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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
I'm not in a position to say how accurate it is, but its existence is a matter of concern:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/13/wo...t/iraq-maliki/
Iraq's leader becoming a new 'dictator,' deputy warns
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Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is amassing dictatorial power as U.S. troops leave the country, risking a new civil war and the breakup of the nation, his deputy warned Tuesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq told CNN that he was "shocked" to hear U.S. President Barack Obama greet al-Maliki at the White House on Monday as "the elected leader of a sovereign, self-reliant and democratic Iraq." He said Washington is leaving Iraq "with a dictator" who has ignored a power-sharing agreement, kept control of the country's security forces and rounded up hundreds of people in recent weeks.
"America left Iraq with almost no infrastructure. The political process is going in a very wrong direction, going toward a dictatorship," he said. "People are not going to accept that, and most likely they are going to ask for the division of the country. And this is going to be a disaster. Dividing the country isn't going to be smooth, because dividing the country is going to be a war before that and a war after that."...
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The Sunnis that I talk to actually think Maliki is rather weak and will fall quite quickly once we're gone.
I imagine that there will be a contest to fill the political and security vacuum. I just hope that it is peaceful.
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We achieved our two primary objectives which were dismantling Iraq's non-existent WMD program and removing Saddam. A few idealists late the game added on establishing a democracy and transforming their society in order to transform the Middle East. We transformed the ME, but not in the way it was envisioned by Paul Wolfawitz. What will unfold will unfold, and our staying won't change it, it will only delay it. I have my doubts on whether the Iraqis will truly determine their future, at least not alone, there will be considerable influence from Iran, Saudi, the U.S. and others.
I agree that dividing the country will be disaster, because all competing parties will want to control the oil profits, without it they won't have a viable economy anytime soon.
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ISW, 11 Dec 11: Maliki Arrests Potential Opposition
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...The Maliki government’s campaign to intimidate, dismiss, and arrest former members of Iraq’s Ba’ath party has been an ongoing and concerted effort. However, the removal of the U.S. military from Iraq compounds the dangers and repercussions to stability due to this anti-Ba’athist campaign. Given the timing and intensity of the anti- Ba’athist campaign, the withdrawal of U.S. troops coupled with Iraq’s entrance into its first post-occupation electoral season with provincial elections scheduled for early 2013, is the likely pretext motivating Maliki to capitalize on further consolidating power and promoting party loyalty as the principal features in Iraq’s security apparatus.
With questionable legal justifications, dubious explanations, and politicization and opportunism underlying the arrests, Maliki’s behavior is conforming to the practices defined by the authoritarian political culture that has long characterized Iraq. “Frankly, I am very scared and expect to be arrested at any moment,” said Haji Abu Ahmed, a former Ba’ath member in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. “The current practices are the same as the practices of Saddam,’ Ahmed said. “There seems to be no difference between the two systems. Saddam was chasing Da’awa, and now Da’awa is chasing Ba’athists.” In the final analysis, Maliki’s campaign has been counterproductive to both Iraqi democracy and stability....
CRS, 10 Nov 11: Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights
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...In recent months, with a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq approaching at the end of 2011, the relations among major factions have frayed. Sunni Arabs, facing a wave of arrests by government forces in October 2011, fear that Maliki and his Shiite allies will monopolize power. The Kurds are wary that Maliki will not honor pledges to resolve Kurd-Arab territorial and financial disputes. Sunni Arabs and the Kurds dispute territory and governance in parts of northern Iraq, particularly Nineveh Province. Some Iraqi communities, including Christians in northern Iraq, are not at odds with the government but have territorial and political disputes with and fear violence from both Sunni Arabs and Kurds. These splits have created conditions under which the insurgency that hampered U.S. policy during 2004-2008 continues to conduct occasional high casualty attacks, and in which Shiite militias have conducted attacks on U.S. forces still in Iraq...
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Things that Unite, Divide
Dayuhan:
There are just so many central ironies to Iraq:
Some believe we entered Iraq on some form of "Crusade," reminiscent of retaking Jerusalem from Islam. Yet our staunch ally in that alleged Crusade was, in fact, Salahaddin's Kurdish descendants.
Some believe that defeat of the Baathist Party---the eerie secularist, pan arab movement long-ago commandeered by brutal dictatorships---was a core objective. Yet Maliki,while crushing Baathists in Iraq, staunchly supports the adjacent Syrian Baathist dictator allegedly at the urging of its Iranian sponsors.
