iraq’s lessons?

“Learning the Lessons of Iraq”  by Mark Thoma, professor of economics at University of Oregon

I don’t think we will know if the war in Iraq was a success or not until many years, decades even, after we are gone. If, for example, a few years after we leave, Iraq breaks down terribly and alliances that are very much against our geopolitical interests are formed, that won’t be a success, will it? We just don’t know yet if it is a success or not, and furthermore, if things do break down, we will have no way of knowing if an alternative path would have produced a better outcome — we can’t run the alternative scenario and find out.

I hope it is a success, let there be no mistake about that, but I just don’t see how we can say anything beyond so far so good, and we’ll see how it goes from here. As for repeating this strategy in Afghanistan, if we don’t know for sure that Iraq will remain stable after we leave, and we don’t, and if we don’t know for sure if it was the surge or something else that caused the reduction in violence, and we don’t, then we should be very careful before repeating the strategy once again.

If it was other factors that caused the reduction in violence, in combination with or independent of the surge in troops, and if we can better understand what those factors were, there may be a way to produce a similar outcome in Afghanistan without so much death and destruction.

So before we commit to repeating the same tactic, let’s better understand exactly why things improved in Iraq. I realize that whether the reduction in violence is attributed to the surge or not has large political consequences, but I don’t care about that, I just want our best assessment of what factors were at work. It’s a matter of life and death:

Learning the Lessons of Iraq, by Joseph Stiglitz, Project Syndicate: The Iraq war has been replaced by the declining economy as the most important issue in America’s presidential election campaign, in part because Americans have come to believe that .. the … ‘surge’ has … cowed the insurgents, bringing a decline in violence. The implications are clear: a show of power wins the day.

It is precisely this kind of macho reasoning that led America to war in Iraq in the first place. The war was meant to demonstrate the strategic power of military might. Instead, the war showed its limitations. Moreover, the war undermined America’s real source of power – its moral authority. …

To be sure, the reduction in violence is welcome, and the surge in troops may have played some role. Yet the level of violence, were it taking place anywhere else in the world, would make headlines; only in Iraq have we become so inured to violence that it is a good day if only 25 civilians get killed.

And the role of the troop surge in reducing violence in Iraq is not clear. Other factors were probably far more important, including buying off Sunni insurgents… But that remains a dangerous strategy. The US should be working to create a strong, unified government, rather than strengthening sectarian militias.

Now the Iraqi government has awakened to the dangers, and has begun arresting some of the leaders whom the American government has been supporting. The prospects of a stable future look increasingly dim.

That is the key point: the surge was supposed to provide space for a political settlement, which would provide the foundations of long-term stability. That political settlement has not occurred. …

Meanwhile, the military and economic opportunity costs of this misadventure become increasingly clear. Even if the US had achieved stability in Iraq, this would not have assured victory in the “war on terrorism,”… Things have not been going well in Afghanistan, to say the least, and Pakistan looks ever more unstable.

Moreover, most analysts agree that at least part of the rationale behind Russia’s invasion of Georgia, reigniting fears of a new Cold War, was its confidence that, with America’s armed forces pre-occupied with two failing wars…, there was little America could do in response…

The belief that the surge was successful is especially dangerous because the Afghanistan war is going so poorly. … [T]he belief that the surge ‘worked’ is now leading many to argue that more troops are needed in Afghanistan. True, the war in Iraq distracted America’s attention from Afghanistan. But the failures in Iraq are a matter of strategy, not troop strength.

It is time for America, and Europe, to learn the lessons of Iraq – or, rather, relearn the lessons of virtually every country that tries to occupy another and determine its future.

let me introduce the potential new (2nd in line) commander in chief of occupational forces

This is enough to make your hair stand on end permanently.

Palin Vetting Documents from 2006. For Hard Core Palin Addicts Only.

5 09 2008

In 2006, when Sarah Palin ran for Governor of Alaska, the Democrats (unlike the Republicans of 2008) vetted her. The documentation is extensive, and was published online.

Recently, the link from various websites including Politico to the documents went dead. Then it came back. Then it went dead. Then it came back. You get the idea. Considering the tendency for things to vanish these days, and thanks to a reader of Mudflats, you may now peruse the document in its entirety below.

It’s 63 pages, so be warned. I suggest using the table of contents on page two to guide you on this “more than you ever wanted to know about Palin tour.” I wonder how long McCain’s document was?

palin-2006-vetting

pentagon pondors quick pull-out

Who Says Less Troops?

By Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK

Jul 21, 2008 Issue

 

Barack Obama is taking heat for hinting that he might refine his 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report will recommend an even steeper drawdown in less time, NEWSWEEK has learned. If adopted, the 300-page report by a defense analysis group at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., could transform the debate about Iraq in the presidential election.

Expected to be completed in about a month, it will recommend that U.S. forces be reduced to as few as 50,000 by the spring of 2009, down from about 150,000 now. The strategy is based on a major handoff to the increasingly successful Iraqi Army, with platoon-size U.S. detachments backing the Iraqis from small outposts, with air support. The large U.S. forward operating bases that house the bulk of U.S. troops would be mostly abandoned, and the role of Special Forces would increase.

The report’s conclusions have been discussed inside Secretary Robert Gates’s Defense Policy Board, a body of outside experts. And they’ve found favor with some former members of the Iraq Study Group, such as former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta. “That’s basically the approach we thought made sense–embedding some of our forces at smaller outposts, transferring major combat to the Iraqis,” says Panetta.

Like the Study Group, this report also calls for a regional diplomatic effort complementing negotiations with the Iraqi tribes, which echoes the previous recommendations of such analysts as John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. “Even with a small leavening of American troops the Iraqis perform quite well,” he says.

The biggest problem: Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the surge, is said to oppose the recommendations, according to a Defense contractor who is privy to the discussions. Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told NEWSWEEK that Gates “feels the most important military advice he gets is from his commanders on the ground.” As the next head of Central Command, Petraeus will soon have responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan too, which could change his views on troop deployments and the new report. Spokesman Col. Steve Boylan says Petraeus “is focused on Iraq at this point and will continue to be.”

© 2008

military chief warns against striking iran

By Aamer Madhani | Washington Bureau

July 3, 2008

 

WASHINGTON — The words Wednesday from Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were notable for their blunt pragmatism: An Israeli airstrike on Iran would be high-risk and could further destabilize the region, leading to political and economic chaos.

On Iran’s western border, the U.S. military is more than five years into a war in Iraq that has taken 4,113 American lives and cost U.S. taxpayers more than $600 billion. And on Iran’s eastern border, American commanders are now openly questioning whether they have lost their way in the fight against a resurgent Taliban.

Israel, the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East, has refused to rule out a strike against Iranian nuclear sites, and this week’s New Yorker magazine reported that the U.S. has stepped up its covert operations inside Iran.

While President George W. Bush repeated Wednesday that a military strike remains an option, Mullen’s words of caution underscored the Pentagon’s belief that a move against Iran—by the U.S. or one of its allies—would have an undeniable effect on the ongoing U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us,” Mullen acknowledged during a Pentagon news conference. He added moments later, “This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to be more unstable.”

The White House, Israel and Western powers say Iran continues to work toward producing nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is intended only for generating electricity. This week, Iran’s foreign minister struck a conciliatory tone when speaking to reporters about the possibility of Tehran agreeing to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Mullen’s comments come in the wake of the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in the 7-year-old war, with 27 American service members killed in June. About 32,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, compared with 144,000 in Iraq.

Mullen said the possibility of sending more U.S. forces to Afghanistan hinges on the security situation improving in Iraq. Only then, he said, could a stretched U.S. military shift more troops to Afghanistan.

“We’re on an increasingly positive path in Iraq in lots of dimensions,” Mullen said. “And so I’m hopeful toward the end of this year, opportunities like that would be created.”

A potential airstrike against Iran is further complicated by a rapidly changing political scene in Washington, Jerusalem and Tehran. The Bush administration has less than seven months remaining in office, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is embroiled in a bribery scandal and Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lost clout among Iran’s influential clerics.

There also has been much hand-wringing among Sunni Arab leaders about Iran’s influence over a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. And the U.S. military has charged that Iran is responsible for arming Shiite militias that have killed hundreds of U.S. service members in Iraq.

An Israeli airstrike on its nuclear reactor sites might not be as damaging for Iran as it would be to the United States and Israel, said Vali Nasr, a professor of international politics at Tufts University.

“The upside could be a political bonanza for Iran,” Nasr said. “Just as Hezbollah became so popular [in the aftermath of the war between Hezbollah and Israel in the summer of 2006], Iran could gain credibility in the Arab street.”

No surprise for Israel

The ratcheting up of tensions between Iran and Israel echoes Israel’s 1981 bombing of an Iraqi plant near Baghdad that was designed to make nuclear weapons. But in this standoff, Israel does not have the element of surprise, and some military experts said that Israel’s potential desire to launch an airstrike is muddied by the U.S. presence in Iraq.

