Iraq Progress Report: The Back Story
The back story to the anxiously awaited Iraq progress report to be delivered next month by General David Petraeus keeps getting fascinatinger and fascinatinger.
First we learned – and certainly not from the White House – that despite President Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, it will be written by the White House.
Now comes word that the White House wants the report to be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense, with Petraeus and Crocker giving closed-door congressional briefings.
So it’s okay for Petraeus to go on Fax News, but not appear before a televised session of Congress.
Mind you, this is all of a piece – the Bush administration’s pathological inability to level with the American people about anything — and even the war even when there may be some good news to report. And yet another insult to the families whose sons and daughters who are in Iraq, as well as those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
Today’s Iraq war cold shower is brought to you by Andrew Cockburn.
The Bush administration is furiously spinning the suicide bomb attacks (see photo) in northern Iraq that took the lives of at least 400 Kurds as the work of Al Qaeda, which it says can no longer operate in Baghdad because of the success of the surge.
First of all, no evidence has been provided that Al Qaeda is the culprit.
Secondly, Cockburn correctly notes that suicide bomb attacks in the capital actually have gone up:
“In reality, the number of car bombings in Baghdad in July was 5 per cent higher than last December and civilian casualties in explosions have increased by about the same percentage.”
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16 Responses to “Iraq Progress Report: The Back Story”
and even the war even when there may be some good news to report.
Bush could announce the war is over. We won. The Insurgents laid down their arms and have agreed to work with us to rebuild Iraq and the Middle East into a model region of stability and prosperity. OBL surrendered. Peace rules the earth. Nirvana has arrived.
It would not be good enough for the antiwar/antiBush haters. They would dissect it, find fault and blog it into the ground.
The problem with this administration is that they are clueless as to how to rule, given the internet and 5 billion blogging critics. They just have no clue what to do with people Like Shaun Mullen all over their back for any and everything they attempt to do.
Secrecy has not been any more pronounced in this administration then secrecy in any administration that has preceeded. It simply has been much more pronounced with a billion bloggers daily magnifying the cracks in this administration and turning them into gaping holes.
Somebody – The Internuts and MSM consumers bought the stories back in 2002 hook line and sinker. It continues today, my favorite example is the O’Hanlon lovefest on both sides, while a truly robust report from Cordesman goes unnoticed. If I read things right, Cordesman and O’Hanlon traveled together yet it’s all NYT’s op-ed and little from Cord on Iraq I actually read the 25 or so pages of the report before I trashed my MBR, Cord is a guarded optimist, not a Patreus buddy sending out resiumes.
Well, Rudi, I hastened back through your link all the way to the original interview transcript, hoping for once that your someone might be capable of taking the entirety of the Petraeus military surge action and critiquing all statistics, all-time, in the aggregate and making an assessment instead of the usual TMV approach of one statistic per article.
It appears to me that Cordesman, at least on the military operation question, dishes up the usual sleight of hand……..
Here we go again………let’s rehash the past.
Petraeus has been abundantly clear to me that, without political reconciliation, the COIN strategy……as a whole……is doomed. Who is left in the US that is denying that?
So, maybe Cordesman should critique the political coalition building? Well, again, he comments amount to “it hasn’t been done well”, but then hastens to applaud the efforts of the current Ambassador.
In substance……..other than the 4 or 5 paragraphs devoted to how we screwed up in 2003, 2004 and 2005, Cordesman seems to come up with nothing more than the Iraqis are not performing well enough. OK, fair enough, but if that’s the insight that gets one a high pay think tank job, I think I could qualify for that job too.
Shaun,
I agree that Petreaus and Crocker should report directly to Congress and I would hope Congress insists on it.
You can’t be serious here. Tell me, what other organization has demonstrated the capability to conduct complex, large, multiple SVBIED mass-casualty attacks in Iraq? There’s only one group with such a capability and the methodology employed in this latest attack points directly at what is still called AQI. Add to that the previous salafist attacks on the Yazdhi’s and recent “night letters” and other threats against them by and the charge of “no evidence” is pretty specious.
I haven’t seen any statistics on car-bombings in Baghdad and the article doesn’t point to any. Do you have a source for this claim?
I am fairly confident that this entire controversy is a tempest in a teapot and much ado about nothing. I don’t think that the President can prevent a military commander from testifying directly to Congress even if he wanted to. I think the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act is quite explicit on that point.
