Cordesman, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack all took the same trip to Iraq. The O'Hanlon/Pollack report got near Paris Hilton coverage. Read Cordesman's synopsis and then try to find his assessment anywhere in the US press. -ww

The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq: A Trip Report

Anthony H. Cordesman | August 6

CSIS - Synopsis (full report pdf):

Everyone sees Iraq differently. As one leading US official in Iraq put it, “the current situation is like playing three dimensional chess in the dark while someone is shooting at you.” It is scarcely surprising that my perceptions of a recent trip to Iraq are different from that of two of my traveling companions and those of several other recent think tank travelers to the country.

From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq's ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq's politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.

The attached trip report does, however, show there is still a tenuous case for strategic patience in Iraq, and for timing reductions in US forces and aid to Iraqi progress rather than arbitrary dates and uncertain benchmarks. It recognizes that strategic patience is a high risk strategy, but it also describes positive trends in the fighting, and hints of future political progress.

These trends are uncertain, and must be considered in the context of a long list of serious political, military, and economic risks that are described in detail. The report also discusses major delays and problems in the original surge strategy. The new US approach to counterinsurgency warfare is making a difference, but it still seems likely from a visit to the scene that the original strategy President Bush announced in January would have failed if it had not been for the Sunni tribal awakening.

Luck, however, is not something that can be ignored, and there is a window of opportunity that could significantly improve the chances of US success in Iraq if the Iraqi government acts upon it. The US also now has a country team in Iraq that is far more capable than in the past, and which may be able to develop and implement the kind of cohesive plans for US action in Iraq that have been weak or lacking to date. If that team can come forward with solid plans for an integrated approach to a sustained US effort to deal with Iraq’s plans and risks, there would be a far stronger and more bipartisan case for strategic patience.<!--break-->

Disaster looms as 'Saddam dam' struggles to hold back the Tigris
By Patrick Cockburn in Mosul
Published: 08 August 2007

As world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse.

"It could go at any minute," says a senior aid worker who has knowledge of the struggle by US and Iraqi engineers to save the dam. "The potential for disaster is very great."

If the dam does fail, a wall of water will sweep into Mosul, Iraq's third largest city with a population of 1.7 million, 20 miles to the south. Experts say the flood waters could destroy 70 per cent of Mosul and inflict heavy damage 190 miles downstream along the Tigris.

The dam was built between 1980 and 1984 and has long been known to be in a dangerous condition because of unstable bedrock. "The dam was constructed on a foundation of marls, soluble gypsum, anhydrite, and karstic limestone that are continuously dissolving," said specialists at the US embassy in a statement. "The dissolution creates an increased risk for dam failure."

In fact the state of the two-mile long earthfill dam, which holds back some eight billion cubic metres of water in Iraq's largest reservoir, has recently been deteriorating at ever-increasing speed. According to one source, the chance of a total and immediate failure of the dam is now believed to be "reasonably high" at current water levels and "most certain" within the next few years.

The effort to prevent the collapse of the dam is overseen by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. The US Army Corps of Engineers has made continual efforts to monitor the deterioration and undertake remedial action. But a US report, obtained separately from the embassy statement, says that "due to fundamental and irreversible flaws existing in the dam's foundation, the US Army Corps of Engineers believes that the safety of the Mosul Dam against a potential catastrophic failure cannot be guaranteed".

Iraq, the site of the biblical flood, is very vulnerable to inundation because it is very flat south of the Kurdish mountains. Prior to the building of dykes and other control measures in the early 20th century, there were frequent disastrous floods when snow melted in the mountains of Turkey.

The great majority of Iraqis live along the Tigris and Euphrates. If the dam does break, specialist sources say that the impact of the flood would be felt all along the Tigris river valley. This would mean heavy damage to cities such as Tikrit and Samarra and the floods could reach as far as Baghdad, home to six million people, though by then the force of the floodwaters should have dissipated.

Given that the Iraqi government has only intermittent control of this area north of the capital, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, it is unlikely it could undertake effective measures to save lives if a flood occurred.

The main method used to strengthen the foundations of the Mosul dam is pumping liquid cement into it or grouting. But a US-funded study concluded that grouting would not save the dam although it did need to be continued and enhanced "to reduce the probability of failure". An international panel of experts called in by the Ministry of Water Resources in Baghdad concluded that a limit should also be placed on the level of the water in the reservoir - that was done in April last year.

