April 20, 2006
Late word out of Iraq has Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari ending his bid for re-election to the position, paving the way for a national unity government that would signal stability to the Iraqi people: Under intense domestic and American pressure, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari dropped his bid to retain his job on Thursday, removing a major obstacle to forming a new government during a time of rising sectarian violence. Leaders from each of Iraq's main factions — Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurd — called the decision a breakthrough. "I believe that we will succeed in forming the national unity government the people are waiting for," Adnan Pachachi, the acting speaker of Parliament, said at a news conference at the Convention Center inside the fortified Green Zone. But while Mr. Jaafari's capitulation after two months of resistance could indeed resolve the stalemate, daunting political challenges lie ahead. Leaders are battling over...
April 22, 2006
The Iraqi National Assembly has wasted no time after the Shi'ite compromise on Ibrahim al-Jafaari's withdrawal and has begun forming the national-unity executive for which America has pressed since the December elections. The division of power among the top slots remains as it did before, with the Kurds holding the presidency and the Sunnis and Shi'a taking the two vice-presidential positions: After months of political deadlock, Iraq's parliament convened Saturday to select top leadership posts, launching the process of putting together a new government aimed at pulling the country out of its sectarian strife. Before the session, Shiite lawmaker Ridha Jawad Taqi said all sides agreed on a package deal for the top spots: Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would remain as president for a second term, with Sunni Arab Tariq al-Hashimi and Shiite Adil Abdul-Mahdi holding the two vice-president spots. In its first vote, lawmakers elected Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni,...
April 25, 2006
While Europe ponders its problems with large and isolated Muslim communities in their midst, suffering from unemployment and refusing to assimilate, its citizens have begun looking towards the ummah for solutions to their own economic woes. Der Spiegel reports on the newest ethnic restaurant in Irbil: Now, finally, just in time for the World Cup, Iraqis have the opportunity to savour German cuisine and culture following last week's opening of the country's first German restaurant, in the northern city of Arbil. The "Deutscher Hof Arbil" was set up by Gunter Völker, a former German soldier who already runs a German restaurant in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The restaurant will stage parties to mark highlights in the German calendar such as the Oktoberfest beer festival and carnival. Its musical offerings will range from Oompah band classics to local Kurdish tunes. For Völker, the prospect of unemployment at home in Germany...
April 28, 2006
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appeared on video earlier this week, exhorting Iraqi Sunnis to join the insurgency and defeat the United States. Today the Iraqis gave an answer to one of his lieutenants, only the message will not get hand-delivered, thanks to the Iraqi security forces: Iraqi commando forces acting on a tip raided a house where Hamid al-Takhi and the two other insurgents were hiding in Samarra, a city 60 miles north of Baghdad, said police Capt. Laith Mohammed. All three were killed in a gunbattle. Mohammed said al-Takhi had been responsible for many insurgent attacks against coalition forces and civilians in the area. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq — the country's most feared insurgent group — appeared in a video earlier this week trying to rally Sunni Arabs to fight Iraq's new government and denouncing Sunnis who cooperate with it as "agents" of the Americans....
April 29, 2006
British investigators have finally started checking into MP George Galloway and his role in the Oil for Food scandal at the United Nations. The London Times reports that their diplomats have approached Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein, to see if he will talk about Galloway's relationship with the Hussein regime: BRITISH diplomats in Baghdad have asked Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, to help an investigation into allegations that George Galloway was given cash by Saddam Hussein under the Oil-for-Food programme. The diplomats made the secret approach through Mr Aziz’s lawyer this week on behalf of Parliament’s so-called “sleaze buster”. The lawyer, Badie Izzat Arief, claimed that they offered to try and secure Mr Aziz immunity from prosecution on any charges arising from the Oil-for-Food scandal. Embassy officials want to meet Mr Aziz, 70, in the US-run detention centre where he is held with...
April 30, 2006
Iran sent troops across the Iraqi border three miles towards Haj Oman nine days ago, where Kurdish opposition bases itself for its efforts to unseat the mullahcracy in Teheran: Teheran has attacked an anti-Iranian Kurdish group based in Iraq, it emerged yesterday, raising fears that instability there could spill over into the rest of the region. Iraq's defence ministry said more than 180 artillery shells were fired and Iranian troops crossed three miles into Iraqi territory before withdrawing. The incursion, which occurred on April 21, came after Iranian claims that a number of attacks had been conducted against Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard posts in recent weeks. They are accused of operating from bases around Haj Oman, which was the centre of the Iranian attack. Four peopile were said to have been wounded. Interesting. Apparently Iran does not want to make friends with Iraq as much as they want to...
May 4, 2006
First the Italians paid millions to get its hostages out of Iraq, and now Germany appears to have done the same, despite professing strong support for refusing to negotiate with terrorists. The Guardian (UK) and Der Spiegel both report that the German government paid "a large amount of money" for the recent release of two Germans held hostage by terrorists: Two German hostages kidnapped in Iraq arrived home yesterday as Iraq's ambassador to Germany claimed a "load of money" had been paid to secure their release. Alaa al-Hashimi, said the German government had handed over a "large amount" to the kidnappers of René Bräunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, who were freed on Tuesday after 99 days in captivity. "Regarding the payment of ransom, I don't know. But I assume it was a large amount of money," the ambassador told Germany's ARD public television station. The Iraqi government had no part in...
Well, this video has to be the funniest development in the war on terror -- not that there have been a lot of events competing for that honor. Al-Qaeda leader and terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi apparently cannot master the weapons he brandishes for chilling effect on his video statements: The U.S. military command Thursday released previously unseen images of a video purportedly posted by Al Qaeda in Iraq's leader, showing him decked out in American tennis shoes and unable to operate his machine gun. ... The video, discovered in a series of raids in April on purported Al Qaeda in Iraq safe houses in the Youssifiyah area, 12 miles southwest of Baghdad, gave a view of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that the Jordanian-born militant chose not to show the world, said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the U.S. command. Al-Zarqawi is "very proud of the fact that he can...
May 8, 2006
Please see Update III below -- the identification in the London Times was incorrect. The London Times reports on the final days of Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqi woman viciously murdered by terrorists of one type or another for her courage in reporting on events in her native Samarra. Bahjat, a television reporter for al-Arabiya television, had built a following for her work in covering the violence in Iraq until kidnappers abducted her while a group of Samarrans did nothing to assist her. Bahjat's body was found later along with those of her cameraman and sound man, and the presumption was that she had been shot to death. Not so. In fact, Bhajat experienced the worst of the terrorist depravity in he final moments, made clear when a video recording of her execution was sent to her family: First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but...
CENTCOM announced today that they had captured al-Qaeda correspondence in Iraq that discusses the state of the insurgency, especially around Baghdad but also around the entire country. Far from optimistic, the documents captured in an April 16th raid reveal frustration and desperation, as the terrorists acknowledge the superior position of American and free Iraqi forces and their ability to quickly adapt to new tactics. In these passages, the AQ terrorist author -- described as a person "of significance" due to the extensive analysis applied -- often refers to the elected Iraqi government as the "Shi'ites": A glance at the reality of Baghdad in light of the latest events (sectarian turmoil) 1. It has been proven that the Shiites have a power and influence in Baghdad that cannot be taken lightly, particularly when the power of the Ministries of Interior and Defense is given to them, compared with the power of...
May 10, 2006
The Iraqi News Agency reported last week that the military captured a high-ranking member of the al-Qaeda network in Karbala. The description given of this former Saddam Hussein army commander sounds familiar: High-ranking leader of terrorist organization Al Qaeda was detained today in Iraqi province of Karbala during military operation, Iraqi news agency INA reports. Abdel Fatih Isa, a.k.a. Abu Aisha, was arrested in a private home where he had been hiding for a long time. The arrest was made after a few houses in the town had been searched through. The terrorist is among the chief organizers of terrorist acts in capital Baghdad. According to military sources Abu Aisha was an officer from the Iraqi army during Saddam Hussein’s rule, the agency notes. I thought that the description of an AQ commander spending most of his time hiding sounded familiar. In the captured AQ document that Centcom released this...
May 11, 2006
The new Iraqi government has decided to remove the confusion of having various security forces for different ministries operating in the greater Baghdad area and consolidate all such units into one cohesive force. The concern over confusion between actual government forces and the sectarian militias has crescendoed with the recent violence in the capital, and a unified command would resolve those issues immediately: Senior Iraqi leaders are preparing a major restructuring of the capital's security brigades that would place all police officers and paramilitary soldiers under a single commander and in one uniform, in hopes of curtailing the sectarian chaos that is ravaging the city. The reorganization calls for a substantially reduced presence of American soldiers on the capital's streets, although not necessarily in their numbers nationwide. The plan, disclosed Wednesday in interviews with senior Iraqi leaders, would substantially alter Baghdad's landscape, now permeated by tens of thousands of police...
May 20, 2006
Iraq officially launched its first popularly elected government this morning after its National Assembly swore in the ministers of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet. Two key security posts remain unfilled while negotiations continue, but the governance of Iraq has now passed to a permanent set of democratic institutions for the first time: Iraq's new government of national unity was sworn in before a special session of parliament on Saturday, three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The new ministers took the oath of office after parliament approved the Cabinet presented by incoming Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. ... The session began more than two hours late because of last-minute haggling, finally opening with readings from the Quran. The 37-member Cabinet is made up of members from all of Iraq's religious, sectarian and ethnic groups. It took months of negotiations to form after the Dec. 15 elections and is Iraq's first...
May 23, 2006
The British newspaper The Guardian reports that Tony Blair and George Bush will shortly announce a schedule for an expedited troop withdrawal from Iraq. The coalition leaders plan to hand over entire provinces to the newly-installed Iraqi government and their security forces, perhaps in as many as 16 of the 18 provinces comprising Iraq: George Bush and Tony Blair are to discuss in Washington this week a programme of troop withdrawals from Iraq that will be much faster and more ambitious than originally planned. In a phased pullout in which the two countries will act in tandem, Britain is to begin with a handover to Iraqi security forces in Muthanna province in July and the Americans will follow suit in Najaf, the Shia holy city. Other withdrawals will quickly follow over the remainder of the year. Officials in both administrations hope that Britain's 8,000 forces in Iraq can be down...
May 30, 2006
CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier received severe wounds and two of her crew died yesterday in a car bombing in Baghdad. The Washington Post reports that Dozier is expected to live: A car bomb explosion in central Baghdad Monday killed two CBS News crew members, an Iraqi interpreter and a U.S. soldier, and severely wounded the news team's correspondent, in one of a string of attacks that killed dozens of people in Iraq over the course of the day. Paul Douglas, a cameraman, and James Brolan, a sound man, died in the blast, CBS News said in a statement. Both men were British citizens based in London. Kimberly Dozier, an American correspondent who has covered the war in Iraq for nearly three years, was taken to a Baghdad hospital for surgery. The network said she was listed in critical condition and that doctors were "cautiously optimistic" about her prognosis. Critics of...
May 31, 2006
The Haditha investigation started earlier than previously thought after a Marine Corps investigator noticed key discrepancies between the physical evidence and the reports from the Marines involved. The New York Times reveals that the Pentagon had already referred the matter to criminal investigators weeks before Time Magazine reported the alleged atrocities at the end of March, from a presentation of the allegations by the magazine: A military investigator uncovered evidence in February and March that contradicted repeated claims by marines that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha last November were victims of a roadside bomb, according to a senior military official in Iraq. Among the pieces of evidence that conflicted with the marines' story were death certificates that showed all the Iraqi victims had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest, the official said. ... When Colonel Watt described the findings to Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the senior ground commander...
June 15, 2006
If al-Qaeda in Iraq reads Western news sources, and their media-savvy but tactically insane recent communications suggest they do, they may soon decide that their operation has blown its cover completely. After an AQ associate dropped a dime on Zarqawi, they now have a much larger security breach than they knew: Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday a "huge treasure" of documents and computer records was seized after the raid on terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's hideout, giving the Iraqi government the upper hand in its fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie also said he believed the security situation in the country would improve enough to allow a large number of U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year, and a majority to depart by the end of next year. "And maybe the last soldier will leave Iraq by mid-2008," he said. Al-Rubaie...
Once dominoes start to fall, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop their momentum. The terrorists who pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi until he attained room temperature have discovered this, much to their dismay. CENTCOM spokesman General William Caldwell gives us the scorecard on the Zarqawi mission, and it looks like a rout: American and Iraqi forces have carried out 452 raids since last week's killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and 104 insurgents were killed during those actions, the U.S. military said Thursday. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the raids were carried out nationwide and led to the discovery of 28 significant arms caches. He said 255 of the raids were joint operations, while 143 were carried out by Iraqi forces alone. The raids also resulted in the captures of 759 "anti-Iraqi elements." That result should impress even the deepest cynics. 452...
Iraqi officials released a document found in the run-up to the Zarqawi mission that discussed al-Qaeda in Iraq tactics and strategy, accompanied by a gloomy prognosis for the AQI network. In the memo, the author acknowledges that the momentum had shifted to the Americans and that AQI would quickly run out of time and recruits, and proposed starting another war with America as a distraction -- preferably with Iran: A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. ... While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said. The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program...
June 20, 2006
Today the Senate will start debate on a non-binding resolution that will demand an end to the American presence in Iraq except for those troops engaged in training Iraqi security forces. This new proposal contains much of the same language as the amendment offered by John Kerry to the defense authorization bill that got soundly thumped last week 93-6 when offered by the GOP separately for debate, but as the newly appointed Iraqi National Security Advisor writes today in the Washington Post, the effort is completely unnecessary. First, let's take a look at the latest Democratic effort to shut down the American effort in Iraq, a silly and nonspecific proposal that inspired Senator Mitch McConnell to call it a "cut and jog": Trying to bridge party divisions on the eve of a Senate debate, leading Democrats called Monday for American troops to begin pulling out of Iraq this year. They...
