BATTLE FLAG COMES DOWN IN BAGHDAD
Julian E. Barnes & Nathan Hodge
Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2011
After nearly nine years of war, tens of thousands of casualties—including 4,500 dead—and more than $800 billion spent, the U.S. military on Thursday formally ended its mission in Iraq.…
For years, commanders in Iraq have handed off to their successors the top call sign, Lion 6, along with the American battle flag adorned with a Mesopotamian sphinx. But on Thursday, in a tradition-drenched ceremony with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta looking on, the current Lion 6, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, pulled down the colors and cased them for a return to the U.S.…
In the coming days, the last of the 4,000 U.S. military personnel still in Iraq will follow the flag and head home—leaving fewer than 200 to serve as part of the diplomatic mission. The military has largely shuttered its main base in eastern Baghdad, Camp Victory—a name that often had a bitterly ironic ring for many service members.…
At Thursday’s end-of-mission ceremony, Mr. Panetta evoked the most important battles of the war in Fallujah, Ramadi and Sadr City. He returned to a theme he has struck all week…: American service members have given Iraqis the opportunity to make their own future. The hardships and losses endured by America’s military, he said, were not in vain because they led to a free Iraq. “You leave with great pride, lasting pride, secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people begin a new chapter in history,” Mr. Panetta said.…
The Iraq war has been a nine-year emotional roller-coaster ride for the American people and the military. With the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s military and advance on Baghdad accomplished within weeks, it at first appeared to be a quick victory for America and the world’s most technically advanced army. But within months of the taking of Baghdad, a growing insurgency emerged and turned the quick victory into a long slog. The advanced U.S. military was brought low by primitive weapons: homemade bombs made from fertilizer or discarded artillery shells. To many, including some in the military, the war seemed lost after the February 2006 bombing of Samara’s Golden Mosque touched off sectarian killings around Iraq. Nightly murders by Shiite death squads filled Baghdad’s morgues.
Led by Army Gen. David Petraeus, another Lion 6, the military rewrote its doctrine and overhauled its strategy, initiating a surge in the number of troops and pushing soldiers and Marines into tiny outposts to try to put a halt to the violence. The surge, deeply controversial in the U.S., began to tamp down that violence in the summer of 2007, eventually restoring a measure of calm on a country that had descended into chaos.
The U.S. force numbered more than 170,000 at the height of the surge—a mobilization that required grueling 15-month tours for many in the Army and constant trips to the war zone for a generation of Marines. By last year it had dwindled to 50,000, and since President Barack Obama announced in October the U.S. would leave by year-end the military has been engaged in a massive logistics effort, sending home thousands of troops a week, shuttering dozens of U.S. bases and moving millions of pieces of equipment. In recent weeks, U.S. troops have finished handing over hundreds of bases.…
The end of the Iraq war leaves many in the military in a reflective mood. The war has transformed the U.S. military, offering it a costly lesson: Even a superpower cannot fight the war it might want; it must fight the war it’s presented with.… The military that invaded Iraq prided itself on its quickness. The military that is leaving prides itself on its patience.…
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S TOO-ROSY VISION OF POSTWAR IRAQ
Editorial
Washington Post, December 12, 2011
In the opening statement of his press conference Monday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Obama managed to assert no fewer than five times that the war in Iraq is ending. No doubt the president’s reelection campaign hopes that Americans will absorb that message; but we wonder about the thoughts of Iraqis who were listening. The conflict in their country, after all, is greatly reduced but not over: Al-Qaeda continues to carry out terrorist attacks, Iranian-sponsored militias still operate, and a power struggle between Kurdish-ruled northern Iraq and Mr. Maliki’s government goes on. Many Iraqis worry that, after the last U.S. troops depart this month, the sectarian bloodletting that ravaged the country between 2004 and 2007 will resume.
Those concerns, as well as the hope of checking Iran’s influence, prompted U.S. commanders to recommend that a follow-on force in the tens of thousands remain in Iraq next year. Iraqi politics, and the agreement struck by the Bush administration mandating a full withdrawal at the end of 2011, made that tricky—but a conflicted Obama administration never tried very hard to strike a deal with Mr. Maliki.…
On Monday, the president portrayed Iraq as a democracy and model for the Middle East whose economy is set to grow more rapidly than those of India or China. He described Mr. Maliki, a Shiite who spent years in exile in Iran, as a nationalist whose stated “interest is maintaining Iraqi sovereignty and preventing meddling by anyone inside of Iraq,” adding, “I believe him.…” Mr. Obama said, “What we have now achieved is an Iraq that is self-governing, that is inclusive, and that has enormous potential.…”
We wish all that were true. But Mr. Maliki’s government increasingly appears headed in a troubling direction. Rather than remaining “inclusive,” Mr. Maliki has been concentrating power, especially over the security forces, in his own hands and excluding minority Sunnis, with whom he promised to share authority. He recently ordered the arrest of hundreds of people he accused of being tied to Saddam Hussein’s former Baath Party. Though he may have, as Mr. Obama said, domestic reasons for doing so, he has set himself apart from the rest of the Arab League by refusing to break with the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally.
