Oh, Here’s Another Crisis You Might Want to Notice (3): Iraq

The "crisis" tag might be a bit surprising, given that the end-of-year media line is how swimmingly everything is going in Iraq. There has been a lot of attention to a report from Iraq Body Count putting civilian casualties in 2008 at between 8315 and 9028, a reduction of 2/3 from the death tolls in 2006 and 2007 (though, unnoted by almost all accounts, only slightly below civilian casualties for 2003 and 2004).

CNN has joined in the feel-good celebrations today with the story that US military deaths in Iraq are down from 906 to 309 this year. The news service recites the official line, ""The people of Iraq are tired of violence, and they are assisting the security forces; the government is improving its ability to govern and to apply the rule of law."

While any decrease in deaths is to be welcomed, the attachment of these figures to the emergence of Iraq under the wise occupation of the US military needs to be recognised as an ongoing public-relations gambit. We've recited the political, economic, and security complications on many occasions, so let's leave it to Juan Cole to put the case in a superb end-of-year column:



Top Ten Myths about Iraq, 2008

1. Iraqis are safer because of Bush's War. In fact, conditions of insecurity have helped created both an internal and external refugee problem:

At least 4.2 million Iraqis were displaced. These included 2.2 million who were displaced within Iraq and some 2 million refugees, mostly in Syria (around 1.4 million) and Jordan (around half a million). In the last months of the year both these neighbouring states, struggling to meet the health, education and other needs of the Iraqi refugees already present, introduced visa requirements that impeded the entry of Iraqis seeking refuge. Within Iraq, most governorates barred entry to Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence elsewhere.'

2. Large numbers of Iraqis in exile abroad have returned. In fact, no great number have returned, and more Iraqis may still be leaving to Syria than returning.

3. Iraqis are materially better off because of Bush's war. In fact, a million Iraqis are "food insecure" and another 6 million need UN food rations to survive. Oxfam estimated in summer, 2007, that 28% of Iraqi children are malnourished.

4. The Bush administration scored a major victory with its Status of Forces Agreement. In fact, The Iraqis forced on Bush an agreement that the US would withdraw combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, 2009,and would completely withdraw from the Country by the end of 2011. The Bush administration had wanted 58 long-term bases, and the authority to arrest Iraqis at will and to launch military operations unilaterally.

5. Minorities in Iraq are safer since Bush's invasion. In fact, there have in 2008 been significant attacks on and displacement of Iraqi Christians from Mosul. In early January of 2008, guerrillas bombed churches in Mosul, wounding a number of persons. More recently, some 13,000 Christians have had to flee Mosul because of violence.

6. The sole explanation for the fall in the monthly death rate for Iraqi civilians was the troop excalation or surge of 30,000 extra US troops in 2007. In fact, troop levels had been that high before without major effect. The US military did good counter-insurgency in 2007. The major reason for the fall in the death toll, however, was that the Shiites won the war for Baghdad, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis from the capital, and turning it into a city with a Shiite majority of 75 to 80 percent. (When Bush invaded, Baghdad was about 50/50 Sunni and Shiite). The high death tolls in 2006 and 2007 were a by-product of this massive ethnic cleansing campaign. Now, a Shiite militiaman in Baghdad would have to drive for a while to find a Sunni Arab to kill.

7. John McCain alleged that if the US left Iraq, it would be promptly taken over by al-Qaeda. In fact, there are few followers of Usamah Bin Laden in Iraq. The fundamentalist extremists, if that is what McCain meant, are not supported by most Sunni Arabs. They are supported by no Shiites (60% of Iraq) or Kurds (20% of Iraq), and are hated by Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, who would never allow such a takeover.

8. The Iraq War made the world safer from terrorism. In fact, Iraq has become a major training ground for extremists and is implicated in the major bombings in Madrid, London, and Glasgow.

9. Bush went to war in Iraq because he was given bad intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. In fact, the State Department's Intelligence & Research (I & R) division cast doubt on the alarmist WMD stories that Bush/Cheney put about. The CIA refused to sign off on the inclusion of the Niger uranium lie in the State of the Union address, which made Bush source it to the British MI6 instead. The Downing Street Memo revealed that Bush fixed the intelligence around the policy. Bush sought to get up a provocation such as a false flag attack on UN planes so as to blame it on Iraq. And UN weapons inspectors in Feb.-Mar. of 2003 examined 100 of 600 suspected weapons sites and found nothing; Bush's response was to pull them out and go to war.

