A Foreign Country Offers Military Aid to Iraq!

[Brian Rucker]

The punchline: It's Iran.

Former enemies Iran and Iraq say they will launch broad military co-operation including training Iraqi armed forces.

"It's a new chapter in our relations with Iraq," said Iranian Defence Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani.

He was speaking at a joint news conference in Tehran with his Iraqi counterpart Saadoun al-Dulaimi.

Relations between the neighbours - who fought a bitter war from 1980 to 1988 - have improved greatly since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

This is the first visit to Iran by an Iraqi military delegation since the war, in which a million people died, started.

The promise of co-operation comes despite repeated accusations by the US - which has about 140,000 troops in Iraq - that Iran has been undermining security there.

"No one can prevent us from reaching an agreement," Mr Shamkhani said when asked about possible US opposition.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4659287.stm

[Jakub]

It'd be funny to see Iran make a pawn out of Iraq.

Well, funny to anyone whose economy doesn't depend on imported oil.

[Brian Rucker]

You know, it's going to be magical when those new Iranian advisors team up with Saddam's old torturers to make some beautiful music in the new Iraq. What old torturers, you ask?

IRAQI security forces, set up by American and British troops, torture detainees by pulling out their fingernails, burning them with hot irons or giving them electric shocks, Iraqi officials say. Cases have also been recorded of bound prisoners being beaten to death by police.

In their haste to put police on the streets to counter the brutal insurgency, Iraqi and US authorities have enlisted men trained under Saddam Hussein’s regime and versed in torture and abuse, the officials told The Times. They said that recruits were also being drawn from the ranks of outlawed Shia militias.

Counter-insurgencies are rarely clean fights, but Iraq’s dirty war is being waged under the noses of US and British troops whose mission is to end the abuses of the former dictatorship. Instead, they appear to have turned a blind eye to the constant reports of torture from Iraq’s prisons.

Among the worst offenders cited are the Interior Ministry police commandos, a force made up largely of former army officers and special forces soldiers drawn from the ranks of Saddam’s dissolved army. They are seen as the most effective tool the coalition has in fighting the insurgency.

“It’s a gruesome situation we are in,” a senior Iraqi official said. “You have to understand the situation when the special commandos were formed last August. They were taking on an awful lot of people in a great hurry. Many of them were people who served in Saddam’s forces . . . The choice of taking them on was a difficult one. There was no supervision. There still really isn ’t any, and that applies to all the security forces. They’re all doing this.”

“This”, said Saad Sultan, the Human Rights Ministry official in charge of monitoring Iraq’s prisons, includes random arrests, sometimes without a warrant, hanging people from ceilings and beating them, attaching electrodes to ears, hands, feet and genitals, and holding hot irons to flesh.

Four of his 22 monitors have already quit their jobs, leaving a handful of lawyers to inspect scores of prisons.

“Two months ago I could go into a prison and more than 50 per cent of the people had been ill-treated,” Mr Sultan said. Six months ago the situation had been even worse.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1683578,00.html

[Brian Rucker]

Seems that the London bombers didn't get the memo about the Iraqi Roach Motel. But we're still getting the bill for it.

http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html

http://www.costofwar.com/

[wildpokerman]

As soon as american troops leave you'll see a northern Iraq with a Kurdish independent state which will soon be at war with Turkey to form a Kurdistan.

You will also see a Muslim theocrasy patterened after Iran in the south where the Shi'ite majority live.

The Suni population will either get killed by the Shi'ites or will form a huge regfugee situation at the edge of saudi arabia.

Is it any wonder that the Iranians want to help a country that will shortly have the same government type and goals as their own?

[Brian Rucker]

My bet is that, if we left today, you'd see an Iraq that's composed entirely of the Shiite south. Kurdistan would go independant and a medium level war would be waged there as Turkey, likely in cooperation with Iran and Shiite Iraq, tried to beat them down. I'd lay decent odds on the Kurds holding thier own and likely getting CIA support on the side - mainly to cause Iran and Shiite Iraq headaches.

