Iraq Study Group report lands like a leaky tampon, and here's more interesting commentary, like an interview with a spokesman for Moqtada al-Sadr

1. Interview with a Moqtada al-Sadr spokesman
Why America Will Fail in Iraq – from Foreign Policy

The future of Iraq may depend more on the policies of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr than those of U.S. President George W. Bush. The young firebrand’s views remain clouded in mystery, in part because he and his loyalists usually refuse to speak to the Western media. In a rare interview, his spokesman, Baha al-Araji, sounds off on Iraq’s troubled past, present, and future.

FOREIGN POLICY: Was Iraq better off under Saddam Hussein than it is today?

Baha Al-Araji: The Iraqi people knew terrible oppression and prejudice from the dictator Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi people once thought that the American project would end that. But because the American commanders lack any awareness of the nature of the Iraqi people, their presence has actually increased the level of oppression.

Saddam Hussein killed my father and my elder brother and jailed one of my brothers and my mother for a long time. Some of my family escaped Iraq and lived in exile, while others remained in the country. Now we are able to see, unfortunately, that the situation during Saddam’s reign was better than today because then, the oppression was targeted and predictable. Today, danger and oppression overwhelm all Iraqi people without exception.

FP: Why are the Americans failing in Iraq?

BAA: The situation in Iraq differs from that in the United States. There is bureaucratic competition for power [in the United States]. The Department of Defense took control for a certain period, and then the State Department did. And this kind of alternating power and influence is good. But that is the United States. The same is not true in Iraq. Thus, the American project in Iraq will fail.

Sometimes, the Iraqi government reaches a good agreement with the political advisor of the U.S. embassy here in Baghdad. But, then, suddenly, in the night, some military commander will [attack] a certain local community. And so negates the accord that was reached between the Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy’s political advisor.

The Americans should look at the Iraqis as Iraqis, not [as] Americans in training.

FP: Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to disband the militias or find some way to incorporate them into the government. What does this mean for Sadr’s movement and the Mahdi Army?

BAA: I personally disagree with [that]. Whether or not these militias undermine the sovereignty of the Iraqi government is an open question. This question was provoked by the Maliki government. [They] raised it for purely political reasons in an effort to provoke a clash between the Sadr movement and the current government.

The emergence of militias in Iraq is a natural response to the situation here. There is a principle which says that for every action, there is a reaction. So, when there are occupation forces on the ground, there should naturally be a resistance to that occupation. We choose peaceful and diplomatic resistance, so the government and the coalition forces should not exaggerate our activities. Because those of us who are affiliated with the Sadr movement are sensitive, we don’t like to provoke this contentious question.

Do you know that 60 percent of the Mahdi Army already serves in government programs and installations? One of our biggest challenges with this issue is getting the Americans to understand it. The problem is that the U.S. leaders in Iraq, even though they are here, still think in an American way. But Iraq totally differs in its nature, its economy, and its culture from the United States.

FP: Many people in the American government blame the Mahdi Army for some of the insecurity. How do you respond to these critics?

BAA: There are many terrorists who can acquire and get this green badge [pointing to his Green Zone credential]. Terrorists can easily gain access to the Green Zone. And they enter with weapons. This highly protected area is already penetrated. Some of these activities have been disclosed by the Iraqi government and the Americans as the actions of the Mahdi Army. But these actions are actually not linked to [us], because our army is ideological.

FP: In the elections in December 2005, the Sadr movement was part of the United Iraqi Alliance. But now you’re saying that you’re anti-government. What are the relations like between the parties in the UIA?

BAA: Because I am affiliated with the Sadr movement, I received 40,000 votes. If I had run as an individual candidate, I would only have received 3,000 votes.... But 70 percent of these attacks, and this is my personal viewpoint, derive from disputes between the leadership of the political parties, whether they are in the council of representatives or the government. This is unacceptable.

FP: What should be the role of Iraq’s neighbors?

BAA: We have problems, unfortunately, with all of Iraq’s neighbors. Some are historical problems. Some are ethnic problems … The Shiites are the majority in Iraq. But, in the Islamic world, they are the minority. And our neighbors, the Arab countries that border us, are 100 percent Sunni. So they fear the situation in Iraq. To be sure, some of the problems we face today in Iraq are of our own making. But the biggest challenges derive from Iraq’s neighbors. Our mistake is that we didn’t go to them in the beginning and tell them about the nature of Shiites in Iraq, that we are peaceful. But the real problem—the enduring challenge—is that Iraq’s neighbors won’t tolerate a Shiite-governed Iraq. They think that there is major collaboration between Iraqi Shia and Iran, but we will control this. It is a very big mistake to think that our community works at the behest of Iranian allies and friends.

I don’t think Iran likes Iraq. Iran is the beneficiary of this current situation. Iran’s enemy is the United States, so Iran does everything in its power to fuel instability in the new Iraq so that Iran can remain strong and keep the United States distracted. The reason nobody is doing anything about Iran’s nuclear program is that they are all too busy trying to salvage Iraq.

We also have a small problem with Syria. Saddam’s regime was affiliated with the same school and political party that rules Syria. In Syria, there are many in the local Baath Party leadership who think that the situation in Iraq is a big loss for the Baath Party. Though the Syrian Baathist ideology differs from Saddam’s, there is still a desire [there] to see him reinstated. And this sense of party solidarity has led them to incite instability in Iraq in order to ensure that the occupiers—and the new government they support—fail.

FP: Do you think Kurdistan will split off from Iraq? Will the south also secede?

BAA: Of course other regions want to secede. Would you want to be part of this mess by choice? If you believed that you could build a prosperous life and leave the forces of violence to fight their own petty wars of attrition on the streets of Baghdad, you would do it. These threats of secession say nothing of Iraqi unity or fragmentation. People just want a normal life.

(This interview is excerpted from an upcoming volume of the Oxford International Review.)


2. Bush's Meeting With A Murderer – by Robert Dreyfuss

President George W. Bush meets with Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the turbaned leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite fundamentalist party that is strongly tied to Iran. In so doing, the president is meeting with someone who, perhaps more than anyone else in Iraq, is responsible for trying to destroy Iraqi national unity, prevent national reconciliation among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian mix, and push Iraq into civil war. Al-Hakim, who was virtually Fed-Ex’d into Iraq by the Pentagon in March 2003, was a mainstay of the Iraqi National Congress, led by neoconservative darling Ahmed Chalabi throughout the 1990s. And today al-Hakim controls the SCIRI militia, the Badr Brigade, the Iraqi interior ministry and many of Iraq’s feared death squads. Not to put too fine a point on it, Hakim is a mass murderer.

What’s stunning about Bush’s encounter with al-Hakim is that it occurs precisely at the moment when critically important bridges are being built across Iraq’s Sunni-Shiite divide—bridges that al-Hakim is trying to blow up.

During a stop in Amman, Jordan, on his way to the United States, al-Hakim point blank tried to torpedo the idea of an international conference that might bring together Iraq’s various factions. Such a conference was explicitly proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan last week, who offered to host it. A similar conference, or one like it, is likely to be part of the recommendations that will be issued on Wednesday by the Iraq Study Group, the panel co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Indiana Representative Lee Hamilton. But al-Hakim trashes the idea. “It is unreasonable or incorrect to discuss issues related to the Iraqi people at international conferences,” said the Shiite radical. “The proposal is unrealistic, incorrect and illegal.” (It is, of course, perfectly legal.)

It is not the first time that al-Hakim has tried to undermine reconciliation efforts. During repeated attempts by the Arab League to organize a conference that would bring Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders together with representatives of the armed resistance in search of an accord, al-Hakim almost single-handedly destroyed the idea. And it is al-Hakim, whose SCIRI controls much of Iraq’s south, who is the driving force behind efforts to create a separatist Shiite-run state in Iraq’s south.

Hakim’s wrecking-ball effort is taking place in the context of unprecedented efforts by leaders of Iraq’s factions to create what many Iraqi leaders are calling a “government of national salvation.”

Such a government would topple and replace the ineffectual, clownish Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Supporters of the idea, who are getting ready to announce a National Salvation Front in Iraq, include rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, many of Iraq’s Sunni leaders in and out of government, representatives of the Iraqi resistance and perhaps even some important Kurdish leaders.

Last week, when the feckless Maliki traveled to Jordan to meet Bush, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his 30 members of parliament to suspend their participation and pulled five cabinet ministers out of Maliki’s government. Sadr’s Mahdi Army, one of the most powerful of Iraq’s armed factions and one which has been involved in death squads and assassinations itself, controls large parts of east Baghdad and many areas of the south, and they have fiercely opposed Hakim’s SCIRI. According to Sadr, his political forces will not rejoin the government until the United States has announced a timetable for the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Sadr is now reaching out to Sunni and Kurdish leaders to form an anti-occupation bloc that will represent the vast majority of Iraqi public opinion. Polls have shown that up to 80 percent of Sunni Arabs and 60 percent of Shiite Arabs want an immediate end to the occupation.

Among those supporting the new National Salvation Front, along with Sadr, are Saleh Mutlaq, the Sunni leader of Iraq’s National Dialogue Front; Tariq al-Hashemi, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party; former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, and many others. According to the Iraqi newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm , Mutlaq described the front as a broad cross-section of Iraqis opposed to the U.S. occupation:

Mutlaq added that the new front will include a number of groups that are not participating in the current Iraqi government including Baathists, pan-Arabists, the Founding Conference that includes 46 political movements, the old Iraqi army leadership, and tribal leaders from the middle and south of Iraq. In addition, the front will include representatives from Turcoman, Yazidi, and Kurdish patriotic leaders who are against the occupation and for Iraq's unity, and other Christian movements that believe in Iraq's unity.

