Agence France-Presse, 29 March 2007
PARIS (AFP) - Already feeling the heat at home to pull out of Iraq, US President George W. Bush was under mounting international pressure Thursday to bring American troops home.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani followed the lead of Saudi King Abdullah the previous day at the same Arab summit in Riyadh, hitting out at the US for its "occupation" of his country and attacking Washington's mistakes.
"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah told the high-powered gathering.
The United States, which considers Saudi Arabia a key ally in the region, admitted to being caught off guard.
"We were a little surprised," said US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. "Obviously, we will seek clarification."
But later Thursday, the White House rebuffed Abdullah's remarks.
"When it comes to the coalition forces being in Iraq, we are there under the UN Security Council resolutions and at the invitation of the Iraqi people," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.
Asked whether the US military presence in Iraq was illegitimate, as the Saudi king had said, Perino replied: "Certainly not."
Washington got little comfort from Talabani in his speech Thursday.
"The decision to turn the liberation of Iraq into an occupation ... with the dire consequences this had internally and the fears (it aroused) in Arab, regional and international arenas -- all this was contrary to what Iraqi parties and national forces were planning at the time," he said.
"This applies equally to many hasty decisions and measures taken by the occupation's civil administration -- without understanding the Iraqis' point of view, and the consequences they had on the situation in the country and the political process as a whole," he added.
Talabani did not spell out the mistakes he was referring to, but the US-run administration installed after Saddam's fall has been widely criticised for taking decisions that have made the situation worse.
For example, tens of thousands of members of Iraq's former ruling Baath party were stripped of their posts in government, at universities and in business after the 2003 US-led invasion. The law has been a major source of grievance for the minority Sunnis.
Less of a surprise perhaps was the call by Russian President
Vladimir Putin for a deadline on the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
"The situation in Iraq is of serious concern," he said in a statement sent to the Arab League summit in Riyadh.
"In order to prevent the country from descending into full-scale civil war and disintegration, there must be real national reconciliation," he added.
Bush also faced mounting political pressure at home, as the Democratic-led Congress stepped up the pressure on him to change course in Iraq.
After days of passionate debate, the US Senate on Thursday approved a bill tying funding for the war in Iraq to a timetable for withdrawing US troops.
The bill sets a mandatory start to a troop pullout within 120 days of its final passage, and a guideline of March 21, 2008 for the completion of the withdrawal of most US combat forces.
It passed by 51 votes to 47 in a vote essentially split along party lines.
That set the scene for a dramatic confrontation with Bush, who has repeatedly rejected any time restrictions on the presence of US troops. And he was standing his ground on Thursday.
"I'll veto a bill that restricts our commanders on the ground in Iraq, a bill that doesn't fund our troops, a bill that's got too much spending on it," Bush said after meeting with Republican congressional allies.
In Baghdad meanwhile, the new US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, was sworn in at the American embassy, in the city's tightly fortified Green Zone on Thursday. One of his first duties will be to present his credentials to Talabani.
--------------------------------
Citation: "Bush takes flak from all sides over Iraq," Agence France-Presse, 29 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070329/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary
--------------------------------
This site is designed for use by researchers, educators, and students who seek access to its 2000+ military policy articles for research and/or educational purposes. Provided on a not-for-profit basis per 'fair use' rules.
30 March 2007
Earth to Democrats . . .Iraq matters much, much more than Afghanistan
By Charles Krauthammer
Boston Herald, 30 March 2007
"Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan." -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, March 8.
WASHINGTON - The Senate and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq war, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it. The resolutions, approved by the barest majorities, were underpinned by one unmistakable theme: wrong war, wrong place, distracting us from the real war that is elsewhere.
Where? In Afghanistan. The emphasis on Afghanistan echoed across the Democratic aisle in Congress. It is a staple of the three leading Democratic candidates for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. It is the constant refrain of their last presidential candidate, John Kerry, and of their current party leader, Howard Dean, who complains "we don’t have enough troops in Afghanistan. That’s where the real war on terror is."
Of all the arguments for leaving Iraq, its comparative unimportance vis-a-vis Afghanistan is the least serious.
And not just because this argument assumes that the world’s one superpower, which spends more on defense every year than the rest of the world combined, does not have the capacity to fight an insurgency in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. But because it assumes that Afghanistan is strategically more important.
Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer - a Martian - and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources, no industrial and no technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure which could be revived if it falls into the right (i.e. wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.
Al-Qaeda has provided the answer many times. Osama bin Laden, the one whose presence in Afghanistan presumably makes it the central front in the war on terror, has been explicit that "the most serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." Al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has declared that Iraq "is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam."
And it’s not just what al-Qaeda says, it’s what al-Qaeda does. Where are they funneling the worldwide recruits for jihad? Where do all the deranged suicidists who want to die for Allah gravitate? It’s no longer Afghanistan, but Iraq. That’s because they recognize the greater prize.
The Democratic insistence on the primacy of Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. Instead, it reflects a sensibility. They would rather support the Afghan war because its origins are cleaner, the casus belli clearer, the moral texture of the enterprise more comfortable. Afghanistan is a war of righteous revenge and restitution, law enforcement on the grandest of scales. As senator and presidential candidate Joe Biden put it, "If there was a totally just war since World War II, it is the war in Afghanistan."
If our resources are so stretched that we have to choose one front, the Martian would choose Iraq. But that is because, unlike a majority of Democratic senators, he did not vote four years earlier to authorize the war in Iraq, a vote for which many have a guilty conscience to be now soothed retroactively by pulling out and fighting the "totally just war."
But you do not decide where to fight on the basis of history; you decide on the basis of strategic realities of the ground. You can argue about our role in creating this new front and question whether it was worth taking that risk in order to topple Saddam Hussein. But you cannot reasonably argue that in 2007 Iraq is not the most critical strategic front in the war on terror. Nostalgia for the "good war" in Afghanistan is perhaps useful in encouraging anti-war Democrats to increase funding that is really needed there. But it is not an argument for abandoning Iraq.
-----------------------------
Citaton: Charles Krauthammer. "Earth to Democrats . . .Iraq matters much, much more than Afghanistan," Boston Herald, 30 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=191727&format=text
-----------------------------
Boston Herald, 30 March 2007
"Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan." -House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, March 8.
WASHINGTON - The Senate and the House have both passed bills for ending the Iraq war, or at least liquidating the American involvement in it. The resolutions, approved by the barest majorities, were underpinned by one unmistakable theme: wrong war, wrong place, distracting us from the real war that is elsewhere.
Where? In Afghanistan. The emphasis on Afghanistan echoed across the Democratic aisle in Congress. It is a staple of the three leading Democratic candidates for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. It is the constant refrain of their last presidential candidate, John Kerry, and of their current party leader, Howard Dean, who complains "we don’t have enough troops in Afghanistan. That’s where the real war on terror is."
Of all the arguments for leaving Iraq, its comparative unimportance vis-a-vis Afghanistan is the least serious.
And not just because this argument assumes that the world’s one superpower, which spends more on defense every year than the rest of the world combined, does not have the capacity to fight an insurgency in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. But because it assumes that Afghanistan is strategically more important.
Thought experiment: Bring in a completely neutral observer - a Martian - and point out to him that the United States is involved in two hot wars against radical Islamic insurgents. One is in Afghanistan, a geographically marginal backwater with no resources, no industrial and no technological infrastructure. The other is in Iraq, one of the three principal Arab states, with untold oil wealth, an educated population, an advanced military and technological infrastructure which could be revived if it falls into the right (i.e. wrong) hands. Add to that the fact that its strategic location would give its rulers inordinate influence over the entire Persian Gulf region. Then ask your Martian: Which is the more important battle? He would not even understand why you are asking the question.
Al-Qaeda has provided the answer many times. Osama bin Laden, the one whose presence in Afghanistan presumably makes it the central front in the war on terror, has been explicit that "the most serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War that is raging in Iraq." Al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has declared that Iraq "is now the place for the greatest battle of Islam."
And it’s not just what al-Qaeda says, it’s what al-Qaeda does. Where are they funneling the worldwide recruits for jihad? Where do all the deranged suicidists who want to die for Allah gravitate? It’s no longer Afghanistan, but Iraq. That’s because they recognize the greater prize.
The Democratic insistence on the primacy of Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. Instead, it reflects a sensibility. They would rather support the Afghan war because its origins are cleaner, the casus belli clearer, the moral texture of the enterprise more comfortable. Afghanistan is a war of righteous revenge and restitution, law enforcement on the grandest of scales. As senator and presidential candidate Joe Biden put it, "If there was a totally just war since World War II, it is the war in Afghanistan."
If our resources are so stretched that we have to choose one front, the Martian would choose Iraq. But that is because, unlike a majority of Democratic senators, he did not vote four years earlier to authorize the war in Iraq, a vote for which many have a guilty conscience to be now soothed retroactively by pulling out and fighting the "totally just war."
But you do not decide where to fight on the basis of history; you decide on the basis of strategic realities of the ground. You can argue about our role in creating this new front and question whether it was worth taking that risk in order to topple Saddam Hussein. But you cannot reasonably argue that in 2007 Iraq is not the most critical strategic front in the war on terror. Nostalgia for the "good war" in Afghanistan is perhaps useful in encouraging anti-war Democrats to increase funding that is really needed there. But it is not an argument for abandoning Iraq.
-----------------------------
Citaton: Charles Krauthammer. "Earth to Democrats . . .Iraq matters much, much more than Afghanistan," Boston Herald, 30 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=191727&format=text
-----------------------------
27 March 2007
Insurgents report a split with Al Qaeda in Iraq
The U.S. hopes to take advantage of the Sunni rebel schism, which has resulted in combat in some areas.
By Ned Parker
Los Angeles Times, 27 March 2007
BAGHDAD — Insurgent leaders and Sunni Arab politicians say divisions between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq have widened and have led to combat in some areas of the country, a schism that U.S. officials hope to exploit.
The Sunni Arab insurgent leaders said they disagreed with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq over tactics, including attacks on civilians, as well as over command of the movement.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, on his last day in Iraq, said Monday that American officials were actively pursuing negotiations with the Sunni factions in an effort to further isolate Al Qaeda.
"Iraqis are uniting against Al Qaeda," Khalilzad said. "Coalition commanders have been able to engage some insurgents to explore ways to collaborate in fighting the terrorists."
Insurgent leaders from two of the prominent groups fighting U.S. troops said the divisions between their forces and Al Qaeda were serious. They have led to skirmishes in Al Anbar province, in western Iraq, and have stopped short of combat in Diyala, east of Baghdad, they said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has taken responsibility for many of the most brutal attacks on civilians here, is made up primarily of foreign fighters. Although it shares a name with Osama bin Laden's group, it is unclear how much the two coordinate their activities.
The General Command of the Iraqi Armed Forces, a small Baath Party insurgent faction, told the Los Angeles Times it had split with Al Qaeda in Iraq in September, after the assassination of two of its members in Al Anbar.
"Al Qaeda killed two of our best members, the Gen. Mohammed and Gen. Saab, in Ramadi, so we took revenge and now we fight Al Qaeda," said the group's spokesman, who called himself Abu Marwan.
In Diyala, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a coalition of Islamists and former Baath Party military officers, is on the verge of cutting ties with Al Qaeda.
"In the past, we agreed in terms of the goal of resisting the occupation and expelling the occupation. We have some disagreements with Qaeda, especially about targeting civilians, places of worship, state civilian institutions and services," said a fighter with the brigade who identified himself with a nom de guerre, Haj Mahmoud abu Bakr.
"Now we reached a dead end and we disavow what Qaeda is doing. But until now, we haven't thought about fighting with them," he added. "We are counseling them, and in case they continue, we will cut off the aid and the logistical and intelligence support."
Shiite Muslim government officials said the Iraqi government was talking to insurgents both about fighting the radical movement and reaching a truce.
The government has proposed a trial cease-fire period to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the Islamic Army in Iraq and other factions in western Baghdad. In return, the Iraqi government would mount a major reconstruction drive in battle-scarred Sunni areas, a senior member of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party said.
A rupture between Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents could prove a significant break for the Iraqi government and the Americans. But there are many potential drawbacks. Sunni politicians describe the fighting against Al Qaeda in Iraq as localized and emphasize that in some areas the various movements exist in harmony.
The Iraqi factions are also believed to engage in turf wars that could sabotage any concerted effort against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni politicians said.
The insurgents prefer to negotiate with the Americans and to bypass the Shiite-led government, which Sunni Arabs deeply distrust.
Khalilzad heralded the developing rift between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq as "the key issue of the current period."
He said insurgents were "in touch with the government seeking reconciliation and cooperation" in both the conflict with Al Qaeda in Iraq and reconciliation with Maliki's government.
Khalilzad acknowledged that he had met with insurgent groups last spring to try to draw them into the political process, but had barred followers of Al Qaeda in Iraq from his plans.
Three Sunni politicians, most of them with contacts in the Sunni insurgency, said insurgent groups were struggling over domestic issues, even as Al Qaeda in Iraq pursued an international agenda.
"All Iraqi resistance groups are in real dissension with Al Qaeda network in Iraq," said Khalaf Ayan, a member of the Sunni Tawafiq bloc in parliament.
"Al Qaeda is pursuing a different agenda — an international one and not an Iraqi" agenda, he said. "Al Qaeda should join Iraqis and not the opposite. What happened is that Al Qaeda had targeted leaders of many Iraqi groups. That is why the resistance is in big conflict with Al Qaeda and is fighting against it."
The U.S. military had reported tension between Al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgent groups in 2005. But the movement, then under the leadership of Abu Musab Zarqawi, sought to repair relations through the establishment of a resistance umbrella association. Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.
In October, Al Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliates announced the establishment of an Islamic State of Iraq, but insurgents have spurned it, saying it was a ploy to take over the insurgency.
"The Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade are fighting Al Qaeda," said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni member of parliament. "Al Qaeda wants them to join Al Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq. They refused and this is why they are fighting now."
Mutlak said that there had been heavy fighting in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and that unrest had also spread to Diyala in eastern Iraq.
Iyad Samarrai, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi Islamic Party, confirmed clashes in the last three months in the Abu Ghraib area and also in Taji, north of Baghdad.
But he said the Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade were coexisting with Al Qaeda in Iraq in other areas.
Samarrai explained that the spate of violence stemmed from the refusal by the 1920 Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army to rule out negotiations with the Americans after Sunni politicians were elected to parliament in December 2005.
"When those resistance groups decided it was time to review their strategy and consider the possibility of negotiating with the Americans and being part of the political process, Al Qaeda refused this and made attacks against them," Samarrai said.
Shiite government officials, meanwhile, said their talks on fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, which were taking place as part of larger discussions on a peace deal, were facing difficulties, including the fragmentation of some insurgent organizations.
Another hurdle is the insistence by insurgent groups to go back to "square one, to rewrite the constitution from the beginning, to have elections from the beginning," said Shiite Haider Abadi, a member of parliament from Maliki's Dawa Party.
He confirmed that the talks included the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the Islamic Army and at least five other groups.
------------------------
Citation: Ned Parker. "Insurgents report a split with Al Qaeda in Iraq," Los Angeles Times, 27 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-insurgents27mar27,1,5997439.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
------------------------
By Ned Parker
Los Angeles Times, 27 March 2007
BAGHDAD — Insurgent leaders and Sunni Arab politicians say divisions between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq have widened and have led to combat in some areas of the country, a schism that U.S. officials hope to exploit.
The Sunni Arab insurgent leaders said they disagreed with the leadership of Al Qaeda in Iraq over tactics, including attacks on civilians, as well as over command of the movement.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, on his last day in Iraq, said Monday that American officials were actively pursuing negotiations with the Sunni factions in an effort to further isolate Al Qaeda.
"Iraqis are uniting against Al Qaeda," Khalilzad said. "Coalition commanders have been able to engage some insurgents to explore ways to collaborate in fighting the terrorists."
Insurgent leaders from two of the prominent groups fighting U.S. troops said the divisions between their forces and Al Qaeda were serious. They have led to skirmishes in Al Anbar province, in western Iraq, and have stopped short of combat in Diyala, east of Baghdad, they said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times.
Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has taken responsibility for many of the most brutal attacks on civilians here, is made up primarily of foreign fighters. Although it shares a name with Osama bin Laden's group, it is unclear how much the two coordinate their activities.
The General Command of the Iraqi Armed Forces, a small Baath Party insurgent faction, told the Los Angeles Times it had split with Al Qaeda in Iraq in September, after the assassination of two of its members in Al Anbar.
