Iraq: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The good news out of Iraq is the success of ongoing operations in reducing the level of violence. This today from the Washinton Times:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday that suicide attacks and other bombings in the Iraqi capital have dropped dramatically since last year's high, calling it a sign of the end of sectarian violence. A top U.S. general here said he thinks the drop is sustainable, as Iraqis turn away from extremists. Mr. al-Maliki said "terrorist acts," including car bombings and other spectacular, al Qaeda-style attacks, dropped 77 percent. He called it a sign that Sunni-Shi'ite violence was nearly gone from Baghdad.

Continuing with the good news, there is this just released video of an enemy mortar team sent to meet Allah, compliments of MNF-Iraq.



As to individual operations, you will find nothing in the MSM. The military has a press release that rolls up the latest operations in Iraq. Overall, in the last two days, Coalition forces detained 16 suspects, including three wanted individuals, during several operations to disrupt al Qaeda in Iraq and foreign terrorist operations in central and northern Iraq. You can read about the individual operations here.

There is a good story in the Stars and Stripes about ongoing efforts to pacify a mixed Sunni Shia region twenty miles south of Baghdad. And though it’s a few days old, the Long War Journal has a fascinating discussion of the how and why of the decline in violence in Iraq. It is worth your time if you have not read it.

The bad news out of Iraq is that the reduction in violence will not be permanent unless the Maliki government can capitalize on the current situation to bring the Sunnis into the government as equal stakeholders. If the Sunnis are not welcomed into the new Shia dominated society of Iraq and not given there piece of the pie, real problems with disenchantment could develop and the chance for lasting success squandered. Maliki is making an effort to grant amnesty to at least some of the insurgents, which from the sounds of it would include many Sunni. That would be a good step:

. . . Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday announced his latest push for an amnesty program for insurgents, a plan that he said would allow Iraq to move past sectarian warfare.

At a news conference near his office in the Green Zone, Maliki sketched a broad outline of what the amnesty could entail. He insisted that people found guilty of murder or other acts of terrorism would not be pardoned but said the amnesty would cover many of the "misguided" people who cooperated with insurgent groups though had not committed "major" crimes. "All those people will be released," he said.

Read the whole story. That is only a small step, however, and the Washington Post points to what could be a real problem in the process of reconciliation:

The U.S. effort to organize nearly 70,000 local fighters to solidify security gains in Iraq is facing severe political and logistical challenges as U.S.-led forces struggle to manage the recruits and the central government resists incorporating them into the Iraqi police and army, according to senior military officials.

Gen. David H. Petraeus and other top commanders have hailed the initiative to enlist Iraqi tribes and former insurgents in the battle against extremist groups, but leaders of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government have feared that the local fighters known as "volunteers" -- more than 80 percent of whom are Sunni -- could eventually mount an armed opposition, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

. . . The Iraqi government so far has balked at permanently hiring large numbers of the volunteers, resisting pressure from U.S. commanders to lift caps on the number of police in Anbar and Diyala provinces. Only about 1,600 of the volunteers have been trained and sworn in to the Iraqi security forces, primarily with the police.

"It's admittedly slow progress," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman in Baghdad, who said the goal now is to have 17,000 hired as police officers.
Last month, the Shiite political alliance of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on the U.S. military to halt its recruitment of Sunnis. Referring to Sunni fighters, Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told Washington Post reporters, "The more they depend on the coalition, it is seen as undermining the Iraqi government."

Iraqi officials are concerned about the past behavior of many of the men now working with the Americans, citing problems arising from the infiltration of the police by Shiite militias. "We ended up with a police force that is not loyal to the government and to the country," said Sami al-Askiri, a Shiite legislator and Maliki adviser. "If we copy this and do it with Sunnis, we will just create another problem."

"We have to take the Sunnis inside the police and the army. They are part of the Iraqi society, but we have to check them, we have to check all their backgrounds," Askiri said. "If we do this the wrong way, we will end up with another militia inside the police force, but a Sunni one, not a Shiite one." . . .

Read the entire story here.

That is the bad news out of Iraq. The ugly news comes out of the spin machine that is the NY Times. Their lead article is about how a Dynacorp guard providing convoy security shot dead an Iraqi cab driver on Saturday. The article makes the shooting out to be more of an execution then a security incident. Even accepting the Times portrayal of this incident as accurate, it still has no, or at most, minimal ramification beyond its facts. In terms of our effort in Iraq, it is a bad, but wholly ancillary incident. The Times running this as a lead is just ridiculous.

The NYT is running an article on the speech by Maliki below the fold, though even that they manage to spin as hard as possible by finding someone to contradict the facts as portrayed by Maliki.

The number of suicide attacks, car bombings and other terrorist acts has fallen 77 percent in Baghdad from last year, Mr. Maliki said, adding that 7,000 families had returned to the capital. Together, Mr. Maliki said, the improvements showed “we were able, after eight months of imposing the law, to drive Baghdad from its dark, black days into a brighter time that people feel optimistic about.”

Mr. Maliki’s assertions were the latest in a series of glowing reports he has offered since the start of the security plan in February. And while his assessment of the decline in violence matches that of American military commanders, it was not clear how he had tallied the number of returning families, which officials say have been exceedingly difficult to locate. The significance of the returns is also a subject of debate.

Most of the capital’s displaced people have yet to return, and the number of those leaving still outpaces those returning, according to Dana Graber Ladek, the Iraqi displacement specialist for the International Organization for Migration. . .

Read the entire story here. Not surprisingly, while the Times seems quite willing to disbelieve Maliki and find a source, Ms. Ladek, that will contradict the numbers of Maliki, the Times gives no indication that it made any effort to determine how Ms. Ladek came by her facts, nor why she should be believed rather then Maliki. The stock value of the Times fully reflects the balance and quality of its reporting - trending ever downward.