Mr. Obama’s virtually unqualified support for Mr. Maliki consequently was unsettling. The president said that the U.S. “goal is simply to make sure that Iraq succeeds, because we think a successful, democratic Iraq can be a model for the entire region.” That is true. But success will require continued and concerted U.S. engagement, not rosy declarations about a mission accomplished.
A NEW MIRAGE IN THE IRAQI DESERT
Kimberly Kagan & Frederick W. Kagan
Washington Post, December 11, 2011
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s meeting Monday with President Obama, their first in-person encounter since October 2009, [was] supposed to be an occasion to declare the successful end of the war in Iraq and the beginning of a “normal” relationship between two friendly states.… But the image [was] a mirage. It rest[ed] on inaccurate portrayals of the situation in Iraq and Maliki’s policies. It also lack[ed] a strategy to secure vital U.S. interests in the region.
Even after the last U.S. soldier departs, America’s core interests in Iraq include: 1. Ensuring that Iraq contributes to the security of the Middle East, rather than undermining it through state collapse, civil war or the establishment of a sectarian dictatorship; 2. Ensuring that terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or backed by Iran cannot establish sanctuaries; 3. Promoting an Iraq that abides by its international responsibilities; 4. Containing Iranian influences that are harmful to U.S. interests in Iraq and the region; 5. Signaling U.S. commitment to the region at a pivotal moment in history.
Securing these and other U.S. interests requires two basic conditions: First, Iraq must be able to control, police and defend its territory, airspace and waters. Second, Iraq must preserve and solidify the multi-ethnic and cross-sectarian political accommodation that was established in 2008 and 2009 but that has been eroding since the formation of the current government.
Neither condition is likely to be met in the coming years.
Despite enthusiastic rhetoric from Maliki and Defense Secretay Leon Panetta, Iraq is not able to defend its territory or airspace. Iraq has no military aircraft able to maintain its air sovereignty and will not for several years, Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, deputy commander of U.S. forces there, explained in a press conference on Dec. 7. He said that challenges facing Iraq include “external security threats, Iranian-backed militias, al-Qaeda, other violent extremist groups” and that “Iraqis must continue to put constant pressure on those groups.” He said persistent “security gaps” include “their air sovereignty, their air defense capability, the ability to protect the two oil platforms, and then the ability to do combined arms operations for an external defense, synchronizing their infantry with their armor, with their artillery, with their engineers.”
Iraqi security forces are unable to maintain their capabilities and equipment, much less meet new challenges. The only remaining U.S. training missions are for Iraqi police, and there are no agreements for training or supporting the military beyond year’s end. “How they deal with that gap” in defense capabilities, Helmick noted, “is really up to them.”
Even more troubling than the security weaknesses is the erosion of the fragile political settlement. Maliki has pursued a sectarian agenda focused on consolidating power and monopolizing control of the state and security forces under his Dawa Party. He wrote [in the Washington Post] last Monday [see On Topics below—Ed.]: “The Baath Party, which is prohibited by the constitution, believes in coups and conspiracies; indeed, these have been its modus operandi since the party’s inception. The Baathists seek to destroy Iraq’s democratic process. Hundreds of suspected Baathists recently were arrested.… I refute characterizations that the detentions were a sectarian action based on political motives.”
But it is difficult to square the descriptions of good security conditions in Iraq, as cited by U.S. military and administration officials and by Maliki, with the idea that mass arrests were necessary to prevent an imminent Sunni coup d’etat. It is even harder to see how that alleged threat required Maliki to remove officials from the Education Ministry and fire or replace several general officers of known integrity, patriotism and national loyalty.
The reality is that Maliki has just announced a policy of prosecuting—in some cases persecuting—selected former members of the Baath Party (including many protected from such actions by the de-Baathification law because they never held high positions) and other political opponents in a way certain to fan the smoldering embers of sectarian fear. Maliki is unwinding the multi-ethnic, cross-sectarian Iraqi political settlement.
