The situation in Baghdad is deteriorating from day to day. I have warned about this long ago. The “insurrection” is lead by the Baathists, without any doubt, and they are converging on Baghdad and seriously bent on taking over. They are creating havoc in in the capital. Very soon, if this situation continues like this the city is going to be brought to a complete standstill and paralysis. The confusion and conflict between the Americans, the army and the Ministry of interior is producing a situation where the citizens don’t know anymore whether the security personel in the street are friends, enemies, terrorists or simply criminals and thieves. Everybody is wearing the same uniforms. Whole sections of the city have virtually fallen to gangs and terrorists, and this is sepecially true for the “Sunni” dominated neighborhoods. People and businesses are being robbed and the employees kidnapped en mass in broad daylight and with complete ease as though security forces are non-existent, although we see them everwhere.I don’t know anymore what can be done to rescue the situation. At least, those who are supposed to be in positions of responsibility should stop lying and painting a false picture. It has to be admitted that the city is under siege and has become the front battle line. Emergency measures have to be put in place immediately, otherwise as everbody in Baghdad knows, the whole city is going to fall soon. I regret sounding so pessimistic, but the alarm must be sounded with the loudest volume possible, since what is happening is Baghdad is something really awful.
The reports I’ve seen from StrategyPage and other Iraqi bloggers suggest a situation that is rapidly spiraling out of control.
This is not a pleasant prospect to contemplate but it is better to face facts and try to decide what we can do about it rather than fall back on the same, tired mantras mouthed by some of our more clueless war boosters like “the press isn’t reporting the good news out of Iraq” or “things aren’t really that bad” or even “there is no civil war.”
At the moment there is no good news coming out Iraq to report, things really are that bad, and there is a de-facto civil war raging as I write this with tit-for-tat revenge killings that now number in the hundreds – perhaps more than a thousand. They’re not fighting in the streets at the moment – but that’s only because the Sunnis are running for their lives. The Washington Post:
Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate.
Two weeks ago, I believed that there was very little the United States military could do in a combat capacity to affect the situation, that it was now up to the Iraqis. What I didn’t count on was the apparent resistance of the Interior Ministry (headed up by former Badr Brigade commander Bayan Jabr) to the attempted purging of radical police elements by the Iraqi government who are under the influence (direction?) of Iran and the lengths to which radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would go to maintain whatever influence he wields in the councils of state. The Iraqis are under enormous pressure from American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad to clean out the nest of intrigue and possible traitors at Interior while at the same time reigning in the Shia militias.
The reports of both Muqtada al-Sadr’s black clad Mehdi Militiamen and uniformed police working together to haul away innocent Sunnis and suspected insurgents who then disappear and are later found brutally murdered have become too numerous to ignore as simply “anecdotal evidence.” Al-Sadr’s militiamen have infiltrated the police and are apparently working together to fan the flames of violence to God knows what end. It could be a power play from al-Sadr whose hand-picked Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari is under pressure by Ambassador Khalilzad to withdraw his name from consideration when the new Parliament meets, a political development that would do much to calm the situation but which is being stalled by the recalcitrance of Shi’ite negotiators who bitterly resent American interference. Or al-Sadr has lost control of his men and the numerous killings are random revenge murders with no overall plan being followed. Either scenario is extremely troubling for the future.
As for Alaa’s claim that there will be an attempt by insurgents to actually seize control of Baghdad that may be an exaggeration. A more likely occurrence is what our military commanders have been expecting for months; an effort by the insurgency to inflict a Tet-like public relations disaster on the American military by infiltrating the fortified Green Zone and slaughtering foreigners.
Just two weeks ago it was revealed that a plot by people in the Defense Ministry to carry out such an attack was foiled when it was uncovered by the authorities just in time. And then yesterday, we had this curious bit of news from the group that was holding journalist Jill Carroll hostage:
Shortly before her release, her captors – who refer to themselves as the Revenge Brigade – also told her they had infiltrated the US diplomatic compound in Baghdad, and she would be killed if she went there or cooperated with the American authorities. It was a threat she took seriously in her first few hours of freedom.
If the insurgents were ever going to try and emulate the Viet Cong’s effort to prove to the American people that victory was impossible, they couldn’t pick a better time to do it.
Bush’s job approval numbers are horrible. Support for the war is fading. Republicans are getting more and more nervous about November. Democrats smell victory. An attack inside the Green Zone that killed hundreds could very well be the tipping point that would cause a public outcry, finally galvanize the anti-war movement, start Republican lawmakers running for cover, and embolden the Democrats even further in calling for immediate withdrawal.
