Secret story of US retreat in Iraq

[Jag]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-11-2006_pg7_1

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: According to credible Iraqi sources in London and Amman, a secret story of America’s diplomatic exit strategy from Iraq is rapidly unfolding, The Huffington Post reports.

The report says that key events include: First, James Baker told one of Saddam Hussein’s lawyers that Tariq Aziz, former deputy prime minister, would be released from detention by the end of this year, in hope that he will negotiate with the US on behalf of the Baath Party leadership. The discussion recently took place in Amman, according to the Iraqi paper al-Quds al-Arabi.

Second, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice personally appealed to the Gulf Cooperation Council in October to serve as intermediaries between the US and armed Sunni resistance groups not including Al Qaeda, communicating a US willingness to negotiate with them at any time or place. Speaking in early October, Rice joked that if then-Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld “heard me now, he would wage a war on me fiercer and hotter than he waged on Iraq”, according to an Arab diplomat privy to the closed session.

Third, there was an “unprecedented” secret meeting of high-level Americans and representatives of “a primary component of the Iraqi resistance” two weeks ago, lasting for three days. As a result, the Iraqis agreed to return to the talks in the next two weeks with a response for the American side, according to Jordanian press leaks and al-Quds al-Arabi.

Fourth, detailed email transmissions dated November 16 reveal an active American effort behind the scenes to broker a peace agreement with Iraqi resistance leaders, a plot that could include a political coup against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Fifth, Bush security adviser Stephen Hadley carried a six-point message for Iraqi officials on his recent trip to Baghdad: include Iraqi resistance and opposition leaders in any initiative towards national reconciliation; general amnesty for the armed resistance fighters; dissolve the Iraqi commission charged with banning the Baath Party; start the disbanding of militias and death squads; cancel any federalism proposal to divide Iraq into three regions, and combine central authority for the central government with greater self-rule for local governors; distribute oil revenues in a fair manner to all Iraqis, including the Sunnis whose regions lack the resource.

According to the report, Prime Minister Al-Maliki was unable to accept the American proposals because of his institutional allegiance to Shiite parties who believe their historic moment has arrived after one thousand years of Sunni domination. That Shiite refusal has accelerated secret American efforts to pressure, reorganise, or remove the elected al-Maliki regime from power.

The backstory: Underlying these developments are three American concerns: first, the deepening quagmire and sectarian strife on the battlefield; second, the mid-year American elections in which voters repudiated the war; and third, the strategic concern that the new Iraq has slipped into the orbit of Iran, The Huffington Post report says.

It remains to be seen if Iran will exercise influence on its Shiite allies in Iraq {the Grand Ayatollah Sistani was born in Iraq, and the main Shiite bloc was created in Iran by Iraqi exiles]. But that is the direction being taken by Baker’s Iraq Study Group and former CIA director John Deutch in a New York Times editorial. The principal US track, in addition to a declared withdrawal plan, should be to work towards a hands-off policy by Iran, at least for an interval, according to Deutch.

This possible endgame has been in the making for some time. Even two years ago, US officials were probing contacts with Iraqi resistance groups distinct from Al Qaeda. Recent polls indicate sixty percent Iraqi support for armed resistance against the United States, while approximately eighty percent of Iraqis support some timetable for withdrawal, an indispensable indicator for Iraqi insurgents laying down some arms.

Even before the 2003 US invasion, peace groups like Global Exchange and the newly-forming Code Pink sent delegations to create people-to-people relations with Iraqi opponents of the occupation and members of civil society, the report says.

Sean, with the President heading to Amman, Jordan in the next few days for the meeting with Al-Maliki, what are the odds of this report being true?

Jag

[Malsua]

Huffington Post as a source? Heh.

[Sean Osborne]

First of all and right off the bat, I tend to agree with what Mal said re: The Huffington Post as the source for this Pakistani report?

I'd think more of this if the NYT or Washington Post were the quoted source.

Anything coming from such a liberal leftist rag as the Huffington Post is great fodder for "the round file." The fact that POTUS is going to the middle east has nothing to do with any odds that any portion of this report is true or verifiable.

That said... it is no secret that James Baker and his ISG ilk are deeply involved in US foreign policy deliberations and considerations. This is an established fact, and it is a fact which ticks off deluxe any and all true Ronald Reagan conservatives.

However, the stating as fact that James Baker is negotiating behind the scenes and directly with die-hard Ba'athist's - that's a little too much to swallow. I trust Baker and crew about as far as I can spit, but I also do not think any of this unfounded leftist propaganda holds any water at all.
In fact, it smells like Alec Baldwin's brand of flatulence.

