COUNTERPUNCH
January 12 / 13, 2008
Gross Distortions, Sloppy Methodology and Tendentious Reporting
How the New England Journal of Medicine Undercounted Iraqi Civilian Deaths
By ANDREW COCKBURN
Almost five years into the destruction of Iraq, the orthodox rule of thumb for assessing statistical tabulations of the civilian death toll is becoming clear: any figure will do so long as it is substantially lower than that computed by the Johns Hopkins researchers in their 2004 and 2006 studies. Their findings, based on the most orthodox sampling methodology and published in the Lancet after extensive peer review, estimated the post-invasion death toll by 2006 at about 655,000. Predictably, this shocking assessment drew howls of ignorant abuse from self-interested parties, including George Bush ("not credible") and Tony Blair.
Now we have a new result complied by the Iraqi Ministry of Health under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization and published in the once reputable New England Journal of Medicine, (NEJM) estimating the number of Iraqis murdered, directly or indirectly, by George Bush and his willing executioners at 151,000--far less than the most recent Johns Hopkins estimate. Due to its adherence to the rule cited above, this figure has been greeted with respectful attention in press reports, along with swipes at the Hopkins effort as having, as the New York Times had to remind readers, "come under criticism for its methodology."
However, as a careful and informed reading makes clear, it is the new report that guilty of sloppy methodology and tendentious reporting -- evidently inspired by the desire to discredit the horrifying Hopkins findings, which, the NEJM study triumphantly concludes "considerably overestimated the number of violent deaths." In particular, while Johns Hopkins reported that the majority of post invasion deaths were due to violence, the NEJM serves up the comforting assessment that only one sixth of deaths in this period have been due to violence.
Among the many obfuscations in this new report, the most fundamental is the blurred distinction between it and the survey it sets out to discredit. The Johns Hopkins project sought to enumerate the number of excess deaths due to all causes in the period following the March 2003 invasion as compared with the death rate prior to the invasion, thus giving a number of people who died because Bush invaded. Post hoc, propter hoc. This new study, on the other hand, explicitly sought to analyze only deaths by violence, imposing a measure of subjectivity on the findings from the outset. For example, does the child who dies because the local health clinic has been looted in the aftermath of the invasion count as a casualty of the war, or not? As CounterPunch's statistical consultant Pierre Sprey reacted after reading the full NEJM paper, "They don't say they are comparing entirely different death rates. That's not science, it's politics."
Superficially at least, both the Hopkins team and the new study followed the same methodology in conducting their surveys: interviewing a random sample of households drawn from randomly selected "clusters" of houses around the country, in which the head of the household was interviewed. While the Johns Hopkins team demanded death certificates as confirmation of deaths and their cause, the NEJM study had no such requirement. That survey was based on a sample of 9345 households, while the 2006 Johns Hopkins report drew on a sample of 1849 households. In reports on the NEJM study, much respectful attention was paid the fact that their sample was bigger, which, uninformed reporters assumed, had to mean that it was more accurate. In fact, as their papers' own pollsters could have told them, beyond a certain point the size of a sample makes less and less difference to the accuracy of the information, with accuracy increasing as a factor of the square root of the ratio between the two.
Far, far more important than the size of the sample, however, is the degree to which the overall sample is truly random, that is, trule representative of the population sampled and here is where the first of many serious questions about the NEJM effort arise. As the authors themselves admit, they did not visit a significant proportion of the original designated clusters: "Of the 1086 originally selected clusters, 115 (10.6%) were not visited because of problems with security," meaning they were inconveniently situated in Anbar province, Baghdad, and two other areas that were dangerous to visit, (especially for Iraqi government employees from a Shia-controlled ministry.) While such reluctance is understandable--one of those involved was indeed killed during the survey--it also meant that areas with very high death tolls were excluded from the survey.
To fill the gap, the surveyors reached for the numbers advanced by the Iraqi Body Count, (IBC) a U.K. based entity that relies entirely on newspaper reports of Iraqi deaths to compile their figures. Due to IBC's policy of posting minimum and maximum figures, currently standing at 80,419 and 87,834, their numbers carry a misleading air of scientific precision. As the group itself readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete, since it omits deaths that do not make it into the papers, a number that is likely to be high in a society as violently chaotic as today's Baghdad, and higher still outside Baghdad where it is even harder for journalists to operate.
Nevertheless, the NEJM study happily adopted a formula in which they compared the ratio between their figures from a province they did visit to the IBC number for that province, and then used that ratio to adjust their own figures for places they did not dare go. Interestingly, the last line of the table on page 8 of the Supplementary Appendix to the report, "adjustment for missing clusters using IBC data," reveals that in using the Body Count's dubious figures to fill the holes in their Baghdad data, the formula they employ actually revises downward the rate of violent deaths on what they label "low mortality provinces."
A paragraph in the published abstract of the report, blandly titled "Adjustment for Reporting Bias" contains an implicit confession of the subjectivity with which the authors reached their conclusions. As Sprey points out, "they say 'the level of completeness in reporting of death was 62%,' but they give no real explanation of how they arrive at that figure." Les Roberts, one of the principal authors of the Johns Hopkins studies, has commented: "We confirmed our deaths with death certificates, they did not. As the NEJM study's interviewers worked for one side in this conflict, [the U.S.- sponsored government] it is likely that people would be unwilling to admit violent deaths to the study workers."
The NEJM does cite an effort to check information given by the household heads by also interviewing household daughters about any deaths among their siblings. Again, this data is rife with inconsistencies, particularly in the siblings' reports of pre- and post- invasion deaths, incocnistencies egregious enough thatthese interview results were not folded into the calculations used to determine the report's conclusions.
Further evidence of tendentious assessment surfaces in the section blandly titled "Response Rates" in which the authors report that "Of the households that did not respond, 0.7% were absent for an extended period of time, and 1.1% of households were vacant dwellings." Given current Iraqi conditions, houses are likely to be vacant, or their owners absent for long periods, because something nasty happened there--i.e. higher death rates. Yet, as Sprey points out, there is no effort by the authors to account for this in their conclusions.
As a statistician, Sprey is most affronted by the enormities committed under the heading "Statistical Analysis" in the NEJM paper, where it is stated, "Robust confidence intervals were estimated with the use of the jackknife procedure." The "confidence interval" cited in the report is 104,000 to 223,000 with a 95% uncertainty range. This does not mean, as many laypeople assume, that there is an 85% chance that the "true number" lies somewhere between those two figures.
Sprey explains its true meaning this way:
"If you went out and did the same study using the same methods and the same size sample, but with different households, a thousand times, then 950 of those studies would come up with a figure between 104,000 and 223,000. But the 'jackknife' they refer to is simply a procedure by which you don't rely on data to estimate the confidence interval.
They admit in "Statistical Analysis" that their confidence interval is simply a calculation based on their numerical guesses quantifying the unknown size of the three key uncertainties in their survey: the real death rates in clusters they didn't dare visit; the percentage of unreported deaths in their sample; the proportion of the Iraq population that has fled since the invasion. So this is a computerized guess on what the confidence interval might be without using any of the actual data scatter from their survey. This in sharp contrast to the Johns Hopkins team, who rigorously used the data of their survey to estimate their confidence interval. To call it 'robust' is simply a disgrace. It's not robust, it's simply speculation."
If any further confirmation of the essential worthlessness of the NEJM effort, it comes in the bizarre conclusion that violent deaths in the Iraqi population have not increased over the course of the occupation. As Iraq has descended into a bloody civil war during that time, it should seem obvious to the meanest intelligence that violent deaths have to have increased. Indeed, even Iraq Body Count tracks the same rate of increase as the Hopkins survey, while NEJM settles for a mere 7% in recent years. As Roberts points out: "They roughly found a steady rate of violence from 2003 - 2006. Baghdad morgue data, Najaf burial data, Pentagon attack data, and our data all show a dramatic increase over 2005 and 2006."
These distortions come as less of a surprise on examination of page 6 of the supplementary appendix, an instructive table that reveals that the 279 men and women engaged in collecting data for the survey labored under the supervision of no fewer than 128 local, field, and central supervisors and "editors." Senior supervisors were shipped to Amman for a training course, though why the Iraqi government should want to send its own officials abroad for training is unexplained, unless of course some other government wanted a hand in the matter.
Finally, there is the matter of the New England Journal of Medicine lending its imprimatur to this farrago. Once upon a time, under the great editor Marsha Angell, this was an organ unafraid to cock a snoot at power. In particular, Angell refused to pander to the mendacities of the drug companies, thereby earning their undying enmity. Much has evidently changed, as the recruiting ad for the U.S. Army on the home page of the current New England Journal reminds us.
http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew01122008.html
Aaaanyway, back to Iraq. - Hey, it's still going on!
COUNTERPUNCH
Weekend Edition
January 5 / 6, 2008
What Would a Withdrawal Mean?
The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
By KEVIN YOUNG
No nation that claims to value democracy for the world's people can maintain a military occupation against the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led occupation. Iraqi public opinion polls, when they even make it into the newspapers, are accorded astoundingly little weight. Instead, most US politicians and analysts repeat vague slogans about how "Iraqis need us" and how "we'll leave when they ask us to."
A brief look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation reveals why mainstream commentators in this country opt for such ambiguity rather than dealing with the polls themselves: Iraqis have consistently stated that the occupation is a destabilizing force in their country, that the situation would improve after a US withdrawal, and that the US has ulterior motives for staying in Iraq.
Over the last four years, and in polls from a wide range of sources, Iraqis have been especially unequivocal on one point: that the US military occupation of their country produces more violence than it prevents. A May 2004 poll sponsored by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority found that roughly 80 percent of Iraqis had "no confidence" in US-led forces to improve security and that most "would feel safer if Coalition forces left immediately."
A year later, in August 2005, a secret poll conducted for the British Defense Ministry found that "less than one per cent [sic] of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security." Polls conducted over the past two years have continued to find strong majorities of Iraqis concurring in this view:
January 2006: A poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that around two-thirds of respondents agreed that "'day to day security for ordinary Iraqis' would increase," that "violent attacks would decrease," and that "the amount of interethnic violence will decrease" if the United States withdrew by the summer of 2006.
September 2006: A second PIPA poll found that 78 percent of Iraqis believe the occupation "is provoking more conflict than it is preventing."
March 2007: A poll sponsored by US, British, and German news agencies found that "[m]ore than seven in 10 Shiites-and nearly all Sunni Arabs-think the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is making security worse." A separate survey by the UK-based Opinion Research Business found that 74 percent of Iraqis (including 77 percent of Baghdad residents) expected the security situation in Iraq to improve (53 percent) or to stay roughly the same (21 percent) immediately following a withdrawal of occupation forces. Only 26 percent expected security to get worse.
August 2007: A poll sponsored by news agencies in the US, UK, and Germany found that around 70 percent of Iraqis "believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military 'surge' of the past six months" Moreover, 67-70 percent "believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development." When asked how much confidence they had in the US-led forces, 85 percent of Iraqis answered "not very much" or "none at all"-compared with 82 percent in February 2007, 78 percent in 2005, and 66 percent in 2004. When given a list of 14 individuals, groups, and factors influencing the level of violence in Iraq, 27 percent of Iraqis identified the US-led forces or President Bush as the single biggest culprits for that violence. Seventy-two percent said that the presence of US forces continued to make security worse, with another 9 percent saying it had no effect.
October 2007: A poll by the US Defense Department found that 12 percent of Iraqis "had at least some confidence in the Multi-National Force to protect their families against threats"-evidently the most optimistic phrasing possible for such a dismal statistic. Curiously, the report also boasted of the "growing support of the local population" and marvelous improvements in security courtesy of the US surge.
Although the exact percentages have fluctuated from poll to poll, the major surveys of Iraqi public opinion since 2004 are very clear concerning the effects of the US presence in Iraq: Iraqis overwhelming believe that the continued occupation is an impediment to peace, and indeed, that it continues to create violence rather than quelling it. Among Iraqis the most generous view of the US presence is that it continually fails to improve security in Iraq-even after nearly a year of the much-vaunted "surge."
With similar consistency, Iraqis have voiced strong opposition to the presence of occupation forces. In August 2005, 82 percent were "strongly opposed" to the occupation; in January 2006, 87 percent favored a timeline for withdrawal; a year later, in September 2006, 71 percent wanted a full withdrawal by mid-2007.
Although these figures fluctuate somewhat, the March 2007 poll commissioned by US, British, and German news corporations presents a clearer picture of rising Iraqi opposition to the occupation over time. This poll found that 78 percent of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed the occupation, and then compares this finding to answers to the same question from February 2004 and November 2005. At the start of 2004, nearly one year after the invasion, 51 percent of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed the occupation; 21 months later, that figure had risen to 65 percent; by March 2007, it had climbed again to 78 percent. By August 2007, the percentage "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed to the occupation had stayed more or less the same, increasing slightly to 79 percent.
This progressive rise in popular hostility toward the US-led occupation is confirmed by another crucial statistic: the percentages of Iraqis who approve of insurgent attacks on occupation forces. In January 2006, 47 percent approved of such attacks; by September 2006, the figure had risen to 61 percent; in August 2007, 57 percent continued to approve of such attacks, including 93 percent of Sunnis. The resentment of ordinary Iraqis toward the US goes a long way toward explaining how a small insurgency numbering fewer than 30,000 Iraqis and 800-2,000 foreigners has successfully prevented US-led and Iraqi government forces (which together total over 600,000) from establishing military dominance in Iraq for almost five years.
