Iraq raid dispute threatens to draw US into sectarian conflict
Mr. Arkin notes that the fact that the forward deployment of US materials in the region greatly influenced the US decision to go to war in Iraq because "Who wanted to send everyone home and start all over with negotiations and access and networks when the capability to accommodate US ground forces was in place and relatively "hot"?"
This is an interesting comment by Arkin, we follow our supplies into battle. If true we will be also fighting in Central Asia which may mean China.
as well as the establishment of two new storage hubs, one in a classified Middle Eastern country “west” of Saudi Arabia and the other in a yet to be decided “Central Asian state.” #msg-10358352
-Am
Differing accounts of raid come a few days after Pentagon announces investigation into other US attacks.
By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
posted March 28, 2006 at 12:40 p.m.
As relations between US authorities and Shiite leaders in Iraq have gotten increasingly rocky , Shiite officials have suspended negotiations over a new government, The New York Times reports. The reason for the rift is an outburst of bitterness and mistrust after a hotly-disputed joint Iraqi-US raid on a compound that resulted in the deaths of at least 16 Iraqis, many of whom were followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
On one hand, The Washington Post reports that US Lt. Col. Sean Swindell, whose unit participated in the raid, said it was led by Iraqi soldiers and targeted an insurgent group at a compound in northern Baghdad.
Reuters reported that US officials accused "powerful Shiite groups" of moving the bodies of dead gunmen killed in battle into a mosque to make it look like a massacre of peaceful worshippers.
But on the other hand, the Post story quotes Shiite officials, and Baghdad residents who lived near the raid say that US and Iraqi troops targeted a Shiite mosque and gunned down innocent worshipers in the half-light of evening prayers. As the suspension of government talks indicates, the raid has created a precarious situation for the US presence in Iraq. Agence France-Presse reports in a Truthout translation of the French newspaper Le Figaro that several key Shiite officials have said they will cease cooperating with US military officials. The governor of Baghdad, Hussein al-Tahan, said he would "cease all political and logistical cooperation with American forces," and said that the United States embassy and the Iraqi Defense Ministry should conduct an investigation, "but not the American military." The Iraqi interior minister called the event an "unjustified aggression against the faithful as they prayed in a mosque."
Knight Ridder reported Monday that Shiite leaders also accused the US of conducting the raid so it could "distance itself" from the sect, because the Americans "feared that Iraq would be controlled exclusively by Shiites, rather than shared with the Sunnis."
Shiites represent 60 percent of Iraq's population and won a near-majority of seats in the parliament. A widespread loss of support from the Shiites could make Iraq almost impossible to govern and could put U.S. forces stationed in Iraq in a precarious position. The Associated Press reports that the Shiite anger over the raid will make it difficult for US military forces to "steer clear of getting trapped in the middle as civil warfare heats up in Iraq." “Whenever it happens, it's Iraq's problem and Iraqis have to take care of it,” Brig. Gen. Douglas Raaberg told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “Rushing in there isn't the answer.” Raaberg, deputy chief of operations for the US Central Command, said American forces would help only with measures such as sealing Iraq's borders and assisting Iraqi government troops in enforcing curfews. But handling such conflict on its own would be a tall order for an Iraqi force that Washington acknowledges is not ready to deal solely with Sunni insurgents – much less respond to a more complex and wider civil war. That makes it unlikely that the Americans could stand in the shadows.
Conflict over the raid comes only a week after another disputed situation: according to the Sunday Times, a raid by US troops in the village of Abu Sifa on March 15 resulted in the deaths of 11 people, including "four women and five children aged between six months and five years."
Iraqi police originally said on Sunday that the 11 people had been "executed" with a shot to the head, but a partial version of the police report viewed by Knight Ridder said the bodies had multiple gunshot wounds, which would indicate a firefight.
Questions about the incident focus on diverging U.S. military and Iraqi police accounts of the raid, which happened around 2:30 a.m. on March 15 on a house about 60 miles north of Baghdad. Both sides and neighbors agree that US troops were involved in a firefight with a suspected member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. But the US account gave the death toll as four and said the house collapsed from the heavy fire it took during the fighting. The Al Qaeda suspect was found alive in the rubble and arrested, the US report on the incident said. Iraqi police, however, contend that US troops gathered 11 people in the house into a single room and executed them, before destroying the house as they left the area.
