Did the Surge Work; and should Obama Admit it ???

[Upgrade Dave]

Re: Who is lying?? "No Oil Spilled during Katrina" McBush & Co. or MMS?

Oh I recall very well (1) Colin's and others realistic troop level assessment BEFORE the invasion; (2) the birth of the insurgency because the number of boots on the ground was probably insufficient to quell it; (3) the back and forth between the Administration, including Rumsfeld, and others over troop strength; (4) McCain's support for the surge; (5) Obama's opposition to the surge; (6) the surge; and (7) the sharp decline in violence since.

Now, questions that come to mind are: whether the surge is responsible for the decline in violence - or - whether there were OTHER factors that alone or in combination with the surge are responsible for that decline. If the surge is responsible for the decline in violence -- does it do Obama any good denying it ??? Personally, I think it does not work in his favor and may very well hurt him in the near future.

QueEx

There is no such thing as "the surge", that's a marketing ploy, a very effective one to be sure. It was an escalation and it did contribute to the decline in violence as it was predicted it would by anyone objective observer. But it's not solely responsible. There are the barriers they built to separate the tribes, the truce declared by Al-Sadr, and the bribes handed out by the US gov't to the various factions to keep them pacified. The only person in the MSM who has acknowledged this is Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher and editor of The Nation, on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Of course, as soon as she left they kept talking like she didn't say anything. Confirming to me that the narrative they're selling now is "the surge" worked in a vacuum.

 

[QueEx]

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

Military Deaths By Year/Month
Period 	  	US 	UK 	Other 	Total 	Days 	Avg
Total 		4124 	176 	138 	4438 	1955 	2.27
7-2008 		11 	0 	0 	11 	25 	0.44
6-2008 		29 	0 	2 	31 	30 	1.03
5-2008 		19 	0 	2 	21 	31 	0.68
4-2008 		52 	0 	0 	52 	30 	1.73
3-2008 		39 	1 	0 	40 	31 	1.29
2-2008 		29 	1 	0 	30 	29 	1.03
1-2008 		40 	0 	0 	40 	31 	1.29
12-2007 	23 	1 	1 	25 	31 	0.81
11-2007 	37 	2 	1 	40 	30 	1.33
10-2007 	38 	1 	1 	40 	31 	1.29
9-2007 		65 	2 	2 	69 	30 	2.3
8-2007 		84 	4 	0 	88 	31 	2.84
7-2007 		79 	8 	1 	88 	31 	2.84
6-2007 		101 	7 	0 	108 	30 	3.6
5-2007 		126 	3 	2 	131 	31 	4.23
4-2007 		104 	12 	1 	117 	30 	3.9
3-2007 		81 	1 	0 	82 	31 	2.65
2-2007 		81 	3 	1 	85 	28 	3.04
1-2007 		83 	3 	0 	86 	31 	2.77

Define Success, please!

I don't know how you define success, but I will give you these numbers, based on the numbers you posted:

For the 6 months before the surge/escalation began:

• 576 American soldiers lost their lives over a period of 181 days.

• 576 divided by 181 = 3.18 deaths per day

The surge/escalation went on for approximately 90 days. In the 6 months following the surge:

• 206 Americans lost their lives over a period of 183 days

• 206 divided by 183 = 1.12 deaths per day

• The difference: 376 fewer American soldiers lost their lives

Would you define that as success ???


For the 6 months before the surge/esclation began:

• 12,939 Iraqi security forces and civilians were killed over 181 days

• 12,939 divided by 181 = 71.48 deaths per day

The surge/escalation went on for approximately 90 days. In the 6 months following the surge:

• 3,995 Iraqi security forces and civilians were killed over 181 days

• 3995 divided by 181 = 21.83 deaths per day

• The difference: 8,944 fewer Iraqi security forces and civilians lost their lives

Would you define that as success ???


QueEx

 

[Garifuna]

In the 6 months following the surge:
206 Americans lost their lives over a period of 183 days.

Would you define that as success ???

QueEx

No. I am not that cold-blooded.

What did those 206 Americans die for?

Also, I can not look at the before and after, and ignore those that died during the surge.

I admit that more people were killed here in Philly during that same period. One wrong doesn't make the other right.

 

[Garifuna]

Post the Iraqi "civilian" casualty figures.

