BTW, has the Iraqi congress made any progress in passing the US oil laws?
BW
Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
[from testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Nir Rosen]
At the same time that the Sunnis were realizing they had lost the civil war, Muqtada al Sadr realized his militia was out of his control, and he feared its clashes with Americans, Sunnis and fellow Shiites would threaten his own power. Moreover he knew that his militia was the main target for the increased American troops. So he imposed a "freeze," often mistranslated as a ceasefire his powerful militia so that he could "reform" it. The Americans had declared that the Mahdi Army would be targeted so the Mahdi Army largely withdrew to wait for the eventual reduction in American troops. The Mahdi Army was also ill disciplined and out of control, so Muqtada took advantage of the opportunity to consolidate control of his men and root out the unruly ones. When the Mahdi Army Freeze began there was an immediate and huge drop in violence, which shows just how responsible they were for the violence.
At the same time the Sunni militias imposed their own ceasefire. They had been battling the Americans, the Shiite and al Qaeda and failed on all fronts. Resistance to the occupation had not succeeded in liberating Iraq or in seizing power or overthrowing the government. The Shiite militias had won the civil war and Sunnis were being purged from Baghdad and from the Iraqi state. Most of the Iraqi refugees were also Sunnis. Al Qaeda, which initially had been useful in protecting Sunni areas from the Americans and the Shiites was now out of control, imposing a reign of terror in Sunni areas. As a result Sunni militiamen began to cooperate with the Americans against al Qaeda. Members of the Sunni resistance who fought the Americans and engaged in organized crime grew weary of the radicals in the Anbar province who undermined traditional authority figures and harmed their smuggling routes and highway robbery and rebelled against them. These new militias, called Awakening groups, Sons of Iraq, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security Guards and Iraqi Security Volunteers are largely former insurgents who have shifted tactics. This tactic worked best in the Anbar province and has partially worked in Baghdad, though many Iraqis fear that al Qaeda has imposed its own ceasefire and is lying low to avoid its enemies. In the very violent Diyala and Mosul provinces the Anbar model has so far not succeeded. Like the Mahdi Army, the Sunni militias hope to wait for the Americans to reduce their troop levels before they resume fighting Shiite militias. Joining these American backed militias has given them territory in Baghdad and elsewhere that they now control. These Sunni militias also have political goals and are attempting to unite to become a larger movement that will be able to regain Sunni territory and effectively fight the Shiite militias and the Shiite dominated government, which they call an "Iranian Occupation."
These Awakening groups are paid by the US military and operated in much of the country, employing former fighters and often empowering them, to the consternation of the Shiite dominated government as well as the Shiite militias, who thought they had defeated the Sunnis, just to see them trying to regain power through the backdoor. So although militias and an irrelevant central government were among the main problems in Iraq, the Americans were creating new militias. They called it "Iraq solutions for Iraqi problems." By accepting money from the Americans, Sunni militiamen rid themselves of the onerous Americans as well. The Americans think they have purchased Sunni loyalty, but in fact it is the Sunnis who have bought the Americans, describing it as a temporary ceasefire with the American occupation so that they can regroup to fight the "Iranian occupation," which is how they refer to the Shiite dominated government and security forces.
