Analysis Gen. Petraeus &
Crocker's Washington Show is a Damp Squib
By K. Gajendra Singh
"Unable to even look at the fiasco anymore, the nation is now just
waiting for someone to administer the last rites.---The prevailing
verdict on the Petraeus-Crocker show is that it accomplished little
beyond certifying President Bush's intention to kick the can to
January 2009 so that the helicopters will vacate the Green Zone on
the next president's watch ,"
– Frank Rich in The New York Times 13 April, 2008
"George Bush's Iraq legacy will present his successor with a
potential presidency-wrecker of a problem,"
– Simon Tisdall in the Guardian 1 April
By the end of 1990,
Iraq President Saddam Hussein, who had sent his forces into Kuwait on 2
August, having been misled by the US Ambassador April Galspie in Baghdad
and a statement by the State Department spokesman, felt cornered. He had
already given up the historical claims on Shatt-al Arab, a bone of
perpetual tension and wars between Arab Iraq and Persian Iran and lost
popularity. After all why then the 8 year debilitating war against Iran
was fought?
But Saddam Hussein was
prepared to cut his losses further and withdraw his troops from Kuwait
if granted immunity from attack and security. He made an offer to UN
secretary-general de Cuellar but the die had been cast in the Western
mind, hell bent on destroying Iraqi forces and bringing about a regime
change. When asked in the Amman street, where he was quite popular, the
feeling was that Saddam being Saddam would not withdraw his troops from
Kuwait unilaterally, while retaining the disputed oil field and a
Kuwaiti island which he coveted. (Until The British created the Emirate
of Kuwait, it was ruled by the Ottoman Pashas from Basra.) This was the
nightmare scenario that US feared, because then the already assembled
coalition force of a million troops around Iraq would have been
difficult to keep together as even the Saudis appeared keen for a
peaceful settlement.
It was believed that Saddam had become fatalistic by this time and
believed that whatever concessions he made, Washington would go after
him. The best outcome for him was to survive which he did, but at a
tremendous cost to Iraq in the wake of the US-UK enforced sanctions
because of which over half a million Iraqi children perished. This will
remain another blot on the conscience of UNSC. But the misery and
destruction heaped on that country and its hapless people continues.
If an act of mercy is twice blessed, then an act of illegal invasion and
brutal occupation has since proved to be doubly cursed for the invaders
as well. A hubris laden Washington, after the collapse the Soviet Union,
to further spread its domination globally in line with the Neo-con
project of a "New American century", now finds itself stuck in the Iraqi
quagmire, from which like Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, President George
Bush can not withdraw. Won't the erstwhile hyper power lose face or the
military industry complex, its bludgeoning profits! While Saddam
listened to few advisers, Bush was a blank slate which the Neo-cons
selected to 'make history ', as some claimed. Alas not as they had
planned, with most of them now eased out of the decision making process
but still making ugly noises, except for some dead enders and
Vice-President Dick Cheney with his malevolent influence on Bush and the
US policy.
Remember George Bush had declared 'Mission accomplished' in 2003 itself,
but now General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker define victory as
'sustainable security' in Iraq after the so called 'success' of the
'Surge'. But both former Secretary of State Gen (Retd) Colin
Powell and Gen Richard Cody, US Army's vice chief of staff, said last
week that current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are unsustainable
and are damaging America's readiness to meet other security threats. And
that's not all that's unsustainable. An ailing economy can't keep
floating the war's $3-billion-a-week cost. A Republican president intent
on staying the Bush course will find his vetoes unsustainable after the
Democrats increase their majorities in Congress in November. No war can
be fought indefinitely if the public has irrevocably turned against it
as the US polls indicate.
The greatest credit and speculative
excess in US history
Doug Noland of
PrudentBear.com commented recently that Alan Greenspan was the
undisputed governor, architect - the promulgator of what will be
recognized as an epic failure in central banking. After all, he was for
about 18 years the appointed guardian over a financial system that
perpetrated the greatest credit and speculative excess in history. He
dominated monetary policy like no other central banker in history.
