Rebel war spirals out of control as US intelligence loses the plot

[radfringe]

Rebel war spirals out of control as US intelligence loses the plot
The ghosts of Vietnam are returning as Baathists, zealots, criminals, tribal leaders and al Qaeda unite in a deadly alliance of hatred.
Special report by Peter Beaumont in London and Patrick Graham in Baghdad
Sunday November 2, 2003-- The Observer

Sharp disagreements are emerging between the US and the UK over the exact nature of the Iraqi resistance, amid warnings that the US is losing the intelligence war against the rebels.

After eight days in which Iraqi fighters have scored a series of major blows to the coalition and its Iraqi allies, intelligence and military officials in Iraq and on both sides of the Atlantic are at odds over whether they are fighting a Saddam-led movement or a series of disparate partisan groups. They are just as divided on finding a way to halt the escalating violence.

The latest violence comes amid increasingly bleak assessments from Washington, where the latest attacks have been compared in the media to Vietnam's 1968 Tet Offensive against US forces and described by Sandy Berger, a former National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, as a 'classic guerrilla war'.

The comments follow leaked assessments by both the US pro-consul in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer, and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that war against the resistance was going less well than planned, with the latter describing a 'long, hard slog'.

[Flubadubya]

1. Just watched Iraqis dancing in the streets...

...celebrating a car bombing that resulted in the death of an American soldier. The CNN correspondent, Matthew Chance, went on to describe the scene and to point out how speculation was still prevalent that the resistance was primarily amongst the above-named offenders, i.e. Baathists, al Qaeda, etc. However, this was only a lead-in to his main point, and that is that the people dancing in the street appear to be your typical Iraqi citizen.

You hear much talk from the administration about how the large majority of the country, i.e. the North and the South are under control and that the only real trouble spots are around Baghdad and the Sunni triangle. They lead you to believe that the problem is isolated to a very small area (geographically)... what they don't tell you is that over 70% of Iraq's population lives in that area.

[radfringe]

3. don't forget about throwing flowers

those flowers are "blossoming" into explosions....

Baghdad Bush has no plan for winning the peace, keeping the peace, or for a peaceful transition...

my predictions - two different scenarios for the 2004 campaign october surprise

1. We'll "turn over control" to the Iraqis and pull out, the spin will be that the Iraqi's are now capable of running their own country and we are no longer needed - in other words it will be an "advance to the rear"

2. We'll be at the very least racheting up the war-talk regarding Syria -- if not invading by then. Justification: Saddam's WMD;s are in Syria and we have to protect the newly formed country of Iraq

[NNN0LHI]

5. Isn't that something how them Baathists, al Qaedas, and dead enders...

all appear to be your typical Iraqi citizen? I was wondering the same thing myself. They must have all took acting lessons or something?

Don

[homelandpunk]

22. 70% of Iraq's population in Sunni trinagle...this fact will not be allowed

to get out...it would change their spin to be nearly unspinnable. If they have suppressed the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, they will be able to suppress this number from general public knowledge as well.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. "US Intelligence" - - gotta be the oxymoron of the Century !!

[goforit]

25. ROFLMAO!!!!!................So true!!!

:bounce:

[0007]

4. Yes, indeed Sir -

A classic guerrilla war appears to be developing. And the Hot Shots in charge refuse to listen to the intelligence that wanted the UN to proceed and WHY THE UNITED STATES NEEDS THE UN.

junior said we'd go it a lone - and baby we are a lone now with most nations hating our agenda.

We are destroying ourselfs in front of our very eyes.

[0007]

7. Afghanistan

Is slowly returning to the days of old. What did the U.S. accomplish? Where Osama Bin Laden? Where's law and order? Where's the Taliban? Where's all that Afghanistan opium going? How much will be brought to the U.S.?

Roll out the bombers and bomb the holy shit out of mud huts and goat shacks, ah yes, let's show the world how we handle the culprits of 911. Let's blow more arms and legs off the children of a foreign country. Ah yes, let us wave those meaningless flags and march lockstep to be closer to our god.

'Get that mutt outta of my house I'm starting to get pissed!

[NNN0LHI]

8. To answer your question. We accomplished shit by attacking Afghanistan

Thanks for the tip about the Russian guy on C-Span too, 0007.

Don

[0007]

26. Happy to help, old buddy!

Only you know the help you've given me.

[jokerman93]

30. We accomplished a shiny new oil pipeline

that originally the Taliban had failed to allow in their country.

Mission Accomplished!

Surprised?

In Iraq, I believe there were no plans to rebuild Iraq because securing the oil resources in the first days of the invasion was the only real mission.