Mutlaq also said that seven leading Iraqi Shiite ayatollahs will support the new grouping.

Even as the National Salvation Front takes shape, there is strong evidence that Sunni and Shiite clerics are reaching out to each other.

Two weeks ago, Muqtada al-Sadr demanded that Sunni clerics issue a fatwa , or religious order, condemning killings of Iraqi civilians by al-Qaida types and offering Sunni help to rebuild the domed mosque in Samarra that was destroyed in a bombing in February. It was that bombing that touched over the most severe phase of Iraq’s civil war, setting of a wave of reprisal killings among Shiites and Sunnis.

Since Sadr’s call, several leading Sunni clerics have done as Sadr asked, according to the Los Angeles Times , including top Sunni religious leaders in Basra, Nasariyah, Amarah and Samaweh. All four were associated with the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the leading Sunni religious group in Iraq, which has close ties to the Sunni insurgency. Not only that, but Harith al-Dhari, the leader of the AMS, issued a blunt condemnation of al-Qaida:

Al Qaeda is part of the resistance, but the resistance is of two kinds. The resistance that only resists occupation, this we support one hundred per cent. The resistance that mixes up resisting the occupation and killing innocents, even if it calls itself resistance, this we condemn.

Two weeks ago, the Iraqi interior ministry, which is heavily controlled by Hakim’s SCIRI, issued an arrest warrant for al-Dhari, accusing him of maintaining ties to “terrorists.”

This sort of inter-communal reconciliation is precisely what Iraq needs. Furthermore, to build it will require that Iraqis come together on the one issue about which most of them agree: ending the U.S. occupation. There is, without doubt, a majority of Iraq’s parliament opposed to the occupation. To create a replacement government of anti-U.S. Iraqis, who would then demand that the United States leave Iraq, would be a difficult task at best, because of the very presence of 150,000 U.S. troops and America’s overbearing ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. Furthermore, it is a fragile effort: a major assassination or targeted violence could shatter it before it even gets off the ground.

Still, it is perhaps Iraq’s last, best hope for ending its civil war and starting to recreate a functioning state. Against this, there is talk inside the Bush administration, of “picking a winner,” of choosing sides in Iraq’s civil war—which, of course, means backing the Shiites. Such a notion is a nonstarter, if for no other reason than the question: Which Shiites? For the Bush administration, it could only mean SCIRI, Hakim’s band of thugs and assassins.

If so, it would be the last, ugly mistake for President Bush’s merry band of incompetents, bunglers and war criminals. The release of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq on Wednesday will signal the end of the Bush administration’s neoconservative-driven war policy, and the beginning of a new, realist-dominated consensus that America’s foreign policy establishment hopes will restore some of the U.S. prestige and influence that has been eviscerated by Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

It is too much, perhaps, to expect from the Bush administration, but here’s an idea. Instead of trying to court Hakim and SCIRI to support a continued U.S. occupation of Iraq, the White House ought to acknowledge and heed the growing body of opinion in Iraq that wants the United States out, fast.

(Robert Dreyfuss is an Alexandria, Va.-based writer specializing in politics and national security issues. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, a contributing editor at The Nation and a writer for Mother Jones ,The American Prospect and Rolling Stone . He can be reached through his website, www.robertdreyfuss.com)


3. Anatomy of a Civil War: Writer Nir Rosen on Iraq's Descent Into Chaos – interview from Democracy Now

Freelance journalist and author Nir Rosen joins us to discuss the latest developments in Iraq and the Middle East. Rosen says, "[The U.S.] destroyed Iraq. There was no civil war in Iraq until we got there and took certain steps to pit Sunni against Shia. We need to know that we are responsible.”

In his latest article, "Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's descent into chaos", Rosen writes, "Shia religious parties such as the Iran-supported Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (its name a sufficient statement of its intentions), or SCIRI, controlled the country, and Shia militias had become the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army, running their own secret prisons, arresting, torturing, and executing Sunnis in what was clearly a civil war. And the Americans were merely one more militia among the many, watching, occasionally intervening, and in the end only making things worse. Iraqis' hopes for a better future after Saddam had been betrayed."

(Nir Rosen is the author of "In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq." His latest article "Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's descent into chaos" was published in the Boston Review. He returned from the Middle East on Sunday.)

AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman. We are talking to former California State Senator, Tom Hayden who has written a piece in the Huffington Post , whose latest documents reveal secret talks between US and Iraqi Armed Resistance. And we are joined in our studio by Nir Rosen, a freelance writer fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest article is called Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's Decent into Chaos . He’s the author of In the Belly of the Green Bird . Nir just returned from the middle east a few hours ago.

Nir, I wanted to get your response to what Tom Hayden has laid out. This plan, which paraphrased, Tom Hayden says, is about a back channel link with insurgent groups that would, while leaders of the organized resistance seeking immediate meetings with top American generals towards the goal of a cease-fire. The former Baathist dominated National Army, Intelligence Services and Police, whose leaders currently are heading the underground resistance would be rehired. Multinational force activities aimed at controlling militias would be expanded. The US controlled multinational force MNF1 would be redeployed to control the eastern border with Iran. A status forces agreement would be negotiated immediately permitting the presence of troops in Iraq for as long as ten years. Amnesty and prisoner releases would be negotiated between the parties, with the Americans guaranteeing the end of torture of those held in detention centers and presen--prisons of the current Shia controlled Iraqi state. The de-Baath-ification edicts issued by Paul Bremer would be rescinded, allowing tens of thousands of former Baathists to resume military and professional service. An American commitment to financing reconstruction would be continued, and the new Iraqi regime would guarantee incentives for private American companies to participate in the rebuilding effort. And finally war debt relief for Kuwait and other countries. Tom, did I miss anything?

TOM HAYDEN: No. To the general question, I'd really like Nir’s evaluation. What is Cheney doing in Saudi Arabia. Why are Bush and Rice really going to see al-Maliki this week? There's something up. I don't know what it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll put those questions to Nir Rosen, but start with this plan.

NIR ROSEN: Well, step into any of the top hotels in Amman, Jordan and you are likely to find people who are affiliated with the resistance, because they use Jordan as a safe haven. So many of the leadership does, wealthy people who sponsor the very many different groups of the resistance, but -- and they've been making these demands for a couple of years now, impossible as they are. And the Americans have been meeting unofficially in Iraq and outside Iraq, people from the resistance. And a year ago there were meetings in Cairo between the Iraqi Government and member of the resistance. And none of this has ever amounted to anything, because Shias own Iraq now. Sunnis can never get it back. There's nothing Americans can do about this.

So, for Sunnis, whether these reports are true or not, for Sunnis to ever imagine that they could ever regain power, that the Baathists could ever be restored to power, that Americans actually matter in Iraq anymore is naïve in the extreme. Iraq is Shia now. They have the majority, the security forces, they have the militias. What you are going to see in Iraq I think, in Baghdad especially, is a virtual genocide of the Sunnis. And the Americans are going to be unable to stop that.

As for the Bush and Maliki meeting, I think both Bush and Maliki are absolutely irrelevant in Iraq. Neither one of them has any power. Maliki has no militia to speak of. Bush has militia, the American army, one of the many militias operating in Iraq. But the American Army is lost in Iraq, as it has been since it arrived. Striking at Sunnis, striking at Shias, striking at mostly innocent people. Unable to distinguish between anybody, certainly unable to wield any power, except on the immediate street corner where it’s located. So, it just doesn’t matter.

And the idea of a strong man is also, sort of a bit too late. The strong man would have to have his own militia, and his own popular support. Well, the only people who have that are Muqtada al-Sadr, who has the Madi Army, some of the Kurdish militias in the north, or Abdul Aziz Hakim, who has the Badr Brigade. And, we’re certainly not going to hand Baghdad over to the Kurds because the Shias would slaughter them. And we already handed Baghdad over and much of the country to the Shia militias. So there is no strong man solution.

There is this romantic idea lately that you could have a coup and replace the Maliki regime with somebody else, because Iraq has a history of coups. But, Iraq’s history of coups, occurred when Baghdad was the only large city in the country, and you could simply switch leader in Baghdad and you’d have a new leader. Now you have about 10 or 12 city states in Iraq: Mosul, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Basra, Amara, Ramadi, each one is disconnected from other, each one controlled by its own militias. You could put anybody you wanted in Baghdad, it just wouldn't make a difference outside of Baghdad. And the guy you put in Baghdad would have to have power in Baghdad, which means street power, which means Muqtada al-Sadr.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let's talk about Muqtada al-Sadr. You've been in Iraq a long time. And now the newspapers of the weekend saying Muqtada al-Sadr replaces Osama Bin Laden as the world’s great enemy. Tell us who he is, and your experience of him over the years.

NIR ROSEN: Well, he arose from seemingly nowhere, although he comes from a very important clerical family. It's believed that his father, Muhammad Sadeq Sadr was killed by Baathists in 1999.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s who Sadr city is named for?

