"The Security Situation"
Caught off-guard by the mayhem and powerless to stop it, U.S. officials could only offer general expressions of optimism."
--TIME Magazine article, "An Eye for an Eye," March 6, 2006
In a recent interview with ABC news anchor Elizabeth Vargas, President Bush told her that the violent and bloody situation in Iraq would not deteriorate into civil war, that it was not going to happen, that we wouldn't let it happen.
As usual, he said far too little, far too late, because the truth of the matter is that civil war HAS ALREADY begun in Iraq, and there is precious little--if anything--we can do about it.
The worst tragedy of all about these unfolding events in Iraq is that this was predicted, not just by people like myself who opposed the invasion of Iraq in the first place, but by the first President Bush and a cadre of advisors like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, who warned "41" not to go into Baghdad after the Gulf war because it would stir up a hornet's nest of sectarian and religious rivalries--AND by this president Bush's own Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and State Departments--back in OCTOBER OF 2003.
According to congressional testimony last week by the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Robert Hutchings, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, and various state department sources, a National Intelligence Estimate, back in November of 2003, warned the president about the growing menace of the insurgency, that it was "intensifying and expanding." But administration officials ignored those who issued the warnings, claiming they were "not team players" and calling them "nay-sayers, hand-wringers, and thumb-suckers."
As quoted by Knight-Ridder newspapers in a Feb. 28 article, Hutchings said, "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios."
Where have we heard THAT before?
The very next week, in fact, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were making public statements that the insurgency was composed mostly of foreigners, "thugs," and "dead-enders," and was completely containable by U.S. and Coalition troops. The president even made his famous challenge, "Bring it on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
Well, we may have had the force, but we did not use it because Donald Rumsfeld wanted to fight a lean war, and we did not deal with the "security situation," not from day one. About the time the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down, (with a lot of help from the U.S. Marines), rioting and looting ransacked not just Baghdad, but most of the country. Our troops were ordered not to intervene, and they obeyed, standing by while not just television sets were stripped from homes, but huge ammo dumps and arms caches were scooped up by retreating Hussein loyalists, who knew just how to use them and where to hide them.
While the security situation in Iraq disintegrated into chaos, we were pumping huge resources--and troop strength--into massive searches for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and bio-chemical weapons labs. Then, our incoming Ambassador to Iraq, Paul Bremer, decided that all Baathists could not be trusted, and summarily disbanded the entire Iraqi army.
Apparently, he didn't pay much attention to how things had once been in the old Soviet Socialist Republic, where any kind of promotion or job security was based, not on skill and education, but by Communist Party membership. The thing is, that's the way it was with the Baathists, too. If you wanted to advance in the army, you had to be a Baathist, whether you wanted to or not.
By firing career officers, he not only lost a valuable resource into the security concerns of Iraq, but he insulted and offended and outraged many Iraqi army personnel who had actually been ready and willing to work with the Americans.
But now they were jobless and had to feed their families, so many of them simply aligned themselves with the hard-core Hussein loyalist-Baathists--who still had money and weapons--and thus, an insurgency was born.
Many of the Baathist army and police who were fired by Bremer could have been a big help in containing the insurgency--but because of the stupid and short-sighted way they were shoved aside, they turned angry and became Sunni insurgents, trying to kill Americans instead. And some of THOSE insurgents were then recruited by the bloody psychotics who followed Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and the Al Queda in Iraq gang--the ones who want nothing more than to kill Americans and while they are at it, start a civil war in Iraq.
The "security situation" in Iraq began to collapse almost immediately. In that slow ponderous way of all huge bureaucracies, the American military began recruiting a whole new army and police force to train. They had to start with such simple lessons as how to march and how to shoot--all while they were battling an increasingly hostile and violent insurgency that was gaining strong footholds in cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
Months passed, and while U.S. and Coalition forces battled insurgents in first one hot spot and then another, a security vacuum followed. Crimes of all sorts skyrocketed in Iraq--rapes, muggings, robberies, car-jackings, murders, and kidnappings. Frightened mothers kept their children out of school, and everyone wondered why the Americans could not seem to protect them. They grew increasingly frustrated, angry, and bitter.
After about a year of fruitless battles fought against American troops, the insurgency began to seek out "softer" targets, and there was no end of them in the unprotected populace. Bombings once reserved for the American military were turned on the Iraqi people, in crowded marketplaces, schools, mosques, and busy streets.
Ironically, not all the men swept up on military arrest-sweeps, part of the ongoing search for insurgents, were bad. Some were innocent young men who, during their time in jail while the authorities sorted out their innocence, were caught up in the influence of bad guys, and thus became bad guys themselves. Some distraught mothers even petitioned the government to find a way to send their boys out of the country and away from the bad influences, before they were lost forever.
By this time the newly-minted Iraqi army was beginning to be seen in force along with American troops, but long before there was any public admission of this by any American military or political official, the U.S., British, and Coalition forces--guys on the ground like my nephew and son--were reporting mass instances of Iraqi army mutiny, abandonment of posts, running away in battle, and more mundane infractions like sleeping while on guard.
Even worse, the Iraqi army and police had been infiltrated by insurgents who set up attacks on military convoys, at recruiting stations, and on routine patrol.
In a monumental disconnect with facts, the administration released rosy figures of how many Iraqi army and police had been trained by U.S. and Coalition forces. Not only were the figures exaggerated in the first place, but training hardly matters if the soldier either doesn't use it at all, or uses it against the very ones who trained him.
Meanwhile, the terrified citizenry turned to the one place they were used to turning for most of their needs: their mosques. Powerful clerics--many of whom operated more like Mafia dons than religious figures--began to recruit angry young men into private militias that patrolled their neighborhoods. These militias were hardly new in that society, but in the void left by a ruthless dictator and an inattentive occupying force, they gained strength and power.
