Democrats’ Timetable Allows U.S. War in Sunni Region to Go On
WASHINGTON - The language on a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq voted out of the House-Senate conference committee this week contains large loopholes that would apparently allow U.S. troops to continue carrying out military operations in Iraq’s Sunni heartland indefinitely.The plan, coming from the Democratic majority in Congress, makes an exemption from a 180-day timetable for completion of “redeployment” of U.S. troops from Iraq to allow “targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations of global reach.”
The al-Qaeda exemption, along with a second exemption allowing U.S. forces to re-enter Iraq to protect those remaining behind to train and equip Iraqi security forces and to protect other U.S. military forces, appears to approve the presence in Iraq of tens of thousands of U.S. occupation troops for many years to come.
The large loopholes in the Democratic withdrawal plan come against the background of the failure of the U.S. war against the insurgency — including al-Qaeda — in Anbar and other Sunni provinces and the emergence of a major war within the Sunni insurgency between non-jihadi resistance groups and al-Qaeda.
The Sunni resistance organisations represent a clear alternative to an endless U.S. occupation of hostile Sunni provinces that has driven many activists into the arms of al-Qaeda.
Although the wording in the House-Senate appropriations bill appears to suggest a very limited mandate for operations against al-Qaeda, at least one influential Democratic figure, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, intends to interpret it broadly enough to allow the administration to continue at roughly the present level of U.S. military operations in Anbar province, even after the U.S. has withdrawn its troops from the Baghdad area.
Biden is said have been responsible, in large part, for the al-Qaeda exception being included in the Democratic withdrawal plan. Last October, he said any withdrawal plans should provide for “a small residual force — perhaps 20,000 troops — to strike any concentration of terrorists, help keep Iraq’s neighbours honest and train its security forces.”
The senator apparently accepts the assumption that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq indefinitely to prevent al-Qaeda from becoming a permanent presence in Anbar and adjoining Sunni provinces. During most of 2006, the U.S. military command in Iraq has encouraged that assumption by portraying the situation in Anbar as a two-sided struggle between the U.S. counterinsurgency war and al-Qaeda.
A five-page Marine Corps intelligence report on Anbar in September 2006 reflected that view of the situation. It said Anbar province was a “vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.” Media reporting on the province largely conformed to that interpretation. The notion of a two-sided war in the Sunni heartland bolsters the George W. Bush administration’s political position that any talk of a timetable for withdrawal is defeatist.
In fact, however, it is far removed from reality. The majority of the important Sunni insurgent organisations represent a second anti-al-Qaeda force that has far greater potential for defeating al-Qaeda than the U.S. military does.
The “non-jihadist” resistance to foreign occupation has political interests that are fundamentally at odds with those of al-Qaeda. During the run up to the constitutional referendum of October 2005, and again during the campaign for the December 2005 parliamentary election, significant elements of the Sunni armed resistance in Anbar and elsewhere in the Sunni provinces supported participation, despite al-Qaeda death threats against anyone who dared to do so.
That was the beginning of a violent conflict between of several significant Sunni armed organisations and al-Qaeda throughout the Sunni provinces. A series of military clashes between the two Sunni political-military forces occurred in Anbar. Sunni religious sources told Al Hayat, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper, that resistance groups had cooperated in “popular committees” in Ramadi to target al-Qaeda there.
The U.S. military command officially confirmed in January 2006 that Sunni insurgents had killed as many as six high-ranking al-Qaeda leaders in Ramadi alone.
In 2007 the Sunni insurgent battle against al-Qaeda has escalated. Associated Press reported Apr. 20 that U.S. officers interviewed in the field said the insurgent 1920 Revolutionary Brigades and the Ansar al-Sunnah army were attacking al-Qaeda “daily” in Diyala, Salahuddin and Anbar provinces.
Meanwhile, U.S. forces have been unable to make significant gains in their own counterinsurgency war against al-Qaeda in Anbar province. David Wood of the Baltimore Sun newspaper reported in early January that U.S. officers he interviewed in Anbar “described the fight as a frustrating uphill battle” and said they would need “many years” to defeat al-Qaeda.
The inability of U.S. forces to make progress in Anbar and the evidence that large segments of the Sunni resistance were now fighting against al-Qaeda led the Bush administration to enter into serious negotiations with leaders of those resistance organisations last year. According to accounts by Sunni participants in those negotiations, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met with representatives of eleven insurgent organisations (which claimed to represent most of the Sunni insurgent forces) on seven different occasions between mid-January and early March 2006.
