The Petraeus Disappointment. As RSI has been predicting, the testimony of Gen. Petraeus is the most widely hyped non-event since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's Vault. Petraeus didn't say anything significantly new to hype the surge. He didn't say what the Bush administration had been hyping in a dramatic way. He didn't humiliate the Democrats as they asked their questions and didn't do anything to antagonize war opponents. In other words, Petraeus was dull and plodding as well as unconvincing.
Perhaps the best way to measure the political failure of the general's testimony is to consult the conservative blogs that are most enthusiastic about promoting the war. Almost all of the right-wing commentary focused on nitpicking the Democrats rather than proclaiming Petraeus. Hugh Hewitt's blog dumped on obscure Congressional Democrats like Loretta Sanchez and Bob Wexler. Meanwhile, unexcited about what Petraeus had to say, Protein Wisdom and Ace of Spades felt compelled to defend the extremely minor point that Petraeus was making his own report rather than reading from a White House draft. In fact, Petraeus was so boring to Instapundit that Glenn Reynolds put up a link to Michael Yon saying that battalion commanders were the real guys to interview.
Perhaps more telling, the mainstream media highlighted Petraeus' promises to draw down the surge next spring (a promise I don't think he'll keep).
Petraeus yadda yadda. In fact, Gen. Petraeus did not claim much for the surge. As expected, he argued that things were great in Anbar, that violence was down in Baghdad, and that the Iraqi Army was more involved than it used to be. But those claims are all old news and they don't sound any more convincing coming from Petraeus than they would from Dick Cheney. As little buzz as Fred Thompson generated with the announcement of his candidacy, he still did better than Petraeus.
Even worse for the warmongers, what Petraeus claimed was not nearly as significant as what he could not claim. Petraeus could not claim that al-Qaeda was broken for good, that Baghdad was secure, that the Iraqi Army was an effective military force, or that the Baghdad government was an effective partner. Without being able to say any of those things, Petraeus' testimony was just a lot of yadda yadda that everybody's heard before.
The String Will Play Out. Unless Petraeus has a couple of dramatic cards up his sleeve, his testimony is already a dud and the string will play out concerning on the pseudo-battle between Congress and the President over Iraq funding. The only way Bush is going to get more funding for the war in Iraq is to once again play chicken with the lives of American troops and against the will of both Congress and the American public. Bush will win that battle again but it will be more an outcome of the disfunctional character of American government than anything else.
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So.... in short it was an apolitical presentation of facts, rather than a Bush media stunt. I wonder who saw that coming? It's only disappointing in all the ways you mention if you were expecting it to be more. Most of your last weeks worth of work was hot air.
For a non-event, it sure had your attention. You had devoted column feet to debunking the presentation before it was ever given.
Yesterday was not one of the finer days for the Dems.
Petraeus' presentation was the farthest thing from an "a-political presentation of the facts." There's lots of better places to get the facts even from the pro-surge perspective. Two of those places are the Cordesman Report and the recently released Jones Report. Much of the political problem with the Petraeus report is that all the "facts" were already well-chewed.
As for liberal bloggers, sure we made our contribution to nullifying any political effect to the presentation. Any problem with that.
You complained for weeks about the Petraeus report, rebutting claims before they were made, and declaring it a failure despite educated and experienced opinions to the contrary. Now, you complain that the facts were "well-chewed" when people like you were the ones doing the chewing? Don't you ever get dizzy?
FACTS:
Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq
Military Statistics Called Into Question
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; A16
The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.
Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.
Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.
Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.
The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."
"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."
Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."
Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.
The administration has not given up trying to demonstrate that Iraq is moving toward political reconciliation. Testifying with Petraeus next week, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker is expected to report that top Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders agreed last month to work together on key legislation demanded by Congress. If all goes as U.S. officials hope, Crocker will also be able to point to a visit today to the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province by ministers in the Shiite-dominated government -- perhaps including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy. The ministers plan to hand Anbar's governor $70 million in new development funds, the official said.
But most of the administration's case will rest on security data, according to military, intelligence and diplomatic officials who would not speak on the record before the Petraeus-Crocker testimony. Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were offered military statistics during Baghdad visits in August said they had been convinced that Bush's new strategy, and the 162,000 troops carrying it out, has produced enough results to merit more time.
Challenges to how military and intelligence statistics are tallied and used have been a staple of the Iraq war. In its December 2006 report, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group identified "significant underreporting of violence," noting that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the sources of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the data base." The report concluded that "good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."
Recent estimates by the media, outside groups and some government agencies have called the military's findings into question. The Associated Press last week counted 1,809 civilian deaths in August, making it the highest monthly total this year, with 27,564 civilians killed overall since the AP began collecting data in April 2005.
The GAO report found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007," a conclusion that the military said was skewed because it did not include dramatic, up-to-date information from August.
Juan R.I. Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan who is critical of U.S. policy, said that most independent counts "do not agree with Pentagon estimates about drops in civilian deaths."
In a letter last week to the leadership of both parties, a group of influential academics and former Clinton administration officials called on Congress to examine "the exact nature and methodology that is being used to track the security situation in Iraq and specifically the assertions that sectarian violence is down."
The controversy centers as much on what is counted -- attacks on civilians vs. attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops, numbers of attacks vs. numbers of casualties, sectarian vs. intra-sect battles, daily numbers vs. monthly averages -- as on the numbers themselves.
The military stopped releasing statistics on civilian deaths in late 2005, saying the news media were taking them out of context. In an e-mailed response to questions last weekend, an MNF-I spokesman said that while trends were favorable, "exact monthly figures cannot be provided" for attacks against civilians or other categories of violence in 2006 or 2007, either in Baghdad or for the country overall. "MNF-I makes every attempt to ensure it captures the most comprehensive, accurate, and valid data on civilian and sectarian deaths," the spokesman wrote. "However, there is not one central place for data or information. . . . This means there can be variations when different organizations examine this information."
