US-British Execution Squads Kill Thousands Of Iraqis

From Kurt Nimmo :

“More than 3,500 insurgents have been ‘taken off the streets of Baghdad’ by the elite British force in a series of audacious ‘Black Ops’ over the past two years,” reports Sean Rayment for the London Telegraph. “It is understood that while the majority of the terrorists were captured, several hundred, who were mainly members of the organization known as ‘al-Qa’eda in Iraq’ have been killed by the SAS.”

Recall the Washington Post, the CIA’s favorite newspaper, admitting that the putative leader of "al-Qaeda in Iraq," the criminal retard Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was little more than a Pentagon PSYOP.

The assassination program in Iraq is a collaborative effort between the British SAS and the American Delta Force. It is called “Task Force Black.”

General Petraeus was so impressed with the assassination effort he remarked: “They have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and, I think, exceptional savvy. I can’t say enough about how impressive they are in thinking on their feet.”

Let’s rewind. Recall the Washington Post, the CIA’s favorite newspaper, admitting that the putative leader of “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” the criminal retard Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was little more than a Pentagon PSYOP. “The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,” wrote Thomas E. Ricks in a front page story for the newspaper on April 10, 2006. “For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi’s role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the ‘U.S. Home Audience’ as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.”

As Michel Chossudovsky notes, much of this fairy tale propaganda is delivered to the corporate media by “top feeders” at the Pentagon. “Disinformation and war propaganda are an integral part of military planning. What the Washington Post fails to mention, however, is its own role in sustaining the Zarqawi legend, along with network TV, most of the printed press, and of course CNN and Fox News, not to mention a significant portion of the alternative media,” writes Chossudovsky. As we know, the Washington Post was long ago compromised by the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, so this role is now reflexive. US military-intelligence has created it own terrorist organizations. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program “to go after” these terrorist organizations. To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism in the Iraqi war theater must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. The Iraqi resistance movement is described as terrorists led by Zarqawi. In other words, “al-Qaeda in Iraq” is a fabrication designed to discredit the Iraqi resistance.

Sean Rayment and the London Telegraph would have us believe the British SAS is only killing “al-Qaeda in Iraq” members. In fact, it appears they are targeting the leadership of the Iraqi resistance while capturing and imprisoning street level “terrorists,” that is to say fighters resisting occupation.

As for British involvement in creating terrorism in Iraq, recall the two SAS agents captured by the Iraqis attempting to stage terror attacks. “Iraqi security officials on [September 19, 2005] variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives,” the Washington Post reported.

As I wrote at the time, “the next time you read or hear about crazed ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ terrorists blowing up children or desperate job applicants, keep in mind, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, the perpetrators may very well be British SAS goons who cut their teeth killing Irish citizens.”

The CIA ran likewise operations in Vietnam. As former CIA employee Ralph McGehee notes, the “U.S. and Saigon intel services maintained an active list of VC cadre marked for assassination” in the late 1960s. Dubbed Operation Phoenix, the assassination program “called for ‘neutralizing’ 1800 [alleged Viet Cong] a month.” Approximately one third of the Viet Cong targeted for arrest were summarily killed by so-called “security committees” in provincial interrogation centers outside of judicial control and funded by the CIA. More than 40,000 Vietnamese were killed under Operation Phoenix at an estimated cost of nearly $2 billion (see Ralph McGehee, CIA and Operation Phoenix in Vietnam).

The collaborative effort between the British SAS and America’s Delta Force is obviously designed to take out the leadership of the Iraqi resistance, led by a disparate and not necessarily connected combination of former Ba’athists, nationalists, Sunni and Shi’a militias. It is intended to decimate the leadership — referred to as “al-Qaeda in Iraq” terrorists in the corporate media — as the United States prepares to downsize its presence in Iraq and shift emphasis under a new administration to Afghanistan.

