Sen. John McCain wants more troops in Iraq but Military opposes

According to the book Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks, the military had pushed for more troops at the outset of the Iraq war but was opposed by the neocons running the military such as Rummsfeld, Wolfowitz and others. But now when the climate has improved in Washington and McCain pushing for it the Military is opposing it. They now say that adding more would tell the Iraqi army that the Americans will protect them and they would take a back seat. The other roadblocks are that to enable more troops to be sent would mean calling up those that have returned or more National Guard troops. According to military information(pdf) there are 1.43M active soldiers of which 685k are from the Army and the Marines so why is there a problem sending more?

S0 if we buy the theory that the Iraqis need to be trained to take care of themselves why can’t we pull back our soldier from the streets and let them take over?

180 attacks a day in Iraq

The CIA Director, Michael Hayden and the DIA Director, Lt. gen Michael Maples testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. According to them attacks had gone up from 70 a day in January to 180 a day in October. It seems there is an incendiary mix of Iraq nationalists, ex-Baathists, former military, angry Sunnis, jihadists, foriegn fighters, and the Al Qaeda fighting each other and the Shia militias and the Kurd Peshmergas.

So where is the upside for why we are there in the middle?

Et Tu? Gen. Abizaid

Maybe I misunderstood General Abizaid’s comments but he came before the Senate Armed services committee and advised against setting a timetable to withdraw from Iraq but only made minor recommendations such as adding more U.S. advisors within the Iraq police forces and the miltary. So how does this stop American soldiers from getting killed or maimed on the streets of Iraq?

New administration honeymoon

I gave a week + honeymoon to see if the new Democratic leadership will say something intelligently and there does not seem evidence of it yet.

Rumsfeld says the U.S. does not know how to fight terrorists

In a speech at Kansas State University, for mer Defense sectretary Donald Rumsefled said the U.S. does not know how to control violent terrorists, “

“Quite honestly,” Rumsfeld said, “our country does not have experience attempting to impose control and our will over vicious, violent extremists that don’t have armies, don’t have navies, don’t have air forces, and operate in the shadows.”

In Iraq and Afghanistan, “insurgents fashion deadly IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and road bombs using propane tanks and garage-door openers,” Rumsfeld said. “Nations like Iran and Syria seek to undermine U.S. and allied interests by moving weapons and money and terrorists and insurgents. In the future, there could be attacks on computer networks, water supplies, communication systems.”

Which leads me to ask why he did not try to devise new strategies working with experts or even listening to others who have fought terrorists before? As noted by other conservatives, neocons are so arrogant that they think they know all the answers and any ideas coming from someone else has to be faulty. I hope that Rumsfeld’s leaving encourages other neocons in the Government to clean out their desks and go back to their extremist think tanks.

Changing of the guard in Washington – well some of them anyway

OK Nancy and Co, you got what you wanted, what are you going to do about the Iraq mess and all the money we borrowed? Remember there’s not a long honeymoon here. Make the same mistake as the last time around and your crowd will get to be the minority again.

In his Washpost opinion column William Arkin writes , “

A solid majority of voting Americans, according to both exit polls and the results, disapprove of the Iraq war and President Bush’s job performance, mostly due to his handling of national security.

The Democrats and the administration now need to work together to craft the safest possible withdrawal strategy”…more.

There are more Dems with a military background, such as, Retd. Vice Admiral Joe Sestak, Chris Carney, a Navy Reserve Intelligence officer and hopefully Jim Webb in the Senate to put some serious muscle in helping the Dems come up with an alternate plan and to be able to sell it.

I couldn’t help myself, I posted a comment in his blog,

“I hope the Dems take what you wrote to heart, they probably have a shorter shelf life than the Neocons who helped create this mess in Iraq and borrowing and spending more money like drunken sailors on shore leave.

I am with the couple of commenter who wrote calling the architects of the Iraq war to book, these people should be tried as war criminals. At a minimum they should never be allowed to work in Government again.

I also don’t have a whole lot of hope with the Dems, there’s probably only a hair’s breadth of difference between the two parties. I think its time for a third political party that works for all Americans instead of just the campaign donors, socially liberal, financially responsible and militarily less adventurous. Way way less adventurous.”

