Security Incidents for 04/23/07

Photo: Ali Jassim mourns as he takes part in the funeral procession for his brother Isam, in Shiite holly city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 22, 2007. Isam Jassim, age 13 was killed by unknown gunmen in the Shiite Muslim city of Kufa. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Baghdad:

A parked car bomb also exploded outside the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, killing one civilian. a parked car bomb exploded in a parking lot near it at about 12 noon, killing one civilian and wounding another, said Iraqi police.

At about 11:30 a.m., drive-by shooters opened fire on guards outside the Tunisian Embassy in the mostly Sunni district of Mansour in western Baghdad, wounding two of them, police said.

In central Baghdad, a bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up in an Iraqi restaurant in the mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Karradah Mariam, killing at least seven people and wounding 16, police said. The attack occurred at about 11 a.m. less than 100 yards outside the heavily fortified Green Zone,

Gunmen opened fire at a U.S. patrol while trying to emplace cement barriers in Ur neighbourhood in northern Baghdad, a Reuters photographer said.

Iraqi army killed seven insurgents during the last 24 hours in different parts of Iraq, the Defence Ministry said.

Diyala Prv:

A suicide car bomber also struck a police station in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, at about 11 a.m., killing at least 10 people and wounding 23, police said.

In Baqubah, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, a car blew up in the middle of a crowd of policemen. The gathering included the police chief, Safa Atimimi, who was among the 10 people killed.

A group of gunmen attacked on Monday the headquarters of the civil defence department in central Baaquba, 57 km west of Baghdad, and blew it up using explosive charges, eyewitnesses said. "An armed group attacked on Monday the headquarters of the civil defence department in central Baaquba," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. "The gunmen evacuated the building from its employees then planted bombs inside the headquarters and blew it up," he added. "The blast destroyed the building completely," another eyewitness said, noting that the blast caused no injury among the employees. The attackers fled the scene after the explosion, he added.

Nine Task Force Lightning Soldiers died as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion near a patrol base in Diyala Province, Monday. Twenty Soldiers and one Iraqi civilian were wounded when a suicide vehicle born IED attacked the patrol base. Twelve Soldiers were returned to duty after initial medical care, and eight Soldiers and the Iraqi civilian were evacuated to a Coalition Forces’ medical treatment facility for further care. Three of those Soldiers were later returned to duty.

Muqdadiyah:

An MNC-I Soldier died at approximately 12:45 pm Monday after an improvised explosive device exploded near his location in Muqudadiyah.

Karbala:

A teacher and a student were wounded when a cluster bomb, left from the recent war in an elementary school in southwestern Karbala, exploded, a Karbala police source.

Kut:

Three U.S. vehicles, including a large transport truck, were destroyed when an explosive charge went off near a U.S. military convoy on Sunday night, a source from the district of al-Numaniya, Wassit province, said. "No information is available about whether there were casualties or injuries from the U.S. army ranks," the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

Iskandariya:

Gunmen attacked a police patrol, killing a policeman and wounded another in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Mahaweel:

A roadside bomb exploded near a civilian car and wounded three people near the town of Mahaweel, 70 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Hilla:

Hilla police chief Maj. Gen. Qais al-Mamouri survived an assassination attempt on Monday afternoon when an explosive charge went off near his convoy south of Hilla, a source from Babel police said. "The explosive device went off at 12:00 noon on the Hilla-Diwaniya road, 20 km south of Hilla, causing damages to the car carrying al-Mamouri," the source, who refused to have his name mentioned, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

Four people were injured on Monday evening when a booby-trapped car went off near a restaurant in central Hilla, 100 km south of Baghdad, a police source said. "A car bomb was detonated at 10:00 pm on Monday near Adam restaurant in central Hilla," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The blast injured four persons, including a woman, and destroyed three civilian vehicles," the source added.

Basra:

"The British base in former president Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces in central Basra came under indirect fire on Sunday night," the statement, received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq said. "The shelling injured six British soldiers, one of whom is in a critical condition," it added.

