More and more, the Shrub regime's management of Iraq is looking
like a carbon copy of Enron: the clowns at the top are pocketing
huge amounts of cash as they run/ruin the company, they paint a
rosy picture while those on the inside know the business is
decaying from within.
In the item:
Vice President ***** Cheney, on the CBS News program "Face
the Nation," suggested last month that the administration's
positive views were a better reflection of the conditions
in Iraq than news media reports.
Oh really?
In a color-coded map included in the report, the province
of Anbar, the wide swath of western desert that is the
heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, is depicted in red, for
"critical." The six provinces categorized as "serious" -
Basra, Baghdad, Diyala and three others to the north - are
orange. Eight provinces deemed "moderate" are in yellow,
and the three Kurdish provinces are depicted in green, for
"stable."
[...]
The most surprising assessments are perhaps those of the
nine southern provinces, none of which are rated "stable."
The Bush administration often highlights the relative lack
of violence in those regions.
Three out of 18 are stable. That's a .1666 average; no wonder
the arabs call the US the "great satan".
Sooner or later, the US - not just Iraq - is bound to collapse,
and the shareholders - in this case, the US public - will have
to pay the bill coming due, a bill for which they received no
benefit whatsoever but still have to pay.
Bob Dog
-----
"Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community
is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological
design. We don't have such a theory right now, and
that's a real problem. Without a theory, it's very
hard to know where to direct your research focus."
- Paul Nelson, creationist
and anti-science advocate
"Maybe he needs a new version of the Ten Commandments
-- George W. Bush's Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt not steal...votes.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's...country.
Thou shalt not kill...for oil.
Thou shalt not take grammar...in vain."
- Margaret Cho
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April 9, 2006
U.S. Study Paints Somber Portrait of Iraqi Discord
By ERIC SCHMITT
and EDWARD WONG
WASHINGTON, April 8 - An internal staff report by the United
States Embassy and the military command in Baghdad provides a
sobering province-by-province snapshot of Iraq's political,
economic and security situation, rating the overall stability of
6 of the 18 provinces "serious" and one "critical." The report
is a counterpoint to some recent upbeat public statements by top
American politicians and military officials.
The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial
Stability Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of
the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many
regions, even in those provinces generally described as
nonviolent by American officials.
There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed
religious Shiite parties, several of which the United States
helped put into power, and rival militias in the south. The
authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north
as a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in
Mosul, where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields
are critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.
The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic
and religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the
country, even as monthly American fatalities have fallen. Those
indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from
mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, show that Iraq is undergoing a de
facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines, with
clashes - sometimes political, sometimes violent - taking place
in those mixed areas where different groups meet.
The report, the first of its kind, was written over a six-week
period by a joint civilian and military group in Baghdad that
wanted to provide a baseline assessment for conditions that new
reconstruction teams would face as they were deployed to the
provinces, said Daniel Speckhard, an American ambassador in
Baghdad who oversees reconstruction efforts.
The writers included officials from the American Embassy's
political branch, reconstruction agencies and the American
military command in Baghdad, Mr. Speckhard said. The authors
also received information from State Department officers in the
provinces, he said.
The report was part of a periodic briefing on Iraq that the
State Department provides to Congress, and has been shown to
officials on Capitol Hill, including those involved in budgeting
for the reconstruction teams. It is not clear how many top
American officials have seen it; the report has not circulated
widely at the Defense Department or the National Security
Council, spokesmen there said.
A copy of the report, which is not classified, was provided to
The New York Times by a government official in Washington who
said the confidential assessment provided a more realistic gauge
of stability in Iraq than the recent portrayals by senior
military officers. It is dated Jan. 31, 2006, three weeks before
the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, which set off
reprisals that killed hundreds of Iraqis. Recent updates to the
report are minor and leave its conclusions virtually unchanged,
Mr. Speckhard said.
The general tenor of the Bush administration's comments on Iraq
has been optimistic. On Thursday, President Bush argued in a
speech that his strategy was working despite rising violence in
Iraq.
Vice President ***** Cheney, on the CBS News program "Face the
Nation," suggested last month that the administration's positive
views were a better reflection of the conditions in Iraq than
news media reports.
"I think it has less to do with the statements we've made, which
I think were basically accurate and reflect reality," Mr. Cheney
said, "than it does with the fact that there's a constant sort
of perception, if you will, that's created because what's
newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."
In their public comments, the White House and the Pentagon have
used daily attack statistics as a measure of stability in the
provinces. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior military spokesman in
Baghdad, told reporters recently that 12 of 18 provinces
experienced "less than two attacks a day."
Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on March 5 that the war
in Iraq was "going very, very well," although a few days later,
he acknowledged serious difficulties.
