President Bush: Get Used To Iraq Civil War

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

President Bush doesn’t like to hear people using the ‘c’ word. In discussions about the war in Iraq, Mr Bush believes that appropriate language includes ‘sectarian violence’, ‘struggle for freedom’, ‘central front in the war on terror’, even ‘new phase’ – anything but ‘civil’ war. Yet given the increasing use of the term civil war by retired generals, analysts, politicians, pundits, the general public and the media, Mr Bush might be well-advised to start covering his ears. 

On Monday, NBC became the first major television network to use the term in their coverage of the war in Iraq. On the Today show, Matt Lauer explained that “after careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.” Meanwhile, ABC News and CBS News have not yet settled on a policy regarding their use of the term civil war, although this has been the subject of constant discussion at both networks. ABC News senior vice president Paul Slavin has said, “We are not there yet,” owing to the difficulty of settling on a definition. 

James Fearon, Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, says defining civil war is a complex business. However, there is consensus that it involves a violent conflict between organized groups within a country that are fighting over control of the government, one side’s separatist goals, or some divisive government policy. Most scholars also use the threshold of 1,000 dead. At the same time, political goals are crucial, so if the conflict in Iraq ever became purely a matter of violence between Sunni and Shiite communities driven by revenge and hatred rather than by political goals, many political scientists would then reject the term civil war. 

The Washington Post has so far avoided any references to the civil war in Iraq, in particular because the US and Iraqi governments reject the term. On MSNBC’s Hardball, the paper’s national security reporter Dana Priest admitted that, while she “absolutely” believes Iraq is now in the grip of a civil war, “We try to avoid the labels, particularly when the elected government itself does not call its situation a civil war.”  

Yet Los Angeles Times foreign editor Marjorie Miller questioned whether any country would admit it is in the midst of a civil war. Her editorial team were not influenced by either government in their decision to start using the term civil war on October 7. Ms Miller told the Jim Lehrer News Hour, “You have one country divided into armed factions that are engaged in combat. They’re using heavy weaponry. They’re using bombs, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades. They’re using machine guns mounted on the back of vehicles. Each side has combatants in and out of uniform. They’re attacking government ministries. You have 100 Iraqis dying at least every day. What do you call that, if not civil war?” 

Most scholars surveyed by the New York Times agreed that Iraq is mired in a bloody civil war. One political scientist at Yale, Nicholas Sambanis, further said, “The level of violence is so extreme that it far surpasses most civil wars since 1945”. Nevertheless, the paper intends to use the phrase “sparingly and carefully” and “not for dramatic effect”.   

Richard Betts, professor of political science and director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, has said that that use of the term could have serious political implications for the Bush administration. “Well, it is a political issue now because the semantic question has political connotations,” Professor Betts told the Jim Lehrer News Hour. “Using the term does work against the administration’s line of argument, just as the administration’s insistence on using another term is a way of trying to deflect attention from the extent to which things aren’t as nice as we’d like.” 

According to recent polls taken by NBC News, the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Gallup, roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that Iraq is embroiled in civil war. Immediately before the mid-term elections, most Americans also said they believe the US should withdraw its troops within one year. 

It is widely believed that the Bush administration has refused to acknowledge the civil war in Iraq for fear that Americans will begin demanding to know why US troops are risking their lives and dying in an internal conflict in a foreign land, thereby collapsing already weak support for the war among Americans. 

Yet if the Bush administration continues to refuse to acknowledge the civil war in Iraq, one of the potential consequences could be that the US will not implement the right change of course. Retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who led troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “If they can’t characterize what’s going on in Iraq in an honest fashion, we can’t begin to address the problem.”

Iraq War: Sects Battle With Technology, Media

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

Shi’ites and Sunnis are waging a war by media against the backdrop of sectarian violence in Iraq, using television broadcasts and the internet to draw battle lines and rally behind their militias, supporters and neighbors in Baghdad. 

On Saturday, the Shi’ite siege of the state-owned Iraqiya television station included a live two-hour broadcast from Sadr City, where three Iraqi Members of Parliament loyal to local cleric Moqtada al-Sadr fielded questions from residents who blasted the Maliki government for not preventing Thursday’s car bombings which left 215 Shi’ites dead and 250 wounded. The Shi’ite Mahdi Army also used Saturday’s broadcast to denounce the Maliki government, label Sunnis “terrorists” and vow revenge for the bombings. On Sunday, angry residents hurled stones at Prime Minister Maliki’s motorcade when he visited Sadr City to attend a gathering to honor the victims of Thursday’s attacks. As the mob surged towards Mr Maliki’s armored car, one man was heard to shout, “It’s all your fault!” 