"Al Qaeda killed two of our best members, the Gen. Mohammed and Gen. Saab, in Ramadi, so we took revenge and now we fight Al Qaeda," said the group's spokesman, who called himself Abu Marwan.
In Diyala, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a coalition of Islamists and former Baath Party military officers, is on the verge of cutting ties with Al Qaeda.
"In the past, we agreed in terms of the goal of resisting the occupation and expelling the occupation. We have some disagreements with Qaeda, especially about targeting civilians, places of worship, state civilian institutions and services," said a fighter with the brigade who identified himself with a nom de guerre, Haj Mahmoud abu Bakr.
"Now we reached a dead end and we disavow what Qaeda is doing. But until now, we haven't thought about fighting with them," he added. "We are counseling them, and in case they continue, we will cut off the aid and the logistical and intelligence support."
Shiite Muslim government officials said the Iraqi government was talking to insurgents both about fighting the radical movement and reaching a truce.
The government has proposed a trial cease-fire period to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the Islamic Army in Iraq and other factions in western Baghdad. In return, the Iraqi government would mount a major reconstruction drive in battle-scarred Sunni areas, a senior member of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party said.
A rupture between Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents could prove a significant break for the Iraqi government and the Americans. But there are many potential drawbacks. Sunni politicians describe the fighting against Al Qaeda in Iraq as localized and emphasize that in some areas the various movements exist in harmony.
The Iraqi factions are also believed to engage in turf wars that could sabotage any concerted effort against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni politicians said.
The insurgents prefer to negotiate with the Americans and to bypass the Shiite-led government, which Sunni Arabs deeply distrust.
Khalilzad heralded the developing rift between insurgent groups and Al Qaeda in Iraq as "the key issue of the current period."
He said insurgents were "in touch with the government seeking reconciliation and cooperation" in both the conflict with Al Qaeda in Iraq and reconciliation with Maliki's government.
Khalilzad acknowledged that he had met with insurgent groups last spring to try to draw them into the political process, but had barred followers of Al Qaeda in Iraq from his plans.
Three Sunni politicians, most of them with contacts in the Sunni insurgency, said insurgent groups were struggling over domestic issues, even as Al Qaeda in Iraq pursued an international agenda.
"All Iraqi resistance groups are in real dissension with Al Qaeda network in Iraq," said Khalaf Ayan, a member of the Sunni Tawafiq bloc in parliament.
"Al Qaeda is pursuing a different agenda — an international one and not an Iraqi" agenda, he said. "Al Qaeda should join Iraqis and not the opposite. What happened is that Al Qaeda had targeted leaders of many Iraqi groups. That is why the resistance is in big conflict with Al Qaeda and is fighting against it."
The U.S. military had reported tension between Al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgent groups in 2005. But the movement, then under the leadership of Abu Musab Zarqawi, sought to repair relations through the establishment of a resistance umbrella association. Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.
In October, Al Qaeda and its Iraqi affiliates announced the establishment of an Islamic State of Iraq, but insurgents have spurned it, saying it was a ploy to take over the insurgency.
"The Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade are fighting Al Qaeda," said Saleh Mutlak, a Sunni member of parliament. "Al Qaeda wants them to join Al Qaeda or the Islamic State of Iraq. They refused and this is why they are fighting now."
Mutlak said that there had been heavy fighting in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, and that unrest had also spread to Diyala in eastern Iraq.
Iyad Samarrai, a Sunni member of parliament from the Iraqi Islamic Party, confirmed clashes in the last three months in the Abu Ghraib area and also in Taji, north of Baghdad.
But he said the Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade were coexisting with Al Qaeda in Iraq in other areas.
Samarrai explained that the spate of violence stemmed from the refusal by the 1920 Revolution Brigade and the Islamic Army to rule out negotiations with the Americans after Sunni politicians were elected to parliament in December 2005.
"When those resistance groups decided it was time to review their strategy and consider the possibility of negotiating with the Americans and being part of the political process, Al Qaeda refused this and made attacks against them," Samarrai said.
Shiite government officials, meanwhile, said their talks on fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, which were taking place as part of larger discussions on a peace deal, were facing difficulties, including the fragmentation of some insurgent organizations.
Another hurdle is the insistence by insurgent groups to go back to "square one, to rewrite the constitution from the beginning, to have elections from the beginning," said Shiite Haider Abadi, a member of parliament from Maliki's Dawa Party.
He confirmed that the talks included the 1920 Revolution Brigade, the Islamic Army and at least five other groups.
------------------------
Citation: Ned Parker. "Insurgents report a split with Al Qaeda in Iraq," Los Angeles Times, 27 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-insurgents27mar27,1,5997439.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
------------------------
25 March 2007
America speaks out: Is the United States spending too much on defense?
By Carl Conetta
Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo #41
26 March 2007
On 1-4 February 2007, the Gallup polling organization asked a representative sample of US citizens if they thought the United States was spending too little, too much, or just the right amount on defense and the military. For the first time since the mid-1990s, a plurality of Americans said that the country was spending too much. The surprising result of the survey shows current public attitudes to approximate those that prevailed in March 1993, shortly after former President Bill Clinton took office. Today, 43 percent of Americans say that the country is spending “too much” on the military, while 20 percent say “too little”. In 1993, the balance of opinion was 42 percent saying “too much” and 17 percent saying “too little”.
What makes this result especially surprising is that few leaders in Congress and no one in the administration today argues that the United States can or should reduce military spending. Quite the contrary: leaders of both parties seem eager to add to the Pentagon’s coffers, even as public anti-war sentiment builds. And Congress is not the only institution that appears insensitive to the shift in public opinion. The Gallup survey also drew little attention from the news media. Indeed, a Lexis-Nexis database search shows almost no coverage of the poll, which was released on 02 March 2007.
US military spending in comparative perspective
For FY 2008, the Bush administration has requested $647.3 billion to cover the costs of national defense and war. This includes the Defense Department budget ($483 billion), some smaller defense-related accounts ($22.6 billion), and the projected FY 2008 cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terror operations ($141.7 billion). However, it does not include non-DOD expenditures for homeland security ($36.4 billion) or the Veterans’ Affairs budget ($84.4 billion). Nor does it include the request for supplemental funds for outstanding FY 2007 war costs ($93.4 billion).
The $647.3 billion request represents a 75 percent real increase over the post-Cold War low-point in national defense spending, which occurred in 1996. Today’s expenditures are higher in inflation-adjusted terms than peak spending during the Vietnam and Korean wars – as well as higher than during the Reagan buildup. One way of appreciating the significance of this change is to view it in terms of world military spending. Whereas the United States accounted for 28 percent of world defense expenditures in 1986 and 34 percent in 1994, it today accounts for approximately 50 percent.
The authoritative reference work on military comparisons, The Military Balance 2007, estimates world military expenditure in 2005 to have been approximately $1.2 trillion. A plausible estimate for current world spending is $1.35 trillion. By contrast, the armaments and disarmament yearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates 2005 world expenditure to have been slightly more than $1 trillion. The estimates differ in large part because the two data books rely on different standards of comparison: The Military Balance relies more heavily on “purchasing power parity” (or PPP) when comparing nations’ expenditures, while the SIPRI volume uses exchange rates.
The change in America’s proportion of world military expenditure is due partly to the resurgence in US spending that began after 1998, and partly to reduced spending by other nations. Significantly, the greatest average decline in spending has occurred in that group of nations that the United States might consider “adversaries” or “potential adversaries”. China, for one, is spending much more than it did prior to 1990 – but “adversary spending” as a whole has receded substantially.
Spending versus strength
The turn in US public attitudes may reflect disenchantment with the Iraq war or a general sense that increased military spending is not bringing increased security. Clearly, the flood of defense dollars has not purchased stability in either Iraq or Afghanistan, nor has it led to a general decrease in terrorist activity. Indeed, the rate of terrorist incidents and fatalities has increased significantly since the onset of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – even if one discounts terrorist activity occurring in these two countries.
Relevant to threat perception: the February 2007 Gallup poll shows that the proportion of Americans thinking that the country is “not strong enough” remains high: 46 percent. Only eight percent think the country is stronger then it needs to be. Comparable figures for 1993 are not available, but in 1990 public sentiments about spending and strength correlated much more closely. At that time 9 percent thought that the United States was spending too little and 16 percent thought it was spending too much. Regarding “strength”: 16 percent in 1990 thought the country was stronger than necessary, while 17 percent thought it was not as strong as it needed to be. In the recent poll, by contrast, the public leans toward seeing spending as too high and strength as too little.
Clearly (and understandably) the American public continues to perceive a high-level of threat, even as it has begun questioning the current level of military expenditure. The unusual disjuncture between sentiments about “defense spending” and “strength” may reflect doubts about how the Pentagon is spending its funds or doubts about whether military dollars can purchase the requisite type of strength. Certainly, the Iraq and Afghanistan imbroglios suggest that the utility of America’s military investments has distinct limits. This may create a basis of public support for political leaders attempting a more thorough security policy reform than they have been willing to contemplate so far.
Economic concerns
Economic concerns may also play a role in the public’s thinking about defense spending. Although consumer confidence is higher in 2007 than it was in 2006, it still remains lower than during the mid- and late-1990s. In real terms, US median family income stagnated between 2000 and 2007, while personal debt rose. Now, rising interest rates are pinching the credit flow. Against this backdrop, the public may be taking a second look at the steep climb in military spending – up 45 percent in real terms between 2002 and 2008. Or perhaps the effect is more impressionistic: No matter how softly it is said, $647 billion sounds like a vast sum.
Currently the Pentagon plans to spend more than $2.75 trillion during the next five years – not counting the incremental cost of future combat operations. This is not easily reconciled with bringing the national debt under control, while also meeting pending demands on social security and medicare. There also may be detrimental macro-economic effects associated with the scale of federal deficits and debt – unless remedial action is taken. Concerns such as these recently led the World Economic Forum to lower America’s competitiveness rating, dropping it from first place to sixth. Similar concerns have prompted the US Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, David M. Walker, to launch a public information campaign about the long-term threat to the nation’s fiscal health. Such concerns may not yet figure substantially in the public’s thinking about defense expenditures – but they are bound to play a bigger role as the “baby-boomer” generation begins to retire en masse.
Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Memo #41
26 March 2007
On 1-4 February 2007, the Gallup polling organization asked a representative sample of US citizens if they thought the United States was spending too little, too much, or just the right amount on defense and the military. For the first time since the mid-1990s, a plurality of Americans said that the country was spending too much. The surprising result of the survey shows current public attitudes to approximate those that prevailed in March 1993, shortly after former President Bill Clinton took office. Today, 43 percent of Americans say that the country is spending “too much” on the military, while 20 percent say “too little”. In 1993, the balance of opinion was 42 percent saying “too much” and 17 percent saying “too little”.
What makes this result especially surprising is that few leaders in Congress and no one in the administration today argues that the United States can or should reduce military spending. Quite the contrary: leaders of both parties seem eager to add to the Pentagon’s coffers, even as public anti-war sentiment builds. And Congress is not the only institution that appears insensitive to the shift in public opinion. The Gallup survey also drew little attention from the news media. Indeed, a Lexis-Nexis database search shows almost no coverage of the poll, which was released on 02 March 2007.
US military spending in comparative perspective
For FY 2008, the Bush administration has requested $647.3 billion to cover the costs of national defense and war. This includes the Defense Department budget ($483 billion), some smaller defense-related accounts ($22.6 billion), and the projected FY 2008 cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terror operations ($141.7 billion). However, it does not include non-DOD expenditures for homeland security ($36.4 billion) or the Veterans’ Affairs budget ($84.4 billion). Nor does it include the request for supplemental funds for outstanding FY 2007 war costs ($93.4 billion).
The $647.3 billion request represents a 75 percent real increase over the post-Cold War low-point in national defense spending, which occurred in 1996. Today’s expenditures are higher in inflation-adjusted terms than peak spending during the Vietnam and Korean wars – as well as higher than during the Reagan buildup. One way of appreciating the significance of this change is to view it in terms of world military spending. Whereas the United States accounted for 28 percent of world defense expenditures in 1986 and 34 percent in 1994, it today accounts for approximately 50 percent.
The authoritative reference work on military comparisons, The Military Balance 2007, estimates world military expenditure in 2005 to have been approximately $1.2 trillion. A plausible estimate for current world spending is $1.35 trillion. By contrast, the armaments and disarmament yearbook of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates 2005 world expenditure to have been slightly more than $1 trillion. The estimates differ in large part because the two data books rely on different standards of comparison: The Military Balance relies more heavily on “purchasing power parity” (or PPP) when comparing nations’ expenditures, while the SIPRI volume uses exchange rates.
The change in America’s proportion of world military expenditure is due partly to the resurgence in US spending that began after 1998, and partly to reduced spending by other nations. Significantly, the greatest average decline in spending has occurred in that group of nations that the United States might consider “adversaries” or “potential adversaries”. China, for one, is spending much more than it did prior to 1990 – but “adversary spending” as a whole has receded substantially.
Spending versus strength
The turn in US public attitudes may reflect disenchantment with the Iraq war or a general sense that increased military spending is not bringing increased security. Clearly, the flood of defense dollars has not purchased stability in either Iraq or Afghanistan, nor has it led to a general decrease in terrorist activity. Indeed, the rate of terrorist incidents and fatalities has increased significantly since the onset of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – even if one discounts terrorist activity occurring in these two countries.
Relevant to threat perception: the February 2007 Gallup poll shows that the proportion of Americans thinking that the country is “not strong enough” remains high: 46 percent. Only eight percent think the country is stronger then it needs to be. Comparable figures for 1993 are not available, but in 1990 public sentiments about spending and strength correlated much more closely. At that time 9 percent thought that the United States was spending too little and 16 percent thought it was spending too much. Regarding “strength”: 16 percent in 1990 thought the country was stronger than necessary, while 17 percent thought it was not as strong as it needed to be. In the recent poll, by contrast, the public leans toward seeing spending as too high and strength as too little.
Clearly (and understandably) the American public continues to perceive a high-level of threat, even as it has begun questioning the current level of military expenditure. The unusual disjuncture between sentiments about “defense spending” and “strength” may reflect doubts about how the Pentagon is spending its funds or doubts about whether military dollars can purchase the requisite type of strength. Certainly, the Iraq and Afghanistan imbroglios suggest that the utility of America’s military investments has distinct limits. This may create a basis of public support for political leaders attempting a more thorough security policy reform than they have been willing to contemplate so far.
Economic concerns
Economic concerns may also play a role in the public’s thinking about defense spending. Although consumer confidence is higher in 2007 than it was in 2006, it still remains lower than during the mid- and late-1990s. In real terms, US median family income stagnated between 2000 and 2007, while personal debt rose. Now, rising interest rates are pinching the credit flow. Against this backdrop, the public may be taking a second look at the steep climb in military spending – up 45 percent in real terms between 2002 and 2008. Or perhaps the effect is more impressionistic: No matter how softly it is said, $647 billion sounds like a vast sum.
Currently the Pentagon plans to spend more than $2.75 trillion during the next five years – not counting the incremental cost of future combat operations. This is not easily reconciled with bringing the national debt under control, while also meeting pending demands on social security and medicare. There also may be detrimental macro-economic effects associated with the scale of federal deficits and debt – unless remedial action is taken. Concerns such as these recently led the World Economic Forum to lower America’s competitiveness rating, dropping it from first place to sixth. Similar concerns have prompted the US Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, David M. Walker, to launch a public information campaign about the long-term threat to the nation’s fiscal health. Such concerns may not yet figure substantially in the public’s thinking about defense expenditures – but they are bound to play a bigger role as the “baby-boomer” generation begins to retire en masse.
23 March 2007
Gates warns of Army stress without emergency funds
By Kristin Roberts
Reuters, 22 March 2007
WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday the Army would face tough cuts without emergency funds but insisted the Iraq and Afghan wars had not so stretched U.S. forces that they could not win a third war.
He painted a mixed picture of the impact Iraq has had on U.S. military readiness at a time when the Congress is considering tying the Bush administration's request for emergency war funding to a deadline for pulling troops out of the conflict.
Gates has previously raised concerns about Democrats' moves to set a withdrawal deadline. But he would not say on Thursday what Congress should do, or discuss President George W. Bush's threat to veto a bill linking funding to a pullout timetable.
"I think it's my responsibility to let everybody involved in the debate know the impact of the timing of the decisions," he said. "I think that that's about as far as I should go."
More than four years into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. military shows increasing signs of strain. Top defense officials say the United States would prevail in a third major confrontation, but it would take longer.
