Clipmarks | jklugman's 'fubar' clips

Petraeus goes back on promise to assess surge in Sept.

Thu, 17 May 2007 19:03:18 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: As late as April 26th David Petraeus promised that we would know whether things were working out by September:

General Petraeus said he and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, intended to stick by a vow to offer the White House and the Pentagon an assessment of the progress of the new strategy by early September. And he signaled that he hoped for political progress in Iraq, not just military improvements.

''We'll have seen whether in fact our efforts in these areas have helped produce the kind of progress that they are designed in fact to produce,'' he said. ''One would certainly hope that the Iraqi legislators would match that with their own hard work. That's our expectation.''

(from the New York Times, "US Commander Says Fall Pullback in Iraq Would Lead to More Sectarian Killings", by David S. Cloud and Michael R. Gordon, April 26th)

Clip Source: www.iraqslogger.com

Baghdad – Three months into the job, General David Petraeus says it is difficult to predict how well the surge of troops in Baghdad will succeed before the full number of troops arrive and that he would not have a definitive answer about prospects for stability by September, when he is to report back to Congress.

“I think generally is is still early days. We are literally still just setting the footprint if you will to do what we intend to achieve but until we get all those forces in and have really worked with them for a while I think it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen,” he told me in an interview Tuesday evening.

Tags: david petraeus, promises, iraq, fubar

Bush endangering troops by not planning for withdrawal

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:24:14 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Mark Thoma reproduces part of a National Journal article that points out that troop withdrawal can be very dangerous for the troops, and by failing to plan for it the Bush administration is increasing the odds for a chaotic, difficult, and dangerous withdrawal for the US troops when withdrawal does come.

Clip Source: economistsview.typepad.com

in all probability, the United States is going to draw down some or most of its troops from Iraq sooner or later, regardless of whether the surge ends up pacifying Baghdad or not (likely not). Military experts all agree that pulling out could end up being the most difficult and treacherous phase of the entire war. But the Pentagon can’t really plan for withdrawal because the president doesn’t want to discuss it.

As you pull forces out, it reverses, and your strength curve goes down, and the situation becomes steadily more dangerous. It's most dangerous for the very last squad that leaves the country. That's why you saw helicopters on the rooftops of the Saigon embassy in 1975."

The military could take a host of steps to help mitigate the risks of a U.S. troop drawdown... [But] ... It's almost impossible for the military to seriously plan for a contingency -- withdrawal -- that the commander-in-chief won't even discuss, Sinnreich noted.

Tags: bush administration, iraq, fubar, incompetence, war

US officer: our generals are not worthy of our soldiers

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:20:04 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Lt. Col. Paul Yingling wrote an article in the Armed Forces Journal that says that lack of accountability has resulted in generals who are basically toadies of the civilian leadership, failed to confront the seriousness of the insurgency in Iraq, and misled the public about the situation there.

Via Richard Adams at the Guardian News Blog.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering article attacking U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and also misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."

Its appearance signals the public emergence of a split inside the military among younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.

America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public," he writes. "For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq."

Tags: iraq, military, army, paul yingling, incompetence, fubar, soldiers

Pentagon blocks military officers from testifying to Congress

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 16:48:18 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Is our training of the Iraqi security forces not going well, and the Pentagon is covering up that fact?

Clip Source: www.warandpiece.com

Pentagon lawyers abruptly blocked mid-level active-duty military officers from speaking Thursday during a closed-door House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee briefing about their personal experiences working with Iraqi security forces.

The Pentagon's last-minute refusal to allow the officers' presentations surprised panel members and congressional aides, who are in the middle of an investigation into the effort to train and organize Iraqi forces.

Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Martin Meehan, D-Mass., called the Pentagon's move "outrageous" and left open the possibility of issuing subpoenas.

One correspondent suggests: "My guess: the training is not going well, there are some big gaps, and a bunch of horror stories that the Pentagon doesn't want aired. ... That said, this will backfire."

