Interview with Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine refugees

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VIDEO: Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine refugees, talks about the humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories - Play video (Media Player)

Photo: Emmanuel Dunseath/IRIN

Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the United Nations Agency for Palestine refugees

DUBAI, 21 March 2007 (IRIN) - The decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of 21st century world affairs, with numerous nations, international organisations and NGOs involved on both sides.

The United Nations has long played a role in the conflict, on both political and humanitarian levels. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established for the specific purpose of providing assistance to the Palestinian refugees the war created.

Today, UNRWA is the main provider of basic services - education, health, relief and social services - to more than 4.3 million registered Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, predominantly in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

In the absence of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2008.

Karen Koning AbuZayd, a US national, was appointed Commissioner General of UNRWA on 28 June 2005, having been deputy commissioner since 2000 and having previously worked 19 years for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

see video clip of interview

Q: Do you see the recent kidnap attempt and shooting at John Ging, director of UNRWA’s field office in Gaza, as a turning point in the way the agency will conduct its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories?

A: No, I hope not because our services are very much needed in the oPt and we do want to carry on with our work. We do have to evaluate how much we do with our international staff, how we can continue. We’re in discussion with the [oPt] government, which is helping us quite a lot, and so we have to see how that plays out and what they do about it.

Number of Palestine refugees under the care of UNRWA as of 31 March 2006. Source UNRWA.

Field of operations	Official camps	Registered families in camps	Registered refugees in camps	Registered refugees
Jordan	10	61,063	316,549	1,835,704
Lebanon	12	49,836	214,093	405,425
Syria	10	25,740	116,253	434,896
West Bank	19	38,954	185,121	705,207
Gaza Strip	8	92,322	474,130	993,818
Agency total	59	267,915	1,306,191	4,375,050

Do remember that we have in Gaza alone about 9,000 local staff, Palestine refugees themselves, who will of course keep our basic services going – health, education and social services. But to do extra things, to have the international staff there, we have to be sure that we’re going to be safe and secure.

What is your general assessment of the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza? Is it worse than ever before?

It is worse than ever. Our emergency appeal this year for 2007 is US $246 million – that’s just the UNRWA part of the CAP. This is higher than it was at any time during the intifada [Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation], which means that the needs are much greater [now] than they were during the intifada. And that’s mainly because of the boycott of the Palestinian Authority over the past year.

So we’re hoping now, with the National Unity Government having come into being [sworn in on 17 March], that there will be a change on the part of the international community – at least some of it – to lighten this boycott and to begin to deal with this government, and to give people their salaries back. Because there are all those people who have been working for nothing for a year. So we’re hoping there’ll be a change.

But the EU and US said they do not accept the new Palestinian unity government as it is. It doesn’t seem as if there will be any change with that respect.

What we have understood is that they are prepared to deal with some members of the government. They’re not boycotting the whole government and so maybe some things can be worked out. And I know that the EU is trying very hard to bring in more money, as they did last year, more money than in the past.

But of course that’s not the same as getting the economy actually working again, opening up the border points, getting things working – the economy as well as the humanitarian situation.

Who is a Palestine refugee?

Photo: Tom Spender/IRIN

Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948. The number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.3 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.

What are some of the logistical difficulties UNRWA faces in providing humanitarian relief in the occupied Palestinian territories with regard to border crossings and checkpoints? Can you elaborate?

Yes, well this is quite severe, particularly in Gaza where the whole of the Gaza Strip is closed off and we’re dependent on one commercial crossing [Karni Crossing], which is open sometimes and open for some hours sometimes.

The Rafah Crossing for people, of course, is very rarely opened and the crossing for other people – businessmen and internationals - through Erez is difficult.

On the West Bank side, as you may have heard many times, there are at least 530 checkpoints, roadblocks, the wall [Israeli separation barrier] continues to expand, the settlements continue to grow and it’s extremely difficult to go even from one village to another in the West Bank.

So we operate under great handicap which makes us very much less efficient and costs us a lot more money than we’d like to spend on these things.

What would you say is the most critical humanitarian need of the Palestinians in the occupied territories?

I would say being able to get the economy back on track, being able to let people work and get their salaries and being able to move goods so the businesses can start again.

Right now, the World Food Programme and ourselves feed the refugees and non-refugees, many humanitarian organisations brought in more money last year to give relief assistance but the people are very keen to work and to take of themselves and that’s what we’d like to see.

Is UNRWA getting the funds it needs to achieve its objectives?

No, we get the money – our donors are very generous, very good at giving us the money for the basic services – education and relief for the most vulnerable. But UNRWA’s been around for 58 years now and a lot of the refugees have been around for the same amount of time with their same houses or same schools.

We have a serious problem with the decline in our standards of our schools, our health clinics. Our schools are double-shifted, our doctors see 100 patients a day so we really need to have money to build up the infrastructure and we need more money every year because there are more refugees every year.

Is the mass exodus of Iraqis to neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, having an impact on the Palestinian refugees already in those countries and their access to your services?

No, not really. They are the ones who have access to our services and also of the host governments. The Syrians and the Jordanians are extremely generous to the refugees. Many of them are citizens and are treated as citizens.

In Lebanon, we have a new approach by the government to let us improve the conditions in the camps and let refugees work in more occupations. So I would say that they’re not particularly affected except by the rising prices in the countries where these Iraqi refugees are going to where things are getting more difficult all round.

Photo: UNRWA

A map of UNRWA's area of operations as of March 2005. Source: UNRWA

What is the perception of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories, with regard to the perhaps blurred line between the UN’s political and humanitarian arms?

I think that UNRWA has always been very special among the Palestinians and known as being part of them because we have all over the region 27,000 staff who are Palestine refugees. Of course, because they know that we are there to help them and so on, we are appreciated by the community and that certainly helps the UN generally.

Even throughout this intifada there have been so many UN agencies that have come in that people understand very well the difference between the humanitarian and the political and they will blame the nations that make the political decisions but they don’t so much blame the UN. I would say that we are more appreciated in the oPt than in many other parts of the world, in fact.

What is your vision of how the decades-old Palestine refugee dilemma can be resolved?

This is a political issue. It’s not a humanitarian issue. The refugees are one of the final status issues – as we call them – that will be solved when there is a peace process that finishes and creates a Palestinian state.

At that time, UNRWA is keen to implement whatever the political actors decide. We will be there to work on whatever choices the individual refugees make. It’s very much a principle of refugee business that the individual refugee must make the choice about his future and we would want that to happen before we acted.

ed/ar

Ongoing population transfer in OPT and Israel

Report, BADIL, 10 March 2007

A wide view of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. (Photo: UN/Jean-Marc Ferre)

Israel's ongoing policies against the Palestinian people of land expropriation, house demolition, population transfer, colonial settlement expansion, denial of freedom of movement, and expropriation of water and other resources, present the Human Rights Council with one of the longest-standing, yet urgent cases of denial of internationally-recognized human rights. Indeed, Israel's practices that victimize the indigenous Palestinian people, constitute a violation of every one of the most fundamental human rights embodied in the Universal Bill of Human Rights: the rights to life, to freedom of movement, to civil, political, religious and cultural rights, to the due process rights of the ICCPR, and to virtually all of the economic, social and cultural rights of the ICESCR.

The most recent authoritative documentation on these Israeli practices available to the Council includes Special Rapporteur John Dugard's report on the Occupied Territories, (Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, 29 January 2007) which labels Israel's actions 'apartheid.'

SR Dugard's thorough report draws sufficient parallels between the South African apartheid regime and Israel's as to make the term appropriate for use against Israel today. Israel's historical policy of institutional discrimination is at the root of its regime of occupation, colonization and apartheid. Israel's discriminatory and racist policies, favoring "Jewish nationals", including settlers, over Palestinian citizens of Israel, protected civilians in the occupied territories, and refugees has created a two-tier system whereby the special and distinct status of "Jewish nationals" prevents the fundamental right to equality of Palestinians.

