U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord
tab...@intellex.com
April 9, 2006
U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord
By ERIC SCHMITT
and EDWARD WONG
WASHINGTON, April 8 — An internal staff report by the United States
Embassy and the military command in Baghdad provides a sobering
province-by-province snapshot of Iraq's political, economic and
security situation, rating the overall stability of 6 of the 18
provinces "serious" and one "critical." The report is a counterpoint
to some recent upbeat public statements by top American politicians
and military officials.
[Well, I guess that also means that 12 Iraqi provinces are *not* in
a "serious" or "critical" situation. BTW, what exactly does "serious"
mean in this context? A New York Times reporter might consider
something "serious", whereas I might consider the same situation as
not serious. "Serious" is in the eye of the beholder.]
The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial Stability
Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three
years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and
ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces
generally described as nonviolent by American officials.
[That is to be expected when hundreds of innocent Iraqis are being
murdered every week. Under the circumstances, I think the Iraqi
people have been very restrained. There is no evidence that the
origins of these killings of innocent Iraqis has shifted primarlly to
Sunni-on-Shiite violence. Most of the killings are still being
perpetrated by Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists.]
There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed religious
Shiite parties, several of which the United States helped put into
power, and rival militias in the south.
[Much ado about nothing, I would say. Where is the evidence for the
"growing power" of Iranian-backed Shiite parties. Iran certainly is
involved in trying to manipulate the situation in Iraq, but what have
they been able to do other than smuggle explosives into Iraq and train
people to make and plant roadside bombs? How does that translate into
"growing power"? The level of violence is about the same both before
and after Iranian involvement. I think these "alerts" are just
speculation, without any corroboration.]
The authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north as
a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in Mosul,
where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields are critical
for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.
[More "handwringing". This "fault line" has not ruptured as of yet,
and there is just as much of a chance that it will not rupture, as it
will.]
The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic and
religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the country,
even as monthly American fatalities have fallen.
[Another ambiguous description. "Entrenched"? What exactly does
that mean in this situation? Are you claiming that the Iraqis are no
longer talking to each other? If so, you are wrong. They are talking
and negotiating with each other. Speculating that these negotiations
may some day turn into ethnic and religious fighting is just that:
speculation.]
Those indications,
[You may describe them as "indictations" but I would describe them
as unsubstantiated speculation.]
taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shiite
areas,
["Mass migrations"? I think you are exaggerating. Noone else is
reporting "mass migrations" of Iraqis. There have been reports of
some Arabs moving out of Kurdish territory-- territory that was taken
from the Kurds and given to the Arabs by Saddam. So it is not
surprising that the Kurds want their land back. This, however, does
not translate into "mass migrations".]
show that Iraq is undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and
sectarian lines, with clashes — sometimes political, sometimes violent
— taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet.
[An erroneous conclusion drawn from erroneous data.]
The report, the first of its kind, was written over a six-week period
by a joint civilian and military group in Baghdad that wanted to
provide a baseline assessment for conditions that new reconstruction
teams would face as they were deployed to the provinces, said Daniel
Speckhard, an American ambassador in Baghdad who oversees
reconstruction efforts.
The writers included officials from the American Embassy's political
branch, reconstruction agencies and the American military command in
Baghdad, Mr. Speckhard said. The authors also received information
from State Department officers in the provinces, he said.
The report was part of a periodic briefing on Iraq that the State
Department provides to Congress, and has been shown to officials on
Capitol Hill, including those involved in budgeting for the
reconstruction teams. It is not clear how many top American officials
have seen it; the report has not circulated widely at the Defense
Department or the National Security Council, spokesmen there said.
A copy of the report, which is not classified, was provided to The New
York Times by a government official in Washington who said the
confidential assessment provided a more realistic gauge of stability
in Iraq than the recent portrayals by senior military officers.
[Since the report is not classified, why didn't you name this
"government official". That way we would be better able to judge
whether his remarks serve a partisan political agenda or not. Nothing
senior military officers have said recently would contradict anything
I've seen from this report so far. After all, two-thirds of Iraq is
not rated "serious" or "critical", so it depends on how one looks at
things. For the anti-war, appeaser Left, the glass is one-third
empty. For the liberators on the Right, the glass is two-thirds
full.]
It is dated Jan. 31, 2006, three weeks before the bombing of a
revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, which set off reprisals that killed
hundreds of Iraqis.
[This is pure speculation. There is no hard evidence that most of
the killings were anything other than a continuation of the killings
prepetrated by the Saddam loyalists and terrorist.]
Recent updates to the report are minor and leave its conclusions
virtually unchanged, Mr. Speckhard said.
[I'll reserve my conclusions for after I read the report myself. New
York Times reporters are not qualified to interpret reports such as
this because they live in a dream world divorced from reality. They
are looking for the worst and thus they find it, even if it is not
really there.]
The general tenor of the Bush administration's comments on Iraq has
been optimistic.
[That would seem to be justified seeing as how more things are going
right than are going wrong.]
On Thursday, President Bush argued in a speech that his strategy was
working despite rising violence in Iraq.
