US Diary: a VERY positive and a VERY negative view of what's happening in Iraq

1. From Blogcritics.org: Is Our Quagmire Slipping Away? – by Dave Nalle

In an interesting turn of events, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) took some time off from his efforts to keep dangerous video games out of the hands of the little kids they were designed for, to issue a remarkable statement on the War in Iraq in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal on Monday.

Of course, the context of this is that Lieberman would really like a shot at the White House in 2008, but given the ever-leftward direction his party is going, taking a positive position on the War in Iraq seems like a strange way to win its general election.

Lieberman is far from ignorant about Iraq. He is certainly among the brighter people on Capitol Hill, however misguided he may be on some subjects. The gist of his Iraq position seems to be that the situation is nowhere near as grim as many - especially many in his own party - paint it, and that there's no justification for pulling out our troops.

Lieberman's familiarity with the region is considerable. He's made many, many trips to Israel during his career and has been to Iraq four times in the last year and a half alone. No one on Capitol Hill knows as much as he does about what's going on in Iraq, and his article is basically a report on his recently ended tour there.

Lieberman's basic observation on the overall improvement in the situation in Iraq is pretty significant:

Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is progress.

He verifies what sources from within Iraq have been saying and which the eager beavers of the antiwar movement have been denying desperately, that conditions in most of Iraq are better than they've been in a generation, even in many of the most troubled areas. He has seen firsthand that the country is recovering and that people are embracing and making use of their freedom.

He goes on into more specifics:

There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. These superficial, material acquisitions are not important in and of themselves, but they're a sign of where the country is going and where people are placing their priorities, and those priorities are clearly based on the expectation of a future as a functioning, self-governing nation. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly.

Lieberman doesn't go into detail on this, but the fact is that almost all the major Sunni factions have entered the political process, and even the last few Sunnin insurgent holdouts are in negotiations for amnesty so that they can speak with their votes rather than with guns and bombs.

People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.

I suspect that his experience with Israel informs his observations here, because he knows that a functioning society can exist and prosper with a certain level of terrorist disruption within its boundaries. He also points out that:

It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern.

I can't absolutely confirm his figures here, but they sound about right. Israel has about a fifth as many citizens as Iraq, but a higher proportion of terrorists within their borders, yet it survives and carries on. Admittedly, the Palestinians have settled into a sort of maintenance level of terrorism, while some of Iraqi groups are still enthusiastic. But the point is that life can go on and limited numbers and growing unpopularity hinder terrorists' ability to disrupt an entire society in the long term.

Lieberman goes on to talk about the rise of Lebanese democracy, elections in Israel and Palestine and the general increase in democracy and freedom in the region, concluding:

In my meeting with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.

Highlighting the idea that Iraq's greatest value might be as a "city on a hill," as an example for other nations in the region to follow, the senator continues.

None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the coalition forces led by the US. And, I am convinced, almost all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of securing the country.

He lays out the stakes here very clearly, something which a lot of people seem to forget when thinking only in terms of the impact of the war here in the United States.

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While US public-opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82 percent are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

Someone on Lieberman's staff is doing his or her work. Those polls from some rather specialized think tanks aren't getting a lot of play in the media and haven't been put to much use, even by the administration. The data Lieberman refers to is from surveys carried out by the International Republican Institute - which has nothing to do with the Republican Party - which has come up with a lot of really interesting and current data on how Iraqis actually feel, much of it in direct contradiction to more superficial polls from the media.

We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of our forces....American military leaders estimate that about one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and that that number should double by next year.

Here, Lieberman hits on something which the administration and the military have been remarkably inept in successfully communicating. People like Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and others have latched onto the testimony that only one Iraqi brigade is at first-level readiness, but they ignore the fact that Lieberman clearly has grasped. The dividing line between "level-one" troops and other troops is their ability to be logistically self-supporting. What that means is that the Iraqi army is short on quartermasters, cooks, accountants and truck drivers - not competent soldiers. This is something which our military is extraordinarily good at and which it can do for a long time with a minimal commitment of troops in relatively low-risk positions. Solving this problem is merely a matter of training and time. This is a vital point which no one else seems to have articulated terribly well.

