The truth why the US is losing the peace in Iraq

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Written By David T. Pyne

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In early October, a special program on Iraq aired on PBS called “Truth, War and Consequences.” The purpose of the program was to find out the truth about what has actually gone wrong in Iraq. The program was based on interviews with various US political and military leaders who had experience on the ground in Iraq as well as a few members of the Iraqi Governing Council. The program exposed the fact that General Garner who was originally tasked with heading up the US led Coalition Provisional Authority was sacked by neocons in the Bush Administration likely at the urging of Under Secretary of Policy, Douglas Feith because he was viewed as weak and overly conciliatory to the defeated Baathist ruling party. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and possibly Vice President Dick Cheney supported his ouster. In a move reminiscent of General Patton following World War Two, General Garner had decided to permit low-level Baathist bureaucrats who had no love lost for Saddam Hussein to continue in their positions in the short-term. His rationale was that doing so would allow the country to be rebuilt more quickly and perhaps as a hedge against the emergence of the radical Shiite terrorist threat we have seen emerge in Iraq over the past several months. In retrospect, it is clear that his decision to do so was correct.

Garner was replaced by Paul Bremer who acting under the direction of Feith and other neocons at the Pentagon immediately moved to outlaw the Baath Party and ban all of its members from serving in the new government, police, military or security forces. Bremer then disbanded the entire 425,000 man Iraqi Army. These two actions were without a doubt the two most glaring mistakes of the entire post war period, leading to increased terrorist attacks against Coalition forces and making the restoration of peace, security and order in Iraq all but impossible. Outlawing the Baathists forced them to go underground and caused them to move from collaboration with the new US-led regime to full militant opposition. It caused them to forge an unholy alliance of convenience with Al Queda’s newly empowered affiliate in Iraq and the Baathists’ long-time enemy, Ansar-al-Islam, against the American occupiers. There is evidence that the Baathists and Ansar-al-Islam may have collaborated to plan and execute some of the recent terrorist attacks. The disbanding of the Sunni-led Iraqi Army in mid-May created a massive security vacuum which was quickly filled by foreign Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist groups which immediately proceeded to enter Iraq in force.

The most militant Shiite terror groups, SCIRI and Al Dawa invaded Iraq with the help of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which serves as Iran’s intelligence arm tasked with promoting militant Islamic groups and fostering Islamic revolution throughout the Muslim world in furtherance of Iran’s foreign policy objectives. It is also tasked with assisting terrorist groups, which engage in suicide bombing attacks against US and Israeli forces. Representatives of these militant Shiite terrorist organizations were then foolishly welcomed into the new US-appointed Iraq Governing Council later that month as representatives of Iraq’s Shiite majority. Bremer decided to give these and other mostly radical Shiite groups a slight majority on the Council with thirteen of the twenty-five seats. In fact, the first interim Iraq President, who led the Iraqi Governing Council during the month of August, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, serves as the chief spokesman for Al Dawa. This terrorist group is believed by many US intelligence analysts to be responsible along with its sister organization, Hezbollah, for the suicide car bombing against the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 which resulted in the deaths of 241 US Marines.

The rising influence of the Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist groups in Iraq and on the Governing Council pose the greatest threat to US national security because unlike the other groups suspected of being responsible for recent attacks they have a long record of supporting terrorist attacks against US soldiers and civilians. These groups are trying to accelerate the timetable for democratic elections in Iraq which they believe they would win due to the fact that sixty percent of the population of Iraq is Shiite. The US must take swift action to counter them. Representatives of these Iranian-backed terrorist groups should immediately be banned from further participation in Iraq’s Governing Council and replaced by representatives of more moderate Shiite factions and perhaps a few lower-level Baath Party members, which are found to be free of any connection to Saddam. The Baath Party should be legalized and the ban against their participation in the new Iraq should be lifted. This would go far to decrease their incentive for supporting further terrorist attacks against US forces. Along with a much more rapid reconstitution of the Iraqi Army, these measures would deter Shiite terrorist attacks and thus go far to make the country more safer for US troops and civilians in Iraq, enabling a quicker US withdrawal from the Iraqi quagmire.

Since Bremer took over in May, the number of attacks perpetrated against US troops has skyrocketed and since July the average number of US troops killed from all causes has gone from an average of two a day to an average of three a day. Two-hundred and eight US soldiers have died in Iraq since President Bush declared “mission accomplished” and an end to major combat operations on May 1st bringing the total number of US casualties in Iraq to 374 dead and over 1700 wounded. In a recent poll of the American people, 64% of the respondents expressed their opinion that the level of US casualties in Iraq is “unacceptable.” Had the US procounsel in Iraq, Paul Bremer, under orders from Under Secretary Feith not banned the Baath Party and disbanded the Iraqi military, it is extremely unlikely that either the Baath Party loyalists or the Shiite majority would have engaged in terrorist attacks and raids against US forces, leaving Al Queda and its affiliate, Ansar-al-Islam to execute them alone. At a minimum such attacks would have been far less than those that have actually taken place and the number of US casualties far fewer.

General Garner, as a longtime veteran of the US military, was successful in keeping the peace in Iraq and would have likely been considerably more successful than Bremer has been in maintaining it. Sadly, he was deprived of the opportunity to do so by neocon elements within the Bush Administration. President Bush has been poorly served by Under Secretary Feith, Paul Bremer, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and the other neocons in his Administration who got him into the Iraq war quagmire in the first place. This governing neo-con counsel and other like-minded officials within the Administration persuaded the President to invade and occupy Iraq in direct opposition to the wise counsel of his father in his published 1995 memoirs, entitled “A World Transformed.” In his book, former President George H.W. Bush wrote that the reason he decided not to invade and occupy Iraq was because he realized that a prolonged US occupation of Iraq would result in the emergence of more dangerous threats to US national security in Iraq. The President should immediately sack Bremer as head of the CPA for incompetence and restore General Garner or someone like him to that position who actually has a plan for restoring peace to Iraq and combating the terrorists and minimizing their influence. In addition, the President should purge Wolfowitz and Feith from the Department of Defense and replace them with far-sighted conservative realists who actually have a plan for extricating US forces from Iraq and are ready and able to radically revise US policy in Iraq without having to defend past mistakes.

Related articles:
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Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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