Waiting on that Afghan surge to kick in? Let’s visit Iraq!
December 29th, 2009
Three
years after the surge
(in Iraq) began, violence shows no signs
of disappearing. Holiday attacks were especially brutal.
Mosul Mayor Zuhair Muhsen al-Aaraji escaped an assassination attempt
on Christmas Eve. (Mosul is the town Petraeus supposedly “tamed”
during his first tour in Iraq. Within weeks after he left
and the graft well ran dry, Mosul went up for grabs
and has been a trouble spot
ever since.)
Also
on Dec. 24, as the Shi’ite
religious festival of Ashura approached,
five attacks killed at least 19 people and wounded over 100.
The Iraqi government was quick to blame al-Qaeda in Iraq, but I’ll bet you
a shiny new Ohio quarter that the Sunni-based Awakening movement
that Petraeus armed and funded had more than
a little something to do with
the attacks.
On Christmas
Day, a roadside bomb killed six Shi’ites
during a religious ceremony in Baghdad. In several parts of
the country, fights broke out between Christians
and Shi’ites over competing religious
decorations.
Many
Iraqi Christians were afraid
to make any public celebration of Christmas.
Midnight mass had to be observed in daylight. A bomb exploded
near a historic Christian church in Mosul on Dec. 23, killing two people
and wounding five. Security around Christian churches
was the heaviest it has been since
the U.S. invaded Iraq
in 2003.
On Dec. 22,
a series of coordinated car bombings
killed 112 people in Baghdad. This was the third coordinated
attack on Baghdad in four months; the bombs struck areas near justice buildings,
a Finance Ministry office, and a police checkpoint, symbols of
government authority all under tight security
after the earlier bomb
attacks.
On Oct. 18,
a roadside bombing and other
attacks killed 10 U.S. troops, making it the
deadliest day for American forces in 10 months. (We have,
by the way, spent over $14 billion on programs to defeat roadside bombs
and other improvised explosive devices [IEDs] and have yet to find
a solution. The Army’s Joint IED Defeat Organization
[JEIDDO] rather symbolizes our entire war on
terror: mind-numbing amounts of treasure
poured down a rabbit hole
to no avail.)
Iraqi
security forces have
proven unable to provide the security
necessary to keep the peace. That should come as no
surprise: the man in charge of training them in 2004 and 2005
was Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who, in that capacity, lost track of over
190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols that without question found their way
into the hands of militia groups. This happened while the staff at the
U.S. Army War College was assembling the new field manual
on counterinsurgency operations that Petraeus later
took credit for writing, a myth that Ricks
and other media sycophants helped
propagate.
The best
summary of the “success” of
the Iraq surge came in the form of a July memorandum
from Army Col. Timothy Reese, chief of the Baghdad
Operations Advisory Team, titled “It’s Time for
the U.S. to Declare Victory and
Go Home.”
Reese
describes the “ineffectiveness
and corruption” of the Iraqi government as
“the stuff of legend.” The so-called anti-corruption initiative
is merely a campaign tool for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki’s
government is taking “no rational steps” to improve the country’s infrastructure
or oil exploration. Sunni reconciliation is “at best at a standstill and
probably going backwards.” The Kurdish situation “continues
to fester.” Political violence
and intimidation is
“rampant.”
There is
no possibility of implanting
a “professional military culture” in Iraq’s security
forces. Corruption in the officer corps is “widespread.” Enlisted men
are neglected and mistreated. Cronyism and nepotism are “rampant.” Laziness
is “endemic.” Lack of initiative is “legion.” Iraq’s security
force’s ”near total ineffectiveness”
prevents it from becoming
self-sustaining.
Gen. Ray
“Desert Ox” Odierno,
Petraeus’ handpicked successor as overall
commander in Iraq who Ricks laughably claims was
the real brain behind the Iraq surge, calls
Reese’s concerns mere “tactical
issues.”
Gen. Stan
“The Man” McChrystal,
whom Petraeus handpicked to command in
Af-Pak, has been charged with leading a successful surge in
that theater of operations. Given the corruption that exists in the governments
of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the incompetence and corruption in their
militaries, and the seemingly uncontrollable levels of violence in
both countries, I’d say McChrystal is well on his way to
surpassing the accomplishments of Petraeus
and Odierno by a wide
margin.
In fact,
I see no reason why
President Barack Obama shouldn’t
fly aboard an aircraft carrier tomorrow and
declare “mission accomplished”
in Af-Pak.