As Maliki allegedly moves to dominate and punish the Sunni (and former Baathist) areas of Iraq, the resident Sunni Iraqis pursue refuge in the same Autonomous Region status enshrined in the Iraqi constitution under the belief that it was primarily to protect and reward the Kurds. The indigenous Sunni autonomy movements are heavily opposed by the Sunni and Baathist diaspora, ensconced in surrounding Sunni and Baathist supportive US ally nations, because it undermines their hopes for a future dominant role in a strongly centralized Iraq.
As Shia political control, allegedly under Iranian influence, grows in the South, the looming threat of adjacent Sunni governments (all our powerful principal allies) necessitates diplomatic missions by Iran and Maliki to, for example, Saudi Arabia, assure them that they pose no threats.
In the midst of all this confusion, it is, perhaps, worthwhile to keep in mind not just "that which divides," but also "that which unites"---the reason that these folks don;t all just walk away and declare independence.
Kurdistan, as an autonomous region, is a light and beacon for the larger Kurdish peoples who are routinely subject to pressure and pograms in the adjacent countries, all of whom have well-articulated concerns over a more independent Kurdish nation, and ongoing issues with their indigenous Kurdish populations. Example: Kurds have a close relationship with the Asad government which, if overturned, poses serious repercussions for Kurds, and a Sunni Syria opens completely new Pandora's boxes for both Kurds, Shias, Iranians, etc...
In addition to the eternally complex political, ethnic, religious balancing acts between and within these countries are the basic geographic, resource and infrastructure dependencies:
Water does not reach Baghdad and the south until after it passes through the North---much the same with oil and oil infrastructure.
If Kurds have oil, but without links to Basra, pipelines are the only option, and are always vulnerable.
Without water, the center and south is a dustbowl of a port, with little hospitable future for its residents, and serious power issues.
The prospective Sunni autonomous areas (Ninewa, Salah ad Din, Anbar, Diyala) represent a powerful set of geography, resource, and infrastructure assets, but their value is, to a great extent, limited absent their connection to the adjacent areas.
All told, Iraq is a very complicated puzzle with many profound reasons to understand it as a common and interdependent area (nation, whatever), but with many internal (and eternal) rifts and divisions. Prosperity for the greatest number of people comes from working together, the opposite where they do not.
How they hammer out, and continue to re-hammer out, conflicts and resolutions, will dictate successes and failures, but most of the posturing, leverage, balancing and re-balancing is something that they---post-conflict parties with substantial unresolved grievances---is what those parties have to resolve in the next few years.
My guess is that the autonomous region authority is a much more substantial option for a viable future Iraq than many consider (depending on the intergovernmental resolutions needed to implement it) but that it is not a "boogeyman" of breaking up Iraq any more than in many pother nations where certain power is centralized (nationally significant resources, waterways, transportation, defense) while much is broadly distributed to autonomous and semi-autonomous regions.
Assuming a future Iraq with substantially greater oil flows and revenues as its sole basis, a system of autonomous regions, each demanding its own portion of the revenue pie under its own local control, is not, over time, a bad business model, and assures continued pressure for greater revenue flows to the regions than to a heavily armed central government.
"Dividing Iraq"---as the inflammatory slogans suggest---is not an all or nothing issue, but an ongoing and essential process of balancing and re-balancing, within a national envelope that is as much defined internally as by its neighbors.
The Speaker's latest comments (although inflamed by Wolf Blitzer and Company) are really mild stuff under the circumstances where Maliki is, with some urgency, trying to stave off the increasing pressure for Sunni autonomy which was inflamed by his overreaching actions against them through the central government which he currently controls.
Hold your breath for the Iraqi people, who many of us identify with, but not for the post-conflict politicians who are still playing the old games instead of getting on with viable new ones.
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
In Dec. 2011 I conducted this interview with Ret. Col. Ted. Spain that some might be interested in. Here's the intro and a link.
How The U.S. Struggled To Establish Law And Order In Post-Invasion Iraq, An Interview With Retired Colonel Ted Spain
Retired Colonel Ted Spain is the former commander of the 18th Military Police Brigade. In early 2003, he was deployed to Kuwait from Germany for the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, and spent a year in the country. I first became aware of him through Tom Ricks’ book Fiasco. I’m currently re-reading it for the first time since it came out in 2006, and that prompted me to get in contact with Colonel Spain. During his time in Iraq, he went through not only the invasion, but the post-war chaos as well. Spain was deployed in Baghdad, which became the center of the looting, insurgency, and general lawlessness that beset the country. While Spain attempted to create a sense of law and order for Iraqis, he ran into a civilian and military leadership that suffered from constant personnel changes, lacked a unified plan, and was caught up in thinking about Iraq in terms of a war, which led them to neglect his work to rebuild the Iraqi police. Below is an interview with Colonel Spain about his experiences in Iraq from 2003-2004, and his general impression of how the U.S. did during that crucial first year.