NIR ROSEN: Yes. And, Muqtada very quickly became the voice of the disenfranchised, poor, Shia majority, especially young men. Virtually every single young Shia male in Iraq supports Muqtada Sadr today. And certainly his men dominate the police, they dominate the army. When you hear about people dressed as police officers, or dressed as security forces, kidnapping somebody, you’re just hearing about supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr's, who are members of the police, kidnapping somebody. He’s been very anti-American from the beginning, very nationalistic, unlike perhaps, Abdul Aziz Hakim, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution fin Iraq, who was perceived as coming on the back of American tanks, and being sort of sponsored by Iranians. Muqtada can claim he's always been there and suffered with the Iraqi people. He can disparage Ayatollah al-Sistani for being the quietest, for being Iranian-born. He has a national’s credentials. And for quite a while, he was actually fighting alongside Sunni resistance members.

In 2004, you had Muqtada’s people supporting the Sunni resistance in Fallujah, you had Sunni resistance helping Muqtada’s people in Najaf, in Sadr City, and there was a brief moment where you thought that there could be Sunni/Shia unity against the Americans at least. And if there was anything good that the American’s had done it was to unite the Sunni’s and Shia’s against them. But that all fell apart by 2005, or by the end of 2004. And since then, Muqtada al-Sadr, his militia, have taken the lead is sectarian attacks.

AMY GOODMAN: You describe in the piece you did for Boston Review, The Anatomy of a Civil War , which is over 40-pages, an experience you had when he came speak, not knowing actually that he’d be speaking, and who the people were with him.

NIR ROSEN: It was like beg at a Michael Jackson concert. There were more than 10,000 people in the mosque, Kufa Mosque, just outside Najaf. And the crowd went just crazy when they saw him.

AMY GOODMAN: They didn’t expect he’d be speaking there?

NIR ROSEN: They were expecting his deputy, who normally speaks, because Muqtada has reduced his public appearances for security reasons. So, it was quite a surprise, and afterwards—

AMY GOODMAN: Who did he come with? Who were his aides?

NIR ROSEN: Both his aides are young men, Ali al-Baghdadi and Adel al-Nuri, one of them is married to his sister. It looks like you are dealing with a gang basically. They are young men, sort of cocky. They have the support of hundreds of thousands of people. Men and women, women were there and they were just as excited as men. I’d never seen so many children in a Mosque before. The crowds just went crazy when they saw him, and afterwards, they all rushed the fence to shout their support for him. He can really get the largest number of Iraqis on the street willing to fight with the snap of his fingers.

AMY GOODMAN: And, what did he say that day?

NIR ROSEN: His primary message was directed at the Americans, an anti-occupation message. And at the more subtle attack on the Sunnis. He’s never gone directly at Sunni’s, he’ll call them Saddamists, or Takfiris, those who call Shia’s infidels, Wahabis. And he’s alleged that there's an alliance between, and this is a wide spread belief amongst Shia’s in Iraq, that there’s an alliance between the Americans and Sunnis. That the Americans, for the past year at least have switched sides and started supporting the Sunnis and very many Shias, especially among Muqtada al-Sadr’s people, believe this view. In my view this is also something we'll start seeing soon.

AMY GOODMAN: What about Tareq Aziz, a name from the past, where is he now?

NIR ROSEN: I think he's quite ill in an American prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Tom Hayden you wrote about Tareq Aziz?

TOM HAYDEN: No, the newspaper Al-Qudz Al-Arabi said that Baker had a meeting with one of Saddam Hussein’s lawyers and informed him that Tareq Aziz could be released by the end year and serve as a negotiator with the ex-Baathists on that front. Somebody should just ask if this happened or not happened. Why is everybody gossiping about it and we don't even hear of it.

I agree with Nir's analysis very much. I just want to point out that it's not inconsistent with an effort to restore the Sunnis to some partial power and security in the western region. I don't know about Baghdad. But, these plans do not suggest the return of the Baathists to power in the least. Simply a cease-fire so that that front quiets down and the Americans can go after Muqtada al-Sadr perhaps.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Nir Rosen, what do you expect now with Bush and Maliki, two people you say don't have power, meeting. Muqtada al-Sadr saying he’s going to pull out all of the representatives if Maliki does have this meeting with President Bush. Maliki goes into Sadr City and he’s stoned, or they throw stones at his convoy.

NIR ROSEN: Well, Muqtada is still the main supporter for the Maliki government, and they do have an alliance, and Muqtada’s militia is kind of Maliki’s militia. Maliki belongs to the Da’wa party which has no real militia of its own. I think people in Sadr city were just very upset because they have suffered so many attacks. Although they do criticize Maliki for being a collaborator, in the sense that he leads the government that the Americans support, but then again Muqtada Sadr has people in the government.

I think what you'll see – is that you can never tell with Muqtada, because he always plays this game of brinksmanship, threatening to do something and you never know if he’s going to do it or not. I don't think he would necessarily gain from withdrawing from the government at this point. What you would see would be some sort of symbolic statement, by Bush and Maliki that they’re going to do their best to bring Iraqi’s together.

There's been a shift lately since the Americans realized that Iraq is a failure, of blaming the Iraqi’s. The Iraqi’s need to step up, the Iraqi’s have to choose democracy, the Iraqi’s have to choose freedom. It is very popular for us to blame the Iraqi’s for the chaos that we’ve brought upon them. And, I think this will perhaps be something for the cameras in the US’s intent by Bush to show that he’s going to make Maliki, you know, seize the reigns of his country, or something absurd like that, because Maliki has no power of his own. The Iraqis actually did chose democracy, we just never gave them that democracy that they were demanding.

AMY GOODMAN: Nir Rosen, you’ve just returned in the last hours from the Middle East. You were last in Lebanon, you were in Syria, you’ve been in Iraq for several years reporting. Yesterday, on This Week with George Stefanopolis, King Abdullah of Jordan was there, he said there are three civil wars that could be happening at once, Palestine and Isreal, in Iraq and in Lebanon. Your assessment of this?

NIR ROSEN: Well, there is a civil war in Iraq. There’s been for a couple of years now. There's a low-scale civil war in the Palestinian occupied territories, but Jordan is in part, responsible for that, because the Americans and the Jordanians have been supporting Fatah thugs, led for example by Mahmoud Ahmad, against the popularly elected Hamas government, which they fear. And Jordanian Special Forces have been training, what I think they call the “Badr brigade”, which is Palestinians who support Fatah against Hamas, they’re a militia, so I think he has a great deal responsibility for the chaos in the Palestinian Territories, occupied Palestine. However, in Lebanon, I think concerns are exaggerated. Having just spent three months there, I don't perceive the likelihood of civil war in Lebanon to be a problem right now. Much has been made of the assassination of Pierre Gemayel last week. And the American media portrait it as if ArchDuke Franz Ferdinand had been killed, or John F. Kennedy, but really this guy was a fairly insignificant politician. And not a vocal anti-Syrian critic. He does come from a party with fascist links that massacred thousands of Palestinians. Which nobody seems to mention.

AMY GOODMAN: Which Party?

NIR ROSEN: The Phalanges. They were responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982. It's important people mention this when they lionize this guy who belongs to basically one of the worst death squads in Lebanon. He was hardly democratic. Just like anybody else in Lebanon. But there’s no risk of civil war right now in Lebanon, I think what you’ll see is a continued state of insecurity, instability, occasional assassinations. But, there's nobody to really fight the civil war, because you need two sides, and you have Hezbollah certainly, extremely powerful, but there's nobody on the other side to fight them. I think America would like there to be a civil war in Lebanon, I think Isreal would like that. I think they would like to weaken Hezbollah in a way they failed to do during the war, but I don’t think that its very likely at this very moment.

AMY GOODMAN: And the discussion of possible direct negotiations of Iran and Syria and the possibility that that’s what the Iraq Study Group is going to recommend?

NIR ROSEN: I think it’s clear that they will, and that I think it’s great that the US talks to Iran and Syria, its long over do. However, there is this belief that Iran and Syria have and have had this huge role in the violence in Iraq. And I just don't think that's true. If anything, Iran and Syria have always been concerned about the instability in Iraq. They are the neighbors of Iraq and if anybody can be threatened by the instability, it's them.

In Syria right now you have about 3 or 4 thousand Iraqi refugees crossing the border everyday, that’s going to destabilize Syria. You already have nearly a million Iraqi refugees in Syria today. Iran certainly wants a strong Shia Iraq as a close ally and a friend, much more than they want Saddam Hussein in charge. But, Iran isn't sponsoring the violence, neither is Syria. And so the belief that foreign countries can make things better I think is naïve, because the violence in Iraq has its own internal logic. It's civil war. All the arms are there, the hatred is there. And, it's not being fought by two large sides. It’s being fought in neighborhoods between different mosques, between different blocks, between different gangs. Power isn't in the green zone, power isn’t in Iran, in Syria, in Jordan. It’s not in the White House. It's very localized. Just different neighborhood clashes--

AMY GOODMAN: And what would happen if the US just withdrew troops?

NIR ROSEN: The same thing happening now, the civil war would continue. At some point Shias will make a move, a large move against the Sunnis in Baghdad. You’ll find a day when there are no Sunnis left in Baghdad. Saudi Arabia and Jordan are of course panicking about this, and they are hoping that the US will in some way arm or support Sunni militias. It’s hard for me to imagine that Sunni nations in the region will stand by and watch Sunnis pushed out of Baghdad. And Baghdad becoming really a Shia city. Because there is this Sunni terror of the Shia threat. So you'll see greater support from Saudi Arabia, from Jordan, perhaps from Yemin, from Egypt, for Sunni militias. Funding, things like that. And the civil war will spread and become a regional one. And I think Jordan will cease to exist as it does now. Eventually, because you'll have the Anbar Province of Iraq joining somehow--you already have one million Iraqi’s in Jordan at least. You walk down the streets of Jordan, you hear Iraqi Arabic as much as any other kind.

