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| Iraq |
| Wolfowitz’s wakeup call in Baghdad |
| 2003-10-28 |
| US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s weekend tour of Iraq appeared to be going splendidly: everywhere he went - even in Saddam Hussein’s former stronghold of Tikrit - Iraqis greeted him with smiles and warm handshakes, no doubt adding to his conviction that the war really was for "liberation" rather than "occupation". Until Sunday morning, that is, when the Pentagon’s chief Iraq hawk was rudely awakened by an unprecedented missile barrage fired from a home-made rocket launcher less than half a kilometer - and well within the capital’s heavily-patrolled "green zone" - from the al-Rashid hotel where he was sleeping. A US colonel on a floor just below Wolfowitz’s was killed in an attack that wounded at least 16 others and proved to be a mere foretaste of a much more devastating series of coordinated car bombings carried out early on Monday on four police stations and the headquarters of the International Red Cross in Baghdad. Smart move Paul to switch chamber with the colonel At least 40 people were killed and well over 200 more injured in the blasts, making it the worst day of violence in the capital since US forces captured Baghdad in early April. President George W Bush, meeting with Coalition Provisional Authority chief L Paul Bremer, insisted that the attacks were merely signs of "desperation" on the part of "terrorists" opposed to the US presence in Iraq, who were motivated by anger over the progress made by occupation authorities in restoring normal life and creating a free society. "There are terrorists in Iraq who are willing to kill anybody in order to stop our progress," Bush said. "The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react." But to more impartial analysts, the one-two punch by anti-US forces suggested that, if anything, resistance to the occupation is growing and becoming more coordinated and sophisticated. Until now, US officials have contended that resistance is confined to die-hard loyalists - or what the Pentagon often refers to as "deadenders" - of ousted President Saddam Hussein, foreign jihadis inspired by or associated with al-Qaeda and common criminals, several thousand of whom were released from prison in a general amnesty just before the US-led invasion. Such a characterization naturally suggests that the resistance lacks any legitimacy. But this description appears increasingly at odds with accounts by journalists who have interviewed men identified as resistance fighters, very few of whom have had good words to say about Saddam, as well as recent statements by US military officers on the ground. They maintain that troops either do not really know who is behind the attacks or that they suspect resistance is much more broadly based than the official rhetoric suggests. "The attacks are being committed by three broad categories of guerrillas, none with close ties to Saddam," wrote Hassan Fattah, a Baghdad-based journalist, for The New Republic. In addition to former lower-ranking Baathists, the two major groups, according to Fattah and other reporters, include conservative predominantly Sunni tribesmen, increasingly angry at disrespectful behavior by US troops, and an indigenous Islamist group, the best-known arm of which is Mohammed’s Army [Jaish Mohammad]. All of them are opposed to US occupation, and their ranks appear to be growing as the larger population becomes increasingly disaffected by the US presence, according to recent reports. Indeed, despite arrests and round-ups of thousands of suspected fighters over the past several months, the number of attacks on US forces has doubled over the past two months, to well over 20 a day. And, after a relatively peaceful September, the toll they are taking in US lives has surged over the past two weeks to an average of just about one a day. "It is my impression that the guerrilla campaign against us is spreading and intensifying, and the other side does not seem to be losing enough people in the process," the former Middle East analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency during the first Gulf War of 1991, Walter Lang, told the New York Times recently. Already in August, indications were worrisome, according to John Zogby, whose polling group conducted a major door-to-door survey in four major Iraqi cities. Three in five Iraqis said they wanted to be left alone to work out a future government, while one-half predicted the US will hurt Iraq over the next five years, compared to 36 percent who said it will help. Earlier this month, just under one-half of some 1,620 representative Iraqis around the country said they considered coalition forces to be liberators or peacekeepers when they first arrived. Now, according to the survey, which was commissioned by the International Republican Institute, that percentage has fallen to 19, with 10 percent willing to tell pollsters that they "strongly opposed" the coalition’s presence. Worse, the perception of US troops as occupiers has grown most sharply in Shi’ite and Kurdish cities, which, in contrast to the so-called Sunni triangle, have been seen as the most pro-coalition areas of the country. Those statistics are contributing to the notion that Washington now faces a real insurgency - even one that has no explicit political ideology other than being anti-occupation - as opposed to a terrorism campaign carried out by a small and ever-diminishing group of diehards and