The botched ‘war on terror’

Posted on January 10, 2006 by Team VCS

President George W Bush has lost the support of most Americans when it comes to the economy, the environment and the war in Iraq, but he continues to enjoy majority support in one key area: his handling of the “war on terrorism”. Indeed, many analysts believe that Bush won the 2004 election largely because swing voters concluded that he would do a better job at this than his Democratic challenger, John Kerry. In fact, with his overall opinion-poll approval ratings so low, Bush’s purported proficiency in fighting terror represents something close to his last claim to public legitimacy.

But has he truly been effective in combating terror? As the “war on terrorism” drags on – with no signs of victory in sight – there are good reasons to doubt his competency at this, the most critical of all his presidential responsibilities.

Consider, for a moment, the president’s view of the “war on terror”. While the White House keeps trying to stretch this term to include everything from the war in Iraq to the protection of oil pipelines in Colombia, most Americans wisely view it in more narrow terms, as a global struggle against Muslim zealots who seek to punish the US for its perceived anti-Islamic behavior and to free the Middle East of Western influence through desperate acts of violence.

These zealots – or jihadis as they are often termed – include the original members of al-Qaeda, along with other groups that claim allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s dogmas but are not necessarily in direct contact with his lieutenants. It is in fighting these adversaries that the public wants Bush to succeed, and it is in this contest that he is failing.

Why is this so? Consider the nature of the US commander-in-chief’s primary responsibilities in wartime. Surely, his overarching task is to devise (with the help of senior advisers) a winning strategy to defeat, or at least pummel, the enemy and to mobilize the forces and resources needed to successfully implement this framework.

Choosing the tactics of battle – the day-by-day management of combat operations – should not, on the other hand, fall under the commander-in-chief’s responsibility, but rather be delegated to professionals recruited for this purpose. Bush has failed on both counts, embracing a deeply flawed blueprint for the “war on terror” and then meddling disastrously in the tactics employed to carry it out.

Finding terrorism’s center of gravity

As all the great masters of strategy have taught us, devising a winning strategy requires, first and foremost, understanding one’s opponent and correctly identifying his strengths and weaknesses. Once that has been accomplished, it is necessary to craft a mode of attack that exploits the enemy’s weaknesses and undermines or overpowers his strengths.

In modern military parlance, this task is often described as locating and destroying the enemy’s “center of gravity”.

For example, in both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American war planners correctly identified the Iraqi center of gravity as the highly centralized, top-down command structure of the Saddam Hussein regime; once this structure was crippled early in the fighting, the Iraqi combat units in the field – however capable and dedicated – were unable to perform effectively, and so were easily routed.

In the current war in Iraq, by contrast, American commanders have been unable to locate the enemy’s center of gravity, and so have been incapable of crafting an effective strategy for defeating the insurgents.

What, then, is the enemy’s center of gravity in the “war on terror”? This is the critical question that Bush and his top advisers have been unable to answer correctly. According to Bush, the terrorists’ center of gravity has been the support and sanctuary they receive from “rogue” regimes such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and, supposedly, Saddam in Iraq, as well as the mullahs in Iran. If these regimes were all swept away, the White House has long argued, the terrorists would find themselves weakened, isolated, and ultimately defeated.

“The very day of the [September 11] attacks,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later recalled, “[Bush] told us, his advisers, that the United States faced a new kind of war and that the strategy of our government would be to take the fight to the terrorists. That night, he announced to the world that the United States would make no distinction between the terrorists and the states that harbor them.” From this basic proposition, all else has followed: the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and the current planning for a possible war in Iran.

The overthrow of the Taliban did eliminate an important sanctuary and training base for al-Qaeda. But were “rogue” regimes ever truly the center of gravity for the terrorist threat? The events of the past few years unequivocally demonstrate that such has not been the case, then or now. (In fact, we know that there were no links between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda.) The Taliban and the Hussein regime are, of course, long gone, but al-Qaeda continues to mount assaults on Western interests around the world and new manifestations of jihadism continue to erupt all the time.

“Al-Qaeda has clearly shown itself to be nimble, flexible and adaptive,” observed terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of the RAND Corporation in Current History magazine. “Because of the group’s remarkable durability, the loss of Afghanistan does not appear to have affected al-Qaeda’s ability to mount terrorist attacks to the extent that the United States hoped.”

Afghanistan did provide bin Laden with training facilities, supply dumps and the like, “but these camps and bases … are mostly irrelevant to the prosecution of an international terrorist campaign – as events since [September 11] have repeatedly demonstrated”.

Far from impeding al-Qaeda and its offshoots, the overthrow of the Taliban and, especially, the Hussein regime has been a boon to their efforts. War and chaos in the Middle East, with US forces serving as an occupying power, have proved to be the ideal conditions in which to nurture a multinational jihadi movement aimed at punishing the West.

As noted in a recent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report, would-be jihadis from all over the world are flocking to Iraq to bloody the Americans and acquire critical combat skills that can later be applied in their own countries. According to a summary of a CIA report in the New York Times, the agency has concluded that “Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in al-Qaeda’s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory” for militants to improve their skills in urban combat.

It follows from this that the longer US troops remain in Iraq, the greater will be the potential advantage to international terrorism. Indeed, senior CIA officials have reportedly told congressional leaders that the war in Iraq is “likely to produce a dangerous legacy, by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict”.

This prediction has been confirmed in recent months by terror attacks in Jordan and Afghanistan that bear the distinctive trademark of Iraqi-style combat, including the use of both suicide bombers in urban areas and improvised roadside explosive devices, or IEDs.

For example, the deadly bombings in Amman on November 9 have been described by American intelligence officials as representing an effort by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the self-styled al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, to apply combat techniques perfected in Iraq to other countries led by pro-American regimes.

Likewise, in Afghanistan, US officials have told reporters that “militants are increasingly taking a page from the insurgent playbook in Iraq and using more roadside bombs and suicide attacks”.

European officials are particularly worried by this phenomenon, fearing the return to Europe of Islamic militants who have slipped off to Iraq for first-hand combat experience. “We consider these people dangerous because those who go will come back once their mission is accomplished,” said a senior French intelligence officer in late 2004. “Then they can use the knowledge gained there in France, Europe or the United States. It’s the same as those who went to Afghanistan or Chechnya.”

Botching the ‘war on terror’

Clearly, Bush’s identification of rogue regimes as the center of gravity of the terrorist enemy has proved faulty; nor, in light of this failure, has he been able to correctly identify the true center. As suggested by most serious scholars of Islamic extremism, the real crux of the jihadis’ strength lies in their ability to articulate and propagate a message of radical struggle that inspires and activates thousands of disaffected young Muslims around the world.

