The Bush Administration calls Iraq the "central front" in the GWOT (greater war on terror), but as Iraq war critics have pointed out, Iraq didn't have terrorism before the U.S. invasion, and the U.S presence there is what attracted Al Qaeda and others to come there. If anything, they argue, the Iraq war is a distraction from the GWOT proper.
So is Iraq a central front or a distraction? That is a crucial question, because the U.S. is devoting a huge amount of manpower and resources to the Iraq war--much more than the rest of the GWOT combined.
According to this Associated Press article, the Iraq war has consumed $350 billion out of the $500 billion total that the U.S. has spent on the GWOT since 2001.
What if, instead of invading Iraq, we had spent some of that $350 billion on better security for ports and other potential terrorist targets, and the some of the rest on improving the capabilities of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies? What if we had spent it on increasing the number of special forces troops (the ones who handle antiterrorism operations), or on more language training so that we would have more military and intelligence personnel who were fluent in Arabic, Pashto and Persian? Wouldn't we be in a much better position now?
In an article recently posted on YaleGlobal Online, Fawaz A. Gerges, a visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, reports that the Iraq war has so infuriated mainstream Muslims that it's given Al Qaeda and other jihadists a boost:
Five years after the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda's notion of a clash of religions is no longer farfetched. In both camps, tiny minorities beat the drums, rallying the faithful to fight in a war they believe was caused by the other. Ordinary Muslims, not just Islamists and jihadists, view the “war on terror” as a war against their religion and values. Many Muslims who had initially condemned Al Qaeda and 9/11 are having second thoughts about bin Laden’s fight against the Americans and their allies. Bin Laden has gained credibility in their eyes. “Now he is defending the Ummah,” confided a young rising poet, Massoud Hamed.
Top American policymakers – as opposed to intelligence officers – have little appreciation for how their military involvement in Iraq, as well as their staunch support of Israel, is radicalizing mainstream Muslim opinion and legitimizing radical groups that wage armed struggle in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere. “Al-Muqawama,” or resistance, is the most popular slogan in the Muslim world today, resonating deeply among men and women of all ages with religious and nationalist orientation alike. The plight of the Palestinians and Iraqis, in particular, echoes widely.
Gerges continues:
The American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has given rise to a new generation of jihadists who differ dramatically from the first generation – the founding fathers who killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 – and the second generation, Afghan Arabs or Al Qaeda.
Members of the first generation of the jihadist movement – the pioneers – came from the middle class and upper middle class and graduated from top scientific and social sciences departments in Egypt’s best universities. They possessed a complex, though distorted, grasp of various schools of Islamic thought and laid the theoretical foundation of jihadism utilized by the Al Qaeda generation and the Iraq generation alike.
In contrast, many of the Iraq generation of jihadists, who represent a tiny minority of all fighters in Iraq, come from the poverty belts of Arab and Muslim ghettos and streets. Many have shockingly little religious and formal education. I met teenagers who aspired to join the fight against the American occupiers and were nearly illiterate, with no grasp of interpretations of religious texts. They lack the financial means – a few hundred US dollars – to travel to Iraq, but they and others like them form a huge pool of potential recruits for global jihad.
Moreover, unlike the first and second generation, the Iraq jihadists, few as they are so far, do not make a clear distinction between the near enemy (Muslim ruling “renegades”) and the far enemy (the US and its allies). They wage an all-out war against internal and external enemies alike. The lines of demarcation between Muslims and non-Muslims have also become blurred. The Iraq jihadists are willing to kill thousands of fellow Muslims who, in their eyes, are kufar, or apostates, and are as dangerous, if not more so, as Americans and Westerners.
In my conversation with members of the first generation and some of the Afghan-trained Arab fighters, they were at a loss to explain the beastly acts of terror carried out by their Iraq counterparts. While jihadists are conspiratorial by nature, they conceded that the indiscriminate killings of Muslims and civilians are a byproduct of the Iraq generation’s scanty religious education, low social status and America’s violation of Muslim sanctity.