foreign Islamists. The rhetoric around the resistance is already changing, as even neo-conservative war-boosters who predicted US forces would be greeted as "liberators" by the Iraqi population and did not conceive of an active post-war resistance have begun recognizing that opposition to occupation has a broader popular base than they anticipated. Tom Donnelly of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute and Garry Schmitt, director of the Project for the New American Century, have now called on Washington to launch a major counter-insurgency campaign based on the experience of US Marines in the Caribbean Basin and the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century. Instead of using big-unit search-and-destroy missions as in Vietnam, they said, the military should "swamp a given area in order to root out insurgents and their supporting infrastructure". Such operations could require increasing overall US troop levels in Iraq. But if, as a growing number of military analysts believe, Washington now faces a real insurgency, fighting it effectively might simply be too costly, both financially and politically, according to retired army Colonel Andrew Bacevich of Boston University. He has called instead for the administration to reduce its expectations of installing democracy in Iraq and the Middle East, give greater authority to the United Nations for administering the occupation if it will accept the mission, and to begin reducing US troop numbers according to a schedule that will make clear "this is not a neo-colonial occupation of indefinite duration". |
| Posted by:Murat |
| #35 Zhang Fei. Thanks for the answer. This is what I meant. I admit the "reality" of Iraq seems very elusive. Truth is indeed in the eye of the beholder. ABC news will say the whole country is falling apart, then FoxNews will say things are going swimmingly. The days of newsmen/women actually reporting events and leaving their own biases at the door seems long gone. Now people seem to just scream at each other. We as a country should realise that helping people out doesn't necessarily make them gratefull, nor should we do it for that reason. We have traditionally helped people out who really needed it, put them back on their feet, and let them go their own way. This has usually paid us big dividends in the long run (except of course for the French, but you can't win them all). Hopefully we will do the same with Iraq, but this going to be a tough one, sort of like liberating Nazi Germany and then realising the Soviets are now next door neighbors. We need realistic plans to do the same in Iraq, understanding that lots and lots of people have a vested interest in seeing us go down. Building up Iraq to take care of itself is essential. If we do that and they ask up to stay as a backup like Germany in the cold war, more the better. But eventually they need the option to be able to ask |
| Posted by: Slumming 2003-10-28 8:17:47 PM |
| #34 We got into this situation, and I'm interested in hearing some concrete factual ideas on how we're to get out. I don't really see us getting out for decades. Iraq, like Germany and Japan, is about to become an American protectorate, whether the so-called Muslim world likes it or not. The thrust of Bush's approach, which is about intimidating Muslim countries into not harboring anti-American terrorists, appears to be working. The US is a no-go zone for al Qaeda terrorists, despite two facts (1) there are many anti-American Muslims - citizens or otherwise - on US soil and (2) weapons are more readily available in the US than in Iraq. Nitpicking by liberals is fine and dandy, but the fact is that Iraq will take at least two years to stabilize - a lot of what we see today will seem like chaos, but that's largely the impact of a biased press, which focuses exclusively on terrorist attacks. The interesting thing is that since the end of large scale combat in Iraq, about as many Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian terrorist attacks as Iraqis, but no one says that Israel is in a state of chaos, or that the Palestinians are winning. The president is responsible for the direction of America's anti-terror policy, not the day-to-day tactics of suppressing terrorist attacks. If commanders are found wanting, they will be replaced. Are some military commanders in over their heads? Perhaps. But it's not within the competence of journalists to make that judgment - more importantly, journalists, having picked the side of the terrorists, are morally incompetent to judge. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-28 7:34:34 PM |
| #33 Zhang Fei: I'm trying to respond to you, but your post doesn't even make sense. I didn't cry intolerance, I honestly offered to leave .com alone if he doesn't wnat me to post here. I haven't attacked anyone (OK, I made a little fun of .com, but a lot less than he did). I'm about as far from the liberal left wing as you can get, but that doesn't mean I can't question things that don't make good sense to me. I can take it just fine, thank you very much, or I wouldn't be foolish enough to try posting questions at a site where I know full well 99% of the respondents will be hostile to me for the mere fact of questioning. We got into this situation, and I'm interested in hearing some concrete factual ideas on how we're to get out. Not "nuke them back into the stone age", but things that can work. I t does appear that some people here can answer the questions I ask. For instance, the