29 November 2006

The numbers prove it -- Iraq's a civil war

What else would you call a conflict in which Iraqis are killing more than 3,000 of their own per month?

By Barry Lando
Los Angeles Times, 29 November 2006

SO IS IT A CIVIL WAR in Iraq or isn't it? By the straightforward definition — a war fought between factions or regions within a single nation — the answer seems clearly to be yes. That's why NBC and the Los Angeles Times recently decided to use the phrase to describe the ongoing sectarian conflict. It's a "fairly simple call," said the foreign editor of The Times.

But not everybody agrees. Official news releases, media reports, politicians and generals still talk of Iraq "on the brink" or "teetering on the edge." Full-scale civil war, according to these accounts, is "threatening" or "looming" or "menacing." It's a question of definitions, said a Pentagon reporter recently. According to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan: "We are almost there."

I would argue, however, that by one very basic measure — the number of Iraqis killing each other — we've been there for a while, and that there's no more defining left to be done. Simply compare the grisly statistics in Iraq with figures from other conflicts that already have been certified as genuine, full-scale civil wars. Then try to argue that this isn't one. It's a difficult case to make.

Of course, there's no way one can exactly measure one "civil war" against another. Each has unique ethnic, religious and political passions fueling the particular savagery. Nor is it easy to obtain accurate casualty figures, much less comparable ones, across the years and around the world.

A study published in the Lancet last month, for example, concluded that about 650,000 Iraqis had died by violence since March 2003. But that report has been widely criticized, so let's take instead the report just issued by the United Nations, which said that 3,709 Iraqis were killed in October.

Those figures are based on statistics from the Baghdad morgue and hospitals and other morgues across the country, and overwhelmingly reflect killings carried out by Iraqis against Iraqis. Many observers believe that the actual tolls are much higher because the bodies of many of those killed never make it to hospitals or morgues, but the U.N. figure (the fourth straight month in which the number is more than 3,000) may be the best estimate we can get.

Now take the American Civil War, the tragic internecine conflict that devastated the U.S. from 1861 to 1865. Estimates of the number of soldiers and civilians who died vary widely, but the figure most often cited (by historian James M. McPherson, among others) is about 618,000 — a toll that exceeds the number of Americans killed in all its other wars, from the Revolutionary War through Vietnam.

In fact, though, sickness, disease and other non-battlefield factors caused 414,000 of those deaths. The number of Americans actually killed by other Americans was 204,000. Because the war went on for 48 months, that works out to 4,250 killings a month — not so many more than are dying in Iraq today.

What's more, Iraq's population today is about 25 million, or about 80% of the U.S. population in 1860. So, on a per capita basis, the monthly rate of killing during the U.S. Civil War would be the equivalent of 3,400 Iraqis being slaughtered each month — also well under the 3,709 killings that Iraq experienced in October. Admittedly, Iraqis haven't been murdering each other at American Civil War rates since the war began, but they have been doing so at least since the summer, and the deadly tempo keeps increasing. November's fatalities threaten to be even higher.

Iraq's monthly body count also has surpassed the awful statistics from the civil war that ravaged Lebanon from 1975 to 1990. That war resulted in about 100,000 deaths, according to Dilip Hiro in his "Lebanon — Fire and Embers: A History of the Lebanese Civil War." On a per capita basis, the equivalent number for Lebanon would be 3,330 a month, also well under Iraq's current rate.

Certainly Iraq's killing rate is nothing like the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when up to 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in three months of genocide. Nor does it compare with the ghastly violence that convulsed the Democratic Republic of Congo beginning in 1998, in which an estimated 3.8 million people died.

The Spanish Civil War (from July 1936 to April 1939) also has a well-deserved reputation for vicious bloodletting. Estimates of the number of deaths from all causes range widely. But if we take the figure of 250,000 used by the BBC, the number of people who died works out to about 7,575 a month — roughly twice that of Iraq today.

But, at the rate things are spiraling out of control in Iraq, those differences could be erased.

BARRY LANDO, a former producer for CBS' "60 Minutes," is the author of the forthcoming book "Web of Deceit" about the role of the West in Iraq.

-----------------------------
Citation: Barry Lando. "The numbers prove it -- Iraq's a civil war," Los Angeles Times, 29 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-lando29nov29,0,4801406.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
-----------------------------

28 November 2006

NATO leaders report progress on Afghanistan troops

By Paul Taylor and Mark John
Reuters, 28 November 2006

RIGA (Reuters) - NATO leaders reported progress on Tuesday in freeing up more troops to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, signaling that some nations had agreed to drop limits on their forces just before an alliance summit.

President Bush appealed to allies to provide more soldiers with fewer national restrictions for the most dangerous ground mission in NATO's 57-year history.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has not set foot in the Baltic states since they won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, threatened to steal the show with a plan to drop in to Riga on Wednesday after the summit to celebrate French
President Jacques Chirac's 74th birthday, officials said.

NATO's top military commander said he had received word that some nations whom he would not name were willing to allow their units in Afghanistan to be used more flexibly in moves equivalent to fielding an extra 2,000 troops.

The most urgent needs are in southern Afghanistan, the main battleground with resurgent Taliban fighters, where Canadian, British and Dutch soldiers have suffered heavy casualties.

"To succeed in Afghanistan, NATO allies must provide the forces NATO military commanders require," Bush said.

"Member nations must accept difficult assignments if we expect to be successful," he said, taking aim at so-called national caveats restricting where, when and how troops operate.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said it was unacceptable that allied forces in south Afghanistan were 20 percent below the required strength.

"Afghanistan is mission possible," he said, urging allies to deliver the resources to complete the job and pointing to progress in Afghan public health, education and economic growth.

A NATO spokesman said the secretary-general would ask all leaders to confirm they would come to the aid of any ally in "emergency situations" when NATO soldiers' lives were at risk -- a time-honored NATO principle.

EXIT STRATEGY

A suicide bomber killed two Canadian soldiers on Monday in the latest attack on an alliance convoy in southern Afghanistan, prompting Canada's foreign minister to warn public support could turn against the mission if allies did not help.

Asked what progress NATO was making in overcoming caveats, Supreme Allied Commander General James Jones told a news conference: "We have about 10 to 15 percent positive trend. That translates to about 2,000 more troops."

Soldiers would be freed up elsewhere in the 32,000-strong peacekeeping force to be deployed when needed, Jones indicated.

Asked if the nations involved were France, Spain and Italy, he said in French: "On verra (We shall see)."

Speaking before leaving for Riga, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Germany's N24 television she would do everything in her power to help ensure Afghanistan is a success for NATO.

"In emergencies we can help out in the south. But our place is in the north, where 40 percent of Afghanistan's population live. And it would be wrong to neglect the north now," she said.

De Hoop Scheffer gave a glimpse of NATO's exit strategy in an apparent effort to reassure nervous Europeans they do not face an open-ended commitment in a country where guerrilla warfare defeated the Soviet army in the 1980s.

"I would hope that by 2008, we will have made considerable progress -- with ... effective and trusted Afghan security forces gradually taking control," he said. But he said any talk of withdrawals at present in Afghanistan was premature.

Bush, weakened by election reverses at home, rejected talk that
Iraq has plunged into civil war and vowed not to withdraw his troops until the completion of their mission. NATO was nearly torn apart in 2003 when France and Germany led opposition to Washington's drive to overthrow
Saddam Hussein.

He also restated his belief that democracy would triumph in the Middle East despite recent setbacks and reaffirmed his support for further enlargement into the former Soviet Union, backing Ukraine and Georgia as future members.

Russia, which objects to those plans, was not invited to the Riga summit, which Bush called "the first time our alliance has met in one of the captive nations annexed by the Soviet Union."

But Putin found a way to haunt the summit by suggesting dinner on Wednesday with Chirac and Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a tough critic of the Kremlin. French officials said the arrangement was not yet confirmed.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Tallinn and Louis Charbonneau in Berlin)

---------------------
Citation: Paul Taylor and Mark John, "NATO leaders report progress on Afghanistan troops," Reuters, 28 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061128/ts_nm/nato_summit_dc_5
---------------------

Iraqi army not ready to defend Fallujah

By Will Weissert
The Associated Press, 27 November 2006

FALLUJAH, Iraq - It's been two years since U.S. forces cleared out this dangerous western city, the bloodiest urban combat of the Iraq war. But Iraqi soldiers still aren't ready to stop Fallujah from becoming an insurgent stronghold again.

U.S. teams say training efforts have been undermined by corruption, a dearth of basic equipment and Iraqi soldiers' mistrust of those from different Muslim backgrounds and lack of faith in the government.

Iraqi commanders acknowledge they can't handle a city as large and volatile as Fallujah without American support — especially with the country teetering on the edge of civil war between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority.

"It's something we keep in mind, that one day coalition forces are going to leave. But it can't be now," said 1st Lt. Hamazah Adman, head of intelligence for the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division.

"We can say that two years may be enough," he said.

There are more than 400 U.S. adviser teams in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has said he recommends expanding those teams as America looks for a new direction in the war.

Not waiting for Washington, Marine Col. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commander of Regimental Combat Team 5 in Anbar province, began moving troops from combat to adviser teams in January. That increased the average size of the training teams in the area from about 10 to between 15 and 20 Marines.

Fallujah, a Sunni city of 300,000, lay in ruins after fighting in November 2004. Now the lights and water are back on and many residents who fled have returned. The Iraqi army now patrols more than 60 percent of the city, helping to battle insurgents who have killed scores of Marines with roadside bombs, ambushes and sniper fire.

During a recent late-night operation, Marine helicopters and Humvees cordoned off the southern district of Nazaal and two U.S. companies went house-to-house, hunting for guns, explosives and insurgents. An Iraqi company backed by three American advisers conducted its own search.