The Sunnis wouldn't become refugees but they probably would swallow their pride enough to invite in Syrian Baathist "peacekeepers" likely fresh from Lebanon before either declaring independance and possibly taking on the position of either a Syrian client state or autonomous province.

Depending on how Saudi Arabia reacts you could see them end up in a war allied with Syria against Shiite Iraq and Iran. They've got a sizeable Shiite population in their own oil rich north and might not like the idea of a neighboring, unleashed, Shiite state. It could also help to redirect the rabid Wahabi clerics from a radical reform agenda and support for al Qaida to a holy war against a rival sect.

[Brian Rucker]

Kamen's take on this development in In The Loop:

Great news from Iraq last week. Iran appears to have agreed to become the first member of the Axis of Evil to join the ever-dwindling Coalition of the Willing.

The U.S.-led coalition once included three dozen nations, but in the past year, more than a dozen countries have withdrawn or announced plans to leave. Ukraine and Poland have announced they will pull out by year's end, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said last week that Italy will begin withdrawing this fall.

So the news Thursday that Iraq and Iran have reached an agreement -- the precise contours were unclear -- for Iran to help train Iraqi troops appears to make Iran eligible for inclusion as one of the "willing." After all, a lot of teensy countries made the list while contributing nary a thing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/10/AR2005071000894.html

[Brian Rucker]

Of course maybe this is why the Shi'ite government is in a rush to get in bed with Iran. What's curious to me, and maybe someone can clear this up, is that I've heard the Iraqi Defense Minister is Sunni not Shi'ia. Why would he be willing to go along with ties to Iran's military?

IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved. “The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq,” said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.

In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: “The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak.”

Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, said that Iraq had collapsed as a state and needed to be rebuilt. The only way forward, he said, was through “national unity, the building of institutions, the economy and a firm but peaceful foreign relation policy”. Unless these criteria were satisfied, “the country will deteriorate”.

Allawi’s concern comes amid signs of growing violence between Shi’ites, who make up 60% of Iraq’s estimated 26m people, and the Sunni minority who dominated the upper reaches of the civilian bureaucracy and officer corps under Saddam Hussein.

The Shi’ites, who endured decades of oppression, are threatening to purge members of Saddam’s former Ba’ath party from the army and the intelligence services, a move that would provoke fierce retaliation from the Sunnis.

Since the execution-style killings of 34 men whose bound and blindfolded bodies were found in three predominantly Shi’ite areas of Baghdad in May, other tit-for-tat murders have followed, with clerics among the targets.

Tension has increased in the past two weeks following the return of Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi left the country in May to seek medical treatment for a chest wound suffered in an American airstrike, but has now recovered sufficiently to resume his activities.

Earlier this month he claimed that his supporters had killed Sheikh Kamaleddin al-Ghuraifi, a senior aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Zarqawi has now released an audiotape in which he announces the formation of a new militant unit, the Omar Corps. Its avowed aim is to “eradicate” the Badr brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shi’ite political party, which has targeted Sunnis.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1687910,00.html

[Brian Rucker]

In related news, Peyamner.com revealed that Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa stating that the future Iraqi state will be called “The Islamic Federal Republic of Iraq.”

On 10th of July, al-Sistani had issued another fatwa in which he stated, “The Iraqi constitution must not contradict with Islam.”

Al-Sistani, who in the past has stated that he would not get involved in Iraqi politics, daily issues decisive fatwas on the way the Iraqi socio-political system is to be shaped, which has so far meant that al-Sistani has practically overridden the work of the committee that is responsible for producing the new Iraqi constitution.

It has also been noted by observers that the Shiia bloc uses al-Sistani as, what has been termed, a “pressure-pump”. Whenever the Shiia bloc wants to impose an issue over the Iraqi Assembly and the Kurdish bloc, they request al-Sistani to issue a fatwa. As it is known, “Fatwas” are non-negotiable.
http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=7240

Are we having fun yet?

This and other related stories linked through Morley's World Opinion Roundup at WaPo.

Don't Call It an Exit Strategy

By Jefferson Morley
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, July 14, 2005; 9:00 AM

A U.S. exit strategy for Iraq is beginning to take shape, though few U.S. and British officials care to call it that.

