U.S. Congress funds continuing death and torture in Iraq -- Part 2

[ProSense]

Bomber kills 13 Iraq volunteers and 1 U.S. soldier

By Peter Graff

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives in Iraq's restive Diyala province on Thursday, killing 13 neighborhood patrol volunteers and a U.S. soldier.

U.S. forces said the bomber struck an American foot patrol near a building where a city council meeting was to be held, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding 10 in Kanaan, near Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad.

Iraqi police said the building was being used to recruit volunteers for neighborhood patrols to fight al Qaeda militants and 13 recruits were killed.

The U.S. military said only five Iraqis died in the attack, but a Reuters photographer filmed at least eight dead bodies arriving at a morgue in Baquba. All appeared to be adult males in blood-soaked civilian clothes.

Mainly Sunni Arab neighborhood patrols have joined U.S. forces to fight Sunni al Qaeda militants, a tactic Washington says has helped towards a 60 percent drop in attacks in Iraq since June.

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Do U.S. prisons in Iraq breed insurgents?

By Gordon Lubold
Thu Dec 20, 3:00 AM ET

Washington - American officials have detained thousands of insurgents in the months since the surge of forces began this spring, in an effort that most agree has improved security in Iraq. But now the commander of the American detention facilities in Iraq is wondering aloud if holding all those detainees is breeding a "micro-insurgency" and asking whether it's time to begin releasing thousands of people.

The two main detention facilities operated by the US military in Iraq, at Camp Bucca near Basra and Camp Cropper in Baghdad, have swollen to hold nearly 30,000 detainees. That's not the 40,000 individuals Army Gen. David Petraeus allotted for when American forces began to implement the Baghdad security plan this spring. But it may be too many, says Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, who oversees detainees for the US-led force.

Holding thousands of "moderate detainees," marked by green jumpsuits at Camp Bucca, runs counter to the notion of winning over a population in a classic counterinsurgency, he says. General Stone believes many of these Iraqi insurgents were never motivated by anything more than money and most only desire to live peacefully. Many can be safely released back to society, back to their families and in their neighborhoods without straining security or their communities, he says.

Stone believes that there should be debate about how many detainees US forces continue to hold and how many should now be freed.

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US soldiers find mass graves containing 26 bodies next to a torture center in northern Iraq

BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer

December 20, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) - U.S. soldiers found mass graves north of Baghdad next to a torture center where chains were attached to blood-spattered walls and a metal bed frame was still connected to an electrical shock system, the military said Thursday.

Separately, at least 13 Iraqis were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a group of people who had gathered around U.S. soldiers handing out holiday gifts, local authorities said. It was not immediately known if any soldiers were killed or wounded.

The grisly discoveries of the mass graves and torture center near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, came during a Dec. 8-11 operation.

The torture center, which the U.S. military said it suspected was run by al-Qaida in Iraq, was found based on tips from Iraqis in the area, where the al-Qaida insurgents are very active. Graves containing 26 bodies were found nearby.

''We discovered several (weapons) caches, a torture facility that had chains, a bed - an iron bed that was still connected to a battery - knives and swords that were still covered in blood as we went in to go after the terrorists in that area,'' said Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq.

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From Juan Cole:

The United States military in Iraq has arrested and imprisoned 30,000 or so Iraqis, the majority of them Sunni Arabs. That is 0.1% of the entire Iraqi population! Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone says he fears that many of those detained are moderates or simply fought because they were paid to, and that holding so many of them together for very long may actually create more hardened terrorists.

<...>

The guerrilla movement in Iraq is generating a steady 600 attacks a week using bombs, small-arms, mortars and sniping. This number has not changed during the past six weeks, and although it is lower than the rate in September, it is a very significant number of attacks. Roadside bomb attacks in specific are down, but there is no change in the number of over-all attacks. The Iraqi government statistics show 600 civilian deaths a month (the US military's statistics are lower).

seems to be implicated in the displacement of over one million Iraqis to Syria between March and October of this year, adding to the nearly 450,000 that fled there in 2006. This is according to projections from a United Nations weighted survey of nearly 800 refugees. Some 78% of those interviewed in Syria said that they came from Baghdad.

Part 1

[ProSense]

1. The best possible spin on Iraq, a commentary in the WSJ

Let's Seize the Momentum in Iraq

By BARRY R. MCCAFFREY
December 20, 2007; Page A16

I recently spent a week touring Iraq, meeting with American servicemen and women and interacting with Iraqis. What I saw convinced me that the war has changed in both tone and substance since the president surged 30,000 troops into the country earlier this year.

<...>

But now the facts on the ground are entirely different. Sectarian killings, suicide truck bombings, and attacks on U.S. forces and the Iraqi Army and police are down by an order of magnitude. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been tactically defeated in the streets of Baghdad and in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar Province. Roadside-bomb and rocket attacks (which can be deadly to our troops even when they are riding in armored vehicles) from Shiite militias are down markedly. Border crossings by suicide jihadists from Syria have plummeted. The intelligence picture has shifted from night to day as Iraqis by the thousands come forward to identify AQI and criminal Shiite extremists in their communities.

However, we must decide if this inflection point is real. Is it sustainable as we begin our inexorable drawdown and disengagement from the theater?

<...>

Brilliant leadership by Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker , and a new counterinsurgency strategy combined with the uncommon valor and creativity of U.S. combat forces, have turned the situation around for now. In the coming months we will withdraw all five "surge brigades" and learn if the Iraqis can hold it together. The jury is out because of a weak and sectarian central government run by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a clumsy Iraqi constitution, and continuing centrifugal forces from a bitterly divided and fearful nation.

We need to press our advantage while it exists. The key to winning the war is to massively build Iraqi Security Forces with the equipment, training and leadership needed to maintain internal order and security as we withdraw. Without security for the population there will never be reconciliation in Iraq. In addition, we must recognize that economic recovery is a prerequisite to success. Congress must support programs to rebuild the electrical, oil, transportation and agricultural systems. Our new diplomatic outreach to Syria, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia must continue unabated.

We are running out of time. The American people have lost faith in this war. Some 34,000 of our sons and daughters have been killed or wounded as we've poured $400 billion into the mess. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has begun to heal fissures in the national security process. He is creating transparency with the media, offering respect to Congress, giving initiative to his field combat forces, and leveling with the international community and the American people.

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The government is a failure and some U.S. troops will be withdrawn, but replaced with troops from other areas (a strategy better know as whack-a-mole).

[ProSense]

2. The walls around Bush's Iraq strategy

The walls around Bush's Iraq strategy

Barriers built to reduce violence have turned sectarian segregation into the status quo.
December 20, 2007

'Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote the poet Robert Frost. But lately, that "something" hasn't been the U.S. military. From Baghdad to Tall Afar, our military has been busily constructing walls between and around Iraqi neighborhoods. In Baghdad, 12-foot-high walls now separate Sunni and Shiite communities. Broken by narrow checkpoints, the walls turn Baghdad into dozens of replica Green Zones, dividing neighbor from neighbor and choking off normal commerce and communications.

The military isn't building walls as a training exercise, of course. The walls are meant to make it harder for militias, insurgents and death squads to coordinate and reach their intended victims. With enough troops and enough concrete, the theory goes, you can keep the bad guys from operating effectively and gradually reduce the sectarian violence that has been tearing Iraq apart.

So far, it looks as if the wall-building strategy is paying dividends. Civilian deaths in Iraq are down significantly. And though 2007 has been the deadliest year of the war for U.S. troops, attacks on them have dropped sharply in recent months. After so many years of escalating violence, it's almost eerie.

How do Iraqis feel about the walls springing up around their neighborhoods? Mixed, unsurprisingly: relieved by the lull in violence but dismayed by the cost. "Iraq is a prison, and now I live in my own little prison," one Iraqi told the Christian Science Monitor. "We are not free; our neighborhood is barricaded," complained another.

It's against this backdrop that we should evaluate the success of the Bush administration's troop "surge" in Iraq. Yes, violence is down. Some of that is because of the surge itself: More troops -- and smarter counterinsurgency tactics -- have indeed translated into a reduction in violence. But violence also is down because the process of "sectarian cleansing" is nearing completion: Sunnis have been driven out of Shiite neighborhoods, Shiites out of Sunni neighborhoods, the Kurds have retaken their own historic territories and smaller minorities have been shoved to the side.

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[spanone]

3. the 'surge' of death

[ProSense]

4. "plan to run free buses from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad was suspended after just two runs."

Refugees Risk Coming Home to an Unready Iraq

By CARA BUCKLEY
Published: December 20, 2007

BAGHDAD — The widow Hashim crossed the border into Iraq from Syria at dusk last month, heading homeward as the sun set behind her and the sky ahead grew dark.

Her dwindling savings had bought her family passage aboard a crowded bus, but there was no telling what awaited her at journey’s end. The only sure thing was that she would have to look for a new home and a job in a city starved for work and crudely reshaped by war.