The Iraqi government has found the bodies of two American soldiers reportedly captured by terrorists in Iraq last week, and the bodies show signs of torture according to the preliminary reports: The bodies of two U.S. soldiers who had been reported kidnapped have been found near the checkpoint where the men disappeared after an attack, a senior Iraqi military official said Tuesday. The U.S. military said two bodies had been found but had not yet been identified. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., went missing Friday near the town of Youssifiyah, south of Baghdad. Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was killed in the attack. ... Ahmed Khalaf Falah, a farmer who said he witnessed the attack Friday, said three Humvees were manning a checkpoint when they came under fire from many directions. Two Humvees went after the assailants,...
CENTCOM announced minutes ago that one of the men expected to take the place of the now-room temperature Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has also reached thermal equilibrium near Baghdad. The spokesman for the military briefed reporters on the death of Sheikh Mansur, displaying before and after mug shots of the dead terrorist and explained his significance to the insurgent network in Iraq. So far, none of the wire services have picked up the story; I will fill in the details as they become available. UPDATE: The BBC has an addendum to the story on the discovery of the two bodies that reports up to 15 insurgents killed while hunting a "senior member of al-Qaeda in Iraq," but does not identify Sheikh Mansur despite the specifics in the briefing. UPDATE II: The Commissar asks if I may have mistranscribed the name from al-Masri or al-Mohajer. I took the name from the placard...
June 21, 2006
Yesterday I reported a breaking news item that the US had killed a Top 5 leadership figure from al-Qaeda in Iraq based on a televised briefing. Today the AP gives more background on Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani: A key Al Qaeda in Iraq leader described as the group's "religious emir" was killed in a U.S. airstrike hours before two American soldiers went missing and in the same area, the military said Tuesday. Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani, or Sheik Mansour, and two foreign fighters were killed as they tried to flee in a vehicle near the town of Youssifiyah, in the so-called Sunni "Triangle of Death." U.S. coalition forces had been tracking al-Mashhadani for some time, American military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said in announcing his death. He said al-Mashhadani was an Iraqi, 35 to 37 years old, and that one of the men killed with him was...
A new release from CENTCOM confirms that the US military captured a second high-value target three days after killing "Sheikh Mansour". Two days after the death of Mansour Suleiman Mansour Khalifi al-Mashhadani and the capture of two American servicemen later brutally butchered, American forces captured an as-yet unidentified AQI leader and three of his lieutenants: In another operation June 19 southwest of Baqouba, Coalition forces detained a senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member and three suspected terrorists during coordinated raids. The terrorist is reportedly a senior al-Qaida cell leader throughout central Iraq, north of Baghdad. He’s known to be involved in facilitating foreign terrorists throughout central Iraq, and is suspected of having ties to previous attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces. Coalition forces secured multiple buildings and detained the known terrorist plus three suspected terrorists without incident. Troops found an AK-47 with several magazines of ammunition and destroyed them all...
Negroponte letter can be viewed in PDF format here. According to numerous sources but not yet on the wires, Senator Rick Santorum announced a few minutes ago that the US has found 500 chemical-weapons shells in Iraq. Hot Air has the hot link for what little data exists thus far. Apparently, some of the shells contained sarin and others mustard gas. No word has come yet on when and where the US found these munitions. I will update this as more information becomes available. UPDATE: Nothing on the wires yet at 5:10 pm CT, but let's think through what this discovery -- if it is new -- means. We have found a handful of such shells already in Iraq; I reported such a find here in November 2004. The shells had come from around the time of the first Gulf War and the contents had likely been rendered inert by...
June 22, 2006
The Iraqi police, who have come under criticism from some American politicians as ineffective, today staged a successful raid that freed 17 hostages. Insurgents had kidnapped them a day earlier, part of 85 hostages taken at an Iraqi factory: Iraqi police stormed a farm north of Baghdad early Thursday and freed at least 17 people who were snatched a day earlier in a mass kidnapping of about 85 workers and family members at the end of a factory shift. ... A National Security Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, told The Associated Press that several insurgents holding the kidnap victims were captured during the Thursday morning raid on the farm in the Mishada area, about 20 miles north of the capital. Police operations were continuing in the area, the official said, in a bid to locate the rest of...
While the rest of Iraq continues to show marked progress towards self-reliance and security, even in the Sunni Triangle, one portion of Iraq has already transformed itself into a remarkable area of freedom and stability. The Kurdish areas of the north have blossomed since the end of the Saddam Hussein regime, expanding their cities and rapidly modernizing through significant capital investment and reliable security. The left-wing British newspaper The Independent reports on how the Kurds have delivered on the promise of liberation: The struggle of the Iraqi Kurds for self-determination has been longer and bloodier than that of any nationalist movement outside Vietnam. It began under the British in the 1920s when "Bomber" Harris, later the commander of the air offensive against Germany, practised his art against Kurdish villages. Setting the tone for Baghdad's treatment of the Kurds over the rest of the century, he wrote with approval in 1924:...
In a development that underscores the cluelessness of the Senate debate the past two days, the Iraqi government has built an ultimatum and offer to native insurgents in Iraq that will offer amnesty for most of their actions and an American withdrawal if all insurgencies surrender themselves. The US government has helped craft the offer, which both Iraq and the US hopes will allow Iraq to reach stability quickly: THE Iraqi Government will announce a sweeping peace plan as early as Sunday in a last-ditch effort to end the Sunni insurgency that has taken the country to the brink of civil war. The 28-point package for national reconciliation will offer Iraqi resistance groups inclusion in the political process and an amnesty for their prisoners if they renounce violence and lay down their arms, The Times can reveal. The Government will promise a finite, UN-approved timeline for the withdrawal of all...
June 24, 2006
After a day of debate over the idea of granting amnesty to native insurgents that have killed American troops, the insurgents themselves rendered the point moot. According to the Times of London, which broke the story on the Iraqi peace offer, key insurgent groups have already stated their opposition to the plan (via Newsbeat1): IRAQ’S main insurgent groups intend to reject a peace plan that Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, will present today in an attempt to halt the country’s spiral of violence. Maliki is expected to go before parliament with a 28- point plan for national reconciliation aimed at defusing the Sunni insurgency and sectarian conflict in which thousands of people have died. ... Representatives of 11 Iraqi insurgent groups told The Sunday Times yesterday that they would reject the peace offer because they did not recognise the legitimacy of the government. A senior commander authorised to speak on...
June 26, 2006
For those who keep insisting that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had no operational ties, the work of Ray Robison has provided explicit evidence in rebuttal. Fox News reports on the latest efforts of Robison in translating the documents captured by US forces but never translated by the CIA or Pentagon. His recent translation of a series of documents shows that AQ jihadists had negotiated with the Iraqi Intelligence Services for training facilities in Tajikistan or in Baghdad: Newly declassified documents captured by U.S. forces indicate that Saddam Hussein's inner circle not only actively reached out to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and terror-based jihadists in the region, but also hosted discussions with a known Al Qaeda operative about creating jihad training "centers," possibly in Baghdad. Ray Robison, a former member of the CIA-directed Iraq Survey Group (ISG), supervised a group of linguists to analyze, archive and exploit the hundreds of...
June 27, 2006
The European Court of Human Rights has taken it upon themselves to debate whether Iraq has any sovereignty. At least, that is the implication of their agreement to deliberate whether the Coalition should allow Iraq to try former Saddam Hussein regime figures, starting with Tariq Aziz: A lawyer for former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, in US custody in Baghdad, said the European Court of Human Rights had conditionally agreed to hear a plea over fears Aziz might be handed over to the Iraqi government. Italian lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano said the court had first said it wanted to know to whom it was that Aziz had surrendered in April 2003, shortly after the fall of the former regime, by whom and where had he been held since then and at what date they proposed transferring custody. Di Stefano and fellow Italian lawyer Domenico Marinelli said in a statement...
June 28, 2006
The amnesty plan offered by Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal al-Talibani appears to have broken a standoff with native insurgents in Iraq. The groups have replied by demanding a commitment to a two-year withdrawal plan of foreign forces from Iraq as a condition of their surrender: Insurgents are demanding the withdrawal of all U.S. and British forces from Iraq within two years as a condition for joining reconciliation talks, a senior Iraqi government official said Wednesday. ... Iraqi government officials involved with the contacts with insurgents told The Associated Press that several militant groups sent delegates from their regions and tribes to speak on their behalf. One of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of demands for secrecy in the talks, said the insurgents have so far rejected face-to-face talks, saying they fear being targeted by Shiite militias, Iraqi security forces and the Americans. The...
June 30, 2006
Guess what the Iraqis and Americans found when they captured a number of Shi'ite militia fighters in Baquba? Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi'ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flush out gunmen hiding there. Iraqi security officials said Iranian fighters had been captured in the fighting, in which a sniper shot dead the commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two of his men. They did not say how the Iranians had been identified. ... "We captured a number of militants and were surprised to see that some of them were Iranian fighters," the police intelligence captain said. An Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be named, also said Iranian gunmen had been captured. Baquba lies 90 km (60 miles) from the Iranian border. The United States and Britain have accused Shi'ite Iran...
July 2, 2006
Apparently the new Iraqi government has received enough intel on insurgent financing to trace some of it back to the wife and daughter of Saddam Hussein. At a press conference, the Iraqi national security advisor unveiled their new most-wanted list, and the two women occupy slots 16 and 17: Saddam Hussein's wife and eldest daughter are among 41 people on the Iraqi government's most wanted list, along with the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a top official announced Sunday. ... Al-Rubaie told reporters the government was releasing the most wanted list "so that our people can know their enemies." Saddam's wife, Sajida Khairallah Tulfah, was No. 17, just behind the ousted leader's eldest daughter, Raghad. Sajida is believed to be in Qatar, and Raghad lives in Jordan, where she was given refuge by King Abdullah II. The Jordanians deny that Raghad has participated in any actions supporting terrorists or...
July 3, 2006
One of the key physical devices for active intel in any terrorist takedown is the cellphone. The data we recover off of these leads us to a number of other active terrorist cells, as well as point the NSA to new potential nodes in the AQ network. CNN reports that the cell phone recovered from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's corpse gave us plenty of intel, some of it leading to key members of the new Iraqi government: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had the phone numbers of senior Iraqi officials stored in his cell phone, according to an Iraqi legislator. Waiel Abdul-Latif, a member of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's party, said Monday that authorities found the numbers after al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7. Abdul-Latif did not give names of the officials. But he said they included ministry employees and members...
I have written several times about the issue of the mobile laboratories in Iraq and the subsequent conventional wisdom that they served as hydrogen generators for weather balloons instead of WMD production facilities. In April, I pointed out that the hydrogen theory came as a minority opinion within the CIA/DIA teams that reviewed the two labs captured by the Coalition. One month later, Joseph Shahda translated a key memo showing that the Iraqis spent $33 million on the mobile labs in September 2002, while America decided to take military action against the Iraqis, and that the same agency that controlled Iraq's WMD programs (the Military Industrialization Committee) arranged to purchase these facilities. One key point (besides the memo) that undermines the argument for a civil hydrogen production facility is the ease in which the Iraqis could already produce and store hydrogen. Oil refining creates hydrogen in fairly large quantities as...
Continue reading "Mobile Labs Could Not Have Produced Hydrogen As Described, Prologue" »
July 4, 2006
In Part I of ChemicalConsultant's analysis of the mobile weapons laboratories, he calls into question the CIA's calculations of the production capability of the facilities described. In his calculations, he posits that these mobile facilities could not have produced the hydrogen necessary for the mission the CIA claims. 1. The reaction to produce hydrogen gas from aluminum, sodium hydroxide is: 2Al(s) +2NaOH (aq) +6H2O-> 2Na+ (aq) + 2[Al(OH)4]- +3H2 (g) This means that it takes 80 grams of NaOH (molecular weight about 40) to make 6 grams of H2 (molecular weight about 2) and uses 54 grams of Al (atomic weight about 27) in the process. On a kilogram basis, 1 kg NaOH makes 6/80 = 0.075 kg or 75 g H2 and uses 54/80 = 0.675 kg or 675 g Al. My reference is www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Al/chem.html. 2. According to the Fast Facts link on the website of a major hydrogen...
The Iraqi government will consider a request by the native insurgents negotiating for a national reconciliation to take up arms against the al-Qaeda network in Iraq. The eleven groups want the Iraqis to outfit them with weapons, claiming that they have the intel to wipe out the foreign terrorists: Iraq's government is studying a request from some local insurgent leaders to supply them with weapons so they can turn on the heavily armed foreign fighters who were once their allies, according to two Iraqi lawmakers. Leaders claiming to represent about 11 insurgent groups asked for weapons to fight foreign al-Qaeda elements in Iraq, said Haider al-Ibadi, a Shiite lawmaker and member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Party. "They want to take part in the war against terrorists," said al-Ibadi, who supports the proposal. "They claim they could wipe out the terrorists and work with the government." AQI seems to...