QueEx

Iraq Coalition Casualty Count

Iraqi Security Forces and Civilian Deaths Details

Period 	Total
Jul-08 	313
Jun-08 	450
May-08 	506
Apr-08 	744
Mar-08 	980
Feb-08 	674
Jan-08 	554
Dec-07 	548
Nov-07 	560
Oct-07 	679
Sep-07 	848
Aug-07 	1,674
Jul-07 	1,690
Jun-07 	1,345
May-07 	1,980
Apr-07 	1,821
Mar-07 	2,977
Feb-07 	3,014
Jan-07 	1,802

Note: Iraqi deaths based on news reports. This is not a definitive count. Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site.

 

[African Herbsman]

Re: Who is lying?? "No Oil Spilled during Katrina" McBush & Co. or MMS?

You could be right. But what can you point to that backs that up ???
QueEx

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Tehran ordered Iranian intelligence officers working undercover in Iraq to halt attacks on US troops by pro-Iranian militias, including Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army.

http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=288034

Interesting.

 

[muckraker10021]

Two more articles from antiwar.com founder Justin Raimondo addressing the cheney-bush-mccain-neocon talking point that “the surged has worked”. In the second article it is revealed that even an establishment sycophant like Joe Klein who has been a TIME magazine stenographer for years, regurgitating government lies, realizes that the surge is at best a band-aid on a cancerous wound. Klein calls it <i>“whipped cream on a pile of fertilizer “ </i>. For telling the truth Klein is branded a “self-hating-Jew” & an anti-Semite by the Jewish neo-con cabal. Interesting reading



[PDF]http://mywebpage.netscape.com/camarilla10029/Is+the+Surge+Working.pdf[/PDF]

 

[nyyyyce]

Two more articles from antiwar.com founder Justin Raimondo addressing the cheney-bush-mccain-neocon talking point that “the surged has worked”. In the second article it is revealed that even an establishment sycophant like Joe Klein who has been a TIME magazine stenographer for years, regurgitating government lies, realizes that the surge is at best a band-aid on a cancerous wound. Klein calls it <i>“whipped cream on a pile of fertilizer “ </i>. For telling the truth Klein is branded a “self-hating-Jew” & an anti-Semite by the Jewish neo-con cabal. Interesting reading



[PDF]http://mywebpage.netscape.com/camarilla10029/Is+the+Surge+Working.pdf[/PDF]

good drop.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="4">
Whatever role the "Surge" played in lessening the violence;
And whether or not Obama played the right "Surge" hand;
Clearly, the Surge has ended; and relative violence remains
down;

BUT, the other major reason that some say is responsible
for the decline in violence in Iraq may now be unraveling:

</font size>

<font size="5"><center>Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Leila Fadel
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

BAGHDAD — A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces.

American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils, with undercutting support for the group al Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, including Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government.

But the Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest.

"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida."

He said the army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn't been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they'd be arrested, he said.

Some militia members say that such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again.

"If they disband us now, I will tell you that history will show we will go back to zero," said Mullah Shahab al Aafi, a former emir, or leader, of insurgents in Diyala province who's the acting commander of 24,000 Sons of Iraq there, 11,000 of whom are on the U.S. payroll. "I will not give up my weapons. I will never give them up, and I will carry my weapon again. If it is useless to talk to the government, I will be forced to carry my weapons and my pistol."

The conflict over the militias underscores how little has changed in Iraq in the past year despite the drop in violence, which American politicians often attribute to the temporary increase of U.S. troops in Iraq that ended in July.

American military officials here have always said that the creation of the Sunni militias was at least as important to the precipitous drop in violence as the presence of 30,000 more U.S. troops, and that incorporating them into the security forces would go a long way toward bringing about the sort of reconciliation needed for long-term stability.

After initially embracing the idea of bringing the militia members into the security forces, however, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki hasn't followed through. A committee that Maliki formed to organize the militias' transition to full-fledged government security troops fell apart and was reconstituted only recently. U.S. officials acknowledge that the hiring of the Sunnis has slowed to a crawl.

U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that the Maliki government never agreed to hire more than 20 percent of the militia members. A Maliki ally said it was unreasonable to expect otherwise.

"All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al Abadi, a leading member of Maliki's Dawa political party and the head of the economic and investment committee in the parliament. The Iraqi government, he said, can't "justify paying monthly salaries to people on the grounds that they are ex-insurgents."

The best that most of them could expect is to be placed in vocational training for trades such as bricklaying and plumbing, along with a slew of other unemployed people.

