Iraq - One year on.

 

One year ago, the US war machine rolled into Iraq, and met with little resistance.

 

The US had ignored the UN, and argued the case for war on intelligence that was later to be proven groundless and inncurate.

 

Many people at the time, even those dismayed at the US illegal action, asked the simple and reasonable question.

 

Having gone in, how would they get out?

 

This is known as the exit strategy, and all good military campaigns have a firm exit strategy.

 

The US simply did not have one.

 

As experts the world over scratched their heads at the number of troops that the US was planning to install in a conquered and occupied Iraq, one thing became clear.

 

There simply weren't enough troops on the ground to maintain even the most basic law and order.

 

On a per capita basis, at the height of the troubles in NI, the British had twice the number of troops that the US was planning to install in Iraq following its fall to the US.

 

Even with twice the manpower, the British conspicuously failed to maintain law and order in the troubled province.

 

How could the US hope to do better in a land that is famously violent, with both less and more poorly trained troops?

 

There seemed to be a dangerous conceit in Washington that wars could be fought from a distance.

 

This was certainly true from a firepower perspective, as the US crushed the practically non-existent and poorly maintained Iraqi armed forces.

 

But having occupied a foreign country through a military invasion, there was one simple truth that would never go away.

 

The initial need for troops on each and every street corner to maintain law and order.

 

From the beginning the US had lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

 

Incommunicative, insensitive and their brutal treatment of innocent Iraqi people soon brewed a simmering resentment against the US occupiers.

 

Meanwhile, on the political front, it became evident to anyone that was listening that there was no clear exit strategy.

 

The official, declared exit strategy has changed so many times, it has gone in circles.

 

There are two lynchpins to Washingtons current effort to carry out a successful exit strategy.

 

Security and sovereignty.

 

Security in Iraq is non-existent.

 

There is hardly a day in Iraq when something does not blow up.

 

Last week, bombs ripped apart 181 Sh'ite worshippers at Karbala, and wounded 571 others.

 

On the day that an interim constitution was signed there were a coucil member was assasinated, bombs destroyed an armed convoy, a min-van packed with explosives failed to detonate and four American civilians were murdered.

 

Military commanders on the ground predict more bloody attacks.

 

Buit the American body count has begun to decline as innocent Iraqi numbers have risen.

 

Why is this?

 

In a cynical move designed to soften the mortal blows of occupying Iraq with its own troops, the US command has withdrawn its troops out of the cities and into outlying garrisons.

 

The only time the troops come out of the garrison is in response to the carnage inflicted upon Iraqi civilians by guerillas acting in essentially un-policed areas.

 

The civilian response is understandable, they pelt the troops with anything they can find for failing to prevent the atrocities being inflicted upon them.

 

Further, in the largest troop rotation since WWII, the Pentagon is replacing 40% of its seasoned troops with National Guard units; troops unfamiliar with the country, lacking hands-on experience and trained to operate quite differently.

 

This begs the question of course as to how security will be maintained.

 

'If we can't stop people being shot down, it's all just words'  says Lieut Colonel Steve Russell of the 1-22 infantry batallion on the signed interim constitution.

 

As the US troops have withdrawn into  their secure garrisons, over 600 poorly trained and inexperienced Iraqi security forces have been killed in attacks that occur daily.

 

Their withdrawal has attracted criticism the world over, as the army in effect hands over room for the insurgents to operate in.

 

US army General John Abizaid has warned that:

 

'Civil war is entirely possible'

 

Retired General Anthony Zinni says that the current garrison strategy is:

 

'good because it drives down US casualties, but it's bad because it means you're throwing everything onto an Iraqi security force that clearly is not prepared to take it on.'

 

But behind the arguments of the current US miltary strategy, lurks a more sinister menace.

 

As the US troops have effectively stood back from policing the anarchy, no-one feels safe to disarm.

 

Gun-toting Shi'ite militiamen clad in black roam the streets of Karbala and Bagdhad, setting up check points and clearing the streets.

 

They are divided into two main grouips.

 

One is the Jaish al-Mahdi, aligned to the contraversial firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who posts his men at strategic strongholds around Bagdhad.

 

There are no shortages of volunteers, as the beleaguered people seek some semblance of authority over their shattered lives.