July 5, 2006
In Part II of ChemicalConsultant's analysis, he addresses the residue left in the mobile labs and the quality of hydrogen assumed in the CIA's explanation of the hydrogen production explanation. 5. I am surprised that both the Iraqi and “Russian” systems use an excess of aluminum instead of an excess of sodium hydroxide. Since the product sodium aluminate is soluble in water at the amount of water used (see the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics), there would be almost no residue if there were an excess of sodium hydroxide relative to aluminum. There is no explanation why so much aluminum would be used, especially when using excess sodium hydroxide would mean that the tank would only need to be washed out, instead of removing an alleged residue. Once it became apparent that the trailers were in danger of being captured, I think the Iraqis put the described residue in the...
George at Seixon has followed my posts about the mobile laboratories that the CIA and the Iraqi Survey Group now insist were designed for hydrogen production. I'll post Part III of ChemicalConsultant's critique of that analysis later tonight, but George has a few pertinent questions of his own. Besides the fact that Iraq's oil refineries could have produced all the high-quality hydrogen needed for any meteorological needs, George points out that the Iraqis had already bought several mobile production facilities abroad, and at a much lower cost: The simplest question one could have asked would be whether or not Iraq was able to easily obtain hydrogen generators rather than having to fabricate their own. Many have scoffed at this question, claiming that Iraq was so bogged down with sanctions that they probably had to make do with DIY solutions. A lazy assumption will often lead to a wrongheaded conclusion, and...
July 6, 2006
In the final installment of ChemicalConsultant's analysis, he addresses the engineering of the mobile labs in relation to the hydrogen production explanation, as well as the folly of using these facilities instead of simply buying trucks to transport prefilled containers of hydrogen. He also provides a rebuttal to comments made in the thread for Part I. 8. A bank of 5 Air Storage Cylinders is reported in the Major Components of the Trailers section. These serve no purpose for making hydrogen, although Annex D suggests that perhaps they were used as a source of sparging gas (see Comment and Assessment, Aeration and stirring). The investigators do point out that the sparging tube is too short to reach the alleged reaction liquid. Even if the tube were long enough, the air would dilute the hydrogen produced. Also mentioned in the Major Components section are two feed tanks. If the trailers were...
July 7, 2006
It looks like the Iraqis and Americans have decided to focus on one of the toughest tasks in cleaning up Baghdad: Sadr City. The Shi'ite enclave has spawned militias loosely organized around the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, long a provocation for the majority Sunni population of greater Baghdad and a threat to the authority of the new federal government. Today Iraqi forces, backed by American support, captured two major leaders of militia efforts, including one who ran weapons from Syria: Iraqi forces backed by U.S. aircraft battled militants in a Shiite stronghold of eastern Baghdad early Friday, killing or wounding more than 30 fighters and capturing an extremist leader who was the target of the raid, Iraqi and U.S. officials said. In another operation, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers arrested a top regional commander of a Shiite militia near Hillah, a U.S. statement said. The moves appeared part...
It looks like the Iraqis and Americans have decided to focus on one of the toughest tasks in cleaning up Baghdad: Sadr City. The Shi'ite enclave has spawned militias loosely organized around the Mahdi Army of Moqtada al-Sadr, long a provocation for the majority Sunni population of greater Baghdad and a threat to the authority of the new federal government. Today Iraqi forces, backed by American support, captured two major leaders of militia efforts, including one who ran weapons from Syria: Iraqi forces backed by U.S. aircraft battled militants in a Shiite stronghold of eastern Baghdad early Friday, killing or wounding more than 30 fighters and capturing an extremist leader who was the target of the raid, Iraqi and U.S. officials said. In another operation, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. soldiers arrested a top regional commander of a Shiite militia near Hillah, a U.S. statement said. The moves appeared part...
For those who continue to reject evidence of Saddam Hussein's pursuit of WMD programs, the document released yesterday by the FMSO DocEx project makes it a much more difficult proposition. Document CMPC-2003-004346 reveals that Dr. Rehab Rasheed Taha, otherwise known as Dr. Germ, prepared an analysis in 2002 of how to spread biological weapons material using an aircraft as the medium, and how far they had advanced on the application: In the name of God, most Merciful, most Compassionate THE BIOLOGICAL COMMITTEE DECISION An appendage to the Biological Committee Decision, on 10 March 2002, subsequent to the biological activity combined list review, that was received after the delegate’s return from Moscow, and in reference to the concluded meeting convened on 10 April 2002, [when] the (GRL) draft list study was completed. – The Biological Section is evaluating what is shown in the third revised attachment for the continuous observation and...
July 10, 2006
Rusty at My Pet Jawa has the latest in al-Qaeda PR -- a video of the two American soldiers captured and murdered by terrorist thugs in Iraq. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker fell victim to a sophisticated ambush by AQ operatives, and the Mujahedin Shura Council/AQI organization released the extremely graphic video that starts with Osama bin Laden's picture and shifts to a long overview of their desecrated bodies. The terrorists decaptitated one, and both show obvious signs of torture and mutilation. CQ readers should conisder whether to follow the link. In truth, I hesitated to do so earlier when I saw the post at Hot Air. In the end, I decided to watch the video as well as see the photographs, because I believe that we need to see who our enemies are in this war. We have shaded our eyes after 9/11 and even before that, allowing network...
July 13, 2006
The Iraqi government has taken over security responsibilities for the province of Muthanna, the first transition for the eventual handover of all security to the Iraqis. CENTCOM posts the announcement from Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey: Iraq witnessed a historic event today with the transfer of security responsibility in Muthanna Province from the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I) to the Provincial Governor and civilian-controlled Iraqi Security Forces. The handover represents a milestone in the successful development of Iraq’s capability to govern and protect itself as a sovereign and democratic nation. Muthanna is the first of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be designated for such a transition. As Prime Minister Maliki announced on June 19, 2006, the joint decision between the Iraqi government and MNF-I to hand over security responsibility is the result of Muthanna’s demonstrated abilities to take the lead in managing its own security and governance duties at...
July 15, 2006
Moqtada al-Sadr, otherwise known as the man who brought a knife to a gunfight -- twice -- now wants to put his military genius to work on behalf of Hezbollah. Sadr threatened that his Mahdi Army would not sit on the sidelines while the Zionists attacked Islamists in Lebanon: The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr said Friday that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Israel struck at Lebanon, signaling a possible increase in attacks from his mercurial militia, the Mahdi Army. In a written statement, Mr. Sadr also said that he considered the United States culpable in the conflict unfolding in Lebanon, since America was the largest foreign ally of Israel. ... It is no surprise that Mr. Sadr should rise to Lebanon’s defense. Since 2004, he has transformed his organization into one similar to Hezbollah, the militant Shiite faction there. From its ragtag beginnings, Mr. Sadr’s...
July 16, 2006
CQ's correspondent on the mobile laboratories, ChemicalConsultant, has sent a reply to the questions and the criticisms that he received on the earlier thread. That debate was one of the most intriguing we have had on CQ, and revealed a few of our regulars as having expertise in chemistry. i closed the earlier thread because it had dwindled down to a back-and-forth volley between two readers, but the debate remains as interesting as ever. ChemicalConsultant has a fairly technical argument, and it's above my pay grade, although my son would probably be able to make more sense of it. I'd love to get more of the scientific input that we saw in our earlier thread and put aside the more political aspects. RESPONSE ON ALUMINUM –NaOH CHEMISTRY In case the commenters on the Mobile Labs, etc, thread wondered what happened to ChemicalConsultant, well, I’m back. Part of my absence was...
July 17, 2006
The New York Times reports on an interesting development among the Sunni in Iraq, who had bitterly opposed the American presence in their country. They have discovered mathematics and demographics -- and realized that the Shi'a outnumber them almost 3-1. This epiphany has led to a growing sentiment among the former ruling class of Iraq that the Americans may be the only thing standing between them and oblivion: As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces. The pleas from the Sunni Arab leaders have been growing in intensity since an eruption of sectarian bloodletting in February, but they have reached a new pitch in recent days as Shiite militiamen have brazenly shot dead groups of Sunni civilians in broad...
July 18, 2006
Turkey has objected to a warning given by the United States against cross-border action against the Kurdish terrorist group PKK, claiming a double standard for Turkey as opposed to Israel. The PKK have committed raids into Turkish territory, killing 15 Turkish security troops, and Istanbul wants to conduct a military operation -- much like Israel has done with Hezbollah in Lebanon: "We have repeatedly said that we believe that unilateral military action across the border with Iraq would be unwise," the US amabassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, said in an interview with the NTV news channel. He was speaking after Ankara on Monday urged Washington and Baghdad to act against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), whose militants have enjoyed safe haven in the mountains of northern Iraq, signalling that it is ready to take cross-border action if they fail to do so. ... Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan quickly...
August 12, 2006
American troops captured 60 suspect al-Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad today in the first big test of the new security plan for the Iraqi capital. The cell specialized in bomb-making and had planned attacks in the near future, according to CENTCOM: A statement by the U.S. military said the arrests in Baghdad were made Friday in Arab Jabour, a southern neighborhood of the capital and a stronghold of Sunni insurgents. The 60 detained men are believed associated with a senior Iraqi al-Qaida leader in a cell that "specializes in bomb making," the statement said. "The group has been reported to be planning and conducting training for future attacks," it said. "Multiple forms of credible intelligence led the assault force to the location, later determined to be a funeral gathering, where the suspects were detained." Women and children at the funeral were separated from the men and the arrests were made without...
August 16, 2006
The death toll in Iraq continues to rise, as civilian deaths hit a new high in July, mostly in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle. By any measure, the war in Iraq has shifted dangerously, and the strategies employed to this point have failed to bring security to Iraq's capital: July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new government has failed. An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January. The rising numbers suggested that sectarian violence is spiraling out of control, and seemed to bolster an...
August 22, 2006
A week ago, I wrote that the United States needed a commitment to win in Iraq, rather than playing not to lose, or we should get out of the country. Rick Moran said much the same thing in his essay from yesterday. However, the Iraqis still show that they have committed to self-government and the rule of law, even in the difficult province of Anbar: More than 500 Iraqi men have joined the police in restive Anbar province — a focal point of the Sunni Arab insurgency — in the most successful recruiting drive in the region by U.S. and Iraqi forces, the U.S. military said Tuesday. ... U.S. Marines screened thousands of applicants earlier this month in various regions along the western Euphrates River valley before shortlisting the recruits for the Anbar police force, said a statement by the U.S. command. Most American deaths this month have been in...
After seeing violence in Baghdad and its environs escalate constantly during the first half of the year, the Bush administration and the Maliki government in Iraq scrambled to find a better security plan. Although not too many news outlets have reported this, the new plan appears to have had an effect (via Big Lizards): Violence in Baghdad has declined in the past two weeks and all but ended in some formerly deadly neighborhoods, the U.S. military said in a cautiously upbeat report on Tuesday on a major security clampdown in the city. ... Twenty-two raids in the past week against such groups in the capital had led to 37 arrests, Major General William Caldwell told a news conference. He presented statistics showing a 16 percent drop in the daily average of attacks in Baghdad since August 7, at 21 compared to 25 in the preceding two months. "What we have...
Iran didn't bring the world to an end on August 22nd, but they may have ended hopes of resolving the nuclear crisis without an escalating series of adversarial actions. To no one's surprise, Iran rejected the requirement of uranium-enrichment suspension, instead offering a counterproposal to the incentive package backed by the West: IRAN yesterday turned its back on an international package of incentives designed to stop it developing a nuclear bomb, paving the way for possible United Nations sanctions against Tehran. Iran hand-delivered a 20-page document offering a “new formula” to resolve the nuclear stand-off to Tehran-based ambassadors from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Switzerland, which was representing the United States. ... Ali Larijani, the country’s top nuclear negotiator, said that the Islamic Government was ready for “serious negotiations”, state television reported. “Although there is no legal justification for the Security Council’s illegal action, based on [UN Secretary-General] Kofi...
August 25, 2006
The Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer reports on the Mahdi Army and the Shi'ite death squads that have turned Baghdad into a sectarian gangland. While Knickmeyer's courage cannot be questioned, her report only echoes what we already know -- that death squads kill without compunction or even the barest excuse of justice, and that stopping them has to be the highest priority for American and Iraqi security forces in the capital: In a grungy restaurant with plastic tables in central Baghdad, the young Mahdi Army commander was staring earnestly. His beard was closely cropped around his jaw, his face otherwise cleanshaven. The sleeves of his yellow shirt were rolled down to the wrists despite the intense late-afternoon heat. He spoke matter-of-factly: Sunni Arab fighters suspected of attacking Shiite Muslims had no claim to mercy, no need of a trial. "These cases do not need to go back to the religious courts,"...
August 28, 2006
Nouri al-Maliki told CNN last night that Iraq would never fall into civil war despite the sectarian violence currently plaguing the capital. He also predicted that Coalition troops could start significant drawdowns within months as Iraqi forces take control of more provinces: On a day in which at least 46 people were killed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he did not foresee a civil war in Iraq and that violence in his country was abating. "In Iraq, we'll never be in civil war," al-Maliki told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." ... Asked when coalition troops might leave, the Iraqi leader was equivocal. "It could be a year or less, or a few months," he said. "This has to do with the -- with our success of the democratic -- or the political process in Iraq, and to have the security agencies to protect this process." Maliki has to...
September 3, 2006
Iraqi forces working independently captured al-Qaeda in Iraq's second in command this week, the Iraqi national-security minister announced this morning. Hamed Jumaa Faris Juri al-Saaydi and twenty of his closest friends found themselves in custody after a raid in Baqubah: "We now think al-Qaeda in Iraq is suffering a great deal and disintegrating," [Mowaffak al-] Rubaie said in a news conference at the U.S.-controlled Green Zone that was broadcast live across the Middle East. "The al-Qaeda organization is suffering from a leadership crisis." Saaydi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, ordered the February attack on the golden-domed Shiite shrine in Samara that ignited the ongoing ferocious wave of sectarian killings, Rubaie said. He accused Saaydi of trying to spark a civil war between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiite Muslims. Rubaie said Iraqi forces had been tracking Saaydi's movements since the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the No. 1 leader...
