Iraq

Stories like this one in the New York Times don’t exactly help rebut claims that money spent on Iraqi reconstruction has been spent wisely:

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.[.]

The dates when the projects were completed and deemed successful ranged from six months to almost a year and a half before the latest inspections. But those inspections found numerous instances of power generators that no longer operated; sewage systems that had clogged and overflowed, damaging sections of buildings; electrical systems that had been jury-rigged or stripped of components; floors that had buckled; concrete that had crumbled; and expensive equipment that was simply not in use.

Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.

While I extremely dislike that we are in Iraq due to bad intelligence and the administration’s deception of the American public, I do agree with the “Powell Doctrine” - “we break it, be brought it”. In other words, rightly or wrongly, the U.S. has destabilized Iraq, and we have a moral obligation to see the situation rectified.if it can be rectified.

However, it seems to me that a nontrivial part of the reconstruction effort has been a boondoggle of mammoth proportions.

Perhaps the folks in charge of the planning should have considered what the folks they were providing for actually wanted and could/would use?

I heard about this on the radio when driving home from Boston today. Per the AP:

An Army sergeant complained in a rare opinion article that the U.S. flag flew at half-staff last week at the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan for those killed at Virginia Tech but the same honor is not given to fallen U.S. troops here and in
Iraq.

The seargent goes on to suggest that flags at a killed soldier’s base and in his home state be ordered to half-staff.

He has a point. However, I also note:

• If flags flew at half-staff for military casualties, the flag would be flying at half-staff pretty much non-stop due to the current casualty rate in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would tend to erode what public support remains for the administration’s plans in that part of the world, and therefore I wouldn’t hold my breath.
   
• I don’t know how it works in other states, but at least here in Connecticut, I could swear that the Governor does order flags to half-staff for Nutmegger war casualties.

The folks over at Tom Delay’s blog have provided a link to a report on a decline in American casualties in Iraq:

Only 17 members of the US military in Iraq have been killed since February 14 till March 13, compared to 42 from January 13 to February 13; the rate was on the decline during the first month of the security crackdown, compared to a month before. [...]

The remarkable decrease in killings among the US troops came at a time when more of these troops were deployed in the Iraqi capital, especially in districts previously regarded as extremely hazardous for them such as Al-Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah, and Al-Doura. [...]

The US army in Iraq had earlier said that sectarian fighting and violence in Baghdad had dropped sharply, by about 80 percent, since the launch of the plan.

The article reads like a press release from the military, and makes no mention about any impact in civilian casualties.

If the surge and shuffling of command staff are really resulting in restoration of stability in Iraq, then I’ll happily admit that my skepticism about the surge was overly pessimistic. However, I am curious as to whether this is actual improvement, or if key players in the sectarian movements are merely taking a break coinciding with American/Iraqi military operations.

I’m hoping this is a sign of fixing that which we have broken.

It still doesn’t excuse the fumbling of the past several years of ops in Iraq, or the deceptions involved in getting us in there in the first place.

In case you wondered why the White House wasn’t officially keeping or reporting on Iraqi casualties since our re-invasion, this wire service story might shed some light on the omission:

Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.[...]

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

It’s true that civilian deaths are an unfortunate byproduct of invasion and civil war. However, I can’t help but wonder how much sooner public opinion would have soured…or how much more sour it would be…if the casualty tally were more widely known.

Seen in the Courant:

More than one-fifth of 500 Connecticut National Guard soldiers of the 102nd Infantry serving in war zones are owed thousands of dollars in incentive pay that is months overdue.

The Assignment Incentive Pay of $1,000 a month is paid to Reserve or National Guard soldiers who volunteer to extend active duty beyond 24 months.

Lt. Col. John Whitford of the Connecticut National Guard confirmed that about 110 soldiers are owed amounts between $2,000 and $17,000. He attributed the delay to a “bureaucratic-administrative issue” at the federal level.

You’d think that before we “surge” more troops into Iraq, the Pentagon would figure out how to pay the salaries of the ones we already have over there.

The Sunday talking head shows were apparently full of public debate about how Democrats should resolve the conflict between their preference that we begin wrapping up our involvement in Iraq and the President’s “surge” of 20+ thousand troops. Quoting the New York Times:

Speaking on “This Week” on ABC News, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the subcommittee on military appropriations in the House, said he expected Congress to move to restrict financing for new troop deployments — or at the very least tie approval to stringent conditions the White House would have to meet first.[...]

But Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CNN on Sunday that he did not believe Congress should “use the power of the purse” to halt the president’s plan and that it should go no further than approving nonbinding resolutions opposing it.

While I disagree with the surge (unless accompanied by a major rethinking of our Iraq strategy…something absent from the most recently disclosed plans), I will admit to being uncomfortable with the idea of cutting funding to support troops who are already in harm’s way. Short of a round of impeachments, I don’t see that Congress has a way to actually block the surge itself.

So, here’s an alternative idea. If you can’t stop the surge, why not use the power of the purse-strings in other ways. For example, perhaps Democrats ought to be making the funding of senior officials in the Executive Branch dependant on their performance.

Short of impeachment, Congress has no power to fire folks in the Executive Branch. However, Congress could, for example, cut the salaries of the President, Vice-President, Cabinet members, and their senior staff to minimum wage for the duration of the surge….

I think they forgot to include a disclaimer on the Saddam execution videos. As seen in the Courant:

The boys’ deaths — scattered in the United States, in Yemen, in Turkey and elsewhere in seemingly isolated horror — had one thing in common: They hanged themselves after watching televised images of Saddam Hussein’s execution.