"The British base in the Basra International Airport, northwest Basra, came under three separate attacks late Sunday and Monday morning without causing human casualties," the statement also said.

It is with deep sadness that the Ministry of Defence must announce the death of a British soldier from 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster�s Regiment in the Al Ashar district of central Basra today, Monday 23 April 2007. The soldier was providing top cover protection for a Warrior armoured vehicle on a routine patrol when he was killed by small arms fire. He was evacuated to Basra Palace, but tragically died of his injuries. No other soldiers were hurt in the incident.

Mosul:

A policeman was killed and four others wounded when an explosive device went off near an Iraqi police patrol in Mosul on Monday, a Ninawa police source said. "The device, planted by unidentified gunmen, took place in al-Dawwasa intersection in central Mosul," Brig. Mohammed Abdul-Aziz al-Wakkaa, assistant director of Ninawa police, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

Gunmen killed traffic police Colonel Abdul Muhsin Hassan in the northern city of Mosul, police said

Tal Uskuf: (Mosul)

Monday's first suicide car bomb attack occurred near the northern city of Mosul at 10:10 a.m. when a suicide attacker detonated his car in front of an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq, an official with the group said. At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded in the attack in Tal Uskuf, a town 9 miles north of Mosul, said Abdul-Ghani Ali, a KDP official.

Al Anbar Prv:

A suicide car bomb exploded near a restaurant in Iraq on Monday, killing at least 19 people and wounding 35, police said. The attack occurred at about 2:30 p.m. on a highway near Ramadi, a city 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, said Ramadi police Maj. Fuad al-Asafia, who provided the casualty figures.

Three car bombs exploded in quick succession in the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Ramadi on Monday, killing 15 people and wounding more than 28, police said. The attacks took place near a restaurant and a market in the western Ramadi district of al-Taamim. Witnesses said earlier there was a heavy police presence in the city after police had received information that car bombs and suicide vests were present in the area.

A U.S. Hummer was destroyed on Monday when an explosive device went off near a U.S. vehicle patrol in western Iraq, local residents said. "An explosive charge detonated today at 1:00 pm near a U.S. vehicle patrol in al-Haqlaniya town, 280 km west of Baghdad," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. He added, "the blast set a Hummer ablaze." Another eyewitness from the town said "U.S. forces sealed off the scene while shop owners hurried to close their shops."

A U.S. Hummer was damaged on Monday when an explosive device went off near a U.S. vehicle patrol in Falluja, 45 km west of Baghdad, a police source said. "An explosive charge detonated today at 7:00 pm near a U.S. vehicle patrol in central Falluja," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq. He added "the blast damaged a U.S. vehicle." The source could not say if there were casualties among the U.S. soldiers.

Unknown gunmen shot and killed two members of a family in Falluja, 45 km west of Baghdad, while police patrols found an unidentified body dumped in the city, a police source said on Monday.

Thanks to whisker for ALL the links above.

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Emergency Services Lack Capacity

Last Wednesday’s four attacks in Baghdad, in which more than 200 people died, have highlighted how overstretched the country’s emergency services are during major attacks, said doctors and emergency services workers. “We were really desperate during the serious attacks on Wednesday [18 April] in the capital as most of the hundreds of injured people were taken to our hospital and we were unable to treat them because of the shortage in doctors, nurses, medicines and materials used in emergency operations,” said Dr Ali Haydar Azize at Sadr City Hospital. “Our supplies [of medicines] were finished in the middle of treating the injured people. Some of them had to be taken to another hospital to save their lives but if we were fully equipped with materials and staff, we would have been able to treat all of them,” Azize added. Iraqi hospitals are not equipped to handle high numbers of injured people at the same time because they depend on weekly deliveries of small quantities of medicines, said Azize. The Ministry of Health said that while it has been sending supplies to every hospital in the capital and in other provinces, it does not have enough funds to fully stock medical stores. “We will try to send extra medicines and materials to hospitals for emergency purposes but they [the hospitals] should be patient as the ministry lacks funds,” Barak Muhammad, a spokesman in the Ministry of Health, said. Doctors say such delays claim the lives of dozens of Iraqis every week.

