Britain leaves Iraq in shame. The US won't go so quietly

[Black Lance]

Originally Posted by Neko

Yes... And. You. Objected. To. This.

Indeed, this kind of trash would be read by staff and bounced from any respectable publication.

I don't know what they teach you guys in yer fancy-schmancy legal schools, but in Britain we learn in primary school that fact and opinion are completely different things: http://www.teachingandlearningresour...ropinion.shtml

Correct, but in our fancy legal schools we study the difference between valid opinion/advocacy and rhetorical tricks designed to win a case by misleading judge and/or jury. If your case pivots on the later you can be personally fined under federal rule of civil procedure 11.

Well okay, what level of omission of facts is okay? If they don't mention that there's no such thing as unicorns, that's okay right? What should they have put in?

For starters they could support this part:

The Iraqi government is at this moment negotiating secret 20-year contracts with US and British oil majors to manage 90% of the country's oil production. The struggle to end US occupation and control of the country is far from won.

Besides omitting any factual support for its alleged knowledge of secret negotiations, the article also omits some noteworthy information, such as the fact that the vast majority of Iraqi deaths in Iraq have been caused by other Iraqis or the terrorists we are there to fight. That seems noteworthy in the context of the authors claim that British soldiers are "withdrawing in disgrace," doesn't it? And then there are other problems, such as the articles unsupported claim that the invasion of Iraq was a "criminal enterprise." Criminal based on whose laws? Earlier in the article readers are told the US obtained a "shotgun mandate" from the UN for our "criminal enterprise."

What does every other editorial piece that gets published contain but this one lack, that you should object so vociferously in this particular case alone?

I've actually shot down quite a few Guardian articles on this site in the past. We used to have a poster who liked to post John Pilger's garbage on here.

[Francois Cellier]

... and here is the full article from BBC News

'Endgame' for US mission in Iraq

Page last updated at 18:39 GMT, Saturday, 13 December 2008


US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has told US troops in Iraq that their mission there is in its "endgame".

Mr Gates said the US military presence would undergo a "significant change of mission" next June when troops are due to withdraw from Iraq's urban areas.

Under a recently agreed deal between the two countries, US troops will completely withdraw from Iraq by 2011.

However, the US general leading US troops in Iraq has said he expects some soldiers to stay in cities beyond June.

The Iraqi parliament voted in favour of the new security deal with the Americans last month. Iraq's government has hailed the agreement as the prelude to the return of full sovereignty to the country.


'In the endgame'

Speaking to US troops at an air base north of Baghdad, Mr Gates said the process of reducing troop numbers had already begun.

He said President-elect Barack Obama had "talked about wanting to listen and hear from commanders on the ground".

"We are in the process of the draw down. We are, I believe, in terms of the American commitment, in the endgame here in Iraq."

Regarding the date of urban withdrawals, he said: "That represents a really significant change of mission, and it calls for us to have all of our combat units out by the end of 2011."

He said the US had suggested the June date because commanders believed they would have turned over all 18 provinces to provincial Iraqi control by then.

Also at the air base, General Ray Odierno, the US military commander in Iraq, said some troops would remain in Iraqi cities to advise and train Iraqi forces, rather than take part in combat.

As training at local security stations is part of the deal, Gen Odierno said: "We believe we should still be inside those after the summer."

He did not specify how many of the current 150,000 US military personnel deployed in Iraq would remain.

He highlighted elections due to be held next year, saying: "It's important that we maintain enough presence here that we can help them get through this year of transition.

"We don't want to take a step backward because we've made so much progress here."

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has dismissed comments from his official spokesman that US troops could remain for a decade.

The spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, has provoked controversy by doubting the ability of Iraq troops to take over in three years, saying the Americans might need to stay for 10 years.

Mr Maliki said his spokesman had simply been giving his personal opinion, and that the notion that US troops would stay in Iraq for a further decade was not the government's view.