The ministry did not respond to inquiries by email and phone about the deteriorating state of the dam. "It is a time bomb waiting to go off," said the aid worker.

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BBC, August 8

US and Iraqi forces have killed 30 militants in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the US military has said.

They said most had died in an air strike following a raid in the Shia district of Sadr City. Twelve people were also detained in the operation.

The US military said the dead were part of a network that was smuggling weapons from Iran, but witnesses said women and children were among those killed.

[...]

Iraqi police in Sadr City said a bombardment by US helicopters and armoured vehicles killed nine civilians, including two women, the Associated Press has reported.

Reports say hundreds of angry residents of Sadr City marched through the area in protest at the raids.

They came on the eve of a major Shia religious festival in the capital which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims.

Iran tells PM Maliki it is helping secure Iraq

By Edmund Blair

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran told Iraq's prime minister on Wednesday it was helping establish security in Iraq, where the U.S. military accuses Tehran of fomenting instability by training and supplying militants.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in Iran for talks with senior officials, is facing mounting pressure to secure a power sharing deal among Iraq's warring sects before a U.S. report in September on strategy there.

But his government is crumbling, with almost half the cabinet ministers quitting or boycotting meetings, and the death toll from sectarian killings steadily climbing.

Iran, with a majority of Shi'ite Muslims like Iraq, has been an important political player there since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Tehran denies Washington's accusations that it is stoking violence, and instead blames the U.S. occupation.

Baghdad has urged both countries to negotiate and not fight out their differences on Iraqi soil.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has always made a special effort to help provide and strengthen security in Iraq," Iranian First Vice-President Parviz Davoudi said in talks with Maliki, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iran has in the past made expressions of support that have been followed by U.S. charges it is still backing militants.

....
Ali Akbar Velayati, an international affairs adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said those talks had shown that Iran "can play an influential role in Iraq."

"Today they (U.S. officials) are forced ... to ask for Iran's help, but these negotiations are not aimed at helping America. Iran entered talks to help the Iraqi people," he said, according to Iran's ISNA news agency.

Analysts say both Tehran and Washington have an interest in helping Maliki's government restore calm.

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Is US backing Maliki's government?
Thu, 02 Aug 2007
By Davood Taabbodi, Press TV, Tehran

More

Maliki’s government is increasingly lacking influence. I’ll put my money on Iyad Allawi as the American favourite to take up the reins of Iraqi government. Could be however that other factions within Iraq may strongly object to Allawi because the dominant Shiites in Iraq are not secular.

"The US gun crew, in the heat and confusion of the battle, mistook (Pte Costall's unit) for insurgent forces. The mistake resulted in the death of Private Robert Costall and injuries sustained by three Canadian soldiers."

Given the very high number of friendly fire incidents in Afghanistan, I have a suggestion. Rather than the respective countries sending their troops half way around the world to inadvertently murder each other, why not consider other, more cost effective alternatives? For instance, we could choose a remote US/Canada border community - somewhere mid-west, for instance - then each country could send its military marauders there to whack away at the other "team" with impunity. Not only would this save scads of cash, but it would have the added benefit of sending a clear message to Afghan civilians that we mean them no harm.

Michael R. Gordon | August 7 | Baghdad

NYT - Attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to the American military.

The devices, known as explosively formed penetrators, were used to carry out 99 attacks last month and accounted for a third of the combat deaths suffered by the American-led forces, according to American military officials.

“July was an all-time high,” Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 commander in Iraq, said in an interview, referring to strikes with such devices.

Such bombs, which fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee and are among the deadliest weapons used against American forces, are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants. American intelligence officials have presented evidence that the weapons come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, although Tehran has repeatedly denied providing lethal assistance to Iraqi groups.

[Comment: If I were a sophisticated Iranian operator, given the state of play both in the region and domestically in the US, what I'd be doing right now is figuring out how I could produce evidence [real or not] of indigenous Iraqi production. ~ JPD]

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

President Hamid Karzai, in meetings in Washington this week, said Iran is a valuable ally. But Afghan officials have grown increasingly wary of their Western neighbor.

Mark Sappenfield | August 8 | Islam Qala

CSM - Iran's broadening influence beyond its border with Iraq, together with its pursuit of nuclear technology, has Europe and the US on alert.

Now, its role along its opposite border here in Afghanistan is facing scrutiny, as well. It was a source of disagreement between President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai during the past two days of talks at Camp David.

Mr. Karzai told CNN just before his meeting with Bush that Iran "has been a helper and a solution."

