| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
12 Sep 2006 10:14:30 PM |
| Object: |
US intel: Iraq's Anbar 'politically lost' |
US intel report: Iraq's Anbar province 'politically lost'
Chief Marine analyst says region's political vacuum being filled by Al
Qaeda.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
In a report that some have said is the most negative yet filed by a
senior military officer in Iraq, the chief of intelligence for the US
Marine Corps in Iraq concluded that the possibilities of the US and
Iraqi governments securing the troubled western Iraqi province of Anbar
are remote.
The Washington Post reports that Col. Pete Devlin's assessment, written
in mid-August, also says that "there is almost nothing the US military
can do to improve the political and social situation there."
One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province,
"We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated
politically – and that's where wars are won and lost." The "very
pessimistic" statement, as one Marine officer called it, was dated Aug.
16 and sent to Washington shortly after that, and has been discussed
across the Pentagon and elsewhere in national security circles. "I don't
know if it is a shock wave, but it's made people uncomfortable," said a
Defense Department official who has read the report. ...
Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government
institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the
insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most
significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the
report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar
as beyond repair; a third said it concludes that the United States has
lost in Anbar.
The Post reports that Colonel Devlin offers several reasons for this
situation: a lack of US and Iraqi troops in the province, the collapse
of local governments, and a weak central government with almost no
presence in the region.
News of Devlin's comments about Iraq come only a few days after the
Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor said it was impossible to
militarily eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO military leaders
there also complained about a lack of troops to fight that country's
growing insurgency. The Times of London also reports that one of
Britain's top soldiers in Afghanistan quit the Army last month because
he was so frustrated with the situation in that country. Captain Leo
Docherty of the Scots Guards said the campaign in the southern province
of Helmand province has become "a textbook case of how to [mess up] a
counter-insurgency".
In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani
journalist and the author of "Taliban" and "Jihad: The Rise of Militant
Islam in Central Asia," writes that "the tactics and strategy of Islamic
extremists fighting US or NATO forces have improved dramatically." Al
Qaeda and its allies are "winning by not losing."
If this is indeed a long war, as the Bush administration says, then
the United States has almost certainly lost the first phase. Guerrillas
are learning faster than Western armies, and the West makes appalling
strategic mistakes while the extremists make brilliant tactical moves.
As Al Qaeda and its allies prepare to spread their global jihad to
Central Asia, the Caucasus and other parts of the Middle East, they will
carry with them the accumulated experience and lessons of the past five
years. The West and its regional allies are not prepared to match them.
In an interview with Tim Russert on NBC's Meet the Press, US Vice
President ***** Cheney painted a more optimistic picture of what was
happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. Vice President Cheney said that
adversaries of the US cannot beat it in a "stand-up fight," but were
trying to see if they could "break the will" of the American people.
Cheney also hinted that people who questioned the Bush administration's
strategy on the war on terror actually "validate the strategy of the
terrorists."
In the Meet the Press interview, Cheney did admit that he had been wrong
when he said the insurgency was in its "final throes" last year, but
defended the decision to invade Iraq. Cheney repeated his often
expressed point that there was a "decade long" connection between former
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
However, Bloomberg News reports that on Friday the Senate Intelligence
Committee released a report that said there was no evidence of any kind
of a connection between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda, and that Hussein
"didn't trust Al Qaeda and refused to support it."
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic
extremists as a threat to his regime,'' one of the reports said. Hussein
refused all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational
support, said the report issued in Washington today by the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
A second committee report said that Iraq Deputy Prime Minister
Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress told US officials that
Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, information that
later proved inaccurate.
Vice President Cheney said Sunday he has not yet read the Senate report.
.
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| User: "Hatto von Aquitanien" |
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| Title: Re: US intel: Iraq's Anbar 'politically lost' |
12 Sep 2006 10:32:26 PM |
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PagCal wrote:
US intel report: Iraq's Anbar province 'politically lost'
Chief Marine analyst says region's political vacuum being filled by Al
Qaeda.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
In a report that some have said is the most negative yet filed by a
senior military officer in Iraq, the chief of intelligence for the US
Marine Corps in Iraq concluded that the possibilities of the US and
Iraqi governments securing the troubled western Iraqi province of Anbar
are remote.
Al Qaeda is sponsored by the CIA. Everything is going as planned. The
objective is to destabilize the region to justify even more military
presence. It's even been rumored (long before Operation Iraqi Liberation -
OIL) that there is a plan for mass genocide in the works. If you see
mushroom clouds rising over Iran in the next few months or years, it was
planned long in advance.
--
Nil conscire sibi
.
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