P.J. Crowley, a retired Air Force colonel who was a special assistant to President Bill Clinton for national security affairs, said Israel presumably would have to inform the U.S. military that it would be flying in airspace that is largely American-controlled.

“From a strategic standpoint, it’s hard to see what you gain [from an airstrike] and easy to see what harm you could do to both Israel and U.S. interests,” Crowley said.

In his comments Wednesday, Mullen appeared to veer away from the administration’s stated policy of refusing direct talks when he said there needs to better dialogue on the issue.

“They remain a destabilizing factor in the region,” Mullen said. “But I’m convinced a solution still lies in using other elements of national power to change Iranian behavior, including diplomatic, financial and international pressure. There is a need for better clarity, even dialogue at some level.”

In a separate development, Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, warned Iran on Wednesday that the U.S. would take action if Tehran tried to cut the sea lane through the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point in the flow of much of the world’s oil supply. Cosgriff’s comments were in response to Iranian officials’ threats against Hormuz if there is a Western attack on Iran.

When asked about the threat by Iran to disrupt oil shipments at a White House news conference Wednesday, Bush reiterated that military strikes remain an option but one he preferred not to take.

amadhani@tribune.com

shake up in the air force

Gates ousts Air Force leaders in historic shake-up

from The Associated Press

 

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In this July 18, 2005 file photo, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Michael Wynne testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. U.S. officials are saying that the military and civilian chiefs of the Air Force are resigning. Defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Wynne Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley to step down. Associated Press © 2008

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, June 5, 2008. Gates ousted the Air Force’s top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after nuclear missile warhead fuses were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan. Associated Press © 2008

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In this May 28, 2008 file photo, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, arrives for the United States Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado Springs, Colo. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Thursday, June 5, 2008, ousted Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Moseley holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix ups. Associated Press © 2008

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In this March 5, 2008 file photo, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Senate Armed Services Committee. U.S. officials are saying that the military and civilian chiefs of the Air Force are resigning. Defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne to step down. Associated Press © 2008

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In this March 5, 2008 file photo, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynn, left, accompanied by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. U.S. officials are saying that the military and civilian chiefs of the Air Force are resigning. Defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Moseley and Wynne to step down. Associated Press © 2008

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates takes part in a news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, June 5, 2008. Gates ousted the Air Force’s top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after nuclear missile warhead fuses were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan. Associated Press © 2008

WASHINGTON June 6, 2008, 06:58 am ET · Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force’s top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.

Gates announced at a news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne — a highly unusual double firing.

Gates said his decision was based mainly on the damning conclusions of an internal report on the mistaken shipment to Taiwan of four Air Force electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads. And he linked the underlying causes of that slip-up to another startling incident: the flight last August of a B-52 bomber that was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

The report drew the stunning conclusion that the Air Force’s nuclear standards have been in a long decline, a “problem that has been identified but not effectively addressed for over a decade.”

Gates said an internal investigation found a common theme in the B-52 and Taiwan incidents: “a decline in the Air Force’s nuclear mission focus and performance” and a failure by Air Force leaders to respond effectively.

In a reflection of his concern about the state of nuclear security, Gates said he had asked a former defense secretary, James Schlesinger, to lead a task force that will recommend ways to ensure that the highest levels of accountability and control are maintained in Air Force handling of nuclear weapons.

In somber tones, Gates told reporters his decision to remove Wynne and Moseley was based on the findings of an investigation of the Taiwan debacle by Adm. Kirkland Donald. The admiral found a “lack of a critical self-assessment culture” in the Air Force nuclear program, making it unlikely that weaknesses in the way critical materials such as nuclear weapons are handled could be corrected, Gates said.

Gates said Donald concluded that many of the problems that led to the B-52 and the Taiwan sale incidents “have been known or should have been known.”

The Donald report is classified; Gates provided an oral summary.

“The Taiwan incident clearly was the trigger,” Gates said when asked whether Moseley and Wynne would have retained their positions in the absence of the mistaken shipment of fuses. He also said that Donald found a “lack of effective Air Force leadership oversight” of its nuclear mission.

The investigation found a declining trend in Air Force nuclear expertise — not the first time that has been raised as a problem, Gates said — and a drifting of the Air Force’s focus away from its nuclear mission, which includes stewardship of the land-based missile component of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, as well as missiles and bombs assigned for nuclear missions aboard B-52 and B-2 long-range bombers.