Under Israeli law and policy, only "Jewish nationals" exclusively enjoy a range of economic, social and cultural rights, including the "Law of Return" that allows free immigration for Jews, but denies the same to the Palestinian indigenous population tracing its ties to the land for thousands of years. "Jewish nationals" are also privileged to acquire, control and exclusively use the properties and national assets that belong to Palestinians, including the 6.8 million refugees and others displaced since 1948. This discriminatory regime thus prevents the return of Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes of origin, and leads to ongoing population transfer in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Amongst others whose very existence is threatened are the Bedouin communities in the Nakab (Negev) and the occupied West Bank.

Enforcing international law: the need for further action

States have a duty to protect the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, denounce discrimination, racism, and colonization, and find a durable solution to Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons based on their right to return and restitution. Moreover, the United Nations and member states must act urgently to prevent further population transfer within Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Unless a rights-based approach to the conflict that addresses Israel's discriminatory practices becomes the basis of international community actions, the conflict will continue to deepen, affecting the peace and security of all nations. The urgent need for action by the Human Rights Council, and through it, the United Nations bodies, cannot be overemphasized. It is with this hope that Badil request the Council to consider the legality and implications of Israel's historical policies of institutional discrimination being applied in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

This action is particularly urgent considering that the number of Palestinians killed in 2006 represents a 215 percent increase compared to the 2005 figure. According to UN OCHA and Defense for Children International (DCI), 678 Palestinians were killed, including 124 children, in the occupied Palestinian territories as a result of the ongoing conflict. Since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000, over 4,300 Palestinians have been killed and 31,000 injured. These casualties continue to mount while successive UN Resolutions designed to bring the illegal occupation to an end remain ignored by Israel.

Badil calls upon members of the Human Rights Council to initiate a request for the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on The Legality of the Israeli Occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; call all upon states to bring claims against Israel in the International Court of Justice under the principle of state responsibility, to ensure that Israel complies with its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law; preserve the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian territories Occupied since 1967; appoint a Special Rapporteur or expert to examine discriminatory practices affecting Palestinians and other minorities in Israel; consider urging states members of the UN to take measures such as economic sanctions and diplomatic boycott against Israel for its breach of international law and non-implementation of UN Resolutions, as outlined by the International Court of Justice in its 9 July 2004 Advisory Opinion on The Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and endorse a call to the United Nations political bodies to act to provide international protection for the Palestinian civilian population through United Nations forces on the ground.

This is a statement submitted by Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, an NGO with special ECOSOC status to the fourth session of the Human Rights Council which starts this week in Geneva.

Related Links

Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights

UN Rapporteur compares Israel to Apartheid South Africa (27 February 2007)

Perceptive analysis contrasts with White House rhetoric

Patrick Cockburn

Published: 05 January 2007

Ali A Allawi, until recently an Iraqi minister, is one of Iraq's most respected Shia politicians of the post-Saddam era. His study of the crisis in Iraq is by far the most perceptive analysis of the extent of the disaster in his country, and how it might best be resolved. It is in sharp contrast to the ill-thought-out maunderings of experts and officials devising fresh policies in the White House and Downing Street.

At the centre of Mr Allawi's ideas on how "to pull the Middle East from its death spiral" is finding a means to meet the fears generated inside and outside Iraq by the tectonic changes within the country.

This means recognition of the gains of the Shia and the Kurds, but also restraint on their part so the Sunni do not see themselves as being marginalised. It requires that the anxieties of Iraq's neighbours be allayed and the regional powers "Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran" be involved in a final settlement.

It may be too late. Mr Allawi speaks of finding a way "to save America's face" while the US exits Iraq, but this will be difficult while George Bush still has dreams of victory and is sending reinforcements.

But Mr Allawi's study, which is based on familiarity with all the main players gained during his years in government, is the first real attempt to suggest the Middle East might pull out of its death spiral. Born into a Baghdad family in 1947, Mr Allawi acquired most of his higher education abroad, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, LSE and Harvard, then working for financial companies and merchant banks.

He is closely related to prominent Iraqi politicians and joined joined the anti-Baathist opposition in 1968 as a member of Iraq's exile community in London where much of the early opposition to Saddam was based.

Mr Allawi fears that the Shia ascendancy in Iraq will lead to the persecution of Shia in countries where they are a minority, such as Saudi Arabia.

There is already a rekindling of anti-Shia rhetoric in a remarkably similar rerun of the pattern that accompanied the Saudi-led campaign to contain the Iranian revolution in the 1980s.

After the invasion in 2003, Mr Allawi was plucked from his post as a Middle East specialist at St Anthony's College, Oxford, and was appointed Trade Minister in the first post-Saddam government. In 2004, he was made Minister of Defence, and served as Finance Minister.

He is widely viewed by Western governments as one of the more capable of Iraq's post-Saddam politicians.

Although a member of a prominent Shia family, he has largely managed to avoid the sectarian divides of Iraqi politics and he has taken a strong stance against the Shia militias responsible for much of the inter-ethnic violence that has blighted Iraq over the past year. At present, he is a senior adviser to the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki and divides his time between London and Baghdad.

A problem is that whatever President Bush and Tony Blair thought they were doing when they invaded Iraq in 2003, the outcome has been very different. The limits of US military and political power have been exposed by its failure to overcome the resistance of the five million-strong Sunni community.

Pressuring Israel May Prevent a 'Generational' Mideast War

Related

Jimmy Carter Speaks A Simple Truth About Palestinian Apartheid

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By Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Israel may well find itself at war with Syria and Hezbollah in the coming months, and the American foreign policy establishment needs to let go of its long-standing biases to prevent these conflicts.


Posted on December 23, 2006

The Middle East stands at the edge of an abyss, and the most powerful country in the world has become institutionally incapable of pulling it back.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that there "will be a war next summer. Only the sector has not been chosen yet." According to Israeli defense officials, "the IDF's operative assumption is that during the coming summer months, a war will break out against Hezbollah and perhaps against Syria as well."

America's best hope of containing the escalating tensions in the region would be to address the festering wound that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has represented for decades. Common sense dictates that the time has come for the United States to apply pressure on Israel to restart negotiations with the Palestinians equal to that already put on the Palestinians to recognize Israel and contain their violent factions.

That would mark a dramatic shift in policy, and would potentially transform Bush's smoldering wreckage of a Middle East agenda. It could also represent a turnaround in the larger struggle against Islamic extremism, pulling the world back from the brink of the real "Clash of Civilizations" that ideologues from both East and West apparently covet.

It would go a long way towards mending fences with our European allies -- Tony Blair said recently that "resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the core of bringing peace to the Middle East" -- and it would give the United States a golden bargaining chip to entice Iraq's neighbors to help clean up the mess we've made there. The Iraq Study Group -- the bipartisan, blue-ribbon bunch of Wise Old Men and Women -- concluded that we have little hope of stabilizing Iraq "unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict" and urged "renewed and sustained commitment by the United States on all fronts," including an aggressive push for "a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine."

Yet, it won't happen. Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, who explicitly linked Israel's conflict with Lebanon during the summer to George Bush's "War on Terror," quickly shot down the ISG's recommendations, rejecting "the attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mideast issue."

And so it will be. Despite the fact that we've been very, very good to Israel for a very long time, it has become politically impossible to demand that our closest ally drop the almost impossible preconditions they've put on the Palestinians for rejoining the peace process. That's because key constituencies in both major parties -- traditional Jewish "Israel voters" for the Dems and evangelical "Christian Zionists" for the Republicans -- have pushed the debate in DC to such a degree that a balanced approach to the region is now impossible for the United States.