The government has allocated $150 million for such training. So far this year, the U.S. military has spent $303 million on Sons of Iraq salaries.

American officials declined to be interviewed on the issue without a pledge of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. But privately they expressed concern.

"If they only take a portion of them it's possible they will return to their insurgent ways," one senior intelligence analyst said, acknowledging that most of the men now called the Sons of Iraq had been insurgents, for al Qaida in Iraq and other groups that considered themselves resistance fighters against Americans.

He called the issue the "long-term threat."

"People need to be busy, industrious, just like us," he said. Without jobs, he said, they'll "revert back to how they received money before."

About 15,000 militia members have been given security jobs since the beginning of last year, according to the U.S. military. Another 2,342 have been approved for jobs with the Iraqi police after the Iraqi army opposed absorbing them.

The United States has 103,000 militia members on its payroll.

Abadi, the Maliki ally, was blunt in calling the militias a problem.

"You've created a problem here," he said. "You can't get rid of a program by shoveling it on the Iraqi government shoulders."

Colin Kahl, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a centrist policy institute in Washington, who recently visited Iraq, said the dispute over the militias could set the stage for a return of widespread bloodshed, particularly because the Maliki government seemed intent on thwarting the plan.

He noted that of the militia members slated to join the security forces, only 600 have completed the required training. Of those, most are Shiites.

Kahl, who spoke with senior U.S. officials during his visit to Iraq, said that the Iraqi government was providing jobs to the militia members in "humiliating ways." He said former Iraqi army officers were being absorbed as low-level beat cops, and men who saw themselves as the "slayers of al Qaida" were being asked to become plumbers and bricklayers.

"The last time we humiliated thousands of these guys is back in 2003, and we got the insurgency," Kahl said.

Farouk Abd al Sattar Hassan Mohammed al Obeidi, a deputy Sunni militia commander in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiyah, wore a military uniform in an interview with McClatchy last week because he considered his men and himself to be soldiers.

He voiced frustration that his men had applied repeatedly to join the Iraqi Security Forces, to no avail.

"We wish we were part of the army. With deep remorse the government is sectarian," Obeidi said. He described his alliance with the U.S. forces as "the enemy of your enemy is your friend."

"The Sons of Iraq achieved security. Don't they deserve to enter the army?"

Obeidi will never see that happen. On Sunday, a suicide bomber on a bicycle killed him, along with five of his men and nine civilians.

(McClatchy special correspondent Mohammed al Dulaimy contributed to this report.)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/49538.html

 

[thoughtone]

Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

source: Huffington Post

Obama Accuses McCain Of Hiding Behind The Surge

Continuing the campaign battles over issues of war and patriotism, Barack Obama accused John McCain of using the successes of the surge to hide the fact that he has been wrong on every substantive foreign policy decision during the last seven years.

"His whole argument when it comes to foreign policy and how his judgment is superior is all based on the surge," said Obama. "He will argue, he is wrong on everything else, but 'I stood by and committed to doubling down more troops in Iraq and General Petraeus was with me and I seek victory and Obama wants defeat.'... Let me just close by saying this. I will put my judgment on foreign policy over the last seven years against John McCain's anytime. And I think that an objective analysis will say that I've been right a lot more than he has for all that time he has spent in Washington.

The remarks, which came during a town hall meeting in Virginia, reflect a sharpened effort by the Illinois Democrat to disabuse the notion that he lacks the gravitas to be commander in chief and is driven more by political ambition than foreign policy pragmatism. Indeed, surrogates to the Senator have come to his defense as well amidst repeated jabs from the McCain campaign.

"I just don't get it," Sen. John Kerry told the Huffington Post. "It's one thing that John McCain has made so many false claims about the surge. He claimed that it started the Anbar Awakening when the Anbar Awakening was already well underway when the surge was announced, and he seems to confuse Sunni and Shi'a repeatedly. But this false argument that opposing the Bush policy could only be done for political reasons is the place where reason and debate go to die. You call him out on the facts and he questions our integrity? That sounds an awful lot like George W Bush."

Debates over patriotism and the efficacy of the surge have dominated the presidential campaign during the past several days, with the Obama and McCain campaigns engaging in a often personalized back-and-forth. Earlier this week, during an appearance before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama accused McCain of questioning his patriotism, to which McCain responded by calling him "testy."

"[Sen. Obama] said that I am questioning his patriotism," said the Arizona Republican. "Let me be clear: I am not questioning his patriotism; I am questioning his judgment. Senator Obama has made it clear that he values withdrawal from Iraq above victory in Iraq, even today with victory in sight."