--TIME Magazine article, "An Eye for an Eye," March 6, 2006
In a recent interview with ABC news anchor Elizabeth Vargas, President Bush told her that the violent and bloody situation in Iraq would not deteriorate into civil war, that it was not going to happen, that we wouldn't let it happen.
As usual, he said far too little, far too late, because the truth of the matter is that civil war HAS ALREADY begun in Iraq, and there is precious little--if anything--we can do about it.
The worst tragedy of all about these unfolding events in Iraq is that this was predicted, not just by people like myself who opposed the invasion of Iraq in the first place, but by the first President Bush and a cadre of advisors like Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, who warned "41" not to go into Baghdad after the Gulf war because it would stir up a hornet's nest of sectarian and religious rivalries--AND by this president Bush's own Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and State Departments--back in OCTOBER OF 2003.
According to congressional testimony last week by the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Robert Hutchings, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, and various state department sources, a National Intelligence Estimate, back in November of 2003, warned the president about the growing menace of the insurgency, that it was "intensifying and expanding." But administration officials ignored those who issued the warnings, claiming they were "not team players" and calling them "nay-sayers, hand-wringers, and thumb-suckers."
As quoted by Knight-Ridder newspapers in a Feb. 28 article, Hutchings said, "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios."
Where have we heard THAT before?
The very next week, in fact, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were making public statements that the insurgency was composed mostly of foreigners, "thugs," and "dead-enders," and was completely containable by U.S. and Coalition troops. The president even made his famous challenge, "Bring it on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
Well, we may have had the force, but we did not use it because Donald Rumsfeld wanted to fight a lean war, and we did not deal with the "security situation," not from day one. About the time the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down, (with a lot of help from the U.S. Marines), rioting and looting ransacked not just Baghdad, but most of the country. Our troops were ordered not to intervene, and they obeyed, standing by while not just television sets were stripped from homes, but huge ammo dumps and arms caches were scooped up by retreating Hussein loyalists, who knew just how to use them and where to hide them.
While the security situation in Iraq disintegrated into chaos, we were pumping huge resources--and troop strength--into massive searches for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and bio-chemical weapons labs. Then, our incoming Ambassador to Iraq, Paul Bremer, decided that all Baathists could not be trusted, and summarily disbanded the entire Iraqi army.
Apparently, he didn't pay much attention to how things had once been in the old Soviet Socialist Republic, where any kind of promotion or job security was based, not on skill and education, but by Communist Party membership. The thing is, that's the way it was with the Baathists, too. If you wanted to advance in the army, you had to be a Baathist, whether you wanted to or not.
By firing career officers, he not only lost a valuable resource into the security concerns of Iraq, but he insulted and offended and outraged many Iraqi army personnel who had actually been ready and willing to work with the Americans.
But now they were jobless and had to feed their families, so many of them simply aligned themselves with the hard-core Hussein loyalist-Baathists--who still had money and weapons--and thus, an insurgency was born.
Many of the Baathist army and police who were fired by Bremer could have been a big help in containing the insurgency--but because of the stupid and short-sighted way they were shoved aside, they turned angry and became Sunni insurgents, trying to kill Americans instead. And some of THOSE insurgents were then recruited by the bloody psychotics who followed Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and the Al Queda in Iraq gang--the ones who want nothing more than to kill Americans and while they are at it, start a civil war in Iraq.
The "security situation" in Iraq began to collapse almost immediately. In that slow ponderous way of all huge bureaucracies, the American military began recruiting a whole new army and police force to train. They had to start with such simple lessons as how to march and how to shoot--all while they were battling an increasingly hostile and violent insurgency that was gaining strong footholds in cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
Months passed, and while U.S. and Coalition forces battled insurgents in first one hot spot and then another, a security vacuum followed. Crimes of all sorts skyrocketed in Iraq--rapes, muggings, robberies, car-jackings, murders, and kidnappings. Frightened mothers kept their children out of school, and everyone wondered why the Americans could not seem to protect them. They grew increasingly frustrated, angry, and bitter.
After about a year of fruitless battles fought against American troops, the insurgency began to seek out "softer" targets, and there was no end of them in the unprotected populace. Bombings once reserved for the American military were turned on the Iraqi people, in crowded marketplaces, schools, mosques, and busy streets.
Ironically, not all the men swept up on military arrest-sweeps, part of the ongoing search for insurgents, were bad. Some were innocent young men who, during their time in jail while the authorities sorted out their innocence, were caught up in the influence of bad guys, and thus became bad guys themselves. Some distraught mothers even petitioned the government to find a way to send their boys out of the country and away from the bad influences, before they were lost forever.
By this time the newly-minted Iraqi army was beginning to be seen in force along with American troops, but long before there was any public admission of this by any American military or political official, the U.S., British, and Coalition forces--guys on the ground like my nephew and son--were reporting mass instances of Iraqi army mutiny, abandonment of posts, running away in battle, and more mundane infractions like sleeping while on guard.
Even worse, the Iraqi army and police had been infiltrated by insurgents who set up attacks on military convoys, at recruiting stations, and on routine patrol.
In a monumental disconnect with facts, the administration released rosy figures of how many Iraqi army and police had been trained by U.S. and Coalition forces. Not only were the figures exaggerated in the first place, but training hardly matters if the soldier either doesn't use it at all, or uses it against the very ones who trained him.
Meanwhile, the terrified citizenry turned to the one place they were used to turning for most of their needs: their mosques. Powerful clerics--many of whom operated more like Mafia dons than religious figures--began to recruit angry young men into private militias that patrolled their neighborhoods. These militias were hardly new in that society, but in the void left by a ruthless dictator and an inattentive occupying force, they gained strength and power.
posted by Deanie Mills at 9:19 PM
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