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>”Surge” May Already be Happening

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There has been a lot of talk lately about a possible surge in the number of troops deployed to Iraq. U.S. commanders have alternated their support for this option, while several congressmen have made their opposition or support of a surge their primary message regarding the conflict in Iraq. Much in the same way that earlier debate was framed around withdrawing or “staying the course”, the Iraq policy debate seems to have centered over the question “to surge or not to surge.” As Anthony Cordesman of CSIS points out, “to surge or not to surge, is not the question.” Adding troops is not a strategy. There is so much more to what is going on in Iraq; a military solution is no longer feasible, assuming it ever has been. Instead the U.S. ought to concentrate more on the economic dimension of the conflict. I have already mentioned this several times, so I won’t go into too much detail.

Anyhow it seems that despite Bush’s refusal to publicly announce his new strategy for Iraq, he seems to have already answered The Question, irrelevant as it may be. Yesterday the Washington Post reported that a brigade of U.S. Army troops will deploy to Kuwait early next month. You can draw your own conclusion, but to me it looks like the Bush administration is preparing for “the surge.”

>Training Iraq’s Troops

>Perhaps the most catastrophic error committed by the United States in the post-conflict period was to dismantle the Iraqi army and police forces. It seemed the U.S. was unable to distinguish between Saddam’s Sunni regime and the security forces, which were in fact 90% Shia. This created an enormous security vacuum and is largely to blame for the present situation.

In response to this crisis, the Iraq Study Group and many others have recommended that the U.S. Army shift from conducting combat operations to advising and training Iraqi security forces. This is of course a great idea as besides reducing American casualties, it will allow the U.S. to responsibly withdraw from Iraq without fear that that security situation will decline precipitously. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, Vice President of Iraq, Tariq al Hashimi fully supports this recommendation, declaring that once Iraq has a fully operational and effective security force, “the U.S. must leave Iraq”.

The keyword here is “effective.” While the numbers of trained security forces are rising, they remain politically unreliable, often contributing to the sectarian strife rather than containing it. Today’s New York Times reports:

“The soldiers who came upon the car in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad were part of a joint American and Iraqi patrol, and the Americans were ready to take action. The Iraqi commander, however, taking orders by cellphone from the office of a top Sunni politician, said to back off: the car’s owner was known and protected at a high level…This time, it was a Sunni politician — Vice Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie — but the more powerful Shiites interfered even more often.”

Prime Minister al Maliki has on several occasions allowed his loyalties to al Sadr to compromise Iraq’s security, most recently lifting a roadblock around Sadr City that was immobilizing some of Iraq’s most notorious death squads.

According to Brookings’ Iraq Index, only 10,000 of the 115,000 trained and equipped Iraqi forces are politically reliable.

>Iraq in Numbers

>A chart compiled from the Iraq Index:
(note: if you are only seeing part of the chart, enlarge your browser window)

Categories

Nov. 2003

Nov. 2004

Nov. 2005

Nov. 2006

U.S./Other Foreign Troops in Iraq (in thousands)

123/24

138/24

160/23

140/17

U.S. Troops Killed

82

137

96

68

U.S. Troops Wounded

337

1,397

466

508

Iraqi Army and Police Fatalities

50

160

176

123

Iraqi Civilian Fatalities

1,250

2,900

1,800

4,000

Multiple-Fatality Bombings

6

11

41

65

Number of Insurgents

5,000

20,000

20,000

25,000

Strength of Shiite Militias

5,000

10,000

20,000

50,000

Daily Average of Inter-Ethnic Attacks

0

1

1

15

Number of Foreign Fighters

250

750

1,250

1,350

Iraqis Internally Displaced Since April 2003

100,000

175,000

200,000

650,000

Iraqi Refugees Since April 2003

100,000

350,000

900,000

1,800,000

Iraqi Doctors Murdered or Kidnapped/Fled Iraq (total)

100/
1,000

250/
2,000

1,000/
5,000

2,250/
12,000

Iraqi Security Forces Technically Proficient

0

10,000

35,000

115,000

Iraqi Security Forces Politically Dependable

0

0

5,000

10,000

Oil Production (in millions of barrels per day; prewar: 2.5

2.1

2.0

2.0

2.1

Household Fuel Available (as % of estimated need)

76

77

88

54

Electricity Production (in megawatts; prewar: 4,000)

3,600

3,200

3,700

3,700

Unemployment Rate (percent)

50

35

33

33

Per Capita G.D.P. (in dollars; prewar: 900)

550

1,000

1,100

1,150

Read the accompanying article.