Most Iraqis Joined Insurgency For Money, Not For Jihad

This is probably one of the oldest and most mainstream media under-reported stories of the entire War On Iraq. Better late than never that it shows up in the pages of the Washington Post.

The story does, however, give the impression that Iraqis joining the insurgency for cash is a new development. Rubbish. From the day the Coalition of the Willing invaded and disbanded the Iraqi Army and de-Ba'athed the government agencies, Iraqis have been employed to kill or maim Americans.

Let your family starve or take $500 (enough to feed the family for months) to fight those who have invaded your country and are killing your friends and neighbours? It would appear for many unemployed and hungry Iraqis, the choice was easy :

Abu Nawall, a captured al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, said he didn't join the Sunni insurgent group here to kill Americans or to form a Muslim caliphate. He signed up for the cash.

"I was out of work and needed the money," said Abu Nawall, the nom de guerre of an unemployed metal worker who was paid as much as $1,300 a month as an insurgent. He spoke in a phone interview from an Iraqi military base where he is being detained. "How else could I support my family?"

U.S. military commanders say that insurgents across the country are increasingly motivated more by money than ideology and that a growing number of insurgent cells, struggling to pay recruits, are turning to gangster-style racketeering operations.

U.S. military officials have responded by launching a major campaign to disrupt al-Qaeda in Iraq's financial networks and spread propaganda that portrays its leaders as greedy thugs, an effort the officials describe as a key factor in their recent success beating down the insurgency.

"I tell a lot of my soldiers: A good way to prepare for operations in Iraq is to watch the sixth season of 'The Sopranos,' " said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces in central Iraq, referring to the hit HBO series about the mob. "You're seeing a lot of Mafioso kind of activity."

In Mosul, a northern city of 2 million people that straddles the Tigris River, U.S. officials are also spending money to buoy the Iraqi economy -- including handing out microgrants sometimes as small as several hundred dollars -- to reduce the soaring unemployment that can turn young Iraqi men into insurgents-for-hire.

Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of U.S. forces in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province, said the dismantling of insurgent financing networks is the primary reason that violent attacks here have dropped from about 18 a day last year to about eight a day now.

"We're starting to hear a lot of chatter about the insurgents running out of money," said Twitty, of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. "They are not able to get money to pay people for operations."

Abu Nawall said he joined the group over the summer because his metalworking business had dried up. The 28-year-old said he was responsible for running the bureaucracy and arranging payments to the 500 or so fighters for the group in the city, who he said try to carry out as many as 30 attacks a day.

"Most of our money comes from payments we receive from places like Syria and from kidnappings," Abu Nawall said, adding that ransoms can reach $50,000 a person. But he denied U.S. claims that attacks in the city had dropped or that the group's funding had stopped. "We still have money," he said.

Much of Abu Nawall's account could not be independently verified, though he said he was speaking freely and without coercion by his detainers. His description of the insurgency's viability was in some cases significantly more upbeat than the one offered by Iraqi and U.S. officials.

But Abu Nawall and his captors agreed that Iraqis were joining the insurgency out of economic necessity. "Of course we hate the Americans and want them gone immediately," Abu Nawall said. "But the reason I and many others joined the Islamic State of Iraq is to support our families."

Abu Nawall described himself as a middle-management accountant for the insurgency, but he acknowledged killing four Iraqi police officers because he viewed them as collaborators with the U.S. military. He said he was not primarily involved in ordering violent attacks.

The Full Story Is Here

Baghdad's Security Improves - Some Days Are Completely Car Bomb Free - Some Families Returning Home To Once Deadly Neighbourhoods

Sunnis, Shiites Unite To Protect Their Neighbourhoods From Insurgents, Militias

Assassinations, Car Bombings, Insurgent Attacks Move To Northern Iraq

One Day In Iraq : A 'Quiet' Day Sees 62 Killed, 21 Wounded In Fighting, Attacks

It's Official, US Now Arming And Paying Iraqi Insurgents

US-Israel-Sunni Alliance Against Iran Rapidly Takes Shape

We will never negotiate with terrorists, President Bush once thundered. He forgot to add, "until they kill and wound so many of our troops we have no choice but to pay them to stop killing us."

