Iraq Government Misses All Targets

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=John Mace]
Sam, this isn’t 1941. This is 1949. We won the Iraq war 4 years ago. It’s over. For the last 4 years we’ve been trying to nation build, and now we’re mediating a Civil War. Thing is, we’re not even picking sides-- we’re fighting against both major factions as if we could just beat them into submission. The whole point of the surge was to create some “space” so that the political process could move forward. We can argue all day about whether or not we’ve created that space, but the bottom line is that the political process isn’t moving forward. So, either the surge isn’t creating the needed “space” or that “space” isn’t helping the process move forward. Granted, it’s only July and the “surge” has only been fully operational for 1 month, but the Iraqi parliament hasn’t even thrown us a bone. They seem intent on fighting a civil war, and I don’t see how we can stop them.

[/quote]

I didn’t mean to draw a comparison to the events of 1941 vs the events of today. I was only trying to point out that from the perspective of 1941, things looked a lot more hopeless than they do today. Britain was being bombed, and no one even had a clue how to stop Hitler. D-Day was still years away, and looked like an impossible task. The Doolittle raid was the best America could do to inflict any damage at all on the Japanese, and that was basically a stunt, meant for PR purposes (imagine how THAT would get spun today). There were serious tactical errors by American Generals that caused major problems. MacArthur being pushed out of the Phillippines was a major blow.

Of course, this is an insurgency. It’s not an all-out battle that plays to American strength. Insurgencies are tough to defeat. But they CAN be defeated. It’s been done before. And since conditions no longer seem to be deterioriating, but at worst holding steady and at best showing some minor progress in isolated areas, I have to conclude that there is still a chance to turn things around, at least to the degree where the troops can be drawn down and a genocide or Iranian takeover averted (not a takeover in a military sense, but by completely controlling the political process through the Shia majority with Iranian-friendly leaders put in place).

I think that’s a possibility, and it’s a position I’m prepared to take in September if Petraeus comes back and says things are not substantially improving. I would prefer to see al-Qaida eradicated from the areas it holds first, because they aren’t interested in any sort of accomodation whatsoever, and you can fully expect them to stir up the works again should the Shia and Sunni show signs of reconciliation. There will be mosque bombings made to look liike Sunnis did it, and marketplace bombings in Sunni areas made to look like Shia retaliation. It worked for them the first time around, and it will work again if they aren’t cleared out and the population protected from them while a reconciliation process takes place.

82

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I think that’s a possibility, and it’s a position I’m prepared to take in September if Petraeus comes back and says things are not substantially improving. I would prefer to see al-Qaida eradicated from the areas it holds first, because they aren’t interested in any sort of accomodation whatsoever, and you can fully expect them to stir up the works again should the Shia and Sunni show signs of reconciliation. There will be mosque bombings made to look liike Sunnis did it, and marketplace bombings in Sunni areas made to look like Shia retaliation. It worked for them the first time around, and it will work again if they aren’t cleared out and the population protected from them while a reconciliation process takes place.
[/QUOTE]

That is if one assumes Al-qaeda is the biggest threat, as I see it, it is not, getting rid of it is only a small part of the overall mess.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070714/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AlK2qKJPWsi1iUc0VnvSMu2s0NUE

Elsewhere in that report, I get the impression al-Maliki is beginning to feel the pressure at home, I think he is diplomatically saying to the US that we must go.

83

Sam: I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Or maybe I wasn’t clear enough.

The problem in Iraq is political, and I’m afraid that providing better security in Iraq is actually counterproductive to them solving that problem. As long as they have the Americans providing security in their country (such as that security is), they’re never going to resolve their differences. We’re nothing more than a crutch that allows them to limp along with half-hearted measures that don’t address the real problems facing that new country.