>Some Catching Up

>Hope everyone had a good holiday. Here are some of the stories from the past few days that caught my eye. For a more complete account I would go check out Today in Iraq. My commentary is in italics.

District by District, Shiites Make Baghdad Their Own- As the United States debates what to do in Iraq, this country’s Shiite majority has been moving toward its own solution: making the capital its own. (Bush is apparently going to announce his grand new strategy for Iraq in the new year, but Iraq isn’t waiting. Each indecisive day hundreds more Iraqis and American soldiers are killed or injured, and militias further cement their power.)

Iraqi Court Says Hussein Must Die Within 30 Days- An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence against Saddam Hussein and ruled that the man whose brutal reign began in 1979 and ended with the American-led invasion in 2003 must go to the gallows within 30 days.

Hundreds Disappear Into the Black Hole of the Kurdish Prison System in Iraq- The entire inmate population had either been denied trials or had been held beyond the terms of their sentences, they said — lost in legal limbo in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq. (The legal system in all of Iraq, not just Kurdistan, is a joke. Usually, the accused are granted a farce of a trial; they are provided with an underpaid lawyer who rarely even meets with the accused and who generally fails to mount any sort of defense. The trials last on average about 15 minutes after which most defendants are found guilty. Please read this article for more. But how can we expect the Iraqis to hold just court proceedings if we can’t?)

U.S. Says Captured Iranians Can Be Linked to Attacks- The American military said Tuesday that it had credible evidence linking Iranians and their Iraqi associates, detained here in raids last week, to criminal activities, including attacks against American forces…Iraqi leaders said last week that the site was the compound of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political leaders… A spokesman for Mr. Hakim said he had not heard of a raid on the compound. (While al-Sadr has refused to have any sort of relationship with the United States, al-Hakim has met with Bush at the White House and it appeared as though the U.S. would be backing al-Hakim in order to undermine al-Sadr. But with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s rejection of the U.S. backed plan to build a coalition across sectarian lines, it seems that the U.S. has decided to apply some pressure on al-Hakim and SCIRI.)

Marines Charge 4 With Murder of Iraq Civilians- Four marines were charged yesterday with murder in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians, including at least 10 women and children, in the village of Haditha last year, military officials said at Camp Pendleton, Calif. (For related blog entries go here, here and here.)

Expect more posts throughout the day.


>After Baker-Hamilton: What to do in Iraq

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One of the most important contributions of the Iraq Study Group was that it cleared the way for a more honest debate on Iraq. The International Crisis Group has joined the debate with its recently released report, “After Baker-Hamilton: What to do in Iraq.” ICG’s premise is that while the ISG report is important it is insufficiently radical if Iraq’s collapse and an unprecedented regional war are to be avoided. Here are the report’s main recommendations:

1. A new forceful multilateral approach that puts real pressure on all Iraqi parties. The Baker-Hamilton report is right to advocate a broad International Support Group; it should comprise the five permanent Security Council members and Iraq’s six neighbours. But its purpose must not be to support the Iraqi government. It must support Iraq, which means pressing the government, along with all other constituencies, to make necessary compromises. Contrary to the Baker-Hamilton report’s suggestion, the government and security forces should not be treated as privileged allies to be bolstered. They are but one among many parties to the conflict and not innocent of responsibility for much of the trouble. It also means agreeing on rules of conduct and red-lines for third-party involvement. Sustained multilateral diplomacy, not a one-off international conference is needed.