comment about the 1500 man Iraqi force is of value. How do you suppose our forces are going to recognise and interdict infiltrators when we can't even talk to them? Plus if we don't create a semi-modest Iraqi army, the whole country will be overrun by the Iranians three months after we leave. So, I like to ask questions about what people believe and why they believe it. I may even share some of their beliefs. That's not the point. I like to see how people think. Not, I'm not some pointy-headed professor, I work for a living like every body else. If you think that everyone who questions you is some liberal freak, then so be it. But you're wrong. If you feel that no one has the right to question you on this site, then stop calling me names and say so. I've read things on this site for a long time without writing anything. I can do it again. |
| Posted by: Slumming 2003-10-28 5:23:40 PM |
| #32 slumming: Once again, if you're thaqt afraid of people who disagree with you, just say so and I'll leave youall alone. Actually, it's slumming who's afraid of people who disagree with him - when they attack him, he cries intolerance. When he attacks them, it's par for the course. Like his liberal brethren, he can dish it out, but can't take it. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-28 5:03:08 PM |
| #31 "The police are needed for internal security, and a standing army of some modest size to secure their admittedly unfriendly borders." -Slumming, check out the other article posted here about the 1,500 man Iraqi border force. I think they are doing what you've mentioned, albeit they're only on the Syrian border right now but it's a good start. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-10-28 4:11:49 PM |
| #30 But to more impartial analysts, the one-two punch by anti-US forces suggested that, if anything, resistance to the occupation is growing and becoming more coordinated and sophisticated. But wouldn't that exclude anti-American sources like Asia Times, which posted up this article? (Asia Times is owned by an ethnic Chinese Thai national with significant business interests in China). |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-10-28 3:57:25 PM |
| #29 To .com: pleased to be of service. Who knows, maybe some day we'll agree on something. AIn the mean time, I think we need to concentrate on training Iraqi police and military forces as fast as possible. The police are needed for internal security, and a standing army of some modest size to secure their admittedly unfriendly borders. Otherwise Hiryu will be right, and that really would be a shame, another political disaster after a military that did what we asked them to do. |
| Posted by: Slumming 2003-10-28 3:54:15 PM |
| #28 Cyber Sarge >> Clarification of your "Freedom Fighters" statement. As George Carlin once said, (I paraphrase)... "If Crime Fighters fight CRIME, and Fire Fighters fight FIRES, then just what exactly do Freedom Fighters fight?" Murat >> It really takes a big bad brave man to blow up a Red Cross organization. Woo hoo.I'm sure Allah is really impressed by their bravery. Allah: "So Achmed, what did you do to deserve a place in heaven." Achmed: (boasting) Well, let me tell you A, I ran in to a school yard and blew away 5 six-year old kids and then stabbed a woman in a wheelchair!" Allah: "Here Achmed, take this fire extinguisher and burn cream, you'll need it for your next assignment." Bulldog >> Excellent point. Murat's lack of response makes me think he's sweating like Mike Tyson at a Spelling Bee trying to find a spin for that one. |
| Posted by: Paul 2003-10-28 3:39:58 PM |
| #27 This is all just another milestone on the exit to the partition of Iraq. |
| Posted by: Hiryu 2003-10-28 3:35:19 PM |
| #26 LOL! You are a trip. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-10-28 3:33:11 PM |
| #25 Hey, .com! My man! Glad to see you back! Still whining like mad about me, I see. Why am I back? You do love attacking people with sarcastic personal comments, so I figured this would be the perfect post to find you and aggravate you some more. I see you're from Thailand. I guess that decreases the chance that you're married to Ann Coulter. You just don't have anything worthwhile to say, so I thought I'd give you a reason to live by carrying on about me It's almost too easy. OBTW, it's a whole lot easier to avoid awfull situations in the first place by thinking things through than by digging your way out afterwards. Speaking of which, I haven't heard any words of wisdom from you other than the bad guys are going to get discouraged and stop being bad. Once again, if you're thaqt afraid of people who disagree with you, just say so and I'll leave youall alone. Wouldn't want to give you a case of shingles or anything. Offended by "Slumming"? Thin skinned, aren't we? How about Krishna instead? |
| Posted by: Slumming 2003-10-28 3:28:44 PM |
| #24 a Baghdad-based journalist, for The New Republic Yawn..sooo the New Republic thinks it's a quagmire. They were sure it was before the war even started. "But this description appears increasingly at odds with accounts by journalists who have interviewed men identified as resistance fighters, very few of whom have had good words to say about Saddam, as well as recent statements by US military officers on the ground". Ok...so we have ONE New Republic (scoff) reporter and vague reference to other reporters reporting (shock) "You've already lost the war, go home." Just like that scene in 12:00 High. Who, except wanna-belivers, actually falls for this stuff. Kim Ill writes better crap than this. |