I have no doubt that Petraeus is going to say that things are improving when he reports to Congress in September. He’ll say we’re seeing “mixed” levels of success, and that much work remains to be done. But so what? If the Iraqis can’t work out their political differences, the civil war is going to go on and on and on. Meanwhile, our men and women are dying over there so that the Iraqi politicians can fuck around and not get down to the business of making policy and creating a functioning government. They need to know that our open ended commitment is over. When those politicians sitting comfortably in the Green Zone see us taking down the barricades and heading home, maybe they’ll be able to see that there’s a way to work out their differences afterall. If not, and if they want to have a real civil war, will it’s their country and we should let them have it.

If the civil war spills over into the neighboring states, then maybe the Arab and Iranian leaders will be better suited to helping or forcing the Iraqis to work out a political solution. They could hardly do worse than we have. It probably won’t look too democratic, but if it restores order, then so be it. Our little experiment with democracy in that country was a stupid mistake, if you ask me. You don’t go from autocratic dictatorship to democracy in one fell swoop.

84

I am confident that Patraeus will say things are improving. You have managed to say it for these years as things decayed. If you look hard enough to justify beliefs or actions, they can be found. But is it real?
Put yourself in the position of the Iraqis. Their country has been beat to death and their lives have degenerated. Infrastructure has been blown apart and foreigners are occupying their land. No jobs, no electricity ,death on the streets. They can be killed at nearly any time. Neighbors and friends in Abu Grhaib or Gitmo.
Patraeus will be talking to an American populace that desperately wants to believe that things are getting better. We do not want to believe that we went thousands of miles from home and attacked a country that was no threat to us. But, that is what happened.
We were lied to to get into this war. We were lied to all the time. Now along comes Patraeus. You can believe him. Why is that?

85

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
I’m old enough to remember an earlier escalation, emphasizing body count, and the soldiers’ slogan “If it’s dead, it’s Cong.”

[/quote]

And I’m old enough to remember the horrors that took place when the U.S. left Vietnam, and the back-stabbing that took place when the Democrats took control of Congress after Watergate and cut off military support to South Vietnam after the U.S. promised them that they’d receive support as long as they needed it.

The result was murders by he hundreds of thousands, people fleeing by the millions in rickety boats, many of whom were lost at sea, and a country that became, under Communism, one of the poorest nations on the planet and remained that way for several decades.

I haven’t seen any emphasis on body count from the U.S. military. They are talking about al-Qaida more at the moment, because the offensives that are taking place are largely against al-Qaida. Note that these are not all, or even mostly, ‘foreign fighters’. They are young Iraqis recruited into al-Qaida. They have their own organization, AQI (al-Qaida in Iraq). Zarqawi was their leader. Now it’s someone else. In Baquba, there were apparently thousands of them.

I trust Petraeus. He’s no Bush boy. He was essentially pushed out of Iraq during the Rumsfeld era because Rumsfeld didn’t like his tactics, because they didn’t mesh with his ‘faster, leaner’ philosophy. Petraeus is more a Shinsecki-type general, with a realistic view of what it takes to win an insurgency. He’s a straight shooter. He tells it like it is. And when he was controlling areas of Iraq the first time around, his areas were the only ones to show major successes. So in my opinion he deserves a chance.

Really? Do I need to spell it out? High-level conflict would be ‘shock and awe’. Constant aerial bombardment. Massed battles. Armored warfare. The kind of battles that kill tens of thousands of people in a day and wipe out entire cities. Armies engaging other armies.

These aren’t my terms. Insurgencies are low-level conflict. Carpet-bombing is high-level conflict.

I haven’t read a word of what Bush says in a long time. I pay no attention to the administration whatsoever. I’m getting my information mostly from statements by Petraeus or his commanders in the field, embedded reporting, Iraqi bloggers, and dispatches from other journalists, including those hostile to the Bush administration.

For example, here’s a story from the BBC, who I think you’d agree is no friend of the Bush Administration.