In a follow-up message yesterday, the spokesman said that the non-release policy had been changed this week but that the numbers were still being put "in the right context."
Attacks labeled "sectarian" are among the few statistics the military has consistently published in recent years, although the totals are regularly recalculated. The number of monthly "sectarian murders and incidents" in the last six months of 2006, listed in the Pentagon's quarterly Iraq report published in June, was substantially higher each month than in the Pentagon's March report. MNF-I said that "reports from un-reported/not-yet-reported past incidences as well as clarification/corrections on reports already received" are "likely to contribute to changes."
When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic was quickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600.
By March, however -- before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush's strategy -- the number had dropped to 600, only slightly less than in the same month last year. That is about where it has remained in 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May "but trending back down in June-July."
Petraeus's spokesman, Col. Steven A. Boylan, said he was certain that Petraeus had made a comparison with December in the interview with the Australian paper, which did not publish a direct Petraeus quote. No qualifier appeared in the White House fact sheet.
When a member of the National Intelligence Council visited Baghdad this summer to review a draft of the intelligence estimate on Iraq, Petraeus argued that its negative judgments did not reflect recent improvements. At least one new sentence was added to the final version, noting that "overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks."
A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it "odd" that "marginal" security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.
The intelligence official in Washington, however, described the Baghdad consultation as standard in the NIE drafting process and said that the "new information" did not change the estimate's conclusions. The overall assessment was that the security situation in Iraq since January "was still getting worse," he said, "but not as fast."
Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502466_pf.html)
September 9, 2007
At Street Level, Unmet Goals of Troop Buildup
By DAMIEN CAVE and STEPHEN FARRELL
BAGHDAD, Sept. 8 — Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.
Improvements have been made. American military figures show that sectarian killings in Baghdad have decreased substantially. In many of Baghdad’s most battle-scarred areas, including Mansour in the west and Ur in the east, markets and parks that were practically abandoned last year have begun to revive.
The surge has also coincided with and benefited from a dramatic turnaround in many Sunni areas where former insurgents and tribes have defected from supporting violent extremism, delivering reliable tips and helping the Americans find and eliminate car bomb factories. An average of 23 car bombs a month struck Baghdad in June, July and August, down from an average of 42 over the same period a year earlier.
But the overall impact of those developments, so far, has been limited. And in some cases the good news is a consequence of bad news: people in neighborhoods have been “takhalasu” — an Iraqi word for purged, meaning killed or driven away. More than 35,000 Iraqis have left their homes in Baghdad since the American troop buildup began, aid groups reported.
The hulking blast walls that the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the city’s sense of balkanization. Merchants must now hire a different driver for individual areas, lest gunmen kill a stranger from another sect to steal a truckload of T-shirts.
To study the full effects of the troop increase at ground level, reporters for The New York Times repeatedly visited at least 20 neighborhoods in Baghdad and its surrounding belts, interviewing more than 150 residents, in addition to members of sectarian militias, Americans patrolling the city and Iraqi officials.
They found that the additional troops had slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq’s still-burning civil war. Baghdad remains a city where sectarian violence can flare at any moment, and where the central government is becoming less reliable and relevant as Shiite or Sunni vigilantes demand submission to their own brand of law. “These improvements in the face of the general devastation look small and insignificant because the devastation is so much bigger,” said Haidar Minathar, an Iraqi author, actor and director. He added that the security gains “have no great influence.”
The troop increase was meant to create conditions that could lead from improved security in Baghdad to national reconciliation to a strong central government to American military withdrawal. In recent weeks, President Bush and his commanders have shifted their emphasis to new alliances with tribal leaders that have improved security in Diyala Province, the Sunni Triangle and other Sunni areas, most notably Anbar Province.
That area, not Baghdad, was the one Mr. Bush conspicuously chose to visit this week.
But when he announced on Jan. 10 his plan to add 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush emphasized that Baghdad was the linchpin for creating a stable Iraq. With less fear of death in the capital, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas,” he said.
That has not happened. More than 160,000 American troops are now in Iraq to help secure 25 million people. Across Baghdad — which undoubtedly remains a crucial barometer — American and Iraqi forces have moved closer to the population, out of giant bases and into 29 joint security stations. But even as some neighborhoods have improved, others have worsened as fighters moved to areas with fewer American troops.
Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska, deputy commander of a brigade of the First Infantry Division that is charged with controlling northwest Baghdad, said, “We’ve done everything we can militarily.”
He added, “I think we have essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying grievances.”
Sunnis and Shiites still fear each other. At the top levels of the government and in the sweltering neighborhoods of Baghdad, hatreds are festering, not healing.
The political standoff identified by this week’s Government Accountability Office report can be found not just in the halls of Parliament. The distrust and obstinacy start in the streets.
Dealing with intermittent electricity, few jobs, widespread corruption and fresh memories of unspeakable horrors, Iraqis of all sects are scrambling for power, for control.
Iraq’s mixed neighborhoods are sliding toward extinction. During the troop increase, Shiite militias have continued to drive Sunnis out of at least seven neighborhoods of Baghdad. The Mahdi Army, loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, is turning into what many describe as a shadow government, while desperate Sunnis have come to rely almost exclusively on American troops for their protection — a remarkable turnaround from four years ago when the Americans arrived.
In the minds of many, the fight is for survival. For others, the moment of calm has raised disconcerting questions about Iraq’s societal breakdown and where to go from here. The past seven months have crystallized a sense that the Americans are no longer the primary issue: Sunnis most fear Shiite Iran; Shiites are terrified of Sunni extremists and Baathists.
What Congress must now decide, based on extensive data and testimony from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, is to what extent an American presence can define Iraq’s future. The fifth and final brigade of the troop buildup arrived only in June. General Petraeus has focused on “tactical momentum,” citing the so-called Sunni awakening as proof of success and cause for a continued and expansive American investment of lives and money.
