Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - The effectiveness of the War on Terror

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The effectiveness of the War on Terror

A new report created jointly by all 16 agencies in the US Intelligence Community states in no uncertain terms that American intervention in Iraq has exacerbated, not mitigated, the threat of radical Islamic terrorism that the US now faces.

I'll include the article for those who'd like to see it, but it's not critical that you read the whole thing.

Quote:

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terror Threat

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.

Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”

That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states.

The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.”

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article.

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.

It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.

In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches.

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.

Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.

The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”

More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

Here's a link to the story.

I think this report gets to the heart of the problem with our conduct in the 'war on terror' and the moral discourse that accompanies it. Namely, morality is not the most salient issue here; rather, we should be examining whether the strategies we employ are actually accomplishing what we set out to achieve.

If your understanding of the here and now is in any way rooted in reality, you will have to admit that they are not.

A similar illogic seemed to be at work during the recent crisis in Lebanon. Israel and her supporters continually referred to Hizbullah's provocation of the conflict. They invoked the moral right to respond in self-defense. Some on this board even point to the differences between Israeli society - relatively open, secular, and free - and the draconian values of Hizbullah, and use this aside as an incomprehensible justification for the decision to go to war.

None of these invocations of moral superiority (it is not at the moment necessary to evaluate their own validity) are of any real value in the debate over whether a particular method of addressing the problem of terrorism is a good one. What should be our main concern is whether the methods we use are working, and whether they even stand a chance of working; we should be discussing whether the mechanisms by which the Global War on Terror proposes to make us safer truly represent solutions to our vulnerability or whether they are fantasies constructed from whole cloth, strategies doomed to fail because they do not reflect a real understanding of terrorist activity, how it operates, and where it comes from.

Is it unclear to anyone that our current strategy falls squarely into the latter category?

Not really surprising. You cannot fight a guerrilla war against an enemy who is willing to absorb massive casualities. It happened in Vietnam, and its happening again. Why the Bush administration thought they could effectively combat an idea is beyond me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredgun

Is it unclear to anyone that our current strategy falls squarely into the latter category?

What's unclear to me is how it could possibly be unclear--or defensible in the slightest--to anyone. There's still a segement of the populace that believes we're doing the good work in Iraq. That segement has representation even here, where people are, by and large, more sensible and educated than most.

I recently move to North Carolina. There was a hornet nest in a tree in my back yard. Generally the hornets went about their hornet business and did not bother us. When I started removing the nest and killing the hornets, they got pissed off, and focused their attention on attacking and defending thier nest.

I could have left the nest alone, and prayed that my family would not be harmed by the hornets, but I did not want to take that risk. And, yes during the process of ridding my yard of hornets they all banded together and during those moments the risk of getting stung was highest. But now the risk is minimal.

We did not need a report to tell us that if we go to war, enemy activity/recruitment/etc. will go up during the war. We can not measure sucess or failure until after the war.

I think the point was, there was no threat from Iraq. They were not a hornet's nest any more than say, Darfur or Somalia is a hornet's nest.

Afghanistan was where the real hornet's nest lay and resources were shifted before the job was finished.

The War on Terror has been a resounding success!

People who have committed no crimes are more willing than ever to be detained and searched without asking uncomfortable questions. Neighbors will turn in neighbors for being different or having productive hobbies. By recent polls a large portion of Americans think it's okay to imprison people indefinitely and torture them for no reason other than the jackbooted thugs wanna.

Resounding success, I say. Much more effective than the War on Drugs. So limited in scope the WoD. Can't just redefine anything you don't like as a drug all willy-nilly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

If Iraq had no correllation to terrorist activity, why would terrrorist activity increase after our invasion?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Actually it's more like there was a hornets nest that you originally put in place to deal with communist bees (like that was ever going to work). So anyway the communist bees lost, but the hornets, with your economic and military aid, became quite powerful. Eventually those hornets start bombing embacies and even a US destroyer - these are serious hornets. Finally 9/11 happens and you have to take action. You go after one of the trees that the hornets nest in, let's call it Afghanisan, and you basically blow up the entire tree, killing not only the hornets, but the innocent birds, woodchucks (how much wood could a wood chuck chuck?), and squirrels. After that, you attack a tree that somone said had links to hornets, but really didn't. You go after the tree, but the birds and rodents that live in that tree fight back and you end up spending tons of your own time and finances on the war on this tree, let's call it Iraq. The problem is that attacking the Iraq tree galvanizes the whole ME forest into hating you even more, and you see hornet attacks increase 5 fold.

This is getting bizarre. What was I talking about again?

Some just cant or wont see the forest for the trees.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

Some just cant or wont see the forest for the trees.

Finally, an analogy I can understand.

the conclusions reached in this nie report are not a surprise--anyone willing to look has been able to see that this is the case, even through the distorted lens of tightly controlled press access and the consistent attempts to market this debacle in iraq so that it serves some political advantage for the band of incompetents who currently occupy the white house.

the invasion of iraq--the wholesale debacle that has been the occupation of iraq--the civil war the americans have brought to the country they claimed to be liberating--the american actions during the israeli attack o lebanon--how these general factors would combine to galvanize armed political opposition to the united states is not rocket science.

even if you supported the iraq war on geopolitical grounds and saw in the administration's rationales nothing more than political expedients, you would still have to be appalled at the magnitude of the disaster this administration has engineered for all of us.

maybe i can see why metaphors of a hornet's nest come to mind.
the bush administration appears to have its collective head shoved well into one.
and if you live in the united states, you too are in the place dumped on you by the ridiculous policies of this administration.
sometimes i wonder how long it will take for the u.s. to work its way out from under the effects of these people.
i suspect it will take a long time.

Quote:

If Iraq had no correllation to terrorist activity, why would terrrorist activity increase after our invasion?

Define terrorist activity - ones mans terrorist is anothers mans freedom fighter.
One of the reasons more bombings and shootings etc are taking place is the whole Iraq farce as acted as a massive recuiting call to so many people. It was seen as a war on a religon, to grab oil and as a way to impose a puppet leader on a unfriendly country.

This war is very effective in taking away rights, making money for the right people, and getting us further and further into debt.

The way I see it, we've lost. By the end of this war and the War in Iraq (that has nothing to do with this one), our entire paycheck will go to taxes to pay the debts we owe other countries, primarily China and Saudi.

Sad, 5 years ago we had the world coming together offering us help and wanting to work and build peace and in those 5 years we went from that to being the most hated, feared, antagonistic and most bumbling country.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pan6467

IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE

It's easy if you try.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

If Iraq had no correllation to terrorist activity, why would terrrorist activity increase after our invasion?

Several reasons.

1) The idea that we're "creating" terrorists. Namely, a destructive war and now a lengthy and unpopular occupation have naturally produced resistance. Various notions about a Zionist-Crusader conspiracy or simple oil politics are compelling to some Iraqis, who at any rate are not inclined to believe that the Americans are there out of altruism for their sake. None of this should be hard to understand; in principle, suspicion of those who wield power is a deeply American value.

2) Security vacuum. With the fall of the sovereign Iraqi state, armed groups have emerged to fill the vacuum. They have appeared largely along sectarian lines, as these identities were always strongest, although they were mostly subsumed under the thumb of the pre-2003 state. Naturally, they now vie for power with each other, and with coalition occupation forces.

3) Foreign influence. A post-Saddam Iraq has had far weaker borders, and is far more vulnerable to Iran, which finances and backs Shi'a militias in an attempt to exert some control over the country. The agreement that was forged between Zarqawi and al-Qaeda is a similar case. In each case, 'terror' was able to come to Iraq because of conditions created by the invasion.

4) Global anti-Americanism. The US-led invasion has inflamed anti-American sentiments worldwide. Muslims in particular do not find any of the justifications cited by the administration as plausible. 9/11 was invoked but was unrelated. WMDs were invoked but never found. Democracy is actually something most Arabs want in some form, but they do not see the US as a serious advocate of democracy, given not only the experience of the Hamas government but also in light of the historical record (the coup of 1953; US support for Saudi Arabia and other autocratic states; a general preference for stability over democracy). Rather, they see the US as interested only in friendly governments that will forestall popular pressures and deliver American-Israeli security guarantees while demanding nothing in return. The delegitimization of the US (via a moral discourse of its own creation) has radicalized some populations and fueled support for those who wish us harm.

As an additional issue, do you see how your conflation of a variety of phenomena under the banner of 'terrorist activity' has clouded your understanding of the issues?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Your analogy only goes so far, because butterflies who see what happens to hornets don't become hornets themselves and attack you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

Your analogy only goes so far, because butterflies who see what happens to hornets don't become hornets themselves and attack you.

How many times would you allow the hornets to attack you or your family before you decided the situation would only get worse if you didn't do something about them?

And before you answer, please remember that there were terrorist training camps in Iraq, and Saddam, using money from the corrupt oil-for-food program, was paying the families of suicide bombers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by _God_

How many times would you allow the hornets to attack you or your family before you decided the situation would only get worse if you didn't do something about them?

The point of this thread is that it's getting worse because of our efforts to stop them. In addition, there is seemingly no end to this pursuit of a terrorist-free ME. This war of attrition is being won, and not by us.

Quote:

And before you answer, please remember that there were terrorist training camps in Iraq, and Saddam, using money from the corrupt oil-for-food program, was paying the families of suicide bombers.

How many of those terrorists and suicide bombers funded by Saddam attacked the US? :hmm:

You know there are many angles to look at this from but one I have to guess no one else has thought of yet (though I haven't read the thread that closesly).

Are these the same intelligence agencies who had definate proof of WMD's in Iraq?

Mind you of course it was a classified report, isn't quoted, and this was published by the NYT's (of course) so we are obviously getting only one side of the story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by _God_

I'm not sure why you'd quote me AND keep going with the hornet analogy, but I do have an answer. Once is enough. However, your short response seems to imply that "doing something" necessarily means waging the exact War on Terror (or Struggle against Violent Extremism) that we are currently engaged in. I don't know for sure that this is what you think (though it sounds that way) but I do know that I don't think that.

The argument that I think you're advancing (apologies if I've misunderstood) is the same one we hear from the White House: ithe alternative to supporting x specific policy on torture/wiretapping/withdrawal/whatever is to do nothing and let terrorists have their way with us. This is patently ridiculous and tiresome. There are plenty of other solutions that could be tried. We have more choices than just this or nothing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Are these the same intelligence agencies who had definate proof of WMD's in Iraq?

Nice one. While I'm inclined to suspect this report is accurate, I'm sure that you're correct that both sides selectively demonize agencies/policies.

Quote:

Originally Posted by _God_

And before you answer, please remember that there were terrorist training camps in Iraq, and Saddam, using money from the corrupt oil-for-food program, was paying the families of suicide bombers.

You're going to have to cite some references on that, bub. So far as I've seen, there's been no demonstrated connection between Saddam's regime and any terrorist activity that threatened the US or American citizens. Even the administration no longer claims that there was any connection between Saddam and Al Qaida (and they're all "who me?" about ever having suggested that :rolleyes: ).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Are these the same intelligence agencies who had definate proof of WMD's in Iraq?