Even the BBC is saying that the surge looks like the right strategy, but now it’s starting to look like the political landscape is such that it won’t be given time to work. The reason it has ‘come too late’ is not because it can’t still succeed, but that political events in Washington have a life of their own now and are rapidly changing to one where the surge simply won’t be given a chance.

If so, that’s tragic.

As I said, I’m not paying any attention to Bush. The list of mistakes that have been made in Iraq are astounding. Some of them I made right along with the administration, and I’ve learned my lesson about trusting them, but others I saw as mistakes at the time and bitched about them right here on this board. It’s clear to me that this administration is grossly incompetent.

But Petraeus has earned the benefit of the doubt. I haven’t found anyone who had a bad thing to say about him. He has an unbroken track record of success. And he’s not trying to snow anyone - read that BBC article, and you can tell that he’s not exactly ‘on message’ with the Bush Administration. He says that the war will get harder before it gets easier, that it typically takes 9-10 years to defeat an insurgency, that nothing’s in the bag, but that the job can be done if the willpower is there. It’s going to be a long, hard fight - but one worth fighting.

This is not to say the surge has to take place for 9-10 years. The hope is that the U.S. presence can be gradually withdrawn in the reasonably near term (next year) to a smaller force similar to those forces left indefinitely in Europe and Japan (maybe 50,000 soldiers, mostly located on bases and out of harm’s way). Enough to deter outside aggression and provide air support, training, and logistics to locals. This is sustainable, and hopefully getting Americans out of the day-to-day affairs of the Iraqi people and sending 2/3 of them home will convince the Iraqis that the Americans are not interested in a permanent occupation, and this will also help the political process.

But first, you have to stop the major killing, and you have to put a lid on al-Qaida (and despite the sneering going on around here when al-Qaida in Iraq is mentioned, it’s clear that they have a major presence there now. Just read interviews with the Iraqi population in Baquba).

86

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
And I’m old enough to remember the horrors that took place when the U.S. left Vietnam, and the back-stabbing that took place when the Democrats took control of Congress after Watergate and cut off military support to South Vietnam after the U.S. promised them that they’d receive support as long as they needed it.

The result was murders by he hundreds of thousands, people fleeing by the millions in rickety boats, many of whom were lost at sea, and a country that became, under Communism, one of the poorest nations on the planet and remained that way for several decades.
[/quote]

The back stabbing was when we stopped an election that was very likely to go in favor of unification and communism, even if one hated their decision, it would not have had the extreme result of the displacement of the many that would be considered collaborators and subject of reprisals. And the death of more than a Million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 Americans dead.

As I have seen on some reports, even groups that were organized to protect the cities and fight al-qaeida were killed and counted later as “killed al-qaeida fighters”

So was Powell.

IMHO he is getting a chance to show what a good soldier he will be on following orders from his commander.

To me is more tragic attempting to ignore that indeed not everything is solved by military force, or that in a democracy it is the biggest dereliction of duty when a government leaves all the decisions to a general.
Speaking of the BBC:

87

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
And I’m old enough to remember the horrors that took place when the U.S. left Vietnam
[/quote]
The war was over. We’d lost. The SV puppet government we’d set up had failed and bailed. Saigon itself had given itself over to the indigenous government in Hanoi. The US embassy itself, inside its own “Green Zone”, was under fire. There was nothing more we could have done except to keep bombing and killing people, and keep the bloodshed going on a much larger scale.

You’re using the same argument today that the failed bitter-enders did then, that we had to stay because we couldn’t afford to lose (really meaning that they couldn’t afford to admit they’d failed) - and there are tens of thousands of names on a black granit wall, something that I’m sure you’ve never even seen much less have a family member on it, as tribute to those who paid the real price for that simple pigheadedness. I’m sure you recognize the parallels today, even if your discomfort with them forces you into denial.

I really thought you were better than that. Oh, well … :rolleyes:

Etc. Those were results of the war itself, not of our withdrawing from it, an action which allowed it finally burn itself out. Puh-leeze.