Gates said potential U.S. adversaries should not think the United States is too weak to fight.
"Our ability to defend the United States despite the heavy commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan remains very strong and every adversary should be aware of that," he said.
But other developments raise questions about readiness, including the secretary's enumeration of problems the Army would face if Congress does not pass $100 billion in emergency funding.
Gates said if Congress does not approve the funds by April 15, the Army might have to curtail or suspend some training for reserve forces, slow training of units scheduled to go to Iraq and Afghanistan and stop repairing equipment used in training.
If the funds are not approved by May 15, Gates said, the Army might have to extend some soldiers' tours because other units are not ready, delay the formation of new brigade combat teams, reduce equipment repair work at Army depots and delay or curtail deployment of combat teams to training.
Also, in another signal of stress, the military said on Thursday 1,200 Marines and sailors would stay in Okinawa, Japan, for an additional five months so other Marines scheduled to move into Iraq can stay home and train for the mission. That allows the Marine Corps to maintain its target for "dwell time" -- the time a Marine is home between deployments.
---------------------------------
Citation: Kristin Roberts. "Gates warns of Army stress without emergency funds," Reuters, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22232590.htm
---------------------------------
Reuters, 22 March 2007
WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday the Army would face tough cuts without emergency funds but insisted the Iraq and Afghan wars had not so stretched U.S. forces that they could not win a third war.
He painted a mixed picture of the impact Iraq has had on U.S. military readiness at a time when the Congress is considering tying the Bush administration's request for emergency war funding to a deadline for pulling troops out of the conflict.
Gates has previously raised concerns about Democrats' moves to set a withdrawal deadline. But he would not say on Thursday what Congress should do, or discuss President George W. Bush's threat to veto a bill linking funding to a pullout timetable.
"I think it's my responsibility to let everybody involved in the debate know the impact of the timing of the decisions," he said. "I think that that's about as far as I should go."
More than four years into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. military shows increasing signs of strain. Top defense officials say the United States would prevail in a third major confrontation, but it would take longer.
Gates said potential U.S. adversaries should not think the United States is too weak to fight.
"Our ability to defend the United States despite the heavy commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan remains very strong and every adversary should be aware of that," he said.
But other developments raise questions about readiness, including the secretary's enumeration of problems the Army would face if Congress does not pass $100 billion in emergency funding.
Gates said if Congress does not approve the funds by April 15, the Army might have to curtail or suspend some training for reserve forces, slow training of units scheduled to go to Iraq and Afghanistan and stop repairing equipment used in training.
If the funds are not approved by May 15, Gates said, the Army might have to extend some soldiers' tours because other units are not ready, delay the formation of new brigade combat teams, reduce equipment repair work at Army depots and delay or curtail deployment of combat teams to training.
Also, in another signal of stress, the military said on Thursday 1,200 Marines and sailors would stay in Okinawa, Japan, for an additional five months so other Marines scheduled to move into Iraq can stay home and train for the mission. That allows the Marine Corps to maintain its target for "dwell time" -- the time a Marine is home between deployments.
---------------------------------
Citation: Kristin Roberts. "Gates warns of Army stress without emergency funds," Reuters, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22232590.htm
---------------------------------
Shortage of safe water risks cholera in Iraq -U.N.
By Suleiman al-Khalidi
Reuters, 22 March 2007
AMMAN - United Nations agencies working in Iraq warned on Thursday a chronic shortage of safe drinking water risks causing more child deaths and an outbreak of waterborne disease such as cholera during the summer.
Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, millions of Iraqi children still find that safe water is no easier to access, said a statement issued by leading U.N. aid agencies operating in Iraq.
The agencies, whose offices are based in Amman, issued the statement to mark World Water Day.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said shortages of drinking water threatened to push up diarrhoea rates, particularly among children. Diarrhoea is already the second highest cause of child illness and death in Iraq, it said.
"Latest reports suggest we are already seeing an increase in diarrhoea, even before the usual onset of the diarrhoea season in June," said Roger Wright, UNICEF representative in Iraq.
Efforts to repair Iraq's damaged water networks have been hampered by electricity shortages, attacks on technicians, infrastructure and engineering works and underinvestment in the water sector, the agencies said.
Iraq was still relying on U.N. support to provide essential water treatment chemicals with UNICEF alone providing 1,650 tonnes of chlorine last year, the statement said.
The suspension of water tankering services to tens of thousands of people in Baghdad, especially to displaced families and communities hosting them, increased the risk of cholera outbreaks, the agencies warned.
"Under the circumstances, Iraq has done extremely well to keep outbreaks of waterborne diseases, especially cholera, largely at bay so far. But this achievement is at risk unless more reliable sources of safe water reach families as soon as possible," the joint statement said.
No cholera cases were reported last year and the incidence of typhoid also decreased, according to WHO data.
The U.N. bodies said the need for aid was expected to rise in 2007 with the worsening humanitarian plight from raging sectarian violence and insurgent attacks.
They estimated that children and women account for nearly 70 percent of the over 712,000 Iraqis who were internally displaced last year after the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in February 2006 triggered a surge in sectarian violence.
--------------------------------
Citation: Suleiman al-Khalidi. "Shortage of safe water risks cholera in Iraq -U.N.,"
Reuters, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22331756.htm
--------------------------------
Reuters, 22 March 2007
AMMAN - United Nations agencies working in Iraq warned on Thursday a chronic shortage of safe drinking water risks causing more child deaths and an outbreak of waterborne disease such as cholera during the summer.
Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, millions of Iraqi children still find that safe water is no easier to access, said a statement issued by leading U.N. aid agencies operating in Iraq.
The agencies, whose offices are based in Amman, issued the statement to mark World Water Day.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said shortages of drinking water threatened to push up diarrhoea rates, particularly among children. Diarrhoea is already the second highest cause of child illness and death in Iraq, it said.
"Latest reports suggest we are already seeing an increase in diarrhoea, even before the usual onset of the diarrhoea season in June," said Roger Wright, UNICEF representative in Iraq.
Efforts to repair Iraq's damaged water networks have been hampered by electricity shortages, attacks on technicians, infrastructure and engineering works and underinvestment in the water sector, the agencies said.
Iraq was still relying on U.N. support to provide essential water treatment chemicals with UNICEF alone providing 1,650 tonnes of chlorine last year, the statement said.
The suspension of water tankering services to tens of thousands of people in Baghdad, especially to displaced families and communities hosting them, increased the risk of cholera outbreaks, the agencies warned.
"Under the circumstances, Iraq has done extremely well to keep outbreaks of waterborne diseases, especially cholera, largely at bay so far. But this achievement is at risk unless more reliable sources of safe water reach families as soon as possible," the joint statement said.
No cholera cases were reported last year and the incidence of typhoid also decreased, according to WHO data.
The U.N. bodies said the need for aid was expected to rise in 2007 with the worsening humanitarian plight from raging sectarian violence and insurgent attacks.
They estimated that children and women account for nearly 70 percent of the over 712,000 Iraqis who were internally displaced last year after the bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in February 2006 triggered a surge in sectarian violence.
--------------------------------
Citation: Suleiman al-Khalidi. "Shortage of safe water risks cholera in Iraq -U.N.,"
Reuters, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22331756.htm
--------------------------------
22 March 2007
When less is best
By Rory Stewart
The New York Times, 20 March 2007
Why are we Westerners in Afghanistan? Vice President Cheney talks terror, Britain focuses on narcotics. The European Union talks "state-building," others gender. On a different day, the positions seem interchangeable. Five years ago, we had a clear goal. Now we seem to be pursuing a bundle of objectives, from counterinsurgency to democratization and development, which are presented as uniform but which are in fact logically distinct and sometimes contradictory.
Finance officers in Kabul and shepherds in Kandahar want to know what we did with the $10 billion we spent in the last four years. So do any number of commentators on Afghan TV and radio. And when Helmand villagers see soldiers from countries thousands of miles away carrying guns and claiming to be only building schools, they don't believe them.
I have noticed that many Afghans now simply assume we are engaged in a grand conspiracy. Nothing else in their minds can explain the surreal gap between our language and performance. The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
We should remember that we came first to protect ourselves against terrorist attack. Afghans can understand this and help. But counterterrorism is not the same as counterinsurgency. Counterterrorism requires good intelligence and Special Forces operations, of the sort the United States was doing in 2002 and 2003. Recently, however, NATO has become involved in a much wider counterinsurgency campaign, involving tens of thousands of troops. The objective now is to wrest rural areas from Taliban forces.
But many of the people we are fighting have no fixed political manifesto. Almost none have links to Al Qaeda or an interest in attacking U.S. soil. We will never have the troop numbers to hold these areas, and we are creating unnecessary enemies. A more considered approach to tribal communities would give us better intelligence on our real enemies. It is clear that we do not have the resources, the stomach, or the long- term commitment for a 20-year counterinsurgency campaign. And the Afghan Army is not going to take over this mission.
Our second priority should be to not lose the support of the disillusioned population in the central and western part of the country. We have spent billions on programs that have alleviated extreme poverty and supported governance but have not caught the imagination of Afghans. Afghans are bored with foreign consultants and conferences and are saying, "Bring back the Russians: At least they built dams and roads." To win them over we should focus on large, highly visible infrastructure to which Afghans will be able to point in 50 years — just as they point to the great dam built by the United States in the 1960s. The garbage is still 7 feet deep and buildings are collapsing in Kabul. We can deal with these things and leave a permanent symbol of generosity.
Once we are clear about our own interests, we can think more clearly about the third priority, which is to improve Afghan lives through development projects. There are excellent models, from UN Habitat to the Aga Khan network, which has restored historic buildings, run rural health projects, and established a five- star hotel and Afghanistan's mobile telephone network. The soap business that the American Sarah Chayes has developed with Afghan women has been more successful than larger and wealthier business associations. Such projects should be separated from our defense and political objectives.
Sometimes it is better for us to do less. Dutch forces in the province of Uruzgan have found that, when left alone, the Taliban alienate communities by living parasitically, lecturing puritanically and failing to deliver. But when the British tried to aggressively dominate the South last summer, they alienated a dangerous proportion of the local population and had to withdraw. Pacifying the tribal areas is a task for Afghans, working with Pakistan and Iran. It will involve moving from the overcentralized state and developing formal but flexible relationships with councils in all their varied village forms.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that we squandered an opportunity in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, being distracted by Iraq and not bringing enough troops or resources. But my experience in Afghanistan has led me to believe that the original strategy of limiting our role was correct.
-------------------------
Citation: Rory Stewart. "When less is best," The New York Times, 20 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=4968449
-------------------------
The New York Times, 20 March 2007
Why are we Westerners in Afghanistan? Vice President Cheney talks terror, Britain focuses on narcotics. The European Union talks "state-building," others gender. On a different day, the positions seem interchangeable. Five years ago, we had a clear goal. Now we seem to be pursuing a bundle of objectives, from counterinsurgency to democratization and development, which are presented as uniform but which are in fact logically distinct and sometimes contradictory.
Finance officers in Kabul and shepherds in Kandahar want to know what we did with the $10 billion we spent in the last four years. So do any number of commentators on Afghan TV and radio. And when Helmand villagers see soldiers from countries thousands of miles away carrying guns and claiming to be only building schools, they don't believe them.
I have noticed that many Afghans now simply assume we are engaged in a grand conspiracy. Nothing else in their minds can explain the surreal gap between our language and performance. The United States needs to be honest about what it wants from Afghanistan and what it can achieve.
We should remember that we came first to protect ourselves against terrorist attack. Afghans can understand this and help. But counterterrorism is not the same as counterinsurgency. Counterterrorism requires good intelligence and Special Forces operations, of the sort the United States was doing in 2002 and 2003. Recently, however, NATO has become involved in a much wider counterinsurgency campaign, involving tens of thousands of troops. The objective now is to wrest rural areas from Taliban forces.
But many of the people we are fighting have no fixed political manifesto. Almost none have links to Al Qaeda or an interest in attacking U.S. soil. We will never have the troop numbers to hold these areas, and we are creating unnecessary enemies. A more considered approach to tribal communities would give us better intelligence on our real enemies. It is clear that we do not have the resources, the stomach, or the long- term commitment for a 20-year counterinsurgency campaign. And the Afghan Army is not going to take over this mission.
Our second priority should be to not lose the support of the disillusioned population in the central and western part of the country. We have spent billions on programs that have alleviated extreme poverty and supported governance but have not caught the imagination of Afghans. Afghans are bored with foreign consultants and conferences and are saying, "Bring back the Russians: At least they built dams and roads." To win them over we should focus on large, highly visible infrastructure to which Afghans will be able to point in 50 years — just as they point to the great dam built by the United States in the 1960s. The garbage is still 7 feet deep and buildings are collapsing in Kabul. We can deal with these things and leave a permanent symbol of generosity.
Once we are clear about our own interests, we can think more clearly about the third priority, which is to improve Afghan lives through development projects. There are excellent models, from UN Habitat to the Aga Khan network, which has restored historic buildings, run rural health projects, and established a five- star hotel and Afghanistan's mobile telephone network. The soap business that the American Sarah Chayes has developed with Afghan women has been more successful than larger and wealthier business associations. Such projects should be separated from our defense and political objectives.
Sometimes it is better for us to do less. Dutch forces in the province of Uruzgan have found that, when left alone, the Taliban alienate communities by living parasitically, lecturing puritanically and failing to deliver. But when the British tried to aggressively dominate the South last summer, they alienated a dangerous proportion of the local population and had to withdraw. Pacifying the tribal areas is a task for Afghans, working with Pakistan and Iran. It will involve moving from the overcentralized state and developing formal but flexible relationships with councils in all their varied village forms.
The conventional wisdom seems to be that we squandered an opportunity in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, being distracted by Iraq and not bringing enough troops or resources. But my experience in Afghanistan has led me to believe that the original strategy of limiting our role was correct.
-------------------------
Citation: Rory Stewart. "When less is best," The New York Times, 20 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?id=4968449
-------------------------
Shiite militia may be disintegrating
By Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra
The Associated Press, 21 March 2007
BAGHDAD - The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups, with up to 3,000 gunmen now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even more deadly element to Iraq's violent mix.
Two senior militia commanders told The Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While al-Sadr's forces have battled the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they've mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.
The U.S. military has asserted in recent months that Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Quds force have been providing Shiite militias with weapons and parts for sophisticated armor-piercing bombs. The so called EFPs — explosively formed penetrators — are responsible for the deaths of more than 170 American and coalition soldiers since mid-2004, the military says.
In the latest such attack, four U.S. soldiers were killed March 15 by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad.
At the Pentagon, a military official confirmed there were signs the Mahdi Army was splintering. Some were breaking away to attempt a more conciliatory approach to the Americans and the Iraqi government, others moving in a more extremist direction, the official said.
However, the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name on the topic, was not aware of direct Iranian recruitment and financing of Mahdi Army members.
The outlines of the fracture inside the Mahdi Army were confirmed by senior Iraqi government officials with access to intelligence reports prepared for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The information indicates a disintegrating organization yet a potentially even more dangerous foe, they revealed, on condition that their names not be used.
The militia commanders and al-Maliki's reports identify the leader of the breakaway faction as Qais al-Khazaali, a young Iraqi cleric who was a close al-Sadr aide in 2003 and 2004.
He was al-Sadr's chief spokesman for most of 2004, when he made nearly daily appearances on Arabic satellite news channels. He has not been seen in public since late that year.
Another U.S. official, who declined to be identified because of the information's sensitivity, said it was true that some gunmen had gone to Iran for training and that al-Khazaali has a following. However, the official could not confirm the number of his followers or whether Iran was financing them.
Al-Sadr has been in Iran since early February, apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive, according to the U.S. military. He is not known to be close to Iran's leadership or Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While Al-Sadr's strategy appears to be to wait out the government offensive and preserve his force, his absence has left loyal fighters unsure of his future and pondering whether they had been abandoned by their leader, the commanders said.
Al-Sadr tried to return to Iraq last month but turned back before he reached the Iraqi border upon learning of U.S. checkpoints on the road to Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad where he lives.
"Conditions are not suitable for him to return," said an al-Sadr aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "His safety will not be guaranteed if he returns."
The Mahdi Army commanders, who said they would be endangered if their names were revealed, said Iran's Revolutionary Guards were funding and arming the defectors from their force, and that several hundred over the last 18 months had slipped across the Iranian border for training by the Quds force.