AMY GOODMAN: What is Dick Cheney doing in Saudi Arabia?

NIR ROSEN: Well, some of it has to do with the Palestinians I believe. He's hoping that the Saudis can do something. I think this is just desperation. I imagine that he's hoping Saudis can wield some power, both with the Sunnis of Iraq and with the Palestinians. I don't really have any idea. I think the Saudis are probably a bit disappointed with the Dick Cheney they know now, compared to the Dick Cheney they knew in the Gulf War, who was a very different man.

AMY GOODMAN: In what sense?

NIR ROSEN: Well, back then, he seemed much more of a pragmatist. Not influenced by this neo-con ideology that dominates the White House today. He was against for example removing Saddam in 1991, he thought it was a bad move, and then he changed his mind. So, I’m not sure what he's doing in Saudi Arabia, but I don't think it matters very, I don’t think American can do much good in the region and they can probably continue to do a little more harm.

AMY GOODMAN: And this issue of Iraqi refugees, what you were looking at in this latest trip, where you were in Jordan and Syria, and in Lebanon. How many Iraqi refugees are there?

NIR ROSEN: Nobody knows for sure, but it appears that, you have internally displaced people in Iraq, maybe 300,000. And that number is of course growing everyday. And as I said you have several thousand Iraqis streaming into Syria everyday. And you have 800,000 or one million Iraqis in Syria today. You have about one million Iraqis in Jordan today. You have a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis in Egypt today. I’m told there are some in Yemen as well. I think there are 30-40 thousand in Lebanon.

In the beginning, in the first year or two, it was the wealthy Iraqis coming out, who just wanted a better life. But, now it's desperate people with nothing. People who’ve been threatened with death. People who’ve sold their car just to escape. The Jordanians have rescued—have closed the land border. There is a sign on the Jordanian border saying no man 18-35 can enter Jordan from Iraq. One thing Iraqis are doing is not taking any of their belongings. Because if you’re in a taxi coming to Jordan from Iraq with all your suitcases piled on top of the car, the Jordanians will turn you away.

So people are coming with nothing, leaving with nothing. And the Americans are putting a great deal of pressure not to have them recognized as refugees. Because if you call Iraqi refugees, refugees, you’re implying that Iraq is chaotic, it’s hopeless. So there is not much funding going to help these people.

This is going to be I believe, one of the greatest refugee crises that we’ve seen in the past few years.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Nir Rosen, in speaking with people, in speaking with many Iraqis and living there, what you think needs to be the solution right now.

NIR ROSEN: There is no solution. We’ve destroyed Iraq and we’ve destroyed the region, and Americans need to know this. This isn’t Rwanda where we can just sit back and watch the Hutus and Tutsis kill each other, and be like wow this is terrible should we do something? We destroyed Iraq. There was no civil war in Iraq until we got there. And there was no civil war in Iraq, until we took certain steps to pit Sunnis against Shias. And now it is just too late. But, we need to know we are responsible for what’s happening in Iraq today. I don't think Americans are aware of this. We've managed to make Saddam Hussein look good even to Shias at this point. And what we’ve managed to do is not only destabilize Iraq, but destabilize Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran. This is going to spread for decades, the region won’t recover from this, I think for decades. And Americans are responsible .

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think troop withdrawal now, if not an answer, a necessity?

NIR ROSEN: Troop withdrawal, if I was an American, then I would want troop withdrawal, because why are Americans dying in Iraq? Every single American who dies in Iraq, who is injured in Iraq, dies for nothing. He didn’t die for freedom, he didn’t die to defend his country, he died to occupy Iraq. And if withdrawal the troops you’ll have less Americans killing Iraqis. Everyday the Americans are there they kill innocent Iraqis, they torture innocent Iraqis, and the occupy Iraqis and terrorize Iraqis. They should leave today.

AMY GOODMAN: Nir Rosen, I want to thank you for being with us. And Tom Hayden, former Californian State Senator thank you for joining us.


4. Iraq Study Group: How Big a Change? -- by William D. Hartung

Today's release of the Iraq Study Group report raises as many questions as it answers. A few highlights of the report and its 79 recommendations follow.

Troop Withdrawals?

Despite some early headlines suggesting that the Iraq Study Group would be calling for a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the beginning of 2008, a look at the fine print suggests otherwise. The group's recommendations look more like an exercise in "bait and switch" than an actual commitment to U.S. withdrawal.

Trainers embedded with Iraqi forces should be considered combat forces, as should the armed U.S. personnel that would be present to protect them in their efforts. These troops could remain in the tens of thousands after an alleged "withdrawal."

In keeping with its recommendation to shift the mission of U.S. troops from combat to training of Iraqi troops, the study group suggests a presence of U.S. forces to provide logistical support, continued training, and "force protection" (troops to protect U.S. training and logistics personnel) for a "sustained period," in the words of panel member Edwin Meese. Panel co-chair James Baker has further noted that "for quite some time" there will be "a robust American presence both in Iraq and in the region." Panel members would not project how many U.S. troops would be needed to carry out these long-term activities.

Greater Honesty, Less Spin

The study group deserves credit for speaking more plainly about the some of the realities of the war than the Bush administration has done so far. For example, at the outset the panel's report states bluntly that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." In defending the group's recommendation to attempt to bring Iran and Syria into regional talks on how to end the fighting in Iraq, James Baker noted that "for 40 years we talked to the Soviet Union at a time that they were committed to wiping us off the face of the earth - you talk to your enemies." By contrast, President Bush has indicated that he is not willing to talk to Tehran until they suspend their nuclear enrichment activities, a non-starter diplomatically.

The report also acknowledges the heavy costs of the war, putting the price tag to date at $400 billion and noting that some analyses put the ultimate cost of the conflict at up to $2 trillion.

Does Size Matter?

By padding the length of its report and releasing it as a Vintage Press book, the Iraq Study Group seems to be trying to make its analysis and recommendations look as if they are as "hefty" and substantive as the 9/11 Commission Report. Less than 100 of the 160 pages of the report are devoted to analysis and recommendations. The rest consist of lengthy appendices with maps of the region, names of commissioners and sub-panels involved in the effort, and other incidental bits of information, all spaced out as far as possible in an effort to up the page count. To paraphrase former Vice-Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen, we have seen the 9/11 report, and this is no 9/11 report.

Throwing Bones to Critics

While the study group studiously avoids making a timeline for U.S. withdrawal - leaving the way clear for the very "open-ended" U.S. troop commitment that it claims to oppose - it does suggest a few small reforms along the lines suggested by some critics of the war.

Among these proposed changes are the suggestion that future funding for the war be included in the regular budget, where it can receive closer scrutiny, rather than in "emergency" supplementals that often give only broad stroke descriptions of what Iraq spending is for; a recommendation to extend the term of the highly effective Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction "for the duration of assistance programs in Iraq," with a mandate that includes training activities as well as reconstruction efforts; and a call to President Bush to publicly state that the United States has no interest in permanent bases in Iraq.

The proposed pledge on bases is hedged by a suggestion that U.S. bases could be present as long as an Iraqi government "asks for" them. If a non-representative, pro-U.S. government is doing the asking, it would render the "no bases" pledge next to meaningless.

The Politics of Withdrawal

By offering the prospect of some change - even if it leaves tens of thousands of combat troops and trainers in Iraq in 2008 and beyond -- the Baker-Hamilton report could take pressure off Republicans and Democrats alike. Major figures in both parties could be relieved of the demand to push for a genuine withdrawal prior to the 2008 presidential elections.

Citizens who want a quicker timeline for U.S. withdrawal and a genuine military disengagement from Iraq will need to make their voices heard if U.S. policy is to go beyond the half-measures set out by the Baker-Hamilton panel.

(William D. Hartung is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York.)


5. Excerpts of Iraq Study Group Report/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Here are excerpts from portions of the Iraq Study Group report, which was being released Wednesday:

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''The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating. There is no path that can guarantee success, but the prospects can be improved.''

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''Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. We believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce one another. If they are effectively implemented, and if the Iraqi government moves forward with national reconciliation, Iraqis will have an opportunity for a better future, terrorism will be dealt a blow, stability will be enhanced in an important part of the world, and America's credibility, interests and values will be protected.''

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''If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe. Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al-Qaida could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized.''

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''During the past nine months we have considered a full range of approaches for moving forward. All have flaws. Our recommended course has shortcomings, but we firmly believe that it includes the best strategies and tactics to positively influence the outcome in Iraq and the region.''

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''The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq's neighbors. Iraq's neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq, neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own.''

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''Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively. In seeking to influence the behavior of both countries, the United States has disincentives and incentives available. Iran should stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq, respect Iraq's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and use its influence over Iraqi Shia groups to encourage national reconciliation. The issue of Iran's nuclear programs should continue to be dealt with by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. Syria should control its border with Iraq to stem the flow of funding, insurgents and terrorists in and out of Iraq.

''The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts: Lebanon, Syria and President Bush's June 2002 commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. This commitment must include direct talks with, by and between Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians -- those who accept Israel's right to exist -- and Syria.

