, which according to the US military, has been free and clear of militants for some months, hence the need for the big push in Mosul. On Saturday, President Maliki said that a ‘decisive battle’ was imminent, after meeting with officials in Mosul. Why is the US military still pursing Al-Qaeda militants in the areas close to Baghdad if they’ve all been supposedly pushed out and into Mosul and other northern areas? Understandably there are stragglers everywhere, but conducting an airstrike seems to suggest that perhaps the operation was big to deal with a big AQ cell or unit.

64 people were killed and over 100 more were wounded when what are believed to be two female suicide bombers detonated their payloads on Friday morning. The first was in a market in central Baghdad, which killed 46 people and wounded 82, and the second detonated in a market in southeastern Baghdad with 18 killed and 25 wounded.

In other news, rockets were aimed at a British base in Basra, at the airport. Two British soldiers were wounded, and according to Capt. Finn Aldrich, many more Iraqi casualties were reported. There are no numbers on the Iraqis as of yet. The British withdrew from Basra city for the most part back in September of 2007, and only officially handed the entire province back over to the Iraqis on December 16th, 2007. Before the pull out, the province’s police chief Major General Khalaf, had warned (dismissing fears for his own safety) that not only were his own ranks infiltrated by sectarian militants, but that the religious officials themselves were not doing enough to stop the bloodshed. He bluntly said that the they needed to encourage the militants to stop the violence. His outspokenness has earned him many assassination attempts, a larger one having wounded four of his guards in November of 2007. More to come on the nature of the intra-sectarian violence that permeates Basra in an upcoming post.

Monday greeted the reports of five US troops killed in Mosul as a result of a roadside bomb, or IED. For a comprehensive definition of what an IED is, click here for the Globalsecurity.org’s explanation (click here for an Iraq specific explanation). The ‘pre-offensive’ is gearing up in Mosul, after Prime Minister Maliki announced the plans on Friday. Defense Ministry spokesperson Mohammed Askari has said “The largest portion of those forces have arrived already. They are Iraqi army forces and include troops, mechanized troops and air force…The plan will be similar to the ones implemented in Baghdad and Diyala [province].”

The real problems in Mosul stem from tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and has created a new flashpoint in the country’s battle against internal sectarian and ethnic violence. Defense Minister Abdel Qadir Jassim Mohammed visited the city on Sunday, and gave a press conference saying that “The situation in Mosul is worse than imagined by far“. He also said that the Iraqi military’s deployment in Mosul was scattered and lacked unity. The situation with the security forces was being rectified, according to him.
Following up on the bomb blast in Mosul on Wednesday, the death toll has risen to far beyond the initial report of 12. It is estimated to be about 60. The Iraq Red Crescent reported that many families had buried their deceased relatives without registering the deaths with the authorities or local morgue.

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.