Meanwhile...there is still a war going on....

An amazing post found on the Black Five blog:

General McCaffrey April 2007 Iraq Report

1. THE PROBLEM:

These are the facts.

Iraq is ripped by a low grade civil war which has worsened to catastrophic levels with as many as 3000 citizens murdered per month. The population is in despair. Life in many of the urban areas is now desperate. A handful of foreign fighters (500+) --- and a couple of thousand Al Qaeda operatives incite open factional struggle through suicide bombings which target Shia holy places and innocent civilians. Thousands of attacks target US Military Forces (2900 IED’s) a month---primarily stand off attacks with IED’s, rockets, mortars, snipers, and mines from both Shia (EFP attacks are a primary casualty producer) ---and Sunni (85% of all attacks---80% of US deaths16% of Iraqi population.)

Three million Iraqis are internally displaced or have fled the country to Syria and Jordan. The technical and educated elites are going into self-imposed exile---a huge brain drain that imperils the ability to govern. The Maliki government has little credibility among the Shia populations from which it emerged. It is despised by the Sunni as a Persian surrogate. It is believed untrustworthy and incompetent by the Kurds.

There is no function of government that operates effectively across the nation--- not health care, not justice, not education, not transportation, not labor and commerce, not electricity, not oil production. There is no province in the country in which the government has dominance. The government cannot spend its own money effectively. ($7.1 billion sits in New York banks.) No Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter, foreign NGO, nor contractor can walk the streets of Baghdad, nor Mosul, nor Kirkuk, nor Basra, nor Tikrit, nor Najaf, nor Ramadi---without heavily armed protection.

The police force is feared as a Shia militia in uniform which is responsible for thousands of extra-judicial killings. There is no effective nation-wide court system. There are in general almost no acceptable Iraqi penal institutions. The population is terrorized by rampant criminal gangs involved in kidnapping, extortion, robbery, rape, massive stealing of public property ---such as electrical lines, oil production material, government transportation, etc. (Saddam released 80,000 criminal prisoners.)

The Iraqi Army is too small, very badly equipped (inadequate light armor, junk Soviet small arms, no artillery, no helicopters to speak of, currently no actual or planned ground attack aircraft of significance, no significant air transport assets (only three C-130’s), no national military logistics system, no national military medical system, etc. The Iraqi Army is also unduly dominated by the Shia, and in many battalions lacks discipline. There is no legal authority to punish Iraqi soldiers or police who desert their comrades. (The desertion/AWOL numbers frequently leave Iraqi Army battalions at 50% strength or less.)

In total, enemy insurgents or armed sectarian militias (SCIRI, JAM, Pesh Merga, AQI, 1920’s Brigade, et. al.) probably exceed 100,000 armed fighters. These non-government armed bands are in some ways more capable of independent operations than the regularly constituted ISF. They do not depend fundamentally on foreign support for their operations. Most of their money, explosives, and leadership are generated inside Iraq. The majority of the Iraqi population (Sunni and Shia) support armed attacks on American forces. Although we have arrested 120,000 insurgents (hold 27,000) and killed some huge number of enemy combatants (perhaps 20,000+) --- the armed insurgents, militias, and Al Qaeda in Iraq without fail apparently re-generate both leadership cadres and foot soldiers. Their sophistication, numbers, and lethality go up--- not down--- as they incur these staggering battle losses.

US domestic support for the war in Iraq has evaporated and will not return. The great majority of the country thinks the war was a mistake. The US Congress now has a central focus on constraining the Administration use of military power in Iraq ---and potentially Iran. The losses of US Army, Marine, and Special Operations Force casualties in Iraq now exceed 27,000 killed and wounded. (Note: The Iraqi Security Forces have suffered more than 49,000 casualties in the last 14 months.) The war costs $9 Billion per month.

Keep on reading....it does get better! (You'll have to scroll down quite a bit to keep going...)

SOURCE: Black Five: McCaffrey Report

HAT TIP: PajamasMedia

How to win in Iraq

The following article in the Opinion Journal is a MUST READ: "How to Win in Iraq. And how to lose. "

Excerpt:

To the student of counterinsurgency warfare, the war in Iraq has reached a critical but dismally familiar stage.

On the one hand, events in that country have taken a more hopeful direction in recent months. Operations in the city of Najaf in January presaged a more effective burden-sharing between American and Iraqi troops than in the past. The opening moves of the so-called surge in Baghdad, involving increased American patrols and the steady addition of more than 21,000 ground troops, have begun to sweep Shiite militias from the streets, while their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has gone to ground. Above all, the appointment of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the author of the U.S. Army's latest counterinsurgency field manual, as commander of American ground forces in Iraq bespeaks the Pentagon's conviction that what we need to confront the Iraq insurgency is not more high-tech firepower but the time-tested methods of unconventional or "fourth generation" warfare.

In Washington, on the other hand, among the nation's political class, the growing consensus is that the war in Iraq is not only not winnable but as good as lost--Rep. Henry Waxman of California, for one, has proclaimed that the war is lost. Politicians who initially backed the effort, like Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, and Republican Reps. Walter Jones and Tom Davis, have been busily backing away or out, insisting that Iraq has descended into civil war and that Americans are helpless to shape events militarily. A growing number, like Rep. John Murtha, even suggest that the American presence is making matters worse. The Democratic Party has devoted much internal discussion to whether and how to restrict the President's ability to carry out even the present counterinsurgency effort.

SOURCE: OpinionJournal: 29 MARCH 2007: How To Win in Iraq

Parallel Universe

Wow! There is an excellent commentary by Steve Schippert at ThreatsWatch.Org which cleverly shows the stupidity of pretending that Iran has nothing to do with the troubles in neighboring Iraq (let alone Syria!) This commentary is a MUST READ! (Hat tip: Michael Leeden)

Parallel Universe
Insulated By Criticism, Iran Is Killing Americans ...And Everybody Knows It
By Steve Schippert

Some in the US Intelligence Community seem to operate in another realm and in a world with significantly different realities, dangers and potential outcomes. How else can it be explained that United States political leadership has been persuaded to withhold releasing intelligence regarding Iranian actions in Iraq, including arming, funding and training both Sunni and Shi’a groups killing US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, let alone the mind-boggling toll upon Iraq’s civilian population?

In question is the same Iran that even Hassan Nasrallah openly ceded feeds the Hizballah terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese through its terrorist attacks, “And the help is funneled through Syria, and everybody knows it.”

“Everybody knows” a lot of things. One of them is an American fear of international and internal criticism that prevents her from doing what is necessary – or anything much beyond rhetoric, for that matter - to openly confront the Iranian regime that has been at war with the United States since its 1979 Islamic revolution."

Source: Threatwatch.org: Parallel Universe: Feb 5, 2007