The Least Immoral Choice

Squander No More U.S. Lives in Iraq

By Sally Quinn
Tuesday, January 9, 2007; A15

I am an Army brat. I have seen the effects of war firsthand. My father fought in World War II and in the Korean War. I lived on Army posts and saw or heard about the human devastation of war each day.

During the Korean War my father served on the front lines, leaving us behind in Tokyo. Every day I read in the newspaper Stars and Stripes about soldiers being killed. I fell ill because of the emotional stress of having him at war, and at age 10 I ended up in Tokyo General Hospital.

The hospital was filled with severely wounded soldiers who had been airlifted from Korea. It was decided that having parents visit their sick children would be too disruptive, so my mother wasn't allowed to see me for months at a time.

Finally, after nearly nine months, I was transferred to Brooke General Hospital in San Antonio. My mother, younger brother, younger sister and I were placed on an Army hospital plane with the most seriously wounded soldiers, who were to fly back with us. There were no seats on the plane, only three rows of litters, five high, all filled with badly wounded and dying soldiers, most of them still kids themselves. I was strapped to my litter, as they were, but my mother, brother and sister were ambulatory.

The thing I remember most vividly is the soldiers screaming in pain and crying out for their mothers. My mother went up and down the aisles holding their hands, stroking their brows, giving them sips of water. My sister helped light their cigarettes. Many of them were amputees. Some had no stomachs, some had no faces.

The soldiers in the litters above and below me both died, blood dripping from their wounds. Many other soldiers died while we were in the air. We had to stop in Hawaii overnight to refuel and to leave the bodies.

I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?

When I hear about the surge, all I can think of is those young soldiers on the plane to Texas. We have already lost more than 3,000 soldiers, and many more have been wounded and disabled.

We have three choices here. All three are immoral. We can keep the status quo and gradually pull out; we can surge; or we can pull out now. When I think about those young soldiers on that plane coming back from Japan years ago, I believe pulling out now is the least immoral choice.

The writer is a co-moderator of On Faith, an online conversation on religion athttp://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith.

A classic imperial predicament

H.D.S. GREENWAY

By H.D.S. Greenway | January 9, 2007

WERE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S flawed trial and disgusting death just further examples of incompetence, or were they symptoms of a deeper dilemma? What did the incident tell us about America in Iraq and the problems of trying to impose democracy by force?

One has to wonder how even a star-crossed administration such as George W. Bush's and his Iraqi allies could have turned one of the world's most cruel and despicable dictators into a stoic martyr-hero, facing death calmly in the face of an officially sanctioned lynching by Shi'ite militiamen?

After all, the Americans had had physical custody of Saddam for nearly three years. Was it just another bumble that led them to hand him over so quickly to such an undignified death? As Saudi sociologist Khalid al-Dakhil put it: "It looks like they just wanted to take revenge in a vulgar way; that was their gift to the Shia . . ."

Rather than incompetence, the way Saddam died represents the classic imperial predicament. You can occupy a country, even hold elections. But unless you want to rule by yourself forever, what do you do if the locals you put in power won't take your direction -- won't follow your script? What happens when the puppets want to pull their own strings?

--MORE--

Grim picture of Iraq from US government watchdog

Tue Jan 9, 4:22 PM ET

US government auditors released a grim report card of the American record in violence-wracked Iraq, on the eve of President George W. Bush's televised rollout of a new strategy.

The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ran a critical rule over a previous failed US plan for victory, the malfunctioning Iraqi government government and security forces and fearsome insurgent and sectarian violence.

It said the Pentagon had failed to allow proper congressional oversight of Iraqi armed forces, and warned of an increasing strain on US forces pressed into repeated tours of duty and shortages of military supplies.

Though admitting that Iraq experienced three successful elections, adopted a constitution and installed its first elected government since the 2003 US invasion, the report underlined systemic problems in the US record in the country.

"Increasing Iraqi security forces and transferring security responsibilities to them have not resulted in reduced violence," David Walker, US Comptroller General wrote in an accompanying letter to Congress.

"Rather, attacks increased throughout 2006. Although more Iraqi troops have been trained and equipped, high absenteeism and divided loyalties have limited their overall effectiveness."

As Bush prepared to lay out his new strategy on Iraq in a prime time televised address on Wednesday, the GAO audit said his previous plan for victory in Iraq contained serious flaws.

