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Iraq violence hits hard at U.S. exit strategy
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| Iraq violence hits hard at U.S. exit strategy
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| NC-Stern-Mark |
CAPITAL CALAMITY
Iraq violence hits hard at U.S. exit strategy
As Baghdad attacks grow, training of more Iraqi forces hasn't been the solution
TOM LASSETER
McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Despite the addition of almost 100,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops in the past year, American efforts to pacify central Iraq and the capital appear to be failing, challenging a central assumption behind the U.S. strategy in Iraq: that training more Iraqi security forces will allow American troops to start going home.
The number of trained Iraqi soldiers and police grew from an estimated 168,670 in June 2005 to about 264,600 this June. Yet Baghdad's morgue is receiving nearly twice as many dead Iraqis each day as it did last year. The number of bombings causing multiple fatalities has risen steadily. Attacks on American and Iraqi troops last month grew 44 percent from June 2005.
"Even as the number and capabilities of Iraqi security forces have increased, overall security conditions have deteriorated," concluded a report that the Government Accountability Office submitted to Congress this month.
Baghdad, usually clogged with traffic, has fallen quiet in recent weeks. Shops are shuttered. Roads are nearly empty in many neighborhoods. No one wants to be caught out in the open by gunmen, who set up roadblocks with seeming impunity.
Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who commands the task force that's training Iraq's army, didn't respond to questions about whether the U.S. still has confidence in the training program. Other American officers in Iraq acknowledged the difficulties but counseled patience.
"You don't stand up an organization ... overnight and expect it to have all the same values, the same organization, the same commitment as you might in other organizations that's been in existence for 10 or 15 years," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the top U.S. spokesman in Iraq, said recently. "I mean, they're only a month and a half into their new government right now. They're only three years into this new formation of their armed forces. So they do have some ways to still go."
If the U.S.-led effort to stand up more Iraqi troops and police doesn't start improving security in the capital and other troubled areas, however, the Bush administration may be forced to consider sending more troops to Iraq, trying to persuade other nations to send troops or even beginning to withdraw some Americans from the worst areas -- or from Iraq. That could risk triggering the all-out civil war that some think has already begun.
Indeed, the growing violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has raised troubling questions about whether Iraqi forces, which are disproportionately drawn from the Shiite population, are helping to curb the bloodshed or are contributing to it.
Eyewitnesses at some scenes of sectarian cleansing in Sunni areas report that gunmen travel in government vehicles. Others note that attackers have traveled from one neighborhood to another through police checkpoints, apparently unchallenged.
In Shiite areas, residents complain that security forces seem unable to stop large groups of Sunni fighters, who either detonate large car bombs, killing dozens, or swarm in large groups wielding AK-47 rifles and grenades.
In Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, the few remaining Shiite families recently got notes on their doorsteps that said, "Leave Ghazaliyah, you Shiites, or be ready for death." A single bullet accompanied each note.
One Shiite who lives there, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, Ali, said Iraqi army checkpoints "disappear from the area at sunset, which is why we guard ourselves."
Many Iraqis fear that the goal of a peaceful, unified country with a representative government and competent security forces will remain unachievable for a long time to come.
Some U.S. officials acknowledge privately that their hopes that Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki will be able to rein in Shiite militia groups and persuade Sunni insurgents to negotiate may be misplaced. Many of the government's leaders, they note, are themselves linked to Shiite or Kurdish militias or guerrilla groups.
"I keep hope up -- it's misguided perhaps -- that cooler heads will prevail," said an American defense official in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I have to believe that; otherwise all of this has been a tremendous, tremendous fiasco."
Recent Attacks
• On July 8, a car bomb killed at least five people in front of a Shiite mosque in a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad.
• On July 9, gunmen whom residents identified as members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia pulled Sunnis from their homes and cars and shot them dead in the street. Iraqi police put the number of dead at more than 40, though U.S. military officials said their troops found just 14 bodies. The next day, two car bombs detonated in a northeast Baghdad neighborhood known as a Sadr stronghold, killing at least eight Shiites and wounding more than 30.
• Monday, dozens of gunmen, presumably Sunnis, stormed into a market in the town of Mahmoudiyah, just south of Baghdad, and killed more than 45 people and wounded at least 90 -- almost all of them Shiites -- in a hailstorm of AK-47 fire, grenades and mortars. Witnesses said Iraqi police and army troops stationed nearby didn't appear until after the killing was over.
• On Tuesday, a man pulled up to a group of laborers across the street from a Shiite shrine in the southern town of Kufa and asked if they were looking for work. When a crowd gathered around his minivan, the man detonated a bomb, killing more than 50 Iraqis and wounding about 120. |
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| iam72hrstv |
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| Jack Shit |
| Stay the course... right over the cliff. |
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| NC-Stern-Mark |
This quote from a anonymous defense official in Iraq says in ALL
"I keep hope up -- it's misguided perhaps -- that cooler heads will prevail," said an American defense official in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I have to believe that; otherwise all of this has been a tremendous, tremendous fiasco."
Can you fucking believe the planning that went into this! |
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| thoroldjames |
I keep hope up -- it's misguided perhaps -- that cooler heads will prevail," said an American defense official in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I have to believe that; otherwise all of this has been a tremendous, tremendous fiasco."
welcome back to reality buddy :( |
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| patcracker |
| Donald Rumsfeild planned this it cant fail. This is what happens when you dont listen to your Generals and Admirals. Do you hear that IronPirate? Do you know the difference between a General and a Admiral you fucking chickenhawk pussy. |
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| muddpuppy |
| Think about this. In Iraq we support the Shiites, who now run most of the Iraqi Military. The Sunni's are the insurgents. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is made up of Shiites connected to Iran and Syria. So how will the Shiites ever keep the peace in Iraq? |
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| NC-Stern-Mark |
Quote: Originally posted by muddpuppy
Think about this. In Iraq we support the Shiites, who now run most of the Iraqi Military. The Sunni's are the insurgents. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is made up of Shiites connected to Iran and Syria. So how will the Shiites ever keep the peace in Iraq? |
Well now, you've asked a very good question.
I don't know the answer. |
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