Last week, Time magazine published a 10-week investigation into another incident in Haditha, Iraq last Nov. 19. A roadside bomb killed a US marine who was travelling in a Humvee. A report from the US military the next day reported that 15 Iraqis were also killed by the explosion. But the Time investigation revealed that local officials and eyewitness say the dead marine's comrades went on a "shooting rampage" after the explosion, killing the 15 people in their homes, including seven women and three children. In January, after TIME presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis' accounts of the Marines' actions, the US opened its own investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of the victims and local doctors. According to military officials, the inquiry acknowledged that, contrary to the military's initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), which will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war by deliberately targeting civilians. Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force--Iraq, told TIME the involvement of the NCIS does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who "placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves." The Sunday Times piece quoted above also reported that the Pentagon says it has investigated 600 reports of abuse by US solders in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disciplined 230 soldiers for improper behavior. But a study by three New York-based human rights groups, due to be published next month, will claim that most soldiers found guilty of abuse received only “administrative” discipline such as loss of rank or pay, confinement to base or periods of extra duty. Of the 76 courts martial that the Pentagon is believed to have initiated, only a handful are known to have resulted in jail sentences of more than a year — notably including the architects of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. As the situation for US troops becomes more precarious in Iraq, William Arkin of the Washington Post reported last week that the US military has developed a 10-year plan for "deep storage" of "munitions and equipment in at least six countries in the Middle East and Central Asia to prepare for regional war contingencies." As one looks at the US military presence in the region today, the only real wild card is Iraq. Clearly, the pre-positioning contract indicates the plans of the United States to shift heavy material and supplies out of the country in the long-run. While planning for an Iran war doesn't hinge on Iraqi bases or access, clearly a friendly government to the United States and the prospects for "episodic" operations from Iraq changes the calculus of any war. It may also explain the "deterrent" or coercive effect accrued to the United States government in not making it clear what its long-term plans are in the country. Mr. Arkin notes that the fact that the forward deployment of US materials in the region greatly influenced the US decision to go to war in Iraq because "Who wanted to send everyone home and start all over with negotiations and access and networks when the capability to accommodate US ground forces was in place and relatively "hot"?"
US and UK forces establish 'enduring bases' in Iraq
"After every US military intervention since 1990 the Pentagon has left behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a foothold. The new string of bases stretch from Kosovo and adjacent Balkan states, to Iraq and other Persian Gulf states, into Afghanistan and other central Asian states ... The only two obstacles to a geographically contiguous US sphere of influence are Iran and Syria."
-Am
Despite talk of withdrawal 'when the job is done', there are signs that coalition troops will be there for the long term
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington Published: 02 April 2006 The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq - raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases.
Almost ever since President Bush claimed an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq on 1 May 2003, debate has focused on how quickly troops could be withdrawn. The US and British governments say troops will remain in Iraq "until the job is done". Yet while the withdrawal of a substantial number of troops remains an aim, it has become increasingly clear that the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are preparing to retain some forces in Iraq for the longer term. The US currently has around 130,000 troops in Iraq; Britain has 8,000.
Major Joseph Breasseale, a senior spokesman for the coalition forces' headquarters in Iraq, told The Independent on Sunday: "The current plan is to reduce the coalition footprint into six consolidation bases - four of which are US. As we move in that direction, some other bases will have to grow to facilitate the closure [or] transfer of smaller bases."
He added: "Right now, I don't have any information that tells me which nationality will comprise the remaining two bases, though my assumption is that at least one will be run by the Brits." An MoD spokesperson said British forces were currently operating out of eight bases in southern Iraq, with a small contingent based in Baghdad, and that "discussions with coalition forces relating to future basing are still at a very early stage. Nothing has been agreed."
The official added: "We have no intention of remaining, or indeed retaining bases in Iraq long-term. We will leave Iraq as soon as the democratically elected Iraqi government is confident that its security forces have the capability and capacity to counter terrorism and to preserve the security of democracy there."
A senior military source recently told the IoS that some British troops could be expected to stay in Iraq in a training role for years to come. There would be no British presence in the urban areas, however. The American and British governments say they remain in Iraq at the invitation of the interim Iraqi government, and would leave if asked to do so.
The Pentagon says it has already reduced the number of US bases from 110 a year ago to a current total of around 75. But at the same time it is expanding a number of vast, highly defended bases, some in the desert away from large population areas. More than $280m (£160m) has already been spent on building up Al Asad air base, Balad air base, Camp Taji and Tallil air base, and the Bush administration has this year requested another $175m to enlarge them. These bases, which currently house more than 55,000 troops, have their own bus routes, pizza restaurants and supermarkets.
Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and a persistent critic of the Iraq war, said it would be "very, very worrying" if British troops were to be involved in a long-term deployment. "Certainly the mood music has all been about the withdrawal of troops," he said. "Now we are just starting to see the glimmers of what may be the real policy."
