Suicide bomb attack kills 12 in Iraq
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 7 minutes ago

A suicide bomber drove a truck rigged with explosives into a checkpoint manned by members of a U.S.-backed security volunteer group in a town north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 12 people, police and a member of the volunteer group said.

Another three people were missing following the explosion in the town of Mishada, 20 miles north of the capital, on part of the main highway linking Baghdad to northern Iraq, according to a police officer and Adil al-Mishhadani, a member of the volunteer group.

The groups, known as Awakening Councils and dubbed Concerned Local Citizens by the U.S. military, have been credited with helping reduce violence in the country. The groups are made up of mainly Sunni tribal fighters who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq earlier this year and are now paid by the U.S. military to help provide security.

But they're also increasingly becoming targets in Iraq.

All 12 people killed in Monday's attack, as well as the three people missing, were believed to be council members, al-Mishhadani said.

In a separate attack, a female suicide bomber detonated herself near a police patrol, wounding five policemen and four civilians in the town of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, said police Brigadier Khudeir al-Tamimi.

Last week, a new audiotape of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden emerged warning Iraq's Sunni Arabs against joining the Awakening Councils or participating in any unity government.

He denounced Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the leader of the Awakening Council in Anbar province, where the movement started. Abu Risha was killed in a bombing in September.

The Awakening Council movement now includes more than 70,000 fighters in Anbar, Baghdad and other Sunni-dominated provinces. The councils, along with a surge of extra U.S. troops into Baghdad and a cease-fire declared by radical Shiite extremist Muqtada al-Sadr for his Mahdi Army militia, are credited with a 60 percent reduction in overall violence in the country since June.

In the capital, a mortar round wounded three civilians when it landed on a house in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Amariyah Monday, a Baghdad police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information to the media. The intended target was believed to have been a nearby Awakening Council headquarters.

To the south in Wasit province, gunmen shot and wounded an Awakening Council member in the village of al-Hafriyah, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said.

In the town of Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen traded fire with police and Awakening Council members, leaving one council member and one policeman dead and wounding three policemen, a police officer said.

Separately, six mortar rounds landed near an Iraqi Army checkpoint near the town, wounding two soldiers, the officer said.

In other violence Monday, a roadside bomb targeting a patrol near the Iranian border killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured another four, police said.

The attack occurred shortly after dawn in the frontier town of Mandali, about 30 miles from the Iranian border in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to release information to the media.

Diyala has become one of Iraq's most dangerous areas. Most of the activities of al-Qaida in Iraq have been pushed out Anbar province and Baghdad, into Diyala and the northern city of Mosul, following the surge of U.S. troops and the work of Awakening Councils in Anbar.

"Diyala has been one of the tougher fights," U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith said in Baghdad Sunday. "Diyala is an area of significant interest for al-Qaida."

"We realize that security in Iraq is very fragile and tenuous," Smith said. Although much progress had been made, "there is no place in Iraq today that is safe from terrorism."

This is at least the second time in a couple of months that a female suicide bomber has directly attacked important targets. This is another sign that the Civil War is taking on new levels of intensity via different tactics.

2008 is sure to bring still more unusual tactics which will likely include complex ambushes against U.S. helicopters (like in Somalia), assassinations of important leaders (which also have gone on in significant numbers recently - Police Chiefs, etc.), and kidnappings of Coalition patrols.

The British Army correctly realized that the best course of action at this point is to largely extricate ourselves from the situation (Iraq) and force Iraqi leaders to sort out their ancient and modern feuds. We are only exacerbating the situation and fomenting greater hatred of America across the Middle East.~Luis

Beating the retreat
Dec 19th 2007
From The Economist print edition
British troops look for a face-saving way out of Iraq
AFP

Ready or not, they are in charge

"I HATE Iraq. I wish we had never gone to the place," said Winston Churchill in 1926 when, as chancellor of the exchequer, he had to pay the cost of holding on to the violently rebellious territory. The British government, and much of the public, no doubt feels the same about today's military venture in Iraq, which has cost around £5 billion ($10 billion) and the lives of more than 170 soldiers since 2003.

Having entered the country uninvited, the army is leaving unlamented. The handover ceremony in the departure lounge of Basra airport (Britain's last base) on December 16th, when Basra province was transferred to Iraqi security control, summed it up: the British are no longer safe in the city, and have booked their tickets out of the country.

It was very different in the early days of the occupation of southern Iraq when British soldiers patrolled in soft berets, in contrast with the Americans in Baghdad. But as Iraq's violence spread southwards, and Basra turned into an urban shooting gallery, British troops also had to don their helmets and drive in armoured vehicles.

Their battle now is to try to avoid the perception of defeat. Commanders claim that security has improved enough in Basra for Iraqi forces to take charge. Attacks against British forces have declined, but that is largely because of a shortage of targets after British troops withdrew from the city centre to the airport in September. A six-month ceasefire declared by Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful radical cleric, has helped to reduce violence.

For Iraqis, though, Basra remains a violent place, with scores of people killed every month. Major-General Jalil Khalaf, the police chief, complained of being left in a sea of troubles. Rival Shia militias with murky links to Iran compete violently for control and terrorise the population—particularly women deemed immodest, barbers and those selling alcohol.

For the moment there are no open battles. That is good enough for Britain to accelerate its withdrawal, drawing the number of troops down from 4,500 to 2,500 next spring. A recent report from MPs asked whether such a small contingent could do anything more than defend itself. All British troops, except special forces and aircraft supporting the Americans, will probably be out of Iraq by the end of 2008.

The British army's ability to wage irregular warfare has been found wanting, despite the folk memory of centuries of colonial policing and decades in Northern Ireland. It would be a mistake, some generals say, for commanders to believe the convenient fiction of their success and assume they have nothing to learn.

Confronted with rising violence, the Americans adopted a new counter-insurgency doctrine and reinforced their forces. American units now deploy for 15 months, compared with six months for the British. Conditions in Basra and Baghdad are different, say British officials. But the more important difference may be the mindsets in London and Washington; But the British accepted that events were beyond their control, whereas the Americans acted to regain the initiative.

The Pentagon is worried about the prospect of a vacuum in southern Iraq, through which its supply convoys from Kuwait must pass. However, the gap between the allies may narrow as America's “surge” in Iraq ebbs away. American commanders may also declare victory and withdraw, at least from some outlying provinces.

Britain's departure is hardly graceful, but it would come as little surprise to Churchill. It was he, after all, who said that staying in Iraq was like "living on an ungrateful volcano".

U.S. policy shown vulnerable to Qaeda strikes
Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:36pm EST
Reuters
By Randall Mikkelsen - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An al Qaeda role in the murder of Benazir Bhutto would show that the militant group can dramatically thwart U.S. foreign policy more than six years after President George W. Bush set out to defeat it.

U.S. intelligence agencies worked on Friday to verify a Pakistan Interior Ministry statement that intercepted communications linked al Qaeda to the assassination. Thursday's killing shattered Bush's hopes that Bhutto's return to Pakistan in October as an opposition leader would foster democracy and stability.

"Sometimes I think that bin Laden and Zawahri must shake their heads and say, 'It's all too easy'" said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA employee who led the hunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's deputy, earlier this month denounced Bhutto as an instrument of U.S. policy.

Pakistan said militant Baitullah Mehsud was behind the killing and it called him an al Qaeda leader. A U.S. counterterrorism official described Mehsud, who had previously threatened Bhutto, as a tribal leader and "seasoned jihadist with strong links to al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations."

Some analysts remained skeptical, saying it served Musharraf's interests to focus attention on al Qaeda while his own government faced domestic suspicions of complicity.

"The Pakistanis are probably lying," said former U.S. counterterrorism official Richard Clarke.

But if true, al Qaeda's orchestration shows that it can launch significant strikes from the western Pakistan tribal areas where it regrouped after a U.S.-led invasion routed it from neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, analysts said.

Al Qaeda has "physical and psychological space to recruit, train terrorist operatives and plan attacks," the U.S. counterterrorism official said.

'VIRTUALLY IMPOTENT'?

When bin Laden issued a new video before this year's sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, then-White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend dismissed him as "virtually impotent." However, a national intelligence estimate in July described al Qaeda's revived strength and command abilities, often working through regional groups.