 

An ever larger militia is the Badr organisation, allied to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

 

This group has carried out guerilla operations against Saddam for years from bases in Iran and now controls security across much of central and southern Iraq.

 

In addition to these two vying groups of Shi'ites there are also 50,000 Kurdish peshmerga, a paramiltary force that has operated unfettered in its autonomous zone of Northern Iraq since 1991.

 

The US understandably wants these groups disarmed, but by withdrawing into garrisons, they are failing to provide the demonstration that such armed groups are not needed to ensure basic, day to day security of ordinary Iraqi people.

 

And we haven't begun to touch the now disenfranchised Sunni minority that are probably thte driving force behind the insurgents, knowing that in free elections they could well lose evrything they enjoyed under Saddam

 

So much for security.

 

What about the second plank for the current US exit strategy, sovereignty?

 

The UN believes it is impossible for Iraq to hold elections within the timescales that the US is proposing.

 

Ayatullah Sistani controls the majority of the Iraqi population (60%)l, and the US has been forced to accomodate his every whim in the effort to get the interim constitution signed.

 

There is every prospect that the eventual elections will return a theocratic Shi'ite leader, the last thing that the US wants for the region.

 

In desperation, the US has undergone a humiliating, almost comical U turn and is now desperately begging the UN to sort out the mess that it has created in Iraq.

 

'Time was, the UN wanted Iraq, and we wouldn't give it away'

 

says a State Department Official, and

 

'now we can't give it away fast enough'.

 

In a humilating backdown, a Bush aide said yesterday,

 

'The UN is going to take over the the process, and we're going to follow their recommendations'.

 

The US are pinning their hopes on the UN envoy Lakdhar Brahimi, who apears to enjoy a relationship with Sistani, without whom, the massively compromised interim constitution would have remained unsigned.

 

Iraq is a mess.

 

Politically and structurally it is falling apart into violent anarchy which in turn has given birth to heavily armed paramilitary forces, all keen to impose their version of Iraqs future.

 

The US never did know what to do with the baby once it had thrown out the bathwater.

 

What is clear is that it is very firmly holding the baby, and that it doesn't now know what to do with it.

 

yechydda,


Comments
on Mar 14, 2004
hey john, remember u sayin u had an ipod i think...
is it in pencisely? u reckon i cd scab it? hehe
fancy sendin me some pics of your trip as well???
liam
on Mar 14, 2004
Liam,

the ipod is with me unfortunately and it's a pile of cack.

See you in a week or two!

on Mar 15, 2004
so i shouldnt get one then? they look really good! u reckon i could have a gander at yours when you come down? can't wait for you to regale us with your tales from afar!! plus i gotta look at your notebook!
i'll see you soon buddy!
liam
on Mar 15, 2004
Liam,

There are only a couple of things wrong with the IPOD but they're real humdingers.

Firstly, the battery does not last the 8 hours that is claimed, you're lucky if you get 2 out of it at a reasonable volume. The more you skip tracks, or use the equaliser modes the more juice it consumes.

You can only use Musicmatch software to store your files on it.

It doesn't recognise WMA files so these need to be converted.

It has a synch function on it, the problem with this being that if you attach it to a computer to download music from, it will wipe everything from the IPOD that isn't on the computer you're plugging into.

Although the sync function can be switched off it's really easy to accidentally switch it on and pow.

Also, the battery use is very high when you transfer songs to and from the IPOD, the battery meter is useless, so it's hard to tell when you're about to run out of power. You can't use the USB connection and the battery charger at the same time, so you're always running the risk of runin gout of power.

If you run out of power you can lose everything that you've stored on the IPOD.

You have to start over again.

Every now and then it locks itself, and you lose all your music.

On IPOD forums the consensus is that you should not use the IPOD as you're main music store because of these reasons.

Which maked carrying around a 40Gig drive a little pointless, as you'll need a 40GIg backup drive with your music on it on your PC.

On the plus side, it does act as a mass storage device, so you can store pictures, text and whatever on it.

In addition, I've got this neat little plug in thing, which beams the music from the IPOD to an FM reciever so that you can play the music over someones hi-fi system - that is sooooooo coooooolll.

It's illegal in Britain but I got one in Oz, so with a bit of luck customs won't spot it.

See ya soon!!!!!!