thedrifter
06-30-04, 09:16 AM
SOVEREIGNTY WITHOUT SECURITY
In Darkness, Waiting for Dawn
The incoming sovereign government will need skill and luck to cure Iraq's ills, which confounded the occupation.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Doyle McManus, Times Staff Writers
The deep "booms" come many mornings now. The explosions, often from artillery shells wired together in the trunk or backseat of a car, shear through the blazing summer heat. If you're close, you're dead. A few steps removed and you're maimed. To those who are spared, the odor of burnt flesh both sickens and reminds that luck has been a partner today.
There is a backbeat, too, to these attacks a barrage of bullets pumped into a car or perhaps a single shot to the back of the head. Iraq's assassination victims by now number as many as 1,000, although there is no official count. Some were academics, doctors and lawyers; others were Iraqis suspected of working with the U.S.-led occupation authority; still others were suspected former Baathists and followers of Saddam Hussein.
There are kidnappings, too. They seem mild by comparison because most captors merely seek a ransom, and the victim survives. But their spread has driven many of the country's professionals out of the country.
The United States and its allies have ruled Iraq for more than a year and can cite a list of successes. The most important is that Iraq is free of Hussein's tyrannical grip. People can say what they want, mostly, and are debating in a democratic way for the first time in memory.
But the occupation government has also failed notably in its attempts to restore security and as the restoration of sovereignty approaches, that reality is what dominates life for most Iraqis.
Beginning Wednesday, Iraqis selected by the United Nations and the United States will get a chance to repair their broken country. If they are skilled and lucky, and if they can persuade thousands of their countrymen to fight in the new security forces, they may achieve their goal: a country stable enough to hold free elections early next year. If skill and luck run out, the insurgency could intensify, and the simmering strife among Iraq's three major groups Sunni Muslim Arabs, Shiite Muslim Arabs and Kurds could spiral into civil war.
The recent coordinated attacks against American troops and Iraqi police dominated headlines and obscured the signs of what awaits if security is not restored. On Saturday, insurgents believed to be Sunnis besieged a Shiite political party's headquarters in Baqubah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing three workers. Last week, six Shiite truck drivers were killed in the Sunni town of Fallouja after taking shelter in a police station. Last weekend, Kurds captured a handful of Sunni Arabs near Kirkuk after Arab attacks on Kurds. In recent days, Shiite factions faced off in southern Iraq for control of mosques and cities.
Iraqis and their American partners still face daunting hurdles in restoring public safety. Many of the Iraqis who once welcomed Americans as liberators now disdain them as occupiers. Yet the 163,000 U.S. and allied troops now in the country have no timetable for leaving. Quite the contrary: Over the coming year, their numbers are likely to grow.
For Americans, the price of occupation has already been far higher than the White House imagined in dollars, loss of life and erosion of U.S. credibility in the world. Before the invasion, the Bush administration predicted the new Iraq would be a self-governing, self-financing country that, with a little help, would quickly become a stable, prosperous and reliable ally. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said it was "hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself." Under the Pentagon's initial timetable, most U.S. troops were supposed to be home by now.
But the administration's expectations turned out to be based on bad intelligence and wishful thinking. Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, deliberately sent the minimum number of troops necessary to Iraq, with little provision for unpleasant surprises. Bush and his aides, who disdained "nation-building," did little to plan for what has become their principal foreign policy problem.
As a result, the administration was unprepared when the reality of Iraq fell short of its ideal. After the invasion, Baghdad's police force and civil service disappeared overnight. Looters destroyed the government offices to which U.S. advisors had been told to report. The economy, the oil industry and public utilities were not self-starting. An underground insurgency launched by what occupation authorities called "former regime loyalists" grew, and Shiite radicals and Sunni nationalists began their own military efforts, the latter with assistance from foreign fighters.
U.S. fighting units designed and equipped for war against Hussein's conventional army attempted to retool to battle guerrillas. The results, predictably, were mixed. American soldiers with no experience in the Arab world and no facility with its language found themselves kicking in the doors of terrified villagers.
Some Bush administration officials acknowledge that many of their initial expectations turned out to be wrong. "Of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted [was] the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years," Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.
As a result, the United States is likely to remain deeply engaged in Iraq, with many thousands of troops on the ground and billions of dollars in spending, for years to come. The cost thus far the lives of 850 American troops and perhaps $120 billion is certain to rise.