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Posted in SWJ Blog
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
Run down and analysis of December's bombings in Baghdad.
On December 22, 2011, a series of bombs went off across Baghdad early in the morning as people were going to work. The blasts lasted for two hours, and hit different parts of the city. Only one was near a government building, with the rest concentrated in civilian areas. Al Qaeda’s front group the Islamic State of Iraq took responsibility for the attacks that left nearly 275 casualties. That was the deadliest day in the capital since the very beginning of the year.
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Moderator at work
I have closed all the threads in the Operation Iraqi Freedom arena and have moved a small number of threads that are current to the Middle East arena: End of Mission-Iraq, An interesting opinion (on the current Iraqi state), Iraq - A Strategic Blunder?, Dealing with Haditha and The British In Iraq (merged thread).
A small number of new threads by JWing have been merged into this thread.
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Security Slightly Improved In Iraq In 2011
2011 just came to a close, and the end of the year statistics for deaths and attacks in Iraq showed a slight improvement from the previous year. The number of casualties, attacks, and averages all went down from 2010 to 2011. Baghdad and the surrounding provinces remained the center of violence in the country, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were the weapons of choice for militants. All of this showed the changed security situation in Iraq. No longer is the country in the middle of a civil war. In fact, it’s barely an insurgency anymore, but more of a major terrorist threat. The situation may improve even more this coming year, as some groups appear willing to give up their arms now that the United States has withdrawn its forces.
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Will Kirkuk Unravel Now That The American Forces Are Gone?
A major worry of some American analysts and soldiers is the situation in Kirkuk. Located in northern Iraq, it is the hub of Iraq’s disputed territories. For decades the city and surrounding area were contested, with Saddam Hussein trying to Arabize it by moving in people from southern and central Iraq, and forcing out Kurds and Turkmen. The Kurds responded with military offensives using their peshmerga to try to capture the city. Since 2003, those tensions have remained with all the major groups in the province claiming it. Many in the United States are afraid that this situation will deteriorate now that the U.S. military is not there. There are definitely on-going political disputes, and the future of the province remains unclear, but to think that the situation will unravel seems overblown.
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Deadly Bombings On January 5, 2012 Unlikely To Change Iraq’s Status Quo
Just two weeks after a number of bombs wracked Baghdad, another series of mass casualty attacks occurred in Iraq targeting Shiites. This time explosives went off in two neighborhoods of Baghdad, and a small town in Dhi Qar province where pilgrims were walking towards Karbala for a religious ceremony leaving over 200 casualties. The press tied the attacks to the current political crisis within Iraq’s government, but they were probably planned out far before the current breakdown between political parties. There was also talk of Iraq descending back into civil war. While no one took responsibility yet, the bombings were likely the work of al Qaeda in Iraq. A look back at their operations showed that they carried out the exact same types of attacks in January 2011, and there was no retaliation by Shiites that could lead to a new civil conflict. The new violence then, was just a continuation of the current status quo, not a change in Iraq’s security situation.
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
Part of an interview with the head of the League of the Righteous Special Group Qais Khazali where he apologizes for killing four British bodyguards who were kidnapped in 2007 along with a British IT Peter Moore.
video is here
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
In November 2011, the Zogby Research Services released a new public opinion poll that in part, focused upon Iraqis’ views of their country before and after the U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011. It found that people held very mixed feelings about what would happen after the American troops left. Most already believed that their country was not going in the right direction, and were worried about how the pulling out of American forces would affect that situation. At the same time, they expressed some optimism about their future.
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
The Arab Spring has swept across large swaths of the Middle East, and is still playing out today. Starting in Tunisia in December 2010 with protests and riots by youth, the surge for change against the old autocratic and dictatorial governments of the Arab world was launched. Some politicians and pundits in the United States eventually claimed that the revolutions occurring in the region were due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They argued that the democracy that the U.S. established there was an inspiration to Arabs around the region. A recent public opinion poll released by Zogby Research Services however, found that respondents in a number of Arab countries and Iran did not think that Iraq benefited from the American presence, undermining a cause and affect relationship between the transformation in Baghdad and other Arab capitals.