While President Bush continues to vow "no retreat," a variety of reports in the international online media indicate that the Bush administration may be more willing to scale back the U.S. military presence as ambitious political goals in Iraq go glimmering.

Two years ago, the Bush administration envisioned a "coalition of the willing" installing a secular democratic government in Baghdad that would support U.S. goals for the region. This week, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for the country to name itself the Islamic Federal Republic of Iraq. Italy, once a staunch U.S. ally in the war effort, announced plans to pull out 300 troops.

Worse yet from the White House point of view, Iraq recently made a military cooperation agreement with neighboring Iran, which Washington views as an undemocratic terrorist state with nuclear ambitions. On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and 10 of his cabinet ministers will visit Tehran seeking to expand relations. When your host goes to your sworn enemy's house for tea, you may have overstayed your welcome.

With denunciations of the U.S. presence ringing in the Iraqi parliament and the Baghdad press, it is not surprising that U.S. and British officials have begun to plan for withdrawal.

As with the Downing Street Memo story, the most revelatory reporting on U.S. war planning originated in London. Last weekend, the Sunday Mail reported on a secret British government memo outlining proposals to reduce Anglo-American forces from 176,000 to 66,000 by the end of 2006.

British and U.S. officials denied any push for a quick Iraq exit. But they did not dispute the authenticity of the document, titled "Options for future UK force posture in Iraq," or the debate about withdrawal plans.

The memo, which The Post reported on Monday, stated that "there is a strong US military desire for significant force reductions to bring relief to overall US commitment levels." It also stated that "emerging US plans assume that 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006."

The memo said that the Pentagon and Central Command "favor a relatively bold reduction in force numbers" while commanders on the ground in Iraq are "more cautious."

The passage suggests the possibility that some in the Pentagon privately favor scaling back the U.S. military presence in Iraq sooner than left-wing Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), who has introduced a resolution calling for complete withdrawal to begin in October 2006.

The impetus for withdrawal is coming from the British, according to several British press reports. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071301880.html

[Brian Rucker]

THE corpses of ten men who had been handcuffed, tortured and shot in the head were found in the eastern outskirts of Baghdad yesterday as tension between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities escalated.

The discovery came a day after 12 bodies were found in similar circumstances. All but one of the twelve were Sunnis, including a cleric.

Last weekend ten Sunni men suffocated after being locked up for hours in an unventilated van by police commandos. It was not immediately known whether the ten men found yesterday were Sunni or Shia.

The almost daily appearance of bodies is fuelling Iraq’s already boiling sectarian hatreds, and Shia leaders, whose community has been slaughtered in car bombs by Sunni insurgents and their al-Qaeda allies, are struggling to prevent powerful Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army from seeking revenge, effectively triggering a civil war. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1694716,00.html

[John Reynolds]

If we pull out and the entire area comes unglued, while I'm reluctant to use the big I word the entire Bush administration should be thrown out of office for gross incompetence. It's going to be particularly galling watching people want to name some airport after Dubya in the near future.

[Brian Rucker]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iraqi Defense Ministry has squandered more than $300 million buying faulty and outdated military equipment in what appears to be a massive web of corruption that flourished under American-appointed supervisors for a year or longer, U.S. and Iraqi military officials said this week.

Vendors are suspected of vastly overcharging for substandard equipment, including helicopters, machine guns and armored vehicles, and kicking back money to Iraqi Defense Ministry buyers.

The defective equipment has jeopardized the lives of Iraq's embattled security forces and exposed a startling lack of oversight for one of the country's most crucial rebuilding projects.

Officials of Iraq's recently elected government have fired the main suspects in the scandal, and several former defense overseers are under investigation for possible criminal charges, Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi said in an interview this week.

"I view corruption as an incubator for terrorism," said al-Duleimi, who took office in May and isn't implicated in the scandal. "If you can't defend against corruption, you can't defend against terrorism."

The suspected fraud slowed progress in training and equipping Iraqi forces, whose performance against deadly insurgents is the key gauge for when the U.S. military can begin withdrawing its 135,000 troops from Iraq. Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus is the senior U.S. officer in charge of training and equipping Iraqi forces. He declined to comment on the allegations, saying it was a matter for the sovereign government of Iraq to resolve.