"They are our people and they are just doing their duty," said Abed El-Rahem, who sat in his socks on a couch while soldiers traipsed through his home, tracking mud on the fine carpets.

Except for one red-faced moment when his soldiers tried to search the same house twice, the operation went smoothly, though the Iraqi army recovered just one rifle in four hours of looking.

"Things are so violent that the people can't come to us for help, so we come to them," said Col. Abd al-Majeed Nasser, who led the raid.

Like many U.S. advisers in Iraq, Marines from the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion's Military Transition team live with the Iraqi army, sharing separate ends of a heavily fortified former health club.

But the Americans complain that much of their time is spent ensuring Iraqi soldiers are paid and that they receive basic equipment like flashlights and gloves. Higher-ups pocket supplies meant for troops, and many soldiers sell uniforms and boots while on leave, returning to demand new ones.

"Most of the time we can't advise. We are too busy running around protecting ourselves from attack or just making sure the army has the basics," said Sgt. Thomas J. Ciccarelli, 37, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

The Iraqis don't have enough soldiers to patrol Fallujah. Officially, the 2nd Brigade is more than 700 men short, but the real number is probably far higher because of desertions and "ghost" soldiers who exist only on paper. Ciccarelli's transition team is supposed to be advising 465 soldiers, but actually interacts with about 300.

Lt. Col. James Teeples, a senior adviser to U.S. military training teams in Fallujah, said many problems stem from corruption at the Iraqi Defense Ministry. While the average soldier makes less than $700 monthly, officials pay bribes of $15,000 to become brigade commanders, anxious to pocket kickbacks from the lower ranks.

"A good thing to keep in the back of your mind, kind of a realistic expectation, is that none of these guys are 100 percent clean," Teeples said.

He said many Iraqi soldiers try to do their jobs honestly, but supplement their incomes by stealing supplies like ammunition and selling them on the street.

Unlike Baghdad and other parts of Iraq torn by sectarian violence, the main battle in Anbar is between U.S. forces and largely Sunni insurgents.

Teeples said there are close links between many top Iraqi army officials and Shiite militias. Soldiers in the mostly Shiite army also have reached out to militias for protection, fearing civil war if American forces begin withdrawing, he said.

"They watch the news on U.S. satellite and they realize that everybody back home is talking about a drawing down of U.S. forces and they start looking at their future and wonder what's going to happen to their family once U.S. forces leave," Teeples said. "So you get a lot of them who, when they're home on leave, they start talking to militias who they think can protect them."

Lt. Javier Torres, a 31-year-old Marine, Brooklyn native and member of the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion's Transition Team, said advisers are careful not to teach Iraqi soldiers too much.

"If we train them to be snipers it could be that one day soon they are firing at us," he said. "With everything we teach them, we have to be aware that it could eventually become a threat."

Shiite soldiers insist they are sensitive to all civilians — even in Fallujah where most residents are Sunni. But there was some visible tension during the night raid when an Iraqi captain told a man who had fled Baghdad for fear of Shiite militias that it would never be safe to return.

Ahmed Sallah, 28, shot back: "I should be able to live anywhere."

Nasser, the Iraqi colonel, said educated Iraqis understand that Shiites and Sunnis do not pose a threat to one another, but that few Iraqis finish high school.

"The government is incapable of controlling the country. The militias are more powerful," he said. "Many believe that the leaders were placed there by the U.S. and not elected by the people so they don't trust them."

If U.S. forces leave, Nasser said, "the suffering of many people will get worse."

"The Iraqi army can't provide air supports, the Iraqi army can't disarm roadside bombs. We have no tanks," he said. "The Americans should provide us with those assets before they go."

--------------------------
Citation: Will Weissert. "Iraqi army not ready to defend Fallujah," The Associated Press, 27 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_training_the_army
--------------------------

Iraq parliament bars media as tension mounts

By Alastair Macdonald
Reuters, 27 November 2006

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament will bar the media from future sessions and began on Monday by refusing access to reporters and then cutting off television coverage as a debate on mounting sectarian violence became heated.

Spokesmen for the government and parliament said it was part of efforts, newly agreed by Iraq's National Security Council, to stop political leaders contradicting each other in public and prevent media coverage that was deemed to inflame conflicts.

"If there is any tension in the state, then the media should be kept out because it may increase tension," speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani told lawmakers in a televised session after dozens of journalists were barred from the building by security guards.

When one lawmaker rose to object, Mashhadani, from the Sunni minority, ordered the cameras turned off, effectively shutting off public access to a legislature whose election was held up by the United States as a beacon for democracy in the Middle East.

No transcript is published and journalists and members of the public have always been barred from the chamber itself.

After reporters were left standing outside the Saddam Hussein-era convention centre in Baghdad's Green Zone which houses parliament, Mohammed Abu Bakr, a parliament spokesman, told Reuters that he could not say when they could return.

An official in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's media office said: "This is one of the decisions of the National Security Council to make sure people speak with one voice to the media."

He declined to say whether further measures were planned to prevent the media reporting on political disagreements.

Security Council meetings in recent days have focused on how to stop Thursday's killing of over 200 people in the Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City triggering all-out civil war.

President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, blamed the media on Friday for inciting violence -- apparently referring to conflicting accounts from Iraqi officials of apparent reprisal attacks by gunmen on a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad that day.

CONTRADICTORY ACCOUNTS

It was not the first time this month that officials flatly contradicted each other -- often, though not exclusively, along sectarian lines -- and have then accused the media of distorting accounts of kidnaps and killings when quoting official sources.

The Iraqi Journalists Union declined comment on the issue -- a senior union official indicated he was afraid to speak out. Dozens of journalists have been killed since the U.S. invasion of 2003, with the number of killings rising sharply of late.

The government has also not hesitated to censure media organisations. It ordered two Sunni-run television channels off the air for several days this month, apparently over their coverage of the death sentence passed on Saddam.

Al Jazeera has been banned from Iraq for the past two years. The Baghdad bureau of its rival pan-Arab channel Al Arabiya was shut down for a month in September because of its coverage.

Politicians from the Shi'ite majority have accused channels run from Sunni-ruled Arab states of being biased against them.

In a "four-point plan" produced by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki last month to improve security in Baghdad, point No. 3 was to increase "supervision" of the media. Little evidence of the implementation of the plan has yet been seen.

-------------------------
Citation: Alastair Macdonald. "Iraq parliament bars media as tension mounts," Reuters, 27 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC738897.htm
-------------------------

Rising violence swells ranks of Iraq's militias

Men with no previous affiliation are taking up arms, citing distrust of the security forces for the rush to self-defense.

By Solomon Moore
Los Angeles Times, 28 November 2006

BAGHDAD — Retaliatory attacks sparked by last week's massive bomb assault on a Shiite neighborhood here are driving more Iraqis into the ranks of sectarian militias amid rising distrust of government security forces, newly recruited gunmen and residents said Monday.

Besieged Iraqis, many with no previous affiliation with established militias, are taking up arms, barricading their communities and joining new Shiite Muslim militia cells or increasingly militant Sunni Arab neighborhood-watch groups.

"We have zero trust in the Iraqi army and minus-zero trust in the police," said Ahmed Suheil Juburi, 33, a Sunni Arab who has thrown in his lot with a group of former military officers in Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime patrolling the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora.

Thousands of unsanctioned fighters have been on high alert since the car bombings Thursday in Sadr City, a poor Baghdad neighborhood that is home to the Al Mahdi militia, a Shiite force loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr.

Since the attack, which killed at least 215 people, Sadr's fighters have struck back at Sunni neighborhoods with mortar shells, rockets and machine-gun raids from fast-moving SUVs. Sunni Arab fighters have retaliated in kind.

The bombings and subsequent attacks have killed 524 people, including 181 whose bodies were left in Baghdad's streets, and injured 653 since Thursday, according to government tallies obtained by The Times.

The mounting carnage is another sign that Iraq's civil war is gaining momentum faster than either the U.S. or Iraqi governments can respond.

In Baghdad, mortar shells have continued to pummel neighborhoods, and bands of men drive people out of their homes at gunpoint. Authorities find corpses in trash heaps and side streets on a daily basis; at least 44 were found Monday.

Residents are blocking roads with blasted cars and tree trunks. Guns and ammunition are being passed out in mosques and homes. Throughout Baghdad, men end their workdays by taking up positions on rooftops and minarets.

Fighters on both sides of Iraq's sectarian conflict say that the recent growth of militias stems from deep distrust of the intent and capability of the nation's security forces, whose reputation has been crippled by corruption and sectarian infiltration.

Sunnis have long complained that Shiite militias dominate the police force, and that members have committed thousands of death-squad slayings. Shiites say that the Iraqi army, with its many Sunni Arabs, has failed to guard their communities from attacks such as the series of car bombs Thursday.

Salam Saedi, 29, a cleaner at a downtown Baghdad hotel, said he signed up with Sadr's militia the day after the Sadr City bombings.

"I was not a part of the public committees or the Mahdi army, but after the attacks I saw the people who were killed and my feelings changed," Saedi said. "So I contacted some friends and I went and I signed up with the Mahdi army. They gave me an AK-47."

In the wake of the Sadr City bombings, members say, the Al Mahdi army has boosted the ranks of its "popular committees," a recently formed armed wing.

Each block of 1,500 homes in the neighborhood is guarded by 50 to 100 men, members said.

Across town in Dora, a mostly Sunni area, Juburi said he kept "several AK-47s, a BKC [high-caliber machine gun] and even a grenade launcher in my orchard."

He said his neighbors reactivated a group of retired Baathist officers that formed in February during similar sectarian reprisals that followed the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra. The bombing and its bloody aftermath are widely viewed as the turning point that pushed Iraq into civil war.

