What the Number 3000 Hides

Iraqi guerrillas killed 6 more GIs and AP put the total dead in combat at 2998. The dreadful milestone of 3000 is upon us.

Like all statistics, this one is deceptive. It does not include US troops killed in Afghanistan, that oddly forgotten war where the US still has a division engaging in active combat. Nor is it nice to ignore NATO dead in Afghanistan, including French and Canadians (yes).

The number does not include the Coalition troops killed in Iraq. The sacrifices of the British, Italians, and others should be included.

And why ignore the seriously wounded? These brave warriors have brain damage, or spinal damage, or have lost limbs or been burned and disfigured. There are probably 8000 of them. Their sacrifice should be foregrounded. Life is not going to be easy for them, and they are not goiing to get that much help from Bush.

Indeed, why not count all the wounded? The number must be near 25000 by now.

Then there are all the I raq Vets with post traumatic stress disorder and a myriad of other combat related mental diseases. There is alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce.

The true number of Americans and US allies who are in some sense casualties of war is in the tens of thousands.

3000 is a horrible number. But it is not the only dreadful number. By concentrating on it, Washington politicians and the US press hide from us the true magnitude of the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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traveling and posting by treo, so no hyperlinks.
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The Murderer's Gibbet
Cole in Salon.com on the Saddam Execution

My article on the execution of Saddam is out in Salon.com. Excerpt:

' The body of Saddam, as it swung from the gallows at 6 a.m. Saturday Baghdad time, cast an ominous shadow over Iraq. The execution provoked intense questions about whether his trial was fair and about what the fallout will be. One thing is certain: The trial and execution of Saddam were about revenge, not justice. Instead of promoting national reconciliation, this act of revenge helped Saddam portray himself one last time as a symbol of Sunni Arab resistance, and became one more incitement to sectarian warfare. '

Read the whole thing.

See also Salon.com's Editor's picks for 2006, ten articles that include my "Israel's Failed-State Policy."

Consider subscribing to Salon.com for the coming year. Much of what I've written there in the past year would not have been published by most other magazines.

See also Paul Richter's article on how Saddam's execution is not actually a turning point for Iraq. I am quoted.
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For Whom the Bell Tolls:
Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein

The old monster swung from the gallows this morning at 6 am Baghdad time. His Shiite executioners danced around his body.

Saddam Hussain was one of the 20th century's most notorious tyrants, though the death toll he racked up is probably exaggerated by his critics. The reality was bad enough.

The tendency to treat Saddam and Iraq in a historical vacuum, and in isolation from the superpowers, however, has hidden from Americans their own culpability in the horror show that has been Iraq for the past few decades. Initially, the US used the Baath Party as a nationalist foil to the Communists. Then Washington used it against Iran. The welfare of Iraqis themselves appears to have been on no one's mind, either in Washington or in Baghdad.

The British-installed monarchy was overthrown by an officer's coup in 1958, led by Abdul Karim Qasim. The US was extremely upset, and worried that the new regime would not be a reliable oil exporter and that it might leave the Baghdad Pact of 1955, which the US had put together against the Soviet Union (grouping Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Britain and the US). (Qasim did leave the pact in 1959, which according to a US official of that time, deeply alarmed Washington.)

Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s had become an extremely unequal society, with a few thousand (mostly Sunni Arab) families owning half of the good land. On their vast haciendas, poor rural Shiites worked for a pittance. In the 1950s, two new mass parties grew like wildfire, the Communist Party of Iraq and the Arab Baath Socialist Party. They attracted first-generation intellectuals, graduates of the rapidly expanding school system, as well as workers and peasants. The crushing inequalities of Iraq under the monarchy produced widespread anger.

Qasim undertook land reform and founded a new section of Baghdad, in the northeast, which he called Revolution Township, where rural Shiites congregated as they came to the capital seeking work as day laborers (it is now Sadr City, where a majority of Baghdadis live). The US power elite of the time wrongly perceived Qasim as a dangerous radical who coddled the Communists.

1) The first time the US enabled Saddam Hussein came in 1959. In that year, a young Saddam, from the boondock town of Tikrit but living with an uncle in Baghdad, tried to assassinate Qasim. He failed and was wounded in the leg. Saddam had, like many in his generation, joined the Baath Party, which combined socialism, Arab nationalism, and the aspiration for a one-party state.

In 1959, Richard Sale of UPI reports,

' According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.

Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.'

CIA involvement in the 1959 assassination attempt is plausible. Historian David Wise says there is evidence in the US archives that the CIA's "Health Alteration Committee" tried again to have Qasim assassinated in 1960 by "sending the Iraqi leader a poisoned monogrammed handkerchief."

2) After the failed coup attempt, Saddam fled to Cairo, where he attended law school in between bar brawls, and where it is alleged that he retained his CIA connections there, being put on a stipend by the agency via the Egyptian government. He frequently visited US operatives at the Indiana Cafe. Getting him back on his feet in Cairo was the second episode of US aid to Saddam.

3) In February of 1963 the military wing of the Baath Party, which had infiltrated the officer corps and military academy, made a coup against Qasim, whom they killed. There is evidence from Middle Eastern sources, including interviews conducted at the time by historian Hanna Batatu, that the CIA cooperated in this coup and gave the Baathists lists of Iraqi Communists (who were covert, having infiltrated the government or firms). Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer of the 1960s, alleged that the US played a significant role in this Baath coup and that it was mostly funded "with American money.". Morris's allegation was confirmed to me by an eyewitness with intimate knowledge of the situation, who said that that the CIA station chief in Baghdad gave support to the Baathists in their coup. One other interviewee, who served as a CIA operative in Baghdad in 1964, denied to me the agency's involvement. But he was at the time junior and he was not an eyewitness to the events of 1963, and may not have been told the straight scoop by his colleagues. Note that some high Baathists appear to have been unaware of the CIA involvement, as well. In the murky world of tradecraft, a lot of people, even on the same team, keep each other in the dark. UPI quotes another, or perhaps the same, official, saying that the coup came as a surprise to Langley. In my view, unlikely.

There really is not any controversy about the US having supplied the names of Communists to the Baath, which rooted them out and killed them. Saddam Hussein was brought back from Cairo as an interrogator and quickly rose to become head of Baath Intelligence. So that was his first partnership with the US.*

The 1963 Baath government only lasted 8 months, and was overthrown by officers who had been around Qasim. The military wing of the Baath, which was heavily Shiite, was relentlessly pursued by the new government, and was virtually wiped out. The largely Sunni civilian party, however, survived underground.

4) In 1968, the civilian wing of the Baath Party came to power in a second coup. David Morgan of Reuters wrote,

' "In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protégé in 1979. "It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says. '

As I noted in The Nation, in their book Unholy Babylon, "Darwish and Alexander report assertions of US backing for the 1968 coup, confirmed to me by other journalists who have talked to retired CIA and State Department officials." It was alleged to me by one journalist who had talked to former US government officials with knowledge of this issue that not only did the US support the 1968 Baath coup, but it specifically promoted the Tikritis among the coup-makers, helping them become dominant. These included President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and his cousin Saddam Hussein, who quickly became a power behind the throne.

5) The second Baath regime in Iraq disappointed the Nixon and Ford administrations by reaching out to the tiny remnants of the Communist Party and by developing good relations with the Soviet Union. In response, Nixon supported the Shah's Iran in its attempts to use the Iraqi Kurds to stir up trouble for the Baath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a behind the scenes leader. As supporting the Kurdish struggle became increasingly expensive, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran decided to abandon the Kurds. He made a deal with the Iraqis at Algiers in 1975, and Saddam immediately ordered an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The US acquiesced in this betrayal of the Kurds, and made no effort to help them monetarily. Kissinger maintained that the whole operation had been the shah's, and the shah suddenly terminated it, leaving the US with no alternative but to acquiesce. But that is not entirely plausible. The operation was supported by the CIA, and the US didn't have to act only through an Iranian surrogate. Kissinger no doubt feared he couldn't get Congress to fund help to the Kurds during the beginnings of the Vietnam syndrome. In any case, the 1975 US about-face helped Saddam consolidate control over northern Iraq.

6) When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he again caught the notice of US officials. The US was engaged in an attempt to contain Khomeinism and the new Islamic Republic. Especially after the US faced attacks from radicalized Shiites in Lebanon linked to Iran, and from the Iraqi Da`wa Party, which engaged in terrorism against the US and French embassies in Kuwait, the Reagan administration determined to deal with Saddam from late 1983, giving him important diplomatic encouragement. Historians are deeply indebted to Joyce Battle's Briefing Book at the National Security Archives, GWU, which presents key documents she sprung through FOIA requests, and which she analyzed for the first time.