''As the United States develops its approach toward Iraq and the Middle East, the United States should provide additional political, economic and military support for Afghanistan, including resources that might become available as combat forces are moved out of Iraq.''

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''The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams and in training, equipping, advising, force protection and search and rescue. Intelligence and support efforts would continue. A vital mission of those rapid reaction and special operations forces would be to undertake strikes against al-Qaida in Iraq.''

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Here are excerpts from a letter from Iraq Study Group co-chairs James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton:

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''There is no magic formula to solve the problems of Iraq. However, there are actions that can be taken to improve the situation and protect American interests. Many Americans are dissatisfied, not just with the situation in Iraq but with the state of our political debate regarding Iraq. Our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war. Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric, and a policy that is adequately funded and sustainable. The president and Congress must work together. Our leaders must be candid and forthright with the American people in order to win their support.''

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''No one can guarantee that any course of action in Iraq at this point will stop sectarian warfare, growing violence or a slide toward chaos. If current trends continue, the potential consequences are severe. Because of the role and responsibility of the United States in Iraq, and the commitments our government has made, the United States has special obligations. Our country must address as best it can Iraq's many problems. The United States has long-term relationships and interests at stake in the Middle East, and needs to stay engaged.''

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''In this consensus report, the 10 members of the Iraq Study Group present a new approach because we believe there is a better way forward. All options have not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world and protect America's credibility, interests and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a stable and hopeful future.''


6. Iraq: One by One, They Tell the Truth – The Independent UK
As Tony Blair flies out to meet George Bush, the latest admission of failure in Iraq has made the two leaders appear even more isolated.

Colin Powell
After telling the UN assembly in 2003 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, the former Secretary of State admitted in May 2004 the claims were "inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading".

Colonel Tim Collins
The Army colonel made a famous rousing speech to troops on the eve of battle. But in September 2005, he declared:

"History might notice the invasion has arguably acted as the best recruiting sergeant for al-Qa'ida ever."

Paul Bremer
The former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq admitted in January 2006:

"It [the invasion] was a much tougher job than I think I expected it to be ... we really didn't see the insurgency coming."

Zalmay Khalilzad
Contradicting the usually upbeat rhetoric, the US ambassador in Iraq said in March: "We have opened a Pandora's box". And unless the violence abated, Iraq would "make Taliban Afghanistan look like child's play".

Jack Straw
The former foreign secretary, one of the cheerleaders for the war, said in September: "The current situation is dire. I think many mistakes were made after the military action - there is no question about it - by the United States administration."

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt
The British General admitted in an interview in October: "I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates [them]."

Richard Perle
Regarded as one of the intellectual godfathers of the war, Perle changed his tack in November, admitting that "huge mistakes were made" in the invasion of Iraq. "The levels of brutality we've seen are truly horrifying," he added.

Ken Adelman
Last month, the noted neoconservative said: "The national security team... turned out to be among the most incompetent in the post-war era. Not only did each of them have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly."

Donald Rumsfeld
A memo from the hardline former defence secretary revealed this week that he had been looking for a change of tactics. "In my view, it is time for a major adjustment ... what US forces are doing in Iraq is not working well enough..."

Robert Gates
Yesterday, Mr Rumsfeld's proposed successor was asked at a Senate hearing whether the US was winning the war in Iraq. "No, sir," he replied. And he warned that the situation could lead to a "regional conflagration".

Tony Blair ...

George Bush ...


7. Forward Observer: General Garner's Lament -- by George C. Wilson, CongressDaily

When it comes to Iraq, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner has been there, done that for 15 years, so his new plan for getting out of the mess there might be worth listening to.

"You couldn't have gotten the 10 most brilliant men and women in America to design a way for us to fail in Iraq that would have been any better than what we have done on our own," lamented Garner, whom President Bush dispatched to Iraq to heal the country only to stand aside as Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III gutted the very post-combat pacification program that Garner had gotten the president to approve.

"I was never able to find out," Garner answered when I asked him where Bremer got the authority to reverse the presidentially approved plan shortly after taking over from the retired three-star general in Baghdad in May 2003.

Garner's plan called for keeping most of the Iraqi army intact rather than send thousands of troopers home with rifles but no jobs and to allow Iraqi school teachers and other vital professionals to keep working even if they had been forced to join Saddam Hussein's Baathist party.

"He just did it," Garner said of Bremer's scrapping of those two major parts of the general's master plan for putting Iraq back together again after Saddam fell. "Maybe Bush didn't know he was doing it."

But Garner, in an interview with CongressDaily , said he still thinks Iraq could be pulled back from the edge of the cliff if the United States launches a crash effort. The new Garner plan, one that strikes me as a lot more down and dirty and less lofty and vague than what we have learned so far about the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report going to Bush Wednesday, calls for taking these emergency steps right now:

"Robustly" train, re-equip with American modern arms rather than Warsaw Pact junk and advise all 120 Iraqi army battalions with American combat veterans rather than neophytes.

Assign to each Iraqi battalion 20 to 25 American advisers, all combat tested, from the Army or the Marine Corps. The American advisory team would consist of a lieutenant colonel as its commander; a captain or major experienced in supplying beans and bullets, called a logistician; an artillery forward observer to call in artillery or air support; a radio operator; a medic; a captain and five sergeants with each of the three Iraqi companies in the battalion.

Structure the career paths of American advisers so they are rewarded if they make the Iraqi battalion battle ready and penalized if they do not.
Once the American advisory team certified the Iraqi battalion was combat ready, it would be inserted with that same battalion in a contested area now occupied by an American battalion. The advisory team would stick with the Iraqi battalion. It would have a quick channel for calling in helicopter gunships, fighter bombers, artillery fire and medical evacuation choppers with minimal delay. Pickup points for the medevacs would be established.

The relieved American battalion would stay intact but be redeployed in some nearby peaceful area. The Americans would stay there for several months as a 911 rescue force. If the Iraqi battalion demonstrated it could do the job on its own, the Americans would leave Iraq. "So you have a two-phased redeployment," Garner said. "In the first phase you get the U. S. faces off the street, but they stay in Iraq. In the second phase, they leave Iraq."

Gerrymander the parts of the country outside of Baghdad into three regions, drawn up in accordance with referenda asking the citizens the kind of regional government they preferred to live under: Shia, Sunni or Kurd. Each region would have its own governor and paramilitary force to protect its facilities and citizens. The federal constitution would remain in force but be strengthened to make sure Iraq's oil revenues were apportioned to every area of the country on the basis of population.

"You're never going to find a leader for Iraq whom everybody is happy with," Garner contended, on the basis of dealing with the Iraqis since 1991 when he was an Army officer protecting the Kurds in Iraq's mountains. "But if you split Iraq into regions whose governments are elected, you'll find leaders everybody coalesces around, like Massoud Barzani up north in Kurdistan."

Garner, who served two tours as a U.S. Army adviser to the South Vietnamese army, thinks the shoddy way the Iraqi army is being equipped is nothing less than a national disgrace. He said Pentagon friends still on active duty say it is common for an American adviser who has never been in combat to leave an Iraqi compound in a heavily armored and heavily armed Humvee, only to be followed by the Iraqi commander, a veteran of several wars, seated in a beat-up Toyota pickup truck.

"I would re-equip the entire Iraqi army," Garner said, first by having departing American units leave their weapons with the Iraqis and later by turning out military hardware in both Iraq and the United States.

Garner has a lot more ideas for saving Iraq, and his credentials are damn good. Congressional committees desperately searching for a way out of the Iraq quagmire should give a listen to this general who has been there and done that.


8. What would happen if the U.S. left Iraq?
Bush predicts a surge in terrorism and others see regional civil war as the greatest risk.
By Paul Richter/LA Times

WASHINGTON — With Americans leaning consistently in favor of disengagement from Iraq, President Bush has warned that a precipitate withdrawal would create a terrorism superstate in the Middle East that is rich with oil cash and determined to topple moderate governments around it.

But to many U.S. lawmakers, regional experts and Middle East leaders, the chief risk is not a more menacing version of Taliban-dominated Afghanistan, but a Lebanese-style civil war that could result in the deaths of thousands more Iraqis and expand the conflict by drawing in neighboring states.

The sharply differing views color the growing debate over the consequences of withdrawal as incoming Democratic congressional leaders demand a troop drawdown and Bush opens the door to new approaches. A majority of Americans favor at least a partial withdrawal, but the administration also is considering a temporary troop increase as part of an effort to step up training of Iraqi forces.

A study panel chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) will offer recommendations today for gradual troop withdrawals. Its final report is expected to reject a quick withdrawal, but key members have signaled that the U.S. commitment eventually should come to an end.

Bush has warned repeatedly of what he sees as the dangers of a swift exit.

"If we do not defeat the terrorists and extremists in Iraq, they will gain access to vast oil reserves and use Iraq as a base to overthrow moderate governments across the broader Middle East," he said Oct. 25 at a White House news conference.

Terrorists "will launch new attacks on America from this safe haven," Bush said, and "will pursue their goal of a radical Islamic empire that stretches from Spain to Indonesia."

But many others believe the increased risk of terrorism would be confined to limited portions of Iraq.

Some experts argue that many Iraqis, including some Sunni Arabs, as well as Shiites and Kurds, already are unhappy with foreign terrorists and would try to drive them out.