But key members of the Bush administration disagree, with Mr. Bush saying Aug. 6 that the burden was on Iran to prove that it is not a "destabilizing force."

Both views could be correct, say experts and Afghan officials, and they reflect the subtlety of Iran's efforts to play both sides – to support the fledgling Karzai government, yet also to secure its own strategic aims in the region and beyond.

The interception of Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan, as well as reports of increased insurgent activity along the Iranian border, are seen as a message to the West, in particular.

"They're saying, 'We're cooperating on the ground,' " says Amin Tarzi, director of Middle East Studies at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va. " 'But we can make a mess for you much bigger than Iraq' " if Europe and the US keep threatening action against Iran's nuclear program.

"When intelligence producers realize that there is no sense in forwarding to a consumer knowledge which does not correspond to his preconceptions, then intelligence is through." ~ Sherman Kent

Four British troops killed in Iraq in 48 hours

BASRA, Iraq, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Two British soldiers were killed in Iraq early on Thursday, taking the death toll to four in about 48 hours.

The Irish Guards soldiers killed shortly after midnight were in a convoy hit by a roadside bomb near the Rumaila oil fields, west of Baghdad. Two other soldiers were seriously injured.

British-patrolled southern Iraq has become more dangerous for British troops since the government announced in February that London would cut back its force during the course of 2007.

In the April-July period, 30 British soldiers died in Iraq, making it the deadliest period since the 2003 invasion when Britain had nine times as many troops as the 5,500-strong contingent it has deployed now.

One soldier was killed during a foot patrol on Tuesday and another was shot while driving an armoured Warrior vehicle on Monday night.

The British have withdrawn from three of the four provinces they once patrolled, leaving troops only in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

In Basra they have pulled out of two of their three bases. They are due to abandon the last city base in coming weeks and withdraw to their heavily mortared air base outside the city.

British commanders say Shi'ite militants are stepping up attacks to create the impression they are pushing the British out. The military says it will withdraw on its own schedule.

NATO "unaware" of British plea on Afghan civilians
09 Aug 2007 16:17:40 GMT

By David Brunnstrom

BRUSSELS, Aug 9 (Reuters) - NATO said on Thursday it was not aware of any request by a British NATO commander for the United States to withdraw special forces from his area of operations in southern Afghanistan due to high civilian casualties.

The International Herald Tribune on Thursday quoted an unidentified senior British commander in Afghanistan's Helmand province as saying he made the request because the casualties had made it difficult to win over local people.

"NATO headquarters is unaware of such a request," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. "Coordination on the ground is excellent between Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF forces, also in the way operations are allocated."

Romero said ISAF, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, had taken steps to minimise civilian casualties and understood that the separate U.S.-led force code-named Operation Enduring Freedom had done the same.

British Defence Minister Des Browne told reporters in Kabul that the commander quoted was expressing a personal view.

"It is the reporting of an observation of a British officer on a particular part of the American military," he said.

"It is not the view of the Helmand Task Force commander, it is not the view of our government, it is not the view of the Americans, it is not the view of the alliance," he said.

"These things can be said in the heat of battle. These are very difficult circumstances."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there had been no request by the British. "And there is no evidence to support the claim by an unnamed anonymous officer," he said.

MOUNTING CASUALTIES

However, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer acknowledged last month mounting civilian casualties had hurt support for NATO and said commanders had ordered troops to hold off on attacks in some situations where civilians were at risk.

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Q In your previous conversations with Prime Minister Maliki, have you been confident that he shares your view on Iraq [sic]?

THE PRESIDENT: On Iran?

Q Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. He knows that weaponry being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and placed in the hands of extremists over which the government has no control, all aimed at killing innocent life, is a destabilizing factor. He absolutely understands that.

I don't know if you saw yesterday, there was a -- we talked to General Petraeus, or I talked to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker yesterday. I noticed in the papers today there was a description of a military operation that took place in Sadr City. The military operation in Sadr City was going after extremist elements, Shia extremist elements. And it was a very robust operation. Obviously, it -- well, I shouldn't say "obviously" -- it was done with the full understanding of the Maliki government.

Now, I don't know whether this extremist element had been fueled by Iran, but I do know that Maliki is committed against extremist elements who are trying to create enough chaos and confusion that this young government and young democracy is not able to progress. So the first thing I looked for was commitment against the extremists. The second thing is does he understand with some extremist groups there is connections with Iran, and he does. And I'm confident.