I wrote on another occasion,

' Reagan sent Rumsfeld to Baghdad in December 1983. The National Security Archive has posted a brief video of his meeting with Hussein and the latter’s vice president and foreign minister, Tariq Aziz. Rumsfeld was to stress his close relationship with the U.S. president. The State Department summary of Rumsfeld’s meeting with Tariq Aziz stated that “the two agreed the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests: peace in the Gulf, keeping Syria and Iran off balance and less influential, and promoting Egypt’s reintegration into the Arab world.” Aziz asked Rumsfeld to intervene with Washington’s friends to get them to stop selling arms to Iran. Increasing Iraq’s oil exports and a possible pipeline through Saudi Arabia occupied a portion of their conversation.

. . . The State Department, however, issued a press statement on March 5, 1984, condemning Iraqi use of chemical weapons. This statement appears to have been Washington’s way of doing penance for its new alliance.

Unaware of the depths of Reagan administration hypocrisy on the issue, Hussein took the March 5 State Department condemnation extremely seriously, and appears to have suspected that the United States was planning to stab him in the back. Secretary of State George Shultz notes in a briefing for Rumsfeld in spring of 1984 that the Iraqis were extremely confused by concrete U.S. policies . . . "As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that US policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel.”

Rumsfeld had to be sent back to Baghdad for a second meeting, to smooth ruffled Baath feathers. The above-mentioned State Department briefing notes for this discussion remarked that the atmosphere in Baghdad (for Rumsfeld) had worsened . . . the March 5 scolding of Iraq for its use of poison gas had “sharply set back” relations between the two countries.

The relationship was repaired, but on Hussein’s terms. He continued to use chemical weapons and, indeed, vastly expanded their use as Washington winked at Western pharmaceutical firms providing him materiel. The only conclusion one can draw from available evidence is that Rumsfeld was more or less dispatched to mollify Hussein and assure him that his use of chemical weapons was no bar to developing the relationship with the U.S., whatever the State Department spokesman was sent out to say. '

7) The US gave
practical help to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War:

' As former National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher affirmed, “Pursuant to the secret NSDD [National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.” The requisite weaponry included cluster bombs. . . '

Richard Sale of UPI also reported that military cooperation intensified:

' During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group. . .

According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days. '

8) The Reagan administration worked behind the scenes to foil Iran's motion of censure against Iraq for using chemical weapons. I wrote at Truthdig:

' The new American alliance might have been a public relations debacle if Iran succeeded in its 1984 attempt to have Iraq directly condemned at the United Nations for use of chemical weapons. As far as possible, Shultz wanted to weasel out of joining such a U.N. condemnation of Iraq. He wrote in a cable that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. “should work to develop general Western position in support of a motion to take ‘no decision’ on Iranian draft resolution on use of chemical weapons by Iraq. If such a motion gets reasonable and broad support and sponsorship, USDEL should vote in favor. Failing Western support for ‘no decision,’ USDEL should abstain.” Shultz in the first instance wanted to protect Hussein from condemnation by a motion of “no decision,” and hoped to get U.S. allies aboard. If that ploy failed and Iraq were to be castigated, he ordered that the U.S. just abstain from the vote. Despite its treaty obligations in this regard, the U.S. was not even to so much as vote for a U.N. resolution on the subject!

Shultz also wanted to throw up smokescreens to take the edge off the Iranian motion, arguing that the U.N. Human Rights Commission was “an inappropriate forum” for consideration of chemical weapons, and stressing that loss of life owing to Iraq’s use of chemicals was “only a part” of the carnage that ensued from a deplorable war. A more lukewarm approach to chemical weapons use by a rogue regime (which referred to the weapons as an “insecticide” for enemy “insects") could not be imagined. In the end, the U.N. resolution condemned the use of chemical weapons but did not name Iraq directly as a perpetrator. '

9) The Reagan administration not only gave significant aid to Saddam, it attempted to recruit other friends for him.

' Teicher adds that the CIA had knowledge of, and U.S. officials encouraged, the provisioning of Iraq with high-powered weaponry by U.S. allies. He adds: “For example, in 1984, the Israelis concluded that Iran was more dangerous than Iraq to Israel’s existence due to the growing Iranian influence and presence in Lebanon. The Israelis approached the United States in a meeting in Jerusalem that I attended with Donald Rumsfeld. Israeli Foreign Minister Ytizhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein.” It might have been hoped that a country that arose in part in response to Nazi uses of poison gas would have been more sensitive about attempting to ally with a regime then actively deploying such a weapon, even against its own people (some gassing of Kurds had already begun). '

10) After the Gulf War of 1991, when Shiites and Kurds rose up against Saddam Hussein, the Bush senior administration sat back and allowed the Baathists to fly helicopter gunships and to massively repress the uprising. President GHW Bush had called on Iraqis to rise up against their dictator, but when they did so he left them in the lurch. This inaction, deriving from a fear that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would ally with Tehran, allowed Saddam to remain in power until 2003.

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Readers of this column may also enjoy Eric Blumrich's Flash slideshow.

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*The account in 1-3 above was challenged once I put it up by two retired US government officials who had positions of responsibility in the Middle East in this period. The alternative account of one of them is here.

Against this insider account must be put the evidence of a memo by Robert Komer at the National Security Council dated the day of the 1963 coup that clearly demonstrates that he had foreknowledge of it, and in which he commends a US agency (it is blacked out) for good penetration of the Baath Party. Komer's memo does not demonstrate that the US made the coup, but it does challenge the idea put forward by my informant above that it came as a surprise to the US government. Nathan Citino and Bill Zeman have discussed this memo in their academic writing. Roger Morris wrote me to say that he had seen national security documents proving US involvement in the 1963 coup.
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Riverbend is Back

Riverbend weighs in on the condition of Iraq and Saddam's impending execution.

I disagree with her about Jalal Talabani (the old-time Kurdish politician who is now Iraq's president), who has opposed the death penalty all his political life, and I think that he genuinely won't sign the death decree for reasons of principle.

I also don't agree that the Bush administration was deliberately trying to break up Iraq. It wants it whole (international corporations like to sign their contracts just once, thank you). It is just that its plan, of putting the Shiites and Kurds in power and making the Sunni Arabs subordinate to them, was never practical and did have the effect of pushing the country toward a break-up.

As always, her comments are canny and give a good sense of what educated, secular Sunni Arabs in Iraq are thinking. It isn't a position you'd hear in an interview in US corporate media.
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Alexandrovna Guest Op-Ed:
Saddam's Execution and the Campaign Against Iran

Saddam's Execution is about Iran

Larisa Alexandrovna

'PROLOGUE:

When someone does something obviously egregious, we tend to look past it because it is our nature to believe that people are naturally sane, good, and honest. We cannot imagine that anyone would willfully destroy their own country, violate their own laws, trample on their own people, and do it with such naked bravado while the world looked on.

But people have done it and do it even still, because there is also a darker side to human nature. Those of us who see the good in people look past actions that appear to be willfully evil not only because it is in our nature but it is also a foundation of our culture, as Americans, we believe guilt must be proved.

So we do not see what is going on before our eyes and directly in front of us. We look past it, around it, through it, but not at it. We cannot look directly at it, because if we do, we lose the vision of our beloved America and see something so sinister, that our minds would rather collapse than accept it.

But chess forces us to abandon our preconceptions and emotions. It pushes us to think in terms of cause and effect and it forces us to consider each action and counteraction in terms of the whole game. That is to say, chess forces us to think beyond our own present and fixed position, forcing us to reason every possible outcome of each action and counteraction.

Furthermore, chess teaches us to calculate not against a person, or a group, or a nation, but against a strategy that has no inherent religious, moral, or human characteristics. Master players can suspend their fixated self at will. Sadly, I am no master, and so I continue to struggle in seeing the game despite my human nature as an obstacle.

But sometimes, it just happens, something sets it off and there you are, inside the board, walking each action out in your mind and seeing the whole from beginning to end.

QUESTIONS AND SEEING THE BOARD

Sometime this morning, all the various and truly bizarre events the Bush administration has been engaged in recently with regard to troop levels and surges suddenly crystallized for me, as though I were sitting at a chess board and seeing the entire strategy unfold before my eyes.

This is of course my opinion and I may very well be wrong. In fact, I hope I am wrong. But the news that Saddam Hussein would be executed soon, and then the news that it would be in the next 48 hours, boggled my mind. Why on earth would anyone want to set off an ideological bomb during an already chaotic situation? I do not defend Saddam Hussein, not by any measure. But when Iraq is falling into total chaos and civil war, and as American troops continue to die, why would anyone want to add fuel to that fire, enough fuel to destroy what is left?

Suspend your emotions and think strategically. Now look at the question again and in context.

The administration is stalling as it supposedly weighs its Iraq options, when in fact they have already made their decision. How do I know they have made their decision? One need only look at the slow leaks coming out, not the least of which was Joe Lieberman’s op-ed in the Washington Post, to understand that we are going to be sending more troops to Iraq. So why does the administration wait to tell us this?

In the meantime, naval carriers are deployed to send Iran “a warning,” as though the threats thus far and the passing of sanctions are not warning enough. Add to that the detainment of Iranian diplomats invited to Iraq by the Iraqi leadership. Why is the US arresting diplomats invited to a country that the US claims is a sovereign nation governing itself?