2. A conference of all Iraqi and international stakeholders to forge a new political compact. This is not a military challenge in which one side needs to be strengthened and another defeated. It is a political challenge in which new consensual understandings need to be reached. A new, more equitable and inclusive national compact needs to be agreed upon by all relevant actors, including militias and insurgent groups, on issues such as federalism, resource allocation, de-Baathification, the scope of the amnesty and the timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. This can only be done if the International Support Group brings all of them to the negotiating table, and if its members steer their deliberations, deploying a mixture of carrots and sticks to influence those on whom they have particular leverage.

3. A new U.S. regional strategy, including engagement with Syria and Iran, end of efforts at regime change, revitalisation of the Arab-Israeli peace process and altered strategic goals. Mere engagement of Iraq’s neighbours will not do; Washington must clearly redefine its objectives in the region to enlist regional, and particularly Iranian and Syrian help. The goal is not to bargain with them, but to seek compromise agreement on an end-state for Iraq and the region that is no one’s first choice, but with which all can live.

This is a very important report as it completely eviscerates any illusions that Washington may still have about Iraq after the Baker-Hamilton report. And it goes beyond the ISG’s recommendation to engage Iraq’s neighbors by explaining how the U.S. can realistically achieve this. For more on this I would direct you to my recent entry on “Dealing with Iran” which highlights a paper written by Flynt Levrett of the New America Foundation.

>New Pentagon Report Released: Violence Up, Jobs Needed

>The violence just keeps getting worse. According to a just-released Pentagon report, injuries and deaths among US and coalition forces in Iraq rose 32% during the period from mid-August to mid-October over the previous three months. The average number of attacks each week and the average number of people killed or wounded in those attacks were at their highest levels since the United States handed over power to the Iraqi government in June 2004.

The Pentagon report places much of the blame for this increase in violence on the rise of ethnic and sectarian militias and other armed groups. The report specifically refers to the militia led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr noting that it has replaced al-Qaeda as the biggest security threat in Iraq.

In terms of the economy, the Pentagon once again acknowledges the importance of job creation:

“High unemployment continued to feed sectarian, insurgent, and criminal violence. Although definitive data are not available on the actual unemployment rate, it has been an issue that has had a significant effect on the security environment. The Iraqi government, along with Coalition and international help, must create an effective strategy to provide jobs. This program must be seen as fair and non-sectarian by common Iraqis. It must produce tangible results for a plurality of Iraqis or it may decrease the legitimacy of the Government of Iraq and have little effect on the level of violence.”

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Pentagon has been proactive in this regard. For the past 6 months, the Pentagon has been going around and preparing to open approximately 200 factories located all over Iraq, including in some of the most dangerous cities. Oil production and electricity services are still hampered. The report also makes mention that reconstruction efforts have boosted capacity to provide drinking water to 5.2 million people. However as Justin Rood of TPM Muckracker notes, a GAO report released this past Friday claims that 60% of that water is lost due to leaking, contamination and theft.

Another interesting tidbit from the report: While most organizations, pundits and politicians have already adopted the term “civil war,”the Pentagon says the situation in Iraq is “far more complex than the term ‘civil war’ implies.” It goes on to say, “However, conditions that could lead to civil war do exist, especially in and around Baghdad,” and the Iraqi people are fearful of civil war.

>Dealing with Iran

>One of the key proposals of the Iraq Study Group’s report was that the U.S. engage Syria and Iran over Iraq. Syria has come out saying it supports this proposal whole-heartedly, only because complementary to this recommendation is the notion that Israel give the Golan Heights back to Syria. Israel of course is not to happy with the idea of the U.S. undermining its negotiations with Syria, nor with the idea of handing back the Golan Heights in the first place.

Iran, unlike Syria, seemingly has no reason to negotiate with the U.S.; its influence in the region continues to grow, the majority population of Iraq (Shia) have a close connection with Iran giving Iran considerable power within Iraq, its nuclear enrichment program continues undeterred and its President is certain that the 12th Imam will soon return- “a certitude that leaves little room for compromise” as Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor explains. Besides which, many Sunnis in Iraq will surely frown on increased Iranian intervention. (The same can of course be said of the Kurds in regard to Turkey and the Shia in regard to Jordan.)