Gates also announced that “a substantial number” of Air Force general officers and colonels were identified in the Donald report as potentially subject to disciplinary measures that range from removal from command to letters of reprimand. He said he would direct the yet-to-be-named successors to Wynne and Moseley to evaluate those identified culprits and decide what disciplinary actions are warranted — “or whether they can be part of the solution” to the problems found by Donald.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said President Bush knew about the resignations but that the White House had “not played any role” in the shake-up.

Early reaction from Capitol Hill was favorable to drastic action.

“Secretary Gates’ focus on accountability is essential and had been absent from the office of the secretary of defense for too long,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The safety and security of America’ nuclear weapons must receive the highest priority, just as it must in other countries.”

Gates said he would make recommendations to Bush shortly on a new Air Force chief of staff and civilian secretary. Gates has settled on candidates for both jobs but has not yet formally recommended them, one official said.

Gen. Duncan J. McNabb is the current Air Force vice chief of staff.

Moseley, who commanded coalition air forces during the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003, became Air Force chief in September 2005; Wynne, a former General Dynamics executive, took office in November 2005.

Wynne is the second civilian chief of a military service to be forced out by Gates. In March 2007 the defense secretary pushed out Francis Harvey, the Army secretary, because Gates was dissatisfied with Harvey’s handling of revelations of inadequate housing conditions and bureaucratic delays for troops recovering from war wounds at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Wynne and Moseley issued their own written statements.

“As the Air Force’s senior uniformed leader, I take full responsibility for events which have hurt the Air Force’s reputation or raised a question of every airman’s commitment to our core values,” Moseley said.

Wynne said he “read with regret” the findings of the Donald report.

how the air force manages nuclear weapons and deterrence

The U.S. Air Force’s indifference toward nuclear weapons

By Lawrence J. Korb | 17 June 2008

Article Highlights

• During the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force received a bulk of the country’s defense budget because of its significant role in delivering nuclear weapons.
• But after the Soviet Union disintegrated, the air force became more interested in traditional air missions and the next generation of fighter planes.
• This disinterest manifested itself in two recent nuclear-related mishaps that cost the air force chief of staff and secretary their jobs.
• Generally, the military considers nuclear weapons costly and unnecessary, as conventional weapons can capably complete nuclear missions.

From its creation as a separate service at the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force was first among equals amid the nation’s three military departments and four armed services–whether measured by budget share or in public appeal. During the 1950s, for example, the air force received about one-half of the entire defense budget, leaving the other three services to argue over the remaining 50 percent and fumbling to co-opt some part of the air force’s mission. The army went so far as to try to develop a Pentomic Division designed to employ tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.

The air force’s dominance was due primarily to its leading role in developing and deploying strategic nuclear weapons, which were deemed key to the country’s survival. In 1950, Gen. Douglas MacArthur urged President Harry S. Truman to attack China with nuclear weapons after the Chinese intervened in the Korean War; President Dwight D. Eisenhower was able to end the Korean War in 1953 by threatening to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese if they did not agree to an armistice. Two years later, Admiral Arthur Radford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Vice President Richard Nixon urged Eisenhower to use nuclear weapons to save the French at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. Although Eisenhower refused, he did adopt a strategy of massive retaliation–the threat to use nuclear weapons against any enemy that attacked the United States.

As the Soviet Union built up its nuclear arsenal, the United States adopted strategic nuclear deterrence, or mutually assured destruction, which relied on a triad of bombers, land-based nuclear missiles, and sea-based nuclear missiles, two-thirds of which the air force controlled. Consequently, the best and the brightest in the air force gravitated toward the strategic nuclear mission. From the flamboyant Curtis Lemay in the 1950s to the erudite Larry Welch in the late 1980s, the men who became air force chiefs of staff were the so-called Bomber Barons–that is, people who came from the Strategic Air Command.

But with the Soviet Union’s collapse, things began to change. Strategic nuclear deterrence was no longer seen as central to U.S. security and the attention and resources of the policy makers in general and the air force in particular began to shift elsewhere. Budget priorities and hard-charging officers in the air force began to flow toward traditional air missions. Rather than the Bomber Barons, the air force in the post-Cold War era was led by the Fighter Mafia. Even the B-1, B-2, and B-52 strategic bombers began to fly tactical missions, dropping conventional bombs in the Gulf War and the Iraq War, the Balkans, and Afghanistan. The air force’s priority became developing the next generation fighter, the F-22, rather than building more B-2 bombers or more land-based missiles. In fact, in the early 1990s when Congress reduced the planned buy of B-2s from 132 to 21, there were few complaints from the air force hierarchy. Moreover, as conventional weapons became smarter and more lethal, it became clear that nuclear weapons had little military utility. Gen. Charles Horner, who commanded all air forces in the first Gulf War, said as much after hostilities ended when asked about using nuclear weapons in that conflict.