This spring, political scientists Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago created a firestorm with their study of the impact of the "Israel lobby" on U.S. foreign policy. Critics lambasted the two respected scholars, accusing them, as has become the norm, of perpetrating conspiracy theories and being closeted anti-Semites. But their point was simple. The Israel lobby, which they defined as a loosely allied group of advocacy organizations, have effectively created a rigid political orthodoxy in Washington, the result of which is that our government is now effectively incapable of pursuing U.S. interests in the Middle East if they conflict in any way with the policies of Israel's center-right governing coalition.

It would be hard to find a clearer validation of their argument than the knee-jerk rejection of the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the United States adopt a regional strategy towards stabilizing Iraq.

The Bush administration has gone further in giving Israel carte blanche in its handling of the situation in the Occupied Territories than his predecessors (including Reagan) ever did, authoring a dramatic shift in U.S. policy towards the region. The administration offered its "Roadmap" with much fanfare in 2002. But while the Bushies have condemned the Palestinians for straying from that plan, they've been silent as the Israelis have repeatedly and quite openly violated its tenets.

In April 2004, George W. Bush made a statement that sent shockwaves through the diplomatic community:

In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

This was the moment when the United States gave up the pretense of being an honest broker in the conflict -- that pretense long being a hallmark of U.S. policy.

In 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin signed the Camp David Accords, in which he promised that Israel would halt the construction of settlements -- illegal according to U.N. Security Council resolutions 446, 452, 465 and 471. At the time, the Israeli settler population in East Jerusalem and the West Bank was less than 100,000 (in 1972, it was about 10,000). But as of 2000, there were 400,000 Israeli settlers living in territories captured in 1967, according to Israeli government statistics. Since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, the Israeli settler population in the West Bank (excluding Jerusalem) has doubled.

Three years ago, Israel promised the United States, in writing, that it would halt the construction of new settlements. But in October of this year, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz released a report that Haaretz called "political dynamite." The government study found that "a secret two-year investigation by the defense establishment shows that there has been rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements and in many cases involving privately owned Palestinian properties." The New York Times (in its "travel section" of all places), reported that while "Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and only takes land there legally" Israeli occupation watchers have found that "39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians."

While the administration has given an unprecedented green light to the Israelis, it has brought intense pressure on the Palestinians. After much-touted Palestinian elections resulted in Hamas coming to power, the administration advocated a complete cessation of aid to the Palestinian authority and approved of Israel withholding Palestinian taxes that it collects. That led to an underreported but very severe humanitarian crisis in the occupied territories.

The rationale was that elements within Hamas refused to recognize Israel and call a halt to the Intifada, which is certainly justifiable on its face. But at the same time, both Ariel Sharon and his successor Ehud Olmert flagrantly violated the provision of the Road Map that requires that any and all moves in the occupied territories be negotiated with the Palestinians. The Bush administration had no problem with Olmert campaigning on a promise to unilaterally move about 20 percent of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank from recent settlements to older ones, while annexing about 10 percent of the Palestinian territory (a plan since abandoned, at least for the moment)

Simply put, if we extend the question of recognizing the other side's "right to exist" to the "right to self-governance within the boundaries long established by international law," then it becomes clear that Palestinians must acknowledge Israel's right to exist while powerful factions within the Israeli government refuse to acknowledge the same rights for the Palestinians, and can do so with impunity, according to the Bush White house.

And Israeli unilateralism is directly contrary to U.S. interests. As the New York Times' Steven Erlanger wrote ($$), "Israeli unilateralism can be bad for America as well as for Palestinian leaders who favor talking rather than shooting."

When the United States is seen to be an active participant, pushing its ally Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians, Israeli leaders can deflect domestic criticism by blaming Washington, the United States can earn credit with the Arab world for pushing Israel, and the Palestinians will be seen as an active player at the table, boosting negotiators like Mr. Abbas over the rejectionists of Hamas.

Since the Israelis pulled out of the peace process five years ago, there has been absolutely no incentive for them to return (while the Palestinians have been literally starved for voting Hamas to power).

Washington's lock-step embrace of Israeli policies goes beyond its dispute with Palestine; while Israel's massive destruction of Lebanon was viewed as a textbook example of a disproportionate response almost universally -- outside of DC and Tel Aviv -- there's evidence that the United States encouraged the attack. The United States also vetoed two Security Council resolutions condemning Israel for excessive violence in Gaza, which led Arab countries allied to the United States to break the economic embargo on the Palestinians.

We've dug a deep hole in the Middle East, and we just can't stop digging.

This isn't about Iraq -- nothing can salvage the U.S. project there at this point. And it's not even about defeating extremism in the short-term -- nobody seriously believes that militants will give up their violence overnight. But the American strategic class is talking about a "generational war" like the Cold War, and if that's the case, then we have got to take the Arab world's legitimate grievances seriously. Pressuring Israel to pursue a final settlement with the Palestinians would boost our frayed credibility (not only in the Middle East), deepen the rift in radical Islam between those who believe the West is their ultimate enemy -- call them the bin Ladenists -- and those who target their own, often corrupt, governments and, over the long-term, it would separate the Arab extreme from the Arab Main street. That's how you win a "war" on terror.

Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Carter's Mideast book and its provocations

December 19, 2006

YOU WRITE that former president Jimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the title of his new book is "irresponsibly provocative" ("Jimmy Carter vs. Jimmy Carter," editorial, Dec. 16). This would make for a rather puzzling list of "irresponsibly provocative" commentators on the Israel-Palestine conflict. For example, a study by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem concluded: "Israel has created in the Occupied Territories a regime of separation based on discrimination, applying two separate systems of law in the same area and basing the rights of individuals on their nationality. This regime . . . is reminiscent of . . . the apartheid regime in South Africa." The roster of irresponsible provocateurs would also include the editorial board of Israel's leading newspaper Haaretz, which observed in September that "the apartheid regime in the territories remains intact; millions of Palestinians are living without rights, freedom of movement or a livelihood, under the yoke of ongoing Israeli occupation."

Indeed, the list apparently includes former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. Pointing to his "fixation with Bantustans," Israeli researcher Gershom Gorenberg concluded in 2003 that it is "no accident" that Sharon's plan for the West Bank "bears a striking resemblance to the 'grand apartheid' promoted by the old South African regime." Sharon reportedly stated around that time that "the Bantustan model was the most appropriate solution to the conflict."

NORMAN G. FINKELSTEIN
Chicago

Pentagon Wants to 'Double-Down.' Sadr the Target

Dec 13, 2006

40,000? 20,000? Nobody's saying yet how many. Or where from. Or whether this is the hybrid plan that Thomas Ricks at the Washington Post wrote about three weeks ago in his "Go Big, Go Long, Go Home" piece. That hybrid would introduce more troops for a short period, then cut back but keep tens of thousands on hand for however long it took to train the Iraqi army to get its shit together.

Whatever the numbers and whatever the overall plan, Pentagon officials will meet with Mister Bush today to make their recommendations, according to the Los Angeles Times:

As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to Bush at the Pentagon today. Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort may be the only way to get the counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). But the Pentagon proposals add several features, including the confrontation with Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

How far the Pentagon proposal will go toward satisfying Mister Bush's quitters-never-win mantra remains to be seen since he won't be telling us what his plans are until after the holidays.

Steve Gilliard takes a dim view:

Sadr has at least 60,000 men under arms, and I would bet could raise far more than that if he needed to, including several army units. So what is the plan, go into Sadr City and replay Stalingrad? Then fight off the Sunnis in Ramadi, who, will for no other reason than cussedness, attack our supply lines. So you will have the US trying to hunt down people in their homes, alleys they know like their hands, streets which have been presighted for years.

And to add to this madness, they're gonna be looking for Moqtada Sadr. In his home, in the neighborhood named for his family. How much you wanna bet they fail? ...