As summarized by Hoffman of RAND, al-Qaeda has evolved into “an amorphous movement tenuously held together by a loosely networked constituency rather than a monolithic, international organization with an identifiable command and control apparatus … It has become a vast enterprise – an international movement or franchise operation with like-minded local representatives, loosely connected to a central ideological or motivational base but advancing its goals independently.”

Obviously, defeating this “movement” requires a very different strategy than the one now employed by the US. Instead of military assaults on rogue states, it requires a capacity to identify and apprehend the often self-appointed “local representatives” of al-Qaeda, to disable the movement’s propaganda apparatus, and, most of all, to discredit its prime messages.

On a grand scale, this requires positioning the US with progressive forces in the Middle East, withdrawing from Iraq and ending US support for repressive, regressive regimes like those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. On a purely tactical level, it means developing harmonious relations with professional intelligence officials in other countries and developing a communications strategy aimed at delegitimizing the jihadis’ violent appeals within the Islamic world – an effort that can only be successful if it enjoys the assistance of moderate Muslims willing to cooperate with the US.

The need for a strategy of this sort has been voiced by at least some terrorism experts in the US and by many officials in Europe. But even those American experts who have advocated such an approach have been repeatedly stymied by the president’s unswerving commitment to his own, demonstrably failed approach. No divergence from the official White House blueprint has been permitted. To make matters worse, Bush and his top advisers have insisted on micro-managing the “war on terror”, choosing tactics that amplify the damage caused by their defective strategy.

The greatest damage has been caused by decisions made by top administration officials, including the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, regarding the methods used to apprehend, confine, and extract information from terrorist suspects and those associated with them.

Most significantly, this includes decisions to permit the abduction of suspects on the territory of friendly nations, to use Europe as a stopover point for the transport or “rendition” of suspects to Asian and Middle Eastern countries where torture is routinely employed to extract confessions, to allow US interrogators to use methods that by any reasonable definition constitute torture, and to tolerate the mistreatment of Muslim prisoners in US custody (whether at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay or in secret CIA-run prisons in Afghanistan, Europe and elsewhere).

Separately and together, these decisions have severely alienated the very governments and religious figures whose assistance is desperately needed to mount an effective campaign against al-Qaeda and its offshoots.

To give just one example of the problems this has caused the US: On December 24, an Italian judge issued arrest warrants for 22 purported CIA operatives who abducted an Egyptian cleric in Milan in 2003 and “rendered” him to Egypt, where he was subsequently tortured by Egyptian security officers. This case has caused a major uproar in Italy, forcing even Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, normally a reliable White House ally, to distance himself from US policies – hardly the way to hold on to, no less gain, allies in the “war on terror”.

Equally worrisome is the growing anti-Americanism espoused by supposedly “mainstream” Islamic clerics in Europe. Prompted by what they view as an unrelenting US campaign against the Islamic world – the abuses uncovered at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere providing but the most recent confirmations of this outlook – these clerics are promulgating a militant message that, European intelligence officers contend, is inspiring young Muslim men to volunteer for combat in Iraq or to form their own, home-grown al-Qaeda-type organizations. It was a group of this sort, experts believe, that staged the bombings in the London Underground last July 7 that killed 52 people.

It is impossible to exaggerate the damage caused by the US president’s improvident decisions. Yes, these tactics are immoral. Yes, they violate US norms and values. Yes, they are in many respects illegal. All this, by itself, is enough to warrant condemnation by Congress and the public. But it is the lethal effect of these decisions on America’s capacity for success in the “war on terror” that most concerns us here.

By employing tactics that only serve to heighten the destructive consequences of a failing strategy, Bush has in essence guaranteed America’s failure. In the final analysis, the president’s incompetent management of the “war on terror” has helped the jihadis take better advantage of their strengths while exploiting America’s weaknesses. This does not bode well for the future of global peace and stability.

For too long, the American public has accepted the myth of presidential effectiveness in the “war on terror”. But as the practical implications of Bush’s incompetence become ever more apparent – lamentably, through the continued spread and potency of radical jihadism – this last, crucial prop of the president’s support could soon fall away. As 2005 was the year in which Bush’s fatal incompetence in domestic affairs was revealed to all through the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, 2006 could prove to be the year in which his failed leadership in the “war on terror” finally comes back to haunt him.

Michael T Klare is the professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict.

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Scandal of force-fed prisoners

Posted on January 9, 2006 by Team VCS

New details have emerged of how the growing number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay are being tied down and force-fed through tubes pushed down their nasal passages into their stomachs to keep them alive.

They routinely experience bleeding and nausea, according to a sworn statement by the camp’s chief doctor, seen by The Observer.

‘Experience teaches us’ that such symptoms must be expected ‘whenever nasogastric tubes are used,’ says the affidavit of Captain John S Edmondson, commander of Guantánamo’s hospital. The procedure – now standard practice at Guantánamo – ‘requires that a foreign body be inserted into the body and, ideally, remain in it.’ But staff always use a lubricant, and ‘a nasogastric tube is never inserted and moved up and down. It is inserted down into the stomach slowly and directly, and it would be impossible to insert the wrong end of the tube.’ Medical personnel do not insert nasogastric tubes in a manner ‘intentionally designed to inflict pain.’

It is painful, Edmonson admits. Although ‘non-narcotic pain relievers such as ibuprofen are usually sufficient, sometimes stronger drugs,’ including opiates such as morphine, have had to be administered.

Thick, 4.8mm diameter tubes tried previously to allow quicker feeding, so permitting guards to keep prisoners in their cells for more hours each day, have been abandoned, the affidavit says. The new 3mm tubes are ‘soft and flexible’.

The London solicitors Allen and Overy, who represent some of the hunger strikers, have lodged a court action to be heard next week in California, where Edmondson is registered to practise. They are asking for an order that the state medical ethics board investigate him for ‘unprofessional conduct’ for agreeing to the force-feeding.

Edmonson’s affidavit, in response to a lawsuit on behalf of detainees on hunger strike since last August, was obtained last week by The Observer, as a Guantánamo spokesman confirmed that the number of hunger strikers has almost doubled since Christmas, to 81 of the 550 detainees. Many have been held since the camp opened four years ago this month, although they not been charged with any crime, nor been allowed to see any evidence justifying their detention.

This and other Guantánamo lawsuits now face extinction. Last week, President Bush signed into law a measure removing detainees’ right to file habeas corpus petitions in the US federal courts. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to make this retroactive, so nullifying about 220 cases in which prisoners have contested the basis of their detention and the legality of pending trials by military commission.

Although some prisoners have had to be tied down while being force-fed, ‘only one patient’ has had to be immobilised with a six-point restraint, and ‘only one’ passed out. ‘In less than 10 cases have trained medical personnel had to use four-point restraint in order to achieve insertion.’ Edmondson claims the actual feeding is voluntary. During Ramadan, tube-feeding takes place before dawn.