Not all polling results are so unequivocal. In particular, the dozens of polls taken over the last four years suggest disagreements among Iraqis over exactly when and how the occupation forces should withdraw. Although almost all Iraqis have consistently supported a "timeline" for withdrawal, many polls do not ask respondents to comment on how soon that withdrawal should occur or on what should happen afterwards to bring peace. The few polls that have worded their questions more specifically have found subtle disagreements, such as whether the US-led forces should withdraw immediately, within six months, or within a year, etc. For example, a September 2006 poll by the US State Department found that 65 percent of Baghdad residents favored an immediate withdrawal of all US troops.
However, another poll that same month (described above) found that 71 percent of Iraqis wanted the US to withdraw within twelve months-with only 37 percent of that block favoring a US withdrawal within six months. Such results suggest significant variations in Iraqi attitudes not just over time, but even from one poll to the next within a very limited time frame. These variations probably derive largely from the subtleties of the polling process: the phrasing of the questions, the options given, the identity of the pollsters, the regional foci of the poll, etc.
In contrast, though, Iraqi respondents have been remarkably consistent in several of their answers, particularly with regard to the effects of the US military presence. They have consistently and overwhelmingly stated that the occupation produces more violence than it prevents. They have constantly expressed deep mistrust of US motives (most believe the US is largely motivated by the desire for Iraqi oil and that it plans to leave permanent military bases in their country). And they have consistently argued that a US withdrawal would not result in increased violence, but that it would actually help ease sectarian divisions and diminish the support bases of al Qaeda and other extremists.
In the August 2007 poll 46 percent answered that a "full-scale civil war" would be "less likely" given the immediate withdrawal of US forces, with another 19 percent saying that the withdrawal would "have no effect" in that regard. Only minorities of respondents stated that an immediate withdrawal would mean an increased terrorist presence or more power for Iran within Iraq, and only 9 percent said that a withdrawal would lead to "increased violence in the Kurdish areas."
As journalist Patrick Cockburn noted in December 2007, "However much Iraqis may fight among themselves a central political fact in Iraq remains the unpopularity of the US-led occupation outside Kurdistan."
Kevin Young is a Graduate Student in Latin American History at Stony Brook University. He can be reached at: kyoung@wesleyan.edu
http://www.counterpunch.org/young01052008.html
Edited By Akash on 1199587055
Weekend Edition
January 5 / 6, 2008
What Would a Withdrawal Mean?
The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
By KEVIN YOUNG
No nation that claims to value democracy for the world's people can maintain a military occupation against the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led occupation. Iraqi public opinion polls, when they even make it into the newspapers, are accorded astoundingly little weight. Instead, most US politicians and analysts repeat vague slogans about how "Iraqis need us" and how "we'll leave when they ask us to."
A brief look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation reveals why mainstream commentators in this country opt for such ambiguity rather than dealing with the polls themselves: Iraqis have consistently stated that the occupation is a destabilizing force in their country, that the situation would improve after a US withdrawal, and that the US has ulterior motives for staying in Iraq.
Over the last four years, and in polls from a wide range of sources, Iraqis have been especially unequivocal on one point: that the US military occupation of their country produces more violence than it prevents. A May 2004 poll sponsored by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority found that roughly 80 percent of Iraqis had "no confidence" in US-led forces to improve security and that most "would feel safer if Coalition forces left immediately."
A year later, in August 2005, a secret poll conducted for the British Defense Ministry found that "less than one per cent [sic] of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security." Polls conducted over the past two years have continued to find strong majorities of Iraqis concurring in this view:
January 2006: A poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found that around two-thirds of respondents agreed that "'day to day security for ordinary Iraqis' would increase," that "violent attacks would decrease," and that "the amount of interethnic violence will decrease" if the United States withdrew by the summer of 2006.
September 2006: A second PIPA poll found that 78 percent of Iraqis believe the occupation "is provoking more conflict than it is preventing."
March 2007: A poll sponsored by US, British, and German news agencies found that "[m]ore than seven in 10 Shiites-and nearly all Sunni Arabs-think the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq is making security worse." A separate survey by the UK-based Opinion Research Business found that 74 percent of Iraqis (including 77 percent of Baghdad residents) expected the security situation in Iraq to improve (53 percent) or to stay roughly the same (21 percent) immediately following a withdrawal of occupation forces. Only 26 percent expected security to get worse.
August 2007: A poll sponsored by news agencies in the US, UK, and Germany found that around 70 percent of Iraqis "believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military 'surge' of the past six months" Moreover, 67-70 percent "believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development." When asked how much confidence they had in the US-led forces, 85 percent of Iraqis answered "not very much" or "none at all"-compared with 82 percent in February 2007, 78 percent in 2005, and 66 percent in 2004. When given a list of 14 individuals, groups, and factors influencing the level of violence in Iraq, 27 percent of Iraqis identified the US-led forces or President Bush as the single biggest culprits for that violence. Seventy-two percent said that the presence of US forces continued to make security worse, with another 9 percent saying it had no effect.
October 2007: A poll by the US Defense Department found that 12 percent of Iraqis "had at least some confidence in the Multi-National Force to protect their families against threats"-evidently the most optimistic phrasing possible for such a dismal statistic. Curiously, the report also boasted of the "growing support of the local population" and marvelous improvements in security courtesy of the US surge.
Although the exact percentages have fluctuated from poll to poll, the major surveys of Iraqi public opinion since 2004 are very clear concerning the effects of the US presence in Iraq: Iraqis overwhelming believe that the continued occupation is an impediment to peace, and indeed, that it continues to create violence rather than quelling it. Among Iraqis the most generous view of the US presence is that it continually fails to improve security in Iraq-even after nearly a year of the much-vaunted "surge."
With similar consistency, Iraqis have voiced strong opposition to the presence of occupation forces. In August 2005, 82 percent were "strongly opposed" to the occupation; in January 2006, 87 percent favored a timeline for withdrawal; a year later, in September 2006, 71 percent wanted a full withdrawal by mid-2007.
Although these figures fluctuate somewhat, the March 2007 poll commissioned by US, British, and German news corporations presents a clearer picture of rising Iraqi opposition to the occupation over time. This poll found that 78 percent of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed the occupation, and then compares this finding to answers to the same question from February 2004 and November 2005. At the start of 2004, nearly one year after the invasion, 51 percent of Iraqis "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed the occupation; 21 months later, that figure had risen to 65 percent; by March 2007, it had climbed again to 78 percent. By August 2007, the percentage "strongly" or "somewhat" opposed to the occupation had stayed more or less the same, increasing slightly to 79 percent.
This progressive rise in popular hostility toward the US-led occupation is confirmed by another crucial statistic: the percentages of Iraqis who approve of insurgent attacks on occupation forces. In January 2006, 47 percent approved of such attacks; by September 2006, the figure had risen to 61 percent; in August 2007, 57 percent continued to approve of such attacks, including 93 percent of Sunnis. The resentment of ordinary Iraqis toward the US goes a long way toward explaining how a small insurgency numbering fewer than 30,000 Iraqis and 800-2,000 foreigners has successfully prevented US-led and Iraqi government forces (which together total over 600,000) from establishing military dominance in Iraq for almost five years.
Not all polling results are so unequivocal. In particular, the dozens of polls taken over the last four years suggest disagreements among Iraqis over exactly when and how the occupation forces should withdraw. Although almost all Iraqis have consistently supported a "timeline" for withdrawal, many polls do not ask respondents to comment on how soon that withdrawal should occur or on what should happen afterwards to bring peace. The few polls that have worded their questions more specifically have found subtle disagreements, such as whether the US-led forces should withdraw immediately, within six months, or within a year, etc. For example, a September 2006 poll by the US State Department found that 65 percent of Baghdad residents favored an immediate withdrawal of all US troops.
However, another poll that same month (described above) found that 71 percent of Iraqis wanted the US to withdraw within twelve months-with only 37 percent of that block favoring a US withdrawal within six months. Such results suggest significant variations in Iraqi attitudes not just over time, but even from one poll to the next within a very limited time frame. These variations probably derive largely from the subtleties of the polling process: the phrasing of the questions, the options given, the identity of the pollsters, the regional foci of the poll, etc.
In contrast, though, Iraqi respondents have been remarkably consistent in several of their answers, particularly with regard to the effects of the US military presence. They have consistently and overwhelmingly stated that the occupation produces more violence than it prevents. They have constantly expressed deep mistrust of US motives (most believe the US is largely motivated by the desire for Iraqi oil and that it plans to leave permanent military bases in their country). And they have consistently argued that a US withdrawal would not result in increased violence, but that it would actually help ease sectarian divisions and diminish the support bases of al Qaeda and other extremists.
In the August 2007 poll 46 percent answered that a "full-scale civil war" would be "less likely" given the immediate withdrawal of US forces, with another 19 percent saying that the withdrawal would "have no effect" in that regard. Only minorities of respondents stated that an immediate withdrawal would mean an increased terrorist presence or more power for Iran within Iraq, and only 9 percent said that a withdrawal would lead to "increased violence in the Kurdish areas."
As journalist Patrick Cockburn noted in December 2007, "However much Iraqis may fight among themselves a central political fact in Iraq remains the unpopularity of the US-led occupation outside Kurdistan."
Kevin Young is a Graduate Student in Latin American History at Stony Brook University. He can be reached at: kyoung@wesleyan.edu
http://www.counterpunch.org/young01052008.html
Edited By Akash on 1199587055
December 12, 2007
Nothing is Resolved in Iraq
What's Really Happened During the Surge?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Has the US turned the tide in Baghdad? Does the fall in violence mean that the country is stabilizing after more than four years of war or are we seeing only a temporary pause in the fighting?
American commentators are generally making the same mistake that they have made since the invasion of Iraq was first contemplated five years ago. They look at Iraq in over-simple terms and exaggerate the extent to which the US is making the political weather and is in control of events there.
The US is the most powerful single force in Iraq but it is by no means the only one. The shape of Iraqi politics have changed over the last year though for reasons that have little to do with 'the Surge'--the 30,000 US troop reinforcements -- and much to do with the battle for supremacy between the Sunni and Shia communities.
The Sunni Arabs of Iraq turned against al Qa'ida partly because it tried to monopolize power but primarily because it had brought their community close to catastrophe. The Sunni war against the US occupation had gone surprisingly well for them since it began in 2003. It was a second war, the one against the Shia majority led by al-Qa'ida, which the Sunni were losing with disastrous results for themselves.
"The Sunni people now think they cannot fight two wars--against the occupation and the government--at the same time," a Sunni friend in Baghdad told me last week. "We must be more realistic and accept the occupation for the moment."
This is why much of the non-al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency has effectively changed sides. An important reason why al-Qa'ida has lost ground so swiftly is a split within its own ranks. The US military--the State Department has been very much marginalized in decision making in Baghdad--does not want to emphasize that many of the Sunni fighters now on the US payroll and misleadingly called 'Concerned Citizens' until recently belonged to al Qa'ida and have the blood of a great many Iraqi civilians and US soldiers on their hands.
The Sunni Arabs, five million out of an Iraqi population of 27 million and the mainstay of Saddam Hussein's government, were the core of the resistance to the US occupation. But they have also been fighting a sectarian war to prevent the 16 million Shia and the five million Kurds holding power.
At first the Shia were very patient in the face of atrocities. Vehicles, packed with explosives and driven by suicide bombers, were regularly detonated in the middle of crowded Shia market places or religious processions, killing and maiming hundreds of people.
The bombers came from al-Qa'ida, but the attacks were never wholeheartedly condemned by Sunni political leaders or other guerrilla groups. The bombings were also very short sighted since the Iraqi Shia outnumber the Sunni three to one. Retaliation was restrained until a bomb destroyed the revered Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February, 2006.
The bombing led to a savage Shia onslaught on the Sunni which became known in Iraq as 'the battle for Baghdad'. This struggle was won by the Shia. They were always the majority in the capital, but by the end of 2006 they controlled 75 per cent of the city. The Sunni fled or were pressed back into a few enclaves, mostly in west Baghdad.
In the wake of this defeat there was less and less point in the Sunni trying expel the Americans when the Sunni community was itself being evicted by the Shia from large parts of Iraq. The Iraqi Sunni leaders had also miscalculated that an assault on their community by the Shia would provoke Arab Sunni states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt into giving them more support but this never materialized.
It was al-Qa'ida's slaughter of Shia civilians, whom it sees as heretics worthy of death, which brought disaster to the Sunni community. Al-Qa'ida also grossly overplayed its hand at the end of last year by setting up the Islamic State of Iraq which tried to fasten its control on other insurgent groups and the Sunni community as a whole. Sunni garbage collectors were killed because they worked for the government and Sunni families in Baghdad were ordered to send one of their members to join al Qai'da. Bizarrely, even Osama bin Laden, who never had much influence over al Qa'ida in Iraq, was reduced to advising his acolytes against extremism.
Defeat in Baghdad and the extreme unpopularity of al Qa'ida gave the impulse for the formation of the 77,000-strong anti al-Qa'ida Sunni militia, often under tribal leadership, which is armed and paid for by the US. But the creation of this force is a new stage in the war in Iraq rather than an end to the conflict.
Sunni enclaves in Baghdad are safer, but not districts where Sunni and Shia face each other. There are few mixed areas left. Many of the Sunni fighters say openly that they see the elimination of al Qai'ida as a preliminary to an attack on the Shia militias, notably the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which triumphed last year.
The creation of a US-backed Sunni militia both strengthens and weakens the Iraqi government. It is strengthened in so far as the Sunni insurrection is less effective and weakened because it does not control this new force.
If the Sunni guerrillas were one source of violence in 2006 the other was the Mehdi Army, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia nationalist cleric. This has been stood down because he wants to purge it of elements he does not control and wishes to avoid a military confrontation with his rivals within the Shia community if they are backed by the US army. But the Mehdi Army would certainly fight if the Shia community came under attack or the Americans pressured it too hard.