Another point you didn’t get. Today’s version of the “body count” involves specific claims of success in specific tactical operations (and I do hope by now you’ve looked up the difference between tactics and strategy), but in terms of success against Al Qaeda rather than militias or Baathists or whatever. The point is that a dead Iraqi is now claimed to have been Al Qaeda no matter who he was.

To emphasize in the hope of getting through, they’re saying they’re against Al Qaeda. And you’re not questioning that at all, just repeating it.

Come on. He wouldn’t have the job if he weren’t. You know better.

No matter how well his approach to tactics may work, “winning” an insurgency is a strategic problem, and not even a mainly militarily strategic one. Petraeus just doesn’t matter anymore, his approach is far too late to matter anymore, the lack of a central Iraqi leadership matters. But it’s certainly understandable that you’re pinning all your hopes of being bailed out of this mess you’ve cheered for on the first high commander with some basic air of competence around him.

Look at the situation today and tell us what’s there is really any different, in the extent and depth of the war. Go visit Baghdad and tell us that what’s going on there is “low-level”.

Blogs like Powerline, and “hostile to the Bush administration” like Colmes, no doubt. You’re parroting the party line, just second-hand.

For example, here’s a story from the BBC, who I think you’d agree is no friend of the Bush Administration.
[/quote]
Just quotes from Petraeus. So? :rolleyes:

Bullshit, “the BBC” is *not * saying that, they’re just quoting Petraeus. Really, don’t you even read your own cites?

Perhaps it has a bit more to do with political events in Baghdad, where the “parliament” that has been given a chance to get its act together has done precisely nothing except to decide to take August off for vacation?

It is indeed a tragic situation, but your attempt to pin the blame on the realists is foolish.

But not yet to the point where you question the version of reality they peddle to you, not in the slightest. That’s your primary problem.

You seem to think he’s in some sort of control of some situation over a broad area of both geography and Iraqi politics. I don’t doubt he’s a good soldier, but again, this problem isn’t primarily military, and even he is free about saying so.

It was more like 50 in the Philippnes before we were finally forced out, and more like 100 in Northern Ireland. Even then, there had to be a central government willing to combat the insurgents themselves, and with a wide measure of local support. Iraq ain’t got one, and ain’t gonna develop one soon, is it?

You can stop right there. Hope is not a plan. :rolleyes:

You do know better than to think those are analogous. You do.

Too late. The house is ablaze, and all we have is a garden hose. Time to get out. Or are you finally ready to go do your own part to help?

See above about the deliberate mislabeling you’ve bought into. Or maybe we could go find Bin Laden, huh? Ever stop to consider that, on 9/10/01, Al Qaeda was a few dozen guys out camping, with only boxcutters for weapons, and after only 6 years of intensive action to destroy them they’ve managed to stop the entire US military? Perhaps the cause-effect relationship isn’t quite what you think?

We have to stop *creating * terrorists. We have to stop giving people of an entire region reason to hate us and want to revenge themselves against us, for killing their family members and their countrymen in the name of refusing to admit we were wrong. We have to stop thinking of them, “the terrorists”, as some amorphous, subhuman race, with finite numbers, that can be attacked and eventually destroyed. That isn’t how any insurgency has ever been “defeated”, yet’s that what you advocate.
It’s been clear ever since Bush started his saber-rattling in 2002 that the fault line lay between the responsible realists on one side, and the fantasists and the frightenable on the other. It’s still true, except you’re in a rapicly-shrinking minority now. You do need to reconsider why that is.

88

What evidence do you have that this is deliberate mislabeling? Other than that you don’t believe anything that doesn’t fit what you want to believe, that is. Have you got an example of Petraeus describing a conflict against al-Qaida, when there was strong evidence that al-Qaida wasn’t present? If so, please cite it.