Al-Duleimi said investigators are looking at more than 40 questionable contracts that allegedly sent a huge chunk of the ministry's annual budget into the pockets of senior Iraqi defense officials and their foreign business partners.

Other Iraqis familiar with the cases said there may be more fraudulent contracts involving many more millions of dollars. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12134544.htm

[Brian Rucker]

Weekend of slaughter propels Iraq towards all-out civil war

IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend.

One bomber killed almost 100 people when he blew up a fuel tanker south of Baghdad, an attack aimed at snapping Shia patience and triggering the full-blown sectarian war that al-Qaeda has been trying to foment for almost two years.

Iraq’s security forces have been overwhelmed by the scale of the suicide bombings — 11 on Friday alone and many more over the weekend — ordered by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“What is truly happening, and what shall happen, is clear: a war against the Shias,” Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a prominent Shia cleric and MP, told the Iraqi parliament.

Sheikh al-Saghir is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme Shia spiritual leader and moderate who has so far managed to restrain powerful Shia militias from undertaking any outright attack on Sunni insurgents. His warning suggests that the Shia leadership may be losing its grip over Shias who in private often call for an armed backlash against their Sunni assailants.

The sheikh also cautioned Sunni clerics supporting the insurgency against American forces and the Shia-Kurdish Government elected in January. “I am very keen to preserve the Sunni blood that would be shed due to the irrational acts of some of their leaders, who do not see that they are leading the country into civil war,” he told the national assembly.
“The plans of the Interior and Defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists. We need to bring back popular security committees,” Khudair al-Khuzai, a senior parliamentarian who claimed that 50 fellow MPs supported him, said. But with the streets of Baghdad seething with fear, anger and rumours of impending conflict, confidence in anything that the Government says has plummeted. A poll in the state-sponsored al-Sabah newspaper indicated that 51 per cent of Iraqis see the Government’s performance as weak, while only 32 per cent approved. Fuelling the sectarian tension, leaflets are being distributed in southern Baghdad threatening named Shia “collaborators” with execution. Increasingly hardline Shia militias, such as the outlawed Mahdi Army of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, are patrolling large parts of Baghdad, often rounding up suspected Sunni insurgents and imprisoning or even killing them. With the country in turmoil, much of the Government, including Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shia Prime Minister, was on a landmark trip to try to repair relations with Iran, where President Khatami hailed a “turning point” in relations between the neighbours. He promised that his country would do all in its power to rebuild Iraq. But closer ties with Iran’s Shia theocracy has alarmed Iraqi Sunnis, who accuse Iran of interfering.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1698308,00.html

[Brian Rucker]

Well, I'm sure this is going to go over well.

WASHINGTON, July 16 - In the months before the Iraqi elections in January, President Bush approved a plan to provide covert support to certain Iraqi candidates and political parties, but rescinded the proposal because of Congressional opposition, current and former government officials said Saturday.

In a statement issued in response to questions about a report in the next issue of The New Yorker, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said that "in the final analysis, the president determined and the United States government adopted a policy that we would not try - and did not try - to influence the outcome of the Iraqi election by covertly helping individual candidates for office."

The statement appeared to leave open the question of whether any covert help was provided to parties favored by Washington, an issue about which the White House declined to elaborate.

The article, by Seymour M. Hersh, reports that the administration proceeded with the covert plan over the Congressional objections. Several senior Bush administration officials disputed that, although they recalled renewed discussions within the administration last fall about how the United States might counter what was seen as extensive Iranian support to pro-Iranian Shiite parties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/politics/17elect.html

An article in the upcoming issue of the New Yorker magazine reports that despite congressional objections, the White House went ahead with the plan to bolster the campaign of Ayad Allawi, who had been installed by the United States as Iraq's interim prime minister in 2004 and who worked closely with the CIA during his years as an Iraqi exile. Allawi, a secular Shiite, did better than expected in the election but not strongly enough to retain his leadership role.

Several details in the article, including the assertion that the program was carried out by former CIA officers and relied on funding not controlled by Congress, were disputed by officials within the White House, State Department and Congress.

