How's it Going in Iraq?

MC,

Better turn off the television and step away from the radio, because that is what is going to happen.

That's the facts jack.



DD

 

In other words M.C., Ignore the Truth.

 

I'm confused. You guys think the US is just going to leave Iraq suddenly one of these days? Bush has made it pretty clear that he wants to democratize Iraq as a start of reforms in the entire region.

 

The last thing I think the U.S. should do is leave the region now. We are in it, for better or for worse but we have to maintain some stability over there.

I'm sorry about the confusion of my post, I thought DD was referring to the way things were going over there right now.

 

Oh I thought you were responding to my post, pgabriel. I see your point now.

 

Those are the facts.

The question is...will it be worth the deaths of US servicemen?

Only time will tell.

 

Yeah, Paul Bremer is now the free speech czar. He decidewhat speech is free. Nice gig if you can get it.


Shouldn' t the ruler of Iraq be confirmed by the US Senate or something?

 

To be fair, I heard an interview of David Rode, one of the Times men in bagdad (and by definition, a cardcarrying member of the "liberal" media, ha), on bbc world this morning and the interviewer tried to bring the topic of the speech restrictions up and portray them as draconian, totalitarian, etc, and he said that it wasn't as bad as they had been made out to be.

 

Stay
What Iraqis really want from the Coalition.
By Adnan Hussein

Both Arab nationalists and pan-Islamists are calling for the "immediate" withdrawal of American and Coalition troops from liberated Iraq.

The "Don't-touch-Saddam" choir, that opposed military action against the "Vampire", now wants the Coalition to abandon Iraq to its fate and simply walk away.

If that happens the Arab nationalists and the Islamists, traditional enemies now united by anti-Americanism, might feel good about their Arabness and their Islamicness.

But what will happen in Iraq?

They couldn't care less.

They wish nothing good for Iraq.

They only wish something bad for America.

The Coalition should ignore calls coming from bankrupt elements that have brought nothing but disaster for Arabs and Muslims whenever given a chance.

The truth is that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people do not want the Coalition to leave until it is asked to do so by a freely elected and democratic government in Baghdad.

Let us see what could happen if the Coalition were to abandon Iraq right away.

The remnants of Saddam's fascist regime will emerge from their hideouts and regroup. There may be thousands of them. And what is certain is that many will be armed. With the regular army disbanded and the police nonexistent, armed Saddamites could make a fresh bid for power or, at least, provoke new carnage in some cities.

The absence of law and order could provoke fights between Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Arabs, Kurds and Turcomans, and so on. Having been pitted against one another by the fallen dictator for decades, all these ethnic and religious communities have grievances against one another. Saddam has planted many poisonous seeds of sectarian hatred that, given the right political climate, could grow quickly.

Neighboring powers could also intervene in a wakened and disorganized Iraq.

Turkey is itching to enter, supposedly to protect the Iraqi Turcomans against the Kurds. Ankara could also take military action to prevent what it fears could become an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. We know that Turkey has already sent large quantities of arms, disguised in trucks bringing in food aid, to the Turcomans in Kirkuk, regardless of warnings from Washington.

If Turkey intervenes, Iran will also be sure to step in, supposedly to protect the Shiites in the south. We know that Iran, too, has been sending special agents and arms, also disguised in food aid trucks, to the Iraqi Shiite heartland.

It is only if such things are allowed to happen that "the gates of hell" will open, as predicted by Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary general who opposed the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein.

The Arab nationalists and the Islamists had joined forces once before. It was in 1990 when they both urged Saddam Hussein to retain occupied Kuwait and use its oil wealth to finance a broader war against "Zionism and Imperialism."

At that time they didn't care if Kuwait were invaded and burned. Today, they don't care if Iraq is burned. All they want is some cheap glory for their sick ideologies.

The people of Iraq, however, are not going to oblige.

The self-styled champions of Arabism and Islamism do not speak for my people.