Even the Russians think its a civil war in Iraq

The Russian newspaper Pravda says that there is no doubt that Iraq is descending into civil war. The Sunni Arabs are being pushed out of the Kurd controlled North, out of even their stronghold areas of Central Iraq. They think there’s probably a refugee population of 300,000 to 400,000 Iraqis inside the country.

To add fuel to the fire of sectarian violence, mass murders occur daily incited by both sides, the Shiites and the Sunnis.

The only positive aspect according to Pravda is that a fascist regime under Saddam Hussein was removed from but at a continuing horrendous cost with the additional problem of opening the Pandora’s box of sectarian violence that Saddam’s secular regime had kept under control.

According to Pravda which puts the current scenario in historical context:

 ”This phenomenon can be partly explained with historical peculiarities of the Iraqi population which never became one single nation. The first Iraqi King Faysal said shortly before his death that there was no Iraqi nation, but just a group of human creatures deprived of all patriotic ideas, but filled with religious traditions and all kinds of absurdities, subjected to evil and anarchy. Sunnis have been suppressing their country-fellows, Shiites, and even their coreligionists, Kurds, for hundreds of years. When Hussein’s era came to its ends, the Shiites, which made up to 60 percent of the national population, decided that it was their time to take revenge for all troubles and tribulations. “

The above view is also shared by American experts on Iraq. It goes to show that the current U.S. administration under Bush and Co never paid attention to history in its “non plan” of the Post War in Iraq.

Back to the War, the election’s almost over

Regardless of which set of clowns win tomorrow the question still remains on how the war will be handled. Will the Prez. and his goons revert to the “stay the course” mumbo jumbo or if the Dems advance in the elections will it have any effect?

Sebastian Mallaby’s article in the WashPost brings up the thinking from academic experts on Civil wars. Their conclusions are not encouraging:

• Civil wars last longer than interstate wars, avg. of 10 years.
• We could take sides but neither one is palatable.
• Could hang on in Iraq and hope for a political compromise – but sectarian conflicts tend to rage on more than ideological ones.
• Each side is splintered into multiple groups with varying agendas so a negotiated settlement will not be trusted by all the parties.
•  Wars that end in negotiation tend to do so only after they have fought to a standstill. The Iraqis are currently at the dress rehearsal stage, the Americans are not allowing play to open.

So to get to a peace settlement the warring parties will have to fight it out and expend their options.

This is a nightmare scenario considering our civilian leadership’s stubbornness in sticking to “staying the course.”

What is it that they know to be so certain about their policies that contradicts all the best minds in the serving military, the retired generals and thinkers and other experts outside the military and government? I think that they are in way over their heads, but in their arrogance and stubbornness think that a policy change shows that they are weak and uncertain.

Army Times “Time for Rumsfeld to go”

The Army Times editorial says that “Rumsfeld must go”

” This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth: Donald Rumsfeld must go.”

In essence the editorial says that the political leadership is saying things are going well but the Army leadership and the rank and file in Iraq say something else entirely. While a few retired generals had started speaking out the serving military had kept their misgivings to themselves following a long tradition of deference to civilian leadership. However that has now changed with more of them speaking up about the failure of the policies on the ground. The feeling in the military is that Iraq is inexorably heading towards sectarian violence and the training of the police and the Iraqi armed forces are failing because of a lack of national identity, show up only for the salary and cannot be depended upon to show up for duty. the Army Times thinks that the Defense secretary has lost control of his department and the confidence of his soldiers and therefore must go. Well, its about time.

Regional players are trying to help in Iraq

The possibility of a fallout if Iraq disintegrates have made neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia to call for a peace conference under the aegis of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Mecca on Oct. 19th. The four Shiite and Sunni clerics who signed the 10 point Mecca Charter called for a halt to the sectarian violence, defending the unity of Iraq etc.

This apparently was supported by the powers that be among the Islamic leadership in Iraq including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Moqtada al -Sadr.

Abdulaziz Sager, Chairman of the Dubai based Gulf Research Center said in The Daily Star that there are three main players responsible for the ongoing violence in Iraq, armed militias, the U.S. Military and the Iraqi army, and the criminal and terrorist groups. His analysis is that without decommissioning these militias and disarming or ridding the criminal class the problem of stopping the sectarian violence will remain elusive.