Same kind of thinking in play. Countries don't like leaders who cooperate with occupiers. They tend to kill or exile them. All this talk of shoving Sadr aside, which has been around the Green Zone for months, is pure idiocy. People always think they can replace an authentic leader with one of their liking. Iraqis already don't trust Hakim, because of that little torture thing in the Iranian POW camps, considering the vast majority were Shia. And now he's conspiring with Bush?

Whether the troops can be found to up the ante in Iraq and whether, if found, they can actually defeat al-Sadr in his own city without playing the Fallujah card is not something I'd want to "double-down" on even if we were just talking dollars instead of lives.

While the Pentagon makes its calculations, and American troops wonder which Christmas they'll be home, the Bush-Cheney attempts at juggling the Iraqi factions continue apace. About all that's missing these days is an invitation to Ahmad Chalabi for lunch at the White House. And, of course, a sane plan for getting out of Iraq.

--By by Meteor Blades, tleelange@hotmail.com

Media Consensus: Stay in Iraq!

December 5, 2006

By Norman Solomon

The lead-up to the invasion of Iraq has become notorious in the annals of American journalism. Even many reporters, editors and commentators who fueled the drive to war in 2002 and early 2003 now acknowledge that major media routinely tossed real journalism out the window in favor of boosting war.

But it's happening again.

The current media travesty is a drumbeat for the idea that the U.S. war effort must keep going. And again, in its news coverage, the New York Times is a bellwether for the latest media parade to the cadence of the warfare state.

During the run-up to the invasion, news stories repeatedly told about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction while the Times and other key media outlets insisted that their coverage was factually reliable. Now the same media outlets insist that their coverage is analytically reliable.

Instead of authoritative media information about aluminum tubes and mobile weapons labs, we're now getting authoritative media illumination of why a swift pullout of U.S. troops isn't realistic or desirable. The result is similar to what was happening four years ago -- a huge betrayal of journalistic responsibility.

The WMD spin was in sync with official sources and other establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed. The anti-pullout spin is in sync with official sources and other establishment-sanctified experts, named and unnamed.

During the weeks since the midterm election, the New York Times news coverage of Iraq policy options has often been heavy-handed, with carefully selective sourcing for prefab conclusions. Already infamous is the Nov. 15 front-page story by Michael Gordon under the headline "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say." A similar technique was at play Dec. 1 with yet another "News Analysis," this time by reporter David Sanger, headlined "The Only Consensus on Iraq: Nobody's Leaving Right Now."

Typically, in such reportage, the sources harmonizing with the media outlet's analysis are chosen from the cast of political characters who helped drag the United States into making war on Iraq in the first place.

What's now going on in mainline news media is some kind of repetition compulsion. And, while media professionals engage in yet another round of conformist opportunism, many people will pay with their lives.

With so many prominent American journalists navigating their stories by the lights of big Washington stars, it's not surprising that so much of the news coverage looks at what happens in Iraq through the lens of the significance for American power.

Viewing the horrors of present-day Iraq with star-spangled eyes, New York Times reporters John Burns and Kirk Semple wrote -- in the lead sentence of a front-page "News Analysis" on Nov. 29 -- that "American military and political leverage in Iraq has fallen sharply."

The second paragraph of the Baghdad-datelined article reported: "American fortunes here are ever more dependent on feuding Iraqis who seem, at times, almost heedless to American appeals."

The third paragraph reported: "It is not clear that the United States can gain new traction in Iraq..."

And so it goes -- with U.S. media obsessively focused on such concerns as "American military and political leverage," "American fortunes" and whether "the United States can gain new traction in Iraq."

With that kind of worldview, no wonder so much news coverage is serving nationalism instead of journalism.


Norman Solomon is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.

Iraq and the Danger of Psychological Entrapment

By Shankar Vedantam

Monday, December 4, 2006; A02

As Robert M. Gates appears this week at his Senate confirmation hearings for defense secretary, Wesleyan University psychologist Scott Plous sees a hidden trap. To understand it, take a little test.

Let's say your elderly dad has a beloved car. Its reliability was legendary, but it has started to have problems. He gets one thing fixed, and something else goes wrong. Each fix doesn't cost much, but they add up, and then the problems start to get bigger. Your dad is convinced the next repair will get the car as good as new. Would you advise him to pull the plug and get rid of the car?

Or consider this. A friend invests some money after getting a tip about a stock. The price soars, and your friend gains 10 percent overnight. He immediately doubles his investment. A week later, the thing tanks, and he is in the red. A month later, it dives again, and he has lost a quarter of his investment. Should he cut his losses and sell?

One more, and yes, these are all trick questions. A woman you care about falls in love. After many years of a happy relationship, the person she is with develops a vicious streak, starts smashing things and occasionally gives her a black eye. Would you tell her to walk out of the relationship?

The trick in all these questions is that when presented with such scenarios, it is easy for us to answer yes. Your dad should sell that car, your friend should save what money he can, and the person you care about should dump that abuser.

Every day, of course, when it comes to such decisions in our own lives, millions of people answer no.

The difference is because of a widespread phenomenon in human behavior known as entrapment. When you invest yourself in something, it is exceedingly difficult to discard your investment. What is devilish about entrapment is not just that it can result in ever greater losses, but that those losses get you ever more entrapped, because now you have even more invested.

Plous, a social psychologist and author of "The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making," said experiments show that psychological entrapment comes in at least four guises: the investment trap, in which we try to recover sunk costs by throwing good money after bad; the time delay trap, in which a short-term benefit carries the seed of long-term problems; the deterioration trap, in which things that started out well slowly get worse; and the ignorance trap, in which hidden risks surface suddenly.

What does this have to do with the Gates confirmation? Plous sees the U.S. dilemma about what military course to take in Iraq as a perfect example of psychological entrapment -- on a national scale.

"What is remarkable is that the war in Iraq is a kind of super trap that has all these elements," Plous said. "Some weeks things look better, and then they look worse and then there is a setback. What we need is to take a step back and ask, 'If we were faced with the choice today without sunk costs, what decision would we make?' "

Plous is talking about the quick military victory followed by the zigzag decline into nightmare: the lack of intelligence on the ground about Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction; the hundreds of billions of dollars invested to fight the war; and above all, the lives of thousands of Americans that have been lost.

Plous said his alarm bells went off when he realized that President Bush was explicitly using the language of entrapment in speeches to rally support for the war. "Retreating from Iraq would dishonor the service of our brave men and women who have sacrificed in that country and have given their lives in that country, which would mean their sacrifice would be in vain," the president said recently.

Plous's point is not that Bush's appeal is ineffective; the point of entrapment is that it is exceedingly effective. It is utterly human not to want a great sacrifice to go in vain.

I asked Plous whether he was drawing his conclusion only because the war in Iraq is going badly. Would he have told the British the same thing, for example, during the bleakest days of 1940, when a German victory seemed imminent -- and when holding on led to victory over Adolf Hitler?

In other words, how do you tell the difference between getting entrapped in a disaster and being persistent through the difficult phase that can precede victory?

Psychology cannot predict the future or tell you what to do, but Plous said it can warn you to be vigilant if a course of action is primarily justified in terms of recovering what has already been lost. It is not wrong to factor in sunk costs, but they should not drive the decision.

In the World War II example, defeating fascism, not honoring dead British soldiers, was the reason it made sense to fight on.

"Rational decision-making should not be driven primarily by recovery of past costs," Plous said. "If you can no longer justify it in terms of what it will bring in the future and what its realistic prospects are, that is a warning sign you may have become entrapped."

Other techniques to avoid entrapment in everyday life include making sure that a decision to continue on a path is not made solely by people who decided on that path in the first place, by setting limits on investments upfront and by triggering automatic reviews if a plan of action hits certain predetermined failure points.

But none of those measures can take the sting out of the dilemma on whether to change course after a substantial investment: "Regardless of whether you supported the war or not," Plous said, "this is going to be heart-wrenching."

