The Shia debate and wait

Despite the debate about the role of clerics in politics, it's clear that both factions are moving closer together on a fundamental opposition to any CPA-run council. And this is hardly limited to the Shia alone. The Sunni tribal chiefs and technocrats also agree that a CPA run council is unacceptable.

US officials want to pretend that the Shia clerics can be routed around and they can't. They command the loyalty of the majority of Iraqis and regardless of our opinions, these are educated, thoughtful people who are going to determine their future. Sadr's people are doing what the CPA was supposed to do, provide basic relief and limited security. Sistani and Hakim, while refusing to deal with the CPA, have given them a chance to do what they promised. Instead, they have suffered through three months of misadministration.

Time and again, Viceroy Jerry says one thing in the glib, company man way, favored inside the Beltway and the Shia clerics talk like serious men. They haven't rushed to kick the infidels out, or tell everyone to ignore them. They haven't acted like fanatics. But they are not men to be triffled with or ignored. Saddam came after them hard and failed. The US does not frighten them. It would serve us well to deal with these men before they decide to deal with us.

Just consider, guerrilla war in the Sunni belt is giving us fits. A Shia rebellion would start a war against the occupation we would be hardpressed to fight, much less win.
[more]

Five O'Clock Follies

No Iraq 'Quagmire,' Rumsfeld Asserts

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday the military is fighting a war against five disparate groups with their own agendas and not a guerrilla conflict waged by an organized insurgency.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld dismissed suggestions that 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are engaged in a guerrilla war or bogged down in a Vietnam-like "quagmire."

"That doesn't make it anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance," Rumsfeld said. "It makes it like five different things going on [in which the groups] are functioning more like terrorists."

TRANSLATION: I don't give a damn what anybody thinks. I like my fantasy world just the way it is and I'm going to go right on living in it!

W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle Eastern Affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the situation in Iraq is "exactly" what a guerrilla war looks like in its early stages.

"It's not unusual for there to be more than one guerrilla group in an insurgency," Lang said in an interview. "It doesn't mean that they won't be able to sufficiently overcome their differences to have an effect against us."

TRANSLATION: The Secretary of Defense is a lying sack of shit.
[more]

Mistrust Mixes With Misery In Heat of Baghdad Police Post
Frustrated Reservists See a Mission Impossible

To Staff Sgt. Charles Pollard, the working-class suburb of Mashtal is a "very, very, very, very bad neighborhood." And he sees just one solution.

"U.S. officials need to get our [expletive] out of here," said the 43-year-old reservist from Pittsburgh, who arrived in Iraq with the 307th Military Police Company on May 24. "I say that seriously. We have no business being here. We will not change the culture they have in Iraq, in Baghdad. Baghdad is so corrupted. All we are here is potential people to be killed and sitting ducks."

To Sgt. Sami Jalil, a 14-year veteran of the local police force, the Americans are to blame. He and his colleagues have no badges, no uniforms. The soldiers don't trust them with weapons. In his eyes, his U.S. counterparts have already lost the people's trust.

"We're facing the danger. We're in the front lines. We're taking all the risks, only us," said the 33-year-old officer. "They're arrogant. They treat all the people as if they're criminals."

These are the dog days of summer in Mashtal, and tempers are flaring along a divide as wide as the temperatures are high.
[more]

Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs:
Bring 'Em Home!

"What's going on over there?" asks MSNBC's wide-eyed Alex Witt, of former secretary of defense and resident "expert" Lawrence Korb. "Is this normal?" Although Korb, like virtually all such experts appearing on the television news programs, speaks in support of the war and occupation, he explains that it is understandable that there would be negative reactions to the way the occupation has been conducted so far. It was a mistake, he says, to appoint a military man, Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, as the first administrator of occupied Iraq; that caused us to "lose a month." But never mind those nasty attacks on the troops; the U.S. will occupy Iraq for "at least a decade." "The idea that we will be in just as long as we need to and not a day more," scoffs Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, "we've got to get over that rhetoric. It is rubbish! We're going to be there a long time" (Time Online). That, at least, is their intention.

The logic of those predicting long occupation (including key officials in the administration) seems to be as follows. Since there is so much opposition, it will take years to quell. And since democratic elections would almost certainly produce a Shi'ite theocracy in the south, where 60% of the population live, the expeditious transition to Iraqi rule promised during the build-up to war has been ruled out. In an interview with the Washington Post (June 28), L. Paul Bremer III, the civil administrator of Iraq, said that while there is "no blanket prohibition" against self-rule, and he is not personally "opposed to it," he wants to "do it a way that takes care of our concerns. . . Elections that are held too early can be destructive. It's got to be done very carefully." In other words, he's not totally against democracy (for Arabs), but he needs time to reeducate these people, weaken the hold of Islam on their thinking, inculcate American political values, and assist Ahmad Chalabi and other longtime clients in establishing a support base. Only then can we leave.

[more]

Huge influx of troops sought to secure Iraq

Amid growing indications that some of the attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq are organized and coordinated, the chief civilian administrator and Army officers on the ground would like an increase of as many as 50,000 troops in the theater, according to knowledgeable sources.

A plea by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer for the additional troops was discussed at a national-security council meeting several days ago. The White House has indicated it would be reluctant to agree to such a large increase, the equivalent of more than two divisions, the sources said.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was reviewing the request from Bremer, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

A source outside the administration but familiar with the deliberations said, "The White House is aware that Bremer wants them," he said. "They're not happy about it. They don't want a formal request because then, politically, there's fallout."
[more]

More troops! More troops! Can you say Viet Nam?