In recent weeks, Mahdi Army fighters who escaped possible arrest in the Baghdad security push have received $600 each upon reaching Iran. The former Mahdi Army militiamen working for the Revolutionary Guards operate under the cover a relief agency for Iraqi refugees, they said.
Once fighters defect, they receive a monthly stipend of $200, said the commanders.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for an Iranian dissident group, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that Iraqi Shiite guerrillas and death squads were being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran government leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures.
Inside Iraq, the breakaway troops are using the cover of the Mahdi Army itself, the commanders said.
The defectors are in secret, small, but well-funded cells. Little else has emerged about the structure of their organization, but most of their cadres are thought to have maintained the pretense of continued Mahdi Army membership, possibly to escape reprisals.
Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters vary wildly, with some putting the figure at 10,000 and others as many as 60,000.
The extent of al-Sadr's control over his militia has never been clear. Like many of Iraq's warring parties, it's a loosely knit force. The fiery cleric inspires loyalty with his speeches and edicts, and the Shiite gunmen are also bonded by the goal of maintaining Shiite dominance in a country long controlled by the rival Sunni Muslims, most recently
Saddam Hussein.
Commanders thought to have disobeyed Mahdi Army orders or abused their power are publicly renounced during Friday prayers, a move that has forced them to quit their posts or go into hiding.
Mahdi Army militiamen also could be attracted by the cash promises of the splinter group. They don't receive wages or weapons from al-Sadr, but are allowed to generate income by charging government contractors protection money when they work in Shiite neighborhoods.
The two Mahdi Army commanders blamed several recent attacks on U.S. forces in eastern Baghdad on the splinter group. The commanders also said they believed the breakaway force had organized the attempt last week to kill Rahim al-Darraji, the mayor of Sadr City.
Al-Darraji, who is close to the Sadrist movement, was involved in talks with the U.S. military about extending the five-week-old Baghdad security sweep into Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold in eastern Baghdad that was a no-go zone for American forces until about three weeks ago.
Al-Darraji was seriously wounded and two of his bodyguards were killed when gunmen ambushed their convoy in a mainly Shiite district near Sadr City. There was no claim of responsibility.
The commanders said recruitment of Mahdi Army gunmen by Iran began as early as 2005. But it was dramatically stepped up in recent months, especially with the approach of the U.S.-Iraqi security operation which was highly advertised before it began Feb. 14. Many Mahdi Army fighters are believed to have crossed the border to escape arrest.
Calls by the AP to seek comment from the Iranian Foreign Ministry have not been returned.
The Iranian recruitment of the Mahdi Army fighters appears to be an extension of its efforts to exert influence in Iraq, in part to keep the U.S. bogged down in a war that already has stretched into its fifth year. Iran already has the allegiance of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia founded and trained in Iran in the 1980s that maintains close links to Iraq's ruling Shiite politicians.
The Bush administration has carefully not ruled out military action against Iran, but the war in Iraq keeps U.S. ground forces at least stretched thin.
----------------------------
Citation: Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra. "Shiite militia may be disintegrating," The Associated Press, 21 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_sadr_defectors
----------------------------
The Associated Press, 21 March 2007
BAGHDAD - The violent Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army is breaking into splinter groups, with up to 3,000 gunmen now financed directly by Iran and no longer loyal to the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, adding a potentially even more deadly element to Iraq's violent mix.
Two senior militia commanders told The Associated Press that hundreds of these fighters have crossed into Iran for training by the elite Quds force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard thought to have trained Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The breakup is an ominous development at a time when U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to defeat religious-based militias and secure Iraq under government control. While al-Sadr's forces have battled the coalition repeatedly, including pitched battles in 2004, they've mostly stayed in the background during the latest offensive.
The U.S. military has asserted in recent months that Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Quds force have been providing Shiite militias with weapons and parts for sophisticated armor-piercing bombs. The so called EFPs — explosively formed penetrators — are responsible for the deaths of more than 170 American and coalition soldiers since mid-2004, the military says.
In the latest such attack, four U.S. soldiers were killed March 15 by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad.
At the Pentagon, a military official confirmed there were signs the Mahdi Army was splintering. Some were breaking away to attempt a more conciliatory approach to the Americans and the Iraqi government, others moving in a more extremist direction, the official said.
However, the official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name on the topic, was not aware of direct Iranian recruitment and financing of Mahdi Army members.
The outlines of the fracture inside the Mahdi Army were confirmed by senior Iraqi government officials with access to intelligence reports prepared for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The information indicates a disintegrating organization yet a potentially even more dangerous foe, they revealed, on condition that their names not be used.
The militia commanders and al-Maliki's reports identify the leader of the breakaway faction as Qais al-Khazaali, a young Iraqi cleric who was a close al-Sadr aide in 2003 and 2004.
He was al-Sadr's chief spokesman for most of 2004, when he made nearly daily appearances on Arabic satellite news channels. He has not been seen in public since late that year.
Another U.S. official, who declined to be identified because of the information's sensitivity, said it was true that some gunmen had gone to Iran for training and that al-Khazaali has a following. However, the official could not confirm the number of his followers or whether Iran was financing them.
Al-Sadr has been in Iran since early February, apparently laying low during the U.S.-Iraqi offensive, according to the U.S. military. He is not known to be close to Iran's leadership or Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While Al-Sadr's strategy appears to be to wait out the government offensive and preserve his force, his absence has left loyal fighters unsure of his future and pondering whether they had been abandoned by their leader, the commanders said.
Al-Sadr tried to return to Iraq last month but turned back before he reached the Iraqi border upon learning of U.S. checkpoints on the road to Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad where he lives.
"Conditions are not suitable for him to return," said an al-Sadr aide, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "His safety will not be guaranteed if he returns."
The Mahdi Army commanders, who said they would be endangered if their names were revealed, said Iran's Revolutionary Guards were funding and arming the defectors from their force, and that several hundred over the last 18 months had slipped across the Iranian border for training by the Quds force.
In recent weeks, Mahdi Army fighters who escaped possible arrest in the Baghdad security push have received $600 each upon reaching Iran. The former Mahdi Army militiamen working for the Revolutionary Guards operate under the cover a relief agency for Iraqi refugees, they said.
Once fighters defect, they receive a monthly stipend of $200, said the commanders.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for an Iranian dissident group, told reporters in New York on Tuesday that Iraqi Shiite guerrillas and death squads were being trained in secret camps in Iran with the blessing of top Tehran government leaders and at least three senior Iraqi political figures.
Inside Iraq, the breakaway troops are using the cover of the Mahdi Army itself, the commanders said.
The defectors are in secret, small, but well-funded cells. Little else has emerged about the structure of their organization, but most of their cadres are thought to have maintained the pretense of continued Mahdi Army membership, possibly to escape reprisals.
Estimates of the number of Mahdi Army fighters vary wildly, with some putting the figure at 10,000 and others as many as 60,000.
The extent of al-Sadr's control over his militia has never been clear. Like many of Iraq's warring parties, it's a loosely knit force. The fiery cleric inspires loyalty with his speeches and edicts, and the Shiite gunmen are also bonded by the goal of maintaining Shiite dominance in a country long controlled by the rival Sunni Muslims, most recently
Saddam Hussein.
Commanders thought to have disobeyed Mahdi Army orders or abused their power are publicly renounced during Friday prayers, a move that has forced them to quit their posts or go into hiding.
Mahdi Army militiamen also could be attracted by the cash promises of the splinter group. They don't receive wages or weapons from al-Sadr, but are allowed to generate income by charging government contractors protection money when they work in Shiite neighborhoods.
The two Mahdi Army commanders blamed several recent attacks on U.S. forces in eastern Baghdad on the splinter group. The commanders also said they believed the breakaway force had organized the attempt last week to kill Rahim al-Darraji, the mayor of Sadr City.
Al-Darraji, who is close to the Sadrist movement, was involved in talks with the U.S. military about extending the five-week-old Baghdad security sweep into Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold in eastern Baghdad that was a no-go zone for American forces until about three weeks ago.
Al-Darraji was seriously wounded and two of his bodyguards were killed when gunmen ambushed their convoy in a mainly Shiite district near Sadr City. There was no claim of responsibility.
The commanders said recruitment of Mahdi Army gunmen by Iran began as early as 2005. But it was dramatically stepped up in recent months, especially with the approach of the U.S.-Iraqi security operation which was highly advertised before it began Feb. 14. Many Mahdi Army fighters are believed to have crossed the border to escape arrest.
Calls by the AP to seek comment from the Iranian Foreign Ministry have not been returned.
The Iranian recruitment of the Mahdi Army fighters appears to be an extension of its efforts to exert influence in Iraq, in part to keep the U.S. bogged down in a war that already has stretched into its fifth year. Iran already has the allegiance of the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia founded and trained in Iran in the 1980s that maintains close links to Iraq's ruling Shiite politicians.
The Bush administration has carefully not ruled out military action against Iran, but the war in Iraq keeps U.S. ground forces at least stretched thin.
----------------------------
Citation: Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra. "Shiite militia may be disintegrating," The Associated Press, 21 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070321/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_sadr_defectors
----------------------------
Insurgency paralyses life in Diyala
IRIN, 22 March 2007
BAQOUBA, 22 March 2007 (IRIN) - Relentless violence in the Sunni-dominated province of Diyala, about 60km north-east of the capital, Baghdad, has hampered the delivery of humanitarian assistance to displaced families and has paralysed life there, local officials said.
"Humanitarian aid is only trickling [into Diyala] as the security situation has deteriorated very much due to attacks by Sunni insurgents against US and Iraqi forces as well as violence between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims," said Thari Mohammed al-Taie, head of the provincial office of the Ministry of Displacement and Migration.
For months, Sunni insurgents have been slowly taking control of Diyala. Now, with violence apparently ebbing in Baghdad, Sunni insurgents believed to be loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq have fled the capital and increased the intensity of their fight against US and Iraqi forces in Diyala as well as stepping up their attacks against Shias, according to local officials.
Last June, the self-confessed former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US airstrike near Baqouba, the capital of Diyala. Since then, the Islamic State of Iraq, another group with links to al-Qaeda, has claimed Baqouba as the capital of its self-proclaimed shadow government.
In response, the Shia Mahdi militia, loyal to firebrand leader Muqtada al-Sadr, has been fighting back strongly.
In early March, some 700 US soldiers arrived in Diyala to join 3,500 US and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers already there to fight insurgents.
Displaced families
As a result, Al-Taie said that about 10,300 displaced families, nearly 61,000 individuals, are scattered in Diyala's abandoned governmental buildings, schools, parks and the empty houses of members of rival sects. A small number of them are staying with relatives.
The year-old sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias, members of Iraq's major Muslim sects, has driven about 4,300 of these families out of the neighbouring provinces of Baghdad, Salaheddin, Anbar, Babil and Kirkuk, while others have been internally displaced within their provinces.
Late last year, the Iraqi government launched its Social Protection Programme by which it pays a maximum of 120,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $93) a month to a six-member displaced family and a minimum of 60,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $47) for a two or three-member displaced family.
In addition, early this year the government paid 100,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $78) to every displaced family in the country. They were all paid in cheques.
"But these families are still holding the cheques as banks in Diyala have had no money since about six months ago as it is very difficult to protect trucks that bring money from Baghdad," al-Taie said.
He added that sometimes the Ministry of Displacement and Migration brings in aid items from its stores in the northern province of Kirkuk but "our eight-member team, three women and five men, is unable to roam the city to distribute them as security forces are concentrating on chasing militants and can't protect us until more troops arrive".
"Life is paralysed now," said Ibrahim Bajlan, head of Diyala provincial council. "Ninety-five percent of people's daily activities are halted as food rations have not come into the province for about five months now, employees have not received their salaries for two months, and telephone communication has been cut as insurgents have been attacking cell phone towers," Bajlan added.
-----------------------
Citation: "Insurgency paralyses life in Diyala," IRIN, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/66ecc8948d6a2f6c098be65991387de6.htm
-----------------------
BAQOUBA, 22 March 2007 (IRIN) - Relentless violence in the Sunni-dominated province of Diyala, about 60km north-east of the capital, Baghdad, has hampered the delivery of humanitarian assistance to displaced families and has paralysed life there, local officials said.
"Humanitarian aid is only trickling [into Diyala] as the security situation has deteriorated very much due to attacks by Sunni insurgents against US and Iraqi forces as well as violence between Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims," said Thari Mohammed al-Taie, head of the provincial office of the Ministry of Displacement and Migration.
For months, Sunni insurgents have been slowly taking control of Diyala. Now, with violence apparently ebbing in Baghdad, Sunni insurgents believed to be loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq have fled the capital and increased the intensity of their fight against US and Iraqi forces in Diyala as well as stepping up their attacks against Shias, according to local officials.
Last June, the self-confessed former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US airstrike near Baqouba, the capital of Diyala. Since then, the Islamic State of Iraq, another group with links to al-Qaeda, has claimed Baqouba as the capital of its self-proclaimed shadow government.
In response, the Shia Mahdi militia, loyal to firebrand leader Muqtada al-Sadr, has been fighting back strongly.
In early March, some 700 US soldiers arrived in Diyala to join 3,500 US and 20,000 Iraqi soldiers already there to fight insurgents.
Displaced families
As a result, Al-Taie said that about 10,300 displaced families, nearly 61,000 individuals, are scattered in Diyala's abandoned governmental buildings, schools, parks and the empty houses of members of rival sects. A small number of them are staying with relatives.
The year-old sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias, members of Iraq's major Muslim sects, has driven about 4,300 of these families out of the neighbouring provinces of Baghdad, Salaheddin, Anbar, Babil and Kirkuk, while others have been internally displaced within their provinces.
Late last year, the Iraqi government launched its Social Protection Programme by which it pays a maximum of 120,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $93) a month to a six-member displaced family and a minimum of 60,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $47) for a two or three-member displaced family.
In addition, early this year the government paid 100,000 Iraqi dinars (about US $78) to every displaced family in the country. They were all paid in cheques.
"But these families are still holding the cheques as banks in Diyala have had no money since about six months ago as it is very difficult to protect trucks that bring money from Baghdad," al-Taie said.
He added that sometimes the Ministry of Displacement and Migration brings in aid items from its stores in the northern province of Kirkuk but "our eight-member team, three women and five men, is unable to roam the city to distribute them as security forces are concentrating on chasing militants and can't protect us until more troops arrive".
"Life is paralysed now," said Ibrahim Bajlan, head of Diyala provincial council. "Ninety-five percent of people's daily activities are halted as food rations have not come into the province for about five months now, employees have not received their salaries for two months, and telephone communication has been cut as insurgents have been attacking cell phone towers," Bajlan added.
-----------------------
Citation: "Insurgency paralyses life in Diyala," IRIN, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/66ecc8948d6a2f6c098be65991387de6.htm
-----------------------
Oil-rich Kirkuk at melting point as factions clash
By Patrick Cockburn
The Independent, UK, 22 March 2007
Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35 minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear.
Kirkuk is a place where trust is in short supply. "I firmly predict there will be a rumour the Kurds were behind these bombings," sighs Rafat Hamarash, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish political party that largely controls the city. He said somebody wanted to stir up ethnic divisions between Kurd, Arab and Turkoman before they vote on the future of Kirkuk in nine months' time. Mr Hamarash is probably right about the motives for the latest attacks. The city is approaching a critical moment in its long history. In December, there is a referendum, its timing agreed under the Iraqi constitution, when 1.8 million people of Kirkuk province will vote on whether or not to join the highly autonomous Kurdish region that is already almost a separate state. Kurds will vote in favour and probably win; Arabs and Turkomans will vote against and lose.
The Kirkuk issue is as notoriously divisive in Iraq as sovereignty over certain parts of Ireland used to be in British politics. Winston Churchill famously complained that, after all the political and military cataclysms of the First World War, the question of who should have "the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone", remained as ferociously contested as before the war.
The control of Kirkuk divided Kurds from Arabs in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to do so. The city is commonly called "a powder keg" though it has yet to explode. But that does not mean it will not happen and the referendum might just be the detonator for that explosion.
The Kurds believe they were a majority in the city until ethnically cleansed by Saddam and replaced by Arab settlers. As the regime crumbled in April 2003, the Kurds captured Kirkuk and its oilfields. They have no plans to give them up.
In negotiations in Baghdad with Arab political parties, they fought for and won the right to take back Kirkuk constitutionally.
First comes "normalisation", to be concluded by the end of this month, whereby Arab settlers leave and Kurds return. After that there will be a census and, finally, before the end of 2007, a referendum on becoming part of the Kurdistan regional government.