Lieberman wraps up his article by praising the troops and reiterating how important it is to be flexible in our policy in Iraq while never giving up our commitment there. He's really set himself apart from the rest of his party. It's a risky position to take, but one which at least sets him apart from the pack when the Democrat primaries start up in a couple of years.

Now, I absolutely can't stand Joe Lieberman. His politics are about 180 degrees from mine and his stances on religion in government and on censorship are absolutely abhorrent. Nonetheless, this article is pretty remarkable. He manages to say things that the administration should be saying and he does it more directly and effectively than the White House has been able to do. Perhaps they administration is saying the same things and the media are ignoring it. Perhaps the White House isn't expressing itself very well, as has been a problem in the past.

It seems Lieberman has an informed view of what's actually going on in Iraq. So, why can't the rest of his party, the antiwar activists and the public as a whole see what he sees so clearly? For that matter, is there any chance they're listening to him? Or are they just holding on desperately to the political advantage they've built on opposing the war? Perhaps they really don't want to admit that with progress in Iraq, their "quagmire" may be slipping away.


2. Bush in Iraq, Slouching toward Genocide -- by Robert Parry

    Despite pretty words about democracy and freedom, George W. Bush's "victory" plan in Iraq is starting to look increasingly like an invitation to genocide, the systematic destruction of the Sunni minority for resisting its US-induced transformation from the nation's ruling elite into second-class citizenship.

    The Sunnis, an Islamic sect that makes up about 35 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, are being confronted with a stark choice, either accept subordination to the less-educated Shiite majority or face the devastation of Sunni neighborhoods, the imprisonment of many Sunni males and the deaths of large numbers of the Sunni population.

    In referring to this possibility, many in Washington object to the word "genocide" - which is defined in international law as the destruction of "in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" - but already there are troubling signs that Iraq's incipient civil war could slide into something close to that.

    Retaliating against Sunni bombings and other attacks on Shiite targets over the past two years, Iraq's Shiite-controlled security forces have begun rounding up, torturing and executing Sunni men.

    "Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation," New York Times correspondent Dexter Filkins reported from Baghdad.

    "Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills," Filkins wrote. "Many have simply vanished." [NYT, Nov. 29, 2005]

    In November, a secret bunker - where Sunni captives were mistreated and apparently tortured - was discovered in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad. The Shiite-dominated government has denied responsibility for the abuses and the murders.

    But human rights groups and other investigators have blamed many of the Sunni killings on the Badr Brigade, an Iranian-backed Shiite militia associated with a leading element of the Iraqi government, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The Council has close ties to the fundamentalist Shiite government of Iran.

    'Death Squads'

    US officials also acknowledge that hard-line Shiite militiamen, who have penetrated the government's security forces, are operating "death squads" to terrorize Sunnis.

    The killings and disappearances are reminiscent of the bloodshed in Central America in the 1980s when right-wing regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador unleashed security forces to round up, torture and kill suspected leftists.

    That violence, however, was primarily defined by political ideology, rather than race, religion or ethnicity. An exception was the slaughtering of a Mayan Indian tribe in the Guatemalan highlands as part of a military scorched-earth campaign that later was investigated by a truth commission and denounced as "genocide." [For details about Ronald Reagan's tolerance of these atrocities, see Robert Parry's Lost History.]

    In Iraq, the religious component of the nation's incipient civil war is already apparent, although Bush often has presented the Iraqi conflict to the American people as a war largely between foreign Islamic "terrorists" and freedom-loving Iraqis.

    Bush finally dropped that distorted analysis in his Nov. 30 speech about his plan for "victory" in Iraq. He divided the "enemy in Iraq" into three groups - the Sunni "rejectionists," who resent having lost their privileged status; the Sunni "Saddamists," who retain loyalty to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein; and the foreign "terrorists," who have entered Iraq to fight the American invaders and generally spread chaos.

    US military analysts estimate that more than 90 percent of the forces battling American troops come from the first two Sunni categories, with the foreign jihadists representing only from 5 to 10 percent of the armed opposition. Though Bush didn't give percentages, he did list the groups in declining order by size, with the "terrorists" the smallest.