September 9, 2006
Thanks to the genius of CQ reader Harrison Colter, I now have searchable PDFs of the Phase II reports. The new copies have already paid dividends. In the overall report on pre-war intel accuracy, two of the conclusions of the report seem to have gotten lost in the mainstream media coverage. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has concluded that Saddam Hussein maintained his stocks of biological material intended to create weapons as well as missiles banned by the cease-fire in 1991. In fact, as the report states, Saddam never accepted the missile-range restrictions and intentionally developed missiles to violate them. These conclusions, numbers 4 and 8, appear on pages 54 through 58: Although Iraq no longer had a large scale BW production capability after 1996, Iraq did retain an inherent dual-use BW capability. Iraq retained technical B W know-how through scientists who were involved in the pre- 199 1...
Earlier, I noted that CQ reader Harrison Colter provided me with searchable versions of the Phase II documents released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday. I'm now hosting these documents for others to use as reference: Phase II - Overall Accuracy Phase II - Iraqi National Congress intelligence Hopefully this will make it easier for all of us to peruse the actual data, rather than relying on the politically-charged conclusions from all sides....
September 10, 2006
Senator Jay Rockefeller has provided one of the loudest voices decrying the Bush administration after the release of the Phase II reports this week, but last night's headline is simply jaw-dropping. Claiming that the White House "duped" America regarding Iraq and its ties to terrorism, he now says that the US and the Iraqis would have been better off with Saddam still in charge (via AJ Strata): "The absolute cynical manipulation, deliberately cynical manipulation, to shape American public opinion and 69 percent of the people, at that time, it worked, they said 'we want to go to war,'" Rockefeller told CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. "Including me. The difference is after I began to learn about some of that intelligence I went down to the Senate floor and I said 'my vote was wrong.'" Rockefeller went a step further. He says the world would be better off today if the...
September 11, 2006
As I announced last week, I have been invited to a panel discussion at Macalester College in Saint Paul this evening on the Iraq war. The debate is sponsored by Democracy for America, which has invited three other speakers to debate the war. The speakers include Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Univ. of St. Thomas Peace and Justice Studies professor; Phil Steger, Friends for a Nonviolent World director; and Lou Ellingson, Swift Boat retired Navy captain and small business owner. It's my understanding that all three will speak in opposition to the war. I felt that I owed some effort to defend the positions I've taken in a public forum, even one that has the potential to be as hostile as this might be. The people at DFA have been great, very encouraging and very polite, and I'm working from the assumption that the evening will feature sharp but polite disagreement on policy...
As I announced earlier, I will take part in a Macalester College forum on the Iraq War this evening. I'm posting my opening remarks to the forum so that CQ readers who could not attend can read my speech and my arguments. I hope they inspire a healthy and rational debate here in the comments section. I'll let you know if they did the same at the forum. The War In Iraq Good evening, and thank you for your hospitality. A few weeks ago, Grace Kelley e-mailed me asking if I knew anyone in the area that would defend the decision to invade Iraq for tonight’s forum. I think I surprised Grace when I volunteered to do it myself. She had been unable to get anyone to commit to speaking in this forum, and while I do not know the individual circumstances of those she approached before, I do know...
I had to laugh this afternoon after I received an e-mail from my mother, who occasionally posts here as Vayapaso, regarding my appearance at Macalester College for the forum on Iraq. She said, "You're walking into a den of lions tonight," and from the comments, she wasn't alone in that observation. I'm glad to report back that no one got devoured tonight and that the evening went very well indeed. As most people guessed, the audience and the panel were (for the most part) highly opposed to my point of view. However, they all treated me rather graciously, even if they did not agree with me on almost anything I said -- save for my remarks about democracy, at least as it applied in the United States. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of the debating positions. I don't think they would be surprising on either side to CQ readers,...
September 13, 2006
In a move that belies earlier reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had withdrawn from Iraqi politics, the widely respected Shi'ite imam scotched a plan by Shi'ite political groups to transform Iraq into a loosely-knit federation of three autonomous states. The Shi'ite-controlled legislature will table the proposal indefinitely, and the third-ranking official in the government pronounced the plan dead: The speaker of the Iraqi parliament said Tuesday that a controversial plan to partition the country into three autonomous regions is politically dead. Mahmoud al-Mashhadani said in an interview that legislation to implement a concept known as federalism, which threatened to collapse the country's fragile multi-sect government, would likely be postponed indefinitely after a meeting of political leaders on Wednesday. The federalism plan would create a Shiite region in southern Iraq much like the autonomous zone in the north controlled by the Kurds. Sunnis have generally opposed the plan, on grounds...
September 18, 2006
The New York Times takes a look at a question that has plagued the Iraq mission from the beginning, and which continues to stir debate to this day. With the latest alarming reports coming out of Anbar, Thom Shanker asks whether more troops would improve the situation -- and gets a mixed response: IN the lawless villages and empty deserts of Anbar Province, the Sunni heartland that provides safe haven for indigenous insurgents and foreign terrorists, what could an American commander do if more troops showed up? This tantalizing “what if?” is being debated with renewed intensity after it was revealed last week that a Marine Corps intelligence assessment said Anbar’s dire security situation could be improved only by injecting more economic aid and a division’s worth of troops to reinforce the current 30,000-strong coalition contingent. ... The answer is, they would help, in the short term. But many military...
September 21, 2006
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence appears to have missed some intel in their evaluation that no ties existed between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. Perhaps they can be forgiven for missing information produced by another organization outside of the American intel community -- but one would think that at least one member of the committee watched CNN in 1999 (via CQ reader Stoo Pid): Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers. Despite repeated demands from Washington, the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden after the August 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, demanding proof of his involvement in terrorist activities. However, in recent weeks, both the United States and Britain have renewed their pressure on the Taliban to expel bin Laden. It's an interesting article, one that has drawn a...
September 24, 2006
Sunni legislators in Iraq's National Assembly have agreed to allow debate on a proposal to restructure Iraq into three semi-autonomous cantons along federalist principles, a proposal that they have opposed since the formation of the new republic in 2003. The other factions agreed to set up a constitutional amendment committee in order to get the Sunnis to retreat on federalism: Iraq's fractious ethnic and religious parliamentary groups agreed Sunday to open debate on a contentious Shiite-proposed draft legislation that will allow the creation of federal regions in Iraq, politicians said. ... The deal opens the way for Iraq's Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds to move ahead politically and break a two-week political deadlock that threatened to further sour relations between the communities. If left unresolved, the deadlock could have further shaken Iraq's fragile democracy and led to more sectarian violence. The federalism bill calls for setting up a system to...
The new National Intelligence Estimate will report that the Iraq War has amplified Islamist movements and created a new generation of jihadists, according to the New York Times, which saw an advance copy of the summary and spoke to several sources involved in its creation. (The Washington Post also reports on it here.) Mark Mazetti explains how the various intelligence agencies have concluded that our efforts to topple Saddam have inspired even more radicalism, but strangely absent from this report is how Islamist expansion managed to exponentially grow in the twelve years that we attempted to resolve the Iraq quagmire peacefully: A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a...
September 26, 2006
Omar al-Farouq had quite an adventurous career as an al-Qaeda terrorist. He had joined AQ in the heady days of the early 1990s, training in Aghanistan and eventually rising in the organization until Osama bin Laden handpicked him to run the AQ network in Southeast Asia. Captured by the Americans in 2002, he escaped last year and fulfilled American expectations by running to Iraq. The adventure came to an end yesterday in Basra: BRITISH troops shot dead one of al-Qaeda’s most elusive fugitives yesterday after his extraordinary flight from a US prison in Afghanistan to a luxury villa in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Omar al-Farouk, 35, was handpicked by Osama bin Laden to run al-Qaeda’s network in South-East Asia and was captured in June 2002, weeks before he allegedly planned to bomb eight American embassies across the region. The Kuwaiti-born terror suspect was groomed at an Afghan camp...
September 28, 2006
Moqtada al-Sadr has never shown himself to be much of a military genius. One of his first forays into the war in Iraq got scathing reviews from John Burns in April 2004, who got an unplanned visit with his forces. Now Sabrina Tavernise reports for the New York Times that Sadr has lost command over a significant portion of his Mahdi Army and can no longer impose his discipline on it: The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has lost control of portions of his Mahdi Army militia that are splintering off into freelance death squads and criminal gangs, a senior coalition intelligence official said Wednesday. The question of how tightly Mr. Sadr holds the militia, one of the largest armed groups in Iraq, is of critical importance to American and Iraqi officials. Seeking to ease the sectarian violence raging across the country, they have pressed him to join the political...
The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, released an audiotape that tries to recruit more radical Muslims to the Iraqi jihad. In doing so, Zarqawi's replacement shows why the US considers Iraq a central ground for the war on terror and how effective our effort there has been against the terrorists. Unbidden and apparently thinking it an attraction, Masri told his followers that the US-led Coalition has killed over 4,000 terrorists in Iraq: Al-Qaida in Iraq's leader, in a chilling audiotape released Thursday, called for nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war and urged insurgents to kidnap Westerners so they could be traded for a blind Egyptian sheik who is serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison. The fugitive terror chief said experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences — especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" should join his group's...
October 1, 2006
Newsweek's Lally Weymouth conducts an intriguing interview with Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, in which he warns Iraq and the US to curb Kurdish terrorists -- or Turkey will do it themselves. Gul has plenty to say on Iraq's internal security troubles, and issues a warning to America about withdrawing from Iraq: Q. So, would Turkey invade northern Iraq to bring the PKK under control? A. We will do whatever is necessary to fight this organization. I want to give the message that if our friends don't help us, we will do the job ourselves. ... Q. In the United States many people believe the time has come to withdraw. A. How can you leave a vacuum over there? Then, what will happen? All the neighbors of Iraq and the U.S. should work hand in hand with the Iraqi government and the different tribes in Iraq to bring stability. I...
October 3, 2006
A coroner's inquest in the UK concluded that two British soldiers, captured by Iraqis in March 2003, were executed by Saddam's officers after a few hours of torture. The finding confirms accusations made by Tony Blair during the operation: IRAQI officers loyal to Saddam Hussain filmed their cold-blooded murder of two British bomb disposal officers who were captured after a roadside ambush. An inquest was told that Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, thought that they were being taken to hospital for treatment, but instead they were moved to a compound run by Saddam’s military intelligence. The harrowing ordeal lasted for hours until Iraqi agents killed the pair. The soldiers were buried in a shallow grave. The Geneva Conventions do not appear to have helped Allsopp and Cullingworth. Iraq entered into the covenant in 1956, and so operated under its strictures, at least in theory. Neither...
October 5, 2006
When Nouri al-Maliki negotiated a deal with tribal leaders in Anbar to fight terrorists, some wondered whether the tribes would follow through on their pledges. That question appears answered, according to the LA Times, which reports that they have responded with surprising enthusiasm to the government's call for assistance: U.S. officials say the decision of some tribal leaders to begin going after insurgents reflects growing public anger over attacks that have killed or injured more than 8,000 Iraqis, according to local government figures. They also say there has been growing alarm on the part of some tribal leaders over insurgents' demands for adherence to strict Islamic law. U.S. military leaders say that alarm has inspired a sense of partnership that didn't exist earlier. "It's only frankly been the last six months that they've recognized two things: One, they can't do it themselves, and two … they had much more in...
October 9, 2006
Both the New York Times and the London Times indulged in a little speculation about the advice James Baker will give the White House after his Iraq Study Group concludes its research into war policy. The NYT focuses more on the open nature of the inquiry, while the British newspaper believes a decision has already been made: James A. Baker III , the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan commission assessing Iraq strategy for President Bush, said today that he expected the group to depart from Mr. Bush’s call to “stay the course.” In an interview on the ABC News program “This Week,” Mr. Baker said, “I think it’s fair to say our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives, the ones that are out there in the political debate, of ‘stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’ ” Mr. Baker, who served Mr. Bush’s father as secretary...
October 23, 2006
The elected government in Iraq has hit the road, trying to keep its Western allies from panicking and retreating in reaction to a spike in violence over the past month. Deputy PM Barham Salih met with British ministers in an attempt to shore up Coalition resolve: Salih, in London for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other British ministers, made clear his anxiety about the change in tone in London and Washington, where senior figures are questioning whether the current strategy in Iraq is viable. "I'm obviously concerned about the debate both in the U.S. and Europe, I have to say, because there is too much of a pessimistic tone to this debate -- even I would say in certain circles a defeatist tone," he told BBC radio. "We need to be realist but not defeatist. We need to understand that there is a need of utmost urgency...
November 3, 2006
CQ reader Roger B says that the New York Times headline on its November surprise should really read, "BUSH DIDN'T LIE: Keller, Kerry, Moore, Dean Resign." I've bumped my post to just below this one so that readers can consider the effect that the revelation of the UN's inspector assessment of Saddam's nuclear program will have on the Iraq debate. Speaking of debate, I joined Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine and its Hit & Run blog and Judd Legum of Think Progress for a chat on that very topic last night, pre-NYT: asap: All right ... we're talking Iraq tonight. Apparently just like everyone else. asap: Should a timeline be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, or should withdrawal be contingent on the accomplishment of certain specified goals? Edward Morrissey: Withdrawal means one of two things: the mission is over and it was accomplished, or the mission...
