The present-day U.S. military qualifies by any measure as highly professional, much more so than its Cold War predecessor. Yet the purpose of today’s professionals is not to preserve peace but to fight unending wars in distant places. Intoxicated by a post-Cold War belief in its own omnipotence, the United States allowed itself to be drawn into a long series of armed conflicts, almost all of them yielding unintended consequences and imposing greater than anticipated costs. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. forces have destroyed many targets and killed many people. Only rarely, however, have they succeeded in accomplishing their assigned political purposes. . . . [F]rom our present vantage point, it becomes apparent that the “Revolution of ‘89” did not initiate a new era of history. At most, the events of that year fostered various unhelpful illusions that impeded our capacity to recognize and respond to the forces of change that actually matter.

Andrew Bacevich


Sunday, December 2, 2007

News of the Day for Sunday, December 2, 2007

A US soldier looks at burning houses during an air assault operation in the village of Sufeit, south of Baquba. Iraq's faltering political process was thrown into fresh turmoil when the main Sunni bloc walked out of the parliament in protest at a crackdown on its leader Adnan al-Dulaimi.(AFP/Gianluigi Guercia) Yet another incident reported only in a photo caption. I could find no further information about this air assault, can't tell you about casualties. -- C

Reported Security Incidents

Baghdad

An improvised explosive device detonated near a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing one Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier and wounding three others Dec. 1.

Roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in Mansour kills two police officers, injures two more. Reuters gives casualty total as two killed, four wounded.

Also in Mansour, 90 minutes later, police officer on his way to work is killed in a drive-by shooting. In an apparent reference to the same incident, Reuters identifies the victim as Lieutenant-Colonel Aqeel Abdul Hussein, assistant to the head of Baghdad's security forces.

Bomb under a parked car explodes near the Shiite Buratha mosque, killing one civilian. (This mosque was the site of a suicide attack in April, 2006 that killed 85.)

Bomb planted under the car of Shi'ite politician Ammar Moussawi kills his driver, injures Moussawi and three others. McClatchy more specifically identifies Moussawi as the general director of religious education in the Shiite endowment.

Roadside bomb explodes near the Ministry of the Interior. No reported casualties.

Iskandariya

Gunmen attack Sunni al-Sammee al-Aleem mosque after Friday prayers, kill three, injure one, and kidnap five. McClatchy identifies one of the abductees as Sheikh Mizhir al Azawi of Azaa tribe.

Baquba

Suicide car bomb attack on a police building wounds 14. (At least the description makes it sound like a suicide attack. No word on the fate of the attacker.) McClatchy identifies the target building as the directorate of Baquba municipality, says the wounded include "three women, three policemen, and eight civilians." (Not clear, if the women were not civilians, what their status was.)

Samara

Roadside bomb targeting Iraqi army patrol kills three soldiers, injures four.

Arbil

Bomb attack on the home of Sheikh Hamid al-Ahmad, head of the Dalouiya Support Council, injures one of his guards.

Various places

Iraqi Defense Ministry claims 11 "terrorists" killed in operations north of Baghdad, 2 more killed to the southwest, 94 arrested.

Other News of the Day

In Amara, hundreds of students and professors demonstrate against attacks on Iraqi academics. Excerpt:

Hundreds of university students and professors took to the streets in Amara city protesting the abduction of a technical institute dean and urging the government to put an end to mounting attacks against Iraqi intellectuals.
"Today's demonstration denounces attacks against the Iraqi intelligentsia, which security forces remain unable to halt…," a professor from Missan University, Dr. Bassim al-Rubaie, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

"Supported by foreign bodies, organized gangs from all over Iraq are seeking to empty Iraqi universities and institutes of professors. Other gangs aim at financial gains from the release of hostages," al-Rubaie indicated. Al-Rubaie called on the security apparatus to provide adequate protection for Iraqi scholars, university professors, and journalists and to put them on equal terms with politicians.

The demonstration comes following the abduction of the dean of the central Amara's technical institute, Dr. Raed Saei al-Saaedi, by unknown gunmen while he was en-route back home on Saturday noon.


Fears grow of a "catastrophic" cholera epidemic as reported cases increase in Baghdad, rainy season threatens to overwhelm deteriorating sewer systems. (Note: The United States continues its military occupation of Iraq, and is responsible for the basic needs of the population. -- C) Excerpt from report by The Guardian's David Smith:

Baghdad is facing a 'catastrophe' with cases of cholera rising sharply in the past three weeks to more than 100, strengthening fears that poor sanitation and the imminent rainy season could create an epidemic.

The disease - spread by bacteria in contaminated water, which can result in rapid dehydration and death - threatens to blunt growing optimism in the Iraqi capital after a recent downturn in violence. Two boys in an orphanage have died and six other children were diagnosed with the disease, according to the Iraqi government. 'We have a catastrophe in Baghdad,' an official said.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said 101 cases had been recorded in the city, making up 79 per cent of all new cases in Iraq. It added that no single source for the upsurge had been identified, but the main Shia enclave of Sadr City was among the areas hardest hit.