    Yet what is problematic about Bush's analysis in terms of the genocide issue is that he identifies the vast majority of the "enemy" as Sunnis. That means both Iraq's Shiite-dominated government and US forces in Iraq are already targeting a religious minority for defeat, establishing one of the first conditions for the definition of genocide.

    'Complete Victory'

    The next element in the equation will be how far the war against the Sunnis goes - or put differently, how stubbornly the Sunnis resist.

    For his part, Bush reiterated that he will only be satisfied with "complete victory," which suggests he is resolved to break the back of the Sunni resistance at whatever cost.

    The Bush administration also wants to keep a tight hold on information that might put the US war effort in a negative light. That means the American people can expect to be shielded from many of the worst secrets in Iraq, much as the White House has continued to fight release of video showing abuses at Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq.

    According to US military experts I've interviewed, a great deal of emphasis in the future will be on "perception management," the concept of shaping how both Iraqis and the American people perceive the events in Iraq.

    This media manipulation, combined with secretive "death squads," adds even more to the recipe necessary for war-time atrocities that might cross over into genocide.

    Other warning flags were raised in a New Yorker article by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, whose sources cited both Bush's messianic commitment to stay the course in Iraq and to a shift toward a reliance on aerial bombardment of "enemy" targets, as US troop levels begin to decline.

    "A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President's public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower," Hersh wrote. "Quick, deadly strikes by US warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units.

    "The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the overall level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what."

    One of the risks is that the power to target US air attacks would be put in the hands of Iraq's Shiite-controlled government, which could then rain down American death and destruction from the air on Sunnis and other rivals.

    An example of this kind of horror occurred in the early days of the war in March 2003 when the US military relied on a false report from a supposed informant that Saddam Hussein was eating at a Baghdad restaurant. The restaurant was bombed, killing 14 civilians, including seven children, though Hussein was not there.

    The Sunnis also got a taste of US destruction from the air during the assault on Fallujah in April 2004. With US warplanes shattering the city with 500-pound bombs, hundreds of Iraqis - many of them civilians - died. There were so many dead that the city's soccer field was turned into a mass grave.

    God's 'Man'

    Hersh's sources said, too, that Bush's fundamentalist Christianity has added another complication to the US pursuit of a realistic strategy in Iraq.

    "Bush's closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments," Hersh wrote. "In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush's first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President's religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq.

    "After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that 'God put me here' to deal with the war on terror. The President's belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that 'he's the man,' the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reelection (in 2004) as a referendum on the war; privately he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose." [New Yorker, Dec. 5, 2005]

    Caught up in his divine mission, Bush has repeatedly rejected cautionary advice about Iraq, dating back to pre-invasion warnings from the likes of Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under President George H.W. Bush. Even now, military advisers say Bush gets angry when they bring him negative news about Iraq.

    This mix of Bush's religious zeal and his refusal to accept reality adds another layer of danger as the United States slouches toward potential genocide in Iraq.

    But some in Washington say it's outrageous even to suggest the possibility of the US government engaging in a crime against humanity as severe as genocide. Despite the historical fact that much of the American continent was settled after genocide against Native Americans, the notion of such a present-day crime is considered unthinkable.

    The Bush administration, however, already has crossed other bright lines of international law, including the invasion of a non-threatening foreign nation and complicity in torture, such as subjecting captives to simulated drowning in a process called "water-boarding."

    So, how unthinkable is it really that the Bush administration might venture across another boundary of civilized behavior?

    What if Iraq's Sunnis dig in their heels because they suspect that their historic Shiite rivals plan to deny the Sunni population a significant share of Iraq's oil reserves, which are located mostly in Shiite and Kurdish territories?

    With little choice besides living in poverty in Iraq's central desert, the Sunnis might decide that their best option is to continue fighting until the Shiites make far bigger concessions, such as giving a strong central government control of the oil riches.

    If that's the choice the Sunnis make - and if Bush sees his commitment to a "complete victory" as part of God's plan - might the Shiites then exploit US air power to inflict a final crushing blow against their ancient enemies?

    Perhaps cooler heads will prevail and excessive bloodshed will be averted. But if too many more lines get crossed, the rest of the world may extend the list of crimes already blamed on the Bush administration - to include genocide.

(Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at SecrecyandPrivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.')