The intelligence agencies knew damn well there were no WMDs in Iraq. That was the big news last week. No matter what anyone said, the White House was bound and determined to gallop into Iraq and make up whatever BS they needed to sell it. Or that's the implication anyway.

I'm too lazy to hunt for the article right now. I'll leave it for host to find. ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

Nice one. While I'm inclined to suspect this report is accurate, I'm sure that you're correct that both sides selectively demonize agencies/policies.

Of course you do, and if the report was in fact the other way around I'm sure I would not have been the one to bring up the intelligence agencies but someone else would have on the other side.

While the story itself is designed to paint a 'the sky is falling' picture (it is the NYT's after all) even if it were 100% accurate I am not concerned as I don't view this conflict as USA vrs Al Queda but a cultural conflict of Western Civ vrs Radical Islam. Perhaps Iraq accelerated the process and thats a good thing. As I view the upcoming conflict inevitable, it is far better to face it now when we have by far the technological superiority than later. When you look around the worlds hot spots and see how many are 'jihads' its pretty clear that had we never gone into Iraq radical Islam would still be committing acts of terrorism all over. It is also my belief that the waffling, wavering, and whining of the left is going to do far more to embolden our enemies than a military action. If the left succeeds and gets us to pull out of iraq prematurely it will do far more to further the cause of radical islam then a steadfast resolve. We are there now, why doesn't matter, to lose is unthinkable from a long term point of view.

The terrorists can’t win in Iraq without your support. Perhaps that is the one reason to elect a democrat (provided they are sane) as suddenly the press would find that not all is bleak in Iraq, and perhaps some of the vitriolic nonsense can be put away for the good of the future of our country and our way of life.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

.....When you look around the worlds hot spots and see how many are 'jihads' its pretty clear that had we never gone into Iraq radical Islam would still be committing acts of terrorism all over. It is also my belief that the waffling, wavering, and whining of the left is going to do far more to embolden our enemies than a military action. If the left succeeds and gets us to pull out of iraq prematurely it will do far more to further the cause of radical islam then a steadfast resolve. We are there now, why doesn't matter, to lose is unthinkable from a long term point of view.

The terrorists can’t win in Iraq without your support. Perhaps that is the one reason to elect a democrat (provided they are sane) as suddenly the press would find that not all is bleak in Iraq, and perhaps some of the vitriolic nonsense can be put away for the good of the future of our country and our way of life.

Ustwo, if my local newspaper is correct, our wallets, our families, and our constitution cannot afford your "solution". We don't even agree on who and where the biggest threat to our future, actually emanates from:
<a href="http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:2QBjG5HMIpMJ:www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/09/11/0912iraq.html+ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/09/11/0912iraq.html&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1">History will show that the U.S. government terrified its own citizens into supporting the invasion of Iraq.</a>

The "left" didn't cause the loss of US determination to "stay the course" in Vietnam, and it won't be responsible for the impending US military "cut 'n run" from Iraq. The hard reality "on the ground"......doomed our participation in both conflicts. Too many of the folks who we fought to "free" were killed in both conflicts, and enough of our troops die without an "improvement" in the level of reistance to US military presence to justify continuing.

The Vietnam war "ended" after the 1968 Tet Offensive, simultaneous, Lunar New Year attacks launched against US and ARVN troops in every Vietnamese [rovinicial capital, including an attack that breached the perimeter of the US Embassy compound in Saigon, although unsuccessful, tactically, exposed the false myth of "progress on the ground", just as it is exposed as false today, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The military adventures of the Bush admin., even if they are temporarily, and even more disastorously revived in an offensive against Iran, have failed, and it ain't the fault of "the left", Ustwo. Rhe failure is a failure to accomplish irrational objectives, just as in Vietnam.

Your solution is probably to project enough "firepower" to kill everyone who we've tried to "democratize", and I wish you luck with that.

I was wondering Ustwo, if you might be fluent in this senator's dialect. He seems to be on the "other side", too.

Please translate, into Amurrkin...
<a href="http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1159109225870&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home">"Attacks here at home stopped when we started fighting Al Qaeda where they live, rather than responding after they hit," McConnell said in a statement.</a>

.....there were no al-Qaeda living in Iraq before the US invasion and occupation, so....how did our leaders know to "[start] fighting Al Qaeda where they live" ....in Iraq ?

it seems like face saving, BS propaganda from Mitch McConnell that will make it more difficult for the new propaganda that Jim Baker will soon be launching, to justify the withdrawal of US forces from Baghdad, after the current period of sacrificing more of our troops lives there, for the expediency of the current politcal campaign, only to withdraw when Baker's "team" dreams up a way to spin it properly, and remove the issue of the illegal, pointless, lost war in Iraq, from the 2008 election "warm up" period:

Quote:

http://www.vietnamwar.com/johnkerryv...instthewar.htm
<center><img src="http://www.vietnamwar.com/johnkerrystatement.jpg"></center>
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in [Iraq] Vietnam How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"...or to shore up election polling numbers?

Quote:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea....dreyfuss.html

.......To some, it's unlikely that Baker will adopt anything resembling a plan that embodies a wholesale rejection of the Bush administration's policy, though it isn't impossible. Still, there is an outside chance, say observers of the task force, that Baker will come up with a report that uses diplomatic weasel-words, giving lip service to the idea of an American "victory" in Iraq but endorsing redeployment. "If Baker comes out with a report that basically says, if you read between the lines, we need to get out, that buys into the fundamental presumption of the redeployment crowd--the redeployment crowd is basically saying that staying there is worse than getting out--if he comes up in that consensus, that would be remarkable," says Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution. "It would be earth-shattering."

In any case, the Iraq Study Group won't issue its report until some time early in 2007. In a recent speech, according to a member of the task force, Baker said that to do something before the November 2006 elections would inevitably politicize the report, something that Baker desperately wants to avoid.

But with each passing day, the country is closer to the train wreck that Baker and others are said to fear. In the end, avoiding it might ride on the ability of Jim Baker to persuade the president that it's time to declare victory and exit.

"The object of our policy has to be to get our little white asses out of there as soon as possible," another working-group participant told me. To do that, he said, Baker must confront the president "like the way a family confronts an alcoholic. You bring everyone in, and you say, 'Look, my friend, it's time to change.'"

In a recent interview with the Texas Monthly -- and speaking for himself, not for the ISG -- Baker had this to say: “If you’re talking about extricating yourself, there has to be a strategic plan that would permit a reasonable and responsible type of drawdown, one that wouldn’t invite the kind of chaos that would be invited if we just picked up and left.” How to get out without chaos: aye, there’s the rub. One ex-U.S. official I spoke with yesterday, who’s been observing the Washington debate on Iraq from the inside, said flatly that getting out without chaos simply isn’t possible, but that get out we must.

How to calibrate a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, how fast or slow to make it in order to do the least additional damage, how to persuade Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to minimize civil war, and how to engage and involve Iraq’s neighbors to help stabilize Iraq during and after a U.S. withdrawal: that’s the work of the ISG’s Iraq experts. How to sell that to the Bush administration, to Republicans in Congress, and to the public -- without making it look like a humiliating defeat for the president: well, that's Jim Baker’s job. If he wants it.

Are our leaders really too stupid to have learned enough of the lessons of the US experience in Vietnam, to avoid repeating the errors and the consequences? Brent Bozell's "man of the century", Ronald Reagan, made the lessons vanish when he pronounced Vietnam, a "noble war", and so, these assholes who got us into another one, just like it.....will have to figure out how many more of our soldiers have to die, so that our soldiers who have already died there, won't have died for nothing. Maybe allowing the media to televise the dead, returning in flag draped coffins to the Dover AFB military
mortuary, might be the way to drive the point of the pointlessness of all of illegal war, "home" to the children of the folks who didn't even "get it", after 58,000 coffins came home from Vietnam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

The one lesson we needed to learn in Vietnam is don't fight with one hand tied behind your back, and that the left at home is a far greater danger to victory than the enemy.

If you want all military action defined by Vietnam with the assumption that victory is impossible thats your opinion. I do not share it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The one lesson we needed to learn in Vietnam is don't fight with one hand tied behind your back, and that the left at home is a far greater danger to victory than the enemy.

I see and hear this quite often, but I don't know how it could possibly be anything more than rhetoric. At best it is a supposition made with a political end in mind. If you've got anything to back this up, PLEASE start a thread about it. I'd really appreciate the chance to discuss this idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The one lesson we needed to learn in Vietnam is don't fight with one hand tied behind your back, and that the left at home is a far greater danger to victory than the enemy.

Is it really your contention that the two primary obstacles to the War on Terror today are the American left and insufficient bloodshed?

That, massive as the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon was, that it would have succeeded had they only done more than 'turn the clock back by 20 years'?

I fail to see how these courses of action would improve the outcomes of our fight, unless you are prepared to start talking about wholesale slaughter on a scale not seen since World War II. I am not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

If you want a history of the vietnam war I'm sure there are several good books.

I didn't even know there was a debate on this issue, even my over the top liberal history teacher in highschool (great guy though and open about his political leanings) knew this. For example the Tet offensive is a very good example of how the press and anti-war movement used what was really a great victory and turned it into a defeat. It was a turning point in the war, a turning point in public opinion, not in military reality.

Huge mistakes were made in Vietnam in how the war was conducted, but it wasn't the NVA that kicked us out.

Ah... I think I misunderstood you before. You are contending that the left is a danger to victory through public opinion? I conflated that with the "provided comfort to enemies" that I've heard on other occasions.

BTW, there are indeed several good books about the Vietnam war... LOL I've read quite a few of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubertuber

No I'm not worried about ratbastid giving arms and info to the enemy :)

While there are some members of the left who have tried to do that sort of thing they tend to be the fringe of the lunatic fringe, though something like what Jane Fonda did should have been treason.

The constant comparisons to Vietnam have been around since our first "defeat" in Iraq. That "defeat" started the whole quagmire question... what instance are we talking about? The sandstorm... that alone told me that the MSM were drooling over a loss in Iraq.

Vietnam and Iraq are completely different. One sign is the death tolls alone. 2,500 in over 3 years in Iraq, where in Vietnam it was in the tens of thousands. Another is the moral of the troops. We have over 90% voluntary re-enlistment rate, those are the people who were not stop-gapped. We also had the highest enlistment numbers since the 90s just recently, higher than post-9/11.

Yes, we're fighting a guerilla war. Yes, we're fighting an enemy who is supplied almost entirely from foreign countries.

No, the majority of the insurgents are not native to the region as in Vietnam. No, our military are not tied down in what is available to attack or not. Johnson bragged that they couldn't bomb an outhouse without his permission, now 2nd Lt.'s can call in air strikes if needed. No, the moral of the troops are not low. You don't see any troop anti-war protests, or at least more than a few people total. No, there are no threats to air superiority. No, there are no pitched battles anymore... they are whiped out everytime they stand and fight. In Vietnam every battle was a true fight.

This thread isn't, and shouldn't be, about Vietnam.