Meanwhile, the Sunni-owned satellite channel al-Zawraa TV is back on air full-time in defiance of a ban by the Iraqi government; the station was shut down in early November for covering a pro-Saddam Hussein rally and inviting viewers to phone in to discuss his death sentence. Over the past week, al-Zawraa TV correspondents have abandoned their boarded up offices in Baghdad and hit the road, roaming the countryside and broadcasting around the clock from a satellite truck. They beam the programs to an Egyptian satellite distributor, Nilesat, which then retransmits the channel to countries across the Middle East, including Iraq.  

In Baghdad, a number of Sunnis are using internet technology and electronic bulletin boards to warn each other about Shi’ite troops amassing in their neighborhoods and carrying out attacks; this has raised fears that more violence will follow Monday’s lifting of the three-day curfew in Baghdad. The following messages appear to have been collected from local discussion boards and translated by an Iraqi dentist who maintains a blog on the web site healingiraq.blogspot.com:   

“Urgent. Please intervene to save the Jihad district from another massacre … estimated to be around 500 mercenaries, fully armed with medium and light weapons. And now some of them are taking attack positions in preparation for a new massacre in the district. The buses have not stopped arriving, even though terrified residents have called the police and governmental officials.” – Anonymous, Jihad 

“Salam Aleikum. Over 40 vehicles with Mahdi Army militiamen have gathered near the Dora police station. They started arriving at 7 p.m., and at 7:45 p.m. we could see about 40 vehicles preparing to attack Dora.” – Abdul Rahman Abdul Qadir, Karkh

“Residents of Mansour, large groups of armed militiamen have been seen heading from the Washash and Iskan districts to attack Mansour. Prepare to defend yourselves and your neighbours, Sunni and Shia, from the attack of the treacherous Mahdi Army militias.” – Ibn Al-Mansour, Mansour

Other postings offer a range of pointers for residents who have no experience in urban warfare, including instructions on how to prepare weapons, conserve ammunition, avoid mortar fire (by not gathering in large groups), spread out in small groups but maintain communication (to quickly identify security breaches) and choose positions that offer a means of retreat and escape.

Although the seizure of radio and television stations has long been a feature of military coups, and certainly the use of video technology by terrorists has taken horror viewing to a new level, it is a relatively new development for civilians to harness web technology and satellite communications to express their views, request protection from militias, issue warnings to each other and organize resistance during a civil war crisis. These are some of the early indications of how modern communication technologies are changing the way wars are fought and people are organized, even in countries where normal infrastructure has broken down.

TV Station Seized: Maliki Fights For Control Of Iraq

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

Fears that Iraq is barreling down the road to civil war reached fever pitch yesterday after Shi’ite followers of Moqtada al-Sadr took over the state-run Iraqiya television station to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis “terrorists” and demand revenge for Thursday’s sectarian attacks in Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad. The program featured a live community gathering and was broadcast out of Sadr City, where multiple car bombs exploded in crowded markets on Thursday leaving 215 Shi’tes dead and 250 wounded.  

The Sadr City takeover of Iraqi state television is a major development in the escalation of sectarian conflict, especially since the Maliki government appears to have been powerless to stop the broadcast. “We’ll obviously try to control them as much as we can, but when they (kill) more than 150 people in bombings, they have the right to speak,” said Bassam al Husseini, one of Maliki’s top advisers. “What are we going to do? We can’t stop this. It’s too hot right now.”  

Shi’ite militias used the broadcast to announce plans to launch further attacks on Sunni neighborhoods as soon as the Iraqi government lifts its curfew on Monday. Many Sunni viewers were shocked to hear their neighborhoods targeted. “I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what’s happening,” said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. “I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They’re going to push us to join al Qaeda to protect ourselves.” Sunni politicians vowed to file complaints against the channel for inciting sectarian violence.  

There have been repeated recent reports of Shi’ite militiamen dressed in Iraqi police uniforms carrying out kidnappings and watching on as militias carried out attacks against Sunnis without trying to intervene. During the live broadcast from Sadr City, members of the Mahdi Army apparently boasted that they were distributing police uniforms throughout Shiite neighborhoods “to allow greater freedom of movement”. This will only escalate sectarian tensions and further undermine confidence in the Maliki government which has allowed Shi’ite militias to control parts of the police and army, and has also allowed government departments to be run as sectarian fiefdoms. 