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Iraq catch-all: after Operation Iraqi Freedom ended
Moderator at work
I have closed all the threads in the Operation Iraqi Freedom arena and have moved a small number of threads that are current to the Middle East arena:
End of Mission-Iraq, An interesting opinion (on the current Iraqi state), Iraq - A Strategic Blunder?, Dealing with Haditha and The British In Iraq (merged thread).
A small number of new threads by JWing have been merged into this thread.
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My Mesopotamian Getaway
A curious travelogue and politics article in FP by Emma Sky:
Quote:
a visiting professor at the War Studies Department at King's College London and a former political advisor to the U.S. military in Iraq
who has returned to post-US withdrawal Iraq and has an odd ending:
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One showed me his hand, which he said had been crushed by U.S. soldiers who thought he was Jaish al-Mahdi. He had never been outside Iraq. I asked him which country in the world he would most like to visit. He responded: America.
Now I don't suppose she'd write in US publication anywhere else.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...taway?page=0,0
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Insurgents Pick Up Attacks In January 2012, Just As They Did Last Year
Insurgents in Iraq have carried out a series of both high and low profile attacks in January 2012. Most of these were aimed at Shiite pilgrims heading to Karbala or another prominent mosque in Basra. There was also an attack upon a police headquarters in Anbar province. The press has called this a dramatic escalation of violence, but it largely followers the pattern of insurgent operations from previous years.
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What Role Will The League Of The Righteous Play In Iraqi Politics?
At the end of December, 2011, the Iraqi Special Group know as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the League of the Righteous, said that it was willing to join the country’s political process. This was due to the withdrawal of American forces that month. As a sign of good faith, it returned the body of a British bodyguard it had kidnapped and murdered back in 2007 to the British Embassy in Baghdad in January 2012. In America, this turn of events was greeted with caution as the organization is supported by Iran. Within Iraq, Baghdad welcomed the group’s decision, saying that it was an important step in the reconciliation process. The Sadrist movement was none too pleased with the League’s decision, seeing their former peers as future rivals. Every one of these concerns is likely to come true in the coming months. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will probably try to use the League against the Sadrists, so that he doesn’t have to rely upon the former as his main supporters, and these divisions within the Shiite parties will give Iran more influence as the moderator between the different factions.
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Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki Flexes His Muscles In Diyala Province Again
Diyala province in northeastern Iraq is facing its latest crackdown at the hands of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In December 2011, the provincial council there voted to turn the governorate into an autonomous region. The decision led to an immediate backlash by Shiites within the province and by the central government. Protests against the move broke out, militias were reportedly blocking roads, and Baghdad asserted control over the local security forces. This was just the latest example of how Maliki has used his power against those in Diyala that oppose his agenda.
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January 2012 Security Statistics Undermine Case That Iraq Heading Towards New Civil W
January 2012 has just come to an end, and the early numbers for deaths and attacks in Iraq have been released. Despite all the press about a new sectarian war, the statistics show that there was an increase in casualties last month, but they were close to figures seen in 2011. Insurgents were obviously trying to send a message after the departure of U.S. forces in December, but the Shiite pilgrimage of Arbayeen also provided a plethora of targets. In previous years, militants have only been able to keep up this level of activity for a month or two, and then they have had to re-group and re-arm. That points to January being a continuation of past trends in security, rather than a sign that Iraq will have a renewed civil conflict.
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Civil wars require two sides. I doubt that the Sunni 'side' is far too divided and weak to stand up to any sort of Maliki/ISCI/Sadr alliance, beyond the odd assassination and terror bombing, which the latter mostly use to continue the trend towards greater clampdown on the Sunni community.
What we are seeing, I think, is the creation of a ramshackle, corrupt police state carved up into fiefdoms run by the Shia religious parties, with a Kurdish condominium in the north. Any genuine civil war will be between these parties, but I'm optimistic that the Kurds and the Shia parties will come to a reasonable accomodation, if only because the prizes are great enough to share. The internal political struggle in Iraq will look much more like one of Saddam's purges from the 1970s, which were plenty bloody, but not a full-blown civil war.
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Iraq's groups divided internally
There's not really a State of Law-SIIC-Sadr alliance.
After the 2009 provincial elections, the Supreme Council lost almost all of its local power, and that was followed by a large defeat in the 2010 parliament vote. When the government was being put together Maliki successfully split the SIIC from its former militia the Badr Brigade.