Article 5 of the 1975 World Medical Association Tokyo Declaration, which US doctors are legally bound to observe through their membership of the American Medical Association, states that doctors must not undertake force-feeding under any circumstances. Dr David Nicholl, a consultant neurologist at Queen Elizabeth’s hospital in Birmingham, is co-ordinating opposition to the Guantánamo doctors’ actions from the international medical community. ‘If I were to do what Edmondson describes in his statement, I would be referred to the General Medical Council and charged with assault,’ he said.

· Yesterday the new German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the latest leader to condemn the United States for practices at the prison. In a magazine interview days before her first visit as premier to the US, Merkel said Washington should close Guantánamo and find other ways of dealing with terror suspects.

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Domestic spying issue likely to dominate politics in 2006

Posted on January 9, 2006 by Team VCS

One week into the new year, we are already mired in an acrimonious debate over whether George W. Bush – who vows to continue his warrantless domestic spying program – is crafting an imperial presidency unfettered by constitutional checks and balances or is restoring broad powers that he sees in the plain language in the Constitution.

Bush says he is acting within his constitutional prerogatives, but this debate could be the most critical political issue of 2006. It will surface in Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearing, which starts Monday. It will permeate the impending debate over extension of the Patriot Act. It will raise thorny and explosive questions about the proper balance between national security and individual liberties in the Sept. 11 era. And, perhaps most important, it will mirror the national divide over Bush himself.

His supporters argue that, by approving warrantless domestic surveillance, he’s taking the necessary steps to protect Americans from enemies foreign and domestic; to do otherwise, they say, would be a dereliction of duty. But Bush’s critics – including legal scholars who contend that he has committed impeachable acts – now view him as a cross between Jack Bauer and Louis XIV.

Louis XIV was the famous French king who declared, “L’etat, c’est moi” (translation: I am the state). Jack Bauer is the famous Fox network hero of the show “24,” the anti-terrorist agent who last season tortured a series of suspects with no regard for legal niceties and, at one point, outfoxed a craven civil liberties lawyer who was messing things up as the clock ticked down.

The Bush team prefers to view this president as a cross between Abe Lincoln (who suspended some civil liberties during the Civil War) and founding father Alexander Hamilton (who wrote that “energy in the executive … is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks”). Or, as Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas puts it, national security trumps all: “None of your civil liberties matter much after you’re dead.”

But you know that emotions must be running high when a constitutional lawyer says this: “President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. … Congress should insist the president cease the spying unless or until a proper statute is enacted, or face possible impeachment.” Those are the words of conservative Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general under Ronald Reagan, who contends that Bush has explicitly broken the 1978 federal law that requires that a president obtain warrants.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and a frequent counsel in national security cases, argued Friday that, because of Bush’s spying program, “we now have the most serious constitutional crisis that this country has faced in decades. A president cannot be allowed to become a law unto himself.

“I testified in Congress in support of Bill Clinton’s impeachment, and I also thought he should have been convicted. At that time, my Republican friends insisted that the Clinton case was about the rule of law. Today I’m a bit surprised to see so many of them being so conspicuously silent. This president is misusing his office to order the continued commission of federal crimes. That is unique in the annals of impeachment.”

Impeachment talk will fizzle in Congress because Republicans control both chambers. And Bush supporters say the charge lacks merit anyway. As conservative commentator Rich Lowry contended the other day: “The president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to defend the United States. If he can bomb the nation’s enemies overseas without a court’s approval, he certainly can listen to their conversations.”

Nevertheless, there will be hearings on the spying program (perhaps in secret, if the White House gets its way), and some lawmakers may be ready to challenge the Bush administration’s claim that the president has the “inherent authority” to conduct the war on terror without interference from another branch of government.

The issue of expansive executive power has been festering ever since the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush, among other things, has claimed the authority to detain U.S. citizens as “enemy combatants” indefinitely without trial, and to define torture. (Recently, he signed a law banning inhumane tactics but suggested in a statement that he might ignore the ban.) The exposure of the domestic spying program will undoubtedly sharpen debate on Capitol Hill and prompt some sensitive questions about the scope of presidential power.

For instance:

How does Bush’s claim of “inherent authority” square with Bush’s claim that he is a “strict constructionist”? A literal reading of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reveals that it is “the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance … may be conducted” and requires that a president “during time of war” can conduct warrantless spying for a maximum of only 15 days, after which he must obtain court approval. And in a literal reading of the 2001 resolution authorizing Bush to use military force against terrorists, there are no references to domestic eavesdropping and no provisions setting aside the 1978 law.

Bush is fervently defending his three-year-old spying program and arguing that warrants are an impediment, but how does that square with his past remarks? On April 20, 2004, he said: “There are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the U.S. government talking about a wiretap, it requires – a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so … because we value the Constitution.”

The president’s lawyers stated, in a Dec. 22 letter to the Congress, that Bush ignored the 1978 law because he deemed it too slow. They wrote: “FISA could not have provided the speed and agility required.” But how does that square with the fact that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives the president a 15-day grace period to initiate surveillance – and that FISA has rarely been an impediment? Between 1979 and 2002, the foreign intelligence surveillance court approved 15,264 warrants. It rejected four.

Morton Halperin, a national security official in three administrations (Johnson, Nixon and Clinton), said he suspected that the administration’s real motive for ignoring the law is that the eavesdroppers have been trolling widely for information without the traditional standard of probable cause. But, given the secrecy of the program, there is no way to prove that – and, more broadly, it remains to be seen whether there is sufficient political will to buck Bush on the issue of presidential clout.

This is particularly true for the Democrats, many of whom remain spooked by any issue that could make them appear soft on terrorism. Liberals are hot to blast Bush for imperial behavior, but others in the party think the issue is a loser. Activist Marshall Wittmann, who hails from the moderate wing, argued the other day that “what seems lost is the reality that jihadists seek to attack within the borders of the United States.”

The latest surveys don’t provide much encouragement to the liberals. Democratic pollster Mark Penn reports that, in his latest soundings, the GOP is favored over the Democrats, by 48 to 38 percent, as the party “more trusted to fight terrorism.” And, according to independent pollster John Zogby, 49 percent of likely voters believe that Bush has the power to OK warrantless spying while 45 percent say no.

Zogby said Friday that, in the abstract, most Americans treasure privacy, “but the numbers shift when you put Bush’s name in the poll.”

“Republicans and Republican-leaning independents rally to him, and you end up with the public virtually split down the middle, as usual. That’s the state of our nation.”

And, as usual, the Democrats are in a tough spot. They have nearly half of the voters, but they have no clout in Washington. Many fear the argument that Bush has gone too far, lest they be accused of not wanting to go far enough. Turley, the law scholar, lamented: “The framers created a system of checks and balances that doesn’t function well when two, or even three, branches of government are controlled by the same party.”