Khalilzad finally confirmed just before leaving Baghdad late last month that he indeed had met with insurgent groups, including the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades, in early 2006
The insurgent leaders’ accounts of the meetings said they broke off negotiations in April, when Khalilzad failed to respond to the draft memorandum of understanding they had given him after promising to do so before the formation of a new Iraqi government. Both insurgents and Iraqi government officials told Associated Press last June that the eleven groups had offered to halt their attacks in return for a two-year timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
The timetable issue was apparently not what brought the negotiations to a halt. A “senior coalition military officer” was quoted in June 2006 by Newsweek magazine and the Times of London as suggesting that a formula could be found to satisfy the Sunni demand for a withdrawal timetable.
Ali Allawi, who was then minister of finance in the government of Premier Ibrahim al-Jafaarei, told IPS during his visit to Washington two weeks ago for a book promotion tour, that Khalilzad did not respond to the insurgents’ memorandum because it had demanded the formation of a new Iraqi government. Bush was evidently unwilling to raise questions about its legitimacy.
Nevertheless, the Sunni resistance option was clearly seen last year by the U.S. military, Khalilzad and even Bush himself as preferable to an unending U.S. counterinsurgency war in a hostile Sunni heartland. But the administration has quietly shelved that policy option as Bush and Cheney have confronted Democratic demands for a withdrawal timetable.
The White House would rather be in the position of blaming the Democrats for its “defeatism” than pursuing that option more vigorously.
Democratic leaders in Congress, meanwhile, appear to believe they must support a continued U.S. war against al-Qaeda to avoid being tagged with defeat. But the initial Democratic plan voted out of the conference committee Monday is only the first of several congressional battles on Iraq policy to come in the next few weeks.
The massive loophole for continued U.S. war in Iraq will be one of the issues fought over in these coming rounds.
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service
Admitting there will be tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq for “YEARS to come. US Troops in over 130 nations !!!!
Imperialism by ANY other meausure. The rest of the world sees this of course. America is BLIND to the perception of the rest of the world. Many Americans simply do not care about the rest of the world anyway.
USA WORSHIPS the military and has become a militaristic society. Many Americans are so propogandized to be patriotic they view the USA’s military involvments around the globe as “normal patriotism” for America when in fact they are supporting principles of aggression that go against what the USA supposedly stands for………IMO of course
Biden also crossed the Isle, along with Hillary to join the repugs to vote against a bill condeming clusterbombs. Even Obama didn’t do that.
As I am not sure of the cluster bomb charge, sure sounds like the truth, the facts remain that Hillary and Biden believe we need to control the world and that we can. However even they will, at the cost of many lives, come in time to see the error in their judgment. Violence begets only violence, we need some other ways to handle the problems facing the population of the world. We are not alone and the rest of the world does not want our rule. They will not give us what ever it is we are killing them for. OIL?
First thing Pelosi did was take impeachment off the table and then Reid dittoed.then 1 demo stands up and throws rocks at the prez and someone comes behind and says that the prez should get what he wants because he is C of C even and I mean even if he takes the country over the cliff.I think that the way we are going the top of the cliff is already above us.Hold on! Tony
Are you still voting Republocrat or have you switched to Green yet?
Energy, financial resources and power. Our situation in Iraq is simply part of a global turf war. What’s good for General Motors, Exxon, Walmart and Microsoft is no longer good for America (see Faux, The Global Class War). The Republicrats serve their corporate investors. The neocon’s claim that it is our responsibility to police the world to promote and protect democracy. This ‘altruistic’ argument serves the international investor class as good as an excuse as any to kill for a bigger piece of the world market and attendant war profits. Whether you see yourself as a conservative or a liberal, if you aren’t a globe-trotting investor or power hungry politician there is nothing in it for you or your children other than to serve this machine and give it your lives.
oh, and there is this quote from the front of Faux book. It’s a good one…
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. –Thomas Jefferson
The elite are never afraid to risk the lives of the children of their maids and chauffeurs as they leverage a corrupt government to spend trillions of dollars to save their own billion dollar investments. Investments that would have been too risky for anyone who can’t budget a few million dollars to bribe those politicians who haven’t already made the same questionable investments to wage waar on their behalf.
This “war” will go on as long as our politicians sit on corporate boards, hold stocks, or have “buddies” in the companies that are making huge profits from this war. The corporations, that are slowly but surely conglomerating into a few major strongholds over the world’s economy, are using our gullible and greedy politicians to rape this country for their own monetary gain. The money that our politicians spend toward this war is our money, we, the taxpayers, will be held liable for any debt incurred by our government’s misspending. They are using OUR money to make money for their own private pockets. We, the American people, are being raped by our own leaders, men who are in office to SERVE US! But what makes all of this worse, is that our children, grandchildren and many, many generations to come will have to suffer the trauma and repercussions begun in this time. A suffering that will last long after the “war” in Iraq has disappeared into the mist.
“Are you still voting Republocrat or have you switched to Green yet?”
Yes, let’s all vote for the Republican candidates by default and guarantee the end of our democracy. It’s always better to vote for the lesser of two evils and try to work with them for change than more of the same from a party that ignores the electorate. When will you Greens, Libertarians and other independent voters ever realize this. It is you who are responsible for allowing this mess to continue beyond 2004, and it is you who will see that it happens again in 2008.
Please get a life, preferably one in a different country.
The Bush regime needs to be thrown the hell out of the white house.
The more people who call and write their elected officials in Washington (including Nancy PELOSI (202) 225-4965) telling them to IMPEACH Bush & Cheney - the better. Please call and write every week til they do it!
We have the power to change things - but only IF more of us TAKE ACTION!
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phelicks April 27th, 2007 9:29 am
“Are you still voting Republocrat or have you switched to Green yet?”
“Yes, let’s all vote for the Republican candidates by default and guarantee the end of our democracy. It’s always better to vote for the lesser of two evils and try to work with them for change than more of the same from a party that ignores the electorate. When will you Greens, Libertarians and other independent voters ever realize this. It is you who are responsible for allowing this mess to continue beyond 2004, and it is you who will see that it happens again in 2008.
Please get a life, preferably one in a different country.”
As Greens we can vote for whatever progressive Dem or other candidate we care to. But to change things, we have let the sold out Dem majority know we do not support them. We have seen Big Money increasingly dominate both parties. The electorate has no say and Dem pols have to toe the line or lose their bribes. We get promises while corporate DLC candidates are pushed on us.
What ruling conservative Dems need is competition. Their monopoly, like all monopolies, is rotting from within. The duopoly has become one big corporate party they justify with the “bipartisanship” word. If you want to revitalize the Dem Party and take it back to its progressive roots, join the Green Party, the grassroots progressive party that takes no Big Money bribes.
Re “Are you still voting Republocrat or have you switched to Green yet?” and Phelicks’ response:
I ‘lean Green’ and have a life (in a different country) and actively work with the Democrats and Dems Abroad. The reason I do is exactly the one Phelicks points out: in the US electoral system, 3rd parties take votes from the one nearest. In 2000, that was the Dems
I’m not upset with the Greens and Independents for what they stand for. However, I think they’ve behaved naively, possibly out of fear of being subsumed should they get too close to the Democrats. They need to keep in mind that any substantial ‘outsider’ movement has a voting block it can trade for policy concessions.
Multi-party parliamentary systems are proof of the power of coalition. When a majority is needed to form a government, the ‘3rd party’ decides which to side with AND what it wants in return for its support. In parliamentary systems, this is usually decided after the election.
In the US, Greens could support a Dem candidate (and vice versa) before the election (and did in a few cases, in 2004) in return for guarantees on social and environmental issues and an end to US militarism. When the elected ‘coalition’ candidate enters office, the 3rd party can monitor the results and withdraw support if they aren’t forthcoming. They might even spearhead the effort to impeach an unworthy official, making their future support of their coalition partner contingent on its house-cleaning energy.
Register Green. Vote Kucinich or Nader in 08 (or both) write them in and don’t enable abusers in either of the main two paerties.
phelicks April 27th, 2007 9:29 am
“Yes, let’s all vote for the Republican candidates by default and guarantee the end of our democracy. It’s always better to vote for the lesser of two evils and try to work with them for change…”
Well, phelicks, if people like you didn’t vote for the “lesser of two evils” we might actually get independent or progressive candidates elected. It seems to me that you’ve given up. I haven’t, and I’m joining others like me in supporting Kucinich.
The two party system in this country has become completely under corporate control. There is nothing to work with. The American electorate with the assistance of the media is ignorant of what is really going on. There hasn’t been a whisper in the media that Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney. In a recent CBS/NYT poll, 15% of Americans hadn’t heard of Cheney and 19% were aware he’s the Vice President but had no opinion about him. This is an informed electorate?
Ezeflyer’s right about the Democratic party. It smells as rotten as the Republican party, just more inept. I still want to vote for Dennis because I admire him so much. It’s so rare to meet a man with integrity even if he’s running in the wrong pack. It isn’t just the media that ignores him, the democrats ignore him too. But Cleveland (including Republicans) loves him. He sacrificed his career to save his city and they don’t forget that.
Bush has given the Democrats a perfect way to get out of Iraq. Just keep sending the same bill and let him keep vetoing it until the money runs out. Don’t let him get away with blaming the Dems. It’s their job to choose how to fund the occupation, it’s his job to take it or leave it. There’s no law that says they have to do it his way unless they want to. Of course, the problem is they do want to, they just don’t want to get caught wanting to.