The reason the tribes in al-Anbar turned against al-Qaida is because al-Qaida is actually strong enough to have gained control over entire cities - and brutalized the population. If al-Qaida were non-existant or insignificant, they would never have managed to have enough influence that they could have changed the lives of large numbers of people for the worse.

I’ve read interviews with tribal leaders in al-Anbar describing the horrors they faced under al-Qaida. Are they Bush stooges? Did they imagine it? Is there some sort of mass hysteria, perhaps engineered by the evil Bush administration?

89

The bloodshed that occurred when we left Viet Nam were not caused by a quick pullout. It was caused by going in in the first place. When we go to war for false pretenses the facade falls down. You can never convince the people who live there. Eventually you can no longer keep the American from the truth.

90

Sam, take a good look at the chart from GIGObuster’s BBC link and then try to come back and tell us how the surge is working for Iraqi civilians.

More time, my hairy white behind. IMO, the only possible solution is a political one between the Iraqis themselves. Whether that means more or less bloodshed over the short run, I don’t know – nor do I think anyone else does. But I do think John’s post is right on target. The American occupation is beyond a failure, it is a crutch that everyone wants to use for their own advantage. And that is simply not going to get it done.

As for you definition of a “high-level” conflict, semantically you might be right. But the groups involved in the civil war never had formal armies to begin with, so it’s silly to talk about “airforce and tanks” and all the rest of that jazz. IEDs and AK-47s can, and have, inflicted all sorts of death a chaos in Iraq – even when facing the mightiest armed forces in the world. Means didley-squat when you’re fighting for your home soil and your family.

Ask Napoleon what happened to his mighty army in Spain. Oh and don’t forget to ask him as well were the word “guerrilla” originated…and finally ask him who won. Hint: you won’t see any statues in Spain honoring the French invaders and I suspect that Bush won’t get one in Iraq either – unless it’s a dartboard.

91

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
What evidence do you have that this is deliberate mislabeling? Other than that you don’t believe anything that doesn’t fit what you want to believe, that is. Have you got an example of Petraeus describing a conflict against al-Qaida, when there was strong evidence that al-Qaida wasn’t present? If so, please cite it.

The reason the tribes in al-Anbar turned against al-Qaida is because al-Qaida is actually strong enough to have gained control over entire cities - and brutalized the population. If al-Qaida were non-existant or insignificant, they would never have managed to have enough influence that they could have changed the lives of large numbers of people for the worse.

I’ve read interviews with tribal leaders in al-Anbar describing the horrors they faced under al-Qaida. Are they Bush stooges? Did they imagine it? Is there some sort of mass hysteria, perhaps engineered by the evil Bush administration?
[/QUOTE]

That is not the point, the point remains that while that will be good:

  1. Al qaida was not there before, they did not come until we invaded, I do not think Iraqis are forgetting that “small” detail.

  2. Getting rid of Al-qaida is getting rid of only a small part of the overall revolt.

  3. Meaning that Iraqis are glad that we are the ones cleaning up and dying for our mistake. But I see no evidence that they are glad we will stay if we manage to remove Al-qaeda. Once again, those weapons will point somewhere else the sooner we get rid of the few Al-qaedans.

And

  1. That still shows to me that I was correct in my assumption that the Iraqis would get rid of Al-qaeda without even asking us for permission. It is because we are there that some Iraqis thought/think it is a good idea to allow Al-qaeda to come in and shot Americans, That Iraqis do not like the treatment and are turning against them is not the problem, the problem is that a good number of Iraqies still think the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I do think our presence is making a mess of what it would be clear to all Iraqis if we are not there: Al-qaeda does not belong in Iraq. And the USA does not need to be there to make it so.

92

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
What evidence do you have that this is deliberate mislabeling?
[/quote]
You mean you haven’t noticed that the “enemy” suddenly is, in every statement from the WH now, “Al Qaeda” instead of “insurgents”? That’s mislabeling. As to deliberateness, you should know better. McClatchy does a good job of summarizing the story here.