American politicians continually throw up their hands in disgust that Iraqis cannot reconcile or agree on how to share power. But equally destabilizing is the presence of a large US army in Iraqi and the uncertainty about what role the US will play in future. However much Iraqis may fight among themselves a central political fact in Iraq remains the unpopularity of the US-led occupation outside Kurdistan. This has grown year by year since the fall of Saddam Hussein. A detailed opinion poll carried out by ABC News, BBC and NTV of Japan in August found that 57 per cent of Iraqis believe that attacks on US forces are acceptable.
Nothing is resolved in Iraq. Power is wholly fragmented. The Americans will discover, as the British learned to their cost in Basra, that they have few permanent allies in Iraq. It has become a land of warlords in which fragile ceasefires might last for months and might equally collapse tomorrow.
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick12122007.html
Nothing is Resolved in Iraq
What's Really Happened During the Surge?
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Has the US turned the tide in Baghdad? Does the fall in violence mean that the country is stabilizing after more than four years of war or are we seeing only a temporary pause in the fighting?
American commentators are generally making the same mistake that they have made since the invasion of Iraq was first contemplated five years ago. They look at Iraq in over-simple terms and exaggerate the extent to which the US is making the political weather and is in control of events there.
The US is the most powerful single force in Iraq but it is by no means the only one. The shape of Iraqi politics have changed over the last year though for reasons that have little to do with 'the Surge'--the 30,000 US troop reinforcements -- and much to do with the battle for supremacy between the Sunni and Shia communities.
The Sunni Arabs of Iraq turned against al Qa'ida partly because it tried to monopolize power but primarily because it had brought their community close to catastrophe. The Sunni war against the US occupation had gone surprisingly well for them since it began in 2003. It was a second war, the one against the Shia majority led by al-Qa'ida, which the Sunni were losing with disastrous results for themselves.
"The Sunni people now think they cannot fight two wars--against the occupation and the government--at the same time," a Sunni friend in Baghdad told me last week. "We must be more realistic and accept the occupation for the moment."
This is why much of the non-al-Qa'ida Sunni insurgency has effectively changed sides. An important reason why al-Qa'ida has lost ground so swiftly is a split within its own ranks. The US military--the State Department has been very much marginalized in decision making in Baghdad--does not want to emphasize that many of the Sunni fighters now on the US payroll and misleadingly called 'Concerned Citizens' until recently belonged to al Qa'ida and have the blood of a great many Iraqi civilians and US soldiers on their hands.
The Sunni Arabs, five million out of an Iraqi population of 27 million and the mainstay of Saddam Hussein's government, were the core of the resistance to the US occupation. But they have also been fighting a sectarian war to prevent the 16 million Shia and the five million Kurds holding power.
At first the Shia were very patient in the face of atrocities. Vehicles, packed with explosives and driven by suicide bombers, were regularly detonated in the middle of crowded Shia market places or religious processions, killing and maiming hundreds of people.
The bombers came from al-Qa'ida, but the attacks were never wholeheartedly condemned by Sunni political leaders or other guerrilla groups. The bombings were also very short sighted since the Iraqi Shia outnumber the Sunni three to one. Retaliation was restrained until a bomb destroyed the revered Shia al-Askari shrine in Samarra on 22 February, 2006.
The bombing led to a savage Shia onslaught on the Sunni which became known in Iraq as 'the battle for Baghdad'. This struggle was won by the Shia. They were always the majority in the capital, but by the end of 2006 they controlled 75 per cent of the city. The Sunni fled or were pressed back into a few enclaves, mostly in west Baghdad.
In the wake of this defeat there was less and less point in the Sunni trying expel the Americans when the Sunni community was itself being evicted by the Shia from large parts of Iraq. The Iraqi Sunni leaders had also miscalculated that an assault on their community by the Shia would provoke Arab Sunni states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt into giving them more support but this never materialized.
It was al-Qa'ida's slaughter of Shia civilians, whom it sees as heretics worthy of death, which brought disaster to the Sunni community. Al-Qa'ida also grossly overplayed its hand at the end of last year by setting up the Islamic State of Iraq which tried to fasten its control on other insurgent groups and the Sunni community as a whole. Sunni garbage collectors were killed because they worked for the government and Sunni families in Baghdad were ordered to send one of their members to join al Qai'da. Bizarrely, even Osama bin Laden, who never had much influence over al Qa'ida in Iraq, was reduced to advising his acolytes against extremism.
Defeat in Baghdad and the extreme unpopularity of al Qa'ida gave the impulse for the formation of the 77,000-strong anti al-Qa'ida Sunni militia, often under tribal leadership, which is armed and paid for by the US. But the creation of this force is a new stage in the war in Iraq rather than an end to the conflict.
Sunni enclaves in Baghdad are safer, but not districts where Sunni and Shia face each other. There are few mixed areas left. Many of the Sunni fighters say openly that they see the elimination of al Qai'ida as a preliminary to an attack on the Shia militias, notably the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which triumphed last year.
The creation of a US-backed Sunni militia both strengthens and weakens the Iraqi government. It is strengthened in so far as the Sunni insurrection is less effective and weakened because it does not control this new force.
If the Sunni guerrillas were one source of violence in 2006 the other was the Mehdi Army, led by Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia nationalist cleric. This has been stood down because he wants to purge it of elements he does not control and wishes to avoid a military confrontation with his rivals within the Shia community if they are backed by the US army. But the Mehdi Army would certainly fight if the Shia community came under attack or the Americans pressured it too hard.
American politicians continually throw up their hands in disgust that Iraqis cannot reconcile or agree on how to share power. But equally destabilizing is the presence of a large US army in Iraqi and the uncertainty about what role the US will play in future. However much Iraqis may fight among themselves a central political fact in Iraq remains the unpopularity of the US-led occupation outside Kurdistan. This has grown year by year since the fall of Saddam Hussein. A detailed opinion poll carried out by ABC News, BBC and NTV of Japan in August found that 57 per cent of Iraqis believe that attacks on US forces are acceptable.
Nothing is resolved in Iraq. Power is wholly fragmented. The Americans will discover, as the British learned to their cost in Basra, that they have few permanent allies in Iraq. It has become a land of warlords in which fragile ceasefires might last for months and might equally collapse tomorrow.
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick12122007.html
Advance rebuttal to criddic: You're wrong. Whatever it is you're going to trot out in lame defense. You are absolutely wrong.
Counterpunch
December 3, 2007
Bush Negotiates Permanent Presence in Iraq
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
By MARJORIE COHN
The revelation that Bush will sign an agreement for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq before his term is up confirms the real reason he invaded Iraq and changed its regime.
It was never about weapons of mass destruction. It was never about ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. And it was never about bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. These claims were lies to cover up the real motive for Operation Iraqi Freedom: to create a permanent American presence in Iraq. With Bush's November 26, 2007 announcement that the United States and Iraq were negotiating a permanent "security relationship," his lies have been exposed.
Bush declared, Iraqi leaders "understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency." His outline for the permanent U.S.-Iraqi "Economic" relationship is "to encourage the flow of foreign investments to Iraq." Two senior Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that Bush is negotiating preferential treatment for U.S. investments.
This isn't the first time Bush has tried to turn Iraq into an investment haven for U.S. oil companies. He used to tout the "Iraqi oil law," which would transfer control of three-quarters of Iraq's oil to foreign companies, as the benchmark for Iraqi progress. But in the face of opposition by the Iraqi oil unions, the parliament has refused to pass that law.
All along, Bush has been building mega-bases In Iraq. Camp Anaconda, which sits on 15 square miles of Iraqi soil, has a pool, gym, theater, beauty salon, school and six apartment buildings. Our $600 million American embassy in the Green Zone just opened. The largest embassy in the world, it is a self-contained city with no need for Iraqi electricity, food or water.
Although Bush has negotiated terms to keep U.S. troops in Iraq in perpetuity, the majority of American people oppose a permanent American occupation of Iraq.
So do many Iraqis. University of Michigan Juan Cole's blog, "Informed Comment," cited an Al-Hayat report in Arabic that the Sadr Movement and the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front rejected the "memorandum of understanding" between the United States and Iraq that Bush and Nuri al-Maliki signed. These groups say this agreement would be illegal unless agreed to by the legislature, and they complain about the absence of any timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
No wonder Iraqis oppose the U.S. occupation. The organization Just Foreign Policy has estimated that 1,118,846 Iraqis have been killed since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. Australian born journalist John Pilger wrote, "The scale of death caused by the British and U.S. governments may well have surpassed that of the Rwanda genocide, making it the biggest single act of mass murder of the late 20th century and the 21st century."
Yet Congress refuses to reign in the President. When Bush announced that violence is down in Baghdad so he can withdraw 5,000 troops, the Democratic candidates cheered, diverting their criticism to the lack of political progress in Iraq. But with so many Iraqis dead, there are fewer to kill.
We the people have to keep the pressure on. As we demand the United States withdraw completely from Iraq, we must also forbid Bush to attack Iran. Our voices must be heard - by Congress, by the media, and throughout the world.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn12032007.html
Counterpunch
December 3, 2007
Bush Negotiates Permanent Presence in Iraq
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
By MARJORIE COHN
The revelation that Bush will sign an agreement for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq before his term is up confirms the real reason he invaded Iraq and changed its regime.
It was never about weapons of mass destruction. It was never about ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. And it was never about bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. These claims were lies to cover up the real motive for Operation Iraqi Freedom: to create a permanent American presence in Iraq. With Bush's November 26, 2007 announcement that the United States and Iraq were negotiating a permanent "security relationship," his lies have been exposed.
Bush declared, Iraqi leaders "understand that their success will require U.S. political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency." His outline for the permanent U.S.-Iraqi "Economic" relationship is "to encourage the flow of foreign investments to Iraq." Two senior Iraqi officials told the Associated Press that Bush is negotiating preferential treatment for U.S. investments.
This isn't the first time Bush has tried to turn Iraq into an investment haven for U.S. oil companies. He used to tout the "Iraqi oil law," which would transfer control of three-quarters of Iraq's oil to foreign companies, as the benchmark for Iraqi progress. But in the face of opposition by the Iraqi oil unions, the parliament has refused to pass that law.
All along, Bush has been building mega-bases In Iraq. Camp Anaconda, which sits on 15 square miles of Iraqi soil, has a pool, gym, theater, beauty salon, school and six apartment buildings. Our $600 million American embassy in the Green Zone just opened. The largest embassy in the world, it is a self-contained city with no need for Iraqi electricity, food or water.
Although Bush has negotiated terms to keep U.S. troops in Iraq in perpetuity, the majority of American people oppose a permanent American occupation of Iraq.
So do many Iraqis. University of Michigan Juan Cole's blog, "Informed Comment," cited an Al-Hayat report in Arabic that the Sadr Movement and the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front rejected the "memorandum of understanding" between the United States and Iraq that Bush and Nuri al-Maliki signed. These groups say this agreement would be illegal unless agreed to by the legislature, and they complain about the absence of any timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
No wonder Iraqis oppose the U.S. occupation. The organization Just Foreign Policy has estimated that 1,118,846 Iraqis have been killed since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. Australian born journalist John Pilger wrote, "The scale of death caused by the British and U.S. governments may well have surpassed that of the Rwanda genocide, making it the biggest single act of mass murder of the late 20th century and the 21st century."
Yet Congress refuses to reign in the President. When Bush announced that violence is down in Baghdad so he can withdraw 5,000 troops, the Democratic candidates cheered, diverting their criticism to the lack of political progress in Iraq. But with so many Iraqis dead, there are fewer to kill.
We the people have to keep the pressure on. As we demand the United States withdraw completely from Iraq, we must also forbid Bush to attack Iran. Our voices must be heard - by Congress, by the media, and throughout the world.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn12032007.html
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So I heard on the news the other night that the Israeli/Palestinian leaders have committed to a resolution by the end of 2008. I wonder why? Could it be that Bushie wants a legacy that doesn't entirely reek? Could it be that the elections are running around that time of the year and the Pubes could use a boost?
How many U.S. Presidents in their last term have tried to find peace in the middle east? They've been working on that for how long? And it's never materialized, no matter how many times they've tried...They'll get some treatise together in time to try and tip the balance of the election and then BAM it'll fall apart a few months later when a faction of one of the sides decides the arrangements aren't at all satisfactory.
How many U.S. Presidents in their last term have tried to find peace in the middle east? They've been working on that for how long? And it's never materialized, no matter how many times they've tried...They'll get some treatise together in time to try and tip the balance of the election and then BAM it'll fall apart a few months later when a faction of one of the sides decides the arrangements aren't at all satisfactory.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Ok so this isn't exactly new news, but for Dowd at least it's a substantial article -- FINALLY. It's like she's been replaced by a real journalist.
New York Times
November 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Jump on the Peace Train
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Condi doesn’t want to be Iraq.
She wants to be a Palestinian state. It has a far more hopeful ring to it, legacy-wise.
The Most Powerful Woman in the History of the World, as President Bush calls her, is a very orderly person.
Like her boss, she loves schedules and routines and hates disruptions. As a child, she was elected “president” of her family, a position that allowed her to dictate the organizational details of family trips, according to “Condoleezza Rice: An American Life,” a new biography by The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller.
As an adult, Condi was worried about taking the job of top diplomat because it would mean traveling and being away from her things and habits.
So it is telling that in Annapolis she is running such a seat-of-the-pants operation, which seems designed to rescue the images of a secretary of state and president who have spent more time working out in the gym than working on the peace process.
W. couldn’t be bothered to stay in Annapolis and try to belatedly push things along and guide Israel with a firmer hand.
After subverting diplomacy in his first term, now W. does drive-by diplomacy, taking a playboy approach to peace. He wants to look like he’s taking the problem of an Israeli-Palestinian treaty seriously when his true motivation is more cynical: pacifying the Arab coalition and holding it together so that he can blunt Iran’s sway.