It is far from clear that this commitment will win the prizes the administration sought: a real democracy in Iraq, a stable U.S. ally in the Arab world, a vital political and military base for a larger war against terrorism.
Instead, the question now is whether the United States and its Iraqi allies can succeed in staving off a far worse outcome: a bloody, dispirited Iraq, riven by civil strife, hostile to Americans and, in a worst-case scenario, hospitable to terrorists.
From Liberators to Occupiers
On a hot day last summer in Baqubah, three American soldiers were guarding the city's largest hospital. They sat in front of the main entrance playing cards. As one of the soldiers dealt a hand, a grenade fell among them and exploded. All three were torn to shreds. The grenade was dropped from one of the hospital's upper floors.
The incident was shocking at the time, since there seemed to be no point to killing soldiers protecting a hospital. Now it looks like a symbol of what was beginning to go wrong for American hopes: The liberators were becoming occupiers.
Now, many months later, even being remotely associated with Americans brings danger. "The situation scares me," confessed Hachim Hassani, minister of industry in the new interim government. "I cannot go walking around protected by U.S. soldiers; that would not be a good idea in this country. I have to protect myself with guards, but they are not well-trained and the people carrying out these bombings are well-trained."
When it comes to large-scale firepower, the U.S. has won every battle it has joined. But military officers say quelling a grassroots insurgency also requires training local security forces, amassing intelligence and winning hearts and minds in the civilian population.
"It's not that we don't know what to do," said Bruce Hoffman, a RAND Corp. military expert who served in Baghdad as an advisor to the occupation authority. "There are no original answers here. We need more [U.S.] troops. We need to train more indigenous forces. We need to secure the borders."
A basic rule of fighting an insurgency, he added, is to avoid heavy-handed tactics such as wide-scale searches of homes that alienate civilians who are on the fence about the foreign military presence. U.S. units have often broken that rule in Iraq, he said, convincing many Iraqi nationalists to support the insurgency.
"This is where we're losing the counterinsurgency," Hoffman said. "We've alienated them. This was the silent majority, if you will."
Over the last year, U.S. commanders have sought to apply those lessons. But much time has been lost, military officers acknowledge. The question now is whether the new Iraqi government and its fledgling security forces can stop more of the bombings and assassinations.
continued.........
In Darkness, Waiting for Dawn
The incoming sovereign government will need skill and luck to cure Iraq's ills, which confounded the occupation.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Doyle McManus, Times Staff Writers
The deep "booms" come many mornings now. The explosions, often from artillery shells wired together in the trunk or backseat of a car, shear through the blazing summer heat. If you're close, you're dead. A few steps removed and you're maimed. To those who are spared, the odor of burnt flesh both sickens and reminds that luck has been a partner today.
There is a backbeat, too, to these attacks a barrage of bullets pumped into a car or perhaps a single shot to the back of the head. Iraq's assassination victims by now number as many as 1,000, although there is no official count. Some were academics, doctors and lawyers; others were Iraqis suspected of working with the U.S.-led occupation authority; still others were suspected former Baathists and followers of Saddam Hussein.
There are kidnappings, too. They seem mild by comparison because most captors merely seek a ransom, and the victim survives. But their spread has driven many of the country's professionals out of the country.
The United States and its allies have ruled Iraq for more than a year and can cite a list of successes. The most important is that Iraq is free of Hussein's tyrannical grip. People can say what they want, mostly, and are debating in a democratic way for the first time in memory.
But the occupation government has also failed notably in its attempts to restore security and as the restoration of sovereignty approaches, that reality is what dominates life for most Iraqis.
Beginning Wednesday, Iraqis selected by the United Nations and the United States will get a chance to repair their broken country. If they are skilled and lucky, and if they can persuade thousands of their countrymen to fight in the new security forces, they may achieve their goal: a country stable enough to hold free elections early next year. If skill and luck run out, the insurgency could intensify, and the simmering strife among Iraq's three major groups Sunni Muslim Arabs, Shiite Muslim Arabs and Kurds could spiral into civil war.
The recent coordinated attacks against American troops and Iraqi police dominated headlines and obscured the signs of what awaits if security is not restored. On Saturday, insurgents believed to be Sunnis besieged a Shiite political party's headquarters in Baqubah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing three workers. Last week, six Shiite truck drivers were killed in the Sunni town of Fallouja after taking shelter in a police station. Last weekend, Kurds captured a handful of Sunni Arabs near Kirkuk after Arab attacks on Kurds. In recent days, Shiite factions faced off in southern Iraq for control of mosques and cities.
