[NYTr] USA's Fantasy War in Iraq: "Violence is Down"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[Despite the fact that US Occupation troops have suffered their worst
casualties this year since the beginning of their wars of occupation in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the mainstream media continue to report that "by
all indicators," violence is down (according to Damien Cave of the New
York Times on last night's PBS NewsHour). Violence against civilians
is unabated; there are still more Iraqis fleeing Baghdad than
returning, according to Juan Cole yesterday. Politically, the country
is in similar chaos. 

Yet the press is reporting the reverse.  Bush's fantasy war with its
fantasy "progress" has now spawned reports of a "troop drawdown" --
probably also a fantasy. They will send home a battalion's flag, keep
the troops, and call it an Iraqi-led force most likely, just as they
did during "Vietnamization."

The mass delusion continues. Don't believe anything until it's
officially denied. 

Here's Juan Cole's report for today. See the original at his blog for
embedded links to his references. -NY Transfer]


Informed Comment - November 13, 2007
http://www.juancole.com/2007/11/us-drawdown-begins.html

US Drawdown Begins;
Sadrists call for New Parliamentary Elections

by Juan Cole

The US military has begun to reverse last year's troop escalation,
which brought the number of combat brigades in Iraq up to 20. It is now
going back down to 19, and will stand at 15 in July of 2008 if things
go according to plan. That is, the number of US troops in Iraq on the
eve of the 2008 election will be about 140,000. If the "take, clear and
hold" strategy of clearing guerrillas out of Baghdad neighborhoods has
been successful, and if Iraqi security forces can continue the "hold"
stage on their own, and if Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite militias
don't reemerge in the neighborhoods that the US abandons in the
capital, then violence looks set to hold at some 10,000 civilian deaths
a year.

That level of violence is horrible, among the worst in the world. But
the American Right, having promised us garlands, then democracy and
secularism, then peace both in Iraq and in Israel & Palestine, has
finally declared that an ongoing low intensity guerrilla war is a
glorious victory and is 'turning the corner.'

My best guess is that Iraqis will go on fighting their three wars, for
control of Basra among Shiite militiamen; for control of Baghdad and
its hinterlands between Sunnis and Shiites; and for control of Kirkuk
among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. They will fight these wars to a
conclusion or a stalemate. It is only the battle for Baghdad that has
been fought at a lower intensity because of the American surge in any
case, and I would be surprised if it does not start back up as US
troops leave. Violence in all three wars was reported by McClatchy for
Monday, with bombings and mortar attacks continuing in Baghdad albeit
on a reduced scale. Violence in Kirkuk, and in the northern Sunni
hinterland of Baghdad (Samarra) was already reported for today early
Tuesday morning.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the police chief of Basra, Jalil
Khalaf, says he has faced 7 assassination attempts and that his city
suffers from religious and ideological terrorism that has caused the
educated middle class to flee and led to the dominance of a band of
"thieves" supported by political parties grown rich through the theft
of materiel from the formal government security forces.

He said he has only been in office 4 months and has not had time to
purge corrupt elements from the police who have given protection to
militia and party leaders. He said that there is constant theft of
petroleum products, antiquities, and livestock, and that the city had
been flooded with weaponry and snipers. He admitted that police
intelligence had been penetrated by the militias, which is how they
knew his own location well enough to set roadside bombs for his convoy.
He has narrowly escaped death on several recent occasions.

Khalaf said that the British had turned 4,000 vehicles over to the
Basra police, but that he did not know the fate of most of them, since
the Basra police only had 1335 vehicles left.

He pledged to reverse the recent downward spiral in Basra's security.
But he said that foreign powers armed the militiamen, so that even if
he could disarm them, the weapons would just be given to them again
from outside. He pledged nevertheless to protect artists,
intellectuals, writers and university professors from terror threats
aimed at silencing them.

The problem is that Basra is Iraq's major port area, and the point from
which most of its petroleum is exported, and if it is such a mess, it
is hard to see how the Baghdad government can flourish. Mind you,
Khalaf is saying that his own men routinely try to kill him, and these
are the ones he is trying to deploy against the Shiite militias and
tribal mafias!

The Sadr Bloc is now demanding the dissolution of parliament and the
calling of new elections. If they follow through on this demand, the
next step is for them to try to call a vote of no confidence in Prime
Minister al-Maliki, a step that can be initiated by 55 members of
parliament. The trouble is that they would need a majority of the full
275 member parliament to unseat him, not just a majority of a quorum.
Gathering a quorum has been hard enough for the past year or so.

Sami Moubayid argues that PM al-Maliki will find it difficult to
transcend his own history of narrow sectarian decision-making.