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2 SPEAKING
FREELY Something to report on
Iraq By Brian M Downing
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
In recent months,
the George W Bush administration has been touting
successes in Iraq, and polling data show a modest
increase in US public support for the war. Various
reports on the
war
will be released in the next week or so, the
interpretations of which will be contested widely,
bitterly, and probably inconclusively.
Official reports, especially that of
General David Petraeus, will almost certainly be
upbeat. That is in keeping with the "can do"
ideology of the US military, which is admirable in
junior officers but often damaging in generals.
The future of the war in Iraq and of the US
position in the Middle East hinges on these
reports and their reception.
The US has
sent about 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to put
into operation a counterinsurgency program that
Petraeus and others have assembled from the
lessons of past guerrilla wars, mainly in Malaya,
Algeria and Vietnam. The "surge" seeks (1) to use
US troops to drive insurgent and al-Qaeda fighters
from neighborhoods of Baghdad, (2) to deploy Iraqi
troops in these cleared areas to hold them, (3) to
bring in Iraqi governmental officials to
re-establish services and rapport with the
populace, and (4) to repeat the procedure in
outlying areas in a manner likened to the spread
of an oil spot.
Even several media and
think-tank critics of the war have noted successes
in the "surge". Guerrillas are largely gone and
many marketplaces have reopened, though often only
after receiving inducements from US officials to
do so. The initial success has been undeniable,
but only in the first phase of Petraeus's plan.
Thus far, the Iraqi military has been unable to
follow through with its part of the program.
Despite several years of training a new
Iraqi Army after the unceremonious disbanding of
the old one, there are not enough reliable
formations. The Iraqi Army is deeply torn by
sectarian hatreds and tribal loyalties and heavily
infiltrated by local militias. Furthermore, it is
largely Shi'ite and as such unsuited to performing
anything but intimidation and slaughter in Sunni
areas.
Without reliable Iraqi units, the
"surge" can only continue if additional US troops
are brought in or if troops already in the country
are spread out from Baghdad without adequately
consolidating areas previously cleared, at
considerable cost. Each of these options presents
serious problems and dangers, and is unlikely.
Nor is the Iraqi government equal to the
task of coming into cleared areas and establishing
rapport with the populace. Like the Iraqi
military, the national government is largely
Shi'ite; Sunni representation in the government is
slim and increasingly so as Sunnis quit Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki's coalition.
Nothing is likely to change here. Shi'ites
now stand at well over the 60% of the population
they comprised at the outset of the war and look
on the Sunni Arabs as a shrinking minority that
once lorded over the country and brutally
oppressed them.
They have been content to
look on as the US military, through its previous
operations against the Sunni insurgency, which
often relied on the hard hand and massive
firepower, subjugates, rounds up and imprisons,
kills or drives into exile large numbers of
Sunnis, thereby decreasing the Sunni percentage of
the population from 18% to perhaps as low as 13%.
The prospects of US personnel, civilian or
military, winning over the Sunni populace after
years of occupation and sharp battles is highly
unlikely, and attempts to do so will only
undermine the position of the Shi'ite government,
which remains largely aloof from the efforts. The
Maliki government may collapse soon; and as we
shall see, the "surge" and recent threats from
Washington are helping to bring that about.
There has been no decisive battle or
series of sharp skirmishes that have inflicted
heavy and perhaps irreplaceable casualties on
insurgent forces. They opted to forgo a
Fallujah-like battle in Baghdad and, apparently,
to disperse to relatively safe outlying towns and
cities from which to continue the war. Nor is
there evidence that the insurgency's leadership
has suffered serious losses. Inasmuch as it is
highly heterogeneous, drawn from former Ba'ath
Party members, ousted army officers, and tribal
and religious figures, it is unlikely that such
losses can be inflicted.
Accordingly, the
prospects of an insurgent counter to recent US
efforts are real. Recently several US commanders
have expressed concern that a counteroffensive may
coincide with Petraeus's report in Washington,
though the disparate nature of the insurgency
makes this more difficult than, say, in Vietnam in
1968, where Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces
took orders from the same central office.
Anbar province, which spreads out from
Baghdad to the Syrian and Jordanian borders, was
once a hotbed of insurgent and al-Qaeda activity.
This was so for several reasons. The Dulayim
tribal confederation of that province and its main
cities of Fallujah and Ramadi is among the most
militarized of the tribes in the region. Its men
were well represented in Saddam Hussein's army and
security forces.
The province is also
known for its Salafist schools, which proffer a
harshly anti-Western and even anti-modern form of
Islam and which spread their beliefs into the army
after the defeat in the Gulf War of 1991.
Smuggling networks between Baghdad and porous
borders with Syria and Jordan assisted guerrilla
networks.
Numerous wealthy families that
had benefited from contracts with Saddam's
government reside there and finance the
insurgency. Above all, the Dulayim, probably even
more so than other tribes, despise outside
interference. They attempted a coup against Saddam
in 1992 and rebelled against him three years
later.
Al-Qaeda fighters infiltrated Anbar
and helped to turn it into the most dangerous
province for US troops. About one-third of US
casualties have been suffered there. But the
al-Qaeda presence and the arrogance it displayed
toward local customs and usages, not the least of
which regarded women, led to occasional skirmishes
over the years and, beginning last spring, to
sustained fighting. Local US commanders were quick
to see the potential
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