In the wake of the latest sectarian violence, local support for militias on both sides has surged because people do not believe the Maliki government can provide a reasonable level of security. During the televised broadcast, Sadr City residents shouted, “There is no government! There is no state!” One unidentified Sadr City resident told the cheering television crowd, “This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me. We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety. We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that’s the truth.”  

 

Information/breaking news taken from McClatchy Newspapers

Bush, Maliki Under Pressure As Iraq Violence Continues

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

US hopes for stabilizing Iraq were dealt a further blow yesterday as violence swept through Baghdad in revenge for Thursday’s deadly car bombings in Shi’ite Sadr City.  

At least six cars are now known to have been used in the Sadr City market attacks, which involved three suicide car bombers and three unattended cars packed with explosives, one of which was discovered and successfully disarmed. The death toll from these bombings stands at 215, with a further 250 wounded.  

On Friday, a triple car bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar, which also has a large Shi’ite population, left 23 people dead and 42 injured. 

Despite appeals for calm from Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders in Iraq, angry Shi’ites have retaliated by torching Sunni homes, mosques and even worshippers.  

The most shocking violence occurred in the Sunni section of the mainly Shi’ite neighborhood of Hurriya in Baghdad’s northwest, where militants seized six Sunnis leaving Friday prayers, drenched them in kerosene and burned them alive. Several houses in the area were also attacked and set alight. 

Militias armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades attacked and set ablaze at least four Sunni mosques in Baghdad; another mosque came under heavy gunfire in Baquba, 37 miles north of Baghdad. Shi’ite militias also launched a barrage of mortar shells into the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Adhamiya in northern Baghdad. Thirty-one people are confirmed dead from the latest violence. 

Witnesses have claimed that men dressed in Iraqi police uniforms looked on as Shi’ite militias carried out attacks on Sunnis and did nothing to stop them. 

Baghdad remains in lockdown after the Iraqi government issued an indefinite curfew banning vehicles and pedestrians from the streets. Baghdad International Airport and Basra’s airport and seaport also remain closed. Iraqi security forces have further cordoned off Sadr City, where members of the Shi’ite Mahdi Army patrol the neighborhoods of Hurriya and Yarmouk, in defiance of the curfew.   

Moqtada al-Sadr, local ruler of Sadr City and the Mahdi Army, blamed al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists for Thursday’s devastating car bombings in Sadr City. He has demanded that Harith al-Dari, head of Iraq’s (Sunni) Muslim Clerics Association, immediately issue fatwas that forbid Sunnis from killing Shi’ites and associating with al Qaeda. Mr Dari is wanted by Iraqi authorities for suspected links to terrorist groups and now lives outside Iraq, yet he is still highly influential in Iraq’s Sunni community.  

Meanwhile, it is likely that Thursday’s three-hour militia attack on the Shi’ite-controlled Ministry of Health, which immediately preceded the car bombings in Sadr City, had an element of revenge. Less than two weeks ago, Shi’ite militiamen dressed in police uniforms raided the Sunni-controlled Ministry of Higher Education and kidnapped over 100 people, some of whom remain missing. 

US President George Bush has urged Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to share more power with the minority Sunni population to allay their fears of victimization under the majority Shi’ite government; this has fuelled much of the Sunni unrest since the US invasion in 2003 and enabled the infiltration of al Qaeda. Yet Iraqi Shi’ites are reluctant to share power and oil wealth with the Sunnis, after suffering centuries of oppression under minority Sunni rule, dating back to the Ottoman Empire.  

Mr Maliki is being heavily pressured by the US to disband local militias, especially those that control sections of the Iraqi police and security forces. However, Mr Maliki depends on powerful local leaders like Mr Sadr and his followers to maintain his own balance of power against Shi’ite rivals in the government. After the latest attacks, local support for militias on both sides has also reportedly surged. 

Mr Bush is due to meet with Mr Maliki in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Wednesday to discuss how the US can most quickly hand over control to Iraqi security forces and withdraw American troops.  