IMO, that distracts from the question at hand, which is whether we're currently accomplishing anything at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredgun

This thread isn't, and shouldn't be, about Vietnam.

IMO, that distracts from the question at hand, which is whether we're currently accomplishing anything at all.

Very true, to bring and then to keep discussing Vietnam..... well it takes the heat of the topic I guess.

As for the War on Terror....... when we start doing something to stop the flood of illegals into this country (step number one would be to ENFORCE the employment laws that state you need to be a legal in this country to get hired......) then I may start believing Bush is serious about this war and not just making the right people rich and selling out the rest of the country.

Until we start enforcing immigration, Bush will be nothing but a joke and a puppet to the rich, IMO.

pan, the internets are sprinkled with reports that James Baker is "the fixer" appointed to work below the radar, to devise a plan to "cut n' run", soon enough to contain the political fallout of the Iraq disaster, well before the 2008 election.

How many more American troops have to die in Iraq for this failed bullshit?
It's too dangerous, in the 4th year of this disaster....for the "fixers" on their "fact finding" mission, to even tour the capital city, let alone the country. I saw one of those "Never forget 9/11" posters covering the entire inside of the back window of a pickup truck, yesterday, and I thought, "how many "never forget "Pearl Harbor" signs were around in December, 1946? My guess is, none!

It's so bad in Baghdad, that nine of the 10 members of Baker's ISG who visited there for 3-1/2 days, did not venture out of the "greenzone", except for former military orfficer and senator, Charles Robb:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091901341.html
This Just In: The Iraq Study Group Has Nothing to Report

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, September 20, 2006; Page A02

If President Bush and the Iraqi government are hoping for some solutions from the congressionally commissioned Iraq Study Group, they might want to start thinking about a Plan B......

.....As a general rule, it's a bad idea to call a news conference if you have nothing to say. It's worse if you announce that answers are urgently needed but then decline to provide any.

"The next three months are critical," Hamilton warned at the start. "Before the end of this year, this [Iraqi] government needs to show progress in securing Baghdad, pursuing national reconciliation and delivering basic services."

But no matter how urgent the situation in Iraq, the solutions will have to wait at least until Nov. 8 -- and possibly much later -- because of a more urgent consideration: domestic politics. We're "going to report after the midterm election," Baker announced.

Bill Jones of Executive Intelligence Review asked the obvious question. "The situation in Iraq seems to be degenerating from day to day" and may not be a "salvageable situation" by November, he said. "Shouldn't the urgency be propelled by developments in Iraq rather than the calendar here?"

Baker didn't think so. "We think it's more important, frankly, to make sure whatever we bring forward is taken, to the extent that we can take it, out of domestic politics," he said.

Baker, a troubleshooter for President Bush, said "We have said from Day One that we were going to report after the midterm election." In fact, Baker said on Day One -- the commission's launch on March 15, 2006 -- that "we have not set a time frame" and that "we may come forward with some interim reports."

The only thing the two would say yesterday is that they had met with lots of people, including several Iraqis on a 31/2-day visit to Iraq recently.

"How much were you able to leave the Green Zone while you were in Baghdad?" a woman in the audience asked.

Baker admitted that only one of the 10 members, former senator Charles Robb (D-Va.), left the capital's heavily fortified enclave to see the violence-torn land. "It was recommended to us that it would probably be something that we ought not to do but they were willing for us to do it if we insisted," reasoned Baker. "We didn't insist because we didn't want somebody to write a story that we were cowboyin' down there in Iraq.".....

Meanwhile, on the surface, the GOP strategy is still to brand anyone who advocates a serious dicussion of troop withdrawal from Iraq, as a "cut n' run liberal", while the sheeple are assured that the pretzeldent will "stay the course" to guarantee that our sons and daughters who have already given their lives, "over there", will have died for "a noble cause".

We've already seen that movie, Pan....and there is no better response to the hypocrisy and shallow political expediency that is being traded for the life of at least one of our soldiers, every fucking day....in a politcally motivated holding action, for a "cause" that was lost before it started.......until "the fixer" Baker, can come up with the right "spin" to contain the political fallout.

I don't know any beter comparison to this new assault on our trust, than Kerry's 35 year old question....do you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

No I'm not worried about ratbastid giving arms and info to the enemy :)

Never know! I'm tricky, sometimes!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

While there are some members of the left who have tried to do that sort of thing they tend to be the fringe of the lunatic fringe, though something like what Jane Fonda did should have been treason.

It's a fine line to walk, to be sure. I don't think I'm surprising anyone when I say I'm opposed to our country's actions in Iraq. I'm completely in support of the courageous young men and women over there in the middle of it. They have my deepest respect and admiration. They're doing something I doubt if I could do.

Now: is it treason if I work or speak to end the mess over there and bring them home? I don't see how that could be.

wow...

the potted "history" of vietnam provided by ustwo above has almost nothing to do with history as it pertains to the vietnam war, but much to do with the history of contemporary far right politics---it is the stuff of rambo books, the literature of rightwing extremist consolation, the kind of horseshit that legitimated (and legitimates, apparently) the repetition of arguments made by the german extreme right after world war 1--the argument that defeat is impossible--instead "we" were stabbed in the back, or "fought with one arm behind tied behind us"---the Heroic War Effort was not undermined by incompetence of command of attrition or anything else--the Heroic War Effort was undermined by dissent, by opposition to the war---which functioned to divide the "general will"--that is the fantasy nationalist extremists almost invariably revert to when push to explain what they imagine the nation to be--the nation is a fiction used to stage the illusion of a connection between individual will and collective action. from this viewpoint, irrational though it is, divisions of the will are a fundamental danger.

there is no more antidemocratic dimension of contemporary radical nationalism in america than this one.
the rightwing extremist pseudo-history of vietnam is a fundamental template for understanding the ideology as a whole.

unable to confront the reality of military defeat in vietnam, unable to confront the myriad problems of legitimacy of that war, frightened by the emergence of a strong, public left, the militia-right fashioned a counterhistory of vietnam that was in essence nothing other than the story of the victimization of the far right by its Other---that Other was the opposition to the war---the functions of this literature of consolation were multiple--but you can see some of them as structuring claims made by conservative ideology since the clinton period:

1. the literature of consolation posits the extreme right as "real americans" and the left as an internal Other

2. the left is also everywhere a persecuting Other

3. as a Persecuting Other, the Left is undifferentiated in this paranoid fantasyland--the Left is everyone and everything that appears threatening to the far right--the mythology of the right transposes political oppositon to the war in vietnam onto a threats to the identity of rightwing extremists as human beings.

the Left is everywhere and nowhere, all powerful and powerless, etc etc: you've seen the same construction over and over again being floated in the context of the "war on terrorism"

4. by setting up the left as a Persecuting Other, the radical nationalist psuedo-history of vietnam functions to draw a line separating Us from Them.

the pseudo-history of vietnam is a useful index if you want to get an idea of just how far to the right populist conservatism shifted during the clinton period. this was the stuff of the militia movement prior to the oklahoma city bombing---the stuff of the lunatic fringe of the right that has migrated to the center of populist conservatism. it could be discussed in the context of this thread is the assumption is that this pseudo-history has nothing to do with vietnam and everything to do with the contemporary right.

there is no point--or there would be no point--in attempting to have a coherent discussion about the actual history of the vietnam war on the basis of this radical nationalist pseudo-history because one of its primary functions is to erase that actual history. rather, a discussion could run to other areas: like the fabrication of this fiction the reagan administration called "teh vietnam syndrome" in the context of which versions of this rightwing extremist pseudo-history were floated as if they were legitimate in the interest of enabling "us" to once again "feel good about america..."

Bush is already writing his history of Iraq, in a way that certainly seems to me to demostrate a callous disregard of the cost of his folly.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer:

Quote:

BLITZER: Let's move on and talk a little bit about Iraq. Because this is a huge, huge issue, as you know, for the American public, a lot of concern that perhaps they are on the verge of a civil war, if not already a civil war…. We see these horrible bodies showing up, tortured, mutilation. The Shia and the Sunni, the Iranians apparently having a negative role. Of course, al Qaeda in Iraq is still operating.

BUSH: Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that's the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there's also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there's a strong will for democracy

SO...

more than 2,700 Americans killed
more than 20,000 Americans wounded
nearly 50,000 Iraqi civilians killed
more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians displaced
ongoing sectarian violence with no end in sight
a new generation of Islamic jihadists

... Just a comma in history????

Yeah, because, y'see, there's a will for democracy. And that's what it's always been about--bringing democracy to those poor underdemocratized Iraqis. Damn the cost! We've brought about (for however many months it will turn out to stay stable) a government of part of the people, for some of the people, and by a few of the people, just like at home!

Heh, heh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Don't tell me you accidentally voted for Buchanan too!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Could this help to explain where it comes from?

Quote:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040322/burke
article | posted March 4, 2004 (March 22, 2004 issue)
Why They Love to Hate Her

Before going to bed at the US Naval Academy, a plebe shouts "Good night!" to the senior midshipman in the company, and the company commander answers "Good night!" in reply. A litany of good nights then passes down the chain of the company's command. At the end of this ritual courtesy, the plebe yells the final good night: "Good night, Jane Fonda!" and the entire company shouts its enthusiastic retort: "Good night, bitch!" Until that point, the performance has simply closed the day with a homage to hierarchy, with the lowest in the company, the plebe, showing deference to upperclass leaders. It reminds everyone of the rigid service academy structure, inherited from British boys' schools like Eton, in which upperclassmen dominate their juniors. The plebe plays the role of a child performing nightly valedictories to parents. But the final exchange, a unanimous curse of the former actress, former workout queen and former antiwar activist, serves quite a different end. The mock good night to Fonda reassures even the lowliest plebe of his insider status by expressing collective contempt for an outsider. According to an anonymous Naval Academy source, the ritual has been practiced by some but not all companies over the years, although in the past two years a few company officers have discouraged it.