Al Qaeda's goal is not so much to attack inside the United States but to drive it from the region, Scheuer said. Bhutto, as a supporter of U.S. policy with a nearly 20-year history of bad blood with bin Laden, was an inevitable target.

"It was not right to push her to her death," Scheuer said in characterizing support for her return by the United States and Britain. "What I really find in a way disgusting is that Mr. Bush's fingerprints, (British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown's fingerprints and the fingerprints of most of our presidential candidates are on Mrs. Bhutto's corpse."

Now, he said, "they have a hell of a mess," with options dwindling in Pakistan and no clear plan to counter resurgent pressure in Afghanistan from al Qaeda and its Taliban ally.

Taliban strength has doubled in the western Pakistan border areas in the past 12 to 18 months, said analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Bhutto's killing will only make it harder for the United States to persuade Musharraf to crack down in the border regions, he said.

"Anything that weakens Pakistan ... creates a vacuum that al Qaeda can exploit," Cordesman said.

(Editing by Bill Trott)
© Reuters 2007.

The dolts (Administration officials and Generals) continue to mess up in Iraq and the Middle East which is causing increased global instability not to mention serious risks to our national security. Al Qaeda is gaining strength and momentum because of our enormous presence in Iraq and pathetic efforts (personnel and resources) at finding Osama bin Laden.~Luis

Thousands mourn Bhutto as unrest spreads
By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer
13 minutes ago


Hundreds of thousands of mourners paid last respects to Benazir Bhutto as the opposition leader was buried Friday at the mausoleum of Pakistan's most famous political dynasty. Furious supporters rampaged through several cities to protest her assassination less than two weeks before crucial elections.

Some wept, others chanted "Benazir is alive," as the plain wood coffin was placed beside the grave of her father in the vast, white marble mausoleum in southern Sindh province near the Bhuttos' ancestral home.

The shooting and bombing attack on the former prime minister — President Pervez Musharraf's most powerful political opponent — plunged Pakistan into turmoil and badly damaged plans to restore democracy in this nuclear-armed nation, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror.

In cities elsewhere in Pakistan, Bhutto's supporters ransacked banks, waged shootouts with police and burned trains and stations in a spasm of violence less than two weeks before parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said the government had no immediate plans to postpone the Jan. 8 vote, despite the growing chaos and a top opposition leader's decision to boycott the poll.

"Right now the elections stand where they were," he told a news conference. "We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it."

Bhutto's mourners arrived in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh by tractor, bus, car and jeep. Many crammed inside the mausoleum, throwing petals on the coffin. Women beat their heads and chests in grief.

"As long as the moon and sun are alive, so is the name of Bhutto," they chanted.

An Islamic cleric led mourners in prayers as her flag-draped coffin was placed in a grave beside her father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, also a popular former prime minister who met a violent death.

Bhutto's son Bilawal and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who wore a traditional white Sindhi cap and appeared composed, helped lower the coffin into the grave.

Some Bhutto supporters shouted "General, killer!" "Army, killer" in apparent reference to President Pervez Musharraf, who recently retired as army chief after eight years of military rule. Party leaders tried to pacify the crowd and urged them to stop.

"I don't know what will happen to the country now," said Nazakat Soomro, 32.

Bhutto's funeral procession began Friday afternoon at her ancestral residence in the southern town of Naudero. Her plain wood coffin, draped in the red, green and black flag of her Pakistan People's Party, was carried in the white ambulance, passing a burning passenger train on the way.

Bhutto visited the mausoleum in October to pay respects at her father's grave, days after she narrowly escaped another suicide attack on her homecoming parade in Karachi, that killed more than 140 people. The ambulance Friday passed over a ramp built for that visit.

Violence intensified in some cities. A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire Friday, police said.

About 7,000 people in the central city of Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with tear gas. In the capital, Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tires in a commercial quarter of the city.

Paramilitary rangers were given the authority to use live fire to stop rioters from damaging property in southern Pakistan, said Maj. Asad Ali, the rangers' spokesman.

"We have orders to shoot at sight," he said.

Violent mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Bhutto's Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train service between the city of Karachi and the eastern Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official. The rioters uprooted one section of the track leading to the Indian border, he said.

About 4,000 Bhutto party supporters rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday and several hundred of them ransacked the office of the main pro-Musharraf party, burning furniture and stationery. The office was empty and no one was hurt.

Musharraf blamed the attack on the resurgent Islamic militants Pakistan is fighting along the border region with Afghanistan, pledging in a nationally televised speech that "we will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out."

But authorities said they had yet to identify the attacker.

"It is too early to say who may have been responsible," said Saud Aziz, the chief of police in Rawalpindi, the city near Islamabad where the attack took place. A joint task force of police and officials from other law enforcement agencies were investigating, he said.

Bhutto was killed after a suicide attacker shot at her and then blew himself up as she left a rally, police and witnesses said. Authorities initially said she died from bullet wounds, but Dr. Mussadiq Khan, a surgeon who treated her, said Friday that she died from shrapnel to the skull.

Bhutto had no pulse when she arrived at the hospital and doctors failed to resuscitate her, he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said he saw the medical report and it confirmed she died from a shrapnel wound and was not shot. "No bullet was found in her body," he said.

Soomro, the prime minister, told the Cabinet on Friday that Bhutto's husband had not allowed doctors to perform an autopsy, according to a government statement.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko in Washington said the agency was trying to determine the validity of a purported claim of responsibility for the attack by al-Qaida.

President Bush, who spoke briefly by phone with Musharraf, looked tense as he spoke to reporters, denouncing the "murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."

After the killing, Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and leader of a rival opposition party, announced his party would boycott the elections.

The election was seen as a pivotal step toward restoring democracy here, eight years after Musharraf seized power in a coup. It also was intended to restore credibility to the government after Musharraf used a six-week state of emergency to arrest thousands of political opponents and crack down on the independent judiciary.

However, with Sharif's party on the sidelines and Bhutto's party leaderless and in disarray, the election will have little, if any, credibility.

"This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences. "It shows extremists are powerful enough to disrupt the democratic process."

Sharif demanded Musharraf's resignation, as did Imran Khan, another opposition politician and former cricket star. "Musharraf is the cause of all the problems," Sharif said.

Bhutto's death closed another grim chapter in Pakistan's bloodstained history, 28 years after her father was hanged by a military dictatorship just a few miles from where she was killed.

The United States struggled to reformulate its plan to stabilize the country based on a rapprochement between Bhutto and Musharraf.

Bhutto, whose party has long been popular among Pakistan's legions of poor, served two terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1996. Both elected governments were toppled amid accusations of corruption and mismanagement, but she was respected in the West for her liberal outlook and determination to combat Islamic extremism.

She had been vying for a third term if her party fared well in the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections.

Bhutto was a domineering presence in her party, and there is no clear successor to the leadership. Her husband Zardari, who was freed in December 2004 after eight years in detention on graft charges, is one contender to head the party although he lacks the cachet of a blood relative.

Bhutto had just addressed more than 5,000 supporters in Rawalpindi on Thursday when the attacker struck as she was leaving the rally in a white sports utility vehicle.

A smiling Bhutto had stuck her head out of the sunroof to respond to youths chanting her name, said Sardar Qamar Hayyat, an official from Bhutto's party.

"Then I saw a thin, young man jumping toward her vehicle from the back and opening fire. Moments later, I saw her speeding vehicle going away. That was the time when I heard a blast and fell down," Hayyat said.

The greatly upsetting thing about the assassination of Ms. Bhutto is that it reflects a Middle East with stronger Islamic extremism. Had the U.S. not invaded Iraq but rather focused on finding and killing Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda would be marginalized today. But even if we had invaded Iraq and occupied it with sufficient troops and a cogent plan, we would likely have been successful at stabilizing the country and removing ourselves from there.

The incompetence and corruption of our Politicians and Generals over the past five years of Iraq War have emboldened extremists across the Middle East. Thousands of splinter terrorist cells exist and more proliferation of IED-making knowledge. The whole damn thing is absolutely enfuriating.~Luis

Impeach Cheney now
The allegations that he abused power are credible.
Philadelphia Inquirer
December 27, 2007

U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler (D., Fla.), Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) and Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.)are members of the Judiciary Committee

Last month, the House of Representatives voted to send a resolution of impeachment of Vice President Cheney to the Judiciary Committee. As members of the House Judiciary Committee, we strongly believe these important hearings should begin.