Babylon is burning

December 3, 2006

By ERIC MARGOLIS

French President Jacques Chirac’s warnings in 2003 that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would set the Mideast on fire, encourage terrorism, and produce a disaster have been tragically born out by events.

Iraq is falling ever deeper into chaos and sectarian conflict. Lebanon teeters on the brink of civil war. The agonies of Palestine continue without relent. Iran’s power and influence are surging.

For the latter, thank Washington, which overthrew two of Iran’s bitterest enemies, Taliban and Saddam Hussein, then stuck U.S. ground forces in the $250 million per day Iraq quagmire.

As Iraq turns into a nightmare of carnage and hate, President George Bush and mentor Dick Cheney rushed to the Mideast last week to urge their local allies to pull America’s bacon out of the fire. But Iraq’s hapless “president,” Nuri al-Maliki, presides only over Baghdad’s U.S.-protected Green Zone.

The U.S. controls what passes for Iraq’s police and armed forces. How can Bush expect a powerless figurehead to do what the mighty U.S. cannot? At least Maliki had the pluck to make a symbolic protest after humiliating reports leaked in Washington that the U.S. intended to dump him.

So much for Iraq “democracy.” Washington may be headed towards installing a ruthless Saddam clone, either some brutal CIA “asset” or iron-fisted general.

Iraq has no real government or army.

What western reporters and Pentagon spinners term the Iraqi Army is really a collection of Shia militias, death squads and mercenaries, many former convicts.

The U.S. occupation’s extensive use of Shia death squads to fight the Sunni resistance has played a key role in igniting Iraq’s current sectarian bloodbath. This little-known story is a major scandal.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Jordan warn they may send troops into Iraq to protect its Sunni minority from ethnic cleansing by the Shia majority. Such a move could provoke the powerful Turkish Army to invade independence-seeking Kurdish regions of northern Iraq.

Iran would be quickly drawn into the melee.

Chaos could spread

Iraq’s neighbours deeply fear its chaos will spread across their borders, with dangerous, unpredictable consequences for all concerned, particularly Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The long-awaited Iraq Study Group’s report comes out this week. It is expected to call for a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, and retention of some “intervention units” in neighbouring countries.

France ruled its West African empire for a half a century this way: Installing compliant puppet rulers kept in power by strategically located French Foreign Legion and Air Force units ready to interveneat signs of unrest.

The Iraq Study Group will also likely call for direct talks with Iran and Syria.

Their cooperation is essential to stabilizing Iraq.

But a furious, behind-the-scenes battle is raging in Washington between advocates of diplomatic engagement with Damascus and Tehran, and the pro-Israel lobby who have successfully blocked for decades all attempts to open such badly needed dialogue.

Israel and many of its American supporters are pushing for a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

If Washington announces “phased withdrawals” of U.S. forces from Iraq, the already shaky morale of American troops there will plummet.

Who wants to risk life or limb for a phased withdrawal?

This is exactly what we saw happen to U.S. forces in Vietnam after President Lyndon Johnson announced military victory was no longer his goal. No GI wanted to be the last soldier killed in a lost war by bungling politicians.

Once Washington utters the dreaded “w” word — withdrawal — Iraqis working for the U.S occupation will decamp to the Sunni or Shia opposition. Iran’s influence in Iraq will soar. America’s Arab allies — will panic.

But President Bush keeps insisting “no retreat.” He still seems unable to see the writing on the wall in Babylon.

Full Text of Rumsfeld’s Classified Memo of Options for Iraq War

December 3, 2006

Rumsfeld’s Memo of Options for Iraq War

Following is the text of a classified Nov. 6 memorandum that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to the White House suggesting new options in Iraq. The memorandum was sent one day before the midterm Congressional elections and two days before Mr. Rumsfeld resigned.

Nov. 6, 2006

SUBJECT: Iraq — Illustrative New Courses of Action
--MORE--

Rosa Brooks: Abandon Iraq to save it

ROSA BROOKS

The presence of troops will only make things worse; the U.S. should find other ways to help.

Rosa Brooks

December 1, 2006

CONDITIONS IN IRAQ grow more appalling each day, and a substantial majority of Iraqis now believe that the continued presence of U.S. troops is a major cause of the ongoing carnage. Despite this, supporters of the Bush administration continue to insist that if we withdraw U.S. troops, we'll be "abandoning" Iraq.

"Abandoning" Iraq to what, exactly? To civil war? Iraq already has that, thanks in large part to us. Maybe things will get worse if we leave — but maybe our departure is the only thing that can save Iraq. The Iraqis think they'll be better off without us.

The U.S. does have a deep responsibility to aid the Iraqis. But let's talk about what is, and isn't, "abandonment." Invading Iraq without a plan for protecting crucial infrastructure and civilian lives was a form of abandonment.

Failing to complete — or even begin — most of the reconstruction projects we promised was a form of abandonment.

Taking such a heavy-handed approach to combating insurgents that thousands of civilian deaths were written off as "collateral damage" was a form of abandonment.

Refusing to engage with Iran and Syria, the two regional powers whose cooperation is most crucial to slowing the violence, is a form of abandonment.

Most of all, keeping 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq when their presence is only making things worse is a form of abandonment.

If we're serious about helping the Iraqi people, there are still some things we can do. For a start, we should withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq — something the bipartisan Iraq Study Group appears likely to recommend.

That doesn't mean there's no longer any role for the U.S. military. In the shorter term (the next six months to a year), redeploying some U.S. troops to secure Iraq's borders might diminish the likelihood that Iraq's civil war will morph into a full-scale proxy war among regional powers. Similarly, U.S. military advisors should continue to provide training to the Iraqi army and police in the shorter term, but such programs need to be constantly reassessed to make sure that the Iraqis we're working with don't simply become U.S.-trained members of ethnic death squads.

At this point, though, most of what we can do for Iraq won't directly involve the U.S. military. In a May 2006 report written for the Center for American Progress, Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis call for the U.S. to help organize an international peace conference on Iraq, bringing together Iraqi government and militia leaders, along with representatives of key neighboring states, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria and Iran. The goal: get leaders of the various rival factions to hammer out a cease-fire agreement, an agreement on federalism and division of resources, a timetable for disbanding the militias and, perhaps, agreement on a regional or international force to help keep the peace.

Such a conference — modeled on the 1995 Dayton conference that ended the war in Bosnia — wouldn't produce pretty results. But in Iraq, as in Bosnia, even an imperfect peace would be better than ongoing carnage.

We should also redouble the U.S. commitment to Iraqi reconstruction. Though our credibility in the region is shot, our money could still help make things better, and we should push other donor states to pony up as well. A genuine international commitment to Iraqi reconstruction — job creation, the restoration of basic services such as electricity and healthcare and support for civil society and honest, effective local government could help give Iraqis the motivation to pull together. If we don't want our financial help to be seen as poisonous, though, we need to let the United Nations or a regional entity administer the funds (sorry, Halliburton).

But the next year is likely to be bad for Iraqis, no matter what. So what about those Iraqis who would rather not hang around, ducking suicide bombers and hoping things will get better?

The least we can do is make it easier for them to get out of Iraq — starting now. We should encourage neighbors such as Jordan to welcome refugees — and, as George Packer insists in this week's New Republic, we should make Iraqi refugees welcome in the U.S.

Last year, Packer reports, the U.S. quota for Iraqi refugees was fewer than 200, and our Baghdad embassy doesn't even issue visas. The administration should grant temporary protected status in the U.S. to Iraqis fleeing the civil war. And, as Packer warns, we should get ready now with "contingency plans for massive airlifts and ground escorts" for the most vulnerable Iraqis, in case the worst happens.