Opponents of the new security plan, including the radical Shia cleric, Moqtada Sadr, say they do not believe the US will withdraw by the dates they have promised to - and insist they should leave Iraq immediately.

[Neko]

Indeed, this kind of trash would be read by staff and bounced from any respectable publication.

Such as what?

Correct, but in our fancy legal schools we study the difference between valid opinion/advocacy and rhetorical tricks designed to win a case by misleading judge and/or jury. If your case pivots on the later you can be personally fined under federal rule of civil procedure 11.

In our fancy legal schools we learn that it's all good. Where do you draw the line?

For starters they could support this part:

Well yes, you do have a point there. I have no idea why the article uses the word "secret" when everybody knows about it.

Besides omitting any factual support for its alleged knowledge of secret negotiations,

The convention in editorials is that you're allowed to refer to hot news stories of the day without reprinting the whole story. It would be a bit of a waste of time.

the article also omits some noteworthy information, such as the fact that the vast majority of Iraqi deaths in Iraq have been caused by other Iraqis or the terrorists we are there to fight. That seems noteworthy in the context of the authors claim that British soldiers are "withdrawing in disgrace," doesn't it?

I suspect that the Guardian leader writer has a sufficiently high opinion of his readers' intelligence to assume that they already know this, and know all the arguments surrounding it. They're not seven years old, you know.

And then there are other problems, such as the articles unsupported claim that the invasion of Iraq was a "criminal enterprise." Criminal based on whose laws?

Euh... International law.

Earlier in the article readers are told the US obtained a "shotgun mandate" from the UN for our "criminal enterprise."

Yes, that is a bit strange. What actually happened was that the UN recognised the occupation after it'd happened, but didn't legalise it. It's not like the UN was coerced or anything, though.

I've actually shot down quite a few Guardian articles on this site in the past

Kind of makes it sound like what you object to is not so much the content as the fact that its coming from the Guardian, which you have been informed is left wing and so must necessarily be packed with evil liars.

[contracycle]

I note you haven't even bothered t indicate what is actually wrong with the piece - your pobjection appears to amount to "I don't like it".

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Black Lance

I've actually shot down quite a few Guardian articles on this site in the past.

In your own mind, perhaps.

[Leo2]

Originally Posted by Black Lance

I hear this complaint alot from Europeans actually. It's really not true, it's just that the US is much larger than any European nation and as such we devote comparatively more time to covering events within our own borders. If you log on to CNN.com right now you can find quite a bit of global events coverage.

Black Lance, I've visited the USA and travelled around it a bit, and I was surprised by how little news coverage there is of events in the rest of the world. Unless Americans are directly involved (as in American troops going somewhere, or an American in difficulty in some foreign place,) or it is some huge disaster too large to be ignored, world events hardly ever get a mention. The US is not larger than any European nation, Russia is much larger than the US, and the USA is not larger than even Europe, let alone the rest of the world. So your argument is not valid. You devote time to covering events inside your own borders cos you are simply not interested in anything that happens anywhere else (unless an American is involved.) The average American I met knew next to nothing about the UK, and cared even less. Nobody asked me even one question about where I was from, but everyone rabbited on about how great things are in the USA. I don't care, everyone thinks their own country is great, but don't pretend Americans are knowledgeable or care about anything outside the USA.

Originally Posted by Black Lance

You do realize that the Guardian is an openly left paper with a left readership, don't you?

The Guardian is probably one of the most respected news sources in the UK (and arguably, around the world.) The editorial does not contain any untruths or inaccuracies, so exactly to what are you objecting? The invasion of Iraq was illegal, in breach of international law, and the UN Charter (and it was based on lies). If the truth hurts, don't do stuff that people can reasonably accuse you of.

[Sulayman]

Originally Posted by Leo2

Black Lance, I've visited the USA and travelled around it a bit, and I was surprised by how little news coverage there is of events in the rest of the world.

