A Noun, A Verb, and The Surge®

Josh Marshall has been doing yeoman's work smacking down the incompetent moves and the debilitating bullshit that has spewed out of the McCain campaign this weekend--and what a weekend it has been!

The McCain campaign has just come out with their response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's endorsement of Obama's withdrawal plan. I think the clotted, dodging-the-issue nature of the response communicates very clearly the box this has placed the McCain camp in.

Today, McCain 2008 Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Randy Scheunemann issued the following statement:

"The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground. Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view, and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama. The fundamental truth remains that Senator McCain was right about the surge and Senator Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Senator Obama's views had prevailed."

The McCain campaign has wrapped itself around The Surge® because it's the only tenuous piece of moderate success that they can point to. It's their "a noun, a verb, 9/11!" refrain, isn't it?

Every time the McCain campaign talks about foreign policy, The Surge® appears like we're seeing Rudy try to stumble back into being relevant. No wonder the press sees every setback for the McCain campaign as "good news for John McCain." Out of respect for the fact that they're probably going to register it as their campaign trademark, I'll try to remember to add the "®" symbol.

McCain is simply Rudy all over again, flailing and sinking like a stone. "a noun, a verb, and The Surge®."

Oddly enough, no one thought of this moment--The Surge® is over. I know--bummer! What's next for the McCain campaign? Their only bright spot is over and they've got...what, exactly? That's right! A surge for Afghanistan! That way the tired old refrain can keep getting played: a noun, a verb, and The Surge®!

Seriously, he'll be shaking up his campaign again soon. This is some spectacularly bad advice. Rudy "the inevitable President" Guiliani can attest to that.

--WS

Michael Yon Says the War is Over. Which War?

This means the troops can come home, right? Because, after all--that's how victory is measured, or is it not?

Independent reporter Michael Yon has spent more time in Iraq embedded with combat soldiers than any other journalist in the world, and a few days ago he boldly declared the war over:

Barring any major and unexpected developments (like an Israeli air strike on Iran and the retaliations that would follow), a fair-minded person could say with reasonable certainty that the war has ended. A new and better nation is growing legs. What's left is messy politics that likely will be punctuated by low-level violence and the occasional spectacular attack. Yet, the will of the Iraqi people has changed, and the Iraqi military has dramatically improved, so those spectacular attacks are diminishing along with the regular violence. Now it's time to rebuild the country, and create a pluralistic, stable and peaceful Iraq. That will be long, hard work. But by my estimation, the Iraq War is over. We won. Which means the Iraqi people won.

I’m reluctant to say “the war has ended,” as he did, but everything else he wrote is undoubtedly true. The war in Iraq is all but over right now, and it will be officially over if the current trends in violence continue their downward slide. That is a mathematical fact.

The civil war? The war against al Qaeda in Iraq? The war against the Mahdi Army? The war against the dead enders and the insurgents who weren't initially called insurgents? I don't think any of these people know which war ended and which war is about to start.

Then there are the facts on the ground--a snippet of that indicates to me that there are still issues:

Guerrillas launched a series of bombing campaigns in the eastern mixed province of Diyala and in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, killing at least 40 and wounding dozens. In Diyala, recruiting stations for security forces were hit, as potential recruits lined up. In Mosul, likewise, the targest were Iraqi security forces. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had sent the new Iraqi army up to Mosul, where it is encountering heavy resistance in the form of bombings and sniping from Sunni Arab guerrillas, some of them apparently neo-Baathists. Diyala is violent and the government is saying that it will send troops there, too.

Michael Yon is hardly "independent." And I wouldn't say the Iraq War is over. I think the American political will to continue sacrificing American lives has ended. So we're going to declare victory and get the hell out as fast as we can. But for Juan Cole, we'd never hear about the violence, would we? The media went to sleep and John McCain never had to pay a significant price for his 100 years in Iraq gaffe. He's being bailed out by people who were going to bring our troops out no matter what.

Consider this a lull. A lull created by over four exhausting years of continuous combat and civil war, beginning in the first part of 2004 when the insurgency matured around Shia and Sunni cadre that could organize better and more lethal attacks. We are only 29 months past the bombing of the Golden Mosque, perhaps the attack that served as the catalyst for carrying out comprehensive ethnic cleansing in Iraq. Once that cleansing was completed, the violence subsided, along with payouts to the Sunnis to stop attacking us and political maneuvering between the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi government. The idea that the surge solved all of this remains ludicrous--we didn't surge nearly enough troops to make a difference. What we did was create an illusion that we did something, and people like Michael Yon are applauding the results of that illusion.

Meanwhile, Americans never stop having to die for these lies.

--WS

Yes, He Will Cut and Run--Because He Wants A Legacy

Now that the so-called surge has "worked" in the collective wisdom of the Washington DC establishment, the acceleration of the withdrawal of US troops can start--so that George W Bush can depart the Presidency with troops being drawn down. He can do this because coverage of the war is non-existent, it makes people feel good about him, and it allows him phony coverage so he can claim he "won" the Iraq war, handed it off to someone else, and brought the boys home by Christmas.

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month.

Although no decision has been made, by the time President Bush leaves office on Jan. 20, at least one and as many as 3 of the 15 combat brigades now in Iraq could be withdrawn or at least scheduled for withdrawal, the officials said.

The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.

Prepare to be sickened by the praise for the Bush Administration. They know the only chance McCain has is to eliminate the Iraq War as an issue, so the Bush Administration and the DC Establishment is going to do whatever they can to praise Bush for his "leadership" and to show that only John McCain can be trusted to "finish the job."