From the Washington Post :

Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.

Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road.

"Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot.

An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies.

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.

American generals insist they are not creating militias. In contracts with the U.S. military, the sheiks are referred to as "security contractors." Each of their "guards" will receive 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman's salary. U.S. commanders call them "concerned citizens," evoking suburban neighborhood watch groups.

But interviews with ground commanders and tribal leaders offer a window into how the United States is financing a new constellation of mostly Sunni armed groups with murky allegiances and shady pasts.

The two-week-old initiative, inspired by similar efforts underway in Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala provinces, has more than halved attacks here against American troops, from 19 a day to seven, U.S. commanders said. But in a land of sectarian fault lines and shifting tribal loyalties, the strategy raises concerns about the long-term implications of empowering groups that steadfastly oppose the Shiite-led government.

Shiite leaders fear that the United States is financing highly trained and well-armed militias that could undermine the government after American troops withdraw. Shiites worry such groups could weaken central authority and challenge democratic institutions that many would like to see take root.

U.S. generals said they vet the backgrounds of every recruit, but ground commanders here said that is all but an impossible task.

"Officially, we will not deal with those who have American blood on their hands," said Balcavage, 42. "But how do you know? You don't. There's a degree of risk involved. A lot of it is gut instinct. That's what I'm going on. They didn't teach me how to do this at West Point."

In this fertile region, divided by the Euphrates River and torn by violence, U.S. soldiers are overstretched and Iraqi troops are in short supply. Isolated Sunni tribal lands have provided extremists with havens that are off-limits to U.S. patrols and Iraq's mostly Shiite security forces.

"We've done nothing in this area, because we could not get in there," said Col. Michael Garrett, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, adding that the tribal strategy will "buy time and access."

The sheiks are promised reconstruction projects in their strongholds and jobs for their fighters in Iraq's security forces. In return, they pledge to patrol their lands, battle al-Qaeda in Iraq and dismantle roadside bombs, the main killer of U.S. soldiers.

The sheiks commit to securing oil pipelines and U.S. military supply routes, taking over some of the duties of Iraq's army and police. The fighters are provided with badges, yellow reflective belts and arrest powers.

"It's like rent-a-cop," said Maj. Rick Williams, a Tulsa native who is a liaison to tribal leaders in the region.

The goal is to mimic the successes unfolding in the Sunni heartland of Anbar, where U.S-backed sheiks have fought al-Qaeda in Iraq for months. There, insurgent attacks have dropped dramatically.

But in this patch of north Babil province, colored in green hues and crisscrossed with irrigation canals, marshes and fish farms, the tribal and sectarian landscape is more complex than in Anbar, which is homogenously Sunni. Babil's battle lines blur easily.

Hundreds of local Sunni tribesmen have aligned themselves with al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic Army or other Sunni insurgent groups. Shiite tribes are weak because loyalties to clerics are stronger than allegiances to sheiks.

Most of the new recruits hail from the Jenabi, the largest and most influential tribe. Under Saddam Hussein, the Jenabi were considered a "golden tribe," filling the ranks of his elite Republican Guard and army. After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Jenabi, like so many other Sunni tribes, joined the insurgency.

Ahmed Rasheed Khadr, 38, was among them. He and his fighters fought U.S. forces with a vengeance, he said. But by 2005, Khadr was facing a new threat. Extremists linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq overran Howija, where his family owned 700 acres, and imposed strict interpretations of Islamic laws. And like Afghanistan's Taliban, they banned smoking, television, even cellphones with video cameras, Khadr said.

The Jenabi splintered. Some sided with the al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters out of fear. Others joined because they wanted to isolate themselves from the region's Shiites and their militias. Those who refused to align were targeted, often by their own tribesmen.

"The Jenabi tribe, the problem they're having is that the al-Qaeda is them," Balcavage said.

The forming of alliances between US troops and Sunni insurgents grows more interesting when you add in the massive arms funding BushCo. is now planning to pour into Sunni dominated Middle East states, including Saudi Arabia, as part of creating a united and heavily armed front against Iran.

Australian defence contractors are salivating over the possibility of ramping up their sales of Bushmaster vehicles, catamarans and assorted weaponry, to the Middle East, as part of a 'payback' from the United States for the Howard government's commitment to spend more than $US28 billion on American war machines in the coming years.

The United States is now easing the pressure off the Sunnis in Iraq, by claiming that three quarters of all attacks against American troops last month were carried out by Shiites, primarily Shiite militias. While this may in fact be true, such a move also helps Dick Cheney's current plan to undermine and eventually depose the Maliki government because they have failed to get the new Oil Law passed.

Presumably, the Sunni factions and the Kurds, who can be expected to take control of the government should the Cheney plan come to fruition, have already agreed to pass the new laws which would see most of the control of Iraq's vast oil riches passed to foreign control, primarily American oil giants, with the Kurds given free rein to get the oil pipeline to the Haifa port, in Israel, under way.

The wider point in all this is that the US now seems to be firming up the Sunni alliance in Iraq, regardless of their American killing tendencies, as part of the wider Sunni-Israel-US alliance against Iran, which also forms a front to control Middle East oil against the Russians and Chinese, now firmly aligned with Iran through hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and natural gas deals.

Who Armed The Iraqi Insurgency?

The United States Did

crossposted from Your New Reality

This story confirms what has long been openly discussed for years amongst American, British and Australian soldiers who've served in Iraq, and come face to face with insurgents - that some insurgents were well-armed with American weapons, wearing American body armour and were being supplied with weapons and equipment given to the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police by the Americans.

But the arming of the insurgency and Shia death squads, and the trade of legally gained American weapons is utterly mind-boggling in its scope :

The US Government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, says the Government Accountability Office.

According to its July 31 report, the military “cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces”.

The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid increasing attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

Since 2004 the military “has not consistently collected supporting records confirming the dates the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving the items,” the report said.

US commanders often accuse foreign powers such as Iran of supplying arms to illegal militias fighting in Iraq, but the report shows they cannot fully account for the hundreds thousands of weapons they brought in themselves.

Last month, Turkey raised concerns over reports that separatist Kurdish guerrillas launching cross-border raids from northern Iraq had received US-supplied guns supposedly destined for Iraqi security forces.

The US has spent $US19.2 billion (22.61 billion) on Iraq's security forces since the 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, with $US2.8 billion ($3.3 billion) devoted to equipping them.

Four years after the 2003 US-led invasion the country is beset by several overlapping conflicts, and Iraqi security forces, particularly the police, are widely believed to be infiltrated by rival militias.

US media claims that Sunni insurgents are now joining with American troops in greater numbers to fight 'Al Qaeda'. But there exists an even more dangerous, and deadly, major source of conflict in the making.

Now the Iraqi Army and police have been utterly infiltrated by Shia militias, and those same militias have 'cleansed' hundreds of towns and Baghdad neighbourhoods of Sunnis, the US fears they will find themselves caught between future massive fighting between rivalShia militias and long-feuding family and tribal groups. Many of whom now believe they can take all of Iraq's prizes for themselves, as the US appears to be moving closer to troop withdrawals in late 2008 as they run out troops to deploy and the Republicans face destruction in presidential elections.


Tuesday In Iraq - Bombed Petrol Tanker Kills 50, Dozens More Found Dead - Five Coalition Troops Killed

Report Aerial Bombing Of Iraq Villages And Cities By US Up 500% On Same Period In 2006

Iraq Leader Struggles To Save Government As Sunni And US Support Fades

Sunnis Officially Quit Iraqi Government

Kurdish Leader Warns Of 'Civil War' Over Oil-Rich Kirkuk

US Forces To Remain In Iraq For "Years, Not Months" - War To Cost Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars More

Bush Contradicts Just About Everybody By Claiming Al Qaeda Is "Public Enemy Number One" In Iraq

As President Bush faces increasingly mounting pressure over the future funding of the Iraq War, and stands opposed to to the majority of Congress and more than 60% of the American population about extending the Iraq War beyond 2008, the president decided some weeks ago it was time to tear the wrapper off Al Qaeda In Iraq.

It's becoming clear that a fast-moving shift from the United States in sidelining the Sunni-led insurgency, to embracing it as an ally in restoring a non-Shia balance to the Middle East is about to take place. President Bush is trying to pump up flagging support for the Iraq War, and the 'War On Terror' in general, by making the deliberately vague and pretty well absurd claim that the same enemy who attacked the United States on 9/11, is now the number one threat to the United States in Iraq.

Bush needs to do this, re-market and re-package the Iraq War in the homeland, so when the US is seen to be making peace with the Iraqi insurgency, it can be claimed that the insurgency is no longer the greatest threat to the future of Iraq, or to American forces, and, in fact, the US is now working with members of the insurgency in fighting their common enemy : Al Qaeda.

If Bush can successfully sell this back home, and probably even if he can't, and the likelihood isn't strong, he will be able to extend the Iraq War through 2008 by claiming that the US and the Sunnis and the Shia and the Kurds have now all got Al Qaeda forces in Iraq on the run and the war must continue to finish them off.

Here's Bush recently attempting to resurrect the near mythical Al Qaeda threat :

President Bush on Wednesday declared al-Qaida "public enemy No. 1 in Iraq," placing increasing emphasis on the terror network forever associated with the deadliest attack in U.S. history.

The president also seemed to offer another definition of success in Iraq _ not a lack of violence, but a livable level for citizens.

In a speech to construction contractors, Bush put a heavy focus on al-Qaida, which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. In doing so, he sought more bluntly to cast the unpopular Iraq war in terms that U.S. citizens could connect to their own lives.

"For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," Bush said. "I strongly believe it's in our national interest to stay in the fight."

On Capitol Hill and across the nation, support for the war has long eroded as sectarian bloodletting gripped Baghdad. In the eyes of Democratic lawmakers and much of the war-weary public, U.S. forces have been dragged into a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis.

"The recent attacks are not the revenge killings that some have called a civil war," Bush told the Associated General Contractors of America. "They are a systematic assault on the entire nation. Al-Qaida is public enemy No. 1 in Iraq."

"Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed," he said. "And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not no violence. ... But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives."

Before the November election, Bush insisted to the media that the United States was "absolutely winning" the war. In December, he said the United States was neither winning nor losing, then clarified that he meant the U.S. was not succeeding as fast as he wanted.

The White House has repeatedly characterized success as an Iraq that can govern, sustain and defend itself.

Here's Dana Millbank's reality check :

President Bush is at odds with the American public and a restive congressional majority over the Iraq war, and even some Republicans talk about imposing new requirements that could trigger a troop withdrawal.

It's time to play the Qaeda card.

In a speech about Iraq yesterday morning at the Willard Hotel, the president mentioned Osama bin Laden's group -- 27 times. "For America, the decision we face in Iraq is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it's whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11," Bush told a group of construction contractors.

Never mind all that talk about sectarian strife and civil war in Iraq. "The primary reason for the high level of violence is this: Al-Qaeda has ratcheted up its campaign of high-profile attacks," Bush disclosed.

The man who four years ago admitted "no evidence" of an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks now finds solid evidence of a role in Iraq by the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"I don't need to remind you who al-Qaeda is," Bush reminded. "Al-Qaeda is the group that plot and planned and trained killers to come and kill people on our soil. The same bunch that is causing havoc in Iraq were the ones who came and murdered our citizens."

This new line of argument would seem to present some difficulty for the White House, and not only because, as the Pentagon inspector general reported last month, al-Qaeda had no ties to Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003. More to the point: If the problem in Iraq isn't sectarian strife, then why is the U.S. military building walls to separate Sunni enclaves from Shiite neighborhoods?

On the Hill, Republicans took a Qaeda cue from the White House. "I can't understand how my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, knowing that al-Qaeda is in charge over there, knowing that they want to destroy us, knowing that Osama bin Laden wants to destroy America, that you want to pull out," Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.) railed on the House floor.

If Democrats are intimidated by the Qaeda card, they didn't show it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), an hour before visiting the White House to meet with Bush, gave an Iraq speech on the House floor. "This administration," she said, "should get a clue."

Bush not only wants to clear the way for the Sunni insurgency to now openly partner with the US in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, and using that as a gateway to bring the rebellion in from the cold, with the backing of Saudi Arabia, but it is a clear push by the president to try and link up all the dangers in Iraq to US troops to one clear and well known enemy : Al Qaeda.

The reality is too hard to sell in soundbites. Bush Co. don't want to have to explain that US forces are coming under attack from Sunni insurgents, rogue Iraq police and soldiers, angry Shia militias who don't want Americans in their neighbourhoods, or that Shia death squads are sectarian-cleansing entire suburbs of Baghdad, or that Sunnis are attacking Shia, and Al Qaeda is attacking both and US forces, and who knows who is setting off car bombs in Kirkuk.

Bush Co. needs a simple, clear identifiable enemy for the re-packaging of the Iraq War as something worth more American blood and billions. Al Qaeda, therefore, must be the new Nazis.

This attempt at rejigging the public focus on what is happening in Iraq is really only for US audiences, and a decreasing slice of the US population at that. Most of the rest of the world seems to have a clear understanding of the real enemy that the US faces in Iraq : Iraqis who are demanding the occupation of their country end, and all US troops leave, sooner rather than later.

On the end to the occupation, at least, most Iraqis are now united.

Is Bush Now Facing A Republican Mutiny Over Iraq?

Flasback : March, 2003 - Chaos In The Middle East, Via Iraq, Is The NeoCon Grand Plan

Bush Begs For More Time As Republican Revolt Gathers Pace

Flashback : First Reports Surface Of Israeli Intelligence Claims That Iraq Was Involved In 9/11

Majority Of Iraq Lawmakers Demand Timetable For US Troop Withdrawals

Thursday In Iraq : 60 Iraqis, 3 US Troops Killed - Mass Grave Discovered, Street Fighting In Baghdad Suburbs, Car Bombs, Executions

Bush Talk Of Mistakes In Iraq Seen As Admission Of Failures, Defeat, A Lost War, By Sunni Insurgents

A remarkable story follows from the London Times who followed up recent talk from President Bush of the mistakes the United States made in fighting the War On Iraq by going directly to the enemy : the Sunni insurgents who have managed to fight off the Americans for almost four years, killing thousands and holding back the Shiites from seizing control of the entire country.

The admission by Bush is bizarre because it did exactly what he had accused anti-war Democrats and pro-peace protesters of doing for years, giving comfort and inspiration to the enemy. To admit errors amongst some Sunni tribes is to be seen as weak, particularly if such admissions come from leaders.

That the most powerful leader in the world would admit to a host of mistakes is widely viewed in Iraq as Bush admitting defeat.

Excerpts From The London Times :

Abu Mo’ath, of the ’Islamic and Nationalist Front for the Liberation of Iraq, said: "This strategy is nothing new ....but the new thing about it is the defeated accent of the American President Bush who always worked hard to appear tough and strong, and rejected any sort of negotiations about Iraq’s problems."

Abu Qutada, an anti-coalition fighter with the self-styled al-Rashideen Army, said: "It’s very clear that America failed completely in Iraq in all aspects, as their politicians are saying.

"But we say defeated, not just failed, and they are nowadays desperate to find a way out of their troubles here."

Ibrahim Aloush, a Jordanian political analyst, said: "Until a few months ago, Bush and the Neocons were acting so pompously about their policy in Iraq. So where’s that triumphant look now? It’s definitely not there any more.

"The guy looks tired, literally beaten. And he was beaten in Iraq. Even if the admission of mistakes came in the fom of ’We weren’t doing enough’ that still remains a testimony to the valiant efficiency of the Iraqi resistance on the ground."

Fathi Khataab, in Egypt’s Islamist opposition al-Ahrar newspaper : "No doubt that the admission of mistakes in Iraq is a victory for the Iraqi resistance and a clear failure of the American administration in Iraq. Bush’s plans to increase the troops is proof of his failure. Because of this failure in front of the Iraqi resistance he has started searching for a victory in the region in Iran and Syria."

While Bush may have felt he needed to placate the American public by giving in to their demands that he admit he got the war wrong, many times, it is important to realise that any political ground he may gained back home is completely irrelevant in Iraq.

It would be hard to imagine anything else in the past six or twelve months that appears to have inspired the Sunni insurgents, and all the enemies of America in Iraq and across the Middle East, more than for Bush to state being candid and admitting that his war had failed.

Has any war-time leader of the West ever done such a thing before? Admitted defeat in the face of the enemy?


Bombings Hit Students At Iraq University : More than 140 Dead, More Than 250 Wounded

Bush Interview On 60 Minutes : "Killer Is A Killer" - Warnings To Iran To Stay Out Of Iraq - Warnings To Iraq To Stop The Slaughter - America's Patience Is "Not Unlimited"

Bush Interview On PBS' News Hour : Widespread Doubts About Viability Of Maliki Government

The Profits Of War - For Some US Corporations Business Has Never Been So Good

US Commander : Time Is Running Out In Iraq

More Than 34,450 Civilians Killed in Iraq In 2006, According To UN

IRAQ : THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SUNNI RESISTANCE

SUNNIS VS AL QAEDA

AL QAEDA VS COALITION

COALITION VS AL QAEDA AND SUNNIS


From Gareth Porter writing for the Asia Times :

Are the Sunni leaders in Iraq's al-Anbar province finally coming around to joining the US counterinsurgency war?

That's how the New York Times portrayed the situation last week. Times reporters quoted a Sunni tribal leader in Anbar as saying that 25 of 31 tribes in the province had banded together to fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Iraqi insurgents allied with them.

The newspaper said US officials, who had "tried to persuade the

Sunni Arab majority in Anbar to reject the insurgency and embrace Iraqi nationalism", saw the announcement as an "encouraging sign".

But careful readers of the Times report would have noticed that something was missing from the picture of the political-military situation in Anbar that is crucial to making sense of the tribal leader's announcement, as well as the spin put on it by the unnamed US officials.

The missing piece is the home-grown Sunni armed resistance to the US occupation, which enjoys the strong support of the Sunni population and tribal leaders in the province and has been at war with the foreign terrorists of al-Qaeda for many months. According to a report by prominent security analysts Anthony Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid, foreign fighters represent only 4-10% of some 30,000 armed insurgents in Iraq.

The omission of any mention of the indigenous Sunni resistance forces from the Times story followed a Washington Post report on a secret US Marine Corps intelligence analysis of the situation in Anbar, in which Pentagon officials were quoted as saying the document portrays a "vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq".

The disappearance of Sunni resistance forces from these papers' coverage of the situation in Anbar mirrors the view presented by the US military briefers for the past six months, which has systematically ignored what has become, in effect, a third force in the war in Iraq - a Sunni resistance to both the occupation and al-Qaeda.

That third force emerged last year out of the struggle in the Sunni heartland of Iraq over the constitutional referendum and December parliamentary election. Al-Qaeda in Iraq threatened anyone in Anbar province who participated in the referendum with death, but the major Sunni armed groups broke openly with al-Qaeda and supported full participation by Sunnis to defeat the referendum.

