Pelosi Crosses The Line

The latest from the train wreck that is our House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi:

"The surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is . . . [because of] the goodwill of the Iranians."

So the question is, is she traitorous or simply insane?
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Nancy Pelosi gave an interview with the SF Chronicle yesterday. When asked about what she observed in Iraq during her May 17 visit, she replied:

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal. And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

As to reconciliation, Ms. Pelosi's narrative is ridiculous. Even our own perfidious MSM is now acknowledging both the great strides towards reconciliation that Iraq has made and the fact that the Iraqis are rallying around Maliki as a nationalist leader. Maliki is extremely popular across the spectrum of Iraq's citizens. Indeed, the only places where he is unpopular are in Tehran and, apparently, in the offices of Congressional Democrats.

As to Iran, any inference from events surrounding Basra that Iran is acting with goodwill towards the U.S. and the government of Iraq is not merely unsupported by the facts, it is a highly malignant falsehood. Iran's primary contribution to the situation in Iraq is death and mayhem. Their malign and extensive proxy war is at the heart of the need for the continuation of the surge.

Pelosi is a hyperpartisan hack. She is either wholly unable to distinguish reality or quite willing to ignore it in her all encompassing desire for political power.

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Reconciliation:

ABC News, May 28, 2008: Maliki's Midas Touch

. . . The Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites alike all eventually lauded the Basra operation as a huge success and whole-heartedly backed Maliki in his next endeavor — to revisit Mosul, and take on al Qaeda.

. . . Acutely aware of his political momentum, on May 12, Maliki, accompanied by crews from Al Iraqia TV, the official state-run media outlet — went to Mosul — and Maliki personally, and publicly, took charge of the military operations there.

He was the lead story and plastered across almost every local front page.

. . . Sadr is trying to grasp on to a sliver of political leverage, claiming to have struck the deal which brought his people their livelihoods back. While Maliki is lauding the latest in a series of successes to ensure security and a regained national unity to his country.

Certainly, it seems as though there is little Maliki can do wrong these days. With provincial elections around the corner, an Iraqi future without Maliki is almost impossible to imagine.

The Atlantic, May 13, 2008, Maliki's Southern Strategy

. . . At first, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's decision to confront Moqtada al-Sadr's Iranian-backed militas looked like a major strategic misstep. Now it appears to have transformed Iraqi politics, potentially paving the way for real reconciliation between Sunni and Shia.

. . . [T]here has also been a more lasting change: The Sadrists have been marginalized. Even the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been reluctant to make political interventions in recent years, pointedly condemned Sadr for refusing to disarm. Leading Sunni faction have also returned to the fold. The Kurds, who have their own problems with Sadr, are also on board. Maliki, suprisingly enough, increasingly looks like the leader of all Iraqis.

. . . Unfortunately, few Americans understand what Maliki has accomplished, and how much international assistance he needs to beat back foreign elements that aim to undermine Iraq's fragile democracy -- which is, as far as neighboring governments are concerned (particularly those that begin with an "I" and end with an "n"), a profoundly subversive influence.

USA Today, April 22, 2008, Iraq Frees Detainees

Most of those released were Sunnis who had been low-level army officials or former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. . . .

The prisoners are being freed under an amnesty law passed by Iraq's parliament in February. More than 52,400 detainees in government custody have applied for their freedom. Of those, nearly 78%, or more than 40,000, were granted amnesty. . . .

"This is sort of a new life," Othman said. "Terrorism started and now it is ending. A new life is coming, God willing."

NYT, February 12, 2008, Making (Some) Progress In Iraq

Iraq’s Parliament has finally approved a budget, outlined the scope of provincial powers, set an Oct. 1 date for provincial elections and voted a general amnesty for detainees. All these steps are essential for national conciliation.

. . . We are, of course, cheered by the news that representatives from Iraq’s three main ethnic groups — Shiite, Sunni and Kurd — finally saw some benefit in compromise. . . .

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Iran

Washington Post, May 29, 2008, U.S. Cites Big Gains Against Al Qaeda

. . . [CIA Chief Michael]Hayden warned, however, that progress in Iraq is being undermined by increasing interference by Iran, which he accused of supplying weapons, training and financial assistance to anti-U.S. insurgents. While declining to endorse any particular strategy for dealing with Iran, he described the threat in stark terms.

"It is the policy of the Iranian government, approved at the highest levels of that government, to facilitate the killing of American and other coalition forces in Iraq. Period," he said.

Fox News, Aug. 9, 2007, Captured Video Shows Iraqi Insurgents Firing Sophisticated Iranian-Made Rockets at U.S. Positions

Dramatic video produced by Iraqi insurgents and captured in a raid earlier this week by U.S. troops clearly shows a battery of sophisticated Iranian-made rocket launchers firing on American positions east of Baghdad, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The video, captured during a raid on Monday by the 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment in northeast Nahrawan, shows insurgents setting up and carrying out an attack on Sunday, as well as an attack on July 11 that killed one soldier and wounded 15 others, officials said. The raid last month appeared to involve 34 launchers firing 107 mm Iranian-made rockets.

AFP, May 5, 2008, Iran Ex-President Under Fire For Comments On Insurgents

Ex-president [of Iran] Mohmamad Khatami was under fire from hardliners on Monday after comments interpreted as accusing Iran's clerical leaders of supporting insurgents in the Middle East.

. . . His speech has been seen by some observers as accusing the Iranian authorities of encouraging militants to destabilize the Middle East, in particular Iraq and Lebanon. . . .

Voices of Iraq, May 3, 2008, Karbala Operations Commander Accuses Iran of Disturbing the City

Karbala operations commander said on Saturday that Iranian intervention is disturbing the city's security.

He noted that huge quantities of Iranian made weapons were seized throughout different locations in the province.

"There is Iranian intervention . . . in Karbala," Major General Ra'id Shaker Jawdat said in a press conference at Karbala operations command's building, after showing a large quantity of Iranian-made weapons.

. . . "Those weapons entered Karbala to destabilize security, . . .

AEI, May 13, 2008, Speech by Col. H.R. McMaster, Advisor to Gen. Petraeus

Col H.R. McMaster: . . . When I traveled through the south on a last couple of visits, what I heard – and this is again on the point of militias being increasingly discredited, and this is from Iraqi Shiite leaders who were saying things like Iran is the true occupier of Iraq. They would say jokingly that the Iranians are now all Iraqi nationalists, which is a thinly-veiled swipe at some of the militias in some of these areas.

And so whereas before about a year ago, you wouldn’t really hear Iraqi leaders, especially in these areas in the south, offering criticism of Iran and the parties and communities within Iraq who were playing host to Iranian influence but you hear that almost all the time now among Shiite Arab leaders. And also a connection to Iran, and this again affects the militias, is becoming a liability much like being connected to Al-Qaeda was a liability for so-called resistance movements in the Sunni Arab community. These are again changes that I’ve seen in the last year.

The contradictions of Iranian policies I’ve mentioned at the beginning have been exposed and Iraqis have to deal with them now. They have to deal with them again partly because of that pressure on the political parties, who are embarrassed by the connections to Iran and what Iran is doing. So the sixth thing is, no big surprise, the exposure of Iranian activity and Iran’s true intentions. . . .

. . . In the case of what Iran is doing in Iraq, it is so damn obvious to anybody who wants to look into it, I think, that is drop the word “alleged” and say what they’re doing, which is, we know for a fact organizing and directing operations against the government of Iraq and against our forces – the government of Iraq forces and our forces – we know they have done that, certainly in the past. We know that they are supplying them with weapons and the most effective weapons that they used to attack the Iraqi people and our forces and these include the long-range high payload rockets that have been coming in from Iraq as well as the explosively formed projectile roadside bombs that come from Iran.

We know that they have trained forces in the employment of these munitions - and in pretty large numbers. We know that they were concerned that their maligned hand being obvious in Iraq would alienate their Arab neighbors so they try Arabize these efforts by using Lebanese Hezbollah for a lot of the training but it’s a pretty cosmetic shift that they’ve made in some portions of the training.

We know for a fact that they have directed assassination operations. They have a reputation of being some of the best assassins in the world. They’ve trained Iraqis to do that. They’ve trained them in skills not only for roadside bombs and in long-range rockets but also in snipers and other skills used to intimidate or kill individuals. And we know that they have been sort of backing all horses to destabilize the situation and we know that their support is continued to key Badr officials who are in influential positions who remain on the payroll of Iran and to advance the interests of Iran and, in some cases, to provide leadership for other militia organizations that are stood up.

We know that they ostensibly have supported this government but have armed, equipped and trained a militia that has been attacking the very government they ostensibly support. And this is not just something in Basra, this is last year. This is in Nasariyah, this is Samwa, this is in Diwaniyahm, this is in Amarah and it was in Karbala in August 26th and 27th of last year. And now again in Basra.

So I think it’s very obvious. Now on this specific question you have - has it increased or has it decreased? I think it’s very clear that what Iran has done over the last year is try to develop a considerable latent capability that it could turn on in short notice. And I think that it may have been that this bold and very quick action by the Prime Minister in Basra foiled what was to be perhaps a much larger and coordinated effort, maybe even coordinated with efforts in other places in the region, like what we’re seen happening right now in Lebanon.

So, anyway, I think it’s very obvious what they’re doing. I think it’s very obvious to Iraqis, it certainly is. The Iraqis I’ve spoken to are incensed about it and I think it’s no longer alleged. Yes?

Demetri Sevastopulo: If it’s been going on for so long, why is it you said earlier that the Iraqis are only recently starting to talk about Iranian involvement? Why did it not bother them before?

H.R. McMaster: Now, that’s a great point. Part of the reason is the intimidation factor. We know that Iran had really been able to establish a pretty high degree of control over some key officials, you know, provided them protection. And then also some assassination cells and elements of militia that would kill anybody who made a statement against Iranian interests. So what I think what has happened is Iran has so blatantly undermined the security situation and it’s so clear now that they want to keep Iraq as a weak, failing state, is what they would like I think, dependent on them for support that many more Iraqis now are disavowing connections to Iran and providing more space, more physical space in terms of intimidation. There’s more sort of a political space to address this issue than there had been previously.