November 4, 2006
The group Move America Forward sponsored a visit to Iraq by families of servicemen who lost their lives during the war there as a demonstration of support for the mission. Twelve parents traveled through Iraq in an effort to bolster support for the war: To demonstrate their contention that things are better in Iraq than what has been portrayed in many news accounts, the delegation is intentionally traveling to Iraqi provinces that have largely been free of the violence that has erupted in Baghdad and the surrounding Sunni triangle. “Shouldn’t the American people be told about the good things happening in Iraq? Isn’t it legitimate news for example to be told of the success enjoyed by the people of northern Iraq who have established democratic institutions in communities that are almost entirely free of violence?” Morgan asked. The group includes seven Gold Star Family members including Joseph Williams (his son...
November 6, 2006
We have heard a lot from the Democrats in this election season about supporting the troops by withdrawing them from Iraq. Terms like "phased redeployment" and "event horizon" have been thrown around by critics of the war. However, the people that will have to execute those maneuvers do not have much enthusiasm for them, the Washington Post reports: For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet. The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said. With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon...
November 10, 2006
My good friend John Hinderaker links to a CBS report about the latest entertainment coming from al-Qaeda this evening, as do some of our mutual friends in the conservative blogosphere, that hails the Democratic midterm victory as a "reasonable" move. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir had plenty to say in the new videotape released from an undisclosed location in Iraq, but the wonder is that anyone pays any attention to it. Here's the portion in question: The terror group also welcomed the U.S. Republican electoral defeat that led to the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and vowed to continue its fight until the White House is blown up. In the tape, al-Muhajir praised the outcome of Tuesday's elections in which Democrats swept to power in the House and the Senate, in large part due to U.S. voter dissatisfaction over the handling of the war in Iraq. "The American people have...
November 11, 2006
Yesterday, I responded to John at Power Line about holding Democrats accountable for terrorist propaganda statements of delight at the midterm elections. In an update, after kindly linking back to me, John asks this question: But isn't a reasonable starting point for that engagement the fact that the terrorists are delighted that the Dems have won, and are convinced that the Dems' policies, as the terrorists understand them, will benefit the jihadis? Don't the Democrats have some obligation to face up to the fact that the prospect of our disengagement from Iraq--and if that isn't their "new direction," then what in God's name is?--is viewed with glee by the enemy? My response is lengthy again, so I decided to make it a separate post. This is one point where John and I differ. I don't take Abu Hamza at his word, nor Zarqawi before him. Al-Qaeda has made plenty of...
November 15, 2006
After leading the charge to retreat from Iraq and declare victory with our backup lights lit, the New York Times now discovers that most military experts -- including critics of the Busg administration's handling of post-war Iraq -- believe a drawdown will touch off a civil war, not avoid one. While Carl Levin and Jack Reed try to fine-tune a Senate resolution so that retreat doesn't sound like retreat, Anthony Zinni and John Batiste point out that lowering the security forces in Baghdad will make violence increase, not decrease: One of the most resonant arguments in the debate over Iraq holds that the United States can move forward by pulling its troops back, as part of a phased withdrawal. If American troops begin to leave and the remaining forces assume a more limited role, the argument holds, it will galvanize the Iraqi government to assume more responsibility for securing and...
November 16, 2006
Fresh on the heels of the New York Times interviews with retired generals opposing the cut-amd-run/phased deployment strategies of the Democrats, the Guardian (UK) reports that the White House will propose a concentrated effort to stamp out the sectarian violence in Baghdad. The new plan calls for an additional 20,000 American troops for the Iraqi capital and a renewed mandate for aggressive action against the militias and death squads: President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration's internal deliberations. ... Point one of the strategy calls for an increase rather than a decrease in overall US force levels inside Iraq, possibly by as many as 20,000...
November 26, 2006
The New York Times reports on the financial underpinnings of the insurgencies in Iraq, showing that they have developed well-oiled mechanisms for generating millions in funding for their operations. A significant portion of those funds come from their abduction industry, and the major donors to that program have been France and Italy: The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded. The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity...
November 30, 2006
The James Baker-led Iraq Study Group has found consensus around a set of policy goals, and in the best traditions of Washington DC, they have decided to leak it to the press a week prior to releasing it officially. A review of this consensus in the New York Times proves that when a group of politicians gather on any sticky policy issue, we can expect them to act like ... politicians: The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, according to people familiar with the panel’s deliberations. The report, unanimously approved by the 10-member panel, led by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, is to be delivered to President Bush next week. It is a...
December 4, 2006
Over the last few weeks, a momentum appears to have built for the deployment of more troops to Iraq within the White House, rather than beginning a withdrawal from the country and its efforts to provide security for itself. The departure of Donald Rumsfeld and the nomination of Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group that is expected to recommend a slow retreat, supposedly signaled an exit for George Bush. Instead, as the Wall Street Journal reports, it may have freed him to try one big push to secure Baghdad: Outside the military, most of the debate is focused on a U.S. troop withdrawal. But inside the Pentagon, the recent dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given some new life to arguments by military officers who say the U.S. must pour more troops and money into the country to expand the Iraqi army -- the one institution...
December 6, 2006
The Iraq Study Group released its long-awaited report today, and while it has some important information on the current state of our operation in Iraq, its recommendations descend from some strange Utopian vision of peace and brotherhood that only exists in the fevered imagination of the so-called realists. The ISG calls for a "support group" of nations surrounding Iraq and relies on their supposed self-interest in a stable and functional Iraq: RECOMMENDATION 3: As a complement to the diplomatic offensive, and in addition to the Support Group discussed below, the United States and the Iraqi government should support the holding of a conference or meeting in Baghdad of the Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Arab League both to assist the Iraqi government in promoting national reconciliation in Iraq and to reestablish their diplomatic presence in Iraq. ... The Support Group would not seek to impose obligations or undertakings...
I've had more of a chance to look through the ISG report ... and it really doesn't get any better. The fundamental problem with the ISG is to misunderstand the entire war on terror. When we invaded Afghanistan, we did it because it sheltered and promoted terrorism, specifically the terrorists that had killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Iran and Syria do the same; they shelter and promote the terrorists that have killed American troops in Iraq as well as our allies in Israel. Syria allows them to cross their border with Iraq at will to organize, train, and hide, and Iran provides them with weapons. What the Baker/Hamilton group proposes is nothing less than an endorsement of their tactics. By going to Teheran and Damascus to ask for their assistance, we will have proven that their terrorism and interference pays dividends -- or did the ISG believe that they...
December 7, 2006
The Times of London spells out the consequences of an American withdrawal on the many Iraqis who trusted us to see the mission through to completion. Speaking to several Iraqi Army non-commissioned officers, Ned Parker reports that several of them plan to flee their native land if the Americans pull out: The Iraqi sergeant has dodged bullets from the al-Mahdi Army and traded fire with Sunni insurgents. Yet in his years with the Iraqi Army he has learnt one simple lesson: once the US military pulls back in Iraq, he should leave the country if he wants to survive. “As soon as it happens, I will quit my job and live outside Iraq,” the sergeant told The Times. “We need to give the Americans back all the authority over the Iraqi Army like before.” Concerns abound that Iraq’s Defence Ministry is being manipulated to serve the interests of powerful Sunni...
At least two presidential aspiranta have publicly opposed the Iraq Study Group and its linkage of the situation in Iraq with the Palestinian conflict. Rudy Giuliani called some of the ISG's recommendations "useful", but told Dennis Prager that leaving Iraq would be a "terrible mistake", while John McCain scotched the notion of a regional conference dominated by two terror-supporting states: "The idea of leaving Iraq, I think, is a terrible mistake," the former mayor said. The group's report, however, stresses that America should not make an "open-ended" commitment of troops and links the presence of troops to milestones met by the Iraqi government. Mr. Giuliani also rejected the panel's recommendation that America tie the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict to stabilizing Iraq. When asked about this linkage on Mr. Prager's radio show, Mr. Giuliani said, "Israel and Palestine is an important issue. Sometimes it's used as an excuse to...
December 8, 2006
The Iraq Study Group played well inside the Beltway yesterday, but it tanked on the road, according to the Times of London. If James Baker and Lee Hamilton expected swoons of delight from abroad, then they will have to prepare themselves for disappointment: The recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group were broadly welcomed by most Republicans and Democrats in Washington yesterday, but received a far cooler reception in Iraq, Iran, Israel and from the US military. The report, which calls for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq by early 2008, negotiations with Iran and Syria, and a renewed Middle East peace initiative, was a rare triumph of political compromise in Washington. But for those directly affected by the Iraq war and the wider regional instability — the Iraqis themselves, Israel and the US troops on the ground — the report was widely seen as unrealistic and...
Earlier, I wrote that the Iraq Study Group proposal bombed with the nations most directly involved in its recommendations, especially with Iraqis. The report seemed to fare much better inside the Beltway, but it turns out that even there people question the report's policy recommendations: Members of Congress yesterday questioned the practicability of recommendations from the Iraq Study Group about how to reverse the chaos in Iraq, but they praised the panel's stark assessment of conditions there. ... Democrats were guarded in their treatment of the report, especially its call for engaging Syria and Iran in diplomacy. In comments after a hearing yesterday with the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, Levin suggested that "there could be some kind of effort to generally support the recommendations." But Republicans and Democrats alike on the Senate Armed Services panel quizzed former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee...
December 9, 2006
Iran has decided that it will help the US retreat from Iraq -- as long as we are willing to pay the price. So far, the opening will require us to forego opposition to their nuclear program, but that's only the beginning: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran is willing to help the US withdraw from Iraq. But he added that Iran would only assist if the Americans changed their attitude towards Tehran. The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says Mr Mottaki did not spell out the change of attitude required. But she adds that Iran probably wants the US to drop its insistence that it freeze its nuclear programme before any kind of talks. ... Speaking in Bahrain, Mr Mottaki said the key issue in solving the problems in Iraq was the withdrawal of foreign forces. "If the United States changes its attitude, the Islamic Republic of...
The thorny issue of Iraqi oil revenues appears closer to resolution, although it may still take more negotiations to finalize. The Kurds may find themselves on the short end of this debate as a result: Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say. If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north. ... Officials cautioned that...
December 10, 2006
The Times of London reveals that the American consulate in Iraq spent two months in high-level negotiations with the insurgencies in Iraq, including some groups previously thought to be associated with al-Qaeda. The talks collapsed earlier this year when Nouri al-Maliki, sympathetic to Iran, formed the government -- a move which the insurgents saw as a betrayal: SECRET talks in which senior American officials came face-to-face with some of their most bitter enemies in the Iraqi insurgency broke down after two months of meetings, rebel commanders have disclosed. The meetings, hosted by Iyad Allawi, Iraq’s former prime minister, brought insurgent commanders and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, together for the first time. After months of delicate negotiations Allawi, a former Ba’athist and a secular Shi’ite, persuaded three rebel leaders to travel to his villa in Amman, the Jordanian capital, to see Khalilzad in January. “The meetings came about...
It appears that events have begun to pick up pace in Iraq. First a broad agreement seems to have coalesced around revenue sharing for Iraq's oil production, and now it looks like Nouri al-Maliki might be getting the heave as Prime Minister: Major partners in Iraq's governing coalition are in behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki amid discontent over his failure to quell raging violence, according to lawmakers involved. The talks are aimed at forming a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is a vehement opponent of the U.S. military presence. The new alliance would be led by senior Shiite politician Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who met with President Bush last week. Al-Hakim, however, was not expected to be the next prime minister because he prefers the role of powerbroker, staying...
December 12, 2006
President Bush heard from his military experts about the situation in Iraq and the way forward to win the war. While they agreed with the Iraq Study Group's report on the current woes of the mission, they disagreed strongly with the ISG's recommendations for resolving them: President Bush heard a blunt and dismal assessment of his handling of Iraq from a group of military experts yesterday, but the advisers shared the White House's skeptical view of the recommendations made last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, sources said. The three retired generals and two academics disagreed in particular with the study group's plans to reduce the number of U.S. combat troops in Iraq and to reach out for help to Iran and Syria, according to sources familiar with the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was private. The White House gathering was part of...
December 13, 2006
The Saudis have warned the United States against pulling out of Iraq, telling American officials that a retreat would set off a bloodbath. In fact, the Saudis feel so strongly about it that they told the US that an American withdrawal would prompt them to fund a sectarian arms race to protect the Sunni minority: Saudi Arabia has told the Bush administration that it might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulls its troops out of Iraq, according to American and Arab diplomats. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia conveyed that message to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during Mr. Cheney’s whirlwind visit to Riyadh, the officials said. During the visit, King Abdullah also expressed strong opposition to diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran, and pushed for Washington to encourage the resumption of peace talks between Israel...
December 17, 2006
One of the pressing problems in Iraq has been the exclusion of the Sunnis since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. The new Iraqi government needs to find a way to get the Sunnis engaged in the governance of Iraq without allowing them to dominate it as they have done throughout the nation's history. Nouri al-Maliki has taken a step in that direction this weekend, throwing open the doors to former members of Saddam's security forces, a move that has unnerved Maliki's Shi'a allies and even some Sunnis: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government reached out to former members of Saddam Hussein's regime Saturday, inviting them to claim government pensions and rejoin the army in a gesture meant to calm the country's sectarian passions. "The Iraqi army opens its doors to officers and soldiers from the former army who wish to serve the country," Maliki said...