John McLaughlin, former acting CIA director, said there was less risk of an Al Qaeda-like terrorist group taking control of the entire country than of a "civil war in which you have the disintegration of the country and a widening set of tensions and potential conflicts throughout the Middle East."

In such circumstances, "Al Qaeda could gain a foothold in some piece of territory," said McLaughlin, now at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who favors an increase in U.S. troops, agreed that the greatest risk is not an Al Qaeda takeover but a "wider regional war around ethnic and religious differences."

But even if Iraq wasn't taken over by terrorists, he said, a U.S. withdrawal would hearten Islamic militants and strengthen them in their fight against moderate states in the region.

Neighboring countries may initially choose a side and support it with money and weapons. Sunni-led states, perhaps Syria and Saudi Arabia, could come to the aid of Sunni groups, while Iran might help the Shiite south, said Stephen Biddle, a military affairs specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But if it appears that their allies are about to lose, the states might feel pressure to increase their commitment, and might escalate the conflict by sending in their own troops, he said.

"I see a lot of warfare going on here before anyone can form a stable state out of Iraq," Biddle said. "We're more likely to get a regional version of Lebanon, and chaos, than the quick formation of a new order under a party we don't like."

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of the Democrats' point men on Iraq, sees progressive fragmentation along sectarian lines in Iraq. But he argues that a reduction in U.S. forces would not worsen the trend, "because those dynamics are going on regardless of our presence."

Even in a drawdown, Reed said, the U.S. could train and support Iraqis, and could continue to go after Islamic militants in such places as Sunni-dominated Al Anbar province.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, among other Middle Eastern leaders, has said that the growing sectarian pressures in Iraq are likely to draw in other countries.

"Almost all countries have breaking points, and when the ethnic-religious break occurs in one country, it will not fail to occur elsewhere too," Assad recently told the German magazine Der Spiegel. "Large wars, small wars — no one will be able to get a grip on the consequences."

Like Bush, some U.S. military commanders fear an outburst of terrorism after a withdrawal.

Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, predicted in Senate testimony this fall that the Sunni Arab areas of central and western Iraq would not be viable as an independent state and would turn into a lawless haven for groups such as Al Qaeda.

But other analysts believe Sunnis would have little tolerance.

"We know they're already rather sick of the foreign terrorists, and could boot them out," said Wayne White, a former State Department intelligence official. "In the worst case, there would be only pockets of terrorists in the Sunni areas."

A U.S. withdrawal also would affect the growing regional influence of Iran, but there is little agreement on what a pullout would mean for Tehran.

Some, such as Graham, believe that "Iran would be the biggest winner" of a U.S. exit because it would gain strong influence over Iraq's Shiite south and an increased ability to dominate others in its region.

But others believe that though the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has greatly increased Iran's regional influence, a withdrawal would be a setback, forcing it to become a caretaker of disorderly southern Iraq and threatening to embroil Tehran in a costly regional civil war.

"The American presence has greatly facilitated an expansion of Iranian influence, and they would probably prefer to have us stay and continue to bear the burdens," said James Dobbins, a veteran diplomat who was a senior envoy for the Bush administration and is now director of Rand Corp.'s International Security and Defense Policy Center.

Indeed, some analysts believe that a withdrawal could benefit the United States by breaking up the alliance between Iran and Syria. That could happen, they say, should Syria side with the Sunni west as Iran comes to the aid of the Shiite south.

A civil war could reduce Iraq's oil output and increase world prices, but most experts doubt that Iraqi reserves would be used as a weapon against the U.S., even if Iraq comes under the influence of Iran.

"They're going to need the money," said Peter Khalil, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a risk-advisory consulting firm, and a former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. "They're not going to want to shoot themselves in the foot."

(richter@latimes.com)


9. Mideast allies near a state of panic
U.S. leaders' visits to the region reap only warnings and worry.
By Paul Richter/LA Times

WASHINGTON — President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, the president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic. Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push for democracy — and fear that the Bush administration may make things worse.

President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice President Dick Cheney's stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a blunt warning from the kingdom's leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.

In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended instead in diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in the region were struggling to understand what to make of the difficult relationship, and to figure whether, with a new Democratic majority taking over Congress, Bush even had control over his nation's Mideast policy.

Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of his party's point men on Iraq. "They're trying to figure out their Plan B."

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America's steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of three simultaneous civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, because "I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and visit the problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone so far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States as he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course in Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"He can talk all he wants about 'staying until the job is done,' but these leaders can read about the American political scene and see that he may not be able to deliver that," Brown said.

The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned Maliki's abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence over Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as Shiites, were moves that the Americans had demanded for many months, without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki and Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a snub.

One Middle East diplomat said later in an interview that Maliki had canceled the meeting to put distance between him and Bush at a time when Iraq's Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet ministers with ties to militant cleric Muqtada Sadr had halted their participation in the government to protest the summit.

On Saturday, in his regular radio address, Bush said that his relationship with Maliki was, in fact, improving.

"With each meeting, I'm coming to know him better, and I'm becoming more impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his country on a better path," Bush said.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce debate about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to respond to news accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would urge a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted that suggestions for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Despite this, Bush repeated in his radio address that he intended to look for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present its findings Wednesday.

He also said that his own internal review, coming from Pentagon and White House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting that he may be discussing the options before him over the next several days.

"I want to hear all advice before I make any decisions about adjustments to our strategy in Iraq," Bush said.

Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than Bush's mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S. goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statement pointedly highlighting American responsibility for deterioration of stability in the region.

The Saudi officials cited "the direct influence of … the United States on the issues of the region" and said it was important for U.S. influence "to be in accord with the region's actual condition and its historical equilibrium," an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite balance.

The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should "pursue equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts," pointing to the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

The statement "came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards," said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "It said, in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly."

There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.

On Wednesday, an advisor to the Saudi government wrote in the Washington Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, "massive Saudi intervention" would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al Faisal, warned in a speech in October against an American withdrawal, saying that "since the United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."

Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Jericho last week, trying to entice Arab confidence by displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group Hamas that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open the way for increased aid and, potentially, peace talks with Israel.

Rice said afterward that the administration "cannot create the circumstances" for peace.

"This is the kind of thing that takes time," she said. "You don't expect great leaps forward."

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan, Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S. action, warning that the Middle East was becoming "an abyss…. The region is facing real failure."

(paul.richter@latimes.com)


10. The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War -- by R. W. Behan

George W. Bush, who proudly claimed the mantle of "war president," was keenly rebuked in the recent mid-term election. The event was notable, but it merely continued the surreal politics of premeditated war - a politics that has dominated the last six bizarre, hideous years of our nation's history.

Two elements of the repudiation seem unreal, indeed. Not the fact of it, but the amazing length of its gestation period - those six years - and how tepid it was. Given the documented record of the Bush Administration - lying us into war, torturing prisoners, rewarding cronies with no-bid contracts, spying secretly on the nation's citizens, selling public policy to Jack Abramoff's clients, stating even their intent to ignore laws with dozens of "signing statements" - one would expect the political about-face to have occurred far sooner, and the protest to have been a firestorm. Bush loyalists in Congress (and George Bush) should have been turned out angrily and en masse two years ago.

The victorious Democrats' response was even more surprising, and also unreal. "Impeachment is off the table" quickly became the mantra: let us instead proceed with raising the minimum wage. Apparently the Bush Administration's record is flawless, showing nothing remotely approaching a high crime or a misdemeanor. Impeachment would be a "waste of time."

There is a good reason for these strange results: we practice a politics of surrealism, and have done so since George Bush was first put in office.

Ron Suskind of the New York Times learned how the Bush Administration works, from a "senior advisor to Bush" (Karl Rove is a suspect): "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." They have done that, incessantly, and it is the source of the surrealism. Spins, evasions, omissions, jingoisms, distortions, "perception management" (i.e., propaganda), and deliberate lying all contribute to a political discourse adrift from what is honest, true, and reliable.

The Clear Skies Act allowed more pollution, the Healthy Forests Act caused more trees to be cut down, the Patriot Act scarred the Bill of Rights, No Child Left Behind was a step toward privatizing public education, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act was a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry and began the process of dismantling Medicare, the Military Commissions Act fostered torture and suspended habeas corpus.

But no such manufactured reality is more misleading, fraudulent, and damaging than the "global war on terror."

It took six years for a tardy and mild electoral protest of the Iraq war to surface, because the trusting American people believed the "war on terror" was the just and moral response of an innocent nation to a brutal terrorist attack. They handily reelected the President who was prosecuting it, proudly supported the troops, and accepted as necessary evils the Bush Administration excesses. But gradually that acceptance weakened, and on November 7, 2006 it was withdrawn.

The recent electoral turnaround was generated largely by the horrific conditions in Iraq today, the savage bloodletting of insurgency and civil war suffered by Americans and Iraqis alike. These conditions finally exceeded public tolerance. But the rationale for the war, its purpose, went unquestioned, because the Bush Administration obscurantism has been so successful.

We need to strip away the created reality of the "war on terror" to see the true nature of it instead, or our weird, unreal politics will continue.

The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were not simply justified and honorable retaliations to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They couldn't possibly have been that, because both of them were premeditated - conceived, planned, and prepared long before September 11, 2001.