This cynical, unrealistic and untenable position on the war is all these people have left. They are fighting tooth and nail to keep the American people from seeing the costs of the war--in deaths and injuries, in lost souls and wandering, homeless Veterans. They desperately need to draw down to around a hundred thousand US troops or slightly less--so they can say that there are "more" troops deployed in Europe, Japan and Korea than in the Middle East. It's a sham, and no one should buy it.

--WS

It Wasn't The Surge, It Was The Walls

We've talked about this in the past, but, essentially, the "surge" of troops into Iraq didn't bring down the violence--the enforced segregation of the Iraqi people, the acceptance of the Badr Corps into the legitimate Iraqi government as a security force AND the "appeasement" to our enemies did. Appeasement as in, paying the Sunnis with money and guns not to attack us.

How hard is it to figure out that if you put up walls and help the Iraqis ethnically cleanse their own neighborhoods and then pay the people who were attacking our troops to stop attacking our troops, you'll successfully lower violent attacks for a while, but, ultimately, you'll have gained little or nothing substantive?

Baghdad's walls are everywhere, turning a riverside capital of leafy neighborhoods and palm-lined boulevards where Shiites and Sunnis once mingled into a city of shadows separating the two Muslim sects.

The walls block access to schools, mosques, churches, hotels, homes, markets and even entire neighborhoods — almost anything that could be attacked. For many Iraqis, they have become the iconic symbol of the war.

"Maybe one day they will remove it," said Kareem Mustapha, a 26-year-old Sadr City resident who lives a five-minute walk from a wall built this spring in the large Shiite district.

"I don't know when, but it is not soon."

Indeed, new walls are still going up, the latest one around the northwestern Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, where thousands of Sunnis were slaughtered or expelled in 2006. They could well be around for years to come, enforcing Iraq's fragile peace and enshrining the capital's sectarian divisions.

It's called kicking the can down the road, and the next President will simply have to deal with the issues that the so-called "surge" didn't address. This has been the passing of the buck, not the ascendancy of a brilliant strategy.

It's a GOOD THING that there are fewer attacks, but the goal should never have been to slow down the attacks--the goal should have been to leave Iraq to the Iraqis and get US combat troops out of Iraq altogether. Their presence will ALWAYS fuel resentment and they will always be targets of opportunity for whatever dynamic is still in play--even if we stay a hundred years.

--WS

Petraeus Hearings Are a Bust

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm hearing Pollyanna platitudes and no one seems to want to mix it up and get to the truth.

This is the new open thread. I'm about to fall asleep as Inhofe drones on and on, asking Crocker about nothing.

I'm handing off the baton--this whole thing is a cluster followed by an expletive.

I don't really see that any news was made--that may have been on purpose. I don't really see that our Senators have improved their ability to ask good questions, either. Was there a memorable moment? I listened to it--I thought it was a Crocker-mania wankfest.

Oh, and for you Republicans who think things are just peachy:

BAGHDAD - The Baghdad military command said Tuesday that unauthorized vehicles and motorcycles will be banned in the capital from 5 a.m. to midnight Wednesday.

The vehicle ban is aimed at preventing violence on the fifth anniversary of the capture of Baghdad by U.S. troops about a month after the war started.

The decision was announced on Iraqi state TV and confirmed by an official in the military command spokesman's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

"Motorcycles?" It's so bad, they're banning motorcycles? And we're supposed to believe that the surge has worked?

Petraeus Hearings Thread

Throughout the day, this will be the thread where we put stuff about the Petraeus hearings. If you want to follow along yourself, you can join me in watching (actually, listening) to the video feed from C-SPAN. It's not dial-up friendly.

(CBS/AP) The four-star general in charge of U.S. forces in Iraq wants more time in a war that is now in its sixth year. Democrats say he has got until the November elections.

Gen. David Petraeus planned to testify Tuesday on the war for the first time in seven months. He was expected to tell two Senate committees that last year's "surge" influx of 30,000 troops in Iraq had helped calm some of the sectarian violence but that to prevent a backslide in security, troops would likely be needed in large numbers through the end of the year.

Under his proposal, as many as 140,000 troops could be in Iraq when voters head to the polls in November.

Democrats contend that this approach guarantees an open-ended commitment to a $10-billion-a-month war as the economy at home is faltering. They say the lack of political progress made in Iraq, as well as the recent spike in violence in the southern port city of Basra, indicates the troop buildup has failed.

Look, the surge HAS failed, Iraq is entering a new phase of Shia vs Shia, and Petraeus should testify to the fact that political reconcilliation won't happen unless there is a much more effective carrot and stick approach. My vote is to throw the carrot in the air, drop the stick and leave quickly.

UPDATE I -
We'll see Hillary this morning--we won't see Obama til this afternoon. McCain is there, apparently, and is the least attentive to his constituents Senator right now. He's never there. But he's there today.

The wingnuts on C-SPAN before the hearing were hilarious. A Paultard got on there and went ballistic on gold prices and fiat money.