But a close look at three kinds of neighborhoods — Sunni, Shiite and mixed — indicates that while there is certainly momentum, it is still largely driven by the sectarian forces in Iraq, and moving according to their rules.
In Huriya, a Shiite Takeover
The Sunni mosques in Huriya sit empty, burned and broken, while new monuments to revered Shiite imams have arisen, framed in sparkling black marble.
In that working-class western Baghdad neighborhood, the signs of a Shiite takeover stand out — and offer a glimpse into a possible future of a Shiite-ruled Iraq without a capable, nonsectarian government.
The Sunnis are gone, forced out by the Mahdi Army. And in the wake of that rout — which peaked just before a company of American soldiers moved into a joint security station on Jan. 31 — violence has declined. One or two bodies a week now appear in the streets instead of the 30 or 40 that surfaced weekly in December.
Terror and instability, however, have remained. Here and in nearly every other Shiite-dominated area of Baghdad, from Ur and Sadr City east of the Tigris to Shula west of it, residents and American officials report that the Mahdi Army has expanded and deepened its control of daily life.
Families in Huriya depend on the Sadr organization for gas, medicine and other necessities. In return, many Shiites say they live in constant fear of a knock on the door: sometimes the gunmen come to borrow a car or a house; sometimes they demand help at a checkpoint, or for a mission to kill or displace Sunnis from another neighborhood.
Whatever the militia demands, it gets.
“You have to prove your loyalty to them, otherwise you won’t be safe,” said Lamyia al-Saedi, 31, a Shiite government employee who moved to Huriya eight months ago after being expelled from neighboring Adel, a Sunni stronghold.
American commanders in Huriya (Arabic for “freedom”) recognized the strength of the group’s wide-ranging network soon after their arrival. In early May, a 40-year-old Shiite police officer whose brother had been killed by the Mahdi Army would only agree to talk to American soldiers at 3 a.m., after pulling an officer and a reporter into a dark, unfinished room far from the street.
A week ago, it was much the same: to receive a tip from one of their sources, soldiers from Company A, First Battalion, Second Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division had to wait until everyone else in the neighborhood had gone to sleep.
Some Mahdi leaders have been pushed out, killed or captured, said Capt. George W. Feese, 29, the company commander, but threats from others remain.
Abu Sajat, one of several Mahdi leaders known to Captain Feese’s unit, says he commands several hundred fighters in Huriya, Washash, Iskan and Topchi, a cluster of middle- and working-class areas that have become increasingly violent, and more Shiite, in recent months.
He showed up wearing a brown shirt unbuttoned to his sternum, dark sunglasses and brown polyester pants with a belt that had missed several loops toward the back.
Pulling his belt over a sizable stomach, he bragged that they were playing a game of cat and mouse with the Americans in which the Mahdi Army always has more men, more loyalty among Baghdad’s residents and more freedom of movement. Huriya, he said, was stable because the Sunnis were gone, not because the Americans had arrived.
“They can’t break up our organization,” he said. “If you count all the Americans in Iraq, they are really just prisoners.”
In return for about $120 a month plus “donations” collected from Shiite neighbors or Sunni victims, Abu Sajat said his men had sworn loyalty to Moktada al-Sadr and promised to kill Americans or Sunnis when called upon to do so.
A younger member of the Mahdi Army in Huriya said two men who refused to follow such an order in July ended up dead.
Sunnis remain Abu Sajat’s primary target. After seizing control of roughly 100 Sunni-owned houses in Huriya, Abu Sajat said his men moved on to Iskan and Washash, areas with a lighter American presence to the south. Business has been good — pushing Sunnis out brings in rents from Shiite families moving in, and profits from the sale of furniture or cars.
But Abu Sajat, 36, a former pushcart vendor who said he spent seven years in prison under Saddam Hussein, insisted that he had no interest in money. He said the militia’s earnings from Huriya often went to less fortunate Shiites. Last week, he said his command contributed 23 million Iraqi dinars, or $18,400, to Sadr City families whose homes had been damaged or whose relatives had been killed in American military raids.
His justification for attacking Sunnis was simple, and sectarian: “Their houses belong to us,” he said. “They’ve colonized us for more than 1,000 years.”
“Sunnis are just like the puppies of a filthy dog,” he said. “Even the purest among them is dirty.”
The Americans soldiers in Huriya acknowledge that trying to dismantle the Mahdi network has been a struggle. Several months ago, a photograph of another Mahdi leader, Haider Kadhim, — “the No. 1 action guy in Huriya,” a soldier said — hung on the walls of the windowless joint security station where they live. He was someone whom the soldiers hoped to arrest or kill. Last week, his mugshot was still there.
Abu Sajat said Mr. Kadhim was busy in Topchi, out of the unit’s reach.
Captain Feese, the Company A commander, said Huriya residents felt safer without thugs like Mr. Kadhim on the streets. But even with the extra troops, there are parts of Baghdad, like the northern neighborhood of Shula, where militias roam with impunity.
There, at one of its refugee camps, the Mahdi Army now brazenly issues laminated badges to those it deems worthy of admittance.
A recent American report concluded that Mahdi Army leaders in Shula enjoy “freedom of movement” in part “because of a lack of permanent CF presence,” referring to coalition forces.
Colonel Miska, who oversees Shula, Huriya and other Shiite-dominant areas, said units regularly entered the neighborhood for raids, which had killed or captured many prominent Mahdi fighters. But, he said, referring to joint security stations, “We do not have a J.S.S. in Shula, due to lack of combat power.”
In Huriya, Captain Feese’s men have tried to erase the militia’s signs of strength. They have not touched the new Sadr monuments, but they initially tore down posters of Mr. Sadr at the market, only to see them reappear.
