America Out of Iraq by 2011?

This one sounds hard to believe. McClatchy news service reports that the Iraqi and American governments are nearing completion of a status of forces agreement that provides for the withdrawal of all US combat troops by 2011:

“The tactical team is finished and it’s a closed deal, but remember that we’ve been through this before and every time we close a deal it’s reopened,” said a senior [Iraqi] official who’s been participating in the talks.
The official said that the deal, once completed, would be perhaps the most restrictive agreement the United States had with a country where it had troops.

“We’ve seen all the status of forces agreements with other countries,” the official said. “This is the best that the Americans have conceded.”

The official asked not to be identified because the deal is still being negotiated.

Another official, Ali al Adeeb, a senior member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party, said he’d been briefed on the negotiations and he confirmed the details.

The latest deal is said to also provide for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraqi cities by next July. It sounds remarkably similar to the British withdrawal of its forces from Basra last year in preparation of their departure from Iraq.

What remains to be seen is whether the United States actually abandons its plans to nearly double the number of American military bases in Iraq from the existing 32 to a total of 60. The Pentagon has long identified a strategic need for a major, permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region from which it can dominate the Middle East oil fields. Leaving Iraq would also relieve Iran of the pressures of strong American forces in Iraq on one border and Afghanistan on the other side. If the US proceeds with the expansion of its Iraqi bases it will be pretty obvious that it has no real intention of leaving anytime soon and certainly not by 2011.

To encourage al Maliki to cement a withdrawal deal, Muqtada al Sadr is now offering to disband his Mahdi Army militia once a fixed withdrawal date is set. There could also be an enormous amount of intrigue lurking behind that promise.

 

Iraq Wants American Pullout Timetable

Barack says “soon,” McSame says “sometime, maybe” but that’s not good enough for the Iraqi government.

Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki wants a fixed date for the withdrawal of American forces and he wants it enshrined in the “status of forces” agreement now being negotiated between Baghdad and Washington. From the Associated Press:

“Maliki said in a meeting with Arab diplomats in Abu Dhabi that his country also has proposed a short-term interim memorandum of agreement rather than the more formal status of forces agreement the two sides have been negotiating.
The memorandum “now on the table” includes a formula for the withdrawal of US troops, he said.

“The goal is to end the presence [of foreign troops],” Maliki said.”

But, but, but… what about those 58-military bases the Pentagon is planning to operate in Iraq (30-already exist, 28-new installations to be built), and that Vatican-sized US embassy? And what about all that oil? Yeah, that’s right, the oil.

McCain still can’t bring himself to say the “w” word – withdrawal. All his spokesman offered up was that the senator “has always said that conditions on the ground – including the security threats posed by extremists and terrorists, and the ability of Iraqi forces to meet those threats – would be key determinants in US force levels.” Read between the lines and you get “we’re not going anywhere.”

Meanwhile Afghanisnam is quickly turning into a regional conflict. Kabul is blaming yesterday’s suicide bombing of the Indian embassy as the work of Pakistan’s wily intelligence agency, the ISI. India has long worked in Afghanistan, not so much out of concern for the Afghans, but to get at Pakistan. There’s nothing India would like better than a Kabul government truly at odds with Islamabad. There’s been no proof yet that the Pakistanis were actually behind the embassy attack but it wouldn’t be surprising either.

 

Why Not Make It an Even 60?

Iraqi legislators are falling all over each other in the race to leak details of the “status of forces” agreement the US is trying to negotiate with the Maliki government.

The latest pearl is that the Pentagon wants to maintain 58-permanent bases in Iraq. Now, what does that mean? Where’s the perspective? Here’s an idea. Up till now, US forces have operated out of 30-bases. 58, of course, would be just shy of double that.

The next question is why? Why would Washington want to double its military installations in another country especially when it’s boasting how everything is settling down there. Why would it be asking for absolute control of Iraqi airspace up to 30,000 feet? Why negotiate for immunity for American military personnel and private contractors? Must be some explanation, right? There is but don’t hold your breath waiting for the Americans to admit it.

State Department spokesmen have hastened to tell reporters from America’s largest embassy on the planet that the US has no plans for a permanent occupation of Iraq. Just hearing that in a diplomatic complex bigger than the entire Vatican must be surreal.