| Posted by: B 2003-10-28 3:10:01 PM |
| #23 I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair. So it's perfectly OK to attack "occupation" forces consisting of schools, hospitals, local police, etc? I seem to remember you whining about the PKK earlier. Why the sudden change in heart? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-10-28 2:03:04 PM |
| #22 Murat your own comments defeat your argument: "So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide." No they were not terrorists because we were at war with Japan. This was also the last desparate attempt by the empire to stave off defeat. But the suicide bombers in Iraq are not Iraqis at least that is my understanding. So yes if a Pal be bops accross the Iraqi border for the purpose of bombing a civillian target they are a TERORISTS. Also when we catch them they are NOT accorded any rights under the geneva convention and we can (and should) dispatch them to Allah right there. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-10-28 1:31:25 PM |
| #21 slumming - Nope. Nobody does. It's a quagmire, I tell ya. Gonna drone for awhile again tonight? Y'know, after I went to bed waiting for you to say something of value (it was 6:00 AM my time here in Thailand), I decided that you are just a droll troll. You come bopping into Rantburg, claiming that you visit often but haven't been moved to post, yet now you've posted 2 days in a row cuz someone was stupid enough to waste time on you - that was me - and I'm still sleepy cuz of it. I have a question for you: Why, pray tell, do you expect to be met with anything except either apathy or derision? You chose a nym, slumming, that I found offensive yesterday - and still find offensive today. This is Rantburg - and it is anything but the slums, son. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-10-28 1:02:41 PM |
| #20 So they are terrorist suicide bombers. The japanese targeted military targets because that was all they could get at. Accepted. How do you stop them, given that many of them are coming over the open borders from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. That open borders question agaiin. The only way I see is to chase them back to their home bases outside Iraq. Anyone have the guts to do it. Realisticly, I mean, not just grandstanding for the crowd. |
| Posted by: Slumming 2003-10-28 12:15:41 PM |
| #19 So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide. At least the Kamakaze targetted MILITARY TARGETS and not CIVILIAN TARGETS. You cant get it into your head that they are called terrorists because they deliberately target civilians. Not because they comitted Suicide. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2003-10-28 11:53:30 AM |
| #18 I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair. Sorry to tell you this (well, not really), but using the favorite tactic of known terrorists and killing more civilian lives than "occupation" forces means that the label inevitably follows. So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide. It would appear that Murat doesn't (or doesn't want to) understand what terrorism in the modern sense is. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-10-28 11:28:33 AM |
| #17 Did I mention "Kurdistan", Murat? I didn't, so why did you bring up that name? Guilty conscience? There's no Sunnistan in Iraq either. So what? There may be no Kurdistan in Turkey (yet - though It's likely that one day there will be), but may I remind you that Kurds have been engaged in various acts of insurgency in Turkey for decades. By your logic these aren't terrorists either. So next time Turks are blown to bits in Ankara, we'll meet back here and give credit to the hard-working insurgents. OK? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-10-28 11:20:07 AM |
| #16 but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair. -Murat, if they we're targeting purely military targets I might be able to agree w/you as a military man. However, when one targets civilians, police forces, journalists, and care giving facilities they no longer rate even the title "guerilla" or insurgent, they are simply terrorists and should be given no quarter. So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide. -Murat, I know you have better logic then to make such a silly question. We were in an officially declared state of hostilities w/the japs at the time. If say after the war, the Japanese had whackos who we're blowing themselves up in downtown Tokyo and taking other Japanese w/them - then yes, they would be a terrorist. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-10-28 11:20:03 AM |
| #15 About the Japanese kamikazes yes they were terrorists becuase the Japanese Goverment back then was the ones who started the war in the Pacific during which time their military butchered millions |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-10-28 11:14:49 AM |