LEVIN opens with increased violence, some success of the surge, hits on the PURPOSE of the surge, which hasn't come to fruition and has not been achieved.
"As long as YOU [ the americans ] are willing to pay for the cleanup, why should we pay for it?"
Republicans used to be about personal responsibility, the individual, the free market. All that goes out the window in Iraq.
Levin calls out al-Maliki for being incompetent in the wake of Basra--that's huge.
Levin calls out Bush on the benchmarks and the Iraqi failure to meet them.
Levin follows the money--$30 Billion Dollars sits in US banks, untouched for reconstruction. Iraq has oil revenue money all over the world. The US pays salaries of 100,000 Iraqis working on reconstruction while Iraq pays out less than 10% of its budgeted funds--that is, they budgeted x amount, and are only spending less than 10% of that money--that's huge.
Iraqi Army 160,000 strong--THAT'S ALL??? 4 years of training and that's all we have to show for it? Iraqi Army incapable of leading operations on its own.
McCain - Patriotism, selfless service, what to do in Iraq, rah rah. Thanks, Grampa Jones--can we have the TV remote back? And your car keys?
McCain points to meaningless "agreements" in the wake of extreme violence. Sadr's name hasn't come up. Wonder why?
"Genuine prospect of success" is a measure of McCain's delusion. Levin had details--McCain has platitudes and a delusional wishlist.
Should we choose to withdraw, we will exchange victory for defeat, al Qaeda would proclaim victory, genocide, destabilization of Middle East, Iranian influence of the failed state of Iraq, blah blah blah. McCain presents no facts, no details, just appeals to patriotism and -- McCain interrupted by demonstrators -- makes a silly joke about it.
"Iranian back special groups" are the Badr Brigade--they're now part of Iraq security forces. Did anyone bother explaining that to McCain? He just made a HUGE gaffe.
Backtracks on 100 years gaffe--trying to get out from under that rock.
Iraq neighbors should engage--uh, what? You WANT the Saudis and the Syrians in the middle of this?
Congress must not "choose" to lose. What the fuck? Go ahead and kick someone in the nuts instead of saying hello, dude.

Petraeus - significant but uneven progress. AQI have been dealt serious blows. Iraqi police better? Hello, Basra and Sadr city?
"Criminal Gangs" is a subject for a separate hearing. Our inability to control Iraq means good old fashioned Organized Crime has flourished. It will not go away easily. There's no infrastructure to actually fight it and the toehold it has will be permanent if nothing is done.
CHARTS - the problem with Petraeus is, his charts always show progress because they don't go back to the same start point. First chart--he goes back to early 2005. Next chart, he only goes back 1 year. And on and on. Pick one metric--we'll measure ALL FIVE YEARS and show the trends. Every chart should go back FIVE YEARS, ONE YEAR and SIX MONTHS. No exceptions. To go back "26.3 months" or "in the last 7 months" etc. means the metrics change and statistics can be dishonestly presented. Next Chart goes back about two years (i'm estimating) again--another dishonest metric and a dishonest presentation of metrics. This is highly suspect cherry picking. Half way through these terms, metrics CHANGED: i.e., bullet in the head was one kind of violence, bullet in the abdomen was another kind.
Petraeus compares 2008 to 2006 but DOES NOT compare 2008 to 2007. Again, cherry picking.

AQI is NOT a major source of instability. He brings up Zawahiri and Bin Laden--what the fuck? AQI responsible for less than 10%.
Brings up Quds and Hezbollah. Hello? They trained the Badr Brigade. Badr Brigade is now helping prop up al-Maliki.

More about the Iraqi security forces--chooses to go back to September--won't use standard metrics, i.e., one year ago, five years ago, etc.
540,000 in Iraq Sec Forces No word on AWOLS/re-enlistment.
Claims 100 battalions can operate with help--that hasn't changed since 2005, IIRC.
Iraq has only bought $2billion in materials--why so little?
Sadr's name comes up--I think for the first time.

USAID comes up for the first time--Petraeus is asking for funds for Sons of Iraq, but there's no evidence they're being paid. Money is lost between our hands the hands of the Sons of Iraq. How pathetic is that? It goes back to "organized crime."

Draw down to 15 brigade combat teams--Uh, hold the phone on that. Because we are making progress, we can't quite take all of our troops out. Strain on forces is a factor in Petraeus' recommendations--BUT, it looks like if we pull out now, everything goes to shit.

Question number one for the General--what does "not going to shit look like?"

UPDATE II - from 10:16 AM Eastern forward...

Blue Girl is power challenged and has no connectivity.

Crocker - not saying anything worth repeating. He's talking about laws the Iraqi government doesn't ever intend to pass or follow.

A new flag flies in Iraq--woo hoo! The Republicans should send someone to Iraq to help them bring up a law each year that bans the burning of that flag a means of clogging the parliament and stopping any substantive laws. Only problem is, Iraqis don't burn their own flag. They blow it up by accident when someone doesn't steal it.

Sadr's name comes up again--he doesn't seem to be getting any love from these hearings so far.

Crocker talks about the SOFA agreement and expiration of Title 7--well, if the admin knew how to deal with Congress, this would have been done by now.

The dinar is strong--ok, how about using some of those dinars to pay for reconstruction? Does the US have to keep paying for this shit? Iraq has bought 40 aircraft. OK, but will they use them? Their history with air power is not so good. Hopefully, they won't panic and land those planes and helicopters in Iran if some shit goes down.

Crocker is an uninspiring bureaucrat. Everything has tanked. Did McCain wander out after someone waved a dollar bill in the hallway? Is he looking for his fishing hat?

