Lugar on Iraq

listen to senator Lugar:

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We should attempt to preserve initiatives that have shown promise, such as engaging Sunni groups that are disaffected with the extreme tactics and agenda of Al Qaeda in Iraq. But three factors – the political fragmentation in Iraq, the growing stress on our military, and the constraints of our own domestic political process -- are converging to make it almost impossible for the United States to engineer a stable, multi-sectarian government in Iraq in a reasonable time frame.

what he says makes sense....

busy days..

yes i ve been busy, but there are a couple of events, that i need to mention briefly at least:

general Pace had this gem to offer:

"If you had zero violence and people were not feeling good about their future, where are you?" said Pace, emphasizing that the sentiment of the Iraqi people is a much better measurement than the number of attacks. "So it's not about levels of violence. It's about progress being made, in fact, in the minds of the Iraqi people, so that they have confidence in their government in the way forward."

hint to the general: violence "might" effect the feeling of people.
you don t seriously want us to judge progress on your polls?

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we re working more with tribes, without learning from the past:

Iraq's Ministry of Electricity has contracted with tribal sheiks to protect the electrical transmission lines running through their areas and pays them about $60 to $100 per kilometer, according to the report.

Yet the tactic is not working, auditors said.

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and iraqi forces are the weak link in the new "offensive":

The U.S. commander of a new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains. The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet."

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there s much more to say:

all enemies in iraq seem to be al-qaeda today.

cheney is no longer part of the executive branch of the US

military bloggers are celebrating a pretty conventional, corps size offensive in iarq...

but i ran out of time for today..

"surge" might take longer..

watch out for what Petraeus is saying today:

Speaking about the amount of violence, he said, "the aggregate level is about the same. We actually have borne the brunt of much more of that, as have Iraqi security forces, and civilians a good bit less."

what he is doing is simple: give us lot s of positive news, with a small disclaimer: "counterinsurgency may take 10 years and longer". (btw, where does he get the information from, that civilian casualties are lower?)

this will calm the sceptics in his own ranks and make him invulnerable to any attack later. "i told you so" will be his answer.

and look at this:

I do not, no," Petraeus replied. "We have a lot of heavy lifting to do. The damage done by the sectarian violence in the fall and winter of 2006 and early 2007 ... was substantial."

it "IS" substantial. but i guess he considers june to be "early 2007"...

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check out the abu ghraib news:

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials.

it s a criminal government.

fumento afghanistan

i hit Fumento today by chance. he wrote a good piece about the "winnable war"
winnable, of course in comparison with Iraq.

it s a rather good piece of text, though it s very optimistic and was written on the day, the bus got blown up.

biggest attack in afghanistan. since 2001. and that s supposed to be the winnable war....

check this Fumento piece as well. he tried to get information about reconstruction and couldn t get any. even he is starting to wonder about the "media bias"...

zero comments

yes, i m aware of it. looks like i m talking to myself only.

but that s fine. i ll promote the blog a little, when i wrote at least 1 or 2 of the major articles.
till then, this is just my online memory.

and if you happen to stumble about it, it s for you as well...

meassuring what can t be meassured...

the new report on "security and stability" is out. well, there obviously is no security or stability in Iraq. so it s rather interesting to see, what the report is looking at.

it is not by chance, that the day after the report came out, the samarra mosque was blown up again. now if it is impossible to secure this symbolic site, nothing is secure in Iraq.

so how do you write such a report? mostly by simply inventing good news. the most obvious part is about economic development:

the fact that oil and electricity production haven t changed at all is mentioned only briefly.
instead there is a focus on the bizarre:

For 2007, the IMF projects that the economy will grow by over 10% and that the non-oil sectors will grow by approximately 7%.

sounds rather unlikely.
brookings report on Iraq gives a much lower estimate of 3%, and even that is optimistic. (page 43)

even better is the positive spin on the enormous infaltion in Iraq:

the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) has maintained tighter monetary policy in 2007, including continued gradual appreciation of the dinar, resulting in a decline in first quarter 2007 inflation compared to the same period in 2006. Year-on-year inflation in March was 33.6%, compared with 66.4% in January and a peak of 76.6% in August 2006.

great, isn t it?

supporting the enemy

these are two very interesting articles about the support for sunni groups:

The latter is hardly optimal, but optimal is no longer a luxury the United States can afford. It is questionable whether a unified and democratic state can ever be achieved, even if the tribes are not backed. Consequently, the United States should focus on avoiding the worst possible outcome, and that means doing what it can to prevent al-Qaida from having control over the Sunni provinces.

and here is another good report on it by kaplan:

The insurgents, it turns out, have mounted their own surge, and it seems to be outpacing ours. In a harrowing article in Time magazine, Baghdad bureau chief Bobby Ghosh quotes Brigadier Gen. Joe Ramirez Jr., deputy commander of the U.S. Combined Arms Training Center, as saying, "For every move we make, the enemy makes three. … The enemy changes techniques, tactics, and procedures every two to three weeks."

it is a desperate strategy. it will not help Iraq in a long term, but might effect US elections. exactly what the Bush team needs..