But why Jane Fonda? Why not a more contemporary adversary? <b>Naval Academy midshipmen weren't even born when Fonda spoke out against having US troops in Vietnam; many of them don't even know who she is until they are introduced to the mythic Jane at the academy.</b> Soldier folklore during the Vietnam War and for several years afterward made fun of Ho Chi Minh, his "gooks" and the notorious VC, but those figures of ridicule stepped aside in the first Gulf War, to be replaced by Saddam Hussein and his fellow Iraqis ("ragheads" in the jokes, songs and stories), and most recently by the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. All, that is, except Jane Fonda, who even as a grandmother in her mid-60s continues to attract a seemingly endless stream of abuse. More than thirty years after her trip to North Vietnam, veterans fill cyberspace with their resentment, and new recruits learn that being a real warrior and hating Jane Fonda are synonymous.
Along with fresh recruits, both commissioned and enlisted, in other branches of the military, naval officers-in-training learn that just as military identity prescribes adulation for heroic military figures, it also encourages ridicule of despised civilians. In their plebe year, freshmen make the dramatic transition from civilian to military status, from home to barracks. They leave a world in which mothers have played a large part in their lives and enter an institution that remains largely male in numbers and traditions, despite opening its doors to women in the late 1970s........
......One urinal target reproduces the notorious 1972 photograph taken during Fonda's visit to North Vietnam: helmeted, smiling, seated at an antiaircraft gun (Fonda told O, the Oprah Magazine that she'd "go to my grave" regretting that photograph).
If the urinal targets offer the fantasy of retributive justice, fictionalized accounts of Fonda's 1972 visit with American POWs in North Vietnam charge her with conspiracy. In these word-of-mouth and Internet stories, which circulate widely among active-duty soldiers and veterans, the punishment inflicted on uncooperative POWs is linked to Fonda's presence. An oft-told variant of the torture legend depicts a single prisoner (generally considered to be POW Jerry Driscoll) who is forced to meet with Fonda and registers his defiance by spitting on the star: .......
........In a war that featured few heroes, prisoners of war, whose sacrifice could not be challenged, enjoyed a special status. So it is not surprising that it was stories of POWs and their fictional encounters with Jane Fonda that enjoyed such a long life and such wide circulation among members of the military. Those stories rebuke the civilian who inflicts greater pain on the war's unambiguous victims. In a war in which the enemy was not clearly defined, it sometimes seemed to the unappreciated soldier that the real enemies might be back home. <b>And in an important sense, Vietnam was a war of America against itself.</b>

She was called the "British Queen of Baghdad". Dead 80 years and interred in a Baghdad cemetery, Gertrude Bell, a brilliant Arabist, fluent in the Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish languages, who drew the border lines of the modern state of Iraq. Her letters are as eeirily reminiscent of what the US experience in Iraq is today, as the '68 North Vietnamese Tet offensive was, three years after the US "Rolling Thunder" military aggression was supposed to neutralize the enemy's offensive capabilities. The failed Bush policy in Iraq, of "we will stand down, when they stand up, is Vietnam redux. <b>roachboy, I guess that it is impossible to "learn from history", to avoid repeating it, when some folks squandered their study time by spending it in the dysfunctional endeavor of fashioning a parallel, historical "universe", just as they've supplanted the one in real-time....</b>

....and see if this does not sound familiar....the young Sadr of today, acting in the tradition of his ancestor. Are "our leaders" really as blinded and stupid as this shows them to be?

Quote:

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letters/l1439.htm
From the Gertrude Bell archive of letters:
[20 July 1921]

.....The vilain [sic] of the piece is Saiyid Muhammad Sadr, the son of old Saiyid Hasan Sadr whom I took you to see in Kadhimain [(Al Kazimiyah)]. Saiyid Muhummad was the man who first received us, a tall black bearded 'alim with a sinister expression. <b>At the time you and I paid our call, Saiyid Muhammad was little more than the son of Saiyid Hasan, but a month later he leapt into an evil prominence as the chief agitator in the distrubances. In those insane days he was treated like a divinity. Shi'ahs kissed the robe of men who had touched his hand. We tried to arrest him early in August and failed.</b> He escaped from Baghdad and moved about the country like a flame of war, rousing the tribes. It was he who called up the Diyalah [Diyala (Sirwan)] tribesmen and caused all those tragedies of which Mrs Buchanan's story is one. His next achievement was on the upper Tigris. In obedience to his preaching the tribes attacked Samarra but were beaten off. <h3>He then moved down to Karbala and was the soul of the insurgence on the middle Euphrates.</h3> Finally, when the game was up, he fled with other saiyids and tribal shaikhs across the desert to Mecca [Makkah] and came back, under the amnesty, with Faisal. He intended to be second to Faisal, if indeed Faisal were not second to him, but Faisal can't bear him and he finds himself relegated to a position of comparative obscurity, with us, whom he hates, and our friends, whom he hates equally occupying the front of the stage. He has still a certain amount of influence and it's a hand to hand conflict between us and him. We have won the first round. It was he who drafted the unofficial formula of allegiance of which I told you last week; Faisal has forbidden its circulation and we have issued an official formula through the Ministry of the Interior. Everyone is signing ours. <b>He is in a black rage and I feel as if we were struggling against the powers of evil in the dark. You never know what Shi'ahs are up to. But we are winning.</b> I've scored a minor triumph over him and I expect he knows it. The editor of one of the vernacular papers announced that he intended to publish an illustrated volume of biographies of the leaders of the Iraq revolt. I sent for the editor and pointed out to him that the moment was not propitious - the object of all should be to blot out the events of the year 1920 as though they had never been. Since he knew well that I could close down his paper tomorrow, the editor bowed to my arguments, and the projected book is still-born.

<b>Father, isn't it wonderfully interesting, to be watching over the fortunes of this new state! But it takes one all one's time. There are so many quicksands.</b>

Since his return, I hadn't seen Muhammad Sadr till today. This evening there was a great function to celebrate the opening of the Officers' School, our Sandhurst for the Arab Army. I arrived rather late and the first person I saw was Saiyid Muhammad sitting by Sir Percy in the seats reserved for great personages. He looked like Lucifer and scowled at me as I gave him the salute. I sat down two places away and after passing the time of day with my neighbour, a rather colourless 'alim, I asked tenderly after the health of his father, Saiyid Husain and said you frequently enquired about him! I expect that made Saiyid Muhammad furious - that anyone should think of Saiyid Hasan and not of himself; but since he was his father, he couldn't do anything but send you heaps of salams [sic]! Faisal then arrived and was installed between Sir Percy and Mr Cornwallis. There was an opening speech by the dear little Arab officer who is at the head of the school, Ahmad Haqqi, and then a couple of poems about the splendour of military service, followed by an excellent speech by Ja'far ending in enthusiastic gratitude to Sir Aylmer for the help he had given the Arab army. After which Sir Aylmer made a charming little speech - he is playing the game like a man - and Ja'far translated it into Arabic. No one paid the slightest attention to Muhammad Sadr who sat there scowling. He was left behind, bathed in scowls, and I saw him no more, when Faisal accompanied by the officers of the school, British and Arab, Sir Percy, Sir Aylmer and the rest of us walked round and inspected the premises, Faisal with his great charm and his evident pleasure in it all making the centre of the picture.

<b>I think we are going to beat Muhammad Sadr and all the other devils, but as I said before, it takes one all one's time.....</b>

Quote:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5552563
Repeating History in Iraq?
Letters of Gertrude Bell, Circa 1920, Shed Light on Today's Crisis

All Things Considered, May 15, 2004 · The U.S.-led effort to bring stability and democracy to Iraq resonates with echoes of recent history. William Beeman is director of Middle East studies at Brown University and has written about the tumultuous period after World War I, when Britain and France divided the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. New countries emerged, including Iraq, forged by arbitrary political boundaries.

In 1920, Beeman notes, Sunnis and Shiites held mass demonstrations in Baghdad that quickly grew into a full-scale revolt. Several months passed before the British could regain control, and thousands of lives were lost.

Among the British nationals who helped establish Iraq was Gertrude Bell. Fluent in Persian and Arabic, she founded an archaeological museum in Baghdad. In letters home, Bell made detailed observations about the new country and its people. Today, U.S. and British leaders are finding new value in her insights. Her letters are circulated at the Pentagon.

Some excerpts from Bell's letters:

<b>March 14, 1920:</b> It's a problem here how to get into touch with the Shiahs, not the tribal people in the country; we're on intimate terms with all of them, but the grimly devout citizens of the holy towns and more especially the leaders of religious opinion, the Mujtahids, who can loose and bind with a <b>word by authority which rests on an intimate acquaintance with accumulated knowledge entirely irrelevant to human affairs and worthless in any branch of human activity. There they sit in an atmosphere which reeks of antiquity and is so thick with the dust of ages that you can't see through it -- nor can they.</b> And for the most part they are very hostile to us, a feeling we can't alter…There's a group of these worthies in Kadhimain, the holy city, 8 miles from Baghdad, bitterly pan-Islamic, anti-British…Chief among them are a family called Sadr, possibly more distinguished for religious learning than any other family in the whole Shiah world….I went yesterday [to visit them] accompanied by an advanced Shiah of Baghdad whom I knew well. (continued in the following quote box.)

Quote:

http://www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk/letters/l1343.htm
....I rather fancy he is secretly a free-thinker. We walked through the narrow crooked streets of Kadhimain and stopped before a small dark archway.- which landed us in the courtyard of the saiyid's house. It was old, at least a hundred years old, with beautiful old lattice work of wood closing the diwan on the upper floor. The rooms all opened onto the court - no windows onto the outer world - and the court was a pool of silence separated from the street by the 50 yards of mysterious masonry under which we had passed. Saiyid Hasan's son, Saiyid Muhammad, stood on the balcony to welcome us, black robed, black bearded and on his head the huge dark blue turban of the Mujtahid class. Saiyid Hasan sat inside, an imposing, even a formidable figure, with a white beard reaching half way down his chest and a turban a size larger than Saiyid Muhammad's. I sat down beside him on the carpet and after formal greetings he began to talk in the rolling periods of the learned man, the book-language which you never hear on the lips of others. Mujtahids usually have plenty to say - talking is their job; it saves the visitor trouble. We talked of the Sadr family in all its branches, Persian, Syrian and Mesopotamian; and then of books and of the collections of Arabic books in Cairo, London, Paris and Rome - he had all the library catalogues, and then of the climate of Samarra which he explained to me was much better than that of Baghdad because Samarra lies in the third climatic zone of the geographers - I need not say that's pure tosh. He talked with such vigour that his turban kept slipping foreward onto his eyebrows and he had to push it back impatiently onto the top of his head. And I said to myself "If only that great blue turban of yours would fall off and leave you sitting there with a bald head I should think you just like everyone else." But it didn't and I was acutely conscious of the fact that no woman before me had ever been invited to drink coffee with a mujtahid and listen to his discourse, and really anxious lest I shouldn't make a good impression.

So after about ó of an hour I said I feared I must be troubling him and I would ask permission to take my leave. "No,no" he boomed out "we have set aside this afternoon for you." I felt pretty sure then that the visit was being a success and I stayed another hour. But I tackled this next hour with much more confidence. <b>I said I wanted to tell him about Syria and told him all I knew down to the latest telegram which was that Faisal was to be crowned. "Over the whole of Syria to the sea?" he asked with a sudden interest. "No" I answered "the French stay in Beyrout [Beyrouth (Beirut)]." "Then it's no good" he replied and we discussed the matter in all its bearings. Then we talked of Bolshevism about which he was very sensible. He agreed that it was the child of poverty and hunger, "but" he added "all the world is poor and hungry since the war." I said that as far as I made out the Bolshevist idea was to sweep away all that ever had been and build afresh. "If what has been is bad?" he asked. I replied that I feared they didn't know the art of building. He approved that.</b> Then as I made signs of going <h3>he said "It's well known that you are the most learned woman of your time and if any proof were needed it would be found in the fact that you wish to frequent the society of the learned. That's why you're here today."</h3> I murmured profound thanks for the privilege (with a backward glance at the third climatic zone and other points in the conversation) - and took my leave in the midst of a shower of invitations to come again as often as I liked.

On my way home I went to see Frank Balfour who was in bed with a touch of fever and heard from him the afternoon's news which was that Faisal had been crowned king of Syria and 'Abdullah king of the 'Iraq.