Now, is he trying to get Iran to play a more constructive role? I presume he is. But that doesn't -- what my question is -- well, what my message to him is, is that when we catch you playing a non-constructive role there will be a price to pay.

What the heck is this "price to pay" stuff about?

the Chris Hedges et al article in The Nation?

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/hedges

I was off-line most of July.

Posted w/o comment:

Locals: "Arbitrary" US Arrests in Sadr City
Detentions Take Strange Pattern, Residents Say; Airstrike Death Toll May Top 50
Sadr City awoke Wednesday to the cries of women and children following US raids and airstrikes, local sources tell Slogger.

Describing Wednesday’s early morning operations by US and Iraqi forces, residents of the predominantly Shi'a district told IraqSlogger of more widespread arrest operations in Sadr City than the US forces’ official statement reports.

The arrests also followed a new "aribitrary" pattern, residents told Slogger.

According to local sources, US forces operating in two separate areas of Sadr City took one man from each household having over four sons.

Locals speculate as to the purpose of the operations, since the men taken from each household were not known to be wanted by US or Iraqi forces.

37 were arrested in the raids, according to local sources.

The official Multinational Forces (MNF) statement refers to an arrest operation in Sadr City leading to the detention of 12 suspects, whom MNF says may be linked to “Special Groups Cell terrorists.”

The official MNF statement does not mention house-to-house searching or raids on residences in the district.

Eyewitnesses in Sadr City told Slogger that over half of those killed and arrested were not carrying weapons, describing them as “peaceful citizens, without affiliation to any religious or political organization.”

Resentment of the operations is palpable in the district, Slogger sources report.

The statement says the airstrike was called in after US and Iraqi forces participating in the arrest raid that took the 12 suspects observed “a vehicle and large group of armed men on foot attempting an assault on the ground forces.”
(more...)
http://tinyurl.com/ysxne4

Taliban, Korean team to hold talks over hostages

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban were set on Friday to hold their first face-to-face talks with a South Korean team over the 21 hostages the group is holding, a Taliban spokesman said.

The meeting will be held in an Afghan government-held area in Ghazni province and Kabul has guaranteed the safety of the Taliban negotiators, Qari Mohammad Yousuf said.

"The meeting will start after a short while. The team (Taliban) has gone to Ghazni on the basis of a written guarantee of the Kabul administration," Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an unknown location.

"As long as the talks continue, there will be no problem for the hostages," he added.

The South Korean team was not available for comment.

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Looting fear as Iraqi state library seized

· Soldiers occupy building to shield pilgrims
· Respected director fears attacks on restored archive

Michael Howard in Irbil
Friday August 10, 2007
The Guardian

Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday.

Saad Eskander, a respected Kurdish historian who has run the library since 2003, told the Guardian that up to 20 Iraqi troops had seized the building at gunpoint yesterday, threatening staff and guards.

"They have turned our national archive into a military target," he said. "Tomorrow or the day after, the extremists will attack the Iraqi forces there."

He said the soldiers, who said they had occupied the building to defend Shia worshippers heading to the shrine of Khadimiya, about 15 miles away, had positioned themselves on the roof of the library. They had already started to dismantle the main gate, and had smashed doors and windows inside the main building, he said.

The national library and archive stands on the east bank of the Tigris, close to the old defence ministry, now a military outpost for Iraqi and US troops. The area is a hotbed of insurgent activity.

"The reckless actions of the Iraqi forces and the US military, who appear to condone the operation, will put the staff and library and archival collections in real danger," said Mr Eskander.

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First, this from Dan Froomkin, on his WaPo blog:

How About Demanding Some Proof?
For several months now, the Bush administration has been engaged in what appears to be a coordinated campaign to blame attacks on U.S. forces on Iran.

But as I wrote in my Feb. 12 column: "The administration finally unveiled its case this weekend, first in coordinated and anonymous leaks to a trusting New York Times reporter (guess who?), then in an extraordinarily secretive military briefing at which no one would speak on the record, journalists weren't allowed to photograph the so-called evidence, and nothing even remotely like proof of direct Iranian government involvement was presented."

Since then, possibly the most dramatic charge against Iran has been that it was involved in planning a particularly deadly operation against U.S. forces in Karbala last January.

