thedrifter
02-23-07, 07:54 AM
Analysis: Trouble in the Garden of Eden
By CLAUDE SALHANI
UPI International Editor
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The yet-undeclared civil war in Iraq took a turn for the worse as insurgents have turned to detonating "dirty bombs."
For the second time in as many days, insurgents used chemicals in attacking civilians, combining chlorine gas canisters with explosives. For the moment, they are still very crude bombs, with the chlorine dissipating by the force of the explosion.
Still, the result is the chemicals manage to spread a limited but deadly cloud of toxic gas once the bomb explodes. Thursday's bomb killed five people, but more than 50 others required hospitalization.
Are these attacks a harbinger of what the next step in the escalation of violence in Iraq holds?
"These attacks hold more of a symbolic value than a military one," Anthony Cordesman, the respected military strategist with the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies, told United Press International.
In fact, said Cordesman, had the terrorists taken the trouble to build a better conventional bomb the damage would have been greater. Once the chlorine dissipates and victims get over their minor lung problems, irritated eyes and headaches, they are usually released within hours and sent home.
K. Scott McMahon, Washington Team Leader with RAND Counter-IED Research Team, who spent part of 2006 in Baghdad supporting U.S. Army counter-IED operations, concurs.
"The fact that no deaths in the attacks were attributed to the chlorine agent also indicates the technical challenge that the insurgents must overcome to effectively disperse chemical agents for a mass-casualty attack, "McMahon told UPI.
But, says Cordesman, "this was meant to send the Americans a message." Its effect was to be more of a political tool rather than a military weapon.
McMahon, who calls himself "a counter-IED specialist," told UPI that the chlorine gas attack was not a surprise for U.S. forces in Iraq. "U.S. intelligence had anticipated that insurgents in Iraq would attempt to escalate the IED threat by combining explosives and chemical agents," McMahon says. "So the recent attacks using chlorine come as no surprise.
"Al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group has openly called for sympathizers with the appropriate technical skills to assist the group in developing chemical warfare IEDs," says McMahon. "We should anticipate that insurgents in Iraq will continue to attempt to develop effective chemical dispersal capabilities. In the meantime, the very presence of toxic agents will add to the fear and panic caused by the IED attacks."
In Iraq the use of chemical weapons carries special morbid significance, given their memory of Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks on Iraqi dissident groups and Iran's chemical warfare attacks on Iraqi troops during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
U.S. Defense Intelligence may have anticipated the chemical-laden IEDs, but they certainly never imagined the U.S. military occupation of Iraq would outlast the U.S.' involvement in World War II. Nor that the civilian death toll in Iraq would run around 120 Iraqis killed every day. For a country of only 26 million people, this represents a huge figure. Compared to the United States it would be the equivalent of 1,400 people dying every single day as a result of violence.
Added to those figures, the United States has now lost close to 3,000 soldiers and Marines. More people than were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Manhattan, the Pentagon and in a rural Pennsylvanian field.
Those, and others, are just some of the depressing facts brought to light in a new study titled, "Escaping the Trap: Why the United States must leave Iraq," written by Ted Galen Carpenter of the prestigious Cato Institute.
Carpenter reminds us that what is happening in Iraq today is a "far cry from the optimistic pronouncements the administration and its supporters made when the war began." Forget the fact that U.S. troops were supposed to be greeted with open arms, flowers and rosewater, but instead had to deal with improvised explosive devices, snipers and a hostile environment.
According to the Pentagon planners, by now the number of American troops serving in Iraq should have been reduced to no more than 60,000 for the end of 2003, says Carpenter. Instead, President George W. Bush decided there was a need to "surge" an additional 21,500 troops.
Carpenter asks if the time has come to "admit that the Iraq mission has failed and cut our losses."
As the Democrats are getting more of a say in government after their victory on Capitol Hill last November that tendency seems to move in that general direction. Says Carpenter: "The notion that Iraq would become a stable, united, secular democracy and be the model for a new Middle East was always an illusion. We should not ask more Americans to die for that illusion."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has created a situation of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Staying the course, as President Bush keeps saying, will require that more Americans die for that "illusion." The reality is that Iraq is not about to become a model of Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East any time soon. On the other hand, a pullout from Iraq "will not be without cost," says Carpenter.
Indeed, a premature U.S. pullout from Iraq will open the door to further bloodshed. All sorts of anti-democratic forces would immediately fill the power void. Jihadis and extremist Islamists seeking a new home will flock to Iraq. It would turn what some scholars claim used to be the Garden of Eden into a Garden of Evil.