This capitulation of sovereignty, if the Maliki government accepts it, will undermine all the progress that’s been made in Iraq. It will set Sunni against Shiite all over again. It will empower the nationalists like Muqtada al Sadr anhd weaken the already feeble Baghdad government. It will generate a pushback by Iran which might be enough to make Washington pull the trigger.

 

The Subjugation of Iraq

George w. Bush may have just handed victory to Barack Obama and a crushing defeat to John McCain.

The British newspaper The Independent reports it has obtained leaked details of the impending security agreement soon to be inked by the Maliki government in Baghdad:

“A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military “surge” began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. “It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty,” said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.

The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: “This is just a tactical subterfuge.” Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its “war on terror” in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.

Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called “strategic alliance” without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create “a permanent occupation”. He added: “The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”

The newspaper reports that al-Maliki also doesn’t like the agreement but feels he must sign it because his government cannot survive without American support.

John McCain’s position that the war in Iraq needs to continue is based on his claim that the surge is working, that violence is waning in Iraq and al-Qaeda is on the run. This “status of forces” treaty, due to be inked next month, is bound to spark unrest – the sort of violence McCain claims is dying out. It will vindicate al Sadr’s claim that Iraq is facing permanent occupation and it will cast Maliki’s government as eerily similar to Petain’s Vichy rule under Nazi occupation.

What Bush doesn’t appear to have considered is how his successor is to come up with the forces necessary to keep this farce going. With some poor saps already on their fourth and fifth combat tours in the War Without End on Terror, a ground force that’s nearly broken, a recruiting machine that is so desperate it’s scraping the barrel and still coming up short, and a population at home simply fed up with Iraq – the only way they’re going to be able to staff those 50-permanent bases is with fresh blood and that, in turn, means bringing back the draft.

Another little point. Who’s going to pick up the tab for this infinite adventure? I don’t think American voters, when presented with the cost they’ve already incurred in the form of government borrowing and the additional fortune it would cost to maintain the American legions in Mesopotamia, will accept that when they go to the polls in November.

Once this comes out in the open it can only reinforce al Sadr’s demand for a referendum to let the Iraqi people decide whether American troops should go or stay.

I think this plan is an enormous blunder, even by the standards of the man whose entire administration has been a succession of blunders.

 

Did Cheney Authorize Maliki’s Basra Blunder?

The Axis of Weasels

When Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Baghdad two weeks ago, I was left wondering what that was all about. When Cheney leaves his crypt in Washington it’s not to say hi, it’s to get things done.

Cheney hits Baghdad. A week later Maliki tries to hit Basra. Maybe you believe in coincidences but this one’s a real stretch. Imagine Maliki has Cheney sitting in his office and simply omits to tell him he’s planning on attacking Sadr’s militia next week. What are the chances?

Let’s put things in perspective. Israel got the White House’s blessings before it tried to crush Hezbollah. Swing and a miss. Fatah had the Bush regime’s backing to launch civil war against Hamas. Strike two. And then Cheney flies into Baghdad just days before Maliki blunders into Basra? The Bush regime has quite an appetite for fomenting civil wars in the Middle East and the Iraq fiasco certainly fits the pattern. Strike three, you’re out!

The Bush frathouse has to be the most militarily incompetent administration in American history. There’s never been a bigger gang of screwups. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Hadley, Feith, Perle, Bolten, Gonzales – a cabal of utterly boneheaded mutts. It’s no accident that Afghanistan is in the mess it’s in today. The Iraq debacle was no accident. It took very rarely-witnessed levels of incompetence to botch these adventures so totally and behind each and every one has been the face of that bald bastard.

The latest news has it that Maliki, whose administration initially welcomed Sadr’s truce offer, has instead decided to keep going, even reinforcing the existing 30,000-strong Iraqi army force with another 6,000 soldiers. It sounds like Maliki is being pushed to try again – or else.

 

Iraq’s "Tet" Moment?

The Pentagon and the White House are working so furiously to conceal what actually happened in Basra and Baghdad that it’s entirely conceivable that last week witnessed Iraq’s “Tet” moment, that seminal event that marked the end of Washington’s grand adventure in Mesopotamia.

Last week George w. Bush was positively giddy, calling the Iraqi army’s assault on Basra a “defining moment.” And it seems it was, only just not at all the sort Bush had in mind. News organizations such as Inter Press Service are beginning to winkle out what actually happened:

“Mehdi army militias controlled all Shia and mixed parts of Baghdad in no time,” a Baghdad police colonel, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “Iraqi army and police forces as well as Badr and Dawa militias suddenly disappeared from the streets, leaving their armoured vehicles for Mehdi militiamen to drive around in joyful convoys that toured many parts of Baghdad before taking them to their stronghold of Sadr City in the east of Baghdad.”

The police colonel was speaking of the recent clashes between members of the Shia Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, the largest militia in the country, and members of the Iraqi government forces, that are widely known to comprise members of a rival Shia militia, the Badr Organisation.

“I wonder what lies General David Petraeus (the U.S. forces commander in Iraq) will fabricate this time,” Malek Shakir, a journalist in Baghdad told IPS. “The 25th March events revealed the true failure of the U.S. occupation project in Iraq. More complications are expected in the coming days.”

“This failure takes Iraq to point zero and even worse,” Brigadier-General Kathum Alwan of the Iraqi army told IPS in Baghdad. “We must admit that the formation of our forces was wrong, as we saw how our officers deserted their posts, leaving their vehicles for militias.”

Alwan added, “Not a single unit of our army and police stood for their duty in Baghdad, leaving us wondering what to do. Most of the officers who left their posts were members of Badr brigades and the Dawa Party, who should have been most faithful to Maliki’s government.”

The Green Zone of Baghdad where the U.S. embassy and the Iraqi government and parliament buildings are located, was hit by missiles. General Petraeus appeared at a press conference to accuse Iran of being behind the shelling of the zone that is supposed to be the safest area in Iraq. At least one U.S. citizen was killed in the attacks, and two others were injured.

“The Green Zone looked deserted as most U.S. and Iraqi personnel were ordered to take shelter deep underground,” an engineer who works for a foreign company in the zone told IPS. “It seemed that this area too was under curfew. No place in Iraq is safe any more.”

Further complicating matters for the occupiers of Iraq, the U.S.-backed Awakening groups, largely comprised of former resistance fighters, are now going on strike to demand overdue payment from the U.S. military.”

Speaking of “Awakening” groups, a term so far used to describe Sunni resistance fighters who have been given arms and money to turn (for the moment) on al-Qaeda forces, American ambassador Ryan Crocker volunteered this insight:

“We strongly encouraged him to use his most substantial weapon, which is money, to announce major jobs programs, Basra cleanup, whatnot,” Mr. Crocker said. “And to do what he decided to do on his own: pay tribal figures to effectively finance an awakening for Basra.”

So, far from promoting peace between the Shia militias, the US endorses setting up an Awakening group in Basra to fight Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Well, if the US wants a civil war among the Shiites, it’s got it. Now it’ll have to live with the result. How’s that “surge” going, anyway?

 

Lyin’ Their Asses Off Again

Here’s the premise we’re being asked to swallow: Knowing that General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were packing their bags to head to Washington for a congressional grilling, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki decided to send 30,000 Iraqi troops to Basra to destroy Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia without telling them a word about it, leaving the Americans totally in the dark until just two days before it began.

BULLSHIT!

You have to be extraordinarily stupid to believe that, even for a minute, and yet now that the biggest Iraqi military action since 2003 has turned into a total, instant shambles, that’s the line that Petraeus and Crocker are trying to feed congress.

Okay, how do I know that’s a lie? Well, that’s easy. It’s a little something called “logistics” and it’s the essential tedium of any military action. You have to assemble a lot of stuff – food, weapons, toilet paper, medical supplies and soldiers and get them all organized in just the right order – and then you have to assemble in marshalling points the vehicles you’ll need to move all those soldiers and all those supplies. 30,000 soldiers is three divisions. It takes a long time to assemble that sort of force and there’s no way in hell the Americans wouldn’t have been aware of it from the outset. “Gee Sayeed, you’ve got 5,000 trucks there and all those guys. Going to the beach?”

The United States has about 160,000 soldiers in Iraq. Does anybody not in a coma believe that Maliki could pull this off under their noses? Maliki is a serial incompetent and yet he’s going to blindside the Americans with an adventure of this magnitude. Sure.

Former Nixon speechwriter and NYT columnist William Safire was on the Daily Show last night flogging the latest edition of his political dictionary. He mentioned a line Kennedy used after the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco: “Victory has a thousand fathers, Defeat is an orphan.” Was that ever timely!

There’s no way top American officials, diplomatic and military, didn’t know about this. There’s no way they weren’t involved in the planning for this. There’s no way they weren’t instrumental in the execution of this fiasco and there’s no way the failure of this stunt doesn’t lie every bit as much at their feet as at Maliki’s.

Of course the stakes are insanely high on this one. If Petraeus is tarred with the failure that could further undermine confidence in the “surge.” It will show that he’s accomplished very little and, now, has perhaps even made things irreparably worse. And, he’ll have done it just eight months in advance of a presidential election in which the Iraq issue is again moving its way toward the top of the pile.

I don’t think these lies will hold up. They’re too transparent and facts are already coming out that dispel them. I think the best they can hope for is to ride out the controversy and pray it doesn’t get traction with the American voters. It’s a big risk but what other choice do they have?

 

Blowback of the Battle of Basra

It didn’t even seem like much of a battle but the conflict last week between the Iraqi Army and Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army may have just reshaped Iraq and Washington’s plans for the future of that country.

Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki gambled his army could take out Sadr’s Mahdi Army and thereby crush Sadr’s movement and popularity before the October elections. It was Maliki of the Dawa party joining forces with the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq and its Badr Corps militia to bring down their Shiite rival, Muqtada and the Sadrists.

Under the guise of ridding Basra of bandits, Maliki mustered a force of 30,000 and set off to put an end to the Sadr movement. A lot of observers believe this had to have been done only with American approval and input. They don’t believe the timid Maliki would have moved without Washington’s okay.

Bush was almost giddy at the outset. He reminded me of the way he acted when Israel sought to crush Hezbollah in Lebanon. Utterly delighted. He even threw American airpower into the mix in support of the Iraqi army. Then, when by day three it became obvious that Sadr and his Mahdi Army were not just holding their own but actually giving the Iraqi forces a mauling, Bush took his leave and began trying to put as much distance as possible between the White House and Maliki. That, too, is a dance Bush has done before.

Why the move on Muqtada? Because he’s widely expected to win Basra in the upcoming elections and, while Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist, he’s committed to expelling what his people call “the occupier.” Basra also happens to be of critical importance to Washington. It’s the key to the enormous oil wealth of southern Iraq, wealth Muqtada al Sadr doesn’t want to see fall into foreign (American) hands. That’s been the plan ever since Paul Bremer wrote Iraq’s new oil law. Basra, located on the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway, is also the gateway for Iraqi oil destined for the Persian Gulf.

Last week’s scrap may turn into a blunder of enormous proportions for Baghdad and Washington. When it was over everybody had a new hand of cards and, like it or not, it’s now Sadr who’s holding aces.

I’ll bet right now Washington is busy looking around for someone to replace al Maliki in time to do something about Sadr before the October elections. When you start tossing about names, why does Petraeus keep coming to the top?

 

Sadr – 1, Maliki – 0

Muqtada al Sadr got a step closer to taking power in Iraq this past week.

Nouri al-Maliki gambled everything, including his own reputation, in personally leading the Iraq army’s assault to clear Basra, promising a “decisive and final battle,” only to see his numerical and firepower superiority go up in smoke as Iraqi soldiers were repeatedly mauled and ground down by Sadr’s irregulars, the Mahdi Army.

The balance of power has shifted. A number of factors have come into play. One is that Sadr’s forces have shown they can and will resist the government forces, even in the face of American air support. The Mahdi Army has shown that Sadr cannot be eliminated militarily. Baghdad is going to have to accommodate him. The fighting showed that the success of the “surge” was more Sadr’s doing than that of Bush or Petraeus. Maliki, already seen as politically weak, has now shown himself as militarily weak also.

This wasn’t just between rival Shia factions. The Sunni were watching closely, so were the Kurds. Now they’ve seen just what they can expect to be up against if they get into a shooting match with Baghdad and, if anything, they’re bound to be (to use Bush’s favourite word) “emboldened.” Maliki may have just scuppered any hopes Maliki and Bush had of meaningful compromises to forge a united Iraq.

So Maliki lost this opening game but there are several more to be played. Iraq has provincial elections coming up in October and then there’s the World Series in Washington in November. Every group in Iraq must be planning how they’ll be spending the long, hot summer that’s just around the corner.

Sadr acted brilliantly in calling off his militias when he did. They had already achieved their political objectives and engaging in a war of attritition at this point could have left the Mahdi Army too weak to exploit whatever opportunities may come along over the next six months.

What must be running through Maliki’s mind? Possibly visions of the end.