Iraq civil war: Bush doesn't want to hear about it
Digby has this:
So apparently John "Death Squad" Negroponte has decided that rather than take the risk of information being leaked, the CIA just won't compile National Intelligence Estimates anymore. Ken Silverstein at Harper's blog reports that ever since the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration back in 2004 (for being "too negative") they haven't bothered to write another one.I don't know what's scarier: the civil war in Iraq or the fact that the president's cronies are too scared to talk to him about it. Impeach him now, he's too wussy to run this country. A president who can't hear bad news has no business being in office.
Apparently, they want to keep the president from having to deal with bad news:
“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.”
Comments
It's become evident within the last year that Iraqis are now more interested in killing each other than in killing American troops. This was bound to happen since religious differences always result in the bloodiest consequences. Yes, Americans have a different religion, but the Shia-Sunni sectarian warfare is about religious schism, inherently much more volatile and fanatic.
Do we just cut and run then, leaving Iraq for the benefit of some other country due to our effort? No. Let's consolidate the few gains we've made and hunker down to see how the Shia-Sunni civil war plays out.
Move our troops and our Iraqi Green Zone government into friendly Kurdish territory. We can move back in if Iran or anyone else tries to intervene. Keep the Syrian border sealed. Reinforce the British troops in Basra so that the oil fields and the Gulf are protected.
The Sunnis, though a minority, will get plenty of help from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. Iran will supply the Shiites. Our troops and puppet government will be out of harm's way.
Our troops will no longer have responsibility to control a territorial area too big for the force we have there. Yet we will still have a deterrent capability in the area.
No matter when we leave, a sectarian civil war will occur at some point. Why lose anymore American soldiers in trying to put off the inevitable?
This conflict looks less like Vietnam and more like the British Mandate in Palestine everyday. What did the British do? They left.
It sounds like you're advocating something like a "withdrawal in place" strategy. This might be a good idea, as it might prevent another nation from actually invading Iraq. But it certainly has problems: a large force deployed in a hostile area indefinitely would be quite a drain on our military. And the presence of our troops will rankle, and various Iraqi factions will be able to get "street cred" by shelling/suicide bombing/shooting missiles at "the foreign invaders". Hostile governments will point to the troops in Iraq and accuse of imperialism.
Do we just cut and run then, leaving Iraq for the benefit of some other country due to our effort?
I think Iran has already benefitted enormously from our efforts, and at very little cost to itself. But yes, if we withdrew completely it might be opening Iraq to more Iranian or Syrian influence. It could be that there are some benefits to leaving some kind of force fortified there. My feeling is that the costs would outweigh the benefits, but I could be wrong on that.
Let's consolidate the few gains we've made and hunker down to see how the Shia-Sunni civil war plays out.
I'm not sure what "gains" we've made there. Yes, we hold some territory, and could hold some more, but I don't think that's a gain in any meaningful sense. If our objective was to create a stable Iraq, we should just admit failure and get out.
I agree with your analysis on who will support which side of the civil war. But I don't think you could move the capitol of Iraq to a Kurdish area. If you don't control Bagdhad, you don't control Iraq. It's of too much historical significance, and too many people live there. I can't picture the political center of gravity moving elsewhere.
In a way, I think we are already implementing a "withdraw in place" strategy. From what I hear, US forces are adopting a much more defensive, hunkered-down posture.