Chairman Greenspan not only negligently failed to act to reign in
dangerous excesses, he became a vocal proponent for virtually all
aspects of Wall Street finance.
Rapid Withdrawal Is Only Solution-Gen Odom tells
US Senate
In a testimony before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 2 April 2008 Rtd Gen William
E. Odom declared that a rapid withdrawal was the only solution. Gen Odom
had earlier told the Committee in January 2007, that the troop surge was
only a new tactic to achieve the same old strategic aim, political
stability, but it would not succeed. He said "I see no reason to change
my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the
conditions for unity as the president claims."
"Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military
solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level
of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a
political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced, but today there
is credible evidence that the political situation is far more
fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In
fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant in several other
parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in
Baghdad and Anbar Province.
"More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action
and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite
competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such
is the result of the surge tactic.
"No less disturbing has been the steady violence in the Mosul area, and
the tensions in Kirkuk between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomen. A showdown
over control of the oil fields there surely awaits us. And the
idea that some kind of a federal solution can cut this Gordian knot
strikes me as a wild fantasy, wholly out of touch with Kurdish
realities.
As for al Qaeda, Gen Odom said that the Sunnis welcomed anyone who would
help them kill Americans, including al Qaeda. "The Sunnis will soon
destroy al Qaeda if we leave Iraq. The Kurds do not allow them in their
region, and the Shiites, like the Iranians, detest al Qaeda." About the
co-opted Sunni tribes, Gen Odom said "that our new Sunni friends insist
on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough
estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is
$250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their
fees are increased. – Remember, we do not own these people. We merely
rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time,
this deal protects them to some degree from the government's troops and
police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
"--- the decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of
local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight
among themselves. Thus the basic military situation is far worse because
of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who
follow a proliferating number of political bosses.
"This can hardly be
called greater military stability, much less progress toward political
consolidation, --At the same time, Prime Minister Maliki's military
actions in Basra and Baghdad, indicate even wider political and military
fragmentation. We are witnessing what is more accurately described as
the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation.
We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so
much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to
political centralization. He describes the process as building the state
from the bottom up.
" I challenge you to press the administration's witnesses this week to
explain this absurdity. Ask them to name a single historical case where
power has been aggregated successfully from local strong men to a
central government except through bloody violence leading to a single
winner, most often a dictator. That is the history of feudal Europe's
transformation to the age of absolute monarchy. It is the story of the
American colonization of the west and our Civil War. It took England 800
years to subdue clan rule on what is now the English-Scottish border.
And it is the source of violence in Bosnia and Kosovo. --
"How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective
state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United
States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to
consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US
expense.
"To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over
extended army. -- how long the army and marines can sustain this
band-aid strategy.
"The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order.
Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the
region.
"The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a
meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires
revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his
threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its
support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and
supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan
as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran's policy toward
Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want
instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians
look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits.
"No quick reconciliation between the US and Iran is likely, but US steps
to make Iran feel more secure make it far more conceivable than a policy
calculated to increase its insecurity. The president's policy has
reinforced Iran's determination to acquire nuclear weapons, the very
thing he purports to be trying to prevent.
"Withdrawal from Iraq does not mean withdrawal from the region. It must
include a realignment and reassertion of US forces and diplomacy that
give us a better chance to achieve our aim.
"A number of reasons are given for not withdrawing soon and completely.
"--First, it is insisted that we must leave behind military training
element with no combat forces to secure them. This makes no sense at
all. The idea that US military trainers left alone in Iraq can be safe
and effective is flatly rejected by several NCOs and junior officers I
have heard describe their personal experiences. Moreover, training
foreign forces before they have a consolidated political authority to
command their loyalty is a windmill tilt. Finally, Iraq is not short on
military skills.