Even when former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appointed Gen. James Cartwright from the marines, a service without any nuclear weapons, to head Strategic Command (STRATCOM), the air force leaders were silent. Similarly, when Congress canceled the new nuclear weapon, the “bunker-buster,” and delayed production of the reliable replacement warhead (RRW), the air force didn’t utter a peep. Only when current Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed stopping production of the F-22 at 182 planes did the air force roll out its propaganda machine.

Given this lack of attention to nuclear weapons, it’s not surprising that in August 2007 a B-52 accidentally flew six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles across the country, from North Dakota to Louisiana, or that four nuclear-missile fuses were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. Gates was correct to hold Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne responsible for their lack of attention to nuclear weapons. But the bigger issue is why the Pentagon still needs to keep so many nuclear weapons in its inventory nearly two decades after the Cold War–particularly when just about everyone in the military believes they present minimal strategic utility. General Cartwright, who in 2007 moved from STRATCOM to become Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said as much. In Congressional testimony on March 8, 2007, he declared, “As good as [U.S. conventional weapons] are, we simply cannot be everywhere with our general purpose conventional forces, and use of a nuclear weapon in a prompt response may be no choice at all.”

At the height of the Cold War, the United States possessed more than 30,000 nuclear warheads in its inventory. Today, Washington continues to maintain nearly 10,000 warheads. Reducing that number to no more than 1,000 (600 operational and 400 in reserve) would be more than enough for deterrence; one of the last air force officers to command STRATCOM, Gen. Eugene Habiger, has actually suggested this number. Doing so would allow the air force hierarchy to direct its attention and resources to the challenges of the twenty-first century. According to the recently fired Secretary Wynne, the air force has a budget shortfall of $100 million over the next five years because the baseline defense budget is projected to decline in real terms over this period.

More importantly, reducing our own nuclear arsenal would enable the United States to gain the moral high ground in nonproliferation matters and in our increasingly tense relations with Russia. What better way to enhance our negotiating position with the North Koreans and Iranians than by our living up to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which obliges us to reduce and eventually eliminate our nuclear stockpile in exchange for others not developing these weapons? And what better way to negotiate a new nuclear reduction treaty with Russia and enhance the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program than by reducing our own nuclear arsenal?

It’s no secret that Gates used the nuclear mishaps as justification for decapitating the air force leadership. His real reason for the joint termination was that Wynne and Moseley were lobbying Congress for more F-22s and then slow-walking the development of unmanned aerial vehicles and airlift capabilities. Thus, it’s unlikely that Gates will use the incidents as a catalyst for reducing or eliminating our nuclear arsenal. Hopefully, the next defense secretary installed by a new president will. As the recent mishaps demonstrate, when people and resources are turned elsewhere, trouble follows.

If the new defense secretary takes such a step, he or she will not only be applauded by the international community but also by the U.S. military, which sees this large nuclear stockpile as an albatross around its neck.

ATTACK ON BAGHDAD MARKET KILLS 51

AT LEAST 51 ARE KILLED IN BUSY MARKET IN BAGHDAD

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ALI HAMID

 

Published: June 18, 2008

BAGHDAD — A car bomb set to explode during the busiest time of day killed at least 51 people and wounded 75 Tuesday evening as shoppers were strolling through a Shiite neighborhood market in Baghdad. It was the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in more than three months.

The blast struck a crowded bus terminal near a market in Huriya, a northwest Baghdad district that once had a large population of Sunnis but after the American-led invasion saw horrific ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias and death squads, who killed or drove thousands of Sunnis out.

Survivors and relatives of the victims in the Tuesday blast were enraged and on edge. One man lost 11 relatives, including five female cousins. At a courtyard in front of the Kadhimiya Hospital morgue, people screamed, wept and shrieked. Some cursed the government for allowing the blast to happen while others called on God for revenge.

People fleeing the blast site who were interviewed by a New York Times reporter at a cordon set up around the scene of the attack said there had been two bombs, not the single explosion that Iraqi officials described. Iraqi forces sealed off the area and allowed in only ambulances and police vehicles. One worker at the morgue of nearby Kadhimiya Hospital said that 35 to 40 bodies had been brought to the hospital within the first two hours.