Well we are in for it and I think we shall need every scrap of personal influence and every hour of friendly intercourse we've ever had here in order to keep this country from falling into chaos. Even that afternoon's visit to Saiyid Hasan seemed providential. Today I've been to a luncheon party given by Haji Naji in his gardens to see the fruit blossom. He told me to invite the guests and I asked various generals and political officers and their wives. We had an extremely good lunch under flowering peach trees and Haji Naji was a perfect host.

Mrs Hambro is going home tomorrow for the summer. I'm very sorry she is going; she is a nice woman. She is coming to see you in London. Also I've told one of my nicest colleagues to go and see you, Major Yetts; he is going home on leave. He is an architect and an artist by origin but he has taken to political work like a duck to water. Elsa and Herbert would love him - will you introduce him to them? And I think Aunt Maisie would like him too.

Will you please tell darling Mrs Wilson that the yellow hollyhock seeds have come and I've sown them in my garden and in all the gardens of my Arab friends. I may mention I've got daffodils in flower - the first daffodils seen in Mesopotamia. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude

<b>June 14, 1920:</b> We have had a stormy week. The Nationalist propaganda increases. There are constant meetings in mosques where the mental temp. rises a great deal about 110. I enclose an exposition of the moderate party. The extremists are out for independence, without a mandate. At least they say they are, knowing full well in their hearts that they couldn't work it. They play for all they are worth on the passions of the mob and what with the Unity of Islam and the Rights of the Arab Race they make a fine figure. They have created a reign of terror; if anyone says boo in the bazaar it shuts like an oyster. There has been practically no business done for the last fortnight. They send bagsful of letters daily to all the tribes urging them to throw off the infidel yoke. The tribes haven't responded except with windy talk. I personally don't think there will be an outbreak either here or in the provinces, but it's touch and go, and it's the thing above all others that I'm anxious to avoid.

<b>June 21, 1920:</b> <h3>The second tale was … propos of the vaunted and wholly illusory union between Sunnis and Shi'ahs</h3> which was the feature of Ramadhan. "I got up at a gathering" said Mustafa Pasha "if the Prophet, God give him salvation, and the Khalifs Umar and Abu Bakr and the rest were here now, they'ld [sic] be on the side of the English." "How is that?" asked the company. "Because the English have united Islam." "You have no religion" they cried. But though meant as a compliment to us, or a gibe to them I don't know that we can get much satisfaction out of it.

June 12, 1921: We can't continue direct British control though the country would be better governed by it, but <b>it's rather a comic position to be telling people over and over again that whether they like it or not they must have Arab not British Government…</b>

Quote:

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/may/beemanMay04.asp
The U.S.-Shi'ite Relationship in a New Iraq: Better than the British?
Strategic Insights, Volume III, Issue 5 (May 2004)

by William O. Beeman [1]

"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. . . . It is [not] the wish of [our] government to impose upon you alien institutions."

- British General Frederick Stanley Maude, Baghdad, 1917

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030401355.html
The Woman Who Put Iraq on the Map
Gertrude Bell, Resting in Relative Peace

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 5, 2006; Page D01

.....The last visitors here were a group of Britons who came several months ago and found and cleared one tomb, the grave keeper says. Vaguely art deco, the bathroom-size, domed tomb encases the bones of Lt. Gen. Stanley Maude -- "Dead of cholera whilst commander of the Mesopotamia expeditionary force," the English engraving on the sides notes.

In March 1917, Maude said: "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators," a statement still famous among older Iraqis, at least. Maude was then head of a British army that was closing in on Baghdad and about to overthrow Ottoman rule here. The British saw Ottoman support of Germany in World War I as a threat to their own survival, and they needed Iraq's oil for their war effort.

<h3>Maude assured Iraq's Arabs of "a future of greatness" but succumbed to cholera six months later.</h3>

Bell, a singular, gentle-born woman who had already established a name through Arab travels and scholarly writings rivaling those of any man of her time, arrived soon after. She stayed on for the rest of her life, as Oriental secretary to British governments, carving out and creating modern-day Iraq as much as any single person.

Bell sketched the boundaries of Iraq on tracing paper after careful consultation with Iraqi tribes, consideration of Britain's need for oil and her own idiosyncratic geopolitical beliefs.

<b>"The truth is I'm becoming a Sunni myself; you know where you are with them, they are staunch and they are guided, according to their lights, by reason; whereas with the Shi'ahs, however well intentioned they may be, at any moment some ignorant fanatic of an alim may tell them that by the order of God and himself they are to think differently," she wrote home.</b>

<h3>She and her allies gave the monarchy to the minority Sunnis, denied independence to the Kurds in order to keep northern oil fields for Britain and withheld from the Shiite majority the democracy of which she thought them incapable.......</h3>

.....The names and families have held through the decades. Bell's Baghdad landlord was from the Chalabi family, the key minister in the Iraq government was Jafar, and Britain's nemesis in Iraq was a scowling young Shiite cleric named Sadr.....

Ominous Times

Despite the monumental events of the last year, Iraqi Shi'ites[2] see continuity in the political culture of Iraq. U.S. actions are viewed through the prism of a century of disenfranchisement and oppression, much of which can be attributed to the decisions of past colonizers. Nevertheless, there is every indication that Iraqi Shi'ites are going to fight to try and transform the political landsacpe; it may be their last chance in this generation to regain what they feel is their rightful place in Mesopotamia.

Iraq is facing a future less certain than at any time in its history—a future that will begin on June 30 when the Coalition Provisional Government ceases to exist and a new temporary governmental entity comes into being. There are some ominous signs that this transition has been extremely ill-conceived, and is likely to lead to more violence and breakdown. At this writing in late April 2004, the U.S. government is telling the world that Iraq will be granted sovereignty, but we now realize that the United States will not relinquish control of the military to the next provisional government. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman called this "limited sovereignty" before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, testifying before the same committee, also said that the new government was basically there to set up elections in January 2005.

In the eyes of Iraqis, and particularly the Shi'ites, who view events with cultural memory, the current "culture" is the same one that has pervaded for more than seventy years. Today's events seem like those of the earliest days of Iraq's existence.[3] Here it is important to make a clear distinction between what one might call "scientific history," dealing in objective causal explanation for events, and "cultural memory," in which events are "remembered" in a way that creates causal links between the present and the past, whether these memories are accurate or not. When they are widely believed, such memories have the force of fact, and can be strong motivators for public action.
A Replay of Colonial Patterns

Gertrude Bell and her superior in the administration of British rule in Iraq, Sir Percy Cox, were charged with creating a nation out of whole cloth that would serve British colonial interests.[4] They did their job well. <b>They created a Kurdish buffer against Turkey in the north under their control, rather than as an independent state. They installed favored Sunni rulers in Baghdad, with a Hashemite King, Emir Feisal of Mecca, at the head. Most importantly, they institutionalized repression of the Shi'ites in the South. The British governance of Iraq was, according to historian Charles Tripp, a combination of "direct and indirect rule."[5] This sounds suspiciously like Grossman's "limited sovereignty." If American's don't know their history, Iraqis definitely have a strong sense of theirs, and they see the United States as directly continuing the policies of Great Britain.</b> The British ruled under a Mandate from the League of Nations. The United States, too, has claimed a larger authority as justification for its rule in Iraq. Saddam Hussein's violation of UN resolutions has been used by the Bush administration as a mandate for both the American invasion and subsequent rule. The Iraqis read the American "mandate" as the equivalent of the British Mandate. It is also seen as just as illegitimate.

It should be obvious that the Iraqis are now revolting against the United States in a manner similar to the way that they revolted against Great Britain in 1920 and again in 1958, when the British were removed once and for all. The circumstances behind the revolt of 1920 and the revolution of 1958 are vastly different, but all three events stem broadly from a desire on the part of the Iraqis to strike out at what they see as oppression by an unwelcome outside power.

Charles Tripp writes that the Revolt of 1920 "began in Baghdad with mass demonstrations of urban Iraqis, both Sunni and Shi'ite, and the protests of embittered ex-Ottoman officers. The revolt gained momentum when it spread to the largely Shi'ite regions of the middle and lower Euphrates. Well-armed tribesmen, outraged by the intrusions of central government and resentful of infidel rule, seized control of most of the south of the country. It took the British several months, and cost thousands of lives—British, Indian and Iraqi—to suppress the revolt and re-establish Baghdad's control."[6]

The Revolt was the act that convinced the British that they needed to establish their puppet regime. Never mind that many Iraqis accepted Emir Feisal as king. His later rule and successors were seen as dominated by the British. If the United States now establishes its own puppet regime in Baghdad, the symbolic parallel with the British action after World War I will be complete, and nothing will be able to convince the skeptics in Iraq that the United States has any interest there except colonial domination.
Understanding Shi'ites

Despite her superb knowledge of Persian and Arabic, Bell never really understood the Shi'ites. Indeed, she would be at home in the current administration, for she feared that if the Shi'ites had control in Iraq they would soon be demanding Islamic rule that would be anti-Western and anti-modern. The world had to wait for many years before the first sympathetic pictures of Shi'ites emerged. Wilfred Thesinger[7] and later Robert[8] and Elizabeth Fernea[9] finally painted authentic, detailed pictures of these southern denizens. No one reads them, however, and the persistent image of Shi'ites as wild-eyed fanatics continues to be promulgated by the press, and more importantly by the Bush administration.[10]

However, one fact has hit home, due largely to the hugely important influence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani of Najaf, whose opinions are followed by Iraqi Shi'a as if they were edicts from God. The Shi'ite community is likely to be the key to any stability or instability in the country and they have been waiting to assume what they consider their rightful place in the region for nearly a century. They are mad, they are frustrated, and once again, their colonial masters are trying to sideline them. Little wonder they are fighting back.

The U.S. government has apparently not the slightest appreciation about the nature or functioning of the Shi'ite community. It was clear from the very beginning that for Washington, a Shi'ite was a Shi'ite was a Shi'ite. Dating back to the Iran-Iraq war, the United States assumed that the Shi'ites in Iraq were natural allies of the Shi'ites in Iran. They learned that things were not so simplistic but the complexity of the Shi'ite world never filtered up to the White House-neither in Democratic nor Republican administrations.

This blind spot has led to the unwarranted assumption that if Shi'ites were to run a post-conflict Iraqi government, they would install an "Iranian-style theocracy" in Iraq, to quote Vice President Dick Cheney. Both Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have said repeatedly that the fundamentalist Shi'ites will be prevented from assuming power.

The Coalition Provisional council was said to be "balanced" with twelve Shi'ites and thirteen others. However six of the twelve Shi'ites are émigrés with no support in the Shi'ite community. Even if a political figure is nominally a Shi'ite, he or she has to have some way to garner the loyalty of followers in the community. Confessional identity is never enough in and of itself. Ahmad Chalabi, who misled the United States repeatedly in planning for the invasion, and who has zero credibility with Iraqis, was touted as a future leader of Iraq in editorials in the Wall Street Journal by Bernard Lewis, this administration's apparent house "expert" on things Islamic.[11] One of Chalabi's supposed credentials was that he was a Shi'ite.[12].......