He adds: In other words, foreign recruits to global jihad in Iraq are raw material easily molded by Al Qaeda leaders there. They serve as human bombs, carriers of death and destruction. We are witnessing further mutation and militarization with every jihadist generation. Who ever thought that the Iraq generation would be more violent than the Al Qaeda generation? [/i]
Most alarmingly, Gerges predicts that
Al Qaeda is in the process of establishing an indigenous base in war-ravaged Iraq. If the country sinks into all-out war, it will become to global jihad what Afghanistan was in the 1990s and early 2000s. “America invaded Iraq under the pretext of [the US] war against Al Qaeda,” Kamal Habib, a leading radical Islamist told me, laughing. “But America succeeded in reviving a dormant Al Qaeda and the global jihad movement. It has also awakened the Ummah from its political slumber.”
The Associated Press reports that the number of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq now exceeds the death toll in the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
No comment so far from the White House on this disturbing milestone in the GWOT. However, on his speech fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, President Bush did have this to say:
I'm often asked why we're in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat. My administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat -- and after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take. The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.
But Bush has never really explained what sort of threat Iraq actually posed, given that the Hussein regime 1) didn't possess any WMDs, and more importantly, 2)had no real connection to the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us.
Nevertheless, as the 9-11 Commission reportnotes, the Bush Administration started planning the eventual invasion of Iraq shortly after September 11. From the start, the report shows, Iraq was a distraction from the struggle against Al Qaeda.
Within the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz continued to press the case for dealing with Iraq. Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 in a memo headlined "Preventing More Events," he argued that if there was even a 10 percent chance that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum priority should be placed on eliminating that threat. Wolfowitz contended that the odds were "far more" than 1 in 10, citing Saddam's praise for the attack, his long record of involvement in terrorism, and theories that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
Five years and change later, Iraq has mushroomed from a distraction into a preoccupation. Today, for example, the President's day is devoted largely to a "non-decisional" meetingwith top administration officials to discuss "the way forward" in Iraq. When is the last time that Bush and his aides devoted an entire day to thinking about Al Qaeda?
According to this article, the Associated Press has received a video of four Americans and an Australian abducted in November during an attack on a security contractor's convoy in southern Iraq. In the video, several of the men say that they have been treated well by their captors, who apparently are Sunni insurgents.
I've been sitting here trying to write a post about the execution of Saddam Hussein and what impact it might have on the situation in Iraq. But all I can think about is the sight of those executioners in ski masks, and the sound of that unruly crowd chanting the name of anti-U.S. cleric and militia leader Mutaqua al Sadr on the cellphone video that the Iraqi government didn't want us to see. It reminds me of those videos of terrorists executing western hostages. This is the level of depravity to which things have sunk in Iraq. I can't imagine that it is going to end well for them--or for us.
yes Pat..it is what it is..a mess..a lost cause..a debacle.. It was pre-emptive war started on bogus information..by incompetent people, with a collective personal agenda in mind. They accomplished this by strong armed political measures, laced with intimidation. The Congress and the American people were manipulated..by manufactured pre-war propaganda.. in the shadows of 9-11. Using the Sept 11 attack as a springboard to war not only in Afganistan but also to invade Iraq under the guise of fighting terror. There is quite a bit more to the reasons why we invaded Iraq. Lets just hope that the congress has the courage & the will to investigate this administration's actions from the beginning to the current policies. Forcing these kinds of policies, ( war by pre emption ), must not be allowed to happen again, unless this nation is in imminent danger of attack. This administration has push it's envelope of authority and power to the breaking point in this democracy. Lets hope common sense can prevail, and repairs to our democracy can be made. The WAR must end, and the sooner the better. People that perpitrated this debacle..must be made accountable. we must do this in a harsh and extreme manner..so as to set an example ,(as for something to think about),for the next time a group of over zealous, incompetent, arrogant political Thugs try to hijack our Constitution and twart the will of the people. The greatest virtues of this Nation's constitution are the mechanisms that allow & pave the way for justice, and the ability to make corrections to right the Great Ship of Democracy..called the United States. Lets hope that God Will Bless America again..with the proper leadership it will take to unite us for just causes and bring some credibility, morality, and ethics back into our Government. The World is Watching.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: koonism,
Here's a disturbing analysis of the fallout from Saddam Hussein's execution and the trouble ahead for the U.S. in Iraq, from investigative journalist Patrick Cockburn. An excerpt:
Saddam should not have been a hard act to follow. It was not inevitable that the country should revert to Hobbesian anarchy. At first the US and Britain did not care what Iraqis thought. Their victory over the Iraqi army - and earlier over the Taliban in Afghanistan - had been too easy. They installed a semi-colonial regime. By the time they realised that the guerrilla war was serious it was too late.
It could get worse yet. The so-called "surge" in US troop levels by 20,000 to 30,000 men on top of the 145,000 soldiers already in the country is unlikely to produce many dividends. It seems primarily designed so that President George Bush does not have to admit defeat or take hard choices about talking to Iran and Syria. But these reinforcements might tempt the US to assault the Mehdi Army.
Somehow many senior US officials have convinced themselves that it is Mr Sadr, revered by millions of Shia, who is the obstacle to a moderate Iraqi government. In fact his legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Shia Iraqis, the great majority of the population, is far greater than the "moderate" politicians whom the US has in its pocket and who seldom venture out of the Green Zone. Mr Sadr is a supporter of Mr Maliki, whose relations with Washington are ambivalent.
An attack on the Shia militia men of the Mehdi Army could finally lead to the collapse of Iraq into total anarchy. Saddam must already be laughing in his grave.
Today's edition of the Independent, a UK newspaper, has an important story that seems to have been missed so far by the U.S. news media.
Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.
The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.
The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.
Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.
Is Iraq really the central front in the war on terror, as the Bush administration likes to call it? Or is the U.S. presence in Iraq really aimed at making it a safe place for U.S. and European oil companies to reap huge profits? I'm interested in your opinions.
The "Blood for Oil War" needs a little more blood so the oil can flow. The Bush regime needs to be shut down! NO more troops, and bring home the ones that are there..The American people have spoken. I believe that when the whole truth comes out we will be shocked at the extent of which the laws of this nation have been broken or side stepped. Unbridled Greed and Power has blinded this administration and caused the tremendous loss of both treasure and lives. How can people sleep at night knowing they are responsible for this debacle in Iraq. It's a criminal act and if proven..the principle players should be arrested & prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: koonism,
Another bit of disturbing news from Iraq, from an articlein Today's New York Times.
The new American operational commander in Iraq said Sunday that even with the additional American troops likely to be deployed in Baghdad under President Bush’s new war strategy it might take another “two or three years” for American and Iraqi forces to gain the upper hand in the war. The commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, assumed day-to-day control of war operations last month in the first step of a makeover of the American military hierarchy here. In his first lengthy meeting with reporters, General Odierno, 52, struck a cautious note about American prospects, saying much will depend on whether commanders can show enough progress to stem eroding support in the United States for the war.
“I believe the American people, if they feel we are making progress, they will have the patience,” he said. But right now, he added, “I think the frustration is that they think we are not making progress.”
Maybe instead of talking the "Long War" against terrorism, we should be talking about the long war in Iraq. Odierno is talking about two or three more years of fighting in Iraq before the U.S. would show positive results--and that's the best-case scenario, which assumes that the 20,000 troops surge strategy will work. (Former NATO commander Wesley Clark, among experts, thinks it won't).
I also think Odierno is completely wrong in his assessment of American public opinion about the war. According to an LA Times/Bloomberg poll taken in December, 52 percent of Americans want to withdraw from Iraq in a fixed timetable, while only 12 percent want to send more troops there. 59 percent agree with the Hamilton-Baker commission's recommendation that the U.S. essentially pull its forces out of Iraq by early 2008, except for trainers embedded in the Iraqi military. The public already has written off Iraq as a war that wasn't worth fighting, by a 56 to 40 margin. They've had enough. They want out. (Btw, you can see the details of the LAT poll, and other recent polls on Iraq,here.)
So the President is about to embark upon a course in Iraq opposed by a majority of Americans, a strategy which, if it works at all, won't begin to show results until after he is out of office. I know this sounds cynical, but I have to wonder if he's simply trying to run out the clock, so that failure in Iraq can occur on someone else's watch.
Fox News is reporting that President Bush will admit to the nation tonight that he made a mistake by not sending more troops to Iraq early on. That will be part of his attempt to convince the American public that a "surge" of 20,000 more American troops now is a good idea.
He's got his work cut out for him. A new Gallup pollshows that
Bush's expected announcement of increased U.S. troop levels in Iraq runs counter to the public's expressed desire. Just 12% of Americans choose an increase in troop levels when presented with four U.S. options for dealing with Iraq, and only 36% say they would favor a Bush proposal that would temporarily increase the number of U.S. troops to stabilize the situation in Iraq.
A CBS News pollshows that 55 percent of Americans think a troop surge in Baghdad won't make any difference. 59 percent of Americans think the U.S. should set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
As blogger Susan G. writes at the Daily Kosweb site, Apparently, the country is seething with members of the "angry, impassioned activist left." No longer relegated to the fringe, Gallup’s numbers indicate they are everywhere -- everywhere! They are your next-door neighbors. They are your 7/11 clerks, your postal carriers, your PTA presidents, your fellow church attendees. When you stand in a line of three at the grocery store, only one of you wants even a temporary increase in troops to "stabilize the situation in Iraq." Odds are, none of you wants a non-temporary, open-ended troop increase such as the president, by all reports, is going to announce tonight.
Not even conservative bloggers seem to have much faith that the President will persuade the American public to support the surge. At Outside the Beltway, James Joyner writes that The bully pulpit is arguably the most potent tool in any president’s arsenal. Unfortunately for Bush, he is quite possibly the least talented public speaker to hold the office in the television era. And I’m not sure even someone with the oratorical skills of a Ronald Reagan or John Kennedy could persuade the public that Iraq is winnable at this stage of the game.
Meanwhile, according to this New York Times article, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate plan symbolic votes opposing President Bush's plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq.
The resolutions would represent the most significant reconsideration of Congressional support for the war since it began, and mark the first big clash between the White House and Congress since the November election, which put the Senate and House under the control of the Democrats. The decision to pursue a confrontation with the White House was a turning point for Democrats, who have struggled with how to take on Mr. Bush’s war policy without being perceived as undermining the military or risking criticism as defeatists.
“If you really want to change the situation on the ground, demonstrate to the president he’s on his own,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “That will spark real change.”
The NYT is reporting that at least 10 GOP senators are likely to join the majority of Senate Democrats in opposing Bush's plan. ("Independent Democrat" Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who has been calling voiciferously for a troop increase, would seem certain to support Bush.)
Joe Lieberman is a joke.. If he hung around a group cows for a day.. the next day he would be eating grass and claiming it taste great and good for you too. He, like The President is out of touch with reality, PERIOD! Like I said before..100,000 troops will not change the course or the reality of this fabricated urban gurilla war. You can't force an idealology on a nation that does not embrace it. We can't police a whole nation of people that do not want us there. We would have to start killing people on a scale that would be criminal in the eyes of the rest of the world.....It's a no win situation..and our own leaders can not come to that conclusion. What a bunch of Idiots..who are they trying to fool anyway..themselves? Like I said before..again..we must find a new source of energy, put the nation on an energy diet by rationing.. close our borders..make homeland security a priority. Point our Nuke tipped missels at the appropiate targets & warn the rest of the world..if we are attacked again.. certain nations will cease to exist. Bring all the troops home from everywhere on the Globe and make America a fortress. Let the rest of the world do without us for a while, see how they like that arrangement.
I notice that in his speech last night, President Bush fell back on the old "We're fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here" argument:
Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States. The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow — would — would grow in strength and gain new recruits. They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions. Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people. On Sept. 11, 2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq.
There's a certain disturbing irony to this argument, since the enemies to whom Bush is referring--that is, Al Qaeda--didn't have a presence in Iraq until the U.S. overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime gave them the opportunity. But leave that aside for a moment. If the real purpose of the U.S. presence in Iraq at this point is to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven, then why does Bush's new strategy put the bulk of the additional 21,500 forces in Baghdad? Only 4,000 Marines are being sent to Anbar province, the place where the Iraqi franchise of Al Qaeda has set up its base of operations.
The Baker-Hamilton commission report had a much better idea, I think:
The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq. At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams, and in training, equipping, advising, force protection, and search and rescue. Intelligence and support efforts would continue. A vital mission of those rapid reaction and special operations forces would be to undertake strikes against al Qaeda in Iraq.
To me, this approach makes a lot more sense from a U.S. national security standpoint. At this point, only the Iraqis themselves can solve their internal sectarian problems, unless the U.S. is willing and able to send hundreds of thousands more troops, which isn't going to happen. Getting in the middle of the crossfire between two sides in a civil war isn't going to make the U.S. any safer. On the other hand, if we refocused our efforts and manpower on uprooting Al Qaeda in Anbar, we actually might have a chance of succeeding at that.