[falcon]

The New Groupthink

By Frank J Gaffney Jr.

The Washington Times | November 29, 2006We are, as the saying goes, between Iraq and a hard place. Unfortunately, events this week seem likely to drive us inexorably closer to the hard place -- one that is going to be a lot worse than what we have seen in Iraq so far.


These events include a two-day trip to the woodshed in Amman, Jordan with President Bush for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They will be considering ways in which Mr. al-Maliki can prevent the collapse of his government and his country's slide into full-scale civil war. Presumably, the two leaders will be factoring in the results of Vice President Cheney's three-hour visit to Riyadh to appeal to the Saudi king, Abdullah, for help with Iraq.


Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will be meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Tehran to discuss bilateral relations. Presumably, among the topics for discussion will be the success Iran's regime is having in its efforts to destroy a Free Iraq.


Finally, there will be two days of deliberations by the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton. This panel, which was commissioned by Congress to examine alternatives to the present approach in Iraq, is reportedly considering a proposed report drafted largely at Mr. Baker's direction.


What all these events have in common is the notion that the "solution" to Iraq lies in a "regional" approach. The leitmotif is that U.S. unilateralism is dead, long live multilateralism. A chastened America will be brought to its senses by the collective wisdom of Jim Baker, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kings Abdullah of Jordan and Saudi Arabia.


But what, exactly, does this regional approach portend?
Reduced to its essence, the Baker-promoted regional strategy is a euphemism for throwing Free Iraq to the wolves in its neighborhood: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The vehicle for doing so will presumably be some sort of international conference attended by such powers, together with others in the region (like Jordan and Egypt), and augmented by interested parties from elsewhere -- including Britain, France, Russia and China.


Unfortunately, past experience has taught that such a conclave would not be good for freedom-loving people. The Iraqis would, of course, be toast. The best they could hope for is a new autocratic ruler whose repressive behavior will enjoy the support of the tyrants next door. They will no longer have the United States to kick around, and those who foolishly stood with us for a better future will meet an unpleasant fate.
If we are lucky, the regional "process" will afford American forces a fig-leaf behind we might obscure our strategic defeat.
Heliborne evacuations from the Green Zone a la the fall of Saigon three decades ago may be avoided, provided our enemies allow us to effect a dignified "strategic redeployment." More likely, we will be bloodied on the way out by terrorists, insurgents and others intent on compounding the ignominy insofar as it will serve their larger purpose: our destruction in the world beyond Iraq, including ultimately here at home.


Among the other predictable casualties of the regional strategy will be the people of Israel. Jim Baker's hostility towards the Jews is a matter of record and has endeared him to Israel's foes in the region.


What could be more appealing to the latter than an international conference that will simultaneously undo the experiment in freedom in Iraq and compel Israel to make further territorial concessions. Of course, these will not mitigate conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon that have nothing to do with Israel. They will, however, allow the Mideast's only bona fide democracy, the Jewish State, to be snuffed in due course.
We are, in short, poised to stand the U.S. Marine's motto "No better friend, no worse enemy" on its head. If the Baker regional strategy is adopted, we will prove to all the world that it is better to be America's enemy than its friend.
If these undesirable outcomes are so predictable, why are we slouching towards the hard place of the "regional solution"?


It comes down to a lack of seriousness on the part of too many elected leaders of both parties -- exhibited in a failure themselves to understand the gravity of a global war in which Iraq is but one front, and a failure to educate their constituents about the stakes associated with such a war. This superciliousness has translated into political circumstances in the United States (including delegating great responsibility to unelected and unaccountable commissions) and strategic conditions elsewhere that make diplomatic options appear more real and appealing than they are.


Of late, it has become fashionable to assess blame for failures of intelligence and policy to "groupthink." The term describes the phenomenon whereby lots of smart people feel pressure to conform to a consensus view and, in the process, lose (or at least suppress) their willingness to observe that the emperor has no clothes.
Rarely has the pressure to go along with such groupthink been greater than is increasingly the case with respect to the idea of relying on one or the other of our foes -- Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia -- to solve our problems in Iraq. And rarely has it been more important that this strategy of appeasement, and the very hard place to which it will lead us, be rejected.


http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=25716

[frankrm]

Excellent assesment. It appears that will happen. Will Iran incite a strike by America on our way out, you know to legitimize the next attack inside America? Doesn't seem they even need that.