Bush is working on that third branch. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned, in a 2004 decision, that “a state of war is not a blank check for the president … even the war power does not remove constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties.” Her prospective replacement, Samuel Alito, is perceived as a potentially friendlier vote for executive power. The questioning begins this week.

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The Real Choice in Iraq

Posted on January 9, 2006 by Team VCS

The administration’s rhetorical devolution speaks for itself. Yet, with some luck and with a more open decision-making process in the White House, greater political courage on the part of Democratic leaders and even some encouragement from authentic Iraqi leaders, the U.S. war in Iraq could (and should) come to an end within a year.

“Victory or defeat” is, in fact, a false strategic choice. In using this formulation, the president would have the American people believe that their only options are either “hang in and win” or “quit and lose.” But the real, practical choice is this: “persist but not win” or “desist but not lose.”

Victory, as defined by the administration and its supporters — i.e., a stable and secular democracy in a unified Iraqi state, with the insurgency crushed by the American military assisted by a disciplined, U.S.-trained Iraqi national army — is unlikely. The U.S. force required to achieve it would have to be significantly larger than the present one, and the Iraqi support for a U.S.-led counterinsurgency would have to be more motivated. The current U.S. forces (soon to be reduced) are not large enough to crush the anti-American insurgency or stop the sectarian Sunni-Shiite strife. Both problems continue to percolate under an inconclusive but increasingly hated foreign occupation.

Moreover, neither the Shiites nor the Kurds are likely to subordinate their specific interests to a unified Iraq with a genuine, single national army. As the haggling over the new government has already shown, the two dominant forces in Iraq — the religious Shiite alliance and the separatist Kurds — share a common interest in preventing a restoration of Sunni domination, with each determined to retain a separate military capacity for asserting its own specific interests, largely at the cost of the Sunnis. A truly national army in that context is a delusion. Continuing doggedly to seek “a victory” in that fashion dooms America to rising costs in blood and money, not to mention the intensifying Muslim hostility and massive erosion of America’s international legitimacy, credibility and moral reputation.

The administration’s definition of “defeat” is similarly misleading. Official and unofficial spokesmen often speak in terms that recall the apocalyptic predictions made earlier regarding the consequences of American failure to win in Vietnam: dominoes falling, the region exploding and U.S. power discredited. An added touch is the notion that the Iraqi insurgents will then navigate the Atlantic and wage terrorism on the American homeland.

The real choice that needs to be faced is between:

An acceptance of the complex post-Hussein Iraqi realities through a relatively prompt military disengagement — which would include a period of transitional and initially even intensified political strife as the dust settled and as authentic Iraqi majorities fashioned their own political arrangements.

An inconclusive but prolonged military occupation lasting for years while an elusive goal is pursued.

It is doubtful, to say the least, that America’s domestic political support for such a futile effort could long be sustained by slogans about Iraq’s being “the central front in the global war on terrorism.”

In contrast, a military disengagement by the end of 2006, derived from a more realistic definition of an adequate outcome, could ensure that desisting is not tantamount to losing. In an Iraq dominated by the Shiites and the Kurds — who together account for close to 75 percent of the population — the two peoples would share a common interest in Iraq’s independence as a state. The Kurds, with their autonomy already amounting in effect to quasi-sovereignty, would otherwise be threatened by the Turks. And the Iraqi Shiites are first of all Arabs; they have no desire to be Iran’s satellites. Some Sunnis, once they were aware that the U.S. occupation was drawing to a close and that soon they would be facing an overwhelming Shiite-Kurdish coalition, would be more inclined to accommodate the new political realities, especially when deprived of the rallying cry of resistance to a foreign occupier.

In addition, it is likely that both Kuwait and the Kurdish regions of Iraq would be amenable to some residual U.S. military presence as a guarantee against a sudden upheaval. Once the United States terminated its military occupation, some form of participation by Muslim states in peacekeeping in Iraq would be easier to contrive, and their involvement could also help to cool anti-American passions in the region.

In any case, as Iraqi politics gradually become more competitive, it is almost certain that the more authentic Iraqi leaders (not handpicked by the United States) — to legitimate their claim to power — will begin to demand publicly a firm date for U.S. withdrawal. That is all to the good. In fact, they should be quietly encouraged to do so, because that would increase their popular support while allowing the United States to claim a soberly redefined “Mission Accomplished.”

The requisite first step to that end is for the president to break out of his political cocoon. His policymaking and his speeches are the products of the true believers around him who are largely responsible for the mess in Iraq. They have a special stake in their definition of victory, and they reinforce his convictions instead of refining his judgments. The president badly needs to widen his circle of advisers. Why not consult some esteemed Republicans and Democrats not seeking public office — say, Warren Rudman or Colin Powell or Lee Hamilton or George Mitchell — regarding the definition of an attainable yet tolerable outcome in Iraq?

Finally, Democratic leaders should stop equivocating while carping. Those who want to lead in 2008 are particularly unwilling to state clearly that ending the war soon is both desirable and feasible. They fear being labeled as unpatriotic. Yet defining a practical alternative would provide a politically effective rebuttal to those who mindlessly seek an unattainable “victory.” America needs a real choice regarding its tragic misadventure in Iraq.

The writer was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

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Bush defies Congress in filling defense, foreign policy posts

Posted on January 8, 2006 by Team VCS

US President George W. Bush has defied Congress again by placing a slew of controversial political allies in key national security and foreign policy posts, circumventing the requisite approval process in the Senate.

Bush resorted to the same recess appointment procedure he used in August to install John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations, despite Capitol Hill’s strong opposition to the nominee.

On Wednesday, the bureaucratic maneuver was used to fill key vacancies in the Defense, State and Homeland Security Departments with officials whose approval by the Senate was in doubt.

The White House said Bush had appointed Gordon England, a former Navy secretary, to the post of deputy secretary of defense left vacant by Paul Wolfowitz, a leading architect of the Iraq war, who resigned the second-highest Pentagon job last year to become president of the World Bank.

A former General Dynamics executive, England was designated acting deputy defense secretary in May, but his Senate confirmation hearing hit a roadblock when at least two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Trent Lott of Mississippi, put it on hold over his decisions concerning the local shipbuilding industry.

The recess appointment, which presidents can made when Congress is in recess, will allow England and others to remain in their jobs until January 2007, when the current congressional session ends.

However, England’s appointed was expected to generate less controversy than that of Dorrance Smith, who was named assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, or the Pentagon’s chief spokesman.

In November, Smith penned an article for The Wall Street Journal blasting all major US television networks and the government of Qatar for cooperating with Al-Jazeera in showing gruesome battlefield footage obtained by the Arab television channel in Iraq.