In my humble opinion, a majority of our people want the Coalition to stay until the last elements of the fallen regime are tracked down and brought to justice and the threat of a Baathist comeback is removed forever.

The Coalition still has plenty to do to help the Iraqi people put the Saddamite criminals on trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and then to start a program of reconstruction.

The government of Iraq should be transferred to Iraqis at the earliest opportunity.

But what constitutes an earliest opportunity is a matter only for the Iraqis and the Coalition — not for those who wish to make of Iraq a sacrifice to their sick dreams.

— Adnan Hussein, an Iraqi journalist, is a managing editor of the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Alawsat.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-hussein050203.asp

 

Shiites in Iraq
Amir Taheri

Before the start of the campaign to liberate Iraq, pundits and exiles had cast the Shiite community as an almost unconditional ally of the United States. Iraqi Shiites were supposed to be as keen to rise against Saddam Hussein as the so-called "Arab street" was sizzling to explode in his support.

In the event, however, there was little or no uprising of the Shiites.

Terrorised by Saddam's machinery of fear, the community did not wish to repeat its tragic experience of 1991 when it rose and, abandoned by the US, was crushed by the regime.

Less than two weeks after the liberation the tune has changed.

The same pundits and exiles now claim that Shiites represent the biggest threat to US plans in Iraq. That claim is supported by television footage of a pilgrimage held last week by hundreds of thousands of Shiites to the shrine of Imam Hussein at Karbala, 80 miles south of Baghdad.

The gathering was impressive by any standards as was the fervour of the pilgrims. Coming on the occasion of Arba'in, the 40th day of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein over 1300 years ago, the pilgrimage attracted the faithful from all over Iraq.

For the first time in 32 years Iraqi Shiites were able to perform a pilgrimage that had been banned by the Ba'athist regime. It was also the first free mass gathering in Iraq in almost half a century not to be crushed by the regime's tanks and helicopters.

Was all that a show of anti-Americanism or, at least, a "warning" to Washington as some pundits claim? On the contrary: The gathering showed how isolated anti-American groups are among Iraqi Shiites.

Throughout Arba'in, small bands of militants, some freshly arrived from Iran, were posted at the entrance of streets leading to the two main shrines. They carried placards and posters calling for an "Islamic republic" and shouted anti-American slogans. But it soon became clear that few pilgrims were prepared to join them.

All the pilgrims that this reporter could talk to expressed their "gratitude and appreciation" to the US and its British allies for having freed them from the most brutal regime Iraq had seen since its creation in 1921.

Needless to say, however, most television cameras were focused on the small number of militants who had something "hot", that is to say anti-American, to say.

After several days of talking to Shiites in Karbala and Najaf it is clear to this reporter that there is virtually no undercurrent of anti-Americanism in the heartland of Iraqi Shi'ism. Even some clerics who have just returned from exile in Iran were keen to advertise their goodwill towards the US.

All that, however, could quickly change.

The advent of liberty has unleashed energies that could both create and destroy. Here you have millions of people, mostly aged below 25 and never allowed to take the smallest decision without the fear of political authority, who suddenly feel that no one is in charge.

"We have been freed from a despotic father and feel like orphans: both happy and terrified," says Mahdi Khadhim, a Karbala schoolteacher, expressing a widely held sentiment.

Many Iraqis find it puzzling that the US is not telling them what to do or not to do. One question a reporter is persistently asked is whether the Americans or "at least the British" have a plan for Iraq?

"Where do we go from here?" asks Hassan Naqib, a theology student just back from Iran. "Are we supposed to sort things out as we like?"

The US and its allies impressed the Iraqis by the efficiency of their military machine. (Although little noticed by the media, few Iraqis outside Baghdad, and to a lesser extent Basra, directly experienced the war.)

Some Iraqis wonder whether that efficient military machine might lack a political brain. The political vacuum created by the collapse of the Ba'athist regime widens by the day, and there are no signs that the US or anybody else for that matter might have a clue as to how to fill it.