It now looks as if the referendum will have to be postponed. No Kurdish leader I spoke to thinks it can take place on time. "Normalisation" has not really taken place, governments in Baghdad have persistently dragged their feet. The Shia religious parties may be allied to the Kurds in order to form a government but they fear political damage among their own followers if they are seen to be handing over Kirkuk to the Kurds.
For a city so coveted by Arabs and Kurds, Kirkuk is a dismal place, drearier than anything to be seen in Fermanagh or Tyrone. Its main street, with little booths selling shoddy goods, looks like an Afghan shanty town.
It has never benefited from its oil riches; Saddam deliberately neglected it. Rezgar Ali, the head of the local council, says Baghdad starves the city of money. At one point, he threatened to retaliate by stopping the supply of cement from local factories to Baghdad.
The Kurds may delay the referendum but not indefinitely. Kirkuk is too central to their national demands. Militarily they could overcome Arab resistance though they might have to cede certain areas. Whatever happens, the approach to the referendum is generating more violence.
A delicate ethnic balance
* Kurds in Kirkuk pre-date all other ethnic groups. Turkomans began arriving in the Ottoman era.
* Under British occupation in 1921, population about 61% Kurd, 28% Turkoman and 8% Arab.
* Official census in 1957 found 48.3% of residents to be Kurd, 28.2% Arab and 21.4% Turkoman.
* From 1963, Baathists sought to enforce Arab nationalism. By 1988 an estimated 200,000 Kurds had fled. Shia Turkoman villages were also destroyed.
* After the 1991 Gulf War ethnic cleansing intensified. In 1996 a law compelled all Kurds and other non-Arabs to register as "Arab", with expulsion for those who refused.
* Between 1991 and 2003, 120,000 to 200,000 non-Arabs were expelled from in and around Kirkuk.
* Arab and Turkoman politicians claim that around 350,000 Kurds have returned since 2003.
------------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Oil-rich Kirkuk at melting point as factions clash," The Independent, UK, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2381065.ece
------------------------
The Independent, UK, 22 March 2007
Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35 minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear.
Kirkuk is a place where trust is in short supply. "I firmly predict there will be a rumour the Kurds were behind these bombings," sighs Rafat Hamarash, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish political party that largely controls the city. He said somebody wanted to stir up ethnic divisions between Kurd, Arab and Turkoman before they vote on the future of Kirkuk in nine months' time. Mr Hamarash is probably right about the motives for the latest attacks. The city is approaching a critical moment in its long history. In December, there is a referendum, its timing agreed under the Iraqi constitution, when 1.8 million people of Kirkuk province will vote on whether or not to join the highly autonomous Kurdish region that is already almost a separate state. Kurds will vote in favour and probably win; Arabs and Turkomans will vote against and lose.
The Kirkuk issue is as notoriously divisive in Iraq as sovereignty over certain parts of Ireland used to be in British politics. Winston Churchill famously complained that, after all the political and military cataclysms of the First World War, the question of who should have "the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone", remained as ferociously contested as before the war.
The control of Kirkuk divided Kurds from Arabs in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to do so. The city is commonly called "a powder keg" though it has yet to explode. But that does not mean it will not happen and the referendum might just be the detonator for that explosion.
The Kurds believe they were a majority in the city until ethnically cleansed by Saddam and replaced by Arab settlers. As the regime crumbled in April 2003, the Kurds captured Kirkuk and its oilfields. They have no plans to give them up.
In negotiations in Baghdad with Arab political parties, they fought for and won the right to take back Kirkuk constitutionally.
First comes "normalisation", to be concluded by the end of this month, whereby Arab settlers leave and Kurds return. After that there will be a census and, finally, before the end of 2007, a referendum on becoming part of the Kurdistan regional government.
It now looks as if the referendum will have to be postponed. No Kurdish leader I spoke to thinks it can take place on time. "Normalisation" has not really taken place, governments in Baghdad have persistently dragged their feet. The Shia religious parties may be allied to the Kurds in order to form a government but they fear political damage among their own followers if they are seen to be handing over Kirkuk to the Kurds.
For a city so coveted by Arabs and Kurds, Kirkuk is a dismal place, drearier than anything to be seen in Fermanagh or Tyrone. Its main street, with little booths selling shoddy goods, looks like an Afghan shanty town.
It has never benefited from its oil riches; Saddam deliberately neglected it. Rezgar Ali, the head of the local council, says Baghdad starves the city of money. At one point, he threatened to retaliate by stopping the supply of cement from local factories to Baghdad.
The Kurds may delay the referendum but not indefinitely. Kirkuk is too central to their national demands. Militarily they could overcome Arab resistance though they might have to cede certain areas. Whatever happens, the approach to the referendum is generating more violence.
A delicate ethnic balance
* Kurds in Kirkuk pre-date all other ethnic groups. Turkomans began arriving in the Ottoman era.
* Under British occupation in 1921, population about 61% Kurd, 28% Turkoman and 8% Arab.
* Official census in 1957 found 48.3% of residents to be Kurd, 28.2% Arab and 21.4% Turkoman.
* From 1963, Baathists sought to enforce Arab nationalism. By 1988 an estimated 200,000 Kurds had fled. Shia Turkoman villages were also destroyed.
* After the 1991 Gulf War ethnic cleansing intensified. In 1996 a law compelled all Kurds and other non-Arabs to register as "Arab", with expulsion for those who refused.
* Between 1991 and 2003, 120,000 to 200,000 non-Arabs were expelled from in and around Kirkuk.
* Arab and Turkoman politicians claim that around 350,000 Kurds have returned since 2003.
------------------------
Citation: Patrick Cockburn. "Oil-rich Kirkuk at melting point as factions clash," The Independent, UK, 22 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2381065.ece
------------------------
13 March 2007
Tehran's Iraq role unclear, U.S. now says
But Bush calls it irrelevant that no solid evidence links Iranian officials to alleged weapons aid.
By Borzou Daragahi and James Gerstenzang
Los Angeles Times, 15 February 2007
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials from President Bush to a top general in Baghdad said Wednesday that there was no solid evidence that high-ranking officials in Iran had ordered deadly weapons to be sent to Iraq for use against American troops, backing away from claims made by military and intelligence officials in Baghdad this week.
But Bush continued to maintain an aggressive posture toward Tehran, saying elite Iranian Quds Force operatives were supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq.
"What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did," he said.
"What matters is that they're there," Bush said, adding, "What's worse: that the government knew or that the government didn't know?"
Bush then issued a threat that hinted at a direct clash with Iranian units.
"When we find the networks that are enabling these weapons to end up in Iraq," he said at a late-morning White House news conference, "we will deal with them."
The Quds Force is a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard, which is a force separate from Iran's military, created to safeguard and spread the 1979 revolution that established Shiite clerical rule in the country.
Critics have accused the Bush administration in recent days of overstating claims of official Iranian involvement in Iraq's violence.
On Sunday, U.S. officials in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that Iranian officials at the "highest levels" of the government, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were behind the smuggling of a deadly type of explosive device used against U.S. forces.
But during news conferences Wednesday in Washington and Baghdad, Bush and Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, appeared to step back from that claim, just as Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did in interviews this week.
Caldwell characterized the recent statements about Iranian weapons in Iraq as a diplomatic endeavor to persuade Iranians to stop the flow of such weapons.
"We want to tell [the Iranians], 'You need to stop,' " he said. " 'We need your assistance.' "
The controversy surrounding the claims revolves around the nature of wartime intelligence work, which often requires making conclusions based on classified information, confidential sources, circumstantial inferences and historical patterns rather than the type of evidence that could prove a court case.
At a presentation Sunday in Baghdad, U.S. officials showed reporters weapons found in Iraq that they said had been made in Iran. They spoke on condition of anonymity and barred reporters from bringing in cameras or recorders. The unusual secrecy, amid several Washington investigations of abuses of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, led critics to question the administration's motives.
U.S. officials removed some of the secrecy Wednesday and allowed photographers to scrutinize the weapons. The arms included rockets with recent date marks that officials said could be traced to munitions factories in Iran, as well as an Explosively Formed Penetrator, a sophisticated roadside bomb that can pierce an armored vehicle.
Officials claimed that the projectiles have been used by Shiite Muslim militias with long-standing ties to Iran. On Sunday they said the penetrators had caused the deaths of about 170 U.S.-led forces in Iraq,
Also on display Wednesday were identification cards seized from Iranians allegedly linked to the Quds Force. One, belonging to a graying, middle-aged man in military uniform, says he worked for the intelligence branch of the Revolutionary Guard, which mostly is involved in domestic Iranian security matters.
"We're not trying to hype this," Caldwell said.
In Washington, Bush bristled when asked whether he was using such displays to provoke Iran, much as critics say he used intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda that turned out to be flawed.
"To say it is 'provoking Iran' is just a wrong way to characterize the commander in chief's decision to do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way," the president said.
"The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous," Bush said, referring to improvised explosive devices. "My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple."
Some analysts have suggested that even if the weapons did come from Iran, the degree of government involvement and the motivation remain unclear. Iran may have supplied weapons to Shiite militias primarily to arm them against Sunni forces in the nation's sectarian warfare, they say.
Even the issue of where the weapons were manufactured is cloudy. A U.S. military explosives expert at the news conference in Baghdad acknowledged that there was no forensic evidence or labels linking the canister-shaped weapons to munitions plants in Iran.
Rather, Army Maj. Marty Weber said, the weapons were similar to those that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia used against Israeli forces during Israel's late-1990s occupation of southern Lebanon.
The link to Iran was based on "historical knowledge of these types of weapons, having first seen their use by an Iranian surrogate terrorist group in 1998," Weber said.
The Iranian government has denied that it is sending weapons to Iran to kill U.S. troops or seeking to stir up trouble in Iraq, which is run by longtime Shiite and Kurdish allies.
Asked what assurances he could give about the accuracy of the intelligence on the Iranian explosives, Bush said: "We know they're there. We know they're provided by the Quds Force. We know the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds Force, 'Go do this,' but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government."
Caldwell appeared to suggest at times during his briefing that the simultaneous presence of Quds Force operatives and the Explosively Formed Penetrators in Iraq indicated that Iranians were involved in the smuggling of the deadly weapons into the country.
"We have physical evidence of munitions being supplied to extremists," he said. "We have in custody Quds Force officers who are, at a minimum, here illegally in Iraq.
"There's no question that Quds Force elements are involved in this," he said.
-----------------------------
Citation: Borzou Daragahi and James Gerstenzang. "Tehran's Iraq role unclear, U.S. now says," Los Angeles Times, 15 February 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-iran15feb15,1,70436.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
-----------------------------
By Borzou Daragahi and James Gerstenzang
Los Angeles Times, 15 February 2007
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials from President Bush to a top general in Baghdad said Wednesday that there was no solid evidence that high-ranking officials in Iran had ordered deadly weapons to be sent to Iraq for use against American troops, backing away from claims made by military and intelligence officials in Baghdad this week.
But Bush continued to maintain an aggressive posture toward Tehran, saying elite Iranian Quds Force operatives were supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq.
"What we don't know is whether or not the head leaders of Iran ordered the Quds Force to do what they did," he said.
"What matters is that they're there," Bush said, adding, "What's worse: that the government knew or that the government didn't know?"
Bush then issued a threat that hinted at a direct clash with Iranian units.
"When we find the networks that are enabling these weapons to end up in Iraq," he said at a late-morning White House news conference, "we will deal with them."
The Quds Force is a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard, which is a force separate from Iran's military, created to safeguard and spread the 1979 revolution that established Shiite clerical rule in the country.
Critics have accused the Bush administration in recent days of overstating claims of official Iranian involvement in Iraq's violence.
On Sunday, U.S. officials in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that Iranian officials at the "highest levels" of the government, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were behind the smuggling of a deadly type of explosive device used against U.S. forces.
But during news conferences Wednesday in Washington and Baghdad, Bush and Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, appeared to step back from that claim, just as Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did in interviews this week.
Caldwell characterized the recent statements about Iranian weapons in Iraq as a diplomatic endeavor to persuade Iranians to stop the flow of such weapons.
"We want to tell [the Iranians], 'You need to stop,' " he said. " 'We need your assistance.' "
The controversy surrounding the claims revolves around the nature of wartime intelligence work, which often requires making conclusions based on classified information, confidential sources, circumstantial inferences and historical patterns rather than the type of evidence that could prove a court case.
At a presentation Sunday in Baghdad, U.S. officials showed reporters weapons found in Iraq that they said had been made in Iran. They spoke on condition of anonymity and barred reporters from bringing in cameras or recorders. The unusual secrecy, amid several Washington investigations of abuses of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, led critics to question the administration's motives.
U.S. officials removed some of the secrecy Wednesday and allowed photographers to scrutinize the weapons. The arms included rockets with recent date marks that officials said could be traced to munitions factories in Iran, as well as an Explosively Formed Penetrator, a sophisticated roadside bomb that can pierce an armored vehicle.
Officials claimed that the projectiles have been used by Shiite Muslim militias with long-standing ties to Iran. On Sunday they said the penetrators had caused the deaths of about 170 U.S.-led forces in Iraq,
Also on display Wednesday were identification cards seized from Iranians allegedly linked to the Quds Force. One, belonging to a graying, middle-aged man in military uniform, says he worked for the intelligence branch of the Revolutionary Guard, which mostly is involved in domestic Iranian security matters.
"We're not trying to hype this," Caldwell said.
In Washington, Bush bristled when asked whether he was using such displays to provoke Iran, much as critics say he used intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda that turned out to be flawed.
"To say it is 'provoking Iran' is just a wrong way to characterize the commander in chief's decision to do what is necessary to protect our soldiers in harm's way," the president said.
"The idea that somehow we're manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous," Bush said, referring to improvised explosive devices. "My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we're going to do something about it, pure and simple."
Some analysts have suggested that even if the weapons did come from Iran, the degree of government involvement and the motivation remain unclear. Iran may have supplied weapons to Shiite militias primarily to arm them against Sunni forces in the nation's sectarian warfare, they say.
Even the issue of where the weapons were manufactured is cloudy. A U.S. military explosives expert at the news conference in Baghdad acknowledged that there was no forensic evidence or labels linking the canister-shaped weapons to munitions plants in Iran.
Rather, Army Maj. Marty Weber said, the weapons were similar to those that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia used against Israeli forces during Israel's late-1990s occupation of southern Lebanon.
The link to Iran was based on "historical knowledge of these types of weapons, having first seen their use by an Iranian surrogate terrorist group in 1998," Weber said.
The Iranian government has denied that it is sending weapons to Iran to kill U.S. troops or seeking to stir up trouble in Iraq, which is run by longtime Shiite and Kurdish allies.
Asked what assurances he could give about the accuracy of the intelligence on the Iranian explosives, Bush said: "We know they're there. We know they're provided by the Quds Force. We know the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. I don't think we know who picked up the phone and said to the Quds Force, 'Go do this,' but we know it's a vital part of the Iranian government."
Caldwell appeared to suggest at times during his briefing that the simultaneous presence of Quds Force operatives and the Explosively Formed Penetrators in Iraq indicated that Iranians were involved in the smuggling of the deadly weapons into the country.
"We have physical evidence of munitions being supplied to extremists," he said. "We have in custody Quds Force officers who are, at a minimum, here illegally in Iraq.
"There's no question that Quds Force elements are involved in this," he said.
-----------------------------
Citation: Borzou Daragahi and James Gerstenzang. "Tehran's Iraq role unclear, U.S. now says," Los Angeles Times, 15 February 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-iran15feb15,1,70436.story?coll=la-iraq-complete
-----------------------------
Taliban Think Smaller and Make Nicer
Strategy Page, 13 March 2007
Despite efforts to keep it quiet, information about NATO and American raids across the border into Pakistan are getting out. The raids have captured some Taliban leaders, who were staying in Pakistani villages close to the border. These actions are forcing the Taliban to move their forward bases (for controlling the movement of gunmen across the border into and out of Afghanistan) deeper into Pakistan, and that makes it more difficult to move men and supplies into Afghanistan. Compared to last year, the Taliban are having a harder time moving men and munitions across the border. The Taliban are also bringing more cash with them, as villagers are less eager to just give Taliban fighters food and hospitality (that is, not promptly calling the cops). So "gifts" of cash are more frequently used to buy some support in the villages. The Taliban are operating in smaller groups (under a hundred men), to make them less likely to be spotted from the air.
