Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work

[ProSense]

Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work

By Sue Pleming 22 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in Iraq.

Now she is back home, angry, and convinced that President George W. Bush's new strategy of doubling the number of such groups to 20 along with a troop surge of 21,500 will not help stabilize Iraq.

A diplomat for 22 years, she quit her job last month as leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- groups made up of about 50 civilian and military experts that try to help Iraqi communities build their own government while strengthening moderates.

"In spite of the magnificent and often heroic work being done out there by a lot of truly wonderful people, the PRTs themselves aren't succeeding. The obstacles are too great," Munshi said this week in Washington, where she was pressing her view at the State Department and to Congress.

"Once again we are proceeding to lay people's lives on a line drawn with faulty information. Once again the fantasies of the 'policy-makers' drive decisions without much link to the realities on the ground," said Munshi, who retired from the foreign service in 2002 .

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Senate Foreign Relations Committee, excerpt from hearing January 11:

RICE: You work with plan A and you give it the possibility of success, the best possibility of success.

And I want to emphasize, it's not just about Baghdad. There are other elements to this policy, and I really think it's important not to underestimate the importance of relying, of course, on the Maliki government in terms Baghdad, but also relying on the local councils and the local leaders of Baghdad through the expansion of PRTs there, relaying on the local leaders in places like Anbar to do the kinds of things that they've started to do...

KERRY: But, Madam Secretary, with all due respect, all of that is good. I think those PRT teams are terrific, and I think the effort of those folks out there is courageous, unbelievable.

But they can't do this. If Abdel Aziz Hakim and SCIRI have a grand design for a nine-province state that is Shia in the south, to the exclusion of adequate support to the Sunni and Baghdad and the central government -- you know that -- they can't do it.

If Muqtada al-Sadr has ambitions with respect to the country and the Sunni aren't brought to the table with a sufficient stake that they feel they're sharing -- that's the fundamental struggle here.

[ProSense]

1. 56% of Americans now feel that the Iraq War is hopeless.

From Juan Cole:

56% of Americans now feel that the Iraq War is hopeless. I can remember when it was a third. The trend lines are not favorable to the war supporters. Their talk about the Dems wanting to 'cut off funding to our troops in harm's way' will increasingly just raise questions in the public's mind about who put the troops in harm's way and why.

Americans oppose the surge (63%), believe it will not stabilize Iraq (64%), and most important, believe the war is a hopeless cause (56%).

End the war.

[ProSense]

2. Some Americans are still in denial about Bush's failed "freedom agenda", but not

Italians.

[ProSense]

3. Rasmussen: 55 perecent favor withdrawal within a year

From Think Progress

USA Today: 63 percent favor a timetable for withdrawal by the end of next year

Pew: 53 percent favor a withdrawal from Iraq

Rasmussen: 55 perecent favor withdrawal within a year

[babylonsister]

5. Rasmussen? That's HUGH!!1! This whole thread is bookmarkable!

Thanks, ProSense. You are a constant source of knowledge and light. :thumbsup:

[ProSense]

4. Iran’s Chance: U.S. Troubles in Iraq Create Opening for Regional Shift

News Analysis

Iran’s Chance: U.S. Troubles in Iraq Create Opening for Regional Shift

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: February 18, 2007

CAIRO, Feb. 17 — In recent weeks, President Bush and American military officials have increasingly accused Iran of meddling in Iraq’s affairs. But from Iran’s perspective, given its longstanding interests in Iraq, it is the United States that is meddling in its backyard, analysts inside and outside of Iran say.

From the very start of the American occupation of Iraq, at least some in the Bush administration saw an opportunity to curtail the influence of Iran’s radical Shiite leaders by producing an alternative, moderate center of Shiite Islam that would effectively neuter Tehran in ideological, political and strategic terms.

Snip...

While the United States sees in Iraq a venture that will affect its foreign interests for years to come, Iran sees an occupied neighbor with close religious, cultural, political and economic ties. Though Iran is Persian while Iraq is Arab, both have majority Shiite populations that have mingled, religiously and culturally, for centuries.

Snip...

In strategic terms, America’s failure to secure its position in Iraq has presented Tehran with a rare opportunity to recalibrate the balance of power in a neighborhood that had long been hostile to its aspirations.

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