The Bush administration has begun a full-court press for continuing the Iraq war with exaggerated and fabricated claims of progress in Iraq. But the Center for American Progress throws cold water on those current and forthcoming claims with a thoughtful series of statistics and questions for Congress when the administration releases its ballyhooed report by Gen. David Petraeus next week.
Some sample questions, and what we know now:
Here are the questions Congress should ask Gen. Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker:1. Is violence in Iraq down?
Overall civilian deaths in all of Iraq have risen.
The number of civilian deaths increased to 1,809 in August from 1,760 in July.
The number of car bombings in July was 5 percent higher than in December 2006.
May was the deadliest month in 2007, with 1,901 civilian deaths in comparison to 2,172 in December of 2006.2. Have sectarian deaths in Iraq been significantly reduced?
The Pentagon's own numbers do not include Shi'a-on-Shi'a violence, Sunni-on-Sunni violence, car bombings, or people being shot in the head from in front. For example, the Pentagon does not consider large-scale bombings such as the bombing in northern Iraq last month that killed more than 500 ethnic Yezidis an example of sectarian violence.
3. Is a possible drop in violence in Baghdad the result of the surge or some other factor?
The recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq indicates that some of the reduced violence may be a product of population displacements and sectarian cleansing.
U.S. officials report that Baghdad had a 65 percent Sunni-majority population around the start of the war. It is now a 75 percent Shi'a-majority city.The number of internally displaced persons has doubled to 1.1 million, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent. This includes nearly 200,000 in Baghdad alone.
More than half of all Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shi'a-dominated as compared to "a couple" in February 2006.
4. Are U.S. military casualties down?
Every month in 2007 has seen more U.S. military casualties than the same month in 2006.
Will Congress ask tough questions and stand up to Bush's unending, hopeless war in Iraq? Unfortunately, that's not likely, with Democrats seeming all-too-willing to abandon their previous interest in setting firm deadlines for withdrawal when faced with near-unanimous GOP opposition.
in Anbar to be 'on our side'. Of course!
Why didn't we think of this earlier?
Next time, we should just carpet bomb our
enemy (whoever) with huge wads of $CASH$.
It would be cheaper for US & a far more
pleasant experience for all concerned.
to concern themselves more with Al Qaida then
with Shia, which is a type of progress & is
a hopeful sign."
Maybe but it has nothing to do with the surge. As someone else explained elsewhere, what the US did in Anbar was basically switch sides. We had been fighting Suunis and now we are arming them. The central government in Baghdad, whom we support 100%, is not pleased with us arming Suunis. And it surely does nothing to foster reconciliation between Suuni and Shia.
Any comment from Petraeus or Crocker about casualties should be followed by a question about the state of political reconciliation in Iraq. The number of casualties is a purely diversion. And it's a point the Administration will win, not the Senate.
The whole point of the surge was to enable political reconciliation. To the extent reconciliation has begun, the surge can be judged, but only in those terms. That's how the Senate should treat Petraeus and Crocker.
I think this is correct, as far as it goes.
All we know is that in Anbar, Sunni have started
to concern themselves more with Al Qaida then
with Shia, which is a type of progress & is
a hopeful sign.
However, what needs to happen in Iraq is for
the development of a significant 'spirit of
generosity' among the 3 factions (Kurd, Shia & Sunni).
Can we afford, literally, to stay around until that
is established?
If the situation is seen to be like Northern
Ireland, we should remember that the British
had an ethnic stake in the outcome there, which
we do not in Iraq. Yes, we essentially created
the instability that now pervades the place,
but that does NOT mean we will stay around
INDEFINITELY until it's fixed.
If we break something, & then we fix it, &
then they break it again, it's no longer our
responsibility, to put it on very simple terms.
However, we should also remember that a political solution is not going to spontaneously materialize as a result of the various Iraqi factions miraculously coming together to work out their political differences - that's just not a real world scenario.
A political solution in Iraq is going to require strong and competent US leadership of the kind that could initiate a muscular diplomatic offensive resulting in a process involving intense negotiations between all warring Iraqi factions and that would bring in the regional and major powers to support and secure any power-sharing arrangement that is achieved.
Of course, absent a successful process like this, a complete withdrawal of US forces and civilians - including all Iraqi civilians who have assisted coalition forces - will be the only option, with a plan for containment of the resulting chaos to within Iraq's borders, in an effort to prevent an unpredictable regional conflagration, the order of the day.
This, by the way, is Senator Biden's Iraq strategy...in a nutshell!
And, we’ll all be able to witness the kind of leadership that will be required to stabilize Iraq when Senator Biden chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week that will hear testimony from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. Senator Biden has been in Iraq for the last few days and he will be back just in time to grill them both, armed with the real goods on what is the current state of Iraq policy.
The purpose of the surge, ostensibly, was to buy some time for everyone to focus on the political track and start working towards the achievement of a sustainable political solution...whatever...
However, regardless of whether or not the "surge" was ever capable of accomplishing this "breathing space", there has been NO real political progress as a direct result of the inept and otherwise incompetent Bush administration and foreign policy team.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been some limited military progress as a result of a modest influx of more US forces into specific problem areas in Iraq.
And so, the tough questions are these...
What is the point of any limited military success if there is no sign of real political progress and no reasonable hope that the Bush administration will gain the competence and leadership that will be required to facilitate a diplomatic process that would offer the hope of achieving even a modicum of progress toward a sustainable political settlement in Iraq?
Absent any real progress on the political front, and if you believe the current US Iraq policy should be continued, then to what end? What is the endgame of the President's Iraq policy and how, EXACTLY, does the "surge" get us there?
Given the situation on the ground in Iraq, with much of the country now in the grip of vicious intra-sectarian and tribal struggles for power and control of resources, has time run out for political progress or could the implementation of the right diplomatic strategy, in conjunction with a substantial redeployment of US forces and change of mission, be successful?
Fortunately, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and next POTUS, who is currently in Iraq, will undoubtedly ask these tough questions and many more - and the longer it takes Senator Biden to ask the questions, the better for many Americans who will be watching because their learning curve will make a steep upward climb...if they bother to pay attention!
I've written my senators and told them they can forget about my vote and my donations if they don't vote to withhold money to continue this occupation of Iraq. Not one more dime for this war for oil in Iraq!
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hiyt2PL4_XAIbBySMTdSciDGW3Jw
Also, a somewhat insightful conversation by e-mail with the Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/09/07/qa_with_general_david_petraeus/?page=full
he can write (edit, maybe?) the Army's counter
insurgency manual, but he can't write the one
report that he was 'asked' to write, about the
Surge. What's up with that? Did it get 'tweaked'
right out of existence?
Well, General Custer didn't write a report either,
in case you didn't know, 'cause he was just too busy.
A couple of things the Army brass learned from Vietnam:
how to count/not-count bodies,
how to make statistics work for you.
So, the next chapter unfolds in the on-going marketing
campaign titled 'Spin It Til We Win It'.