Sunni resistance groups then began attacking al-Qaeda forces in Ramadi, Husayba and other towns in Anbar. By early 2006, these armed groups had captured 270 foreign infiltrators, according to the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper. US military command spokesman Major-General Rick Lynch publicly confirmed in January that the insurgents had killed six "major leaders" of al-Qaeda in Ramadi.

From late November to February, Lynch made the fundamental conflict between the Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda a major theme of his briefings. He told reporters, "The local insurgents have become part of the solution."

But the Sunnis' solution included the demand that the United States set a date for withdrawal in return for their ending the insurgency and cooperating with an Iraqi government against al-Qaeda. And in the interim period before a final withdrawal, the Sunnis wanted the withdrawal of US forces from Anbar, along with the largely Shi'ite army units they had sent in to control the province.

At a meeting at a US base in Ramadi in December, reported by the London Sunday Times in February, a former Iraqi general, Saab al-Rawi, representing the Iraqi Sunni insurgents in the province, asked General George Casey, the senior US commander in Iraq, for the withdrawal of US forces from Ramadi and their replacement by a brigade of former soldiers from the area.

But Casey angrily refused, accusing Rawi of wanting a US pullout so the insurgents could take over the city. The Iraqi general recalled that his forces had protected the city for six months after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. "You have not protected this city and can never do so," said Rawi, "for you are foreigners here - unwanted and unwelcome."

The Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government was more responsive to the Sunni plea. The Los Angeles Times reported on January 29 that national security adviser Mowaffak Rubaie acknowledged that the major Sunni resistance organizations were in an irreconcilable conflict with al-Qaeda. "We are talking about two ideologies," he declared.

Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari promised the Sunni tribal leaders in January that he would support the request for the replacement of US troops in Ramadi with local Sunni forces, according to Al-Hayat.

But that never happened, and the US military command soon reversed its line on the Sunni armed organizations. Instead of touting them as important to the solution to the al-Qaeda problem, the US military command began to act as though the United States didn't need Sunni armed organizations at all.

In his March 9 briefing, Lynch dropped the distinction between the Sunni armed organizations and al-Qaeda. "The people of Iraq are uniting against the insurgency," he declared. And he added, "Remember, democracy equals failure for the insurgency."

A review of the transcripts of US command briefings since then reveals that the spokesman has systematically avoided any comment suggesting that there is a third alternative to al-Qaeda control over Anbar and occupation by US and Shi'ite troops.

In contrast to the official military line, however, in April the London Daily Telegraph quoted the senior US officer in Ramadi, Colonel John Gronski, as saying that almost all the fighting against coalition forces in his sector had been by Iraqis, and that in the previous five months not a single foreigner had been detained in and around Ramadi. Gronski also admitted that the Sunni insurgents had the support of the local population and that local tribal leaders regarded the resistance as "legitimate".

After the new government was formed under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in May, representatives of the Sunni resistance pressed their case in talks with the Iraqi government. USA Today reported on July 4 that the government was "studying a request from some local insurgent leaders to supply them with weapons so they can turn on the heavily armed foreign fighters who were once their allies ..."

But Washington has continued to oppose such schemes, according to Ayad al-Samarrai, the second-highest official of the Sunni-based Islamic Party. In a report published on September 13, The Times of London quoted Samarrai saying leaders in Anbar had made several proposals to the US on building "an indigenous army and police force" in the province, but to no avail.

The US resistance to arming the Sunnis in al-Anbar, he said, had led many Sunni leaders to believe the US was deliberately helping al-Qaeda because it preferred chaos there.

The Sunni resistance to both al-Qaeda and the occupation represents an acute embarrassment to the US military and the administration in Washington. The US needs the help of the Sunni resistance against al-Qaeda, but to get it, it must admit that it can't do the job itself. Since that option is still unacceptable, the administration has had to pretend that there are only two sides in the struggle in Anbar - not three.