Cont'd - Where Is the Iraq War Headed Next?

A Pentagon consultant with close ties to the officials in the Vice-President's office and the Pentagon who advocated the war said that the Iraqi penchant for targeting tribal and personal enemies with artillery and mortar fire had created "impatience and resentment" inside the military. He believed that the Air Force's problems with Iraqi targeting might be addressed by the formation of U.S.-Iraqi transition teams, whose American members would be drawn largely from Special Forces troops. This consultant said that there were plans to integrate between two hundred and three hundred Special Forces members into Iraqi units, which was seen as a compromise aimed at meeting the Air Force's demand to vet Iraqis who were involved in targeting. But in practice, the consultant added, it meant that "the Special Ops people will soon allow Iraqis to begin calling in the targets."

Robert Pape, a political-science professor at the University of Chicago, who has written widely on American airpower, and who taught for three years at the Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies, in Alabama, predicted that the air war "will get very ugly" if targeting is turned over to the Iraqis. This would be especially true, he said, if the Iraqis continued to operate as the U.S. Army and Marines have done-plowing through Sunni strongholds on search-and-destroy missions. "If we encourage the Iraqis to clear and hold their own areas, and use airpower to stop the insurgents from penetrating the cleared areas, it could be useful," Pape said. "The risk is that we will encourage the Iraqis to do search-and-destroy, and they would be less judicious about using airpower-and the violence would go up. More civilians will be killed, which means more insurgents will be created."

Even American bombing on behalf of an improved, well-trained Iraqi Army would not necessarily be any more successful against the insurgency. "It's not going to work," said Andrew Brookes, the former director of airpower studies at the Royal Air Force's advanced staff college, who is now at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London. "Can you put a lid on the insurgency with bombing?" Brookes said. "No. You can concentrate in one area, but the guys will spring up in another town." The inevitable reliance on Iraqi ground troops' targeting would also create conflicts. "I don't see your guys dancing to the tune of someone else," Brookes said. He added that he and many other experts "don't believe that airpower is a solution to the problems inside Iraq at all. Replacing boots on the ground with airpower didn't work in Vietnam, did it?"

The Air Force's worries have been subordinated, so far, to the political needs of the White House. The Administration's immediate political goal after the December elections is to show that the day-to-day conduct of the war can be turned over to the newly trained and equipped Iraqi military. It has already planned heavily scripted change-of-command ceremonies, complete with the lowering of American flags at bases and the raising of Iraqi ones.

Some officials in the State Department, the C.I.A., and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government have settled on their candidate of choice for the December elections-Iyad Allawi, the secular Shiite who served until this spring as Iraq's interim Prime Minister. They believe that Allawi can gather enough votes in the election to emerge, after a round of political bargaining, as Prime Minister. A former senior British adviser told me that Blair was convinced that Allawi "is the best hope." The fear is that a government dominated by religious Shiites, many of whom are close to Iran, would give Iran greater political and military influence inside Iraq. Allawi could counter Iran's influence; also, he would be far more supportive and coöperative if the Bush Administration began a drawdown of American combat forces in the coming year.

Blair has assigned a small team of operatives to provide political help to Allawi, the former adviser told me. He also said that there was talk late this fall, with American concurrence, of urging Ahmad Chalabi, a secular Shiite, to join forces in a coalition with Allawi during the post-election negotiations to form a government. Chalabi, who is notorious for his role in promoting flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction before the war, is now a deputy Prime Minister. He and Allawi were bitter rivals while in exile.

A senior United Nations diplomat told me that he was puzzled by the high American and British hopes for Allawi. "I know a lot of people want Allawi, but I think he's been a terrific disappointment," the diplomat said. "He doesn't seem to be building a strong alliance, and at the moment it doesn't look like he will do very well in the election."

The second Pentagon consultant told me, "If Allawi becomes Prime Minister, we can say, 'There's a moderate, urban, educated leader now in power who does not want to deprive women of their rights.' He would ask us to leave, but he would allow us to keep Special Forces operations inside Iraq-to keep an American presence the right way. Mission accomplished. A coup for Bush."

A former high-level intelligence official cautioned that it was probably "too late" for any American withdrawal plan to work without further bloodshed. The constitution approved by Iraqi voters in October "will be interpreted by the Kurds and the Shiites to proceed with their plans for autonomy," he said. "The Sunnis will continue to believe that if they can get rid of the Americans they can still win. And there still is no credible way to establish security for American troops."

The fear is that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal would inevitably trigger a Sunni-Shiite civil war. In many areas, that war has, in a sense, already begun, and the United States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence. An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them." The officer went on, "They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites," with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier. "People like me have gotten so downhearted," the officer added.

Meanwhile, as the debate over troop reductions continues, the covert war in Iraq has expanded in recent months to Syria. A composite American Special Forces team, known as an S.M.U., for "special-mission unit," has been ordered, under stringent cover, to target suspected supporters of the Iraqi insurgency across the border. (The Pentagon had no comment.) "It's a powder keg," the Pentagon consultant said of the tactic. "But, if we hit an insurgent network in Iraq without hitting the guys in Syria who are part of it, the guys in Syria would get away. When you're fighting an insurgency, you have to strike everywhere-and at once."

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FOCUS | Seymour M. Hersh: Where Is the Iraq War Headed Next?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112805Y.shtml
As the debate over troop reductions continues, the covert war in Iraq has expanded in recent months to Syria. A composite American Special Forces team, known as a SMU, for "special-mission unit," has been ordered, under stringent cover, to target suspected supporters of the Iraqi insurgency across the border.

Red State Road Trip: A 60-Minute Documentary
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
How could America have given George W. Bush a second term? Filmmaker Chris Hume decided to find out by embarking on a 6,000-mile, cross-country journey in search of America's soul. The result: a fascinating, hilarious, and often disturbing road-trip adventure.

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