Although the president does not need congressional authority for a covert operation, any such plan would require congressional funding controlled by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Officials said it would be unusual for the White House to go ahead with such a plan without that money.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.,) the House intelligence committee's senior Democrat, would not discuss classified information. But she said in a statement that "Congress was consulted about the Administration's posture in the Iraqi election. I was personally consulted. But if the administration did what is alleged, that would be a violation of the covert action requirements, and that would be deeply troubling."

Asked about the New Yorker article yesterday on CNN's "Late Edition," Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), a Republican member of the Senate intelligence committee, also declined to discuss details: "All I can say is that the administration has tried everything to try to bring about a successful conclusion over there."

Other officials would not comment for the record. But privately, there was wide agreement that the plan, first reported by Time magazine in October 2004, had been approved to counter the heavy organizational and financial support that religious Shiite parties were receiving from Iran.

Diamond said that details revealed in the New Yorker article would likely cause "significant damage to us and our credibility in Iraq. I also think it will do damage to Allawi because it will further the impression of Allawi as a U.S. agent and a U.S. pawn." Allawi was not reachable to comment, and much of the new Iraqi leadership was in Iran for a state visit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071701046.html

[Brian Rucker]

In light of the latest developments let's link back to the original Iraqi election thread here.

http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=16786&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Now Morris can tell us again about how well things are going and how the insurgency is whupped.

[Brian Rucker]

Meanwhile:

BAGHDAD, July 19 -- Three members of the committee writing Iraq's new constitution were reported to have been assassinated Tuesday as they were having lunch in a Baghdad restaurant.

Ali Dabbagh, another member of the committee, confirmed the killings, although there were conflicting reports about whether all three were members. Members of the committee were phoning one another trying to find out.

The killings were in the Karrada neighborhood. Witness Muhanned Rahdi said he saw two cars of gunmen pull up on either side of the vehicle carrying the politicians and open fire. Traffic police opened fire on the gunmens' cars as they fled.

Arab television and Western news-agency reports said the three were Sunni Arabs.

Sunni members of the committee are particularly high targets for attacks, both for Sunni Arab insurgents critical of their involvement with the new Shiite-Kurdish led government and by Shiite extremists.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071900570.html

[Brian Rucker]

Sunni Muslim members on a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution suspended their participation Wednesday in the wake of a colleague's assassination, saying they need more security.

And for those of us wondering where Ahmad Chalabi is - he's busily seeing to it that Saddam gets a fair trial. Whew. Concerns of a kangaroo court as the world views our handiwork? I don't think so. Not with Chalabi in charge!

Meanwhile, an official confirmed that nine staff members of the Iraqi special tribunal preparing to try Saddam Hussein have been dismissed because of links to the ousted dictator's Baath Party.

The cases of 19 others, including the chief investigative judge, are under review.

The executive director of the Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification, Ali al-Lami, said the nine dismissed staffers held administrative jobs such as the witness security protection program and tribunal security.

Al-Lami said that the committee is preparing another list for 19 persons, mostly judges, for possible dismissal. They include chief judge Raid Juhi, he said.

The head of the government committee in charge of purging former Baath officials is Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite.

"We believe that many Baathists have infiltrated the special tribunal and they should be dismissed," said Entifadh Qanbar, Chalabi's spokesman. "The reasons behind the delay in the trial of Saddam is the presence of Baathists in the special tribunal and they represent an obstacle to the trial of the former regime members."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=NJCAM&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&SECTION=HOME

And here's a refresher from 2004 on who Chalabi is and who his friends were and are.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/20/iraq/main618637.shtml

[Brian Rucker]

Iraq's new government has been trumpeted by the Bush administration as a close friend and a model for democracy in the region. In contrast, Bush calls Iran part of an axis of evil and dismisses its elections and government as illegitimate. So the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week.

The two governments went into a tizzy of wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texas oil millionaires found out about Saudi Arabia. Oil pipelines, port access, pilgrimage, trade, security, military assistance, were all on the table in Tehran. All the sorts of contracts and deals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney had imagined for Halliburton, and that the Pentagon neoconservatives had hoped for Israel, were heading instead due east.