He decried what he called “the ongoing relationship between terrorists, Al-Jazeera and the networks” and asked if the US government should maintain normal relations with Qatar as long as its government continued to subsidize Al-Jazeera.

The outburst prompted Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to ask whether Smith, a former media adviser to ex-US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer, “should be representing the United States government … with that kind of attitude and approach.”

Levin also announced he was putting a senatorial hold on the nomination, which remains in effect.

Under Senate rules, a single senator can block a presidential nomination by adducing serious concerns about the candidate’s fitness for the job.

The recess appointment list also includes Ellen Sauerbrey, who has now become assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.

A former unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maryland, Sauerbrey has infuriated most women’s groups by her staunch opposition to abortion rights in her current job as ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

Her nomination was being fought by Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama and Paul Sarbanes, with Boxer charging Sauerbrey had displayed “outright hostility” to women’s rights at her UN job.

But if most of the latest recess appointees were opposed on ideological grounds, the naming of Julie Myers to the job of assistant secretary of homeland security in charge of immigration and customs was likely to revive charges of lax ethics.

The 36-year-old lawyer from Kansas lacks significant management experience, her critics said, but has the distinction of being a niece of the former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Richard Myers, who retired from the Pentagon last year.

Even The National Review, a leading conservative mouthpiece that rarely disagrees with Bush, editorialized last September that Myers’ appointment “smacks of cronyism.”

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The Cost of the War

Posted on January 7, 2006 by Team VCS

    Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes plan to present this week a paper estimating the cost of the Iraq War at between $1-2 trillion. This is far higher than earlier estimates of $100-200 billion.

    Here is their statement:

    New Study Suggests Economic Cost of Iraq War Much Larger than Previously Recognized

    A new study by two leading academic experts suggests that the costs of the Iraq war will be substantially higher than previously reckoned. In a paper presented to this week’s Allied Social Sciences Association annual meeting in Boston MA., Harvard budget expert Linda Bilmes and Columbia University Professor and Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz calculate that the war is likely to cost the United States a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars and potentially over $2 trillion.

    The study expands on traditional budgetary estimates by including costs such as lifetime disability and health care for the over16,000 injured, one fifth of whom have serious brain or spinal injuries. It then goes on to analyze the costs to the economy, including the economic value of lives lost and the impact of factors such as higher oil prices that can be partly attributed to the conflict in Iraq. The paper also calculates the impact on the economy if a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war were spent in other ways, including on investments in the United States

    “Shortly before the war, when Administration economist Larry Lindsey suggested that the costs might range between $100 and $200 billion, Administration spokesmen quickly distanced themselves from those numbers,” points out Professor Stiglitz. “But in retrospect, it appears that Lindsey’s numbers represented a gross underestimate of the actual costs.”

    The Allied Social Sciences Association meeting is attended by the nation’s leading economists and social scientists. It is sponsored jointly by the American Economic Association and the Economists for Peace and Security.

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Reclaiming the Red, White and Blue For All Americans

Posted on January 6, 2006 by Team VCS

Like Betsy Ross, I sew American flags. But I do my work for 55 cents an hour in an assembly line inside the Central California Women’s Facility, one of the largest women’s prisons in the world.

I was sentenced to prison for 15 years after being convicted of selling $20 worth of heroin to an undercover cop. I sew flags to buy toiletries and food.

From the time I was a little girl, I was taught to put my hand over my heart when pledging allegiance to the flag. I emphatically believed in the values of independence, freedom and equality the flag represents. But as time went on and I grew older, I learned that these values do not apply equally to all Americans.

Flags hаvе bееn used fоr a variety оf purposes аnd thе mоѕt important оf thеm іѕ tо send оut a signal. In ancient days knights used tо carry flags ѕо thаt thеу соuld bе identified bу friends аnd foe аѕ іt wаѕ impossible tо know whо wаѕ bеhіnd thе heavily clad armors. Thеrе аrе flags thаt represent countries аnd provinces аnd thеrе аrе ѕоmе flags thаt аrе used fоr decorative purposes. Here you can buy the American flag.

Mаnу organizations аnd companies аrоund thе world аlѕо hаvе flags аnd оftеn thе symbol оr thе logo оf thе company forms a major portion оf thе flag. Clubs аrе аlѕо known tо hаvе thеіr оwn flags аnd ѕо dо thе various defense forces оf thе countries. All countries іn thе world hаvе a flag оf thеіr оwn аnd thе flags usually gіvе оut ѕоmе information regarding thе history оf thе country оr thе roots оf thе country.

Whеthеr уоu purchase thе nylon оr polyester flag material уоur flag wіll eventually tear аnd fade. Thеrеfоrе, thеrе іѕ nо exact оr definite answer fоr thіѕ question. Thе U.S. Government usually expects a flag tо lаѕt 90 days based оn daily usage frоm sunrise tо sunset – but nоt durіng periods оf inclement weather. Flags thаt аrе subject tо flight 24 hours a day wіll hаvе a shorter life thаn thоѕе flown оnlу durіng daylight hours.

Factors thаt limit thе life оf уоur flag аrе wind, rain, sun аnd airborne contaminates ѕuсh аѕ pollutants, smoke аnd dirt. Remembering tо tаkе уоur flag dоwn іn inclement weather wіll help іn lengthening thе life оf уоur flag.

As a black girl, I attended segregated schools without enough resources to provide a quality education. As an adult, I struggled continuously with drug addiction, but there were no resources available for me to get help. Instead, I was sent to prison.

My experience resonates with the historical reality for black people. We always have had unequal access to resources that would have allowed us to provide for our families and make our communities prosper. Nearly one-fourth of all black folks in America live below the poverty line, twice the national average.

America has become a country that imprisons those it fails, blaming poverty, drug addiction or homelessness on individuals rather than recognizing and addressing the conditions that give rise to them.

In California, more than 70 percent of women in prison are serving time for nonviolent, property or drug-related offenses. The 3,000 women in my prison are disproportionately poor and minority. Prison marks the separation in our society between the haves and the have-nots, between those who walk free and those of us held captive.

Instead of using prisons as a supposed solution to social problems, we should reallocate our resources to invest in every person in America so that each one of us can have access to food and water, to housing and health care, to quality education and well-paying jobs.

Betsy Ross, who was born Jan. 1, 1752, sewed a flag that represented a vision of an equal and just society. And we, as Americans, pledge allegiance to a flag I sew, dedicating ourselves to “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

To honor this flag at the start of this year, we must resolve to make America a country where all people can thrive.

Beverly Henry is an inmate at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, Calif.

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Bush’s War on Professionals

Posted on January 6, 2006 by Team VCS

New ranges of secret government are emerging from the fog of war. The latest disclosure, by the New York Times, of domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency performed by evasion of the special Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court surfaces a vast hidden realm. But the NSA spying is not an isolated island of policy; it is connected to the mainland of Bush’s expansive new national security apparatus.