Well Pat.. I certainly don't wish the man any Harm.. you have to almost kinda feel sorry for him. I believe the old boy has some mental health issues..and having Cheney manipulating & steering the President who by the way has to replace logic with brashness & arrogance, (Cowboy Diplomacy), because of his limited abilities as a leader.. is just making things plumb worst. No Way will his plan,(20K troops..what a joke),have even a remote chance of succeeding. I think Halibuton wants W to buy a little more time to clean up some loose ends. Kinda tidie up the Mess a little..before the supeonas and investigations commence to come down from the Democratic congress. You can bet it is going to get downright Ugly & Dirty, to say the least.
I think President Bush is completely right to argue that if we don't fight them (terrorists) over there (Iraq), we'll end up fighting them here. If you look at the people that we're fighting now in Iraq, you have Sunni insurgents (connected to the Saddam regime, which supported terrorism), Al Qaeda, and Shiite militias (connected to Iran, which supports terrorism). As for whether Al Qaeda and other terrorists were in Iraq before we invaded, that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they are in Iraq now. That's where they have chosen to come and fight us.
I don't really think you can separate the Iraq war from the rest of the war on terrorism, so the question of whether or not it helps or hurts is a fallacy!
I can't believe that we are still trying to formulate a reason for starting this war with Iraq. Iraq had no connection to 9-11. A regime like that of the late Saddam would not tolerate foriegn terror squads like Al Qaeda to operate in his country. Saddam's Iraq was the center of Gravity in that violital region. They,(Iraq), had fought Iran for 8 years, (with WMD's supplied by the U.S. chemical weapons), attacked Kuwait and was driven out by a coilition of Western and Arab states. Iraq was in check and so was Syria & Iran. The war on terror was in Afganistan..not Iraq.Why do we have to keep going over this again & again. When Saddam was removed..the center of mid east checks and balances was destroyed. George Bush and his Administration..has created the monsters that are evolving daily in the region. How can 20 thousand additional soldiers control a population of millions embedded with rebels anarchist, religious zealots, criminals, terrorist, ect...Iraq has become a killing field for 10's of thousands trying to settle the score of hundreds of years of hatred. And we think that we can control this hatred with what amounts to a handfull of cops with a vision of Democracy trying to control Barbarism with civil order. That is what is commonly called..Impossible. I can't believe that there are people that can still support the Presidents policies in light of all of His failures.. he is out of touch with the reality of the situation. In the real world say if an engineer fails on 6 projects in a row what supports the thought that the 7th one will be a success. In the real world more than likely he would have been fired at least after the third failure, probably sooner. Like I said in order to win..and winning decisively is the only kind of win that will be respected..Is to begin a scorched earth aerial bombing campaign and destroy city after city,( with ample warning by leaflets), driving the populace into Syria and Iran until pressure from Syria & Iran to control the insurgency influx and the people themselves will disarm the radical Islamist in Iraq..If we don't have the stomach to do that...then we need to GET OUT & COME HOME!!. The Reality is...WE are not winning and we will not Win this pitty pat war we are fighting with these devils that embrace death. Continued involvement in this war is slowy going to destroy our nation's treasure it's confidence in the future,and devide us as a people. The W. Bush administration is directly responsible for the Mess we are in today, PERIOD! There is no one other to blame..they have had their way for over 6 years. He needs to be shut down..his administration has failed! We need to stop being politically correct and call a spade a spade. W. Bush has been a dismal disappointment as President of the United States. We are living through his legacy of failure.. We should have used the 1/2 trillion $$$'s spent on this war so far, to find a new reusable energy source than squandered it away in a war we can't win. That way we could sit back and let them do what they have done for 15 centuries...Kill each other. President Bush has not gotten one thing right since he has been in office..except making the Rich Richer.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: koonism,
I think the big problem in Iraq for the U.S., at this point, is sectarian strife, not foreign terrorists. As Koonism notes, even with 20,000 more troops, we're not going to have anywhere near enough of a force to keep the Shiites and Sunnis from killing each other. We'll have about 30,000 U.S. troops in Baghdad, which has a population of nearly 6 million. That ratio isn't in our favor.
Forums 