Though the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" unveiled in November 2005 was an improvement over previous plans, it failed to identify key government agencies supposed to carry the strategy out, the report said.

It also did not address how the US will integrate its goals with those of Iraqis and foreign nations, and only partially identified current and future costs of US involvement in Iraq, the report said.

The survey, intended to prepare lawmakers to mount effective congressional oversight of Bush's new strategy for Iraq, also warned that oil and electricity production in Iraq were falling well short of US goals.

As Democrats who won control of Congress in November warn that Bush will have no "blank check" to continue operations in Iraq, the GAO said the United States is likely to incur costs in the foreseeable future "in the hundreds of billions of dollars."

The report also raised new questions as to the combat readiness of US-trained Iraqi troops and security forces, crucial to the prospect of the US forces returning home.

As of December 2006, around 323,000 members of the Iraqi security forces had been trained and equipped, and 128 army units had specific security responsibilities, the report said.

But the GAO raised questions about the quality of the units. It said the Pentagon had repeatedly refused access to Transition Readiness Assessments (TRA) prepared by coalition advisors embedded with the units.

"This serves to limit congressional oversight over the progress achieved towards a critical US objective," the report said.

What Is A Peace Voter To Do?

Jan 10, 2006

By Kevin Zeese

Interviews with Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson on next steps for the anti-war movement

The Iraq War and occupation is at a critical moment. The peace movement needs to be focused to face the challenges before us. This article will be the first in a series reporting on interviews of anti-war activists in order to develop a common agenda, strategy and tactics for the peace movement. This article summarizes interviews with Cindy Sheehan and David Swanson. (A link to the videos is at the bottom of this article.)

The anti-war movement has come a long way since its low point – the re-election of President Bush in 2004. Peace voters dominated the electorate in 2006 with the defeat of some leading Iraq War hawks, e.g., Sen. George Allen (VA) and Sen. Rick Santorum (PA) who were formerly talking about running for president. And, the leadership of the Congress changed hands from the Republicans to the Democrats. But now, there is talk of escalation in Iraq and the Democrats have taken the power of the purse – the only way they can end the war – off the table.

What is a peace voter to do?

Cindy Sheehan woke up the peace movement after the 2004 presidential election year when the movement went adrift quietly and in some cases aggressively supporting the “I can manage the war better” Kerry campaign. When she camped in a ditch outside of President Bush’s ranch in Crawford she awoke the peace movement and gave it direction, visibility and energy. I asked Cindy what peace activists should be doing now? Her response emphasized that we have the power – citizens opposed to the war must continue to lead the government out of Iraq. Rather than “building a movement” we should focus on taking action now – as successful actions result in expansion of the movement.

She also talked about the mistake she made of supporting a pro-war candidate like Sen. John Kerry and how she would not make that mistake again. She now believes that in order to get the government we want we need to vote for people who represent our views. She is supportive of Rep. Kucinich’s campaign and hopes he runs independently if he does not win the Democratic nomination. In the general election she will support the anti-war candidate and urged a third party challenge if Hillary Clinton, John McCain or other hawkish candidates.

Sheehan emphasized that it was time to make it clear to the Democrats that they would not be given a free ride. It is well and good to focus on health care, salaries and social programs but we cannot pay for such programs if we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq. To ensure ending the Iraq war is a priority the peace movement needs to escalate our efforts against politicians from either party who continue to support the war. The key test is not opposing the escalation, that is not enough, elected officials must stop funding the war and bring the troops home. She urged visiting your elected representatives and sitting in their office until they agreed to end the war – occupy the offices of those who favor occupation of Iraq.

Cindy urged a “peace escalation” in response to talk by the administration about increasing the number of troops in Iraq. She began the peace surge on the opening day of Congress by taking over a press conference where Majority Leader Rahm Emanuel was speaking.

My second interview was with David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org. We talked at sunset outside of the White House as a demonstration was just getting started behind us. David is an untiring activist who has worked on both the Iraq War and impeachment of President Bush among other issues. While he urged activists to insist their elected representatives oppose the so-called surge, he said that was not enough and lets them off too easily. Elected officials need to stop the war and withdraw the troops. He talked about the need to withdraw the troops in ways that give Iraq a chance, i.e. funding the reconstruction, urging Iraqi’s to return home and underwrite the cost of a peace keeping or security force.

David described the demands the peace movement should make on Congress as falling in to two broad categories: stop the funding and begin withdrawal; investigate the misuse and manipulation of intelligence and other crimes.