In short, unmitigated disaster.
Is there anything that can be done to retrieve the situation – and retrieve it in a hurry? Greg Djerejian quoting Tom Friedman: “It’s five minutes to midnight.”
Fire Donald Rumsfeld, and replace him with John Warner or Richard Armitage or someone else qualified soonest. Bulk up our troop presence in Baghdad asap, even if it means rotating some troops out of places like Anbar (especially in locations where we are still more in whack-a-mole posture than clear, build, hold). Let’s have a major show of strength, including large amounts of U.S. troops, in the most problematic neighborhoods (US troops are critical, as confidence in the integrity of Iraqi Army units as impartial arbitrers or plausible peacekeepers simply doesn’t exist yet among much of the Iraqi public. This is why under-informed blather about the Iraqi Army being “solid”, or the militias being simply “pesky”, is just crap, and it’s quite sad prominent right wing bloggers link to such hokum as offering soi disant serious perspective).Order. Order. Order. It’s desperately needed in the capital, the very linchpin of a stable Iraq, if we mean for the country to remain a unitary state. So we need someone at the Pentagon who, at the very least, definitively comprehends said order doesn’t exist today, alas, and that the battle-space in places like Sadr City is most definitively not under control by non-militia infested forces (as Rumsfeld disingenuously claimed a couple weeks back). Nothing is more important at this hour than beating back the cycle of sectarian violence, as Friedman well explains in the context of his Beirut experience (read his whole op-ed, Times Select subscribers), especially given that a situation already fraught with such immense danger is even more so, with formation of a cohesive national government still elusive.
The prospects of chaos are obviously enhanced by such a vacuum, so all efforts to stave off further sectarian mayhem must be pursued with maximum drive. Stabilizing the situation will require, not only a real show of force on the streets, to provide for enhanced ground up security, but also more efforts from the top-down, where Ambassador Khalilzhad’s interventions to form a government need to become even more urgent. (This might include, if necessary, calibrated series of higher-level interventions by the Secretary of State, President (he’s made such calls in the past) and other very senior Administration officials, perhaps even other interested Foreign Ministers from major powers. Unfortunately, the Arab League continues to wallow in irrelevance, more worried about rising Iranian influence than doing anything even remotely helpful, which is painfully pitiable but woefully predictable, of course).
Is Greg overstating the need for American forces to step in and take the lead in securing the streets? How about this announcement from the Ministry of Defense:
“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or the police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”
This message has been scrolling across the bottom of every TV channel in Iraq for days. In short, even the Iraqi military doesn’t trust its own people.
American casualties have dropped significantly in recent months for two reasons; the military is under orders not to take too many chances and our people have moved out of the cities, away from the ambushes and IED’s that accounted for most of our casualties, and into the countryside in order to ferret out insurgent strongholds in rural areas. It seems pretty clear that this has got to change and that we need to redeploy back to Baghdad.
Bold action in the streets coupled with bold action at the conference table are the only things that can stabilize the situation and give the Iraqi government a chance. And we must lower our sights on what would constitute a victory in Iraq. Instead of staying until a stable, peaceful, democratic government is achieved, it may be time to look at a scenario where violence would be continuing at some reduced level but the situation could be handled by Iraqi security forces. Any stable government that would meet the State Department or The Freedom House definition of “Partly Free” would be a significant improvement over Saddam Hussein’s rule and would still have the potential for reform.
If, as Mr. Friedman says we are at “Five minutes to Midnight” then perhaps it is time for all of us to start assessing what’s going on in Iraq in a realistic manner rather than engaging in wishful thinking. The United States is fast approaching a point in Iraq where the law of diminishing returns makes our commitment ever more problematic. Are we coming to a point where the cost of our staying there outweighs any possible gain to our security or our national interest?
We’re not there yet. But revisit this site in another month or two and that may change.
11:28 am
At the worst, three nationa – an oil rich South, an oil rich Kurdistan and a piss-poor Baghdad. Were we to suggest that we would accept division, I suspect the people in the middle might think again the efficacy of still behaving like they run the show.
12:37 pm
A True Hero from another War
Riverside Press-Enterprise – March 31, 2006
Where Are the Heros of the Iraq War?
[RBT’s caption]
RBT
*****
Korean vet repaid debt to America with his heroism – America’s…
1:24 pm
Good Lord, let’s all throw our hands up and run around like headless chickens. I wonder where the insurgency, which has been under tremedous pressure in the outlying areas, will fall back to? How about Baghdad? To the people in Baghdad, the violence that used to be predominately somewhere else is now in the capital. They may be getting the full attention of the insurgents and jihadis both.