And what about those sanctions, which ultimately mean nothing and sadly mean everything? The sanctions are so watered down as to have no real effect on the Iranian population or economy. Why even bother passing them?

Why censor Dr. Leverett's opinion piece on Iran when the CIA already cleared it?

Now given this entire context, ask yourself again why Saddam Hussein is being executed now, during Hajj even? What is the urgency?

THE UGLY STRATEGY I SEE

This is what I think may be playing out, my opinion of course. And yes, the strategy is so brazenly obvious, arrogant, and antithetical to everything America is supposed to be and stand for that it will be difficult to digest.

What the Bush administration appears to be waiting for, stalling for, while they allegedly mull over the Iraq question, is for the naval carriers and other key assets to fall into position. This will happen in the first week of January. Saddam Hussein is being executed (and I would not be surprised if every major network aired it) to enrage tempers and fuel more violence in Iraq. This violence will justify an immediate need for a troop surge, although I think it will be described as temporary. Remember too that the British press has for the past week done nothing but report that Britain will be attacked by the New Year. Clearly they are preparing themselves for a contingency, and that contingency is the massive violence that will erupt across the Muslim world as they watch (and I really believe it will be televised) Saddam’s hanging just before the New Year.

Why is the rush to execute Saddam Hussein not account for Hajj? Or does it?

The carriers will be in position. I imaging there will be an event of some sort in Iraq, or the violence will spill into friendly (our friends) territory. It will be dramatic, even more so than the immediate violence.

The attacks will be blamed on Iran, with the help of the Saudis and Pakistan. Iran will be blamed for something that happens in Iran. The naval carriers, again, will be in position. The sanctions, as watered down as they are, have given the administration the blank check they needed from the world (and they still have their blank check from Congress) to order aerial strikes. The surge troops will be in position, and I estimate that ground support will begin around late February, early March.

Saddam’s execution and the violence will also be a convenient cover while the administration moves pieces into position.

But what the planners in the administration don’t seem to realize is that the Persians are the most expert of chess players, and they are a patient, strategy minded opponent. They are watching this develop, all of it, and they too are planning their counteraction. They know better than to strike first, because in doing so, they would lose the moral argument in the eyes of the world, as well as the advantage of counteraction. The US has a superior air force, but Iran has a formidable navy, and while the house of Saud will fuel this, the fallout will be fatal. Why?

Here is why: Because the US is too stretched to be able to protect Israel, and Israel cannot sustain a long term attack. They can sustain a few hits, but they will not be able to sustain a full blown attack.

If you have any doubt, go back to the recent war with Lebanon. The British will pull out, despite promises of support. Blair is on his way out, and the British public will not tolerate support for Israel, because of its help in supporting US imperialistic aggression. Whatever terrorist cells lurk in the US, and make no mistake, our administration has done little to address this issue, will be activated.

Also consider that the house of Saud is not prepared to defend itself against an uprising, and that the US cannot protect it while simultaneously operating on three different fronts and covertly in god knows how many. Despite the various sectarian differences in the Muslim world, there are two enemies that they all agree to fight and die fighting against: the US and Israel. This attack will set off a Muslim counterattack so large, that nothing will be able to stop it or contain it.

But our leadership does not see this, because they cannot think strategically and won't think in human terms, so they are left with nothing but arrogance. And we ae left with a world ablaze. '

Larisa Alexandrovna maintains the blog At-Largely and is Managing Editor - of Raw Story.

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Guerrillas Kill 5 GIs
Security Alert over Saddam Sentence
Al-Aamiri killing Roils Shiite Politics

The US military announced that Iraqi guerrillas killed 5 GIs on Thursday in separate incidents. All but one attack clearly occurred in Sunni Arab areas. One was in the east of Baghdad, but since there are Sunni Arab districts between the Green Zone and Sadr City, it isn't clear what the sectarian coloration of that area was.

There were unconfirmed reports of a US military helicopter going down near Baquba, as well.

As the death toll for US troops nears 3,000, Reuters says, it is provoking more and more vigils and anti-war protests out in the US heartland. In the past three months, the death toll has been running on average over 100 a month, which suggests that next year this time, it will be 4,000-- and that is assuming that there is not a change for the worse or an outbreak of major combat.

Reuters reports that police found 42 bodies in Baghdad, and three more in Mosul. They mostly showed signs of torture and are evidence of the nocturnal sectarian civil war. In addition, there were major bombings in Baghdad, Mosul and Hawija. Reuters says of Baghdad:

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded at a petrol station near the Shaab stadium in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two roadside bombs exploded in Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 35, Interior Ministry and police sources said. '

Reuters reports that Iraqi officials in Najaf are complaining that they were not consulted by the US military before the fatal raid on the home of Sahib al-Aamiri, Muqtada al-Sadr's number 2 man in Najaf. The US maintains that the operation was spearheaded by a unit of the Iraqi 8th Division, which had 8 US troops embedded with it, and was directed by the Iraqi Department of Defense. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has opened an investigation.

The killing of al-Aamiri led to a further postponement of any session of the Iraqi parliament, where Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had hoped to convince Sadrist deputies to rejoin his coalition.

The judgment against Saddam Hussein has been published, and the Iraqi government has formally requested that the US turn Saddam over to it. These are signs of a fast track to his execution, which may come very soon.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraq is going on a high state of alert for fear of unrest as a result of Saddam's execution. All leave for Iraqi troops has been cancelled.

The London pan-Arab daily says that there is a split in the Iraqi government over how fast to move. One consideration is that the Sadr bloc in parliament has made Saddam's execution a precondition for its rejoining the government.

There are unconfirmed reports that the US has released the two Iranian diplomats it was holding after a raid last week on a compound connected to Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Although the US military attempted to tie the Iranians to the importation of shaped charges of the sort use against US troops, its spokesmen never explained how that made any sense. Most roadside bombs are set by Sunni Arabs. The Shiite Iranians are not giving Sunni Arab guerrillas weapons. That would be crazy. They would be used against Iranian clients like al-Hakim (who has been targeted for assassination more than once, and whose brother was blown up by the Baathists in late August, 2003).

If the charge is that the Iranians were giving al-Hakim weapons, then it isn't a very serious charge. Al-Hakim is the leader of the major coalition in parliament. Bush hosted al-Hakim in the White House recently, and al-Hakim has never been tied to attacks on US troops. In fact, he has called for them to stay in Iraq. The whole thing makes no sense, and the US military should explain why they think it does if they want us to believe it. Unfortunately, I have a sinking feeling that the US troops that arrested the Iranians wouldn't be able to distinguish between Sunni guerrillas and Shiite militiamen.

The NYT reports on the problems of housing faced by Iraq's 1.6 million internally displaced persons.

Hannah Allam of McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder) goes back to Baghdad, and doesn't find the changes encouraging. Her old sources are dead or ethnically cleansed, the shops she knew are shuttered, Shiite militias compete as authors of mayhem with the Sunni Arab guerrillas, fuel and electricity are in short supply, and it is now dangerous to so much as snap a photo.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ Reuters report that 108,000 Iraqis were forced from their homes in December.

Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government have reached an agreement on federal revenue-sharing, whereby Kurdistan will receive 17% of the national budget, most of it generated by sales of petroleum from the southern Rumayla oil field, in Shiite territory. This agreement, if it is real, is good news as far as it goes. Anything that gives the Kurds an incentive not to formally secede is good for stability in Iraq and in the region.

The bad news is that the Iraqi government was unable to increase oil production in 2006, and 2007 is unlikely to be better, according to UPI's Ben Lando.

Presidential candidate John Edwards wants to get 50,000 US troops out of Iraq, the same number that Fred Kagan wants to put in.
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Thousands Demonstrate in Najaf;
Sunnis Clash with Gov't in Baghdad over Saddam Sentence;
Ford blasts W., Cheney on Iraq

Iraqi guerrillas killed three US GIs on Wednesday in two separate bombings.

Thousands of protesters came out into the streets in the holy Shiite city of Najaf on Wednesday, protesting the killing by US troops of Sahib al-Aamiri in a raid on his home. The US military accused him of being involved in setting roadside bombs. Shiites in East Baghdad also protested, but the demonstrations turned into bloody clashes between Mahdi Army militiamen and US troops.


Najaf Demo courtesy KarbalaNews.net.

Al-Aamiri was a leader of the Sadr Movement in Najaf, which follows young nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. KarbalaNews.net in Arabic quotes a leader of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nassar al-Ruba'i, expressing condolences for the death of this "martyr" who "was killed by the American forces," after he had performed his dawn prayers, "in front of his wife and children." He added, "This action is considered a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty, especially coming only days after the security file in Najaf was surrendered last week." He demanded that the Iraqi government open an urgent inquiry into the killing. Family members said that US troops assaulted his home in the wee hours and killed him, accusing him of resisting capture. Al-Ruba'i accused the US of trying to bring down the government of Nuri al-Maliki, whose Da'wa Party is allied politically with the Sadrists.