December 20, 2006
The Iraq Study Group delivered its recommendations for changing strategies in Iraq at the beginning of the month, a report that has received criticism from all sides -- liberals for not demanding an immediate withdrawal, and conservatives for its recommendation to turn to the sponsors of terror to "stabilize" Iraq. Some of the strongest criticism came from Iraq itself, and today the Washington Post hosts a column from Mansour Barzani, a leading Kurd, on the lack of credibility of the ISG: Our federal constitution, which the majority of the Iraqi people voted for, is treated flippantly, as though it were a negotiable document rather than the hard-fought result of lengthy negotiation among those willing to participate in the new Iraq. Further, the study group's approach is driven by the concerns of the countries in this region rather than by the concerns of the Iraqi people. Many Iraqis, especially the Kurds,...
December 21, 2006
With the US talking about sending more troops to Baghdad and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani organizing a coalition to strip Nouri al-Maliki of his position as Prime Minister, Moqtada al-Sadr has apparently blinked yet again. The radical Shi'ite cleric has begun to consider a unilateral cease-fire in the sectarian war that he has masterminded in an attempt to bolster his political viability in Iraqi politics: Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads a militia feared by Iraq's Sunnis, is considering a one-month unilateral cease-fire and may push his followers to rejoin the political process after a three-week boycott, officials close to him said. The issue is expected to come up at a meeting Thursday in the holy city of Najaf between al-Sadr and a delegation representing the seven Shiite groups that form the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament, the Shiite officials said on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy...
December 22, 2006
Two of the major Shi'ite factions in Iraq have agreed on a deal to end the Shi'ite insurgencies that have fueled the death and destruction in Baghdad. The Dawa and Sciri parties have thrown down a gauntlet to both Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni parties that have backed their own insurgents: Two of the senior Shia political leaders in Iraq agreed in principle to crack down on death squads within their own ranks yesterday. The rival Shia factions struck the deal in an attempt to salvage the country from collapse, said Haidar al-Abadi, a Shia MP in the Dawa party, who is close to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister. The Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) agreed that the national unity Government had been rendered impotent by the failure of the Shia coalition to take on militants who have been killing Sunnis and fuelling...
December 23, 2006
The carefully-laid plans to form an ecumenical political coalition in Iraq hit a major snag today when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani refused to endorse it. Sistani wants nothing to do with any project that undermines the unity of Shi'ites: Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric withheld support Saturday for a U.S.-backed plan to build a coalition across sectarian lines, Shiite lawmakers said, jeopardizing hopes that such a show of political unity could help stem the country's deadly violence. Members of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite coalition that dominates parliament, met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf after traveling to the holy city over the past few days. Al-Sistani holds no political post and rarely emerges from his home and adjacent office, but he has strong influence over Shiite politics. Some members of the Shiite alliance have sought a coalition that would include Kurds and Sunnis, and sideline Muqtada al-Sadr,...
December 26, 2006
One of the differences between the British and American zones in Iraq has been the more laissez-faire approach taken by the British in the South when it comes to the Shi'ite militias. They have infiltrated the local police forces in greater numbers in that region, turning what should be law-enforcement positions into vigilante gangs attempted to seek retribution for decades of Sunni oppression. The British have apparently tired of this, and this week they have taken action against the worst of the offenders: About 1,000 British and Iraqi troops raided a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen and taking custody of more than 100 prisoners who were believed to be marked for execution by a renegade police unit. Many of the prisoners at the Jamiat police station showed signs of torture, including cigarette and electrical burns, gunshot wounds in their legs and knees,...
December 28, 2006
The US has delivered a message to Moqtada al-Sadr in the ongoing struggle to contain the violence in Baghdad and end the sectarian militias. A raid by US and Iraqi Army forces killed a high-ranking aide to Sadr who had supplied IEDs used in attacks against Iraqi forces: A top deputy of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was killed Wednesday during a raid by U.S. and Iraqi troops in the southern holy city of Najaf, sparking protests from Sadr's followers and complicating an already tense relationship with the powerful anti-American leader. Hurling rocks and shouting expletives, thousands of angry Sadr loyalists marched through the streets of Najaf after Sahib al-Amiri was shot and killed by a U.S. soldier during an early morning raid. "Agents and stooges!" protesters shouted at Iraqi soldiers and local authorities. U.S. military officials declined to confirm that Amiri was a Sadr aide, saying only that he had...
The blogosphere is abuzz today about the Bob Woodward interview that took place in July 2004 with now-deceased former President Gerald Ford about Iraq and other topics. In the interview, Ford criticized the Iraq invasion, opposing the decision and claiming that he would have looked harder for other options: Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush...
January 4, 2007
Remember how critics of the execution of Saddam Hussein expressed their outrage that the Iraqis had profaned the Eid celebrations? Recall how people argued that Muslim celebrations of this holiday are marked by a suspension of all hostilities and a focus on unity and peace? Perhaps some Muslims didn't get the memo: Outraged in-laws slashed the nose and ears of a Pakistani college student who married a woman without the consent of her higher-caste family, and then fractured his legs with blows from an ax, police and the victim said. Mohammed Iqbal told The Associated Press on Wednesday about 30 male relatives of his wife stormed into his mother's village home during the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, demanding vengeance for the "dishonor" the marriage had brought to their family. "You have mixed our honor with dirt," Iqbal, 22, speaking from his hospital bed, recounted the attackers chanting as they...
January 5, 2007
Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal filed his first report as an embed for the Examiner today. Bill reports on the medics that keep everyone alive in the Iraq theater, including many Iraqis: Corpsman HN Jerad “Doc J” Jurgensmier bandaged the exit wound with an abdominal pressure dressing. HM3 Joshua “Scuba Steve” Watson located the pinhole-sized entrance wound in the man’s lower back — an unlucky inch below the body armor’s ceramic protection — and put gauze over it. He then wet the abdominal bandages to keep the exposed organs moist, tied back his legs with two green cravats and threw a bag of charcoal under them for elevation. With the wound dressed and the patient stabilized, the Iraqi Police carried their wounded comrade down to an Iraqi Police patrol truck (ambulances are juicy targets for insurgents) and transport to Camp Fallujah Surgical. It’s likely that the Iraqi policeman will live....
January 6, 2007
NOTE: CNN left something out of this report. See update below. Yesterday, a Republican Congresswoman alleged that the American military in Iraq had most of its high-value enemy targets in detention at one point or another, but released them without properly identifying them: The U.S. military already knows what half of its most-wanted terrorist targets look like because they have been apprehended and photographed in the past, a Republican congresswoman said Friday. The United States is operating "a catch and release program for al Qaeda in Iraq," said Rep. Heather Wilson, a member of the House intelligence committee. In remarks at the National Press Club, the New Mexico lawmaker said a senior official told her that the U.S. military already has photographs of "fully half of the high-value al Qaeda targets in Iraq" presently being hunted. "They're wearing orange jumpsuits in the mugshots we took of them when we captured...
Ever since the ISG made its recommendations to the White House last month, the administration has considered a surge in deployments to Iraq as a short-term boost to turn the corner on violence there. President Bush has not yet announced his new Iraq strategy, but by now most people believe it will comprise some form of the surge, especially with his replacement of the top military commanders in the theater, who opposed both the deployment of more troops and the "phased redeployment" of troops out of Iraq. However, the nature of the surge seems rather murky, especially when John McCain addressed the issue yesterday: McCain seems to be launching his 2008 campaign by taking the role of foremost advocate of sending significantly more troops for long-term deployment to Iraq. “There are two keys to any surge of U.S. troops: to be of value, it must substantial and it must be...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced today that his government will take immediate action against sectarian militias of all stripes in Baghdad. His announcement comes as the Bush administration appears ready to shift more troops to the capital, at least temporarily, and as confidence ebbs that Maliki would ever address the largest problem in Iraqi politics: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that Iraq's armed forces are set for an assault on Baghdad to take out militias and rogue security forces. Aided by multinational troops, the Iraqi forces "will hunt down all outlaws regardless of their sectarian and political affiliations," al-Maliki said at an Iraqi Army Day parade. "We will also severely punish those [security forces] who do not carry out orders or operate in a partisan or sectarian way," he said. Forces will search out insurgents neighborhood-by-neighborhood, The Associated Press reported, and will start the assault this...
January 10, 2007
Bill Ardolino files another of his embed reports from Iraq, the second of a series for The Examiner, and this focuses on the challenges of creating a stable society in Fallujah. An IED attack on an Abrams tank demonstrates the challenges for the American effort to engage the civilians of the city in an environment of terrorist attacks: The political situation is at another key turning point. Insurgents currently maintain the ability to disrupt the government because they are willing and able to pursue aggressively the two respected currencies in Iraq: money and violence. In contrast, U.S. and Iraqi government forces are limited in their efforts to establish a competing center of power, and many locals are caught in the middle. Americans don’t have the support of — but aren’t necessarily opposed by — many locals, don’t know the language or area and lack the backing from our political leaders...
President Bush will take to the airwaves tonight to unveil his new strategy in Iraq, attempting to build enough support to shift more troops for at least a limited engagement against sectarian militias that threaten to undermine the Iraqi government. In preparation, Bush spent hours polishing his speech and meeting with lawmakers of both parties to ensure he strikes the right tone: President Bush spent hours Tuesday practicing in front of cameras, preparing to make his case for increasing the U.S. military commitment in Iraq in a prime-time address to the nation tonight, even as congressional Democrats readied legislation to block any increase in the number of troops. Members of Congress who met with Bush said he appeared to understand that, after years of upbeat rhetoric and positive assessments that belied a lack of progress inside the country, his credibility was on the line. "He told us what he planned...
With just a few hours left before George Bush delivers his speech on the shift in Iraq war policy, politicians have already queued up to declare themselves in support or opposition to the plan. Unsurprisingly, most Democrats oppose it, but a few Republicans have joined them. Senator Sam Brownback, who has made it clear that he wants to run for the 2008 nomination as a staunch conservative, made the biggest splash among GOP naysayers: Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback came out against President Bush's expected call tonight for a surge of 22,000 more troops into Iraq. "I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer," Brownback said while traveling in Iraq. "Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution." Brownback had previously supported a short-term surge of troops if it could help achieve long-term political stability, which the Bush Administration has said it hopes a...
I will live-blog the President's speech, which starts as 8 pm CT, at this link. 7:32 PM CT - I will appear on CHQR's The World Tonight with Rob Breakenridge at 8:40 pm CT. We'll be discussing the speech and its implications. CHQR broadcasts on 770 AM in Calgary, but CQ readers can listen to the station's Internet stream. 7:34 - The Anchoress sends a link to this Newsweek item showing a Democratic flip-flop on the surge. I agree with her that the Democrats seem to use the automatic-gainsay strategy with Bush about Iraq, but I do recall this article -- and it was remarkable because Silvestre Reyes came out so strongly opposed to the Democrats' policy of defeat and retreat. Has Reyes repudiated his support for the surge today? I haven't heard. Also, Sister Toldjah has more thoughts along these lines ... 7:45 - Drudge has the speech up...
January 11, 2007
President Bush selected General David Petraeus as his new commander in Iraq in part because of his success in pacifying his sector of the Iraq theater in 2003. Petraeus learned the tactics as a student of British experience in imperial military counterinsurgency operations, a point that the Times of London believes will make a significant difference: The new US ground commander picked by President Bush to direct the military “surge” into Iraq believes that the war can be won with a radical change of tactics: those used by the British in Malaya and Ulster. Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, handed perhaps the toughest US military assignment since the Vietnam War — to stabilise Iraq and defeat its militias — is one of the Army’s premier intellectuals and a devoted student of counter-insurgency techniques used by the British and French during the last century. General Petraeus, who has spent 2½ of the past...
The New York Times filed a story at 1:37 am this morning (the time on the RSS feed timestamp) from John Burns and Sabrina Tavernise that paints the Iraqi government as leery of the proposed increase of troops in Baghdad. According to the Times, the Maliki government doesn't want more troops, as it will force them to deal with Shi'ite bad actors: As President Bush challenges public opinion at home by committing more American troops, he is confronted by a paradox: an Iraqi government that does not really want them. The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has not publicly opposed the American troop increase, but aides to Mr. Maliki have been saying for weeks that the government is wary of the proposal. They fear that an increased American troop presence, particularly in Baghdad, will be accompanied by a more assertive American role that will conflict with the...
The case of PFC Corey Clagett took a bizarre turn yesterday when his attorney found himself under arrest for money laundering and running a prostitution ring out of a nightclub. The former federal prosecutor and Abu Ghraib defense attorney could face decades of prison time: Paul Bergrin, who spent seven years as a New Jersey local and federal prosecutor, allegedly took over the NY Confidential escort service when the self-described "king of all pimps" Jason Itzler was arrested in 2005. Mr. Bergrin helped launder more than $800,000 in credit card payments for "escorts" who often cost $1,000 an hour, the district attorney of Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, said. ... Prosecutors also said Mr. Bergrin falsely told New Jersey parole officers that Itzler — a former client on parole from a 2001 ecstasy-smuggling conviction — was a paralegal in the Abu Ghraib defense case so Itzler could receive a more lenient curfew....
In another indication that the Iraqi government may have less problems with the surge than the New York Times predicts, Nouri al-Maliki has told the Shi'ite militias to disarm now or deal with the Americans by themselves. This includes Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army despite the influence the radical cleric has on the current government: Iraq's prime minister has told Shiite militiamen to surrender their weapons or face an all-out assault, part of a commitment U.S. President George W. Bush outlined to bring violence under control with a more aggressive Iraqi Army and 21,500 additional American troops. Senior Iraqi officials said Wednesday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, under pressure from the U.S., has agreed to crack down on the fighters even though they are loyal to his most powerful political ally, the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Previously, al-Maliki had resisted the move. The Iraqis still want to have overall command...