    At the beginning of the Cold War, the National Security Act of 1947 authorized the creation of new institutions of foreign policy and intelligence, including the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. But Bush has built a secret system, without enabling legislation, justified by executive fiat and presidential findings alone, deliberately operating beyond the oversight of Congress and the courts, and existing outside the law. It is a national security state of torture, ghost detainees, secret prisons, renditions and domestic eavesdropping.

    The arguments used to rationalize this system insist that the president as commander in chief is entitled to arbitrary and unaccountable rule. The memos written by John Yoo, former deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, constitute a basic ideology of absolute power.

    Congress, at best, is held in contempt as a pest and, at worst, is regarded as an intruder on the president’s rightful authority. The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, have been models of complicity in fending off oversight, attacking other members of Congress, especially Republicans, who have had the temerity to insist on it, using their committees to help the White House suppress essential information about the operations of government, and issuing tilted partisan reports smearing critics. This is the sort of congressional involvement, at White House direction, that the White House believes fulfills the congressional mandate.

    During his first term, President Bush issued an unprecedented 108 statements upon signing bills of legislation that expressed his own version of their content. He has countermanded the legislative history, which legally establishes the foundation of their meaning, by executive diktat. In particular, he has rejected parts of legislation that he considered stepped on his power in national security matters. In effect, Bush engages in presidential nullification of any law he sees fit. He then acts as if his gesture supersedes whatever Congress has done.

    Political scientist Phillip Cooper, of Portland State University in Oregon, described this innovative grasp of power in a recent article in the Presidential Studies Quarterly. Bush, he wrote, “has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress.” Moreover, these coups de main not only have overwhelmed the other institutions of government but have taken place almost without notice. “This tour de force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all.”

    Not coincidentally, the legal author of this presidential strategy for accreting power was none other than the young Samuel Alito, in 1986 deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Alito’s view on unfettered executive power, many close observers believe, was decisive in Bush’s nomination of him to the Supreme Court.

    Last week, when Bush signed the military appropriations bill containing the amendment forbidding torture that he and Vice President Cheney had fought against, he added his own “signing statement” to it. It amounted to a waiver, authorized by him alone, that he could and would disobey this law whenever he chose. He wrote: “The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.” In short, the president, in the name of national security, claiming to protect the country from terrorism, under war powers granted to him by himself, would follow the law to the extent that he decided he would.

    Sen. John McCain, the sponsor of the anti-torture legislation, according to sources close to him, says that he has not determined how or when he might respond to Bush’s “signing statement.” McCain wishes to raise other issues, like ghost detainees, and he may wait to see how the administration responds to the new law. However, with responsibility for oversight moved from the Armed Services Committee to the Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by White House tool Pat Roberts, McCain and others have no reliable way of knowing whether the administration is complying. Once again, torture policy enters a shadow land.

    Bush has responded to the latest exposures of the existence of his new national security apparatus as assaults on the government. It is these revelations, he said, that are “shameful.” The passion he currently exhibits was something he was unable to muster for the exposure by members of his administration of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. But there is a consistency between his absence of fervor in discovering who was behind the outing of Plame and his furor over the reporting of warrantless NSA domestic spying. In the Plame case, the administration officials who spun her name to conservative columnist Robert Novak and others intended to punish and intimidate former ambassador Joseph Wilson for having revealed that a central element of the administration case for the Iraq war was bogus. In the NSA case, Bush is also attempting to crush whistle-blowers.

    Bush’s war on professionals has been fought in nearly every department and agency of the government, from intelligence to Interior, from the Justice Department to the Drug Enforcement Administration, in order to suppress contrary analysis on issues from weapons of mass destruction to global warming, from voting rights to the morning-after pill. Without whistle-blowers on the inside, there are no press reports on the outside. The story of Watergate, after all, is not of journalists operating in a vacuum, but is utterly dependent on sources internal to the Nixon administration. “Deep Throat,” Mark Felt, the deputy FBI director, whatever his motives, was a quintessential whistle-blower.

    Now Bush’s Justice Department has launched a “leak” probe, complete with prosecutors and grand jury, to investigate the disclosure of the NSA story. It is similarly investigating the Washington Post’s reportage of the administration’s secret prison system for terrorist suspects. The intent is to send a signal to the reporters on this beat that they may be called before grand juries and forced to reveal their sources. (The disastrous failed legal strategy of the New York Times in defending Judy Miller as a Joan of Arc in the Plame case has crucially helped reinforce the precedent.) Within the bowels of government, potential whistle-blowers are being put on notice that they put their careers at risk for speaking to reporters in order to inform the public of what they consider wrongdoing.

    “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who broke the NSA story, offers further evidence of Bush’s war on professionals in the intelligence community than has already been reported in newspapers.

    Risen writes that the administration created a secret parallel chain of command to authorize the NSA surveillance program. While the professionals within the Justice Department were cut out, a “small, select group of like-minded conservative lawyers,” such as John Yoo, were brought in to invent legal justifications. To the “small handful on national security law within the government” knowledgeable about the NSA program, the administration’s debating points on the Patriot Act, which stipulates approval of eavesdropping by the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, was a charade, a “mockery.” Risen presents more witnesses and adds some episodes to familiar material – the twisting of intelligence and intimidation of professionals both before and after the Iraq war; a national security team commanded by Vice President Cheney in league with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld; and neoconservatives contriving “stovepipe” intelligence operations to funnel disinformation from Ahmad Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles who were their political favorites.

    Risen quotes a former top CIA official on Condoleezza Rice: a “very, very weak national security advisor – I think Rice didn’t really manage anything, and will go down as probably the worst national security advisor in history. I think the real national security advisor was Cheney, and so Cheney and Rumsfeld could do what they wanted.”

    Then director of the CIA George Tenet appears as an incorrigible courtier, trying to ingratiate himself with anecdotes of derring-do from the clandestine services. Rumsfeld, seeking to concentrate intelligence within the Pentagon, which controls 80 percent of its budget, was not amused. When Tenet told his entertaining James Bond-type stories, Rumsfeld asked him why they were relevant, and in a meeting made a point of humiliating Tenet by upbraiding him for using the F-word in the presence of a female official. A former CIA official who worked closely with Tenet is quoted: “George Tenet liked to talk about how he was a tough Greek from Queens, but in reality, he was a pussy. He just wanted people to like him.”

    While Rumsfeld was trampling Tenet, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Deputy Undersecretary Douglas Feith, the Laurel and Hardy of neoconservatism, set up the Counter-Terrorism Evaluation Group, “to sift through raw intelligence reports, searching for ties between Iraq and al Qaeda.” CIA analysts were under unrelenting pressure to accept Chalabi’s disinformation at face value. “They sent us that message a thousand times, in a thousand different ways,” said one former senior CIA official. Tenet did nothing to halt the stream of pollution.