When they invaded Iraq rather than working on the Palestine problem, W. and Condi helped spur the greater Iranian influence, Islamic extremism and anti-American sentiment that they are now desperately trying to quell.
Condi has compared trying to broker deals in the Middle East to “Groundhog Day.” An Annapolis-inspired breakthrough would be thrilling, but it will be tough for Madame Secretary to turn around her reputation after so many instances of Mideast malpractice.
The tight-as-a-tick team of W. and Condi have been consistently culturally obtuse on the Middle East, even with a pricey worldwide operation designed to keep them in the loop.
First, Condi missed the scorching significance of the August 2001 presidential daily brief headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” “An explosive title on a nonexplosive piece,” as she later dismissively described it.
Then she and W. failed to fathom that if Iraq went wrong, Iran would benefit.
When Brent Scowcroft, who lured the young Soviet expert from Stanford to the Bush 1 national security staff, wrote a Wall Street Journal piece before the Iraq war titled “Don’t Attack Saddam,” she didn’t call him to explore his reasoning. She scolded him for publicly disagreeing with W. Scowcroft confided to friends that he was mystified by Rice. She enabled Bush’s bellicosity rather than putting a brake on it.
“He told me several times, ‘I don’t understand how my lady, my baby, my disciple, has changed so much,’ ” a senior European diplomat told Bumiller.
Condi and W. were both underwhelmed by the C.I.A.’s presentation of its case on Iraq’s W.M.D.’s on Dec. 21, 2002. Yet, only days later, Bumiller reports, Rice and W. were alone in the Oval Office when he surprised her by asking her point blank about the war: “Do you think we should do this?”
“Yes,” she told the president.
That’s not statesmanship. It’s sycophancy.
She let Rummy waltz away with the occupation and only got back some control after he’d made a historic hash of it.
It took her too long to push back on Rummy’s absurd turf-war tricks, like reading or doodling while she was talking, or dropping a Defense Department document on the conference table as Rice was leading a discussion on a different topic so that he could steal the agenda.
W.’s former chief of staff Andy Card told Bumiller that Rummy was “a little bit old-school” and “a little bit sexist” in his dealings with Rice.
Not to mention a little bit crazy.
In 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon and many civilians died, including children, Condi and W. drew Arab and U.N. ire for not forcing Ehud Olmert to broker a cease-fire faster.
That same year, in another instance of spectacular willful ignorance, she was blindsided by the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections.
As she described it to Bumiller, she went upstairs at 5 a.m. the morning after the Palestinian elections in 2006 to the gym in her Watergate apartment to exercise on her elliptical machine. She saw the news crawl reporting the Hamas victory.
“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’ ” she said. She kept exercising for awhile but finally got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department. “I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’ and they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness! Hamas won?’ ”
When she couldn’t reach the State Department official on the ground in the Palestinian territories, she did what any loyal Bushie would do: She got back on the elliptical.
“I thought, might as well finish exercising,” Rice told Bumiller. “It’s going to be a really long day.” It was one of the few times she was prescient on the Middle East.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007....d=print
Edited By Akash on 1196282073
New York Times
November 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Jump on the Peace Train
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
Condi doesn’t want to be Iraq.
She wants to be a Palestinian state. It has a far more hopeful ring to it, legacy-wise.
The Most Powerful Woman in the History of the World, as President Bush calls her, is a very orderly person.
Like her boss, she loves schedules and routines and hates disruptions. As a child, she was elected “president” of her family, a position that allowed her to dictate the organizational details of family trips, according to “Condoleezza Rice: An American Life,” a new biography by The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller.
As an adult, Condi was worried about taking the job of top diplomat because it would mean traveling and being away from her things and habits.
So it is telling that in Annapolis she is running such a seat-of-the-pants operation, which seems designed to rescue the images of a secretary of state and president who have spent more time working out in the gym than working on the peace process.
W. couldn’t be bothered to stay in Annapolis and try to belatedly push things along and guide Israel with a firmer hand.
After subverting diplomacy in his first term, now W. does drive-by diplomacy, taking a playboy approach to peace. He wants to look like he’s taking the problem of an Israeli-Palestinian treaty seriously when his true motivation is more cynical: pacifying the Arab coalition and holding it together so that he can blunt Iran’s sway.
When they invaded Iraq rather than working on the Palestine problem, W. and Condi helped spur the greater Iranian influence, Islamic extremism and anti-American sentiment that they are now desperately trying to quell.
Condi has compared trying to broker deals in the Middle East to “Groundhog Day.” An Annapolis-inspired breakthrough would be thrilling, but it will be tough for Madame Secretary to turn around her reputation after so many instances of Mideast malpractice.
The tight-as-a-tick team of W. and Condi have been consistently culturally obtuse on the Middle East, even with a pricey worldwide operation designed to keep them in the loop.
First, Condi missed the scorching significance of the August 2001 presidential daily brief headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” “An explosive title on a nonexplosive piece,” as she later dismissively described it.
Then she and W. failed to fathom that if Iraq went wrong, Iran would benefit.
When Brent Scowcroft, who lured the young Soviet expert from Stanford to the Bush 1 national security staff, wrote a Wall Street Journal piece before the Iraq war titled “Don’t Attack Saddam,” she didn’t call him to explore his reasoning. She scolded him for publicly disagreeing with W. Scowcroft confided to friends that he was mystified by Rice. She enabled Bush’s bellicosity rather than putting a brake on it.
“He told me several times, ‘I don’t understand how my lady, my baby, my disciple, has changed so much,’ ” a senior European diplomat told Bumiller.
Condi and W. were both underwhelmed by the C.I.A.’s presentation of its case on Iraq’s W.M.D.’s on Dec. 21, 2002. Yet, only days later, Bumiller reports, Rice and W. were alone in the Oval Office when he surprised her by asking her point blank about the war: “Do you think we should do this?”
“Yes,” she told the president.
That’s not statesmanship. It’s sycophancy.
She let Rummy waltz away with the occupation and only got back some control after he’d made a historic hash of it.
It took her too long to push back on Rummy’s absurd turf-war tricks, like reading or doodling while she was talking, or dropping a Defense Department document on the conference table as Rice was leading a discussion on a different topic so that he could steal the agenda.
W.’s former chief of staff Andy Card told Bumiller that Rummy was “a little bit old-school” and “a little bit sexist” in his dealings with Rice.
Not to mention a little bit crazy.
In 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon and many civilians died, including children, Condi and W. drew Arab and U.N. ire for not forcing Ehud Olmert to broker a cease-fire faster.
That same year, in another instance of spectacular willful ignorance, she was blindsided by the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections.
As she described it to Bumiller, she went upstairs at 5 a.m. the morning after the Palestinian elections in 2006 to the gym in her Watergate apartment to exercise on her elliptical machine. She saw the news crawl reporting the Hamas victory.
“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’ ” she said. She kept exercising for awhile but finally got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department. “I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’ and they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness! Hamas won?’ ”
When she couldn’t reach the State Department official on the ground in the Palestinian territories, she did what any loyal Bushie would do: She got back on the elliptical.
“I thought, might as well finish exercising,” Rice told Bumiller. “It’s going to be a really long day.” It was one of the few times she was prescient on the Middle East.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007....d=print
Edited By Akash on 1196282073
Sonic Youth wrote:criddic3 wrote:You should be happy when good news comes out of Iraq,
I was. You can't give me credit?
Which article/blog entry did you crib this one from?
When are you going to learn that I don't "crib" articles?
You people are hopeless. But I will continue to participate in the debate as long as I have reason to.
But that's just a turn of phrase. It's not literal conscription. The point is, deploy the draft and you'll have the mass protests. Were there no draft in the 60s, the protests and probably the counterculture would have been smaller.
Sorry guys, but I am the one who has been posting the numbers of American soldier fatalities. And as much as I hate to admit it, but Criddic is on to something. The rate of casualties has dropped, and has been doing so for a couple of months now. (When I say "hate to admit it", I mean Criddic being right about something, not about the casualties dropping, which is great to see. But if casualties do drop at the exact same rate as Criddic being right about something, we may as well surrender and take Farsi lessons.)
And massive sectarian violence has also gone down. But saying this means we're winning is extremely simple-minded. There could be many reasons why this is happening.
It is true that just because violence has gone down, it does not mean we have won, but I do think it is an indication that we have a much better chance of winning than we did before. Personally, I think the significant gains made have turned the tide, for the time being. Much depends on how we (meaning US and coalition forces, as well as Iraqis) take the lead and further those gains.
By the same token, we must see that if it is true that less violence doesn't point necessarily to a win, more violence does not necessarily mean we have lost. That is the mistake many made before. A particularly violent month happens, and all of sudden everyone is saying it's hopeless, when there could be many reasons for an uptick, including desperation on the part of the enemy.
Edited By criddic3 on 1193985807
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
And what do the Iraqis themselves think? Not surprisingly, they disagree with criddic's assessment of the situation.
Iraqis' Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains
ABC News/BBC/NHK National Survey of Iraq Finds Worsening Public Attitudes
ANALYSIS By GARY LANGER
Sept. 10, 2007 —
Barely a quarter of Iraqis say their security has improved in the past six months, a negative assessment of the surge in U.S. forces that reflects worsening public attitudes across a range of measures, even as authorities report some progress curtailing violence.
Apart from a few scattered gains, a new national survey by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK finds deepening dissatisfaction with conditions in Iraq, lower ratings for the national government and growing rejection of the U.S. role there.
More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it's gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change. Far more, six in 10, say security in the country overall has worsened since the surge began, while just one in 10 sees improvement.
More directly assessing the surge itself -- a measure that necessarily includes views of the United States, which are highly negative -- 65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say it's worsened rather than improved security, political stability and the pace of redevelopment alike.
There are some improvements, but they're sparse and inconsistent. Thirty-eight percent in Anbar province, a focal point of the surge, now rate local security positively; none did so six months ago. In Baghdad fewer now describe themselves as feeling completely unsafe in their own neighborhoods -- 58 percent, down from 84 percent. Yet other assessments of security in these locales have not improved, nor has the view nationally.
Overall, 41 percent report security as their greatest personal problem, down seven points from 48 percent in March. But there's been essentially no change in the number who call it the nation's top problem (56 percent, with an additional 28 percent citing political or military issues). And there are other problems aplenty to sour the public's outlook -- lack of jobs, poor power and fuel supply, poor medical services and many more.
Big Picture
The big picture remains bleak. Six in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going badly, and even more, 78 percent, say things are going badly for the country overall -- up 13 points from last winter. Expectations have crumbled; just 23 percent see improvement for Iraq in the year ahead, down from 40 percent last winter and 69 percent in November 2005.
More than six in 10 now call the U.S.-led invasion of their country wrong, up from 52 percent last winter. Fifty-seven percent call violence against U.S. forces acceptable, up six points. And despite the uncertainties of what might follow, 47 percent now favor the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq -- a 12-point rise.
In a better result for the United States, fewer now blame U.S. or coalition forces directly for the violence occurring in Iraq -- 19 percent, down from 31 percent six months ago; as many (21 percent) blame al Qaeda. (Eight percent blame George W. Bush personally.)
If the United States is unpopular, others fare no better. Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis believe Iran is actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, up eight points; majorities also suspect Saudi Arabia and Syria of fomenting violence. And the poll finds almost unanimous opposition to most activities of al Qaeda in Iraq; the sole exception is its attacks on U.S. and other coalition forces.
Assessment
This survey, based on face-to-face interviews of 2,212 randomly selected Iraqis across the country Aug. 17-24, follows a similar poll in Iraq by ABC, the BBC and other partners last Feb. 25-March 5. Together the two surveys bracket the surge, providing an independent assessment of changes in local conditions and attitudes.
The Bush administration, with input from the U.S. military and its commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, reports this week on its own assessment of conditions in Iraq and the effect of the surge of approximately 30,000 additional U.S. troops there.
Iraqis' own views can differ from military evaluations of the surge for good reason. Public attitudes are not based on a narrow accounting of more or fewer bombings and murders, but on the bigger picture -- which for most in Iraq means continued violence, poor services, economic deprivation, inadequate reconstruction, political gridlock and other complaints. For instance, the reported drop in Baghdad from 896 violent deaths in July to 656 in August may simply have been insufficient to boost morale -- particularly when violent deaths nationally were up by 20 percent, largely on the basis of bombings that killed an estimated 500 in two villages near the Syrian border on Aug. 14.
Indeed just a quarter of Iraqis in this poll say they feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods, unchanged from six months ago. (And none reports feeling "very safe" in Baghdad or Anbar province.) Reports of car bombings and suicide attacks are more widespread; 42 percent now say these have happened nearby, up 10 points.
With both continued violence and no improvements in living conditions, frustration with Iraq's own government has grown as well. Despite billions spent, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area. And about two-thirds disapprove of the work of both the current government overall (up by 12 points since winter), and of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki personally.
The ABC/BBC/NHK poll, consisting of interviews that averaged nearly a half-hour in length, covered a wide range of attitudes and perceptions -- personal experiences, views of the nation's prospects, ratings of security and the surge, politics and reconstruction, the performance of the United States, the level of local violence, ethnic cleansing and more.
Personal Prospects
In perhaps the most bottom-line measure of a country's well-being, 61 percent of Iraqis say their lives are going badly, unchanged from last winter and double what it was in late 2005. Among Sunni Arabs, the country's elites under Saddam Hussein, this soars to 88 percent, while among Kurds in the semi-autonomous north it's jumped from one-third to half in the last six months alone.
The change over the long term is striking: In November 2005, 71 percent of Iraqis said their own lives were going well, compared with 39 percent in the last two polls.