Another Sadrist MP, Baha' al-A`raji, said, "We demand that political forces take a united stand against the Occupation forces and in favor of a timetable for their withdrawal, because silence will lead to a timetable for the expulsion of Iraqis from their own country by the Occupation, and to the Americans remaining in Iraq."

WaPo reports that the US military is saying that the raid was led by the 8th Iraqi Division. But the article also implies that the political leaders of Najaf were unaware of the planned raid. The Iraqi army still reports to US officers [An informed reader points out that 3 divisions do not, and that the 8th is one of these; regret the error]. And, the 8th Army is largely Shiite and likely linked to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary, which means that the decision to raid the home of a Sadrist rival might not be purely a matter of law enforcement.

Mark Santora of the NYT explains what is meant by "civil war" in Iraq. There are two sides and they are fighting each other over territory and political power. They kill many more of each other than of the US troops, who willy nilly mainly take the side of the Shiites and Kurds, who dominate the elected government.

By the way, the October 2005 referendum on the new constitution demonstrates conclusively that the Shiites are a majority in Iraq. The Sunni Arabs participated heavily in that voting, and they were universally against the constitution, but they were only able to reject it in three provinces. Sunni Arab Iraqis widely believe that the Sunni Arabs are a majority, or that Sunnis are a majority if you count the Kurds. None of the ways we have of measuring these things (including the Dec. 2005 parliamentary elections) points to this conclusion.

The LAT on Sunni Arab snipers in al-Anbar province that manage to pick off US troops.

Saddam Hussein, condemned to death and with all appeals exhausted, is trying to turn his death into a "sacrifice" for the Iraqi nation. In April 2003 Saddam was universally reviled but the country is now in such a horrible state that some Sunni Arabs do see Saddam as a symbol of the united Iraqi nation. Saddam, however, spoke in his typical racist way of the need to fight the "raiders and the Persians", according to al-Hayat in Arabic (i.e. the Americans and the Shiites). Sadr Movement spokesmen demanded that he be executed on the eve of the Day of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha)--i.e. this weekend.

Al-Hayat reports that several Sunni Arab districts of Baghdad saw armed men come out into the streets and engage in bloody clashes with Iraqi security forces, apparently in protest against the confirmation of Saddam's death sentence.

Al-Hayat also says that a communique from the Baath Socialist Party of Iraq posted at a web site threatened to hit US interests around the world if Saddam was executed. So like the Baath Socialist Party of Iraq would be nice to the US if only Saddam were kept alive? Really.

Bob Woodward reveals in WaPo that the late President Gerald Ford deeply disagreed with George W. Bush's Iraq War. Excerpts:

' "Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do . . ."

Mr. Ford took issue with the notion of the U.S. entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy. "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Mr. Ford said, referring to Mr. Bush's assertion that the U.S. has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation No. 1, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security. . ."

"He was an excellent chief of staff. First class," Mr. Ford said of Mr. Cheney. "But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious" as vice president. He said he agreed with former Secretary of State Colin Powell's assertion that Mr. Cheney developed a "fever" about the threat of terrorism and Iraq. "I think that's probably true."

"I don't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer."

Ahem. I wrote yesterday, "The blowback from that Reaganesque era of private armies of the Right helped push the US after 2001 toward an incipient fascism at which Ford, the All-American, the lawyerly gentleman, the great Wolverine, must have wept daily in his twilight years."

Some of Ford's points would have made good additions to my Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006.
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Polk Guest Editorial: Pros and Cons of ISG

The Baker-Hamilton Study: Pluses and Minuses

William R. Polk

'In recent days, as you know, there has been a great deal of publicity on the Baker-Hamilton plan for dealing with the problems the United States faces in Iraq and for restarting the peace process on the Palestine problem. I have found, however, very little analysis of the plan in the press. Clearly, it focuses on issues so important , one is tempted to use that often misused term “vital,” not only for Americans but for the whole world that it deserves the closest possible scrutiny. As you will see in the following comment, I find serious weaknesses in it. The most serious is that it sets out objectives or desires without identifying feasible means to achieve them.

In the last few days, various moves have been made by the Bush administration that call into question its serious evaluation of Baker-Hamilton. One that received a great deal of attention is the announcement of its intent to add another 20,000 troops to the American contingent in Iraq. Those of us who remember Vietnam will hear echoes. There we were told time after time that just a few more thousand troops and a few more months would lead us to “victory. One difference from Vietnam is of critical importance. It is that there we were not seriously considering, as apparently we are, further action in another country. Today, there are signs that we have hovered on the brink of war with Iran for at least the last six months. As you may know, I have written on this danger on my website (www.williampolk .com). I think we are edging closer. Among the signs – and there are many -- that point in this direction is one that I do not find reported in the American press: the Selective Service System announced three days ago that it is preparing its first test since 1998 of the draft.

All the above considerations make a careful consideration of American options on the Middle East a prime civic duty for all Americans. These include the detailed plan which Senator George McGovern and I developed in Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (New York: Simon and Schuster, October 2006) and the Baker-Hamilton study, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward - A New Approach (New York: Vintage, December 2006). Mr. Hamilton graciously wrote to say that “The report has helped to spark a renewed debate about the direction of U.S. policy, and he appreciates the substantial contribution that you and Senator McGovern have made to that debate.” Our book speaks for itself; here I want to [analyze] the Baker-Hamilton Plan:

========

The most important positive element in the Baker-Hamilton study is to focus attention on the central predicament of the Middle East – the Arab-Israeli problem. Like a cancer, this issue has infected Middle Eastern affairs for over half a century. No American administration has chosen to attack it head-on. Simply giving Israel a blank check to do anything it decides to do is not an American policy. Indeed, as many thoughtful Israelis have pointed out, it is bound to bring out the worst in Israeli politics. For alerting the government and the public to the need to do something to solve or at least put into remission this problem is important and for doing so Baker-Hamilton deserves praise.

However, there are two minuses on this issue: Baker-Hamilton does not give more than a hint as to what an intelligent American policy would involve. The only concrete step it proposes is indirect – to return the Golan Heights to Syria – in the hope that the Syrians will then help persuade the Palestinians to opt for peace. As in other parts of Baker-Hamilton, this is to replace objectives or desires for means to achieve them. The Palestinians have their own agenda which arise from such issues, which Baker-Hamilton does not address, as illegal settlements, release of the 10,000 or so long-term prisoners in Israeli camps, severe and growing restrictions on the ability of Palestinians to work, move or even remain in their homes. Land for peace is a good slogan, but it is apparently not supported in Israel and probably is no longer regarded as feasible by Palestinians. Moreover, the explicit support for Mahmud Abbas rather than the group that won the last election, Hamas, will be seen by most Palestinians as an attempt to divide them. Finally, here as in the rest of the study, Baker-Hamilton fails to lay out concrete steps much less indicate what such steps would require, how much they would cost, what the likelihood of success for each would be or indicate their cumulative effect. What they have done is merely to indicate a goal, not the means to reach that goal.

The second positive element in Baker-Hamilton is their suggestion that America turn toward diplomacy in its relations with Iran and Syria.

Baker-Hamilton put this suggestion in the context of America’s desire to solve the Iraq dilemma. That is an understandable desire. But it is not a policy. It does not lay out a means to achieve our desire. Moreover, even the desire rests on intelligence appreciations that are weak or even unlikely. Briefly put, they include these:

First, why should Iran or even Syria wish to assist America in solving the Iraq problem? Baker-Hamilton suggests that Syria be “bought” by the return of the Golan Heights which the Syrians believe are legally theirs, but there is little reason to believe that the Syrian government puts so much emphasis on getting back the Golan Heights that it would radically alter its policies. Those policies arise in part at least from considerations that have nothing to do with the Golan Heights. Any Syrian and most outside observers will affirm that the lodestar of the Syrian government is fear of America. Thus, unless or until the United States forswears its often repeated proclamations that point toward invasion of Syria, change of its regime, and ostracizing it for alleged support of terrorism, the Syrians have insufficient reason to help America in any fashion. Moreover, the Syrians observed that in the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, the United States treated Israel as a surrogate military force; so, whether right or wrong, the Syrians would almost certainly require some sort of guarantee that it will not use force itself or allow Israel again do so before even considering helping the United States even if, which is doubtful, it could in any appreciable degree dampen the Iraqi insurgency or put a stop to the Palestinian resistance.

Iran, similarly, must see that a solution to America’s mistakes in Iraq is more likely to be detrimental than beneficial to its national and governmental interests. The Bush administration has repeatedly told Iran that it is an enemy, the third member of the Axis of Evil, a suitable candidate for preemptive attack. Those pronouncements set out what the Bush administration wants. What has held back is that it could not carry out such an attack because it was bogged down in Iraq. Would a rational government wish to help America free up its military force which might then be used to attack it? Baker-Hamilton substantiates the Iranian belief that this is a possibility in its recommendation #18 which points to “resources that might become available as combat forces are moved from Iraq.” (See the March 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America for substantiation of this potential threat to Iran.)

Second, even if Iran wished to help the United States solve the Iraqi dilemma, could it do so? Baker-Hamilton not only does not address that question. The probable answer is that it has far less leverage in Iraq than Baker-Hamilton posit. During the Iraq-Iran war, the Iraqi Shiis fought determinedly against Iran. Moreover, the Iraqi Shiis are internally divided with many determined not to allow Iran to determine their agenda. Baker-Hamilton also fails to tell us what specifically it would want Iran to do. Presumably Baker-Hamilton wants the Iranians to tell the Iraqi Shiis to do what America wants them to do, but presumably the Iraqi Shiis do what they are doing from their estimate of what is fundamental to their interests or even to their survival. If this is so, it is unlikely that Iran can lead them to do otherwise. The idea that they are simply the puppets of Iran is based on an ignorance of history and current politics. Even if Baker-Hamilton believe America should make the attempt, it does not lay out a plan specifying what America would be willing to do to get Iran to act as it wishes. Simply to invite Iran to a conference is hardly a sufficient inducement. As with Syria, America would have to forswear in some meaningful way the threat of force. And, more difficult than with Syria, it would have to back off – and get Israel to back off – from its statements and threats on Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear capacity. Baker-Hamilton does not address these issues. My own belief is that the only feasible way they can be addressed now is serious movement toward both general and regional nuclear arms control. Regional nuclear arms control must involve Israel which has a huge nuclear arsenal. Is forcing a reluctant Israel into giving up some or all of its nuclear arsenal feasible for any American government? Baker-Hamilton does not even raise the question.

The third positive element in Baker-Hamilton is the admission that we need to get out of Iraq. The negative aspect of Baker-Hamilton is that it does not realistically face what that means. What it does, understandably given its origin and composition, is to attempt reach a compromise. Such compromises, of which diplomatic history affords many examples, are attractive because they preserve reputations, cover over mistakes and seem statesmanlike.

Baker-Hamilton’s chosen move is reduction of combat forces and their replacement by Iraqis. This is what the administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon tried in Vietnam. In fact the numbers proposed are eerily similar. But is this a practical move in Iraq? Was it in Vietnam? Consider where we are in Iraq, mired down in an unwinnable war and where we were in Vietnam in 1968 when the Tet offensive had shown that we had failed militarily. It was not firepower that defeated us. It was politics. We could not “win” while our being there taints our surrogates. That is the reality to which we must adjust.

In our book, Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (which was published shortly before Baker-Hamilton), George McGovern and I have urged that this be done cleanly, clearly, definitively and over a six months period. Baker-Hamilton thinks that it should be done piecemeal over a much longer but unspecified period. Why? Their argument is that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and without the restraining hand of America troops there would be a bloodbath. Their proposal would cut down on combat forces but keep a large American training and advising force in Iraq.

We believe that such a force would inevitably be drawn into the fighting. In evaluating the Baker-Hamilton proposal, bear in mind that in Vietnam force reduction did not stop the war: in fact, in the following years as it was slowly implemented, almost 21,000 Americans were killed and over 50,000 were seriously wounded. Are Iraqi likely to stop fighting while we slowly reduce our combat troops but keep a significant presence of “advisers” to train – or as the insurgents will charge, control -- Iraqi security forces? We find that hope highly unlikely.

Baker-Hamilton appears to recognize the weakness of this hope and so urges that while American combat units are reduced more attention be given to improving the quality of the Iraqi army. We strongly disagree as we said in our plan. Iraqi history shows that building an army is a dangerous strategy. It was, after all, the relative strength of the Iraqi army vis-à-vis such relatively weak institutions as representative government, an independent judiciary, a free press and “grass roots” organizations that caused coup d’état after coup and dictator after dictator. Thus, in the quest for a short-term solution to America’s Iraqi dilemma, Baker-Hamilton may have opted for long-term catastrophe.

A less costly, more acceptable (to the Iraqis) and more likely-to-succeed approach, Senator McGovern and I assert in our book Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now is to introduce into Iraq what we have called a “stabilization force.” That force, we argue, must be made up of non-Americans, drawn from mainly Arab and Muslim countries, working for the Iraq government but under the umbrella of the United Nations, with an American financial subvention. This force would operate in Iraq during the transitional period, when we can expect the current civil war to continue but also to gradually wind down. Is this just a pious hope? We think not. It has happened in all guerrilla wars during the last two centuries. Once the principal aim of the insurgents, usually to get the foreigners to leave, is met, the insurgency abates. Not immediately, to be sure, to meaningfully. During this period, with its sovereignty assured, it needs help: help to create minimal public security for schools, hospitals, government buildings etc. which is the role we propose for the multinational stability force, help in building an effective national police force, and help in getting the economy going so that the unemployed can earn decent livings and a significant portion of the refugees be lured back.

During this period, we advocate that the Iraqi army, on which we are spending $2.2 billion and which Baker-Hamilton finds (rightly) to be dysfunctional, be converted into what Iraq really needs, an organization somewhat like our Corps of Engineers. Such a group could provide the infrastructure on which an Iraqi economy could reconstitute itself.

Overall, we have proposed a series of programs to accomplish our objectives, given estimates of cost, analyzed the chances of success, provided a timetable, and shown how they would save the American tax payers about 97% of what the occupation is now costing. That is, we provide in our book exactly what Baker-Hamilton does not address, a practical plan to get us out of Iraq with the least possible damage to ourselves, to the Iraqis, and to America’s position in world affairs.

A key proposal in Baker-Hamilton is a regional conference. The idea of a regional conference sounds appealing. We all like the idea of sitting down together and thrashing out our differences. It appears sensible, positive, practical and “diplomatic.” But a review of all international gatherings since the 1814 Congress of Vienna shows that a conference is meaningless, or sometimes even counter-productive, unless fundamental issues either have been resolved or at least narrowed beforehand. Merely to meet to discuss an issue which is worrying one party but not the others, us but not them, is hardly a recipe for success. Put bluntly, a conference is not the first step, the means, but the last step, the ratification, of the process.

Baker-Hamilton states that there are four “alternative approaches for moving forward”– “Precipitate Withdrawal,” “Staying the Course,” “More Troops for Iraq” and “Devolution to Three Regions.”

Baker-Hamilton rejects precipitate withdrawal. We do too. The word “preci
pitate,” of course, gives the answer but obscures the question. Everyone agrees that the United States must withdraw. The question is when and under what conditions. In the action plan contained in Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now, we lay out a definite timetable and specify measures, each analyzed in terms of cost, effectiveness and likelihood of success, designed to bring about withdrawal in an orderly fashion with the least possible damage to American soldiers and interests and to Iraqis.

President Bush has repeatedly called for “staying the course” which Baker-Hamilton does not favor and recognizes will simply continue the casualties and huge expenditures without positive result. We agree.

The third alternative is to send in more troops. Baker-Hamilton believes that this will not work and will “hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our efforts in Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world.” If we cannot control a small country, most of which is uninhabited desert, or contain a guerrilla force estimated at less than 20,000 with 150,000 American troops, it is just wishful thinking to believe we can do it with another 10,000 or so Americans. We agree with Baker-Hamilton on this. We also point to the history of Vietnam where we were told, time after time, that just a few tens of thousands more of American soldiers would bring victory. Victory proved elusive but casualties were ever-present.

The fourth scenario is to break up Iraq which, Baker-Hamilton believes (in our opinion rightly) would be a political, military and humanitarian disaster, which, should it happen, would require that the United States “manage the situation to ameliorate humanitarian consequences, contain the spread of violence, and minimize regional instability,” each of which is a likely result. As Baker-Hamilton rightly points out, the map showing Iraq divided into three areas is misleading: virtually every town and all cities are mixed. Thus, a division of Iraq would literally tear the society apart and would so “balkanize” it as to sow the seeds for future wars. Certainly, an independent Kurdistan would invite intervention from Turkey and possibly also from Iran.

Implicit throughout Baker-Hamilton is that stability must be achieved in Iraq before America can leave. History suggests that the sequence is wrong: only when the central objective of insurgents, usually getting the foreigners to leave, has been realized can “security” be attained. This is the lesson of insurgencies from the American Revolution against the British, the Spanish guerrilla against the French, Tito’s Yugoslav partisan war against the Germans, the Algerian war of national liberation from the French and so on. In each of these wars, to be sure, there was a period of chaos immediately after the foreigners pulled out -- they had been unable to prevent chaos with their massive armies -- but, once they were gone, the fighting died down.

Why did this happen and is it likely in Iraq? The answer was given to us by that great practitioner of guerrilla warfare, Mao Tse-tung: there are two elements in guerrilla wars, he said, the combatants and those who support them. He called the combatants the “fish” and their supporters “the water.” Without water, fish die. What has happened in guerrilla war after war is that the people, Mao’s “water,” get tired of the suffering that is inherent in guerrilla war and when the object for which they have sacrificed has been won, they don’t want to continue to sacrifice. So they stop supporting the “fish.” Then, one of two things happens: either some of the fish take over the government (which is the most common) and then themselves suppress the more radical combatants (as happened in America, Spain, Ireland, Yugoslavia, Algeria, etc.). The second possible outcome is that the combatants become outlaws or “warlords” (as happened in Afghanistan after the Afghans forced the Russians out). This is already happening under the guise of religious strife among Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. Foreigners cannot prevent this; the only way it can be prevented, or at least the only way it has ever been prevented or stopped, is by natives. They can be helped, however, as we have urged in our plan with an international stabilization force during the period when a national police, no longer tainted by appearing to be collaborators with foreigners, become functional. In short, sovereignty is the first, not the last step in the process. Once sovereignty, not just a collaborationist government, is established, the steps lead (and can be helped to move with all deliberate speed) toward security.

That is why the plan we have proposed contains the interlocking elements that together constitute Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now.

William R. Polk

William R. Polk taught at Harvard from 1955 to 1961 when he was appointed the member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Council responsible for the Middle East. In 1965 he became professor of history at the University of Chicago where he founded its Middle Eastern Studies Center. Subsequently, he also became president of the Adlai Stevenson Institute of International Affairs. Among his books are The United States and the Arab World; the Elusive Peace: The Middle East in the Twentieth Century; Neighbors and Strangers: the Fundamentals of Foreign Affairs; Understanding Iraq; and together with Senator George McGovern, the just published Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now. '

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Guerrillas Kill 7 GIs, blow up 52 Iraqis

AFP rounds up the violence in Iraq on Tuesday. 7 more US GIs were killed, and bombings in Baghdad and Kirkuk killed and wounded scores. Fighting broke out between US troops and Mahdi Army militiamen in East Baghdad.

Emily Miller's op-ed on her brother in Iraq is worth reading.

If you didn't see it yesterday, look at my "top ten myths about Iraq in 2006."
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Ford and Foreign Policy: Snapshots from the 1970s

Former President Gerald Ford has died at 93. A Wolverine star of the early 1930s at the University of Michigan, Ford passed up an opportunity to play for the Detroit Lions in the new NFL, going instead to law school. He was Richard Nixon's vice president during the Watergate scandal and so became president when Nixon resigned. Ford was well liked as president, but faced seemingly intractable problems. These included the increasing price of petroleum after the 1973 OPEC boycott, the simultaneous economic stagnation and inflation (something many economists had considered impossible), relatively high unemployment, the fall of South Vietnam, the Soviet and Cuban challenge in Angola, the beginnings of the Lebanese Civil War, nuclear proliferation threats in Israel, India, Brazil and Iran, and the Cyprus controversy with Turkey.

Ford did the country the enormous favor of allowing it to transition out of the poisonous Nixon and Vietnam eras, with a gentleman at the helm of state. I can remember the enormous relief I experienced when I saw the picture of him striding confidently once he had become president. Many of us had been afraid Nixon would stage a military coup. Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, I have been told by one interviewee then in government, shared that fear and ordered the senior officers to accept no command directly from Nixon unless they checked with Schlesinger first.

Ford was clearly unwilling to risk further military entanglements in Asia. The one exception was his aggressive response to the Cambodian capture of the Mayaguez, which was enormously popular at the time, though critics argued that the strike was premature since the Cambodians had begun releasing their captives. 41 Americans died in the course of this operation.

Ford pursued "detente" with the Soviet Union (though the Right made him give up the term). He renewed US bases in Franco's Spain, though half of Spaniards opposed them, in part because they objected to them being used to resupply Israel in its battles with the Arabs. He worried about the Communist parties of France, Italy and some other Western European allies. He had Kissinger conduct "step by step" and then "shuttle" diplomacy with the Egyptians and the Israelis, pushing them toward accommodation and peace and setting the stage in important ways for Jimmy Carter's later Camp David negotiations.

One of the things Ford was proudest of in his 1976 presidential campaign was that under his administration, the country was at peace.

Ford did not come in strong on foreign policy, and he had some difficulty reining in Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He also faced challenges from a triumphal Democratic Congress that frequently over-ruled him on foreign policy. He fired Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who was too much of a hawk for Ford. Ford believed in negotiating with one's enemies where possible and where fruitful, and in cutting one's losses in the face of overwhelming odds, so as to live to play another day.

Ford faced a powerful challenge from Ronald Reagan and the then-small far-right wing of the Republican Party, which accused him of under-estimating Soviet military strength and the Soviet threat, blamed him for losing Angola and was suspicious of Ford's increasing skittishness about dealing with white supremicist Rhodesia. Although it is often pointed out that many officials in the George W. Bush administration got their start under Ford, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and (in a supporting role) Paul Wolfowitz, in fact these individuals went on to convert to Reaganism and to abandon the moderate Republican principles of Ford.

I thought readers might enjoy some news clippings from that era on foreign policy, skewed because of my interests toward the Middle East.

January 18, 1975. The Economist reports that Ford warned that American support for Israel cannot be taken for granted.

' Asked if there were any limits on America's commitment to Israel, he replied:
It so happens that there is a substantial relationship at the present time between our national security interests and those of Israel. But in the final analysis we have to judge what is in our national interest above any and all other considerations. '

The Economist noted that many Americans felt that Israel could hardly expect to get peace if it continued to sit on land it occupied from Arab states in 1967, and implied that they could not see why they should pay various sorts of price for Israeli expansionism and intransigence.

February 8, 1975: Facts on File reports that the US Congress cut off military aid to Turkey because of lack of progress on the Cyprus issue.

'President Ford immediately called on Congress to restore the aid, warning that the cutoff would "affect adversely not only our Western security but the strategic situation in the Middle East." He stressed that military aid to Turkey was based "on our assumption that the security of Turkey is vital to the security of the eastern Mediterranean and to the U.S. and its allies." '

Turkey's acting prime minister responded angrily and threatened to rethink Turkey's commitments in NATO.

March 1, 1975: Ford approved in principle the proposal by the Shah's Iran that it take a 10% share in the troubled PanAm airline. Iran was flush with petrodollars and Kissinger had worked out with the shah ways of recycling them back into Western economies. Among the major such methods was sophisticated arms sales, a direction criticized by presidential contender Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

April 12, 1975: A Harris poll summarized in the Economist showed that over 60% of Americans supported sending Israel whatever military hardware it needed in its struggle with the Arabs. The poll showed groundless the fear voiced by some pro-Israel advocates that the Arab oil weapon might cause Americans to turn against Zionism. On the other hand, there were some indications in the poll that Americans felt that Israel was taking US support for granted.

April 14, 1975: Newsweek reported on the fall of South Vietnam:

' Misery became a way of life in Indochina long ago, but the tide of human suffering that suddenly engulfed South Vietnam last week swept forward with unprecedented cruelty. Along the coastline of the South China Sea, major cities tumbled like tenpins, and exhausted and terrified refugees died by the hundreds in their desperate forced marches to escape the onrushing troops of North Vietnam. The toughest generals of the army of South Vietnam abandoned their command posts, and ARVN soldiers turned to banditry, shooting their way aboard the few evacuation ships that made the beachheads . . . a mercy flight evacuating war orphans . . . crashed and burned only minutes after leaving Saigon - a capital whose own life expectancy dwindled with every passing hour. '

May 24, 1975: Facts on File reports that 76 US Senators sign a letter to President Ford opposing any attempt to reduce military aid to Israel. (Ford was trying to get the Israelis to make peace with Egypt and was using aid as an incentive. The Israelis used their Lobby on the Hill in an attempt to paralyze Ford and Kissinger on this front.)

June 9, 1975: Newsweek reports on Ford's European tour, where he met with 12 European leaders in Brussels, and had one on one meetings with Helmut Schmidt of Germany, the Pope, the premier of Turkey, Anwar El Sadat and others. Ford

' also conferred privately with no fewer than twelve European leaders during his two days in Brussels - receiving all but Giscard in the rococo reception room of the American ambassador's residence in a manner somewhat reminiscent of an eighteenth-century European monarch. . . . He and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt spent the opening moments of their meeting discussing the pleasures of pipe smoking, and Ford revealed that the Presidential pipe collection now numbered 50. When Kissinger told Turkish Premier Suleiman Demirel, "I gained 50 pounds in Turkey last week," Ford interrupted with a booming laugh and retorted. "He's using the trip as an alibi. It's an old problem." '

and on the Middle East, Newsweek said,

' there were several signs that virtually all sides wanted a compromise. Both Saudi Arabia's conservative King Khaled and the militant socialist government in Iraq have recently expressed - in terms never heard before - their willingness to accept the existence of the state of Israel if it withdrew from all occupied Arab territories. What's more, Syria, which only two weeks ago extended the mandate of the United Nations peace force on the Golan Heights for six additional months, indicated that it could accept a second-stage Egyptian-Israeli accord before the extent of further Israelis withdrawals on the Golan Heights was settled. Syria's ambassador to Washington predicted "that Sadat will be bringing good signs to Ford." '

August 2, 1975. Facts on File summarizes an interview by Ford with the NYT on his accomplishments. The first was restoration of confidence in the presidency on the domestic front. The second was its restoration internationally. He was also proud of having "kept our cool" in the face of both recession and inflation. He added:

' As his largest disappointments, Ford mentioned the fall of non-Communist governments in South Vietnam and Cambodia and the breakdown of negotiations in the Middle East in March.

The President said there was "no possibility" of re-establishing a U.S. presence in Vietnam or Cambodia under current circumstances. As for the Middle East currently, he felt that an agreement could be reached if both Israel and Egypt were "more flexible."

Ford reaffirmed his policy to go to Helsinki, Finland to sign the international accord on European security, but he was cautious on the strategic arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union. '

October 25, 1975: Egypt and Israel each pressure Ford not to sell the other certain weaponry.

December 20, 1975: Facts on File reports:

' American and Israeli sources said Dec. 15 that President Ford had urged Premier Yitzhak Rabin to consult with Washington on any future Israeli military action against Arab guerrillas in Lebanon. The Ford message, reportedly discussed by the premier in a cabinet meeting Dec. 14, also contained a pledge to oppose any attempt by the U.N. Security Council to impose a peace settlement in the Middle East.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, reporting on the Ford note, said the President had "expressed his wish . . . that there should be coordination between the two countries or at least Israel should let the United States know ahead of time what its intentions are."

The U.S. was said to have been embarrased by the Israeli air strike on Palestinian camps in Lebanon Dec. 2 at a time when the U.S. was attempting to block anti-Israeli resolutions before the Security Council. '

March 15, 1976: Newsweek reports on Iranian ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi's Washington parties, which it deems the best in the city at that time:

' With an entertainment budget the size of an oil field, the 47-year-old Zahedi is legendary for his kilos of caviar (flown in twice a month from Iran), his seemingly limitless supply of Dom Perignon champagne (dispensed as presents like candy canes at Christmas-time), and his sophomoric sense of partying, which includes impromptu congalines, smooth-tummied belly dancers and drinking and kissing games guaranteed to take the prude out of Washington protocol. In an average month, Zahedi may give three formal dinner dancers for 75, two or three buffet dinners for 300, one or two large receptions for 150, and countless business lunches, late-night suppers or poolside barbecues at his own residence. "It's business and pleasure at the same time," says the debonair Zahedi, who once trickled droplets of champagne into Cristina Ford's cupped hand, then kissed each one away. "If you see your friends at a party, you exchange ideas and views without actually being committed to each other." '

April 17, 1976: Facts on File reports:

' Israeli officials April 9 criticized U.S. Ambassador Malcolm Toon for having accused Israel April 8, of trying to pressure the U.S. Congress to approve more aid [than] requested by President Ford. Toon had spoken at a news briefing and had asked that he be referred to only as "a Western diplomat," but his identity was subsequently disclosed by an Israeli television analyst. . . Toon had said that Israel's alleged pressure was close to interference in the internal affairs of the U.S. and that Israel was "playing dirty pool." He also said it was unwise for Israel's Finance Ministry to budget sums not actually received. '

Toon made his remarks because Ford had threatened to veto a $550 million "transitional" grant to Israel by Congress, on top of the $2.2 billion already approved.

June 19, 1976: Facts on File reports:

' Francis E. Meloy Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, and Robert O. Waring, his economic counselor, were kidnapped and shot to death by unidentified gunmen in Beirut June 16. Zoheir Moghrabi, their Lebanese driver, also was slain. Palestinian security agents reported June 17 the arrest of three Lebanese in connection with the assassinations. '

This incident foreshadowed the subsequent decades of US involvement in Lebanon, including the taking of hostages and Iran-Contra, the blowing up of the US embassy in Beirut, the assassination of the CIA station chief, the blowing up of the Marine Barracks, and more recent involvement on the side of the anti-Syrian political coalition.

July 31, 1976: The Economist reports on American unhappiness about a German company's willingness to supply the entire nuclear fuel cycle to countries like Brazil and possibly Iran:

For Germany's major nuclear power station company, Kraftwerk Union (KWU), the Brazil deal represented great leap forward . . . Early in July KWU landed a contract from Iran for two nuclear power stations in a deal worth more than DM 7 billion. This did not include a reprocessing plant, but Iran is known to be shopping around for one. Is KWU to be barred from trying for a follow-up contract? After all, Iran, in contrast to Brazil, has adhered to the nonproliferation treaty. But for the Americans the prospect of a national reprocessing plant on the fringe of the Middle East brings nightmares. Americans have suggested to Iran that it should share with an industrialised country control over any reprocessing plant built there. And they have advocated the creation of multinational regional enrichment centres. But Iran is likely to feel insulted at being picked on in this way. . . '

Of course, it had been the Eisenhower Administration's "atoms for peace" program that had encouraged the Iranians to develop nuclear reactors in the first place . . .

August 7, 1976: Facts on File reports that the US will sell Saudi Arabia sophisticated missiles and "laser-guided bombs" previously given only to Israel.

October 30, 1976: As the presidential campaign heats up, the Economist reports that President Ford was constrained to apologize for remarks by the Chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. George Brown, to the effect that Israel is a military burden on the United States. Ford called the statement "very ill-advised."

Jimmy Carter attacked Ford for presiding over a situation in which the US was becoming "the arms merchant of the world." But he seemed to contradict himself by demanding that more arms be sent to Israel. Ford responded by loosening some restrictions placed by his bureaucrats and sending more weapons to Israel.

Carter also attacked Ford for not being more confrontational with Arab states about their boycott of Israel, and about the possibility that they might deploy an oil boycott against the West again. He insisted that if he became president, there would be no boycott.

Carter said that under Ford, diplomacy had been conducted with too much secrecy, and that the public needed to be kept fully informed. He accused Ford of being insufficiently awake to changes in southern Africa and of being complacent toward the Soviet Union. But Carter pledged that he would never go to war over a Soviet occupation of Yugoslavia.

Kissinger in response expressed alarm that Carter seemed to be giving the Kremlin a green light in the Balkans. [Tito had pursued an autonomous Communist policy in Yugoslavia, now the independent states of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro and . . . I can't keep up.]

When he presided over intelligence reform in the wake of earlier abuses, Ford wrote,

'I believe it essential to have the best possible intelligence about the capabilities, intentions and activities of governments and other entities and individuals abroad. To this end, the foreign intelligence agencies of the United States play a vital role in collecting and analyzing information related to the national defense and foreign policy.

It is equally as important that the methods these agencies employ to collect such information for the legitimate needs of the government conform to the standards set out in the Constitution to preserve and respect the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens.'

He was against just assassinating people, and insisted on warrants for the wiretapping of US citizens.

All presidents make errors, and some abuses occurred on Ford's watch, though they often were initiated by Kissinger. But Ford faced with no illusions the challenges of his era, of detente with the Soviet Union, continued attempts to cultivate China, the collapse of Indochina, the fall-out of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and the beginnings of the Lebanese Civil War. Ford was right about detente, right about China, right about Arab-Israeli peace, right about avoiding a big entanglement in Angola, right to worry about nuclear proliferation (one of his worries was the increasing evidence that the Middle East had a nuclear power, Israel, and India was moving in that direction).

Ford's challengers on the Reagan Right were wrong about everything. They vastly over-estimated the military and economic strength of the Soviet Union (yes, that's Paul Wolfowitz). They wanted confrontation with China. They dismissed the Arab world as Soviet occupied territory (even though the vast majority of Arab states was US allies at that time) and urged that it be punished till it accepted Israel's territorial gains in 1967. They insisted that the Vietnam War could have been won.

But despite its illusions and Orwellian falsehoods, the Reagan Right prevailed. Ford only momentarily lost to Carter. Both of them were to lose to Reagan, who resorted to Cold War brinkmanship, private militias, death squads, offshore accounts, unconstitutional criminality, and under the table deals with Khomeini, and who created a transition out of the Cold War that left the private militias (one of them al-Qaeda) empowered to wreak destruction in the aftermath. The blowback from that Reaganesque era of private armies of the Right helped push the US after 2001 toward an incipient fascism at which Ford, the All-American, the lawyerly gentleman, the great Wolverine, must have wept daily in his twilight years.
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Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2006

1. Myth number one is that the United States "can still win" in Iraq. Of course, the truth of this statement, frequently still made by William Kristol and other Neoconservatives, depends on what "winning" means. But if it means the establishment of a stable, pro-American, anti-Iranian government with an effective and even-handed army and police force in the near or even medium term, then the assertion is frankly ridiculous. The Iraqi "government" is barely functioning. The parliament was not able to meet in December because it could not attain a quorum. Many key Iraqi politicians live most of the time in London, and much of parliament is frequently abroad. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki does not control large swathes of the country, and could give few orders that had any chance of being obeyed. The US military cannot shore up this government, even with an extra division, because the government is divided against itself. Most of the major parties trying to craft legislation are also linked to militias on the streets who are killing one another. It is over with. Iraq is in for years of heavy political violence of a sort that no foreign military force can hope to stop.

The United States cannot "win" in the sense defined above. It cannot. And the blindly arrogant assumption that it can win is calculated to get more tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and more thousands of American soldiers and Marines badly wounded or killed. Moreover, since Iraq is coming apart at the seams under the impact of our presence there, there is a real danger that we will radically destabilize it and the whole oil-producing Gulf if we try to stay longer.


2. "US military sweeps of neighborhoods can drive the guerrillas out." The US put an extra 15,000 men into Baghdad this past summer, aiming to crush the guerrillas and stop the violence in the capital, and the number of attacks actually increased. This result comes about in part because the guerrillas are not outsiders who come in and then are forced out. The Sunni Arabs of Ghazaliya and Dora districts in the capital are the "insurgents." The US military cannot defeat the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement or "insurgency" with less than 500,000 troops, based on what we have seen in the Balkans and other such conflict situations. The US destroyed Falluja, and even it and other cities of al-Anbar province are not now safe! The US military leaders on the ground have spoken of the desirability of just withdrawing from al-Anbar to Baghdad and giving up on it. In 2003, 14 percent of Sunni Arabs thought it legitimate to attack US personnel and facilities. In August, 2006, over 70 percent did. How long before it is 100%? Winning guerrilla wars requires two victories, a military victory over the guerrillas and a winning of the hearts and minds of the general public, thus denying the guerrillas support. The US has not and is unlikely to be able to repress the guerrillas, and it is losing hearts and minds at an increasing and alarming rate. They hate us, folks. They don't want us there.

3. The United States is best off throwing all its support behind the Iraqi Shiites. This is the position adopted fairly consistently by Marc Reuel Gerecht. Gerecht is an informed and acute observer whose views I respect even when I disagree with them. But Washington policy-makers should read Daniel Goleman's work on social intelligence. Goleman points out that a good manager of a team in a corporation sets up a win/win framework for every member of the team. If you set it up on a win/lose basis, so that some are actively punished and others "triumph," you are asking for trouble. Conflict is natural. How you manage conflict is what matters. If you listen to employees' grievances and try to figure out how they can be resolved in such a way that everyone benefits, then you are a good manager.

Gerecht, it seems to me, sets up a win/lose model in Iraq. The Shiites and Kurds win it all, and the Sunni Arabs get screwed over. Practically speaking, the Bush policy has been Gerechtian, which in my view has caused all the problems. We shouldn't have thought of our goal as installing the Shiites in power. Of course, Bush hoped that those so installed would be "secular," and that is what Wolfowitz and Chalabi had promised him. Gerecht came up with the ex post facto justification that even the religious Shiites are moving toward democracy via Sistani. But democracy cannot be about one sectarian identity prevailing over, and marginalizing others.

The Sunni Arabs have demonstrated conclusively that they can act effectively as spoilers in the new Iraq. If they aren't happy, no one is going to be. The US must negotiate with the guerrilla leaders and find a win/win framework for them to come in from the cold and work alongside the Kurds and the religious Shiites. About this, US Ambassador in Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad has been absolutely right.

4. "Iraq is not in a civil war," as Jurassic conservative Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly insists. There is a well-established social science definition of civil war put forward by Professor J. David Singer and his colleagues: "Sustained military combat, primarily internal, resulting in at least 1,000 battle-deaths per year, pitting central government forces against an insurgent force capable of effective resistance, determined by the latter's ability to inflict upon the government forces at least 5 percent of the fatalities that the insurgents sustain." (Errol A. Henderson and J. David Singer, "Civil War in the Post-Colonial World, 1946-92," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, May 2000.)" See my article on this in Salon.com. By Singer's definition, Iraq has been in civil war since the Iraqi government was reestablished in summer of 2004. When I have been around political scientists, as at the ISA conference, I have found that scholars in that field tend to accept Singer's definition.

5. "The second Lancet study showing 600,000 excess deaths from political and criminal violence since the US invasion is somehow flawed." Les Roberts replies here to many of the objections that were raised. See also the transcript of the Kucinich-Paul Congressional hearings on the subject. Many critics refer to the numbers of dead reported in the press as counter-arguments to Roberts et al. But "passive reporting" such as news articles never captures more than a fraction of the casualties in any war. I see deaths reported in the Arabic press all the time that never show up in the English language wire services. And, a lot of towns in Iraq don't have local newspapers and many local deaths are not reported in the national newspapers.

6. "Most deaths in Iraq are from bombings." The Lancet study found that the majority of violent deaths are from being shot.

7. "Baghdad and environs are especially violent but the death rate is lower in the rest of the country." The Lancet survey found that levels of violence in the rest of the country are similar to that in Baghdad (remember that the authors included criminal activities such as gang and smuggler turf wars in their statistics). The Shiite south is spared much Sunni-Shiite communal fighting, but criminal gangs, tribal feuds, and militias fight one another over oil and antiquities smuggling, and a lot of people are getting shot down there, too.

8. "Iraq is the central front in the war on terror." From the beginning of history until 2003 there had never been a suicide bombing in Iraq. There was no al-Qaeda in Baath-ruled Iraq. When Baath intelligence heard that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi might have entered Iraq, they grew alarmed at such an "al-Qaeda" presence and put out an APB on him! Zarqawi's so-called "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" was never "central" in Iraq and was never responsible for more than a fraction of the violent attacks. This assertion is supported by the outcome of a US-Jordanian operation that killed Zarqawi this year. His death had no impact whatsoever on the level of violence. There are probably only about 1,000 foreign fighters even in Iraq, and most of them are first-time volunteers, not old-time terrorists. The 50 major guerrilla cells in Sunni Arab Iraq are mostly made up of Iraqis, and are mainly: 1) Baathist or neo-Baathist, 2) Sunni revivalist or Salafi, 3) tribally-based, or 4) based in city quarters. Al-Qaeda is mainly a boogey man, invoked in Iraq on all sides, but possessing little real power or presence there. This is not to deny that radical Sunni Arab volunteers come to Iraq to blow things (and often themselves) up. They just are not more than an auxiliary to the big movements, which are Iraqi.

9. "The Sunni Arab guerrillas in places like Ramadi will follow the US home to the American mainland and commit terrorism if we leave Iraq." This assertion is just a variation on the invalid domino theory. People in Ramadi only have one beef with the United States. Its troops are going through their wives' underwear in the course of house searches every day. They don't want the US troops in their town or their homes, dictating to them that they must live under a government of Shiite clerics and Kurdish warlords (as they think of them). If the US withdrew and let the Iraqis work out a way to live with one another, people in Ramadi will be happy. They are not going to start taking flight lessons and trying to get visas to the US. This argument about following us, if it were true, would have prevented us from ever withdrawing from anyplace once we entered a war there. We'd be forever stuck in the Philippines for fear that Filipino terrorists would follow us back home. Or Korea (we moved 15,000 US troops out of South Korea not so long ago. Was that unwise? Are the thereby liberated Koreans now gunning for us?) Or how about the Dominican Republic? Haiti? Grenada? France? The argument is a crock.

10. "Setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is a bad idea." Bush and others in his administration have argued that setting such a timetable would give a significant military advantage to the guerrillas fighting US forces and opposed to the new government. That assertion makes sense only if there were a prospect that the US could militarily crush the Sunni Arabs. There is no such prospect. The guerrilla war is hotter now than at any time since the US invasion. It is more widely supported by more Sunni Arabs than ever before. It is producing more violent attacks than ever before. Since we cannot defeat them short of genocide, we have to negotiate with them. And their first and most urgent demand is that the US set a timetable for withdrawal before they will consider coming into the new political system. That is, we should set a timetable in order to turn the Sunni guerrillas from combatants to a political negotiating partner. Even Sunni politicians cooperating with the US make this demand. They are disappointed with the lack of movement on the issue. How long do they remain willing to cooperate? In addition, 131 Iraqi members of parliament signed a demand that the US set a timetable for withdrawal. (138 would be a simple majority.) It is a a major demand of the Sadr Movement. In fact, the 32 Sadrist MPs withdrew from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance coalition temporarily over this issue.

In my view, Shiite leaders such as Abdul Aziz al-Hakim are repeatedly declining to negotiate in good faith with the Sunni Arabs or to take their views seriously. Al-Hakim knows that if the Sunnis give him any trouble, he can sic the Marines on them. The US presence is making it harder for Iraqi to compromise with Iraqi, which is counterproductive.

Think Progress points out that in 1999, Governor George W. Bush criticized then President Clinton for declining to set a withdrawal timetable for Kosovo, saying "Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
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