i would hazard a guess Anbar Province is 95% feircely anti-american. This is "Never Forget Fallujah" country. So the Ministry of Defense is given to an ex-baathist that fled Iraq in 1984 and did not return until after March 2003. One of our handpicked "exiles" in waiting. They wanted an influential Sunni in as the Ministry Defense? I think not, Kurds and Shias approved what could be the most non influential Sunni they could get. This guy is assasination material to the max--that is to be asssinated by the Sunni.
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Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 50 Dead, 90 Wounded in Iraq Bombings on Wednesday Morning Qaim Campaign Continues
On Wednesday morning, a suicide bomber in a car detonated his payload near a market in Tikrit, killing 27 persons and wounding 70. Reuters adds that guerrillas struck two further times early on Wednesday: "In the town of Hawija, southwest of the strategic oil city of Kirkuk, a man strapped with explosives walked into an army recruitment center and blew himself up, killing 19 people and wounding 25, police said. A suicide car bomb also exploded outside a police station in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora, killing at least four people and wounding dozens, police said."
In Baghdad on Tuesday, two suicide bombers killed 8 and wounded 20. Three US soldiers were among the wounded.
The Scotsman also notes that "Governor Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized [by guerrillas] as he drove from Qaim to the provincial capital of Ramadi yesterday morning, his brother, Hammad, said." The continued US inability to protect members of the new governing elite has been an important roadblock to stability in the country.
Some US military commanders believe that there are too few American troops in Anbar province to deal effectively with the guerrillas there, who simply flow around the US and establish pockets in areas the US is not able to patrol. This article says there are now 145,000 US troops in Iraq. When did that happen? But it also says that only half of those, or 72,500, are combat troops that might encounter the enemy. And there are only 10,000 US troops in Anbar Province (presumably only 5,000 of them actually fighting troops). If the US is attempting to clean out Anbar with only 5,000 troops, no wonder not much progress is being made. Presumably, however, it needs the other 67,500 fighting troops elsewhere, especially in Baghdad itself, and in the other trouble spots such as Babil, Diyala, Salahuddin, etc. The article says Rumsfeld is tired of hearing about the argument of Gen. Shinseki that several hundred thousand US troops would be needed to secure Iraq. He may be tired of it, but we're not forgetting that his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz said that he "couldn't imagine" that it would take more troops to secure the country than to defeat Saddam's army. He either did not know much about colonial history or he did not have a good imagination. Oh, and Donald? Just one word for you: Shinseki.
The US commanders expressed their happiness that the guerrillas at Ubaydi are standing and fighting, on the grounds that if they do that, they will be finished faster. I wouldn't be so happy if I were them. The jihadis are making themselves martyrs in order to give other young men a reason to fight. It is a recruitment drive. Since guerrillas have managed to kill about 14 US troops in recent days, moreover, it is a way of signalling that the US is not 10 feet tall, but is rather vulnerable. If the US has this much trouble with about 2500 foreign fighters in Iraq (and over 20,000 Iraqi ones), imagine the problems if the jihadi recruitment drive succeeds, and the foreign contingent doubles or triples.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that French authorities have apprehended an Algerian in France who was in charge of making false papers for European Muslim jihadis who wanted to go fight the Americans in Iraq.
A propos of my caution yesterday against the figures of enemy dead being given out by the US military in Baghdad, James Janega of the Chicago Tribune, embedded at the front, writes, "Though military commanders in Baghdad announced that 100 insurgent fighters were killed in the early fighting, along with three Marines, [Col.] Davis' figures were lower. He said "a couple of dozen" insurgents had been killed in Ubaydi, about 10 at another river crossing near Al Qaim, and several who were killed by air strikes north of the river. Other commanders said they had recovered few bodies but had seen blood trails that suggested insurgents were dragging away wounded or dead fighters." In other words, the claim of 100 guerrillas dead may or may not be true, but probably wasn't at the time it was given out.
Fred Kaplan at Slate explains why the troops won't be coming home from Iraq any time soon. His pessimism about the rate of reconstruction is shared by Reuters.
Saboteurs hit the northern oil pipeline again on Tuesday.
Reuters tells us about the scourge of child labor in Iraq.
In Iraq's insurgency, no rules, just death By Ehsan Ahrari
May 13, 2005
In the very initial phase of evolution, Iraq's insurgents decided that Iraq would not be governed by the American-appointed government. After the elections of January 30, they also determined that a government elected under the American-written constitution would not govern it. But how are they are going to impose their will? Their decision all along seems to be that one side has to be either eradicated or defeated.
The American side cannot be eradicated, but the insurgents seem to have decided that they will not be defeated, as long as they are willing to die for their cause. One US Marine recently described the battle with insurgents in Ubaidi, 15 miles east of the Syrian border, by observing, "They came here to die. They were willing to stay in place and die with no hope. All they wanted was to take us with them." How do you develop an effective strategy to fight those who follow no rules, except their willingness to die for their cause? No one on the American side seems to have an answer.
The insurgents in Iraq comprise a variety of groups. First and foremost are the Ba'athists and pan-Arabists, including persons of civilian bureaucracy and armed forces under Saddam Hussein. They had careers and retirement plans. They had guaranteed sources of income to support their families. Even in the uncertain political environment of Iraq under a dictator, they did not harbor grave doubts about having a secure means of earning a living, as long as they did not antagonize the wicked regime. Today, almost 90% of them have no job, no income and no future. Thus, they form a majority of the Iraqi insurgency. A large number of army personnel are reportedly well trained in urban warfare. They are eager to destroy the current evolving system, which, from their point of view, is highly illegitimate because it is created by the United States.
Then there are the Sunni Islamists who wish to see their country ruled under the banner of Sunni Islam. There is also the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, whose goals of having an Islamist Iraq may not be too much different than that of the Sunni Islamists, like Ansar al-Islam, and its offshoot, Ansar al-Sunnah. They are driven by the jihadi frame of mind. The "super-Infidel" is occupying the land of Islam, according to this perspective, and should be driven out, no matter the cost. In this frame of reference, there is no compromise, just death, either for them, or for their enemy, or for both. Consequently, Iraq has gone beyond a point where it could be described as "hell".
To fight the enemy, America cannot have any strategy other than its willingness to fulfill the desire of the insurgents. One has to paraphrase 18th century US statesman Patrick Henry's famous statement: "Give me liberty or give me death." In this instance, the Iraqi insurgents are not interested in living under what the Americans call a system based on liberty. They have chosen death as a price of destroying that system. In the process of dying, they are also willing to take a whole lot of Iraqis and Americans with them. This is not a reality that America wanted to create in Iraq.
Still, the Bush administration is poised to stabilize Iraq through increased reliance on the indigenous security forces, while keeping a high operational tempo that is aimed at catching the insurgents off guard and capturing or killing their top leaders. It is hoped that the capture or eradication of the top leadership of the insurgency will eventually lead to the defeat of that movement. The American thinking is sound; however, the tactics used might produce contrary results.
No one seems to recognize the fact that the intense pace of the Iraqi insurgency is constantly keeping US forces off guard. Since the Shi'ites are not as hostile to the Americans as the Sunnis, someone in the American military chain of command has decided to rely on Shi'ite security forces to bring about law and order. A news dispatch published in the Washington Post on May 8, is a case in point of how destabilizing some of the tactics used by the US and the Iraqi government are. The government side is currently using Shi'ite Iraqi forces for security purposes in the Sunni city of Ramadi, which has remained one of the hotbeds of the Sunni insurgency. From the perspective of forces of stability, since there is no Sunni government in Ramadi, they are forced to use the Shi'ite forces, "including ad hoc militia groups such as the Defenders of Baghdad - as are flowing into Ramadi as part of the latest strategy by Iraq's central government and the US military to stem insurgent violence here".
The above dispatch makes some very important pro and con points. It states, "As a short-term counterinsurgency strategy, such forces have several advantages. First, they and their families are less subject to intimidation than when the forces are in their own area. Also, as Iraqis, they are far more familiar with the territory and less likely to be viewed as occupiers than are US troops." However, it goes on to note "... by pitting Iraqis from different religious sects, ethnic groups and tribes against each other", this tactic "also aggravates the underlying fault lines of Iraqi society, heightening the prospect of civil strife ..."
As sectarian strife between the Shi'ites and Sunnis is increasing, one wonders who in his right mind would devise such a dangerous tactic only to attain short-term security? The insurgents might not be wrong if they were to read this as a desperate move.
The decision of the Bush administration not to engage in constructive dialogue with Iran and Syria is another tactical mistake of utmost significance. According to some reports, Syrian intelligence is actively involved in recruiting and training Iraqi insurgents. Iran is also accused of being involved in similar activities. However, given the fact that such reports are coming from Kurdish sources, one wonders how credible they really are. After all, the Kurds have a lot to lose if the current formula for the evolution of democracy in Iraq were to fail.
Regardless of whether such reports are credible or aimed at promoting the partisan perspectives of the Kurdish groups in Iraq, the US government must engage Iran and Syria if it is serious about stabilizing Iraq. As long as those two countries equate the emergence of a stable and democratic Iraq as a threat to their respective national securities, they would do everything to minimize the chances of the emergence of that reality.
How much worse do things have to get in Iraq before they get better? No one has a clue, except for the insurgents. They seem to have concluded that a Western-dominated Iraq will not be the beginning of a new phase for them. They want to stop the emergence of that reality. That is why they follow no rule other than dying for their cause, and take with them a whole lot of others who oppose them.
Ehsan Ahrari is an independent strategic analyst based in Alexandria, VA, US. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. He is also a regular contributor to the Global Beat Syndicate. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com.
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