The raid we just helped the Iraqis with on one of Sadr’s militia hangouts should (I hope) indicate that we are planning on pulling his teeth, while also accentuating the fractures in the Shiite bloc. Perhaps this will galvanize the Iraqi politicians to quit temporizing and get to governing. The Iraqi Police have been infiltrated and it’s time to put some effort into cleaning them up. The Iraqis will have to do this, but we can roll up Sadr and his Iranian-backed thugs.
Greg Djerjian has wanted Rumsfeld’s head for three years now. Last time I looked, he wasn’t the military governor of Iraq, so I’m at a loss to see how sacking him will help the situation now. This is a political contest now, and the Iraqis need to step up here too. Our emphasis has understandably been on their military development. They need to start exercising their political muscles and assert civilian control of the military situation.
I’m sure our enemies are well aware of the Tet gambit, and are, in fact, counting on our media to carry their water for them. There’s no need for you to join the parade yet.
1:48 pm
I can’t say that I don’t understand why you’re so gloomy, Rick. And I think that your analysis of the political situation in the US is on-target. Bush is loosing the political battle at home, and this is causing even members of his own party to run away from him.
That said, I have to agree with what chris said. Yes the situation in Baghdad is bad, and it is distressing that the Iraqis are taking so long to put together a government.
But perceptions are everything, as Bill Roggio points out. And contrary to Tom Friedman’s panic-mongering, we are increasing troop levels in the capital.
What seems to be happening, then, is that the insurgency is concentrating it’s efforts in the capital because 1) it’s easier to remain anonymous in a big city and 2) that’s where the reporters are.
Further, as Richard Hernandez concludes, the Sunni insurgency is beaten (Zarqawi has practically admitted this), and that the real danger now is political. By this I mean that unless there is a political solution, and soon, then Iraq will indeed slide into more and more sectarian violence. This violence will be characterized more by reprisal killings than “civil war” as most people understand it, which would be two rival governments each with it’s own army.
2:09 pm
First of all, I don’t think I’m being gloomy in the sense that things are hopeless and I’m giving up. I am saying that bold moves need to be made to salvage the situation and it appears that such moves are being contemplated.
I didn’t put several other pieces of news in the post such as the letter Bush sent to al-Sistani several days ago that the Ayatollah hasn’t even opened and had translated yet so mad he and other Shia leaders are at the Americans right now. Nor did I include the fact despite calls by the Shia alliance for him to step aside, Jaaffari insists he will stand for PM “until the end.” This will fracture the Shia coalition making it even harder to reach consensus on a unity government (also further empowering al-Sadr).
It is the Iraqi political class represented by bloggers and commentators who seem to be losing hope and that to me is more an important sign of what is going on than all the briefings from the military or all the stories in the MSM.
I respect Wretchard and Bill Roggio but Fernandez has been saying for months that the insurgency is dead and Bill’s excellent reporting is, in the end, the grunt’s eye view and I think he loses focus when he pulls back and tries to analyze the big picture. Not saying that they are necessarily incorrect just that they are giving a more optimistic assessment of the situation.
Boldness will salvage the situation. Let’s hope that the Administration has it in them.
3:34 pm
Sometimes I wonder if these people have the capacity to govern themselves in a peaceful manner.
3:43 pm
Greg Djerejian is highly overrated. So is Tom Friedman. Sectarian violence? It’s been happening in the middle east(like Africa, like the Balkans and many other countries) for hundreds if not thousands of years. Cry me a river.
4:11 pm
Although Europe has sat back and not helped us out to this point, maybe it spiraling out of control would entice them to try to help us stabilize the area, because they are concerned about iran, and complete crazyness in iraq would make the iran situation more dire.
Plus I think that in order for Europe and USA to start working together to confront roque countries it would be useful for them to feel as if they saved us from disaster, so that we can’t hang ww2 over their heads, which i believe is the true source of much of their anger for us.
4:49 pm
Last time everyone went into a collective depressed funk (prior to the first election if I recall), things improved shortly thereafter. I’ll be looking foward to similar happenings this time around.
5:07 pm
What appears to be happening in Bagdad is that the Shia got tired of being massacred on a regular basis and started to hit back at the Sunni with revenge killings around Bagdad. Whether these killings are accurately targeting Sunni terrorists or are simply tit for tat killing is unknown. Frankly, the Shia have been amazingly patient under this Sunni mass murder campaign against their civilians. We need to get at least a partial leash on this so that revenge killings do not turn into an actual civil war with warring militias.
