[NYTr] Scheer: The Real Iraq Progress Report

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl

TruthDig - Aug 21, 2007
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20070821_the_real_iraq_progress_report/

The Real Iraq Progress Report

By Robert Scheer

The parade of political tourists to Iraq in recent weeks, during which
easily impressed pundits and members of Congress came to be dazzled by
the wonders of the troop surge, probably ensures that this murderous
adventure will continue well into the next presidency-even if the
Democrats win.

For example, Kenneth Pollack, a top national security adviser in the
Clinton administration whose 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm: The
Case for Invading Iraq," convinced many Democratic politicians to
support the war, now finds renewed optimism after the surge. In a July
30 New York Times Op-Ed article, "A War We Just Might Win," which he
coauthored after spending eight days in Iraq, Pollack gushed, "We
traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an
ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and
Turkmen. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the
hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable
police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi army
troops cover the countryside."

So much so that a town 40 miles northeast of Tal Afar was the scene, on
Aug. 15, of the deadliest attack of the war-a quadruple bombing left
more than 500 dead and 1500 wounded, and most of the buildings in ruin.
What about those "reliable" police officers and Iraqi army troops whose
presence in the area Pollack found so reassuring? If Pollack was asked
about that on any of the talk shows that routinely feature him as an
expert, I have not found the footage.

Other Democrats brought to Iraq for photo-op visits have similarly
descended into total myopia. Take Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., who is
suddenly more upbeat about the future U.S. role in the region: "If
anything, I'm more willing to find a way forward," he enthused. Rep.
Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., proclaimed that the U.S. troop surge "has really
made a difference and really has gotten al-Qaida on their heels." Odd,
then, that al-Qaida was blamed by the United States for that deadly
attack near Tal Afar.

In the past week, two Iraqi governors have been assassinated in
incidents attributed to intra-Shiite violence that is dramatically on
the rise. But not even this bloodshed stops yet another Democratic
lawmaker, Brian Baird, D-Wash., from proclaiming that he will no longer
support measures to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, because "We
are making real and tangible progress on the ground."

Contrast the rosy optimism of those day tourists with the assessment of
seven active-duty soldiers coming to the end of their 15-month tour of
duty on the ground in Iraq. They had an Op-Ed piece in the Aug. 19 New
York Times entitled "The War as We Saw It":

"To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago
outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local
population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As
responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd
Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent
press reports portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and
feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest
we see every day."

Get their article-excerpted quoting cannot do it justice-and hand it to
anyone who prattles on about how "our" leaving Iraq will only make
matters worse. "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every
promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny
of Islamist, militia and criminal violence," they wrote. "In the end,
we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from
the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their
self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to retain
dignity is to call us what we are-an army of occupation-and force our
withdrawal."

In the meantime, the seven soldiers urge that we let "Iraqis take center
stage in all matters" and "let them resolve their differences as they
see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to
highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without
recognizing the incongruities." The plea ends with "We need not talk
about morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."

And sadly enough, they will continue to be sacrificed to a policy that
makes no sense to them as well as to most other Americans. As their
Op-Ed piece recounts, "one of us, Staff Sergeant [Jeremy A.] Murphy, an
Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during
a 'time sensitive target acquisition mission,' on Aug. 12; he is
expected to survive." But what about the next good man sacrificed to
the whims of politicians and pundits?