GLOBE EDITORIAL

The generals' worry

August 5, 2006

TOP AMERICAN generals acknowledged this week that Iraq could be slipping into civil war. This realistic appraisal departs from US commanders' previous statements, and it ought to prompt the Bush administration to bring in new policy makers and reassess its thinking on how to end the war.

When General John Abizaid, chief of Central Command, and General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, their statements were hedged by qualifiers. But they were far gloomier than earlier predictions by other generals that a US drawdown of troops could begin this year.

Abizaid and Pace sat beside Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who merely resurrected the Vietnam-era domino theory. ``We can persevere in Iraq, or we can withdraw prematurely, until they force us to make a stand nearer home," he said darkly.

The Vietnam and Iraq wars have one element in common: Each is a stalemate. Three years after he escalated the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson appointed his confidant Clark Clifford to replace Robert McNamara as secretary of defense. Clifford opposed a plan by US commanders to send 200,000 more troops to Vietnam and began the five-year process to disentangle the United States from that war.

Abizaid isn't seeking reinforcements, but he seemed to rule out any reduction in the 133,000-troop Iraq force this year. Pace held out the hope that civil war could be averted somehow, but only if the Shi'ites and Sunnis ``love their children more than they hate each other." Truisms are no substitute for policies.

We on this page have advocated Rumsfeld's ouster because of past failings. Another reason to remove him is that he stands in the way of a reordering of Iraq policies. Like Johnson before him, President Bush needs new advisers to offer fresh approaches unclouded by stubbornness or fear of acknowledging failure.

These ought to involve a reliance on diplomacy to engage the nations bordering Iraq in resolving the conflict. Neither Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran nor Kuwait stands to benefit from an Iraq sundered into chaos.

Any policy review ought to consider a drawdown of US troops and redeployment from dangerous areas, something that is being done informally anyway. The United States should not be providing the insurgents with an excuse to continue fighting. And the Iraqis need to know that ultimately they will determine the fate of their own society.

Civil war is a fearsome prospect, and the United States cannot pull out totally because of this danger.

Still, the Bush administration has 29 months left in office. ``Staying the course" is unsustainable. Rather than forcing a new administration to figure a way out of Iraq, it ought to begin the rethinking now.

British ambassador says civil war in Iraq 'likely'

By Patrick Cockburn in Washington

Published: 04 August 2006

A confidential report by the outgoing British ambassador in Baghdad says civil war and the break-up of Iraq is more likely than the country developing into a stable democracy. The bleak assessment of the situation by William Patey, who left Iraq last week, is wholly at odds with more optimistic claims by George Bush and Tony Blair.

The memo, leaked to the BBC, admits the most likely outcome in Iraq is "a low-intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq". The warning was disclosed as two of America's most senior generals also admitted the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks raises the possibility of Iraq descending into civil war. General John Abizaid, the US commander in the Middle East, and General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said all-out civil conflict was a distinct possibility.

"Iraq could move toward civil war" if the violence is not contained, General Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it." US and British officials have persistently denied there is a civil war although UN figures show at least 3,000 people being killed in June.

The Foreign Office, seeking to put the most positive gloss on Mr Patey's words yesterday, could only point out that he had said the situation in Iraq "is not hopeless". The memo says: "Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq - a government that can sustain itself and is an ally in the war on terror - must remain in doubt."

This means the Iraqi government has no real power or authority despite the addition of 100,000 US-trained Iraqi troops and police over the past year. By this June, there were 264,000 Iraqi soldiers and police under arms but their increasing numbers have failed to provide more security since the civilian death toll has risen each month.

This fatally undermines the US and British policy which is based on the supposition that, as more Iraqi security forces become available, they will be able to draw down the number of troops they have in Iraq. But the US decided last week to increase the number of troops it has in Baghdad by some 5,000 soldiers because control of the capital is slipping further and further out of government hands.

Yesterday, at least 12 people were killed and 29 injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded near Rusafi Square in the centre of the capital. Electricity is available only six hours a day at best and people can no longer use generators for lights because petrol is too expensive.

The problem for the Iraqi government is that it does not really control its own armed forces, which often take their orders from Kurdish, Sunni or Shia communal leaders. Sunni districts in Baghdad see the police and police commandos as officially sanctioned death squads. Shia districts say only their own militiamen can protect them from suicide bombers.

Mr Patey sees the main Shia militia, the Mehdi Army loyal to the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as a growing threat. He says: "If we are to avoid a descent into civil war and anarchy then preventing [the Mehdi Army] from developing into a state within a state, as Hizbollah has done in Lebanon, will be a priority."

But the growing US and British pressure on the Mehdi Army is seen by many Shia as an attempt to rein back their community, 60 per cent of Iraqis, from taking power despite its success in elections last year.

