David Isenberg
The bad news that just won't go away
Fri Dec 12 02:55:36 2003
64.140.158.8

The bad news that just won't go away
By David Isenberg
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL12Ak01.html

Will things ever get better in Iraq? Most likely, but don't hold your breath waiting because it is going to take a while. Bad news seems to be the de jour specialty when it comes to all things Iraq.

Consider, for example, some of the newest reports and commentaries that have been released. A draft report by highly respected analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the asymmetric conflict being waged between United States forces and former regime loyalists and various Islamists finds that "neither side can achieve their original grand strategic objectives. This has forced each side to limit its objectives to the point where neither side may be able to 'win' in grand strategic terms."

In rather blunt language, he notes that for the US this means:
# The US cannot achieve the objective of removing an urgent and imminent threat because there is no evidence such a threat existed.
# Ditto for linkages between Iraq and the "war on terrorism". "Iraq at best played a peripheral role in terrorism, with limited and unimportant links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups with limited operational meaning. If anything, the US may have triggered more Arab and Islamic anger aimed at the US."
# The US will be unable to shape Iraq into a modern democracy or free market economy. The US will have to leave long before the political, economic and energy issues in Iraq play out, and Iraq will then face years, if not a decade, of instability.
# Iraq will not become any near-term example to the region of what a state should be, or of the US ability to create a democracy.
# The US will not win the hearts, minds or friendship of the Iraqi people. The war will generate as much anger as gratitude.
# The situation in Iraq is far more likely to compound US problems with Islamic movements than reduce them, and will probably produce a significantly less secular regime over time.

Put another way, the US is caught between Iraq and a hard place. Writing in the latest issue of the Washington Quarterly journal, Steve Metz, director of research at the US Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, concludes: "The United States faces an intractable dilemma in Iraq: in effect, it is damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. By staying, the United States will face a protracted insurgency, but by withdrawing before the new Iraq is able to stand on its own, the ultimate strategic objective - a unified, stable Iraq that does not threaten its neighbors and does not support international terrorism - will not be met."

Meanwhile, on December 2, in a little-noted briefing at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, Charles Duelfer, former deputy director of UNSCOM, the original UN weapons inspection agency in Iraq and a supporter of the war, said: "It will probably turn out, in my judgment, that there are no existing weapons in Iraq, and that mildly surprises me." No doubt it will also surprise the Central Intelligence Agency, which insisted in a November 28 statement that its National Intelligence Estimate issued in October 2002 was on solid ground when it "judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons".

But there's more. A just-released report, from the Fund for Peace, found that things in Iraq have gone from bad to worse in a significant way. The report, "Iraq as a Failed State" finds: "In a brilliant demonstration of the law of unintended consequences, the US-led invasion of Iraq went far beyond its original goal of regime change. It precipitated the final collapse of a state that had been deteriorating for years. Shattered states proliferate, not eliminate, threats, however, and that is exactly what happened in Iraq. The security meltdown, over the first six months of the occupation, is a continuation of that persistent breakdown."

The report covered a six-month period up until September and noted that of 12 top indicators of state collapse, four have worsened since the war - demographic pressures, the provision of public services, factionalized elites and intervention by external political actors. And three others - the depth of group grievances, uneven development and refugees and internally displaced persons - remain at acutely high levels. For others - brain drain, sharp economic decline, a security apparatus operating as a "state within a state" and delegitimatization of the state - improved only marginally. Only one, human rights, improves substantially, and that is still reversible because newly found freedoms are not protected in law.

This affirms the Iraq risk assessment released in July by the PRS Group's International Country Risk Guide, which gave a rating of very high risk for Iraq as of July and also predicted a likelihood of very high for the worst-case scenario coming to pass in five years.

Meanwhile, despite talk from various US politicians about the need to "internationalize the occupation", it is unlikely that the United Nations will be doing much any time soon. A report released on December 10 by Secretary General Kofi Annan said that more security and a clearer mandate were necessary before the UN could return to Iraq. "It is difficult to envisage the United Nations operating with a large number of international staff inside Iraq in the near future, unless there is an unexpected and significant improvement in the overall security situation," the report says.

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com  for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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New battlelines drawn in Iraqi sand
Just as United States-led forces have adopted a more aggressive, heavy-handed approach to the resistance in Iraq, the guerrillas have carefully honed their tactics to achieve maximum results with the least risk to their core units. In this new phase, the next few months will be critical for both sides. - Marc Erikson
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL12Ak02.html

Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War

Looking for a copy of the documentary that MoveOn.org Voter Fund helped to launch? Go to
http://www.truthuncovered.com .

• MOVING TARGETS — SEYMOUR M. HERSH, Fri Dec 12 03:11