Travelers often don't know where to look. The coverage is there it just isn't on the broadcast media.

[Bill Lumberg]

I support the fact that Britain fought alongside us in Iraq..even though both of our countries populaces were both mislead.

Also Fox news is terrible. Unless your an executive in a major corporation or in the ring wing government. I like to call it FAUX

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Sulayman

Travelers often don't know where to look. The coverage is there it just isn't on the broadcast media.

Ah, it's secret news, smuggled in from Canada and sold under the counter like samizdat.

[Dave]

As stated in this thread by Rose, the Guardian is openly left wing. I completely disagree with the articles headline that Britain pulls out in shame. What utter rubbish. The fact is whether it was right to invade Iraq in 2003, all forces stationed there since, have helped improve the security situation. However it is apparent it would be wrong of the US and the UK to completely withdraw, until such a time that Iraqis can go about their everyday business without fear of their lives. We owe them that much.

[Moral Fibre]

Originally Posted by Dave

As stated in this thread by Rose, the Guardian is openly left wing. I completely disagree with the articles headline that Britain pulls out in shame. What utter rubbish. The fact is whether it was right to invade Iraq in 2003, all forces stationed there since, have helped improve the security situation. However it is apparent it would be wrong of the US and the UK to completely withdraw, until such a time that Iraqis can go about their everyday business without fear of their lives. We owe them that much.

What????

Cloud-cuckoo land.

The fact is that we invaded illegally, the security situation dilapidated into chaos BECAUSE we invaded and did stupid things like not having a rebuilding plan, destroying access to water and electricity, releasing murderers from jail, only policing the buildings and places we were interested in, implementing our own form of democracy (i.e. one that gave the U.S. and U.K. all the oil contracts), and killing hundreds of thousands, if not a million innocent Iraqis.

WE created this hell-disaster.

The situation only improved when our 'freedom fighters' (soldiers and mercs') withdrew into the green zone and the airport, and carried out less patrols.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Moral Fibre

What????

Cloud-cuckoo land. .

Re-read my post. I do not and did not agree with the invasion of Iraq, but my stance has always been that because we did, we owe it to the Iraqi People, to stay there until stability and peace is brought back to the country. Search the forum and also the archive forum to see if I have ever stated anything different to this

The fact is that we invaded illegally, the security situation dilapidated into chaos BECAUSE we invaded and did stupid things like not having a rebuilding plan, destroying access to water and electricity, releasing murderers from jail, only policing the buildings and places we were interested in, implementing our own form of democracy (i.e. one that gave the U.S. and U.K. all the oil contracts), and killing hundreds of thousands, if not a million innocent Iraqis.

It was a given that removing Saddam and his regime would create the chaos Iraq has been experiencing for 5 years now. I agree no thought was given to the planning on how to police the country after the war was won. I still stand by my comments that the vast majority of the forces stationed there, have acted bravely and honourably. Saying that they pull out in shame is a disgrace IMO.

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Dave

It was a given that removing Saddam and his regime would create the chaos Iraq has been experiencing for 5 years now.

that simply isn't true and i'm afraid even the yanks have acknowledged as much now.

excerpts from the official report by the special inspector general for the iraqi reconstruction

-Rumsfeld Accused of Failing to Plan for PostWar

Senior military officers are quoted in the report accusing former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of failing to order planning for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, known in military parlance as Phase IV.

“Secretary Rumsfeld [in written comments to SIGIR, 11/5/2008]: "I do not recall, nor do others present in the numerous discussions with General Franks, giving any guidance that could be interpreted as requesting CENTCOM not plan for Phase IV post-war operations, as General Franks will attest. Nor would I have minimized its importance."