And then also, if you remember Iran was a big supporter of the militias which before and this goes back to the effective operations against Al-Qaeda and the importance of it, those militias were justified in large measure because of the perception that they were protectors against these Takfirists and Salafi jihadistss who play with Al-Qaeda, and the Baathists, the former regime. So all these, what Iran could do was raise the specter of terrorist attacks against Shiite communities as a justification for its support in nefarious activities. Now, the contradiction of what they’ve been doing is much more obvious to many more people than it had been previously. . . .

Nancy Pelosi has slandered the incredible accomplishments of our soldiers. She owes our soldiers and our nation an apology. And she owes a special apology to the family of every soldier killed and maimed by Iran in the conduct of their proxy war. She has denigrated their sacrifice with her falsehoods in her pursuit of partisan power.

The tremendous offensiveness of Pelosi's falsehoods are bad enough. But what makes her remarks truly malignant are that those remarks are upon an issue at the heart of our national security. Indeed, on the largest national security issue we face, Iran, pretending that they are a benign and helpful entity can only serve to place our nation in ever greater danger. It prevents us from acknowledging reality and developing a plan to deal with Iran that will have the support of our nation. That is not merely inexcusable, but for the third most powerful person in our government, it is traitorous and criminal.

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Iraq Fact Check

There is a new resource out that perhaps our Dem duo ought to be checking. Think military expenditures for Iraq are what's breaking our bank? To the contrary, "today’s U.S. defense budget accounts for just over four percent of the economy, less than the U.S. commitment at any point during the four decades of the Cold War. During the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations, the U.S. defense budget rose as high as 13 percent of the total economy. Even during the Reagan Administration, when the economy expanded significantly, the defense budget accounted for approximately six percent of GDP." And that just one of the topics "fact checked" in a recent document put out by the White House Office of Public Liason and posted at Iraq Status Report.

This from the White House Office of Public Liason:

1. MYTH: The American people are footing the bill for Iraq’s security and reconstruction while Iraqis sit on large windfall oil profits.

FACT: The Iraqi government is taking over the funding of reconstruction. In 2008, Iraq’s budget for large-scale reconstruction projects exceeds that proposed by the U.S. by more than 10 to 1, and the U.S. military expects that Iraq will soon cover 100 percent of such expenses.

FACT: Iraq's security ministries are now spending more on their security forces than the U.S., and Iraq’s 2008 budget provides for more than 75% of the total annual cost for Iraq’s military and police.

FACT: The government of Iraq has committed to footing approximately half the bill for the “Sons of Iraq” community watch program—which was originally 100% U.S.-funded.

FACT: Iraq’s Ambassador to the U.S. Samir Sumaida'ie says that Iraq still has to import gasoline, and argues that “some people are going a little bit too far looking at the Iraqi surplus and the gigantic American deficit and putting two and two together … The windfall from the oil will not cover a fraction of what we need to provide clean water, electricity and the most rudimentary services for our people.” . . .


3. MYTH: The Iraqi government has not taken advantage of reduced violence by making political progress.

FACT: Since September 2007, Iraq's parliament has passed significant legislation dealing with reconciliation and nation building, including:

o A pension law

o De-Ba’athification reform

o An amnesty law

o A provincial powers law . . .

o A 2008 budget that includes record amounts for capital and security expenditures

FACT: Recently passed legislation is already having an effect. For example, the amnesty law passed in February has already led to the release of Iraqis who were under detention for non-serious crimes.

FACT: The national government is sharing oil revenues with provinces despite the lack of a framework hydrocarbons and revenue-sharing law.


4. MYTH: The U.S. is negotiating a back-door treaty with Iraq’s government that will tie the hands of future Presidents.

FACT: The United Nations authorization under which U.S. military and civilian personnel in Iraq are legally serving will expire on December 31, 2008. U.S. and Iraqi officials are therefore seeking a “strategic framework” that would provide legal protections and establish a long-term relationship between the two countries after that date.

FACT: In 2007, Iraq’s leaders asked the U.S. to move to a more normalized bilateral relationship, instead of the special case managed by the U.N.

FACT: The framework U.S. and Iraqi officials are now discussing would in no way limit or affect the military and diplomatic options the next President will have under the U.S. Constitution.

FACT: Any strategic framework would be similar to the agreement the U.S. now has with Afghanistan and much like the conventional peacetime agreements the U.S. has with dozens of other countries.

FACT: It is unclear what would happen to more than 20,000 detainees now under U.S. custody if the U.N. authorization expired on December 31 with no strategic framework in place.

FACT: The United States does not seek and will not seek permanent bases in Iraq, and any framework would affirm this principle.


5. MYTH: Iraqis are not defending their country.

FACT: As General David Petraeus testified in April, Iraqis are increasingly in the fight, recently incurring losses three times the level of Coalition losses.

FACT: Iraqi soldiers, police, and volunteers are securing their nation in increasing numbers. According to General Petraeus, more than 540,000 individuals serve in Iraq’s Security Forces, with more than 133,000 soldiers and police added over the past 16 months.

FACT: The military reports that there are now more than 91,000 Sons of Iraq—Shia as well as Sunni—under contract to help Coalition and Iraqi Forces protect neighborhoods and secure infrastructure.

FACT: More than 21,000 Sons of Iraq have already been accepted into Police, Army, or government jobs. . . .

Read the entire document.

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More Steps Towards Reconciliation In Iraq

Within the past month, the NYT proclaimed Maliki's Basra offensive a disasterous, politically motivated act that had weakened his deeply sectarian government. The NYT proclaimed Sadr the victor. Sufice it to say, that narrative was exposed as a canard within days. Today, Basra is in Iraqi government control, Sadr is throwing an impotent tantrum from somewhere inside Iran, and Maliki has earned vast new respect as a national leader. And today, the NYT reports that members of Iraq's largest Sunni bloc are returning to Parliament, lured back by the willingness of Maliki to take on Sadr's militia and his amnesty to low-level Sunni prisoners.


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This from the NYT:

Iraq’s largest Sunni bloc has agreed to return to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s cabinet after a boycott that lasted nearly a year, several Sunni leaders said on Thursday, citing a recently passed amnesty law and the Maliki government’s crackdown on Shiite militias as reasons for the move.

The Sunni leaders said they were still working out the details of their return, an indication that the deal could still fall through. But such a return would represent a major political victory for Mr. Maliki in the midst of a military operation that has at times been criticized as poorly planned and fraught with risk. The principal group his security forces have been confronting is the Mahdi Army, a powerful militia led by Moktada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric. Even though Mr. Maliki’s American-backed offensive against elements of the Mahdi Army has frequently stalled and has led to bitter complaints of civilian casualties, the Sunni leaders said that the government had done enough to address their concerns that they had decided to end their boycott.

“Our conditions were very clear, and the government achieved some of them,” said Adnan al-Duleimi, the head of Tawafiq, the largest Sunni bloc in the government. Mr. Duleimi said the achievements included “the general amnesty, chasing down the militias and disbanding them and curbing the outlaws.”

The recently passed amnesty law has already led to the release of many Sunni prisoners, encouraging Sunni parties that the government is serious about enforcing it. And the attacks on Shiite militias have apparently begun to assuage longstanding complaints that only Sunni groups blamed for the insurgency have been the targets of American and Iraqi security forces.

Exactly which ministries will be given to which Sunni politicians is still under negotiation, . . .

. . . The official government television channel, Iraqiya, appeared to confirm the deal, following a meeting between Mr. Maliki and David Miliband, the visiting foreign secretary of Britain. Iraqiya said the prime minister “said that reconciliation has proved a success and all political blocs will return to the government.” . . .

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"A new life is coming, God willing"

One of the major benchmarks was an amnesty for prisoners, mostly Sunni, held for minor crimes as part of the larger crackdown on al Qaeda and Baathist militias. This was long seen as a necessary move for reconciliation. The amnesty bill passed by the Maliki government in February is now going into effect and tens of thousands of pardons have been granted. As Farouq Ameen Othman, a Kirkuk investigative judge quoted in the article below put it: "Terrorism started and now it is ending. A new life is coming, God willing."

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This from USA Today:

Mohammed Hussain Ghafur dabbed his watery eyes moments after his two young sons jumped into his waiting arms. In the 20 months he languished in jail without charges, this had been his dream.

His crime? Ghafur, 37, says he sold a car that was later used in a terrorist bombing. "They traced the address to me, and that was it," he said. He says he cooperated with police after he was arrested by U.S.-led coalition forces, but despite his pleas, "they never allowed me to defend myself or see a lawyer."

Ghafur was among 122 detainees released from an Iraqi-run prison in Sulaimaniyah and given their freedom at a ceremony here Monday as part of the largest wave of prisoner releases since the war began. The Iraqi government set them free to reintegrate men into society who were accused of relatively minor crimes, and ease the strains on a prison system operating well beyond its capacity.

The men marched into a courtyard at Kirkuk's police academy, each carrying a red silk rose and a shopping bag with their few possessions. Their families pelted them with candies. Children ran to greet them as old women in black abaya head scarves and with tattooed faces crooned in joy. Later, detainees, guards and tribal leaders danced to Arab and Kurdish music.

Most of those released were Sunnis who had been low-level army officials or former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. They were among thousands of Iraqis who were arrested without charges by coalition and Iraqi forces. The discharges signal "a return to some sense of normalcy," said U.S. Army Col. David Paschal, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, who attended the ceremony. "At some point, the fighting must stop."

The prisoners are being freed under an amnesty law passed by Iraq's parliament in February. More than 52,400 detainees in government custody have applied for their freedom. Of those, nearly 78%, or more than 40,000, were granted amnesty. More than one in five, though, were denied because they are being held for crimes not covered by the law. These include killing, kidnapping, rape, embezzling government funds, selling drugs and smuggling antiquities.

The amnesty law does not cover more than 23,000 Iraqis who are in U.S. custody. Still, Air Force Capt. Rose Richeson, spokeswoman for coalition detainee operations, says nearly 8,000 detainees held at two coalition detention centers have been released since September, an average of 52 a day. "It is reasonable to expect that rate of release will continue," she said.

. . . Before they are released, detainees must sign and swear a loyalty oath to the Iraqi government that they will "promise to maintain peace" and not attack security forces, incite sectarian strife, damage or destroy government property or kidnap hostages.

. . . To discourage newly freed men from resorting again to violence, the Iraqi government plans to pay former detainees to attend school and learn a trade. In June, Kirkuk province will start Iraq's first large-scale training program for former detainees when it aims to enroll 1,200 men in classes to learn welding, carpentry, cellphone maintenance and other skills. The province also will hire former detainees to work on road repair, trash removal and other services.

. . . Many of the detainees ignored Farouq Ameen Othman, a Kirkuk investigative judge, as he read the oath of allegiance they had just signed. They had other things on their mind.

"This is sort of a new life," Othman said. "Terrorism started and now it is ending. A new life is coming, God willing."

Read the entire article. Coming on the heels of Maliki's offensives and political moves to end the sectrarian militias, this will clearly mark a milestone in the efforts to unite Iraq. And, as Ed Morrissey remarked at Hot Air:

It . . . defuses a longstanding point of friction with the Sunni tribes who have complained loudly about the imbalance in treatment for their communities by Baghdad. Their efforts to work within the political system have paid off, and their win in gaining amnesty for so many detainees will encourage them to work within the democratic system rather than conduct insurgencies against it.

The release allows both Iraq and the US to focus on bigger fish — and to keep them from recruiting insurgents from the inside. Both US and Iraqi officials note the danger of leaving massive numbers of minor violators in close proximity to real hard-line extremists. The prisons become recruiting and training centers for future terrorists, especially when neither have any real prospects for a normal life in post-Saddam Iraq.

At the ceremony in Sulaimaniyah, the released prisoners danced and celebrated with their former guards and their families. If that spirit can remain and the nation’s infrastructure can be restored and modernized, Iraq can reach a real reconciliation quickly. Perhaps at some point, the US will notice this progress and recommit themselves to encouraging and protecting it.

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Let’s Not Confuse The Narrative With Facts

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warns David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker not to mess with her narrative on Basra. One wonders if she is certifiable yet?





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Wow. Pelosi has her narrative and does not want to hear any dissent from these two government servants, Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, during their testimony before Congress slated for 8 and 9 April. If a Republican issued a similar warning to a witness before a hearing, we'd never hear the end of it. Anyone tired of the double standard yet?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Thursday not to "put a shine on recent events” in Iraq when they testify before Congress next week.

“I hope we don’t hear any glorification of what happened in Basra,” said Pelosi, referring to a recent military offensive against Shiite militants in the city led by the Iraqi government and supported by U.S. forces.

Although powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agreed to a ceasefire after six days of fighting, Pelosi wondered why the U.S. was caught off guard by the offensive and questioned how the ceasefire was achieved, saying the terms were "probably dictated from Iran.”

“We have to know the real ground truths of what is happening there, not put a shine on events because of a resolution that looks less violent when in fact it has been dictated by al-Sadr, who can grant or withhold that call for violence,” Pelosi said.

Read the whole story at the Politico.

So let’s flush out that the likely contours of Speaker Pelosi’s narrative just a tad, since the MSM has been playing this one to the hilt for the past week, and various Democrats have been weighing in:

1. The offensive was a partisan political dispute with PM Maliki allied with the SIIC against a powerful Shia political rival.

2. Sadr is a national political figure with wide appeal.

3. The violence is down in Iraq because of Sadr’s ceasefire. Maliki’s move foolishly threatened that ceasefire. Sadr can turn on or turn off the violence in Iraq at his whim. The U.S. cannot control the violence.

4. The Iraqi military lost in the conflict Maliki started. Sadr won.

5. Calling on U.S. air power shows that the Iraqi military is weak.

6. There were mass desertions from the Iraqi forces during the fighting.

7. Sadr’s offer of a cease fire was a “face saving measure” for Maliki

8. Iran won also, as the most important power broker, able to influence Sadr.

9. And my personal favorite, from Harry Reid, is that the Basra offensive is proof that “our troops mired in an endless civil war."

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn’t one of the benchmarks a requirement to disarm the militias? And do you think that maybe Maliki’s willingness to take on Sadr might not improve his standing as a nationalist leader and earn a great deal of trust among the Sunnis and Kurds? And hasn't reoncilliation been a word ever on the tip of Pelosi's forked tounge?

No matter. Let’s go down the narrative:

1. The offensive was a partisan political dispute with PM Maliki allied with the SIIC against a powerful Shia political rival.

I love this one. This spin actually came from Sadr himself on March 21. The MSM liked it enough to pick it up and run with it, presenting it as their own sage analysis.

The fact that Basra is Iraq’s only port city and its economic lifeline were apparently unimportant. It appears to equally have passed by our Democratic leaders and the MSM that Basra was under the control of Sadrist criminal gangs who were running it like their own personal cash cow while using ever more violence, murder and intimidation to impose an Iranian style mini-theocracy on the city. Obviously, none of these would be reasonable justifications for an offensive to establish government control.

2. Sadr is a national political figure with wide appeal.

The MSM has been playing this up for years. They found in Sadr an anti-American that they can throw their arms around and pump up as the true voice of Iraq. The fact that there is a democratically elected government reflecting the will of the people – and that Sadr neither leads it, nor holds more than 10% of the seats in the Parliament – is merely an unimportant and ancillary fact for them.

Sadr has precious little appeal, he is a tool of Iran – and indeed, his militia is a creation of Iran on the lines of Hezbollah – and his ideology is the establishment of a Shia theocracy in Iraq along the lines of Iran. Every place his militia has held sway, they impose Islamic law to go along with their criminal enterprises and reign of thuggery. If you want to see his appeal, check on the DOD or at the Long War Journal on April 10 to see how much support there was among the 20+ million Iraqi Shia for the million man march Sadr has called to be held in Baghdad on April 9.

3. The violence is down in Iraq because of Sadr’s ceasefire. Maliki’s move foolishly threatened that ceasefire. Sadr can turn on or turn off the violence in Iraq at his whim. The U.S. cannot control the violence.

Sadr’s forces got decimated by the U.S. in 2004. When 2007 rolled around and the surge began, the U.S. was explicitly targeting Sadr. He ran for Iran while his remaining militia melted away – but for those who were working directly for Iran. Sadr’s “ceasefire” merely put a spin on what was already reality.

Maliki’s Basra offensive led the Sadrists to rise up in all of the areas that they control. And by March 29, but for Basra, the Sadrists were defeated in each of those areas - Hillah, Kut, Karbala, Najaf, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, and Amarah. And the U.S. secured Baghdad’s Sadr City.

I question just how much violence Sadr can create beyond that happening right now as a result of Iran’s use of Sadr and his militia as their own private proxy forces.

4. The Iraqi military lost in the conflict Maliki started. Sadr won.

Yes, the WaPo actually printed that verdict. And others on the left have embraced and duly celebrated this alledged victory over the U.S. and its allies.

Yet, when the conflict ended six days after it had begun, the Iraqi government was in control of Basra and had replaced militia control of the port with military control. Sadr’s forces were indoors as the Iraq Army marched through all of Basra, conducting raids for Mahdi Army commanders wanted for criminal activities. So explain again, how did Sadr win?

5. Calling on U.S. air power was a sign of weakness of the Iraqi Army.

I can’t wait to hear Petraeus on this one. This is actually how things are supposed to function as the Iraqi military stands up. They do not have any functioning air combat units yet. So they do the grunt work, we support from the air and provide a strategic reserve with our own grunts. Calling this weakness shows just how utterly clueless are our MSM. They really should be given at least a course on the military before they try to report on it.

6. There were mass desertions from the Iraqi forces during the fighting.

About 4% of the Iraqi forces in Basra deserted or underperformed. Given the great concern about infiltration of those forces with Mahdi Army members and given that the brigade with the most desertions had literally just come out of basic training, I’d say this overall is pretty good. It certainly suggests that there is much less infiltration than has been feared.

7. Sadr’s offer of a cease fire was a “face saving measure” for Maliki.

Lolllllllllll . . . . this is a good one. After six days of fighting, Sadr unilaterally orders a cease fire and makes demands, Maliki accepts the cease fire, ignores the demands and continues operations in Basra. Whose face was saved again?

8. Iran won also, as the most important power broker, able to influence Sadr.

Could it be that the Iraqis are getting pissed about Iran’s continued deadly meddling in their country and had a heart to heart talk with the Qods Force Commander? I don’t know what was said in the meeting in Tehran – and neither do those speculating in the MSM or the halls of Congress. What we do know is the end result - that Iran and its proxy Sadr seem to have gotten nothing out of this ceasefire but a chance to live to another day.

The more telling thing is that Iran holds what may be a high degree of influence over Sadr and his militia. That is an indictment of both Iran and Sadr.

9. And my personal favorite, from Harry Reid, is that the Basra offensive is proof that “our troops mired in an endless civil war."

Harry Reid so loves that “civil war” mantra - reality be damned. I am far more inclined to agree with Kimberly Kagan. What we just saw in Basra was not simply the government retaking its territory from criminal thugs, it was the first shots of the Second Iran Iraq War.

At any rate, so much for Pelosi and her narrative. You know, the thing of it is, after watching Pelosi in action throughout her time in the House of Representatives, I honestly believe that there is no such thing as objective reality for her. She presents as a woman so deeply invested in partisanship that, for her, spin is reality. And given the position she holds, that reality is frightening indeed.

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Krauthammer, Iraq, & And The Moving Target

Charles Krauthammer ponders the same question I raised last week. Given the very real gains in security Iraq and the Iraqi government's passage of several important laws for reconciliation, how can the partisan left still attempt to justify surrender and withdraw? Some on the left have in fact given their answers.

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I posted the other day on how surreal and transparent the partisans on the left were becoming in attempting to justify defeat in Iraq in light of clear progress towards peace and reconciliation. Charles Krauthammer weighs in today on the same issue and, not surprisingly - Krauthammer leads with the report of CSIS's Anthony Cordesman:

"No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. . . . If the U.S. provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

-- Anthony Cordesman,

"The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing From the Battlefield," Feb. 13, 2008

This from a man who was a severe critic of the postwar occupation of Iraq and who, as author Peter Wehner points out, is no wide-eyed optimist. In fact, in May 2006 Cordesman had written that "no one can argue that the prospects for stability in Iraq are good." Now, however, there is simply no denying the remarkable improvements in Iraq since the surge began a year ago.

Indeed, although Krauthammer does not point it out, Cordesman's prior criticisms were sufficiently harsh and pessimistic that the New York Times had them permanently linked at the bottom of their opinion page. To continue with Krauthammer:

Unless you're a Democrat. As Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) put it, "Democrats have remained emotionally invested in a narrative of defeat and retreat in Iraq." Their Senate leader, Harry Reid, declares the war already lost. Their presidential candidates (eight of them at the time) unanimously oppose the surge. Then the evidence begins trickling in.

. . . After agonizing years of searching for the right strategy and the right general, we are winning. How do Democrats react? From Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama, the talking point is the same: Sure, there is military progress. We could have predicted that. (They in fact had predicted the opposite, but no matter.) But it's all pointless unless you get national reconciliation.

"National" is a way to ignore what is taking place at the local and provincial level, such as Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim, scion of the family that dominates the largest Shiite party in Iraq, traveling last October to Anbar in an unprecedented gesture of reconciliation with the Sunni sheiks.

Doesn't count, you see. Democrats demand nothing less than federal-level reconciliation, and it has to be expressed in actual legislation.

The objection was not only highly legalistic but also politically convenient: Very few (including me) thought this would be possible under the Maliki government. Then last week, indeed on the day Cordesman published his report, it happened. Mirabile dictu, the Iraqi parliament approved three very significant pieces of legislation.

First, a provincial powers law that turns Iraq into arguably the most federal state in the entire Arab world. The provinces get not only power but also elections by Oct. 1. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has long been calling this the most crucial step to political stability. It will allow, for example, the pro-American Anbar sheiks to become the legitimate rulers of their province, exercise regional autonomy and forge official relations with the Shiite-dominated central government.

Second, parliament passed a partial amnesty for prisoners, 80 percent of whom are Sunni. Finally, it approved a $48 billion national budget that allocates government revenue -- about 85 percent of which is from oil -- to the provinces. Kurdistan, for example, gets one-sixth.

What will the Democrats say now? . . .

Despite all the progress, military and political, the Democrats remain unwavering in their commitment to withdrawal on an artificial timetable that inherently jeopardizes our "very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state."

Why? Imagine the transformative effects in the region, and indeed in the entire Muslim world, of achieving a secure and stable Iraq, friendly to the United States and victorious over al-Qaeda. Are the Democrats so intent on denying George Bush retroactive vindication for a war they insist is his that they would deny their own country a now-achievable victory?

Read the entire article.

So far, four on the left have responded to the changes in Iraq, with Nancy Pelosi being the most completely ridiculous:

. . . [Y]ou can't get anymore surreal than Nancy Pelosi and her response to this de-Baathification law. She dismissed it during a CNN interview the other day on the grounds that it had occurred . . .

. . .

(wait for it)

. . ."

too late."

Yes. That's right. Reconciliation does not count in her alternate reality because it did not occur in time. The House Democrats apparently passed a double secret time limit. If only Maliki and Bush had known. Amazingly, Wolf Blitzer let her get away with that response without challenge - or at least no challenge I could hear over my laughter, but I digress.

Read the article here.

And Michael Kinsley has responded by not merely moving the goal posts, but moving them outside the bounds of any logic. According to Mr. Kinsley, neither the security gains nor the political progress matter in assessing whether the surge has succeeded or in judging how to proceed in Iraq. His incredibly sophmoric argument is that the surge can be labled a failure solely on the basis of how many troops we have in Iraq at the moment. But even he is not calling for withdraw now. Which sets him apart from the LA Times.

The Los Angeles Times has responded to the good news from Iraq. Captian's Quarters covers their bizarre justification for still legislating surrender, which they never quite come to grips with because they start arguing with themselves:

The Los Angeles Times editorial board not only contradicts its previous editorials on Iraq, today's editorial contradicts itself. After pushing for withdrawal from Iraq on the basis that the US and Iraqis had made no real political progress, today they argue that we should withdraw because political progress has undeniably begun. And in conclusion, they wind up arguing for exactly the opposite.

Read the post here.

And in what can only be called a major surprise, the only other far left entity to finally stop calling for withdraw after the latest legislation out of Iraq is the New York Times editorial board. Go figure.

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Still Trying to Call The Surge A Failure

I blogged here that, given the significant progress in Iraq as to both security gains and politcal reconciliation, that those committed to defeat were coming up with ever more surreal reasoning to justify their transparent partisan positions. I also wrote that it would difficult for the left to keep moving the goal posts. But Michael Kinsley shows today that where there is a will, there is a way.



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Today, far left pundit Michael Kinsley, wrting with the literary equivalent of an army of earth moving vehicles and tow trucks, is upending the goal posts marking success in Iraq and trying to move the posts out the far left side of the stadium:

It is now widely considered beyond dispute that Bush has won his gamble. The surge was a terrific success. Choose your metric: attacks on American soldiers, car bombs, civilian deaths, potholes. They're all down, down, down. Lattes sold by street vendors are up. Performances of Shakespeare by local repertory companies have tripled.

Skepticism seems like sour grapes. If you opposed the surge, you have two choices. One is to admit that you were wrong, wrong wrong. The other is to sound as if you resent all the good news and remain eager for disaster. Too many opponents of the war have chosen option two.

But we needn't quarrel about all this, or deny the reality of the good news, to say that at the very least, the surge has not worked yet. The test is simple, and built into the concept of a surge: Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started? And the answer is no.

Read the article. The surge is a failure despite the fact of tremendous security gains and despite the acts of reconciliation studiously ignored by Kinsley because of our troop levels. As I wrote in the linked post at the top, the left is becoming ever more surreal and transparent in their attempt to come up with ostensible justifications for legislating defeat. And the logic with which Kinsley attempts to make his argument could not be a better illustration of my point.

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Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target

The New York Times editorial board is in obvious distress today as it opines on "(some) progress" in Iraq. As political and military progress in Iraq is making it ever more difficult for the far left to articulate ostensible grounds for legislating defeat, the ever changing narrative is becoming comical - and the left's motives transparent.







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Iraq is far from being out of the woods, but its trajectory is clearly in the right direction. To a neutral third party looking at the progress just being announced out of Iraq, it would have to look exceptionally promising. Peace is descending on large sections of the country, al Qaeda is defeated strategically throughout much of the country, and the Iraqi government has just made some very big strides towards accomplishing those things that it needs to do to bring about reconciliation and create a functioning country. A month ago, it passed a de-Baathification law to allow low and mid-level Baath party members back into the government. Today, the Iraqi Parliament passed a law outlining the scope of provincial powers and set a date for provincial elections, passed a budget that provides for fair distribution of funds, and voted on a general amnesty for many detainees.

One such neutral third party is Anthony Cordesman of CSIS, an acerbic critic of the war whose anylases of Iraq were, until recently, permanantly linked at the bottom of the NYT opinion page. Cordesman wrote yesterday:

No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. . . . If the US provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.

Read his synopsis here, and the full report here. But our Democrats and their far left supporters are not neutral third parties.

When the war in Iraq went bad following the Feburary 2006 al Qaeda bombing of the Samarra Mosque, the Democratic leadership adopted a strategy to completly embrace defeat as a means to discredit Bush, discredit the conservative ideology, and as a means of attaining partisan power. This was an act of cynical expediency for most. They of course can't say that, since they would be exposing themselves as "unpatriotic" for putting partisan gain over the national security and best interests of the nation during time of war. But it was fairly transparent early on - and now the transparency is taking on elements of absurdity as the justifications for legislating withdraw become ever more surreal. You can watch the evolution of their strategy through the NYT, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi:

Pre-Surge: (January)

The initial strategy was to stop the President from actually trying to win in Iraq by delegitimizing the surge. The opening salvo was fired on January 9, 2007, when the NYT attacked the President's just announced counterinsurgincy strategy as the "same old set of failed approaches and unachievable objectives," opining that what we needed was to an exit strategy out of Iraq's "brutal civil war."

The NYT also introduced the ridiculous meme Harry Reid credited to General Petraeus, that there can be "no military solution" in Iraq, therefore there is no reason for the surge. Yes, General Petraeus did say there could be "no military solution" in his confirmation hearing while discussing his proposed counterinsurgency strategy. In fact, he did so immediately before stating "Military action is necessary to help improve security." Ignoring that latter qualifier, Reid and the left used the Petraeus quote to justify their calls for surrender all the way through September.

Build-Up to the Surge (Prior to June)

By March 29, 2007 the nascent counterinsurgency operation had just begun, the full buildup was still two months away, but some real progress was being noted on the ground. The NYT was having none of that and was still trying to end the surge before any real success could be achieved, opining "Victory is no longer an option in Iraq." Clearly it wasn't an option for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who were doing all they could to stangle the surge in its cradle.

Harry Reid, for his part, actually surrendered on camera to al Qaeda on April 20. Fortunately, our military did not receive the surrender orders.

Not yet ready to give up on giving up - on April 26, 2007, the NYT characterized the surge as a "failed approach," ignoring all of the security gains that were by then clearly evident. Three days later, the NYT's lead was a story on the amazing security gains being brought about by the Anbar Awakening - two words that have yet to be used by the NYT editorial board to this day.

Surge Begins Full Operation (June)

By June, sectarian violence in Iraq had been brought down by two thirds from its pre-surge high in January and the Anbar Awakening was starting to spread outside of Anbar province. While Iraq had been on the brink of "civil war" prior to the surge, it was clearly far back from the brink by June.

Regardless, trying not to confuse the issue with facts, on July 8, the NYT editors wrote that Iraq was engulfed in a "raging" civil war and, because of that, "[i]t is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit." You have to love these folks for their utter refusal to let facts stand in the way of their narrative.

Just a little over two weeks after that editorial, two former opponents of the war, Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollock of the left of center Brookings Institution penned their now famous op-ed in the NYT, "A War We Might Just Win." Hospital beds filled that morning with Congressional Democrats and their supporters who had choked on their cornflakes while reading the newspaper over breakfast.


The Petraeus Briefing (September)

After the O'Hanlon piece was published, the NYT editorial board simply ignored Iraq until near the end of August, when a flurry of editorials appeared in advance of General Petraeus's scheduled briefing to Congress. On August 31, the NYT began hyping a GAO report that told of little progress being made by the Iraqi government towards meeting the "benchmarks" and, based on old data, only minor security gains. As the NYT opined, "Iraq’s leaders have neither the intention nor the ability to take advantage of calm, relative or otherwise." And in case you didn't get the message, NYT essentially repeated the same editorial again a few days later.

The September 9 editorial ranks as one of my favorites. The NYT turned reality on its head, claiming that Petraeus was politicaly motivated and could not be trusted. Further, the NYT claimed that Petraeus's credibility and that of his commanders in Iraq was questionable - because they disagreed with the NYT / Congressional Democrat's characterization of Iraq. It was a masterpiece of hutzpah that any connoisseur of fine bullshit has to truly appreciate.

The biggest push to end the surge came on September 11, after General Petraeus had testified before Congress and the nation on progress in Iraq. The NYT, parroting Hillary, accused General Patreus of providing "false" information, citing to "recent independent studies [that] are much more skeptical about the decrease in violence." Further, the NYT argued, "[e]ven if the so-called surge has created breathing room, Iraq’s sectarian leaders show neither the ability nor the intent to take advantage of it."

Unfortunately for the left, most people believed General Petraeus and were willing to give him time to make the surge work. Go figure. Though that didn't stop the NYT from banging the same drum several more times that month - but it was all for naught. When that didn't work, Iraq disappeared from the editorial pages and the news. The war was over - for the NYT at least.

Thankfully, there were other sources of news, otherwise everyone would have missed Osama bin Laden's State of the Jihad address in October when he came about as close to declaring a strategic defeat for al Qaeda in Iraq as we will ever see. As bin Laden characterized it, "the darkness [in Iraq] is pitch black." Perhaps General Petraeus was telling the truth after all.

The Issue of War Funding (November)

It wasn't until late November that the NYT again took up the issue of Iraq, finally conceding - very grudgingly - to the blindingly evident security gains. The NYT argued that the security gains didn't matter because the central government was not moving towards reconciliation:

There have been some advances since President Bush sought to salvage his misadventure by sending even more troops into Iraq. Violence has declined and Al Qaeda in Iraq is said to be weaker. But Mr. Bush’s main argument for his escalation — that it would create political space for Iraqis to work together and achieve national reconciliation — has proved wrong.

But poor Harry Reid couldn't even bring himself to acknowledge the security gains. With violence down near to levels not seen since the inititial invasion and with peace breaking out over much of Iraq, Reid channelled the spirit of Baghdad Bob, telling a reporter: ". . . Al Qaeda has regrouped and is able to fight a civil war in Iraq. ... The American people are losing."

Reconciliation (January - Present)

The horror of horrors struck the far left on January 13. The Iraqis passed a de-Baathification law that would allow former Baath party members to reenter government service and to collect pensions. Reconciliation - the centerpiece of the left's ostensible justifications for legislating defeat - was being taken away from them. They went into denial.

One can only imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am sure a sudden outbreak of tourettes suddenly infected the occupants of the offices of Congressional Democrats and the NYT editorial board.

The Washington Post reported on the passage of these laws. WaPo interviewed the Shia and Sunni legislators involved in the drafting, debate and voting on the law. Not surprisingly, they were all very upbeat:

. . . "It's a good step for many reasons," said Falah Hassan Shanshal, who leads the parliamentary committee overseeing the legislation and is a member of the Shiite party loyal to influential cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "First, it condemns all the crimes carried out by the Baath Party and its bloody regime. And this law will allow us to search for and detect every single person who committed a crime against Iraqis."

Supporters of the measure say it is intended to ease the restrictions that prevented former Baathists from holding government jobs. Shanshal acknowledged that certain people joined the Baath Party not for ideological reasons but out of necessity, and for people who have not committed crimes, "it is possible for them to return to public life."

But members of the largest Sunni coalition in parliament agreed to the new measure. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the group's leader, said the legislation was fair to low-ranking former Baathists and allowed the higher-ranking Shubah members to receive pensions, "which I consider good and acceptable."

See here. The NYT was having none of that. They were in panic and denial. In their editorial, they wrote:

The Iraqi Parliament has finally done something that the Bush Administration, and many others, considered essential to political progress in Iraq: it passed a law intended to open government jobs to former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.

What should have been heralded as an accomplishment, however, may only serve to further reinforce the bumbling nature of President Bush’s ill-conceived adventure in Iraq. No one, it seems, has a clear sense of what the law will do. Some suggest it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets in — a sure-fire way to fuel political tensions rather than calm them.

. . . Administration officials continually lower the bar for Iraq. Now they admit that the law is not perfect but say it begins to set fairer standards. Iraq’s presidency council still must approve the law and could yet make improvements. Iraqis are going to have to do a lot better to make their country work. Withdrawing American troops may finally persuade them to do that.

Read the article here. The NYT seemed in such a rush to condemn this law with inuendo and speculation that they were too busy to talk to the Sunni and Shia legislators involved in crafting and debating the law. But you have to love the conclusion and the note of desperation evident in it. The NYT is hanging on tooth and nail to the meme that surrendering and leaving Iraq still remains the panacea to force reconciliation, despite the passage of the reconciliation law. This is priceless, really. Even a writer of decent fiction couldn't make up stuff like this.

But you can't get anymore surreal than Nancy Pelosi and her response to this de-Baathification law. She dismissed it during a CNN interview the other day on the grounds that it had occurred . . .
. . .
(wait for it)
. . .
"too late."

Yes. That's right. Reconciliation does not count in her alternate reality because it did not occur in time. The House Democrats apparently passed a double secret time limit. If only Maliki and Bush had known. Amazingly, Wolf Blitzer let her get away with that response without challenge - or at least no challenge I could hear over my laughter, but I digress.

Moments later, I did hear Ms. Pelosi justify calling the surge "a failure" when Blitzer pushed her on the issue. She did not do it by citing to any facts; rather, she just screamed twice: "Its a failure. Its a failure." There is nothing like watching Pelosi revert to the intellectual level of a 5 year old. If she had not been sitting down while saying that, I am pretty sure she would have been stomping her feet. And had Blitzer challenged her further to provide some actual factual justification for her bald assertions, there is no doubt that CNN's audience would have been treated to the sight of Pelosi putting her fingers in her ears and humming loudly.

But back to the NYT and today. One can feel the NYT is, in fact, progressing through the five stages of grief. You could feel them working through their denial earlier in response to the de-Baathification law, and now they have moved into the stages of anger and acceptance:

Making (Some) Progress in Iraq

Good news is rare in Iraq. But after months of bitter feuding, Iraq’s Parliament has finally approved a budget, outlined the scope of provincial powers, set an Oct. 1 date for provincial elections and voted a general amnesty for detainees. All these steps are essential for national conciliation.

As always in Iraq, it is best to read the fine print. Final details of the legislation aren’t known. The country’s three-member presidency council must still sign off. And then the laws have to be implemented. . . .

We are, of course, cheered by the news that representatives from Iraq’s three main ethnic groups — Shiite, Sunni and Kurd — finally saw some benefit in compromise.

Read the entire article. I have no doubt that they are not using the word "cheered" according to any known dictionary definition. I think it far more likely that the copy editor inserted that verb in the place of several explatives and a verb describing some type of sexual act.

But something else of import is evinced in the NYT editorial. For the first time in over a year, the NYT didn't call for the immediate withdraw of our troops. This is huge. The NYT editorial board is off message. They have surrendered surrendering - or something like that.

I have yet to hear Pelosi and Reid - or Hillary and Obama - respond to this latest great news for Iraq and America. Given the NYT is usually on key with the far left, this might mean that Pelosi and company are about to give up the ghost on legislating defeat in Iraq. But I seriously doubt it. Stay tuned. The entertainment value of this looks like it will only continue to rise as the Democratic arguments for legislating defeat in Iraq become ever more surreal, and their motivations ever more transparent.

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The Iraqi Parliament

Iraq's internal politics are at the center of the debate now in Washington about how to proceed in Iraq - i.e., whether to abandon Iraq or whether to stay and continue the process towards democracy and stabilization. Long War Journal has an exceptional series of articles on the inner workings of Iraqi politics, efforts to build a functioning bureaucracy, and the challenges to provide service. LWJ's most recent article is on the the workings of Iraq's Parliament.


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I blogged here on Long War Journal's articles on the Iraqi executive and ministerial bodies and the efforts to build infrastructure and provide services. The article provide an in depth analysis of what is going right, what is going wrong, and the challenges being faced. LWJ continues its series with a look now at the Iraqi legislative body.

Understanding the constitutional structure and current composition of Iraq’s legislative branch is a prerequisite to analyzing the much-maligned progress of key legislation. As with the executive, the political diversity of Iraq’s legislature presents many significant challenges and a few opportunities to meeting the legislative benchmarks considered important to stability and reconciliation.

The structure and function of the Iraqi legislature

Iraq’s Constitution ostensibly vests legislative power in two entities: the Federation Council and the Council of Representatives, or COR. The nonexistent Federation Council is vaguely outlined as a body of representatives from various regions, but its exact authority and makeup remain open issues to be determined by the COR. The COR is Iraq’s functioning parliament, consisting of 275 elected officials who oversee the executive branch, pass laws, ratify treaties, and approve the nominations of government officials.

Elected in December 2005 and having first met on March 16, 2006, parliament members also elect Iraq’s president, who in turn appoints the prime minister from the majority political coalition within the COR. The body is supposed to meet for two four-month sessions per year with two-month breaks in January-February and July-August, though this schedule has been altered as needed when members have failed to meet legislative deadlines. The COR is currently in one of these special sessions because its members failed to pass the 2008 budget at the close of 2007. A minimum of 138 members is required for quorum, though the parliament can continue to function with less if the previous legislative session was never closed. Poor attendance has been a problem in regular sessions.

“On any given day, about 100, sometimes fewer, sometimes more members are absent,” said a Western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity. “The speaker and … even more strongly, the first deputy speaker, have made the point that the members should attend and that it’s their responsibility. However, it remains the case that many members do not attend.”

While many members miss sessions, “real” political agreements are often brokered outside of official COR debate, spurring sufficient participation when issues come to a vote. This paradigm is similar to how the US Congress works, though Iraq’s parliament has a greater degree of absenteeism.

“When there’s an important vote and once the political agreements done behind the scenes have been accomplished, what usually happens is the membership will come together and the bloc leaders are able to pull enough people in so that a vote can take place,” said the diplomat. “When push comes to shove, [they] can be gathered together.”

Laws can be created in two ways: initiated by the executive branch and passed to the COR for debate and ratification, or initiated by the COR, passed to the components of the executive, and then bounced back through the parliament. Typically, bills are drafted by the prime minister’s office, then debated and approved by the Council of Ministers – a body within the executive branch consisting of about 40 of the heads of Iraqi ministries – then moved on for debate, revision, potential judicial review, and approval by the parliament.

After majority approval by parliament, bills are presented to the Presidency Council – the president and two vice presidents – who can sign it into law or veto the legislation. Once signed, the proposed legislation becomes law after it is published in the official government gazette, a summary of parliamentary action. This extended debate process – spanning fractious deliberative bodies in both the executive branch (the 40-member Council of Ministers) and the legislative branch (the 275-member COR) – demands a level of coordination difficult for Iraq’s politically diverse government and prohibits speedy passage of legislation.

“The lack of coordination and cohesion between the executive and the legislature … is a particular problem that has to be solved in order to make the kind of political progress that this country needs,” said the Western diplomat. “And there are people working very hard to get that political cooperation. It’s not easy, but I think things are headed in that direction. There are some signs of the urgency, the need for political leadership by the prime minister and the Council of Ministers.”

“[It’s] very difficult for a democratic body of legislators – let alone an executive branch with a ministerial group that’s a mixed and fractious coalition – to come to agreement on key things,” said Phil Reeker, Counselor for Public Affairs at the State Department. Reeker noted that democratic processes familiar to Westerners are brand new to Iraqis, who have also been struggling to learn how to govern in the midst of extreme violence.

“Now, with better security, you do have a little less trouble at least getting to parliament and focusing on passing legislation,” said Reeker.

. . . Iraq’s parliament is composed of political blocs made up of various parties that reflect the demographic diversity of the country.

The speaker of the COR is Mahmoud Mashadani, who is with the largest Sunni bloc. First Deputy Speaker Sheikh Khalid al Attiya is an independent within the largest Shia bloc, and Second Deputy Speaker Arif Tayfur is a member of the main Kurdish bloc. The sectarian groupings are reflected in the leadership as well as the composition of the COR itself. The membership changes frequently because of resignations or political moves, and various US officials can offer only approximate numbers for the distribution of political parties and blocs within parliament.

The largest political bloc is the United Iraq Alliance (UIA), a primarily Shia group that currently holds about 85 seats. The UIA is dominated by two better-known political parties: the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party.

Some analysts consider the conservative Shia SIIC an Iranian proxy, others see it as a US ally, and all regard it as the major competitor to the Sadrists in southern Iraq. Recent platform changes by SIIC have stressed nationalism and distanced the party from Iran, including a politically loaded name change and pledge to seek guidance from Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, as opposed to a previous focus on Velayat-e-Faqih, a school of Shiite governance led by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Analysts debate the motivation behind the changes – some argue they earnestly reflect the Iraqi nationalism and anti-Persian sentiment among SIIC’s constituency, while others suggest the shift has been executed with Tehran’s practical blessing. In any case, the new platform generally advances the concept of nationalism, which could enable reconciliation.

The Islamic Dawa Party is a conservative Shia Islamist party that had been outlawed by the previous regime and its members sentenced to death by Saddam Hussein. Dawa also has ties to Iran, a relationship historically characterized by the party’s previous support of the Iranian revolution and Tehran’s welcome of exiled Dawa leaders and backing of their insurgency against Hussein. But the relationship is complex; party leadership moved from Iran to London in the late eighties, and Dawa officials have been involved in forging ties to both the US and emerging Sunni leadership. These moves include recent negotiations regarding a long-term security and economic agreement with the US, the legal authorization for continued US military presence in Iraq, the government’s adoption of grassroots Sunni security forces, and an increased distribution of reconstruction funds to the predominantly Sunni Anbar province.

Another large Shia group of about 28 seats is held by the Sadrist Movement led by radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al Sadr, the son of legendary deceased cleric Mohammad Sadeq al Sadr. The younger Sadr has very close ties to Tehran, characterized by his flight to Iran at the start of the US military “surge” in February 2007. And in contrast to SIIC’s moves away from Iranian influence, Sadr is studying to become a cleric under Khamenei’s Velayat-e-Faqih. The larger Sadrist Movement is a loose confederation of elements not completely under al Sadr’s control, some of which were complicit in past sectarian cleansing, others which are more moderate.

. . . The Kurds are largely grouped in the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK), considered the most unified voting bloc in the COR. The DPAK consists of 53 members primarily drawn from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The bloc is closely allied with US interests, though its members are strong advocates of weak federalism, and sometimes make independent moves that seem to conflict with Iraqi nationalism. Independent or otherwise affiliated Kurds hold another five or six seats outside of the DPAK.

The current major Sunni bloc is called the Tawaffuk or Iraqi National Concord Front, which holds about 40 seats and is composed of three parties: the General Council for the People of Iraq (GCPI), the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), and the Iraqi National Dialogue Council (INDC). Tawaffuk’s platform is anti-Iranian and pro-Sunni, though its parties are not considered widely representative of Iraq’s larger Sunni population by some American officials, because many Sunni leaders sat out of national elections.

The Sunni bloc is led by Ayad al Samarrai of the IIP, and its former chairman is the controversial Adnan al Dulaymi of the GCPI, who is widely believed to be involved in insurgency and sectarian violence. Terrorism charges against Dulaymi have spurred several US and Iraqi raids on his offices over the past two years and calls by other members of parliament for his prosecution. Last December, Dulaymi’s son and many of his bodyguards were detained in connection with the manufacture of car bombs, which “provoked issues within both Tawaffuk and … a great deal of controversy and some significant time within the COR,” said the Western diplomat. “Several days running were spent talking about his issues within the COR debate.” Dulaymi, who has survived several assassination attempts, has thus far avoided prosecution because rivals fear a backlash against his arrest.

. . . Overall, the distribution of sectarian-based political affiliations in the COR is about 45 percent Shia, 20 percent Kurdish, and 15 percent Sunni Arab, roughly reflecting the proportion of the three major ethnicities and sects in larger Iraqi society. The remaining 20 percent – approximately 54 seats – are divided between Shia and Sunnis who are explicit secularists, independents, and minority representatives, . . .

Change wrought by the Anbar tribal Awakening is a vital component of evaluating the interest and intent of Iraq’s Sunnis, as well as possibilities for Iraqi federalism and long-term reconciliation. The current Sunni representatives in parliament are “minimally” representative of the wider Sunni population because most Sunni leaders and tribal structures boycotted the last national elections, according to various US military and intelligence officials.

“Because most Sunnis boycotted those elections, IIP was able to sweep the field,” said a US intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity. “But despite being the Sunni voice in Baghdad, they have been completely unable to prevent either the anti-Sunni pogroms in Baghdad or the rise of al-Qaeda in the Sunni provinces.”

Provincial elections that are scheduled to take place in October and subsequent national elections in late 2009 will be important, as they will give Sunnis with the popular and US-allied Sahawa al Iraq, or Iraqi Awakening, official status within the government. This will consolidate their de facto influence through democratic means, codifying both Sunni rejection of insurgency and lasting status within larger Iraqi society.

“While a number of the sheikhs are skeptical about the prospects for democracy in Iraq, as a general rule they are more than happy to consolidate the practical power they already wield through democratic means,” said the US intelligence official. “The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and its Tawaffuk Front coalition partners recognize the amount of popular support that Sahawa al Iraq has, and have done everything in their power to stall local elections until they can find a way to ... retain their current power.”

Some US officials argue that the emergent Sunni leaders are predisposed to reconcile and realistic about their new role in Iraq society.

“[Reconciliation] would just be letting them come back and be the minority they are and now recognize themselves to be,” said Stanton. “Because being a minority doesn’t mean you’re powerless in this parliamentary system, because the Shia are fairly fractured and there will be Shia from time-to-time who will caucus with the Sunnis and Kurds to make deals.”

While the media has focused on a narrative of unrelenting sectarianism as the cause of the COR’s inertia on passing legislation, many American officials believe this view ignores some context, including the decentralized design of the government under the Iraqi constitution and a lack of experience with democracy among Iraqi officials.

“[Sectarianism] is clearly an element; political parties are formed along sectarian lines and political blocs, too,” said Reeker. “That’s not uncommon in countries all over the world. That does not have to be a recipe for disaster. What it means is finding the mechanisms under the constitution they have to get through those things and do what it takes to govern, so that all the parties in government and the citizenry can feel secure and comfortable.”

And despite the splintered character of the country’s political and demographic makeup, as well as the enhanced sectarianism that flared during the bloody conflict in 2006, both Americans and Iraqis are quick to describe the existence of a strong nationalistic sentiment in Iraq.

“There’s a sort of nationalism in Iraq that frankly people don’t realize,” said Reeker. “Sectarianism is not as etched or hard-wired into the society here … as people think based on what was absolutely brutal, horrific sectarian violence … after the Samarra mosque bombing in 2006. If you look back in history, Iraq was a place where the Sunnis and Shia mixed, it was a place where there was a certain strong Arab nationalism. So [reconciliation is] something they have to keep working. They have these very difficult debates, but they have found certain mechanisms … to get some of this done, whether it’s passing budgets, executing them, getting money moved out to the provinces.”

With improved security, only time will reveal if such nationalism will result in sufficient accord within the Iraqi legislature. Many US officials shun the term “reconciliation” in favor of “accommodation,” given the difficult diversity of Iraq’s sects, ethnicities, and interests.

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Politics & Reconciliation In Iraq

Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi spoke of the surge, stating that the "gains" in secuirty "have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq." She then pronounced her verdict on the surge: "This is a failure. This is a failure." That is not a typographical error, she said it twice for effect. The Long War Journal is in the midst of examining Iraqi politics and the process of reconciliation. Their analysis is a bit more nuanced than Speak Pelosi's and does not support her conclusion. Reconciliation is continuing in the face of massive systemic and practical challenges of creating a functioning nation out of ashes. And it must be emphasized that the Iraqi government has only been extant for a little more than one year and a half.

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The Long War Journal is running a series of articles analyzing the politics of Iraq. They are well worth a read. Iraq is a going through political birth pangs as it attempts to create a functioning governmental structure. LWJ examines the systemic and practical problems the Iraqi nation is facing as well as the state of progress. This from "Inside Iraqi politics – Part 1. Examining the executive branch:"

Security gains in Iraq have maintained momentum for five months and the focus has turned to spurring and gauging the country’s political progress. The ultimate goal of the troop surge executed by the military was for improved security to provide “breathing room” for such progress, which can be simplified to three fronts: “ground-up” political progress, executive political progress by the federal government, and federal legislative progress.

“Ground-up” political progress largely consists of fostering relationships with local leaders – often tribesmen and former insurgents – who now wish to work with the Coalition and Federal Government of Iraq against the insurgency. This effort empowering local institutions – such as neighborhood watches, Provincial Security Forces, and city and tribal councils – is considered integral to durable security and stability.

Executive political progress by the federal government includes, at least in the short term, effectively delivering reconstruction and security resources to all provinces regardless of sectarian make-up, and integrating predominantly Sunni neighborhood watch programs into government employment. These actions will facilitate reconciliation and cement decreases in both insurgency and sectarian conflict.

Legislative political progress by the federal government is measured by the passage of proposed legislation immediately essential to executive functions, such as the 2008 budget; laws stipulating the long-term design of the Iraqi government, like the distribution of federal and provincial authority; and laws crucial for sectarian reconciliation, such as reform that allows more former Baathists into government service.

The first and arguably most important area of political progress, the “ground-up” aspect, has been a linchpin of US military strategy and is significantly responsible for the large security gains since August 2007. These rapidly successful grassroots reconciliation efforts were driven by the emergence of local leadership, budding relationships between the federal government and tribal leaders, quick application of US funds and reconstruction efforts, and local relationships forged across sectarian lines.

Despite such significant regional progress, however, many have questioned the will and ability of the Iraqi federal government to meet its end of the bargain: delivering services and resources, reconciling with former Sunni insurgents, and passing essential legislation. And most media coverage has focused on implacable sectarian interest as the primary reason for the Iraqi government’s underperformance in these areas, a sentiment shared by some American officials.

Colonel Martin M. Stanton, Chief of Reconciliation and Engagement for Multinational Corps–Iraq, is quick to praise the remarkable progress in ground-up reconciliation he’s seen in his job coordinating Iraqis who want to engage with the Coalition and Iraqi government. But he is also candidly skeptical about the willingness of the “Shia [federal] government” to reconcile with Sunnis, in light of sectarian hostility.

“What haunts me is the prospect of wasting all these opportunities,” said Stanton. “It’s encouraging at the bottom, at the tactical level, and then you deal with the people in the Iraqi government who are so paranoid and so reticent, and it’s a real emotional rollercoaster.”

But while most officials acknowledge a heavy atmosphere of mistrust stoked by sectarian carnage that peaked in 2006, many cite other elements that impede action on key political benchmarks. This Long War Journal series on Iraqi politics – involving more than a dozen interviews with American and Iraqi officials – will attempt to examine the factors, including but beyond sectarianism, that have affected political progress by the Iraqi federal government.

. . . The lion’s share of influence lies with Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, a Shia with the Dawa Party, and the Council of Ministers, which has its own powers, like debating proposed legislation before it’s forwarded to the legislative branch.


. . . Ministers, representing various parties, are ostensibly granted great latitude in carrying out the function of their ministry, and have a practical say in overall executive decisions via their membership in the Council of Ministers. These features of the Iraqi Constitution that place a significant amount of power in a collective, rather than in one person, necessarily slow executive action, even as they prevent the dictatorial abuses of Iraq’s past.

“It’s not an easy structure,” said Phil Reeker, Counselor for Public Affairs at the American Embassy in Baghdad. “Different parties have different ministries, and [ministry] relationships with the prime minister’s office are different.”

. . . But while many note the high degree of prime ministerial authority under a decentralized structure, the complexity of the executive branch makes mapping the government’s progress more complicated than exclusively blaming or lauding Maliki. “Orders of the Prime Minister” are considered the leverage needed to get many things done, but Maliki’s issuance of orders favorable towards reconciliation is tempered by his management of the competing interests within his ruling coalition. In addition, the intent of individual ministers has historically influenced reconciliation issues not explicitly addressed by the prime minister.

For an extreme example, former high-level Sadrist officials in the Ministry of Health were indicted on charges of diverting government funds to the Mahdi Army and allowing the use of Iraqi hospitals and ambulances in sectarian killings during 2006. A more subtle example is the same ministry’s prioritization of opening medical facilities in Shia neighborhoods during 2007, according to a report by General David Petraus' staff. Maliki's awareness of such activities has been debatable, and his willingness to prosecute such crimes has been historically weak, but many officials do not consider such actions sanctioned by the Prime Minister. . . .

While Americans and Iraqis still note significant flaws in Maliki’s leadership, many believe it has improved over the past year, citing his willingness to prosecute rogue elements (Shia as well as Sunni) outside of and within the government, and decisions on reconciliation and security issues that have caused political discord, including the various defections from his government coalition. At least one Iraqi politician offers more unqualified praise.

“Give Maliki a lot of credit for not looking at the polls, as they say in the US,” said Entifadh K. Qanbar, former Deputy Military Attaché for Iraq and former member of the Iraqi National Congress, a political party. “He makes decisions that might not be popular at first, but [later] people start to realize he’s a strong man who does not get dragged left and right by people threatening him. Maliki is probably not an intellectual, but he’s a street guy, he knows [politics] well.”

. . . While divisive politics and naked sectarian interest receive most of the blame for Iraq’s political inertia, government inefficiency, corruption, and administrative inexperience arguably pose larger problems.

. . . As an example, a paper-based system of requisitions adds layers of difficulty for various provincial police headquarters getting equipment from the Ministry of the Interior. Thus, both Western observers and police officers in a Sunni province like Anbar might view equipment shortages as the product of sectarian hostility by the Shia-dominated federal government, when much of the delay is really administrative.

“An extremely small percentage … of equipment shortages would be attributed to some sort of deliberate effort to deny somebody something,” said Major General Michael Jones, Commanding General of the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team. In fact, Jones had not seen this occur in the four months he had been in Iraq. He believes that a combination of complex administrative rules and inexperienced bureaucrats is responsible for many delays.

. . . Inefficiency is exacerbated by the drastic growth of the young government. A primary focus of American advisers is “building the capacity” to govern and administer, at all levels, in rapidly expanding institutions headed by Iraqis with varying levels of experience, honesty, sectarianism, and patriotism. For example, the Ministry of the Interior’s authorization for the police force in al Anbar has grown from 11,000 to 24,000 in six months. Any organization that makes decisions to grow at such a rapid pace is “going to have huge problems” because of the inherent logistical and hiring challenges presented by such rapid expansion, said Jones.

This highly demanded growth compounds the overall disorganization of a fledgling Iraqi government that in many respects has been reconstituted from scratch.

“The destruction in Iraq was so severe that we don't have a proper staff … capable of proper planning,” said Ali al Dabbagh, Official Spokesman of the Government of Iraq, who notes improvement in the proportion of the government’s budget that was spent in 2007 compared to the previous year. “I think that in 2008 – we call it ‘the year of reconstruction’ – … the capacity of the government will be much, much … better than 2007.”

The US Government Accountability Office, however, recently reported that the Government of Iraq still only spent 4.4 percent of its investment budget by August 2007; 90 percent of that budget is dedicated to the capital projects behind reconstruction and the restoration of services.

If Iraq is to capitalize on security gains, the government must improve its efficiency, as well as mitigate a huge problem with corruption that is a major drain on these resources. An internal report by the US Embassy in Baghdad characterized corruption as “the norm in many ministries" and labeled Maliki’s government as incapable of “even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws.” The corruption watchdog group Transparency International ranked Iraq as the third-most corrupt country of 180 countries measured in a September 2007 report.

While problems with massive theft diminish as security and oversight improve, corruption remains common and, to some degree, a culturally accepted facet of administration in Iraq. Many US officials set pragmatic goals of lowering graft to an extent where it does not interfere with accomplishing the mission of a given organization, from local police forces to national ministries. And some see corruption as a moderately reduced but persistent problem.

Qanbar asserts that the major corruption, the deals worth “hundreds of millions of dollars,” are a way of the past, yet he anticipates that the “middle to lower-level corruption will continue for a long time and will be a huge problem.”

“I think the only way to solve this problem is for the Iraqi parliamentarian system to work better, and it is,” said Qanbar, citing a recent example of Iraqi Parliament calling the Iraqi Minister of Trade to answer questions relating to corruption. He noted that this type of oversight is “unprecedented for this part of the world.” . . .

Read the entire article here. The next article in the series examined the efforts of the Executive Branch to provide services to the Iraqi people:

The Government of Iraq’s executive branch has several goals central to maintaining security gains and achieving sectarian reconciliation: effective hiring and management of the highly publicized Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs), the auxiliary security forces greatly responsible for the significant reduction in violence; the delivery of reconstruction resources, including basic services, to Baghdad and the provinces; and the creation of jobs and economic opportunity for average Iraqis.

The Concerned Local Citizens and the IFCNR

Many reconciliation initiatives are specifically championed by Iraq’s Implementation and Follow-Up Committee for National Reconciliation (IFCNR). It was formed by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki on June 22, 2007 to place special emphasis on issues affecting reconciliation between sects in Iraq. The small committee is headed by Dr. Safa Hussein, who also serves as Deputy National Security Adviser, and includes four primary members and an additional eight subordinate members, with no extended support staff. The IFCNR focuses on managing or advocating several matters within the federal government: the CLC program, the delivery of basic services, the stimulation of jobs, and the orderly return of refugees.