How many knew of Gertrude Bell's archive of letters? I didn't. But, we aren't responsible for knowing, and learning from the experience and incite contained in those letters. Bush and Blair were, and if they or their assistants did read them, the knowledge contained, did not sink in.

Any chance we could change the 'post the article rule' to 'post the link if the article is over a certain length' rule?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Any chance we could change the 'post the article rule' to 'post the link if the article is over a certain length' rule?

If you're having trouble reading it all, I can call you while you're doing what you normally do and read it to you aloud.

Anything to help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If you're having trouble reading it all, I can call you while you're doing what you normally do and read it to you aloud.

Anything to help.

Oh I have no trouble reading it, but my mouses scroll button is wearing out due to one poster. He used to get time outs for it, but things have kinda gotten lax lately and its back in full force again.

Thank you, host. I had not known of Ms. Bell until now and I appreciate the time you took to find and post this information. Very informative.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You know there are many angles to look at this from but one I have to guess no one else has thought of yet (though I haven't read the thread that closesly).

Are these the same intelligence agencies who had definate proof of WMD's in Iraq?

Mind you of course it was a classified report, isn't quoted, and this was published by the NYT's (of course) so we are obviously getting only one side of the story.

Are you suggesting that there have been no improvements in our intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities in the last three years of the Bush/Republican Congress administration?

At least Tony Snow, admitted some culpability today...if you read his half-assed response ...after an initial denial.

Quote:

MR. SNOW: I think it's important -- one thing that the reports do not say is that war in Iraq has made terrorism worse. ......

The report is not limited to Iraq. I'll just read these out. First, the false impression has been created that the NIE focuses solely on Iraq and terrorism. This NIE examines global terrorism in its totality, the morphing of al Qaeda and its affiliates and other jihadist movements. It assesses that a variety of factors, in addition to Iraq, fuel the spread of jihadism, including longstanding social grievances, slowness of the pace of reform, and the use of the Internet. And it also notes that should jihadists be perceived to have failed in Iraq, fewer will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Agreed...it is not solely the result of our Iraq folly...its in addition to.

It's been reported today that the white house is sitting on a second intel report, specifically about the situation in Iraq, and it is not being called an NIE, probably because that would tend to make it more prominent:

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001603.php

BREAKING: Harman Calls for Release of Second Secret Iraq Report
By Justin Rood - September 26, 2006, 12:15 PM

There's a second damning Iraq report floating around the intelligence community.

At least, that's according to Rep. Jane Harman (CA), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. At an event this morning, Harman disclosed the existence of a classified intelligence community report that gives a grim assessment of the situation in Iraq, and called for it to be shared with the American public -- before the November elections.

The report has not been shared with Congress, although sources say a draft version may have circulated earlier this summer. It is a separate report from the one revealed by major news outlets Sunday, which is said to conclude that the war in Iraq has made the U.S. less secure from terrorist threats.

"This morning at the National Press Club, Jane Harman did say that there is an [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq," her spokesman, Ari Goldberg, confirmed. Golberg said he had not read the report, but believes it may be grim. Sources at the event say the document is not officially an NIE, although it was prepared by the National Intelligence Council, an community-wide intelligence body whose primary function is to prepare NIEs.

Dr. Lawrence Korb, a former senior Defense Department official now with the liberal-progressive Center for American Progress, hasn't seen the report but has discussed it with those who have. "It's a very bleak picture of what's going on in Iraq," he said.......

The mission is to keep a lid on the "bad" news until after the mid-term elections. The irony, IMO, is that there is nothing that could be reported. that will influence those who still intend to vote for republican candidates, and democrats who advocated "staying the course", in Iraq, from changing who they vote for. To do so, in the minds of these voters, would be to send a signal to the "enemy", that the US is growing "soft" on it's commitment to continuing the GWOT.

update:

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php
Transcript: Harman Reveals 2nd Iraq Report
By Justin Rood - September 26, 2006, 2:35 PM

As reported here earlier, here are Rep. Jane Harman's (D-CA) comments this morning about this second secret Iraq report, from CQ Transcriptions:

Quote:

"I have also learned that there is a [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq -- specifically on Iraq -- that has been left in draft form at the National Intelligence Council. That is because some of our leaders don't want us to see it until after the election. It should be clear five years after 9/11 that we need accurate and actionable intelligence -- actionable in real time -- and we need our leaders to read that intelligence and cite it accurately. Sadly, we're doing better on the first piece; we're not doing better on the second piece."

The "key judgements" section of the NIE was declassified today.

Among those judgements:

The Iraq conflict has become the ’cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Shoud jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement:
(1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation and a sense of powerlessness;
(2) the Iraq "jihad";
(3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations, and;
(4) pervaisve anti-American sentiment among the Muslims.

http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/De..._Judgments.pdf

So Bush, Cheney, RIce knew in April when this NIE was submitted to the White House that the Iraq "jihad" was one of the factors spreading the jihadist movement, yet continue to say otherwise.

Bush:

"To suggest that if we weren't in Iraq we would see a rosier scenario (maybe not), with fewer extremists joining the radical movement (more likely than not), requires us to ignore 20 years of experience,"

Cheney, when asked by Tim Russert if the U.S. involvement in Iraq is creating more terrorists:

"I, I, I can’t buy that".

Rice:

"Now that we're fighting back, of course they are fighting back, too." (if we didnt start the war, would so many jihadist be in Iraq?)

"I find it just extraordinary that the argument is, all right, so they're using the fact they're being challenged in the Middle East and challenged in Iraq to recruit, therefore you've made the war on terrorism worse.

More on the declassified NIE:

Quote:

The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better, federal intelligence analysts conclude in a report at odds with President Bush's portrayal of a world growing safer.

In the bleak report, declassified and released Tuesday on Bush's orders, the nation's most veteran analysts conclude that despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.

Bush and his top advisers have said the formerly classified assessment of global terrorism supported their arguments that the world is safer because of the war. But more than three pages of stark judgments warning about the spread of terrorism contrasted with the administration's glass-half-full declarations.

"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."
...
Virtually all assessments of the current situation were bad news. The report's few positive notes were couched in conditional terms, depending on successful completion of difficult tasks ahead for the U.S. and its allies.....

full article: http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8KCREQ00.html

Is it wrong to want our leaders to be honest with the American people on such an important issue, rather than lie, spin or obfuscate when the facts reflect poorly on their performance and policy?

Much of the "liberal" press seems to be ignoring the "real" white house Iraq NIE intentional postponement/concealment story. On Wed., Sept. 27, it seems likely that white house spokesman Tony Snow, lied about how long it will take to complete and release to congressional intel committees, the actual NIE, pertaining exclusively to the situation in Iraq, an NIE that Jane Harman, (D-CA) reminded the press of, the other day (see my last post.)
IMO, the "controversy" over the "release" of the current, more general NIE, was to confuse and to deflect attention from the white house effort to conceal the actual NIE on Iraq, until after the mid term elections, five weeks from now. Read what Tony Snow told the press, then read the documentation about NIE preparation "timelines" from a CFR.org web page. (When Bush wanted an NIE on Iraq, to manipulate the Oct., 2002, Senate vote to authorize him to use force in Iraq, that NIE was ready in 3 fucking weeks):

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060927-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 27, 2006

Press Briefing by Tony Snow
White House Conference Center Briefing Room

.....So with that as my prelude, let's go to questions. Brett.
Q Tony, can you address the comments of the House Minority Leader and <b>Representative Harmon, saying that there is a second Iraq estimate out there that is in draft form that is being held until after the November elections?</b>

MR. SNOW: They're just flat wrong. <b>What happened is, about a month ago Director Negroponte informed the committees that he was, in fact, going to do an exhaustive review on Iraq. That's a month ago.</b> These reviews <b>take about a year to do</b>, so the idea that it is in "draft" form -- they're just beginning to do their work on it. And Intelligence Committee members if they don't know it, should. But there is not a waiting Iraq document that reflects a national intelligence estimate that's sitting around gathering dust, waiting until after the election.

Q And the fact that they're talking about it being extremely grim, how do you characterize it? Has the President been briefed on this yet?

MR. SNOW: You don't brief somebody on a document that's just in the very early stages of composition. That's what it is.

<b>It must be important to delay the actual NIE on Iraq....Tony Snow lied about it again to the press, on Thurs., Sept. 28. We know from the Aug. 5th Wapo reporting, displayed below, that Negroponte committed to doing the new NIE....the first since 2004.....on Aug. 4th. We know that Tony Snow has stated repeatedly, on Sept. 27 and Sept. 28, that "it was only a month ago...." (he's said it 4 fucking times), but it has been 55 days, as of Sept. 28.....and we know that the Oct., 2002 NIE was completed and distributed in just 3 weeks, and on Nov. 4th, it will be 92 days since Aug. 4th.....so it looks to me like "they" are lying, hiding/delaying important intelligence info, that "they promised to provide.....for political purposes, while more of our troops are being killed in Iraq:</b>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060928-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 28, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Birmingham, Alabama

.......<b>Q Is there any pressure on Negroponte to get the separate NIE specifically on Iraq out before January '07?

MR. SNOW: No,</b> because he just started it <b>a month ago.</b> The idea that the Director of National Intelligence for political reasons is going to rush into completion something that requires significant deliberation is -- let me say, it would be highly unusual. And I think members of the intelligence committees understand that you want good intelligence done the proper way, with proper vetting and proper collaboration, rather than trying to do a rush job.

And the Director made it known to intelligence committees <b>a month ago</b> that they were beginning the report. They know what the time line is, they also know how long it takes to assemble these things. This is -- <b>you don't pull an all-nighter. It's not like a college term paper that you slap together.</b>

Q But did they already get --

MR. SNOW: And, no, they don't have one on the shelf.

Q Did they already get a head start when they were preparing this overall analysis of the war on terror? Isn't there already material that they can start working from?

MR. SNOW: Yes. Look, these guys do intelligence every day. They have plenty of material to work from, but what you also try to do is you look at disparate analyses and data from a wide variety of intelligence sources. And it takes time for people to work through and look at what they're doing. So whether you have a head start, it doesn't mean that you have a -- the material at hand for doing a comprehensive report. And once again, the idea of trying to do intelligence assessments for political deadlines is not what intelligence analysts signed up to do. Their job is to try to put together objective reports for consumers, which would include members of Congress, and to do so in such a way as to reflect the best judgment and information available. ......

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001615.php
Is WH Slow-Walking New Iraq NIE?
By Justin Rood - September 27, 2006, 2:13 PM

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) kicked up some dust yesterday morning whe she <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php">announced</a> she'd "learned" that there was a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq "that has been left in draft form" because "some of our leaders don't want us to see it until after the election."

The NIE, it seems, was never a big secret; after Democrats bellowed for one in late July, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte announced Aug. 4 he'd whip one up.

And there's scant evidence the report exists "in draft form" -- Harman may have an inside track on the matter, but sources tell me the process remains in a nascent stage.