"Right now, there are anywhere between 400 and 500 organized fighters in my area doing patrols and setting up checkpoints for defensive measures in the event that we are attacked by militias," he said.

Juburi said the total force in Dora comprised 2,000 to 2,500 men organized in companies of 50 fighters each.

The continued growth and proliferation of paramilitary forces in Iraq threatens to hamper U.S. plans for withdrawal.

Complicating any solution are the ties between many of Iraq's paramilitary forces and leading political parties.

The Sadr movement, for example, has 30 seats in government — possibly enough to topple Prime Minister Nouri Maliki should they withdraw in protest.

Adnan Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni Arab legislator, also has a paramilitary squad deployed throughout west Baghdad, where members clashed with Shiites over the weekend.

This month, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that his field agents believed Iraq's sectarian forces were "descending into smaller and smaller groups fighting over smaller and smaller issues and over smaller and smaller pieces of territory."

Firas Kabi, 27, whose wholesale goods shop stands near Sadr City, thought of himself as a lone wolf until Thursday's attack. Now he mans an Al Mahdi army checkpoint.

"My feelings have changed. Before I was living my life and I didn't care to be part of any group," he said. "But now I feel I am part of this community that was being attacked and oppressed. I wanted to be a martyr with the people who lost their lives and went to heaven."

Although many fighters interviewed Monday emphasized the defensive purposes of paramilitary groups, some acknowledged taking part in retaliatory attacks against other sects. Some Sunni groups suggested that they were in contact with more militant organizations — a worrisome development for the U.S. military, which faces a stubborn insurgency.

Juburi, the Sunni fighter, said that since the Sadr City attack a band of Al Mahdi army fighters had kicked several Sunni Arabs out of their homes. The refugees sought help from Juburi's community security force, which kicked Shiites out and gave the refugees their homes, he said.

Omar Mohammed Hussein Dulaimi, 29, said that his Sunni Arab district in west Baghdad formed a neighborhood watch three months ago and fought with Al Mahdi militiamen Friday.

"We close the roads with tree trunks and stay on our roofs with guns," Dulaimi said. "We contact each other with cellphones to check the situation."

Dulaimi said that the security force in his 100-man cell, including former Baathist military and intelligence officials, guarded 500 homes.

"The mujahedin are helping us," Dulaimi said, referring to Sunni Arab insurgents. "Today two cars with gunmen came from Abu Ghraib to help us defend our mosques and our area from militia attacks. They even brought white sheets to cover their bodies in case they are martyred. They also brought heavy machine guns."

Another member of the Sunni force, Ziad Raad Ani, 32, described how Shiite gunmen and police attempted to attack their neighborhood Friday.

"They came in government-issued SUVs and pickup trucks and starting shooting with all kinds of weapons," Ani said.

Ani said the two sides fought for two hours that day. Witnesses said Iraqi soldiers and policemen watched but did not interfere.

-----------------------------
Citation: Solomon Moore. "Rising violence swells ranks of Iraq's militias," Los Angeles Times, 28 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-militias28nov28,1,6504551.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
-----------------------------

Slaughter in Iraq soon seems to be part of normal life

By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent, 28 November 2006

Iraq is rending itself apart. The signs of collapse are everywhere. In Baghdad, the police often pick up more than 100 tortured and mutilated bodies in a single day. Government ministries make war on each other.

A new and ominous stage in the disintegration of the Iraqi state came earlier this month when police commandos from the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry kidnapped 150 people from the Sunni-run Higher Education Ministry in the heart of Baghdad.

Iraq may be getting close to what Americans call "the Saigon moment", the time when it becomes evident to all that the government is expiring. "They say that the killings and kidnappings are being carried out by men in police uniforms and with police vehicles," the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said to me with a despairing laugh this summer. "But everybody in Baghdad knows that the killers and kidnappers are real policemen."

It is getting worse. The Iraqi army and police are not loyal to the state. If the US army decides to confront the Shia militias it could well find Shia military units from the Iraqi army cutting the main American supply route between Kuwait and Baghdad. One convoy was recently stopped at a supposedly fake police checkpoint near the Kuwait border and four American security men and an Austrian taken away.

The US and British position in Iraq is far more of a house built on sand than is realised in Washington or London, despite the disasters of the past three-and-a-half years. George Bush and Tony Blair show a unique inability to learn from their mistakes, largely because they do not want to admit having committed any errors in the first place.

Civil war is raging across central Iraq, home to a third of the country's 27 million people. As Shia and Sunni flee each other's neighbourhoods, Iraq is turning into a country of refugees.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that 1.6 million are displaced within the country and a further 1.8 million have fled abroad. In Baghdad, neighbouring Sunni and Shia districts have started to fire mortars at each other. On the day Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death, I phoned a friend in a Sunni area of the capital to ask what he thought of the verdict. He answered impatiently that "I was woken up this morning by the explosion of a mortar bomb on the roof of my next-door neighbour's house. I am more worried about staying alive myself than what happens to Saddam."

Iraqi friends used to reassure me that there would be no civil war because so many Shia and Sunni were married to each other. These mixed couples are now being compelled to divorce by their families. "I love my husband but my family has forced me to divorce him because we are Shia and he is Sunni," said Hiba Sami, a mother, to a UN official. "My family say they [the husband's family] are insurgents ... and that living with him is an offence to God." Members of mixed marriages had set up an association to protect each other called the Union for Peace in Iraq but they were soon compelled to dissolve it when several founding members were murdered.

Everything in Iraq is dominated by what in Belfast we used to call "the politics of the last atrocity". All three Iraqi communities - Shia, Sunni and Kurds - see themselves as victims and seldom sympathise with the tragedies of others. Every day brings its gruesome discoveries.

Earlier this month, I visited Mosul, the capital of northern Iraq that has a population of 1.7 million people, of whom about two thirds are Sunni Arabs and one third Kurds. It is not the most dangerous city in Iraq but it is still a place drenched in violence.

A local tribal leader called Sayid Tewfiq from the nearby city of Tal Afar told me of a man from there who went to recover the tortured body of his 16-year-old son. The corpse was wired to explosives that blew up, killing the father so their two bodies were buried together.

Khasro Goran, the efficient and highly effective deputy governor of Mosul, said there was no civil war yet in Mosul but it could easily happen.

He added that 70,000 Kurds had already fled the city because of assassinations. It is extraordinary how, in Iraq, slaughter that would be front-page news anywhere else in the world soon seems to be part of normal life.

On the day I arrived in Mosul, the police had found 11 bodies in the city which would have been on the low side in Baghdad. I spoke to Duraid Mohammed Kashmula, the governor of Mosul, whose office is decorated with pictures of smiling fresh-faced young men who turned out to be his son and four nephews, all of them killed by insurgents.

His own house, together with his furniture, was burned to the ground two years ago. He added in passing that Mr Goran and he himself were the prime targets for assassination in Mosul, a point that was dramatically proved true the day after we spoke when insurgents exploded a bomb beside his convoy - fortunately he was not in it at the time - killing one and wounding several of his bodyguards.

For the moment Mosul is more strongly controlled by pro-government forces than most Iraqi cities. That is because the US has powerful local allies in the shape of the Kurds. The two army divisions in the province are primarily Kurdish, but the 17,000 police in Nineveh, the province of which Mosul is the capital, are almost entirely Sunni and their loyalty is dubious.

One was dismissed on the day of Saddam's trial for putting a picture of the former leader in the window of his car. In November 2004, the entire Mosul police force abandoned their police stations to the insurgents who captured £20m worth of arms.

"The terrorists do not control a single district in Mosul," is the proud claim of Major General Wathiq Mohammed Abdul Qadir al-Hamdani, the bullet-headed police chief of Nineveh. "I challenge them to fight me face to face." But the situation is still very fragile. We went to see the police operations room where an officer was bellowing into a microphone: "There is a suicide bomber in a car in the city. Do not let him get near you or any of our buildings." There was a reason to be frightened. On my way into Mosul, I had seen the broken concrete walls of the party headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two big Kurdish political parties. In August, two men in a car packed with explosives shot their way past the outer guard post and then blew themselves up, killing 17 soldiers.

The balance of forces in Nineveh between American, Arab, Kurd, Turkoman, Sunni and Shia is complicated even by Iraqi standards. Power is fragmented.

Sayid Tewfiq, the Shia tribal leader from Tal Afar, resplendent in his flowing robes, admitted: "I would not last 24 hours in Tal Afar without Coalition [US] support." "That's probably about right," confirmed Mr Goran, explaining that Sayid Tewfiq's Shia Turkoman tribe was surrounded by Sunni tribes. Earlier I had heard him confidently invite all of Nineveh provincial council to visit him in Tal Afar. Nobody looked enthusiastic about taking him up on the offer.

"He may have 3,000 fighters from his tribe but he can't visit most of Tal Afar himself," said another member of the council, Mohammed Suleiman, as he declined the invitation. A few hours before somebody tried to assassinate him, Governor Kashmula claimed to me that "security in Mosul is the best in Iraq outside the Kurdish provinces".

It is a measure of the violence in Iraq that it is an arguable point. Khasro Goran said: "The situation is not perfect but it is better than Anbar, Baquba and Diyala." I could vouch for this. In Iraq however bad things are there is always somewhere worse.

It is obviously very difficult for reporters to discover what is happening in Iraq's most violent provinces without being killed themselves. But, at the end of September, I travelled south along the Iraqi side of the border with Iran, sticking to Kurdish villages to try to reach Diyala, a mixed Sunni-Shia province north-east of Baghdad where there had been savage fighting. It is a road on which a wrong turning could be fatal.

We drove from Sulaimaniyah through the mountains, passed through the Derbandikhan tunnel and then took the road that runs beside the Diyala river, its valley a vivid streak of lush green in the dun-coloured semi desert.

