Iraq Round-Up!

Posted by Joshua Holland at 2:09 PM on July 12, 2007.

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In Washington this week, there was much talk of "redeployment" and "redefining" the Iraq "mission," as lawmakers debated the fine print on a whopping $650 billion defense bill for 2008 that will include plenty of money for the occupation to go on. The Congressional Research Service reports that war costs now exceed $12 billion per month, up more than a third from previous estimates.

Intelligence officials testified before Congress this week that the situation had shown "no improvement" and an interim progress report mandated by Congress found that none of the White House's "benchmarks" for progress in matters political, economic, or military have been met. That hasn't stopped the White House from spinning its own report; none of the goals had been met, they acknowledge, but they also touted at least some "progress" in 8 out of 18 issue-areas.

More prominent Republicans began making noises about jumping from the SS Bush as Olympia Snowe (ME) joined Richard Lugar (In), Pete Domenici (NM) and George Voinovich (OH) in calling, at least in theory, for at least a troop "draw-down." It's not much, but it is enough to make the White House jumpy about losing support from within their own party. Senior administration officials, including Condi Rice, reportedly shuttled back and forth to Capitol Hill to shore up support among wavering Republicans.

Consistent with the pattern, it seems to have worked; Lugar, Voinovich and Domenici all supported a filibuster on Tuesday that blocked Virginia Democrat Jim Webb's proposal to guarantee U.S. troops get adequate time at home between deployments.

Meanwhile, it's getting tough to sort out the various proposals for "withdrawal" that the Dems are falling all over themselves trying to get into the spotlight. Spencer Ackerman at TalkingPointsMemo runs down the competing proposals. None of them have enough votes to pass. The argument is that there is political rather than legislative value in bringing the measures before Congress, and that these votes are part of a larger strategy to unify Dems from across the party's ideological spectrum while splitting off Republican legislators and isolating the White House. Color us unconvinced.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, the government of Nouri al-Maliki, widely seen as incompetent and illegitimate, continues to teeter on the brink of collapse. CBS reported this week that the Iraq Project, a bloc of legislators from all of Iraq's major ethno-sectarian groups who have come together to oppose outside interference by the U.S. and Iran, is calling for a no-confidence vote. According to the report, it is likely to fall short of the votes needed to bring down the regime, but our sources aren't so sure. The Iraq Project is the name for the group of nationalists that we wrote about here and here. Although they're fighting for national reconciliation, an end to the sectarian violence, routing out any "foreign fighters" in the country and remaining independent of Tehran, the coalition has opposed them and will no doubt continue to do so.

The security situation continues to deteriorate. The Washington Post reported that 453 unidentified corpses, "some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad" in June, and noted that the number represented a 41 percent increase from January's total. Missiles and Mortars fell in Baghdad's heavily-armed Green Zone this week, as Turkomen leaders in the town of Armili, north of Baghdad, suggested that their people arm themselves because the government is incapable of providing security.

According to Iraqi officials, Turkey has amassed tens of thousands of troops on Iraq's northern border and has threatened to intervene in the Kurdish Autonomous Region if Kurdish separatist groups continue to launch cross-border raids. The Turkish Government has complained to U.S. officials about American weapons ending up in the hands of Kurdish terror/ resistance groups.

On the media front, don't miss New York Times' Ombudsman Clark Hoyt's excellent take-down of the Times for uncritically repeating the administration's claims that much of the violence in Iraq is caused by al Qaeda.

Lastly, it looks like there are some problems with that huge mega-embassy being built in Baghdad. The Washington Post reported that "diplomats in Iraq, increasingly fearful over their personal safety after recent mortar attacks inside the Green Zone, are pointing to new delays and mistakes in the U.S. Embassy construction project in Baghdad as signs that their vulnerability could grow in the months ahead." The project is marred by the same problems that have plagued much of Iraq's reconstruction. A cable sent by the embassy's staff cited "Poor quality construction …[and] life safety issues" which "left [the embassy] with no recourse but to shut the camp down, in spite of the blistering heat in Baghdad."

Tagged as: iraq

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.