On Thursday, Obama took umbrage with this interpretation of events. "I expect [John McCain] to show me the same courtesy that I showed him," said the presumptive Democratic nominee. "Then yesterday he tried to say he wasn't challenging my patriotism, he was challenging my judgment. What does it say when you say someone would rather lose a war than lose an election? Of course he was challenging my patriotism."

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

Hmmmmm . . . so, he wants to play with the "Surge" issue again ???

I would suggest that he make a point (this time) that is clear, concise
and meaningful. None of that taking too long, pause, stutter . . . and,
in the end, leave people wondering what the hell he said/means. Its my
guess, but I'm thinking a lot of people to the right of Obama (but not
necessarily to be confused with right wingers) believe that Obama loses
credibility when he doesn't (1) at least admit the Surge's contribution
to the decrease in violence; (2) before moving on and attacking other
aspects of the plan:

• Admit that the surge had some affect in lowering the violence; then

• Hit back hard showing how other things, i.e., working with and/or
  payments to the Sunni's had a major role; BUT PLEASE

• Don't leave that door open again for McCain to walk in a hammer
  away for another week or two.

QueEx

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

Hmmmmm . . . so, he wants to play with the "Surge" issue again ???

I would suggest that he make a point (this time) that is clear, concise
and meaningful. None of that taking too long, pause, stutter . . . and,
in the end, leave people wondering what the hell he said/means. Its my
guess, but I'm thinking a lot of people to the right of Obama (but not
necessarily to be confused with right wingers) believe that Obama loses
credibility when he doesn't (1) at least admit the Surge's contribution
to the decrease in violence; (2) before moving on and attacking other
aspects of the plan:

• Admit that the surge had some affect in lowering the violence; then

• Hit back hard showing how other things, i.e., working with and/or
  payments to the Sunni's had a major role; BUT PLEASE

• Don't leave that door open again for McCain to walk in a hammer
  away for another week or two.

QueEx

Fuck the surge! You can occupy Iraq indefinitely with 200,00 troops! The Iraqi war is still costing us $10 billion a month and over 4000 lives and counting and people are still dying that would not have died if as a result of McCain's and Bush's chest pounding!

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

<font size="6"><center>Surge test: </font size><font size="5">
Will Iraq's government back Sunni militias?</font size></center>

Khaled Jamal Qaisi, the head of the
Sons of Iraq in the once violent
neighborhood of Fadl in Baghdad, talks
with a leading Shiite member of the
Sons of Iraq in the neighboring district
of Abu Saifan on September 29, 2008. |


McClatchy Newspapers
By Leila Fadel
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

BAGHDAD — The scars left by the violence that ravaged the Fadl district of central Baghdad are everywhere in this former Sunni Muslim insurgent bastion. The balconies are collapsed, and the building columns, decimated by gunfire, look like chewed apple cores. Garbage is strewn throughout the streets, and there's little or no electricity.

There is, however, a measure of security for the first time in years, and the U.S.-backed Sunni militia that was stood up here, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening Councils, say it's the reason for the change.

"Even the friendly (U.S.) troops could not liberate this area," said Khaled Jamal al Qaisi, a colonel in Saddam Hussein's army and the commander of the Sunni militia in Fadl, as he proudly walked the streets of his neighborhood.

Al Qaisi and the other roughly 100,000 men of the mostly Sunni paramilitary groups — which were formed by U.S. troops after tribal sheikhs in Anbar province turned against al Qaida in Iraq and quieted a province once thought lost to insurgents — are now in a delicate balance.

The security gains of the past year — violence in Baghdad is down by 85 percent — are far from secure, although American politicians claim that President Bush's surge of additional U.S. troops has put the United States on a path to victory in Iraq. Unemployment in Sunni areas remains high, basic services are still poor, distrust of the United States and the Shiite-led Iraqi government is widespread and fears of Shiite militias persist.

On Wednesday, al Qaisi and 54,419 other men in Baghdad province will transition to Iraqi government control. That's more than half of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) who're now being paid by the U.S. military to protect neighborhoods — and in some cases not to shoot at American troops.

In its quarterly report on the security situation in Iraq, released Tuesday, the U.S. military found that integrating the Sons of Iraq is one of that nation's biggest security obstacles. It called the slow transition "a concern" and said, " . . . the integration and employment of SOI remains a significant challenge."