As Iraq's rainy season nears, its ageing water pipes and sewerage systems, many damaged or destroyed by more than four years of war, pose a new threat to a population weary of crisis. Claire Hajaj, a spokeswoman for Unicef, said: 'Iraq's water and sanitation networks are in a critical condition. Pollution of waterways by raw sewage is perhaps the greatest environmental and public health hazard facing Iraqis - particularly children. Waterborne diarrhoea diseases kill and sicken more Iraqi children than anything except pneumonia. We estimate that only one in three Iraqi children can rely on a safe water source - with Baghdad and southern cities most affected.'

Although US forces in Baghdad have found that security is improving, on daily patrols they face complaints from residents about streets plagued by piles of household waste and fetid cesspools, often near schools and where children are playing. Captain Richard Dos Santos, attached to the 3rd squadron of the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, said that in the al-Hadar area of south Baghdad sewage pumps were only 30 to 40 per cent operational. 'There is sewage near schools and there is an increased threat of cholera and flu in winter when resistance is low,' he said.


Sunni Accordance Front walks out of Parliament in protest over the detention of Adnan al-Dulaimi. Excerpt:

Iraq's faltering political process was thrown into fresh turmoil when the main Sunni bloc walked out of parliament in protest at a security crackdown on its leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi.

The National Concord Front, the main Sunni bloc, with 44 MPs in the 275-member parliament, walked out of the assembly, saying it would return after Mr Dulaimi returned to the legislature. The bloc's Abdul Karim al-Samarrai told the assembly on Saturday: "When I went to meet him I was stopped and told he is under house arrest. This is a violation of the rights of an MP who wants to come to the parliament." After his statement the bloc's MPs walked out of the assembly hall, joined by the parliament's speaker, Sunni Mahmud al-Mashhadani.

A Government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, denied that Mr Dulaimi was under house arrest. " [It] is not true. It is only protection given to Dulaimi until the situation is clear," Mr Dabbagh told the state television Al-Iraqiya.

Political tension has risen sharply following the crackdown on Mr Dulaimi after the Iraqi army said on Thursday that it found car bombs near his Baghdad offices. The military detained his son and dozens of bodyguards suspected of links to the bombs.


Dulaimi is allowed to leave his home, says the Accordance Front will return to Parliament.

NYT's Damien Cave reviews the ubiquitous corruption in Iraq. And note that this is directly related to the looming cholera epidemic -- funds that should be spenton fixing the sewage system are stolen instead. Excerpt:

Jobless men pay $500 bribes to join the police. Families build houses illegally on government land, carwashes steal water from public pipes, and nearly everything the government buys or sells can now be found on the black market.

Painkillers for cancer (from the Ministry of Health) cost $80 for a few capsules; electricity meters (from the Ministry of Electricity) go for $200 each, and even third-grade textbooks (stolen from the Ministry of Education) must be bought at bookstores for three times what schools once charged.

“Everyone is stealing from the state,” said Adel Adel al-Subihawi, a prominent Shiite tribal leader in Sadr City, throwing up his hands in disgust. “It’s a very large meal, and everyone wants to eat.”

Corruption and theft are not new to Iraq, and government officials have promised to address the problem. But as Iraqis and American officials assess the effects of this year’s American troop increase, there is a growing sense that, even as security has improved, Iraq has slipped to new depths of lawlessness.

One recent independent analysis ranked Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world. Of 180 countries surveyed, only Somalia and Myanmar were worse, according to Transparency International, a Berlin-based group that publishes the index annually.

And the extent of the theft is staggering. Some American officials estimate that as much as a third of what they spend on Iraqi contracts and grants ends up unaccounted for or stolen, with a portion going to Shiite or Sunni militias. In addition, Iraq’s top anticorruption official estimated this fall — before resigning and fleeing the country after 31 of his agency’s employees were killed over a three-year period — that $18 billion in Iraqi government money had been lost to various stealing schemes since 2004.

The collective filching undermines Iraq’s ability to provide essential services, a key to sustaining recent security gains, according to American military commanders. It also sows a corrosive distrust of democracy and hinders reconciliation as entrenched groups in the Shiite-led government resist reforms that would cut into reliable cash flows.


Al Sadr calls for continued stand-down by Mahdi Army, simultaneously calls for an end to the occupation, even as the SIIC apparently wants it to continue forever. "We gained nothing from the long presence of the occupiers, except for division, killings, arrests and looting," al-Sadr said.

Karl Rove claims that it was Congress, not the Administration, that wanted to rush to war in 2002. Astonishingly, the Washington Post actually disputes him, rather than merely transcribing his remarks. Evidently a failure of editorial control -- I'm sure heads will roll. -- C

Quote of the Day

Impeachment is the tool being demanded by 43 percent of Americans who not only recognize the problem, but even call for the drastic action of removing Cheney from office.

House Democratic leadership is acting in a timid and irresponsibly political fashion. Likely, they want to keep the Republican executives in power and all Republican politicians "on the ropes" until the 2008 elections. Or perhaps they misguidedly believe that there are more important activities for Congress than heeding this historically strong demand to address these obvious abuses.

Whatever the motivation, Democratic congressional leaders continue to shirk their oaths of office by allowing the executive branch to ignore laws and plan expanded warfare without congressional authorization.


Maine citizens John Kaminski and Gary Higginbottom

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