Some analysts believe the desire to establish a long-term US military presence in Iraq was always one of the reasons behind the 2003 invasion. Joseph Gerson, a historian of American military bases, said: "The Bush administration's intention is to have a long-term military presence in the region ... For a number of years the US has sought to use a number of means to make sure it dominates in the Middle East ... The Bush administration sees Iraq as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for its troops and bases for years to come."
Zoltan Grossman, a geographer at Evergreen State College in Washington, said: "After every US military intervention since 1990 the Pentagon has left behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a foothold. The new string of bases stretch from Kosovo and adjacent Balkan states, to Iraq and other Persian Gulf states, into Afghanistan and other central Asian states ... The only two obstacles to a geographically contiguous US sphere of influence are Iran and Syria."
The US and UK repeatedly say the timetable is dependent upon success in training Iraqi forces. Progress in this area has been slow; in February the Pentagon admitted the only Iraqi battalion judged capable of fighting without US support had been downgraded, requiring it to fight with American troops.
The Pentagon has revealed that coalition forces are spending millions of dollars establishing at least six "enduring" bases in Iraq - raising the prospect that US and UK forces could be involved in a long-term deployment in the country. It said it assumed British troops would operate one of the bases.
Almost ever since President Bush claimed an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq on 1 May 2003, debate has focused on how quickly troops could be withdrawn. The US and British governments say troops will remain in Iraq "until the job is done". Yet while the withdrawal of a substantial number of troops remains an aim, it has become increasingly clear that the Pentagon and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are preparing to retain some forces in Iraq for the longer term. The US currently has around 130,000 troops in Iraq; Britain has 8,000.
Major Joseph Breasseale, a senior spokesman for the coalition forces' headquarters in Iraq, told The Independent on Sunday: "The current plan is to reduce the coalition footprint into six consolidation bases - four of which are US. As we move in that direction, some other bases will have to grow to facilitate the closure [or] transfer of smaller bases."
He added: "Right now, I don't have any information that tells me which nationality will comprise the remaining two bases, though my assumption is that at least one will be run by the Brits." An MoD spokesperson said British forces were currently operating out of eight bases in southern Iraq, with a small contingent based in Baghdad, and that "discussions with coalition forces relating to future basing are still at a very early stage. Nothing has been agreed."
The official added: "We have no intention of remaining, or indeed retaining bases in Iraq long-term. We will leave Iraq as soon as the democratically elected Iraqi government is confident that its security forces have the capability and capacity to counter terrorism and to preserve the security of democracy there."
A senior military source recently told the IoS that some British troops could be expected to stay in Iraq in a training role for years to come. There would be no British presence in the urban areas, however. The American and British governments say they remain in Iraq at the invitation of the interim Iraqi government, and would leave if asked to do so. The Pentagon says it has already reduced the number of US bases from 110 a year ago to a current total of around 75. But at the same time it is expanding a number of vast, highly defended bases, some in the desert away from large population areas. More than $280m (£160m) has already been spent on building up Al Asad air base, Balad air base, Camp Taji and Tallil air base, and the Bush administration has this year requested another $175m to enlarge them. These bases, which currently house more than 55,000 troops, have their own bus routes, pizza restaurants and supermarkets.
Adam Price, Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and a persistent critic of the Iraq war, said it would be "very, very worrying" if British troops were to be involved in a long-term deployment. "Certainly the mood music has all been about the withdrawal of troops," he said. "Now we are just starting to see the glimmers of what may be the real policy."
Some analysts believe the desire to establish a long-term US military presence in Iraq was always one of the reasons behind the 2003 invasion. Joseph Gerson, a historian of American military bases, said: "The Bush administration's intention is to have a long-term military presence in the region ... For a number of years the US has sought to use a number of means to make sure it dominates in the Middle East ... The Bush administration sees Iraq as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for its troops and bases for years to come."
Zoltan Grossman, a geographer at Evergreen State College in Washington, said: "After every US military intervention since 1990 the Pentagon has left behind clusters of new bases in areas where it never before had a foothold. The new string of bases stretch from Kosovo and adjacent Balkan states, to Iraq and other Persian Gulf states, into Afghanistan and other central Asian states ... The only two obstacles to a geographically contiguous US sphere of influence are Iran and Syria."
The US and UK repeatedly say the timetable is dependent upon success in training Iraqi forces. Progress in this area has been slow; in February the Pentagon admitted the only Iraqi battalion judged capable of fighting without US support had been downgraded, requiring it to fight with American troops.
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