Col. (Ret.) Michael Fitzgerald, CENTCOM Chief of War Plans, attests that, "We, CENTCOM, were not in charge of designating and developing the government, determining who would be responsible in immediate post-conflict." (May 30, 2008)”


Hard Lessons, Chapter 1 pg. 19

Rumsfeld and Powell's Prescient, Unshared Memos

“As planning for the invasion went forward, the Departments of Defense and State produced remarkably similar assessments of what could go wrong. In October 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld and his aides wrote a "Parade of Horribles" memo discussing 29 possible catastrophes. In retrospect, the memo proved remarkably prescient. Number thirteen was not finding weapons of mass destruction...

In mid- December, Secretary Powell received a twelve-page warning—co-authored by Ryan Crocker, eventual Ambassador to Iraq—titled "The Perfect Storm." This memo presciently warned that the struggle for dominance after the fall of Saddam would likely inspire violent clashes between and among Iraq's sects, tribes, and ethnic factions, possibly leading to the country's fragmentation.

Neither the "Parade of Horribles" nor "The Perfect Storm" memos were shared with the National Security Council's Executive Steering Group on Iraq and neither Rumsfeld nor Powell summarized the concerns they raised for officials working on day-to-day Iraq planning”

Oct. 2002

Hard Lessons, Chapter 1 pg. 13

the official report by the special inspector general for the iraq reconstruction in full

as george packer says in the new yorker, "The Inspector General’s report (which, at 513 pages, contains far more revealing detail than the declassified version of the Senate inquiry) establishes that the U.S. government was completely unprepared for the reconstruction of Iraq, owing to the almost criminal negligence of those responsible, and that the years since the invasion have been marked by bureaucratic confusion and incompetent execution, with private contractors playing a large role in the disaster."

Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders

by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica and James Glanz, The New York Times December 13, 2008 6:25 pm EST

BAGHDAD — An unpublished, 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners who were hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure.

The history, the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among a tight circle of technical reviewers, policy experts and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag — particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army — the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures.

In one passage, for example, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces — the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.'"

Mr. Powell's assertion that the Pentagon inflated the number of competent Iraqi security forces is backed up by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former commander of ground troops in Iraq, and L. Paul Bremer III, the top civilian administrator until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.

Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II, the United States government has in place neither the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.

The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be the way the history ends. The hard figures on basic services and industrial production compiled for the report reveal that for all the money spent and promises made, the rebuilding effort never did much more than restore what was destroyed during the invasion and the convulsive looting that followed.

By mid-2008, the history says, $117 billion had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including some $50 billion in United States taxpayer money.

The history contains a catalog of new revelations that show the chaotic and often poisonous atmosphere prevailing in the reconstruction effort.

When the Office of Management and Budget balked at the American occupation authority's abrupt request for about $20 billion in new reconstruction money in August 2003, a veteran Republican lobbyist working for the authority made a bluntly partisan appeal to Joshua B. Bolten, then the O.M.B. director and now the White House chief of staff. "To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the President," wrote the lobbyist, Tom C. Korologos. "His election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt." With administration backing, Congress allocated the money later that year.

In an illustration of the hasty and haphazard planning, a civilian official at the United States Agency for International Development was at one point given four hours to determine how many miles of Iraqi roads would need to be reopened and repaired. The official searched through the agency's reference library, and his estimate went directly into a master plan. Whatever the quality of the agency's plan, it eventually began running what amounted to a parallel reconstruction effort in the provinces that had little relation with the rest of the American effort.

Money for many of the local construction projects still under way is divided up by a spoils system controlled by neighborhood politicians and tribal chiefs. "Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources," said an American Embassy official working in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood. " 'You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'"
A Cautionary Tale

The United States could soon have reason to consult this cautionary tale of deception, waste and poor planning, as both troop levels and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are likely to be stepped up under the new administration.

The incoming Obama administration's rebuilding experts are expected to focus on smaller-scale projects and emphasize political and economic reform. Still, such programs do not address one of the history's main contentions: that the reconstruction effort has failed because no single agency in the United States government has responsibility for the job.