[His strategy *is* working despite the New York Times claiming there
is "rising" violence in Iraq. You said yourself that fewer Americans
were being killed, so violence against Americans must be falling. That
should be cause for some optimism.]
Vice President Dick Cheney, on the CBS News program "Face the Nation,"
suggested last month that the administration's positive views were a
better reflection of the conditions in Iraq than news media reports.
[Everyone who knows anything about the Iraq war, such as the troops
who are participating in it, say that the U.S. news media is
distorting the truth about Iraq and making it look worse than it
really is. My money is on the troops' opinion.]
"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which I
think were basically accurate and reflect reality," Mr. Cheney said,
"than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort of
perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is
the car bomb in Baghdad."
[You are being much to kind to the U.S. news media, Dick. If Bill
Clinton were in Office, we would see all sorts of good stories about
how his policy was making things better in Iraq. Sure, the news media
would report on the car bombs, too, but they would report it in such a
way as to downplay the negative effects. The truth is, the liberal
news media has a political agenda that causes them to focus on the
negative when a Republican is in the White House. They are not just
innocents who would report the good news but for the fact that they
are blinded by the killing. They deliberately ignore the good news
because it does not promote their anti-war, anti-conservative,
appeaser political agenda.]
In their public comments, the White House and the Pentagon have used
daily attack statistics as a measure of stability in the provinces.
[So? The liberal news media has used the same measures to try to
convince us that the Iraq war is going to Hell in a hand basket.]
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman in Baghdad, told
reporters recently that 12 of 18 provinces experienced "less than two
attacks a day."
[That pretty good, considering. Not much sectarian violence there.]
Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on
the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on March 5 that the war in Iraq
was "going very, very well," although a few days later, he
acknowledged serious difficulties.
[A war can go "well" and still have difficulties. War is not pretty
and is filled with uncertainty and constantly shifting priorities and
objectives. This is the nature of war. Liberals can't handle the
uncertainty. It's not in their nature. So they equate uncertainty
with not having a plan and/or not making progress.]
In recent interviews and speeches, some administration officials have
begun to lay out the deep-rooted problems plaguing the American
enterprise here. At the forefront has been Zalmay Khalilzad, the
American ambassador, who has said the invasion opened a "Pandora's
box" and, on Friday, warned that a civil war here could engulf the
entire Middle East.
[You imply that the American ambassador is forecasting failure in
Iraq. He is not. He is correct that a civil war could engulf the
whole region, but there is no civil war taking place as of now and it
is not inevitable that there will be a civil war. Besides, sometimes
civil wars are a necessary evil. Americans should know that better
than anyone.]
On Saturday, Mr. Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior
military commander in Iraq, issued a statement praising some of the
political and security goals achieved in the last three years, but
also cautioning that "despite much progress, much work remains."
[So what? Just because there is more work to do does not negate the
fact that progress is being made. You imply that one cannot exist
with the other.]
Mr. Speckhard, the ambassador overseeing reconstruction, said the
report was not as dire as its assessments might suggest.
[New York Times assessments are not worth the paper they are written
on.]
"Really, this shows there's one province that continues to be a major
challenge," he said. "There are a number of others that have
significant work to do in them. And there are other parts of the
country that are doing much better."
[Which is exactly what the Bush administration is saying.]
But the report's capsule summaries of each province offer some
surprisingly gloomy news.
[In *your* opinion, which is worthless.]
The report's formula for rating stability takes into account
governing, security and economic issues. The oil-rich Basra Province,
where British troops have patrolled in relative calm for most of the
last three years, is now rated as "serious."
The report defines "serious" as having "a government that is not fully
formed or cannot serve the needs of its residents; economic
development that is stagnant with high unemployment, and a security
situation marked by routine violence, assassinations and extremism."
[That description could be used for some cities in the United
States. Should we pull out?]
British fatalities have been on the rise in Basra in recent months,
with attacks attributed to Shiite insurgents.
[Another ambiguous description. Did the British lose two soldiers a
month instead of one? This would be a "rise" in fatalities, a 100
percent rise, in fact, but would such a "rise" signal a major change
in what is happening in that area? There's no way to say based on
such facts, but the New York Times reporter wants to make it appear
that this is something significant. Saying there is a "rise" doesn't
really tell us anything of substance.]
There is a "high level of militia activity including infiltration of
local security forces," the report says. "Smuggling and criminal
activity continues unabated. Intimidation attacks and assassination
are common."
[This should be no surprise. There are several hundred thousand
Saddam loyalists, and terrorists seeking to cause havoc, and to top
that off, Saddam opened up his prisons and put one hundred thousand
criminals on the streets. It is going to take a while to root all
these bad guys out of their holes.]
The report states that economic development in the region, long one of
the poorest in Iraq, is "hindered by weak government."
The city of Basra has widely been reported as devolving into a
mini-theocracy, with government and security officials beholden to
Shiite religious leaders, enforcing bans on alcohol and mandating head
scarves for women. Police cars and checkpoints are often decorated
with posters or stickers of Moktada al-Sadr, the rebellious cleric, or
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a cleric whose party is very close to Iran. Both
men have formidable militias.