There has been no discernible spike in Sunni insurgency killings or attacks. If they attempted anything like Tet, the Sunni would be massacred. At most, the Sunni insurgency can muster maybe 20,000 men dispersed across the country and have only launched company size attacks anywhere in the country. They are outnumbered well over 5-1 by the government forces alone not counting Coalition or Shia militia forces. The last time they tried a company size attack against a police station north of Bagdad, the Sunni ran into a government commando unit and were slaughtered.
Consequently, the Sunni insurgency doesn’t even pose a remote threat to Iraqi military or government control of Bagdad or any other area of the country. This is why their attacks have shifted away from the Coalition and toward Iraqi civilian targets. In reality, the threat is that the vastly outnumbered Shia will reap what they sown and will get hurt very badly by the Shia.
The bottom line is that we have already achieved all of our objectives in Iraq. We have replaced Saddam’s dictatorship with a elected representative government and built an Iraqi military which can sustain that government. The terror against civilians will go on for some years but it has no more chance of winning that did the IRA, ETA or the Palestinian terror groups. The Shia and Kurds are not going to give up power in the face of these attacks. The Iraqis will have to come to the necessary political accommodations to resolve that problem. Most of our troops will be coming home over the next year or so.
8:50 pm
The Tet analogy refers to the media campaign, which is separate from any military operations. This is what the enemy has been expending energy on, winning the propaganda war. I’m not sure what kind of boldness will counteract the pressure of the American media, since any drastic change of strategy or personnel will undoubtedly be portrayed as the last act of a desperate administration.
Fortunately, this administration has over two years left to keep plodding forward. Unfortunately, everyone seems to understand the vagaries of the biennial American electoral process, and the fact that the political leadership in this country is fractured on the topic of the GWOT will be exploited until the fault lines are erased.
6:40 am
Way to go Rick! It is time to begin the process of deprogramming necessary for the neocons to realize the error of their ways, and to board the reality train once again, where they will regain some semblance of their old republican selves,and this task i’m afraid lies at your doorstep here in the nut house. It will be a long journey for most of you, and many will not arrive at the final destination, but remember, your return to the real world begins with this first important step. Good luck to you all.
8:56 am
There is little question that additional U.S. troops—say, about 350,000 total—could reduce the violence in Iraq to a level of that in, say, Lebanon. Rumsfeld has said, repeatedly—does anyone listen, I wonder?—that it is an American flaw and virtue that whenever something needs to be done, well by golly, let us Americans do it. There might be some magical path by which we could, in fact, engineer a peaceful transition to democracy, in the same way that NASA might be able to safely send a manned mission to Mars next year. Does anyone here really think that the former is easier than the latter? Our role in Iraq is to keep the balance of power—read terror—about even between the parties while they figure something out that will work for them. It ain’t pretty, but it’ll work better than duct tape.
12:02 pm
The msm has been very clever at separating Iraq from the broader on terrorism. They have been so successful at this that those who get their information strictl from the msm have no idea what is going on. Iraq is the central front in the war right now. Russia and China are using the terrorists as their proxies in their war against the United States. Russia and China are the enemies behind our Islamic Extremists terrorists enemies. We need to understand that failure in Iraq will mean we lose the war against the terrorists and their marxists allies. If we lose in Iraq the terrorists and their marxist allies will take over. Yhry will use this as a base to plan more attacks against the United States and to take over more middle eastern countries. They already control Iran and Syria. They will use Iraq as a base to take more middle eastern nations. From there they will move onto Europe and finally to America itself. Failure in Iraq would be a “waterloo” of sorts from which America would likley never recover. It would be only a matter of time before Islamic Extremists and their Marxists allies would take over America itself. We need to understand the following: 1.) Success in Iraq, which means setting up and maintaining a goverment in Iraq that will be an ally in the war against the Islamic Extremist/Marxist alliance or at the very least a government that will not support the terrorists and their marxists allies, is mission critical to America’s survival. If we withdraw now the terrorists and their marxist allies will take over very quickly and America’s continued survival as a free country would be very short indeed. 2.)Russia and China are the enemy behind our terrorist enemies. Without the unyielding support of those two countries the terrorists would have only a fraction of the power they currently have. The kid glove treatment currently being extended to Russia and China must end. I think it is time to call these two countries on the carpet and expose their treachery. Russia with its highly advanced nuclear arsenal and its support of every terrorist under the sun makes it America’s single most dangerous enemy.