In recent interviews and speeches, some administration officials
have begun to lay out the deep-rooted problems plaguing the
American enterprise here. At the forefront has been Zalmay
Khalilzad, the American ambassador, who has said the invasion
opened a "Pandora's box" and, on Friday, warned that a civil war
here could engulf the entire Middle East.
On Saturday, Mr. Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the
senior military commander in Iraq, issued a statement praising
some of the political and security goals achieved in the last
three years, but also cautioning that "despite much progress,
much work remains."
Mr. Speckhard, the ambassador overseeing reconstruction, said
the report was not as dire as its assessments might suggest.
"Really, this shows there's one province that continues to be a
major challenge," he said. "There are a number of others that
have significant work to do in them. And there are other parts
of the country that are doing much better."
But the report's capsule summaries of each province offer some
surprisingly gloomy news. The report's formula for rating
stability takes into account governing, security and economic
issues. The oil-rich Basra Province, where British troops have
patrolled in relative calm for most of the last three years, is
now rated as "serious."
The report defines "serious" as having "a government that is not
fully formed or cannot serve the needs of its residents;
economic development that is stagnant with high unemployment,
and a security situation marked by routine violence,
assassinations and extremism."
British fatalities have been on the rise in Basra in recent
months, with attacks attributed to Shiite insurgents. There is a
"high level of militia activity including infiltration of local
security forces," the report says. "Smuggling and criminal
activity continues unabated. Intimidation attacks and
assassination are common."
The report states that economic development in the region, long
one of the poorest in Iraq, is "hindered by weak government."
The city of Basra has widely been reported as devolving into a
mini-theocracy, with government and security officials beholden
to Shiite religious leaders, enforcing bans on alcohol and
mandating head scarves for women. Police cars and checkpoints
are often decorated with posters or stickers of Moktada al-Sadr,
the rebellious cleric, or Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a cleric whose
party is very close to Iran. Both men have formidable militias.
Mr. Hakim's party controls the provincial councils of eight of
the nine southern provinces, as well as the council in Baghdad.
In a color-coded map included in the report, the province of
Anbar, the wide swath of western desert that is the heart of the
Sunni Arab insurgency, is depicted in red, for "critical." The
six provinces categorized as "serious" - Basra, Baghdad, Diyala
and three others to the north - are orange. Eight provinces
deemed "moderate" are in yellow, and the three Kurdish provinces
are depicted in green, for "stable."
The "critical" security designation, the report says, means a
province has "a government that is not functioning" or that is
only "represented by a single strong leader"; "an economy that
does have the infrastructure or government leadership to develop
and is a significant contributor to instability"; and "a
security situation marked by high levels of AIF [anti-Iraq
forces] activity, assassinations and extremism."
The most surprising assessments are perhaps those of the nine
southern provinces, none of which are rated "stable." The Bush
administration often highlights the relative lack of violence in
those regions.
For example, the report rates as "moderate" the two provinces at
the heart of Shiite religious power, Najaf and Karbala, and
points to the growing Iranian political presence there. In Najaf,
"Iranian influence on provincial government of concern," the
report says. Both the governor and former governor of Najaf are
officials in Mr. Hakim's religious party, founded in Iran in the
early 1980's. The report also notes that "there is growing
tension between Mahdi Militia and Badr Corps that could
escalate" - referring to the private armies of Mr. Sadr and Mr.
Hakim, which have clashed before.
The report does highlight two bright spots for Najaf. The
provincial government is able to maintain stability for the
province and provide for the people's needs, it says, and
religious tourism offers potential for economic growth.
But insurgents still manage to occasionally penetrate the tight
ring of security. A car bomb exploded Thursday near the golden-
domed Imam Ali Shrine, killing at least 10 people and wounding
dozens.
Immediately to the north, Babil Province, an important strategic
area abutting Baghdad, also has "strong Iranian influence
apparent within council," the report says. There is "ethnic
conflict in north Babil," and "crime is a major factor within
the province." In addition, "unemployment remains high."
Throughout the war, American commanders have repeatedly tried to
pacify northern Babil, a farming area with a virulent Sunni Arab
insurgency, but they have had little success. In southern Babil,
the new threat is Shiite militiamen who are pushing up from
Shiite strongholds like Najaf and Karbala and beginning to
develop rivalries among themselves.
Gen. Qais Hamza al-Maamony, the commander of Babil's 8,000-
member police force, said his officers were not ready yet to
intervene between warring militias, should it come to that, as
many fear. "They would be too frightened to get into the middle,"
he said in an interview.
If the American troops left Babil, he said, "the next day would
be civil war."
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and
Edward Wong from Baghdad. Jeffrey Gettleman contributed
reporting from Hilla, Iraq, and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi from
Baghdad.
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