January 12, 2007
Not everyone opposes the Bush administration's surge plan for Iraq, not even in the Middle East. Arab nations that do business with the US have quietly pressed the White House to find ways to stay engaged in Iraq, fearful of both the collapse of the keystone nation in the region and the rise of Iran: Arab allies have quietly put serious pressure on President Bush to remain in Iraq, fearing premature evacuation will turn the country over to Iranian-backed militia, sources said Wednesday. "What concerns us is the instability and uncertainty in the area," Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy told the New York Daily News. "We need to stabilize the situation before the next step, otherwise it will become complete chaos." Several other Sunni Arab nations that are valuable U.S. allies - including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, the Emirates - are concerned about Iran's influence and the growing power of...
January 13, 2007
Senator Norm Coleman, one of our friends at the Northern Alliance, gave a speech in the Senate that announced his opposition to the Bush administration's plans for a troop surge in Baghdad and Anbar. As with most of Coleman's speeches, it is a must read -- nuanced and effective, even if people disagree with his conclusions. Coleman insists that he supports the war on terror, and agrees with the White House about the growing use of the insurgencies by Iran as proxies in a war against the United States. However, he believes that the sectarian strife is ultimately a political problem and cannot be solved through military action: It is for this reason that I oppose the proposal for a troop surge in Baghdad, where the violence can only be defined as sectarian. A troop surge proposal basically ignores the conditions on the ground, both as I saw on my...
Continue reading "Coleman Opposes The Surge" »
January 14, 2007
Turkey has issued another warning about the Kurdish insurgency in its eastern provinces, threatening to invade northern Iraq to put an end to the provocations. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed American assurances of cooperation, coming close to a diplomatic ultimatum against Iraq: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Friday reaffirmed Turkey's right to send troops into Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there and chided U.S. officials for questioning it. "The Turkish Republic will do whatever is necessary to combat the terrorists when the time comes, but it will not announce its plans in advance," Erdogan told a news conference after a meeting of his ruling AK Party. "We say we are ready to take concrete steps with the Iraqi government and we also say these steps must be taken now." In sharp language underscoring Turkish anxiety about the chaos in Iraq, Erdogan said it was wrong for Washington -- "our...
January 15, 2007
Two of the remaining men on the execution list in Iraq for crimes against humanity in the Saddam Hussein regime were executed overnight, ending speculation on when the Nouri al-Maliki government would proceed with the hangings. The Iraqis forced witnesses to pledge to behave themselves, but one of the defendants lost his head, literally: American military officials, who had custody of Mr. Hussein, were particularly upset and pushed hard to ensure that the execution of his co-defendants, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former head of the Mukhabarat secret police and the younger half-brother of Mr. Hussein, and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, who was chief judge of the revolutionary court under Mr. Hussein, was carried out properly. The government spokesman who announced the executions, which took place at 3 a.m., Bassam al-Husseini, said both the executioners and the witnesses had to sign statements promising to behave in a dignified manner. In what government officials...
The Bush surge has more to it than just the deployment of 20,000 more troops for Baghdad and Anbar. One of the less-debated aspects of the new strategy is a higher investment in money and personnel for the rebuilding effort in Iraq. The number of teams will double and go further out into the Iraqi communities that they will attempt to revive: As part of its latest plan to stabilize Iraq, the United States intends to more than double the number of regional reconstruction teams and to add nearly 400 specialists for existing and new teams, in fields from politics and the rule of law to agribusiness and veterinary care, according to an official outline of the plan. The document calls for the measures to be taken swiftly, in three phases, with waves of new teams and personnel expected to be put in place in March, June and September. The...
January 16, 2007
Two sources within Iraq report that al-Qaeda has begun to flee Baghdad in advance of the American troop surge. Richard Miniter, blogging at Pajamas Media, confirms with US military intelligence a report from an insurgent press outlet quoted by Iraq the Model: Al Qaeda terrorists are fleeing Baghdad in advance of President Bush’s 21,500-man troop surge, a senior military intelligence officer told Pajamas Media today. Under orders from the al Qaeda commander in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, fighters are streaming toward the Diyala region of Iraq. This confirms reports posted on Iraq the Model, which cited al-Sabah, a well-known mouthpiece for al Qaeda in Iraq. In speaking with Pajamas Media the military intelligence officer supplied several new details of the al Qaeda retreat. The apparent evacuation of Baghdad by al Qaeda forces comes from direct orders issued by al-Masri, the former soldier who took control of the Iraqi wing of...
January 17, 2007
Michelle Malkin has returned from her embed with the US military in Baghdad and has published her first report on her experiences. It's a taste of a series of posts to come, and it underscores the frustration of the troops with both the Bush administration and the anti-war activists: Modern war in the Middle East is no longer as cut-and-dry as shooting all the bad guys and going home. We are fighting a "war of the fleas"--not just Sunni terrorists and Shiite death squads, but multiple home-grown and foreign operators, street gangs, organized crime, and freelance jihadis conducting ambushes, extrajudicial killings, sectarian attacks, vehicle bombings, and sabotage against American, coalition, and Iraqi forces. Cellphones, satellites, and the Internet have allowed the fleas to magnify their importance, disseminate insurgent propaganda instantly, and weaken political will. I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my...
January 18, 2007
Over the last few weeks, the Iraqi government has quietly rounded up some of the senior leadership of the Mahdi Army in preparation for the tactical shift by the US military. The arrests give hope that the Iraqi government may actually use this opportunity to separate itself from the radical Shi'ites that have influenced its operations, including Moqtada al-Sadr: Facing intense pressure from the Bush administration to show progress in securing Iraq, senior Iraqi officials announced Wednesday that they had moved against the country’s most powerful Shiite militia, arresting several dozen senior members in the past few weeks. It was the first time the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had claimed significant action against the militia, the Mahdi Army, one of the most intractable problems facing his administration. The militia’s leader, the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, helped put Mr. Maliki in power, but pressure to crack down on...
The Washington Post reports today on the wave of anger and outrage sweeping the Arab world after the hangings of Saddam Hussein and two of his key henchment over the last three weeks. The accidental beheading, the rush to the gallows for Saddam, and his execution during Eid have gotten them pretty steamed -- and believing that executions were handled better under Saddam: Beirut's daily an-Nahar newspaper ran a caricature Tuesday of the Iraqi flag adorned with three nooses. At the center of the red, white and black banner, the outline of the coiled ropes appears similar to the word "Allah" in Arabic script. The cartoon appears under the caption "The New Iraq." That gallows humor reflected the swelling tide of Arab anger and revulsion at the Iraqi government's execution Monday of Barzan Ibrahim, who was beheaded as he was hanged, and the cellphone recordings of the taunts and gloating...
The new operation to clean up Baghdad seems to have taken the Mahdi Army by surprise. Mahdi Army leaders tell the AP that even in their Sadr City base they have begun to feel under siege, hiding their uniforms and ending operations to avoid detection by the increasing American forces: Mahdi Army fighters said Thursday they were under siege in their Sadr City stronghold as U.S. and Iraqi troops killed or seized key commanders in pinpoint nighttime raids. Two commanders of the Shiite militia said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting the group under pressure from Washington and threats from Sunni Muslim Arab governments. The two commanders' account of a growing siege mentality inside the organization could represent a tactical and propaganda feint, but there was mounting evidence the militia was increasingly off balance and had ordered its gunmen to melt back into the population. To avoid capture, commanders...
January 19, 2007
The new offensive against Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army continues to creep ever closer to the center of the problem. This morning, US and Iraqi troops arrested his media director and killed the man guarding him, effectively removing Sadr's propagandist from the fight: U.S. and Iraqi forces arrested one of Muqtada al-Sadr's top aides Friday in Baghdad, his office said, as pressure increases on the radical Shiite cleric's militia ahead of a planned security sweep aimed at stemming the sectarian violence ransacking the capital. Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, al-Sadr's media director in Baghdad, was captured Friday and his personal guard was killed, according to another senior al-Sadr aide. "We strongly condemn this cowardly act," Sheik Abdul-Zahra al-Suweiadi said. The U.S. military said special Iraqi army forces operating with coalition advisers captured a high-level, illegal armed group leader in Baladiyat, but it did not identify the detainee. It said two other...
January 22, 2007
The Iraqi government appeared to be taking the fight against the Mahdi Army and Moqtada al-Sadr seriously ... for a week or so. Yesterday, they took one gigantic step backwards when they announced that Sadr would rejoin the government, having cut yet another deal to keep from paying the price for his sectarian warfare: The Iraqi Government announced a deal to bring Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr back into the political fold yesterday, even as violence spread farther across the country. The populist Shia cleric’s six Cabinet ministers and 30 MPs ended their boycott of government and parliamentary activities, begun last November, when they protested at a meeting between Nouri alMaliki, the Prime Minister, and President Bush in Jordan. ... The violence came as more than 3,000 US paratroops arrived in Baghdad to take part in the new Baghdad security plan with which Mr al-Maliki hopes to restore order to the capital....
January 24, 2007
General David Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday in his confirmation hearing to replace General Casey as the top commander in Iraq, telling the Senators that the situation in Baghdad could be resolved with the extra troops and the new Iraqi commitment to security. He faced skepticism from both sides of the aisle, but insisted that a concerted "clear and hold" strategy with Americans in place to hold neighborhoods could give the Iraqi government the room it needs to turn the corner in the capital: Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush’s new choice as the top commander in Iraq, told senators on Tuesday that the new military strategy to secure Baghdad can work, and that he had asked that the additional troops the administration promised be deployed as quickly as possible. In his first public comments about Mr. Bush’s plan to send some 21,500 troops, the...
The Senate has two competing resolutions under consideration that intend to criticize President Bush's new "surge" strategy, especially the increase of troops in Baghdad. The Senate Armed Services Committee passed the resolution authored by Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden, while John Warner, Susan Collins, and Ben Nelson will sponsor a "softer" resolution. Hugh Hewitt and NZ Bear held a blogger conference call earlier today, which I wanted to attend but could not, and have offered a resolution of their own: Yesterday General Petraeus testified that the Biden/Warner resolutions and those like them encourage the enemy. What does it mean, "to encourage the enemy?" It means that the enemy gathers will and strength from the prospect of a collapsing political will to seek victory in Iraq and stability in the region. With that additional strength and will the enemy redoubles and retriples efforts to kill American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines....
January 26, 2007
Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal has completed his embed mission in Iraq, free-lancing as a contributor to the Examiner newspaper chain and blogging about his experiences. He plans a series of in-depth posts about his experiences and more reporting from the front when he gains his bearings. It will be a must-read site for the next few weeks. However, Bill can use your help. I know that this cost him around ten times as much as his free-lancing brought in due to the expenses of the equipment and other needs that he incurred. He has made up about a third of the gap through donations, but he could use more help in covering his costs. If you haven't already done so, consider donating a few dollars to Bill's efforts through his PayPal/credit card link at the end of the post above....
Guess who's endorsing the Bush surge strategy in Iraq now? One of the intended targets of the enforcement effort in Baghdad, Moqtada al-Sadr has issued an endorsement of the new push to rid the capital of sectarian violence as long as Iraqis remain in command of the mission: Muqtada Sadr, the radical anti-American cleric, has backed away from confrontation with U.S. and Iraqi forces in recent weeks, a move that has surprised U.S. officials who long have characterized his followers as among the greatest threats to Iraq's security. Thursday, a leader of the Sadr movement in one of its Baghdad strongholds publicly endorsed President Bush's new Iraq security plan, which at least some U.S. officials have touted as a way to combat Sadr's group. "We will fully cooperate with the government to make the plan successful," said Abdul-Hussein Kaabai, head of the local council in the Shiite Muslim-dominated Sadr City...
January 27, 2007
Steny Hoyer announced yesterday that Congress will pursue a new strategy in its opposition to the war in Iraq, one that has the effect of turning back time. Instead of issuing meaningless resolutions or taking the political risk of defunding the troops under fire, Hoyer and the Democrats now want to re-write the original Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed in 2002 regarding Iraq: Democrats may promote a new revised bill authorizing the use of force in Iraq -- to replace the 2002 bill that allowed the Bush administration to proceed with the war, a top Democrat said Friday. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer -- No. 2 in the House behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- said that is one step Democrats might pursue to change conditions in Iraq. "Frankly, it is time for the president to accept that we are no longer involved in a nation-building exercise. We...
January 29, 2007
Iraqi forces, backed by American troops, killed 250 insurgents in a bloody battle near Najaf yesterday. The fifteen-hour battle prevented the terrorists from attacking Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to celebrate Ashura, a flashpoint for violence in the past. However, some reports indicate that Shi'ite splinter groups may have been among the forces attacking the Iraqis: At least 250 militants were killed and an American helicopter was shot down in violent clashes near the southern city of Najaf on Sunday, Iraqi officials said. For 15 hours, Iraqi forces backed by American helicopters and tanks battled hundreds of gunmen hiding in a date palm orchard near the village of Zarqaa, about 120 miles south of Baghdad, by a river and a large grain silo that is surrounded by orchards, the officials said. It appeared to be one of the deadliest battles in Iraq since the American-led invasion four years ago, and...