10. Douglas Feith and other Neoconservatives didn't really want a war with Iraq (!). Yeah, that was why they demanded war on Iraq with their 1996 white paper for Bibi Netanyahu and again in their 1998 Project for a New American Century letter to Clinton, where they explicitly called for military action. The Neoconservatives are notorious liars and by the time they get through with rewriting history, they will be a combination of Gandhi and Mother Teresa and the Iraq War will be Bill Clinton's fault. The only thing is, I think people are wise to them by now. Being a liar can actually get you somewhere. Being a notorious liar is a disadvantage if what you want to is get people to listen to you and act on your advice. I say, Never Again.

Breaking News: Israeli Attacks Kill More than 100 in Gaza

Last week we projected, as the Hamas-Israel truce ended, that the cycle of rocket attacks and Israeli raids would spiral.

The wait is over. After an escalation in the rockets across the border, with the deadly irony that it was two Palestinian schoolgirls who were killed when a missile misfired, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their own deadly strikes against "a series of Hamas targets and infrastructure facilities".

The Israelis are leading with the claim that the Hamas police chief is dead. Information from medical sources and officials in Palestine indicate 120 have been killed and more than 250 wounded.

UPDATE: Scott has posted a more in-depth analysis here.

OK, Now It's Time to Talk Zimbabwe

Here's that latest exchange over Zimbabwe in full:

US and British Governments: Robert Mugabe, you must step down now.

Robert Mugabe: No.


A few weeks ago, we noted that US attention --- especially that of the incoming Obama Administration --- seemed to be on the Sudan, rather than Zimbabwe. In the last 72 hours, however, the tone has shifted. American officials, especially Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, began declaring that the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe was "dead" and that Robert Mugabe should step aside. CNN this morning is featuring an interview with Frazer in which she declares that it is time for other African states to step up their pressure on Mugabe and that the US will now take the matter to the United Nations for further sanctions.

The problem is that a shift in rhetoric doesn't mean a significant shift in outcome. Calling the power-sharing patient deceased is only confirming a death that took place many weeks ago. And given Mugabe's tenacity, even in the face of appalling economic and social conditions in Zimbabwe, it is unlikely that any diplomatic measures or sanctions will shift him. Nor, given the apparent loyalty of the security services to the President, is a coup a foreseeable solution. That leaves military intervention, which Frazer explicitly ruled out --- at least with the participation of American forces --- in the CNN interview.

Forecast? Given that Obama's appointment as US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, is an African specialist, Zimbabwe will have its turns in the United Nations spotlight. But the prospects are more for finger-wagging, with the get-out clause that it's the African states who are to blame because they are "soft" on Mugabe, than for any significant change in fortunes for the Zimbabwean population.

Follow-up: Showdown for the al-Maliki Government?

Reporting yesterday on the significance of the arrest of up to 35 Interior Ministry officials and military officers in Iraq, we wrote:

Assuming that all those arrested are Sunni, the Shi’a-led al-Maliki Government now faces a challenge that goes beyond plotters — both political and military — in its midst.

It has taken less than 24 hours for the political complications to emerge.



CNN has been told by "one knowledgeable Iraqi politician" that the arrests "stem" from internal conflicts between political parties ahead of the January 31 provincial elections". And, far from helping al-Maliki, a "senior US military official" concurred, that "the arrests appear to have been politically motivated".

That last quote is especially interesting. Could it be that the al-Maliki Government has arrested officials who have been involved in the American "surge" strategy of bolstering local Sunni groups?

Breaking News: Letter from Muntazar al-Zaidi Asks for Leniency

See updates --- "Al-Maliki Lets Al-Zaidi Dangle" and "Iraqi Judge Says Muntazar Al-Zaidi Beaten"

CNN reports that Muntazar al-Zaidi has written to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to ask leniency for "the great ugly act I perpetrated" in throwing his shoes at President George Bush. According to the press spokesman for al-Maliki, al-Zaidi asked for the Prime Minister's "fatherly compassion".

According to al-Zaidi's brother, the case will come to trial next week.

*TRAGIC COMIC FOOTNOTE: Living up to its journalistic high standards, Fox News headlines the story, "Shoe-Tosser's Sole-Ful Apology".