The Sadrists were the reason why Maliki won a second term, and have been the closest party aligned with Maliki. Maliki is trying to undermine them as well, by embracing the League of the Righteous special group that just decided to join the political process. It's leader Qais Khazali was a follower of Sadr's father, and Maliki is hoping to use that to weaken his dependence upon Moqtada.
These kinds of splits are seen within all the major lists. Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Movement almost split during its recent boycott with some factions wanting to work with the premier and others wanting confrontation. The Kurdish KDP and PUK now face the Change List and two smaller Islamic parties. All of these divisions is what allows Maliki to stay in power because there's no real unified opposition to him, although many parties dislike him.
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Iraq Still A Deadlier Place Than Afghanistan
In the West, Afghanistan has garnered far more press than Iraq in recent years. The deployment of additional troops under President Obama, and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq were the two main causes. The media made it appear that Afghanistan was a far deadlier conflict than Iraq, which no longer has a full blown insurgency, and suffers more from a very serious terrorist threat. Statistics just released by the United Nations however, show that far more people died in Iraq in 2011 than in Afghanistan.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
JWing
There's not really a State of Law-SIIC-Sadr alliance.
After the 2009 provincial elections, the Supreme Council lost almost all of its local power, and that was followed by a large defeat in the 2010 parliament vote. When the government was being put together Maliki successfully split the SIIC from its former militia the Badr Brigade.
The Sadrists were the reason why Maliki won a second term, and have been the closest party aligned with Maliki. Maliki is trying to undermine them as well, by embracing the League of the Righteous special group that just decided to join the political process. It's leader Qais Khazali was a follower of Sadr's father, and Maliki is hoping to use that to weaken his dependence upon Moqtada.
These kinds of splits are seen within all the major lists. Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Movement almost split during its recent boycott with some factions wanting to work with the premier and others wanting confrontation. The Kurdish KDP and PUK now face the Change List and two smaller Islamic parties. All of these divisions is what allows Maliki to stay in power because there's no real unified opposition to him, although many parties dislike him.
So would it be safe to consider the Sadr movement as being in a state of full fracture, or is there still a dominant faction centered on Muqtada?
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Sadrists
Historically, the Sadr Trend has gone through dozens of splits because it was not a real organization, but more a loose confederation of groups that took general direction from Sadr. They haven't split recently however, and are riding high after the 2010 election. They got the most positions in the new government in return for ensuring Maliki a 2nd term. The premier is now trying to break off some of their followers using the League of the Righteous, but it's yet to be seen whether that's going to work or not. Sadr seems to be taking the threat seriously as he issues an attack upon the League at least once a week.
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The US Embassy in Iraq
I've never been to Iraq, not a US citizen, but this story about the US Embassy in Iraq is too important to ignore.
Quote:
BAGHDAD — Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.
Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.
The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/wo...half.html?_r=1
A few questions: Why does the US need 16,000 people in Baghdad? (That's an entire division). How does the US expect ordinary Iraqis to feel when US drones still buzz over their heads and a Vatican-sized embassy looms over the horizon?
This, however takes the cake:
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Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...sy-in-baghdad/
Are you telling me that the US embassy cannot source sugar from Iraq? Six chicken wings per employee for 16,000 employees comes to about 48,000 chickens per Chicken night?
This suggests that we could easily be moving through 96,000 chickens per Chicken night if there is no rationing.
This thing is beyond parody :D, and it points to a trend I've observed in Nigeria - Fortress America. Diplomacy is a contact sport and if it is too dangerous to contact people, then there is no point being there.
(P.S: Do American embassies around the world all import their chicken wings?).
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Time to shrink
I've no idea about the US diplomatic non-diet, but the huge embassy illustrates a possible American DoS principle: start large, get smaller.
Sadly it is a reflection of how assumptions create requirements that lead to construction plus and oh dear, we're wrong.
Time for the USA to dramatically reduce the staff and contractors in the embassy, plus the super-consulates elsewhere. At least it will not be the Imperial British exit from Kabul in 1842 or Saigon.
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The Saddam Tapes, An Inside Look At Saddam Hussein’s Regime In Iraq Based Upon Thousa
Here's another interview I did. This one is with David Palkki of the National Defense University about a book he co-edited called The Saddam Tapes. It's based upon hundreds of captured audio files from the Saddam times and goes through his foreign and domestic policy like the wars he fought, sectarianism, dealing with the rise of Islamism, WMD, etc. There's also a video that goes along with it of all the editors. This is the first of the two-part interview. Enjoy.