Many Iraqis, Captain Feese said, hesitate to work closely with the Americans because “they know I’m going home.” Even now, most Iraqis in Huriya still do not believe that the Americans can protect them in a city where, two weeks ago, the Shiite head of a neighborhood just southeast of Huriya was shot dead in a Mahdi-controlled Shiite area. The killing was understood to be punishment for working with the Americans.
“You can put pressure on it,” said Captain Feese, “but you can’t claim victory.”
Contrasts of Sadr al-Yusufiya
A roadside ditch here in the Sunni triangle town of Sadr al-Yusufiya contains the two extremes of the American experience in that Euphrates River farming village southwest of Baghdad.
At one end sit the remains of a truck bomb that a suicide bomber from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia tried to ram into the village’s American base in June. At the other end, a thousand overheated Sunni men, ages 18 to 35, wait to be given physical examinations and literacy tests by the very same American troops some of them were trying to kill recently.
The push-ups, pull-ups and reading exams are the American military’s attempt to screen the candidates and hasten their hoped-for entry into the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police.
Those Sunnis now hope the Americans will help them rejoin the new Iraqi order that they rejected, and that has in turn rejected them for so long.
But it remains unclear whether an Iraqi government dominated by religious Shiites will be eager to embrace the large-scale return of these young men of fighting age. Nor is it clear whether the Americans’ new allies of convenience will submit to the Shiite authorities in Baghdad.
Many of the men’s fathers and tribal leaders were officers in the Baath government’s military.
Whatever the suspicions harbored by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government — and the suspicion is entirely mutual — it is the Sunni belt that has produced the most tangible fruit for Mr. Bush and General Petraeus.
Young men in fluorescent-banded jackets stand on every corner, operating checkpoints as part of a growing neighborhood watch venture that General Petraeus has seized upon and branded “Guardians” or “Concerned Citizens.”
Under the project, financed by the American military, the local tribes are paid $10 a day per man to provide security in their areas.
Despite protestations from United States commanders that they are not arming those “volunteers,” local American officers confirm that the sheiks can spend the contract money as they wish, diverting money from wages to buy weapons, radios or vehicles if they choose.
The “awakening,” as it has been called, has brought early dividends. Suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad are down — partly because those areas manufactured bombs and sent them into the capital. Certainly, life at Patrol Base Warrior Keep in Sadr al-Yusufiya has become much easier for Capt. Palmer Phillips and his men of Company B, Second Battalion of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y.
There have been only two roadside bomb explosions in the last five months, and this week they drove their Humvees without incident to and from sheiks’ houses late at night along country roads that only a few months ago would have been treacherous.
“We are now getting information from the local volunteers,” said Captain Phillips. “They are telling us very specific things about Al Qaeda’s activities. They are very specific about checkpoints, people, ratlines and targets.” (Ratlines are supply lines.)
But there are undercurrents.
On a visit to Sadr al-Yusufiya last month, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, met with the local sheiks.
They made it abundantly clear that their cooperation did not come free, and that they wanted tangible benefits like jobs, weapons, vehicles, military supplies and electricity.
They also delivered not-so-veiled warnings that the Americans’ low-paying job-creation plan, while welcome, was unlikely to keep their people on the right side of the law for long.
“We are determined to kick out terror from our areas but, sir, you shouldn’t forget that fighting terrorism has to be balanced,” cautioned Yassin Abed al-Gurtani, a former general in Saddam Hussein’s army.
“After a month or a few months, what if this contract ends and people find themselves without jobs and can’t join the police or the army?” he said. “We are worried that they might join the wrong side, and we return back to square one.”
Some have already reverted. Fueling concern over the Americans’ eagerness to embrace untested new allies, Captain Phillips concedes that he has already arrested 15 of the Concerned Citizens “for suspected Al Qaeda ties.” Most were turned in by their own checkpoint colleagues for “facilitating” the movement of wanted men. Captain Phillips says he is convinced that most of the Sunnis genuinely want to get back into the system, in which 85 percent of the National Police force is Shiite, and is encouraged that the Iraqi government sent a senior reconciliation official to talk to them.
But there has been little action. And he points out that there is simply no government near Sadr al-Yusufiya for the Sunnis to turn to, even now that they want to. American officers in areas where similar arrangements have been in place longer say that the Sunni groups lack training and are already growing frustrated with the slow process of being accepted by the Shiite-dominated police.
As yet undeterred, the Sunnis in Sadr al-Yusufiya spend all day in line, baking in the 100-degree temperatures, desperate for jobs.
Others show little interest in national policing, saying they simply want to defend their local areas and are sick of being unable to go even to nearby Mahmudiya without risk of being killed by Shiite militias.
Just as many Shiites instinctively mistrust the minority that kept them down during the Baathist era, so the Sunnis in Sadr al-Yusufiya show little sign of remorse, or of desiring reconciliation.
Many bridle at criticism of Saddam Hussein. Heads shake at the mention of Hussein-era mass graves, including one at Mahawil, just half an hour’s drive south. “Saddam just put bad people in jail,” said Abu Ali, 40. “Some people, they exaggerate.”
Almost all predict an intensified civil war once the Americans leave. “We will fight the government until the very last bullet,” threatened one, before dashing inside to try to join it.
Sahar Naeem Suleiman, 27, went further. “If we get into the Iraqi police we can move to Mahmudiya and Yusufiya and south Baghdad to free them and kill all the militias.”
Col. Michael Kershaw, commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, denied that the United States was simply arming one side for future conflicts in Iraq, saying that wider factors were at work.
“Are they playing us?” he said. “To some extent we are all playing each other, right? Everybody’s self-interest is at the center.”
“Somewhere they made a political decision that Al Qaeda does not meet their self-interest,” he added. “All Iraqis see that the United States’ time here is numbered. There is a finite amount of time the United States is going to stay here and do this, and they are going to have to figure this out eventually on their own.”