    Risen reports that in April 2002, in a secret meeting in Rome, CIA case officers in Europe were told by the CIA’s newly fortified Iraq Operations Group they had to get on the bandwagon for an Iraq war. “They said this was on Bush’s agenda when he got elected, and that 9/11 only delayed it,” one CIA officer who attended the conference is quoted as saying. “They implied that 9/11 was a distraction from Iraq.”

    Cheney not only intervened personally in attempting to force CIA analysts to rubber-stamp Chalabi’s disinformation, Risen writes, but also directly interfered in CIA field operations. When the Netherlands declined to permit the CIA to attempt to recruit an Iraqi official there as an intelligence asset, Cheney called the prime minister of Netherlands to demand his approval, but was rebuffed.

    Startlingly, Risen reports that on the eve of war, the CIA knew the US had no proof of weapons of mass destruction, the casus belli, the justification for preemptive attack. The agency had recruited an Arab-American woman living in Cleveland, Dr. Sawsan Alhaddad, as a secret agent to travel to Baghdad to spy on her brother, Saad Tawfiq, an electrical engineer supposedly at the center of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. Once there, she won his trust and he confided there was no program. He urged her to carry the message back to the CIA. Upon her return, she was debriefed and the CIA filed the report in a black hole. It turned out that she was one of some 30 Iraqis who had been recruited to travel to Iraq to contact weapons experts there. Risen writes, “All of them – had said the same thing. They all reported to the CIA that the scientists had said that Iraq’s programs to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons had long since been abandoned.”

    Not willing to contradict the administration line, CIA officials withheld this information from the National Intelligence Estimate issued a month after Alhaddad’s visit to Baghdad. The NIE stated conclusively that Iraq “is reconstituting its nuclear program.” Risen writes: “From his home in Baghdad in February 2003, Saad Tawfiq watched Secretary of State Colin Powell’s televised presentation to the United Nations about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. As Powell dramatically built the American case for war, Saad sank further and further into frustration and despair. They didn’t listen. I told them there were no weapons.”

    When CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin raised questions about the fabled aluminum tubes that were supposedly a critical element of Saddam’s nuclear program, Tenet waved McLaughlin’s doubt aside. Skepticism was banished. When David Kay, chief of the Iraq Survey Group, discovered there were no WMD, he met with the ever-faithful Tenet, who told him: “I don’t care what you say. You will never convince me they didn’t have chemical weapons.”

    After the war, efforts within the CIA to dispel illusion and acknowledge reality in Iraq met with punishment. In November 2003, the CIA station chief in Baghdad submitted what is internally called an “aardwolf,” a formal report on country conditions. “It pulled no punches in detailing how the new insurgency was gaining strength from the political and economic vacuum that the United States had allowed to develop in Baghdad,” writes Risen. For his honesty, the station chief was subjected to “inflammatory accusations about his personal behavior, all of which he flatly denied,” and “quit the CIA in disgust.” The destruction of his career led other CIA officers to hedge their reports, especially on Chalabi. The new station chief, in an “aardwolf” in late 2004, described the lethal conditions on the ground, and as a reward “his political allegiances were quickly questioned by the White House.” Reality remained unwelcome.

    Risen’s book is one of a small and growing library that contains the strangulated, usually anonymous cries of professionals. No doubt there will be other volumes to fill in more spaces and reveal yet new stories of the mangling of policy in the interest of ideology.

    By counterattacking against whistle-blowers and the press, Bush is rushing to protect the edifice he has created. He acts as if the exposure of one part threatens the whole. His frantic defense suggests that very little of it can bear scrutiny.

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Adding fuel to Iraq’s fire

Posted on January 5, 2006 by Team VCS

Iraq’s oil minister losing his job is just one symptom of an industry plagued by underproduction, insurgent attacks, skyrocketing fuel costs and labor problems at refineries.

The outgoing Iraqi government placed Minister for Oil Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum on mandatory administrative leave after he publicly criticized Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari’s administration for implementing a plan to increase the cost of cooking fuel and gasoline to domestic consumers more than fivefold.

One unnamed government official was quoted as saying that Jaafari considered Ulum’s criticism “unforgivable”. The incident followed mounting tension between the two men after Ulum withdrew from Jaafari’s United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) ahead of the December 15 parliamentary election. He formed his own party, the Future Iraq Grouping, to compete in the election.

The government’s decision to increase fuel prices was part of an agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund on December 23 for a US$685 million standby loan, granted by the IMF after Iraq secured an $11 billion debt-exchange agreement with its commercial creditors for debts incurred by the regime of former leader Saddam Hussein.

In return for the loan, Iraq agreed to reduce its oil subsidies, improve the efficiency and transparency of public financial management, and develop a comprehensive restructuring strategy for its state-owned banks.

Sacking the minister

According to Iraqi media reports, Ulum traveled to London in mid-December for a vacation. On returning to Iraq he learned that he had been put on administrative leave. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi was appointed acting oil minister. Chalabi served in the same capacity in early 2005 when the transitional government was being formed.

Ulum subsequently resigned, telling a press briefing in Baghdad on Monday that the increase in fuel prices placed a heavy burden on Iraq’s citizens.

Iraqi media reports said the fuel-price increase equated to about a 200{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} rise in the price of gas and diesel, while propane gas has more than doubled in price, Al-Sharqiyah television reported.

The increase has led to long lines at gas stations and protests in a number of Iraqi cities, a situation that is compounded by even greater fuel shortages after distribution lines were cut as a result of insurgent attacks in recent days.

Problems at the refineries

Pipelines and tankers connected with the vital Bayji refinery were targeted in mid-December attacks that led to a two-day work stoppage. It reopened briefly, but reportedly shut down again on December 21 after workers refused to work because of insurgent threats. On December 26, the refinery’s pipeline to the al-Durah refinery was attacked in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Oil officials estimated the closure cost Iraq $20 million a day.

The attacks threatened to debilitate the already struggling power sector, which relies heavily on the Bayji refinery for fuel to power its generators and could spark even more public protests.

Iraqi cities are also heavily reliant on oil derivatives produced at the refinery – a fact that reportedly prompted the government to begin trucking the fuel from Bayji to several cities on Sunday. Al-Arabiyah television reported that 19 fuel trucks were ambushed in Baghdad; no further details were available.

Exports came to a halt at the southern Basra terminal one week ago because of bad weather. Reuters cited sources as saying that exports resumed on Monday.

Meanwhile, demonstrations have sprung up in several Iraqi cities over the past two weeks. In one recent demonstration, police opened fire on demonstrators in Kirkuk on Sunday, killing at least two and wounding seven others after the demonstrators set fire to two fuel stations and several police and civilian vehicles. The demonstrators also reportedly set fire to the North Oil Co office in the city.