In both cases, the militiamen are chafing under the restrictions placed on them. The Mahdi Army fighters are losing power on the street since they have withdrawn. They are frustrated that the Americans still target them for arrests and that security forces loyal to rival Shiite militias such as the Badr militia are also targeting them. They worry about the creation and empowerment of new Sunni militias. Some Mahdi Army groups ignore the ceasefire or reject Muqtada al Sadr's command, others merely grow impatient and hope to confront the Americans and the Sunnis once again. Sunni militiamen were promised that twenty percent of them would be integrated into the Iraqi Security Forces. This has not happened. Instead they clash regularly with Iraqi Security Forces and are rejected by the Government of Iraq. Often the Americans are late in paying them as well. They increasingly feel humiliated and threaten to resume fighting. The American military cannot for much longer sustain the increased number of troops it has in Iraq. It will be forced to reduce its numbers. When this occurs and there is increased space for Sunni and Shiite militias to operate in, they will resume fighting for control over Baghdad and its environs. The Government of Iraq is dominated by sectarian Shiite Islamist parties. They also dominate the security forces which often targeted Sunni civilians for cleansing. The Government and Security Forces also worry about the empowered Sunni militias who they will one day have to fight again. As we saw last week, rival Shiite militias are also bitter enemies. The clashes throughout Shiite areas of Iraq were not between the Mahdi Army bad guys and the Iraqi government good guys. They were between more nationalist and populist, and popular, Shiite militias who reject the occupation and are opposed to federalism and on the other side the Shiite militias such as Badr who collaborate with the Americans and are competing for power, territory, resources and votes with the Mahdi Army. The Iraqi security forces are divided in their loyalties and hence the Iraqi Army units that fought in the south were recruited from areas where they were more likely to be loyal to the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and its Badr militia. As we saw, were it not for the American military and airforce, they could not have stood up to the Mahdi Army anyway. Muqtada's Sadrist movement is the most popular movement in Iraq today and his militia is the most powerful one. The one bright spot in the recent increase in violence between Shiite militias is that it marks the end of the Sunni Shiite civil war. There will no longer be a Shiite bloc united in fighting Sunnis as there was in the past, when Badr and the Mahdi Army collaborated to expel and kill Sunnis. Now we may start to see cross sectarian alliances between militias.
Now thanks to the Americans the Sunnis, formerly on the run, are once again confident, and control their own territory. The Mahdi Army is consolidating its forces, ridding itself of unruly elements and waiting for the inevitable reduction in American troops. Iraqi Security Forces will also be able to once again operate with impunity when there are less Americans present. Both sides are getting ready to resume fighting. Refugees International is concerned that when violence resumes there will be fewer options for displaced Iraqis. Syria and Jordan, the main safe havens for Iraqis in the first round of the civil war, have now virtually closed their borders to new Iraqis. Additionally, eleven of Iraq's eighteen provinces have closed their borders to internally displaced Iraqis. There will be nowhere to run to and as a result large scale massacres may occur.
Iraq remains an extremely unstable and failed state, with many years of bloodshed left before an equilibrium is attained. There is no reconciliation occurring between the two warring communities, and Shiites will not allow the territorial gains they made to be chipped away by Sunnis returning to their homes, or Sunni militias being empowered. Violence is slightly down in Iraq in large part because the goal of the violence, removing Sunnis from Shiite areas and Shiites from Sunni areas, has largely succeeded, and there are less people to kill. Baghdad and much of Iraq resemble Somalia. Warlords and their militiamen rule neighborhoods or towns. In many cases displaced Iraqis are joining these militias. There is no serious process of reconciliation occurring between the communities. Armed groups are preparing for the next phase of the conflict. Shiites will not allow the gains they made to be chipped away by returning Sunnis and the ISVs or Sahwa are intent on fighting the "Iranians," which is how they describe the government and virtually all Shiites.
The Americans have never grasped the importance of ideology and of the idea of resisting an occupation. They have insisted that Iraqis joined militias and the resistance for the money, and so they believe that they are now joining the American backed Sunni militias for the money too. The Sunnis the Americans are paying joined the resistance not for money but out of a desire to fight the Occupation, to protect themselves, to seize power, to kill Shiites and "Persians," and for an array of other reasons, none of them related to money. Likewise men don't join the Mahdi Army, which does not even provide salaries, for the money, but out of loyalty to the Sadrist movement, to Muqtada and his father, out of solidarity with their dispossessed Shiite brethren, out of fear of Sunni attacks, resentment of the American occupation and other reasons.
Most embedded journalists, just like embedded politicians and embedded members of think tanks on Washington's K Street or Massachusetts Avenue, lack language skills and time on the ground in Iraq—and since they are white, they cannot travel around Baghdad without attracting attention and getting kidnapped or killed. They know nothing about Iraq except what they gain through second- or third-hand knowledge, too often provided by equally disconnected members of the US military. Recently we have seen positive articles about events in Iraq published by so called experts such as Anthony Cordesmen, Michael O'Hanlon, Kenneth Pollock, Fred Kagan and even former members of the Coalition Provisional Council such as Dan Senor. These men speak no Arabic and cannot get around without their babysitters from the American military. But it seems that the more they get wrong, these and other propagandists for the war, such as Thomas Friedman, manage to maintain their credibility.
They should ask Iraqis, or those journalists who courageously risk their lives to spend enough time with Iraqis to serve as their interlocutors—such as Leila Fadel of McClatchy, Ghaith Abdel Ahad of the Guardian or Patrick Cockburn of the London Independent—what is actually happening in Iraq, rather than continue to deceive the American people with the fantasy of "victory." It is true that fewer American soldiers are dying today, but that is not the proper metric for success. Of course less Americans are dying. In 2006 the conflict in Iraq stopped being a war of national liberation against the American occupation and became chiefly a war between Iraqis for control of Iraq. They proper standard for judging Iraq is the quality of life for Iraqis, and sadly, for most Iraqis, life was better under Saddam.
There is no reconciliation occurring between the various sects and ethnic groups, the warring communities, and Shiites will not allow the territorial gains they made to be chipped away by Sunnis returning to their homes, and they are determined to keep the Sunni militias out of power. Violence is slightly down in Iraq in large part because the goal of an earlier stage of the conflict—removing Sunnis from Shiite areas and Shiites from Sunni areas—has largely succeeded, and there are fewer people to kill. There may be many years of bloodshed left before equilibrium can be attained.
Many Americans are also unaware that a foreign military occupation is a systematic imposition of violence and terror on an entire people. American soldiers are not their as peacekeepers or policemen, they are not there to "help" the Iraqi people. At least 24,000 Iraqis still languish in American-run prisons. At least 900 of these are juveniles, some of whom are forced to go through a brainwashing program called the "House of Wisdom," where American officers are arrogant enough to lecture Muslims about Islam. The Americans are supposed to hand over Iraqi prisoners to Iraqi authorities, since it's theoretically a sovereign country, but international human rights officials are loath to press the issue because conditions in Iraqi prisons are at least as bad as they were under Saddam. One US officer told me that six years is a life sentence in an Iraqi prison today, because that is your estimated life span there. In the women's prison in Kadhmiya prisoners are routinely raped.
Conditions in Iraqi prisons got much worse during the surge because the Iraqi system could not cope with the massive influx. Those prisoners whom the Americans hand over to the Iraqis may be the lucky ones, but even those Iraqis in American detention do not know why they are being held, and they are not visited by defense lawyers. The Americans can hold Iraqis indefinitely, so they don't even have to be tried by Iraqi courts. A fraction are tried in courts where Americans also testify. But we have yet to see a trial where the accused is convincingly found guilty and there is valid evidence that is properly examined, with no coerced confessions. Lawyers don't see their clients before trials, and there are no witnesses. Iraqi judges are prepared to convict on very little evidence. But even if Iraqi courts find Iraqi prisoners innocent, the Americans sometimes continue to hold them after acquittal. These are called "on hold" cases, and there are currently about 500 of them. And the Americans continue to arrest all men of military age when looking for suspects, to break into homes and traumatize sleeping families at night, and to bombs heavily populated areas, killing civilians routinely. Most recently the Americans killed civilians while bombing Tikrit and now five years into a war allegedly to liberate Shiites the Americans are bombing Shiite areas, serving as the airforce for the Dawa party and the Badr militia.
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