The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that, if proven, may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under the Constitution. The allegations against Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

Now that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan has indicated that the vice president and his staff purposely gave him false information about the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert agent to report to the American people, it is even more important for Congress to investigate what may have been an intentional obstruction of justice. Congress should call McClellan to testify about what he described as being asked to "unknowingly [pass] along false information." In addition, recent revelations have shown that the administration, including the vice president, may have again manipulated and exaggerated evidence about weapons of mass destruction - this time about Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Some of us were in Congress during the impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton. We spent a year and a half listening to testimony about Clinton's personal relations. This must not be the model for impeachment inquiries. A Democratic Congress can show that it takes its constitutional authority seriously and hold a sober investigation, which will stand in stark contrast to the kangaroo court convened by Republicans for Clinton. In fact, the worst legacy of the Clinton impeachment - where the GOP pursued trumped-up and insignificant allegations - would be if it discourages future Congresses from examining credible and significant allegations of a constitutional nature when they arise.

The charges against Cheney are not personal. They go to the core of the actions of this administration, and deserve consideration in a way the Clinton scandal never did. The American people understand this, and a majority supports hearings, according to a Nov. 13 poll by the American Research Group. In fact, 70 percent of voters say the vice president has abused his powers, and 43 percent say he should be removed from office right now. The American people understand the magnitude of what has been done and what is at stake if we fail to act. It is time for Congress to catch up.

Some people argue that the Judiciary Committee cannot proceed with impeachment hearings because it would distract Congress from passing important legislative initiatives. We disagree. First, hearings need not tie up Congress for a year and shut down the nation. Second, hearings will not prevent Congress from completing its other business. These hearings involve the possible impeachment of the vice president - not of our commander in chief - and the resulting impact on the nation's business and attention would be significantly less than the Clinton presidential impeachment hearings. Also, even though President Bush has thwarted moderate Democratic policies that are supported by a vast majority of Americans - including children's health care, stem-cell research, and bringing our troops home from Iraq - the Democratic Congress has already managed to deliver a minimum-wage increase, an energy bill to address the climate crisis and bring us closer to energy independence, assistance for college tuition, and other legislative successes. We can continue to deliver on more of our agenda in the coming year while simultaneously fulfilling our constitutional duty by investigating and publicly revealing whether Cheney has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

Holding hearings would put the evidence on the table, and the evidence - not politics - should determine the outcome. Even if the hearings do not lead to removal from office, putting these grievous abuses on the record is important for the sake of history. For an administration that has consistently skirted the Constitution and asserted that it is above the law, it is imperative for Congress to make clear that we do not accept this dangerous precedent. Our Founding Fathers provided Congress the power of impeachment for just this reason, and we must now at least consider using it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail Rep. Wexler at reprobertwexler@gmail.com

The justification for a proceeding exists. With the nation incredibly cynical and apathetic, it is high time to look beyond partisanship and examine the facts. VP Cheney has consistently abused his office and power to influence things in such ways that are seriously detrimental to our national interests.

Regardless of party (and I am an Independent), I hope that millions email Rep. Wexler in support of this action.~Luis

The Washington Post
What Would George Do?
Okay, He Never Saw a Chopper, but He Can Still Teach Us a Thing or Two.
By Joseph J. Ellis
Sunday, December 23, 2007; B01

W hat would George Washington do about Iraq? An op-ed editor (not at The Washington Post, I should add) recently asked me to write an article answering that question, presumably because I had once written a biography of Washington and have just published another book on the founding generation. But, as I tried to explain, Washington would not be able to find Iraq on a map. Nor would he know about weapons of mass destruction, Islamic fundamentalism, Humvees, cellphones, CNN or Saddam Hussein.

The historically correct answer, then, is that Washington would not have a clue. It's tempting to believe that the political wisdom of our Founding Fathers can travel across the centuries in a time capsule, land among us intact, then release its insights into our atmosphere -- and as we breathed in that enriched air, our perspective on Iraq, global warming, immigration and the other hot-button issues of the day would be informed by what we might call "founders' genius." (Come to think of it, at least two Supreme Court justices who embrace the literal version of "original intent" believe that this is possible.) But there are no time capsules, except in science fiction. The gap between the founders' time and ours is non-negotiable, and any direct linkage between them and now is intellectually problematic.

This conclusion is not just irrefutable; it's also unacceptable to many of us, because it suggests that the past is an eternally lost world that has nothing to teach us. And if history has nothing to teach us, why in heaven's name should we study it?

One answer, I suppose, is for the sheer satisfaction of understanding those who have preceded us on this earthly trail. In that sense, history, like virtue, really is its own reward. But that answer doesn't really work for me. Nor does it explain the rather extraordinary surge of interest over the past decade in the men mythologized and capitalized as our Founding Fathers.

Readers are buying books on the founders in unprecedented numbers because they think the founders have something to teach them. And they do. If we come to know them and listen hard enough, they will speak to us.

Suppose, then, that we rephrase the question. It is not "What would George Washington do about Iraq?" Rather, it is "How are your own views of Iraq affected by your study of Washington's experience leading a rebellion against a British military occupation?" The answer on this score is pretty clear. Washington eventually realized -- and it took him three years to have this epiphany -- that the only way he could lose the Revolutionary War was to try to win it. The British army and navy could win all the major battles, and with a few exceptions they did; but they faced the intractable problem of trying to establish control over a vast continent whose population resented and resisted military occupation. As the old counterinsurgency mantra goes, Washington won by not losing, and the British lost by not winning. Our dilemma in Iraq is analogous to the British dilemma in North America -- and is likely to yield the same outcome.

To take another example, your opinion on the current debate about how much power the executive branch should have will be significantly influenced if you read the debates about the subject in the Constitutional Convention and the states' ratifying conventions. For it will soon become clear that the most palpable fear that haunted all these debates was the specter of monarchy. Vice President Cheney's argument that limitations on the executive branch enacted in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and Watergate need to be rolled back is historically myopic. Virtually all of the Founding Fathers would regard the expansion of executive power since 1945 as a violation of the republican principles they cherished. And the way Congress has effectively surrendered war-making powers to the president since World War II represents a fundamental distortion of checks and balances as the founders intended them.

We have also strayed rather far from the world and wisdom of the founders in our current presidential-selection process. In our effort to replace the smoke-filled rooms of the old machine politics with a more democratic primary system, we have created a money-driven, media-dominated campaign culture that none of the founders would have been willing to tolerate.

Indeed, they would have regarded anyone who succeeded in our modern-day electoral circus as a clown unworthy of the office. The degree of egomaniacal ambition required to negotiate the current campaign culture would strike all the most prominent founders, save perhaps Aaron Burr, as incompatible with the qualities of mind and heart essential for presidential leadership.

It's a bit disquieting to acknowledge, but it's likely that none of our first six presidents -- Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams -- would have run for office in the current political environment.

Even though all efforts to have the founders join us in a conversation about our current issues are futile exercises, like trying to plant cut flowers, the urge to create this conversation appears to be irresistible. And the most seductive, resonant and controversial founder of all, the one who gets the most hits on the Internet, is Thomas Jefferson.

Because Jefferson was the prophet of the American promise, the author of those 55 words that begin "We hold these truths to be self-evident," he has always been a historical trophy that all sides seek to claim. For Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, Jefferson was the ultimate prize, the ace of spades in the American political deck.

This would have struck Jefferson as highly ironic, for he was on record as believing that each generation should be sovereign, not weighted down by what he called "the dead hand of the past." In that sense, Jefferson's greatest legacy was to oppose all legacies. He also made it clear that, once the United States became a thickly populated, urban, industrial nation, his agrarian vision became essentially irrelevant. That means that our political context for nearly 100 years has been resolutely post-Jeffersonian. Those folks claiming his mantle, such as those Supreme Court justices who declare their allegiance to the "original intentions" of the framers, are invariably imposing their own values and convictions under the cover of his name.

