Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

The narrow election of Ibrahim Jafari, a Shiite doctor, as Iraqi prime minister is worrying some Iraqis and U.S. officials because of his ties to Iran.

Some Iraqis and U.S. officials have indicated they would have preferred a more secular leader, The Washington Post reports.....


Jafari wins by one vote to become Iraqi PM

[Al-khiyal]

We're in a new period in the war in Iraq -- one that brings to mind the Nixonian era of "Vietnamization": A President presiding over an increasingly unpopular war that won't end; an election bearing down; the need to placate a restive American public; and an army under so much strain that it seems to be running off the rails. So it's not surprising that the media is now reporting on administration plans for, or "speculation" about, or "signs of," or "hints" of "major draw-downs" or withdrawals of American troops. The figure regularly cited these days is less than 100,000 troops in Iraq by the end of 2006. With about 136,000 American troops there now, that figure would represent just over one-quarter of all in-country U.S. forces, which means, of course, that the term "major" certainly rests in the eye of the beholder.

In addition, these withdrawals are -- we know this thanks to a Seymour Hersh piece, Up in the Air, in the December 5th New Yorker -- to be accompanied, as in South Vietnam in the Nixon era, by an unleashing of the U.S. Air Force. The added air power is meant to compensate for any lost punch on the ground (and will undoubtedly lead to more "collateral damage" -- that is, Iraqi deaths).

It is important to note that all promises of drawdowns or withdrawals are invariably linked to the dubious proposition that the Bush administration can "stand up" an effective Iraqi army and police force (think "Vietnamization" again), capable of circumscribing the Sunni insurgency and so allowing American troops to pull back to bases outside major urban areas, as well as to Kuwait and points as far west as the United States. Further, all administration or military withdrawal promises prove to be well hedged with caveats and obvious loopholes, phrases like "if all goes according to plan and security improves..." or "it also depends on the ability of the Iraqis to..."

Since guerrilla attacks have actually been on the rise and the delivery of the basic amenities of modern civilization (electrical power, potable water, gas for cars, functional sewage systems, working traffic lights, and so on) on the decline, since the very establishment of a government inside the heavily fortified Green Zone has proved immensely difficult, and since U.S. reconstruction funds (those that haven't already disappeared down one clogged drain or another) are drying up, such partial withdrawals may prove more complicated to pull off than imagined. It's clear, nonetheless, that "withdrawal" is on the propaganda agenda of an administration heading into mid-term elections with an increasingly skittish Republican Party in tow and congressional candidates worried about defending the President's mission-unaccomplished war of choice. Under the circumstances, we can expect more hints of, followed by promises of, followed by announcements of "major" withdrawals, possibly including news in the fall election season of even more "massive" withdrawals slated for the end of 2006 or early 2007, all hedged with conditional clauses and "only ifs" -- withdrawal promises that, once the election is over, this administration would undoubtedly feel under no particular obligation to fulfill.

Assuming, then, a near year to come of withdrawal buzz, speculation, and even a media blitz of withdrawal announcements, the question is: How can anybody tell if the Bush administration is actually withdrawing from Iraq or not? Sometimes, when trying to cut through a veritable fog of misinformation and disinformation, it helps to focus on something concrete. In the case of Iraq, nothing could be more concrete -- though less generally discussed in our media -- than the set of enormous bases the Pentagon has long been building in that country. Quite literally multi-billions of dollars have gone into them. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lt. Col. David Holt, the Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of several billion dollars being sunk into base construction ("the numbers are staggering"). Since then, the base-building has been massive and ongoing.

In a country in such startling disarray, these bases, with some of the most expensive and advanced communications systems on the planet, are like vast spaceships that have landed from another solar system. Representing a staggering investment of resources, effort, and geostrategic dreaming, they are the unlikeliest places for the Bush administration to hand over willingly to even the friendliest of Iraqi governments....

Can you say "Permanent Bases"?

[Al-khiyal]

The U.S. military is aggressively capturing and killing Iraqi insurgents and seizing their territory, yet the insurgency continues to wreak untold havoc. According to one analysis, attacks on U.S. soldiers and Iraqi government forces last year increased 29 percent, and recruitment of new insurgents does not appear to be a problem.

Officials at the International Crisis Group, an independent conflict-resolution organization, think they know why. They say it is the power of the insurgents' message — and the skill with which they're delivering their propaganda on the Internet.

"In this battle for hearts and minds, they have found a constituency. The insurgency has found a constituency it's able to talk to," said Rob Malley, director of the Crisis Group's Middle East/North Africa Program.

The ICG will release a report on Wednesday called "In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency." It is, the group believes, the first comprehensive look at the way the insurgency uses the Internet and information the group says we ignore at our own peril.

"What the insurgency is about is not a mystery," said Malley. "It's not a puzzle. They're not hiding it. They're broadcasting it. Let's try to understand it politically, rather than simply have [our] own preconceptions and dismiss it as propaganda....."


Iraqi insurgents increasingly using Internet as propaganda machine



yalla it keeps them off the streets, sa7?

[Al-khiyal]

Disseminating propaganda is not a monopoly, as we all know well:


Two years ago, Christian Bailey and Paige Craig were living in a half-renovated Washington group house, with a string of failed startup companies behind them.

