Secret US plan for military future in Iraq

Document outlines powers but sets no time limit on troop presence

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked "secret" and "sensitive", is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to "conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security" without time limit.

The authorisation is described as "temporary" and the agreement says the US "does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq". But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces - including the British - in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

Iraqi critics point out that the agreement contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries. The agreement is intended to govern the status of the US military and other members of the multinational force.

Following recent clashes between Iraqi troops and Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army in Basra, and threats by the Iraqi government to ban his supporters from regional elections in the autumn, anti-occupation Sadrists and Sunni parties are expected to mount strong opposition in parliament to the agreement, which the US wants to see finalised by the end of July. The UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

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Gus: yes... Tinker Bell is no nore but a Tanker belle... designed to pump oil for a long time.

WASHINGTON — The senior commander of multinational forces in Iraq warned Congress Tuesday against removing “too many troops too quickly” and refused under stiff questioning to offer even an estimate of American force levels by the end of this year.

Those comments from Gen. David H. Petraeus were met by sharp criticism from a senior Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, that the Bush administration had adopted “a war plan with no exit strategy.”

As hearings to define the future course of American strategy in Iraq opened Tuesday morning, General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, the American envoy to Baghdad, described an Iraq that is the scene of significant, if still-fragile, progress in security and politics. But they made that case without reference to Congressionally mandated benchmarks that defined their testimony last September.

General Petraeus said that security progress has been “significant but uneven.” Under questioning, he declined to estimate American troop levels beyond the withdrawal by July of five additional combat brigades sent to Iraq last year. And he acknowledged that the government’s recent offensive in Basra was not sufficiently well-planned.

The security situation remained in flux, General Petraeus said, in part because of the “destructive role Iran has played,” and he said that “special groups” of Shiite radicals supported from Tehran posed the greatest immediate threat to security. Ambassador Crocker added, “Iran has a choice to make.”

The general told senators that he was recommending a 45-day pause — which he defined as a period of “consolidation and evaluation” — before reviewing once again whether there should be further troop reductions.

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Gus: in the light of the article above this one — and as far as we could guess here on this site from the onset of the "incursion" in Iraq — that 45 day pause is likely to be a 45 year foot-hold... Sure, there will be some US troop reduction at some stage, I would say up to 100,000 in the VERY VERY DISTANT future — leaving at least 60,000 troops permanently there — but the fact remain that the US have NO INTENT in having an exit strategy from Iraq... THEY ARE THERE TO STAY.

And on all inquiring occasion, the administration will fiddle, fuddle and fudge the subject always finding an "excuse" for not getting out of Iraq, including blaming Iran... That excuse will be used for at least another 10 years, then there will be Syria if Syria is not already massaged in our psyche as a "baddie"... Then it will be something else, like the deterioration of international relations or China. Who knows... But the US have planned on finding excuses like nuggets at a chicken shop.

Is this the way the Romans maintained the Pax Romana for 500 years? With the intent of staying where there were resources to plunder, populations to enslave and "build civilisations" to the glory of their generals, using the "bringing and maintaining peace with weapons" motto to make sure the Roman armies stayed there...?

Timetable?... Never. Whenever. Whatever. Zilch. The sting was on from the start of the invasion. The Iraqi mess was part of the strategy from the beginning. The US administration KNEW it would happen. See, an organisation like the Pentagon employs a lot of people, some of whom work out the "strategy of war" for at least 30 years in advance. They plan all actions and counter-actions with all options possible, including the development of the public relation exercise to sell the actions, according to which these actions are falling in the bell curve of options. It's a flexibility of performance and spruiking in which the exit strategy IS NOT AN OPTION.

Maliki is wrong and possibly knows he's wrong in expressing "the US troops will leave Iraq". Muqtada al-Sadr is right in knowing the US do not want to leave Iraq, but his options are very thin on the ground. Maliki supports the invaders, a bit like the Vichy government supported the Germans in France... Sad case of arm being twisted.

Watching the Iraq Hearings With Petraeus and Crocker

By Mike Nizza

The Lede is following today’s Petraeus-Crocker hearings live with the help of New York Times reporters inside the hearing room, including Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker. Read their coverage of the hearings here.

Obama Takes Stage Early | 5:48 p.m. Senator Nelson of Florida yielded his time to Senator Obama, who had to leave early. In the bonus time that Mr. Biden awarded to him, the presidential candidate offers his “key points,” as summarized by Thom Shanker:

– “We all have the greatest interest in seeing a successful resolution to Iraq,” he began. “All of us do.”

– He said he continued to believe that the original decision to invade Iraq was a “massive strategic blunder.”

– He said that “Al Qaeda in Iraq and increased Iranian influence in the region are a direct result of that original decision” to invade Iraq. (He noted that they were not among the senior leaders who made the decision to go to war. “You are cleaning up the mess afterwards.”)

– Offering his own plan, he called for “applying increased pressure in a measured way.” This, Mr. Obama said, requires “a timetable,” which he said would not be “a precipitous withdrawal.” It should be coupled with “a diplomatic surge that includes Iran.”

– He challenged administration definitions of victory, and said the U.S. should consider a “messy, sloppy status quo.” Illustrating the point, he posed a question: “If we had the current status quo, and yet our troops had been drawn down to 30,000, would we consider that a success? Or would that not be good enough?”

A Promise From Petraeus | 5:46 p.m. Senator Boxer added to questions about why the Iraqi government doesn’t cover more of the financial burden of reconstruction, yielding a promise from General Petraeus. “If there’s anything that the ambassador and I will take back to Iraq,” he said, “it is to ask those kinds of questions more directly.”

Spin the Bottle | 5:35 p.m. Senator Boxer of California had a question about hearts, minds and kisses. “After all we have done, the Iraqi government kisses the Iranian leader,” she said. “Our president has to sneak into the country.”

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Gus: spin, spin, spin... see my comments in article above this one... 

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers

Posted 1 hour 7 minutes ago

All three remaining US presidential contenders have grilled the top American commander in Iraq about the progress of the war.

General David Petraeus told Congress that hard won gains in the Iraq war are too fragile to promise any more troop pull-outs before US President George W Bush leaves office.

Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton has labelled the troop surge a failure.

"I think it's time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing troops, start rebuilding our military and focusing on the challenges posed by Afghanistan," she said.

Her Democratic rival Barack Obama also expressed concerns.

"I also think that the surge has reduced violence and provided breathing room, but that breathing room has not been taken," he said.

"We all have the greatest interest in seeing the successful resolution to Iraq.

"I continue to believe that the original decision to go into Iraq was a massive strategic blunder."

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Gus: until someone in the US presidential race says: "Iraq war was a massive deliberate strategic con-trick", they're all blah-blah-ing in a hot air balloon.

Success in Iraq is irrelevant to the "operation"... The strategy has been to lie, tell porkies, spruik anything but the truth — which is to have US troops in Iraq for years to come, no-matter-what, peace or no peace... Sure it would be nice if Iraq was "peaceful" and "cooperative" in what the US want. But anyone with a brain would know that is not a possibility. This is due to many factors, including "the US having made a thousand mistakes" as Rice puts it — although I would add "deliberately" and that these "deliberate mistakes" were designed to contain the situation rather than solve the situation, as the situation CANNOT be solved to the US wishes should it be soved. The situation would have been solved much quicker if the US had got out of Iraq, but then where would have been the profit in that for the US?

Oil is very sticky...

Gunmen Kill Aide to Shiite Cleric in Iraq

By STEPHEN FARRELL
Published: April 12, 2008

BAGHDAD — A senior aide to the radical anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr was assassinated as he returned home from Friday prayers in Najaf, raising the likelihood that tensions would climb still higher between Mr. Sadr’s loyalists and the Iraqi government forces they have been battling.

The police declared a curfew in Najaf, the holiest Shiite city in Iraq, and deployed reinforcements on the streets, fearing a backlash after the murder of the aide, Riyadh al-Nuri.

Security officials there said Mr. Nuri, who was related to Mr. Sadr by marriage, was killed in al-Adala neighborhood, half a mile east of Najaf, when unknown gunmen ambushed him outside his house and opened fire, killing him instantly. 

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 Gus: Unknown gunmen??? Hum...

US blamed for killing of prominent Shia MP

By Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 10 October 2008

A powerful member of the Iraqi parliament that is loyal to the anti-American Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was killed in a carefully planned assassination in Baghdad yesterday.

A bomb hidden in a hole in the road exploded as a convoy carrying Salehal-Auqaeili and other lawmakers went past an Iraqi army checkpoint near Sadr City. It is probable that the killing was carried out by the Badr Organisation, the armed wing of the other large Shia party, the Iraqi Supreme Council of Iraq, who are long-time rivals of the Sadrists.

Mr Auqaeili was a senior member of the 30-member Sadrist bloc in the 275-member parliament. Competition between the political parties of the majority Shia community has become increasingly fierce in the lead-up to the provincial elections which are due to take place next year.

The killing of Mr Auqaeli, a 37-year-old former professor, may well lead to retaliation by the Sadrists, who are still a powerful force, particularly in Sadr City, where the Mahdi Army militia was stood down by Mr Sadr this year. The bodies of several members of Badr have been found in the area in recent weeks.

The Sadrists are also accusing the US of being behind the assassination because of their movement's opposition to the security pact between the US and Iraq. "The occupation forces sent us a message by staging this attack because of our stance against the agreement," said Ahmed al-Massoudi, a Sadrist spokesman.

See toon at top... note the date...

Lacking an Accord On Troops, U.S. and Iraq Seek a Plan B

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2008; A01

With time running out for the conclusion of an agreement governing American forces in Iraq, nervous negotiators have begun examining alternatives that would allow U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Neither side finds the options attractive. One possibility is an extension of the United Nations mandate that expires at the end of the year. That would require a Security Council vote that both governments believe could be complicated by Russia or others opposed to the U.S.-led war. Another alternative would amount to a simple handshake agreement between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush to leave things as they are until a new deal, under a new U.S. administration, can be negotiated.

Negotiators have been stuck for months on the question of legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops and immunity for possible crimes. But even if the sides reach a deal in the next few days or weeks, it is not clear that a formal status-of-forces agreement could be approved by the end of the year. Maliki has pledged to submit an accord to Iraq's divided parliament before he signs it -- a promise he reaffirmed last week during a visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric. Sistani has said he will not endorse any document without the support of Iraq's population and political factions.

see toon at top

The United States and Iraq have reached a final agreement after months of negotiation on a landmark pact to allow US troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011, US and Iraqi officials said.

The two countries also reached a compromise on the difficult question of whether US troops could be tried in Iraqi court for crimes committed while deployed in Iraq, an issue that both sides had long said was holding up the pact.

The agreement was submitted to Iraqi political leaders for approval, a first step toward ratifying it in the Iraqi parliament, Iraq's government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

A US official in Washington confirmed that the final draft had been agreed by both sides and would require US troops to leave by the end of 2011 unless Iraq asks them to stay longer.

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another three years of official occupation... see toon at top.

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 17, 2008; A20

BAGHDAD -- Qassim Frez, a senior Iraqi civil servant, has a problem officials in Washington might envy. Iraq has piled up tens of billions of dollars from oil sales, and its bureaucrats are struggling to spend the windfall.

"It is very, very difficult for the ministries," said Frez, a director-general of the Planning Ministry, sitting in a dilapidated office with dirty white walls, lit by bare fluorescent lights that occasionally flicker off.

As U.S. reconstruction spending tails off here, American officials are increasingly concerned about Iraq's ability to assume its own rebuilding. The Government Accountability Office estimates that Iraq's budget surplus will hit $67 billion to $79 billion this year, although some U.S. officials say it will be less because of tumbling oil prices.

The U.S. government is spending millions of dollars to train Iraqi officials to spend their oil wealth. But Iraq's bureaucracy remains hollow, mired in the stacks of paper and rubber stamps of years past, with many of the best technocrats having fled the country.

The Iraqi surplus has ignited bipartisan outrage in Congress, where some lawmakers complain that the United States is spending too much in Iraq while its government accumulates cash. In Iraq, American military officials fear the spending lag could contribute to civil disorder.

Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said in an interview with The Washington Post that one of the top threats here is "the inability of the government of Iraq to provide basic services, specifically electricity, sewage and water, to the people."

Deliberate Evil: The American Strategy of Seeding Civil War 

Written by Chris Floyd     

    
Pressing business elsewhere precludes me from giving proper attention to this, but I must take a moment to urge you to read -- immediately -- the new article by Gareth Porter at Antiwar.com: "Torture Orders Were Part of US Sectarian War Strategy."
Porter delves into the latest Wikileaks trove to find new and detailed evidence of how the vicious sectarian civil war in Iraq in 2004-2008 -- which killed thousands of people, subjected thousands to brutal and macabre tortures, drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes -- was deliberately seeded and constantly fueled by the leaders of the American occupation.

More specifically, Porter shows that the instigation and exacerbation of civil war and sectarian "cleansing" was the brainchild of the supposed master of "counterinsurgency," the bemedalled darling of the bipartisan political and media establishments, General David Petraeus -- the same man whom the progressive Peace Laureate now in the White House has put in charge of Afghanistan. Petraeus, we are told -- always in gushing, adulatory prose (with Obama himself as Gusher-in-Chief) -- is now striving mightily to produce in Afghanistan the "same results" he got in Iraq.

We've been noting here for years how American leaders deliberately fomented the unimaginable hell that the unprovoked, illegal invasion and rapacious occupation inflicted on the people of Iraq, how with death squads and torture -- both directly and by proxy -- they deliberately, knowingly, willingly deepened the sectarian divides in Iraqi society, how they armed, funded and empowered some of the most retograde extremist factions to do the dirty work for the imperial masters, and how this strategy led to the rise of violent extremism to counter the American-led assault. Porter, working with the invaluable Wikileaks documents and also doing valuable research in media archives, brings us fresh and damning confirmation of this genuinely evil strategy.

read more of Chris Floyd, see toon at top...