David also talked about the “peace surge” and Cindy Sheehan’s takeover of a Democratic leadership press conference. He first described the effort by Capitol Hill police to keep anti-war activists from being information into the House office building. But, after going up the chain of command activists were allowed to bring in materials for Members and their staff. He then described the takeover of the press conference with Cindy leading a chant of “de-escalate, investigate, troops home now.” After a handful of chants Majority Leader Rahm Emanuel ran from the room and the media asked Cindy to take the podium and she responded to questions.

We are at a critical time in the Iraq War. There is a new Congress that knows the voters want the Iraq War to end. We sent a message that careers will be ended over the Iraq War. Politicians up for re-election don’t want to suffer the fate of Senators Allen and Santorum (there are 22 Republican Senators up for re-election in 2008 and 12 Democrats). Not only are President Bush, and some key senators (e.g., Senators McCain, Graham and Lieberman) calling for an increase of troops but there is also a lot of talk in the media about an attack on Iran.

The anti-war movement has shown it has political muscle, now it must work in a coordinated way to achieve our goals – end the Iraq War, prevent an attack on Iran and investigate those responsible for getting the U.S. into this mistaken quagmire.

You can see the full video interviews at: http://democracyrising.us/content/view/708/164/

Kevin Zeese is director of DemocracyRising.US and a co-founder of VotersForPeace.US.

A Congress of Peeps: Potential for an American Coup D’etat

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The representative discourse on Iraq is now between Wesley Clark and John McCain. On Jan. 7 and 8 Senator McCain and General Clark stated their positions on the op-ed pages of The Washington Post. Clark was the first to speak up in opposition at this critical juncture; just as the President refutes again learned advice and commits himself to a surge in troops and the neocon agenda. Clark and McCain are now the Single Combat Warriors for the two positions on Iraq.

This is Senator McCain’s position published by the Post on January 7: “The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own – impose its rule throughout the country.” He says he knows accelerating the deployment of troops is a “terrible sacrifice” and the troops will be disappointed, but then, “ . . . they will shoulder their weapons and do everything they can to protect our country’s vital interests in Iraq, and win this war.”

General Clark writes on January 8: “The truth is that the underlying problems are political, not military . . . Absent . . . fundamental change in Washington's approach, there is little hope that a troop surge and accompanying rhetoric will be anything other than "staying the course" more. That wastes lives and time, bolsters the terrorists and avoids facing up to the interrelated challenges posed by a region in crisis.”

Senator Kennedy gave a dramatic speech yesterday opposing the surge and placed a posting on DKos, which links Clark to Kennedy in stepping forth first on the issue. Kerry undoubtedly will follow with his Senate mate – indeed, Senator Kerry spoke up in general opposition to the McCain surge in a Washington Post essay on December 24. Gary Hart, one of the best minds in Democratic politics and consistent from the first on Iraq, has also posted a brilliant essay this morning at The Huntington Post.

But this is most important. The headline in today’s Washington Post reads: “With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals.”

“When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.”

This is the new political matchup: Clark, Kerry, Kennedy and the Generals. And on the other hand: Bush, McCain, the neocons, 12 Republican Senators, the Christian Zionists and the Terry McAuliffe agency with its new Gray Champion, Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton has supported and endorsed the invasion of Iraq from the first, and now her silence on the issue is deafening.

General Clark can now count on support from the Northeast and its traditional New England liberals, represented by Kennedy and Kerry. For you all out of state, it is natural for us in New England to think of ourselves as apart from New Yorkers - most old timers I knew up here in northern New Hampshire were not really all that impressed when the Red Sox won the World Series a few years back; all they really cared about was winning the Pennant against the NY Yankees.

Kerry has been encouraged by New England politicians to commit to running or not. They want to place their bets either with Senator Clinton or Senator Obama. Had the Iraq debate shifted after the Baker report, Clinton and Obama might have been reasonable candidates to agree with Northeastern sensibilities. But it is clear now that Bush will not yield on this and McCain is now fostering the neocon agenda.

If Senator Kerry declines to run for President in ‘08, he could well throw his support to Wesley Clark. In doing so, he would help bring the Northeast with him. Kerry admires General Clark, as could be seen in his speech at the Democratic Convention, which owed much to Wesley Clark. I believe he would have wanted General Clark as his VP, but Clark had already made clear earlier that he sought no such position.