| #14 There is evidence that some at least, are foreigners, including a Syrian recently arrested in Baghad. That many in Fallujah and elsewhere are tribesmen does not prove that their resistance is unrelated to the former regime, or to outside Islamists. The old regime frequently cut deals with local sunnin arab tribes. It is a mistake to identify the former regime solely with its most brutal arms. It is also reported that Baathists hire locals to fight. All evidence is that the Kurdish North and Shiite South remain generally quiet, and the "resistance" remains confined to the so-called Sunni triangle (including Sunni areas of Baghdad, but generally excluding Mosul) Even within that area, there is considerable cooperation with the coalition. The number of attacks has increased, but their effectiveness for the most part has not - the coalition casualty rate goes up and down, high in July and August, low in September, back up in October, etc. It remains sustainable. Dramatic suicide attacks are launched, almost certainly by AQ affiliated Islamists, with little broad support in Iraq. the events of the last few days have been dreadful, to be sure. Turning Iraq over to the UN (which would still rely on US troops) will not stop such acts, however. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-10-28 11:03:28 AM |
| #13 Cyber Sarge, So according to you all the Japanese Kamikaze pilots where terrorists because they commited suicide. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-28 10:59:54 AM |
| #12 Ah,Murat,I know you have a hard time doing your own thinking,but why don't you try surfing some of the Iragi blog sites instead of looking at a bunch of skewed,badly written opinion polls. Murat could have said: I am still against it, but to call those Kurdish insurgents terrorist just for resisting Turkish occupation is not that fair, even if many of them are Georgian, Syrian and Armenian. Still agree in principle, Murat? And if not, why not? (Not necessarily a factual analogy. EOE.) Posted by: Bulldog 2003-10-28 10:43:33 AM Come on muRat lets hear your answer to Bulldogs supposition. Could it possably be that you only belive that it is only terrorisiam when Turks are slaughtered, but when Iragi civilians are muredered"Why that is perfectly understandable,legitamate resistance".Get a clue dumb-ass. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2003-10-28 10:59:20 AM |
| #11 No Bulldog, there is no Kurdistan we occupy, in fact there is no country which is called Kurdistan at all, you should blame your grandpa for that while he was creating all those Arab states he forgot to create a Kurdistan :) |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-28 10:56:57 AM |
| #10 "to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair." Murat are you blind, stupid, or both? People who bomb a Red Crescent building are by definition TERRORISTS. The fact that they are suicide bombers, suggest that they might be Pals or Lebanese. Only these whack jobs would do such a despicable act. Would you call them ‘Freedom Fighters’ heck MOST of them aren't even Iraqis. They are Islamofacists looking for a prom date to Valhalla nothing more. (I borrowed that from Dennis Miller) |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2003-10-28 10:44:16 AM |
| #9 Murat could have said: I am still against it, but to call those Kurdish insurgents terrorist just for resisting Turkish occupation is not that fair, even if many of them are Georgian, Syrian and Armenian. Still agree in principle, Murat? And if not, why not? (Not necessarily a factual analogy. EOE.) |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-10-28 10:43:33 AM |
| #8 The US military spokesman just revealed the number of US casualties now on 114 with the latest rpg attack in Baghdad. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-28 10:43:30 AM |
| #7 I still am against it Robert, but to call al those insurgents terrorist just for resisting occupation is not that fair. |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-28 10:32:24 AM |
| #6 Col. Bacevich's goal of making it clear our occupation of Iraq is not 'neo-colonialism' and the Donnelly view that we need intensified counterinsurgency operations in the 'Sunni Triangle' are not inherrently contradictory, though he is definitely coming from a more skeptical viewpoint. Rumsfeld himself explained in a WaPo Oped last month that the goal has always been to maximize self sufficiency among the Iraqis precisely because we want them to be independent rather than dependent on a colonial type administrator. Acting more aggressively in the short term to stem the growing insurgency in the Baathist areas can be seen as increasing our ability to reduce our profile in the intermediate term. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-10-28 10:25:56 AM |
| #5 Still can't figure out that link/title thing, eh Mu-Rat? I thought you were supposed to be smart. By the way, do you have a sister named Murine by any chance? |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2003-10-28 10:24:41 AM |
| #4 Waitaminnit. I thought Murat claimed to be opposed to the terrorists. Why's he want Iraq handed back to them? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-10-28 10:22:36 AM |
| #3 Murat - with every post you drive my opinion of you lower - good work |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-10-28 10:19:52 AM |
| #2 Murat, You may think it's the best thing, but have you actually asked the Iraqi's how they feel? And I don't mean a news service, I mean actually go out and ask several Iraqi's in Bahgdad if the want us to drop everything and leave? Of course not. So until your country either has troops on the ground, or you have been to Iraq and asked the peoples opinion, then shut up! ( Forlone hope, I know, but there is always hope. ) |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-10-28 10:08:10 AM |
| #1 What Colonel Andrew Bacevich is saying is that leaving Iraq is the best thing to do (which I agree with) |
| Posted by: Murat 2003-10-28 9:50:13 AM |