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the history concludes, "the government as a whole has never developed a legislatively sanctioned doctrine or framework for planning, preparing and executing contingency operations in which diplomacy, development and military action all figure."

Titled "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," the new history was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., a Republican lawyer who regularly travels to Iraq and has a staff of engineers and auditors based here. Copies of several drafts of the history were provided to reporters at The New York Times and ProPublica by two people outside the inspector general's office who have read the draft, but are not authorized to comment publicly.

Mr. Bowen's deputy, Ginger Cruz, declined to comment for publication on the substance of the history. But she said it would be presented on Feb. 2 at the first hearing of the Commission on Wartime Contracting, which was created this year as a result of legislation sponsored by Senators Jim Webb of Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, both Democrats.

The manuscript is based on approximately 500 new interviews, as well as more than 600 audits, inspections and investigations on which Mr. Bowen's office has reported individually over the years. Laid out for the first time in a connected history, the material forms the basis for broad judgments on the entire rebuilding program.

In the preface, Mr. Bowen gives a searing critique of what he calls the "blinkered and disjointed prewar planning for Iraq's reconstruction" and the botched expansion of the program from a modest initiative to improve Iraqi services to a multibillion-dollar enterprise.

Mr. Bowen also swipes at the endless revisions and reversals of the program, which at various times gyrated from a focus on giant construction projects led by large Western contractors to modest community-based initiatives carried out by local Iraqis. While Mr. Bowen concedes that deteriorating security had a hand in spoiling the program's hopes, he suggests, as he has in the past, that the program did not need much outside help to do itself in.

Despite years of studying the program, Mr. Bowen writes that he still has not found a good answer to the question of why the program was even pursued as soaring violence made it untenable. "Others will have to provide that answer," Mr. Bowen writes.

"But beyond the security issue stands another compelling and unavoidable answer: the U.S. government was not adequately prepared to carry out the reconstruction mission it took on in mid-2003," he concludes.

The history cites some projects as successes. The review praises community outreach efforts by the Agency for International Development, the Treasury Department's plan to stabilize the Iraqi dinar after the invasion and a joint effort by the Departments of State and Defense to create local rebuilding teams.

But the portrait that emerges over all is one of a program's officials operating by the seat of their pants in the middle of a critical enterprise abroad, where the reconstruction was supposed to convince the Iraqi citizenry of American good will and support the new democracy with lights that turned on and taps that flowed with clean water. Mostly, it is a portrait of a program that seemed to grow exponentially as even those involved from the inception of the effort watched in surprise.

Early Miscalculations

On the eve of the invasion, as it began to dawn on a few American officials that the price for rebuilding Iraq would be vastly greater than they had been told, the degree of miscalculation was illustrated in an encounter between Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, and Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who had hastily been named the chief of what would be a short-lived civilian authority called the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.

The history records how Mr. Garner presented Mr. Rumsfeld with several alternative rebuilding plans, including one that would include projects across Iraq.

"What do you think that'll cost?" Mr. Rumsfeld asked of the more expansive plan.

"I think it's going to cost billions of dollars," Mr. Garner said.

"My friend," Mr. Rumsfeld replied, "if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there, you are sadly mistaken."

In a way he never anticipated, Mr. Rumsfeld turned out to be correct: before that year was out, the United States had appropriated more than $20 billion for the reconstruction, which would indeed involve projects across the entire country.

Mr. Rumsfeld declined comment on the report, but a spokesman, Keith Urbahn, said quotes attributed to him in the document "appear to be accurate." Mr. Powell also declined to comment.

The secondary effects of the invasion and its aftermath were among the most important factors that radically changed the outlook. Tables in the history show that measures of things like the production of electricity and oil, public access to potable water, mobile and landline telephone service and the presence of Iraqi security forces all plummeted by at least 70 percent, and in some cases all the way to zero, in the weeks after the invasion.

Subsequent tables in the history give a fast-forward view of what happened as the avalanche of money tumbled into Iraq over the next five years.