The future looks equally bleak: Only 29 percent of Iraqis expect their own lives to get better in the next year, down six points from last winter, including a 17-point drop among Kurds. And just a third of Iraqis now think their children will have a better life than they do, down nine points from six months ago. Hopes for the next generation have fallen by 11 points among Shiites -- and by 24 points among increasingly negative Kurds.
Iraq's Condition
In terms of the country more broadly, in November 2005 a bare majority of Iraqis, 52 percent, said things were going badly. That rose to 65 percent last March, and 78 percent in this poll. The latest change includes a huge 40-point jump in negativity among Kurds, who enjoy far better living conditions in their northern provinces, but seem to have grown more alarmed about the situation to the south.
Expectations that the country will be in better shape a year off, at just 23 percent, are a third of their November 2005 level. Positive expectations have fallen by 23 points among Shiites and by 34 points among Kurds; they remain rock-bottom among Sunni Arabs.
Surge and Security
Overall assessments of security show no improvement since last winter, and direct ratings of the surge are highly negative. In one measure, the number of Iraqis who rate their local security positively (43 percent) is no better than it was in March. In another, as noted, just 24 percent say local security has improved in the last six months, including 16 percent in Baghdad, and not one respondent in Anbar.
Even fewer, 11 percent nationally, think security has improved in the country as a whole.
The widespread nature of the violence is part of this. In Baghdad, 52 percent report car bombings or suicide attacks in their local area, the same as in March; but so do 39 percent in the country, up from 26 percent six months ago. Accounts of other forms of violence -- such as snipers or crossfire, kidnappings for ransom and sectarian or factional fighting -- also remain widespread, though their prevalence has not increased.
Across the country overall, feelings of personal safety are no better than in March; just 26 percent of Iraqis feel "very safe" in their own neighborhood. And that's almost nonexistent across Iraq's major metro areas -- Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul -- where 98 percent of residents feel either "not very safe" (50 percent) or "not safe at all" (48 percent). Ratings of personal safety are better, though hardly good, in Iraq's smaller cities, villages and rural areas.
Direct ratings of the surge itself are particularly negative. At best, only 18 percent of Iraqis say it has improved security in surge areas; at worst, just six percent say it's improved the pace of economic development. Indeed, as noted, the surge broadly is seen to have done more harm than good, with 65 to 70 percent saying it's worsened rather than improved security in surge areas, security in other areas, conditions for political dialogue, the ability of the Iraqi government to do its work, the pace of reconstruction and the pace of economic development.
Every respondent in Baghdad, and also in Anbar (where George W. Bush paid a surprise visit to a sprawling U.S. base last week), says the surge has made security worse now than it was six months ago (anti-U.S. sentiment in these areas is very high, and likely a factor in these direct assessments). Views in the rest of the country are hardly positive: Outside Baghdad and Anbar, still just 26 percent say the surge has improved security.
A broader question, not specifically linked to the surge, has an equally negative result: Just 18 percent of Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making security better in their country overall, about the same as in March (21 percent). Instead 72 percent say the U.S. presence is making Iraq's security worse.
While fewer in Baghdad now feel "not safe at all," it's hard to tell if that reflects better conditions, or more people accommodating themselves to existing conditions -- the "new normal." Indeed, another result finds a 20-point drop in the number in Baghdad who rate local security positively.
In Anbar, as noted, 38 percent now rate local security positively -- none did in March. But there's been no improvement in the number who feel entirely unsafe (44 percent, compared with 38 percent in March).
There's one further, disquieting result on security: Asked which group is in command of security in their village or neighborhood, 16 percent of Iraqis -- up 11 points since March -- reply that no one commands security in their area. Across Iraq's major metropolitan areas, that rises to 30 percent. In Baghdad alone, it's 36 percent. This may be less a direct assessment of local command than an expression of frustration with ongoing lawlessness.
More Baghdad and Anbar
There's particular interest in conditions in the focal points of the surge. In his visit to Anbar last week, Bush declared, "normal life is returning." Yet most Anbar residents seem not to see it that way.
Forty-six percent in Anbar say lack of security is the biggest problem in their own lives, as many as say so elsewhere (it's 41 percent nationally). Seventy-four percent expect their children's lives to be worse than their own -- nearly double the national figure. On the plus side, as noted, 38 percent rate local security positively, while none did in March; and half as many now call it "very bad," 32 percent. But still 62 percent in Anbar rate local security negatively overall. And reports of factional fighting there are up.
Further, there have been increases in the most negative ratings ("very bad") on a variety of other issues in Anbar -- including the availability of jobs (now rated as very bad by 62 percent, nearly double the March figure), local schools, the supply of clean water and the availability of household goods, among others. Sixty-three percent say their freedom of movement is very bad; 73 percent say that about the availability of fuel.
Baghdad has its own continued problems. There have been 13- and 14-point drops in the number of Baghdad residents who report snipers or crossfire and kidnappings for ransom nearby; but still 43 and 44 percent, respectively, report these as occurring in their own areas. Sixty-eight percent call local security "very bad" -- actually up from March. One reason may be that even apart from sectarian violence, sharply more give a "very bad" rating to their family's protection from crime -- 66 percent, up from 44 percent in March. Again, as these are attitudinal measures, the drivers can be less crime protection -- or simply less patience among a wearied and dispirited population.
Reconstruction and Politics
Nor, in the eyes of Iraqis, have reconstruction efforts or political leadership improved. As noted, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area -- down by 10 points in the past six months. It's down by 25 points among Kurds, another of many signs of increasingly negative views in that once-positive group.
In terms of national politics, 65 percent disapprove of the way the Iraqi government has carried out its responsibilities, while just 35 percent approve. Disapproval of the Shiite-dominated government is up by 15 points, to 47 percent, among Shiites themselves; and up by 24 points among Kurds. It remains nearly unanimously negative among Sunni Arabs.
Similarly, disapproval of Maliki's performance as prime minister is up by nine points, to 66 percent. His approval rating, 33 percent overall (very similar to George W. Bush's), has fallen by 10 points since winter, including by 13 points among Shiites and by 27 points among Kurds.
Glimmers?
In one slim glimmer of political improvement, half of Iraqis now say members of parliament are "willing to make necessary compromises" for peace; that's up by nine points from 41 percent last winter. But while most Shiites and Kurds say so (66 and 55 percent, respectively,) far fewer Sunni Arabs -- 24 percent -- agree. (The day before interviews began, Maliki and Iraq's Kurdish president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds; Sunni moderates, however, refused to join.)
There are a few other whispers of possible gains. There's been a scant five-point drop in the number of Iraqis who report unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi army occurring in their local area; notably that includes a 26-point decline among Sunni Arabs (but a 10-point rise among Shiites, albeit just to 17 percent). There have been five- and six-point gains in the level of confidence in the Iraqi army and police, to sizable majorities of 67 and 69 percent, respectively. (This confidence still is vastly lower, albeit somewhat improved, among Sunni Arabs.) And there's been a 12-point drop, to just 24 percent, in confidence in local militias, including a 19-point decline among Shiites.
Another hopeful sign -- and a remarkable one given its troubles -- is the continued preference for Iraq to remain a single, unified state with a central government in Baghdad. Sixty-two percent favor that outcome, about the same as in March (albeit down from 79 percent in February 2004).
Support for a single, centrally governed state has risen among Shiites, but fallen among Kurds, who've moved more toward favoring separation of the country into independent states. Separation now gets 49 percent support among Kurds, up 19 points; an additional 42 percent of Kurds favor the Swiss-like solution of a group of regional states with a federal government in Baghdad. A single state retains most support among Sunni Arabs.
The War and U.S. Forces
Other assessments of the United States are overwhelmingly negative. As noted, nearly two-thirds of Iraqis now say it was wrong for the United States and its allies to have invaded Iraq -- 63 percent, up from 52 percent six months ago and from 39 percent in the first Iraq poll by ABC, the BBC and NHK (and the German broadcaster ARD) in February 2004.
Even among Shiites, empowered by the overthrow of Saddam, 51 percent now say the invasion was wrong, up sharply from 29 percent in March. (Further deterioration may be ahead; among Shiites who still support the invasion, the number who call it "absolutely" right has fallen from 34 percent in March to 14 percent now.) Only among the largely autonomous Kurds does a majority still support the invasion, and even their support, 71 percent, is down by 12 points.
Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition forces in the country, essentially unchanged from last winter -- including more than eight in 10 Shiites and nearly all Sunni Arabs. (Seven in 10 Kurds, by contrast, still support the presence of these forces.)
Similarly, 80 percent of Iraqis disapprove of the way U.S. and other coalition forces have performed in Iraq; the only change has been an increase in negative ratings of the U.S. performance among Kurds. And 86 percent of Iraqis express little or no confidence in U.S. and U.K. forces, similar to last winter and again up among Kurds.
Accusations of mistreatment continue: Forty-one percent of Iraqis in this poll (vs. 44 percent in March) report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces. That peaks at 63 percent among Sunni Arabs, and 66 percent in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
This disapproval rises to an endorsement of violence: Fifty-seven percent of Iraqis now call attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," up six points from last winter and more than three times its level (17 percent) in February 2004. Since March, acceptability of such attacks has risen by 15 points among Shiites (from 35 percent to 50 percent), while remaining near-unanimous among Sunnis (93 percent).
Kurds, by contrast -- protected by the United States when Saddam remained in power -- continue almost unanimously to call these attacks unacceptable.
Acceptability of attacks on U.S. forces also varies by locale, peaking at 100 percent in Anbar, 69 percent in Kirkuk city and 60 percent in Baghdad, compared with 38 percent in Basra and just three percent in the northern Kurdish provinces.
Withdrawal
Given such hostile views, 47 percent now say the United States and other coalition forces should leave Iraq immediately -- a view that's risen equally among Sunni Arabs (72 percent now say the U.S. should leave immediately, up 17 points) and Shiites (44 percent, up 16 points). Kurds almost unanimously disagree; just eight percent favor an immediate withdrawal.
The number of Iraqis favoring an immediate U.S. withdrawal has risen from 26 percent in November 2005 and 35 percent last winter; at 47 percent it's now a plurality for the first time (in the next most-popular option, 34 percent say U.S. forces should "remain until security is restored"). The fact that support for an immediate pullout of U.S. forces is not even higher, given the vast unpopularity of their presence, likely reflects the uncertainty of what might follow their departure.
Indeed, apart from Kurds, support for immediate withdrawal is lowest, and has risen the least, in Baghdad, whose mixed Shiite-Sunni status puts it at particular risk. Desire for the United States to "leave now" is highest in Anbar, still deeply anti-American despite any accommodation its leaders have made with the U.S. military.
The rise in support for U.S. withdrawal is linked to worsening views of the country's condition. People who think things are going badly for Iraq are far more likely to favor immediate withdrawal -- 56 percent vs. 16 percent. Similarly, people who are pessimistic about the country's future also are far more likely to favor withdrawal -- 53 percent, vs. 23 percent among optimists. With optimism down, support for withdrawal is up.
Clearly there are concerns -- varying sharply by population group -- about the implications if the U.S. does withdraw without first restoring civil order. Nearly half of Iraqis, 46 percent, foresee Shiite-dominated Iran taking control of parts of Iraq. As many foresee parts of Iraq becoming bases of operation for international terrorists. Fewer, just over a third, think U.S. withdrawal would lead to full-scale civil war in Iraq, but with big differences: Two in 10 Shiites foresee full-scale civil war, but that rises to four in 10 Sunni Arabs and six in 10 Kurds. Paradoxically, Sunni Arabs -- who dislike the United States most intensely and are most apt to favor its immediate withdrawal -- also are most apt to foresee a takeover of parts of Iraq by Shiite-dominated Iran if the United States does pull out. This apparent lack of palatable alternatives underscores Sunni Arabs' quandary, leaving them, in particular, so discontented with conditions in Iraq today.
Al Qaeda in Iraq
While U.S. efforts are viewed resoundingly negatively, this does not translate into support for activities of al Qaeda in Iraq. Disturbingly, nearly half of Iraqis (predominantly Sunni Arabs) say it's acceptable for al Qaeda in Iraq to attack U.S. and coalition forces. But Iraqis -- Sunni and Shiite alike -- almost unanimously reject other activities of al Qaeda in Iraq -- attacking Iraqi civilians (100 percent call this unacceptable), attempting to gain control of some areas (98 percent) and recruiting foreign fighters to come to Iraq (97 percent).
Other Local Conditions
Overall, of 13 local conditions tested in this poll, just one is reported to have improved -- ratings of local schools, eight points better to 51 percent positive. All the rest are stable or slightly worse, and all are rated poorly, ranging from views of local security (rated negatively by 57 percent) to the supply of electricity and fuel (both 92 percent negative). All are devastatingly bad in Baghdad, where in most cases every single respondent rated local conditions negatively, as was the case in March.
Segregation and Violence
Segregation of Iraqis -- both forced and voluntary -- continues to occur. Across the country, one in six Iraqis -- 17 percent -- report the separation of Sunni and Shiite Arabs on sectarian lines, including 11 percent who describe this as mainly forced. In Baghdad, it soars: Forty-three percent report the separation of Sunnis and Shiites from mixed to segregated areas, and 27 percent say it's mainly forced -- similar to the 31 percent who said so in March.
Ethnic cleansing clearly is not isolated in Baghdad. The forced separation of Iraqis along sectarian lines is reported by 39 percent in Basra city, in the mainly Shiite south; and by 24 percent -- one in four -- across all major metropolitan areas.
In a continued sign of hope, this separation is enormously unpopular: Ninety-eight percent, with agreement across ethnic and sectarian lines, oppose it.
Related results underscore the difficulty of life in Iraq: Seventy-seven percent rate their freedom to live where they want without persecution negatively; 74 percent rate their freedom of safe movement negatively. Both are essentially unchanged from March.