And I think now in particular Kerry has no love for the McAuliffe/Clinton camp, as McAuliffe will be running a regular dog and pony show promoting his new book in the next few months & publicly besmirching Kerry's reputation. (A “revealing and waggish memoir . . .” writes one pundit.) We Yanks hate that. Our trusty local Boston columnists and pundits have also abandoned Kerry as well, ramping up for Senator Clinton.

I'd like to see a solid veterans' Quaternary: Clark, Kerry, Jim Webb, John Murtha unite here - I know Webb says he hated Kerry's guts and wouldn't talk to him for 20 years, but he is a genuine individual and said in his Virginia primary campaign when asked if he still hated Kerry, that after 9/11 all his anger fell from him. As it should have all Americans. In this, Clark, Webb and John Murtha could help bring us in the Northeast into the American mainstream and help dissolve red state/blue state contention. In a way, the fate of the Northeast could lie today in Senator Kerry's hands.

But something else has happened here: Something vast. Today, for the first time in our American history, we have the potential for a revolt of the Generals; an actual coup d’etat.

We are now committed to the same path to failure which we took in Vietnam, but now the stakes are much higher.

This is not Vietnam. Today, in the climate after 9/11, we Americans honor our soldiers and the truth is we did not in Vietnam. Most of the military commanders at the helm today served in Vietnam. They don’t like the way they were treated then by Congress, by the war Presidents, by Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense in that period (who wrote years later that throughout he hadn’t a clue) and by the American people. There is still blood on their hands.

Among the best and brightest at the military command today there are vows by these honorable warriors never to let that happen again. Now it is happening again, and Bush is treating the volunteer Army and Marine Corps like peasants swooped up by the handful by Peter the Great, endlessly away from their families and loved ones and off to fight the Suleiman. But there is potential now and it is entirely possible that Bush today faces a revolt by military commanders.

It would be in fact, an American coup d’etat.

Technically, we are approaching that phase of political devolution. Coup d’etat occurs organically in tribal or underdeveloped countries or emerging democracies when elected or traditional political institutions fail.

In the last six years we have seen the failure of a Congress of Peeps in voting for a war resolution it knew to be a deception and even more so we have seen a complete failure of the press at the highest ranks. The press accommodated, appeased and enabled war fever and absolutely egged on the Dungeon & Dragons warriors in the Oval Office. We have seen the failure of the Supreme Court in propping up an illegal election. And most important, we have seen the failure of the American people who let this all come to pass with nothing more than an effete, deconstructivist pout.

The Judiciary, the Legislative, the Executive, the Press, the People: In the last six years we have experienced a catastrophic failure of American self-government. The only other major institution left in this country with its honor intact is the military.

Air strikes on Somalia: A new stage in Washington’s illegal “terror” war

By Chris Marsden
10 January 2007

US air strikes against targets in the south of Somalia have claimed a substantial number of civilian lives. The bombing campaign, begun Sunday night and continued on Monday, mark a major escalation in the Bush administration’s lawless use of violence to achieve Washington’s strategic aims under the auspices of its “global war on terrorism.”

The attacks mark the first direct US military intervention in Somalia since 1994, when President Clinton ordered US troops withdrawn following the “Blackhawk Down” episode that led to the deaths of 18 Army commandos during street fighting in Mogadishu. The recent attacks, part of an intensified attempt to establish American hegemony over the entire Horn of Africa, have heightened the threat that the conflict in Somalia will ignite a regional war with unforeseeable consequences.

The attacks on Hayi, 30 miles from Afmadow, and on a remote island 155 miles away, involved a US Air Force AC-130 gunship launched from a base in Djibouti. A Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) spokesman said, “So many dead people were lying in the area. We do not know who is who, but the raid was a success.”

Yesterday, two helicopter gunships, described by a Somali official as American, attacked Afmadow, a town close to the Kenyan border, killing 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, according to witnesses.

Following the first attacks the president of the US-puppet interim administration, Abdullahi Yusuf, dutifully stated, “The US has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.” Washington alleges the targeted villages were sheltering Islamist fighters, including members of Al Qaeda.

Prior to these assaults, the US had already dispatched three warships to patrol the Somali coast and has also sent an aircraft carrier. The US air strike took place at the southernmost tip of Somalia, which is the scene of heavy fighting between Ethiopian forces and Islamist militias and is where the US has stationed its ships.