As Gareth Porter writes for the American Prospect: "On July 2 and 3, The New York Times and the Associated Press, among other media outlets, came out with sensational stories saying that either Iranians or Iranian agents had played an important role in planning the operation in Karbala, Iraq last January that resulted in the deaths of five American soldiers. Michael R. Gordon and John F. Burns of The New York Times wrote that 'agents of Iran' had been identified by the military spokesman as having 'helped plan a January raid in the Shiite holy city of Karbala in Iraq in which five American soldiers were killed by Islamic militants. . . . ' Lee Keath of the Associated Press wrote an even more lurid lead, asserting that U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner had accused 'Iran's elite Quds force' of having 'helped militants carry out a January attack in Karbala that killed five Americans.'

"The story was a big break for the war-with-Iran faction in Washington. . . .

"No one questioned the authenticity of the story at the time. But the official source -- Brig. Gen. Bergner -- offered no real evidence of Iranian involvement in planning the January attack in his press briefing on July 2. Even more remarkably, Bergner never even explicitly claimed such direct Iranian involvement in the planning. Instead, he used carefully ambiguous language that implied but did not state such an Iranian role.

"It was not Bergner, in fact, but New York Times military reporter Michael Gordon who articulated the narrative of an Iranian-inspired attack on Americans."
(more...)

http://tinyurl.com/9gx78

Then, the Porter article in WaMo:

The Iran Attack That Wasn't
How reporters trumped up a story about Iranians killing Americans in Iraq.
...
It was not Bergner, in fact, but New York Times military reporter Michael Gordon who articulated the narrative of an Iranian-inspired attack on Americans. Gordon, readers may recall, played a key role, along with Judith Miller, in legitimizing a major theme of the Bush administration's Iraq propaganda -- the infamous aluminum tubes argument -- as the White House Iraq Group kicked off its campaign to prepare public opinion for war in September 2002. And in February 2007, Gordon enthusiastically embraced the administration's charge of official Iranian arms exports to Iraq in his coverage of that issue, despite a notable lack of evidence for the charge.

But at the Bergner press briefing on July 2, Gordon went even further in playing the role of transmission belt for the Bush administration line. The transcript of that briefing, obtained from the U.S. military command press desk in Baghdad, shows that when Bergner failed to claim a direct Iranian involvement -- or even through a Hezbollah operative in Iraq -- in the planning of the January raid in Karbala, Gordon pushed him to state clearly that the Iranians not only helped plan but actually "directed" the attack on Americans.

(much more, incl. details of the Bergner briefing...)

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_iran_attack_that_wasnt

Surely it's time to read any of the Michael Gordon pieces far more critically than they have been cited here to date as "factual reporting". It appears as though our Mikey has learned his metier well from his mentor, Ms Miller.

Guardian UK

For the Guardian by Seumas Milne

Excerpt

Meanwhile, speculation about scenarios for withdrawal is rampant in Washington and Iraq itself. But that doesn't mean it's about to happen - and there's a danger that pressure in the US and Britain to end the occupation could be relaxed in anticipation of a full-scale pullout that is still not seriously on the cards. After all, Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968 on a promise to end the Vietnam war and American troops were still there five years later.

What is clear is that the US has already suffered a strategic defeat in Iraq. A flagrant act of aggression intended to be a demonstration of untrammelled US imperial power to impose its will on the heart of the oil-producing Arab and Muslim world has instead demonstrated a fatal vulnerability to "asymmetric warfare". It's also true that, as a senior US intelligence officer told the Washington Post this week, "the British have basically been defeated in the south". Far from keeping rival militia from each other's throats, over 80% of violent attacks in the area are directed against British troops.

But, given the political embarrassment a British pullout would represent for the Bush administration in Washington, it's hard to imagine Brown's government ordering a comprehensive withdrawal any time soon. So British soldiers will have to expect to go on paying Tony Blair's blood price for the much-vaunted special relationship.

Despite the congressional bluster, a better guide to US intentions was given by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, a couple of months back, when he declared that the US was looking for a "long and enduring presence" in Iraq - reflected in plans to consolidate 14 "enduring bases" across the country. Given the huge US strategic interest in Iraq and the region - and its determination to halt the spread of Iranian influence - that seems unlikely to change in the event of a Democratic presidential victory in 2008. In other words, the price of staying in Iraq will have to rise still further if the US is going to be forced out and Iraq regain its independence.