(Yes, there have been premeditated military incursions in the past - Panama, Grenada, and Kosovo come to mind - but none was of the magnitude and duration of the Afghan and Iraqi wars. Never before have we unleashed full scale combat, unprovoked, on sovereign foreign nations and then installed permanent military bases to occupy them.)

Though it has not been addressed in the mass media, the factual story of the President's premeditated wars is clearly visible, and when the story is read at one sitting, the dreamlike quality of our politics is apparent.

The story to follow will not be a great revelation to anyone who has read, perhaps a bit more than casually, about our recent political, military, and diplomatic past, and has spent some time searching the Internet for corroboration and details. On the other hand, it is far from common knowledge, because in the manufactured reality crafted by the Bush Administration, it does not exist.

Two strands of history converged in the Bush years. One led to the invasion of Afghanistan, the other to the invasion of Iraq, and the strands came together on September 11, 2001.

The opening chapter of the story reveals a photograph dating to the Reagan years of Donald Rumsfeld cordially shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. We supported Saddam in his war with Iran. But history convulses: on January 26, 1998, Mr. Rumsfeld and 17 others, members of the Project for a New American Century, wrote a letter to President Clinton, urging the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. If we fail to do so, they were candid in asserting, "a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will be put at hazard."

This could be considered the fountainhead of our surreal politics. The PNAC proposed premeditated war explicitly, in a bizarre retrogression to the centuries of unapologetic European imperialism. Since World War II and the birth of the United Nations, however, the world has been seeking to surpass imperialism, struggling to settle international difficulties peaceably - and here was an open, sad, and radical rebuff.

(In addition to Mr. Rumsfeld, 10 others of the signatories would serve in the Bush Administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, Richard Perle, William Schneider, Jr., Robert Zoellick, and Paul Wolfowitz.)

When George W. Bush took office, a concern for the "significant portion of the world's oil supply" was never far from view, because the Administration's personal linkages to the oil industry were intimate, historic, and numerous. The president and vice president were just the first examples: eight cabinet secretaries and the national security advisor were recruited directly from the oil industry, and so were 32 others in the secretariats of Defense, State, Energy, Agriculture, Interior, and the Office of Management and Budget.

The Bush Administration came to power anxious, we know from published sources, to fulfill the PNAC's vision of regime change in Iraq.

In his second week in office, President Bush appointed Vice President Cheney to chair a National Energy Policy Development Group. The supersecret "Energy Task Force," as it came to known, was composed of officials from the relevant federal agencies and beyond question heavily attended by energy industry executives and lobbyists. (The full membership has yet to be revealed, but Enron's Kenneth Lay was conspicuously present.)

One brute fact had to be apparent to the Task Force: in the Caspian Basin, and beneath the Iraqi deserts there are 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and the potential for 433 billion barrels more. Anyone controlling that much oil could break OPEC's stranglehold overnight.

By early March, 2001, the Task Force was poring over maps of the Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, tanker terminals, and oil exploration blocks. It studied an inventory of "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" - dozens of oil companies from 30 different countries, in various stages of exploring and developing Iraqi crude. (These documents were forced into view several years later by a citizen group, Judicial Watch, with a Freedom of Information Act proceeding. It wasn't easy - the Bush Administration appealed the lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court - but the maps and documents can now be seen and downloaded at : www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oil-maps.shtml .)

Not a single U.S. oil company, however, was among the "suitors," and that was intolerable. Mr. Cheney's task force concluded, "By any estimation, Middle East oil producers will remain central to world security. The Gulf will be a primary focus of U.S. international energy policy."

Condoleezza Rice's National Security Council, meanwhile, was directed by a top secret memo to "cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered melding two seemingly unrelated areas of policy." The NSC was ordered to support "the review of operational policies towards rogue states such as Iraq and actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields."

The Bush Administration seemed clearly to be drawing a bead on Iraqi oil - long before the "global war on terror" was envisioned and marketed. But how could the "capture of new and existing oil fields" be made to seem less aggressive, less baldly in violation of international law?

At the State Department, a policy-development initiative called "The Future of Iraq" was undertaken which would accomplish this. The date was April, 2002, almost a full year before the invasion. The "Oil and Energy Working Group" provided the cover. Iraq, it said in its final report:, "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war...the country should establish a conducive business environment to attract investment in oil and gas resources."

"Capture" would take the form of "investment," and the vehicle for doing so would be the "production sharing agreement." In exchange for investing in development costs, oil companies would "share" in the subsequent production. What would happen, though, if the companies' investments were only minimal, but their shares of the production were disproportionately, obscenely large?

That's the way it will work out. Production sharing agreements (PSA's) are in place covering 75% of the undeveloped Iraqi fields, and the oil companies, soon to sign the contracts, will earn as much 162% on their "investments." The "foreign suitors" are not quite so foreign now: the players on the inside tracks are Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell.

The use of PSA's, instead of alternative methods of financing infrastructure, however, will cost the Iraqi people hundreds of billions of dollars in just the first few years of the "investment" program.

PSA's are favored by the oil companies because the term "production sharing agreement" is a euphemism for legalized theft. PSA's were not adopted voluntarily by the Iraqis, however: their use was specified by the U.S. State Department and institutionalized by Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority.

So a line of dots begins to point at Iraq, though nothing illegal or unconstitutional has yet taken place. We are still in the policy-formulation stage, but two "seemingly unrelated areas of policy" - national security policy and international energy policy - have become indistinguishable.

Another line of dots begins with the Carter Administration encouraging and arming the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, in Afghanistan, to fend off the Russian invasion there.

And so the next chapter in the story of George Bush's wars is underway.

The strategic location of Afghanistan can scarcely be overstated. The Caspian Basin contains some $16 trillion worth of oil and gas resources, and the most direct pipeline route to the richest markets is through Afghanistan.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the first western oil company to express interest and take action in the Basin was the Bridas Corporation of Argentina. It acquired production leases and exploration contracts in the region, and by November of 1997 had signed an agreement with General Dostum of the Northern Alliance and with the Taliban to build a pipeline across Afghanistan.

Not to be outdone, the American company Unocal fought Bridas at every turn, even spurning an invitation from Bridas to join an international consortium in the Basin. Unocal wanted exclusive control of the trans-Afghan pipeline, and hired a number of consultants in its conflict with Bridas: Henry Kissinger, Richard Armitage (now Deputy Secretary of State in the Bush Administration), Zalmay Khalilzad (a signer of the PNAC letter to President Clinton) and Hamid Karzai. (Eventually Bridas sued Unocal in the U.S. courts, and won.)

Unocal stayed on the attack until 1999, frequently wooing Taliban leaders at its headquarters in Texas, and hosting them in meetings with federal officials in Washington, D.C.

Unocal and the Clinton Administration hoped to have the Taliban cancel the Bridas contract, but were getting nowhere. Mr. John J. Maresca, a Unocal Vice President, testified to a House Committee of International Relations on February 12, 1998, asking politely to have the Taliban removed and a stable government inserted. His discomfort was well placed.

Six months later terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and two weeks after that President Clinton launched a cruise missile attack into Afghanistan. Clinton issued an executive order on July 4, 1999, freezing the US held assets and prohibiting further trade transactions with the Taliban.

Mr. Maresca could count that as progress. More would follow.

Immediately on taking office, the new Bush Administration actively took up negotiating with the Taliban once more, seeking still to have the Bridas contract vacated in favor of Unocal. The parties met three times, in Washington, Berlin, and Islamablad, but the Taliban wouldn't budge.

Behind the negotiations, however, planning was underway to take military action against the Taliban. The State Department sought and gained concurrence from both India and Pakistan to do so, and in July of 2001 three American officials met with Pakistani and Russian intelligence people to inform them of planned military strikes against Afghanistan the following October.

State Department official Christina Rocca told the Taliban, at their last pipeline negotiation in August of 2001, just five weeks before 9/11, "Accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."

Common to both the Afghan and Iraqi lines of dots are energy resources, both oil and gas. It is true our country depends on oil and gas, but it is not the American people who need to corner Mid East oil and gas by force. Dozens of oil companies around the world - the "foreign suitors," for example - can supply us with Iraqi oil or Caspian Basin gas, and would be pleased to do so. There is no reason not to rely on them: we are buying more and more Toyotas and Volvos, and fewer Chevrolets and Fords, with no apparent damage to our national security. Why not do the same with gasoline, diesel, and LNG, and avoid armed conflict?

Why not? Because the bottom lines of Exxon-Mobil, Unocal and other domestic oil companies, in the eyes of the Bush Administration, are sacrosanct. It is not the American consumers, then, but only the American oil companies who benefit from George Bush's premeditated wars.

Also common to both lines of dots, and integral to the overall story, is the historic, intimate, and profitable relationship across several generations between the Bush family and the royal family of Saudi Arabia. It can be seen today in the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based investment company focused primarily in the arms, security, and energy industries. Both George H.W. and George W. Bush have been deeply involved in Carlyle, and so have a number of the Saudi royalty. (And so, incidentally, has the family of Osama Bin Laden.)

Carlyle has profited immensely from the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Its legal matters are handled by Baker, Botts-James Baker's law firm in Texas. Mr. Baker also has a personal interest in Carlyle, amounting to some $180 million. (Baker, Botts defended Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, who was sued by the families of Trade Tower victims for alleged complicity in the attacks.) Another client of Baker, Botts is Exxon-Mobil.