[Jag]

Nov 30, 8:05 AM EST

Bush Agrees to Speedy Turnover in Iraq

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- President Bush said Thursday the United States will speed a turnover of security responsibility to Iraqi forces but assured Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that Washington is not looking for a "graceful exit" from a war well into its fourth violent year.

Under intensifying political pressure at home, the American and Iraqi leaders came together for a hastily arranged summit to explore how to stop escalating violence that is tearing Iraq apart and eroding support for Bush's war strategy.

With Bush hoping to strengthen his Iraqi counterpart's fragile government, the tensions that flared when their opening session was abruptly cancelled Wednesday evening were not apparent when they appeared before reporters after breakfast Thursday.

" I appreciate the courage you show during these difficult times as you lead your country," Bush told al-Maliki after nearly two and a half hours of talks. "He's the right guy for Iraq." It was their third face-to-face meeting since al-Maliki took power about six months ago.


"There is no problem," declared al-Maliki.

There were no immediate answers for mending the Shiite-Sunni divide that is fueling sectarian bloodshed in Iraq or taming the stubborn insurgency against the U.S. presence. The leaders emerged from their breakfast and formal session with few specific ideas, particularly on Bush's repeated pledge to move more quickly to transfer authority for Iraq's security to al-Maliki's government.

"One of his frustrations with me is that he believes that we've been slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people," Bush said. "He doesn't have the capacity to respond. So we want to accelerate that capacity."

There was no explanation from either side of how that would happen, beyond support for the long-standing goals of speeding the U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi security forces and to give more military authority over Iraq to al-Maliki.


A senior al-Maliki aide who attended Thursday's talks said the Iraqi leader presented Bush a blueprint for the equipping and training of Iraqi security forces. The aide, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the information, declined to give details.

The November elections that handed control of Congress to Democrats have given rise to heightened calls for the about 140,000 American soldiers in Iraq to begin coming home.

Bush acknowledged that pressure and said he wanted to start troop withdrawals as soon as possible. Still, he insisted the U.S. will stay "until the job is complete."

Read full article at.....http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...11-30-08-05-53

Jag

[falcon]

Come in from the Cold
Mark R. Levin
11/28 03:51 PM
Over at The Corner, some of my colleagues are in, well, near full retreat. The democracy project doesn't work. We didn't use enough force. We should talk to Iran and Syria for it's not the same as negotiations.

What has changed on the ground in the last few weeks? Nothing, really. But people appear to be spooked by the election, some of which turned on the war. Or maybe it was Henry Kissinger's urging discussions with Iran and Syria (although Jimmy Carter has been demanding discussions — or is it negotiations — for some time). Maybe it's the leaks about the coming Iraq study group which will supposedly urge discussions, among other things, as well.

Kissinger was the architect of "detente." It was a failed doctrine that involved carrots, sticks, endless discussions/negotiations, etc. I dare say the Soviet Union would still be around, and the Cold War ongoing, had Reagan not rejected it. Jimmy Carter spent much of the second half of his presidency discussing/negotiating with the same Iranian fascists he urges Bush to engage today. He was a miserable failure. James Baker is a flawed thinker and strategist as well. His contempt for Israel is well-known and creates blind-spots. Moreover, when we had 500,000 troops in Iraq, as Christopher Hitchens has written, Baker-Scowcroft-Powell refused to resolve the problem of Saddam Hussein and his ability to support terrorism, build weapons, etc.

Nobody is talking about victory. We had many very severe setbacks during all of our major wars, from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to World Wars I and II. Our country brought together the greatest minds NOT to devise ways to hold discussions/negotiations with the enemy, but to develop strategies to defeat them. That doesn't exist today, or if it does, those voices are drowned out by a variety of "I told you so" claims. Other than a few lone voices, led by our own Michael Ledeen, where are the discussions about taking down the regime in Iran (a Jimmy Carter creation)? Most distressing, we hear nothing about this from any elected leaders of either party. Yet, that's the surest way to ensure victory in Iraq, is it not?

www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/bl93.html

[Jag]

U.S. military says speeding up training Iraqi forces

Wed Dec 13, 7:54 AM ET



BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military in

Iraq said on Wednesday it was speeding up the training of Iraqi forces and that some U.S. combat troops were now acting as trainers.

"We are accelerating our use of military transition teams, police transition teams and border transition teams," Major General William Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad.

Caldwell said two U.S. regional commanders had reduced the number of U.S. combat troops and were now working on training Iraqi forces.

A Washington bipartisan group last week recommended to

President George W. Bush that the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq evolve to training and supporting Iraqi forces. It called for the increase in U.S. forces embedded in and supporting Iraqi army units.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061213/..._training_dc_1

Jag