March 12, 2007: The U.S. is sending another 3,500 troops to Afghanistan, raising the total to 27,000. The U.S. believes that it can deal the weakened Taliban a fatal blow this year, if there are enough American and NATO troops there to do it.
March 11, 2007: The number of Taliban ambushes, and encounters with security forces, is increasing. There are about twenty casualties a day, half of them Taliban.
March 10, 2007: In the last few days, the Taliban have kidnapped three foreigners (an Italian and two Germans) and demanded that NATO forces leave within the week, or the hostages will be killed. The Taliban continue to attack border posts, trying to intimidate the border guards into pulling back, and making it easier for the Taliban to get through using the roads. One such clash today left eight border guards and five Taliban dead.
March 9, 2007: The Taliban attempted to kill a pro-government tribal chief, but only wounded him with a roadside bomb. The Taliban have been using these bombs more frequently, but with much less success, than other Islamic terrorists in Iraq. Bandits are also using roadside bombs, making it easier to rob people (after the bomb goes off).
March 8, 2007: Taliban and drug gang forces in Helmand province have joined forces to keep government police and troops out. Most of the heroin produced in the country comes from Helmand. Meanwhile, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most Islamic of the warlords that fought in the Afghan civil war of the early 1990s, and later joined the Taliban after Iraq was invaded, has offered to switch sides and ally himself with the government. Hekmatyar was never very cozy with the Taliban, considering them puppets of the Pakistani military intelligence. Hekmatyars forces mainly operate in eastern Afghanistan, from bases in Pakistan. Hekmatyar makes this peace offer periodically, but cannot be trusted to follow through.
March 7, 2007: A senior Taliban leader was caught at a checkpoint near Kandahar, trying to avoid detection by dressing as a woman. Elsewhere in the area, NATO troops uncovered Taliban weapons caches, with the help of tips from locals. In eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban bomb maker was arrested.
-----------------------------------
Citation: "Taliban Think Smaller and Make Nicer," Strategy Page, 13 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20070313.aspx
-----------------------------------
Despite efforts to keep it quiet, information about NATO and American raids across the border into Pakistan are getting out. The raids have captured some Taliban leaders, who were staying in Pakistani villages close to the border. These actions are forcing the Taliban to move their forward bases (for controlling the movement of gunmen across the border into and out of Afghanistan) deeper into Pakistan, and that makes it more difficult to move men and supplies into Afghanistan. Compared to last year, the Taliban are having a harder time moving men and munitions across the border. The Taliban are also bringing more cash with them, as villagers are less eager to just give Taliban fighters food and hospitality (that is, not promptly calling the cops). So "gifts" of cash are more frequently used to buy some support in the villages. The Taliban are operating in smaller groups (under a hundred men), to make them less likely to be spotted from the air.
March 12, 2007: The U.S. is sending another 3,500 troops to Afghanistan, raising the total to 27,000. The U.S. believes that it can deal the weakened Taliban a fatal blow this year, if there are enough American and NATO troops there to do it.
March 11, 2007: The number of Taliban ambushes, and encounters with security forces, is increasing. There are about twenty casualties a day, half of them Taliban.
March 10, 2007: In the last few days, the Taliban have kidnapped three foreigners (an Italian and two Germans) and demanded that NATO forces leave within the week, or the hostages will be killed. The Taliban continue to attack border posts, trying to intimidate the border guards into pulling back, and making it easier for the Taliban to get through using the roads. One such clash today left eight border guards and five Taliban dead.
March 9, 2007: The Taliban attempted to kill a pro-government tribal chief, but only wounded him with a roadside bomb. The Taliban have been using these bombs more frequently, but with much less success, than other Islamic terrorists in Iraq. Bandits are also using roadside bombs, making it easier to rob people (after the bomb goes off).
March 8, 2007: Taliban and drug gang forces in Helmand province have joined forces to keep government police and troops out. Most of the heroin produced in the country comes from Helmand. Meanwhile, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most Islamic of the warlords that fought in the Afghan civil war of the early 1990s, and later joined the Taliban after Iraq was invaded, has offered to switch sides and ally himself with the government. Hekmatyar was never very cozy with the Taliban, considering them puppets of the Pakistani military intelligence. Hekmatyars forces mainly operate in eastern Afghanistan, from bases in Pakistan. Hekmatyar makes this peace offer periodically, but cannot be trusted to follow through.
March 7, 2007: A senior Taliban leader was caught at a checkpoint near Kandahar, trying to avoid detection by dressing as a woman. Elsewhere in the area, NATO troops uncovered Taliban weapons caches, with the help of tips from locals. In eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban bomb maker was arrested.
-----------------------------------
Citation: "Taliban Think Smaller and Make Nicer," Strategy Page, 13 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20070313.aspx
-----------------------------------
12 March 2007
The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
At Fort Benning, soldiers who were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this an isolated incident or a trend?
By Mark Benjamin
Salon.com, 11 March 2007
"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.
The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.
That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."
Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga., and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.
Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring them into accordance with regulations."
In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander. Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health, to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."
Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.
The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.
And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.
A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.
One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.
The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear, and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."
Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.
Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad."
His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they "prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army. Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking, biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.
Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15. The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."
Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's apartment near Fort Benning.
Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9. But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in January, so he does not feel ready.
Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine should it fail.
He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith, who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to give me a weapon right now.'"
The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.
Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"
-------------------------------
Citation: Mark Benjamin. "The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq," Salon.com, 11 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/?source=rss
-------------------------------
By Mark Benjamin
Salon.com, 11 March 2007
"This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division's 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier's "physical profile," an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier's physical limitations because of medical problems -- from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers' profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.
The 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade is now leaving for Iraq for a third time in a steady stream. In fact, some of the troops with medical conditions interviewed by Salon last week are already gone. Others are slated to fly out within a week, but are fighting against their chain of command, holding out hope that because of their ills they will ultimately not be forced to go. Jenkins, who is still in Georgia, thinks doctors are helping to send hurt soldiers like him to Iraq to make units going there appear to be at full strength. "This is about the numbers," he said flatly.
That is what worries Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, who has long been concerned that the military was pressing injured troops into Iraq. "Did they send anybody down range that cannot wear a helmet, that cannot wear body armor?" Robinson asked rhetorically. "Well that is wrong. It is a war zone." Robinson thinks that the possibility that physical profiles may have been altered improperly has the makings of a scandal. "My concerns are that this needs serious investigation. You cannot just look at somebody and tell that they were fit," he said. "It smacks of an overstretched military that is in crisis mode to get people onto the battlefield."
Eight soldiers who were at the Feb. 15 meeting say they were summoned to the troop medical clinic at 6:30 in the morning and lined up to meet with division surgeon Lt. Col. George Appenzeller, who had arrived from Fort Stewart, Ga., and Capt. Aaron K. Starbuck, brigade surgeon at Fort Benning. The soldiers described having a cursory discussion of their profiles, with no physical exam or extensive review of medical files. They say Appenzeller and Starbuck seemed focused on downplaying their physical problems. "This guy was changing people's profiles left and right," said a captain who injured his back during his last tour in Iraq and was ordered to Iraq after the Feb. 15 review.
Appenzeller said the review of 75 soldiers with profiles was an effort to make sure they were as accurate as possible prior to deployment. "As the division surgeon and the senior medical officer in the division, I wanted to ensure that all the patients with profiles were fully evaluated with clear limitations that commanders could use to make the decision whether they could deploy, and if they did deploy, what their limitations would be while there," he said in a telephone interview from Fort Stewart. He said he changed less than one-third of those profiles -- even making some more restrictive -- in order to "bring them into accordance with regulations."
In direct contradiction to the account given by the soldiers, Appenzeller said physical examinations were conducted and that he had a robust medical team there working with him, which is how they managed to complete 75 reviews in one day. Appenzeller denied that the plan was to find more warm bodies for the surge into Baghdad, as did Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the brigade commander. Grigsby said he is under "no pressure" to find soldiers, regardless of health, to make his unit look fit. The health and welfare of his soldiers are a top priority, said Grigsby, because [the soldiers] are "our most important resource, perhaps the most important resource we have in this country."
Grigsby said he does not know how many injured soldiers are in his ranks. But he insisted that it is not unusual to deploy troops with physical limitations so long as he can place them in safe jobs when they get there. "They can be productive and safe in Iraq," Grigsby said.
The injured soldiers interviewed by Salon, however, expressed considerable worry about going to Iraq with physical deficits because it could endanger them or their fellow soldiers. Some were injured on previous combat tours. Some of their ills are painful conditions from training accidents or, among relatively older troops, degenerative problems like back injuries or blown-out knees. Some of the soldiers have been in the Army for decades.
And while Grigsby, the brigade commander, says he is under no pressure to find troops, it is hard to imagine there is not some desperation behind the decision to deploy some of the sick soldiers. Master Sgt. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where three of his vertebrae were fused during surgery. He takes a cornucopia of potent pain pills. His medical records say he is "at significantly increased risk of re-injury during deployment where he will be wearing Kevlar, body armor and traveling through rough terrain." Late last year, those medical records show, a doctor recommended that Jenkins be referred to an Army board that handles retirements when injuries are permanent and severe.
A copy of Jenkins' profile written after that Feb. 15 meeting and signed by Capt. Starbuck, the brigade surgeon, shows a healthier soldier than the profile of Jenkins written by another doctor just late last year, though Jenkins says his condition is unchanged. Other soldiers' documents show the same pattern.
One female soldier with psychiatric issues and a spine problem has been in the Army for nearly 20 years. "My [health] is deteriorating," she said over dinner at a restaurant near Fort Benning. "My spine is separating. I can't carry gear." Her medical records include the note "unable to deploy overseas." Her status was also reviewed on Feb. 15. And she has been ordered to Iraq this week.
The captain interviewed by Salon also requested anonymity because he fears retribution. He suffered a back injury during a previous deployment to Iraq as an infantry platoon leader. A Humvee accident "corkscrewed my spine," he explained. Like the female soldier, he is unable to wear his protective gear, and like her he too was ordered to Iraq after his meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon on Feb. 15. He is still at Fort Benning and is fighting the decision to send him to Baghdad. "It is a numbers issue with this whole troop surge," he claimed. "They are just trying to get those numbers."
Another soldier contacted Salon by telephone last week expressed considerable anxiety, in a frightened tone, about deploying to Iraq in her current condition. (She also wanted to remain anonymous, fearing retribution.) An incident during training several years ago injured her back, forcing doctors to remove part of her fractured coccyx. She suffers from degenerative disk disease and has two ruptured disks and a bulging disk in her back. While she said she loves the Army and would like to deploy after back surgery, her current injuries would limit her ability to wear her full protective gear. She deployed to Iraq last week, the day after calling Salon.
Her husband, who has served three combat tours in the infantry in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he is worried sick because his wife's protective vest alone exceeds the maximum amount she is allowed to lift. "I have been over there three times. I know what it is like," he told me during lunch at a restaurant here. He predicted that by deploying people like his wife, the brigade leaders are "going to get somebody killed over there." He said there is "no way" Grigsby is going to keep all of the injured soldiers in safe jobs. "All of these people that deploy with these profiles, they are scared," he said. He railed at the command: "They are saying they don't care about your health. This is pathetic. It is bad."
His wife's physical profile was among those reevaluated on Feb. 15. A copy of her profile from late last year showed her health problems were so severe they "prevent deployment" and recommended she be medically retired from the Army. Her profile at that time showed she was unable to wear a protective mask and chemical defense equipment, and had limitations on doing pushups, walking, biking and swimming. It said she can only carry 15 pounds.
Though she says that her condition has not changed since then, almost all of those findings were reversed in a copy of her physical profile dated Feb. 15. The new profile says nothing about a medical retirement, but suggests that she limit wearing a helmet to "one hour at a time."
Spc. Lincoln Smith, meanwhile, developed sleep apnea after he returned from his first deployment to Iraq. The condition is so severe that he now suffers from narcolepsy because of a lack of sleep. He almost nodded off mid-conversation while talking to Salon as he sat in a T-shirt on a sofa in his girlfriend's apartment near Fort Benning.
Smith is trained by the Army to be a truck driver. But since he is in constant danger of falling asleep, military doctors have listed "No driving of military vehicles" on his physical profile. Smith was supposed to fly to Iraq March 9. But he told me on March 8 that he won't go. Nobody has retrained Smith to do anything else besides drive trucks. Plus, because of his condition he was unable to train properly with the unit when the brigade rehearsed for Iraq in January, so he does not feel ready.
Smith needs to sleep with a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine pumping air into his mouth and nose. "Otherwise," he says, "I could die." But based on his last tour, he is not convinced he will be able to be in places with constant electricity or will be able to fix or replace his CPAP machine should it fail.
He told me last week he would refuse to deploy to Iraq, unsure of what he will be asked to do there and afraid that he will not be taken care of. Since he won't be a truck driver, "I would be going basically as a number," says Smith, who is 32. "They don't have enough people," he says. But he is not going to be one of those numbers until they train him to do something else. "I'm going to go to the airport, and I'm going to tell them I'm not going to go. They are going to give me a weapon. I am going to say, 'It is not a good idea for you to give me a weapon right now.'"
The Pentagon was notified of the reclassification of the Fort Benning soldiers as soon as it happened, according to Master Sgt. Jenkins. He showed Salon an e-mail describing the situation that he says he sent to Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. Jenkins agreed to speak to Salon because he hopes public attention will help other soldiers, particularly younger ones in a similar predicament. "I can't sit back and let this happen to me or other soldiers in my position." But he expects reprisals from the Army.
Other soldiers slated to leave for Iraq with injuries said they wonder whether the same thing is happening in other units in the Army. "You have to ask where else this might be happening and who is dictating it," one female soldier told me. "How high does it go?"
-------------------------------
Citation: Mark Benjamin. "The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq," Salon.com, 11 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.salon.com/news/2007/03/11/fort_benning/?source=rss
-------------------------------
Bush: New Iraq troops for support roles
By Tom Raum
The Associated Press, 11 March 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia - President Bush said Sunday that 4,700 additional troops he is sending to Iraq above an increase announced in January are slated for support roles only, and urged Congress to approve funding for the war "without any strings attached."
Two months ago, after an extensive review, Bush ordered 21,500 additional American soldiers to Iraq to help calm Baghdad and the troubled Anbar Province.
"Those combat troops are going to need, you know, some support, and that's what the American people are seeing in terms of Iraq — the support troops necessary to help the reinforcements do their job," Bush said at a news conference here with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
The president also expressed skepticism about pledges from
Iran and
Syria in support of stabilizing Iraq. The two nations, as well the United States and others, took part in an international conference in Baghdad on Saturday aimed in part at preventing violence from engulfing the Middle East.
"If they really want to help stabilize Iraq, there are things for them to do, such as cutting off weapons flows and or the flow of suicide bombers into Iraq," Bush said of the two U.S. foes in the Middle East.
The president said he hopes momentum will carry over to the next such conference — leaving the door open for more U.S. contact with Iran and Syria over Iraq. As a sign of the U.S. commitment, he said, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will be the nation's representative next time.
"I'm not dissing anybody," Bush said, "but it's a step up in the pay grade."
The new announcement for troops in Iraq, made over the weekend, includes 2,400 combat support troops, 2,200 military police and 100 troops to protect economic reconstruction teams.
Of the roughly 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 60,000 are combat forces and the rest are support troops.
Bush asked Congress on Friday for $3.2 billion to pay for the new Iraq troops, as well as for 3,500 new U.S. troops to expand training of local police and army units in
Afghanistan.
This revision came as lawmakers opposed to the war have been debating the $93.4 billion in additional defense money he's already requested to finance this year's war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
House Democratic leaders say they will try to attach language to the war funding bill that would require Bush to remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2008. That deadline could be expedited, possibly to the end of 2007, if the Iraqi government fails to meet commitments for stepping up security operations, distributing oil revenue and allowing amendments to the country's constitution.
The Democratic plan would also bar the military from deploying troops who do not meet existing standards for equipping, training and resting U.S. troops, though Bush would be allowed to waive those standards.
"My hope, of course, is that Congress provides the funding necessary for the combat troops to be able to do their job — without any strings attached," said Bush, who has threatened to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk with the restrictions being pushed by Democrats.
No votes have been taken on the latest Democratic proposals.
Bush's brief visit here — which took his motorcade not far from rioting protesters — was meant as a show of confidence in Uribe and the battle against narcoterrorists in this strong but drug and violence-plagued U.S. ally.
"Your country has come through very difficult times and now there's a brighter day ahead," Bush said in a toast after he Uribe met and had lunch at the presidential palace. "We have been friends and we will remain friends."
