Category: Iraq

Iraq: Security Accord Approved

Iraq Approves Deal Charting End Of U.S. Role, (New York Times)…Alissa Rubin and Campbell Robertson, Nov 28, 2008.  With a substantial majority, the Iraqi Parliament on Thursday ratified a sweeping security agreement that sets the course for an end to the United States’ role in the war and marks the beginning of a new relationship between the countries.

Security Accord Approved In Iraq, (Washington Post)…Sudarsan Raghavan…The agreement is a significant victory for Maliki, who can take credit for ushering in the end of the U.S. intervention in Iraq. That feat could bolster his influence and popularity ahead of provincial and national elections scheduled for next year.

Iran In About-Turn Towards Security Agreement, (Financial Times)…Najmeh Bozorgmehr. …People close to the government in Tehran said that after initially opposing it – and asking its Shia allies in the Baghdad government to resist it – Tehran has been relatively satisfied with the last-minute changes demanded, and won, by Iraq.

New Security Deal Passes Iraq’s Parliament, (NBC)…Jim Miklaszewski

…David, this new security deal could signal the beginning of the end for U.S. military presence in Iraq, but it comes with strings attached that could have serious consequences.

The Iraqi government will now have some say, if not control, over all U.S. military operations. The U.S. military will now need search warrants to enter homes or buildings when looking for enemy forces except during combat. U.S. service members and private contractors could also be subject to arrest and prosecution under Iraqi laws for serious crimes. And U.S. forces cannot launch cross-border attacks from Iraq against other countries, even in self-defense.

Now, one senior Pentagon official tells NBC News that these new ground rules are sure to create some tensions, maybe even a standoff or two, between Iraqi and American forces. But this person added that these kinds of steps are absolutely necessary if American troops are ever going to get out of Iraq.

Iraq: Closer to a Security Agreement: Dec 31, 2011

Iraqi Cabinet Backs U.S. Security Deal(Washington Post)…Mary Beth Sheridan, Nov 17, 2008, pg. A12.

…While the Cabinet vote indicated that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had rounded up the support of most of Iraq’s major parties, final passage of the accord is not guaranteed, politicians said. One issue is timing: The notoriously slow-moving Iraqi parliament is scheduled to adjourn Nov. 25 for a three-week break for hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage. “We have a limited window of time,” warned Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister.

Iraq: Kurdistan Model

Kurdistan Is A Model For Iraq, (Wall Street Journal)…Masoud Barzani, Nov 12, 2008.

Iraq’s Kurds have consistently been America’s closest allies in Iraq. Our Peshmerga forces fought alongside the U.S. military to liberate the country, suffering more casualties than any other U.S. ally.

Mr. Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Iraq: Human Terrain Teams / Social Scientists

U.S. Military Using Social Scientists In Iraq (FNC)…David Mac Dougall, Nov 12, 2008.
Five years after the invasion comes a tacit acceptance that mission-focused American troops haven’t been able to devote enough time to simply getting to know the locals. The U.S. military is expanding a program in Iraq to send teams of anthropologists and social scientists across the country, acting as cultural analysts for U.S. forces.

 Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM

BRIT HUME: Know thy enemy is one of the oldest of military dicta. American forces are working on a variation of that in Iraq, trying to learn more about the people whose country they occupy and it is scientists, not soldiers, who are on these frontlines.

Reporter David Mac Dougall has the story.

DAVID MAC DOUGALL: Five years after the invasion comes a tacit acceptance that mission-focused American troops haven’t been able to devote enough time to simply getting to know the locals. The U.S. military is expanding a program in Iraq to send teams of anthropologists and social scientists across the country, acting as cultural analysts for U.S. forces.

“NANCY” [Anthropologist]: So we go out to the villages, into the cities and talk to the Iraqis, get an idea of their perceptions, their feelings, basically what they’re thinking about their culture and then we take that back to the military so they have a better understanding of the local population.

MAC DOUGALL: The program, though, is not without its critics. Some scholars are alarmed that anthropologists could be gathering information, which is then used by the military in lethal operations, a practice used during the Vietnam War, but later abandoned after public outcry.

Nancy and her co-worker Jean are concerned enough about their professional reputations that they requested we don’t fully identify them.

So much information is gathered about Iraqi men that U.S. commanders really know very little about the lives and concerns of women in this area. And there’s where the anthropologists’ expertise is vital – improving the flow of cultural intel, allowing the military to paint a clearer picture of the social landscape.

At first, the women in Kawaz-Arab are reluctant to come forward. Slowly, but surely Nancy and Jean plan to gain their trust, with repeat visits in the coming weeks, but there have already been successes.

“JEAN” [Anthropologist]: I never would have thought that I’d be sitting in a room filled with 20 Arab women and children and they’d be telling me intimate parts of their lives, how they live, how they love, how they mourn.

MAC DOUGALL: On the ground, U.S. commanders tell us they value the anthropologists’ input, but in reality many of the soldiers have more experience in Iraq than the social science teams. While the practice of deploying anthropologists is still considered counterinsurgency, commanders here say their information is not being used for traditional kinetic military fighting. Anthropologists like Jean and Nancy are able to bring a uniquely humanist touch to understanding Iraqis and that helps recast the U.S. military as more approachable in the minds of Iraqis they meet.

In Kawaz-Arab, Iraq, David Mac Dougall, Fox News.

Iraq: Surge Strategy

Lessons Of The Surge, (Washington Times)…Michael O’Hanlon, Nov 4, 2008.

Many Americans and Iraqis think of the recent surge in Iraq as simply the temporary addition of more U.S. troops to the war effort in 2007 and the first half of 2008. This is incorrect. It is also dangerous.

At the risk of falling victim to Pentagonese, I would propose we broaden our understanding of the surge by thinking of that word as an acronym.

“S” in surge should be understood as an emphasis on security.

“U” stands for unity of effort.

“R” must stand for reconciliation.

“G” stands for government capacity in Iraq

“E” stands for excellence in execution.

Iraq: Surge and U.S. Political Impact

Casualty Of The Surge, (Washington Post)…Michael Gerson, Oct 24, 2008.

The dramatic success of the surge in Iraq is not a central issue in the current presidential race. It did, however, set its shape — and may help determine its outcome in an unexpected way.

John McCain won the nomination of his party, in large part, as a vindicated prophet. After visiting Iraq in the summer of 2003, he argued on “Meet the Press” that “the men and women in the military are doing a superb job. . . . The problem is that they don’t have enough resources. There’s not enough of them, and we are in a very serious situation, in my view, a race against time.” McCain added, “Time is not on our side … 

This raises the question: If McCain benefited politically from being correct about the surge, why has Barack Obama not been punished for opposing it?

It was, after all, the single most important decision Obama has made as a public official. His judgment? “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.” This initial reluctance is perhaps understandable; many shared it. But Obama persisted in his skepticism after the results became evident. Even in July of this year, he argued, “the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true.”

But the main reason Obama has escaped the political consequences of his poor judgment on the surge has been the success of the surge itself, which has taken the issue almost entirely off the table.

So Obama is left with a pleasing paradox: The successes of a strategy he opposed may have paved his way to the presidency.

And McCain is left with a poignant comfort. He once said he would rather lose an election than lose a war. He may lose an election, in part, because he helped win a war.

Iraq Democracy Challenges Iran

Next President’s Iraq War, (Washington Times)…Austin Bay, Oct 17, 2008. p25.

In a month, Iraq will be the next president’s war. From the American perspective, the next president’s phase of the Iraq war will be twofold. First off, it will be a proxy war with Iran’s tyrannical mullahs. The second “fold” will be even more strategically significant: The next president’s war will measure America’s commitment to defending democracy and promoting genuine international security in the 21st century.

The Iraqi perspective differs a shade. Iraq’s war will be yet another Iran-Iraq war, but one where the Iraqis will have an organizational advantage and a significant ideological edge.

Iraq’s organizational advantage has two components. First and foremost, Iraq engages Iran with the United States as an active ally – unless the next U.S. president proves feckless and makes the inexcusably stupid mistake of denying Iraq diplomatic and military support in a crisis.

Iraq’s second organizational advantage is its increasingly capable military and more responsive government.

The next president will be tested by these robed thugs.

Iraq’s emerging democracy presents the mullahs with a complex challenge. Democracy gives Iraq an ideological advantage in its struggle with Iran’s dictatorship. Disgust and discontent has become a way of life inside Iran. The Khomeinist revolution has failed and fossilized as a corrupt theocracy backed by secret police and Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian people look west and see Iraqi Arabs and Kurds seizing a historic opportunity to create their own open, democratic system – and they know the mullahs are the gangsters denying them that opportunity.

Iraq: The Story behind the surge

The War Within. The inside story of how President Bush’s team dealt with its failing Iraq strategy.  About this series ….

This series of articles is drawn from Bob Woodward‘s “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008.” Woodward, an associate editor of The Washington Post, interviewed more than 150 people, including the president’s national security team, senior deputies and key players responsible for the intelligence, diplomatic and military operations in the Iraq war. Other officials with firsthand knowledge of meetings, documents and events, employed at various levels of the White House, the departments of Defense and State and the intelligence community, also served as primary sources.