Mission Accomplished!

(Oooops. I meant long hard slog to free the Iraqi people!)

Surprised?

on edit: typos

[saigon68]

19. ITS IRAQ-NAM

Its the Tigris not the Mekong

Its about "winning hearts and minds."

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Guerilla Warfare

Gee, I never saw that one coming.

:eyes:

It's all Hollywood's fault. It took them twenty years to produce a movie about Vietnam. If they had done it sooner, maybe there would have been time for the neo-con chickenhawks to absorb the lessons of guerilla warfare.

[fizzana]

9. The number of people actively fighting the U.S. is probably

relatively small but it's obvious they are getting moral support from a far larger universe of people in Iraq which is allowing them to operate a lot easier.

It's obvious the Americans don't have a clue where to even begin yet the resistance has the Americans all figured out. Witness the attack on Wolfowitz which needed info from inside the hotel.

[NNN0LHI]

10. I agree with your observations.

What would you suggest in this situation? Not trying to put you on the spot here. You just seem to understand the situation in Iraq well. The only thing I can think of here is to hand the country over to the first Iraqi with a gun, but that does not set well with many, and I am not sure that is the right thing to do either.

Don

[fizzana]

12. It's a whole lot easier to see the problem than to see the solution

The U.S. has painted itself into a corner and the first step would be to acknowldge that. There is no way on earth this adminstration will ever admit that so they will continue down this insane course. In any event, Bush has already said that this is merely a sign of their desparation because things are going so well in Iraq. Using this insane perspective I guess the shooting down of the chopper today is a sign that things are getting even better.

Realistically, the best option for the U.S. IMO, would be to bring the U.N. in to take over as much of the administration of the country as possible. While this won't deter the resistance it might gain some support from the general population. Right now it seems to me that the U.S. is losing support among the general non-combatant population in Iraq. A U.N. controlled administration might be able to reverse that trend.

Other than that, it seems to me that we're fucked and unfortunately cutting and running might save some American lives but Iraq would degenerate into total chaos and the result would be a lawless haven for every anti-American Jihadist in the Middle East.

Almost everything we all predicted here before March has come true. My only satisfaction from all of this is that it's looking more and more likely that Iraq could be Bush's undoing.

[NNN0LHI]

13. That is what I was afraid you were going to say

Can't stay, and can't leave. What a mess. Geemaneez. I also agree with the undoing of Bush. Not much satisfaction with the price so many have had to pay though. Shit.

Don

[fizzana]

15. We tend to lose focus on the price being paid by the

average Iraqi as well. They didn't ask for this either and their lives are worth no more no less than American lives.

I recall reading a comment by an Iraqi a few weeks ago who said that they were far more used to suffering and death and because of this, the Americans will lose in the end. It was true in Vietnam, it was true in South Africa where I grew up, it was true in Algeria before the French left and it is becoming true in Iraq.

[teryang]

18. FUBAR

Can't stay, can't leave? Wrong. We can leave. It was the folly of utopian ideological bullshit to think we could change Iraqi society or the natural dynamics of politics in the middle east with violence.

We can influence events in Iraq with money and humanitarian aid. The military should leave. We just have to stand aside and let the Iraqi people work things out. If its a bloody civil war, then we are in part responsible for bringing it on. But the notion that we can do anything about it other than make it worse is nonsense. We can't control events thing. We'll have to go back to our usual tactics, you know CIA, money, aid, International institutions like the UN and our world financial dominance apparatus. Hey if that doesn't work, tough. The corporate world dominators f....d up. A military and strategic miscalculation that resulted in failure, too bad, time for a regime change here.

Defense economics 101: Sunk costs are no costs.

[fizzana]

20. I agree with you that the military need to start leaving ASAP.

They are not helping anyone in Iraq. They would be how to manage that without allowing Iraq to descend into civil war which could happen quit easily in a vacuum.

[knowledgeispower]

33. It is a classic quagmire to the "t"

No way out.

Can't leave.

Can't stay.

Don't even know where to begin.

[mikeytherat]

11. "relatively" small? The keyword is "relatively"

Let's say BushCo is absolutely correct and 95% of the Iraqi people love us and blow us kisses, and it's only a very small percentage, 5% or so, who hate us. Well, in a country of 22,000,000 people, that 5% is over (insert Dr. Evil voice) ONE MILLION people gunning for us (literally). Add to that list an unknown percentage of fence-sitters -- people who don't actively hate, but aren't going to do us any favors, either -- and you have a recipe for disaster.


Recipe for Disaster (serves 22,000,000+ poorly)
Begin with no plan whatsoever
Throw in lots of confusion
Fold in a generous lack of understanding of the locals and their culture
Add plenty of unsecured borders and ammo dumps
Mix in a seemingly endless supply of dangerous conventional arms
Continue with no plan whatsover
Simmer for several months


mikey_the_rat

[fizzana]

14. "Relatively small" is relative.

It's just a guess but I would suggest your 5% is correct, but that's just the people actively involved in fighting and maintaining the support system. There is a far larger universe, probably over 50% of the country that's quietly cheering them on and is offerinf tacit support in that they know people who are involved but will never offer any information to the Americans.

[NNN0LHI]

16. 5% would equal 1,250,000 active fighters against our 130,000 soldiers n/t

[fizzana]

17. Sounds about right to me.

That 5% would include active support. That means people who are actively supporting the effort whether it is in hiding & moving weapins, people and money.

[northernsoul]

29. they can't being running these operations without tacit support

from a healthy percentage of the population.

Instead of jungles and rice paddies, our troops will be slogging it out in crowded urban combat zones, which may be infinitely worse.

Stalingrad in slow motion...

[brainshrub]

21. Pro-consul???

The comments follow leaked assessments by both the US pro-consul in Iraq, Ambassador Paul Bremer, and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that war against the resistance was going less well than planned, with the latter describing a 'long, hard slog'.

When the foreign press begins using words passed down from the Roman Empire, you know that they think of us. Up to now, I haven't seen the word pro-consul in the foreign press except in the editorial pages.

[teryang]

23. The Iraqi grass roots support of the blows to Americans

...is what is very dangerous. This is how guerilla forces track all troop movements. The support for the resistance is so strong that word of mouth concerning convoy movements or other operational indicators gives them an edge. Also the same sentiment in the population makes them reluctant to give up any information about the resistance fighters.

An added intelligence limitation is that translation and analytic abilities are so poor over there that even if you had good intelligence coming in, it probably wouldn't be recognized.

[ewagner]

32. Even Faux understands this

Earlier today, I scanned the channels to see if I could find the latest info on the chopper shoot-down. The only station carrying anything was FAUX. The on-site reporter told the anchor that after the chopper came down, civilians took pieces of the chopper as souveniers and were dancing around with them. Also he said that the Iraqis were in the celebratory period of Ramadan and that the chopper was another form of celebration. His final statement was "this should give you some idea of what they think of us here..."

For Faux to make that kind of statement is almost unheard of. They have admitted that whoever shot down the chopper has wide-spread popular support.

So much for the good news offensive

[goforit]

24. Hmmm.......Maybe Poppy's intelligence isn't as good as all thought.

Loosing control of their own chaos!!!

LOL!!!........Is their light?

[number6]

27. Iraq-nam, Moga-Bagdad-dishu, Iraq-mire...

the Bush Crime family at work...

if the Iraq-ees ever have democracy , it'l be in spite of

the BCF (BFEE) rather than because of it...

[0007]

28. Ahmed Chalabi gave "WHO" bad intelligence?

..and we all know "WHO" who is, and it might be that brouhaha guy, LOL!!

Did Chalabi lead us into a trap? Why did the U.S. believe Chalabi had good information? Wasn't it planned that Ahmed Chalabi was gonna be Saddam Hussein's replacement? You know, like a real democracy, with fair elections and all that jazz.

Besides looking for WMD all day long and looking for Saddam Hussein what do 130,000 troops do all day long? Do they stand guard for the Halliburton contractors while construction is going on?

How come we don't hear words of wisdom or anything from Ahmed Chalabi these days? The man with all the answers. Maybe Chalabi is hangin' out with Cheney, 'eh?

It seems to me that it may be wise to start backtracking.

[seventhson]

31. Bush WANTS the WAR to WIDEN, so he can justify staying there and WINNING

the ELECTION in 2004.

My thoughts on this crisis:




If YOU were an Iraqi what would YOU do?


If the occupation tanks had roled over your daughter.

If a jet had bombed your family werdding party.

If you went to protest and the troops just panicked and gunned down your grandmother.

Bush is a Brutal unelected dictator here.

Would we RESIST if the Iraqis or Chinese invaded to rid the world of Bush and our weapons of mass destruction (which clearly pose way more of a threat than Saddam EVER did)?

What a fucking mess BUSH and RUMSFELD and the PNAC and KERRY and LIEBERMAN and CLARK and GEPHARDT have gotten us into.

BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW! SAVE THEIR FACES (NOT BUSH'S)!