Obama administration policy presumes that Maliki generally shares U.S. interests and will pursue them even without significant American assistance. Were that true, Maliki would aggressively protect American civilian and diplomatic personnel who have been threatened by the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and recently targeted to such a degree that the embassy has restricted their travel. He would direct security forces to act against Iranian-sponsored militias in Iraq. Rather than abstaining, he would have supported the Arab League’s vote to suspend Syrian membership. He would see to it that Ali Mussa Daqduq, the Lebanese Hezbollah operative responsible for the execution of American soldiers in Karbala in 2007, is transferred to U.S. custody or tried in Iraq and punished for his crimes. He would appoint a permanent minister of defense and an interior minister acceptable to Parliament rather than concentrating those powers in his office. But Maliki has done none of those things.
Despite the withdrawal of U.S. forces, Washington has leverage to affect Iraqi behavior. Iraq is a signatory to numerous treaties and a member of international organizations obliging it to respect human rights, ensure due process of law, and refrain from arbitrary or political detentions. Responsible nations should insist that Iraq demonstrate its commitment to those obligations. The president should tell Maliki in no uncertain terms that Washington will hold him to account in the international arena if Iraq does not.
All bilateral military relations and security cooperation were governed by the expiring strategic agreement and must be established under new agreements. There is much that Washington could offer, including guaranteeing the security of Iraq’s land, sea and airspace until Iraq is able to defend itself and establishing a program of collective military training, exercises and exchanges to improve the quality of Iraqi forces. Effective counterterrorism cooperation will require the negotiation of an intelligence-sharing agreement as well as transparent partnering with Iraq’s counterterrorism forces.
An independent, stable and responsible Iraqi state is critical to U.S. interests in the Middle East. A substantive policy toward that end can result from a combined insistence that Iraq adhere to international laws and norms, pressure on Iraqi leaders to deepen the political settlements under such stress, and the positive incentives of genuine military cooperation. The objective would not be to oust Maliki but to do what the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement specified: “support and strengthen Iraq’s democracy and its democratic institutions as defined and established in the Iraqi Constitution, and in so doing, enhance Iraq’s capability to protect these institutions against all internal and external threats.” Such a policy would reflect U.S. values and could help ensure free, fair and inclusive elections in 2013, so the Iraqi people preserve the representative government to which so many in the Middle East aspire.
OBAMA AND THE HEZBOLLAH TERRORIST
David B. Rivkin, Jr. & Charles D. Stimson
Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2011
Call it the triumph of ideology over national interest and honor. Having dithered for nearly three years, the Obama administration has only a few weeks to bring to justice a Hezbollah terrorist who slaughtered five U.S. soldiers in Iraq in 2007. Unfortunately, it appears more likely that Ali Musa Daqduq will instead be transferred to Iran, to a hero’s welcome.
In the early evening of Jan. 20, 2007, in the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, five black SUVs approached the location of a regular meeting between U.S. and Iraqi military officers. Inside the vehicles, which mimicked U.S. transports, were a dozen individuals dressed in U.S. military uniforms and bearing U.S. weapons. Their drivers spoke English.
Upon reaching their target, the occupants opened fire on the Americans. One U.S. soldier was killed on the spot. Four others were kidnapped, tortured and executed. The mastermind of this brutal attack? Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese national and Hezbollah commander. U.S. forces captured him in March 2007, and, in interrogation, he allegedly provided a wealth of information on Iran’s role in fomenting, training and arming Iraqi insurgents of all stripes.
With U.S. troops set to exit Iraq at the end of December, all detainees in American custody there have been transferred to the Iraqis except for Daqduq. He is set to be turned over in a matter of weeks. Based on past experience with released detainees who were in Iranian employ, U.S. officials know that Daqduq will promptly re-emerge in Iran, shaking hands with dignitaries and leading parades, before rejoining his Hezbollah colleagues.
This outcome would be an insult to the American servicemen who have lost many comrades to insurgents such as Daqduq.… Indeed, the Iraq war is the first conflict in modern history where the U.S.—having complied with the laws of war by promptly prosecuting American troops believed to have violated those laws—did not bring to justice a single one of the hundreds of captured enemy combatants who have killed Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and contractors. Impunity for war criminals debases the laws of war, violates our international legal obligations, and is inconsistent with American values.
We have already failed to stop Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. We have also failed to punish Tehran for facilitating the deaths of American soldiers, or for plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Allowing Daqduq to slip through U.S. hands would further reinforce the impression of American impotence. That will have serious repercussions, measured in diplomatic defeats and lost lives.
There is an obvious solution: Transfer Daqduq from Iraq to Guantanamo Bay to be tried by a military commission there. But this is where the Obama administration’s rigid ideology comes into play—beginning with flawed, self-defeating legalistic arguments.