--demonstrators - "bring them home" and applause. Levin might clear the room. Levin is combative, it seems.
End of year troop strength - Petraeus: won't give an estimate.
Maliki DID NOT follow Petraeus' advice. P throws Maliki under the bus.
Say hello to the underside of the bus, al-Maliki: no one thinks you know what you're doing.

McCain - throws P a lifeline, helps throw al-Maliki under the bus for Basra debacle. One unit pressed into operations--how can that be when there are so many troops. McCain expresses his disappointment with Basra, has no understanding of how things actually unfolded. Green Zone has been attacked in ways it has not been attacked in a long time from Sadr City. P says we have taken control of area where they were firing 107mm rockets. Can you HOLD it?

AQI is a "major" threat??? McCain and P are perpetrating a delusional POV.

I tend to wander off when Crocker speaks...he's the filibuster as they run out the clock.

UPDATE III - 11:07AM - BG still no power in KC
Warner tries to link all of this to safety at home. 80% don't accept the premise that this is worth it. Petraeus waivers and won't say. He doesn't think about the big picture, you know.

Lieberman - pardon me while I roll my eyes. What a sad, delusional little man. He talks to his colleagues with a tut-tutting tone that is patronizing. No agreement on the facts--well, Petraeus won't use standard metrics. Everyone knows this. Lieberman won't take off the rose-colored glasses. Iraqis have more political reconcilliation than the American politicians--a bald-faced lie. Republican obstructionism has caused all of this. Not any Democratic malfeasance.
Lieberman wants to talk about Iran. Prepare for uninformed filibuster.
Lieberman brings up Iranian special forces--you mean the people who TRAINED the Badr Brigade that is now al-Maliki's palace guard?
Softballs from Lieberman to P--Lieberman says something that p can agree with. This is oversight? How ridiculous.

We go from Warner to Lieberman to Inhofe--Inhofe talks about going to a funeral. Inhofe wants to talk about detainees and attacks the "far left" while ignoring torture, abu Ghraib, etc. Softball.
The Repubs and Lieberman add nothing to the proceeding--they are there to help the filibuster to prevent anyone from asking real questions. That's why Crocker keeps getting questions. No one's listening to the answers. No one cares. Run out the clock.

I Started Something I Couldn't Finish

All of the weapons, all of the training, all of the money--and THIS is what we get for it?

Col. Abbas al-Tamimi, media officer for the 14th Iraqi Army Division operating in the city, said he expected the fighting to escalate. “The gunmen have heavier and more sophisticated weapons than we have,” he said.

You have GOT to be kidding me. The Iraqi Army--with al-Maliki calling the shots and in the ceremonial lead of it--starts a confrontation in Basra with the Mahdi Army and they're outgunned?

Not only does Robert Gates need to stand down and account for every piece of American nuclear material and equipment, he needs to order the US military in Iraq to do the same--and account for every weapon we've given the Iraqi Army.

The NY Times says:

BAGHDAD — An assault by thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police officers to regain control of the southern port city of Basra stalled Wednesday as Shiite militiamen in the Mahdi Army fought daylong hit-and-run battles and refused to withdraw from the neighborhoods that form their base of power there.

American officials have presented the Iraqi Army’s attempts to secure the port city as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation against the insurgency on its own. A failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own.

During a briefing in Baghdad on Wednesday, a British military official said that of the nearly 30,000 Iraqi security forces involved in the assault, almost 16,000 were Basra police forces, which have long been suspected of being infiltrated by the same militias the assault was intended to root out.

The operation is a significant political test for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who traveled to Basra to oversee the beginning of the assault. It is also a gamble for both the Iraqi and American governments. The Americans distrust the renegade cleric Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, who consider the Americans occupiers.

The dominant Shiite groups in Mr. Maliki’s government are political and military rivals of Mr. Sadr, and Mr. Maliki is freer now to move against him because Mr. Sadr’s party is no longer a crucial part of his coalition.

But if the Mahdi Army breaks completely with the cease-fire that has helped to tamp down attacks in Iraq during the past year, there is a risk of replaying 2004, when the militia fought intense battles with American forces that destabilized the entire country and ushered in years of escalating violence. Renewed attacks, in turn, would make it more difficult to begin sending home large numbers of American troops.

Mr. Maliki issued an ultimatum on Wednesday for Shiite militias in Basra to put down their weapons within 72 hours. Yet battles continued, killing at least 40 people and wounding 200 others, hospital officials said.

Though American and Iraqi officials have insisted that the operation was not singling out a particular group, fighting appeared to focus on Mahdi-controlled neighborhoods. In fact, some witnesses said, neighborhoods controlled by rival political groups seemed to be giving government forces safe passage, as if they were helping them to strike at the Mahdi Army.

Even so, the Mahdi fighters seemed to hold their ground. Witnesses said that from the worn, closely packed brick buildings of one Mahdi stronghold, the Hayaniya neighborhood, Mahdi fighters fired mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and sniper rifles at seemingly helpless Iraqi Army units pinned on a main road outside, their armored vehicles unable to enter the narrow streets.

The assault has also sparked continuing violence by outraged Mahdi commanders in other major cities, including Baghdad, where the sprawling urban slum called Sadr City forms the militia’s power center in Iraq.

Most casualties in Basra were civilians caught in the cross-fire, hospital officials said. The heaviest fighting outside Basra appeared to be taking place in Kut, where officials said 10 people had been killed and 31 wounded, mostly by mortar shells.

There were also deadly clashes in Diwaniya, Hilla and Amara, and the booms of rocket fire rattled Baghdad all day. The American military said in a statement that 16 rockets had been fired into the fortified Green Zone alone, wounding one American soldier, two American civilians and an Iraqi Army soldier.

Unbelievable. I just don't have words for this anymore. The unravelling of Iraq has been so quick and so definitive so far, I just hope and pray they can stop this before it gets worse.

The problem is this--there are no US troops to send. The well has run dry. And that is a screaming indictment of the Bush Administration and the abject failure they have become.

How Do You Like Your Surge Now?

Apparently, the Iraqis in Basra are not willing to let their corrupt government in Baghdad try to stop their lucrative siphoning of oil supplies.

(CBS/AP) A bomb blast destroyed an oil pipeline in the southern Iraqi city of Basra Thursday and rockets continued falling on the U.S.-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad, as suspected Shiite militants continued to defy an order by the country's prime minister to surrender.

Despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ultimatum for militia members to lay down their arms and sign an agreement to abandon violence by Friday, government troops in Basra were having trouble making inroads into neighborhoods that the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army has controlled for years.

Residents spoke of militiamen using mortar shells, sniper fire, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades to fight off security forces.

That's right--al-Maliki gives them a "Bring 'Em On" wannabe tough guy ultimatum and forgets to make sure he has people adequately guarding both of the main pipe lines, and the insurgents against his government decide to blow one of them up. That's what this was all about--the bureaucrats in Baghdad thought their Shia brothers in Basra were stealing too much oil, so they decided to try to put a stop to it. And, like every schoolyard taunt, everyone's got a fat lip and a ripped pair of corduroys and nobody gets a cupcake for lunch.

What caused all of this? The Christian Science Monitor has this excellent article from September of last year--and in it, you can see that what al-Maliki is doing is driven by corruption and greed, nothing more.

At the entrance to the headquarters of the South Oil Company (SOC) in Basra, a sign dating from when Saddam Hussein nationalized the oil industry in 1972 reads: "Our oil is ours."

Inside, an exasperated senior official, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, describes the onslaught by parties and militias intent on controlling the company by forcing their loyalists into key management positions. Some are beholden to the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad, which is controlled by the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the dominant Shiite coalition to which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki belongs.

"There is an invasion by parties and militias … we are a mouthwatering prize," he says, adding that recently 8,000 people, most of them illiterate, were pushed on to the company's payrolls.

The power plays extend to Basra's ports, too, often contributing to anger and a sense of injustice among the province's estimated 3 million people. In the town of Abu Al-Khaseeb, south of the city, the newly rich are building palatial homes next to mud huts. The mansions often belong to those who have been able to cash in on the brisk business in the town's Abu Flous port, which is one the province's main four ports and is widely considered to be controlled by the mafialike family, Bayet Ashour, and certain militias.

"You can only work at the port if you join a militia. I thought about it, but then my two cousins who had joined were badly wounded in a clash. So now we just sit home and shut up," says resident Jalal Ali.

Last month, armed tribesmen forcefully brought oil production to a standstill at the Majnoon oil field, 38 miles north of Basra city, after the SOC refused to meet their demands for jobs in the area. An official at the company, which controls oil exploration and production throughout southern Iraq, confirmed the incident.

Many are also profiting off the oil by tapping right into the pipelines.

SOC's oil pipelines are regularly sabotaged and drilled into to steal crude and smuggle it outside Iraq, says the unnamed official at the company. Many in the province even accuse Gov. Muhammad Mosabeh Waeli's Fadhila Party, whose partisans dominate the oil protection force, of colluding with the smugglers. Mr. Waeli has vehemently denied the charges, calling them "a smear campaign orchestrated by pro-Iranian parties."

Now that the pipeline has been blown up, nobody gets to tap into it. That's how that works. When one faction moves in Basra, others emerge and begin striking out. Remember--it's farther from Baghdad to Basra than it is from Washington D.C. to New York City. Events in one area shouldn't really affect the other, except that the opposite seems to be happening. Shia militias are suddenly reforming and resuming their old ways. The power struggle is apparently starting anew after a brief respite.

CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports the Green Zone, not long ago one of the safest areas of Baghdad, has become in recent days one of the deadliest.

In a visit to one of the foreign embassies inside the area, Logan says she and her crew had to quickly move into protective bunkers four times within one hour due to the relentless rocket fire. She says all non-essential movement of personnel within the Green Zone has been restricted.

The U.S. military said Wednesday that 16 rockets had slammed into the U.S.-protected Green Zone. One soldier with the U.S.-led coalition, two American civilians and an Iraqi soldier were wounded in the attacks, it said. At least 11 Iraqis were killed elsewhere in the capital by rounds that apparently fell short, police said.

A Pentagon official said reports from the Basra area indicate that militiamen had overrun a number of police stations and that it was unclear how well the Iraqi security forces were performing overall. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, remained in Basra to supervise a crackdown against the spiraling violence between militia factions vying for control of the center of Iraq's vast oil industry, located near the Iranian border. The events threatened to unravel a Mahdi Army cease-fire and spark a dramatic escalation in violence after a monthslong period of relative calm.

You're darned right al-Maliki is in Basra--he wants to escalate this into full-scale civil war.