Bush has indicated he will ask Congress to maintain current aid levels to Colombia at roughly $700 million annually.
Bush's renewal of support came at a key moment.
Uribe is involved in a political scandal involving allies who allegedly colluded with right-wing militias in a reign of terror that nearly subverted Colombian democracy.
And Democrats who now control the U.S. Congress are asking tough questions about whether U.S. aid to Colombia is effective. Colombia receives more U.S. money than any country outside the Middle East and Afghanistan — to the tune of nearly $4 billion in mostly military aid since Uribe took office in 2002.
Colombia remains the source of more than 90 percent of the world's cocaine despite record aerial fumigation of coca crops. And the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has neither been defeated nor had any members of its leadership captured.
Uribe is aware of the stakes. A rambling opening statement at his joint appearance with Bush seemed designed to reassure foreign audiences.
"I would like you to know, Mr. President, that our commitment is the full defeat of terrorists and the total recovery of justice and of democratic institutions," Uribe said.
Bush said Uribe is working on the release of three Americans held by rebels for more than four years in Colombia.
"I am concerned about their safety. I really am worried about their families. These are three innocent folks who have been held hostage for too long," Bush said. "Their kidnappers ought to show some heart."
The president received red-carpet welcomes — as well as a large protest about a mile away from the palace. Some 2,000 protesters chanted "Down with Bush" and burned American flags.
About 150 of them broke away, attacking riot police with rocks and metal barriers and ripping down lampposts. Some 200 helmeted police in full body armor responded with water cannons and tear gas to reclaim the street.
Extraordinary security had some 20,000 police and heavily armed troops mobilized to prevent any rebel attack.
Sharpshooters were positioned on rooftops, the city center was shut down to traffic and Bogotanos had to do without their beloved "ciclovia," in which major avenues are given over on Sundays to biking, skating and jogging.
Bush and Uribe also discussed a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement now stalled in Congress.
After meeting with Uribe, Bush talked with Colombians who are benefiting from various U.S programs.
Bush flew in to Colombia from Uruguay, and was heading to Guatemala immediately after his meetings. He also is visiting Brazil and Mexico on his Latin American travels.
--------------------------
Citation: Tom Raum. "Bush: New Iraq troops for support roles," The Associated Press, 11 March 2007.
--------------------------
The Associated Press, 11 March 2007
BOGOTA, Colombia - President Bush said Sunday that 4,700 additional troops he is sending to Iraq above an increase announced in January are slated for support roles only, and urged Congress to approve funding for the war "without any strings attached."
Two months ago, after an extensive review, Bush ordered 21,500 additional American soldiers to Iraq to help calm Baghdad and the troubled Anbar Province.
"Those combat troops are going to need, you know, some support, and that's what the American people are seeing in terms of Iraq — the support troops necessary to help the reinforcements do their job," Bush said at a news conference here with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
The president also expressed skepticism about pledges from
Iran and
Syria in support of stabilizing Iraq. The two nations, as well the United States and others, took part in an international conference in Baghdad on Saturday aimed in part at preventing violence from engulfing the Middle East.
"If they really want to help stabilize Iraq, there are things for them to do, such as cutting off weapons flows and or the flow of suicide bombers into Iraq," Bush said of the two U.S. foes in the Middle East.
The president said he hopes momentum will carry over to the next such conference — leaving the door open for more U.S. contact with Iran and Syria over Iraq. As a sign of the U.S. commitment, he said, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will be the nation's representative next time.
"I'm not dissing anybody," Bush said, "but it's a step up in the pay grade."
The new announcement for troops in Iraq, made over the weekend, includes 2,400 combat support troops, 2,200 military police and 100 troops to protect economic reconstruction teams.
Of the roughly 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 60,000 are combat forces and the rest are support troops.
Bush asked Congress on Friday for $3.2 billion to pay for the new Iraq troops, as well as for 3,500 new U.S. troops to expand training of local police and army units in
Afghanistan.
This revision came as lawmakers opposed to the war have been debating the $93.4 billion in additional defense money he's already requested to finance this year's war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
House Democratic leaders say they will try to attach language to the war funding bill that would require Bush to remove U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2008. That deadline could be expedited, possibly to the end of 2007, if the Iraqi government fails to meet commitments for stepping up security operations, distributing oil revenue and allowing amendments to the country's constitution.
The Democratic plan would also bar the military from deploying troops who do not meet existing standards for equipping, training and resting U.S. troops, though Bush would be allowed to waive those standards.
"My hope, of course, is that Congress provides the funding necessary for the combat troops to be able to do their job — without any strings attached," said Bush, who has threatened to veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk with the restrictions being pushed by Democrats.
No votes have been taken on the latest Democratic proposals.
Bush's brief visit here — which took his motorcade not far from rioting protesters — was meant as a show of confidence in Uribe and the battle against narcoterrorists in this strong but drug and violence-plagued U.S. ally.
"Your country has come through very difficult times and now there's a brighter day ahead," Bush said in a toast after he Uribe met and had lunch at the presidential palace. "We have been friends and we will remain friends."
Bush has indicated he will ask Congress to maintain current aid levels to Colombia at roughly $700 million annually.
Bush's renewal of support came at a key moment.
Uribe is involved in a political scandal involving allies who allegedly colluded with right-wing militias in a reign of terror that nearly subverted Colombian democracy.
And Democrats who now control the U.S. Congress are asking tough questions about whether U.S. aid to Colombia is effective. Colombia receives more U.S. money than any country outside the Middle East and Afghanistan — to the tune of nearly $4 billion in mostly military aid since Uribe took office in 2002.
Colombia remains the source of more than 90 percent of the world's cocaine despite record aerial fumigation of coca crops. And the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has neither been defeated nor had any members of its leadership captured.
Uribe is aware of the stakes. A rambling opening statement at his joint appearance with Bush seemed designed to reassure foreign audiences.
"I would like you to know, Mr. President, that our commitment is the full defeat of terrorists and the total recovery of justice and of democratic institutions," Uribe said.
Bush said Uribe is working on the release of three Americans held by rebels for more than four years in Colombia.
"I am concerned about their safety. I really am worried about their families. These are three innocent folks who have been held hostage for too long," Bush said. "Their kidnappers ought to show some heart."
The president received red-carpet welcomes — as well as a large protest about a mile away from the palace. Some 2,000 protesters chanted "Down with Bush" and burned American flags.
About 150 of them broke away, attacking riot police with rocks and metal barriers and ripping down lampposts. Some 200 helmeted police in full body armor responded with water cannons and tear gas to reclaim the street.
Extraordinary security had some 20,000 police and heavily armed troops mobilized to prevent any rebel attack.
Sharpshooters were positioned on rooftops, the city center was shut down to traffic and Bogotanos had to do without their beloved "ciclovia," in which major avenues are given over on Sundays to biking, skating and jogging.
Bush and Uribe also discussed a U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement now stalled in Congress.
After meeting with Uribe, Bush talked with Colombians who are benefiting from various U.S programs.
Bush flew in to Colombia from Uruguay, and was heading to Guatemala immediately after his meetings. He also is visiting Brazil and Mexico on his Latin American travels.
--------------------------
Citation: Tom Raum. "Bush: New Iraq troops for support roles," The Associated Press, 11 March 2007.
--------------------------
Lopsided provincial councils keep Iraq off balance
Sunnis boycotted elections and now feel shut out. Shiites aren't moving fast to change that.
By Solomon Moore
The Los Angeles Times, 11 March 2007
BAGHDAD — The long delay in holding provincial elections in Iraq has shut out Sunni Arab majorities and exacerbated sectarian tensions in provincial capitals such as Kirkuk and Baqubah and in mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad.
A Sunni boycott of elections in 2005 has left the religious sect underrepresented in some provincial councils and has allowed Shiite politicians to dominate.
The stark political imbalance is a key driver of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in some of Iraq's most strategically important and heterogeneous cities, Iraqi politicians and U.S. officials say.
Plans to draft legislation to hold new local balloting have been put off indefinitely by the Shiite-dominated parliament, intensifying tensions with Sunni Arabs who have been pushing for new elections.
Sunni Arabs constitute at least 40% of Baghdad's population, but only one of the 51 members of the local provincial council is Sunni.
"The absence of Sunnis on the council has an absolutely negative effect," said Azhar Abdul Majeed Hussein, the sole Sunni council member in Baghdad. "When Sunnis turn to the council for even simple needs, they find they have no representatives. This makes them feel marginalized. There is a clear sectarian spirit in the council."
That sectarian spirit extends to the greater Iraqi society, Iraqi leaders and U.S. officials say, overlaying the combustible political strife.
Sunni Arabs are also underrepresented in Diyala province, northeast of the capital, where they are believed to make up 60% of the population but hold only about one-third of the provincial seats. In the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, capital of Al Tamim province, Sunni Arabs and Shiites constitute about 25% of the population but only 15% of the Kurdish-dominated provincial council.
Diyala Deputy Gov. Aouf Rahoumi said Shiite domination of the provincial council, which sits in Baqubah, had had a direct effect on security because Shiites had, as a partial result of this political strength, also come to dominate the army and police in the area.
"The governor is Shiite, the police commander is Shiite, the army commander is Shiite, the major crimes unit commander is Shiite, the intelligence commander is Shiite, most of the division commanders are Shiite," Rahoumi, a Sunni, said earlier this year. "So there are problems because they are a minority ruling over a majority."
Many Sunni Arabs boycotted the January 2005 elections to protest the American-led occupation and U.S. military actions in Fallouja, a city in Al Anbar province to the west, and other Sunni areas. The result was Shiite domination of local government even where the sect is not the dominant population group. National elections in December of that year alleviated some of the problems caused by the boycott, but new elections for provincial councils, which coordinate with national agencies to provide gasoline, health, education, sanitation, security and other local services, have been postponed.
A slow-going process
U.S. officials have described provincial elections as one of several benchmarks, along with reduction of violence in Baghdad and approval of a hydrocarbon resource sharing law, by which they are gauging the progress of Iraq's national government.
Many U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders say new provincial elections would give Sunni Arabs a greater stake in the success of Iraq and help rein in the insurgency.
But the Shiite-led national government has been slow to act. Shiite leaders say they want to hold new provincial elections, and say procedural requirements have prevented them from passing a law to schedule a date. Parliament has gone for weeks at a time without achieving a quorum.
Sunni Arab politicians and U.S. officials, however, say they suspect the Shiites are stalling, biding their time, even as Shiite militias and Sunni Arab insurgents use violent gerrymandering tactics to carve out sectarian constituencies that will preserve their power.
Sunni Arab insurgents in Baqubah appeared to gain the upper hand late last year despite an influx of Shiite militiamen and heavy-handed tactics by the Shiite-dominated security forces there.
Diyala Gov. Raed Rashid Jawad, a Shiite, said Sunni Arabs shouldn't be so disgruntled about their lack of representation because they elected to boycott the local balloting.
"They chose to boycott the elections, and now they are sorry about this," Jawad said. "Still, they have many people in the local government. My deputy is a Sunni. There are Sunni police commanders. The mayor of Baqubah is a Sunni."
Sunnis acknowledge that they are represented in Diyala's government, but they say the positions are token and not in proportion to their group's share of the province's population.
Complaints of corruption
A few Sunni Arabs opposed boycotting the elections; some Sunnis were later appointed by Shiite elected officials at the insistence of U.S. officials seeking to balance out local government bodies. But Sunnis and U.S. officials agree that these efforts did not go far enough to achieve equitable representation.
In Baghdad, Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a Sunni parliament member, complained that the provincial council was dysfunctional and corrupt.
"The activities of the Baghdad Provincial Council are negligible," he said. "The council uses the current security problems as an excuse for tardiness. Insecurity is a peg where all faults and delays are hung. The council is entrusted with huge amounts of money, but no one knows where the money has gone."
A U.S. advisor to the Baghdad council said Shiite domination of the legislative body had been tempered by the members' willingness to consult with neighborhood-based advisory committees. The advisor also said the council had worked to equitably deliver sanitation services, public works and welfare payments.
But the advisor acknowledged that many neighborhood committees had struggled even to meet because of the security situation, and that only the Shiite-dominated provincial council had the power to disburse funds or authorize projects.
Even in the Shiites' strongholds of southern Iraq, where sectarian demographics justify their domination of provincial councils, the legislative bodies have been buffeted by intra-Shiite discord as rival political factions vie for local control of political posts and state funding.
U.S. and Iraqi troops recently arrested two Shiite members of the Wasit Provincial Council for their alleged involvement in the smuggling of improvised explosives. And intra-Shiite conflicts have beset the Basra Provincial Council, which is nearly evenly divided between powerful Shiite political parties: the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is affiliated with the Badr Brigade, a powerful Shiite militia; and Al Fadila al Islamiya, or the Islamic Virtue Party, which has at times been allied with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement and his Al Mahdi militia.
In mixed areas, Sunni Arab leaders say, the squelching of Sunnis' political options feeds the insurgency. In Kirkuk and Baqubah, Sunni Arab provincial council members have boycotted proceedings for weeks, further undermining the councils' credibility.
Sheik Abdulla Sami Assi, a Sunni Arab council member in Kirkuk, said that without greater provincial representation, disenfranchised residents would continue to take matters into their own hands.
"We hope that people will not start committing violent acts," he said. "We hope things will be solved in a diplomatic manner."
Insurgents in the streets
In Baqubah, Sunni Arab insurgents earlier this year held ad hoc street parades as Sunni residents waved from their doorsteps in support. The parades occurred at a time when Diyala's security forces were a shambles, with Iraqi soldiers in the province mired in accusations over human rights abuses against Sunni Arabs, and the police overwhelmed and scattered among several shattered stations.
Abdul Jabar Ali Ibrahim, chief of the Diyala tribal council, said the insurgents had exploited Sunni alienation from the political process.
"We need neutral security apparatuses to maintain law and order without bias to this or that side," Ibrahim said. "The appearance of these armed men in the streets indicates the absence of the governmental institutions for the ordinary man in the street — he cannot tell whether these armed men are good or bad. He only knows that he is seeing them in his neighborhood, but not the government."
------------------------------
Citation: Solomon Moore. "Lopsided provincial councils keep Iraq off balance," The Los Angeles Times, 11 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-provincial11mar11,1,1418027.story?coll=la-news-a_section
------------------------------
By Solomon Moore
The Los Angeles Times, 11 March 2007
BAGHDAD — The long delay in holding provincial elections in Iraq has shut out Sunni Arab majorities and exacerbated sectarian tensions in provincial capitals such as Kirkuk and Baqubah and in mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad.
A Sunni boycott of elections in 2005 has left the religious sect underrepresented in some provincial councils and has allowed Shiite politicians to dominate.
The stark political imbalance is a key driver of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in some of Iraq's most strategically important and heterogeneous cities, Iraqi politicians and U.S. officials say.
Plans to draft legislation to hold new local balloting have been put off indefinitely by the Shiite-dominated parliament, intensifying tensions with Sunni Arabs who have been pushing for new elections.
Sunni Arabs constitute at least 40% of Baghdad's population, but only one of the 51 members of the local provincial council is Sunni.
"The absence of Sunnis on the council has an absolutely negative effect," said Azhar Abdul Majeed Hussein, the sole Sunni council member in Baghdad. "When Sunnis turn to the council for even simple needs, they find they have no representatives. This makes them feel marginalized. There is a clear sectarian spirit in the council."
That sectarian spirit extends to the greater Iraqi society, Iraqi leaders and U.S. officials say, overlaying the combustible political strife.
Sunni Arabs are also underrepresented in Diyala province, northeast of the capital, where they are believed to make up 60% of the population but hold only about one-third of the provincial seats. In the disputed northern city of Kirkuk, capital of Al Tamim province, Sunni Arabs and Shiites constitute about 25% of the population but only 15% of the Kurdish-dominated provincial council.
Diyala Deputy Gov. Aouf Rahoumi said Shiite domination of the provincial council, which sits in Baqubah, had had a direct effect on security because Shiites had, as a partial result of this political strength, also come to dominate the army and police in the area.
"The governor is Shiite, the police commander is Shiite, the army commander is Shiite, the major crimes unit commander is Shiite, the intelligence commander is Shiite, most of the division commanders are Shiite," Rahoumi, a Sunni, said earlier this year. "So there are problems because they are a minority ruling over a majority."