"We had to destroy the village in order to save it," an Army officer reportedly said during the Vietnam War. With so many dead, and so many Iraqis calling on us to leave, insisting that the withdrawal of U.S. troops is "abandoning" Iraq comes to much the same thing.

---

rbrooks@latimescolumnists.com

Iraq: How Bad Is It?

Reports | Detail

Iraqi Force Development and the Challenge of Civil War
	Author: Anthony H. Cordesman Contributors: Brian Burton, Iskandar Jahja, George Sullivan, William D. Sullivan Date of Publication: November 28, 2006 Related Research Focus: Middle East & North Africa International Security Terrorism & Transnational Threats Experts : Anthony H. Cordesman
	Synopsis: Iraq is already in a state of at least limited civil war, and may well be escalating to the level of a major civil conflict. What began as a small resistance movement centered on loyalists to the Ba’ath and Saddam Hussein has expanded to include neo-Salafi Sunni terrorism, become a broadly based Sunni insurgency, and now a broader sectarian and ethnic conflict. Excerpts A Survery of Options for Iraq: The Almost Good, the Bad, and the Ugly The US needs to act or it will be defeated in Iraq. Iraq is already in a state of serious civil war, and current efforts at political compromise and improving security at best are buying time. There is a critical risk that Iraq will drift into a major civil conflict over the coming months, see its present government fail, and/or divide or separate in some form. The US cannot simply "stay the course," and rely on its existing actions and strategy. It needs new options to reverse the drift towards a major civil war and political failure. The military and police development effort falls far short of Department of Defense claims, must be reinforced and will take years to make fully successful. The economic aid and development program has failed, and new incentives are needed to offer any serious hope of Iraqi political compromise and conciliation. The US cannot wait to see if its existing strategy and actions will work. They will not. The situation is spiraling out of control, and the US must either strongly reinforce its existing strategy or change it. No mix of options will allow the US to succeed unless Iraqis can succeed in creating a more effective form of political compromise. No mix of options for US action can provide a convincing plan for "victory" in Iraq. The initiative has passed into Iraqi hands.

http://www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=3621

A Republican Takes the Lead on Iraq

BLOG | Posted 11/27/2006 @ 01:30am

John Nichols

In radio and television interviews since the election, I have argued repeatedly that the November 7 vote did not just empower Democrats to do the right thing with regard to the Iraq debacle. It also freed up Republicans -- particularly Senate Republicans who have long been ill at ease with the neoconservative nonsense peddled by the Bush administration.

Now that the votes have been counted, the American people are ready for swift steps to extract U.S. forces from a no-win situation.

Yet, while Democratic leaders talk of "going slow," smart Republicans are recognizing the political opening and seizing it.

Case in point: Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel's opinion piece in Sunday's Washington Post.

Hagel has long been blunter than his Democratic colleagues about the disaster that the Iraq occupation has become for the U.S. The Nebraska Republican was making comparisons between the Vietnam War, in which he served, and the Iraq imbroglio months ago -- at a point when most Senate Democrats were holding their tongues.

Hagel has now taken the mightly leap of declaring that it is time to "form a bipartisan consensus to get out of Iraq."

"We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam," Hagel writes in the Post. "Honorable intentions are not policies and plans. Iraq belongs to the 25 million Iraqis who live there. They will decide their fate and form of government.

While I might disagree with Hagel about the "honorable intentions" of the invasion and occupation, he gets no challenge from this quarter on his observations that the war has been "misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged" and that the Bush administration's approach has been characterized by "arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam."

Hagel is making precisely the case for withdrawal that Congressional Democrats should be offering at this point:

"The United States must begin planning for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The cost of combat in Iraq in terms of American lives, dollars and world standing has been devastating. We've already spent more than $300 billion there to prosecute an almost four-year-old war and are still spending $8 billion per month. The United States has spent more than $500 billion on our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq," the Nebraskan argues. "We are destroying our force structure, which took 30 years to build. We've been funding this war dishonestly, mainly through supplemental appropriations, which minimizes responsible congressional oversight and allows the administration to duck tough questions in defending its policies. Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility in the past four years."

Now, with a new Congress about to charge, Hagel writes, "It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq."

Democrats should be asking themselves: Why is a Republican taking the lead on the issue that played such a pivotal role in putting Democrats in charge of the House and Senate?

The honest answer is an unsettling one.

Right now, Hagel is sounding more realistic and responsible than most if not all of the Democrats who are positioning themselves for 2OO8 presidential runs. Indeed, with Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, the first senator to call for an withdrawal timeline, out of the running, Democrats could use a candidate who speaks as directly as does Hagel about the need to get out of Iraq. While it is true that Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who may or may not be running, is a Democrat who has started to make some of the right noises, Obama has not begun to equal the directness of Hagel's declaration that: "The time for more U.S. troops in Iraq has passed. We do not have more troops to send and, even if we did, they would not bring a resolution to Iraq. Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation -- regardless of our noble purpose."

This is not to say that Hagel, who entertains presidential ambitions of his own, should switch parties. He's still a domestic-policy conservative, and something of a hawk on foreign policy. Yet, he is the one saying that: "If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead."

If they are outflanked by Republicans like Hagel on the central issue of our time, Democrats will also pay a high price. They will lose the popular support and the moral authority that their November 7 successes gave them. And Americans, who polls show are ready for rapid withdrawal, will give their support to the leaders who are willing to say not just that it is time to bring the troops home but also, as Hagel does, that it is time for the U.S. to radically alter its approach to the Middle East.

Would that the Democratic leadership would say, as Hagel admit, that, "America finds itself in a dangerous and isolated position in the world. We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. Unfortunately, that perception is gaining credibility in the Muslim world and for many years will complicate America's global credibility, purpose and leadership. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed as the world seeks a new geopolitical, trade and economic center that will accommodate the interests of billions of people over the next 25 years. The world will continue to require realistic, clear-headed American leadership -- not an American divine mission."

Thousands of British troops may stay in Iraq until 2016

The Times November 28, 2006

British troops may stay in Iraq until 2016


Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor


Thousands of British troops could remain in Iraq for another decade, Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday.

Speaking at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Mr Browne said that he expected to withdraw a substantial number of the 7,200 British Armed Forces in southern Iraq by the end of next year.

The reduction will be possible when British soldiers hand over responsibility for Maysan and Basra, the last two provinces under their direct control. Maysan is due to be transferred in January and Basra in April. “If both these go to plan, we will be able to start drawing down our forces,” he said. “By the end of next year I expect the numbers of British Forces in Iraq to be significantly lower, by a matter of thousands.”

Whitehall officials expect the number to be halved but British Forces will remain at brigade strength with armour and air support at Basra airport and the Shaiba logistics base south of the city.

Yesterday’s announcement did little to satisfy demands at home and in Iraq for American and British forces to set a timetable for a complete withdrawal. “Des Browne will have to try much harder if he wants to satisfy calls for a detailed plan for withdrawal,” Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said. “Vague assurances are not enough.”

Italy, once a significant contributor with 3,000 troops in southern Iraq, said yesterday that the last of its forces would leave the country this week. Poland said that all its 900 soldiers would be home by the end of next year. Japan withdrew this year and many other states plan to follow suit.

Mr Browne insisted, however, that reducing the size of the British contingent in Iraq did not mean that Britain was withdrawing, and said that there was no timetable for a full pull out. “We need to be clear: the handover does not mean withdrawal,” he said.

British Forces will remain to back up the Iraqi police and Army and help to protect the vulnerable supply routes from Kuwait used by US forces to bring food, fuel and ammunition to their bases in central and northern Iraq.

For the first time Mr Browne also suggested that the British could embark on a new role that would last for five to ten years. This would be to bolster the Iraqi armed forces until they are capable of maintaining order at home and of defending the country’s borders.

“Our long-term relationship with Iraq will depend on the Iraqi Government’s position and on the circumstances,” he said. “I am not at this stage seeking to set out what the level of troop deployment will be in five or ten years’ time.”