Ethnic cleansing is far from the only violence being visited upon Iraqis. As noted, 42 percent report car bombs and suicide attacks nearby; that includes 26 percent -- one in four -- who say these have occurred in the past six months.
Forty-one percent report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces (26 percent say this has occurred in the last six months). Four in 10 also report kidnappings for ransom in their areas; notably that soars to 82 percent in Kirkuk and 68 percent in Basra, vs. 44 percent in Baghdad.
Other forms of violence are also troublingly high: Thirty-four percent of Iraqis report fighting between government and insurgent forces in their local area (two in 10 in the last six months), 30 percent report snipers or crossfire; as many report unnecessary violence by local militias, 27 percent report sectarian fighting and two in 10 report unnecessary violence by the Iraqi army or police.
The number of Iraqis who believe Iran is encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, 79 percent, is up by eight points since March, chiefly because a majority of Shiites now share this view (62 percent, up 15 points). There's also been a nine-point rise, to 65 percent, in the number who believe mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia is encouraging violence. (Just 28 percent of Sunni Arabs hold this view, but that's up by 17 points, and it's risen among Kurds as well.) As many, 66 percent, also suspect Syria of encouraging violence.
Sunni/Shiite
A final point is a key one in Iraq's political equation: the makeup of the country by ethnic and religious groups. Iraq commonly is described as a majority Shiite nation, apparently on the basis of an undated and unsourced reference in the CIA's "World Factbook" proposing that 60 to 65 percent of Iraqis are Shiites.
In this survey, instead, Shiite Arabs comprise just under half of the population, 48 percent, as they did in the March poll, 47 percent.
Sunni Arabs account for 33 percent in this poll, again very similar (and within sampling tolerances) to their 35 percent in the March poll. Kurds accounted for 16 and 15 percent, respectively, in the two surveys; with three percent "other" in both. Together these two surveys consist of more than 4,400 interviews from 915 sampling points, a large combined sample with an unusual level of geographical coverage.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3571504
Edited By Akash on 1193692643
Iraqis' Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains
ABC News/BBC/NHK National Survey of Iraq Finds Worsening Public Attitudes
ANALYSIS By GARY LANGER
Sept. 10, 2007 —
Barely a quarter of Iraqis say their security has improved in the past six months, a negative assessment of the surge in U.S. forces that reflects worsening public attitudes across a range of measures, even as authorities report some progress curtailing violence.
Apart from a few scattered gains, a new national survey by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK finds deepening dissatisfaction with conditions in Iraq, lower ratings for the national government and growing rejection of the U.S. role there.
More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it's gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change. Far more, six in 10, say security in the country overall has worsened since the surge began, while just one in 10 sees improvement.
More directly assessing the surge itself -- a measure that necessarily includes views of the United States, which are highly negative -- 65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say it's worsened rather than improved security, political stability and the pace of redevelopment alike.
There are some improvements, but they're sparse and inconsistent. Thirty-eight percent in Anbar province, a focal point of the surge, now rate local security positively; none did so six months ago. In Baghdad fewer now describe themselves as feeling completely unsafe in their own neighborhoods -- 58 percent, down from 84 percent. Yet other assessments of security in these locales have not improved, nor has the view nationally.
Overall, 41 percent report security as their greatest personal problem, down seven points from 48 percent in March. But there's been essentially no change in the number who call it the nation's top problem (56 percent, with an additional 28 percent citing political or military issues). And there are other problems aplenty to sour the public's outlook -- lack of jobs, poor power and fuel supply, poor medical services and many more.
Big Picture
The big picture remains bleak. Six in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going badly, and even more, 78 percent, say things are going badly for the country overall -- up 13 points from last winter. Expectations have crumbled; just 23 percent see improvement for Iraq in the year ahead, down from 40 percent last winter and 69 percent in November 2005.
More than six in 10 now call the U.S.-led invasion of their country wrong, up from 52 percent last winter. Fifty-seven percent call violence against U.S. forces acceptable, up six points. And despite the uncertainties of what might follow, 47 percent now favor the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq -- a 12-point rise.
In a better result for the United States, fewer now blame U.S. or coalition forces directly for the violence occurring in Iraq -- 19 percent, down from 31 percent six months ago; as many (21 percent) blame al Qaeda. (Eight percent blame George W. Bush personally.)
If the United States is unpopular, others fare no better. Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis believe Iran is actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, up eight points; majorities also suspect Saudi Arabia and Syria of fomenting violence. And the poll finds almost unanimous opposition to most activities of al Qaeda in Iraq; the sole exception is its attacks on U.S. and other coalition forces.
Assessment
This survey, based on face-to-face interviews of 2,212 randomly selected Iraqis across the country Aug. 17-24, follows a similar poll in Iraq by ABC, the BBC and other partners last Feb. 25-March 5. Together the two surveys bracket the surge, providing an independent assessment of changes in local conditions and attitudes.
The Bush administration, with input from the U.S. military and its commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, reports this week on its own assessment of conditions in Iraq and the effect of the surge of approximately 30,000 additional U.S. troops there.
Iraqis' own views can differ from military evaluations of the surge for good reason. Public attitudes are not based on a narrow accounting of more or fewer bombings and murders, but on the bigger picture -- which for most in Iraq means continued violence, poor services, economic deprivation, inadequate reconstruction, political gridlock and other complaints. For instance, the reported drop in Baghdad from 896 violent deaths in July to 656 in August may simply have been insufficient to boost morale -- particularly when violent deaths nationally were up by 20 percent, largely on the basis of bombings that killed an estimated 500 in two villages near the Syrian border on Aug. 14.
Indeed just a quarter of Iraqis in this poll say they feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods, unchanged from six months ago. (And none reports feeling "very safe" in Baghdad or Anbar province.) Reports of car bombings and suicide attacks are more widespread; 42 percent now say these have happened nearby, up 10 points.
With both continued violence and no improvements in living conditions, frustration with Iraq's own government has grown as well. Despite billions spent, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area. And about two-thirds disapprove of the work of both the current government overall (up by 12 points since winter), and of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki personally.
The ABC/BBC/NHK poll, consisting of interviews that averaged nearly a half-hour in length, covered a wide range of attitudes and perceptions -- personal experiences, views of the nation's prospects, ratings of security and the surge, politics and reconstruction, the performance of the United States, the level of local violence, ethnic cleansing and more.
Personal Prospects
In perhaps the most bottom-line measure of a country's well-being, 61 percent of Iraqis say their lives are going badly, unchanged from last winter and double what it was in late 2005. Among Sunni Arabs, the country's elites under Saddam Hussein, this soars to 88 percent, while among Kurds in the semi-autonomous north it's jumped from one-third to half in the last six months alone.
The change over the long term is striking: In November 2005, 71 percent of Iraqis said their own lives were going well, compared with 39 percent in the last two polls.
The future looks equally bleak: Only 29 percent of Iraqis expect their own lives to get better in the next year, down six points from last winter, including a 17-point drop among Kurds. And just a third of Iraqis now think their children will have a better life than they do, down nine points from six months ago. Hopes for the next generation have fallen by 11 points among Shiites -- and by 24 points among increasingly negative Kurds.
Iraq's Condition
In terms of the country more broadly, in November 2005 a bare majority of Iraqis, 52 percent, said things were going badly. That rose to 65 percent last March, and 78 percent in this poll. The latest change includes a huge 40-point jump in negativity among Kurds, who enjoy far better living conditions in their northern provinces, but seem to have grown more alarmed about the situation to the south.
Expectations that the country will be in better shape a year off, at just 23 percent, are a third of their November 2005 level. Positive expectations have fallen by 23 points among Shiites and by 34 points among Kurds; they remain rock-bottom among Sunni Arabs.
Surge and Security
Overall assessments of security show no improvement since last winter, and direct ratings of the surge are highly negative. In one measure, the number of Iraqis who rate their local security positively (43 percent) is no better than it was in March. In another, as noted, just 24 percent say local security has improved in the last six months, including 16 percent in Baghdad, and not one respondent in Anbar.
Even fewer, 11 percent nationally, think security has improved in the country as a whole.
The widespread nature of the violence is part of this. In Baghdad, 52 percent report car bombings or suicide attacks in their local area, the same as in March; but so do 39 percent in the country, up from 26 percent six months ago. Accounts of other forms of violence -- such as snipers or crossfire, kidnappings for ransom and sectarian or factional fighting -- also remain widespread, though their prevalence has not increased.
Across the country overall, feelings of personal safety are no better than in March; just 26 percent of Iraqis feel "very safe" in their own neighborhood. And that's almost nonexistent across Iraq's major metro areas -- Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul -- where 98 percent of residents feel either "not very safe" (50 percent) or "not safe at all" (48 percent). Ratings of personal safety are better, though hardly good, in Iraq's smaller cities, villages and rural areas.
Direct ratings of the surge itself are particularly negative. At best, only 18 percent of Iraqis say it has improved security in surge areas; at worst, just six percent say it's improved the pace of economic development. Indeed, as noted, the surge broadly is seen to have done more harm than good, with 65 to 70 percent saying it's worsened rather than improved security in surge areas, security in other areas, conditions for political dialogue, the ability of the Iraqi government to do its work, the pace of reconstruction and the pace of economic development.
Every respondent in Baghdad, and also in Anbar (where George W. Bush paid a surprise visit to a sprawling U.S. base last week), says the surge has made security worse now than it was six months ago (anti-U.S. sentiment in these areas is very high, and likely a factor in these direct assessments). Views in the rest of the country are hardly positive: Outside Baghdad and Anbar, still just 26 percent say the surge has improved security.
A broader question, not specifically linked to the surge, has an equally negative result: Just 18 percent of Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making security better in their country overall, about the same as in March (21 percent). Instead 72 percent say the U.S. presence is making Iraq's security worse.
While fewer in Baghdad now feel "not safe at all," it's hard to tell if that reflects better conditions, or more people accommodating themselves to existing conditions -- the "new normal." Indeed, another result finds a 20-point drop in the number in Baghdad who rate local security positively.
In Anbar, as noted, 38 percent now rate local security positively -- none did in March. But there's been no improvement in the number who feel entirely unsafe (44 percent, compared with 38 percent in March).
There's one further, disquieting result on security: Asked which group is in command of security in their village or neighborhood, 16 percent of Iraqis -- up 11 points since March -- reply that no one commands security in their area. Across Iraq's major metropolitan areas, that rises to 30 percent. In Baghdad alone, it's 36 percent. This may be less a direct assessment of local command than an expression of frustration with ongoing lawlessness.
More Baghdad and Anbar
There's particular interest in conditions in the focal points of the surge. In his visit to Anbar last week, Bush declared, "normal life is returning." Yet most Anbar residents seem not to see it that way.
Forty-six percent in Anbar say lack of security is the biggest problem in their own lives, as many as say so elsewhere (it's 41 percent nationally). Seventy-four percent expect their children's lives to be worse than their own -- nearly double the national figure. On the plus side, as noted, 38 percent rate local security positively, while none did in March; and half as many now call it "very bad," 32 percent. But still 62 percent in Anbar rate local security negatively overall. And reports of factional fighting there are up.
Further, there have been increases in the most negative ratings ("very bad") on a variety of other issues in Anbar -- including the availability of jobs (now rated as very bad by 62 percent, nearly double the March figure), local schools, the supply of clean water and the availability of household goods, among others. Sixty-three percent say their freedom of movement is very bad; 73 percent say that about the availability of fuel.
Baghdad has its own continued problems. There have been 13- and 14-point drops in the number of Baghdad residents who report snipers or crossfire and kidnappings for ransom nearby; but still 43 and 44 percent, respectively, report these as occurring in their own areas. Sixty-eight percent call local security "very bad" -- actually up from March. One reason may be that even apart from sectarian violence, sharply more give a "very bad" rating to their family's protection from crime -- 66 percent, up from 44 percent in March. Again, as these are attitudinal measures, the drivers can be less crime protection -- or simply less patience among a wearied and dispirited population.
Reconstruction and Politics
Nor, in the eyes of Iraqis, have reconstruction efforts or political leadership improved. As noted, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area -- down by 10 points in the past six months. It's down by 25 points among Kurds, another of many signs of increasingly negative views in that once-positive group.
In terms of national politics, 65 percent disapprove of the way the Iraqi government has carried out its responsibilities, while just 35 percent approve. Disapproval of the Shiite-dominated government is up by 15 points, to 47 percent, among Shiites themselves; and up by 24 points among Kurds. It remains nearly unanimously negative among Sunni Arabs.
Similarly, disapproval of Maliki's performance as prime minister is up by nine points, to 66 percent. His approval rating, 33 percent overall (very similar to George W. Bush's), has fallen by 10 points since winter, including by 13 points among Shiites and by 27 points among Kurds.
Glimmers?
In one slim glimmer of political improvement, half of Iraqis now say members of parliament are "willing to make necessary compromises" for peace; that's up by nine points from 41 percent last winter. But while most Shiites and Kurds say so (66 and 55 percent, respectively,) far fewer Sunni Arabs -- 24 percent -- agree. (The day before interviews began, Maliki and Iraq's Kurdish president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds; Sunni moderates, however, refused to join.)
There are a few other whispers of possible gains. There's been a scant five-point drop in the number of Iraqis who report unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi army occurring in their local area; notably that includes a 26-point decline among Sunni Arabs (but a 10-point rise among Shiites, albeit just to 17 percent). There have been five- and six-point gains in the level of confidence in the Iraqi army and police, to sizable majorities of 67 and 69 percent, respectively. (This confidence still is vastly lower, albeit somewhat improved, among Sunni Arabs.) And there's been a 12-point drop, to just 24 percent, in confidence in local militias, including a 19-point decline among Shiites.