“This is a national-level organization working in Baghdad, but some of its members travel around and talk to tribal support councils, which are sort of their method of communication at the local level,” said Major Rouven Steeves, a former staff member of the US military’s Force Strategic Engagement Cell, which works closely with the IFCNR. “There are six tribal support councils that have been organized to communicate at the local level, to include communicating with the CLC organizations.” The committee continues to stand up more tribal councils in Baghdad and other provinces.

The IFCNR is an independent body within the government, but any progress on its initiatives requires obtaining prime ministerial orders and the cooperation of the specific ministry involved in managing any given activity. A specific example is its aggressive advocacy of the Concerned Local Citizens program.

An offshoot of the tribal “awakenings” that began in Anbar province, the CLCs, now also dubbed “the Sons of Iraq,” are comprised of local auxiliary police or neighborhood watches that initially were hired and managed by the US military. The strategy was designed to empower local citizens to take responsibility for security, as well as provide much-needed legitimate employment that drains the labor pool for insurgency. Because some of the security volunteers previously were associated with the Sunni insurgency in one form or another, there has been significant hesitation among federal government officials to sanction and eventually manage the program, considered a crucial reconciliation step by US officials and many Iraqis.

“The Committee has been focusing on the CLC issue because that’s been the hot topic, both for the Coalition and for the Iraqis,” said Steeves. “What we were trying to do is get the GOI [Government of Iraq] to take over both monetarily, by paying for contracts, and also coordination and control of these organizations. Additionally … putting some of these people to work for the ISF [Iraqi security forces] by hiring them as police.”

Efforts to begin integration of Concerned Local Citizens into the government recently succeeded in increments approved by Maliki. First, the IFCNR obtained a prime ministerial order that forced the Ministries of the Interior and Defense – responsible for the Police and the Army, respectively – to work with the local CLCs at the request of American forces. Maliki’s order was considered a huge step in the atmosphere of sectarian mistrust that surrounds this issue. And on Dec. 12, the Iraqi government officially agreed to take over funding and managing the program from American forces. Eventually about 20-25 percent of the approximately 85,000 CLCs are slated to be officially hired into the Iraqi security forces (mostly Iraqi Police) after proper vetting, with the remainder ideally diverted towards training programs and public-works projects headed by various ministries. To date, almost 9,000 of the volunteers have been screened by the government and are expected to enter police training.

Though the government’s hesitance in taking over the program was held up as an example of sectarian inertia by some US officials and many Western media and political observers, others argue that the delay was rational, given that many of the CLC groups include former insurgents. Iraqi government officials express a desire to avoid the insurgent and militia infiltration that plagued the Iraqi National Police over the past few years, for example.

“[H]iring people [who] were fighting you yesterday … is not an easy job,” said Dr. Ali al Dabbagh, Official Spokesman for the Government of Iraq. “[They] need definitely to … be checked thoroughly, and that is what the Iraqi government is doing. But nevertheless, we have accommodated more than 20,000. … We don't want to recruit [extremists] or … one more militia will be formed and they will fight the government from inside.”

Sunni leaders argue that their induction into the Iraqi security forces ensures government control. And the targeting of the CLC program by al Qaeda, they insist, is further proof that CLCs must have government support. In addition, some American officials argue that the Shia-dominated federal government already had displayed some willingness to engage with Sunni regions by hiring and consistently paying Sunni-dominated police forces in Anbar province, before either the Tribal Awakening or the spread of CLC programs throughout Iraq.

Brigadier General Terry Wolff, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan Policy Implementation on the National Security Council, sums up a common US perspective well.

Listen, when you're over there working this with [the Iraqis], yes everyone is incredibly frustrated, trying to help them accomplish what is intuitively obvious to us. If these tribes have found men who are willing to be part of the local security solution, then why does it take so long to get them hired and … paid? It's a great question. So many people read into that slowness as 'Ah, Maliki is against this and there are conspiracies everywhere,' and so there is some distrust there, [but] the Iraqi government has gone on record as stating, 'Hey listen, we don't mind concerned local citizens, we just want to make sure that the demographics of the CLCs are reasonably balanced, and that people aren’t raising militias that are a threat to the government.’

But despite the government’s official acceptance of the CLCs and the IFCNR’s advocacy of the effort, there is still controversy over the eventual management of the program. As US officials check the backgrounds and catalogue biometric data of neighborhood volunteers slated to be integrated into the Iraqi Police, some in the government resist adding them to the rolls.

“[The] plan is still going ahead, but there is some pushback from GOI on how to move the CLCs to government control,” said Lieutenant Colonel Robert Friedenberg, the Multinational Forces-Iraq Liaison to the IFCNR. “It is arguable whether this comes from active resistance or just disorganized management and lack of capacity. Hiring the CLCs into the Iraqi Police is a slow process, and we have to work each time a list is ready for hiring to get the government to agree to hire the volunteers.”

With its recent progress on the CLCs, the IFCNR is now turning much of its attention to the idea of establishing job training and public works employment programs headed by various ministries. The hope is to divert some of the CLC volunteers to this employment as the need for the homegrown security forces abates. The committee also is addressing the property rights and pension claims of returning refugees, and coordinating some basic government services, like hospital improvements and the development of infrastructure. Many of these plans remain fuzzy, and minimal progress is a reflection of poor administrative capacity, a small staff, and disorganization, problems that plague many government agencies in Iraq.

“The IFCNR has advocated some jobs programs, building workers living accommodations near factories that are planned for refurbishment in order to house the workers in the Baghdad area” said Friedenberg. “Some of these plans are pretty ambitious, and out of the capability of the government of Iraq in my opinion. I expect the Coalition working with them on small projects initially and then picking up speed as momentum is gained.”

Reconstruction and the Services Committee

One area that reflects poorly on the government is its limited ability to deliver basic services like electricity, sewage management, and health care. The speed at which an acceptable level of service can be delivered to the population has implications for reconciliation, Iraq’s overall stability, and the odds of political survival for incumbents during the next national election cycle in late 2009.

There are signs of slow forward movement. Some of Iraq’s revenue is bypassing byzantine traditional channels and has been distributed directly to provincial governments, which are advised by US Provincial Reconstruction Teams focused on spurring local economies and the delivery of services. And the Iraqi economy continues to show significant momentum, with a estimated 2007 growth rate of 6.7 percent, while oil revenues have eclipsed budgeted expectations. Despite these advancements, reconstruction action at the Iraqi national level and in Baghdad specifically remains poor. This failure is seen in an improving but extremely low proportion of budgeted national revenue that has made it to the execution stage of reconstruction contracts, and the underperformance of national ministries.

. . . To improve communication and the delivery of services, Maliki has tried to coordinate the ministerial system by creating an independent Baghdad Services Committee. Headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial former deputy prime minister and head of the Iraqi National Congress, the committee has a shifting membership that adjusts to its various agendas, and plays something like an ombusdsman role among the ministries involved in reconstruction. The body has met approximately weekly since last October and addresses a wide range of services, including electricity, health care, schools, trash removal, and traffic regulation.

For a specific example, the Baghdad neighborhood of Sab al Bor suffered a downed powerline that inactivated water pumps used for irrigation, forcing local farmers to tend their fields with drinking water. When the Services Committee learned of the resulting drinking water shortage and determined its cause, it brought the problem to the attention to the Ministry of Electricity, which repaired the powerline within a week.

Yet both the committee and the ministries have problems prioritizing finite resources, in terms of labor and money, for the delivery of services that will have the greatest impact on improving conditions. As with many Iraqi institutions, planning within these groups is not a strength. And American advisers have had their own difficulty with organization; an October 2007 report by the US Government Accountabilty Office lauded individual US efforts to build ministerial capacity, but assessed that they lacked overall direction, adequate performance measures and coordination with Iraqi goals. The flaws listed in this report were noted in a Petreaus’ last report to Congress, along with plans to address the problems.

. . . US advisers see enthusiasm for national reconciliation and reconstruction in quarters of the Iraqi executive branch, but the highly variable and often poor ability of the ministries and various committees will determine whether Iraqi citizens perceive the government's competence or willingness to reconcile all sects of Iraq.

“There’s been a lot of debate about … whether [lack of progress] is sectarian, whether there is true interest in reconciliation or not; our observations over the last six months in close operations on a daily basis with these folks [in the IFCNR] is a lot of it has a lot less to do with sectarianism than just pure inefficiency,” said Steeves. “That does not undermine the fact that as far as the GOI is concerned, that you probably do have sectarian actors at other levels of the government. You have a fragmented and fractured civil society, and there are a few good actors who are attempting to heal those rifts and overcome sectarian divides – not just Sunni-Shia [conflict] – but you’re also talking corruption, pure self-interest, and awareness of what it means to be Iraqi.”

US personnel are assisting Iraqis at most levels, from the prime minister’s office to the ministries to Provincial Reconstruction Teams and public works advisers in the provinces, but most agree that these advisory efforts will need time and persistence to have requisite effect on an inefficient and rapidly changing Iraqi bureaucracy. Assuming maintenance of improved security, 2008 will be a crucial year for Iraq’s executive branch, which must deliver more services and jobs, distribute oil revenue, spend and execute a much greater proportion of the budget than in years past, and effectively integrate local security forces into police and public works employment.

Some US personnel are optimistic that the development of Iraq’s administrative “capacity” will improve many of the conditions related to reconciliation. Most stress Iraqi solutions to Iraq’s problems. And all assert that “the way forward” is contingent on rapidly shifting conditions on the ground, while few are willing to venture firm predictions of success or failure.

“I think a sober assessment comes back to, we cannot dictate the outcome but we can dictate the means,” said Steeves. “And I think the means we are using now are some of the best we can utilize under the circumstances we find ourselves.”

When pressed, Colonel Martin M. Stanton, Chief of Reconciliation and Engagement for Multinational Corps–Iraq, was one of the few to hesitantly give odds of the Iraqi government accomplishing goals quickly enough to maintain recent stability:

“I’d say even,” said Stanton. “It’s all going to come down to reconstruction and employment, because at the end of the day people will put up with a lot if they just have a job and the standard of their living is improving.”

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