Mr Sadr has warned that any meeting with Mr Bush would cost Mr Maliki the support of 30 legislators in the 275-member Iraqi Parliament, including Ministers in three cabinet positions, which could destabilize the government. Mr Sadr has repeatedly demanded the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.  

Mr Maliki’s supporters have insisted that he will meet with Mr Bush as planned.

Iraq: Death, Bombings, Civil War and Chaos Continues – Meltdown

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

Iraq skid precariously close to full-blown civil war yesterday as the death toll climbed to 202 following the bombings of three crowded markets in the Shi’ite neighborhood of
Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad. A further 250 people were reportedly injured. The car bombings, believed to be the work of al Qaeda, were preceded by a three-hour siege of the Shi’ite-controlled Health Ministry in central Baghdad.   

At approximately 12:15 pm, a group of 30 men believed to be from a local Sunni militia fired on the building of the Health Ministry with machine guns and mortars. The brazen attack lasted for three hours and only ended when US troops and Iraqi security forces arrived to stop it. 

Then at 3:10 pm, the first of three car bombs ripped through the popular Jamila market in Sadr City, quickly followed by explosions at al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square, during the markets’ busiest time of day, to cause maximum carnage. This marked the single bloodiest day of the US occupation. 

The co-ordinated bombings in Sadr City seem to represent a new phase in Iraq’s complex internal turmoil, and are certainly designed to provoke retaliation. For more than two years, al Qaeda has been radicalizing local Sunni militias while exploiting the fears of minority Sunni Arabs that they will not get a fair deal politically from the US-friendly Shi’ite majority government and that they will be decimated by Iran-backed Shi’ite militias as soon as the US occupation ends. Al Qaeda has repeatedly insisted that the only viable path for Sunni Arabs in Iraq is to seize power through military victory.   

In February 2006, al Qaeda’s bombing of al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites in Shi’a Islam, destroyed the mosque and ignited the current wave of sectarian conflict between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites. Iraqi leaders are now convinced that al Qaeda is also behind the car bombings in Sadr City 

“It is clear al Qaeda did this. It is their way to attack innocent people. There are no governmental buildings, no army bases, no security forces attacked. The victims were only innocent civilians,” said Abdul Karim Khalaf, Iraq’s Interior Ministry spokesman. “These attacks aim to destroy Iraq and the political process.”  

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki condemned the violence and “the dark hand of conspiracy that is shedding the blood of the innocent”. He vowed to bring those responsible to justice and imposed an absolute and indefinite curfew in Baghdad, lifted on Friday only for Shi’ites undertaking the journey to the holy city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, to bury their dead. The Prime Minister further closed the airport in Baghdad to all commercial flights; the Shi’ite-controlled oil port at Basra also shut down in sympathy. 

Prominent Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurd leaders in Iraq joined together to appeal for calm. Moqtada al-Sadr, local cleric and defacto ruler of Sadr City and the Mehdi Army, also publicly appealed for restraint and unity among Iraqis. 

Yet angry Shi’ites had already begun to return fire, launching a barrage of mortars at the Abu Hanifa Mosque in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah in northeastern Baghdad, killing one person and wounding seven others.

Thanksgiving In New Orleans: Katrina Leaves Planted Determination

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

Over a year after hurricanes Katrina and Rita left trails of destruction through Louisiana, the resilient spirit of the Bayou State is again making news around the world. Yesterday, an international Reuters report featured the wave of picturesque trailer gardens sprouting up in New Orleans and Louisiana, including several photographs that capture a distinctively familiar local charm.   

Where FEMA trailers once stood among scattered debris and hues of brown and grey, flower beds are coming up roses – thanks to the inspired vision of residents who, despite the relatively cramped confines of their trailer homes, decided there was room enough to display their house-proud sensibilities.  

The trend first caught the eye of the Times-Picayune, who recently held a Trailer Beautification Contest and hosted an awards ceremony at Longue Vue House and Gardens to toast the winners. Among the celebrated gardeners were Joe and Mary Perez. Mrs Perez proudly said, “We do things differently here in Louisiana. We don’t sit back and let things be.”  

Participants were also interviewed by Reuters, including contest judge Mary Hazen of the Louisiana Garden Club Federation, herself a FEMA trailer resident and avid gardener. “All of those gardens were healing gardens,” said Ms Hazen. “Any kind of garden is good for you. You lose what’s on your mind, and you dig, and you watch.”  

This view was backed by Joy Harrison, president of the American Horticultural Therapy Association. She noted that the healing properties of ‘therapy gardens’ for war veterans and hospital patients have been scientifically documented for years. Ms Harrison said, “Many gardens are created for respite and solace, for the purpose of restoring one’s balance and sense of well-being. If you plant something in the ground, there’s a sense of hope and nurturing.”   

Lorene Holbrook of Metairie plans to live in the trailer at the front of her property until her home is rebuilt. “Everything was brown and grey, and the trailer was no beauty,” said Mrs Holbrook. “When you’ve got some flowers out there, it looks like somebody cares.” As she and her husband planted their garden, they decided to keep a number of plants they believe may have been transported by hurricane Katrina. Their finishing touch was planting a lime tree, “because we’re rum-and-tonic people.”   

This kind of quaint and hearty attitude is a famed Louisiana cultural asset; the widespread beautification of the humble FEMA trailer is but its latest manifestation. 

Despite all the uncertainties attending the rebuilding process, residents know there is no place like home and they will continue to fight to rebuild, repopulate and beautify their communities. Indeed, it is this indomitable spirit that has always made Louisiana and New Orleans such a wonderfully engaging and charming place to live – and for this we can truly give thanks.

President Bush Returns From Asia to Partisan Politics – Right To The End

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

After vowing to work constructively with Congressional Democrats in the wake of the GOP’s thumping defeat on November 7 prior to his trip to Asia, President Bush has confirmed a number of appointments and nominations that look set to crash the bipartisan honeymoon. Not only is Mr Bush defiantly brushing off the Democrats and the general electorate, his choices will almost certainly further alienate moderate Republicans who voted with their feet at the mid-term elections.  

One heated controversy concerns the appointment of Dr Eric James Keroack as deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, a position that oversees family planning programs. Last week, the Boston Globe reported that Dr Keroack, a Massachusetts based obstetrician-gynecologist, is a fierce opponent of abortion, contraception and premarital sex – the latter of which he compares to heroin addiction and modern germ warfare. This calls to mind other memorable socially conservative sexual analyses such as Senator Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) comparison of homosexuality to alcoholism and kleptomania, and Senator Rick Santorum’s (R-Penn.) infamous ‘man on dog’ clanger in an interview about privacy and homosexuality. Dr Keroack has further described the distribution of contraceptives as ‘degrading to women’. Women’s health advocates argue that these views create a profound conflict of interest between Dr Keroack and Family Planning, an agency that has provided a wide range of birth control-related health services to American women since the 1970’s. President and chief executive officer of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Dianne Luby said, “Putting Dr Keroack in charge of our nation´s largest family planning program is dangerous to women´s health.” Other critics see Dr Keroack’s appointment as a thinly-veiled attack on a woman’s right to choose and a major concession to the electorally loyal Christian right. 

Another move criticized as blatantly partisan is President Bush’s renomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. Last year, Democrats and key Republicans opposed Mr Bolton’s nomination and blocked a vote on his nomination. President Bush’s response was to appoint Mr Bolton during the Congressional recess. Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I., defeated Nov. 7), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has vowed to block Mr Bolton´s renomination. “The American people have spoken out against the President´s agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy,” said Mr Chafee. “And at this late stage in my term, I´m not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against.” Mr Bolton’s critics have accused him of systematically bullying his colleagues, taking facts out of context and exaggerating intelligence – he’s also given the Senate false information by failing to note on a questionnaire that the inspector general interviewed him during a State Department/CIA joint inquiry into falsified evidence that Iraq tried to obtain uranium yellowcake from Niger.  

Finally, there is strong opposition to President Bush’s renominations of four controversial appeals court candidates whose initial nominations expired without Senate action. These judicial nominees include two candidates for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Terrence Boyle and William Haynes. Mr Boyle is a North Carolina district court judge and former close aide to Jesse Helms, the former Republican Senator widely regarded as racist and segregationist. Mr Haynes is the Defense Department General Counsel who played a key role in helping the Bush administration to develop a narrow definition of ‘torture’ that enabled a range of human rights abuses. He is now a defendant in a recently filed lawsuit in Germany which alleges that he (and his eleven co-defendants) committed war crimes against detainees held by the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US-controlled Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. 

The candidate for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco is William Myers, a lobbyist and staunch opponent of environmental regulations. His nomination has raised concerns for Democrat senators poised to head committees on global warming, who have already begun pushing the case for mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Lastly, there is Michael Wallace of Mississippi, nominated to take over the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, despite his being deemed unqualified for the appeals court by an American Bar Association panel. These four judicial nominees have drawn the ire of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who is expected to become chairman of the Judiciary Committee in January. He said that President Bush is “choosing partisanship over progress and division over unity, at the expense of a fair and independent judiciary. This is exactly the kind of political game-playing that prompted Americans to demand change and a new direction in Washington.” 

It does appear that President Bush has already put the press conferences behind him, and gotten back to the serious business of partisan sparring.

 

Kissinger: Iraq Mission Impossible But Terror Likely as al Qaeda Expands

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

As Henry Kissinger declares military victory ‘impossible’ in Iraq, and as the US gears up for an intense debate over changing course, US intelligence officials have now confirmed a troubling and predictable consequence of the war – a bigger, stronger, expanding al Qaeda network. Critics have long argued that the Bush administration dropped the ball on terrorism by diverting massive amounts of military and financial resources into Iraq; it is now clear that the war has also served to bolster al Qaeda’s power base.   

In Afghanistan, where al Qaeda trained recruits in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist organization has firmly re-established itself and is growing at an ‘alarming’ rate according to Gen. Michael Hayden and Lt. Gen. Michael Maples. Last week, Gen. Hayden, director of the CIA, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that al Qaeda and the Taliban have combined forces to forge an insurgency that has overwhelmed the Karzai government, US Special Forces and NATO troops. He said, “The direct tissue between Iraq and Afghanistan is al Qaeda,” and added that the tactics learned by recruits in Iraq are now being used in Afghanistan, where attacks now number 600 per month and the death toll sits at 3,700 so far this year. There are also increasing concerns that al Qaeda is again operating terrorist training camps; recruits are reportedly now being dispatched from Afghanistan to new missions in Europe, Somalia and a number of Arab countries.  

Meanwhile in Iraq, al Qaeda now controls al Anbar Province, about 30% of the country’s land mass. Banned outright by Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda arrived in Iraq and easily entrenched itself in al Anbar during the US occupation while American troops concentrated on Baghdad and other urban trouble spots. At the same time, al Qaeda filled a political leadership vacuum in the Sunni province which enabled it to infiltrate the social fabric of local communities, radicalize local Sunni militias and recruit young disaffected Sunnis. Lt. Gen. Maples, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that al Qaeda had managed to “capitalize on the current cycle of sectarian violence, by creating the perception that its attacks are designed to aid and defend the country’s Sunni minority.” Last month, al Qaeda militants marched through the streets of Ramadi, the capital of the province, to (unsuccessfully) declare al Anbar a Sunni Republic and an Islamic emirate – a clear attempt to claim territory, political power and the endorsement of the local population.  

The Washington Post recently reported that the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq, Col. Pete Devlin, filed a classified report in August which concluded that the prospects for securing al Anbar Province are dim and that there is almost nothing the US military can do to improve the political and social situation there. One Army officer who read the report summed up its argument that in al Anbar, “We haven’t been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically – and that’s where wars are won and lost.” So it appears that focusing the fight on nationalist Iraqi insurgents and Baghdad has effectively handed western Iraq over to al Qaeda. At the same time, the failure of US troops to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis, and the tendency to regard all forms of resistance as ‘the enemy’, have also been key factors in the failed occupation. Al Qaeda will continue to gain momentum in al Anbar as long as the US remains fixated on Baghdad, nationalist insurgents and sectarian conflict.  

On top of the horrible debacle in Iraq, the US is losing the war on terror. Many are hoping that the 110^th US Congress will reorganize the nation’s priorities to drive al Qaeda out of Iraq, end the US occupation with reduced levels of violence, and advance a strategy that counters the global expansion of terrorism.

President Bush: Iraq War Peacemaker?

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

After last week’s seismic reconstruction of the political landscape in Washington, a shaken George Bush is stepping carefully into the strange new role of bipartisan consensus builder.  

Undoubtedly, the ‘thumping’ force that delivered the House and the Senate to the Democrats was driven by the Bush administration’s Iraq debacle, with 60% of Americans now believing that the war will ‘hurt the long-term security of the United States’.  

It is significant that President Bush has nominated Robert Gates to replace the unrepentant Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defence. Apart from his central role in the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, Dr Gates is an old Bush family friend and trusted former CIA director under George H W Bush. Although Dr Gates was tainted by his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, he is revered by his supporters for being a ‘realist’ when it comes to international politics. 

Arguably, it is realism that has been lacking in the Bush administration’s course in Iraq. While drawing up the plans for the US invasion, Rumsfeld believed the installation of a US-friendly democratic government would supported by the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, and would be a straightforward matter. He took little interest in the social and political history of Iraq, and thus had no understanding of how Iraqi society would fracture once US forces had toppled Saddam Hussein. He refused to even consider post-war Iraq in terms of either the US occupation or exit strategies.   

So when social and political tensions burst open like angry wounds all over Iraq, the Bush administration was caught off guard and without enough troops to control the chaos. The sectarian violence in Iraq has generally been described as a ‘civil war’, yet the Center for American Progress has recently identified four separate conflicts: a Shiite-Sunni civil war in the center, intra-Shiite conflicts in the south, a Sunni insurgency in the west and violence between Arabs and Kurds in the north.   

These conflicts have gained considerable momentum on the Bush administration’s watch over the past three and a half years, and House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has stated that this has severely eroded the availability of good exit strategies for the US. Nevertheless, Americans have demanded that the Bush administration and Congress reach some form of agreement to change course in Iraq. 

It is highly unlikely that the US will immediately withdraw all its troops, because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to ‘cut and run’ without first reducing the level of violence and restoring civil order in Iraq. This is a moral imperative for some, and a matter of prestige for others. 

One option that has been doing the rounds is the partitioning of Iraq into three states – one each for the Shiites (south), the Sunnis (west) and the Kurds (north). This plan has a diverse support base which includes James Baker, Robert Gates, Bush administration neoconservatives – and President Ahmadinejad of Iran. It was recently reported that Mr Baker supports “…a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.” Dr Gates has also been a proponent of the partition plan within the Iraq Study Group. His support, along with that of Mr Baker, probably means that the Bush administration will start pushing the case for partitioning Iraq. 

Meanwhile, President Ahmadinejad apparently favors partition because he believes this would maximize internal conflict and leave the regions open to Iranian invasion. When Iran licks its chops and prays for partitioning, that should sound alarm bells for the Bush administration. At the same time, critics of the partition plan also believe that the partitioning of Iraq would escalate instability, mainly because of the uneven geographical distribution of oil reserves (e.g., there are no oil fields in the west, the proposed Sunni state) and the complex way that ethnic and religious groups are intermixed and intermarried throughout the country. Turkey has also threatened to invade any future Kurdish state. So it seems that the partition plan would cause more conflicts than it would resolve. And with Iran poised to capitalize on any resulting instability, the partition could pose the greatest threat yet to Iraqi sovereignty.

Another alternative that has been gaining support centers on the devolution of power to the actual power structure as it exists in Iraq, where local leaders are the authorities recognized by local people. Just over two weeks ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki expanded his government’s power base by negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with defacto local ruler Muqtada al-Sadr. Maliki then convinced US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to meet with them in the hope that the US would begin treating al-Sadr as a partner in restoring order in Iraq, especially in Baghdad. Maliki has meanwhile persuaded seven insurgency groups so far to disarm and join the political process. The Maliki government has also offered an olive branch to disaffected Sunnis by inviting former members of the Ba’ath Party to be re-instated in various government positions, including the police and security forces.  

This combination of devolution, diplomacy and power-sharing seems to offer the most promising and realistic prospect for political stability in the new Iraq. 

Prime Minister Maliki has recently expressed profound disappointment in the Bush administration’s ignorance of Iraq. He said that, when he first heard that the US would be invading Iraq, he figured they understood the reality on the ground in terms of Iraq’s history, society, economy and politics. He says it is now clear that they had no such understanding. Last month, after President Bush started publicly prodding the Iraqi Prime Minister to quickly gain control over the sectarian violence – which US troops have been unable to do for three and a half years – Mr Maliki pulled off the gloves and hit back at the Bush administration’s still-tenuous grip on reality. 

At the end of the day, Nouri al-Maliki is the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iraq. He understands his native Iraq and he wants to lead a peaceful sovereign nation. Instead of treating him as a puppet, the US needs to stop dictating unworkable goals and support Mr Maliki’s strategies to resolve sectarian conflict in a way that is realistic in Iraq. A similar compromise position is being struck in Afghanistan, where it just isn’t realistic for the Prime Minister (jokingly referred to as the ‘Mayor of Kabul’) to control all the regions. 

Instead of pursuing vaguely defined and unrealistic goals in an open-ended mission, the Bush administration should adopt a scaled-down mission with clear exit criteria: support the democratically-elected government’s initiative to reduce sectarian violence through negotiation and power-sharing, and drive al Qaeda and other jihadist groups out of Iraq. Then return our troops to the US homeland.

Louisiana, New Orleans Katrina Victims Need Mental Health Services

(originally published at www.bayoubuzz.com)  

Anyone who read Chris Rose’s account of his battle with depression in post-Katrina New Orleans is not likely to forget it. The Times-Picayune journalist described in spellbinding detail each facet of the illness that silently consumed his life: the mind-numbing trauma of reliving and writing about the destruction of his beloved city, the debilitating sense of alienation that made even the most casual social contact unbearable, and the incomparable sense of unreality that manifested as ‘the thousand yard stare’. 

Multitudes of Katrina survivors know exactly what Rose is talking about. Yet the well-documented local increases in depression and anxiety have not been met with an increase in services. It is a bitter irony that, at a time when the need for mental health care in Louisiana has never been greater, services have been downsized to a fraction of pre-storm levels. Thus, there is growing support for mental health care to be included as an integral part of any major disaster relief process. 

Last week on November 8 and 9, experts in the field of disaster-related mental illness gathered in Atlanta at the 22nd Annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy to discuss the psychological consequences of hurricane Katrina. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former US President Jimmy Carter and the former First Lady, and its mission includes advancing human rights and alleviating human suffering. The Katrina symposium featured presentations, work groups and panel discussions that debated ways to improve disaster planning, preparedness, and response in order to recognize the mental health implications for disasters survivors. 

“People in New Orleans and evacuees who moved to other areas around the country are still suffering from the trauma of Hurricane Katrina,” said Mrs. Carter.  ”Our goal is to use the lessons learned from that catastrophic event to improve the mental health outcomes for people affected in the next disaster.” 

The event was co-hosted by Dr. Thom Bornemann, who helped organize mental health professionals in response to hurricane Katrina. He said, “The impact of Hurricane Katrina on victims was unprecedented for our nation. People suffered multiple traumas not only from injury and loss of possessions, but from the perception that agencies and authorities were unable or unwilling to help them.”   

One study on Katrina survivors published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization found that mental health problems in Katrina-affected areas roughly doubled after the hurricane, with 11.3 percent of respondents suffering serious mental illness. A further 19.9 percent reported mild to moderate mental illness. The report also noted that the survey was limited to Katrina survivors in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and there is no similar data available for residents who were displaced to other areas of the country. It seems safe to say that the impact of being separated from one’s community and social support network is likely to exacerbate any mental illness, and thus further research is warranted. 

An earlier study estimated that 25 percent of households affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes contained one or more members in need of counselling services, but only 1.6 percent contained a person who had received counselling services by October 2005. 

At a time when the local need for mental health services is obviously outstripping supply, there is no sign that the federal government appreciates the urgency for Katrina survivors. In September, the Times-Picayune revealed the federal government’s shocking disregard for community health clinics who provided mental health care to people on Medicare or Medicaid while their certifications were pending. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services commented that local clinics who had applied for certification had to wait their turn until inspectors were already scheduled to travel to the area. He also confirmed that the federal government would not reimburse clinics who had provided services to Medicare/Medicaid patients prior to certification, and proposed that the clinics who had cared for these patients would need to take responsibility for their ‘business’ decisions. 

Meanwhile, there are scores of working people in Louisiana who either can’t afford health insurance, or whose insurance policies don’t cover mental illness. They are left to cope with untreated depression and anxiety while they process the enormity of their losses, hold down their jobs, take care of their loved ones and rebuild their city. This does not seem tenable and makes a compelling case for mental health care to be provided for survivors as part of any major disaster relief process. 

Following the Katrina symposium on mental health, the Carter Center will now collate the results, recommendations and action plan developed by participants. These will be distributed to individuals, organizations and policy makers involved in mental health and disaster response. 

These policy recommendations could well find their way to the US Congress, where there is talk of a more rigorous inquiry into the federal government’s response to Katrina. It would be a solid, positive outcome if the lessons of Katrina were truly learned and government responses were improved to respect and address the enormous psychological suffering of disaster survivors.