Secretary Rice has repeatedly declared that the U.S. will not negotiate with Iran, arguing that the “compensation required by any deal might be too high.” And that, “”If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they [Iran and Syria] will do it anyway.”

The U.S. doesn’t want to engage Iran and vice-versa, so what’s the point? Well Flynt Levrett, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation argues that the United States must deal directly with Iran in order to prevent Iranian development of nuclear weapons and to resolve other political and security issues. He recommends a “grand bargain” that would include economic incentives and a guarantee that the U.S. not attack Iran. In exchange the U.S. would gain limits to Iran’s nuclear activities and a termination of Iran’s support for terrorism in Iraq. This deal could also provide the foundation for a establishing a regional security framework in the Persian Gulf.

He makes an interesting argument and I suggest those interested read the full report; however, I believe the points I make above are still valid. Even if the U.S. does for some reason extend its arm to Iran, who is to say that Iran will reciprocate. Everything seems to be going Iran’s way as far as Iran is concerned anyway. Also, when one is pursuing a course of action based on one’s messianic beliefs, it seems unlikely that logic will hold much sway.

What do you think? First off, should the U.S. engage Iran over Iraq and secondly how successful do you think said negotiations would be? Should Iraq’s neighbors even be involved in the peace process?

>SIGIR Saved….For Now

>Though not yet officially in the majority, the Democrats have already started their campaign to reform Iraq-related legislation. Late last week, the House and Senate passed a bill extending the life of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) through to 2008, giving it the authority to examine the $32 billion spent on reconstruction. The New York Times reports that Bush is likely to sign the bill. This is great news. EPIC has long been an active proponent of the work SIGIR has done.

Since its inception in 2004, SIGIR has saved US taxpayers approximately $405.1 million and its investigations have led to several convictions of American occupation officials on bribery charges. Its latest report, published in October, which I discussed extensively in an earlier blog posting, provided a detailed analysis of what progress has been made on the ground and where the most significant problems lie. SIGIR’s investigations of Halliburton alone uncovered tens of millions of dollars of wasted funds and found that the company has been exploiting a federal loophole to keep its activities in Iraq confidential.

>Vice President of Iraq in DC

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Just got back from an event hosted over at USIP featuring Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, thus the delay in posting. I’ll try and insert some analysis later, but I wanted to quickly relay some of the more interesting points he made.First here is a quick intro to VP al Hashimi taken from the Iraq Study Group Report:

“Hashimi is one of two vice presidents of Iraq and the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Muslim bloc in parliament. Hashimi opposes the formation of autonomous regions and has advocated the distribution of oil revenues based on population, a reversal of de-Baathification, and the removal of Shiite militia fighters from the Iraqi security forces. Shiite death squads have recently killed three of his siblings.”

1) the U.S. wrongly dismantled Iraqi army and police forces thinking the entire regime was Sunni when in fact 90% of soldiers are Shia. This created an enormous security vacuum and is largely to blame for the present situation. The U.S. must correct their mistake by funding, equiping and training a new Iraq army and police

2) Once Iraq has a fully operational and effective security force, the U.S. must leave Iraq. Iraq will bear the burden of any further bloodshed

3) the insurgency has been mis-characterized. It has no ideological basis and as such should be considered in terms of a resistance group. Its only purpose is to force the U.S. to leave Iraq. Once the U.S. complies, the “insurgency” will disappear

4) the solution to the crisis in Iraq is political. Once a constitution and government is set up that features input from all parties/sects within Iraq and is agreeable to all parties/sects the violence will end

5) When asked about the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation that the U.S. engage Syria and Iran over Iraq, VP al Hashimi replied that other countries cannot decide Iraq’s future. Besides he added jokingly, Iran and the U.S. really have enough to talk about, he wouldn’t want to burden them with the Iraqi crisis as well.

Let me add that al Hashimi seems genuine in his desire to unite all Iraqis regardless of sect and he has shown in the past, particularly when he signed the constitution despite their being little Sunni input, that he is willing to compromise his own party goals to achieve stability in Iraq.