| Boy howdy, whatever would we do without experts... |
| What follows is first-class hand-wringing from CNN... |
| Well no: Champ isn't going to suffer the types of criticisms that Dubya did, not in any way... |
| Likely true, and any 'plan' would be un-done by events in the city. |
The battle is expected to lead to a major refugee exodus, a possible ISIS insurgency should fighters opt to blend in with the local population rather than flee or fight to the death, and power struggles among Mosul's diverse ethnic, tribal and religious groups.
Some Western diplomats
| ...none representing a country that has skin in the game... |
Obama administration officials acknowledge that the day-after plan for Mosul was still very much a work in progress when the first shots were fired just over two weeks ago. And there is no agreement to date on who should control Mosul once ISIS is kicked out.
"Everybody has a different idea for how Nineveh Province should be governed, who should be the governor," said Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the counter-ISIS fight, referring to the region that Mosul is part of. "Every other person you meet will say, I should be the governor, he should be the governor."
"The problem here is that if you try to resolve all of those issues, Daesh will remain in Mosul for the foreseeable future and perhaps forever," he added, using the Arabic term for the terror group. "This is really a war of momentum. We feel the momentum is on the side of the Iraqi security forces."
| A rare voice of common sense in the Obama administration... |
| And you need an expert like Nick to tell you that... |
Baghdad's plan is to have the central government's designated governor of Nineveh Province take charge of the governance and policing efforts. But Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government, which runs an autonomous zone near Mosul in northern Iraq, have their own preferred man, Atheel al-Nujaifi, the former governor, who seeks to divide the province into semi-autonomous sub-districts, a plan favored by minority groups like the Kurds.
About 1,000 Turkish troops are in northern Iraq helping to train a Sunni tribal police force to help stabilize Mosul, deployment that has irked the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. Turkey has also demanded a greater role in the Mosul campaign, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying that his country's historical role in the area during the Ottoman Empire gives Ankara the right to have influence in the region.
| The Ottoman Empire died a hundred years ago according to the history books but lives on in Yippie's beturbaned head... |
Humanitarian organization have accused these forces of human rights violations.
| Unlike the human rights violations perpetrated by the various Sunni organizations when they're the ones on top. In fact it's completely a different situation; ask them... |
Another complicating factor is the Iraqi government's inability to eject the Turkish military or compel the Kurdish Regional Government by force of arms, forcing Baghdad to rely on the US as a mediator.
| And we know how well that will work... |
| Thanks for that astounding "expert" insight... |
Diplomats are pushing the Iraqis to set up an interim governing council, similar to the one created after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2002, comprising Iraq's various ethnic groups, tribes, religious sects and sectors of society.
"There will be an important role for all the notables of Mosul, but the assessment from the Iraqis, which I very much agree with, is that it would be impossible to resolve all of these very difficult issues while Daesh is sitting in Mosul," McGurk said.
James Jeffrey, the former American ambassador to Iraq during the Obama administration, agreed with the current US approach. The US and its allies "couldn't afford to wait for the governance plan to be fully in place," he said, but "had to take on ISIS as soon as possible." He added that the most immediate issue -- providing humanitarian assistance to refugees and internally displaced persons -- had been adequately planned for.
International relief agencies have estimated that as many as one million Iraqis could be displaced by the fight.
| One wonders how it is that two million people remain in greater Mosul with a couple ten-thousand ISIS running the place. And more importantly, why those two million didn't deal with the gunnies themselves.. |
"I've never seen cooperation between Baghdad and Irbil as good as it is right now," he said, referring to the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government. He said that this collaboration has been on display during the battle for Mosul and that its continuation would be critical given the large number of Kurds in east Mosul.
Jeffrey added that unlike 2014 when Mosul fell, Baghdad is now putting a much bigger emphasis on recruiting and training local forces for policing. US Military officials have repeatedly said that they are making a concerted effort to train local security forces to help stabilize Mosul and ward off any ISIS insurgents, even as governing issues remaining in flux.
"We've trained a very large number of security police forces because these are going to be key to establishing a degree of stability in the areas that get liberated from Daesh," US Air Force Col. John Dorrian told reporters last week.
"Daesh won't be allowed to simply melt away and then do terrorist attacks or sort of (insurgency) ops. The police will be in these areas and assisting with that challenge," he said. Asked if there was a post-conflict plan ready for Mosul, Dorrian said, "There is a plan in place, but it's an adaptive plan ... they continue to work on this."
He added, "I think what we have to do is get Mosul cleared of Daesh, and once we do that, we'll see where those remaining elements are."