Four weeks later, Maha Hashim is sharing her uncle’s musty two-bedroom apartment with her four children, sister-in law and four nieces and nephews, in the once tortured Baghdad neighborhood around Haifa Street. She has vowed not to stay long, but has no job and cannot afford an apartment of her own. Her husband, a policeman, was killed by insurgents in mid-2006, and her old house in southern Baghdad was destroyed by a truck bomb. Her old neighborhood, Saydia, remains one of most dangerous in the capital.

“I loved Saydia but I can never go back; it broke my heart,” said Ms. Hashim, 40, a Sunni. “I need to get a job and a home, but how, and where?”

Tens of thousands of returning refugees face similar uncertainties throughout Iraq, where the government’s inability to manage the uneven reverse exodus has left the most vulnerable in an uneasy, potentially explosive limbo.

The government’s widely publicized plan to run free buses from Damascus, Syria, to Baghdad was suspended after just two runs. Thousands of Sunni refugees get no aid because they fear registering with the Shiite-led government. While aid organizations are distributing emergency packets that include utensils, blankets and food, deeper structural issues, like securing neighborhoods, supplying housing and creating jobs, remain unresolved and largely unaddressed.

A small fraction of the millions of refugees who fled Iraq have come back. While the government trumpeted their return as proof of newfound security, migration experts said most of them were forced back by expired visas and depleted savings. Ms. Hashim, for one, pawned her wedding ring and gold jewelry to stay in Syria, but came back after her uncle’s visa application was denied.

The American military has expressed deep concerns about the Iraqi government’s ability to feed and house its returnees, or manage people who wish to reclaim their homes. It is widely feared that property disputes or efforts to return to newly homogenized neighborhoods could set off fresh waves of sectarian attacks.

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[ProSense]

5. From Brandon Friedman of VoteVets

Brandon Friedman:

Okay. So the Iraqis say our presence is exacerbating the violence. Because of that, they are united in the fact that they want us gone. And the military says this is good news because it indicates the Iraqis have "shared beliefs?"

Talk about lowering the bar. I thought it was bad when the Army started letting out-of-shape 42-year olds enlist. Now victory consists of simply uniting the Iraqis for, well. . .anything. Even if it’s us.

Look, here’s the deal:

• There is no political progress. Seriously.
• Our presence in Iraq is an irritant in the system--and it has been since late 2003.
• Violence is down due to the combination of 1.) more troops in Baghdad, 2.) a six-month cease-fire called by Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army at the end of August, and 3.) ethnic cleansing and the separation of neighborhoods behind concrete walls.
• Our continued occupation of Iraq is strengthening al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is allowing the Taliban to retake portions of Afghanistan, and it is de-stabilizing Pakistan.

Therefore, the way I see it:

Support for the continued occupation of Iraq = support for al Qaeda. Anyone who thinks our military is large enough to successfully handle both insurgencies at the same is dreaming. We need to re-prioritize. And we need to do it now. Afghanistan is the problem. Not Iraq.

[ProSense]

6. State Dept. building chief steps down

State Dept. building chief steps down

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 19, 4:44 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The man in charge of all U.S. government buildings abroad announced his retirement on Wednesday amid questions over the construction of the mammoth new $600 million embassy in Iraq.

Retired Army Gen. Charles E. Williams, the director of the State Department's Overseas Buildings Operations, told his staff he would be leaving on Dec. 31.

He is the third senior State Department official to step down this year under Iraq-related scrutiny.

<...>

In October, the department conceded that a host of problems would push back the embassy opening at least until the spring of 2008 despite assurances from Williams to Congress that the construction was on time.

Those difficulties included major malfunctions in the complex's physical plant, including electrical and water distribution systems, some of which are blamed on shoddy work by the company hired to build the project, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., for $592 million.

Changes to the original design have pushed the cost up by an additional $144 million.

First Kuwaiti has been accused of tricking foreign laborers into working on the embassy, mistreating them and paying $200,000 in kickbacks in return for two unrelated Army contracts in Iraq. The company denies the charges.

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Contracting (profiteering), not diplomacy, is the priority.

[ProSense]

7. Here's the funders' plan:

watch as another at least 400 (or more) soldiers die in Iraq through 2008. We know some of them believe that's a "small price" to pay for a failed strategy!

I assume that must be it because what (that's not feasible now) would cause them to vote to cut funding next year or pressure the Republicans to vote for a deadline?