Finally, and somewhat more problematically, an understanding of the founders' mentality complicates our view of our role as Britain's successor as the world's dominant power. The United States began with a conspicuously anti-imperial ethos, and we have had it imprinted on our political DNA from the very start. We were the first former colony to win a war for independence (against Britain, no less) and the first large-scale republic committed to the principle of government by consent rather than coercion.

In that sense, our primal values make us a very reluctant world power in the Roman or British mode. For good historical reasons, we lack the requisite imperial stamina of the British Empire in its "sun-never-sets" phase. Our origins are at odds with all previous versions of a world power. The Romans and British would have experienced no twinges of conscience in leaving a substantial military garrison in Iraq for an indefinite period. But we do, which is one reason why a healthy majority of U.S. citizens want us to leave Iraq as soon as possible. A republic, the world's first large-scale republic, simply cannot be an empire of the conventional European sort.

This legacy of the founders complicates our status as the reigning world power.

One could counter with the claim that our anti-imperial origins were always more rhetorical than real. Just ask the Native Americans, or call attention to our apparently permanent military garrisons in Germany and South Korea. They certainly have the look and feel of old-style Roman and British imperialism, wholly compatible with the apparent current plan of the Bush administration to leave a garrison of about 50,000 troops in Iraq.

What would Washington do? Well, he did speak of a prospective American empire, though he was thinking primarily of our eventual domination of the North American continent, not the globe. On a few occasions, he seemed to suggest that if we played our cards right in the 19th century, the United States might replace Britain as the dominant power in the 20th. That indeed happened. But would he have endorsed a hegemonic U.S. foreign policy based on military power? Probably not. But that's my opinion, not necessarily Washington's.

Joseph J. Ellis is the Ford Foundation professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. His books include "Founding Brothers," "American Sphinx" and, most recently, "American Creation."

This is the most important article to come out in months. Are you listening, Generals and Politicians?~Luis

Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)December 26, 2007

Iraqis Playing Key Role In Country's Stabilization
By Joseph Galloway

In a remarkable and rare display of both caution and good sense, no one in the Bush administration has begun doing victory laps over the good news from Iraq.

Yes, the numbers of American troops and Iraqi civilians dying there have fallen sharply in the last six months. So have the number of roadside bombs going off and suicide car bombs detonating. Anbar province is, at the moment, relatively peaceful.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists of al-Qaida in Iraq seem to be either in retreat or on a retreat, licking their wounds and rethinking their strategy. Better yet, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's murderous Mahdi Army militia has largely stood down as he ordered it to last August.

In Baghdad, some neighborhoods have cautiously come back to life; open-air markets are again thronged with shoppers who for so long had cowered inside their homes.

A small fraction — 20,000 or so — of the 2 million Iraqis who've fled from the terror across the borders to Syria and Jordan have begun to trickle home. Some forced by Syria's hardening attitude toward Iraqi refugees; others tempted by the good news from home.

All of this is good news; all of this is welcome news.

But everyone from our military commanders in Iraq to Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House and its denizens is being very careful to avoid premature celebration, and rightly so. Even Vice President Dick Cheney has avoided making any pronouncements about the insurgents being in their death throes.

It would be easy — and wrong — to claim that the temporary surge of an additional 30,000 American troops is entirely responsible for the scaling back of violence and civil war in Iraq.

Beefing up our forces has helped. What's helped even more was a change of American tactics and strategy in Iraq that was four years overdue and coincided with the arrival of Gen. David Petraeus as the new U.S. commander.

But the truth is that much of this reduction in violence is, like the violence itself, entirely homegrown and thus resistant to the analysis and understanding of foreigners.

What we do know is that Sadr's militia was, at one time, responsible for more than 60 percent of American combat deaths in Iraq.

We know that Anbar province almost overnight has ceased to be a killing field for American Marines because the local tribal sheiks had had enough of the jihadists they'd sheltered. When the jihadists began killing the sheiks themselves and imposing their idea of Islamic law — cutting off the heads of barbers, bootleggers and women not sufficiently subservient — they crossed the line.

The sheiks decided to stop their own Sunni insurgency and stop killing Americans.

They'd balked at participating in the Iraqi central government and army and police, which are almost entirely Shiite. That didn't bode well for the day when the Americans would leave and the night of the Shiite long knives would arrive, so the Sunnis began sending their sons to attempt to join the army and police. When the government turned them away, the sheiks signed up to fight with the Americans for $300 a month, a rifle and some training.

The key decisions that have led to the reduction in the slaughter weren't made by us or by what passes for a national government in Baghdad. They were made by some of the people — both Sunni and Shiite — who were killing American troops just six months ago.

So there's reason aplenty for our leaders and commanders to avoid any victory parades, "Mission Accomplished" banners or "last throes" pronouncements and instead wait silently for the next shoe to drop. If only President Bush had known that Iraq was harder than algebra back in 2003, maybe we could have avoided the whole thing.

Joseph L. Galloway is a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers and a co-author of the national best-seller "We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young."

Joe's article is completely accurate minus the assumption that the Sunnis waged war on Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Al Anbar. The Sunnis found it most convenient to tell the Americans that they were and wished to wage war on AQI so that they could get arms and money to refit themselves having lost to the Shia in the Iraq Civil War for the better part of 5 years.


Nonetheless, what Mr. Galloway articulates is true and is what I have been saying for some time - that the "Surge Success" has next to nothing to do with anything Coalition Forces have done. More importantly, the current reduction in violence is nothing more than the eye of the tornado. The sects are regrouping...~Luis

To my friends around the world...Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Eid ul-Adha. May common sense, justice and light prevail in this time of darkness...~Luis

Why is it that American Commanders consistently dismiss Iraqi casualty counts? This has happened for the better part of 5 years. The most probable reason is so that a "rosier" picture of the situation can be painted.

Hardly ever, do American forces visit Iraqi hospitals and take talley of the actual killed and wounded. That said, the statistics of Iraqi wounded and dead as conveyed by the Americans is in fact incorrect. This is absolutely unethical. It constitutes another way that the Information Operations section of General Petraeus' command is "spinning" the reality of the circumstances.

Also, American forces consistently are quick to attribute violence to Al Qaeda. This is preposterous and dismisses the reality that Iraq remains in a state of Civil War.~Luis

Iraq’s violence takes heavy toll on its children, reports UNICEF
UN News Service

21 December 2007 – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today painted a bleak picture of the situation of children in Iraq, where an estimated 2 million boys and girls continue suffer from poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education.

Thousands of families have been obliged to leave their homes because of violence or threats, and hundreds of children have lost their lives in the violence, UNICEF said in a news release.

Conditions continue to deteriorate, with many mothers preventing their children from attending school for fear they would be attacked.

“Iraqi children are paying far too high a price,” said Roger Wright, UNICEF’s Special Representative for Iraq. “While we have been providing as much assistance as possible, a new window of opportunity is opening, which should enable us to reach the most vulnerable with expanded, consistent support.”

In 2007 UNICEF invested over $40 million dollars to deliver critical health care, safe water and sanitation, education and other essential services to millions of children and their families.

Thanks to the funds, over 4 million children were immunized against polio and more than three million against measles, mumps and rubella. As a result, Iraq remains polio-free and measles cases have decreased from 9,181 in 2004 to just 156 as of November.

In addition, some 4.7 million Iraqi primary school children benefited from UNICEF support, including the distribution of school materials, rebuilding and restoring schools, adding extra classrooms for displaced children and providing accelerated learning opportunities.

UNICEF noted that children’s needs inside Iraq will become clearer as security improves. To help meet the needs of returning families, the agency and its partners a new initiative known as IMPACT: Iraq, which involves a national network of UN teams and non-governmental partners able to quickly assess and respond to needs as they arise.

Mr. Wright stressed that sufficient funding will be crucial to meeting the needs of Iraq’s children in 2008, adding that children should be the priority for international investment in Iraq.

“Iraqi children are the foundation for their country’s recovery,” he stated. “Where children’s lives are protected and revived, community recovery will swiftly follow. We continue to owe them our very best in 2008 and beyond.”

