thedrifter
09-05-06, 02:00 PM
September 11, 2006
Some compare Iraq violence to civil war
Murders, bombings down, but troops can expect to stay
By Gordon Lubold
Staff writer
Some say it’s already a full-blown civil war. Others want to call it a “civil war in miniature.” Still others say it’s no such thing.
Wordsmithing aside, there is gradual recognition that the situation in Iraq is increasingly driven by sectarian violence that has helped to further fragment any sense of stability there.
One British general recently said the indicators of what would constitute a true civil war — mass refugees and the collapse of the central government — simply don’t exist in Iraq. Yet he says he cannot deny the level of violence in many areas, especially in and around Baghdad.
“What I think we have is something that is, at the very best, civil war in miniature — at the very best,” Lt. Gen. Sir Robert Fry, deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, told reporters in the Pentagon on Aug. 22. “But I don’t think it actually even meets that definition.”
Fry, who is familiar with the conditions for a civil war from the experience in Africa and Balkans, said that the varieties of violence in Iraq — sectarian, insurgent, foreign terrorist and street crime — can be difficult to separate. And even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that civil war is “closer than ever,” with Shiites killing Sunnis and Sunnis killing Shiites.
The eye of the storm remains Baghdad, where hundreds of U.S. troops have been sent to help quell violence that is claiming dozens of lives each day.
Officials say the stepped-up response in Baghdad has mollified restive areas in and around the city. Baghdad averaged about 56 attacks per day in the last week of August, slightly lower than the monthly average for July, officials said. Murder rates have also dropped, as have car bombings, which decreased to the lowest total in nearly eight months.
But although the renewed U.S. effort in the Baghdad area has lessened the fury there, many still fear that some form of civil war looms nonetheless as the number of militias operating in Iraq continues to grow in size and in the level of violence.
That means U.S. troops are not going anywhere. Army Gen. George Casey, senior U.S. commander in Iraq, said Aug. 31 that a substantial U.S. troop presence will remain at least for the next 12 to 18 months.
“It’s hard to look at Iraq and not conclude that at least a low-level civil war has begun,” said Michele Flournoy, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “It’s not an all-out civil war, but sectarian violence is at a level that is of great concern — and it’s persistent.”
The biggest problem is not necessarily the ability of the Iraqi security forces to keep the peace, although that is critical, she said. More important is for the central government to become more of a glue to hold it all together. A strong Iraqi security and police force and border patrol is critical, but without a functioning government to sustain those forces, their creation would be a tactical victory but a strategic failure.
“If you focus narrowly on the capacity of the security forces, you’re missing the bigger challenges with building the central government,” she said.
A senior Iraqi official bluntly discounted talk of civil war in his country.
“It’s not a civil war, it’s a political challenge,” said Brig. Gen. Samir Hassan, surgeon general of the Iraqi armed forces, in an interview with Marine Corps Times in the Pentagon on Aug. 22.
Hassan said one of the biggest problems in Iraq right now is the aid insurgents are receiving from terrorists in neighboring Iran and Syria — logistics support to help ship in weapons, money and other equipment.
“If we stop those, there will be no logistics support for those terrorists,” he said.
Flournoy said the border mission has been underfunded for some time as attention has focused on the Iraqi police and military.
Ellie
Some compare Iraq violence to civil war
Murders, bombings down, but troops can expect to stay
By Gordon Lubold
Staff writer
Some say it’s already a full-blown civil war. Others want to call it a “civil war in miniature.” Still others say it’s no such thing.
Wordsmithing aside, there is gradual recognition that the situation in Iraq is increasingly driven by sectarian violence that has helped to further fragment any sense of stability there.
One British general recently said the indicators of what would constitute a true civil war — mass refugees and the collapse of the central government — simply don’t exist in Iraq. Yet he says he cannot deny the level of violence in many areas, especially in and around Baghdad.
“What I think we have is something that is, at the very best, civil war in miniature — at the very best,” Lt. Gen. Sir Robert Fry, deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, told reporters in the Pentagon on Aug. 22. “But I don’t think it actually even meets that definition.”
Fry, who is familiar with the conditions for a civil war from the experience in Africa and Balkans, said that the varieties of violence in Iraq — sectarian, insurgent, foreign terrorist and street crime — can be difficult to separate. And even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that civil war is “closer than ever,” with Shiites killing Sunnis and Sunnis killing Shiites.
The eye of the storm remains Baghdad, where hundreds of U.S. troops have been sent to help quell violence that is claiming dozens of lives each day.
Officials say the stepped-up response in Baghdad has mollified restive areas in and around the city. Baghdad averaged about 56 attacks per day in the last week of August, slightly lower than the monthly average for July, officials said. Murder rates have also dropped, as have car bombings, which decreased to the lowest total in nearly eight months.
But although the renewed U.S. effort in the Baghdad area has lessened the fury there, many still fear that some form of civil war looms nonetheless as the number of militias operating in Iraq continues to grow in size and in the level of violence.
That means U.S. troops are not going anywhere. Army Gen. George Casey, senior U.S. commander in Iraq, said Aug. 31 that a substantial U.S. troop presence will remain at least for the next 12 to 18 months.
“It’s hard to look at Iraq and not conclude that at least a low-level civil war has begun,” said Michele Flournoy, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “It’s not an all-out civil war, but sectarian violence is at a level that is of great concern — and it’s persistent.”
The biggest problem is not necessarily the ability of the Iraqi security forces to keep the peace, although that is critical, she said. More important is for the central government to become more of a glue to hold it all together. A strong Iraqi security and police force and border patrol is critical, but without a functioning government to sustain those forces, their creation would be a tactical victory but a strategic failure.
“If you focus narrowly on the capacity of the security forces, you’re missing the bigger challenges with building the central government,” she said.
A senior Iraqi official bluntly discounted talk of civil war in his country.
“It’s not a civil war, it’s a political challenge,” said Brig. Gen. Samir Hassan, surgeon general of the Iraqi armed forces, in an interview with Marine Corps Times in the Pentagon on Aug. 22.
Hassan said one of the biggest problems in Iraq right now is the aid insurgents are receiving from terrorists in neighboring Iran and Syria — logistics support to help ship in weapons, money and other equipment.
“If we stop those, there will be no logistics support for those terrorists,” he said.
Flournoy said the border mission has been underfunded for some time as attention has focused on the Iraqi police and military.
Ellie