Iraq update

As the Iraqi election day approaches, one can only hope that the date marks a "turning of the corner" -- unfortunately, we have turned so many corners in Iraq we seem to be either back where we started or lost or, at least, dizzy. "Turning the corner" is to this war what "light at the end of the tunnel" was to the Vietnam War. And that light turned out to be akin to the light people profess to see before leaving their embodied existence.

A couple of perspectives worth noting: Colin Powell, in the Financial Times (highlights are in bold):

Copyright 2005 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)
January 13, 2005 Thursday

HEADLINE: Powell gives bleak assessment of Iraq security problems
BYLINE: By GUY DINMORE

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Colin Powell, outgoing secretary of state, says he would like to see US troops leave Iraq "as quickly as possible" but that the strength of the insurgency does not allow the Bush administration to set a timeframe for a withdrawal this year.

Mr Powell told National Public Radio yesterday the US leadership had been "in almost non-stop meetings for the last couple of days" reviewing the security problem while coalition forces were adjusting their "tactics and strategy and deployments".

"It's not possible right now to say that by the end of 2005, we'll be down to such and such a number. It really is dependent upon the situation," he said, referring to the training of the new Iraqi army and police.

Mr Powell's bleak assessment, less than three weeks before Iraqis are due to elect a parliament, reflects what advisers close to the administration and former officials describe as an understanding in the State Department and Pentagon of the depth of the crisis.

But, they say, this is not a view accepted by President George W. Bush.

One counterinsurgency expert said Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, had a "brutally accurate" picture of the situation and the potential dangers.

But a member of an influential neoconservative policy group said that such warnings "stop well short of the president".

He said Mr Rumsfeld, criticised for the conduct of the war, had an interest in hiding the true picture from the president.

According to Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, Mr Bush recently asked Mr Powell for his view on the progress of the war. "We're losing," Mr Powell was quoted as saying. Mr Freeman said Mr Bush then asked the secretary of state to leave.

A senior White House official said he had no knowledge of such an exchange and added: "The president acknowledges there are significant challenges. "He does not characterise them as insurmountable. Others do."

Analysts are concerned that with the departure of Mr Powell and his replacement by Condoleezza Rice, the president's loyal national security adviser, the White House will be further shielded from dissent.

Mr Powell, who often clashed with Mr Rumsfeld over policy towards Iraq and Iran, seemed to allude to this when he said he had been "secure enough" in his relationship with the president to argue his point of view.

"A president is not well served when he has people in his cabinet who have points of view but are not prepared to argue those points of view forcefully for fear that it might leak or it looks like members of the cabinet are squabbling," Mr Powell told Fox News.

The White House is stressing the January 30 election is just the start of a process that is scheduled to lead to a national referendum on a constitution by October and another parliamentary election by December.

Mr Powell said there must be Sunni representation in the government to be formed after the elections. This reflects US efforts to persuade the main parties of the Shia majority, who are expected to sweep the polls, to co-opt members of the Sunni minority into the administration and the drafting of the constitution.

US leverage rests upon awareness among the Shia that their government is unlikely to survive a civil war without continued US military support.

High anxiety over the elections is also evident among Arab allies of the US. Karim Kawar, Jordan's ambassador to Washington, said that he feared that elections without solid Sunni participation would lead to an "Islamic republic of Iraq".

"That's not what the American taxpayers hoped for," he said.

Charles Boyd, a former general who had opposed the war, said he was dismayed at the administration's lack of commitment in fighting it.

"Our government is not mobilised for war of this size and complexity. We are acting on a 'business as usual' format," he said.

Another sign that our President disdains the nasty negativity of reality comes from the Nelson Report, a respected Washington-insider newsletter. Via the Al Franken show blog:

BUSH REJECTS BAD NEWS
The Nelson Report is a daily political tip sheet and analysis written for the past 20 years for the (US and Asian) corporate and government clients of Chris Nelson, a former Capitol Hill staffer and UPI reporter. (He was actually the first to break the looted explosives story before the election; Josh Marshall then posted it to his blog.) This Monday, he wrote:

There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear “bad news.”

Rather, Bush makes clear that all he wants are progress reports, where they exist, and those facts which seem to support his declared mission in Iraq...building democracy. “That's all he wants to hear about,” we have been told. So “in” are the latest totals on school openings, and “out” are reports from senior US military commanders (and those intelligence experts still on the job) that they see an insurgency becoming increasingly effective, and their projection that “it will just get worse.”

Our sources are firm in that they conclude this “good news only” directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.