Militants Quit Dora for Saydia
Visible from any high point in Baghdad are twin pillars of smoke that rise from an oil refinery and a power station near the city’s southern edge. The eastern plume rises from Dora, an area of industry, spacious homes and brutal Sunni extremists, while the western plume edges closer to an area of mixed neighborhoods, including Saydia.
The wide Hilla highway has long acted as a border, keeping the bloodshed of Dora from the stability of Saydia — until the troop buildup. Nineteen-ton Stryker vehicles have hammered through Dora over the past few months, bringing enough peace for a third of the shops in Dora’s main market to reopen.
But the push drove Sunni militants out of Dora and into Saydia, where they began attacking Shiites. It was not long before Shiite militias, including the Mahdi Army, responded in kind, despite repeated calls by Mr. Sadr for a freeze in violent activity. Saydia descended into chaos.
With that, its status as a tolerant, middle-class district shared by Sunnis and Shiites was lost, following the precedent of so many other Baghdad neighborhoods.
Saydia is now a virtual ghost town, where the Shiite Mahdi Army and Sunni Arab death squads roam the streets. If Iraq’s civil war has stalled in other parts of the city, in Saydia the engines of sectarianism are running at full throttle.
The hostilities now reach down to the next generation. “I have been attacked personally by children as young as 10 and 13 with hand grenades and so forth,” said Lt. Col. Barry Huggins, a Stryker commander, describing the fight for Dora earlier this summer.
The once-ruling Sunnis have become even more hostile toward what they now regard as a triple occupation of their country: by Americans, Iranians and Shiites who have seized power from them.
“The most dangerous thing is the government and the people representing the government,” snarled Abu Hashemi, 48, a Dora resident.
He said, “If you ask anyone in Dora, ‘Do you prefer an American soldier or someone belonging to the Mahdi Army or the Badr Brigades?’ they will say ‘Leave the American and kill the other.’ Because the Americans will leave Iraq but the other people are staying with us.”
American commanders are worried about their staying power, too. Some of Col. Ricky Gibbs’s Stryker battalions are rotating out, he told senior Iraqi and American officers last month, and he wants more Iraqi police officers sooner than training units say they can be properly screened, drilled and equipped.
Even if the additional troops stay on, Dora’s gains seem fragile. The restoration of order is still too brittle to persuade the people who matter the most: the thousands of Dora residents who have fled the violence, Sunni and Shiite alike.
Sahira, 40, is a Shiite, but her two daughters are Sunnis, like her former husband. Now living in Karada, she was too afraid to give her full name. She hopes to return to Dora one day, but her children have no such expectation.
“All the residents have left our area; it’s completely empty,” said one of her daughters, Noor, 20. Nodding in agreement the other daughter, Sura, 23, said she was afraid to admit at checkpoints that she is Sunni. “Shias are trouble,” she said, heedless of her mother sitting opposite her. “They kidnap Sunnis at checkpoints.”
Wincing slightly, Sahira rallies but has caught the gloomy mood.
“They can’t control Dora, despite the existence of the American bases,” she said. For now, the fight has simply moved to Saydia — another example of the whack-a-mole problem that the American military has struggled to overcome in Iraq since 2003.
Qassem Hussein Jasem, a 40-year-old Sunni who fled Saydia two months ago, laid the blame for his neighborhood’s collapse squarely on the surge.
“It was a good area until Operation Imposing the Law began to chase the terrorists and outlaws and they started infiltrating from Dora and Bayaa,” he complained.
It was here that Mr. Jasem watched as Sunni extremists sprayed graffiti on the walls threatening, “Leave the Neighborhood.” In response Shiite slogans sprang up, including, “Long Live the Wolf Brigade,” a National Police unit widely feared by Sunnis.
No one is more aware of the police’s sectarian reputation than the American military transition teams that advise them. They are frank about infiltration by the Mahdi Army, known as Jaish al-Mahdi or JAM.
“Because the National Police are influenced or afraid to stop JAM, they will basically turnstile them and let them drop down, conduct any Sunni missions, and then come back,” said Maj. Andy Yerkes, an American adviser of the Iraqi police. “We know it happens.”
There are successes. Some Iraqi commanders instill pride and discipline in their units, the Americans say. In July, one Saydia policeman, Capt. Mushtaq Hassan, rescued a 9-month-old girl from a house where a death squad had just killed her family.
This week in Washington, a 20-member commission on Iraq’s security forces harshly condemned the country’s uniformed protectors.
Captain Mushtaq dismissed Sunni accusations of killings and torture as the smears of enemies “trying to ruin our reputation because the Iraqi National Police has eliminated two-thirds of the terrorists.”
Pressed, the most he would concede was that some “individuals” had done “bad things,” but he insisted that they were exceptions.
Few are convinced. First Sgt. Timothy Johnson’s experience of the National Police is particularly stark. Driving in mid-June past a National Police checkpoint, Sergeant Johnson, a 43-year-old from El Paso, waved at the smiling Iraqis he knew well, and received friendly waves back.
Barely 50 feet later a sophisticated roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator hit the rear of his Humvee, missing the crew but blowing his luggage out into the road. The same smiling police officers promptly stole his computer, mobile phone and camera and demanded a $40 bribe to give the computer back.
“I don’t trust them,” he said. “They will smile in your face and stab you in the back. They were just too close to that E.F.P. not to have known.”
Asked if things have improved since then, he shook his head emphatically.
“No, they are the same,” he said. “It’s bad and it’s not going to get better. We’re not going to make a difference, not in the short term. Maybe if we stayed here forever.”
Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Karim Hilmi, Ali Hamdani, Mudhafer al-Husaini, Wisam A. Habeeb, Sabrina Tavernise, Diana Oliva Cave, Johan Spanner, James Glanz, Michael R. Gordon, Khalid al-Ansary, Ali Fahim, Ali Adeeb, Qais Mizher, Hosham Hussein and Sahar Najeeb.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/world/middleeast/09surge.html?_r=3&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print)
Iraqis' Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains
ABC News/BBC/NHK National Survey of Iraq Finds Worsening Public Attitudes
ANALYSIS By GARY LANGER
Sept. 10, 2007 —
Barely a quarter of Iraqis say their security has improved in the past six months, a negative assessment of the surge in U.S. forces that reflects worsening public attitudes across a range of measures, even as authorities report some progress curtailing violence.
Apart from a few scattered gains, a new national survey by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK finds deepening dissatisfaction with conditions in Iraq, lower ratings for the national government and growing rejection of the U.S. role there.
More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it's gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change. Far more, six in 10, say security in the country overall has worsened since the surge began, while just one in 10 sees improvement.
More directly assessing the surge itself -- a measure that necessarily includes views of the United States, which are highly negative -- 65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say it's worsened rather than improved security, political stability and the pace of redevelopment alike.
There are some improvements, but they're sparse and inconsistent. Thirty-eight percent in Anbar province, a focal point of the surge, now rate local security positively; none did so six months ago. In Baghdad fewer now describe themselves as feeling completely unsafe in their own neighborhoods -- 58 percent, down from 84 percent. Yet other assessments of security in these locales have not improved, nor has the view nationally.
Overall, 41 percent report security as their greatest personal problem, down seven points from 48 percent in March. But there's been essentially no change in the number who call it the nation's top problem (56 percent, with an additional 28 percent citing political or military issues). And there are other problems aplenty to sour the public's outlook -- lack of jobs, poor power and fuel supply, poor medical services and many more.
Big Picture
The big picture remains bleak. Six in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going badly, and even more, 78 percent, say things are going badly for the country overall -- up 13 points from last winter. Expectations have crumbled; just 23 percent see improvement for Iraq in the year ahead, down from 40 percent last winter and 69 percent in November 2005.
More than six in 10 now call the U.S.-led invasion of their country wrong, up from 52 percent last winter. Fifty-seven percent call violence against U.S. forces acceptable, up six points. And despite the uncertainties of what might follow, 47 percent now favor the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq -- a 12-point rise.
In a better result for the United States, fewer now blame U.S. or coalition forces directly for the violence occurring in Iraq -- 19 percent, down from 31 percent six months ago; as many (21 percent) blame al Qaeda. (Eight percent blame George W. Bush personally.)
If the United States is unpopular, others fare no better. Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis believe Iran is actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, up eight points; majorities also suspect Saudi Arabia and Syria of fomenting violence. And the poll finds almost unanimous opposition to most activities of al Qaeda in Iraq; the sole exception is its attacks on U.S. and other coalition forces.
Assessment
This survey, based on face-to-face interviews of 2,212 randomly selected Iraqis across the country Aug. 17-24, follows a similar poll in Iraq by ABC, the BBC and other partners last Feb. 25-March 5. Together the two surveys bracket the surge, providing an independent assessment of changes in local conditions and attitudes.
The Bush administration, with input from the U.S. military and its commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, reports this week on its own assessment of conditions in Iraq and the effect of the surge of approximately 30,000 additional U.S. troops there.
Iraqis' own views can differ from military evaluations of the surge for good reason. Public attitudes are not based on a narrow accounting of more or fewer bombings and murders, but on the bigger picture -- which for most in Iraq means continued violence, poor services, economic deprivation, inadequate reconstruction, political gridlock and other complaints. For instance, the reported drop in Baghdad from 896 violent deaths in July to 656 in August may simply have been insufficient to boost morale -- particularly when violent deaths nationally were up by 20 percent, largely on the basis of bombings that killed an estimated 500 in two villages near the Syrian border on Aug. 14.
Indeed just a quarter of Iraqis in this poll say they feel "very safe" in their own neighborhoods, unchanged from six months ago. (And none reports feeling "very safe" in Baghdad or Anbar province.) Reports of car bombings and suicide attacks are more widespread; 42 percent now say these have happened nearby, up 10 points.
With both continued violence and no improvements in living conditions, frustration with Iraq's own government has grown as well. Despite billions spent, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area. And about two-thirds disapprove of the work of both the current government overall (up by 12 points since winter), and of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki personally.
The ABC/BBC/NHK poll, consisting of interviews that averaged nearly a half-hour in length, covered a wide range of attitudes and perceptions -- personal experiences, views of the nation's prospects, ratings of security and the surge, politics and reconstruction, the performance of the United States, the level of local violence, ethnic cleansing and more.
Personal Prospects
In perhaps the most bottom-line measure of a country's well-being, 61 percent of Iraqis say their lives are going badly, unchanged from last winter and double what it was in late 2005. Among Sunni Arabs, the country's elites under Saddam Hussein, this soars to 88 percent, while among Kurds in the semi-autonomous north it's jumped from one-third to half in the last six months alone.
The change over the long term is striking: In November 2005, 71 percent of Iraqis said their own lives were going well, compared with 39 percent in the last two polls.
The future looks equally bleak: Only 29 percent of Iraqis expect their own lives to get better in the next year, down six points from last winter, including a 17-point drop among Kurds. And just a third of Iraqis now think their children will have a better life than they do, down nine points from six months ago. Hopes for the next generation have fallen by 11 points among Shiites -- and by 24 points among increasingly negative Kurds.
Iraq's Condition
In terms of the country more broadly, in November 2005 a bare majority of Iraqis, 52 percent, said things were going badly. That rose to 65 percent last March, and 78 percent in this poll. The latest change includes a huge 40-point jump in negativity among Kurds, who enjoy far better living conditions in their northern provinces, but seem to have grown more alarmed about the situation to the south.