Inside Iraq, that price can only be exacted by increased resistance. More than any other single factor, it has been the war of attrition waged by Iraq's armed resistance - or insurgency as it is usually described in the western media - that has successfully challenged the world's most powerful army and driven the demand for withdrawal to the top of the political agenda in Washington. Two years ago the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, insisted the insurgency was in its "last throes". But while the outside world has increasingly focused on al-Qaida-style atrocities against civilians and sectarian killings, the guerrilla war against the occupation forces has continued to escalate. There are now over 5,000 attacks a month, a more than 20-fold increase on four years ago, and the US and British death toll is rising. Opinion polls show there is majority support for armed resistance across Iraq; in Sunni areas it is overwhelming.

The mainstream resistance movement has often been dismissed in the US and Britain as politically incoherent, obscurantist or tarred with the brush of al-Qaida (which accounts for a minority of attacks, though perhaps a majority of suicide bombings). That has been made easier as it operated underground, communicating mainly through the internet or occasional statements to the Arabic media. Now that is changing. Last month, I interviewed leaders of three Sunni-based Islamist and nationalist-leaning resistance groups which are joining four others to launch a political front in advance of an expected American withdrawal. The recent cross-party Iraq Commission report cites four of the seven as among the "four or five main groups" the insurgency has now consolidated around. All have signed up to an anti-sectarian, anti-al-Qaida platform, oppose attacks on civilians, and call for negotiated withdrawal and free elections.

The greatest danger to both the resistance and the wider campaign to end the occupation remains the Sunni-Shia split, fostered since the invasion in classic divide-and-rule mode. Throughout the occupation, armed resistance has been concentrated in mainly Sunni Arab areas. Whenever it has spread to the Shia population - as it did in 2004, when Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army fought the Americans - the potentially decisive threat to US control from a genuinely nationwide resistance movement has become clear. Now armed resistance by the Mahdi army has re-emerged, against the British in Basra and the Americans in Baghdad, where the US lieutenant general Raymond Odierno has claimed that most attacks during July were by Shia fighters.

But while acutely aware of the need to make common cause with Shia groups and the danger of the breakup of the country, the new Sunni-based resistance front refuses to have anything to do with the Mahdi army because of its role in sectarian killings and on-off participation in the floundering US-sponsored government. Meanwhile, the US is seeking to draw some on the margins of the Sunni-based resistance into the orbit of its anti-Iranian, anti-Shia regional alliance.

The history of anti-colonial and anti-occupation resistance campaigns shows that success has almost always depended on broad-based national movements. But the embryonic resistance front has got to be a positive development if it holds together. Not only could the creation of an alliance with a common programme help open up cooperation with Shia anti-occupation forces now, but if there is going to be a stable post-occupation settlement in Iraq, that will have to include all those with genuine support on the ground. Sooner or later, the Americans are going to have to negotiate with these groups.

Church Cancels Memorial for Gay Navy Vet

Saturday August 11, 2007 10:46 AM

By ANGELA K. BROWN

Associated Press Writer

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

``It's a slap in the face. It's like, 'Oh, we're sorry he died, but he's gay so we can't help you,''' she said Friday.

Wright said High Point offered to hold the service for Sinclair because their brother is a janitor there. Sinclair, who served in the first Gulf War, died Monday at age 46 from an infection after surgery to prepare him for a heart transplant.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Gary Simons, said no one knew Sinclair, who was not a church member, was gay until the day before the Thursday service, when staff members putting together his video tribute saw pictures of men ``engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing.''

Simons said the church believes homosexuality is a sin, and it would have appeared to endorse that lifestyle if the service had been held there.

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Pakistani leader to attend Afghan tribal gathering

IHT
By Taimoor Shah and Carlotta Gall
Saturday, August 11, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan: As hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan delegates entered a second day of discussions, the office of Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, announced Friday that he would attend the conclusion of the assembly, which was aimed at trying to end the terrorism and insurgency threatening both countries.

In what had been seen as a slight to Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, Musharraf canceled his participation at the so-called Peace Jirga here on Thursday. He met instead with chief aides to consider imposing emergency rule to cope with the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, and then backed away from that idea.

The jirga, a meeting of tribal elders and political leaders that is to end this weekend, is President Karzai's main political initiative this year, and was agreed to when Musharraf and Karzai met with President George W. Bush in Washington last September.

It is intended to be the first of two meetings, one in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan, and Karzai hopes that the jirga, based on traditional tribal structures, will help win support in Pakistan, which he says remains the main source of extremism and militancy in the region.

Musharraf, however, has been far less enthusiastic about the idea from the start, and Pakistani officials have questioned the need and effectiveness of such a tribal tradition. They have also expressed irritation that Afghanistan blames its neighbor for supporting the Taliban and being the source of extremism. Delegates were urged by government officials to strongly counter any such accusations before they left for Kabul, according to a delegate.