American intelligence officials will declassify data that shows the Iranian efforts to foment disorder and terrorism in Iraq, according to Eli Lake of the New York Sun. The effort comes in response to the publicly-announced skepticism of Democratic leadership in Congress, and may wind up as an Internet site for mass dissemination: New evidence of Iran's role in Iraq will be made [public] in Baghdad by the chief spokesman for the multinational forces in Iraq, Major General William Caldwell. The Directorate of National Intelligence worked over the weekend to clear new intelligence and information that sources inside the intelligence community said would implicate Iran in deliberately sending particularly lethal improvised explosives to terrorists to kill coalition soldiers. The intelligence community is currently debating whether to make the new evidence, which it plans to declassify, available on the Internet. The plan to present the evidence will coincide with a presentation this...
January 30, 2007
Earlier today, Russ Feingold began holding hearings on whether Congress had the authority to rescind or modify an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF), once approved and implemented by the executive. This weekend, I argued that Congress could not simply rescind an AUMF without the executive declaring an end to hostilities, once given command of the war. Feingold plans to use the hearings to demonstrate that Congress can indeed overrule the executive, withdraw their AUMF, and force an end to a deployment. Does Congress have any precedent for such an action? This was the subject of a friendly set of e-mails between myself and Glenn Greenwald after he posted examples of Republican Senators demanding an end to our deployment in Somalia after the debacle of Mogadishu. These include Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Phil Gramm, and John McCain, who made the case for Senatorial action: Dates certain, Mr. President,...
January 31, 2007
The cult group destroyed by the Iraqi-run offensive on the eve of Ashura may have been obscure, but they had one point in common with the other insurgencies in Iraq -- they were armed to the teeth. Close air support from the US forces backing up the IA units made the difference, as more that 260 cultists died with bags of ammunition surrounding them: The dead wore the same footwear, imitation leather dress shoes with Velcro flaps. Their mangled bodies filled the trenches. Bags of ammunition, with the names of fighters written on them, sat by their sides. A pulpit made of bamboo stood next to a grassy field, a newspaper filled with rambling and enigmatic religious writing strewn nearby. An unauthorized hourlong walk Tuesday through the bombed compound of a religious cult called Heaven's Army revealed provocative clues about the group, which was decimated Sunday in a 24-hour U.S....
It seems that William Arkin has had enough of supporting the troops, now that a few of them told NBC that they believe that Americans should support the mission as well. In his Washington Post blog, Arkin suddenly feels that the troops should just shut up and retreat: So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society? I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism...
February 1, 2007
The Senate moved closer to a non-binding resolution opposing the surge strategy last night when two key members of the chamber reached a compromise on the wording in the bill. John Warner and Carl Levin have agreed to reinforce the resolution with a vow that the Senate will not stop funding the troops: Democratic and Republican opponents of President Bush's troop-buildup plan joined forces last night behind the nonbinding resolution with the broadest bipartisan backing: a Republican measure from Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced the shift, hoping to unite a large majority of the Senate and thwart efforts by the White House and GOP leaders to derail any congressional resolution of disapproval of Bush's decision to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500. Although the original Democratic language was popular within the party, it had little appeal among Republicans. Warner's...
John McCain has decided to eschew the competing resolutions expressing disfavor with the new White House surge strategy in favor of an open-ended series of benchmarks intended to demonstrate what progress in Iraq will look like. The resolution gives no deadlines but does describe the process by which the Pentagon should measure success. Here is the conclusion on McCain's bill: Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that -- (1) Congress should ensure that General David Petraeus, the Commander of Multinational Forces - Iraq, and all United States personnel under his command, have the resources they consider necessary to carry out their mission on behalf of the United States in Iraq; and (2) that the Government of Iraq must make visible, concrete progress toward meeting the political, economic, and military benchmarks enumerated in the preamble to this Resolution. McCain obviously wants to offer a way for the Senate...
February 3, 2007
John Warner has declared that he will filibuster his own non-binding resolution on the surge to protest the conduct of Harry Reid in limiting votes on alternatives, such as John McCain's proposed language that supports the President's new stratey for Baghdad and Anbar. The GOP says they can organize all 49 Senators in their caucus, which would keep any resolution from proceeding to a vote: Sen. John W. Warner will join his fellow Republicans in voting Monday to block the resolution he wrote rebuking President Bush's Iraq war policy. "Senator Warner supports the Senate Republican leadership's effort to establish a free and open debate on Iraq on the Senate floor, including possible amendments," a spokesman for the Virginia Republican said yesterday afternoon. Earlier in the day, Mr. Warner told colleagues during a closed-door strategy meeting at the Library of Congress that he opposes the manner in which Senate Majority Leader...
The intelligence community released its National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq yesterday, a nine-page document that the Washington Post correctly characterizes as "bleak". It adopts the term "civil war" for the ongoing conflict in Iraq, and at the same time notes that the term doesn't do justice to the myriad of conflicts active in the country at the moment. However, it also warns about the effect a withdrawal would have on the region. First, though, the bad news: The U.S. intelligence community yesterday released a starkly pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, warning that even if security improves, deepening sectarian divisions threaten to destroy the government and ultimately could lead to anarchy, partition or the emergence of a new dictatorship. Citing "the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene," declassified judgments of a new National Intelligence Estimate predicted that Iraqi leaders will be "hard pressed" to reconcile...
February 4, 2007
While the US focuses on Iran as a fomenter of the violence wracking Baghdad and its environs, Iraqi officials have begun pointing west instead east as an explanation. After the worst single bombing in the last four years took 135 lives yesterday in a Shi'ite section of the capital, an Iraqi official angrily accused Syria of allowing "Saddamists" to flow freely across the border: A senior Iraqi official has said half of all insurgent attacks in Baghdad are carried out by militants from Syria. Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government has provided Damascus with evidence to back up this claim. ... Speaking on al-Arabiyah television, Mr al-Dabbagh said many of the insurgents emanated from neighbouring Syria. "Fifty per cent of terrorism enters Iraq from Syria, and we have evidence" to prove that, the Associated Press news agency reported. "The Interior Ministry and the Ministry of State for National Security gave...
February 5, 2007
The classified portion of the National Intelligence Estimate downplays the effect of al-Qaeda in Iraq, declaring them to be a small minority of the Sunni terrorists. However, four of the sixteen intelligence agencies dissented from this view, including the intel units of the two forces fighting in Iraq. They believe that the Sunni insurgencies have been almost completely co-opted by AQI: In a division reminiscent of the intelligence debates before the Iraq war, America's war fighters and satellite imagery experts have issued a formal dissent on one of the National Intelligence Estimate's most important judgments. Disputing the view that Al Qaeda plays only a small role in the overall Sunni insurgency in Iraq, four of America's 16 intelligence agencies have obliged the Directorate of National Intelligence to provide a formal dissent to the 90-page classified Iraq assessment issued last week. Those agencies include the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and...
Both Shi'ite and Sunni Iraqi leaders want the US to accelerate the deployment for the new surge strategy in Baghdad. Shi'ites blame the US for not filling the power vacuum quickly enough after the Mahdi Army started to flee the capital, leaving them exposed for the Sunni bombing that killed 135 people this weekend. The Sunnis want the US in place to keep the situation from deteriorating even further: A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that slowness in completing the vaunted new American security plan has made Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks. The chorus of critics said the new plan, which the Americans have barely started to execute, has emasculated the Mahdi Army, the Shiite...
Bill Ardolino, having completed his embed mission in Iraq with American forces, has begun to write about his experiences at length. His latest essay tells about his experience on a nighttime raid with US Marines and Iraqi Army forces, and presents the difficult routine of these missions: A fifth stop was another dry hole, but occupants told the Jundi that the house of the man they were looking for was a block away, so the soldiers immediately splashed down a sewage-filled side street on foot, leaving the cordon, the convoy and its crew-served heavy weapons behind. We chased them down the darkened alley, Lt. Kim struggling to communicate with the IA's about their ad hoc plan of action. The move was poorly planned but ultimately successful, as a blindfolded man was led from the quickly targeted house with no shots fired. This chaotic initiative highlights one of the strengths and...
The Republicans welcomed Harry Reid to Senate leadership today, filibustering the Warner-Levin amendment on the surge strategy in Iraq when Reid tried to push it through without allowing alternatives or amendments to come to the floor. The Democrats could not even get a majority to approve cloture, let alone the 60 votes needed, and Reid's efforts sank into failure -- at least for now: Republicans blocked a full-fledged Senate debate over Iraq on Monday, but Democrats vowed they would eventually find a way to force President Bush to change course in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops. "We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people," said Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid, D-Nev., spoke moments before a vote that sidetracked a nonbinding measure expressing disagreement with Bush's plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq....
February 6, 2007
Iran blames the United States for the abduction of a diplomat by men in the uniform of the Iraqi Army, according to state news agency IRNA. ABC reports that Iraqi police captured two men involved in the incident, who got transferred immediately to the custody of the Iraqi Army: Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms seized an Iranian diplomat as he drove through central Baghdad, officials said Tuesday. Tehran condemned the abduction and blamed U.S. forces in Iraq. One Iraqi government official also said the diplomat was detained Sunday by a special Iraqi army unit that reports directly to the U.S. military. But a military spokesman denied any U.S. troops or Iraqis that report to them were involved. "We've checked with our units and it was not an MNF-I (Multi-National Forces Iraq) unit that participated in that event," military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said, adding he could not confirm the...
February 7, 2007
One of the accepted facts of the entire Valerie Plame scandal has been that Plame suggested her husband, Joseph Wilson, for the Niger investigation after Dick Cheney requested the research into Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. That timeline paints Plame as responsive to the VP's office and not an initiator of action on the "sixteen words" controversy. Byron York, who has followed the Scooter Libby trial for National Review, reports that the timeline has been proven incorrect, casting doubt on the tenor of Plame's request and Wilson's assignment: The accepted version of events is that Vice President Dick Cheney got things started when he asked for information about possible Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. After that request, CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson suggested sending her husband to look into the question, and after that, the CIA flew Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate. But the new...
February 8, 2007
The US and Iraqi forces have not limited the new full-court press in Baghdad to just the foot soldiers of the insurgencies and independent militias, but also to those who give them political cover. The arrest of a near-Cabinet-level official in a raid specifically targeting the minister shows that the surge aims higher than expected: US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad have arrested the deputy health minister during a raid at his offices. The minister, Hakem al-Zamili, is a key member of the political group led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr. He is accused of aiding Shia militiamen and using ambulances to move weapons, a ministry source told the BBC. ... Iraqi officials say US and Iraqi troops broke down doors in the ministry's offices in central Baghdad in their search for Mr Zamili. The minister and some of his guards were arrested. This seems very significant. Certainly few...
After the failure to approve cloture on the single amendment allowed to reach the floor by Harry Reid, it appeared that the Democrats had decided to allow the effort to pass a non-binding resolution to die on the floor -- and blame Republicans for supposedly ending the debate. Seven Republican Senators have decided to push back against that decision, demanding that GOP and Democratic leaders reach some level of accommodation for a full debate on all proposals, a surprise that Reid attempted to ignore when it arose during yesterday's session: Senate Republicans who earlier this week helped block deliberations on a resolution opposing President Bush's new troop deployments in Iraq changed course yesterday and vowed to use every tactic at their disposal to ensure a full and open debate. In a letter distributed yesterday evening to Senate leaders, John W. Warner (Va.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and five other GOP supporters...
February 9, 2007
The acting Inspector General of the Defense Department has issued a long-awaited report on the intelligence analysis provided by Douglas Feith during the period between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. According to Thomas Gimble, Feith and others did not violate laws or policies at the Department of Defense, nor did they mislead Congress -- but Gimble still concludes that their activities were "inappropriate": A Pentagon investigation into the handling of prewar intelligence has criticized civilian Pentagon officials for conducting their own intelligence analysis to find links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but said the officials did not violate any laws or mislead Congress, according to Congressional officials who have read the report. The long-awaited report by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Thomas F. Gimble, was sent to Congress on Thursday. It is the first major review to rebuke senior officials working for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for...
February 13, 2007
The Telegraph reports this morning that rifles imported from Austria by Iran have surfaced among insurgents in Iraq. Steyr-Mannlicher exported 800 of its high-powered HS50 models, capable of piercing body armor, to the National Iranian Police Association for their anti-narcotics efforts: Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned. More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids. The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year. The sale was condemned in Washington and London because officials were worried that the weapons would be used by insurgents against British and American troops. This appears to aubstantiate the findings of the Department of Defense, presented this weekend, that Iran has actively supplied weapons to...
Well, so much for the whole 72 virgins thing and the radical Islamist desire to die in martyrdom: The story tonight in Iraq is not the arrival of more U.S. troops, but the departure of one of the country's most powerful men, Moqtada al Sadr and members of his army. According to senior military officials al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago, and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family. Al Sadr commands the Mahdi Army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad. Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News' Martha Raddatz, "He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house." Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr. This...
February 14, 2007
The capture of more than a hundred sniper rifles in Iraq that had previously been sold to Iranian police agencies had the manufacturer backpedaling yesterday. The London Telegraph reports that the Austrian government and the Steyr corporation both denied any responsibility or knowledge of an arms transfer from Teheran to Iraqi insurgents: Austria yesterday washed its hands of any responsibility after it was revealed that powerful sniper rifles it sold to Iran had been acquired by insurgents in Iraq. The Daily Telegraph revealed yesterday that American troops had recovered more than 100 Steyr HS50 Mannlicher rifles, part of a consignment of 800 sold to Iran by Austria last year, during a series of raids in Iraq. Astrid Harz, a spokesman for the Austrian foreign ministry, said yesterday that the sale had been "checked very thoroughly" and what happened to the rifles after they were delivered to Teheran ostensibly for use...