Tags: military, iraq, war, congress, democracy, fubar, secrecy

Reports of progress in Iraq challenged

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:58:26 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

If violence is down in Baghdad, analysts said, it is likely because the Shiite militias operating there are waiting out the buildup in U.S. troops, nearly all of whom are being deployed in the capital. At the same time, Sunni insurgents have escalated their operations elsewhere.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

President Bush on Tuesday cited "encouraging signs" of military and political progress in Iraq as his new strategy gets underway. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted that "things are going reasonably well." And on Thursday, Rice's special coordinator for Iraq, David M. Satterfield, described a "dramatic decrease" in sectarian attacks in Baghdad since Bush's plan was announced in January.

But a number of analysts and critics said this week that some of those signs indicate less progress than the administration has suggested. Sectarian attacks in Baghdad are down at the moment, but the deaths of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops have increased outside the capital. Though Iraqi leaders have agreed on a new framework law for oil resources, the details of how the oil revenue will be divided among competing Iraqi groups remain unresolved.

Tags: iraq, bush administration, deception, fubar, civil war, news, politics, war

How bad are things in Iraq?

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 02:58:47 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.brendan-nyhan.com

January 27, 2007

How bad are things in Iraq?

Very, very bad. Here's a disturbing fact mentioned in passing during a NPR report that aired on Monday about kidnappings in Iraq:

Some people now tattoo telephone numbers on their arms, so if they are killed their families can be contacted.

And here's Vice President Cheney on CNN two days later:

Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes [in Iraq] and we will continue to have enormous successes.

It must be fun to live outside the reality-based community.

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05:40 PM | Permalink

Tags: bush administration, iraq, fubar, civil war, civil-war, incompetence, deception

White House 'panicked' over anti-war resolutions

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 03:15:29 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via Brad DeLong

Clip Source: www.politico.com

Bush Allies Warn Iraq Vote Could Harm War Plan, GOP Future

By: Jim VandeHei
January 27, 2007 06:45 PM EST

Top White House officials are scrambling to prevent a showdown over the Iraq war that could tear apart the Republican Party and severely undermine President Bush's plan to increase U.S. troop levels.

White House officials are pleading with GOP senators to oppose any congressional resolution that specifically condemns Bush's effort to escalate the war effort in coming months, congressional sources said Friday morning. In private conversations, the officials are telling senators that the resolution would demoralize U.S. troops and hurt the GOP politically for years to come.

Bush allies are arguing that Republicans will damage their individual political interests as well. Their logic is that there is no anti-war constituency inside the Republican Party, pointing specifically to Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a potential presidential candidate who has opposed the surge but not gained much traction with party activists. "That's a flat argument," the senior aide said. "That does not work."

The Bush White House is described as panicked by the prospects of mass defections and open to compromise. They have cause for concern: at least six Republicans, including Sen. John Warner of Virginia, have signed resolutions opposing the surge. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nev., has not committed to a vote on the resolution next week. He is negotiating compromise language between Foreign Relations Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Warner, the panel's ranking Republican and an influential voice on military matters, to entice more GOP senators to support the measure.

Tags: bush administration, incompetence, iraq, fubar, congress, democrats, republicans, via:brad delong

US official in Iraq: "We are being played like a pawn."

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:18:08 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”

Tags: iraq, bush administration, fubar, incompetence, war

Trent Lott gets bashful

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 19:58:33 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: According to this article, Republicans are going to wait for 2-3 months to see if there are any improvements in Iraq, before demanding a withdrawal.

Via Josh Marshall

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

The Senate: The Republican Revolt

How close is Bush to losing his own party?

By Richard Wolffe, Holly Bailey and Eleanor Clift

Newsweek

Jan. 22, 2007 issue - Last Tuesday afternoon, a day before President George W. Bush went on TV to explain his decision to send more troops to Iraq, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called his Republican colleagues together for a private talk. Several GOP senators had already come out against the plan. McConnell, Bush's closest Senate supporter on Iraq, hoped to keep others from defecting. He urged his colleagues to stand together at least until Bush had the chance to speak to the country. After the meeting, the senators went outside the room to display their unity to waiting reporters. McConnell said he thought more troops were just the thing to "give us a chance to succeed." He then stepped aside so the other senators could second his sentiments. No one came forward. McConnell's eye fell on Trent Lott. "Trent?" McConnell said, motioning him toward the microphone. "I don't think I have anything to add," said Lott.

Tags: trent lott, republicans, war, politics, bush administration, surge, fubar

Bush admin considering allying with Iraqi Shiites

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 22:49:29 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Laura Rozen reports on a secret mission [EDIT: meeting, not mission] where Stephen Hadley advocated the US drop its posture as a "neutral referee" in the Iraqi civil war and align with the Shiites to crush Sunni insurgents.