The Christian Science Monitor
War strain in Iraq may speed troop cuts
By Gordon Lubold
Mon Dec 24, 3:00 AM ET

The strain of the war in Iraq is increasingly forcing senior Pentagon leaders to be blunter about the military's inability to sustain war operations indefinitely, a shift in tone that may mean more troops come home sooner.

The change comes as the security situation in Iraq looks much improved over even six months ago. It also comes under the leadership of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has welcomed candor from his commanders. As a result, senior leaders have taken advantage of the situation to make a more public case that the military, especially the Army, can no longer afford the luxury of sustained military operations in Iraq.

The Pentagon is already taking steps to draw down forces. Currently, there are about 165,000 American troops in Iraq, which includes about 20 combat brigades. By next summer, the plan is to return five combat brigades, or about 20,000 troops.

But a push is under way to bring home even more by the end of next year. Last Friday, Secretary Gates reiterated his hope that five additional combat brigades could be sent home by December 2008.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, is expected to return to Washington in March to give his assessment of US military operations, which will inform the debate about the drawdown for next year.

"My hope has been that the circumstances on the ground will continue to improve in a way that would, when General Petraeus and the chiefs and Central Command do their analysis in March, will allow a continuation of the drawdown at roughly the same pace as the first half of the year," Gates told reporters at the Pentagon last Friday.

Since Gates assumed his job a year ago, he has been an advocate of both improving security in Iraq while also lessening the strain on US forces. But increasingly, the Pentagon's war policy appears to be driven by the reality that the Defense Department, especially the Army, simply can't continue to deploy soldiers at the current pace.

Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff and the former senior commander in Iraq, has been particularly frank about the state of the Army.

"We're deploying at unsustainable rates," General Casey said three weeks ago during remarks to an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The Army agreed to a buildup of troops a year ago with the understanding that it was temporary, he said. "We can't sustain that. We have to come off of that, and we're working that very hard."

The strains on the Army are nothing new. When President Bush announced a new approach for Iraq last year, the thinking was that, despite the problems the Army was facing, it was more important to try to get it right in Iraq. And so another 30,000 troops were moved into combat. Top officials say drawing down troops is still "conditions-based." But there is also recognition that the Army can't go on this way much longer, deploying troops multiple times for 15-month tours.

One retired general who remains close to the situation sees a shift in which the impact of operations in Iraq is beginning to dictate the policy, not the other way around.

The retired general, who asked not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the situation, said a decision to give the Army some relief could go a long way to alleviate stress on the service.

"If we can reduce the frequency and length of deployments to Iraq, and therefore let some of this air out of the balloon, in the short term you may restore a degree of morale and optimism and sustain readiness and recruiting in ways that can help," he says.

Critics of the war have been saying the Army is at or near its breaking point for years, yet few believe it's actually happened. One of their concerns is that the strain of multiple deployments will discourage good individuals from joining the Army – or "re-upping" and staying in.

Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general who works as a consultant and makes frequent trips to Iraq, returned in mid-December from a week-long trip to Iraq and Kuwait. He was critical of the execution of the war under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld but sees positive signs now, despite strains on the force. He has repeatedly called for a larger Army, which he says should be 800,000-strong.

The Army is expected to grow to 547,000 soldiers by 2010, and Casey has left the door open for an even bigger increase beyond that. But time is running short for the Army now, Mr. McCaffrey says. "We can probably sustain a force in Iraq indefinitely (given adequate funding) of some 10-plus brigades," McCaffrey wrote in a post-trip report. "However, the US Army is starting to unravel."

The Marine Corps, the other ground service largely engaged in Iraq, is smaller and has been able to manage the war's impact differently. Its recruiting and retention has remained strong without falling short of its standards so far.

While there is reasonable consensus that a significant drawdown must occur to relieve the Army – from Gates to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the service chiefs and many combatant commanders – Petraeus may not see things the same way. An expert in counterinsurgency, Petraeus believes such campaigns can last a decade or more if done right. While he is mindful of the strains on the force, he is considered to be more focused on maintaining the security momentum there, analysts say.

Casey insists the Army is not "hollow" or "broken" – terms often used by concerned observers – but "out of balance." In his remarks at Brookings earlier this month, he said there is an almost indiscernible line. "There's a thin red line out there that you don't know when you cross it until after you've crossed it," he said.

But Casey may be willing to go only so far in publicly acknowledging the problem, says the retired general. "Brutal honesty," he says, about the true morale within the Army and the challenges the institution faces could actually create a bigger problem within the ranks as officers and enlisted soldiers become discouraged, and even more could get out. It would become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, according to the retired general.

Still, Casey is "doing all the right things," he says. "He is sticking his neck out and forcing people to think about the problem."

Copyright © 2007 The Christian Science Monitor

General George Casey, like so many other generals, continues to engage in double-speak which is extremely damaging to the Army and our national security. This is no surprise though, since he consistently painted a false picture of the situation on the ground in Iraq while he was in charge of MNF-I (all ground forces there). It is unbelieveable that someone as incompetent as Casey is now in charge of refitting/resetting our Army.~Luis

International Herald Tribune
Australia's prime minister confirms troop withdrawal from Iraq
By Tim Johnston

Sunday, December 23, 2007
SYDNEY: Making surprise visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said he would withdraw his country's combat troops from Iraq by June but confirmed that Australian soldiers would remain in Afghanistan.

"I visited the Australian battle group in Talil and spoke directly to what is a fine body of men and women," Rudd said at a joint news conference Friday in Baghdad with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. "That battle group will come to a conclusion as of June next year and will be the last battle group we deploy."

But Australia is likely to maintain the deployment of some of the approximately 1,000support personnel it has in the theater. "Australia will continue to support our friends in Iraq through navy deployments in the Gulf to assist in the long-term security of Iraqi exports," Rudd said.

The confirmation that he would withdraw the 550 Australian combat troops from Iraq, as promised during his campaign, marks a decisive break from the policies of Rudd's predecessor, John Howard, who was one of the staunchest supporters of President George W. Bush's Iraq policies.

But Rudd has stressed that Australia would continue to regard the United States as its most important ally, leading analysts to conclude that his reservations about the relationship lie with the policies of the Bush administration.

Opinion polls indicate that only about a third of Australians support keeping the troops in Iraq. But although the topic was raised in advance of the elections last month, it was not a major issue, partially because there have been no Australian combat fatalities in the country.

After visiting Baghdad, Rudd went on to visit the Australian contingent in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan. Three Australians have died in combat in Uruzgan, all within the last three months.

"This is not work without sacrifice. I understand that, and I thank you therefore for your courage," Rudd told the soldiers in Uruzgan on Saturday. "There's a lot of work still to do, and the message I have for you today is that when it comes to this theater, Afghanistan, we Australians are here for the long haul."

Rudd has given no clear indication of how long troops might stay in the country. But a document recently released by the Dutch government, which has soldiers fighting alongside the Australians in Uruzgan, indicates that Canberra has given assurances that they would stay at least until 2010.

Rudd's visit to Afghanistan coincided with that of the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy. The French have said they would withdraw a contingent of some 200 special forces from Afghanistan, but Sarkozy said that was not a precursor for a larger pullout. About 1,300 French troops are participating in NATO operations there.

"We did not want to give the signal of a withdrawal, which would have been a detestable signal at a time when we see the ravages that terrorism can do to the world," Sarkozy told France-Info radio.

On Sunday, a third foreign leader, Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy, arrived in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to meet with President Hamid Karzai and to visit Italian troops based in western Afghanistan, an official at the presidential palace told The Associated Press.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

President Bush's "Coalition of the Unwilling" continues to grow. That is because other nations understand the futility of remaining in the middle of Iraq's Civil War. Let them settle their modern and ancient scores, while we watch and secure the borders and stop allowing islamic extremists to kill our soldiers and steal our national treasure. ~Luis

Basra residents blame UK troops
BBC News

More than 85% of the residents of Basra believe British troops have had a negative effect on the Iraqi province since 2003, an opinion poll suggests.

The survey for BBC Newsnight of nearly 1,000 people also suggests that 56% believe their presence has increased the overall level of militia violence.

Two-thirds think security will improve when the British hand back control of the province to Iraqi forces on Sunday.

The 4,500 British troops in Iraq will then focus on training Iraqi forces.