Opening the proceedings on Thursday, Karzai described pardoning a 14-year-old Pakistani boy who was caught by the police when he was sent from a religious school in Pakistan as a suicide bomber into Afghanistan.

"Who are they who are sending suicide bombers into Afghanistan?" the president asked the assembled delegates, some 350 from Afghanistan and 300 from Pakistan. "Are they representatives of the people or religion? Or are they enemies of both?

"These are the questions we have to find answers to," he said, "otherwise there will be insecurity in the region. If we do not find the answers there will be continuing enmity with Islam, and enmity among Pakistanis and Afghans."

Pakistan is increasingly suffering from militancy, too, Karzai said. Nearly 300 people have died in violence since the government battled militants in the Red Mosque in the center of Islamabad last month. Pakistani forces are in almost daily combat with militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, as are NATO and Afghan forces in this country.

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Iraqi provincial governor, police chief assassinated in Diwaniyah

AFP
Published: Saturday August 11, 2007

The governor of Iraq's Qadisiyah province and the police chief of its capital city were killed when a bomb attack hit their convoy on Saturday, local security and health officials said.

"The hospital in Diwaniyah received the governor and police chief, and three other corpses from their security detail," said Doctor Hamid Gaati, head of the health directorate in Diwaniyah, the provincial capital, 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Baghdad.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information, a senior security official in Diwaniyah said they were killed in a muliple bomb attack on their conoy.

"More than 10 IEDs (roadside bombs) targeted a convoy of the governor and the chief of police on their way back from Afak to the centre of the city, killing the governor of Diwaniyah and the chief of police," said the official.
Tina August 11, 2007 - 10:56am

Army reprimands in Tillman case mild

By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Sat Aug 11, 2:48 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Official reprimands issued to three high-ranking Army officers are only mildly critical of their mistakes after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and at times praise the officers.

The Army also said it would not include the reprimands in the officers' military records, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Tillman's direct superiors knew within hours of his April 2004 death in Afghanistan that the former football star had been killed by fellow Army Rangers, but the truth was kept from the public and Tillman's family for five weeks — in direct violation of Army regulations.

"You should not consider this as an adverse action," letters to the officers say. "This document will not be filed in any system of records maintained by the Army."

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Lowered Initial Entry Standards Symptomatic Of Broken Army And Need For Draft

By Deborah Hastings, Associated Press

There are now nearly as many private contractors in Iraq as there are U.S. soldiers — and about half of them are private security guards equipped with automatic weapons, body armor, helicopters and bullet-proof trucks.

They operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys.

Not one has faced charges or prosecution.

There is great confusion among legal experts and military officials about what laws — if any — apply to Americans in this force of at least 48,000.

They operate in a decidedly gray legal area. Unlike soldiers, they are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under a special provision secured by American-occupying forces, they are exempt from prosecution by Iraqis for crimes committed there.

The security firms insist their employees are governed by internal conduct rules and by use-of-force protocols established by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq for 14 months following the invasion.

But many soldiers on the ground — who earn in a year what private guards can earn in just one month — say their private counterparts should answer to a higher authority, just as they do. More than 60 U.S. soldiers in Iraq have been court-martialed on murder-related charges involving Iraqi citizens.

Some military analysts and government officials say the contractors could be tried under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers crimes committed abroad. But so far, that law has not been applied to them.

Security firms earn more than $4 billion in government contracts, but the government doesn't know how many private soldiers it has hired, or where all of them are, according to the Government Accountability Office. And the companies are not required to report violent incidents involving their employees.

Security guards now constitute nearly 50% of all private contractors in Iraq — a number that has skyrocketed since the 2003 invasion, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said rebuilding Iraq was the top priority. But an unforeseen insurgency, and hundreds of terrorist attacks have pushed the country into chaos. Security is now Iraq's greatest need.

The wartime numbers of private guards are unprecedented — as are their duties, many of which have traditionally been done by soldiers. They protect U.S. military operations and have guarded high-ranking officials including Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad. They also protect visiting foreign officials and thousands of construction projects.

At times, they are better equipped than military units.

much more

Five U.S. soldiers killed south of Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Five U.S. soldiers were killed, including four in a single explosion, during combat operations south of Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

Four other soldiers were wounded in the explosion but no other details of the incident were immediately available.

In a separate statement, the U.S. military said a fifth soldier had been killed by small arms fire while on foot patrol southeast of Baghdad on Saturday.