This strikes me as a very, very bad idea.

Via Kevin Drum

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Unleash the Shiites?

The U.S. may be forced to choose sides in Iraq's civil strife.

By Laura Rozen, LAURA ROZEN, a senior correspondent for the American Prospect, writes about foreign policy issues from Washington.
November 16, 2006

This past Veterans Day weekend, according to my sources, almost the entire Bush national security team gathered for an unpublicized two-day meeting. The topic: Iraq. The purpose of the meeting was to come up with a consensus position on a new path forward. Among those attending were President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor Stephen Hadley, outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Numerous policy options were put forward at the meeting, which revolved around a strategy paper prepared by Hadley and drawn from his recent trip to Baghdad. One was the Shiite option. Participants were asked to consider whether the U.S. could really afford to keep fighting both the Sunni insurgency and Shiite militias — or whether it should instead focus its efforts on combating the Sunni insurgency exclusively, and even help empower the Shiites against the Sunnis.

So what's the logic behind the idea of "unleashing the Shiites"? It's the path of least resistance, according to its supporters, and it could help accelerate one side actually winning Iraq's sectarian conflict, thereby shortening the conflict, while reducing some of the critical security concerns driving Shiites to mobilize their own militias in the first place.

But such a strategy brings with it significant dangers. Washington might pick the wrong leaders on the side it chooses to back. Should it, for instance, continue to back Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri Maliki, or tilt in favor of his Shiite rival, Abdelaziz Hakim, and his party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq? Either choice could lead to more intra-Shiite infighting and violence.

Tags: bush administration, iraq, civil war, civil-war, fubar, civilian-killings, incompetence, stephen hadley

"The war will be over Iraq, over its dead body"

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:10:20 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: VIa Marc Cooper

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Sectarian Strife in Iraq Imperils Entire Region, Analysts Warn

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 16, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD -- While American commanders have suggested that civil war is possible in Iraq, many leaders, experts and ordinary people in Baghdad and around the Middle East say it is already underway, and that the real worry ahead is that the conflict will destroy the flimsy Iraqi state and draw in surrounding countries.

"We're not talking about just a full-scale civil war. This would be a failed-state situation with fighting among various groups," growing into regional conflict, Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group, said by telephone from Amman, Jordan.

"The war will be over Iraq, over its dead body," Hiltermann said.

Tags: iraq, fubar, civil war, civil-war, bush administration, incompetence

Dozens Are Kidnapped at College Office in Baghdad

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:58:20 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: And people actually think that "It is much worse in Miami than it is in Baghdad."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

November 14, 2006

Dozens Are Kidnapped at College Office in Baghdad

By KIRK SEMPLE and JOHN O’NEIL

BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 — Several dozen employees of a university office were kidnapped here today, in a methodical daylight raid that prompted the minister of higher education to berate Parliament and threaten to shut the nation’s universities until security improves.

Estimates of the number of kidnapped varied widely, with a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior putting the number between 30 and 40 and the department of higher education saying that between 70 and 150 men were missing. An interior ministry spokesman said that he did not think the number of vehicles reportedly involved could have carried off both the gunmen — by some counts, as many as 80 took part — and the number of victims described by education officials.

A few hours after the incident, a spokesman for the interior ministry went on national television to report that arrest warrants had been issued for five senior police commanders with responsibilities in the area. It was not clear whether the arrests were for possible complicity or for negligence; the spokesman described the kidnappers as “criminal groups,” according to news services.

The day’s events seemed to encapsulate many of the strains facing the country: increasingly brazen attacks, often aimed at the educated elite; suspicions that the Shiite-dominated security forces are involved in the violence they are supposed to be preventing; and a growing estrangement between the Sunni and Shiite parties that formed a government of national unity this spring.

In other violence today, a car bomb in a Baghdad market killed 10 people and wounded 25, while mortar fire killed four people in the Hussainiya neighborhood and a roadside bomb in a parking lot killed two passersby and wounded eight, Interior Ministry officials said.

Tags: baghdad, iraq, war, news, politics, fubar, civil-war, civil war, civilian-killings

Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:36:29 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

October 11, 2006

Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says

By SABRINA TAVERNISE and DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 10 — A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here.