A successful prosecution of Daqduq would be relatively easy. He killed American soldiers and, as an unprivileged belligerent, has no combatant immunity. Yet the administration purports to be troubled by our lack of an extradition treaty with Iraq. It also points out that the Iraqis have refused to accord the U.S. legal custody of Daqduq, although the U.S. has him in physical custody. The Iraqis, of course, are being pressured by the Iranians not to accommodate this legal-custody request.
Yet we don’t need an extradition treaty with Iraq to transfer Daqduq, a Lebanese citizen captured by American forces in a war zone. Since his capture occurred when the U.S. and other coalition members were the occupying power in Iraq, there is ample basis in existing international law for the American exercise of legal jurisdiction over him.
A more serious obstacle is the administration’s policy of eschewing military tribunals. Earlier this year, the administration considered bringing Daqduq into the U.S. to face trial in a civilian court. In response, six Republican senators wrote President Obama, warning against trying Daqduq in federal court, and urging the president to refer him to a military commission.…
The administration believes that bringing anyone new, even high-value detainees, to Guantanamo is inconsistent with the goal of eventually closing the facility. This proposition is absurd, and not only because that facility remains vital and relevant to this day. It raises the question of whether administration’s detention policy is actually shaped by a crass political calculus of not antagonizing its liberal base in advance of what promises to be a difficult 2012 election.
The administration should press the Maliki government in Baghdad harder to allow the U.S. to maintain custody of Daqduq following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. If the Iraqis still refuse, the administration should unilaterally transfer Daqduq to Guantanamo to face justice.… Daqduq’s rendition would demonstrate Washington’s resolve in the face of Tehran’s pressure. Allowing him to go unpunished is both inexcusable and dangerous.
THE IRAQI WHO CAPTURED SADDAM
Maureen Callahan
NY Post, December 3, 2011
In the years since, it’s floated around the Web, but unless you’ve gone looking for it, you’ve probably seen the most circulated version, in which the face of the US serviceman holding a freshly excavated Saddam Hussein is blurred. So, just who is he?
Turns out that serviceman wasn’t a soldier, or even American. He was an Iraqi native-turned-American-translator, and not that long ago, Saddam had killed his relatives and thrown his father in jail.
In the new book “We Got Him! A Memoir of the Hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein” (Threshold Editions), author and former Lt. Col. Steve Russell has included the unaltered photo, in which Saddam’s captor, known only as Samir, looks right at the camera, his expression a palpable mixture of anger and joy.
Samir is an Iraqi native who was granted political asylum after the first Gulf War. He was part of the uprising in 1991, but when US forces withdrew, Saddam unleashed the full force of his military power against the Shiite rebels—Samir’s uncles and cousins among them.
He spent over three years languishing in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia until finally, in early 1994, Samir was relocated to St. Louis. He spoke very little English and had less than $10 to his name, but he was fascinated by America, most of his knowledge coming from Clint Eastwood movies.
Samir found work in an auto-parts shop and lived a quiet Midwestern American life until early 2003, when it became clear the United States was about to invade Iraq. He wanted to be part of it.
In the wind-up to the US-led invasion in March of that year, Samir took a translator test and quickly returned to Iraq, working for a civilian contractor. His expertise was invaluable throughout the nine-month hunt for Saddam, who, it seemed, might never be found.
It wasn’t until June 2003 that the US military had credible enough information regarding Saddam’s whereabouts. “We knew we had a pretty good feel for it,” says Russell. “But the raid wasn’t a man-hunt. It was a six-month operation.”
Samir became a key player on the afternoon of Dec. 13, when US Special Forces captured one of Saddam’s former bodyguards and brought him to intelligence officials housed in a palace in Tikrit. The interrogation was led by Samir.… After two hours…the bodyguard cracked. He said Saddam was hiding out on a farm.
The military was skeptical, but Samir and a few other intel agents put the bodyguard in a van and took him to the site. Upon arrival, the bodyguard also divulged that Saddam was hiding underground. That very night, a US Army brigade was deployed, with Special Forces interrogating the men in the farmhouse. Samir [was] in the field with the bodyguard, who kept insisting that Samir was standing right on top of Saddam Hussein.
They began digging. Minutes later, Samir was dragging Saddam out of his spider hole, the deposed dictator begging the soldiers not to shoot. Samir was unmoved.… “I told him he was a criminal and a murderer,” [Samir recounted to the St. Louis Riverfront Times]. “I hit him and spit in his face. I stepped my foot on his head and his back. He wasn’t crying, but I think he was shocked. No one had ever treated him this way.…”
Samir, who still works for the US as a translator, was also happy to report that Saddam kept asking one question over and over: “America, why? America, why?”