But is the report being slow-walked? That appears to be somewhere between possible and very likely.

According to White House adviser Fran Townsend, the report is expected to take six months to produce. "Most NIEs are substantial research and writing projects that can take as much as a year," she said yesterday. The six-month timeframe for the Iraq NIE is "still quicker than most NIEs get done.

Quote:

http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=7758#6

How long does it take to write an NIE?

NIE drafting guidelines included in the July 9 Senate report describe three rough timeframes: a "fast track" of two to three weeks, a "normal track" of four to eight weeks, and a "long track" of two months or more. The vice chairman of the NIC told Senate investigators that an NIE prepared in 60 days would be considered a very fast schedule and that NIEs typically take three to six months to complete.
How long did it take for the NIE on Iraq's weapons to be completed?

Less than three weeks......

..........Why the rush?

President George W. Bush asked Congress in mid-September 2002 to pass a resolution granting the U.S. broad authority to use military action against Iraq. But no NIE existed on the status of Iraq's WMD program and much uncertainty surrounded the claims being made by Bush administration officials regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD. In requesting the NIE on "an immediate basis," Sen. Feinstein wrote to the director of central intelligence, "I deeply believe that such an estimate is vital to congressional decision-making, and most specifically, [to] any resolution which may come before the Senate." The Iraq resolution was introduced in the Senate on October 2 and approved by Congress on October 11.[2002]

<b>"The timing has got nothing to do with the election," she added.

Townsend appears to have stretched the truth to the point of snapping. <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=7758">According</a> to a 2004 Senate intelligence committee report, the intelligence community's internal guidelines call for NIEs to be produced on timeframes of between two weeks and around two months.</b> That means that with an Aug. 4 start date, President Bush should have expected a report on his desk around Oct. 4.

What's more, most U.S. intelligence agencies have been grappling with Iraq almost full-time since the invasion, many providing direct warfighter support. This is hardly an obscure intellectual issue for them, nor one that is particularly fuzzy. This may be one of the few reports whose conclusions are widely known before a word is put to paper.

In prognosticating what the upcoming Iraq NIE would say, Newsweek's Mark Hosenball <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638232/site/newsweek/">reported</a> two weeks ago that Defense officials briefing lawmakers were "paint[ing] a scenario in which Iraq could dissolve into civil war if Iraqi security forces don't soon get their act together."

Seeing those conclusions leaked to the media -- that's an October surprise the White House would likely hope to avoid.

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001613.php
<span class="entry_title"><img src="/images/harman.jpg" hspace=5 vspace=5 align=left>Harman Blasts NIE Release Timeline as "Unacceptable"</span><br>
<span class="entry_date">By Justin Rood - September 27, 2006, 12:19 PM</span>
<span class="entry_body"><p><span class="smallcaps">It's starting to</span> look like Rep. Jane Harman's (D-CA) second "secret" Iraq report is one that has been long promised by the Bush administration's top security official.

A quick recap: Amid the ruckus stirred up by reports of a secret report on Iraq and its impact on U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Harman <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001606.php">announced</a> yesterday morning that the Bush administration was withholding a second classified report, this one about the state of Iraq.

An ongoing effort to produce a National Intelligence Estimate -- a conclusive report from the entire intelligence community -- on Iraq has been extensively reported. Following <a href="http://harpers.org/sb-sources-negroponte-nei-cia-1153433546.html">an article</a> by Ken Silverstein at Harpers.org in late July about the lack of an up-to-date intel assessment of the country, Democratic lawmakers slipped a provision into a bill that required Negroponte to produce an NIE on Iraq.

On Aug. 4, Negroponte <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080401700.html">announced</a> he was ordering the report to be produced.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080401700.html
<b>Negroponte Orders an Update On Terrorism's Influence in Iraq</b>

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, <b>August 5, 2006; Page A07

The office of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte announced yesterday that it will soon begin drafting an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq</b>, a declaration that came amid indications this week that the threat to that country from foreign terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda is receding.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, said Thursday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Iraq that al-Qaeda in Iraq's ranks had been "significantly depleted" since the June 7 death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its members, he said, now total "less than 1,000."

That is far below earlier estimates, though several officials said yesterday that not all within the intelligence community agree with Abizaid's number. Over the past year, intelligence and military officials have said foreign fighters made up less than 10 percent of the roughly 20,000 insurgents in Iraq......

......The announcement from Negroponte's office came in a statement released yesterday afternoon. <b>No date beyond "shortly" was offered for the expected completion of the intelligence estimate, the first by U.S. intelligence agencies since mid-2004.......</b>

<b>It appears this is the report Harman was talking about.</b> Yesterday evening, White House adviser Fran Townsend <a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001612.php">acknowledged</a> Harman's request by saying Negroponte had ordered the report in August, implying the two were the same. The report would take several months, she said, and would likely not be ready until January. In a letter today, Harman responded to Townsend's comments to say the timeline was unacceptable.

The entirety of Harman's letter after the jump:</span>
<a name="more"></a>
<span class="smallcaps">September 27, 2006</span>

The Honorable John Negroponte<br />
Director of National Intelligence<br />
New Executive Office Building<br />
725 Seventeenth Street, N.W.<br />
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Director Negroponte:

I received your letter of September 26, in which you confirmed that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is writing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Though you promised that the NIE would be completed "in a timely manner," senior White House officials have indicated publicly that the report may not be completed until January 2007.

This timetable is unacceptable. Sectarian violence, which has reached record levels and continues to grow, is putting our troops - not to mention millions of Iraqis - at grave risk. Furthermore, the proven ineffectiveness of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, an absence of effective infrastructure reconstruction, and political crises that threaten the fragile new polity have made it clear that we need a new strategy in Iraq.

NIEs have been produced in as little as several weeks, as in the case of the 2002 report on Iraqi WMD. While I understand the desire to be thorough, events in Iraq make it urgent that the Intelligence Community produce this NIE immediately. <b>If your intention is to delay this report until after the November elections, I do not think that is appropriate given that U.S. troops are at risk at this moment.</b>

U.S. policymakers need the Intelligence Community's insights to determine how to defend our troops and our interests in Iraq. I urge you to expedite completion of the NIE and to release it in both classified and publicly releasable unclassified forms.

Sincerely,

Jane Harman<br />
Ranking Member
<span class="entry_date"><a href="http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001613.php">Permalink</a> | TOPICS</span>

<h3>To summarize the above info....the reluctant, white house "release" of the "NIE", was meant to confuse people and "hide" the white house's intentional delay of the release of the promised, relevant, 2nd NIE, about the situation in Iraq.</h3>
<b>The information above, combined with the reports that follow, are the closest thing that I hope I will ever experience, that approximates what I suspect "anal rape", must feel like. How can a reasonably thoughtful American, not read and then contemplate all of this, and not end up with similar thoughts? I'm thinking that Cindy Sheehan hasn't reacted to the loss of her son, Casey, in Iraq, at the hands of our criminal leaders, angrily enough, yet!</b>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...091600193.html
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
Early U.S. Missteps in the Green Zone

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 17, 2006; A01

Adapted from "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, copyright Knopf 2006

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.

Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.

"We didn't tap -- and it should have started from the White House on down -- just didn't tap the right people to do this job," said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA's Washington office. "It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings."

Endowed with $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds and a comparatively quiescent environment in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion, the CPA was the U.S. government's first and best hope to resuscitate Iraq -- to establish order, promote rebuilding and assemble a viable government, all of which, experts believe, would have constricted the insurgency and mitigated the chances of civil war. Many of the basic tasks Americans struggle to accomplish today in Iraq -- training the army, vetting the police, increasing electricity generation -- could have been performed far more effectively in 2003 by the CPA.

But many CPA staff members were more interested in other things: in instituting a flat tax, in selling off government assets, in ending food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools.

By the time Bremer departed in June 2004, Iraq was in a precarious state. The Iraqi army, which had been dissolved and refashioned by the CPA, was one-third the size he had pledged it would be. Seventy percent of police officers had not been screened or trained. Electricity generation was far below what Bremer had promised to achieve. And Iraq's interim government had been selected not by elections but by Americans. Divisive issues were to be resolved later on, increasing the chances that tension over those matters would fuel civil strife.

To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.

Smith said O'Beirne once pointed to a young man's résumé and pronounced him "an ideal candidate." His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.

<h3>O'Beirne, a former Army officer who is married to prominent conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne, did not respond to requests for comment.</h3>

He and his staff used an obscure provision in federal law to hire many CPA staffers as temporary political appointees, which exempted the interviewers from employment regulations that prohibit questions about personal political beliefs.

There were a few Democrats who wound up getting jobs with the CPA, but almost all of them were active-duty soldiers or State Department Foreign Service officers. Because they were career government employees, not temporary hires, O'Beirne's office could not query them directly about their political leanings.

One former CPA employee who had an office near O'Beirne's wrote an e-mail to a friend describing the recruitment process: "I watched résumés of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to 'the President's vision for Iraq' (a frequently heard phrase at CPA) was 'uncertain.' I saw senior civil servants from agencies like Treasury, Energy . . . and Commerce denied advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC (Republican National Committee) contributors."

As more and more of O'Beirne's hires arrived in the Green Zone, the CPA's headquarters in Hussein's marble-walled former Republican Palace felt like a campaign war room. Bumper stickers and mouse pads praising President Bush were standard desk decorations. In addition to military uniforms and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" garb, "Bush-Cheney 2004" T-shirts were among the most common pieces of clothing.

<h3>"I'm not here for the Iraqis," one staffer noted to a reporter over lunch. "I'm here for George Bush.".......</h3>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040201209.html
<i>Correction to This Article
An April 3 article quoted Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction in Iraq, as saying, "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects." Bowen actually said, "I've been concerned about cost-to-complete for a year, and the reason I've been concerned about cost-to-complete is the fear that we would run out of money to finish projects, and so I can't say that this isn't going to happen again because we never really did get a good grasp on cost-to-complete data."</i>
U.S. Plan to Build Iraq Clinics Falters
Contractor Will Try to Finish 20 of 142 Sites

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 3, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD -- A reconstruction contract for the building of 142 primary health centers across Iraq is running out of money, after two years and roughly $200 million, with no more than 20 clinics now expected to be completed, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

<b>The contract, awarded to U.S. construction giant Parsons Inc. in the flush, early days of reconstruction in Iraq,</b> was expected to lay the foundation of a modern health care system for the country, putting quality medical care within reach of all Iraqis.

Parsons, according to the Corps, will walk away from more than 120 clinics that on average are two-thirds finished. Auditors say the project serves as a warning for other U.S. reconstruction efforts due to be completed this year.

Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps commander overseeing reconstruction in Iraq, said he still hoped to complete all 142 clinics as promised and was seeking emergency funds from the U.S. military and foreign donors. "I'm fairly confident," McCoy said.

Coming with little public warning, the 86 percent shortfall of completions dismayed the World Health Organization's representative for Iraq. "That's not good. That's shocking," Naeema al-Gasseer said by telephone from Cairo. "We're not sending the right message here. That's affecting people's expectations and people's trust, I must say."