A confidential report by the outgoing British ambassador in Baghdad says civil war and the break-up of Iraq is more likely than the country developing into a stable democracy. The bleak assessment of the situation by William Patey, who left Iraq last week, is wholly at odds with more optimistic claims by George Bush and Tony Blair.

The memo, leaked to the BBC, admits the most likely outcome in Iraq is "a low-intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq". The warning was disclosed as two of America's most senior generals also admitted the surge in sectarian violence in Baghdad in recent weeks raises the possibility of Iraq descending into civil war. General John Abizaid, the US commander in the Middle East, and General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said all-out civil conflict was a distinct possibility.

"Iraq could move toward civil war" if the violence is not contained, General Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it." US and British officials have persistently denied there is a civil war although UN figures show at least 3,000 people being killed in June.

The Foreign Office, seeking to put the most positive gloss on Mr Patey's words yesterday, could only point out that he had said the situation in Iraq "is not hopeless". The memo says: "Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq - a government that can sustain itself and is an ally in the war on terror - must remain in doubt."

This means the Iraqi government has no real power or authority despite the addition of 100,000 US-trained Iraqi troops and police over the past year. By this June, there were 264,000 Iraqi soldiers and police under arms but their increasing numbers have failed to provide more security since the civilian death toll has risen each month.

This fatally undermines the US and British policy which is based on the supposition that, as more Iraqi security forces become available, they will be able to draw down the number of troops they have in Iraq. But the US decided last week to increase the number of troops it has in Baghdad by some 5,000 soldiers because control of the capital is slipping further and further out of government hands.

Yesterday, at least 12 people were killed and 29 injured when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle exploded near Rusafi Square in the centre of the capital. Electricity is available only six hours a day at best and people can no longer use generators for lights because petrol is too expensive.

The problem for the Iraqi government is that it does not really control its own armed forces, which often take their orders from Kurdish, Sunni or Shia communal leaders. Sunni districts in Baghdad see the police and police commandos as officially sanctioned death squads. Shia districts say only their own militiamen can protect them from suicide bombers.

Mr Patey sees the main Shia militia, the Mehdi Army loyal to the nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as a growing threat. He says: "If we are to avoid a descent into civil war and anarchy then preventing [the Mehdi Army] from developing into a state within a state, as Hizbollah has done in Lebanon, will be a priority."

But the growing US and British pressure on the Mehdi Army is seen by many Shia as an attempt to rein back their community, 60 per cent of Iraqis, from taking power despite its success in elections last year.

	Posted on Fri, Aug. 04, 2006
	Iraqi civil war has already begun, U.S. troops say By Tom Lasseter McClatchy Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq - While American politicians and generals in Washington debate the possibility of civil war in Iraq, many U.S. officers and enlisted men who patrol Baghdad say it has already begun. Army troops in and around the capital interviewed in the last week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is coming undone: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds. "There's one street that's the dividing line. They shoot mortars across the line and abduct people back and forth," said 1st Lt. Brian Johnson, a 4th Infantry Division platoon leader from Houston. Johnson, 24, was describing the nightly violence that pits Sunni gunmen from Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood against Shiite gunmen from the nearby Shula district. As he spoke, the sights and sounds of battle grew: first, the rat-a-tat-tat of fire from AK-47 assault rifles, then the heavier bursts of PKC machine guns, and finally the booms of mortar rounds crisscrossing the night sky and crashing down onto houses and roads. The bodies of captured Sunni and Shiite fighters will turn up in the morning, dropped in canals and left on the side of the road. "We've seen some that have been executed on site, with bullet holes in the ground; the rest were tortured and executed somewhere else and dumped," Johnson said. The recent assertion by U.S. soldiers here that Iraq is in a civil war is a stunning indication that American efforts to bring peace and democracy to Iraq are failing, more than three years after the toppling of dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. Some Iraqi troops, too, share that assessment. "This is a civil war," said a senior adviser to the commander of the Iraqi Army's 6th Division, which oversees much of Baghdad. "The problem between Sunnis and Shiites is a religious one, and it gets worse every time they attack each other's mosques," said the adviser, who gave only his rank and first name, Col. Ahmed, because of security concerns. "Iraq is now caught in hell." U.S. hopes for victory in Iraq hinge principally on two factors: Iraqi security forces becoming more competent and Iraqi political leaders persuading armed groups to lay down their weapons. But neither seems to be happening. The violence has increased as Iraqi troops have been added, and feuding among the political leadership is intense. American soldiers, particularly the rank and file who go out on daily patrols, say they see no end to the bloodshed. Higher ranking officers concede that the developments are threatening to move beyond their grasp. "There's no plan - we are constantly reacting," said a senior American military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I have absolutely no idea what we're going to do." The issue of whether Iraq has descended into civil war has been a hot-button topic even before U.S. troops entered Iraq in 2003, when some opponents of the war raised the likelihood that Iraq would fragment along sectarian lines if Saddam's oppressive regime was removed. Bush administration officials consistently rejected such speculation as unlikely to come to fruition. On Thursday, however, two top American generals told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq could slip into civil war, though both stopped well short of saying that one had begun. Political sensitivity has made some officers here hesitant to use the words "civil war," but they aren't shy about describing the situation that they and their men have found on their patrols. "I hate to use the word `purify,' because it sounds very bad, but they are trying to force Shiites into Shiite areas and Sunnis into Sunni areas," said Lt. Col. Craig Osborne, who commands a 4th Infantry Division battalion on the western edge of Baghdad, a hotspot of sectarian violence. Osborne, 39, of Decatur, Ill., compared Iraq to Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed in an orgy of inter-tribal violence in 1994. "That was without doubt a civil war - the same thing is happening here. "But it's not called a civil war - there's such a negative connotation to that word and it suggests failure," he said. On the other side of Baghdad, Shiites from the eastern slum of Sadr City and Sunnis from the nearby neighborhood of Adhamiyah regularly launch incursions into each other's areas, setting off car bombs and dragging victims into torture chambers. "The sectarian violence flip-flops back and forth," said Lt. Col. Paul Finken, who commands a 101st Airborne Division task force that works with Iraqi soldiers in the area. "We find bodies all the time - bound, tortured, shot." The idea that U.S. forces have been unable to prevent the nation from sliding into sectarian chaos troubles many American military officials in Iraq. Lt. Col. Chris Pease, 48, the deputy commander for the 101st Airborne's brigade in eastern Baghdad, was asked whether he thought that Iraq's civil war had begun. "Civil war," he said, and then paused for several moments. "You've got to understand," said Pease, of Milton-Freewater, Ore., "you know, the United States Army and most of the people in the United States Army, the Marine Corps and the Air Force and the Navy have never really lost at anything." Pease paused again. "Whether it is there or not, I don't know," he said. Pressed for what term he would use to describe the security situation in Iraq, Pease said: "Right now I would say that it's more of a Kosovo, ethnic-cleansing type thing - not ethnic cleansing, it is a sectarian fight - they are bombing; they are threatening to get them off the land." A human rights report released last month by the United Nations mission in Baghdad said 2,669 civilians were killed across Iraq during May, and 3,149 were killed in June. In total, 14,338 civilians were killed from January to June of this year, and 150,000 civilians were forced out of their homes, the report said. Pointing to a map, 1st Lt. Robert Murray, last week highlighted a small Shiite village of 25 homes that was abandoned after a flurry of death threats came to town on small pieces of paper. "The letters tell them if they don't leave in 48 hours, they'll kill their entire families," said Murray, 29, of Franklin, Mass. "It's happening a lot right now. There have been a lot of murders recently; between that and the kidnappings, they're making good on their threats. ... They need to learn to live together. I'd like to see it happen, but I don't know if it's possible." Riding in a Humvee later that day, Capt. Jared Rudacille, Murray's commander in the 4th Infantry Division, noted the market of a town he was passing through. The stalls were all vacant. The nearby homes were empty. There wasn't a single civilian car on the road. "Between 1,500 and 2,000 people have moved out," said Rudacille, 29, of York, Pa. "I now see only 15 or 20 people out during the day." The following evening, 1st Lt. Corbett Baxter was showing a reporter the area, to the west of where Rudacille was, that he patrols. "Half of my entire northern sector cleared out in a week, about 2,000 people," said Baxter, 25, of Fort Hood, Texas. Staff Sgt. Wesley Ramon had a similar assessment while on patrol between the Sunni town of Abu Ghraib and Shula, a Shiite stronghold. The main bridge leading out of Shula was badly damaged recently by four bombs placed underneath it. Military officials think the bombers were Sunnis trying to stanch the flow of Shiite militia gunmen coming out of Shula to kill Sunnis. "It's to the point of being irreconcilable; you know, we've found a lot of bodies, entire villages have been cleared out, we get reports of entire markets being gunned down - and if that's not a marker of a civil war, I don't know what is," said Ramon, 33, of San Antonio, Texas. Driving back to his base, Johnson watched a long line of trucks and cars go by, packed with families fleeing their homes with everything they could carry: mattresses, clothes, furniture, and, in the back of some trucks, bricks to build another home. "Every morning that we head back to the patrol base, this is all we see," Johnson said. "These are probably people who got threatened last night." In Taji, an area north of Baghdad, where the roads between Sunni and Shiite villages have become killing fields, many soldiers said they saw little chance that things would get better. "I don't think there's any winning here. Victory for us is withdrawing," said Sgt. James Ellis, 25, of Chicago. "In this part of the world they have been fighting for 3,000 years, and we're not going to fix it in three."