Or maybe “we all just hate Bush”, is that still it? :rolleyes:

I said the White House. Read again, more slowly.

Cite?

Meaning they have broad public support there, no?

No, it would be some other ethnic militia under some other name, or perhaps that same one. You still don’t get that a number of Sunni groups have taken on the AQ name as an effective recruiting tactic, do you?

But keep on believing the Bush fantasy version of TWAT, whether or not you get it secondhand from Powerline instead of straight from the horse’s ass, as long as you find it reassuring. It’s amazing that you’ve lasted this long already.
Frightfully easy to demand that sacrifices be made as long as you’re not going to have to make them yourself, innit?

93

When are you going to learn to stop making personal attacks in GD? Are you completely unable to control yourself?

94

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
When are you going to learn to stop making personal attacks in GD? Are you completely unable to control yourself?
[/QUOTE]

Not that I’m defending Elvis, but implying that we are backstabbers is an even worse insult and it remains a Myth, particularly in a war that the current administration has called as serious as WWII and they never bothered to demand the sacrifices needed or seen for WWII.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/06/0081080

95

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
When are you going to learn to stop making personal attacks in GD? Are you completely unable to control yourself?
[/QUOTE]
When are you going to learn that being told you’re wrong, and how and why, does not constitute a “personal attack”? Or that making the accusation is itself an acknowledgment that you do not have a respectable argument remaining? :rolleyes:

96

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

Petraeus’ strategy is completely different. Now, the U.S. moves into an area, and sets up a permanent presence. The soldiers get out of the APCs and live among the population. They attend town meetings. They work with the locals. They eat with their families. Once the terrorists are cleared out, they’re kept out. Once the population realizes that the protection is permanent, they start cooperating. And areas stay peaceful and secure longer, which allows infrastructure projects to be driven to completion and the local economy to come back.
[/QUOTE]

There are two problems with this. The first is that the protection is not permanent. The military can not maintain this level of troop deployment indefinitely. The various factions in Iraq know this, and Iraqi citizens know this. We are five years into the war. A surge lasting 3 months isn’t going to be effective in changing the opinions of Iraqi citizens, and it’s doubtful we can keep the surge up much longer.

The second problem is that we simply do not have enough troops to effectively implement this strategy across the country. As a result, the various factions have simply moved their operations into less defended areas of the country. We have seen the worst bombing in Iraq, despite the siege.

Finally, none of this really the important issue. The US is not going to be responsible for the long-term security of Iraq. The Iraqi police and military will have to take over that role. Unfortunately, both of those institutions are heavily infiltrated, and partisan in nature. I’ve seen little progress made towards a stable and functioning country over the past 5 years.

97

Must say, your timimg is impeccable:

U.S. kills six Iraqi policemen in Baghdad raid

Then again, it would have been impeccable no matter when you posted it. It is an – almost – everyday occurrence no matter how much the Sam’s of this world fail to recognize it.

Facts is, there’s no such thing as a united Iraqi military able to provide country-wide security for all citizens and their puppet Government. Far from it actually…they just fight each others and Americans with some sort of military uniform on. And with American’s providing them the firepower to boot. Talk about ‘smart strategy.’

That’s about it.

98

[QUOTE=RedFury]
Must say, your timimg is impeccable:

U.S. kills six Iraqi policemen in Baghdad raid
[/QUOTE]
Also Iraqi police assisted gunmen:

This is the attack that engendered all the speculation about Iranian Quds Forces working in Iraq: Possible Iran involvement in Iraq: Now what?

99

Iraqi Prime Minister says U.S. can leave “anytime”.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/14/iraq.military.ap/index.html
This might be the perfect time for Bush to save what little face he has left and take heed, not sure it will happen though.

100

He’s not about to let this war be micromanaged by politicians. That al-Maliki is an Iraqi politician is of no consequence.