The bomber struck as Iraqi and American troops were attending a neighborhood meeting nearby, according to one Iraqi police officer interviewed at the scene. After the blasts, the police officer said, some people angrily surrounded Humvees and started throwing rocks and other objects. A rumor swept the crowd of frantic survivors that there was still one car bomb left that had yet to be detonated.

According to an official at the Interior Ministry, the casualty toll was the worst for any attack in Baghdad since early March, when a two-stage bomb blast in the Karada shopping district killed at least 54 people and wounded 123.

Riyadh Mohammed contributed reporting.

ain’t no insurgency?

Iraq Ain’t No Insurgency, Says Former Petraeus Aides

By Noah Shachtman
June 17, 2008 

Iraq cooled from a raging boil to a slow simmer, thanks mostly to tactics taken from the military’s counterinsurgency manual. Or, at least, that’s the accepted wisdom. But a group of military thinkers and Iraq veterans says the established narrative is all wrong. According to them, Iraq may not even be an insurgency at all.

In the classic insurgency scenario, you’ve got a group of guerrillas on one side, and an otherwise-legitimate “host government” on the other. It’s the job of a military like America’s to tip the balance towards stability and order, by keeping the insurgents from overthrowing that government.

But in Iraq, “the bulk” of what used to be the insurgents have “now realign[ed] themselves with the American forces” against “the nihilistic-Islamist terrorist Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Lt. Col. Douglass Ollivant notes in the latest edition of Perspectives on Politics, which is devoted to a critique of the now-famous counterinsurgency manual. “With the Sunni nationalists at least temporarily allied and AQI deprived of its sanctuary among the Sunni population, just who are the insurgents in Iraq against whom a counterinsurgency might be conducted?”

Instead, what seems to be going on in Iraq is a “competition among ethnic and sectarian communities for power and resources,” as General David Petraeus put it. Shi’ites are fighting Shi’ites; Sunnis are battling Sunnis; splinter groups from both sects are waging a low-level religious war; AQI and other jihadists are stirring chaos; and criminal gangs trying to profit from the mayhem. It’s an “extremely difficult and lethal problem,” observes Lt. Col. Ollivant, who, until recently, was the chief of planning for U.S. military operations in Baghdad. “But it “is not exactly an insurgency.”

America isn’t exactly following its new manual for fighting such conflicts, writes Stephen Biddle, a Council on Foreign Relations scholar and former Petraeus advisor, in the same Perspectives on Politics issue.  The manual calls for reinforcing the national government’s legitimacy, and power. Instead, U.S. forces help set up a set of groups of neighborhood watchmen, alternatively known as “Concerned Local Citizens” (CLCs) or “Sons of Iraq” And these militias are “largely extragovernmental and independent,” Biddle notes. “Most CLCs provide their own security from continuing fear and distrust of their fellow Iraqis in the government security forces.”

That’s not to say the counterinsurgency manual hasn’t been helpful. “Some aspects of the manual have proven very helpful in Iraq, Biddle writes.

In particular, its guidance, for example, on unity of action, limitation of violence, the need to accept risk in population security, the importance of human intelligence, respect for the laws of war, adaptive small-unit leadership, accounting for the greater difficulty of logistics, or understanding the local society and culture are all sound and important, whether the conflict is ideological, ethnic, sectarian, or merely criminal. In these respects, the manual has contributed importantly to Iraq’s recent decline in violence as these provisions have been implemented. And its emphasis on adaptability has proven helpful in reacting to a war whose premises differ in important ways from those on which the manual was based.

And Petraeus, in an interview last August, argued that Iraq wasn’t simply a matter of guerilla vs. government. “The counterinsurgency operations we’re doing in Iraq are a mix of a number of different operations — offense, defense and stability and support,” he told me.

I mean, there will be major combat operations. There’s no other way to describe the clearance of Ramadi or Baqoubah than major combat operations. Then you’ll have counter-terrorism — in other words, very precision-targeted operations. Then you’ll have what again you might call stability and support operations – [what] we used to do in Bosnia. And it then starts to trend into peace enforcement, and peace keeping. There’s also arguably major crime operations, counter gang. There is nation building, big time. There’s even economic development. I mean, you’re doing a mix of all of those.

Mark Lynch has more outtakes from this roundtable on the counterinsurgency manual.  And John Robb, it should be noted, has been making similar points for months and months. As usual, he’s been ahead of the curve.