The Sons of Iraq worry that putting them under the control of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is a ploy to detain and disband them. Already, Sons of Iraq leaders in the northern province of Diyala are hiding in neighboring Syria. In Baghdad, only 3,400 Sons of Iraq have transitioned into the security forces, and barely any have entered the Iraqi army or national police.

Al Qaisi swears that he won't report to the Iraqi Army, despite the fact that he and his men are among the 50,000 or so Sunni militiamen who gave their names to the Iraqi government for registration.

A man with a gruff face and a sharp tongue, al Qaisi said he speaks for a series of armed groups and for some 30,000 men across the country who once fought American troops and the Iraqi government. He's an ally of the U.S. military now, but if he's betrayed he'll become an enemy of the Americans again, he said.

"We would not like to see them fighting the Sons of Iraq again," he said, sitting next to the head of the Sons of Iraq from a neighboring Shiite area. The two groups brought down the concrete wall between their neighborhoods last week in a ceremony to mark the end of the tit-for-tat killings of Shiites and Sunnis that used to happen here.

"I hope the Iraqi government does not commit a mistake against us," he warned.

"Because we fight militias and terrorists, the Sons of Iraq must go," he said. "They (the Iraqi government) worry that we will be the ones who will be elected in the parliament. We are the ones loved in the neighborhoods."

The U.S. government has put backstops in place, said Army Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer, who's responsible for the program. Currently the plan is to transition the men on Oct. 1, and the Iraqi government has promised to pay their salaries, currently about $300 a month apiece, until they find "meaningful employment."

If the Maliki government doesn't pay the mostly Sunni Arab men, the United States is prepared to continue paying the men until the Iraqi government does, Kulmayer said. U.S. officials also have asked the Maliki government not to act on arrest warrants that are more than six months old.

"We have expressed to (Iraqi) officials that, as a part of reconciliation, they should not detain SOI for alleged crimes that occurred prior to them being SOI," Kulmayer said. "They understand what is at stake. We are in agreement that the GOI (Government of Iraq) will detain SOI only in accordance with Iraqi law and with a current warrant, issued within the previous six months, by a competent Iraqi judicial official."

This is the test of reconciliation, Kulmayer said.

"We're not going to abandon them," he said. "It's not about just taking these men and giving them work, it's about taking a population that was considered separate and then reintegrating them and offering them hope and a future and a part of the new Iraq. That's why we think it's so important that the right percentage, this 20 to 30 percent, gets into the Iraqi security forces."

For the transition to work and violence to remain at bay, however, Maliki, who's been pushing for a faster withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities and demanded the early transition of the Sons of Iraq, must make concessions, and so must the Sunni men being absorbed into the security forces.

The United States must maintain a combat troop presence for a time as trust is built between the Shiite-led government and the newly absorbed Sunnis.

Maliki would like to transition the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi government and by many accounts eliminate them, but it's important that the United States make sure that doesn't happen, said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Critical to the success of the surge is that the Sunnis at large remain in cease-fire, and central to their remaining in cease-fire is that they have security they can trust," he said. "With respect to the U.S. government in Iraq, a sizable presence is absolutely essential for a couple years to prevent a return to warfare.

"Maliki's ideal preference and the Sons of Iraq ideal preference are obviously incompatible with each other; neither party is going to get exactly what they want here without a return to warfare, and what is going to have to happen if there is not a return to warfare is compromise."

For now, Khaled al Qaisi will wait and see whether transition means betrayal. He still calls himself a member of the "national resistance." There's no trust between him and the government, he said.

"We have an agreement with the Americans, not the government of Iraq," he said.

(Nancy A. Youssef contributed from Washington.)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53300.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

<font size="5"><center>
New U.S. intelligence report warns
'victory' not certain in Iraq</font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Jonathan S. Landay,
Warren P. Strobel and
Nancy A. Youssef
Tuesday, October 7, 2008


WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

U.S. officials familiar with the new National Intelligence Estimate said they were unsure when the top-secret report would be completed and whether it would be published before the Nov. 4 presidential election.

More than a half-dozen officials spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because NIE's, the most authoritative analyses produced by the U.S. intelligence community, are restricted to the president, his senior aides and members of Congress except in rare instances when just the key findings are made public.

The new NIE, which reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has significant implications for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, whose differences over the Iraq war are a major issue in the presidential campaign.

The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.