The U.S. military said the soldiers were part of Task Force Marne, which has deployed in areas south of Baghdad to stop the flow of weapons, explosives and Shi'ite and Sunni Arab militants into the capital.

About 30,000 extra troops have been sent to Iraq since February as part of a security crackdown designed to buy time for Baghdad's fractured coalition government to meet a series of political targets set by Washington.

The targets are meant to promote reconciliation between Iraq's warring Shi'ite majority and the minority Sunni Arabs who were dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The five deaths bring to at least 3,689 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam.

At least 31 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far in August.

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NYT - Two years after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to survey what appeared to be a triumph — a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists.

With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders. At a briefing from the United States Central Command, they were told that the Taliban were now a “spent force.”

“Some of us were saying, ‘Not so fast,’ ” Mr. Burns, now the under secretary of state for political affairs, recalled. “While not a strategic threat, a number of us assumed that the Taliban was too enmeshed in Afghan society to just disappear.”

But that skepticism had never taken hold in Washington. Since the 2001 war, American intelligence agencies had reported that the Taliban were so decimated they no longer posed a threat, according to two senior intelligence officials who reviewed the reports.

The American sense of victory had been so robust that the top C.I.A. specialists and elite Special Forces units who had helped liberate Afghanistan had long since moved on to the next war, in Iraq.

Those sweeping miscalculations were part of a pattern of assessments and decisions that helped send what many in the American military call “the good war” off course.

much more at link

Guardian - Lieutenant Clay Hanna looks sick and white. Like his colleagues he does not seem to sleep. Hanna says he catches up by napping on a cot between operations in the command centre, amid the noise of radio. He is up at 6am and tries to go to sleep by 2am or 3am. But there are operations to go on, planning to be done and after-action reports that need to be written. And war interposes its own deadly agenda that requires his attention and wakes him up.

When he emerges from his naps there is something old and paper-thin about his skin, something sketchy about his movements as the days go by.

The Americans he commands, like the other men at Sullivan - a combat outpost in Zafraniya, south east Baghdad - hit their cots when they get in from operations. But even when they wake up there is something tired and groggy about them. They are on duty for five days at a time and off for two days. When they get back to the forward operating base, they do their laundry and sleep and count the days until they will get home. It is an exhaustion that accumulates over the patrols and the rotations, over the multiple deployments, until it all joins up, wiping out any memory of leave or time at home. Until life is nothing but Iraq.

Hanna and his men are not alone in being tired most of the time. A whole army is exhausted and worn out. You see the young soldiers washed up like driftwood at Baghdad's international airport, waiting to go on leave or returning to their units, sleeping on their body armour on floors and in the dust.

Where once the war in Iraq was defined in conversations with these men by untenable ideas - bringing democracy or defeating al-Qaeda - these days the war in Iraq is defined by different ways of expressing the idea of being weary. It is a theme that is endlessly reiterated as you travel around Iraq. 'The army is worn out. We are just keeping people in theatre who are exhausted,' says a soldier working for the US army public affairs office who is supposed to be telling me how well things have been going since the 'surge' in Baghdad began.

more at link

Guardian - The government was facing awkward questions last night over an arms deal involving a British company licensed by the Department of Trade and Industry to import weapons but which was also selling machine guns to an Iraqi official later implicated in an alleged $1.1bn (£545m) corruption scandal.

A committee of MPs and Amnesty International have both demanded to know whether the deal breaches either the UN arms embargo on Iraq or British government export laws. They want to know who was involved in the deal and what safeguards are in place to ensure arms exports negotiated by British companies through foreign intermediaries reach their intended destination.

Documents obtained by The Observer show Procurement Management Services (PMS) had a contract to provide assault rifles to Ziad Cattan, the former head of military procurement at the Iraq Defence Ministry.

more at link

Embattled AG Gonzales visits Baghdad

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire at home with calls for his resignation, is spending some time in Iraq.

The Justice Department said that Gonzales arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for his third trip to Iraq to meet with department officials who have been there to help fashion the country's legal system.

"I am pleased to see firsthand ... the progress that the men and women of the Justice Department have made to rebuild Iraq's legal system and law enforcement infrastructure," Gonzales said in a statement released by the department.

His optimistic assessment came despite the frequent sectarian lawlessness and killings in the country.
(there's more, if one is up for it...)

http://tinyurl.com/24bkzf

No, not an "Onion" spoof, it's the real thing...I think.