Production still too low

Iraq’s oil industry has faced increasing woes as it tries to rebuild after years of neglect by the Hussein regime and nearly three years of insurgent attacks.

The US Department of Energy reported in late 2002 that, with sufficient outside investment, Iraq could quickly double its production from the then-daily level of 2.5 million barrels to 5 million barrels or more. Yet current production is well under 2 million barrels a day.

Likewise, benzene production fell from 15.8 million liters a day in 2002 to about 10 million liters a day in 2004 and 2005. Meanwhile, benzene consumption rose from 15 million liters per day in 2002 to 22 million liters per day in 2005.

Illegal smuggling has also contributed to oil-supply problems. Although accurate figures on the level of smuggling are not known, officials say the problem is widespread.

Iraq is estimated to hold 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to a recent report by the US Department of Energy. But exploitation of those reserves is expected to take several years and will be largely dependent on the country’s stability.

The reform of the oil and other sectors of the economy will prove challenging to the next Iraqi government. Iraqis have come to rely heavily on the social-welfare system. Given the current levels of unemployment and continuing instability, the Iraqi public is not expected to react favorably to cuts in subsidies, including plans to reduce food rations this year.

The Trade Ministry is reportedly planning on reducing food rations some 25{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} after its budget was reduced from $4 billion to $3 billion, Al-Furat newspaper reported. The first items to be cut are salt, some vegetables and detergents – items easily found in local markets. Rations for sugar, tea, cooking oil and rice will continue, the newspaper reported. The food-ration system came under heavy criticism in 2004 and 2005 after deliveries became sporadic because of insurgent and criminal attacks.

Proposals were made to replace the ration system with cash payments, but it appears that the transitional government failed to reach a decision on the matter.

Kathleen Ridolfo is the Iraq analyst for RFE/RL Online. She holds a bachelor of arts in history and political science from New Hampshire University and has completed a master of arts in Arab studies from Georgetown University.

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America’s waning clout in Iraq

Posted on January 5, 2006 by Team VCS

As the weight of the Shiite Islamist victory in Iraq’s election is still being calculated, US influence in the country – in reconstruction, security, and politics – is steadily receding.

While a diminished US role in Iraqi affairs was inevitable, the speed of the retreat raises some risks to the establishing of a stable, US-friendly Iraq. The Shiite parties that dominated the vote in December have closer affinity to Iran than to the US. At the same time, the Bush administration is planning sharp cuts in reconstruction aid, a major point of leverage in Iraqi affairs.

“I think it’s pretty clear our influence is waning as far as agenda setting,” says Noah Feldman, a law professor at New York University and a former top US adviser on the writing of Iraq’s Constitution.

What then are America’s best hopes for steering Iraq in a direction favorable to US interests? Some analysts say the US may reach out to its erstwhile enemies – the Sunnis.

“I wouldn’t be the least surprised if the Americans cut a deal with Sunni [political figures with ties to the insurgency] to cut the Shiites down to size,” says Dan Plesch, a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

However, that tack could carry high risks in the form of greater short-term violence.

“Certainly the violence in Iraq has been much lower than it might have been, because there’s been a fair deal of restraint among Shiite leaders,” says David Mack, vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington. “And that might end now – they may feel the need to really go after the Sunni Arabs as a diversion.”

Theoretically, the US could reoccupy Iraq, but at a disastrous cost to America’s international standing and popular opposition at home. Since democracy and restoration of sovereignty has been the US position, this seems unlikely.

When Iraq’s government is formed, which may take up to two months, it will be inheriting a country with massive problems and less money to address them than its predecessor.

Even as the US begins to take a back seat, one of the key players will still probably be US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Since the Dec. 15 vote, he has been cajoling and negotiating with Iraqi politicians, in the hopes of coaxing them into forming a government that might limit the insurgency.

But the US has little currency with Sunni Arabs, and few levers left to pry concessions from the Shiite Arabs.

When Mr. Khalilzad tried similar tactics during the bitter negotiations to write the Constitution last summer, he helped keep the process moving, but ultimately at the cost of a document rejected not only by Iraq’s Sunni Arab community, but by followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who is a junior partner of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance’s (UIA) but who shares the Sunni Arab distrust of Iran.

“Khalilzad is trying to be accommodating. He’s trying to look for compromises [but] he is dealing with people [such as former prime minister Iyad Allawi], in his attempt to make compromises, whose loyalty is [already] with the USA,” says Wamidh Nadhmi, professor of political science at the University of Baghdad and a Sunni Arab political activist.

Mr. Nadhmi argues that Khalilzad needs to broaden the US base of support by talking to a wider group of politicians and Iraqi society. He calls the current approach “counterproductive. They are creating conditions that will work against them.”

Another lever of US influence, of course, is reconstruction money. But it appears that, too, is likely to shrink in the coming year. The Washington Post cited unnamed US officials in Baghdad last week as saying the Bush Administration will ask for no new reconstruction money from Congress when the current $18.4 billion package runs out sometime in the middle of this year.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan refused to confirm the story on Tuesday. But he also emphasized that “the international community has important responsibilities to meet, as well,” which tracks with the comments of US officials in Iraq that they’re counting on major commitments from European countries and Japan.

Perceived US reconstruction failures to this point have also reduced US influence and provide incentives for leaders to bow to populist pressures and distance themselves from their recent benefactor.

“An occupying power has a responsibility based on international law … they should rebuild this country after they destroyed it,” says Nabeal M.S. Younis, a senior lecturer of international relations and public policy at the University of Baghdad. He says America’s failure to deliver on rebuilding has left its image badly damaged among Iraqis.

US spending has, however, created jobs, probably one of the most effective tools against the insurgency. The carrot of a steady paycheck is powerful in a country with at least 50 percent unemployment.

“There are no opportunities in Iraq. If there was opportunity there would be no mujahideen,” says Iraqi soldier Sajid, using the word for holy warrior that many insurgents prefer.

Sajid says he joined the Iraqi Army because it was the only steady job at $400 a month and even that he supplements with driving a taxi on his days off. But insurgents pay civilians up to $100 just to dig a hole, he says, where someone else is paid $100 to plant a bomb in the hole. “For a dollar bill, boom!”

Mr. Mack at the Middle East Institute says the best course for the US would not only be increased spending, but the creation of an international donor body that would allow for real influence to be exercised by other partners.

“If we could do something like western Europe after World War II, where economic support for Iraq was internationalized and we contributed heavily, that would be far more attractive to the Iraqis than anything we have offered so far,” he says.

And while the most powerful source of US influence in Iraq remains the military, US officials have indicated in recent weeks that boots on the ground, too, will be reduced this year. According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, troops are to be reduced from current levels of around 155,000 to about 130,000 before the end of the year.

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