By the end of 2006, the $18.4 billion that Washington has allocated for Iraq's reconstruction runs out. All remaining projects in the U.S. reconstruction program, including electricity, water, sewer, health care and the justice system, are due for completion. As a result, the next nine months are crunchtime for the easy-term contracts that were awarded to American contractors early on, before surging violence drove up security costs and idled workers.

Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. auditor for reconstruction, warned in a telephone interview from Washington that other reconstruction efforts may fall short like that of Parsons. "I've been consumed for a year with the fear we would run out of money to finish projects," said Bowen, the inspector general for reconstruction in Iraq.

The reconstruction campaign in Iraq is the largest such American undertaking since World War II. The rebuilding efforts have remained a point of pride for American troops and leaders as they struggle with an insurgency and now Shiite Muslim militias and escalating sectarian conflict.

The Corps of Engineers says the campaign so far has renovated or built 3,000 schools, upgraded 13 hospitals and created hundreds of border forts and police stations. Major projects this summer, the Corps says, should noticeably improve electricity and other basic services, which have fallen below prewar levels despite the billions of dollars that the United States already has expended toward reconstruction here.

Violence for which the United States failed to plan has consumed up to half the $18.4 billion through higher costs to guard project sites and workers and through direct shifts of billions of dollars to build Iraq's police and military.

In January, Bowen's office calculated the American reconstruction effort would be able to finish only 300 of 425 promised electricity projects and 49 of 136 water and sanitation projects.

U.S. authorities say they made a special effort to preserve the more than $700 million of work for Iraq's health care system, which had fallen into decay after two decades of war and international sanctions.

Doctors in Baghdad's hospitals still cite dirty water as one of the major killers of infants. The city's hospitals place medically troubled newborns two to an incubator, when incubators work at all.

Early in the occupation, U.S. officials mapped out the construction of 300 primary-care clinics, said Gasseer, the WHO official. In addition to spreading basic health care beyond the major cities into small towns, the clinics were meant to provide training for Iraq's medical professionals. "Overall, they were considered vital," she said.

In April 2004, the project was awarded to Parsons Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., a leading construction firm in domestic and international markets. McCoy, the Corps of Engineers commander, said Parsons has been awarded about $1 billion in reconstruction projects in Iraq.

Like much U.S. government work in 2003 and 2004, the contract was awarded on terms known as "cost-plus," Parsons said, meaning that the company could bill the government for its actual cost, rather than a cost agreed to at the start, and add a profit margin. The deal was also classified as "design-build," in which the contractor oversees the project from design to completion.

These terms, among the most generous possible for contractors, were meant to encourage companies to undertake projects in a dangerous environment and complete them quickly.

McCoy said Parsons subcontracted the clinics to four main Iraqi companies, which often hired local firms to do the actual construction, creating several tiers of overhead costs.

Starting in 2004, the need for security sent costs soaring. Insurgent attacks forced companies to organize mini-militias to guard employees and sites; work often was idled when sites were judged to be too dangerous. Western contractors often were reduced to monitoring work sites by photographs, Parsons officials said.

"Security degenerated from the beginning. The expectations on the part of Parsons and the U.S. government was we would have a very benign construction environment, like building a clinic in Falls Church," said Earnest Robbins, senior vice president for the international division of Parsons in Fairfax, Va. Difficulty choosing sites for the clinics also delayed work, Robbins said.

Faced with a growing insurgency, U.S. authorities in 2004 took funding away from many projects to put it into building up Iraqi security forces.

"During that period, very little actual project work, dirt-turning, was being done," Bowen said. At the same time, "we were paying large overhead for contractors to remain in-country." Overhead has consumed 40 percent to 50 percent of the clinic project's budget, McCoy said.

In 2005, plans were scaled back to build 142 primary clinics by December of that year, an extended deadline. By December, however, only four had been completed, reconstruction officials said. Two more were finished weeks later. With the money almost all gone, the Corps of Engineers and Parsons reached what both sides described as a negotiated settlement under which Parsons would try to finish 14 more clinics by early April and then leave the project.

The agreement stipulated that the contract was terminated by consensus, not for cause, the Corps and Parsons said.

Both said the Corps had wanted to cancel the contract outright, and McCoy rejected the reasons that Parsons put forward for the slow progress.

"In the time they completed 45 projects, I completed 500 projects," he said. Parsons has a number of other contracts in Baghdad, from oil-facility upgrades to border forts to prisons. "The fact is it is hard, but there are companies over here that are doing it."

Bowen called the outcome "a worst-case scenario. I think it's an anomaly." He said, however, that U.S. reconstruction overseers overwhelmingly have neglected to keep running track of the remaining costs of each project, leaving it unclear until the end whether the costs are equal to the budget.

"I can't say this isn't going to happen again, because we really haven't gotten a grasp" of the cost of finishing the many pending projects, Bowen said.

Quote:

http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0271-28856_ITM
IG To Review Parsons' Jobs Amid a Pattern of Problems - McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR

Publication Date: 26-JUN-06
Author: Mary Buckner Powers

Description
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has terminated a $99-million contract held by Parsons Corp. to build a prison in Iraq for failure to achieve critical completion dates, resulting in increased cost. The project was more than two years behind schedule and about $25 million over budget, the Corps says.

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn..._world/mideast
Heralded Iraq Police Academy a 'Disaster'

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 27 -- A $75 million project to build the largest police academy in Iraq <b>has been so grossly mismanaged that the campus now poses health risks to recruits and might need to be partially demolished, U.S. investigators have found.

The Baghdad Police College, hailed as crucial to U.S. efforts to prepare Iraqis to take control of the country's security, was so poorly constructed that feces and urine rained from the ceilings in student barracks.</b> Floors heaved inches off the ground and cracked apart. Water dripped so profusely in one room that it was dubbed "the rain forest."

<h3>"This is the most essential civil security project in the country -- and it's a failure," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an independent office created by Congress. "The Baghdad police academy is a disaster."</h3>

Bowen's office plans to release a 21-page report Thursday detailing the most alarming problems with the facility.

<b>Even in a $21 billion reconstruction effort</b> that has been marred by cases of corruption and fraud, failures in training and housing Iraq's security forces are particularly <b>significant because of their effect on what the U.S. military has called its primary mission here:</b> to prepare Iraqi police and soldiers so that Americans can depart.

Federal investigators said the inspector general's findings raise serious questions about whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has failed to exercise effective oversight over the Baghdad Police College or reconstruction programs across Iraq, despite charging taxpayers management fees of at least 4.5 percent of total project costs. The Corps of Engineers said Wednesday that it has initiated a wide-ranging investigation of the police academy project.

The report serves as the latest indictment of Parsons Corp., the U.S. construction giant that was awarded about $1 billion for a variety of reconstruction projects across Iraq. After chronicling previous Parsons failures to properly build health clinics, prisons and hospitals, Bowen said he now plans to conduct an audit of every Parsons project.

<h3>"The truth needs to be told about what we didn't get for our dollar from Parsons," Bowen said.</h3>

A spokeswoman for Parsons said the company had not seen the inspector general's report.

<b>The Coalition Provisional Authority hired Parsons in 2004</b> to transform the Baghdad Police College, a ramshackle collection of 1930s buildings, into a modern facility whose training capacity would expand from 1,500 recruits to at least 4,000. The contract called for the firm to remake the campus by building, among other things, eight three-story student barracks, classroom buildings and a central laundry facility.

As top U.S. military commanders declared 2006 "the year of the police," in an acknowledgment of their critical role in allowing for any withdrawal of American troops, officials highlighted the Baghdad Police College as one of their success stories.

"This facility has definitely been a top priority," Lt. Col. Joel Holtrop of the Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division Project and Contracting Office said in a July news release. "It's a very exciting time as the cadets move into the new structures."

Complaints about the new facilities, however, began pouring in two weeks after the recruits arrived at the end of May, a Corps of Engineers official said.

The most serious problem was substandard plumbing that caused waste from toilets on the second and third floors to cascade throughout the building. A light fixture in one room stopped working because it was filled with urine and fecal matter. The waste threatened the integrity of load-bearing slabs, federal investigators concluded.

"When we walked down the halls, the Iraqis came running up and said, 'Please help us. Please do something about this,' " Bowen recalled.

Phillip A. Galeoto, director of the Baghdad Police College, wrote an Aug. 16 memo that catalogued at least 20 problems: shower and bathroom fixtures that leaked from the first day of occupancy, concrete and tile floors that heaved more than two inches off the ground, water rushing down hallways and stairwells because of improper slopes or drains in bathrooms, classroom buildings with foundation problems that caused structures to sink.

Galeoto noted that one entire building and five floors in others had to be shuttered for repairs, limiting the capacity of the college by up to 800 recruits. His memo, too, pointed out that the urine and feces flowed throughout the building and, sometimes, onto occupants of the barracks.

"This is not a complete list," he wrote, but rather a snapshot of "issues we are confronted with on a daily basis (as recent as the last hour) by the incomplete and/or poor work left behind by these builders."

The Parsons contract, which eventually totaled at least $75 million, was terminated May 31 "due to cost overruns, schedule slippage, and sub-standard quality," according to a Sept. 4 internal military memo. But rather than fire the Pasadena, Calif.-based company for cause, the contract was halted for "the government's convenience."

Col. Michael Herman -- deputy commander of the Gulf Region Division of the Corps of Engineers, which was supposed to oversee the project -- said the Iraqi subcontractors hired by Parsons were being forced to fix the building problems as part of their warranty work, at no cost to taxpayers. He said four of the eight barracks have been repaired.

The U.S. military initially agreed to take a Washington Post reporter on a tour of the facility Wednesday to examine the construction issues, but the trip was postponed Tuesday night. Federal investigators who visited the academy last week, though, expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the buildings and worries that fecal residue could cause a typhoid outbreak or other health crisis.

"They may have to demolish everything they built," said Robert DeShurley, a senior engineer with the inspector general's office. "The buildings are falling down as they sit."

Herman said that he doubted that was the case but that he plans to hire an architecture and engineering firm to examine the facility. He also plans to investigate concerns raised by the inspector general's office that the Army Corps of Engineers did not properly respond to construction problems highlighted in quality-control reports.

Inside the inspector general's office in Baghdad on a recent blistering afternoon, several federal investigators expressed amazement that such construction blunders could be concentrated in one project. Even in Iraq, they said, failure on this magnitude is unusual. When asked how the problems at the police college compared with other projects they had inspected, the answers came swiftly.

"This is significant," said Jon E. Novak, a senior adviser in the office.

"It's catastrophic," DeShurley added.

Bowen said: "It's the worst."

<b>A question for those who "buy into" L. Brent Bozell III's "liberal bias" of the news media, bullshit, why did clarification of the intentional delay of the actual NIE on Iraq....the 2nd NIE"....have to be assembled and posted on an comparatively insignifigant politcs forum, such as this....instead of being "catapulted", via the "biased media", to embarass the earnest, patriotic, "terrur fightin", pretzeldent?</b>

host my good man, compared to you the press is down right fascist I'm sure, but you come from a very different perspective.