The direct US military intervention is in part a product of the Bush administration’s inability to rely on various proxies it had hoped would be able to advance Washington’s plans.

The US response to the driving out of its military from the capital Mogadishu in 1993 was first to turn to the UN in an effort to subjugate the country, then to back various warlords and finally to sponsor the creation of the TFG. However, this only fuelled anti-US sentiment and encouraged popular support for the Union of Islamic Courts.

The US-backed December 24 invasion of Somalia by up to 15,000 well-armed Ethiopian troops, backed by MIG jet fighters, appeared to easily sweep away the poorly-equipped Islamist militia. But having successfully ousted the UIC regime by using Ethiopia, Washington has nothing to replace it with that can stabilize the country. Instead, the conflict unleashed in Somalia together with Washington’s plans to encourage other states to act as its military proxies threatens to destablise the entire Horn of Africa.

As well as pitched battles in the south near the border with Kenya, street fighting has continued in Mogadishu and elsewhere—led by an alleged 3,500 militiamen but involving local workers and youth angered by the military presence of Somalia’s long-time enemy. Somalia is overwhelmingly Muslim and has twice been at war with its much larger neighbour. Ethiopia, with its Christian ruling elite, is viewed as a puppet of the US.

Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, in protests during which at least three civilians have been killed—forcing yet another delay in a planned campaign by the “transitional government” to seize the large quantities of arms held by the city’s residents.

Numerous reports speak of the Islamist militants having avoided a direct conflict with Ethiopian troops, but still having the potential to wage a guerrilla campaign. Ted Dagne, a regional specialist at the Congressional Research Service, said, “It looks as if the Islamists have been defeated, but what they have done is gone underground.” And a diplomatic source commented, “A lot of the militia more or less melted away. They’re still present; they’re still armed, and there’s a real possibility that they could become an insurgency if a political settlement can’t be devised.”

In addition, the warlords previously backed by the US but suppressed by the UIC have seized their chance to reassert their presence in Mogadishu.

Ethiopia was happy to curry favour with Washington by acting on its behalf in bringing down the UIC. And it was well rewarded for doing so. USA Today has noted that Ethiopia, which has a population more than seven times greater than Somalia’s, received nearly $20 million in US military aid since late 2002. It cited Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter on the “close working relationship” with the US, including intelligence sharing, arms aid and training—with 100 US military personnel currently working in Ethiopia.

USA Today continued, “Advisers from the Guam National Guard have been training Ethiopians in basic infantry skills at two camps in Ethiopia, said Maj. Kelley Thibodeau, a spokeswoman for US forces in Djibouti.”

US involvement in Ethiopia’s occupation is coordinated from Djibouti, which serves as the US military training and operations centre for the Horn of Africa. The comparatively tiny state was formerly French Somaliland and, as its name suggests, is primarily ethnically Somali. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia and has a large coastline on the strategically vital Red Sea and Gulf of Aden overlooking Yemen.

The US established an 1,800-strong Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa based at Camp Lemonier in 2002. It conducts “host nation anti-terrorism training” for various states, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia.

However, the US can ill-afford to have its own troops deployed for a long period in Somalia. The US 5th fleet stated last month that a naval strike group sent to the Persian Gulf in order to threaten Iran would be available to help off the coast of Somalia. But should hostilities against Iran escalate, along with the deployment of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, this will leave US forces massively overextended.

The ships involved in the Somali operation belong to the Bahrain-based Combined Task Force 150, a multinational force that includes ships from the US, Canada, France, Germany, Pakistan and the United Kingdom. Its remit included the waters of the Gulf of Oman, North Arabian Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea.

Washington’s unreliable proxies

Washington cannot rely on the repressive Ethiopian regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi indefinitely. Ethiopia is loathe to mount a protracted policing operation. Zenawi has stated that he would like to withdraw his troops within a matter of weeks. Its population is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims, including many ethnic Somalis in the eastern desert region, the Ogaden, and the intervention faces substantial popular opposition at home.

But so far there is no concrete plan to replace them with an alternative force.

Somalia’s puppet regime has no significant and stable military of its own. It claims to have a force of 10,000, but this is undoubtedly an exaggeration. The January 6 Washington Post reported on a meeting where Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi assembled a “revived Somali national army . . . in the sand-blown yard of the former parliament, a hollowed-out building splashed with grenade blasts and scrawled with apocalyptic graffiti.