Iraqis and their American partners still face daunting hurdles in restoring public safety. Many of the Iraqis who once welcomed Americans as liberators now disdain them as occupiers. Yet the 163,000 U.S. and allied troops now in the country have no timetable for leaving. Quite the contrary: Over the coming year, their numbers are likely to grow.
For Americans, the price of occupation has already been far higher than the White House imagined in dollars, loss of life and erosion of U.S. credibility in the world. Before the invasion, the Bush administration predicted the new Iraq would be a self-governing, self-financing country that, with a little help, would quickly become a stable, prosperous and reliable ally. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said it was "hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself." Under the Pentagon's initial timetable, most U.S. troops were supposed to be home by now.
But the administration's expectations turned out to be based on bad intelligence and wishful thinking. Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, deliberately sent the minimum number of troops necessary to Iraq, with little provision for unpleasant surprises. Bush and his aides, who disdained "nation-building," did little to plan for what has become their principal foreign policy problem.
As a result, the administration was unprepared when the reality of Iraq fell short of its ideal. After the invasion, Baghdad's police force and civil service disappeared overnight. Looters destroyed the government offices to which U.S. advisors had been told to report. The economy, the oil industry and public utilities were not self-starting. An underground insurgency launched by what occupation authorities called "former regime loyalists" grew, and Shiite radicals and Sunni nationalists began their own military efforts, the latter with assistance from foreign fighters.
U.S. fighting units designed and equipped for war against Hussein's conventional army attempted to retool to battle guerrillas. The results, predictably, were mixed. American soldiers with no experience in the Arab world and no facility with its language found themselves kicking in the doors of terrified villagers.
Some Bush administration officials acknowledge that many of their initial expectations turned out to be wrong. "Of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted [was] the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years," Wolfowitz told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month.
As a result, the United States is likely to remain deeply engaged in Iraq, with many thousands of troops on the ground and billions of dollars in spending, for years to come. The cost thus far the lives of 850 American troops and perhaps $120 billion is certain to rise.
It is far from clear that this commitment will win the prizes the administration sought: a real democracy in Iraq, a stable U.S. ally in the Arab world, a vital political and military base for a larger war against terrorism.
Instead, the question now is whether the United States and its Iraqi allies can succeed in staving off a far worse outcome: a bloody, dispirited Iraq, riven by civil strife, hostile to Americans and, in a worst-case scenario, hospitable to terrorists.
From Liberators to Occupiers
On a hot day last summer in Baqubah, three American soldiers were guarding the city's largest hospital. They sat in front of the main entrance playing cards. As one of the soldiers dealt a hand, a grenade fell among them and exploded. All three were torn to shreds. The grenade was dropped from one of the hospital's upper floors.
The incident was shocking at the time, since there seemed to be no point to killing soldiers protecting a hospital. Now it looks like a symbol of what was beginning to go wrong for American hopes: The liberators were becoming occupiers.
Now, many months later, even being remotely associated with Americans brings danger. "The situation scares me," confessed Hachim Hassani, minister of industry in the new interim government. "I cannot go walking around protected by U.S. soldiers; that would not be a good idea in this country. I have to protect myself with guards, but they are not well-trained and the people carrying out these bombings are well-trained."
When it comes to large-scale firepower, the U.S. has won every battle it has joined. But military officers say quelling a grassroots insurgency also requires training local security forces, amassing intelligence and winning hearts and minds in the civilian population.
"It's not that we don't know what to do," said Bruce Hoffman, a RAND Corp. military expert who served in Baghdad as an advisor to the occupation authority. "There are no original answers here. We need more [U.S.] troops. We need to train more indigenous forces. We need to secure the borders."
A basic rule of fighting an insurgency, he added, is to avoid heavy-handed tactics such as wide-scale searches of homes that alienate civilians who are on the fence about the foreign military presence. U.S. units have often broken that rule in Iraq, he said, convincing many Iraqi nationalists to support the insurgency.
"This is where we're losing the counterinsurgency," Hoffman said. "We've alienated them. This was the silent majority, if you will."
Over the last year, U.S. commanders have sought to apply those lessons. But much time has been lost, military officers acknowledge. The question now is whether the new Iraqi government and its fledgling security forces can stop more of the bombings and assassinations.
continued.........