One crucial factor shaping Iraq’s future could be the role of its powerful neighbours, Iran and Syria, who are blamed for stoking the violence by helping Iraqi insurgents and militants. The Iraq Study Group, an influential American review panel, is expected to recommend to President Bush next month that he open talks with Damascus and Tehran to help to stabilise the situation in Iraq.

Mr Browne said that Syria had recently “shown signs of constructive engagement” in Iraq by sending its Foreign Minister to Baghdad to announce the full restoration of diplomatic relations. He added, however, that Iran’s behaviour remained a cause of deep concern and he accused Tehran of backing groups attacking British Forces.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2475107,00.html

Neocon Militarist Joshua Muravchik: Stoking the Conflagration in the Middle East

Nov 26, 2006

By Walter C. Uhler


Viewers of the November 15, 2006 airing of Democracy Now were given the treat of seeing Amy Goodman's interview with former Senator George McGovern, current Congressman Dennis Kucinich and the American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik. The subject under discussion was titled: "Out of Iraq or More Troops?" A "treat?" Yes, viewers (or readers of the transcript) were able to see Mr. Muravchik, an acerbic-tongued neoconservative militarist, in action.

Mr. McGovern started the debate by recommending a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, commencing in December and ending in June 2007. Congressman Kucinich supported Mr. McGovern's gradual withdrawal, but proposed to give it teeth by having Congress cut off all future funding for the war. Mr. Muravchik advocated sending "a lot more troops" "until we can bring some order to Iraq."

Muravchik seemed oblivious to a few well-known facts on the ground: (1) The very presence of American occupiers fuels the insurgency (2) the United States is unable to commit "a lot more troops," except in the short run, (3) such troops would become sitting ducks in the escalating civil war, and (4) the American public would not long tolerate an escalation that didn't bring immediate results.

But, beyond allowing his neocon ideology to blind him to such facts on the ground, Mr. Muravchik cannot yet admit to how "catastrophically wrong" (like his neocon brethren) he was to recommend regime change in Iraq in the first place. Listen to his limited hang-out mea culpa: "Things that we did in Iraq may have been mistaken, may have been misguided, and so on." And so on? How about criminal and immoral? And why are you appearing on television and writing Op-Eds when you should be rotting from within, conscience stricken, and in well-deserved ignominious isolation for you egregious error?

Instead, Muravchik appeared on Democracy Now and despicably slandered McGovern, a World War II hero: "Listening to Congressman Kucinich sounds like listening to a broken record from the '60s or the people who wanted to follow Senator McGovern's advice and give up and surrender in the Cold War."

Senator McGovern not only rebutted the slander, but also noted: "a lot of these so-called hawks, who sound so belligerent vocally, never have been near a battle scene. They know nothing of war from firsthand experience."

Yet, skeptical readers of Commentary magazine would have been familiar with Mr. Muravchik's decades of slander, militarism and error.

Consider that, in June 1988, Muravchik gratuitously attacked The Nation when he wrote: "Thus has the Nation progressed from its long and dishonorable history as an apologist for Soviet tyranny to the still bolder and more dishonorable role of accomplice." Or consider that, in October 1990, he complained about Nelson Mandela's "unrelievedly triumphal" tour of the United States.

Writing in May 1991, Muravchik expressed the hope that the U.S. victory in Iraq had destroyed "some very wrong ideas [concerning reluctance to use American military force] from our Vietnam debacle. And, in July 1992, he wrote in defense to the 1992 Defense Policy Guidance, penned by fellow neocon Paul Wolfowitz, which aimed at nothing less than America's military dominance of the world.

Given his expressed enthusiasm for the use and efficacy of U.S. military power, one can see how Muravchik committed his catastrophic blunder of recommending regime change in Iraq. One also can understand why he recommends sending more troops to die for his initial blunder there.

Finally, given his militarism, one can understand why this armchair chickenhawk urges the United States to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. Witness his recent Op-Ed, "Bomb Iran," written for the Los Angeles Times. There, Muravchik accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, an accusation that currently has as much validity as the Bush/Cheney lies about Iraq's WMD. Perhaps, like Cheney, he has his own one percent doctrine, when it comes to evidence.

He also claims that Iran "is a country on a mission," as if Iran's goal of regional leadership hasn't' been abetted by the neocons' own failed mission of regime change in Iraq. Finally, Muravchik provides his real reason for wanting to bomb Iran: "An Iranian bomb would constitute a dire threat to Israel's 6 million-plus citizens." But, beyond falsely assuming an Iranian bomb, Muravchik fails to mention the threat posed to Iran by both Israel's and America's nuclear arsenals.

Were he a serious scholar, rather than an advocate for Israel, Mr. Muravchik would read the chapter by Dan Reiter ("Preventive Attacks against Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons Programs: The Track Record") found in the recent book, Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy.

Reiter reaches two basic conclusions about such attacks: "First, limited attacks such as air strikes almost never work, in that they rarely delay NBC [Nuclear, Biological, Chemical] programs significantly. Further, any minor successes in the past are not likely to be repeated in the future, as in anticipation of such attacks regimes are concealing and dispersing their NBC facilities. Second, attacks that change regimes might help remove NBC threats, though even when successful, war does not always change regimes durably. Moreover, the uncertain benefits of such wars must be weighed against the very high costs. Resources might be more efficiently spent on counterproliferation and counterterrorism priorities other than preventive attacks against NBC programs." [p. 28]

Thus, Mr. Muravchik should reconsider his numerous errors and eat some humble pie before recommending military escalations that will only deepen the hole that the Bush administration has dug in the Middle East. Either that or put his own smacked-ass on the front lines.


Walter C. Uhler is an independent scholar and freelance writer whose work has been published in numerous publications, including The Nation, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Military History, the Moscow Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also is President of the Russian-American International Studies Association (RAISA).

waltuhler@aol.com

http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/muravchik.html

Inadvertent Wisdom from George H.W. Bush

Saturday, Nov. 25, 2006

As his father indirectly acknowledged, the President is about to be deluged by advice on Iraq. But the best counsel shouldn't be how to "win" but how to withdraw creatively

By JOE KLEIN


In Abu Dhabi last week, President George H.W. Bush was asked what advice he was giving his son about Iraq. Bush the Elder declined to answer at first. He said that if he shared his view of Iraq with the audience and "it happened to deviate one iota, one little inch, from what the President's doing ... it would be terrible." But he kept on talking: "It'd bring great anxiety not only to him but to his supporters." And talking: "In the early 1960s, Jim Baker and I were the men's doubles champions in tennis in the city of Houston," he said of the former Secretary of State, now co-chairing a panel that is supposed to make recommendations about what to do in Iraq. And then the former President talked some more: "If I were to suggest what they ought to do, it just would not be constructive and certainly would not be helpful to the President. It would cause grief to him."

How sad to watch a man who was such a subtle and sophisticated foreign policy President dance around—and inadvertently acknowledge—the phenomenal disaster created by his son. But the old man has a point: Junior is about to be deluged with advice about Iraq, and most of it will be worthless. There will be calls for regional diplomatic conferences and partition plans and new Iraqi power-sharing deals, plans to increase and plans to diminish the level of U.S. troops or to deploy them differently. Expert advocates will brilliantly argue all these possibilities, but each will have a fatal flaw: the expectation of a rational, cooperative reaction from the Iraqis. That is no longer possible. Iraq no longer exists as a coherent governmental entity. It is being atomized, according to cia Director Michael Hayden, into "smaller and smaller groups fighting over smaller and smaller issues over smaller and smaller pieces of territory."