Having no jobs or schools to go to millions of young men gather at teahouses or at private homes to discuss politics, something they had never dared indulge in. The atmosphere is charged with expectation and uncertainty. These young men want to be heroic and revolutionary, the makers of a history of which they had always been mere objects.

For the time being few are looking towards Iran either as model or as a source of inspiration. But that, too, could change.

During the past week or so hundreds of Iranian " revolutionary agents" have slipped into Iraq with vast sums of money, small arms, and propaganda material including portraits of the late Iranian firebrand Ruhallah Khomeini.

An extraordinary number of crisp US dollar notes is in circulation in the "holy" cities, most of it coming not from Uncle Sam, but from the mullahs in Tehran. In the absence of Iraqi radio and TV networks, and with the failure of the Americans to set up their own channels, many have to tune in to broadcasts from Iran.

Much of current American "political " activity among the Shi'ites consists of an extension of the fight within the Bush administration about who to promote as the interim leader for Iraq.

This leads to comical scenes. A local mullah is first approached and offered money by an American " contact" in exchange for supporting Ahmad Chalabi, a former exile leader now back in Baghdad. Later, another American "contact" calls on the same mullah and offers him money not to support Chalabi.

Some American " contacts" have forged a dialogue with the so-called Badr Brigade, a militant armed group backed by Iran. The group's leader, Abdelaziz Hakim, returned to Karbala with a bodyguard of 200 men last week and has had several meetings with American " contacts". He has promised to change the name of his group's political wing, The High Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), to replace the word " revolution" with " democracy" to please the Americans.

At the same time another group of American "contacts" are warning Iraqi interlocutors not to go near Hakim and his group.

Hakim's men, meanwhile, are trying to persuade shopkeepers in Karbala and Najaf to display portraits of Khomeini alongside with those of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqer Hakim, who is still in exile in Tehran, so far with little success.

There is a widely held impression that rival factions in Washington are prepared to forge alliances even with the devil, which in this case could mean the mullahs of Tehran, to sabotage each other's plans.

President George W Bush needs to get a grip on situation that could run out of control. He must decide who is in charge of the political aspect of the Iraqi project. And, indeed, what that project consists of.

Amir Taheri is the Iranian author of 10 books on the Middle East and Islam. He can be reached through www.benadorassociates.com

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Taheri20030501.shtml

 

June 12 CENTCOM Briefing on Coalition Post-war Reconstruction and Stabilization Efforts (very long):

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030612-0269.html

 

The Associated Press June 03, 2003

Selling America: U.S. units try to win Iraqi hearts and minds
By Jim Krane

Sheik Abdul Jabar leaned forward in his chair, stroked his beard and delivered a warning to the U.S. Army Psychological Operations soldier seated across from him.

"We don't want anyone to touch our women," the Shiite cleric said as his companions in turbans and headscarves nodded. Then came other grievances, including a vague warning about U.S. soldiers displaying p*rnography.

"You talk to that soldier's boss, and immediately something will be done. I guarantee it," said Sgt. Eric Viburs, of the Army's 346th Psychological Operations Company, based in Columbus, Ohio. The tension eased, Marlboros and Kufa Colas were passed around, and soon Viburs was practically family.

The Americans aren't merely interested in the sheik's friendship. They want to enlist him as a mouthpiece in the poor Shiite Muslim neighborhood where he is a leader.

Across Iraq, dozens of three-person "psyops" teams are pursuing similar missions: befriending community leaders and using them to boost Iraqis' opinions of the United States and distribute its messages.

The Army's Psychological Operations force in Iraq is the largest in U.S. history, with 11 companies and almost 1,000 psyops personnel in the country or in support roles in the United States, said Lt. Col. Glenn Ayers, commander of the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion based in Fort Bragg, N.C.