The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number that is quadruple the one for July given by Iraqi government hospitals and the morgue in Baghdad and published last month in a United Nations report in Iraq. That month was the highest for Iraqi civilian deaths since the American invasion.

But it is an estimate and not a precise count, and researchers acknowledged a margin of error that ranged from 426,369 to 793,663 deaths.

It is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It uses samples of casualties from Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006.

The findings of the previous study, published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, in 2004, had been criticized as high, in part because of its relatively narrow sampling of about 1,000 families, and because it carried a large margin of error.

The new study is more representative, its researchers said, and the sampling is broader: it surveyed 1,849 Iraqi families in 47 different neighborhoods across Iraq. The selection of geographical areas in 18 regions across Iraq was based on population size, not on the level of violence, they said.

Tags: iraq, statistics, civilian-killings, suffering, fubar, bush administration, incompetence, civil war, civil-war

Fareed Zakaria: Iraq is a failure; calls for immediate withdrawal

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:15:10 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via Kevin Drum, who thinks this may signal to the center-right that calling for immediate withdrawal is a respectable position.

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Iraq's Dark Day of Reckoning

If you were a Shiite, having suffered through a brutal insurgency and an incompetent government, would you give up your weapons?

By Fareed Zakaria

Newsweek

It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.

More waiting is unlikely to turn things around, nor will more troops. I understand the impulse of those who want to send in more forces to secure the country. I urged just such a policy from the first week of the occupation. But today we are where we are. Over the past three years the violence has spread and is now franchised down to neighborhoods with local gangs in control. In many areas, local militias are not even controlled by their supposed political masters in Baghdad. In this kind of decentralized street fighting, 10,000 or 20,000 more troops in Baghdad will not have more than a temporary effect. Nor will new American policies help. The reason that the Democrats seem to lack good, concrete suggestions on Iraq is that the Bush administration has actually been pursuing more-sensible policies for more than a year now, trying vainly to reverse many of its errors. But what might well have worked in 2003 is too little, too late in 2006.

Iraq is now in a civil war. Thirty thousand Iraqis have died there in the past three years, more than in many other conflicts widely recognized as civil wars. The number of internal refugees, mostly Sunni victims of ethnic cleansing, has exploded over the past few months, and now exceeds a quarter of a million people.

Tags: iraq, fareed zakaria, fubar, incompetence, bush administration, democrats, civil-war, civil war, civilian-killings

White House sitting on another secret Iraq report

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:05:11 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: According to Josh Marshall, this second report isn't official an NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) but it is very similar to one.

Clip Source: www.tpmmuckraker.com

BREAKING: Harman Calls for Release of Second Secret Iraq Report

By Justin Rood - September 26, 2006, 12:15 PM

There's a second damning Iraq report floating around the intelligence community.

At least, that's according to Rep. Jane Harman (CA), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. At an event this morning, Harman disclosed the existence of a classified intelligence community report that gives a grim assessment of the situation in Iraq, and called for it to be shared with the American public -- before the November elections.

Dr. Lawrence Korb, a former senior Defense Department official now with the liberal-progressive Center for American Progress, hasn't seen the report but has discussed it with those who have. "It's a very bleak picture of what's going on in Iraq," he said.

Tags: nie, bush administration, secrecy, iraq, fubar

Clipmarks | jklugman's 'fubar' clips

Petraeus goes back on promise to assess surge in Sept.

Bush endangering troops by not planning for withdrawal

US officer: our generals are not worthy of our soldiers

Pentagon blocks military officers from testifying to Congress

Reports of progress in Iraq challenged

How bad are things in Iraq?

Brendan Nyhan

January 27, 2007

How bad are things in Iraq?

White House 'panicked' over anti-war resolutions

US official in Iraq: "We are being played like a pawn."

Trent Lott gets bashful

The Senate: The Republican Revolt

How close is Bush to losing his own party?

Bush admin considering allying with Iraqi Shiites

Unleash the Shiites?

"The war will be over Iraq, over its dead body"

Dozens Are Kidnapped at College Office in Baghdad

Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says

Iraqi Dead May Total 600,000, Study Says

Fareed Zakaria: Iraq is a failure; calls for immediate withdrawal

White House sitting on another secret Iraq report