Many Sunni Arabs boycotted the January 2005 elections to protest the American-led occupation and U.S. military actions in Fallouja, a city in Al Anbar province to the west, and other Sunni areas. The result was Shiite domination of local government even where the sect is not the dominant population group. National elections in December of that year alleviated some of the problems caused by the boycott, but new elections for provincial councils, which coordinate with national agencies to provide gasoline, health, education, sanitation, security and other local services, have been postponed.
A slow-going process
U.S. officials have described provincial elections as one of several benchmarks, along with reduction of violence in Baghdad and approval of a hydrocarbon resource sharing law, by which they are gauging the progress of Iraq's national government.
Many U.S. officials and Iraqi leaders say new provincial elections would give Sunni Arabs a greater stake in the success of Iraq and help rein in the insurgency.
But the Shiite-led national government has been slow to act. Shiite leaders say they want to hold new provincial elections, and say procedural requirements have prevented them from passing a law to schedule a date. Parliament has gone for weeks at a time without achieving a quorum.
Sunni Arab politicians and U.S. officials, however, say they suspect the Shiites are stalling, biding their time, even as Shiite militias and Sunni Arab insurgents use violent gerrymandering tactics to carve out sectarian constituencies that will preserve their power.
Sunni Arab insurgents in Baqubah appeared to gain the upper hand late last year despite an influx of Shiite militiamen and heavy-handed tactics by the Shiite-dominated security forces there.
Diyala Gov. Raed Rashid Jawad, a Shiite, said Sunni Arabs shouldn't be so disgruntled about their lack of representation because they elected to boycott the local balloting.
"They chose to boycott the elections, and now they are sorry about this," Jawad said. "Still, they have many people in the local government. My deputy is a Sunni. There are Sunni police commanders. The mayor of Baqubah is a Sunni."
Sunnis acknowledge that they are represented in Diyala's government, but they say the positions are token and not in proportion to their group's share of the province's population.
Complaints of corruption
A few Sunni Arabs opposed boycotting the elections; some Sunnis were later appointed by Shiite elected officials at the insistence of U.S. officials seeking to balance out local government bodies. But Sunnis and U.S. officials agree that these efforts did not go far enough to achieve equitable representation.
In Baghdad, Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a Sunni parliament member, complained that the provincial council was dysfunctional and corrupt.
"The activities of the Baghdad Provincial Council are negligible," he said. "The council uses the current security problems as an excuse for tardiness. Insecurity is a peg where all faults and delays are hung. The council is entrusted with huge amounts of money, but no one knows where the money has gone."
A U.S. advisor to the Baghdad council said Shiite domination of the legislative body had been tempered by the members' willingness to consult with neighborhood-based advisory committees. The advisor also said the council had worked to equitably deliver sanitation services, public works and welfare payments.
But the advisor acknowledged that many neighborhood committees had struggled even to meet because of the security situation, and that only the Shiite-dominated provincial council had the power to disburse funds or authorize projects.
Even in the Shiites' strongholds of southern Iraq, where sectarian demographics justify their domination of provincial councils, the legislative bodies have been buffeted by intra-Shiite discord as rival political factions vie for local control of political posts and state funding.
U.S. and Iraqi troops recently arrested two Shiite members of the Wasit Provincial Council for their alleged involvement in the smuggling of improvised explosives. And intra-Shiite conflicts have beset the Basra Provincial Council, which is nearly evenly divided between powerful Shiite political parties: the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is affiliated with the Badr Brigade, a powerful Shiite militia; and Al Fadila al Islamiya, or the Islamic Virtue Party, which has at times been allied with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement and his Al Mahdi militia.
In mixed areas, Sunni Arab leaders say, the squelching of Sunnis' political options feeds the insurgency. In Kirkuk and Baqubah, Sunni Arab provincial council members have boycotted proceedings for weeks, further undermining the councils' credibility.
Sheik Abdulla Sami Assi, a Sunni Arab council member in Kirkuk, said that without greater provincial representation, disenfranchised residents would continue to take matters into their own hands.
"We hope that people will not start committing violent acts," he said. "We hope things will be solved in a diplomatic manner."
Insurgents in the streets
In Baqubah, Sunni Arab insurgents earlier this year held ad hoc street parades as Sunni residents waved from their doorsteps in support. The parades occurred at a time when Diyala's security forces were a shambles, with Iraqi soldiers in the province mired in accusations over human rights abuses against Sunni Arabs, and the police overwhelmed and scattered among several shattered stations.
Abdul Jabar Ali Ibrahim, chief of the Diyala tribal council, said the insurgents had exploited Sunni alienation from the political process.
"We need neutral security apparatuses to maintain law and order without bias to this or that side," Ibrahim said. "The appearance of these armed men in the streets indicates the absence of the governmental institutions for the ordinary man in the street — he cannot tell whether these armed men are good or bad. He only knows that he is seeing them in his neighborhood, but not the government."
------------------------------
Citation: Solomon Moore. "Lopsided provincial councils keep Iraq off balance," The Los Angeles Times, 11 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-provincial11mar11,1,1418027.story?coll=la-news-a_section
------------------------------
Germany sends warplanes to Afghanistan
By Hugh Williamson
Financial Times, 09 March 2007
Germany will send at least six military aeroplanes and extra soldiers to Afghanistan despite public misgivings that peacekeepers are being sucked into the US-led war with the Taliban.
The lower parliamentary house, or Bundestag, voted to sent between six and eight Tornado reconnaissance jets, 500 crew and maintenance staff, adding to the around 3000 German troops already stationed in the war-torn country.
In yesterday's vote - the subject of intense political wrangling in recent weeks - several members of chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats refused to back the new mission. 405 legislators voted in favour, with 157 voting against and 11 abstaining.
The murder on Thursday in northern Afghanistan of a German aid worker added an emotional edge to yesterday's debate, although it did not appear to influence the vote's outcome. Dieter Rübling, 65, who was shot by unknown assailants, was the first German aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Yesterday's vote was controversial as it blurs the nature of Germany's military role in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 this has been focused on peacekeeping and reconstruction, in line with the distanced stance of politicians and the public towards the US-led military conflict with the Taliban.
Germany has repeatedly resisted calls from Nato to redeploy combat troops from their bases in Kabul and northern regions to the south, where clashes with the Taliban are most intense. The decision to send the Tornado planes is seen as a gesture towards Nato, as the planes - to operate in Afghanistan for six months from April - will seek out Taliban positions in the south and forward the information to military commanders. They will not fly combat missions.
Opposition parties and some military analysts argue that Germany has now joined the warring parties in Afghanistan, with distinctions - stressed by the government - between reconnaissance and fighting dismissed as semantic.
Eckart von Klaeden, foreign affairs spokesman for Ms Merkel's CDU admitted that Germany could not "in the long term" refuse to send combat troops to the south, where a major Nato offensive against the Taliban was launched this week.
In a rare Bundestag disruption, the parliament's president expelled for the session several members of the Left Party for unfurling anti-war banners in the debating chamber.
-------------------------------
Citation: Hugh Williamson. "Germany sends warplanes to Afghanistan," Financial Times, 09 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17536283/
-------------------------------
Financial Times, 09 March 2007
Germany will send at least six military aeroplanes and extra soldiers to Afghanistan despite public misgivings that peacekeepers are being sucked into the US-led war with the Taliban.
The lower parliamentary house, or Bundestag, voted to sent between six and eight Tornado reconnaissance jets, 500 crew and maintenance staff, adding to the around 3000 German troops already stationed in the war-torn country.
In yesterday's vote - the subject of intense political wrangling in recent weeks - several members of chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats refused to back the new mission. 405 legislators voted in favour, with 157 voting against and 11 abstaining.
The murder on Thursday in northern Afghanistan of a German aid worker added an emotional edge to yesterday's debate, although it did not appear to influence the vote's outcome. Dieter Rübling, 65, who was shot by unknown assailants, was the first German aid worker to be killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Yesterday's vote was controversial as it blurs the nature of Germany's military role in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 this has been focused on peacekeeping and reconstruction, in line with the distanced stance of politicians and the public towards the US-led military conflict with the Taliban.
Germany has repeatedly resisted calls from Nato to redeploy combat troops from their bases in Kabul and northern regions to the south, where clashes with the Taliban are most intense. The decision to send the Tornado planes is seen as a gesture towards Nato, as the planes - to operate in Afghanistan for six months from April - will seek out Taliban positions in the south and forward the information to military commanders. They will not fly combat missions.
Opposition parties and some military analysts argue that Germany has now joined the warring parties in Afghanistan, with distinctions - stressed by the government - between reconnaissance and fighting dismissed as semantic.
Eckart von Klaeden, foreign affairs spokesman for Ms Merkel's CDU admitted that Germany could not "in the long term" refuse to send combat troops to the south, where a major Nato offensive against the Taliban was launched this week.
In a rare Bundestag disruption, the parliament's president expelled for the session several members of the Left Party for unfurling anti-war banners in the debating chamber.
-------------------------------
Citation: Hugh Williamson. "Germany sends warplanes to Afghanistan," Financial Times, 09 March 2007.
Original URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17536283/
-------------------------------
09 March 2007
U.S. buildup in Iraq getting bigger
By Robert Burns
The Associated Press, 09 March 2007
WASHINGTON - President Bush's troop buildup in Baghdad apparently will be bigger and more costly — and perhaps last longer — than it seemed when he unveiled the plan in January as the centerpiece of a new Iraq strategy.
U.S. officials say it's too early to tell whether the troop reinforcements will succeed in containing the sectarian and insurgent violence, but it looks as though the Pentagon is preparing for an expanded commitment — assuming that by summer there are solid signs that the extra effort is yielding significant results.
The Bush plan called for sending 21,500 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq — mainly to Baghdad — with the last of five brigades arriving by June. The estimated price tag was $5.6 billion. Officials have refused to say exactly how long it would last, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates had suggested that it could be over by fall.
In recent days a different picture has emerged.
The total number of troops required for the plan, while still uncertain, is climbing. When Bush announced the boost of 21,500 combat troops, the Pentagon said still others would be required to go with them in support roles. Its initial estimate of 2,400 support troops has doubled and may go higher still.
The cost also is rising. Administration officials conferred with lawmakers this week about an extra $1 billion, on top of the original $5.6 billion. The actual cost depends on how long the troop reinforcement is sustained.
When asked about the duration of the buildup, Gates has noted that funds for this purpose are only budgeted through September, which marks the end of the government's budget year. This week, however, it was disclosed that Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, a top commander in Iraq, has recommended that the buildup stretch into 2008.
At a news conference Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus, who arrived in Baghdad in February as the top U.S. commander, hinted at a longer-term buildup. "You generally think that if you're going to achieve (the desired results), that it would need to be sustained certainly for some time well beyond summer," he said, adding that his subordinate commanders are looking at options well in advance of when decisions will have to be made.
In contrast, Gates last month told Congress the administration saw a possibility that the buildup could begin to be reversed this fall if Bush's plan yielded good results on the security, economic and political fronts.
"In that event, it seems to me that if that were to all develop over the course of the next months, that in the latter part of this year we could begin drawing down American troops in Iraq. That is essentially the best case story. And that is our hope," Gates said then.
Many in Congress strongly opposed the buildup and are likely to object to it being extended. On Thursday, House Democrats unveiled legislation requiring the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008.
If the troop reinforcement in Iraq is extended beyond September it will create even more turmoil for soldiers and their families, many of whom are wearied by multiple yearlong tours in Iraq and ever-shorter breaks between deployments. Some Army units that are due to complete their tours this summer or fall might have their tours extended by weeks or months. Others now in the U.S. might be sent to Iraq earlier than planned. Army leaders are privately concerned at the cumulative burden on troops.
As of Thursday there were 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. That includes two of the five Army brigades designated for the buildup. A third brigade is scheduled to arrive this month, another in April and the last one in May or June.
In addition, Gates said Wednesday that at least another 2,400 would be needed to support the extra combat forces. And he said Petraeus had added still another requirement — about 2,200 more military police to help with an anticipated increase in detainees and for other duties.
Also, it was decided last month that an additional division headquarters — 1,000 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., — should go in March to split Baghdad command and control duties with the 1st Cavalry Division headquarters. The 3rd Infantry headquarters was originally scheduled to go this summer.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., commander of the 1st Cavalry, said Feb. 16 he has requested additional attack helicopters, and Gates said Wednesday that other unspecified requests for extra troops were being studied at the Pentagon.
Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, told Congress this week that the total number of support troops could approach 7,000.
Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, told reporters Thursday that it should be no surprise that the initial estimates of how many troops would be required for the Baghdad security plan would have to be adjusted.
"As you get into the execution of the plan you learn a lot, conditions change and you make adjustments, and that's what we're going to be doing," Hadley said.
------------------------
Citation: Robert Burns. "U.S. buildup in Iraq getting bigger," The Associated Press, 09 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_bigger_buildup
------------------------
The Associated Press, 09 March 2007
WASHINGTON - President Bush's troop buildup in Baghdad apparently will be bigger and more costly — and perhaps last longer — than it seemed when he unveiled the plan in January as the centerpiece of a new Iraq strategy.
U.S. officials say it's too early to tell whether the troop reinforcements will succeed in containing the sectarian and insurgent violence, but it looks as though the Pentagon is preparing for an expanded commitment — assuming that by summer there are solid signs that the extra effort is yielding significant results.
The Bush plan called for sending 21,500 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq — mainly to Baghdad — with the last of five brigades arriving by June. The estimated price tag was $5.6 billion. Officials have refused to say exactly how long it would last, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates had suggested that it could be over by fall.
In recent days a different picture has emerged.
The total number of troops required for the plan, while still uncertain, is climbing. When Bush announced the boost of 21,500 combat troops, the Pentagon said still others would be required to go with them in support roles. Its initial estimate of 2,400 support troops has doubled and may go higher still.
The cost also is rising. Administration officials conferred with lawmakers this week about an extra $1 billion, on top of the original $5.6 billion. The actual cost depends on how long the troop reinforcement is sustained.
When asked about the duration of the buildup, Gates has noted that funds for this purpose are only budgeted through September, which marks the end of the government's budget year. This week, however, it was disclosed that Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, a top commander in Iraq, has recommended that the buildup stretch into 2008.
At a news conference Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus, who arrived in Baghdad in February as the top U.S. commander, hinted at a longer-term buildup. "You generally think that if you're going to achieve (the desired results), that it would need to be sustained certainly for some time well beyond summer," he said, adding that his subordinate commanders are looking at options well in advance of when decisions will have to be made.
In contrast, Gates last month told Congress the administration saw a possibility that the buildup could begin to be reversed this fall if Bush's plan yielded good results on the security, economic and political fronts.
"In that event, it seems to me that if that were to all develop over the course of the next months, that in the latter part of this year we could begin drawing down American troops in Iraq. That is essentially the best case story. And that is our hope," Gates said then.
Many in Congress strongly opposed the buildup and are likely to object to it being extended. On Thursday, House Democrats unveiled legislation requiring the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq by the fall of 2008.
If the troop reinforcement in Iraq is extended beyond September it will create even more turmoil for soldiers and their families, many of whom are wearied by multiple yearlong tours in Iraq and ever-shorter breaks between deployments. Some Army units that are due to complete their tours this summer or fall might have their tours extended by weeks or months. Others now in the U.S. might be sent to Iraq earlier than planned. Army leaders are privately concerned at the cumulative burden on troops.
As of Thursday there were 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. That includes two of the five Army brigades designated for the buildup. A third brigade is scheduled to arrive this month, another in April and the last one in May or June.
In addition, Gates said Wednesday that at least another 2,400 would be needed to support the extra combat forces. And he said Petraeus had added still another requirement — about 2,200 more military police to help with an anticipated increase in detainees and for other duties.
Also, it was decided last month that an additional division headquarters — 1,000 soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., — should go in March to split Baghdad command and control duties with the 1st Cavalry Division headquarters. The 3rd Infantry headquarters was originally scheduled to go this summer.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr., commander of the 1st Cavalry, said Feb. 16 he has requested additional attack helicopters, and Gates said Wednesday that other unspecified requests for extra troops were being studied at the Pentagon.
Gordon England, the deputy defense secretary, told Congress this week that the total number of support troops could approach 7,000.
Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, told reporters Thursday that it should be no surprise that the initial estimates of how many troops would be required for the Baghdad security plan would have to be adjusted.
"As you get into the execution of the plan you learn a lot, conditions change and you make adjustments, and that's what we're going to be doing," Hadley said.
------------------------
Citation: Robert Burns. "U.S. buildup in Iraq getting bigger," The Associated Press, 09 March 2007.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070309/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_bigger_buildup
------------------------