Expectations that the country will be in better shape a year off, at just 23 percent, are a third of their November 2005 level. Positive expectations have fallen by 23 points among Shiites and by 34 points among Kurds; they remain rock-bottom among Sunni Arabs.
Surge and Security
Overall assessments of security show no improvement since last winter, and direct ratings of the surge are highly negative. In one measure, the number of Iraqis who rate their local security positively (43 percent) is no better than it was in March. In another, as noted, just 24 percent say local security has improved in the last six months, including 16 percent in Baghdad, and not one respondent in Anbar.
Even fewer, 11 percent nationally, think security has improved in the country as a whole.
The widespread nature of the violence is part of this. In Baghdad, 52 percent report car bombings or suicide attacks in their local area, the same as in March; but so do 39 percent in the country, up from 26 percent six months ago. Accounts of other forms of violence -- such as snipers or crossfire, kidnappings for ransom and sectarian or factional fighting -- also remain widespread, though their prevalence has not increased.
Across the country overall, feelings of personal safety are no better than in March; just 26 percent of Iraqis feel "very safe" in their own neighborhood. And that's almost nonexistent across Iraq's major metro areas -- Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul -- where 98 percent of residents feel either "not very safe" (50 percent) or "not safe at all" (48 percent). Ratings of personal safety are better, though hardly good, in Iraq's smaller cities, villages and rural areas.
Direct ratings of the surge itself are particularly negative. At best, only 18 percent of Iraqis say it has improved security in surge areas; at worst, just six percent say it's improved the pace of economic development. Indeed, as noted, the surge broadly is seen to have done more harm than good, with 65 to 70 percent saying it's worsened rather than improved security in surge areas, security in other areas, conditions for political dialogue, the ability of the Iraqi government to do its work, the pace of reconstruction and the pace of economic development.
Every respondent in Baghdad, and also in Anbar (where George W. Bush paid a surprise visit to a sprawling U.S. base last week), says the surge has made security worse now than it was six months ago (anti-U.S. sentiment in these areas is very high, and likely a factor in these direct assessments). Views in the rest of the country are hardly positive: Outside Baghdad and Anbar, still just 26 percent say the surge has improved security.
A broader question, not specifically linked to the surge, has an equally negative result: Just 18 percent of Iraqis say the presence of U.S. forces is making security better in their country overall, about the same as in March (21 percent). Instead 72 percent say the U.S. presence is making Iraq's security worse.
While fewer in Baghdad now feel "not safe at all," it's hard to tell if that reflects better conditions, or more people accommodating themselves to existing conditions -- the "new normal." Indeed, another result finds a 20-point drop in the number in Baghdad who rate local security positively.
In Anbar, as noted, 38 percent now rate local security positively -- none did in March. But there's been no improvement in the number who feel entirely unsafe (44 percent, compared with 38 percent in March).
There's one further, disquieting result on security: Asked which group is in command of security in their village or neighborhood, 16 percent of Iraqis -- up 11 points since March -- reply that no one commands security in their area. Across Iraq's major metropolitan areas, that rises to 30 percent. In Baghdad alone, it's 36 percent. This may be less a direct assessment of local command than an expression of frustration with ongoing lawlessness.
More Baghdad and Anbar
There's particular interest in conditions in the focal points of the surge. In his visit to Anbar last week, Bush declared, "normal life is returning." Yet most Anbar residents seem not to see it that way.
Forty-six percent in Anbar say lack of security is the biggest problem in their own lives, as many as say so elsewhere (it's 41 percent nationally). Seventy-four percent expect their children's lives to be worse than their own -- nearly double the national figure. On the plus side, as noted, 38 percent rate local security positively, while none did in March; and half as many now call it "very bad," 32 percent. But still 62 percent in Anbar rate local security negatively overall. And reports of factional fighting there are up.
Further, there have been increases in the most negative ratings ("very bad") on a variety of other issues in Anbar -- including the availability of jobs (now rated as very bad by 62 percent, nearly double the March figure), local schools, the supply of clean water and the availability of household goods, among others. Sixty-three percent say their freedom of movement is very bad; 73 percent say that about the availability of fuel.
Baghdad has its own continued problems. There have been 13- and 14-point drops in the number of Baghdad residents who report snipers or crossfire and kidnappings for ransom nearby; but still 43 and 44 percent, respectively, report these as occurring in their own areas. Sixty-eight percent call local security "very bad" -- actually up from March. One reason may be that even apart from sectarian violence, sharply more give a "very bad" rating to their family's protection from crime -- 66 percent, up from 44 percent in March. Again, as these are attitudinal measures, the drivers can be less crime protection -- or simply less patience among a wearied and dispirited population.
Reconstruction and Politics
Nor, in the eyes of Iraqis, have reconstruction efforts or political leadership improved. As noted, only 23 percent of Iraqis report effective reconstruction efforts in their local area -- down by 10 points in the past six months. It's down by 25 points among Kurds, another of many signs of increasingly negative views in that once-positive group.
In terms of national politics, 65 percent disapprove of the way the Iraqi government has carried out its responsibilities, while just 35 percent approve. Disapproval of the Shiite-dominated government is up by 15 points, to 47 percent, among Shiites themselves; and up by 24 points among Kurds. It remains nearly unanimously negative among Sunni Arabs.
Similarly, disapproval of Maliki's performance as prime minister is up by nine points, to 66 percent. His approval rating, 33 percent overall (very similar to George W. Bush's), has fallen by 10 points since winter, including by 13 points among Shiites and by 27 points among Kurds.
Glimmers?
In one slim glimmer of political improvement, half of Iraqis now say members of parliament are "willing to make necessary compromises" for peace; that's up by nine points from 41 percent last winter. But while most Shiites and Kurds say so (66 and 55 percent, respectively,) far fewer Sunni Arabs -- 24 percent -- agree. (The day before interviews began, Maliki and Iraq's Kurdish president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds; Sunni moderates, however, refused to join.)