Officials and relatives say the children appeared to be mimicking the former dictator’s Dec. 30 hanging, shown both on a sanitized Iraqi government tape and explicit clandestine videos that popped up on Web sites and some TV channels.

Family commitments kept me from catching the President’s speech live last night. However, I was able to catch up this morning thanks to the miracle of Tivo and a quick skimming of a few blogs.

My thoughts:

1. I’ll give the President a little credit for admitting a mistake…sort of.
    
2. The President does have a point in that a stable, moderate Iraq is better for our interests than an instable country largely torn between extremist groups.
    
3. I can accept the idea that we have been understaffed in Iraq. I’ve long speculated that we probably didn’t muster enough force to be able to control and enforce stability after the overthrow of Saddam’s government. However, what I heard in the speech sounded an awful lot like “we’re going to throw more troops at the problem and talk sternly to the current Iraqi government”…but otherwise no real changes to the current, failed strategy. I would have liked to hear how the overall management of the reconstruction of Iraq would change…and I didn’t hear that.
    
4. The recitation of “the world is a big scary place, and it will get scarier if we don’t act” position could have been worthwhile…but I still haven’t heard anything about why this allegedly new strategy will work when our efforts have seemed rather impotent over the past couple of years.

Bottom line — I can agree that it’s important to “win”, and that doing so will still require more resources…and probably more bloodshed. However, I lack the faith that the relevant decision makers will show the insight to turn the situation around. Without that faith, I can’t help but think that the situation, from our perspective, will continue to deteriorate. Given the choice of cutting our losses, or waiting for things to get worse….well, the former is better than the latter, IMO.

However, some fresh new ideas, new leaders, and a bit of creativity in turning around a bad, deteriorating situation would have been better than either of those options.

Don’tcha just love it that a good presence on TV can cause people to forget any atrocities you may have committed in the past?

From today’s New York Times:

Just a month ago Mr. Hussein was widely dismissed as a criminal who deserved the death penalty, even if his trial was seen as flawed. Much of the Middle East reacted with a collective shrug when he was found guilty of crimes against humanity in November.

But shortly after his execution last Saturday, a video emerged that showed Shiite guards taunting Mr. Hussein, who responded calmly but firmly to them. From then on, many across the region began looking at him as a martyr.

“The Arab world has been devoid of pride for a long time,” said Ahmad Mazin al-Shugairi, who hosts a television show at the Middle East Broadcasting Center that promotes a moderate version of Islam in Saudi Arabia. “The way Saddam acted in court and just before he was executed, with dignity and no fear, struck a chord with Arabs who are desperate for their own leaders to have pride too.”[...]

“Prepare the gun that will avenge Saddam,” a poem published in a Saudi newspaper warned. “The criminal who signed the execution order without valid reason cheated us on our celebration day. How beautiful it will be when the bullet goes through the heart of him who betrayed Arabism.”

Mr. Safadi, the Jordanian editor, said: “In the public’s perception Saddam was terrible, but those people were worse. That final act has really jeopardized the future of Iraq immensely. And we all know this is a blow to the moderate camp in the Arab world.”

I’d ask how much worse we could bungle Iraq, but I’d be afraid that we would find out.

Word is circulating the news wires that Saddam Hussein’s death sentence could be carried out within days. Quoting the New York Times:

After upholding the death sentence against Mr. Hussein on Tuesday for the execution of 148 Shiite men and boys in 1982, an Iraqi appeals court ruled that he must be sent to the gallows within 30 days. But Mr. Hussein may not have even that long to live, officials said.

A senior administration official said that the execution would probably not take place in the next 24 hours, but that the timing would be swift. “It may be another day or so,” the official said.

Some facetious questions have crossed my mind:

• Will Fox finally succeed in its quest to broadcast an execution live on national television?
• South Park has been doing an excellent job of keeping up with the goings-on with Saddam. I wonder how soon we’ll see a Saddam-hanging reference in the show.

On a more serious note, I should point out that there is quite a bit of criticism coming about Saddam’s death sentence and expected execution. In addition to the usual anti-death-penalty rhetoric, there are concerns about the fairness/unfairness of Saddam’s trial.

On the first point, I’ll mention that my own concerns with the death penalty don’t apply here. In the U.S., I have concerns with the over- and unequal-use of the death penalty, as well as the accuracy of the verdicts handed out by juries. However, I can accept the idea of the death penalty being reserved for particularly heinous crimes. If there are any appropriate uses for the death penalty, I’m pretty sure that Saddam’s atrocities easily qualify him.

On the second point — I think the critics may have a point here. While I’ll admit that I didn’t pay that close attention to Saddam’s trial, and I’m aware that different cultures embrace different forms of jurisprudence…it did seem to me that Saddam’s trial was more “circus” than “fair”, assuming the criticisms I’ve heard are correct.

Even Saddam, for all the evil he caused, deserves to have sufficient access to his lawyers, to know the charges and evidence against him in order to present a defence, and to sufficiently know in advance the rules the trial will operate under. He’s almost certainly incredibly guilty…but a fair trial would have done more to erase international criticism about the proceedings.

Granted, it’s possible to get a little too ridiculous in the efforts to provide a fair trial. For example, Milosevic’s trial in The Hague was turned into a circus by his ability to play the bureaucracy of the proceedings. I have to grudgingly give Bush and the new Iraqi government credit for not permitting Saddam’s trial to head that direction.

Surely there’s a better balance that could have been struck.