David Palkki is the deputy director of the Conflict Records Research Center (CCRC) at the National Defense University in Washington D.C. The CCRC was created by the Secretary of Defense to provide scholars with access to captured documents from Iraq and Al Qaeda. This includes hundreds of papers and audio files from Saddam Hussein’s regime, some of which became the basis for the newly released Saddam Tapes co-edited by Kevin Woods, Mark Stout, and David Palkki. The book provides invaluable insight into everything from Saddam’s foreign policy, to his dealings with Iraq’s ethnosectarian groups, weapons of mass destruction, and United Nations’ sanctions and inspections. Below is the first of a two-part interview with David Palkki, which covers Saddam’s dealings with the United States, Israel, Iran, the Arab world, and the three wars he fought from 1980-2003. What emerges is a man that was obsessed with conspiracies against his country, while trying to place Iraq as the leader of the Middle East. Saddam often spent long hours with his inner circle discussing these matters, but he consistently miscalculated how other countries would react to his policies, leading to one foreign policy crisis after another for three straight decades.
Interview
Video
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Part 2 of interview
Part 2 of my interview with David Palkki is now up. The second half focuses upon Saddam's domestic politics, sectarianism, WMD, weapons inspections, and the defection of his son-in-law in 1998.
David Palkki is the deputy director of the Conflict Records Research Center (CCRC) at the National Defense University in Washington D.C. He was the co-editor, along with Kevin Woods and Mark Stout of the recently released The Saddam Tapes. The book was based upon hundreds of captured tapes of Saddam and his inner circle discussing foreign and domestic issues from the 1970s to the 2000s. The first part of the interview covered Saddam’s foreign policy. The second half delves into how Saddam treated Shiites and Kurds, Islamism, weapons of mass destruction, the United Nations inspections, and the defection of his son-in-law Hussein Kamal in 1998. Overall, what The Saddam Tapes revealed was a dictator who spoke his mind both privately and publicly. Rather than a mad man, Saddam held wide-ranging discussions with his top advisors. The problem was he often miscalculated foreign affairs, but was much better at controlling his own people within Iraq.
2nd half of interview
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Kenneth Pollack, And What’s Wrong With Much Of The Conventional U.S. Wisdom On Iraq
Kenneth Pollack of the Brooking Institution’s Saban Center has been a longtime American commentator on Iraq. At the beginning of February he published an article entitled “Iraq’s Endless Political Crisis,” which appeared in both The Atlantic and The National Interest. While he got some points right, he repeated some of the most common fallacies of Western analysts. One is the belief that the Iraqi National Movement (INM) is a unified entity, with a shared view that stood up to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The other is seeing Iraqi politics through a sectarian lens, namely that there is one Sunni party, the INM, which must have a seat at the government table for Iraqi politics to be fair and democratic. Neither of these points stands up to close scrutiny.
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More Iraqis Becoming Involved In Conflict In Syria
Starting in March 2011, Syria faced a series of public outbursts against President Bashar al-Assad that turned increasingly violent. Syria’s neighbor Iraq immediately became concerned over those turn of events. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and many Shiite parties in Iraq were afraid that Sunni militants would take power if the Syrian government fell, so they started providing diplomatic support as well as sending fighters to Damascus’ aid. At the same time, Al Qaeda in Iraq saw an opportunity to take advantage of the growing chaos next door, smugglers thought that they could make a quick buck selling weapons to the Syrian opposition, and some tribes that straddled the border felt that they had to help out their compatriots. This is a dramatic turn of events as Syria use to be the source for foreign fighters and other militants infiltrating into Iraq to sow chaos, but now the tables are turned, and various Iraqi groups are going into Syria to assist both sides in the growing conflict there.
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Deaths See Large Drop In Iraq From January To February 2012
After a series of articles warning that violence in Iraq was increasing, and that the country might be on the verge of a new civil war, the number of deaths was cut nearly in half in February 2012. Rather than marking a new trend in security, January’s high casualties were simply a result of the large number of targets available during the Shiite pilgrimage of Arbayeen to Karbala, and insurgents trying to make a statement after the U.S. troop withdrawal in December 2011. With only one mass casualty bombing, and an especially bloody day when militants were able to carry out attacks in seven provinces, February returned to the norm of monthly casualties.
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Not All In Iraq Want To Get Involved With The Syrian Conflict
As more news stories emerge of various groups within Iraq aiding one side or another in the emerging Syrian conflict, some recent reports highlight that not everyone is interested in their neighbor’s affairs. A few Iraqi insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs in Anbar have both announced that they would not be getting involved in Syria.
