NYT: U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans (major article)

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans
By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 15, 2007

BAGHDAD, Jan. 14 — Just days after President Bush unveiled his new war plan for Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials.

American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad. With the first American and Iraqi units dedicated to the plan as part of the new troop buildup due to be in place within weeks, time is short for setting details of what American officers view as the decisive battle of the war.

But the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems, ranging from a contested chain of command to issues of how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts, that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among these is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy that President Bush has declared central to the plan.

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad closely involved in negotiations over the plan, expressing frustration. “We are being played like a pawn.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/world/middleeast/15baghdad.html?ei=5094&en=4666f60671e0a842&hp=&ex=1168837200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

[soothsayer]

1. details, details! the decider has decided it, it's done.

[CCDSkyimager]

43. The surge of the decider

The only Surge that the Decider gets is in his pants when he sees all the death and destruction. The mindless one's one demensional thought process relly leaves us only one option of impeachment.

[hatrack]

2. Great. A new, improved, uncertain, unclear war plan, lacking in details

These guys NEVER LEARN.

[babylonsister]

3. I'm astonished. * had about 6 WEEKS to consult and figure out where

he wanted to go with this 'surge'. He didn't think to consult with the Iraqis prior to unveiling his plan? Who the hell is running this show and, whoever it is, they should be fired.

[wordpix]

37. that would be BushCo run by CEO & pRes Stupid "running the show"

[heldmyw]

4. But...

How could anyone misunderstand a blast of 21,500 armed troops sent to specifically straighten out Baghdad? Could the Kurd-Shiite faction (80% of the population) be concerned and footdragging because they have other plans for the old Saddam loser Sunnis (20% of the pop.) and just want to..um.. "take care of bidness" themselves?

Why don't I believe that social and political reconciliation is really in the cards for Iraq?

[DeepModem Mom]

8. Thanks for posting, heldmyw -- welcome to DU!

[ShockediSay]

11. 2d your welcoming nt

[heldmyw]

13. Thank you kindly!

It's a nice place.

(There are some rowdies here, though.. ( like it!)

[Morgana LaFey]

40. ROTFL

Rowdies. Yes, indeed. And at a time in history like this, it strikes me that that's exactly what's required. Glad you found us.

[Pirate Smile]

5. The next paragraph truly tells the story:

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad closely involved in negotiations over the plan, expressing frustration. “We are being played like a pawn.”

[KoKo]

14. I would wish this "Military Official" had spoken up more forcefully....

:-(

[IndianaGreen]

23. The problem with our military is that it believes whatever Bush says

The Iraqi government was never behind the surge plan, only after much arm twisting did it give tepid supprt.

[wordpix]

32. "played like a pawn:" but as long as BushCo's got its oil bases in place,

it will continue to send US troops to protect their oil interests in Iraq unless/until WE stop them.

Write your Congressmen today!

[Spazito]

6. Further proof, as if it was needed, that the whole bush cabal

LIED when they tried to say it was an IRAQI plan:

"American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad"

It will be a bloodbath for all the troops AND Iraqi citizens, appalling, simply appalling.

[0007]

42. junior's favorite smell is death & bad gas from his intestines

The plan gives a central role to the National Police, viewed as widely infiltrated by Shiite militias and, despite an intensive American retraining program, still suspected of a strongly Shiite sectarian bias. One American officer said that the National Police commanders have been “dragging their feet” over their role in the new plan and that they could seriously compromise the operation.

We're so fucked!!

[Miss Chybil]

7. Unfuckingbelievable.

I keep saying that, I know, but it's true and I can't help it.

[rodeodance]

20. RIGHT ON.

[VegasWolf]

9. Bush the Boy King really has no clothes. Gee, who could'a thunk it? nt

[annabanana]

10. AND! ! ! As condi revealed in her hearings this past week. . .

THERE IS NO PLAN "B"

[originalpckelly]

12. Yeah, this was an Iraqi plan...

:eyes:
Fuckin' liars.

[peacetalksforall]

15. You don't think Cheney ordered the outcome and left it to George

to get there, do you?

Seriously, everyone is working very hard.

Screwing us out of what they screwed us into.

Pathetic situation.

But, it's nice to know the right wing religious contingent is still stalwart behind George and friends.

[KoKo]

16. If it fails in February (Condi said all troops will be there by Feb) then Bomb Iran!

We were told the troops would be "phased in" and Condi said int he Senate hearings that all troops would be in place by Feb 1. So, what's the truth of it?

Now they have no Plan B and the Iraqi's nor our Military were aware of the details...so if it all falls apart in a blood bath...some hoked up evidence that Iran Did IT will be trotted out in the midst of the carnage and it's "bombs away."

They want to fail to achieve their objective.... At least that's what it looks like.

[frogcycle]

17. i read this article just after watching that simpering prick

with the sycophantic reporter lobbing softballs and I just want to frickin scream.

that this dirtbag self-aggrandizing moron is in a position to say "send a surge - make it happen" and then leave the generals who argued against it to figure out how to TRY to do it with adequate force protection is beyond criminal.

i suppose i can cut the cbs guy a little slack - you know there were extensive detailed groundrules to get the interview. they either play along or dont get it.

wouldn't it have been great, though, if the guy had asked him point blank what exactly the monstrous "embassy" building is for, and how, if it is not "open ended" there is no definition of what the end is? maybe lob a little question right in the middle of the softballs like "so did the oil company executives request the surge?" or "when is cheney going to tell you what happens when this fails?"

[wordpix]

33. yeah, I watched Hadley on MTP yesterday state the same old platitudes, even

repeating the same old "al Quaeda in Iraq" and "war on terror" meme. I must say, Tim Russert is sounding more and more unbelieving these days. He is finally very skeptical about BushCo.

It is time to remove the cabal. Period. :eyes:

[disndat]

39. Scott Pelley

a real * sycophant is supposed to be up for a job with Faux News. The interview was a farce and setup as a Bus pr job, with loudly twirling helicopter in the background. Shame on CBS/Viacom for putting it on "60 Miuutes" right, and of course, after the big football game, to maximize the propaganda to a big audience.

[rodeodance]

18. “We are being played like a pawn.” says the miliary. WHOW

[rodeodance]

19. quintupling the number of American civilian reconstruction specialists to 500

The American military’s misgivings came as new details emerged of the reconstruction portion of Mr. Bush’s plan, which calls for more than doubling the number of American-led reconstruction teams in Iraq to 22 and quintupling the number of American civilian reconstruction specialists to 500. But how the new specialists will be recruited and how security will be provided for them — major issues now — remain unclear.

Compounding American doubts about the government’s willingness to go after Shiite extremists has been a behind-the-scenes struggle over the naming of the Iraqi officer to fill the key post of operational commander for the Baghdad operation. In face of strong American skepticism, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has named an officer from the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq who was virtually unknown to the Americans, and whose hard-edged-demands for Iraqi primacy in the effort has deepened American anxieties.

The Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, will be part of what the Americans have described as a partnership between the two armies, with an American general, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of the First Cavalry Division, working with Gen. Aboud, and American and Iraqi officers twinned down the operational chain. For the Americans, accustomed to clear operational control, the partnership concept is troublesome — full of potential, some officers fear, for dispute with the Iraqis over tough issues like an equal focus on Shiite and Sunni gunmen.

It remains unclear whether the prime minister will be in overall charge of the new crackdown, a demand the Iraqis have pressed since the plan was first discussed last month, American officials said. They said days of argument had led to a compromise under which General Qanbar would answer to a so-called crisis counsel, made up of Mr. Maliki, the ministers of defense and interior, Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and the top American military commander in Iraq.

[Az_lefty]

21. i guess ol' george still ain't talkin to the generals on the ground..

"still being played like a pawn"...no shit!

[vickitulsa]

22. Situation FUBAR, as usual with this criminally insane crowd.

My very first thought when I heard the "big speech" was that there is no way the Iraqis will cooperate with this madness.

With our better trained and better armed 130,000 or so troops there now, or even after the escalation and addition of "21,500" U.S. troops, just think how outnumbered our guys there are compared to the Iraqis we've been training and arming for years -- in their OWN country!

That always bothered me too -- the fact that the U.S. military was training and arming huge numbers of Iraqis who would then have an awful lot of ordnance and weaponry that we provided. Even if the U.S. military had been able to get out "cleanly," it seemed obvious to me that what we would leave behind was literally millions of well armed Iraqi men from all factions ... who would upon our exit then almost surely turn those weapons upon each other in their tribal wars.

Now it appears * is going to create a much worse situation than even that.

Ya know, maybe there IS one thing that could "unite" all Iraqis -- at least for a time. They might well decide that they're willing to work together to attack all Americans in their country to either kill them or throw them all OUT!

Frankly, even that isn't very likely to happen. No, what's most likely to occur now is the horrendous clusterfuck many of us here at DU have been predicting since *'s speech. It won't be something our country can extract itself from neatly, either ... since utter chaos literally in the streets of Baghdad and then countrywide is almost sure to ensue....

I shudder to think about it.


Edit: Gotta spell Baghdad right!

[IndianaGreen]

24. No situation is ever FUBAR enough for this crowd

No matter how bad things get, they will always figure out a way to make it worse.

[GreenZoneLT]

25. If you like Bush, you'll love Maliki

Here's what Maliki ALWAYS says about Baghdad violence. The perpetrators are Saddamists, "terrorists" (foreign, al Qaeda-linked Sunnis) and Takfiris (homegrown Wahabbi Sunni fanatics).

Here's as far as he will go in criticizing militias: No one but the government forces may carry weapons, and anyone who does will be treated as an outlaw, regardless of sect. No visible action has ever actually backed up that particular speech.

The incompetence, corruption and bad intentions among the Iraqi elected officials puts the White House completely in the shade. Iraqi politicians mostly come in two flavors, nitwit or evil bastard.

And our new strategy relies on them for success. Oh, joy.

[magellan]

26. Has anyone adequately explained yet where these extra 21,500 troops are coming from?

I've read there's a battalion (500 or so) coming from Afghanistan, along with some lame-brained extension/reactivation bs and more of a pull from the Nat'l Guard (have the governors spoken on that?), but is that it? It can't be a sudden injection of 21,500 troops if that's how they're doing it, but more like a dribbling build-up of mostly battle-weary troops.

Shell game if ever I heard one. Rob Peter to pay Paul, basically making this out to be something it isn't to pacify the public so they can continue their profiteering. Again.

[GreenZoneLT]

27. That's mostly PR, that 21,500.

Stars & Stripes had a story the other day on where the troops are coming from. The Army's going to extend some units and deploy some early. The entire "surge," which is more like the tide coming in than a wave, won't be in place until May. And at the peak, we'll have 6,000 fewer troops here than we did in November, 2005.

The more interesting and important surge is the supposed nine combat brigades the Iraqis claim they're going to provide. Many of them are Kurds who until recently were peshmerga militia, who don't speak Arabic. That ought to work just swell.

[magellan]

29. That's even worse than I thought

Thanks for the illumination, even though it makes me want to literally :banghead:. My god, I have no words for my rage and sorrow at what he's doing to our troops. What they're feeling I can't imagine.

[wordpix]

34. I heard a cable news report that some troops are coming out of Afghanistan

That will really help keep Afghanistan stable against the re-established Taliban, some of whom are reportedly protecting OBL on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

[amandabeech]

44. The Kurds don't like the Arabs, either.

My Turkish roommate thinks that as soon as we leave, the Arabs, both Sunni and Shia, will gang up and attack the Kurds.

Which will please her immensely.

[TheMadMonk]

28. What if this clusterf*ck is deliberate?

What if the real intention behind all this cooperation and brotherly love is to have some sort of major incident occur resulting in the deaths of significant numbers of US troops. The hope could be to whip up a groundswell of "righteous outrage" while announcing that the gloves are coming off. Then secure the oil fields and let the rest of the country go hang after smashing it the rest of the way back to the stone age.

[SpiralHawk]

30. And it will all be the fault of Clenis!

You can bet your bippy on that.

"Frisk the usual suspects for their Clenis." - Commander AWOL

[wordpix]

35. what I'm afraid of is pRes. Moron will drop a nuke if all else fails & so far, it has

[frogcycle]

46. with this crowd

that outrageous proposition actually sounds plausible

"3000 killed on 9/11 wasn't enough? 3400 more in these wars STILL not enough? well, just watch this, you twits, I'll send another 5000 thru the meat grinder; THEN you'll let me play with the BIG toys!"

[zippy890]

31. sending troops to be slaughtered

when are we going to get the hell out of there

[wordpix]

36. BushCo should be forced to explain why this won't happen again, as it has so many times:

snip:
That prospect raises the specter of repeating what has happened on several other occasions in Baghdad: Americans clearing neighborhoods house-by-house, only for insurgents and militiamen to reappear when Iraqi security forces take over from the Americans and prove incapable of holding the ground, or compliant with the marauding gunmen. That was the pattern with Operation Together Forward, the last effort to secure Baghdad, which began with an additional 7,000 American troops over the summer, and effectively abandoned within two months when Iraqi troops failed to hold areas the Americans handed over to them.

Another concern is that the target of the new Baghdad plan — Sunni and Shiite extremists — may replicate the pattern American troops have seen before when they have embarked on major offensives — of “melting away” only to return later. Some officers report scattered indications that some Shiite militiamen may already be heading for safer havens in southern Iraq, calculating that they can wait the new offensive out before returning to the capital.

[DuaneBidoux]

38. Okay, evidence of what we all know: this will not work. But then what?

It is reasonable to expect that once this mission fails the end result will be worse than it would have before this mission (just like it has been getting worse during every failed mission before).

Obviously Iran and Syria will become stronger. Iran will swoop down to help the Shia. Saudi Arabia will sweep in to help the Sunnis.

Since Bush sees every failed policy has a reason to simply escalate to the next level we can seriously expect an attack on Iran at some point when it becomes apparent that the mission is failing.

There are new Patriot missles (serving no purpose in Iraq) and a new carrier strike force in the Persian Gulf (also no use in Iraq).

We're going to be lucky if we can get through 08 without this turning into a major Middle Eastern war.

[donkeyotay]

41. Seems like 3 major probs with the surge

1) The whole embedding thing could be very costly and...well, I can't imagine the Conservative outrage if Clinton did this.
2) The insurgency can melt away to come back later or heat up some where else.
3) How do we keep from becoming part of the Shia on Sunni ethnic cleansing? It sounds like part of the thinking is to "root out,"
or in plain language, kill the Sunnis, which will take care of the Shia militias because then they won't have anyone to left to kill? Is that really the plan?

American officers say that only time will tell, but that they will be surprised if Mr. Maliki and his top aides change colors, despite the assurances the Iraqi leader is said to have offered President Bush. As described by American commanders, the pattern in the eight months since Mr. Maliki took office has been for the Shiite leaders who dominate the new government to press the Americans to concentrate on Sunni extremists.

The argument is that Shiite death squads, which have accounted for an almost equal number of deaths, are engaged in retaliatory attacks, and that those will cease when the Sunni groups are rooted out.

[amandabeech]

45. Our embedded troops could be attacked by their embeddees

who may not have any loyalty to the Maliki government.

[PATRICK]

47. The zombie of the original plan

is what we may be seeing. The "surge" may have even been the actual chosen sneaky word, years ago, for the mere preparation of Iraq for the assault on Iran. Forget about iraq a second. Bush wanted to forget about them for years. According to "the plan", divine neglect and playing off ruined factions against one another was even essential to "the plan". Now the zombie is lurching. If indeed this strange element of suicidally stocking police stations with lambs really happens, it is the sign of a dead brain. What is really wanted is a major assault of Sadr City under pretext of quelling the Sunnis. The old switcheraoo but completely off balance to the original plan because the Sunnis ARE the major current problem and neither objective can ppossibly done. The only hope is a temporary distracting show to beat the heads down so the entire country will not rise up against the US.

This flailing about, forging ahead cannot possibly make sense to any lesser actors. Even architects of the last delusions, idiotic true believers but twisted connivers all, like Richard perle, have bailed on this one. This one will be 100% pure folly, the walking skeleton of the original intention lacking the honest self-assessment of Macbeth in wading through the red sea because he was already halfway into it.
Belief in success and fear of even acknowledging what will happen to themselves in any event for what they have done already are the life of this zombie.

But this zombie, besides being opposed by the entire world(in its utterly poorly led, feckless, fearful, seeking-personal-advantage way), has living parts falling off the corpse, some even with a modicum of intelligence and instinct for self preservation. Many things are happening within and without to worsen the condition of the zombie.

And it lurches on. The Israelis and the oil profiteers and other fools beat the drums as a substitute for heartbeats and try to get the zombie to move toward their benefit. The rest of the misbegotten world leadership, like pious vultures, wait on the sidelines rubbing their protective talismans, utter believers in the nonsensical dark mysteries.

[Strelnikov_]

48. "to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan . . .

that will work on the ground in Baghdad."

Just as I thought. Like a scene from the Führerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze in 1944.

[oblivious]

49. American official: “We are being played like a pawn.”

After reading that article I can see nothing but disaster for US troops involved in the operation.