"Second, it is insisted that chaos will follow our withdrawal. We heard
that argument as the "domino theory" in Vietnam. Even so, the path to
political stability will be bloody regardless of whether we withdraw or
not. The idea that the United States has a moral responsibility to
prevent this ignores that reality. We are certainly to blame for it, but
we do not have the physical means to prevent it. American leaders who
insist that it is in our power to do so are misleading both the public
and themselves if they believe it. The real moral question is whether to
risk the lives of more Americans. Unlike preventing chaos, we have the
physical means to stop sending more troops where many will be killed or
wounded. That is the moral responsibility to our country which no
American leaders seems willing to assume.
"Third, nay sayers insist that our withdrawal will create regional
instability. This confuses cause with effect. Our forces in Iraq and our
threat to change Iran's regime are making the region unstable. Those who
link instability with a US withdrawal have it exactly backwards. Our
ostrich strategy of keeping our heads buried in the sands of Iraq has
done nothing but advance our enemies' interest.
"I implore you to reject these fallacious excuses for prolonging the
commitment of US forces to war in Iraq," concluded Gen Odom
General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker show
After the Congress hearings of Gen General Petraeus, Ryan Crocker, the
American ambassador to Baghdad and others, even the New York Times, one
of the cheer leaders for the 2003 invasion was forced to bemoan that '
President Bush --told his Iraq war commander, Gen. David Petraeus, that
"he'll have all the time he needs." We know what that means. It means
that the general, like the Iraqi government, should feel no pressure to
figure a way out of this disastrous war. It means that even after 20,000
troops come home there will be nearly 140,000 American troops still
fighting there - with no plan for further withdrawals and no plan for
leading them to victory."
" It means, as we've
always suspected, that Mr. Bush's only real strategy for Iraq has been
to hand the mess off to his successor. Mr. Bush gave himself all the
time he needs to walk away from one of the biggest strategic failures in
American history. -- General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the American
ambassador to Baghdad, did not try to hide any of that in their
Stay-the-Course 2008 Tour. There were the obligatory claims of military
and political progress, but with a lot less specificity than during
Stay-the-Course 2007. Mr. Crocker did not even bother to bring charts
assessing Iraqi performance on political benchmarks. General Petraeus's
charts showed that American troop numbers would come down to around
140,000 this summer - but showed nothing beyond that."
" When members of Congress pressed him to explain what would have to
change on the ground for him to agree to further withdrawals, the
general did not have an answer. He certainly is not getting any pressure
from the White House to come up with one. As they say in the military,
Mr. Bush is a short-timer, so why should he worry?"--
" Earlier this month, The Times reported that repeated battlefield tours
have so debilitated American troops that Army leaders fear for their
mental health. Last week, Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of
staff, warned Congress that the demand for troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan "exceeds the sustainable supply." --
"The faltering American
economy also cannot afford this never-ending war. Mr. Bush's description
of his latest emergency spending request as a "reasonable $108 billion"
proves just how out of touch he is with fiscal reality. His attempt to
justify the overall $600 billion cost so far by comparing his war to the
cold war and the need to stop "Soviet expansion" shows that he is even
more out of touch with strategic reality.
" We believe that the fight against Al Qaeda is the central battle for
this generation, but Mr. Bush's claim that Iraq is the main front is
wrong. That is Afghanistan, and the United States is in real danger of
losing because Mr. Bush's failed adventure in Iraq is eating up the
Pentagon's resources and attention.
Refugees
"There are now an
estimated 2.4 million Iraqi refugees - mostly in Syria and Jordan - and
2.7 million more Iraqis displaced within their own country. The United
States bears direct responsibility, and it needs to do a lot more to
help these people survive and find safe refuge, back in Iraq or in other
countries. It also needs to - humbly and urgently - ask its allies in
Europe, Asia and the region for help. Beyond the intolerable human
suffering, huge flows of refugees could spread Iraq's conflict far
beyond its own borders. This is not a problem that can continue to be
ignored.
An Honest Assessment of Iraq's Army
"This White House has
been spinning on Iraq for so long that we suppose we should thank Mr.