Jaafari's visit was a blow to the Bush administration's strategic vision, but a sweet triumph for political Shiism. In the dark days of 1982, Tehran was swarming with Iraqi Shiite expatriates who had been forced to flee Saddam Hussein's death decree against them. They had been forced abroad, to a country with which Iraq was then at war. Ayatollah Khomeini, the newly installed theocrat of Iran, pressured the expatriates to form an umbrella organization, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which he hoped would eventually take over Iraq. Among its members were Jaafari and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. On Jan. 30, 2005, Khomeini's dream finally came true, courtesy of the Bush administration, when the Supreme Council and the Dawa Party won the Iraqi elections.
Not surprisingly, the warming relations between Tehran and Baghdad have greatly alarmed Iraq's Sunni Muslims. They know that Iranian offers of help in training Iraqi security officers, and Iranian professions of support for a united, peaceful Iraq are code for the suppression by Shiite troops and militias of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement. Many Iraqi Sunnis believe that the Sunni Arabs are the true majority, but that millions of illegal Iranian emigrants masquerading as Iraqi Shiites have flooded into the country, skewing vote totals in the recent elections. This belief, for all its irrationality, makes them especially suspicious of Shiite politicians cozying up to the ayatollahs in Tehran. A recent BBC documentary reported that the Sunnis of Fallujah despise Iraqi Shiites even more than they do the Americans, in part because they code them as Persians (in fact they are Arabs).

Although officials in Washington felt constrained to issue polite assurances that they want good relations between Iraq and Iran, the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and hawks in the Bush administration all have a grudge against Iran, and would as soon overthrow the mullahs as spit at them. But thanks to the Iraq debacle, that is no longer a viable option. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack revealed the true amount of influence Washington has in Baghdad when he admitted that the Bush administration has not "had a chance" to discuss Jaafari's trip to Iran with the prime minister.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/21/iran/index.html

Y'know. I'm reminded of this old story:

An urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, it emerged yesterday.
Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.

According to a US intelligence official, the CIA has hard evidence that Mr Chalabi and his intelligence chief, Aras Karim Habib, passed US secrets to Tehran, and that Mr Habib has been a paid Iranian agent for several years, involved in passing intelligence in both directions.

The CIA has asked the FBI to investigate Mr Chalabi's contacts in the Pentagon to discover how the INC acquired sensitive information that ended up in Iranian hands.

The implications are far-reaching. Mr Chalabi and Mr Habib were the channels for much of the intelligence on Iraqi weapons on which Washington built its case for war.

"It's pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner," said an intelligence source in Washington yesterday. "Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi."

Larry Johnson, a former senior counter-terrorist official at the state department, said: "When the story ultimately comes out we'll see that Iran has run one of the most masterful intelligence operations in history. They persuaded the US and Britain to dispose of its greatest enemy."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224075,00.html

[Brian Rucker]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraq's prime minister said Wednesday he wants U.S. troops ``on their way out'' as soon as his government can protect its new democracy. The top American general in the country said he hopes to begin significant withdrawal by next spring.

At the same time, in an unannounced visit, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Iraqi security forces should take on more tasks now performed by U.S. troops.

American military commanders have repeatedly expressed hopes in recent months that they could begin major troop reductions next year, depending on the intensity of the insurgency. Even so, Wednesday's remarks seemed to signal a new willingness to discuss specific ways American troops might exit an increasingly unpopular war in which nearly 2,000 have died.

There was a subdued reaction in Congress. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, ``I remain concerned about establishing timetables and raising expectations. However, I have not seen the data that the general had before him.''

Sen. John McCain, of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican on the committee, said he agreed with Gen. George Casey, the most senior commander of coalition forces in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that withdrawal will be possible only when conditions permit.

``I'm sure that the security situation at the time will dictate what they need to do,'' McCain said.

Al-Jaafari, speaking at a joint news conference with Rumsfeld, said, ``The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces on their way out.''

However, comments by Casey drew the most notice. He told reporters that a ``fairly substantial'' withdrawal of U.S. troops could go ahead in the spring and summer of 2006 if the Iraqi political process is not derailed and the insurgency does not grow.

Ahh...the spring and summer of 2006. Timely. Right before congressional elections! Or is that just me being cynical?

Rumsfeld did not comment on al-Jaafari's remarks, but later told reporters that the country's political leaders need to do more to relieve the burden on American forces. He said Iraqis need to start taking responsibility for guarding the estimated 15,000 U.S.-held prisoners, and should meet the Aug. 15 deadline for completing a draft constitution.

Because they're doing such a great job with the ones they already have. See article above and this more recent one linked below.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4645733.stm

More than half of Americans, 55 percent, who were polled in early July for The Associated Press by Ipsos, said they disapprove of the U.S. government's handling of Iraq. Thirty-seven percent said in AP-Ipsos polling in June that they thought the United States should bring its troops home immediately.

The presence of U.S. troops is increasingly unpopular in Iraq as well. Forty-six percent of Iraqis polled in a survey conducted in March and April said the U.S.-led war had done more harm than good. At the same time, 61 percent said Saddam's ouster was worth the price.

Forty-seven percent of respondents in that CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq are unjustified, while 52 percent said those attacks could be justified some or all of the time.

``We desire speed in that regard,'' al-Jaafari said of a U.S. pullout, but added that no specific timetable exists for a handover.

Now these poll numbers and sentiments would seem odd and contradictory unless you think of the Shiite point of view (Iraqi and Iranian). Getting rid of Saddam was worth any price. Now Shiite Iraqis are in control it's time to get rid of the U.S. forces. Bye-bye, and thanks for all the fish.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5171615,00.html

It's like Rove's running the strategy here. I can't imagine even neocons are thrilled with this turn of events. We're going to split regardless of the consequences and likely end up with a theocratic, "one man, one vote, one time" Iraq in the throes of civil war. And The Republicans'll be shouting "mission accomplished" as our boys come home before the campaign begins.

This is some crazy fucked up shit.

[Tim Partlett]

If Iraq settles down into an Iranian style theocratic democracy, would that be considered a success as long as all the murdering stopped and everyone got to vote? I mean it would be better than life under Saddam, just not all that much better.

[Brian Rucker]

I think for the Iranians it would be a victory.

For the Iraqi Shiite community it could be a mixed decision. You've got different cabals around different mullas and once they've suppressed outside opposition (likely more from the Sunni than the Kurds, it seems their current leadership also has ties to Iran from other stories I've seen) it's not unlikely that Sadr's folks, with closer ties to Iran, might make a play against the older and more "moderate" Shiite theologians aligned under Sistani. Then there are the secular Shiites of Baghdad and other urban areas who might well end up on the sharp end of the stick. Especially those who cooperated with the U.S..

The Sunnis, I don't know. If they ally with Syria there could be a war on. That's to nobody's best interest. It's not impossible that radical Sunni insurgents might keep goading on a civil war, one that's probable if the Shiite government in Baghdad insists on a strong central government.

The Kurds look best positioned to sit out the conflict and just defend themselves. On one hand they're taking land and homes from Sunnis (who'd stolen them from the Kurds themselves but in many cases a generation ago or longer) which creates friction. On the other hand they've got a shared interest with the Sunnis in keeping the Shiite central government from overcoming local autonomy.

It's a loss for the neoconservatives. Their goal was a complete wiping of the slate and redrawing of the borders in the Middle East. A secure Israel and middle eastern oil safely in American hands. Doesn't look like that will happen. Iraq will split into pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian camps neither of which is sympathetic to Israel or will feel particularly beholden to American foreign policy objectives.

It's a loss for oil and military contractors. Obviously we're already seeing many agreements, per earlier articles in this thread, angling towards Iran. And with the Bush Doctrine in disarray, they're even trying to rebrand it with a new name and image, military/defense contractors might not have the cash cow they've been enjoying for the last few years.

It's a loss for America because we've been shown to be fallible and ineffective.

It's a win for al-Qaida because they've got a new playground and, potentially, a new "victory" to vaunt. No matter what they'll be around after we've gone and they'll claim credit.