The move to Provincial Iraqi Control will eventually pave the way for UK troop numbers to be reduced to 2,500 from the spring.

Basra is the ninth of Iraq's 18 provinces to resume responsibility for its own security and the fourth to be handed over by British forces after Muthanna, Najaf and Dhi Qar.

Improvement expected

The Public Attitudes in Basra survey carried out for Newsnight by the UK-based polling agency, Opinion Research Business (ORB), interviewed a random sample of 922 adults across the southern city of Basra between 3 and 8 December.

The survey's results suggest that only 2% of Basra residents believe that British troops have had a positive effect on the province since they helped the US overthrow Saddam Hussein in March 2003.

An overwhelming majority of 86% felt British troops had had a negative effect.

More than half felt the troops' presence had actually increased the overall level of militia violence over the past four years, while 14% said they believed the British forces had made no difference at all.

Looking to the future, a total of 83% of those surveyed said they wanted British troops to leave Iraq, including 63% who wanted them to leave the Middle East altogether.

However, nearly a tenth disagreed and said they would like the troops to remain in a camp on the outskirts of Basra, where they could be called upon in a time of crisis.

The majority of those questioned felt that once provincial control was handed over to local Iraqi security forces, the security situation would begin to improve.

Two-thirds felt security would improve in the short term, while 72% said it would improve in the long term. Only 5% said security would deteriorate following the withdrawal.

Correspondents say British troops have had a relatively minor influence on the security situation in Basra since they withdrew to a base at the airport outside the city in September.

'Women targeted'

BBC correspondent Andrew North said that, since the withdrawal, the militia has been orchestrating a campaign of violence against women.

He said most people believed the militia were responsible for the deaths of more than 40 women killed in the past few months.

But in a rare interview, Ali Al Saedi, of the Mehdi Army, denied targeting women.

"If this is true, this violence exists everywhere in America and Britain as well. Nobody can blame any block or movement for any of these crimes," he told BBC News.

Our correspondent also said the British base in Basra was still coming under attack from mortar fire.

Major Mike Shearer, a military spokesman in Basra, said: "It's about managing the security here.

"We never professed to be handing over a white-picketed Basra that resembled something out of the Stepford Wives."

More than 170 British servicemen and women have died while serving in Iraq since 2003.
Do you feel that once British troops hand over control to Iraqi forces in Basra, the security will improve, deteriorate or stay the same?

Story from BBC NEWS:

The bottom line is that the Iraqis need to take the reigns in their country. Until we give them a hard date of withdrawal, they will take our money, our weapons and our servicemembers lives. The sovereignty of Iraq's borders can be managed by air and special operational forces.~Luis

Time
December 31, 2007

Washington Memo

Did GIs Sell Guns In Iraq?

By Brian Bennett

The Pentagon is investigating whether some of the 190,000 weapons the U.S. military lost track of while training Iraqi troops were peddled on the black market by American soldiers and contractors, federal law-enforcement and congressional sources tell TIME. In recent weeks, Claude Kicklighter, the Pentagon's inspector general, has privately told lawmakers that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service has launched a probe into whether U.S. military and civilian contractors intercepted up to 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 80,000 pistols intended for Iraqi security forces in 2004 and '05 to sell on the Iraqi black market. A Pentagon official declined comment.

The case was opened, according to a congressional aide who attended one of the briefings, after the Government Accountability Office revealed in July that some 30% of all U.S. weapons bound for Iraqi security forces had gone missing. The report cited, among other factors, "insufficient staffing" and a failure to follow established distribution procedures as contributing to the disappearance of thousands of weapons. Particularly unsettling for lawmakers was the realization that General David Petraeus was in charge of training Iraqi security forces--which has cost more than $19.2 billion since 2003--during the time the weapons went missing. Despite having the ultimate responsibility for overseeing the training, however, Petraeus, now the commanding general in Iraq, has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.

Revelations that U.S. soldiers are suspected of illegal arms sales in Iraq could prove to be another example, like leaving depots unguarded, of how U.S. actions have put weapons in the hands of anti-U.S. insurgents. "[The problem] goes back," says a congressional aide, "to not having enough troops."

General David Petraeus and General Joseph Fil, when in Command of MNSTC-I and CPATT respectively, failed to implement systems of accountability for BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars worth of equipment that was supposed to equip and develop Iraqi Security Forces. I know this fact because I worked directly with MNSTC-I and CPATT during that time. Both Generals have made convenient excuses for their dereliction and negligence which are wholly unacceptable.

I call upon the American people to ask Congress to hold a Congressional Inquiry into this matter. Moreover, I am most willing to testify with considerable evidence.~Luis

Baltimore Sun
December 21, 2007

The Deja Vu Of No Accountability

By Jason Blindauer, Luis Carlos Montalvan and William Ruehl

In the wake of the Vietnam War, none of those responsible for the lies and mistakes that took us to Southeast Asia and kept us mired in that conflict for more than a decade was held accountable in any way. To us - three former U.S. Army captains who served in the Iraq war - it is clear that not enough American politicians or military leaders learned the most important lessons from that era.

As a result, we are repeating the mistakes of Vietnam in our own time.

How quickly we forget our recent past. President Richard Nixon's resignation had little to do with his poor leadership in Vietnam. No general officers, including William C. Westmoreland, the commander in Vietnam, were ever held responsible. And tragically, no civilian leaders were held accountable either. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara was even "laterally arabesqued" to assume the presidency of the World Bank.

The Bush administration has followed the same script of unaccountability, even appointing Paul Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of the Iraq quagmire, to head the World Bank. Gen. George Casey, formerly in charge of all ground forces in Iraq and largely responsible for executing inept counterinsurgency warfare, was, like General Westmoreland after the 1968 Tet Offensive, promoted to Army chief of staff.

Consider this particularly disorienting irony: While touring the offices of a number of key leaders in the Pentagon in spring 2006, one of us noticed copies of H. R. McMaster's acclaimed book, Dereliction of Duty, at eye level on the bookshelves of many ranking officials. That book thoroughly outlines how President Lyndon B. Johnson, Mr. McNamara and the generals deceived the American people and failed to discharge their sworn duties. Do those Pentagon officials have no clue? Can they not see how Mr. McMaster's analysis of the Vietnam War damns their own incompetence and bungling?

Amazingly, there was even a copy of Dereliction of Duty in plain view in then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's office. One would have hoped each copy of that book would have been thoroughly dog-eared by administration officials and generals alike, but the unfortunate conclusion is the contrary. For them, the book apparently is merely an addition to Pentagon décor.

In the interests of pushing our nation forward and out of Iraq, Congress should move away from legislation that rhetorically attempts to tie war budgets to withdrawal efforts. Rather, our leaders must get serious about accountability. They should insist upon the review of several retired general officers as candidates for censure. A number of active-duty generals should also be court-martialed and ultimately stripped of their stars and forced to retire. Retired Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and active-duty Gen. Walter Wojdakowski top the list for these punitive measures for their failures in 2003 and 2004.

Last but not least, a congressional commission should investigate the improprieties and incompetence of several civilian leaders who served in Iraq, with L. Paul Bremer III and David R. Oliver topping the list. Mr. Bremer did next to nothing to ensure proper accountability of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars toward reconstruction. Similarly, as chief adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance, Mr. Oliver failed to implement any system of accounting and auditing for billions of Iraqi dinars - money that should have contributed to the development of the country rather than the insurgency.

Unless a republic holds its leaders accountable, it is doomed to be the instrument of negligence, private agendas and corruption. In ancient Rome, any citizen could accuse an official of misconduct and instigate a public trial. The common people were the most effective at using this tool, because the elites were too prone to shielding each other.

How is it with our U.S. House and Senate? Are they "of the people, by the people, and for the people," or are they too much the agents of monied interests? Why have they failed to act decisively? Do our legislators think that not holding military and civilian leaders accountable for their failures will ensure our security in the 21st century?

Former U.S. Army captains Jason Blindauer, Luis Carlos Montalvan and William "Jamie" Ruehl served in Iraq from 2003 to 2006.

I thought it fitting to post our article on the blog as its message is very important.~Luis

UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief
Blunt assessment delivered as British hand over security to Iraqis

Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O'Kane and Ian Black
Monday December 17, 2007

Guardian

The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. "They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world," he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.

Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday's handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate.

Major General Graham Binns, who led British troops into the city in 2003, said the province had "begun to regain its strength". He added: "I came to rid Basra of its enemies and I now formally hand Basra back to its friends."

But in the film, to be broadcast on the Guardian Unlimited website and ITV News, Khalaf lists a catalogue of failings, saying:

· Basra has become so lawless that in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being "immoral" because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock;

· The British unintentionally rearmed Shia militias by failing to recognise that Iraqi troops were loyal to more than one authority;

· Shia militia are better armed than his men and control Iraq's main port.

In the interview he said the main problem the Iraqi security forces now faced was the struggle to wrest control back from the militia. He appealed for the British to help him do that: "We need the British to help us to watch our borders - both sea and land and we need their intelligence and air support and to keep training the Iraqi police."

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, who attended the handover ceremony, acknowledged that the territory was not "a land of milk and honey" and promised Britain would remain a "committed friend" of Iraq.

But he insisted it was the right time to hand back control. "The key conditions for the transfer of security responsibility to the Iraqi security forces are whether they are up to it: do they have the numbers? Do they have the leadership and training to provide leadership for this province? And the answer to those three questions is yes," he said.

After the handover Des Browne, the defence secretary, praised British forces - 174 of whom have died since the start of the war in March 2003. "Their contribution has been outstanding and their courage inspiring," he said. A scaled-down UK force will remain in a single base at Basra airport, with a small training mission and a rapid reaction team on "overwatch".

Britain now has 4,500 troops in Iraq. The prime minister, Gordon Brown, has said numbers would shrink to 2,500 by mid-2008 though those released may be redeployed to Afghanistan.

Khalaf, who has survived 20 assassination attempts since he became police chief six months ago, said Britain's intentions had been good but misguided. "I don't think the British meant for this mess to happen. When they disbanded the Iraqi police and military after Saddam fell the people they put in their place were not loyal to the Iraqi government. The British trained and armed these people in the extremist groups and now we are faced with a situation where these police are loyal to their parties not their country."

He said the most shocking aspect of the breakdown of law and order in Basra was the murder of women for being unIslamic. "They are being killed because they are accused of behaving in an immoral way. When they kill them they put underwear and indecent clothes on them."

In his office Khalaf showed the Guardian a computer holding the files of 48 unidentified women. "Some of them have even been killed with their children because their killer says that they come out of an adulterous relationship," he said.

Vince Cable, the acting Lib Dem leader, called for a timetable to bring all British troops home from Iraq, adding: "If we are handing power back to the Iraqis, why are 4,500 British troops needed for what is essentially a training mission?"

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

How does this picture of Basra compare with another told just on December 10, 2007? -

"Brown thanked Britain's roughly 5,000 remaining troops for their efforts and courage and told them their efforts to train Iraqi security forces have left the Iraqis ready to shoulder responsibility for the security of Basra soon.

"The whole British people are proud of everything you've achieved, and I'm so grateful for everything you do," he said.(CNN.com - http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/12/10/iraq.uk/index.html)

What a crock of shit these people are? In one breath they say that things are 'ready for the Iraqis to take over' while General Khalaf, the Police Chief, says things are chaotic. Who's right?

Well, I can tell you that we never had enough troops in Iraq and the Brits certainly didn't either. And, now that they are pulling out they are thumping their chests with how great a job they did. Anyone who's ever been to Iraq and led patrols knows that that's a bunch of bullshit.

Still, this is yet another example of Coalition Forces attempting to "spin" the real situation for their military & political gain. If they can make the American people believe that some sort of "success" has been achieved over the past few months, it gives them the "convenient" excuse to place the onus of failure on Iraqi leaders rather than squarely on their shoulders where it belongs.

Had we gone in with a winning strategy - enough troops and resources and without all the money grubbing contractors stealing from the American taxpayers at the expense of OUR Soldiers slugging it out on the ground and the suffering Iraqi people, things would have been different. UGH! ~Luis

Christian Science Monitor
Do U.S. prisons in Iraq breed insurgents?
By Gordon Lubold
Thu Dec 20, 3:00 AM ET

American officials have detained thousands of insurgents in the months since the surge of forces began this spring, in an effort that most agree has improved security in Iraq. But now the commander of the American detention facilities in Iraq is wondering aloud if holding all those detainees is breeding a "micro-insurgency" and asking whether it's time to begin releasing thousands of people.

The two main detention facilities operated by the US military in Iraq, at Camp Bucca near Basra and Camp Cropper in Baghdad, have swollen to hold nearly 30,000 detainees. That's not the 40,000 individuals Army Gen. David Petraeus allotted for when American forces began to implement the Baghdad security plan this spring. But it may be too many, says Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, who oversees detainees for the US-led force.

Holding thousands of "moderate detainees," marked by green jumpsuits at Camp Bucca, runs counter to the notion of winning over a population in a classic counterinsurgency, he says. General Stone believes many of these Iraqi insurgents were never motivated by anything more than money and most only desire to live peacefully. Many can be safely released back to society, back to their families and in their neighborhoods without straining security or their communities, he says.

Stone believes that there should be debate about how many detainees US forces continue to hold and how many should now be freed.

"I am of the strong viewpoint that there is [now] enough confidence in the process that I'm a champion for releasing those for whom the process has worked and who are essentially a reduced security threat to the coalition," says Stone in a phone interview from Camp Bucca.

Indeed, the nature of the war may be shifting. The Pentagon's quarterly assessment of security and stability in Iraq, released on Tuesday, shows that violence is down across the country. Roadside bombings, for example, have dropped by 68 percent since June.

Stone, a Marine reservist who has headed a number of software development firms, is known for his passion and deliberate approach to understanding the nature of insurgencies. He is calling attention to the issue because he thinks it's time to rethink holding so many detainees at this phase of the war. As the commander of detention operations, he can provide input on the release of detainees through a new board process, but the commanders in the field who send individuals to him have the ultimate input on whether someone should be held or let go. But some commanders are resistant to letting detainees go.

Stone, who doesn't participate in field operations, recognizes that his perspective is from "inside the wire."

Commanders whose troops detain insurgents and other criminals for activities against their own men may have another way of looking at it.

"I'm not on the ground looking at their situation, and they're not in the detention facility seeing these people," says Stone.

He made an impassioned plea recently when Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway paid a visit to Bucca in November. General Conway came away impressed with the programs Stone has implemented there and is concerned that the growing number of detainees doesn't make sense anymore.

"If you roll up 150 guys in a village and you don't have probable cause, you've just created 150 little terrorists," says Conway, who says the US must review the process.

"I think there has to be more of a reason to hold a detainee or, send them away," says Conway.

In many ways, Iraq's increased security could be attributed to higher numbers of detainees. But much of the success stems from the changing attitudes of Iraqi citizens toward their own security and, to a lesser extent, their views of the American presence.

"You're always worried about 'Do you have the right guys?'" says Brig. Gen. Joe Anderson, chief of staff for the Multi-National Corps Iraq. The American military has been releasing as many as 80 detainees per week, and is looking to release more, says General Anderson, who notes that releasing detainees and getting them back to where they belong is "a major logistical task."

"You don't just open the gates and let them go," he says. "It is a deliberate methodical operation."

General Petraeus is deeply concerned about fighting the insurgency in Iraq, both on the ground and inside the walls of detainee facilities, says a senior military official in Baghdad. In the meantime, holding Iraqis is all about "legitimacy," says the official.

"We're not out arresting Iraqis [at random], we're out detaining individuals for whom we have reasonable grounds [to believe] that they are an imperative for security in Iraq," says the official, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. "Everything we do is within the law."

After the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the US military transferred many detainees to Bucca and set about creating a model prison system.

Since arriving in April, Stone is credited for spearheading an innovative detainee program in which education, respect, and vocational and religious programs are a primary focus.

Stone brought imams from Baghdad to teach detainees, many of whom are illiterate, about the teachings of the Koran with the aim to foster a more moderate outlook among the population.

For the first time, detainees participate in boards that allow them to better understand why they are being held � key, Stone says, to getting them to learn how their conduct affects their situation.