In September of 2000, with the Presidential election approaching, the Project for a New American Century published a report, "Rebuilding America's Defenses." The PNAC once more advocated pre-emptive war, i.e., premeditated war, something unprecedented in the U.S. history, but it realized what a radical departure that would represent. Moving to such a mindset would be long and difficult, in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

When President Bush assumed office three other members of the Project for a New American Century joined his administration: Richard Cheney, Douglas Feith, and Lewis Libby. Pre-emptive, premeditated war was formally adopted when the President signed the National Security Strategy early in his tenure.

So the twists and turns, convulsions, and complexity of people and ideas continued, and so did the jockeying for the world's oil wealth, but still nothing illegal or unconstitutional had been done.

The rationale, the urge, and the planning, however, for attacking both Afghanistan and Iraq were in place. But to attack a sovereign nation unprovoked would enrage the American people - and much of the world, as well. The Bush Administration bided its time.

The preparations had all been done secretly, wholly within the executive branch. The Congress was not informed until the endgame of the premeditation, when President Bush, making his dishonest case for the "war on terror" asked for and was granted the discretion to use military force. The American people were equally denied information of critical public importance. Probably never before in our history was such a drastic and momentous action undertaken with so little knowledge or oversight: the dispatch of America's armed forces into five years of violence.

The story of George Bush's premeditated wars now enters its final chapter.

The catastrophic event takes place. A hijacked airliner probably en route to the White House crashes in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon is afire, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are rubble.

In the first hours of frenetic response, fully aware of al Qaeda's culpability, both President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld seek frantically to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks, we know from on site-witnesses. They are anxious to proceed with their planned invasion. And less than a week later, at a meeting of the National Security Council, President Bush ordered the Defense Department to be ready to handle Iraq, "possibly occupying Iraqi oil fields."

The controversies rage on yet today about the events of September 11, 2001. No steel building has ever collapsed from fire alone. Buildings falling precisely into their footprints are the marks of deliberate (and expert) demolition. The faulty construction/foreshortened lifespan/insurance angle. The collapse of a third building that was not hit at all. The short-selling of airline stock in previous days. The Pentagon hit by a missile, not a civilian airliner. Michael Rupert's book "Crossing the Rubicon" lays the blame for 9/11 directly at Dick Cheney's feet. Senator Robert Dole's former chief of staff, Mr. Stanley Hilton, claims he can prove George Bush signed an order authorizing the attacks. Half the people polled in New York city believed the Bush Administration had prior knowledge of the attack, and "consciously failed" to act. Et cetera.

(Conspiracy is forever easier to see than to find, but that does not obviate the need to seek thoroughly the whole truth about 9/11, and that has yet to be done.)

Involving the Bush Administration in the execution of 9/11, or even accommodating their informed inaction, is almost too appalling to contemplate. But if they needed a reason to proceed with their planned invasions, they could not have been handed a more fortuitous and spectacular excuse.

9/11 was a criminal act of terrorism, not a violation of our entire nation's security. Comparing it, as the Bush Administration immediately did, to Pearl Harbor was ludicrous: the hijacked airliners were not the vanguard of a formidable naval armada, an air force, and a standing army ready to engage in all out war, as the Japanese were prepared to do and did in 1941. 9/11 was a shocking event of unprecedented scale, but to characterize it as an invasion of national security was criminal. It was creating reality. It was also, and in the extreme, surreal, because the Bush Administration chose consciously to frighten the American people beyond any conceivable necessity. It adopted fear mongering as a mode of governance.

As not a few disinterested observers noted at the time, international criminal terrorism is best countered by international police action, which Israel and other nations have proven many times over to be effective.

Then why was a "war" declared on "terrorists and states that harbor terrorists?"

The pre-planned attack on Afghanistan, as we have seen, was meant to nullify the contract between the Taliban and the Bridas Corporation, to assure access to the Caspian Basin riches for American oil companies. It was a pure play of international energy policy. It had nothing to do, as designed, with apprehending Osama bin Laden - a pure play of security policy.

But the two "seemingly unrelated areas of policy" had been "melded," so here was an epic opportunity to bait-and-switch - and the opportunity was not missed for a moment. Conjoining the terrorist and the state that harbored him made a "war" plausible: it would be necessary to overthrow the Taliban as well as to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. (As it turned out, of course, the Taliban was overthrown instead of bringing Osama bin Laden to justice, but the energy policy goal was achieved, at least. And years later President Bush was astonishing in his candor, when he admitted "Osama bin Laden isn't important.")

The first monstrous and intentional deception - the declaration of a "war on terror" - took place. There was no talk of contracts, pipelines, or Argentinian oil companies. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were cleverly, ingeniously conflated, and there was only talk of war.

On October 7, 2001 the carpet of bombs is unleashed over Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the former Unocal consultant, is installed as head of an interim government. Subsequently he is elected President of Afghanistan, and welcomes the first U.S. envoy - Mr. John J. Maresca, Vice President for International Relations of the Unocal Corporation, who had implored Congress three years previously to have the Taliban overthrown. Mr. Maresca was succeeded by Mr. Zalmay Khalilzad - also a former Unocal consultant. (Mr. Khalilzad has since become Ambassador to Iraq.)

With the Taliban banished and the Bridas contract moot, Presidents Karzai of Afghanistan and Musharraf of Pakistan meet on February 8, 2002, sign an agreement for a new pipeline, and the way forward is open for Unocal once more.

The Bridas contract was breached by US military force, but behind the combat was Unocal. Bridas sued Unocal in the US courts for contract interference, and in 2004 it won, overcoming Richard Ben Veniste's law firm. That firm had multibillion dollar interests in the Caspian Basin, and shared an office in Uzbekistan with the Enron Corporation. In 2004, Mr. Ben Veniste was serving as a 9/11 Commissioner.

About a year after the Karzai/Musharraf agreement was signed, an article appeared in "Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections," an obscure trade publication. It described the readiness of three US federal agencies to finance the prospective pipeline, and how "... the United States was willing to police the pipeline infrastructure through permanent stationing of it troops in the region." The article appeared on February 23, 2003.

The objective of the first premeditated war was now achieved. The Bush Administration stood ready with financing to build the pipeline across Afghanistan, and with a permanent military presence to protect it.

Within two months President Bush sent the military might of America sweeping into Iraq.

The second round of deliberate deception was more egregious by far.

Alleging a relationship between bin Laden's al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan had at least some basis in fact. Alleging a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein simply did not. And the weapons-of-mass-destruction argument was equally fraudulent, we know now. But the bait-and-switch "war on terrorism" would continue. "Cakewalk." The staging of the Jessica Lynch rescue. The toppling of the statue in Baghdad. Mission accomplished. The orchestrated capture of Saddam Hussein. And the barrage of managed perception continues to this day.

The smokescreen includes the coverup of the 9/11 attacks on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon. Initially and fiercely resisting any inquiry at all, President Bush finally appoints a 10-person "9/11 Commission." Its report places the blame on "faulty intelligence." President Bush and Vice President Cheney are accorded breathtaking courtesies in the inquiry: they are not required to testify under oath, and they need not even testify separately. At the insistence of the White House, they are "interviewed" together in the Oval Office, with no transcription permitted.

The apparent manipulation of pre-war intelligence is not addressed by the 9/11 Commission, the veracity President Bush's many statements is assumed without question, and the troubling incongruities of 9/11 are ignored.

Many of the 10 commissioners, however, were burdened with stunning conflicts of interest - Mr. Ben Veniste, for example - mostly by their connections to the oil and defense industries, both of which were benefited beyond measure (and doubt) by the Mid East conflicts.

Then the Abu Ghraib horrors came to the surface. Then the spectacular cronyism of the no-bid contracts, with Mr. Cheney and his former company, Halliburton, becoming the icons of corruption. Then the domestic spying issue. Torrents of exposés were published, while Iraq descended into the hellish quagmire of insurgency and civil war - with Afghanistan belatedly following suit.

On November 7, 2006 the American people said, "Enough!" By any measure - by public acclaim - the last six years have been a national tragedy and a national disgrace.

In spite of the Democrats' united message rejecting it, many citizens are calling actively for the impeachment of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and perhaps others. (Secretary Rumsfeld has left the Administration, but faces prosecution under German law.)

The story told here has to be considered "circumstantial." None of it results from testimony under oath, none of it has been admitted as legal evidence in a jurisprudential undertaking, and the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven remains axiomatic. And we might well reiterate the humane and civil plea, heard frequently after 9/11: what we need is justice, not vengeance.

We should not proceed directly to impeachment. At the very least, however, the story of George Bush's premeditated wars raises questions of presidential dereliction as grave as any in our history.

We need to know the truth and all the truth. The time has come, as well as the opportunity, for formal, Congressional investigations, based on subpoenas, sworn testimony, and direct evidence about 9/11 and about the created reality of the "war on terror."

The new Congress has no greater Constitutional duty than to find this truth and display it, if our nightmarish politics is to end. If such inquiries clearly exonerate the Bush Administration, the nation can breathe deeply and go on. If they do not, then but only then should impeachment be undertaken.

To fail in this responsibility is to condone the surreal political discourse the Bush Administration has imposed. That could render it the permanent condition of American governance.

(Richard W. Behan's last book was Plundered Promise: Capitalism, Politics, and the Fate of the Federal Lands (Island Press, 2001). He is currently working on a more broadly rendered critique, To Provide Against Invasions: Corporate Dominion and America's Derelict Democracy. He can be reached by email at rwbehan@rockisland.com)