Maliki for his recent reality check: his decision to send Iraqi forces
into Basra to oust militias loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
"It was not a pretty sight. One thousand Iraqi soldiers and police
officers refused to fight or deserted their posts. The battle ended with
no winner and only after the Iranians helped broker a cease-fire.
President Bush and General Petraeus owe the country a rigorous and
honest assessment of the American training program, starting with what
went wrong in Basra. What needs to be changed now to increase the
chances that the Iraqi Army will eventually be able to fight its own
battles? How long, realistically, will it take for that to happen? [Maliki
has since dismissed the deserters while Al-Sadr says that they should
not be]
Failure of the Surge
"The surge was supposed
to give Iraqi politicians breathing room to make necessary political
reforms. They still have not agreed on a law to equitably divide the
country's oil wealth, or rules for this fall's provincial elections.--
The performances in Washington last week merely confirmed what the
Iraqis knew: the president is just playing out his string.
"--Mr. Bush's capacity for denial is limitless. Perhaps he believes that
the next president will continue this misadventure without any end in
mind, let alone in sight –"
Bush Approval Hits Another Low
Two recent polls put
Bush's job approval at all-time lows, with Gallup finding that Bush has
dropped below his father's all-time low, has tied Jimmy Carter's
all-time low, and looks good only by comparison to Richard Nixon and
Harry Truman at their nadirs. Reported Gallup: "President George W.
Bush's job approval rating has dropped to 28%, the lowest of his
administration. . . .
"Bush's low rating in the current poll is the result of an
extraordinarily low average approval rating from Democrats, a low level
of support from independents, and support from just two-thirds of his
base of Republicans. . .
.
"Bush's current 28% job approval rating is at the very low end of the
spectrum of approval ratings Gallup has recorded across the 11
presidents in office since World War II."
It is quite clear that
the 'Surge 'was only an excuse for not taking a decision on not planning
a withdrawal. David Fiderer noted in Huffington Post , The surge is
playing out exactly as the Baker-Hamilton Commission said it would. The
"progress" in Iraq is ephemeral, if not cosmetic. As the Commission,
also known as the Iraq Study Group (ISG) said last year:
" Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the
fundamental cause of violence in Iraq, which is the absence of national
reconciliation. A senior American general told us that adding U.S.
troops might temporarily help limit violence in a highly localized area.
However, past experience indicates that the violence would simply
rekindle as soon as U.S. forces are moved to another area. As another
American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make
political progress, 'all the troops in the world will not provide
security.' Meanwhile, America's military capacity is stretched thin: we
do not have the troops or equipment to make a substantial, sustained
increase in our troop presence. Increased deployments to Iraq would also
necessarily hamper our ability to provide adequate resources for our
efforts in Afghanistan or respond to crises around the world."
The Republican contender for the US presidency Sen John McCain, who had
rejected the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group in favor of Bush's
surge, continues to conflate the different warring factions into a
single "enemy" acting on behalf of Iran. His mouthpiece, Lindsay Graham,
told Fox News recently
"I applaud the Maliki government for taking on Iranian-backed militia...
The Iranians are killing Americans. They've aligned themselves with the
Shia Mahdi army. The Badr Brigade is not the problem."
ISG had said that "The Badr Brigade is affiliated with the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is led by
Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. The Badr Brigade has long-standing ties with the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Many Badr members have become
integrated into the Iraqi police, and others play policing roles in
southern Iraqi cities. While wearing the uniform of the security
services, Badr fighters have targeted Sunni Arab civilians. Badr
fighters have also clashed with the Mahdi Army, particularly in southern
Iraq." {So what is new .Bush did not know the difference between Shias
and Sunnis until a month before the March 2003 invasion}
"What lessons have Graham, McCain, Bush and all the other neo-con
apologists have learned after five years in Iraq? Almost none, "
concluded Fiderer?
Washington Post reported that Vice President Cheney gave a right-wing
radio a dramatic new argument for preventing Iran from getting nuclear
weapons, casting the Iranian leadership as apocalyptic zealots who yearn
for a nuclear conflagration. [ Would Iran look for a fight with US or
Israel!]
