Iraq Round-Up!

Posted by Joshua Holland at 10:56 AM on August 3, 2007.

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And onto the round-up …

The big story this week was a whole new wave of spin coming out of DC suggesting that the escalation of troops begun this spring is showing results and the tide is finally turning, the light's showing at end of the tunnel, etc., ad stupidem.

It began with an op-ed by "liberal hawks" Michael O'Hanlon and Ken Pollack, who the media bizarrely embraced as war opponents returned from Iraq who were just so moved by the progress they saw that they just had to reverse course and support Bush the continuing occupation the troops. That, of course is nonsense -- the two have been consistent cheerleaders for the war since the get-go.

But their argument -- "we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms" -- seemed to gain traction. US troop deaths were down, and there was reportedly less fighting in Anbar Province. So what's the problem?

First and foremost, it's the craziest metric ever conceived. Most of the people being killed in Iraq are Iraqis, not Americans. More importantly, the long-term prognosis for the country rests not on military but political progress, and the political situation is worse today than it has ever been (as we'll see shortly).

Second, as I noted last week, July is the hottest month in Iraq, and, not surprisingly, also the month with the lowest troop casualties during each previous year of the occupation. Here are troop deaths this July compared with previous years:

July 2003 - 48
July 2004 - 54
July 2005 - 54
July 2006 - 43
July 2007 - 81

Nevertheless, the narrative was enough to convince not only reliable dullards like NewsWeek's Michael Barrone, it also hoodwinked most of the commercial media.

Of course, all of this is in keeping with the great Imperial tradition of not counting the local wogs as people; if our media didn't do that, they would be telling a different story -- one quite like that told by Agence France Presse:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the country's brutal civil conflict rose by more than a third in July despite a five-month-old surge in US troop levels, government figures showed Wednesday.

At least 1,652 civilians were killed in Iraq in July, 33 percent more than in the previous month, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi health, defence and interior ministries and made available to AFP.

So much for turning the corner.

Speaking of the media, Max Blumenthal looks at the latest right-wing media conspiracy theory here. More on that to follow next week.

Some good news this week: The Iraqi soccer team won the Asian cup, defeating Saudi Arabia, which was cause for much celebration among Iraqis and US hawks, some of whom compared the accomplishment, incomprehensively, to the 1980 US Olympic hockey team that overcame all odds to beat the Soviets.

They probably regret making too much of it after Younis Mahmoud, Captain of the national team, said that, no, he wasn't going to any damned Disneyland:

"I want America to go out," he said. "Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn't invade Iraq and hopefully it will be over soon."

I think he must resent our freedom.

Anyway, the team arrived in Baghdad for its big parade and all that, but, as the AP reported, "most Baghdad residents would be barred from the homecoming celebration because of security."

The team was greeted as heroes in Neighboring Dubai, but that didn't go so well either.

A celebration thrown by the ruler of Dubai for the Iraqi soccer team after its Asian Cup win was marred when Iraq's Saddam Hussein-era national anthem was played, angering many players and prompting some to walk away.

Oops.

Meanwhile, the New York Times does a pretty good job soft-peddling this revelation:

During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq's prime minister could not be trusted.

One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr's militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran. […]

Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq.

Sunni groups. Do they mean the Sunni Oprah Book Club? Because if it were a story about Iran supporting "Shiite groups," I'm sure they'd specify that said support was going to people who are killing Americans. Anyway the headline on this piece was not, "Saudi Intelligence says US propping up (yet another) puppet of Tehran"; it was: "Saudis' Role in Iraq Frustrates U.S. Officials." That's akin to: "Jester's Role in Court Frustrates Naked Emperor."

Speaking of Iraqi politics, the parliament took it's much- demagogued "vacation" this week -- the month between the two legislative sessions called for in the Iraqi constitution. They adjourned without getting any of the things that the pundits here in the US say are crucial to the country's future done.

The problem isn't the break, folks, it's that the legislature is perfectly representative of the country as a whole: hopelessly divided and factionalized, lacking legitimacy beyond that which is acquired by various militias at gunpoint and unable to reconcile very real differences about how Iraq should move forward.

Meanwhile, relations between the US command structure and the government of Nouri al-Maliki appear quite strained. Via the Telegraph:

Iraqi leader tells Bush: Get Gen Petraeus out

Relations between the top United States general in Iraq and Nouri al-Maliki, the country's prime minister, are so bad that the Iraqi leader made a direct appeal for his removal to President George W Bush.

Although the call was rejected, aides to both men admit that Mr Maliki and Gen David Petraeus engage in frequent stand-up shouting matches, differing particularly over the US general's moves to arm Sunni tribesmen to fight al-Qa'eda.

One Iraqi source said Mr Maliki used a video conference with Mr Bush to call for the general's signature strategy to be scrapped. "He told Bush that if Petraeus continues, he would arm Shia militias," said the official. "Bush told Maliki to calm down."

"Calm down, there, Mali -- you're doing a heckuva job!"

Anyway, you can't blame Maliki, leader of a major Shiite party, for being less than thrilled by the US strategy of arming Sunni tribesman.

Speaking of which, nobody really knows who else we may be arming:

The Pentagon "cannot fully account for Iraqi forces' receipt of U.S.-funded military equipment and weapons," the Government Accountability Office reports in the understated conclusion of a new study released Tuesday.

Specifically, the GAO audited data kept by the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq's (MNSTC-I) up until September 2005, and found the US could not account for 190,000 weapons that had been supposedly transferred to Iraqi control by that date.

Oops again.

And speaking of profoundly bone-headed moves, do we really have to be so public about the fact that we're considering the possibility of shipping Iraqi oil to Israel via Jordan? Much like saying that we'll be in Iraq for the next 50 years, it's hard to imagine a better recruitment pitch for militant groups.

Turkey, which currently receives the oil from the Kurdish region being considered for the scheme, is pissed too.

In 2002, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay was fired for predicting that the war in Iraq would cost the US between $100-200 billion. Mitch Daniels, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said those numbers were "very, very high" and predicted that the real costs would be between $50-$60 billion. Rumsfeld agreed, and Daniels wasn't fired (he's the Governor of Indiana today).

How times change…

In a report to lawmakers yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that even under the rosiest scenario -- an immediate and substantial reduction of troops -- American taxpayers will feel the financial consequences of the war for at least a decade.

They say it could top a trillion bucks. Or maybe one and a half trillion if we keep 75,000 troops there through 2013.



I'll confess that I haven't read the CBO report, and I'm not sure to what degree they captured the long-term costs including healthcare for the vets and interest and all that. What I do know is that when Nobel Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz did crunched all those numbers, he found the costs could top two trillion. These numbers are so huge, they're almost impossible for normal people to contemplate.

That's good money being thrown after bad, given the state of the Iraqi government as it continues to unravel.

Last week, it wasn't a tough prediction that the Maliki regime would not meet the demands made by the Iraqi Accordance Front -- they had the temerity to demand that the militias be disarmed, people being detained without charge be charged or released and that the security services respect human rights standards -- and that the largest Sunni bloc would pull out of the governing coalition. Well, Maliki lashed out at the group this week and they did, in fact, pull out as promised. A big deal? Yes -- IraqSlogger has a round-up of reactions from parliamentarians from a number of different parties.

But that's not all. On Thursday a member of the Iraqi National List, a secular party that represents parliament's fourth-largest bloc, said that his group might follow suit. "We have reservations about the government's performance," he said, "and we asked to reform the political process."

Meanwhile, the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi army, General Babikr Zibari, reportedly tried to quit his post this week, but the PM Maliki deccided not to accept his resignation.

And gunmen assassinated Sheikh Fadel al-Aql, an aide of top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Najaf on Thursday. He was the fourth Sistani aide to be assassinated in the past two months.

Speaking of assassins, prosecutors convicted Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins for murder this week -- the first such conviction of a Marine since the Vietnam War. Hutchins led a team of soldiers on a vigilante mission aimed at an Iraqi insurgent who had been arrested by US troops repeatedly but had been sprung each time by Iraqi officials.

The problem was that they couldn't find the guy, so they settled for grabbing his neighbor -- a father of 11 -- who they took to a deserted area where they executed him in cold blood. Hutchins then aleggedly bragged that they had gotten away with murder. A number of the soldiers who were present have been acquitted and Hutchins himself was found not-guilty of the premeditated murder charge that would have guaranteed him a life sentence. The court could find extenuating circumstances -- Iraq is a shitty place to serve, and dangerous! -- and let him off easy.
[UPDATE: he got 15 years.]

Let me wrap up with some quick hits:

The recovery of the swamp-land where Iraq's "marsh Arabs" lived contentedly for generations before Saddam Hussein drained it in the early 1990s is not going well, despite official claims.

A report compiled by the NGO community finds that Iraq faces a massive humanitarian crisis, with 8 million (about a third of the population) in need of emergency aid. Al Jazeera reports that half of the population is living in absolute poverty, and The Observer adds that "the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country" represents "a hidden healthcare and social crisis."

So, yeah, things are going swell.

The New York Times' James Glantz reports: "Iraq's national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars."

Stewart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the projects are a mess because of pervasive corruption, which he described as equivalent to "a second insurgency."

The Washington Post's Walter Pincus looks at the issue of permanent bases.

Some good news: 45 different countries have forgiven $140 billion in Iraqi debt. I should note that some of that has strings attached.

Gordon Brown, the UK's new PM, says British troops will be leaving Iraq regardless of what Uncle Sam does. More on Brown, Iraq and the "special relationship" between the US and UK in our extended coverage.

Speaking of which, and to bring the round-up to a close, here are some of the great stories I ran this week in the War on Iraq special coverage area that didn't end up on the front page:

"Why the Anti-War Movement Doesn't Embrace the Iraqi Resistance: A Response to Cockburn" Veteran peace activist Phyllis Bennis responds to Alexander Cockburn's analysis of the anti-war movement in The Nation.

"Dahr Jamail: Into the Iraqi Diaspora" Dahr Jamail discovers a refugee's life.

"Iraq: Easier to Occupy From the Air?" The Air Force has also been expanding its air bases in Iraq and adding entire squadrons -- is the escalation in air power a sign of defeat on the ground?

"More Bulldog Than Poodle, Gordon Brown Offers a New 'Special Relationship'" The love-ins with Bush are over, and it's not just body language. A deeper strategic shift in tackling terrorism is emerging.

And, last but not least:

"Iraq is a Mass of Contradictions; Oil is at Their Center" Iraq's government is in the eye of a storm of deadlines and benchmarks and pressure from within and abroad. At some level, it's all about the oil.


Of course, you get all that delivered to your inbox each and every week if you sign up for my War on Iraq newsletter. I'm just sayin'.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.