Hayden's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee a few weeks ago was largely overlooked, but it is stunning. He called the level of violence in Iraq "satanic." He said that as the violence increases, "the center disappears, and normal people acting not irrationally end up acting like extremists." In other words, if you're a resident of Baghdad, the most rational response is to seek protection from one of the militias—al-Qaeda if you're Sunni, the Mahdi Army if you're Shi'ite—or to get out of town. "It's impossible to get your teeth fixed in Baghdad," a U.S. intelligence official told me recently. "All the dentists have left the country."

And so we have reached the point where there is only one meaningful decision left for George W. Bush in Iraq: what to do with our troops there. The President will be tempted to follow the advice coming from the uniformed military rather than from a civilian group like the Baker commission. That's partly because he so foolishly ignored the military's views during the Rumsfeld era but also because the military is likely to share Bush's hope that Iraq is still salvageable. I spoke with several senior officials involved in or familiar with the Pentagon's Iraq review process last week, and they were unanimous in suggesting the need for more troops, at least in the short term, in order to secure Baghdad. They also suggested more and better U.S. advisory teams working with Iraqi military units. "And then we need to be patient," a senior military intelligence official told me. "It could be years before we see any real progress."

Of course, uniformed military leaders have been suggesting more troops were needed ever since the war began. But they've been saying it privately—in an abdication of military responsibility—for fear that they would suffer the same fate as that of General Eric Shinseki, who told a congressional committee that "several hundred thousand" troops would be needed in Iraq and was, in effect, fired by Rumsfeld. "We had a responsibility to speak up," said a general who served in Iraq. "You can say what you will about Paul Wolfowitz, but when he was DepSec, he was always on the phone with those of us who were downrange, asking how things were going and what we needed. But [while they were serving], even some of the generals who later turned on Rumsfeld would give the answer they thought they were supposed to give him: Everything's fine, sir!"

Now, finally, the uniformed brass seem poised to speak more candidly. But that doesn't make a military solution to this disaster any more plausible. "You know, we're trained to complete the mission," a senior military officer told me. "And that's our reflex reaction, to come up with a can-do plan—'Here's how you fix it, sir!' But we may lack perspective now. The situation may be reaching the point of no return." Indeed, the best advice for the military to give the President at this point may not be how to "win" in Iraq—but how to withdraw creatively, how to limit Iran's influence in the Shi'ite regions of the south, how to keep special-operations and quick-strike units based in the region, poised to attack al-Qaeda operations on a regular basis. The United States has lost the war in Iraq, but the "long war" against Islamist extremism will surely continue. The most pressing issue now is how not to lose the battles to come.

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1562913,00.html

Many have cautioned against evils of empire

A good reading list for Iraq Study Group
- Martin F. Nolan

Sunday, November 26, 2006


They are awash in words, flooded with advice and sweating to meet a deadline. The 10 members of the Iraq Study Group are the hope of many for a solution to the war in Iraq. They may not need a reading list, but they can find relevant wisdom in the writings of Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and even a recent volume by one of their own members, James Addison Baker III.

But first, they might consult "A Dictionary of Cliches" by Eric Partridge on two of their targets, slogans posing as policy alternatives. "To cut and run" sounds like a cowboy movie sneer, but the phrase is not from Hopalong Cassidy but Horatio Hornblower: "To decamp, or depart, hurriedly: colloquial. Nautical: from cutting the cable and running before the wind."

American naval heroes like John Paul Jones and Stephen Decatur did not consider this tactic cowardly. Seeing the sails of a larger enemy force, a prudent captain cut his anchor, ran, regrouped with his fleet over the horizon and lived to fight another day.

Today it would be called "redeployment," a phrase used in 2005 by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., when he shed his hawkish feathers and redirected the national debate on Iraq. The subsequent political uproar obscured Murtha's detailed strategy "to create a quick-reaction force in the region" and "to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines."

By definition, cliches are phrases that have lost much of their meaning. "To stay the course" Partridge defines as "To endure; to pursue a task, a course of conduct, to the appointed end: colloquial: from horse racing." Propagandists have excised the crucial second half of that phrase: to the appointed end.

Thus, definitions of success appear and disappear and predictions of victory crash and burn. The Bush administration's talk of "war" and "wartime" has become a cliche in itself. Americans no longer believe in a war without mobilization, a military draft, higher taxes or even rationing gasoline.

The Iraq Study Group's report, due next month, will likely make more news in its emphasis on diplomacy rather than military strategy. One of its sponsors is the U.S. Institute for Peace. An emphasis on statecraft will be newsworthy precisely because diplomacy is so novel a notion in the Bush era.

The commissioners share bipartisanship, patriotic instincts and "former" in front of their titles. They will appreciate the candor of their co-Chairman Baker, who calls his memoirs "Work Hard, Study ... And Keep Out of Politics!" based on advice from his grandfather he heeded only partially.

Hooked on politics and public service, Baker confesses that "as my public prominence diminished, I also discovered that I could stand on busy street corners and walk through airports without being recognized. This was liberating in a way, but also -- truth be told -- disquieting."

Cynical gossips presume Baker is an emissary from the president's father to save Junior's bacon. To Beltway Freudians, let the co-chairman speak for himself: "Early in his first administration, President George W. Bush asked me to let him know each time I came to Washington, and I do. When it's convenient for him (and it usually is), he asks that I drop by for a private visit at the White House. I usually stay about 30 to 45 minutes. We discuss whatever is on his mind -- sometimes foreign or economic policy, sometimes politics, sometimes personnel. He wants me to be candid and frank, and I am. This idea that he is overly sensitive to critical comment is not accurate, as far as I'm concerned. And despite what a lot of pundits may imagine, I always speak for myself, not as a conduit from the president's father or anyone else."

Diplomacy requires a sense of self-awareness, a candid appraisal of the U.S. position in the world.

A new biography by historian Robert L. Beisner, "Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War," reveals why Harry Truman's secretary of state has become a topic of favored reading among diplomats. The late 1940s accelerated the decline of empire and the rise of new nations, many with artificial borders like Iraq's. Since 1945, the membership of the United Nations has almost quadrupled, from 51 to 192. What Acheson told West Point cadets on Dec. 5, 1962, now applies to America: "Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role."

Neocons now seldom talk of a "unipolar world" and barely whisper their once-favorite adjective of world ambition, "hegemonic." Because the end of empire is so important, the study group members should read Joseph Conrad, whose first language was Polish and whose subject matter was colonial adventure.

In "Heart of Darkness," Conrad relived his days as a seaman piloting a steamboat up the Congo River. His forecast of colonialism's eventual fate is bleakly accurate: "I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly."

Conrad's contemporary, Kipling, was 31 when the British Empire paused for a monthlong celebration of Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. "At the back of my head there was an uneasiness ... and a certain optimism that scared me," the world's best-known writer recalled.

On July 17, 1897, the Times printed his "Recessional," a caution against imperial excess:

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine --

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget -- lest we forget! ...

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget -- lest we forget!

In 1892, Kipling wrote:

And the end of the fight is a

tombstone white with the name of

the late deceased, And the epitaph

drear: "A Fool lies here who tried

to hustle the East."

Kipling knew empire in all its glory and grimness. He also knew that the noblest intentions can be poisoned by hubris.



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The task force
The Iraq Study Group, created by Congress, is a bipartisan task force charged with bringing "fresh eyes" to the conflict that began in 2003:

Co-Chair James A. Baker III, former secretary of state;

Co-Chair Lee Hamilton, former Democratic representative from Indiana;

Lawrence Eagleburger, former secretary of state;

Vernon Jordan Jr., senior managing director, Lazard, Freres & Co.;

Edwin Meese III, former attorney general;

Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court associate justice;

Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff;

William Perry, former secretary of defense;

Charles Robb, former U.S. senator;

Alan Simpson, former U.S. senator.

Martin F. Nolan, who lives in San Francisco, read many commission reports when he was Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/26/INGC1MIAIP1.DTL&feed=rss.opinion