[You can attribute most of the trouble there to the fanatic al Sadr.
Something will have to be done about his troublemaking, sooner or
later. He will keep pushing his envelope until someone stops him.
Just like any other petty dictator. He's another Saddam in clerics
clothing. He's bad news and one day he is going to go too far. That's
what megalomaniacs do. They start thinking they are untouchable which
leads to their downfall. The sooner the better.]
Mr. Hakim's party controls the provincial councils of eight of the
nine southern provinces, as well as the council in Baghdad.
In a color-coded map included in the report, the province of Anbar,
the wide swath of western desert that is the heart of the Sunni Arab
insurgency, is depicted in red, for "critical." The six provinces
categorized as "serious" — Basra, Baghdad, Diyala and three others to
the north — are orange. Eight provinces deemed "moderate" are in
yellow, and the three Kurdish provinces are depicted in green, for
"stable."
The "critical" security designation, the report says, means a province
has "a government that is not functioning" or that is only
"represented by a single strong leader"; "an economy that does have
the infrastructure or government leadership to develop and is a
significant contributor to instability"; and "a security situation
marked by high levels of AIF [anti-Iraq forces] activity,
assassinations and extremism."
The most surprising assessments are perhaps those of the nine southern
provinces, none of which are rated "stable." The Bush administration
often highlights the relative lack of violence in those regions.
For example, the report rates as "moderate" the two provinces at the
heart of Shiite religious power, Najaf and Karbala, and points to the
growing Iranian political presence there. In Najaf, "Iranian influence
on provincial government of concern," the report says. Both the
governor and former governor of Najaf are officials in Mr. Hakim's
religious party, founded in Iran in the early 1980's. The report also
notes that "there is growing tension between Mahdi Militia and Badr
Corps that could escalate" — referring to the private armies of Mr.
Sadr and Mr. Hakim, which have clashed before.
[Yep, there's that little troublemaker again. Keep it up, Mooky.]
The report does highlight two bright spots for Najaf. The provincial
government is able to maintain stability for the province and provide
for the people's needs, it says, and religious tourism offers
potential for economic growth.
But insurgents still manage to occasionally penetrate the tight ring
of security. A car bomb exploded Thursday near the golden-domed Imam
Ali Shrine, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.
[Criminals in the U.S. manage to kill innocent people every day,
too. You don't realistically expect that we will put a stop to all
criminal activity, do you?]
Immediately to the north, Babil Province, an important strategic area
abutting Baghdad, also has "strong Iranian influence apparent within
council," the report says. There is "ethnic conflict in north Babil,"
and "crime is a major factor within the province." In addition,
"unemployment remains high."
[Yawn.]
Throughout the war, American commanders have repeatedly tried to
pacify northern Babil, a farming area with a virulent Sunni Arab
insurgency, but they have had little success. In southern Babil, the
new threat is Shiite militiamen who are pushing up from Shiite
strongholds like Najaf and Karbala and beginning to develop rivalries
among themselves.
Gen. Qais Hamza al-Maamony, the commander of Babil's 8,000-member
police force, said his officers were not ready yet to intervene
between warring militias, should it come to that, as many fear. "They
would be too frightened to get into the middle," he said in an
interview.
If the American troops left Babil, he said, "the next day would be
civil war."
[Well, don't worry. American troops are going to be there a while
longer. At least as long as George W. Bush is president.]
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Edward
Wong from Baghdad. Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting from Hilla,
Iraq, and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi from Baghdad.
end
TA
Joe S.
<tab...@intellex.com> wrote in message
news:i62j32djse81qfoe9...@4ax.com...
> Found at:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/world/middleeast/09report.html?ei=5065&en=e7424efc9bff9cf0&ex=1145160000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
>
>
>
> April 9, 2006
>
> U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord
>
> By ERIC SCHMITT
> and EDWARD WONG
>
> - taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet.
> the north - are orange. Eight provinces deemed "moderate" are in
> yellow, and the three Kurdish provinces are depicted in green, for
> "stable."
>
> The "critical" security designation, the report says, means a province
> has "a government that is not functioning" or that is only
> "represented by a single strong leader"; "an economy that does have
> the infrastructure or government leadership to develop and is a
> significant contributor to instability"; and "a security situation
> marked by high levels of AIF [anti-Iraq forces] activity,
> assassinations and extremism."
>
> The most surprising assessments are perhaps those of the nine southern
> provinces, none of which are rated "stable." The Bush administration
> often highlights the relative lack of violence in those regions.
>
> For example, the report rates as "moderate" the two provinces at the
> heart of Shiite religious power, Najaf and Karbala, and points to the
> growing Iranian political presence there. In Najaf, "Iranian influence
> on provincial government of concern," the report says. Both the
> governor and former governor of Najaf are officials in Mr. Hakim's
> religious party, founded in Iran in the early 1980's. The report also
> notes that "there is growing tension between Mahdi Militia and Badr
There must be something wrong here. The insurgency is in its last throes.
Democracy is breaking out all over Iraq. Mission accomplished.