Stone says that on his watch, more than 3,000 detainees have been released using his methods. So far, he's seen a very slight recidivism rate � only a few former detainees were recaptured and brought back to the detention facility.

There are still hard-core insurgents and terrorists living inside the yards. In contrast to the green-clad detainees determined to be more moderate, those individuals are given red jumpsuits to wear and are largely segregated from the rest of the detainee population. Amber-colored jumpsuits indicate the wearer is "changing" to a more moderate stance.

But Bucca has had its problems, giving rise to Stone's concern that if not done right, a microinsurgency could be growing within the American-run facility, an irony that has emerged as the facility grows.

Before Stone took command, there was a riot in March, followed by another in May, that may have involved as many as 10,000 detainees. There are also a series of tunnels that have been dug in and outside the facility that have been used, in some cases, to target guards, Stone says.

Since the war began, Coalition Forces have rounded up hundreds of thousands of military aged males and incarcerated them without hardly understanding the situation. In so doing, they developed the size and scope of the insurgency, fed sectarian agendas and facilitated death squads who undertook their methods of engaging in the Civil War that continues today. It is astonishingly arrogant how American Generals and other leaders think that they can coerce any type of serious reconciliation at this point. No factions of Iraqis trust the Americans. It's no surprise why our "Allies" are leaving in droves.~Luis

Los Angeles Times
December 20, 2007

The Walls Around Bush's Iraq Strategy

Barriers built to reduce violence have turned sectarian segregation into the status quo.

By Rosa Brooks

'Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote the poet Robert Frost. But lately, that "something" hasn't been the U.S. military. From Baghdad to Tall Afar, our military has been busily constructing walls between and around Iraqi neighborhoods. In Baghdad, 12-foot-high walls now separate Sunni and Shiite communities. Broken by narrow checkpoints, the walls turn Baghdad into dozens of replica Green Zones, dividing neighbor from neighbor and choking off normal commerce and communications.

The military isn't building walls as a training exercise, of course. The walls are meant to make it harder for militias, insurgents and death squads to coordinate and reach their intended victims. With enough troops and enough concrete, the theory goes, you can keep the bad guys from operating effectively and gradually reduce the sectarian violence that has been tearing Iraq apart.

So far, it looks as if the wall-building strategy is paying dividends. Civilian deaths in Iraq are down significantly. And though 2007 has been the deadliest year of the war for U.S. troops, attacks on them have dropped sharply in recent months. After so many years of escalating violence, it's almost eerie.

How do Iraqis feel about the walls springing up around their neighborhoods? Mixed, unsurprisingly: relieved by the lull in violence but dismayed by the cost. "Iraq is a prison, and now I live in my own little prison," one Iraqi told the Christian Science Monitor. "We are not free; our neighborhood is barricaded," complained another.

It's against this backdrop that we should evaluate the success of the Bush administration's troop "surge" in Iraq. Yes, violence is down. Some of that is because of the surge itself: More troops -- and smarter counterinsurgency tactics -- have indeed translated into a reduction in violence. But violence also is down because the process of "sectarian cleansing" is nearing completion: Sunnis have been driven out of Shiite neighborhoods, Shiites out of Sunni neighborhoods, the Kurds have retaken their own historic territories and smaller minorities have been shoved to the side.

Over the last year, sectarian cleansing has often occurred with reluctant American connivance. Our troops have watched helplessly as neighbors have driven out neighbors, and the walls that U.S. troops build help freeze the new sectarian boundaries in place. In Washington, the administration still speaks of a unified Iraqi central government and "national reconciliation," but in practice, we've gained a respite from violence in part because we've given up on reconciliation and accepted sectarian segregation as the new status quo.

In other words, for all the early rhetoric about benchmarks, "political progress" and reconciliation, the truth is that most Washington insiders accept that we're heading toward a different and much grimmer version of Iraq. As Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group comments: "Iraq is moving in the direction of a failed state, with competing centers of power run by warlords and militias. The central government has no political control whatsoever beyond Baghdad, maybe not even beyond the Green Zone."

We used to say we wanted freedom and democracy. But these days, we'll settle for more warlords, more segregation and fewer bodies.

Don't get me wrong -- given our tragic early blunders in Iraq, and the diminishing likelihood that the Bush administration will launch a diplomatic surge to match the military surge, it may be that what we're getting is, in fact, the best that we or the Iraqis can hope for: a divided state in which squabbling groups are kept physically apart until, someday, they can manage to simply coexist. Sectarian segregation isn't ideal, but it beats genocide.

The wall-building impulse -- the impulse to separate groups that don't get along -- is a time-honored one, as familiar to grade-school teachers as it is to counterinsurgency experts. But it has always had a darker side. Historically, the same impulse brought us Indian reservations and apartheid-driven Bantustans. It gave us the Berlin Wall. At its most paranoid and extreme, it led to the Warsaw Ghetto and concentration camps.

"Good fences make good neighbors," insists Robert Frost's smug neighbor in "Mending Walls," a poem in which two men rebuild the broken stone wall that marks their rural property line. And maybe that's right. Frost wrote "Mending Wall" in 1915, as nationalism and ethnic rivalries tore Europe apart. But meditating on the wall-building impulse, Frost also imagined, superimposed on his stolid New England neighbor, a darker image:

I see him there,

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Iraq today also still moves in darkness. We should be glad of the lull in violence, but if stability in Iraq depends on miles of concrete walls and an indefinite U.S. occupation, that's not "victory." It's defeat.

From Walls around the Green Zone to Walls around the White House, Baghdad has become a city besieged by Sectarian Warlords and our tiny Army. Meanwhile, Americans tout successes for marginal decreases in levels of violence while mass graves continue to be uncovered - proof of the Civil War that has gone on for 3 years. A Civil War that our Generals back then, kept insisting wasn't happening.

The atrocities committed against the people of Iraq over the past five years may now have actually exceeded that which they endured under Saddam Hussein for decades. Hundreds of thousands killed in Civil War and Millions displaced within and outside of the country, suffering horrible conditions. The GoI has done nothing. And, they have done nothing because of the incompetence of our Generals and Statesmen. Corruption continues to feed the tribes and sects for a new phase of Civil War that is assuredly coming.

Lastly, our inept leaders continue to cause greater instability in the region. Turkey may well invade Kurdistan and Iran is now getting nuclear fuel from Russia. Excellent job Ms. Rice, Mr. Cheney and President Bush...~Luis

Iraqi, Coalition Soldiers Celebrate Christmas with Assyrian Christians in Kirkuk
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
By Staff Sgt. Margaret C. Nelson
Multi-National Division – North Public Affairs


A 5-year-old Iraqi girl gives a thumbs-up at the Assyrian Christian Christmas Party attended by the 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division and Coalition forces, Dec. 15 in Kirkuk. Soldiers with the 2414 Logistical Transition Team who are training the 2-4 IA logistics at Iraqi Army Base K-1 brought presents donated by employers, friends and family of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, members of the LTT team. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Margaret C. Nelson, 115th MPAD.KIRKUK — The 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army (IA) Division invited Coalition forces to a Christmas Party at an Assyrian Christian School in Kirkuk, Dec. 15.

With Christians representing approximately two percent of the population here, according to military officials, the theme of this year’s celebration was ‘Ethnic and Religious Diversity’.

“Kirkuk is a good place to be for Christians … a place where all ethnic groups, Arab, Kurd, Turkman and Christian, are living in peace,” said the priest of the Christian school. He also ministers to 2-4 IA Soldiers who operate from Iraqi Army Base K-1 in Kirkuk.

Both IA and Coalition Soldiers, with the 2414 Logistics Transition Team (LTT) at K-1, came armed with presents, which they passed out to the children who were clothed in various ethnic dress to represent the cultures that are striving to bring back some semblance of normality to this ethnically diverse area of northeastern Iraq.

“We want to live and work with our neighbors in harmony … as Iraqis,” Maj. Zyad Junaid Omar, 2-4 IA Civil Affairs (CA) officer, said. Zyad, whose father is an Arab and mother a Turkman, said that he invites Coalition Soldiers along to show Iraqis that, “Americans are good people that want to help.” He also wanted the Iraqi public to see how well the IA and Coalition wor