But McCain could also use the findings to try to strengthen his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.

For Obama, the report raises questions about whether he could fulfill his pledge to withdraw most of the remaining 152,000 U.S. troops _ he would leave some there to deal with al Qaida and to protect U.S. diplomats and civilians _ within 16 months of taking office so that more U.S. forces could be sent to battle the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Word of the draft NIE comes at a time when Iraq is enjoying its lowest levels of violent incidents since early 2004 and a 77 percent drop in civilian deaths in June through August 2008 over the same period in 2007, according to the Defense Department.

U.S. officials say last year's surge of 30,000 troops, all of whom have been withdrawn, was just one reason for the improvements. Other factors include the truce declared by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of an Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militia; and the enlistment of former Sunni insurgents in Awakening groups created by the U.S. military to fight al Qaida in Iraq and other extremists.

The draft NIE, however, warns that the improvements in security and political progress, like the recent passage of a provincial election law, are threatened by lingering disputes between the majority Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other minorities, the U.S. officials said.

Sources of tension identified by the NIE, they said, include a struggle between Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen for control of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk; and the Shiite-led central government's unfulfilled vows to hire former Sunni insurgents who joined Awakening groups.

A spokesman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, whose office compiled the estimate, declined comment, saying the agency does not discuss NIE's.

The findings of the intelligence estimate appear to be reflected in recent statements by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, who has called the situation "fragile" and "reversible" and said he will never declare victory there.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed that tone on Monday during a State Department awards ceremony for Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, nothing is certain in this life. And success in Iraq is not a sure thing," Rice said in an uncharacteristically downbeat comment.

The NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite "promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have the potential to upset progress."

Trouble spots include whether the former Sunni insurgents, also known as the Sons of Iraq, find permanent employment; provincial elections scheduled for January; Kirkuk's status; the fate of internally displaced people and returning refugees; and "malign Iranian influence," the unclassified Pentagon report said.

The intelligence agencies' estimate also raises worries about what would happen if Sadr, the anti-U.S. cleric, attempts to reassert himself, according to senior intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

If Sadr abandons his cease-fire, it is unclear whether his former followers would rejoin his cause or whether his movement is permanently fractured, and thus harder to control.

The embattled Sons of Iraq program may prove to be the ultimate challenge to sustained stability in Iraq. The U.S. program to pay mostly Sunni former insurgents to protect their neighborhoods or in some cases to stop shooting at Americans is now moving into the hands of the Shiite-led government.

Many of the roughly 100,000 men of the mostly Sunni paramilitary groups have fled to Syria, while others remain in Iraq, worried that the Shiite government will disband and detain the men. The U.S. military has promised not to abandon the men, of whom about 54,000 were transferred to Iraqi government control this month.

(Leila Fadel contributed from Baghdad.)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53605.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Obama: McCain Using Surge To Hide Seven Years Of Bad Judgment

<font size="5"><center>
Former Iraqi insurgent
contemplates returning to war</font size></center>

A suicide bomber Thursday killed six Awakening Council members who were
waiting in line in Kirkuk to receive their monthly salaries.


McClatchy Newspapers
By Leila Fadel
Saturday, May 23, 2009


BAGHDAD — Abu Fatma dresses in suits now. He cuts his hair short and talks like a politician.

He looked down at his tie and his clean gray suit.

"Don't be fooled by my clothes," he said.

Abu Fatma agreed to put his guns aside as part of a deal with the U.S. military last year but the former Sunni Muslim insurgent, once known as a killer with no mercy, is still a fighter. If the Americans don't start keeping the promises they made to his group and him he'll fight again, he said.

"All our arms are from old army caches underground; they will allow us to fight another 20 years," said the Kurd from the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. "I've told the Americans, 'If you keep alienating the people, all the Iraqis will fight.' "


<font size="3">April 2009 Bloodiest Month in a Year; Deal Unraveling</font size>

Iraq's fragile peace already is eroding — April was the bloodiest month in a year — and it could unravel completely as the U.S. draws down its forces and prepares to leave Iraq.

One key, Abu Fatma said, is whether the Americans and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government begin to release detainees from Sunni groups that have stopped fighting, stop pursuing the groups' members, protect them from the Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi government and help them make the transition from warriors to politicians.

The <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">U.S. hasn't fulfilled any of its promises, he said, and he and other mostly Sunni fighters who agreed to stop fighting in exchange for help from the U.S. military think they've been betrayed.