The area is a smuggler's paradise. At night, trucks drive through without lights, their drivers using night-vision goggles. It is not clear what cargoes they are carrying - presumably weapons or drugs - and nobody has the temerity to ask.

We had been warned it was essential to turn left after the tumbledown Kurdish town of Kalar before reaching the mixed Arab-Kurdish village of Jalula. We crossed the river by a long and rickety bridge, parts of which had fallen into the swirling waters below, and soon arrived in the Kurdish stronghold of Khanaqin in Diyala province. If I had any thoughts about driving further towards Baghdad they were put to rest by the sight, in one corner of the yard of the local police headquarters, of the wreckage of a blue-and-white police vehicle torn apart by a bomb.

"Five policemen were killed in it when it was blown up at an intersection in As-Sadiyah two months ago," a policeman told me. "Only their commander survived but his legs were amputated."

Officials in Khanaqin had no doubt about what is happening in their province. Lt Col Ahmed Nuri Hassan, the exhausted-looking commander of the federal police, said: "There is a sectarian civil war here and it is getting worse every day." The head of the local council estimated 100 people were being killed a week.

In Baquba, the provincial capital, Sunni Arabs were driving out Shia and Kurds. The army and police were divided along sectarian lines. The one Iraqi army division in Diyala was predominantly Shia and only arrested Sunni. On the day after I left, Sunni and Kurdish police officers fought a gun battle in Jalula, the village I had been warned not to enter. The fighting started when Kurdish police refused to accept a new Sunni Arab police chief and his followers. Here, in miniature, in Diyala it was possible to see Iraq breaking up. The province is ruled by its death squads. The police say at least 9,000 people had been murdered. It is difficult to see how Sunni and Shia in the province can ever live together again.

In much of Iraq, we long ago slipped down the rapids leading from crisis to catastrophe though it is only in the past six months that these dire facts have begun to be accepted abroad. For the first three years of the war, Republicans in the US regularly claimed the liberal media was ignoring signs of peace and progress. Some right-wingers even set up websites devoted to spreading the news of American achievements in this ruined land.

I remember a team from a US network news channel staying in my hotel in Baghdad complaining to me, as they buckled on their body armour and helmets, that they had been once again told by their bosses in New York, themselves under pressure from the White House, to "go and find some good news and report it."

Times have changed in Washington. The extent of the disaster in Iraq is admitted by almost all, aside from President Bush. Even before the Democrats' victory in the Congressional elections on 7 November the magazine Vanity Fair commented acidly that "the only group in the Bush camp at this point are the people who wait patiently for news of the WMD and continue to believe that Saddam and Osama were once lovers."

Previous supporters of the war are showing embarrassing haste in recanting past convictions.

These days, it is in Britain alone, or more specifically in Downing Street, that policies bloodily discredited in Iraq in the years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein still get a hearing. I returned from Mosul to London just in time to hear Tony Blair speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet. It was a far more extraordinary performance that his audience appreciated.

As the Prime Minister spoke with his usual Hugh Grant charm, it became clear he had learned nothing and forgotten nothing in three-and-a-half years of war. Misconception after misconception poured from his lips.

Contrary to views of his own generals and every opinion poll assessing Iraqi opinion, he discounted the idea that armed resistance in Iraq is fueled by hostility to foreign occupation. Instead he sees dark forces rising in the east, dedicated, like Sauron in Lord of the Rings, to principles of pure evil. The enemy, in this case, is "based on a thoroughly warped misinterpretation of Islam, which is fanatical and deadly."

Even by the standard of Middle Eastern conspiracy theories, it was puerile stuff. Everywhere Mr Blair saw hidden hands - "forces outside Iraq that are trying to create mayhem" - at work.

An expert on the politics of Iraq and Lebanon recently said to me: "The most dangerous error in the Middle East today is to believe the Shia communities in Iraq and Lebanon are pawns of Iran." But that is exactly what the Prime Minister does believe.

The fact that the largest Shia militia in Iraq - the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr - is anti-Iranian and Iraqi nationalist is conveniently ignored. Those misconceptions are important in terms of practical policy because they give support to the dangerous myth that if the US and Britain could only frighten or square the Iranians and Syrians then all would come right as their Shia cats-paws in Iraq and Lebanon would inevitably fall into line.

In a very British way, opponents of the war in Iraq have focused not on current events but on the past sins of the government in getting us into the war.

No doubt it was all very wrong for Downing Street to pretend that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was a threat to the world when they knew he was not. But this emphasis on the origins of the war in Iraq has diverted attention from the fact that, going by official statements, the British government knows no more about what was going on in Iraq in 2006 than it did in 2003.

The picture Mr Blair paints of Iraq seldom touches reality at any point. For instance, he says Iraqis "voted for an explicitly non-sectarian government," but every Iraqi knows the vote in two parliamentary elections in 2005 went wholly along sectarian and ethnic lines. The polls were the starting pistol for the start of the civil war.

Mr Blair steadfastly refuses to accept the fact that opposition to the American and British occupation of Iraq has been the main cause of the insurgency.

The commander of the British army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, was almost fired for his trouble when he made the obvious point that "we should get ourselves out some time soon because our presence exacerbates the security problem."

A series of opinion polls carried out by the US-based group WorldPublicOpinion.org at the end of September show why Gen. Dannatt is right and Mr Blair is wrong. The poll shows that 92 per cent of the Sunni and 62 per cent of the Shia - up from 41 per cent at the start of the year - approve of attacks on US-led forces. Only the Kurds support the occupation. Some 78 per cent of all Iraqis think the US military presence provokes more conflict than it prevents and 71 per cent want US-led forces out of Iraq within a year. The biggest and most menacing change this year is the growing hostility of Iraq's Shia to the American and British presence.

It used to be said that at least the foreign occupation prevented a civil war but, with 1,000 Iraqis being killed every week, it is now very clearly failing.

It was always true that in post-Saddam Iraq there was going to be friction between the Shia, Sunni and Kurds. But Iraqis were also forced to decide if they were for or against a foreign invader.

The Sunnis were always going to fight the occupation, the Kurds to welcome it and the Shia to co-operate for just so long as it served their interests. Patriotism and communal self-interest combined. Before 2003, a Sunni might see a Shia as the member of a different sect but once the war had started he started to see him as a traitor to his country.

Of course Messrs Bush and Blair argue there is no occupation. In June 2004, sovereignty was supposedly handed back to Iraq. "Let Freedom Reign," wrote Mr Bush. But the reality of power remained firmly with the US and Britain. The Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said this month that he could not move a company of soldiers without seeking permission of the Coalition (the US and Britain). Officials in Mosul confirmed to me that they could not carry out a military operation without the agreement of US forces. There is a hidden history to the occupation of Iraq which helps explain why has proved such a disaster. In 1991, after the previous Gulf War, a crucial reason why President George HW Bush did not push on to Baghdad was that he feared the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be followed by elections that would be won by Shia parties sympathetic to Iran. No worse outcome of the war could be imagined in Washington. After the capture of Baghdad in 2003, the US faced the same dilemma. Many of the contortions of US policy in Iraq since then have been a covert attempt to avoid or dilute the domination of Iraq's Shia majority.

For more than a year, the astute US envoy in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, tried to conciliate the Sunni. He failed. Attacks on US forces are on the increase. Dead and wounded US soldiers now total almost 1,000 a month..

An Iraqi government will only have real legitimacy and freedom to operate when US and British troops have withdrawn. Washington and London have to accept that if Iraq is to survive at all it will be as a loose federation run by a Shia-Kurdish alliance because together they are 80 per cent of the population. But, thanks to the miscalculations of Mr Bush and Mr Blair, the future of Iraq will be settled not by negotiations but on the battlefield.

The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn is published by Verso.

The toll of war

* US troops killed since invasion - 2,880

* UK troops killed - 126

* Iraqis who have died as result of invasion - 655,000

* Journalists killed - 77

* Daily attacks on coalition forces - 180

* Average number of US troops killed every day in October - 3.5

* Strength of insurgency - 30,000 nationwide

* Number of police - 180,000

* Trained judges - 740

* Percentage of Iraqi population that wants US forces to leave within 12 months - 71 per cent

* Hours of electricity per day in Baghdad in November - 8.6 (pre-war estimate 16-24 hours)

* Unemployment - 25-40 per cent

* Internet subscribers - 197,310 (pre-war 4,500)

* Population with access to clean drinking water - 9.7 million (12.9 million pre-war). Percentage of children suffering malnutrition - 33 per cent

-----------------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Slaughter in Iraq soon seems to be part of normal life," The Independent, 28 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2021233.ece
-----------------------------

27 November 2006

Afghanistan's fledgling army joins fight

By Fisnik Abrashi
The Associated Press, 26 November 2006

PANJWAYI, Afghanistan - Bandoliers draped over their chests and rocket-propelled grenades slung on their backs, Afghan soldiers venture slowly out of their base of mud huts and green tents for a patrol with Canadian troops through this restive southern town.

Such operations are at the heart of efforts by the United States and
NATO to bolster Afghanistan's security forces and open the way for the departure of Western troops.

"They are our exit strategy," said Maj. Francoise Bisillon, who is part of the Canadian team that lives with, trains and mentors Afghan soldiers in Panjwayi.

Their short morning patrol might not seem like dangerous work, but the area is NATO's front line against Taliban militants. Clashes erupt in nearby fields almost every day.

This year alone, 34 Canadian soldiers have been killed in Kandahar province, most of them in insurgent attacks near the Argandab River, a fertile valley of orchards and vineyards that is a green oasis in an expanse of brown desert and barren mountains.

Close-quarter fighting over the summer in the province's Panjwayi, Pashmul and Zhari areas killed hundreds of militants, but dozens of civilians also died — deaths that have soured relations between locals and Western troops.

Few children wave as the patrol passes through the town, and local men sipping tea in front of shops offer only a steely gaze.

Despite the summer offensive designed to root out the Taliban, militants remain active in this area, firing rockets and mortars one minute and mingling with civilians the next.

Relying on local soldiers who know the terrain and can tell a farmer from a militant is vital to NATO's two-pronged approach in the south: restoring security by driving off the militants while kick-starting long-promised economic development to improve the lives of poor villagers in hopes of bolstering loyalty for Afghanistan's government.

"They are good fighters and they know the ground," Warrant Officer Daniel Parenteau, 38, said of the Afghan soldiers leading the foot patrol past farm fields and into town.

The Afghan troops deployed here with the Canadians have fighting experience but are still a young force and can't yet be trusted with some of the more sophisticated weapons, their Western mentors say. The Afghans also lack experience in planning and logistics.

More than 35,000 Afghan soldiers are working around the country alongside Western troops — who "lead them from behind," Bisillon said.

Lt. Col. Shirin Shah Kowbandi's chin and right palm bear scars from clashes with Taliban militants in the country's north in the 1990s, when the hard-line Islamic militia ruled most of Afghanistan.

A towering man in green fatigues, he has spent most of his adult life fighting the Taliban, first as a member of the Northern Alliance and now as commander of the Afghan National Army's 2nd Kandak, 1st Brigade, 205th Corps in Kandahar province, the militia's former heartland.

When the Taliban ruled, the lines of battle and combatants were clear, he said.

"Now, there is no front line," Kowbandi said. "Four or five guys will attack and then run into the village where they hide their weapons."

Kowbandi complains that his unit has only half the men required, few weapons and old equipment. Some of their assault rifles jammed during the summer offensive, while barrels on others were bent. Recent rains left their dun-colored pickup trucks bogged down in thick mud.

"If we have better weapons and equipment, we can beat the enemy faster," Kowbandi said, before turning his gaze to some Canadian armored vehicles.

"If I only had those," he said.

------------------------
Citation: Fisnik Abrashi. "Afghanistan's fledgling army joins fight," The Associated Press, 26 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_re_as/afghan_southern_front
------------------------

Restrictions on NATO troops in Afghanistan

Reuters, 26 November 2006

NATO commanders in Afghanistan say the battle against Taliban insurgents is being held back by restrictions placed by alliance nations on what their troops can do on the ground.

A NATO summit starting in Riga on Tuesday will aim to do away with many such restrictions, known as "caveats". Following are examples of limits that apply to some of the 37 national contingents within the 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), according to NATO sources.

GEOGRAPHICAL CAVEATS - Germany, Italy, Spain and others declined calls in September by NATO to move troops based in calm areas to the violent south to help with fighting. Berlin has insisted the parliamentary mandate covering its 2,900 troops stipulates they remain in the north, apart from one-off forays.

Another example concerns troops based in districts around the capital Kabul. Alliance sources complain that some refuse to go outside their assigned patches, reducing ISAF's ability to respond to incidents on the ground.

CONSULTATIONS - Most national forces can only do certain tasks after consultation with their capitals -- a process that slows down reaction times. At least one government insists on being consulted before its troops are despatched to within one km (half a mile) of the restive border with Pakistan.

OPERATIONAL RESTRICTIONS - National contingents may refuse to carry out operations above a specified altitude because they are not properly equipped: some helicopters, for example, cannot be used above a certain height; another's troops have limits on what tasks they can perform at night; one NATO source said some south European nations unused to tough Afghan winter conditions have a caveat against fighting in snow, while others ban theirs from riot control operations.

FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS - Nations have deployed aircraft to help NATO operations but in reality keep a tight grip on how such valuable assets are used, allied sources complain. An ally may pledge to allot a given number of hours per month to ISAF operations "subject to availability"; when alliance commanders seek to draw on that resource, they are all too frequently told the aircraft are not available, runs the complaint. At least one nation will not let troops from other nations travel in its aircraft, according to another alliance source.

HOW MANY? - Alliance officials say there are "scores" of them but have asked allies to provide up-to-date lists ahead of Riga. NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Jones says there are 50 main caveats he is anxious to eliminate.

-------------------------
Citation: "Restrictions on NATO troops in Afghanistan," Reuters, 26 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26451165.htm
-------------------------

More Marines may be needed in terror war

By Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press, 23 November 2006

WASHINGTON - The Marine Corps may need to increase in size to sustain deployments to
Iraq and Afghanistan without sacrificing needed training or putting undue stress on the corps, the new Marine commandant said Wednesday.

At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Gen. James Conway also warned that it could take years to adequately train and equip the Iraqi security forces — longer, perhaps, "than the timeline that we probably feel ... our country will support."

"This is tough work, it doesn't happen overnight," and patience by the American people will be needed, he said. On the plus side, he said Marines he's talked to in recent days are encouraged by the progress they are seeing among Iraqi forces.

Conway said the current pace of Marine rotations to Iraq — seven months there and seven-to-nine months at home — is limiting other types of training that units can receive and could eventually prompt Marines to leave the service.

"There is stress on the individual Marines that is increasing, and there is stress on the institution to do what we are required to do, pretty much by law, for the nation," said Conway.

The goal, he said, is for units to spend twice the amount of time at home as is spent on deployment — for example seven months deployed and 14 months at home.

At the same time, Conway would not rule out extending the Iraq tours for some Marine units if needed for a short period of time. Several Army units have been extended for several months, but the Marines have done that only rarely and for weeks rather than months.

Conway, who took on the Marines' top job just eight days ago, said there are two ways to deal with the ongoing stress on the Marines: "One is reducing the requirement, the other is potentially growing the force for what we call the long war."

The Bush administration is finalizing the budget for fiscal 2008, which starts next Oct. 1, and the armed services are hoping to receive increased funding to carry on the fighting. Conway said he could not say how much the Marines would be seeking.

There are currently about 180,000 active duty Marines. Just last week, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said about 2,200 more of them were headed to Iraq's volatile western Anbar province in a short-term effort to shore up U.S. combat power there.

The commander, Gen. John Abizaid, also told Congress last week that the Army and Marine Corps are not big enough to sustain a substantial increase in Iraq, although he said adding 20,000 troops for a short period was possible.

Conway said that if a decision is made to increase the number of Marines in Iraq — currently about 23,000 of the 141,000 U.S. troops there — he has enough around the globe to respond. But he warned that there could be long-term repercussions.

"The payback is you can't maintain that surge. And it's probably going to have an adverse impact" on the ability to provide ready troops in the future, he said.

Increasing the size of the Marine Corps, he added, could only be by 1,000-2,000 troops per year over an extended time. And if the size is increased to meet the needs of war, Conway said there would have to be a plan for reducing the numbers when the war is over. He said the current 180,000 level is the right size for peacetime.

The Marines are also drawing up plans to send some reserve combat battalions back to Iraq for return tours as a way of relieving the strain on the active duty forces. If that is done, it would be the first time such Marine units would be returned to the war.

-------------------------
Citation: Lolita C. Baldor. "More Marines may be needed in terror war," The Associated Press, 23 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061123/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/marines_iraq_afghanistan
-------------------------

Iraqi Shiites vent anger on premier

Mourners target Maliki's motorcade after his plea to refrain from attacks on Sunnis.

By Louise Roug
Los Angeles Times, 27 November 2006

BAGHDAD — Angry Shiite Muslims pelted Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's motorcade with stones Sunday after the Iraqi leader pleaded for national reconciliation at a memorial held in Sadr City for victims of a large-scale bombing attack.

Maliki, who is a Shiite, left the scene after he tried without success to calm a crowd of mourners calling for revenge against Sunni Arabs. His pleas were met with shouts of "coward!" and "collaborator!"

Thursday's series of suicide and car bombings killed at least 215 people in the Shiite neighborhood on the eastern edge of Baghdad. After the attack, the international airport was closed and a general curfew was imposed on the capital, measures that remained in place Sunday.

The civil war in Iraq will be at the top of the agenda when U.S. and regional leaders meet this week in a round of high-level diplomacy. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani heads to Iran today for talks, and President Bush will meet with Maliki and Jordanian King Abdullah II this week in Jordan.

Bush is expected to discuss how neighboring nations can help prevent further deterioration of the situation in Iraq.

"We're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region, whether it's the Palestinians, that of Lebanon or of Iraq," Abdullah told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "We can possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands."

Tensions between Sunnis and Shiites are high in Lebanon after last week's slaying in Beirut of a Cabinet member. In the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Palestinian officials were seeking Sunday to enforce a cease-fire.

An upcoming report from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission is expected to recommend that the Bush administration reach out to countries in the region, including Iran and Syria, for a solution in Iraq.

Talabani, whose trip was delayed for two days because the airport was closed, will meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Syrian President Bashar Assad was invited but does not plan to attend the talks. Iraq and Syria restored full diplomatic relations last week.

"Iraq is passing through a crisis so we need the neighboring countries to support us," Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, told Al Arabiya TV on Sunday. Iraq's government encourages talks between the U.S. and Iran, he added.

"We think the detente of the relations between them will benefit the Iraqis," he said. "Sometimes we pay the tax of the strained relations between them."

The heckling of Maliki by fellow Shiites came after threats last week by Shiite lawmakers linked to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr to abandon the government should Maliki go ahead with the Bush meeting.

"There are hawks and doves inside the [Sadr] bloc," said Sadeq Musawi, an independent political analyst in Baghdad. "The hawks are calling for [a withdrawal of U.S. troops]. And the doves are using this to make more and more political demands from the government."

Sunni lawmakers also threatened to walk out of the government recently after officials issued an arrest warrant for Iraq's top Sunni cleric.

On Sunday, before his visit to Sadr City, Maliki appealed for peace as he stood alongside Talabani as well as the speaker of parliament and a vice president, both Sunnis.

But while Iraq's leaders appealed for unity, state television repeatedly aired a diatribe by the Shiite deputy health minister, accusing residents of various Sunni neighborhoods of fomenting violence — a departure from the station's more placid rhetoric.

Along with the political discord, mortar attacks continued Sunday between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, and some shells hit an American military base as well.

The U.S. military reported today that three service members died Sunday during fighting in the capital. Earlier, the U.S. military said a soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province and two Marines died in the western province of Al Anbar on Saturday.

The rounds that hit the U.S. base were fired from the southern edge of Sadr City. Others were directed at the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariya, a U.S. military spokesman said.

"I can confirm there was a strike, but I'm not going to give out any assessment," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad.

Iraqi authorities said two mortar rounds struck the base, but gave no details.

In the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Karada, two mortar rounds killed four civilians and injured five, including the imam of the Zuwiya mosque. The wounded were taken to Ibn Nafis Hospital, where armed men later tried to break in. Police repelled them.

Two mortar shells hit the predominantly Sunni Adhamiya neighborhood, injuring three people. In Mashtal, a mixed area in eastern Baghdad, a mortar round injured four people. Another shell hit the Sunni enclave of Ghazaliya, west of the Tigris River, but there were no reports of injuries. A gunfight broke out between Sunnis and members of Sadr's Al Mahdi militia, said a cleric at a mosque in the enclave. He said four Sunnis were killed and 20 injured.

Elsewhere in the capital, the head of the Sunni bloc, Adnan Dulaimi, came under attack in the Adel neighborhood. For an hour, his guards held off armed men who had already lobbed mortar rounds toward his house but missed. Eventually, Iraqi and American forces arrived and the gunmen fled, Dulaimi said later in an interview.

Bombings and shootings claimed nine lives near Hillah, authorities said. In Basra, a rocket attack injured seven British troops, a British military spokesman said. In Baqubah, police recovered the bodies of seven teenagers, bound and slain execution-style.

-------------------------
Citation: Louise Roug. "Iraqi Shiites vent anger on premier," Los Angeles Times, 27 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-iraq27nov27,1,4325722.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
-------------------------

NBC says Iraq in civil war, White House disagrees

By Andy Sullivan
Reuters, 27 November 2006

WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - NBC News on Monday branded the Iraq conflict a civil war -- a decision that put it at odds with the White House and that analysts said would increase public disillusionment with the U.S. troop presence there.

NBC, a major U.S. television network, said the Iraqi government's inability to stop spiraling violence between rival factions fit its definition of civil war.

The Bush administration has for months declined to call the violence a civil war -- although the U.S. general overseeing the Iraq operation said in August there was a risk -- and a White House official on Monday disputed NBC's assessment.

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said while the situation on the ground is serious, neither President George W. Bush nor Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki believe it is a civil war.

Democrats used NBC's decision to accuse the White House of "splitting hairs."

"The American people want their leaders in Washington to tell the truth and find a solution to the problems in Iraq," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Stacie Paxton. "No amount of spin on the part of the Bush White House can prevent news organizations and independent observers from calling the war ... what it is: a civil war."

Several analysts said NBC's decision was important as the administration would face more pressure to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq if the U.S. public comes to view the conflict as a civil war.

The decision "certainly is a major milestone," said Ted Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

"That does change the terminology and is likely to change the perspective of viewers, and one suspects other media outlets will sooner or later follow suit."

Public weariness with the conflict -- which has has now lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War Two -- helped Democrats take control of Congress from Bush's Republican Party in Nov. 7 elections.

Analysts said Americans would not tolerate U.S. troops being used as referees between warring Iraqi factions.

"It almost looks as if the Americans who are getting killed are getting killed almost accidentally, while the Iraqis are getting killed on purpose," said Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.

Sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq has increased dramatically in the past week. Multiple bombings in a Shi'ite neighborhood of Baghdad last Thursday killed more than 200 people and drew reprisal attacks in Sunni neighborhoods.

Jordan's King Abdullah said on Sunday that civil war was looming in Iraq and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on Monday that the country was nearly in civil war.

Bush and Maliki are scheduled to meet in Jordan this week to discuss ways to stem the violence.

Experts differ on how to define a civil war and which conflicts fall into that category. While Shi'ites and Sunnis are not organized into formal armies, the rising level of sectarian violence has led many to conclude that a de facto civil war is under way.

"It's getting silly for the administration or anyone else to deny there's a civil war," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who said the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine marked the transition from an anti-American insurgency to civil war.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, said he does not believe the country has yet descended into civil war because most of the population is not involved in the violence.

But he said: "The bottom line on the American role is it will leave if it feels it has to take sides in order to continue operating in Iraq."

Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told Congress in August that "the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war."

--------------------------
Citation: Andy Sullivan. "NBC says Iraq in civil war, White House disagrees," Reuters, 27 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27469827.htm
--------------------------

20 November 2006

Afghan army to strike Taliban in winter

By Jim Krane
The Associated Press, 19 November 2006

The U.S.-backed Afghan army will step up counter-Taliban offensives this winter, which could see heavy fighting during a period traditionally used by Afghan fighters for rest and resupply, a U.S. general said here Sunday.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Douglas Pritt, who oversees the U.S.-led effort to train the Afghan military, said Afghan forces have tripled the number of forward bases to more than 60 and plan to spend the winter harassing Taliban and gathering intelligence from combat outposts deep inside rebel strongholds.

"They're much better equipped for winter operations than the Taliban. I'm hoping for a lot of snow this winter," Pritt said during a visit to The Associated Press bureau in Dubai.

Pritt said most Afghan troops that have emerged from training still cannot operate independently, but he noted that five battalions of Afghan National Army troops, numbering 300 to 600 soldiers each, were nearly ready to mount offensives on their own.

But even those top battalions will continue to operate in tandem with U.S. and NATO troops, he said.

Afghanistan's winters normally bring months of rain and snow, turning dusty roads into impassable muck and rendering most warfare impossible. The country has traditionally seen winter breaks in its decades of conflict, where fighters return home to families or hunker down on bases until fighting resumes in spring.

Snowfall is already hampering Taliban supply lines, making it tougher for the rebels to resupply, Pritt said. The Afghan National Army, backed by U.S. and NATO airlifts, are less restricted by cold and mud.

Afghan troops are being readied for "extended patrols" in the combat zones of the east and south that border Pakistan.

"We want to be in the right places," he said. "If the Taliban is trying to rearm, refit and wait out the winter, then we'll know they're there."

The Afghan National Army remains hamstrung by desertion rates of around 15 percent, Pritt said, little different from its rate in May. The previous year, the desertion rate peaked above 25 percent, according to U.S. military figures.

Afghan soldiers recently received a raise for their tiny salaries, from $70 to $100 a month, Pritt said, a decision that followed the revelation that AWOL soldiers could earn $70 a month as day laborers without facing combat.

The general said his goal was to bring the desertion rate below 10 percent, a figure that has already been reached in one Afghan corps.

U.S. and Afghan officials have said soldiers abscond for several reasons, including a reluctance to fight alongside foreigners against countrymen and a need to bring money to families in remote villages or help at harvest time.

The Afghan army's screening process has blocked the type of insurgent infiltrators that have hampered the Iraqi military. Pritt said only three Taliban have thus far been found in the ranks.

"They were trying to get information that was inappropriate for their job descriptions," he said.

The American force training Afghan troops — chiefly made up of U.S. Army National Guardsmen — is expected to rise from 2,900 now to around 3,600 by April, to comply with an Afghan government directive to increase recruiting to 2,000 Afghan soldiers per month, Pritt said.

Overall, he said 5,200 foreign trainers would be working with the Afghan army, which the government wants to increase from its current 35,000 troops to 50,000 or perhaps 70,000.

"We believe this is the main effort in Afghanistan," Pritt said.

-----------------------------
By Jim Krane
The Associated Press, 19 November 2006
-----------------------------

A grim picture of Afghanistan going wrong

By Hanna Bloch
The Baltimore Sun, 19 November 2006

Review of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban by Sarah Chayes, Penguin, 386 pages, $25.95

Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as the forgotten war. Once the linchpin of America's war on terror, which hinged on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting down Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the bloodshed in Iraq. Five years after the Taliban collapsed, the country is struggling to cope with lawlessness, corruption, a roaring illicit drug trade and attacks by insurgents determined to drive out foreign troops. Indeed, this year has been the bloodiest since the Taliban fell in 2001.

Afghanistan deserves our attention. So The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban, by Sarah Chayes, is a welcome addition to the short shelf of contemporary books about this devastated land. Chayes, a disenchanted NPR reporter-turned-aid worker, has lived in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold, on and off since 2002. She offers a vivid account of life there after the Sept. 11 attacks and presents a harsh critique of "slipshod and haphazard" U.S. involvement in the region.

Chayes is horrified by the missteps she sees being taken in Afghanistan, particularly the U.S.-backed government's favoritism toward the same local warlords who terrorized and plundered the country in the early 1990s and America's "suicidally contradictory" support of neighboring Pakistan, which she says reduces the war on terrorism to "a charade."

Part memoir, part history lesson, part case study and part diatribe, The Punishment of Virtue is most compelling and original when Chayes chronicles her frustrations and modest successes in Afghanistan's Pashtun heartland. This is a passionate and emotional book, and that is its strength and its weakness. Chayes' empathy for Afghanistan is palpable and fuels an apparently heartfelt concern for the country's future (which she believes holds the key to the world's post-Sept. 11 future as well).

But that same empathy sometimes overwhelms her analysis, which is based less on verifiable fact than on the opinions and hearsay of a few people she trusts and, by her own admission, on her gut feelings, which she refers to as her "tuning fork." In particular, she echoes the belief of many Afghans that Pakistani meddling is responsible for most of the country's ills.

Presumably because of her initial close ties to the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai (his brother Qayum was her boss at a nongovernmental aid organization until she left to start a farming cooperative), she enjoys extraordinary access to high-ranking Afghan officials and U.S. diplomats. She uses this access to try to influence the direction of the Afghan government and U.S. policy, sending memos about the pitfalls of U.S.-Pakistani relations and "how to fire a warlord." In one angry confrontation, Kandahar's warlord-governor asks her, "Are you doing aid work or politics?" When it comes down to it, she's not sure. The two, for her, are intertwined.

What Chayes does feel sure of is that Afghanistan is headed precipitously down the wrong path, and almost all the Afghan officials she encounters infuriate and disappoint her with their incompetence, corruption and weakness. She feels particularly let down by Hamid Karzai. In the heady days after the fall of the Taliban, she reveres him as "the most inspiring political leader I had come close to in my adult life." But she becomes disillusioned after he ignores her memo on protecting ordinary people from the warlords: "He was becoming a distant figurehead incapable or unwilling to weigh in on the level that counted for ordinary people."

The only one who never lets her down is Kandahar Police Chief Muhammad Akram Khakrezwal, whom she praises as "the most sophisticated political thinker I encountered in Afghanistan." The book opens with his funeral, after he is killed in an explosion at a Kandahar mosque that her tuning fork tells her "was a Pakistani job." "It fit the pattern," she concludes.

Chayes devotes too many chapters to a recitation of centuries of Afghan and Islamic history. A few unfortunate errors of more recent fact (for example, misstatements of the year bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan, and the reasons for his going there) shed some doubt on the credibility of her historical account.

Many of the details of Chayes' aid work - her reason for settling in Afghanistan - are surprisingly glossed over, aside from a couple of chapters devoted to her success in rebuilding houses in a village near the Kandahar airport devastated by U.S. attacks on the Taliban. This is one of the most compelling parts of her book, a telling microcosm of the challenges of reconstruction work, fighting the corruption of provincial officials, miscommunication with U.S. forces and even the obstinacy of the homeless residents themselves. Ultimately, she writes, "the story wound its tortuous way to a happy ending."

Given the way things are going, it's hard to imagine the same will be true for Afghanistan.

Hanna Bloch was the Time magazine correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1996 to 2002. She wrote this review for the Chicago Tribune.

-----------------------------
Citation: Hanna Bloch. "A grim picture of Afghanistan going wrong," The Baltimore Sun, 19 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/booksmags/bal-id.bk.afghan19nov19,0,6302131.story?coll=bal-artslife-books
-----------------------------

Five years after 'victory', violence and corruption dog Afghanistan

By Kim Sengupta
The Independent, 20 November 2006

The paraphernalia of death were laid out on the table - shrapnel, detonators, bombers' manual, false identification cards. "Enough for four, five suicide attacks" said General Ali Shah Paktiawal of the Afghan police.

"We are not allowed to blame Pakistan directly of course. But the men we caught were from Pakistan, these things were bought there. Look, they have even kept receipts."

This was Kabul yesterday, the capital of a country from which Tony Blair famously promised "this time we will not walk away", a land now torn by violence and wide-scale corruption, the heroin supplier to the world despite millions of dollars spent on eradication.

Five years after the American-led invasion, the infrastructure still lies shattered, with accusations of international aid being squandered. Meanwhile, the rights of half the population, women, are being steadily clawed back under the burqa.

Afghanistan is also where Western forces, in large numbers, are fighting a war which George Bush and Mr Blair had declared won with the fall of the Taliban regime as they moved the "war on terror" to Iraq.

The Taliban are back with a vengeance now and there is little talk of victory. Nato troops have inflicted heavy casualties on the insurgents, but military commanders talk of reinforcements coming from across the Pakistani border.

The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, has accused Pakistan of sheltering the bombers and its intelligence service, the ISI, of arming and training them. Mr Bush and Mr Blair have raised the claims with Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, who vehemently denies them.

General Paktiawal was poisoned while in a government ministry four months ago, an example of the long reach of a ruthless enemy. He received emergency treatment abroad and is still on medication. He said: "Who did it, the Taliban, al-Qa'ida, the ISI, working together? I do not want to say. What I do know is that I will be surprised if they do not try to kill me again.

"You cannot end terrorism quickly, especially when there are outside forces involved," he added. "I accept we have big problems."

Syed Mahmood Gailani, a member of parliament from Ghazni, is grappling with some of these problems. He and fellow MPs have been asked to look into the construction of a failed dam and find out who was responsible.

Mr Gailani, 28, polled the third largest number of votes in the country as an independent candidate in the general election and is seen as one of Afghanistan's future leaders. "I am going to Ghazni City in an armed convoy because the road is so dangerous and this is meant to be one of the main roads in the country," he said. "I cannot go to any of the outlying areas. We also cannot go to the dam by road because of the Taliban. We need to fly there, and if a helicopter is not available the journey would be wasted.

"The government is warning many MPs in private not to go to their constituencies because they might get killed. So this is not exactly democracy working. Corruption is a huge problem and I am afraid people close to President Karzai are heavily involved. People are asking what has happened to the billions of dollars of aid money, given by the international community, which was supposed to have been spent in Afghanistan. There is no accountability.

"Take this dam for example, its cost is anything between $700,000 [£370,000] and $2m, there are no proper accounts. The NGO involved and the locals are blaming each other. The ones to suffer are the poor."

Hundreds of these poor queue outside one of the country's largest civilian hospitals, Sehateful, for treatment every day. India and Japan supply most of the medicine for a children's clinic and a group of volunteer Indian doctors is working there.

Amrullah, 29, a casual labourer, has brought his eight-year-old son, Khairulla, suffering from a heart condition, for treatment. "The doctors here are good people. But my son needs an operation and I don't think they can do that here.

"In other hospitals, they want bribes to give you treatment. I went to one where they could do the operation and they wanted $600. How will I get that kind of money? My son cannot go to school, he cannot walk, but there is nothing I can do. We had a lot of hope when the Taliban went but there is very little of that now."

Adult patients, turning up at a rate of a thousand a day, have to pay for treatment. Dr Nooral Haq Yousifzai, the acting director, said: "The government gives $1,500 for three months. That just lasts a few days. We look after the acute emergencies. For everyone else we give a shopping list and they have to buy the supplies from the bazaar if they want treatment.

"We also have a great shortage of nurses. We need 150 and there are 50 vacancies. That is because the NGOs are paying them salaries we cannot afford."

------------------------------
Citation: Kim Sengupta. "Five years after 'victory', violence and corruption dog Afghanistan," The Independent, 20 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1998828.ece
------------------------------

U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy

Shift power to a 'strongman'? Ask Iran for help? Choices reflect varying degrees of gloom.

By Paul Richter
Los Angeles Times, 19 November 2006

WASHINGTON — The debate over U.S. options in Iraq has intensified since the midterm election, but as officials await the recommendations of a high-profile study group, few good policy choices have emerged and the outlook on the war has grown increasingly pessimistic.

A change of course could become a turning point for the U.S. mission, and the six most-discussed options reflect varying degrees of gloom. The Bush administration advocates a relatively optimistic plan, calling for small-scale adjustments to the U.S. approach, or temporary troop increases, in hopes of stabilizing the country and giving its frail government a chance to take hold.

But pessimists contend that the United States must develop an end point for its mission. They say U.S. and Iraqi leaders need to consider dividing the country, shifting more of the burden of stewardship to its neighbors, or even replacing its Western-style government with a "strongman."

President Bush continues to publicly rule out some choices, such as troop withdrawals or initiating talks with countries such as Syria.

But behind the scenes, his top civilian and military officials are furiously rethinking all the options — including some that already have been tried and rejected.

But all concede, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week, that "there is no magic bullet."



The options

Stay the course, with tactical adjustments

Advocates: President Bush, top U.S. military leaders.

The administration's current approach is to continue efforts to suppress violence while pressuring the Iraqi government to reach political agreements, control the militias and strengthen security forces.

In the latest tactical shift, military leaders are planning to sharply increase the number of U.S. advisors working with Iraqi security forces. They hope American forces can be drawn down as Iraqi units take control of all regions of the country, which they say can happen within 18 months.

Pros: The approach could limit violence to give Iraqi leaders a chance to reach a power-sharing deal that offers one of the best long-term hopes for peace. It also could strengthen the Iraqi army, one of the country's less-sectarian institutions. American military leaders hope that the shift to an advisory role would allow them to eventually cut the force in Iraq to a level they could sustain and Americans might tolerate — perhaps 50,000 to 70,000 troops. There now are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Cons: The current strategy has produced poor results. The government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is further from a power-sharing deal today than when it took office in May. The Shiite-led government has less control of Shiite militias, and has often been unable to field promised Iraqi units. The U.S. military has already fallen behind schedule in its effort to shift to an advisory role, in part because of the inability of Iraqi forces to take on combat roles. It is unclear that shifting to advisors — a strategy that failed to bring victory in the Vietnam War — will work. And Iraqis want a change. Mahmoud Othman, a moderate Kurdish legislator, says staying the course is the worst option, because it would mean "what you are seeing every day — all these people killed, bloodied and kidnapped."



Temporary increase in U.S. troop level

Advocates: Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni; some neoconservatives.

The Pentagon could temporarily boost the current troop level by substantial numbers — in the tens of thousands — to try to suppress violence in key areas, such as Baghdad and Sunni-dominated Al Anbar province.

Pros: Supporters contend that U.S. forces have been spread too thinly to suppress violence, and that a larger force, by establishing order, could open the way to reconstruction, economic improvement and a power-sharing deal. The idea of a temporary spike in U.S. forces, to give the current strategy one last try, was well received by the Iraq Study Group, the congressionally chartered panel, in the early stages of its deliberations.

Cons: It would further strain the U.S. military, yet could prove insufficient to provide security in much of the country. The top U.S. military commander in the Mideast, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, said last week that the Pentagon could provide 20,000 additional troops, but only temporarily, by extending deployments and other steps. And he said that this would reduce pressure on the Iraqis to take charge of their own security. In addition, critics say, it could harm the Pentagon's ability to handle other emergencies, decrease reenlistment rates and deepen American public discontent over the war. The government of Iraq and its people are cool to the idea of more troops. The foreign forces "are what incite the problems," said Ali Adib, a lawmaker with Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party.


Gradual withdrawal

Advocates: Many Democratic leaders.

An immediate withdrawal is not on the table. The Bush administration could begin a gradual drawdown of troops over several years, possibly coupled with a redeployment that would move U.S. forces into a support position. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, says the administration should begin a drawdown in four to six months. He argues that U.S. forces should shift to more limited missions, such as training Iraqi forces and fighting foreign insurgents. Iraqis say they want a withdrawal over several years, but each major group wants a pullout structured to protect its interests.

Pros: By notifying Iraqis that a withdrawal will begin soon, the United States may be able to pressure the government to assume responsibility for security. It also could provide an incentive for the rival factions to finally reach a political deal, advocates say. They argue that there is little downside to a pullback, because U.S. troops as currently deployed have been ineffective. "The fragmentation is going on regardless of our presence there," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Proponents say the U.S. forces still would be able to go after terrorists in the country.

Cons: Violence could intensify as U.S. forces pull back, jeopardizing the government, tempting the governments of neighboring countries to intervene to help the faction they support and emboldening foreign insurgents. The threat of an American pullback wouldn't produce Iraqi action, critics argue, because the Maliki government is too weak and divided. It could be taken as a signal of impending U.S. departure, and cause factions to deepen the civil war. American disengagement would mark a setback to U.S. prestige and influence in the region, critics say, and would alarm regional allies while strengthening Islamic militants and U.S. rivals such as Iran.


Partition or decentralization

Advocates: Some Kurds and former U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith favor partition; Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) favors decentralization.

This option has a variety of applications: Iraq could be formally divided into Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni states, or the three regions could be given wide autonomy around a weak central government that would retain some responsibilities for foreign policy, defense and trade. The Iraqi Constitution provides the foundation for greater regional autonomy.

Pros: The country already is moving toward such a separation, and division could reduce violence, as it did in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.

Cons: About 40% of the population still lives in mixed areas, such as Baghdad, and deciding which territory goes to which group could intensify violence and force the displacement of thousands of people. A formal division would face strong opposition from neighboring states, another reason the White House calls the idea of partition a "nonstarter." The Bush administration is more ready to accept a shift toward greater regional autonomy under a central government. But even the idea of autonomous "super-regions" faces strong resistance from many Sunni and Shiite Iraqis, who fear they would get less than they deserve.


Enlist neighbors

Advocates: Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group; Defense Secretary- designate Robert M. Gates; British Prime Minister Tony Blair; various U.S. lawmakers and foreign policy experts.

The Bush administration could launch a new diplomatic initiative, or a regional conference, to enlist the help of neighboring states. A particular goal would be to win support from Iran and Syria, with which the administration has had limited contacts. Although administration hawks oppose engagement with Iran and Syria, David Satterfield, Rice's Iraq coordinator, said last week that the administration was prepared "in principle" to hold talks with Iran about Iraq.

Pros: Iran has enormous influence over Shiite southern Iraq, and Syria over the Sunni regions and foreign insurgents. No neighbors stand to win if civil war engulfs Iraq, so they have reason to help out. Even partial cooperation could be an important step forward.

Cons: Iran and Syria probably wouldn't want to help the U.S., whose mission in Iraq has limited the energy it can put into its feuds with them. Administration officials say they have already approached the two countries on some issues, and have come away with little to show for it. The countries also could ask a high price for cooperation: Tehran could demand that the United States reduce the pressure on its nuclear program; Syria might want permission to retake a more active role in Lebanon. "If you bring them in as a major stakeholder, you're in a position of weakness," said Michael J. Williams of the Royal United Services Institute in London. And many Iraqis are skeptical of this idea, fearing it would invite meddling by the neighbors they dislike. Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a Sunni lawmaker, said the option would mean giving "wide authority to Iran or Syria to interfere in Iraq."


A 'strongman'

Advocates: Some Iraqis, some neighboring governments.

Facing the continuing failure of the elected government, many Iraqis are showing more interest in turning to a more traditional Middle Eastern arrangement: an authoritarian leader. Some Iraqis say this could come through an agreement of the members of Iraq's National Security Council, which includes representatives of all the major groups. Others say the United States could just give the Shiite majority greater leeway — as it has been demanding — to impose order.

Although the Bush administration is talking more about the need for stability and less about Iraqi democracy, it is unlikely to ever publicly endorse a shift to a nondemocratic form of government. But it could be forced to decide how hard it wants to resist if the Iraqis begin moving in this direction.

Pros: A less democratic government might be preferable to catastrophe, Iraqis say. Tawfik Zeki, a Shiite water tanker driver, said that "the only language we Iraqis understand is the language of power and an iron fist." The idea is gaining currency among some intellectuals, such as University of Baghdad political science professor Nabil Salim. "It is very difficult to talk about democracy while people are starving, they have no work, they have no security," he said.

Cons: Iraq could jettison its elected government for an authoritarian one and still not have peace. There is no obvious leader who could command widespread support, and power in Iraq is so atomized that the country could get a strongman without a sufficient army. For the Bush administration, the ascent of an authoritarian government would be a difficult blow. It would strip away another of its justifications for the 2003 invasion and would be a further setback for its campaign to bring democracy to the Middle East.


Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes in Washington, Kim Murphy in London and Alexandra Zavis, Raheem Salman and Said Rifai in Baghdad, and special correspondents in Kirkuk and Najaf contributed to this report.


---------------------------------
Citation: Paul Richter. "U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy," Los Angeles Times, 19 November 2006.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-scenarios19nov19,1,4828215.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
---------------------------------

Iraq's Shiite-led gov't angers Sunnis

By Bassem Mroue
The Associated Press, 19 November 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's Shiite-led government has deeply undercut its promises to work toward sectarian reconciliation with a series of recent measures that prompted Sunni threats to leave the government and take up arms.

The government's actions — and the Sunni response — have dimmed hopes for a national reconciliation to keep Iraq's vicious sectarian violence from erupting into an all-out civil war.

Sunnis say Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government is not serious about disbanding Shiite militias, has done nothing about creating a more fair division of power and is balking at legislation that would divide the country's oil wealth equitably among all regions.

Sunni-dominated territories in the center and west of the country are largely desert expanses and fertile strips of land along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers — without oil resources.

In a major escalation of tensions, the Shiite interior minister issued an arrest warrant against Sheik Harith al-Dhari, the Sunnis' most influential leader who heads the Association of Muslim Scholars. The Sunni leader was accused of inciting violence and terrorism.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh quickly sought to defuse the crisis, saying the warrant was only designed to begin an investigation, not lead to al-Dhari's arrest. But the damage was done.

The largest Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, called the arrest warrant "a mercy bullet" that killed a flawed reconciliation plan. Demonstrations broke out in Sunni cities nationwide and politicians and clerics issued condemnations, some even calling for al-Maliki to resign.

On Sunday, about 1,000 people demonstrated in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah, carrying banners reading "the campaign against al-Dhari is a campaign against all Iraqis" and "Al-Dhari is the symbol of the resistance."

Sunni politicians have been threatening in recent weeks to walk out of the government and parliament and take up arms, which could end hopes of preventing an all-out civil war.

On Friday, Al-Dhari's scholars association put its imprimatur on a walkout.

But not all Sunnis were prepared to abandon the political process. Ayad al-Samaraie, of the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, said "the solution is not to take a negative stance. The solution is to create a new political foundation that keeps things from getting worse."

The bloc, known as the Iraqi Accordance Front, called for the government to repeal the arrest warrant and take action toward reconciliation. It also demanded the release of dozens of people missing since they were apparently kidnapped by Shiite militiamen from an education ministry office Tuesday.

Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, said he discussed the arrest warrant with al-Maliki, who said the crisis developed because information was "explained in a wrong way" — an indirect criticism of the interior minister.

Sunni groups and politicians said the arrest warrant marked the end of the national reconciliation program that al-Maliki presented in June. The prime minister had offered amnesty to members of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency who were not involved in "terrorist activities." He had also vowed to disarm the Shiite militias who have killed thousands.

Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's secular Iraqi National Accord also criticized the warrant, calling it an example of the government's policy of marginalizing "national, political, social and religious symbols."

"Iraq is witnessing dangerous developments, and as the reconciliation process is not working, we call all the sides to resort to constructive dialogue and put an end to random revenge," Allawi's group said.

The arrest order came five weeks after the leader of a small Sunni Arab party had his parliamentary immunity stripped after being accused of embezzling funds intended for a force protecting oil pipelines in northern Iraq. The leader, Mishan al-Jabouri, fled to
Syria.

"Reconciliation has become part of the past," al-Jabouri told The Associated Press in Damascus.

He questioned what al-Maliki thought the Shiites would have done if Iraq's Sunni defense minister had ordered the arrest of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in the country.

"What would the Shiites do then? Would they accept that?"

Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin in Iraq, Albert Aji in Syria and Dale Gavlak in Jordan contributed to this story.

--------------------------
Citation: Bassem Mroue. "Iraq's Shiite-led gov't angers Sunnis," The Associated Press, 19 November 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_angry_sunnis_1
--------------------------