Yes, but what the likes of John McCain, Uncle Bimbo, Michael O'Hanlon and the rest of the peanut gallery doesn't understand is that the surge--which was intended to provide the Iraqi government a respite from the violence so that it could get its act together and govern more effectively by reconciling political differences--was a fucked up strategy to begin with. Political pressure forced us to make a deal with the devil and kick the can down the road. Well, before we could get to the fall elections, al-Maliki decided he needed to hit his enemies in Basra in order to squeeze more money out of the exportation of oil. Couldn't they sit on this guy until the fall election? Because if there's one person who deserves the blame for blowing McCain's chances this fall it's al-Maliki. I guess their little visit didn't go so well.

This is one of those times when it would be nice if the pundit media could drop any pretense that the surge is working and explain to everyone how Shia on Shia violence is now a real factor in what we do. All they have to do is start looking at what the working media is telling us from Iraq and start dealing with reality. Forget the Sunnis and AQI--this is going to get deadly. By the time they're through, Iraq's oil producing infrastructure might collapse completely, and all because no one could figure out how to distribute the spoils so that everyone could get a taste of the action.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER

Noticed this a little while ago. Calling them "outlaws" is what? The new strategy for unifying the country? How pathetic.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Forty-two people were killed Thursday in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq's Interior Ministry said, the latest casualties in three days of clashes between militias and Iraqi security forces.

Iraq's offensive against what it characterizes as "outlaws" of hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia began Tuesday in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in southern Iraq, has given militants an ultimatum to surrender their weapons by Saturday.

The fighting, which also saw Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone -- home to the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government -- come under fire, has threatened to unravel a delicate al-Sadr cease-fire credited with reducing bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites.

I just don't think they're giving up their guns on Saturday, or any other day.

Would Someone Please Stop Listening to Michael O'Hanlon?

Just when you think the delusions of wingnuts and their "supposed" critics like Michael O'Hanlon couldn't get any worse, we see this article in today's USA Today:

Most Democrats — in fact, most Americans — believe that the Iraq war has been a huge mistake for this country. Accordingly, it's no real surprise that Democrats will nominate a presidential candidate who sees Iraq as they see it: anguished by the loss of life, deeply upset by the damage done to America's reputation, and angered by the unilateralism and poor war planning of the Bush administration.

These viewpoints are sincere, legitimate and defensible. But they sometimes fail to fold in the reality of how far Iraq has come in the past 12 months under the new surge-based strategy of Gen. David Petraeus. Most Democrats seem to belittle or even deny the progress, despite a 75% reduction in violence and the beginnings of Iraqi political compromise.

First of all, that's an interesting way to move the goalposts and try to slice out the best piece from a horrific pie. See where you can find a "75% reduction" in these statistics:

In January this year 485 civilians were killed, according to the website. It says the number is based on news reports, and that "actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site."

The average month in 2005, before the "surge" was launched, saw 568 civilian deaths. In January 2006, the month before the "surge" began, 590 civilians died.

Many of the killings have taken place in the most well guarded areas of Baghdad. And they have continued this month.

"Two car bombs exploded in Jadriya, killing so many people, the day the American Secretary of Defence (Robert Gates) was visiting Baghdad last week," a captain from the Karrada district police in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS.

"Another car bomb killed eight people and injured 20 Thursday (last week) in the Muraidy market of Sadr City, east of Baghdad, although the Mehdi army (the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr) provides strict protection to the city," the officer said. "There is no security in this country any more."

Unidentified bodies of Iraqis killed by militias continue to appear in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The Iraqi government has issued instructions to all security and health offices not to give out the body count to the media. Dozens of bodies are found every day across Baghdad, residents say. Morgue officials confirm this.

And then there's this:

BAGHDAD: The number of Iraqis killed in February rose by 33 per cent over January, reversing a six-month trend of reduced violence, in a setback to the US military plan to curb the bloodshed ravaging the country.

The combined figures from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that the total number of Iraqis killed in February was 721, including 636 civilians, compared with 541 dead in January.

I guess when people are under orders NOT to report violent acts, it's pretty easy to claim success. We're still getting some numbers, however, and those numbers point to a rise in violence, if you count bodies not incidents. If O'Hanlon's cheerleading is to be believed, everything is great, unless you're one of the Iraqi citizens still being killed every day. What was the surge about, anyway? I thought it was to reduce the unacceptable level of violence in Iraq so that the government could have the breathing room it needs to achieve political reconciliation.

People in Basra don't see any benefits so far:

As many as 5,000 people demonstrated near the Basra police command headquarters Saturday [March 8], demanding that the police chief, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, and the commander of joint military-police operation, Lt. Gen. Mohan al-Fireji, resign.

Many carried banners, decrying the killing of women, workers, academics and scientists. Dozens of women were slain in Basra by religious extremists last year because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings."

Saturday's protesters, overwhelmingly men, came from several Shiite political movements, including the biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and its militia wing, known as the Badr Brigade.

Prepare to see more goalposts moved. Basra doesn't "count" because no US troops were sent there. Well, here's a perfect example as to why the surge hasn't worked--all it did was push extremists to another part of Iraq where they could carry out their agenda.

Benchmarks? You wanna ask about benchmarks? Benchmarks? From the Center for American Progress:

Total Benchmarks: 3 of 18 Accomplished
On the one year anniversary of President Bush’s State of the Union address justifying his "New Way Forward" in Iraq, it is clear that the surge has failed to meet its objectives. One year ago, the president pledged that “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced." Despite the fact that the Iraqi government has only met three of the 18 benchmarks laid out last year, an end to U.S. military and financial commitment is nowhere in sight.

The purpose of the surge was to provide the “breathing space” for political reconciliation to occur. Yet over one year later, political progress has been scant, and what progress has been made is not durable. The Iraqis have not made the difficult political compromises necessary for national reconciliation, and an indefinite U.S. presence in the region will not inspire them to do so. Despite the best efforts of our military men and women in creating a temporary lull in violence, substantial advancement toward a sustainable and independent Iraq has not been made.

In order to motivate Iraq’s political leaders, the United States must set a date certain for withdrawal. Only then will the Iraqis make the difficult political compromises necessary for national reconciliation. While redeploying our forces over the next 10-12 months, the United States must initiate a diplomatic surge to ensure that all of Iraq’s neighbors are involved constructively in Iraq’s future. Only by implementing a Strategic Reset in Iraq will the United States be able to take control of its own national security interests in the country and the greater Middle East.

O'Hanlon then says:

To be sure, it is understandably hard for Democrats and other administration critics to believe that a war fought so badly at first could take a turn for the better. We are not used to such things in the modern era. Arguably, one has to go back to the American Civil War to find a parallel, and even that is a poor analogy because President Lincoln's performance in that war was clearly far better than President Bush's has been in this one, to put it mildly. That said, if Democrats cannot get beyond their viewpoint, they could suffer badly in the fall as a result. Even more important, the nation could suffer as we waste an election campaign refighting the debates of 2002 and 2003 rather than looking to the future.

Lincoln didn't "mismanage" the Civil War; we had never fought a war approaching the scale of the Civil War. There was no precedent for it. There was virtually no Army to stand up and no way to counter the fact that most of the competent, West Point trained military officers were leading the troops of the Confederate States. Here's where Lincoln truly succeeded after a mere 2 and a half years with a 19th Century industrial base, as opposed to the FIVE YEARS that Bush has had with access to manufactured goods never seen before in human history. Once the North provided the right gear--and in sufficient quantities--to its troops, they slaughtered the large and small troop formations of the South and, had the war continued past Appomattox, would have nearly eradicated the male population of the South. By the end of the war, Sherman's Army was outflanking and destroying any formation that dared oppose it. Entire states were being overrun and even overly cautious Northern Generalship was able to trap and pulverize Southern formations.

And have you seen the results from the primaries? Every time Clinton or Obama make noise about ending this unpopular war, they get screams of approval and people beat down the doors to vote for them. McCain? McCain "survived" his way to the nomination and has about as much enthusiastic support as that brain-dead 33% [and dropping!] of the country can muster for him. They can't muster any cash though--the "anti-war" candidates who will cut and run and "suffer badly this Fall" only raised about $85 million to McCain's measly $12 million.

And finally, he tells the biggest whopper of all:

Thankfully, there has been some movement of late in Iraq's politics. Its leaders have passed a pensions law, a de-Baathification law to incorporate former Saddam loyalists into the army, a new budget for 2008, an amnesty law for many detained during the conflict, and a provincial powers act that should help clarify the roles of Iraq's 18 provinces and pave the way for elections this fall. These steps come on top of de facto oil revenue sharing last year, when the central government gave the provinces far more money to spend than ever before.

Yet myriad problems still exist. For example, the de-Baathification law, if badly implemented, could do more harm than good by purging Sunnis from the very security forces that we have worked so hard to include them within. And even the landmark provincial powers act has since been vetoed by Iraq's presidency council, leaving it in limbo.

Where to begin?

Juan Cole gives us these two bits of information:

1. The new law is not the major change that reformers had pushed for. Instead, the law preserves the previous De-Ba'athification system and simply renames Iraq's controversial De-Ba'athification Commission. This is a major change from the draft law that went to parliament in December;

2. Reinstatement rights, pension rights, and the appeals system have been strengthened for many thousands of people, at least on paper. These are welcome improvements - but do not change the fact that the system is still based on guilt by association, not on individual deeds;

3. The new Commission has stronger powers than previously and its reach will now extend across different organizations, including the President's Office, Prime Minister's Office, and the Supreme Judicial Council. Exemptions will be harder to come by. These changes will likely cause political backlash and also severely violates the independence of Iraq's judiciary. These provisions are in addition to the new language that forces all former employees of Ba'ath era security forces to retire, which is already complicating the law's political reception;

4. The new Commission will now have the power to investigate complaints of corruption or criminal activity by former Ba'athists and gather evidence for judicial action. This could be a welcome move towards greater accountability-or a new mechanism to conduct public and high profile witch hunts. Much depends on the Commission's new leadership and the new rules they must establish for the Commission's work. '

Political reconciliation is all but dead in Iraq if the coalitions that gave the Iraqi people al-Maliki cannot hold together:

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement predicts that the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim) will lose half its seats on the provincial councils if provincial elections are held October 1. A law of the provinces was passed by parliament but was turned back by the 3-man Presidency Council. It is suspected that Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi, who belongs to ISCI, led the charge in vetoing the law. ISCI is said to fear losing its political control of a majority of the provinces where Shiites predominate, won in the elections of January, 2005. Not only did the Sadrists denounce the veto, but so did the Da`wa (Islamic Call) Party. Da`wa has the federal prime ministership, and also the governor of Karbala province is a Da`wa member. In the far south in Basra, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) predicted that the provincial elections would upset the balance among the Shiite parties.

I guess if you're Michael O'Hanlon, you have no choice but to keep lying. I think it works best if you just claim that you "missed" Juan Cole's posts because they don't have Internet where you live.