Thoughts

I don’t know why we have too many useless check points all over Baghdad. Those security forces can do others things better than waving to the cars and blocking most of the lanes in Baghdad streets especially if we keep in mind that many main streets were blocks either by the US forces because those streets are inside the Red Zone (sorry I mean the Green Zone) or by the Iraqi governmental establishments or the political parties. Why do we have to suffer for nothing? Why do we have to waste our times to see a soldier waving to the cars to pass without even checking the trunks of the cars. Why does the Iraqi government do this? Do they really want to save us or to kill us?

I wish I have enough money to leave this country because I cant stand this suffering and I don’t want my sweet 7 months son to live in such mess. My wife asked me yesterday if I have any plans to leave the country. I told her that I wish to but I don’t have enough money and beside, where shall I go? I don’t want to go to any Arabic country because the language would remind me with Iraq. Don’t misunderstand me and don’t think that I’m not patriotic. I lived years out of Iraq. I used to think about it every night. I had the hope to return back after Saddam’s regime collapse. The regime was collapsed but it looks that Iraq had collapsed with it because those who ruled Iraq for the last four years did nothing but saving money for themselves and they forgot the Iraqis suffering. They also forgot that Iraqis are the ones who gave them these positions when they participated in the elections. I hope they don’t forget the judgment day when they will be asked about each penny they got, or THEY DID?

Work on Wall Continues

The construction of a three-mile wall around a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad continued Monday, the military spokesman for the Iraqi government said, despite Premier Nuri al- Maliki's opposition to the plan. Military spokesman Qassem Atta confirmed the US military's plan to form a 3.5-metre-high concrete wall to enclose Adhamiya district, where tit-for-tat sectarian violence is threatening to spiral out of control. He repeated that it was not the only wall. Witnesses said Monday that construction was indeed continuing under the guard of US soldiers. The area is currently sealed off, they said. Atta insisted that Iraqi citizens had requested that walls be erected between neighbourhoods for security considerations, and so the work on the Adhamiya wall among others would continue, he told Iraqiya state television. Atta also said that the defence minister had a 'firm opinion' about the walls, saying that they were 'temporary.' Atta's statements came only a day after al-Maliki had openly called for a halt to the wall of separation, saying he opposed it.

US Will “Respect” Iraqi Wishes

The American ambassador said Monday the U.S. would "respect the wishes" of the Iraqi government after the prime minister ordered a halt to construction of a three-mile wall separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad. Meanwhile, bombings killed at least 46 people and wounding more than 100, authorities said, including a suicide attack that killed at least 19 near a restaurant outside Ramadi. A parked car bomb also exploded outside the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, killing one civilian, and a British soldier was shot to death while on patrol in the southern city of Basra. Any plan to build "gated communities" to protect Baghdad neighborhoods from sectarian attacks was in doubt after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said during a visit to Sunni-led Arab countries that he did not want the 12-foot-high wall in Azamiyah to be seen as dividing the capital's sects.

U.S. Blamed for 'Bloody Wednesday'

Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S. forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last week that killed more than 300 people in Baghdad. Under the security plans additional troops were brought to Baghdad and most city streets closed. But car bombings, operations by death squads and attacks on U.S. troops continue. The attacks Wednesday last week took a high casualty among Kurdish workers known to work in that area. Kurds in the north have stayed relatively free of the violence and the sectarian Shia-Sunni killings in the rest of the country. Kurds had supported the U.S.-led invasion four years back. "A car bomb went off in Sadriyah neighbourhood in the city centre causing death to over 200 people," Mahmood Abdulla from the Russafa Police Directorate in Baghdad told IPS. "It is not certain that the car was driven by a suicide person, in fact most of us believe it was parked there since early morning." Sadriyah is one of the oldest neighbourhoods of Baghdad. It is an area that brings together different ethnic and sectarian groups. "We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for our safety," Kaka Kadir, who lost a 15-year-old son in the attack told IPS. "All we receive from our government and the Americans is talk, and holding other people accountable, while it is them who should protect us."

"I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more," a woman weeping near the scene of the bombing told IPS. "I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones. The last explosion hit my husband and now he is disabled, and this one took my son's life." She referred to a similar bombing two-and-a-half months ago at the same market, which killed 137 and wounded many more. U.S. leaders and Iraqi government officials again accused "terrorists and the Saddamists" of the bombing. But many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government. "I noticed that security officers did not carry out any site investigation," a former police officer who lives in a neighbouring area told IPS on condition of anonymity. "I have also noticed that no such crime has been solved since the first days of the occupation." The officer said that "huge crimes like the Samarra shrine explosions (at the al-Askari Shia mosque in Samarra, 90km north of Baghdad in February last year) that led to increasing sectarian dispute, and many other crimes, remain unsolved."

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraqi PM Asks For End To Work On Baghdad Wall

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday he had asked for an end to construction work on a wall which would separate a mainly Sunni Muslim part of Baghdad from nearby Shi'ite areas.

Making Them Talk

In one of the new joint American-Iraqi security stations in the capital this month, in the volatile Ghazaliya neighborhood, Capt. Darren Fowler was heaping praise on his Iraqi counterparts for helping capture three insurgent suspects who had provided information he believed would save American lives. “The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.” The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee’s back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture. To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans. “I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.”

Iraq’s Fate In The Hands of Shia Cleric

Al-Sadr's decision came a week after he mobilized hundreds of thousands of his followers to protest in southern Iraq, in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. The demonstrators demanded that U.S. forces leave Iraq, but al-Maliki insisted that he had no plans to ask Washington for a timetable. That prompted al-Sadr to pull his ministers out of the cabinet, according to his aides. The cleric's supporters still hold 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament, one of the largest blocs in the 275-member legislature. Al-Sadr's aides hinted that, as a next step, they could topple al-Maliki, who needs the cleric's parliamentary bloc to hold onto power. "We are free because we are no longer in the government," Bahar al-Araji, a member of al-Sadr's bloc, said in Baghdad after the cabinet resignations. "If the prime minister doesn't do what we want, we can do something to the prime minister. We can make him leave the government." With the cleric's supporters out of the cabinet, analysts say, al-Maliki and other moderate Shia leaders could end up having less influence over him. "The main danger is that al-Sadr could decide that he has nothing to gain out of the political process," said an Arab diplomat who monitors Iraq. "If al-Sadr decides to abandon politics, then he's more likely to use violence."

Iraq Death Penalty Raises Concerns

The trial of Mohammed Munaf on charges of kidnapping three Romanian journalists in 2005 lasted about an hour, his lawyer said. And even though no witnesses testified, he said, the Iraqi-born U.S. citizen was sentenced to hang. Munaf's case is under appeal and he has not been executed, but Amnesty International said Friday that about 100 convicts had been hanged since Iraq reinstated the death penalty three years ago, including many whose cases were rushed through the system without due process. The London-based human rights group said the trend could lead to further brutalization of the war-torn nation, but the Iraqi government asserted that the executions were the best way to send the message that it was serious about ending violence. "We're just shy of 100" hangings, said Bassam Ridha, a legal advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. "That's nothing compared to what these insurgents are doing to the Iraqi people." On one day in February, 14 people were hanged across the country for crimes such as terrorism, murder and rape, Ridha said. Each day, he said, Iraqi citizens call his office to demand more executions, telling him that if the government executed more people, there might be more stability in Iraq.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe

On another recent night raid near Muqdadiyah -- based on a tip from the Iraqi police -- U.S. soldiers rolled out in six Humvees expecting to find a half-dozen al-Qaeda in Iraq members in a meeting. Instead they found a crying mother and her terrified 13-year-old boy. "Tell him, since he's the oldest one in the house, he's the man of the house, he needs to man-up and stop hiding behind his mother," 1st Lt. Christopher Nogle, 23, of Orlando, instructed his interpreter. The boy covered his face and sobbed. It was 3 in the morning. He said he didn't know where his father had gone. "Does he love his father?" Nogle asked. "Does he want to see him again?" The small barefoot boy shook with fear and said nothing. "Ask him where his father hides his weapons," Nogle demanded. "I swear to God I don't know," the boy said. "He is not a man, he is scared," said his mother, who was also wailing. "He needs to quit crying. He's responsible for everybody in here right now since his father left; his father abandoned everybody else," Nogle told the boy through his interpreter. "Tell him when his father comes back later tonight or tomorrow that he needs to have a talk with his father, that his father is doing very bad things and it's getting the whole family in trouble." Before the soldiers left, an Iraqi police officer brandished two large buck knives in front of the boy's face. Nobody was arrested. [I emailed Nogle to let him know what I thought of his actions. It was far from a positive email. I have gotten a response, but not permission to reprint it. Interestingly, Nogel shared it with his mother, and like the mother of the little boy in this story, she has come to his defense. She has also shown signs of not being able to think clearly, and she still believes many of the lies that lead to this war. – dancewater]

During the daylong operation in Buhriz al-Barra, American soldiers killed one gunman and detained 12 people, including one man soldiers said was an al-Qaeda emir, Mehdi Salman Kabouri al-Sharafi. They found five small weapons caches, with artillery rounds, hand grenades and machine-gun ammunition. Commanders said the near-total exodus of men was typical. "We've seen no military-aged males before. It's a trend," Col. Sutherland said. There were few clues as to where the men of the village went or why they left. The soldiers found one hint written in rusty English on a piece of paper taped to a computer screen. "We didn't runaway because we are terrorist," the note said. "We run away because we afrad of you."

REFUGEES

The Iraqi Crisis That Has No Name

Back in late 2006, UNHCR in Damascus started out as the most modest of operations -- with two processing clerks, each seeing between five and seven cases daily. Now, there are 25 clerks processing more than 200 cases daily, not to mention guards, drivers, new computers, a Red Crescent aid station at the center, a new bathroom, and plans for adding a child center, psychological counseling services, and a community center before the Secretary General of the UN visits later this month. Yet all of this is still nowhere near enough to keep up with the implacable flood of Iraqis entering Syria every month. Iraqis, who now comprise a little over 8% of the population of this small country, tell stories about why they left their land and what they are dealing with today, which these numbers, staggering as they are, do not.

COMMENTARY

What The Separation-Walls Mean

Al-Hayat brings together some comments on the Great Wall of Adhamiya:

A member of parliament for the Islamic Party said resort to this policy reinforces the tendency to sectarianism among the population, in fact this decision relies on [or sanctions] the sectarian factor in isolating the area, pointing out that "this is an index of the fact that this government has not yet grasped that while military effort is needed, it is not he solution of every problem."...

The official spokesman for the Sadrist trend told Al-Hayat "A policy of enclosing neighborhoods is not going to make the Baghdad security plan succeed. Adopting this approach is a result of the fact that the Iraqi military forces have voluntarily submitted to the American occupation". ...

A resident by the name of Ali Ibrahim said "it appears that federalism, with its desire to partition Iraq, will also include Baghdad in its partitioning. People here are talking about a decision by the government to issue special identity [cards or badges] to the residents of Sunni neighborhoods."...

Computer programmer Mustafa, age 25, stressed "uneasiness with the thrust behind the wall [policy] because it will turn Adhamiya into a giant prison."