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VIDEO: RPG-29 vs M1A2 Abrams Tank
This is a video released by the Iranian-backed League of the Righteous. It shows an RPG-29 being fired at a M1A2 Abrams tank in Baghdad. The RPG-29 is supposed to be one of the few handheld anti-tank weapons capable of penetrating the armor of most Western main battle tanks. An RPG-29 was supposedly able to penetrate the armor of a British Challenger 2 tank in August 2006 in the city of Amarah, which is the provincial capital of Maysan province. Maysan was a strong hold of Shiite militias and Iranian-backed Special Groups at that time. The American military believed that Iran began sending a few of the weapons into Iraq in 2006. Some reports claimed that Lebanon’s Hezbollah was smuggling the rockets into Iraq via Syria.
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The forgotten contractor?
A very odd BBC report, which clearly awaits the prisoner's release, so remains unconfirmed.
Opens with:
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An Iraqi militant group says it has released a former US soldier it had been holding since last year.
Ends with:
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The BBC's Rami Ruhayem in Baghdad says the announcement appears to have taken everyone by surprise, including the US.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17416733
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http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...q_war?page=0,0
Currently a major focus on the part of the Army is capturing and applying "lessons learned from the past 10 years." Above article offers some insights that should be woven into that process.
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Iraq the reality of Iraqi power
Two lengthy scholarly articles, by British academics which appear to reach similar conclusions on where Iraq is today and notably the role of 'security'.
Tody Dodge ends with:
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Iraq today has a set of over-developed coercive institutions increasingly placed at the service of one man, its Prime Minister. The clear and present danger this poses to Iraq’s nascent democracy, its civil society and its population is obvious.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/toby-do...nuri-al-maliki
Charles Tripp starts with:
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Violence in Iraq is not a throw-back to some more ‘primitive’ past, driven by dark passions dredged up from history. On the contrary, it has a logic and a constitutive power of its own fully in line with the contemporary experiences that Iraqis have undergone both before and after 2003. Moreover, it seems to be regarded by those in power as a good deal less troubling than public accountability.
Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/charles...olence-in-iraq
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Violence In Iraq Continues Downward Trend
Headlines said that March 2012’s death count in Iraq was the lowest since the 2003 invasion. That was only based upon the Iraqi government’s official figures, which have been highly questionable. They have consistently been the lowest of the three organizations that maintain numbers on Iraqi deaths. Two of those three did show declines in casualties from February to March, but they were not their low points. Last month, did mark a low point for attacks, and continued the downward spiral of violence in Iraq seen in the last few years.
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Which Direction Is Violence Heading In Iraq?
The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in December 2011, the upswing in violence in January 2012, and the on-going political crisis in Baghdad had many in the West declaring that not only was security deteriorating in the country, but that it might be heading towards a new civil war. Several commentators have recently taken up this argument, including Michael Knights of the Institute for Near East Policy, James Dubik and Kimberly Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, and Becca Wasser of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. These predictions seem to be premature, because while attacks and deaths went up as the United States withdrew its forces at the end of 2011, they have since dropped back down to their previous level. Most trends in violence continue a downward spiral.
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What’s Wrong With The Iraqi Government’s Figures On Deaths In The Country?
In February 2012, the Iraqi government released its official figures for casualties from April 2004 to the end of 2011. It had over 69,000 deaths for that time period. That count was 40,000 less than other organizations that keep track of violence in Iraq. During the height of the civil war, the country’s ministries’ numbers were comparable to other groups, but since 2011 they have consistently been the lowest. While some Iraqi politicians have claimed that the official counts miss many deaths, it could also be argued that the statistics are being politicized by the prime minister who controls all of the security ministries.
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What Role Did Neoconservatives Play In American Political Thought And The Invasion Of
In 2006, Francis Fukuyama published America at the Crossroads, Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. In it, he covered three important facets of American foreign policy with regards to Iraq. First, he went over neoconservative ideology, something often talked about with regards to the invasion of Iraq, but little understood. Second, he debunked the idea that it was solely neoconservatives within the Bush administration who were responsible for the war. Finally, he discussed how neoconservatives betrayed their own ideas by how they dealt with the invasion and reconstruction of the country. Altogether, the neoconservatives did contribute to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein that would in the end, help discredit them.