Another hopeful sign -- and a remarkable one given its troubles -- is the continued preference for Iraq to remain a single, unified state with a central government in Baghdad. Sixty-two percent favor that outcome, about the same as in March (albeit down from 79 percent in February 2004).
Support for a single, centrally governed state has risen among Shiites, but fallen among Kurds, who've moved more toward favoring separation of the country into independent states. Separation now gets 49 percent support among Kurds, up 19 points; an additional 42 percent of Kurds favor the Swiss-like solution of a group of regional states with a federal government in Baghdad. A single state retains most support among Sunni Arabs.
The War and U.S. Forces
Other assessments of the United States are overwhelmingly negative. As noted, nearly two-thirds of Iraqis now say it was wrong for the United States and its allies to have invaded Iraq -- 63 percent, up from 52 percent six months ago and from 39 percent in the first Iraq poll by ABC, the BBC and NHK (and the German broadcaster ARD) in February 2004.
Even among Shiites, empowered by the overthrow of Saddam, 51 percent now say the invasion was wrong, up sharply from 29 percent in March. (Further deterioration may be ahead; among Shiites who still support the invasion, the number who call it "absolutely" right has fallen from 34 percent in March to 14 percent now.) Only among the largely autonomous Kurds does a majority still support the invasion, and even their support, 71 percent, is down by 12 points.
Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition forces in the country, essentially unchanged from last winter -- including more than eight in 10 Shiites and nearly all Sunni Arabs. (Seven in 10 Kurds, by contrast, still support the presence of these forces.)
Similarly, 80 percent of Iraqis disapprove of the way U.S. and other coalition forces have performed in Iraq; the only change has been an increase in negative ratings of the U.S. performance among Kurds. And 86 percent of Iraqis express little or no confidence in U.S. and U.K. forces, similar to last winter and again up among Kurds.
Accusations of mistreatment continue: Forty-one percent of Iraqis in this poll (vs. 44 percent in March) report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces. That peaks at 63 percent among Sunni Arabs, and 66 percent in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
This disapproval rises to an endorsement of violence: Fifty-seven percent of Iraqis now call attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," up six points from last winter and more than three times its level (17 percent) in February 2004. Since March, acceptability of such attacks has risen by 15 points among Shiites (from 35 percent to 50 percent), while remaining near-unanimous among Sunnis (93 percent).
Kurds, by contrast -- protected by the United States when Saddam remained in power -- continue almost unanimously to call these attacks unacceptable.
Acceptability of attacks on U.S. forces also varies by locale, peaking at 100 percent in Anbar, 69 percent in Kirkuk city and 60 percent in Baghdad, compared with 38 percent in Basra and just three percent in the northern Kurdish provinces.
Withdrawal
Given such hostile views, 47 percent now say the United States and other coalition forces should leave Iraq immediately -- a view that's risen equally among Sunni Arabs (72 percent now say the U.S. should leave immediately, up 17 points) and Shiites (44 percent, up 16 points). Kurds almost unanimously disagree; just eight percent favor an immediate withdrawal.
The number of Iraqis favoring an immediate U.S. withdrawal has risen from 26 percent in November 2005 and 35 percent last winter; at 47 percent it's now a plurality for the first time (in the next most-popular option, 34 percent say U.S. forces should "remain until security is restored"). The fact that support for an immediate pullout of U.S. forces is not even higher, given the vast unpopularity of their presence, likely reflects the uncertainty of what might follow their departure.
Indeed, apart from Kurds, support for immediate withdrawal is lowest, and has risen the least, in Baghdad, whose mixed Shiite-Sunni status puts it at particular risk. Desire for the United States to "leave now" is highest in Anbar, still deeply anti-American despite any accommodation its leaders have made with the U.S. military.
The rise in support for U.S. withdrawal is linked to worsening views of the country's condition. People who think things are going badly for Iraq are far more likely to favor immediate withdrawal -- 56 percent vs. 16 percent. Similarly, people who are pessimistic about the country's future also are far more likely to favor withdrawal -- 53 percent, vs. 23 percent among optimists. With optimism down, support for withdrawal is up.
Clearly there are concerns -- varying sharply by population group -- about the implications if the U.S. does withdraw without first restoring civil order. Nearly half of Iraqis, 46 percent, foresee Shiite-dominated Iran taking control of parts of Iraq. As many foresee parts of Iraq becoming bases of operation for international terrorists. Fewer, just over a third, think U.S. withdrawal would lead to full-scale civil war in Iraq, but with big differences: Two in 10 Shiites foresee full-scale civil war, but that rises to four in 10 Sunni Arabs and six in 10 Kurds. Paradoxically, Sunni Arabs -- who dislike the United States most intensely and are most apt to favor its immediate withdrawal -- also are most apt to foresee a takeover of parts of Iraq by Shiite-dominated Iran if the United States does pull out. This apparent lack of palatable alternatives underscores Sunni Arabs' quandary, leaving them, in particular, so discontented with conditions in Iraq today.
Al Qaeda in Iraq
While U.S. efforts are viewed resoundingly negatively, this does not translate into support for activities of al Qaeda in Iraq. Disturbingly, nearly half of Iraqis (predominantly Sunni Arabs) say it's acceptable for al Qaeda in Iraq to attack U.S. and coalition forces. But Iraqis -- Sunni and Shiite alike -- almost unanimously reject other activities of al Qaeda in Iraq -- attacking Iraqi civilians (100 percent call this unacceptable), attempting to gain control of some areas (98 percent) and recruiting foreign fighters to come to Iraq (97 percent).
Other Local Conditions
Overall, of 13 local conditions tested in this poll, just one is reported to have improved -- ratings of local schools, eight points better to 51 percent positive. All the rest are stable or slightly worse, and all are rated poorly, ranging from views of local security (rated negatively by 57 percent) to the supply of electricity and fuel (both 92 percent negative). All are devastatingly bad in Baghdad, where in most cases every single respondent rated local conditions negatively, as was the case in March.
Segregation and Violence
Segregation of Iraqis -- both forced and voluntary -- continues to occur. Across the country, one in six Iraqis -- 17 percent -- report the separation of Sunni and Shiite Arabs on sectarian lines, including 11 percent who describe this as mainly forced. In Baghdad, it soars: Forty-three percent report the separation of Sunnis and Shiites from mixed to segregated areas, and 27 percent say it's mainly forced -- similar to the 31 percent who said so in March.
Ethnic cleansing clearly is not isolated in Baghdad. The forced separation of Iraqis along sectarian lines is reported by 39 percent in Basra city, in the mainly Shiite south; and by 24 percent -- one in four -- across all major metropolitan areas.
In a continued sign of hope, this separation is enormously unpopular: Ninety-eight percent, with agreement across ethnic and sectarian lines, oppose it.
Related results underscore the difficulty of life in Iraq: Seventy-seven percent rate their freedom to live where they want without persecution negatively; 74 percent rate their freedom of safe movement negatively. Both are essentially unchanged from March.
Ethnic cleansing is far from the only violence being visited upon Iraqis. As noted, 42 percent report car bombs and suicide attacks nearby; that includes 26 percent -- one in four -- who say these have occurred in the past six months.
Forty-one percent report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces (26 percent say this has occurred in the last six months). Four in 10 also report kidnappings for ransom in their areas; notably that soars to 82 percent in Kirkuk and 68 percent in Basra, vs. 44 percent in Baghdad.
Other forms of violence are also troublingly high: Thirty-four percent of Iraqis report fighting between government and insurgent forces in their local area (two in 10 in the last six months), 30 percent report snipers or crossfire; as many report unnecessary violence by local militias, 27 percent report sectarian fighting and two in 10 report unnecessary violence by the Iraqi army or police.
The number of Iraqis who believe Iran is encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, 79 percent, is up by eight points since March, chiefly because a majority of Shiites now share this view (62 percent, up 15 points). There's also been a nine-point rise, to 65 percent, in the number who believe mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia is encouraging violence. (Just 28 percent of Sunni Arabs hold this view, but that's up by 17 points, and it's risen among Kurds as well.) As many, 66 percent, also suspect Syria of encouraging violence.
Sunni/Shiite
A final point is a key one in Iraq's political equation: the makeup of the country by ethnic and religious groups. Iraq commonly is described as a majority Shiite nation, apparently on the basis of an undated and unsourced reference in the CIA's "World Factbook" proposing that 60 to 65 percent of Iraqis are Shiites.
In this survey, instead, Shiite Arabs comprise just under half of the population, 48 percent, as they did in the March poll, 47 percent.
Sunni Arabs account for 33 percent in this poll, again very similar (and within sampling tolerances) to their 35 percent in the March poll. Kurds accounted for 16 and 15 percent, respectively, in the two surveys; with three percent "other" in both. Together these two surveys consist of more than 4,400 interviews from 915 sampling points, a large combined sample with an unusual level of geographical coverage.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3571504
Edited By Akash on 1193692643
Vive la France!
From The Raw Story:
RUMSFELD HIT WITH TORTURE LAWSUIT WHILE VISITING PARIS
by
Jason Rhyne October 26, 2007
Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's jaunt to France was interrupted today by an unscheduled itinerary item -- he was slapped with a criminal complaint charging him with torture.
Rumsfeld, in Paris for a discussion sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy, was by tracked down by representatives of a coalition of international human rights groups, who informed the architect of the US invasion of Iraq that they had submitted a torture suit against him in French court.
The filed documents allege that during his tenure, the former defense secretary "ordered and authorized" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The head of one of the groups responsible for bringing the charges, the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights <http://ccrjustice.org/>, told RAW STORY today by phone that the suit was a long time coming.
"We've been working on cornering Rumsfeld and getting him indicted somewhere going on three years now," said the Center's president, Michael Ratner. "Four days ago, we got confidential information he was going to be in France."
Joined by activists, attorneys for the human rights groups caught up with Rumsfeld on his way to a breakfast meeting. "He was walking down the street with just one person," said Ratner.
"Around 20 campaigners gave Rumsfeld a rowdy welcome...yelling 'murderer,' waving a banner and trying to push into the building," reports AFP.
Ratner, who wasn't personally at the scene, says his sources told him that the former defense secretary made some pre-scheduled remarks at the meeting before ducking through a door leading to the US Embassy.
According to Ratner, France has a legal responsibility under international law to prosecute Rumsfeld for torture abuses.
"If a torturer comes into your territory," he said, "there's an obligation to either prosecute the person or return him to a place where he will be prosecuted."
The rights groups notably cite three memorandums signed by the defense secretary between October
2002 and April 2003 "legimitizing the use of torture" including the "hooding" of detainees, sleep deprivation and the use of dogs.
Although his group has been a part of previous attempts to bring charges against Rumsfeld, including two former tries in Germany, Ratner believes French court has the highest chance of success.
"There are Guantananamo detainees who were tortured that are living in France," he said. "It gives French courts another reason to prosecute."
Ratner says Europe is "getting very hot for Rumsfeld," and suggests a French court could at least issue its version of a subpoena.
"We hope that this case will move forward," he said, "especially as the US says it can continue to torture people."
Other groups involved in the complaint include the International Federation of Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
More details about the lawsuit are available at the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights <http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-re ... rip-france>.
From The Raw Story:
RUMSFELD HIT WITH TORTURE LAWSUIT WHILE VISITING PARIS
by
Jason Rhyne October 26, 2007
Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's jaunt to France was interrupted today by an unscheduled itinerary item -- he was slapped with a criminal complaint charging him with torture.
Rumsfeld, in Paris for a discussion sponsored by the magazine Foreign Policy, was by tracked down by representatives of a coalition of international human rights groups, who informed the architect of the US invasion of Iraq that they had submitted a torture suit against him in French court.
The filed documents allege that during his tenure, the former defense secretary "ordered and authorized" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The head of one of the groups responsible for bringing the charges, the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights <http://ccrjustice.org/>, told RAW STORY today by phone that the suit was a long time coming.
"We've been working on cornering Rumsfeld and getting him indicted somewhere going on three years now," said the Center's president, Michael Ratner. "Four days ago, we got confidential information he was going to be in France."
Joined by activists, attorneys for the human rights groups caught up with Rumsfeld on his way to a breakfast meeting. "He was walking down the street with just one person," said Ratner.
"Around 20 campaigners gave Rumsfeld a rowdy welcome...yelling 'murderer,' waving a banner and trying to push into the building," reports AFP.
Ratner, who wasn't personally at the scene, says his sources told him that the former defense secretary made some pre-scheduled remarks at the meeting before ducking through a door leading to the US Embassy.
According to Ratner, France has a legal responsibility under international law to prosecute Rumsfeld for torture abuses.
"If a torturer comes into your territory," he said, "there's an obligation to either prosecute the person or return him to a place where he will be prosecuted."
The rights groups notably cite three memorandums signed by the defense secretary between October
2002 and April 2003 "legimitizing the use of torture" including the "hooding" of detainees, sleep deprivation and the use of dogs.
Although his group has been a part of previous attempts to bring charges against Rumsfeld, including two former tries in Germany, Ratner believes French court has the highest chance of success.
"There are Guantananamo detainees who were tortured that are living in France," he said. "It gives French courts another reason to prosecute."
Ratner says Europe is "getting very hot for Rumsfeld," and suggests a French court could at least issue its version of a subpoena.
"We hope that this case will move forward," he said, "especially as the US says it can continue to torture people."
Other groups involved in the complaint include the International Federation of Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
More details about the lawsuit are available at the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights <http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-re ... rip-france>.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
You forgot "environmental"Sonic Youth wrote:Again, violence is only one reason to gauge success in Iraq. If the political, humanitarinan and economic situation is still an abomination, the current military situation isn't going to amount to much in the long-run.
October 25th, 2007
Ecological Warfare
Iraq's Environmental Crisis
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
The ecological effects of war, like its horrific toll on human life, are exponential. When the Bush Administration and their Congressional allies sent our troops in to Iraq to topple Saddam's regime, they not only ordered these men and women to commit crimes against humanity, they also commanded them to perpetrate crimes against nature.