That's how I see things right now if we seriously start pulling out before things are stabilized. In fairness, I haven't seen much that could suggest how we'd stabilize the situation and come up with a winner here at least at this point. But I hate that so many more progressive Iraqis have come forward, putting trust into us, and we may be letting them down. And I really hate the idea that all the crap our guys have been through over there might not have much payoff. There are folks trying to help others and rebuild, risking their lives, getting killed for what might prove to be, as you put it, something only slightly better than Saddam era Iraq.

[Brian Rucker]

Mayor of Baghdad Is Deposed; Insurgents Kill 4 U.S. Troops

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: August 10, 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 10 - Armed men entered Baghdad's municipal building during a blinding dust storm on Monday, deposed the city's mayor and installed a member of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia.

In continuing violence, the United States military announced today that four American soldiers were killed on Tuesday and six others were wounded when insurgents attacked a patrol near Baiji in northern Iraq. Two Iraqi policemen and four civilians were killed in a suicide car bombing today in western Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said.

The deposed mayor, Alaa al-Tamimi, who was not in his offices at the time, recounted the events in a telephone interview on Tuesday and called the move a municipal coup d'état. He added that he had gone into hiding for fear of his life.

"This is the new Iraq," said Mr. Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation. "They use force to achieve their goal."

The group that ousted him insisted that it had the authority to assume control of Iraq's capital city and that Mr. Tamimi was in no danger. The man the group installed, Hussein al-Tahaan, is a member of the Badr Organization, the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in heavily Shiite areas in southern Iraq but also accused of abuses like forcing women to wear the veils demanded by conservative Shiite religious law.

"If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that," said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief who led the ouster on Monday and who had been in a lengthy and unresolved legal feud with Mr. Tamimi.

"We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone," Mr. Makkia said. "This is not a coup."

Mr. Makkia confirmed that he had entered the building with armed men but said that they were bodyguards for him and several other council members who accompanied him. Witnesses estimated that the number of armed men ranged from 50 to 120. Mr. Makkia is a member of a Shiite political party that swept to victory during the across-the-board Shiite successes during January's elections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/international/10cnd-iraq.html

[Brian Rucker]

I need therapy. I can't stop posting. But this is kinda important in light of events:

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - With four days left until Iraq's leaders have promised a draft constitution, powerful Islamist leaders made a dramatic bid on Thursday to have a big, autonomous Shi'ite region across the oil-rich south.

The head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) spelled out his demands to tens of thousands of chanting supporters in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

But minority Sunni and secular opponents, as well as rival Shi'ite Islamists in the coalition national government, swiftly poured cold water on an idea that fueled fears about sectarian battles over oil and Iranian-style religious rule in the south.

Some saw it as a negotiating tactic ahead of a self-imposed deadline on Monday to present the draft to parliament; a top Shi'ite negotiator, who dismissed the demand made by SCIRI chief Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, said 16 points were still in dispute.
Hakim, a striking figure in clerical robes whose long exile in Tehran make him a figure of suspicion for many Sunni Arabs, was backed up in his demands at the Najaf rally by the leader of the Badr movement, formed in Iran as the armed wing of SCIRI.

``They are trying to prevent the Shi'ites from enjoying their own federalism,'' Badr leader Hadi al-Amery told the crowd, which had gathered to commemorate the assassination two years ago by a car bomb in Najaf of Hakim's brother, the former SCIRI leader.

``What have we got from the central government but death?'' he said, recalling decades of oppression under Sunni-dominated rule from Baghdad, most recently by Saddam Hussein.

``We think it necessary to form one whole region in the south,'' said Hakim, a major force in the coalition that came to power in January's election, secured by U.S. military force.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq.html

Now what this is saying to me is that I miscast Sistani as a moderate and that I need to get a better understanding of the relationship between Dawa and SCIRI instead of just thinking of them as the "Shiite Islamic" parties. That they are but what's driving SCIRI's mistrust of a government that, obviously, will be mostly run by themselves and kindred spirits? Unless they're not, so much.

If anyone has a good article looking at the history of and between these two outfits I'd really like to see it. Thanks.