Mr. Bailey, a boyish-looking Briton, and Mr. Craig, a chain-smoking former Marine sergeant, then began winning multimillion-dollar contracts with the United States military to produce propaganda in Iraq.

Now their company, Lincoln Group, works out of elegant offices along Pennsylvania Avenue and sponsors polo matches in Virginia horse country. Mr. Bailey recently bought a million-dollar Georgetown row house. Mr. Craig drives a Jaguar and shows up for interviews accompanied by his "director of security," a beefy bodyguard.

The company's rise, though, has been built in part by exaggerated claims about its abilities and connections, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former Lincoln Group employees and associates, and a review of company documents.

In collecting government money, Lincoln has followed a blueprint taught to Mr. Bailey by Daniel S. Peña Sr., a retired American businessman who described Mr. Bailey as a protégé.

Federal contracts in Washington can supply easy seed capital for a struggling entrepreneur, Mr. Peña says he advised a youthful Mr. Bailey in the mid-1990's when the two men started a short-lived technology company. "I told him, 'When in trouble, go to D.C.,' and the kid listened," Mr. Peña said.

Mr. Bailey defends his company's record, saying, "Lincoln Group successfully executes challenging assignments." He added that "teams are created from the best available resources."

Lincoln won its contracts after claiming to have partnerships with major media and advertising companies, former government officials with extensive Middle East experience, and ex-military officers with background in intelligence and psychological warfare, the documents show. But some of those companies and individuals say their associations were fleeting.

Lincoln has also run into problems delivering on work for the military after its partnerships with more experienced firms fell apart, company documents and interviews indicate. The firm has continued to bid for new business from the Pentagon and has hired two Washington lobbying firms to promote itself on Capitol Hill and with the Bush administration.

"They appear very professional on the surface, then you dig a little deeper and you find that they are pretty amateurish," said Jason Santamaria, a former Marine officer whom the company once described as a "strategic adviser."

The company's work in Iraq, where Mr. Bailey and Mr. Craig visit from time to time to direct operations, is facing growing scrutiny.

The Pentagon's inspector general last month opened an audit of Lincoln Group's contracts there, according to two Defense Department officials. A separate inquiry ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, after disclosures late last year that Lincoln Group paid Iraqi publications to run one-sided stories by American soldiers, has been completed but not made public, military officials said.

A spokesman for General Casey, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, declined to comment on Lincoln Group, citing the ongoing investigation.....


Quick rise for purveyors of propaganda in Iraq


And of course, we shouldn't forget The man who sold the war

[Al-khiyal]

In Crude Designs, a report published by the UK-based non-governmental organisation Platform and the US’s Global Policy Institute, oil analyst Greg Muttitt says if current plans are approved, Iraqi’s will "lose control of more than 85 percent of their oil resources to foreign multinationals."

The "how" begins with Iraq’s new constitution; written largely behind closed doors and with tremendous US influence, it was voted into place during October’s referendum. Cleverly, it gives the impression that Iraq’s oil will remain in the hands of its people by guaranteeing "oil and gas is the property of all the Iraqi people" and that revenues from "current fields" will be fairly distributed across the provinces. The key phrase is "current fields;" in the following section the document then requires all future exploration use "the most modern techniques of market principles and encouraging investment." The modern investment model being promoted in Iraq during these secret meetings is production sharing agreements, or PSAs.

Mostly political in nature, PSAs maintain the technicality—and just as importantly, the appearance—of keeping oil ownership in government hands, yet the majority of profits goes to private companies. These agreements are generally used in countries where oil is either hard to extract and therefore expensive, or where reserves are small enough that companies may be unwilling to invest. PSAs guarantee a high profit margin, providing an enticement to otherwise uninterested oil companies. In Iraq, where extracting oil is not technologically challenging and reserves are huge, PSAs don’t make sense—unless they are intended to benefit someone other than Iraqis....

Who will possess Iraq's oilfields?

[Al-khiyal]

"Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency."

American commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers, as the time in confinement allows detainees to forge relationships and exchange lessons of combat against the United States, its allies and the new Iraqi government...

Abu Ghraib: School for terrorists

It is the same in camps all over Iraq. It is a fact that some mujahedeen training officers deliberately got themselves arrested specifically to be able to access the thousands of aggrieved prisoners who have been arrested and held without charge or trial for long periods, the majority of them, innocent of any crime whatsoever, have been held for years now. The entire adult male population of some villages have been seized and detained on occasions and juveniles have not been spared arrest either. Following the ill-treatment that is a routine part of the arrest process it seldom takes long for the mujahedeen inside the camps and holding centers to meet formerly uninvolved people who have been made willing to learn the skills that they then become anxious to put into effect as soon as they are released. Those detainees fortunate enough to get visitors are not slow in telling their mothers, wives and sisters how to teach others methods guaranteed to make life livelier for the occupation forces when the visitors return back to the towns and villages of Iraq.

It is always the same with internment camps of any kind - they become universities for the resistance fighters.

[Al-khiyal]

The US military has warned that rebel attacks across Iraq have increased 30 percent over the past few weeks, the statement coming as attacks across the country Thursday wounded 30 people and killed at least eleven....

U.S.: Iraq attacks increase

Japan plans Iraq troop withdrawal

Iran calls on Britain to withdraw from Basra