The first Gulf War had a horrific effect on the environment, as CNN reported in 1999, "Iraq was responsible for intentionally releasing some 11 million barrels of oil into the Arabian Gulf from January to May 1991, oiling more than 800 miles of Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian coastline. The amount of oil released was categorized as 20 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and twice as large as the previous world record oil spill. The cost of cleanup has been estimated at more than $700 million."
During the build up to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, Saddam loyalists promised to light oil fields afire, hoping to expose what they claimed were the U.S.'s underlying motives for attacking their country: oil. The U.S. architects of the Iraq war surely knew this was a potential reality once they entered Baghdad in March of 2003. Hostilities in Kuwait resulted in the discharge of an estimated 7 million barrels of oil, culminating in the world's largest oil spill in January of 1991. The United Nations later calculated that of Kuwait's 1,330 active oil wells, half had been set ablaze. The pungent fumes and smoke from those dark billowing flames spread for hundreds of miles and had horrible effects on human and environmental health. Saddam Hussein was rightly denounced as a ferocious villain for ordering his retreating troops to destroy Kuwaiti oil fields.
However, the United States military was also responsible for much of the environmental devastation of the first Gulf War. In the early 1990s the U.S. drowned at least 80 crude oil ships to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, partly to uphold the U.N.'s economic sanctions against Iraq. Vast crude oil slicks formed, killing an unknown quantity of aquatic life and sea birds while wrecking havoc on local fishing and tourist communities.
Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by U.S. and British planes and cruise missiles also left behind an even more deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the U.S. hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles.
More than 15 years later, the health consequences from this radioactive bombing campaign are beginning to come into focus. And they are dire. Iraqi physicians call it "the white death"-leukemia. Since 1990, the incident rate of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than 600 percent. The situation was compounded by Iraq's forced isolation and the sadistic sanctions regime, once described by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan as "a humanitarian crisis", that made detection and treatment of the cancers all the more difficult.
Most of the leukemia and cancer victims aren't soldiers. They are civilians. Depleted uranium is a rather benign sounding name for uranium-238, the trace elements left behind when the fissionable material is extracted from uranium-235 for use in nuclear reactors and weapons. For decades, this waste was a radioactive nuisance, piling up at plutonium processing plants across the country. By the late 1980s there was nearly a billion tons of the material.
Then weapons designers at the Pentagon came up with a use for the tailings. They could be molded into bullets and bombs. The material was free and there was plenty at hand. Also uranium is a heavy metal, denser than lead. This makes it perfect for use in armor-penetrating weapons, designed to destroy tanks, armored-personnel carriers and bunkers.
When the tank-busting bombs explode, the depleted uranium oxidizes into microscopic fragments that float through the air like carcinogenic dust, carried on the desert winds for decades. The lethal bits when inhaled stick to the fibers of the lungs, and eventually begin to wreck havoc on the body in the form of tumors, hemorrhages, ravaged immune systems and leukemias.
It didn't take long for medical teams in the region to detect cancer clusters near the bomb sites. The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, tripled in five years following the bombings. But it's not just the Serbs who are ill and dying. NATO and U.N. peacekeepers in the region are also coming down with cancer.
The Pentagon has shuffled through a variety of rationales and excuses. First, the Defense Department shrugged off concerns about Depleted Uranium as wild conspiracy theories by peace activists, environmentalists and Iraqi propagandists. When the U.S.'s NATO allies demanded that the U.S. disclose the chemical and metallic properties of its munitions, the Pentagon refused. Depleted uranium has a half-life of more than 4 billion years, approximately the age of the Earth. Thousand of acres of land in the Balkans, Kuwait and southern Iraq have been contaminated forever.
Speaking of DU and other war-related disasters, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said the environmental consequences of the Iraq war could in fact be more ominous than the issue of war and peace itself. Despite this stark admission, the U.S. made no public attempts to assess the environmental risks that the war would inflict.
Blix was right. On the second day of President Bush's invasion of Iraq it was reported by the New York Times and the BBC that Iraqi forces had set fire to several of the country's large oil wells. Five days later in the Rumaila oilfields, six dozen wellheads were set ablaze. The dense black smoke rose high in the southern sky of Iraq, fanning a clear signal that the U.S. invasion had again ignited an environmental tragedy. Shortly after the initial invasion the United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) satellite data showed that a significant amount of toxic smoke had been emitted from burning oils wells. This smoldering oil was laced with poisonous chemicals such as mercury, sulfur and furans, which can causes serious damage to human as well as ecosystem health.
According to Friends of the Earth, the fallout from burning oil debris, like that of the first Gulf War, has created a toxic sea surface that has affected the health of birds and marine life. One area that has been greatly impacted is the Sea of Oman, which connects the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf byway of the Strait of Hormuz. This waterway is one of the most productive marine habitats in the world. In fact the Global Environment Fund contends that this region "plays a significant role in sustaining the life cycle of marine turtle populations in the whole North-Western Indo Pacific region." Of the world's seven marine turtles, five are found in the Sea of Oman and four of those five are listed as "endangered" with the other listed as "threatened".
The future indeed looks bleak for the ecosystems and biodiversity of Iraq, but the consequences of the U.S. military invasion will not only be confined to the war stricken country. The Gulf shores, according to BirdLife's Mike Evans, is "one of the top five sites in the world for wader birds, and a key refueling area for hundreds of thousands of migrating water birds." The U.N. Environment Program claims that 33 wetland areas in Iraq are of vital importance to the survival of various bird species. These wetlands, the U.N. claims, are also particularly vulnerable to pollution from munitions fallout as well as oil wells that have been sabotaged.
Mike Evans also maintains that the current Iraq war could destroy what's left of the Mesopotamian marshes on the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Following the war of 1991 Saddam removed dissenters of his regime who had built homes in the marshes by digging large canals along the two rivers so that they would have access to their waters. Thousands of people were displaced. The communities ruined.
The construction of dams upstream on the once roaring Tigris and Euphrates has dried up more than 90 percent of the marshes and has led to extinction of several animals. Water buffalo, foxes, waterfowl and boar have disappeared. "What remains of the fragile marshes, and the 20,000 people who still live off them, will lie right in the path of forces heading towards Baghdad from the south," wrote Fred Pearce in the New Scientist prior to Bush's invasion in 2003. The true effect this war has had on these wetlands and its inhabitants is still not known.
The destruction of Iraqi's infrastructure has had substantial public health implications as well. Bombed out industrial plants and factories have polluted ground water. The damage to sewage-treatment plants, with reports that raw sewage formed massive pools of muck in the streets of Baghdad immediately after Bush's 'Shock and Awe' campaign, is also likely poisoning rivers as well as human life. Cases of typhoid among Iraqi citizens have risen tenfold since 1991, largely due to polluted drinking water.
That number has almost certainly increased more in the past few years following the ousting of Saddam. In fact during the 1990s, while Iraq was under sanctions, U.N. officials in Baghdad agreed that the root cause of child mortality and other health problems was no longer simply lack of food and medicine but the lack of clean water (freely available in all parts of the country prior to the first Gulf War) and of electrical power, which had predictable consequences for hospitals and water-pumping systems. Of the 21.9 percent of contracts vetoed as of mid-1999 by the U.N.'s U.S.-dominated sanctions committee, a high proportion were integral to the efforts to repair the failing water and sewage systems.
The real cumulative impact of U.S. military action in Iraq, past and present, won't be known for years, perhaps decades, to come. Stopping this war now will not only save lives, it will also help to rescue what's left of Iraq's fragile environment.
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair10252007.html
Done and done.criddic3 wrote:So go ahead: Make fun of my post. Tell me how this is propaganda and war-mongering. Tell me how if we only use diplomacy and talk to the terrorists everything can be sorted out. Scold me for saying that things are improving in Iraq. Laugh at me for saying there is an enemy and for not saying that this is our fault.
-
Sonic Youth
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8005
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
- Location: USA
It's not make believe. People are now having more optimism about the potential outcome than they have in a loooong time. There's a new poll out that says that 43% of those surveyed believe that we are winning, compared to 39% the previous month in that poll.Akash wrote:Oh good lord criddic! After all the articles Sonic, Damien, myself and others have posted on the war in Iraq, countless polls, and even Republicans themselves criticizing the war, only YOU would still insist that we're actually "winning."
Must be nice living over there in the Land of Make Believe!
People who long ago gave up, or who never supported in the first place, are the people who refuse to listen when anyone suggests that things have improved dramatically in Iraq. Wake up people! Why do you insist on us losing? What does it gain you?
I know you think you are being realists and such, but you're not being realistic at all. If we really do lose, you know who wins? I know, to you this is a talking point or something, but the truth is that terrorists win if we lose. You know what they want to do to us? Think about it. They aren't going away if we lose. You should be happy when good news comes out of Iraq, but instead you only brag about how you must be right when things go bad there. It really looks snobbish and immature. Maybe you think we all deserve to die at the hands of jihadists and radicals, but you're only fooling yourselves if you think losing or leaving will appease them. They really want us dead. That's not fear-mongering. It's reality. They say it, they show it, and they worship to that premise. I know that's only the radical element of Islam, but its a powerful element.
The surge has helped turn that tide. We are making significant progress in Iraq, and have a great chance to win and to change things for the better in that region. But you think that's a fantasy, because you don't want to give credence to a Bush policy. If it were almost anyone else, you wouldn't be so adamant in actively seeking bad news. This isn't about Bush, so much as its about surviving in a world where terrorists would only be too happy to slit our throats for not converting to their religion. It's a war on us. They said it before we went to Iraq. And they aren't going to stop unless we stop them. So go ahead: Make fun of my post. Tell me how this is propaganda and war-mongering. Tell me how if we only use diplomacy and talk to the terrorists everything can be sorted out. Scold me for saying that things are improving in Iraq. Laugh at me for saying there is an enemy and for not saying that this is our fault.
"Because here’s the thing about life: There’s no accounting for what fate will deal you. Some days when you need a hand. There are other days when we’re called to lend a hand." -- President Joe Biden, 01/20/2021
There've been plenty of protests of the war in Washington. Not on the scale of Vietnam, of course, but there have been several demonstrations, both small and large. It's not just the war that's being protested, too -- Darfur gets some action, political prisoners and, most recently, the Christian zealots took to the streets to protest ENDA. Sort of a standard site for this city.
Edited By flipp525 on 1193590192
Edited By flipp525 on 1193590192
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-
Sonic Youth
- Tenured Laureate
- Posts: 8005
- Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
- Location: USA
But that's just a turn of phrase. It's not literal conscription. The point is, deploy the draft and you'll have the mass protests. Were there no draft in the 60s, the protests and probably the counterculture would have been smaller.
Sorry guys, but I am the one who has been posting the numbers of American soldier fatalities. And as much as I hate to admit it, but Criddic is on to something. The rate of casualties has dropped, and has been doing so for a couple of months now. (When I say "hate to admit it", I mean Criddic being right about something, not about the casualties dropping, which is great to see. But if casualties do drop at the exact same rate as Criddic being right about something, we may as well surrender and take Farsi lessons.)
And massive sectarian violence has also gone down. But saying this means we're winning is extremely simple-minded. There could be many reasons why this is happening. For one, there aren't as many people left to kill. Neighborhoods have either diminished in population or drastically segregated to the point where there will be less massive sectarian violence. That's a win of the most Pyhrric sort. Or it could foretell more ominous things to come, such as a segragated buildup of populations leading to large battles over territories or anything else.
And don't fool yourself into thinking reduction in troop casualties means we're winning. Last August, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a cessation of violence from the Mahdi army and his followers. But he never indicated that it would be permanent, and this could start up all over again. They may be replenishing their resources. Or they may be holding back in order to get us the fuck out of there. But that it means things are getting better is very unlikely. The troop death toll has gone down to this level before, only to flare up again. September '06, the death toll was 77 soldiers. This Sept. the toll is 69. That's about an 11% reduction, hardly a reason to break out the "Mission Accomplished!" banner.
Again, violence is only one reason to gauge success in Iraq. If the political, humanitarinan and economic situation is still an abomination, the current military situation isn't going to amount to much in the long-run. In other words, even when Criddic is right, he's wrong again.
Sorry guys, but I am the one who has been posting the numbers of American soldier fatalities. And as much as I hate to admit it, but Criddic is on to something. The rate of casualties has dropped, and has been doing so for a couple of months now. (When I say "hate to admit it", I mean Criddic being right about something, not about the casualties dropping, which is great to see. But if casualties do drop at the exact same rate as Criddic being right about something, we may as well surrender and take Farsi lessons.)
And massive sectarian violence has also gone down. But saying this means we're winning is extremely simple-minded. There could be many reasons why this is happening. For one, there aren't as many people left to kill. Neighborhoods have either diminished in population or drastically segregated to the point where there will be less massive sectarian violence. That's a win of the most Pyhrric sort. Or it could foretell more ominous things to come, such as a segragated buildup of populations leading to large battles over territories or anything else.
And don't fool yourself into thinking reduction in troop casualties means we're winning. Last August, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a cessation of violence from the Mahdi army and his followers. But he never indicated that it would be permanent, and this could start up all over again. They may be replenishing their resources. Or they may be holding back in order to get us the fuck out of there. But that it means things are getting better is very unlikely. The troop death toll has gone down to this level before, only to flare up again. September '06, the death toll was 77 soldiers. This Sept. the toll is 69. That's about an 11% reduction, hardly a reason to break out the "Mission Accomplished!" banner.
Again, violence is only one reason to gauge success in Iraq. If the political, humanitarinan and economic situation is still an abomination, the current military situation isn't going to amount to much in the long-run. In other words, even when Criddic is right, he's wrong again.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler