Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq: A Der Spiegel Special.

[California Tanker]

Baghdad Babylon: Hope and Despair in Divided Iraq - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,499154,00.html)

You'll want to set aside about 20 minutes to read this one. It's an eight-page report.

In addition to the usual German Bush-Bashing, you'll also find snippets like
Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe

NTM

[But]

So in about twenty years and using another couple trillion dollars, we'll have this cracked!

[Clutch Munny]

Thanks; it's an interesting story in some of its details. The overall gist, though, isn't entirely clear to me.

The world has become deaf to the word "peace" -- at least when conversations turn to Iraq. It is as if the world were blind to the possibility that the situation in this country straddling the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers could be anything different from the constant stream of increasingly devastating films of the latest car bombings. For most people, Iraq has become nothing but a series of attacks, a collection of images of bombings and victims, a tale of failure, a book about historical guilt and a symbol of the moral decline of the United States of America.

But the real story in Iraq cannot be summed up in short news clips and quick, shaky television images. Body counts and names of the dead tell only part of the story of Iraq today. Research for this story took me on a three-week journey throughout the country, my fourth trip to Iraq in as many years. Under the protection of the US military, it led us to the northern city of Mosul and its suburbs, to Ramadi and to Baghdad. The military did not choose our destinations, SPIEGEL did. Apart from a few technical and strategic details, nothing was censored.

The trip included nighttime helicopter flights across villages and cities, journeys in Humvees through landscapes of burned-out buildings, rides in an armored personnel carrier through war zones and walks through both enemy territory and peaceful markets. This kind of travel is the only way for a Western journalist to work in Iraq. Without a military escort, reporting can only take place from afar, from the relative safety of well-guarded hotel rooms.

I'm not sure how to read that. It looks like the reporters are contending that the image of a dangerous, resentful, violent Iraq is overblown; and we can trust their conclusion, because it was reportedly independently -- the only reliance on the military being the absolutely essential ones, given how dangerous, resentful and violent Iraq is.

The key contention seems to be that parts of Iraq are fairly peaceful (at any given time, one might add -- not necessarily the same parts from month to month!). I'm sure there are people who are unaware of this, though I've never talked with any personally. And I certainly don't see how any of my attitudes toward the invasion and occupation of Iraq (and the related debasement of democratic processes, civil rights, public discourse and international law) are premised on the idea of a uniformly violent Iraq.

The writers also seem curiously naive in some respects. For example, they write:

[Petraeus's] message will be straightforward. He'll tell Congress he needs more time and he will describe the situation in much the same way he describes it in the interview: "The situation is not satisfactory, but there is reason for hope."

This doesn't sound like much, but in order to even be able to utter this sentence, Petraeus had to send his troops back into battle.

Good grief. Because if he was just uttering that sentence because that's the sort of sentence he was selected to utter -- over a range of other senior officers who have been ret/f/ired for showing less willingness to sing the praises of Admin strategy -- then, what? The Office of Truth and Accuracy in Iraq Press Releases would step in and slap his hands?

[Clutch Munny]

In addition to the usual German Bush-Bashing, you'll also find snippets like
Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe

NTM

Steady, now. Let's not help ourselves to the suggestion that the critical comments can be written off because they're Germans, after all, while the positive sentences are signs of good judgement and keen insight.

[Watser?]

I never had any doubts that parts of Iraq are peaceful (although as Clutch says, not necessarily the same parts all the time). I don't think that is very unusual either, in any war there are areas that are calm and lulls in the fighting. The point is though: is there hope for progress?
There was an op-ed in the NYT today (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) written by a number of sergeants and a specialist, that makes this point too: The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins.

...

Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.
There is no future in arming Iraqis when they can not be relied upon not to use these weapons against other militias or Iraqi government troops or even the US army. Likewise there is no victory in recruiting a police and army that can't be relied upon to work for the Iraqi government rather than for militias or political parties.
This policy may bring security to a certain area for a certain time but could lead to more violence in the end. Ultimately the Iraqis will have to find a political solution and this will only make that harder.

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

[Adam]

I'm trying to read it at work, in between actual work. It's an interesting read so far (about halfway through) but, echoing Clutch, not really anything I find surprising. If anything, it reinforces what I'd read in the past about the situation. One quibble:

In January, death squads executed, murdered or tortured 1,800 Iraqis to death...In June, 600 people were killed for the same reasons -- a number that is still atrocious, unacceptable and horrific -- but at least it represents a decline. And while these numbers are still disappointing, they do give reason for hope.

While the numbers themselves may be accurate*, they're misleading. Violence in Iraq has dropped off during the summer months every year since we've been there, and this June was more deadly than last June.

*I also can't find any confirmation for the 600 killed in June number...the linked source (below) claims 1345 (they report 1802 for January, matching Der Spiegel). Perhaps the article is only counting those killed for the "same reasons" (religious differences)?

details (http://icasualties.org/oif/)

And one thing that made me say 'huh?':

Between 40 and 50 men dressed in light uniforms were armed like soldiers and prepared to commit a series of suicide bombings. They had already strapped explosive vests to their bodies and loaded thousands of kilograms of explosives, missiles and grenades onto two old Mercedes trucks...Army Units of the 1st Battalion of the 77th United States Armored Regiment -- nicknamed the "Steel Tigers" and sent from an American base in Schweinfurt, Germany -- approached from the north and south. But the enemy was strong and they quickly realized that in order to defeat it, they needed air support. Before long, Apache combat helicopters, F-18 Hornet and AV-8 Harrier jets approached...

The "enemy", consisting of 40 to 50 men with explosives in a couple of old trucks, was so "strong" that multiple US Army units required overwhelming air support in order to defeat them?

I'm not criticizing the Army, btw, just the overdramatic way the encounter is reported here.

[California Tanker]

The "enemy", consisting of 40 to 50 men with explosives in a couple of old trucks, was so "strong" that multiple US Army units required overwhelming air support in order to defeat them?

Conventional wisdom requires a 3:1 advantage in numbers when attacking in order to win. On the one hand, the fact that the opposition probably isn't a conventionally trained force reduces this requirement drastically. On the other hand, urban operations are highly notorious for sucking up manpower. A platoon of 30 guys in conventional fighting could feasibly be a fight for a full mechanised battalion (and such happens in training exercises).

Combine this with the very casualty-averse attitude: "Why risk our lives barging down a door or walking around a corner to get a shot when we could just get an airplane to blow it up.. we can wait a minute or three for them to show up" and you see why if given the choice, I'd call in a helicopter as well. Indeed, I did so on several occasions, even though I had my tank at my disposal, although mainly it was for the extra set of eyes: I didn't want someone hiding around the building from me sneaking around and popping an RPG into my posterior!

NTM

[Freddy]

According to this article the US will not have enough troops to support the surge in 2008 without breaking promises to the troops. Over 4 years and no end in sight. US ground troops (Marines) landed at Da Nang, South Vietnam in March 8, 1965 peaking at over 500,000 and the last did not leave until August 1972. Any parallels to Iraq seen?

From the article:

"The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

--Using National Guard units on an accelerated schedule.

--Breaking the military's pledge to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

--Breaching a commitment to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable."

Army too stretched if Iraq buildup lasts - Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/19/extending_iraq_buildup_would_be_tough/)