“About 1,000 men sat in the sun, soldiers who had been inactive for 15 years, old men with graying beards wearing whatever shade of camouflage they found at the market or dug out of storage. Few had boots; most wore leather loafers, sandals or thin-soled tennis shoes. They squinted at the newly ascendant, who was swept into power last week on the strength of Ethiopian soldiers now pointing machine guns at the crowd.

“They all stood to sing the Somali national anthem, with many soldiers simply moving their lips, having forgotten the words. When it was over, 100 or so civilians heckled the new force—‘Traitors!’—and Gedi zipped off in convoy. Even at such orchestrated events in Mogadishu, it is unclear who is in control, and the same could be said of Somalia itself.”

The transitional government is reported to be seeking to buttress this force with around a thousand soldiers from the northern Somali regional autonomy of Puntland, the home region of interim President Abdullahi Yusuf, and by making alliances with various warlords—this is a recipe for disaster.

The Bush administration is attempting to overcome its difficulties by assembling a military force from various African states. In January 2005, the member states of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)—Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia—proposed a military mission to Somalia. The UN encouraged this by partially lifting a 1992 arms embargo on Somalia—one that in fact was never really applied. Late last year the International Contact Group on Somalia, which includes the US, European Union and several African nations, proposed an 8,000-strong force be created to shore up the transitional government, then under siege by the Islamist militia. UN resolution 1725, adopted December 6, authorised the creation of such a regional force by IGAD and the African Union.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer has announced that Washington will provide $24 million in additional funding to support development and peacekeeping efforts in Somalia, of which at least $10 million will go towards funding the proposed intervention force. This is in addition to the $16.5 million pledged by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The EU has also pledged an extra €36 million (US$47 million) in aid, on top of €15 million already set aside to finance an African peacekeeping force.

At an ICG meeting in Nairobi, Kenya on January 5, attended by the UN, US, EU, the African Union, Arab League and IGAD states, the nearest thing to a concrete pledge of troops was between 1,000 and 2,000—promised by Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, conditional on the agreement of his parliament. Fraser declared her hope that they would be in place by the end of the month. Ethiopia has also sent ministers to lobby Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya and Sudan to send troops to Somalia.

Even so, analysts have questioned whether Ugandan troops—which are in any case not as well equipped and battle-hardened as Ethiopia’s—or any significant numbers of others will materialize. David Shinn, a former ambassador to Ethiopia and a lecturer at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, said, “I can’t imagine [Ugandan troops would] go in without others going in, too.” There have been rumours that Nigeria and Sudan were willing to send troops, he continued, but until now a peacekeeping force “is still basically the figment of someone’s imagination.”

Last year, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sent a letter to the Security Council noting that Uganda and Sudan had become increasingly reluctant to send troops to Somalia as the fighting there intensified and “in the absence of a secure environment.”

A secure environment is the last thing that Somalia offers to an invasion force. Kenya’s foreign minister, Raphael Tuju, has warned, “Failure to act immediately will lead to a vacuum that would certainly be exploited by the warlords and other extremist forces.” Tuju is also lobbying for other countries to send troops. Kenya has closed its borders to the estimated 30,000 recently displaced refugees from Somalia, but presently hosts 160,000. The government has denied reports that 600 refugees, mainly women and children, were deported from a border transit camp at Liboi in government trucks.

Because of these difficulties, the US has endorsed calls by the EU and new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the TFG to seek a political accommodation with “moderate” Islamist forces. However interim President Yusuf rejected all such requests, telling Al-Jazeera television that negotiations with Islamists “will not happen . . . We will crack down on the terrorists in any place around the nation.”

See Also:
US backs Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia
[28 December 2006]
US continues covert action in Somalia
[27 September 2006]

The Future of Iraqi oil as proposed by the Iraqi Study Group

Jan 10, 2006

By Munir Chalabi
munir@chalabi.screaming.net

The US Democrats and the Republicans may disagree on many tactics and probably on part of the strategy for how to sustain the military occupation of Iraq, but when it comes to the strategy for the future of Iraqi oil they seem to be in agreement on every detail.

The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report represents a joint approach by both parties and its recommendations look to be very similar to the right-wing Republican's policies set by the State Department's "future for Iraq project" prior to the 2003 invasion.

Short-term strategy

The short-term objectives are as outlined in recommendation 62 which stated "to prepare a draft oil law that ... creates a fiscal and legal framework for investment" (meaning investments by international oil companies).