Dashed Expectations

By the time a sovereign Iraqi government took over from the Americans in June 2004, none of those services — with a single exception, mobile phones — had returned to prewar levels.

And by the time of the security improvements in 2007 and 2008, electricity output had, at best, a precarious 10 percent lead on its levels under Saddam Hussein; oil production was still below prewar levels; and access to potable water had increased by about 30 percent, although with the nation's ruined piping system it was unclear how much actually reached people's homes uncontaminated.

Whether the rebuilding effort could have succeeded in a less violent setting will never be known. In April 2004, thousands of the Iraqi security forces that had been oversold by the Pentagon were overrun, abruptly mutinied or simply abandoned their posts as the insurgency broke out, sending Iraq down a violent path from which it has never completely recovered.

At the end of his narrative, Mr. Bowen chooses a line from "Great Expectations" by Dickens as the epitaph of the American-led attempt to rebuild Iraq: "We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us."

[Dave]

Why was it not a given that Iraq would descend into chaos and violence after the US and UK invaded? Just looking back in history would have told anyone this would indeed be the case.

The Brits got their backsides kicked in the early 20th Century there as well.

[contracycle]

Why would it be a given? Iraq was the most westernised, modernised, and amongst the most stable, of ME states.Rumsfeld thought they wuold be "welcomed as liberators", I remind you.

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Dave

Why was it not a given that Iraq would descend into chaos and violence after the US and UK invaded? Just looking back in history would have told anyone this would indeed be the case.

The Brits got their backsides kicked in the early 20th Century there as well.

it was easy to predict that sectarian tensions would be triggered. so easy that rumsfeld and powell both did. but neither deigned to share their concerns with the National Security Council's Executive Steering Group on Iraq or officials working on day-to-day Iraq planning.

and it was by no means a given that the potential for sectarian tension would develop into actual chaos and violence. particularly given the (apparently) overwhelming military, economic and civil might of the US and its allies in comparison to iraq.

no, the post-war fiasco happened the way it did because of the neocon idiocy which advocated immediately and entirely disbanding the miltary and civil institutions saddam had set up, the arrogance which allowed the production of electricity and oil, public access to potable water, mobile and landline telephone service and the presence of Iraqi security forces to plummet by at least 70 percent, and in some cases all the way to zero, in the weeks after the invasion without making even ad hoc plans for their reinstatement, because of the fraud and financial mismangagement perpetrated by government and contractors alike, but mostly because of the sheer dumb incompetence of the people running the reconstruction effort.

[Gilles de Rais]

What Bunkum said. Problems were very likely. Exceedingly likely. But not certain. The US/UK could have pulled it off. It would have been a near miracle but it could have happened.

Then, Bush & Co managing pretty much guaranteed a fuck up. Those guys could take over the management of the best swiss clock in the world and fuck it over within days...

[Sulayman]

Originally Posted by contracycle

Ah, it's secret news, smuggled in from Canada and sold under the counter like samizdat.

Silly response.

Its in the print media. The for-profit broadcast media concentrates on the celeb world. I noticed on my visit to Britain in 2007 that your broadcast news is almost entirely celebricated as well so remember the glass house rule before you throw stones.

[bunkum]

it is?

coulda fooled me.

i listen to the today show whenever i can and watch channel four news every night at seven and bbc news most nights at ten and the sky news channel in between and question time and newsnight on my laptop on the weekends while i take a bath (its the ultimate luxury. but ok ok, tmi, i'll stop there )

ask me what brad and angelina are up to these days though and i'm stumped.

i'll see your glass houses, mister sulayman, and raise you a conservatory.

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Sulayman

Its in the print media. The for-profit broadcast media concentrates on the celeb world. I noticed on my visit to Britain in 2007 that your broadcast news is almost entirely celebricated as well so remember the glass house rule before you throw stones.

I see so vistors to the united states would not notice the print media, is what you are saying?