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VIDEO: M1A1 Abrams Tanks In Iraq
This video shows M1A1 Abrams tanks destroyed and disabled in Iraq. The first half is a mix of insurgent videos and photographs from the U.S. military, individuals, and the media showing tanks being blown up, mostly by roadside bombs, but later perhaps by Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) or newer versions of the RPG. Footage from militant groups like Ansar al-Sunnah and the Jihad and Liberation Front can be seen. Half way through the images switch to tanks that have simply been disabled by getting stuck in mud, falling off bridges and elevated roads, etc.
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IISS on Iraq: Maliki power grab risks fresh civil war
An IISS Strategic Comment:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...esh-civil-war/
It ends with:
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The longer-term risk, therefore, is that Maliki's ambitions may yet drive the country back into civil war.
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Violence Slightly Up In Iraq In April 2012, But Casualties Largely Unchanged
April 2012 saw a slight increase in attacks in Iraq, but the number of deaths was largely unchanged from the previous month. That’s because just like in March, there was only one day of mass casualty violence in the country. Iraq is still in the in the winter months, and historically this has been when militants are less active.
The three organizations that record Iraqi deaths showed differing trends in April. Iraq Body Count’s initial figures showed 290 deaths last month. That was down from 320 in March, but just around February’s 293. The United Nations’ Inter Agency Information and Analysis Unit had 293 casualties, which was only one more than March’s 294. Both figures were higher than the 254 deaths in February. Finally, Iraq’s Ministry’s said that there were 126 deaths in April, slightly up from 112 in March. Bagdad’s official numbers have consistently been the lowest of the three since the beginning of 2011. That’s likely because Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who currently holds all the security ministries, is purposely keeping them low to maintain a positive image of the country. All together, the three figures averaged out to 236 deaths for April, which was just below March’s 242, and around February’s 232. January was the deadliest month of the year so far when militants not only used the American military withdrawal from the country to make a point that they were still a force to be reckoned with, but also targeted Shiites who were on a pilgrimage in the New Year. An average of 371 Iraqis were killed in the first month of the year. The daily averages have barely changed since then as well. In February, there was an average of 8.0 deaths per day, followed by 7.8 per day for both March and April. Those are comparable to November and December 2011 when an average of 8.0 and 9.0 people died per day respectively. Since the 2003 invasion, Iraq’s militants have been most active in the hot summer months. During the winter, they are usually quieter, planning and rearming. In the beginning of 2011 for example, there were an average of 9.7 deaths per day in January, 8.1 in February, 8.8 in March, 8.6 in April, before starting to pick up to 9.3 in May, 12.0 in June, 10.1 in July, 11.7 in August, 10.9 in September, 11.0 in October, before dropping down to single figures again when the temperatures dropped.
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A Discussion with Emma Sky
A Discussion with Emma Sky
Entry Excerpt:
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Vendors And Small Businesses In Baghdad
Although the Iraqi economy is dominated by the government, which runs the oil industry, small businesses have always existed, and are currently thriving in Iraq. The problem is that they are a very tiny proportion of the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Their growth cannot currently address the country's employment and development problems, yet there appear to be more of them, which helps local economies. Below are pictures of various vendors and firms seen throughout Baghdad in February, March, and April 2012.
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Iraq’s Premier And Kurdistan’s President Spare Over Weapons As Part Of Larger Politic
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Kurdistan Region’s President Massoud Barzani are currently caught in a war of words about the future of the government. As part of that dispute, the two recently traded barbs about the Iraqi security forces. While visiting the United States, President Barzani told American officials that they should delay the delivery of F-16 fighters to the Iraqi Air Force, because they might be used against the Kurds. Barzani also claimed that Kurdish officers in the armed forces were being sidelined. The central government retaliated by demanding that the Kurdish peshmerga turn over their heavy weapons. These charges will likely continue, and even escalate as the current political crisis remains deadlocked.
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Peshmerga videos
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LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL ENERGY CLUB VIDEO: Iraq - The Past, The Future, And Why It Mat
Toby Dodge, Michael Knights, and others discuss political, economic, security situation in Iraq
http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/20...ergy-club.html
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Hezbollah Commander About To Be Released From Iraqi Prison
In May 2012, it was announced that an Iraqi court ordered Lebanese Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq to be released from prison. The reason was a lack of evidence against him. This could have been predicted long ago, as his case was based upon an investigation by the American military, not Iraqi judges. In the United States, the decision will be condemned, and people will attempt to lay blame upon the Obama administration, but those comments are really about American domestic politics, rather than a real concern or understanding of the case.
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