UPDATE I - PALE RIDER
Whoops! I wonder if O'Hanlon reads Swopa:

The Associated Press reports this evening:

The Democratic chairman and Republican former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee have asked government auditors to determine what Iraq is doing with the billions of dollars in oil revenue it generates.

"We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earning billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks," Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John Warner, R-Va., said Friday in a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office.

"At the same time, our conversations with both Iraqis and Americans during our frequent visits to Iraq, as well as official government and unofficial media reports, have convinced us that the Iraqi government is not doing nearly enough to provide essential services and improve the quality of life of its citizens," they said.

The senators estimated that Iraq will realize "at least $100 billion in oil revenues in 2007 and 2008."

There has been speculation among wags in Iraq (which I'm sure I've quoted here at least once in the past) that having built up no popular base of support during their incompetent/corrupt/etc. reign, the former-exile politicians who have dominated the post-U.S. invasion government there will go promptly back into exile as soon as the Americans stop propping them up.

Yes, it would be a bit expensive to relocate to Ibiza or Malibu without first looting a country.

UPDATE II - PALE RIDER

More from the Holy Shit! File--h/t to Spencer Ackerman:

Sadrists Rebel Against Sadr for Being Too Pro-American!
It’s a real shame IraqSlogger is subscription-only. They’ve got something incredible: an anti-Sadr rally. Practically in Sadr City!

In an act described by witnesses as verging on the "unthinkable," scores of Iraqis staged a protest against the Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday inside a region known as a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia.

On Monday, in the Kasra wa Atash area, in the Eastern part of the capitol near Sadr City, assembled protesters chanted anti-Sadr slogans, and voiced objections to the recent trends in Sadr’s leadership of the Sadrist Current, the Shi’a religious tendency named after his father and his father-in-law.

The marchers chanted in Arabic: "The traitor is a soldier and we have discharged him" (i.e. from his military service). When a Slogger source asked to confirm who the "soldier" was referred to in the chant, marchers indicated that the "dismissal" was indeed directed to Muqtada al-Sadr, using the nickname "Qaddu," an Arabic nickname for the young cleric that derives from his first name.

But why are they opposing Sadr? Because he’s a demagogic religious thug? Because they’re sick of the violence? Because they want reconciliation with the Sunnis and occupation by the Americans? Nope.

Some marchers reportedly accused the Sadrist leadership of reaching a quiet agreement with U.S. forces in order to pacify the capital, but said they opposed such an agreement, preferring that the Sadrist current offer resistance to the American presence.

One thing that O'Hanlon would never be honest enough to admit is that EVERYTHING, and I do mean, every-last-friggin-thing, collapse in Iraq if Sadr loses control of his followers and the go back to killing Americans. EVERYTHING.

We need some new rules

For starters, we need to rename our policy institutes to more accurately reflect the product that comes out of those fever-swamps. They push agendas, reality be damned and critical thinking be suspended.

When agenda-whoring is the major gist, call them what they are – Belief Tanks. And call their "analysts" what they are, too – Agenda Whores.

With September looming, and the true believers having difficulty moving the goalposts to November, the Idiots from Brookings™ are back. Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack take to the op-ed pages of the New York Times today to proclaim that “we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.”

O’Hanlon and Pollack bill themselves “as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.” They are very quick to point out that they are ‘two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq’ but they fail to mention that they were frothing hawks who poo-pooed those of us who were fucking right before hand. Pollack wrote an entire damned book laying out “the case for invading Iraq,” and took the case for war to the Cheetos-and-Hot Pockets crowd on Oprah in 2002, where he enthusiastically beat the war drum and pushed the false intelligence about Iraq as justification to war.

O’Hanlon is nearly as odious as Pollack. He has shared Pollack’s zeal for war with Iraq. Prior to the invasion, he predicted a “a rapid and decisive” victory. Now, he is intent on flipping war critics to the “surge supporters” column, and his plans revolve around a long-term occupation.

Now that these pathetic fools who have been wrong around everything are back from another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, they are off on a PR junket touting “stay the course.” This weekend on CNN, the hapless O’Hanlon claimed that the war “is going brilliantly at this point.”

CNN correspondent Arwa Damon refuted his claim in an interview with Tom Foreman: .

FOREMAN: Arwa, is there a sense in Baghdad on the ground that that’s exactly what’s happening?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Tom, actually not when you speak to the Iraqi people. In fact, most of those that I’ve spoken to will not really say that they feel that the situation is getting better. Remember, they’re not measuring their own security in terms of numbers of U.S. casualties or numbers of bodies that were found unidentified throughout the entire capital. They are measuring their sense of whether or not things are getting better by the level of comfort with which they can leave their homes. For most Iraqis, they are still just as petrified of falling victim of sectarian violence or any other sort of attack that could take place in the capital today as they were before the surge began.

O’Hanlon breathlessly points to some non-existent metrics to bolster his puffery and support for this failed war:

He is excited about the delivery of “basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people,” and he sings Hosannas to the ‘reliability‘ of Iraqi security forces, and he is simply wide-eyed over “how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working.”

Too bad none of these things that have him so tickled are actually, you know, happening the way he says. In reality, residents of Baghdad now get only one or two hours of electricity each day, the Iraqi security forces are deserting in large numbers, and reconstruction has stalled.

Only a died-in-the-wool idiot would look to these never-right morons for advice.

So I guess they find a ready audience in aWol.

[H/T Think Progress & Glenn Greenwald]

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]