Jason,
Maybe Bush will claim executive priviledge. Again
I thought Iraq was home to WMDs that were threatening the United States from halfway around the world. Now they can’t even blow themselves up without Al Qaeda?
“There’s only one group with such a capability and the methodology employed in this latest attack points directly at what is still called AQI.”
You sure about that? Doesn’t AQI target Shiite civilians and US military mostly and not Kurds? I think the jury is still out on who is responsible. The various insurgent grps have had plenty of time to hone their civilian killing techniques.
“It would not be good enough for the antiwar/antiBush haters. They would dissect it, find fault and blog it into the ground.”
Actually it would be good enough. If this president was able to produce any results, ANY AT ALL, or even just be smoother about slapping us in the face with his constant “Mushroom treatment” of the US public, we’d give him some credit. If this surge in Baghdad does in fact have lasting effects and provide the security necessary for a normally functioning city he will get his props. But first he’s going to have to convince the majority of americans its not just more BS like what we’ve been getting fed these last few years.
CA – I didn’t open the link at BD, but BD is coming from riht-of-center and initially supported W. The Cordesman report is at CSIS. I read the whole report and he attacks the Biden/Demon plan, his plan is local, not 3-state or Maliki.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10208/cordesman.html
http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,3994/type,1/
http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_experts/task,view/type,34/id,3/
The second link gets you to the reports page, theere is a summary and link to a PDF file.
As usual, Chris, you’re completely wrong. This kind of attack is characteristic of AQI. Iraqis can blow themselves up, true, but only AQI has the demonstrated capability to pull off an attack of this nature, complexity and magnitude.
Sam,
Yes I’m sure. AQI attacks anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their salafistic notions. They murdered many Sunni’s in Anbar, but their mass-casualty attacks are reserved for others. There’s no other group that has demonstrated anywhere near the capability to conduct this type of attack. Add to that their threats specifically aimed at this group beforehand and it doesn’t take a genius to determine who is responsible.
The various insurgent groups (other than AQI and those closely affiliated with it) have NOT demonstrated the capability to conduct this type of attack, nor have they targeted the Yazhdi specifically.
Characteristics observed from afar don’t amount to much. I’d wait for some evidence before I just swallow the government’s story.
I’m not claiming anything one way or the other, but I think skepticism is necessary, especially toward the claims of our “slam-dunk” government.
R- thanks for the links. I had managed my own way to CFR, but thanks for adding CSIS.
(ed. note–but isn’t CFR supposedly a front for the neocons and Cheney was a member? or do I have my acronyms mixed up?)
I agree, Cordesman reads like a pretty knowledgeable dude. I don’t however read him as ready to denounce Petraeus or the surge, just that more has to happen politically to claim it a success.
OK, fair enough, nobody on my side should be claiming it a “success” per se, but similarly, I don’t see the credible support to label it a “failure” either.
We can honestly debate how long we should wait on the Iraqis or how much money we should continue to spend in the interim…….on those two points there is room for rationale debate.
CO – Even I will admit to tactical military success, but the bigger issue is Iraqis politics. For all our rants, both on the Left and Right, it’s a local Iraqis political problem and their solution not ours. South Africa is a good model. The Balkans settled down after Christian and Muslim factions “cleansed” their neighborhoods, same for Iraq. In the 80%/20% COIN fight, 20% (military) doesn’t trump zero of 80%(politics).
C’mon Chris. I ask you, name one insurgent organization in Iraq that has the demonstrated capability to engineer and pull off this attack besides AQI? This isn’t just “swallowing the government’s story.” Are there any independent terrorism experts claiming this is anything but AQI?
Skepticism is fine as long as it is evenly applied and one does not pick and choose when to be skeptical.
Well the Pottery Barn just lost another shelf in the Baghdada store. The CunningRealist digs up a story that show how decadent both the US and Iraq has become.
http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/2007/08/this-thing.html
Actually, the best explanation on who is behind the Yazidi massacre is here:
http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/thousands-of-sadrists-protest-sinjar.html
Scroll down to the letter from “IvoryBill” on Sinjar-Kirkuk connection.
Short answer? Most likely it’s ex-Ba’athists looking to avenge the Yazidis for Sunni expulsions from the region. AQI is often a cover for ex-Ba’athists who have the real military capability to launch SBVIEDs. All of this is part and parcel of a budding war of expulsion centered around Kirkuk. There’s a lot of interesting detail in this piece that fills in the players in the Sinjar region going back to the 1970s.