There are a few other whispers of possible gains. There's been a scant five-point drop in the number of Iraqis who report unnecessary violence against citizens by the Iraqi army occurring in their local area; notably that includes a 26-point decline among Sunni Arabs (but a 10-point rise among Shiites, albeit just to 17 percent). There have been five- and six-point gains in the level of confidence in the Iraqi army and police, to sizable majorities of 67 and 69 percent, respectively. (This confidence still is vastly lower, albeit somewhat improved, among Sunni Arabs.) And there's been a 12-point drop, to just 24 percent, in confidence in local militias, including a 19-point decline among Shiites.
Another hopeful sign -- and a remarkable one given its troubles -- is the continued preference for Iraq to remain a single, unified state with a central government in Baghdad. Sixty-two percent favor that outcome, about the same as in March (albeit down from 79 percent in February 2004).
Support for a single, centrally governed state has risen among Shiites, but fallen among Kurds, who've moved more toward favoring separation of the country into independent states. Separation now gets 49 percent support among Kurds, up 19 points; an additional 42 percent of Kurds favor the Swiss-like solution of a group of regional states with a federal government in Baghdad. A single state retains most support among Sunni Arabs.
The War and U.S. Forces
Other assessments of the United States are overwhelmingly negative. As noted, nearly two-thirds of Iraqis now say it was wrong for the United States and its allies to have invaded Iraq -- 63 percent, up from 52 percent six months ago and from 39 percent in the first Iraq poll by ABC, the BBC and NHK (and the German broadcaster ARD) in February 2004.
Even among Shiites, empowered by the overthrow of Saddam, 51 percent now say the invasion was wrong, up sharply from 29 percent in March. (Further deterioration may be ahead; among Shiites who still support the invasion, the number who call it "absolutely" right has fallen from 34 percent in March to 14 percent now.) Only among the largely autonomous Kurds does a majority still support the invasion, and even their support, 71 percent, is down by 12 points.
Seventy-nine percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition forces in the country, essentially unchanged from last winter -- including more than eight in 10 Shiites and nearly all Sunni Arabs. (Seven in 10 Kurds, by contrast, still support the presence of these forces.)
Similarly, 80 percent of Iraqis disapprove of the way U.S. and other coalition forces have performed in Iraq; the only change has been an increase in negative ratings of the U.S. performance among Kurds. And 86 percent of Iraqis express little or no confidence in U.S. and U.K. forces, similar to last winter and again up among Kurds.
Accusations of mistreatment continue: Forty-one percent of Iraqis in this poll (vs. 44 percent in March) report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces. That peaks at 63 percent among Sunni Arabs, and 66 percent in Sunni-dominated Anbar.
This disapproval rises to an endorsement of violence: Fifty-seven percent of Iraqis now call attacks on coalition forces "acceptable," up six points from last winter and more than three times its level (17 percent) in February 2004. Since March, acceptability of such attacks has risen by 15 points among Shiites (from 35 percent to 50 percent), while remaining near-unanimous among Sunnis (93 percent).
Kurds, by contrast -- protected by the United States when Saddam remained in power -- continue almost unanimously to call these attacks unacceptable.
Acceptability of attacks on U.S. forces also varies by locale, peaking at 100 percent in Anbar, 69 percent in Kirkuk city and 60 percent in Baghdad, compared with 38 percent in Basra and just three percent in the northern Kurdish provinces.
Withdrawal
Given such hostile views, 47 percent now say the United States and other coalition forces should leave Iraq immediately -- a view that's risen equally among Sunni Arabs (72 percent now say the U.S. should leave immediately, up 17 points) and Shiites (44 percent, up 16 points). Kurds almost unanimously disagree; just eight percent favor an immediate withdrawal.
The number of Iraqis favoring an immediate U.S. withdrawal has risen from 26 percent in November 2005 and 35 percent last winter; at 47 percent it's now a plurality for the first time (in the next most-popular option, 34 percent say U.S. forces should "remain until security is restored"). The fact that support for an immediate pullout of U.S. forces is not even higher, given the vast unpopularity of their presence, likely reflects the uncertainty of what might follow their departure.
Indeed, apart from Kurds, support for immediate withdrawal is lowest, and has risen the least, in Baghdad, whose mixed Shiite-Sunni status puts it at particular risk. Desire for the United States to "leave now" is highest in Anbar, still deeply anti-American despite any accommodation its leaders have made with the U.S. military.
The rise in support for U.S. withdrawal is linked to worsening views of the country's condition. People who think things are going badly for Iraq are far more likely to favor immediate withdrawal -- 56 percent vs. 16 percent. Similarly, people who are pessimistic about the country's future also are far more likely to favor withdrawal -- 53 percent, vs. 23 percent among optimists. With optimism down, support for withdrawal is up.
Clearly there are concerns -- varying sharply by population group -- about the implications if the U.S. does withdraw without first restoring civil order. Nearly half of Iraqis, 46 percent, foresee Shiite-dominated Iran taking control of parts of Iraq. As many foresee parts of Iraq becoming bases of operation for international terrorists. Fewer, just over a third, think U.S. withdrawal would lead to full-scale civil war in Iraq, but with big differences: Two in 10 Shiites foresee full-scale civil war, but that rises to four in 10 Sunni Arabs and six in 10 Kurds. Paradoxically, Sunni Arabs -- who dislike the United States most intensely and are most apt to favor its immediate withdrawal -- also are most apt to foresee a takeover of parts of Iraq by Shiite-dominated Iran if the United States does pull out. This apparent lack of palatable alternatives underscores Sunni Arabs' quandary, leaving them, in particular, so discontented with conditions in Iraq today.
Al Qaeda in Iraq
While U.S. efforts are viewed resoundingly negatively, this does not translate into support for activities of al Qaeda in Iraq. