Tiptoe Through the Tulips of Iraq

You can write a little story of your own by taking the news items out today about Iraq and weaving them together. When you do so, the only analysis you can take away is that this situation is far worse than even the most pessimistic among us could ever have imagined.

You have to start by noting that the Iraqi people want us to leave:

A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

Not only that, but the majority of Iraqis support attacks on US troops. But of course we're not going to take the hint and move along, as it's much more prudent to dissemble by explaining away facts with individual anecdotes:

The State Department, meanwhile, has conducted its own poll, something it does periodically, spokesman Sean McCormack said. The State Department poll found two-thirds of Iraqis in Baghdad favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to The Washington Post. McCormack declined to discuss details of the department's poll.

"What I hear from government representatives and other anecdotal evidence that you hear from Iraqis that is collected by embassy personnel and military personnel is that Iraqis do appreciate our presence there," he said. "They do understand the reasons for it, they do understand that we don't want to or we don't intend to be there indefinitely."

So hearing two Iraqis say they appreciate the US presence trumps a scientific poll showing the majority of opinion in the whole country. This must be what George Bush once called "fuzzy math."

But of course, people like McCormack have to dissemble, because there's no way the President will ever let us leave the country, so cover must be given.

President Bush is absolutely certain that he has the U.S. and Iraq on the right course, says Woodward. So certain is the president on this matter, Woodward says, that when Mr. Bush had key Republicans to the White House to discuss Iraq, he told them, “I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.”

This must be seen as the real choice when it comes to Iraq. Either we change course, or we stay there forever. Because stubborn ol' George isn't going to leave. He isn't going to take responsibility for the failure, either. In fact, he's got the military casting about for a scapegoat, and finding one in the Iraqi government:

Senior U.S. military officials have stepped up complaints that Iraq's Shiite-led government is thwarting efforts to go after Shiite death squads blamed in the execution-style killings of Sunni Arabs in neighborhoods across this capital.

Although deadly Sunni Arab rebel attacks remain frequent in Baghdad, U.S. officials, including Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, say death squads affiliated with Shiite militias have become the main factors ratcheting up the capital's death toll from sectarian killings [...]

However, the 8,000 U.S. troops sent to Baghdad in recent weeks to restore order have been largely prevented from confronting those militias, many of which have ties to Iraqi government officials.

The statements by ranking U.S. authorities complaining about the situation highlight rising American dissatisfaction with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and an increasing willingness to exert pressure on the fledging Iraqi government.

The U.S. forces would like to stage heightened military operations in Baghdad neighborhoods such as Sadr City, a stronghold for anti-U.S. Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi militia.

So the official line is now that the violence is all Maliki's fault because he's too timid (or too compromised by his support for Shiism) to go after Al-Sadr and the militia and death squads that he controls. Only Sadr is losing control of those death squads:

The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has lost control of portions of his Mahdi Army militia that are splintering off into freelance death squads and criminal gangs, a senior coalition intelligence official said Wednesday [...]

...as Mr. Sadr has taken a more active role in the government, as many as a third of his militiamen have grown frustrated with the constraints of compromise and have broken off, often selling their services to the highest bidders, said the official, who spoke to reporters in Baghdad on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly on intelligence issues.

“When Sadr says you can’t do this, for whatever political reason, that’s when they start to go rogue,” the official said. “Frankly, at that point, they start to become very open to alternative sources of sponsorship.” The official said that opened the door to control by Iran [...]

Six major leaders here no longer answer to Mr. Sadr’s organization, according to the intelligence official. Most describe themselves as Mahdi Army members, the official said, and even get money from Mr. Sadr’s organization, but “are effectively beyond his control.” Some of those who moved away from Mr. Sadr saw him as too accommodating to the United States.

So the Shiite gangs are even beyond the control of the biggest Shiite radical in the country. And how are they going about their business? Like so:

Iraq's two most deadly Shiite Muslim militias have killed thousands of Sunni Arabs since February, with the more experienced Badr Brigade often working in tandem with Al Mahdi army, collecting intelligence on targets and forming hit lists that Al Mahdi militia members carry out, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.

In some cases, death squads have been accompanied by a "clerical figure to basically run" an Islamic court to provide "the blessing for the conduct of the execution," the official said [...]

The hallmarks of the Shiite death squads have been mass killings in which the victims are found with their "hands bound, shot in the back or head," and their bodies showing signs of torture, the U.S. official said.

Mosques and safehouses in Sadr City, a huge poor Shiite neighborhood that is the Al Mahdi stronghold in Baghdad, have been the base for many death squad operations, the official said.

The official also said that Iraq's Interior Ministry, known to be heavily infiltrated by both Shiite militias, was complicit in many of the killings.

Militia members have used Iraqi security forces' uniforms and vehicles during assassinations and checkpoint sweeps.

"Those would get up to 60 individuals detained in a sweep," the official said. "OK, and again, often they would release those who were Shiite. We'd see that over the course of, say, that afternoon. And then there'd be individuals ransomed, and then there would perhaps be a mass killing in Sadr City and burial."

This is pretty grim stuff, particularly when you add in what the Sunni insurgents are doing, countering by engaging in the new technique of booby-trapping the cars of freed kidnap victims and setting them off at specifc points, turning them into unwitting suicide bombers. Maybe all of this chaos is why Saudi Arabia is going Minutemen and building a fence along their border with Iraq:

Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with plans to build a fence to block terrorists from crossing its 560-mile border with Iraq — another sign of growing alarm that Sunni-Shiite strife could spill over and drag Iraq's neighbors into its civil conflict.

The barrier, which hasn't been started, is part of a $12 billion package of measures including electronic sensors, security bases and physical barriers to protect the oil-rich kingdom from external threats, said Nawaf Obaid, head of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, an independent research institute that advises the Saudi government.

What's implicit here is that the Saudis have no faith in the US military to keep them safe from the chaos in Iraq, which is broadening throughout the region. Maybe that's because the most radical in Iraq are pushing to make prewar WMD claims a self-fulfilling prophecy, only the race for WMD only started AFTER the invasion ended:

In a new audio message Thursday, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West. "We are in dire need of you," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri — the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

"The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them."

I'm sure the Bush Administration will try to use this message to buttress their claims that the world is dangerous and Democrats don't understand the nature of the threat and we need to remove all civil liberties and detain anyone who disagrees with that. But really, this little trip through the stories on Iraq shows that, as a cause of this catastrophic war which has done untold damage in lives, treasure, and moral standing, the only characterization that fits the situation is one where shit is falling from the sky.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks. Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."