Their mission is to persuade Iraqis to do the Pentagon's bidding: report unexploded munitions, vacate a building, support U.S. troops, give up.

It's a mission as old as war itself.

"You're basically trying to sell a product, and the product is 'Please surrender at your earliest possible convenience,"' said John Pike, a military analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a consulting group based in Arlington, Va.

During the war, psyops detachments helped engineer the surrender and desertion of thousands of Iraqi soldiers.

They dropped leaflets describing the proper way to hand over weapons. They carried a mobile radio station that told Iraqis the U.S. invasion force was on its way.

On the ground, the teams carry Sony MiniDisc players packed with bizarre sounds: commands in Arabic, helicopter and tank noises and sonic shrieks to clear crowds. One unit in southern Iraq deceived the Iraqi military by blaring recorded sounds of advancing tanks, Ayers said.

"We got the Iraqis to look in one direction when the real tanks came in the other direction," said Ayers.

Since the war's end, the psyops mission has changed to a "safety and stabilization" message. Teams roam Baghdad asking Iraqis about their daily problems and their opinions of the progress made under the U.S. occupation.

Information Radio, one of the U.S.-led coalition's three radio stations, broadcasts 24 hours a day. It warns Iraqis to watch for unexploded munitions, reports on moves to create a new government, explains food distribution efforts and carries other U.S. messages.

The job is similar - but tougher - than the marketing of, say, Coca-Cola, Ayers says.

"Cola is a product you already want to buy. Coke just has to convince you to buy its brand," Ayers said. "(Iraqis) don't want to buy our product. But we still have to sell it to them."

Like marketers, psyops soldiers study their target audiences.

They use groups of Iraqi prisoners who evaluate the message, often crafted by reservists who work in sales or marketing in civilian jobs. Psyops soldiers take courses in Arabic language and culture. They're comfortable in Iraqi crowds and homes.

In civilian life, Maj. Allen McCormick of West Chester, Ohio, is a marketing executive for Procter & Gamble. He devises pitches to persuade American teens to buy Pringles, Cover Girl and Scope. Now he tries to persuade Iraqi teens to embrace democracy and their American overseers.

Sometimes it's difficult to tell where the psychological operations begin and end.

"I don't tell them I'm psyop," said Sgt. Grey Wettstein of Ashtabula, Ohio, whose head is shaven and whose body is covered in tattoos. "They'll either think I'm into brain washing or I'm a psychologist."

There are three types of psyops missions.

White ops are true messages where the source is known. Gray ops are accurate, but the source is hidden. In a form of gray operation, one Baghdad weekly prints articles supplied by the military, most of which don't appear to come from a U.S. or military source. In exchange, the U.S. buys and distributes 70,000 of the newspapers.

Black ops are false rumors. The Army is prohibited from launching them. But that's not to say they don't exist.

Before the war, some Western media carried reports that, in retrospect, resemble black ops. One was that the United States might wreck Iraqi communications with a so-called electromagnetic pulse weapon. It never happened. In the second, a Kurdish group claimed Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz had defected. Aziz appeared on TV to disprove the story.

If the reports were engineered, the military says it had nothing to do with them.

"A lot of the stuff we don't deny," Wettstein said, "because it helps the situation at the time."

---

AP Business Writer Meg Richards in New York contributed to this report.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030605-hearts-minds01.htm

 

Rebuilding Iraq
Charles Krauthammer

May 16, 2003 |

WASHINGTON--There is a large and overlooked truth about the American occupation of Iraq: Whereas in postwar Germany and Japan we were rebuilding countries that had been largely destroyed by us, in Iraq today we are rebuilding a country destroyed by its own regime.


In World War II, we leveled entire cities (Tokyo, Dresden, Hiroshima, many more), targeted and razed the enemy's industrial infrastructure, killed and displaced countless civilians. We turned the countries to rubble; then we rebuilt them.