It goes further by calling on the US government to interfere in the writing of the draft of the Petroleum law to ensure that the new law should specially cover the huge oil reserves of the southern oil fields.

The ISG emphasizes the important of introducing a Petroleum law, as a milestone to be approved by the Iraqi Parliament no later than early 2007.

Furthermore the ISG admits that the occupying forces in Iraq are going to stay for a long time to come, to ensure the protection of the oil flow, when they recommended that "the US military should work with the Iraqi military and with private security forces [meaning the foreign mercenaries] to protect oil infrastructure and contractors."

Long-term strategy

The long-term objectives are outlined in recommendation 63. It highlights long-term US interests and shows that the reason for the war on Iraq was to sustain full control of the huge reserve of Iraqi oil. The proven reserve is over 115 billion barrels of oil and potentially another 215 billion barrels within the 400 unexplored structural anomalies.

The ISG emphasizes that US interests lie with the international oil companies and specifically the US companies, to ensure that they have complete control of Iraqi oil reserves (the second largest in the world). This policy has been highlighted in the report stating that "the United States should encourage investment in the Iraqi oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies."

So what model of oil contracts is the report calling for?

The report proposes that the US should provide Iraqi officials with contracting templates without naming the model of oil contracts.

But at the same time recommendation 63 states, "the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise...."

Looking at both proposals, together with all the other suggestions in the "Assessment of the Current Situation" part of the report provides an overwhelming indication that the report is calling for some kind of re-privatization of the Iraqi oil industries but from "the back-door" and is very likely directed towards the type of contracts known as "Production Sharing Agreements or PSA."

The information available on the best-kept secret -- the draft of the oil (hydrocarbon) law -- confirms that the new oil law will recommend that Iraq should implement PSAs and other types of contracts such as buyback and service contracts.

The PSA was introduced by the oil companies in the early 1960s to replace the out-of-date "concessionary" contracts (the early twentieth century model) to ensure that it reflects the interests of the oil companies, and maintains their profits at the same level as the concessionary model.

The PSA technically keeps the legal ownership of the oil reserves in the hands of the Iraqi state whilst actually giving full control to the oil companies.

In short, the PSA model will cost the Iraqi people hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue whilst providing the oil companies with enormous profits.

For a comprehensive analyses of the PSA contracts see Platform study "Crude Designs: The rip-off Iraqi's oil wealth."

Conclusions:

1. The ISG recommendations are clearly calling for a back-door form of re-privatization of Iraqi oil wealth, which represents the interests of the US government and the international oil companies and not the Iraqi people.

2. The recommendations also call for long-term US military bases on Iraqi soil to protect US oil interests in Iraq.

3. The World Bank, the US administration and the IMF are also putting all manner of pressure on the Iraqi government to get a new hydrocarbon law through the Iraqi parliament in line with the ISG recommendations as soon as possible.

4. All indications are pointing to the fact that the draft of the new oil law is complying with many requirements of the ISG recommendations.

5. The major obstacle that seems to be delaying the presentation of the oil draft to the parliament is the disagreement between the Iraqi central government/ISG recommendations on one hand and the Kurdish regional government on the other hand with regard to the interpretation of article 111 of the Iraqi constitution.

6. Both the Iraqi Government and the ISG are calling for changes to article 111 to give more power to the federal government when it comes to taking strategic decisions on the future of the nation's oil wealth.

It is obvious in the mind of many analysts that the reasons behind the ISG's support for more power to the Iraqi central government on strategic decisions, is to give more legitimacy to any new contracts which could be signed between the federal government and the international oil companies, in case these are challenged in the future by a new Iraqi government in international court.

7. All indications are that the draft of the new oil law will recommend the re-instatement of the "Iraqi National Oil Company -- INOC" (which was dissolved by the Baathist government back in 1987), but with fewer powers than the old INOC.

8. It is in the interests of the Iraqi people not to rush into any new strategic oil law that will decide the future of the country's wealth within the lifetime of this parliament whilst Iraq is still under occupation and the Iraqi state is on its knees.

9. It will be in the Iraqi peoples' interest to have a temporary oil law which re-establishes INOC and gives it full decision-making powers.

Furthermore, it should permit only a short-tem contract between INOC and the international oil companies so as to provide technical help to develop the existing oil fields, which can produce up to 3.5 million barrels/day -- the same level of oil production as in 1979.