But Cheney did not comment on any recent conversations with Israeli
leaders about the possibility of their bombing Iranian nuclear
facilities. Some observers suspect Cheney of encouraging Israel to
attack Iran as a proxy. Media is talking of Israel's attack on Syria to
engage Lebanon's Hezbollah with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
trying to regain his lost prestige and confidence after the defeat of
the 'invincible' Israeli arms inflicted by Hezbollah in July –August
2006 war , which was so acknowledged even in investigative report
chaired by an Israeli Judge .
Conventional wisdom in Washington has it that Cheney and other
supporters of military action against Iran were quietened after the
National Intelligence Estimate of last November reported that Iran had
halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Western leaders and corporate media divert
attention from their Middle East crimes to Tibet
Regarding Beijing Olympics, one of Hollywood's great filmmakers
Spielberg, a Jew, opted out of the committee to advise on the Olympics,
on humanitarian grounds. How many Tibetans have been killed in Tibet and
a few other the provinces. Mr Spielberg has said nothing to the best of
my knowledge about the killing of over one million Iraqis, creating 2
million widows, making 5 million orphans and forcing out more than 4
million Iraqis to become refugees abroad and in their own country. Last
heard from Bush in Dec 2006, his numbers were about 30,000 Iraqis dead.
The US do not count others dead. Are they are sub-humans!! US has
touched the lowest depths humans can descend to in Abu Ghraib,
Guantanamo, Baghram and in renditions to secret places for torture. And
many were tortured, even some European and north American nationals,
simply because they happened to be Muslims.
How many refugees have US and UK accepted including those who
collaborated with them. Miniscule. Illegal invasion and brutal
occupation is responsible for the catastrophe. Many of those who are in
Syria and Jordan after their savings have run out have been forced to
resort to prostitution for survival, the main clients being the rich
Saudis, the 'staunch' allies of Washington and London.
In a piece titled "China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp" in
'Global Research' of 13 April , Michel Chossudovsky says – "The human
rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.
"China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its
indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and
human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its
allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations
and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be
presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be
emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North
Korea and the People's Republic of China.
Human Rights "Double Standards"
"While China's alleged
human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent
wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western
media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's
"Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and
atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a
"global war on terrorism".
There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million
wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their
country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
"Iraq's population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was
roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary
arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are
either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead."
The Geopolitical Chessboard
There are deep-seated
geopolitical objectives behind the campaign against the Chinese
leadership.
"US-NATO-Israeli war
plans in relation to Iran are at an advanced state of readiness. China
has economic ties as well as a far-reaching bilateral military
cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is also an ally of
Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in
the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Since 2005,
Iran has an observer member status within the SCO.
"In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) an overlapping military cooperation agreement
between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz
Republic, Tajikistan.
In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of
Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between
the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the
Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance
between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth
noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006,
which coincided with those conducted by Iran.
In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also
intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the
case of China, Washington is seeking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties
with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its
headquarters in Beijing.
"China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to use Beijing's
alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China, an ally of
Iran. "
An Arab Woman's Blues
The US military has destroyed too much of the country and slaughtered
too many people to expect that these attitudes will change anytime soon.
Iraqi poet and blogger Layla Anwar sums up the feelings of many of the
war's victims in a recent post on her web site ""An Arab Women's Blues:
Reflections in a sealed bottle"
"At the gates of Babylon the Great, you are still struggling, fighting
away, chasing this or the other, detaining, bombing from above, filling
up morgues, hospitals, graveyards and embassies and borders with queues
for exit-visas.
Not one Iraqi wishes your presence. Not one Iraqi accepts your
occupation.
Got news for you Mother-F-----rs-, you will never control Iraq, not in
six years, not in ten years, not in 20 years....You have brought upon
yourself the hate and the curse of all Iraqis, Arabs and the rest of the
world...now face your agony."
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired),
served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April
1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania
and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic
Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail: Gajendrak@hotmail.com
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