The Americans, they said, have stood by as the Iraqi government has pursued leaders of the Sahwa — the Awakening groups — and the Sons of Iraq, the Sunni militias that the U.S. military paid to stop fighting in exchange for cash, jobs and protection.</span>


"(Other groups) ask us, 'What did the Americans do?' " Abu Fatma said. "This question has become the most embarrassing question I hear. . . . I'm stumped and embarrassed. I don't have an answer. I say, 'Don't lay down your weapons,' because otherwise I would be dishonest."


Abu Fatma once worked in the office of Saddam Hussein's reviled son Qusay, and when the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, he vowed to fight. He joined other nationalists, and they formed a resistance army that included some Shiite and even Christian fighters, he said.

Their war soon grew murky, however. Sunnis and Shiites started to kill each other. Al Qaida in Iraq, a militant Islamic group, appeared, and then grew cruel and violent. The American military targeted Sunni insurgents while Iran funded Shiite militias, Abu Fatma said. His group was backed into a corner.

He and his army made a deal based on honor, he said. Its soldiers never took money from the U.S., and they've kept their promise to put their weapons aside.

Early last year, Abu Fatma traveled from the south to the north of Iraq asking other Sunni insurgent groups to join in laying down their weapons and entering politics.

In the northern city of Mosul, he said, he met with a representative of al Qaida in Iraq. Inside a mosque, he explained his group's plan to lay down its weapons and work with the Americans to lessen neighboring Shiite Iran's influence.


<font size="3">Goals of the Insurgents</font size>

The al Qaida in Iraq representative asked about the former insurgents' goals, Abu Fatma recalled.

• "To liberate Iraq and end the occupation, first and foremost," Abu Fatma said he told the man.

• "To stand up and fight against the Iranian influence."
  
  The al Qaida in Iraq representative looked at him sternly and told him to leave Mosul, Abu Fatma recalled. If he didn't, he'd be killed.

Now Abu Fatma wonders whether it was all a mistake. He doesn't want to fight again, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">but he watches as leaders of the Awakening groups are detained and those from other former insurgent groups remain in hiding, wanted by the Iraqi government. He was tortured and detained multiple times for his part in the resistance, and he continues to use his nom de guerre instead of his real name because he's still worried that the government will detain him.

If he has to fight again, he will, he said.</span>

For now, though, Abu Fatma is a deputy in a new political group that's reached out to Sunni insurgent groups to enter politics. He hopes to win parliament seats in Iraq's upcoming national elections.

It's unclear how influential he and his group are, but one American military official said that he'd seen them produce results. He thinks that Abu Fatma's army has some 5,000 men and is a way to reach other insurgent groups.

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">"Every group was telling these guys, 'Listen, you are being foolish, because the coalition and the Iraqi government are going to use you to get rid of us,' " said the U.S. military official, who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk. " 'When they are finished with us, they are going to get rid of you.' "

He worries that the "prophecy is now being fulfilled."</span>

The Iraqi government is "breaking the backs of these organizations," the official said. "The problem is some of them will drift back to their old groups. . . . some will go back immediately to fighting, and the others might return home and just look the other way."

A tribal sheik in Salahuddin province, a portly man with political aspirations, is desperately trying to form a new political bloc of mostly former Baathists, Saddam's Sunni-dominated political party. He hopes it can replace the national government, which is led by Shiite former exiles, before the Americans leave, but he spends his days in hiding because he's a wanted man.


<font size="3">Former Baathist; Worried About American Departure</font size>

The sheik, who asked that his name not be used because he's being pursued by local security forces, began fighting al Qaida in Iraq even before he spoke to the U.S. He was a leading member of the Iraqi Liberation Army, a group of mostly former Baathists who battled the American-led occupation. He also never took money from the U.S. military, but he agreed to deal with it in order to help his own cause.

Now he worries that the U.S. will leave and Iraq will be lost to a corrupt government controlled by Iran, he said.

"We need to solve the problems before we put down our weapons," he said. "This is our last option, to go back to the resistance, to the fighting. We gave our word to the U.S. forces, but this is our last option."

<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">Under the new security agreement with Iraq, the U.S. military can do little to help the mostly Sunni former insurgents who played the main role in reducing the violence in Iraq, and the American military official worries that when the U.S. leaves, all the progress toward peace will be reversed.</span>

"We will leave on the heels of declaring everything good, and we will be leaving when everything is bad," he said.


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