--
(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)
Ellie
By CLAUDE SALHANI
UPI International Editor
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The yet-undeclared civil war in Iraq took a turn for the worse as insurgents have turned to detonating "dirty bombs."
For the second time in as many days, insurgents used chemicals in attacking civilians, combining chlorine gas canisters with explosives. For the moment, they are still very crude bombs, with the chlorine dissipating by the force of the explosion.
Still, the result is the chemicals manage to spread a limited but deadly cloud of toxic gas once the bomb explodes. Thursday's bomb killed five people, but more than 50 others required hospitalization.
Are these attacks a harbinger of what the next step in the escalation of violence in Iraq holds?
"These attacks hold more of a symbolic value than a military one," Anthony Cordesman, the respected military strategist with the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies, told United Press International.
In fact, said Cordesman, had the terrorists taken the trouble to build a better conventional bomb the damage would have been greater. Once the chlorine dissipates and victims get over their minor lung problems, irritated eyes and headaches, they are usually released within hours and sent home.
K. Scott McMahon, Washington Team Leader with RAND Counter-IED Research Team, who spent part of 2006 in Baghdad supporting U.S. Army counter-IED operations, concurs.
"The fact that no deaths in the attacks were attributed to the chlorine agent also indicates the technical challenge that the insurgents must overcome to effectively disperse chemical agents for a mass-casualty attack, "McMahon told UPI.
But, says Cordesman, "this was meant to send the Americans a message." Its effect was to be more of a political tool rather than a military weapon.
McMahon, who calls himself "a counter-IED specialist," told UPI that the chlorine gas attack was not a surprise for U.S. forces in Iraq. "U.S. intelligence had anticipated that insurgents in Iraq would attempt to escalate the IED threat by combining explosives and chemical agents," McMahon says. "So the recent attacks using chlorine come as no surprise.
"Al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group has openly called for sympathizers with the appropriate technical skills to assist the group in developing chemical warfare IEDs," says McMahon. "We should anticipate that insurgents in Iraq will continue to attempt to develop effective chemical dispersal capabilities. In the meantime, the very presence of toxic agents will add to the fear and panic caused by the IED attacks."
In Iraq the use of chemical weapons carries special morbid significance, given their memory of Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks on Iraqi dissident groups and Iran's chemical warfare attacks on Iraqi troops during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
U.S. Defense Intelligence may have anticipated the chemical-laden IEDs, but they certainly never imagined the U.S. military occupation of Iraq would outlast the U.S.' involvement in World War II. Nor that the civilian death toll in Iraq would run around 120 Iraqis killed every day. For a country of only 26 million people, this represents a huge figure. Compared to the United States it would be the equivalent of 1,400 people dying every single day as a result of violence.
Added to those figures, the United States has now lost close to 3,000 soldiers and Marines. More people than were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Manhattan, the Pentagon and in a rural Pennsylvanian field.
Those, and others, are just some of the depressing facts brought to light in a new study titled, "Escaping the Trap: Why the United States must leave Iraq," written by Ted Galen Carpenter of the prestigious Cato Institute.
Carpenter reminds us that what is happening in Iraq today is a "far cry from the optimistic pronouncements the administration and its supporters made when the war began." Forget the fact that U.S. troops were supposed to be greeted with open arms, flowers and rosewater, but instead had to deal with improvised explosive devices, snipers and a hostile environment.
According to the Pentagon planners, by now the number of American troops serving in Iraq should have been reduced to no more than 60,000 for the end of 2003, says Carpenter. Instead, President George W. Bush decided there was a need to "surge" an additional 21,500 troops.
Carpenter asks if the time has come to "admit that the Iraq mission has failed and cut our losses."
As the Democrats are getting more of a say in government after their victory on Capitol Hill last November that tendency seems to move in that general direction. Says Carpenter: "The notion that Iraq would become a stable, united, secular democracy and be the model for a new Middle East was always an illusion. We should not ask more Americans to die for that illusion."
The U.S. invasion of Iraq has created a situation of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Staying the course, as President Bush keeps saying, will require that more Americans die for that "illusion." The reality is that Iraq is not about to become a model of Jeffersonian democracy in the Middle East any time soon. On the other hand, a pullout from Iraq "will not be without cost," says Carpenter.
Indeed, a premature U.S. pullout from Iraq will open the door to further bloodshed. All sorts of anti-democratic forces would immediately fill the power void. Jihadis and extremist Islamists seeking a new home will flock to Iraq. It would turn what some scholars claim used to be the Garden of Eden into a Garden of Evil.
--
(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)
Ellie