The journalist balances this with explanations by government people, and a mocking comment by the Islamic State of Iraq. But the gist of the above-noted comments, representing Sunni political opposition, Shiite political opposition and the views of residents, is that this wall isn't just a random bad idea. On the contrary, the idea here is that the wall embodies and symbolizes the fact that "Iraqi forces have submitted to the occupation"; that the Maliki government and the Americans are relying on and sanctioning the principle of sectarian separation; and that the occupation appears to be taking the partition/federalism scheme right into the heart of Baghdad. In a word: The wall embodies and symbolizes the fact that the Americans are not merely responding to violence to try and minimize it. Rather, they are implementing by force a proactive strategy that exploits the sectarian problems in the interests of partition and further weakening of the country; and the Iraqi forces are going along with that.

OPINION: Two Types of Violence

There is neither physical nor moral equivalence between the carnage at Virginia Tech and the latest explosions in the US-sparked Sunni-Shi'ite civil war, yet such outbreaks draw attention to an underlying force that has taken both nations hostage: violence. At a time like this, it is necessary to step back from politics and grief to think about violence as such. "Violence is by nature instrumental," the political philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote. "Like all means, it always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues." By "instrumental," Arendt essentially means "aimed at accomplishing something." Clausewitz had taken such purposefulness for granted when he defined war as "an act of violence to compel the opponent to do as we wish." Such violence, however much to be regretted, or even opposed, can claim to be both rational and right. But Arendt's assumption about violence as "by nature instrumental" seems undercut by the violence that, however differently, shook both America and Iraq last week. It was very clear that Seung-Hui Cho was not engaged in "instrumental" violence. He committed grotesque acts for the sake not of power or dominance, but of their grotesquery. His was violence for its own sake, period. In destroying innocent lives, Cho was concerned not with those lives or with any others, but only with himself.

……..American violence is the condition within which Iraqi violence explodes. The removal of American violence may or may not dampen Iraqi violence. But Iraqi violence of various stripes still aims for power, control, or, at minimum, revenge. Iraqi violence is purposeful. Last week puts its hard question to Americans: What is the purpose of ours?

OPINION: De-Iraqification

The problem with the Iraqi Army’s performance was not a lack of training; it wasn’t because they were unversed in sophisticated combined-arms combat techniques that the U.S. military excels in – after all, Saddam’s forces were too and they kept order in Iraq. And it wasn’t because of inadequate human rights training, any more than the Haditha massacre was because Marines were inadequately informed on the idea that killing unarmed women and children in their beds is wrong or that the Abu Ghraib scandal occurred because of inadequate instruction regarding forming human beings into naked pyramids and forcing them to masturbate. The problem is not technical; it is political. And it is twofold. The first is that there is no such thing as an Iraqi government and hardly any such thing as an Iraqi nation. People have loyalty to themselves, their families, their clans, possibly to their sect or ethnic group, and possibly to one of the political groupings with clout – SCIRI, Sadr, the Kurdish parties, the Sunni insurgency, a handful of smaller groups – but not to the government, an abstract and nebulous entity not based on any clear principles. Even government bureaucrats, normally among the best candidates for loyalty to the government, don’t show it in Iraq; almost to a person, they do some combination of padding their own nests outrageously and working for the aggrandizement of their party. So the talk about Shi’a militias “infiltrating” the Iraqi Army is nonsense; not only is it men from the militias who formed a large chunk of the recruits, even those who were initially neutral would eventually come under the sway of one political group or another in the absence of any larger authority to give their allegiance to. The second problem, related to the first, is that nobody is on the Americans’ side. The Kurds are for instrumental reasons only; the others are not even that. Neither the elements of the government nor the elements of the army share the goals of the Americans; training them better would just make them better at opposing the Americans, either overtly or covertly. The United States bears the responsibility for the total political fragmentation of Iraq. Unfortunately, even if it had the best intentions in the world, there is almost certainly nothing that it can do about that fragmentation now. Instead, it should limit itself to learning one of the key lessons from Vietnam: if your enterprise is hopelessly misbegotten politically, it cannot be saved by technical fixes.