In Iraq, it was Saddam who turned the place to rubble. By any historic standard, the amount of destruction caused by the coalition was small. Most of the damage was inflicted upon the symbols, barracks, ministries and communication organs of the Baathist regime. The infrastructure--roads, bridges, dams, sewage systems, schools, mosques and hospitals--was barely touched.

And as for the people, one of the more unnoticed facts of this war was the absence of refugees--the Iraqi people's silent homage to their trust in the stated allied purpose of coming to liberate and not destroy.

Iraq today is a social, economic, ecological and political ruin not because of allied bombing, but because of Baath rule. Since 1979, Saddam managed the economic miracle of reducing by 75 percent the GDP of the second-richest oil patch on the planet. That takes work. Saddam's capacity for destruction was up to the task. He reduced the Shiite south to abject poverty. He turned a once well-endowed infrastructure to rot by lavishing Iraq's vast oil resources on two things: weaponry and his own luxuries. And in classic Stalinist fashion, he destroyed civil society, systematically extirpating any hint of free association and civic participation.

And don't talk to me about sanctions being the cause of this misery. First of all, Saddam willfully brought on the sanctions by violating the disarmament conditions that he signed to end the Gulf War. Moreover, the billions he skimmed and scammed from the U.N. oil-for-food program and from even shadier oil deals went into schools filled to the rafters with machine guns, into cold cash stashed behind walls and into shagadelic palaces--some 50(!) built after the Gulf War and thus under sanctions.

Upon the detritus of 30 years of indigenous misrule, we come to rebuild. This is not to say that we lack self-interest here. We are embarking on this reconstruction out of the same enlightened altruism that inspired the rebuilding of Germany and Japan--trusting that economic and political success in Iraq will have a stabilizing and modernizing effect on the entire region.

But our self-interest does not detract from the truth that what we are doing in Iraq is morally different from what we did after World War II. In Iraq, we are engaged in rescue rather than the undoing of our own destruction. We've undertaken the maddening task of cleaning up someone else's mess.

As the extent of the horror inflicted by the Baathist regime is documented day by day, opponents of the war are increasingly shamed. With every mass grave discovered, those who marched with such moral assurance just two months ago under the banner of human rights and social justice must make an accounting. In the name of peace, they supported the legitimacy and defended the inviolability of a regime that made relentless war on every value the left pretends to uphold:

Human rights: Outside of North Korea, Saddam was the greatest violator of human rights in the world. The list of his crimes, the murders and the tortures, will take a generation to catalog.


Economic equity and social justice: Saddam was not just a murderer, he was the king of robber barons. Since 1983, Iraq did not even have a national budget. Every penny of its wealth was plundered by Saddam and his fellow mafiosos and spent on the most grotesque extravagances, while his people were made to starve.


The environment: Saddam was unquestionably the greatest eco-terrorist in history. During the Gulf War, he produced the worst deliberate oil spill ever. He followed that with the worst oil-well fires ever. Then came perhaps the most astonishing ecological crime in history: deliberately draining the marshes of Southern Iraq in order to depopulate and starve out the ``Marsh Arabs'' who were hostile to his regime, creating a wasteland that will take years for the world--meaning Iraq's American rescuers--to undo.
Torturer, murderer, plunderer, despoiler. ``We've gotten rid of him,'' said presidential candidate Howard Dean, prewar darling of the Democratic left. ``I suppose that's a good thing.''

It was a very good thing. A noble thing. And rebuilding the place that Saddam destroyed is an even nobler thing. It is fine to carp about our initial failures at reconstruction; it is well to remember, however, the nobility of the entire enterprise.

©2003 Washington Post Writers Group

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20030516.shtml

 

Another quote from the article. What does this sound like???


"Some soldiers are vexed by what they see as a contradictory reception from Iraqis. Sometimes the public appears welcoming, sometimes actively hostile. The problem recalls other military U.S. deployments, including in Afghanistan, where it can be difficult to distinguish friends from enemies."