Chaos Meter Pinned on Red

This is a bit of an extrapolation, but in a time where actual assessments of Iraq are hidden from view, it's about the best we're going to get:

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.

An intelligence summary at the bottom of the slide reads “urban areas experiencing ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaigns to consolidate control” and “violence at all-time high, spreading geographically.” According to a Central Command official, the index on civil strife has been a staple of internal command briefings for most of this year. The analysis was prepared by the command’s intelligence directorate, which is overseen by Brig. Gen. John M. Custer.

I'd like a bigger nugget of information than a slide from a Power Point presentation, but this is in line with everything that has been reported, and with a tantalizing bit more. And it makes this story more understandable:

"How can we expect ordinary Iraqis to trust the police when we don't even trust them not to kill our own men?" asked Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence."

The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., predicted last week that Iraqi security forces would be able to take control of the country in 12 to 18 months. But several days spent with American units training the Iraqi police illustrated why those soldiers on the ground believe it may take decades longer than Casey's assessment.

Seventy percent of the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by militias, primarily the Mahdi Army, according to Shaw and other military police trainers. Police officers are too terrified to patrol enormous swaths of the capital. And while there are some good cops, many have been assassinated or are considering quitting the force.

"None of the Iraqi police are working to make their country better," said Brig. Gen. Salah al-Ani, chief of police for the western half of Baghdad. "They're working for the militias or to put money in their pocket."

Hence the slide toward the "chaos" end of the spectrum. The Pentagon had better get their rapid response team out for tomorrow, because it's going to be a doozy. Incidentally, are you as a taxpayer happy with your money being funneled to a Pentagon PR machine rather than, say, body armor?

One guy they shouldn't hire at the DoD, by the way, is Straight Talk McCain. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is the most offensive remark a sitting US Senator named John has said in the past 48 hours:

"I go out to Walter Reed quite often and see these brave young soldiers who have served and sacrificed so much. Many of them have lost limbs, as you know. And it's a very sad thing to see. But at the same time it's very uplifting."

Why offensive? Because McCain was at a campaign event in Illinois for Peter Roskam, a Republican who is facing Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in battle in Iraq.

It's either clueless or pathetic or just plain vindictive and nasty, or a combination thereof. Mr. Straight Talk suddenly doesn't seem like the best spokesman, does he?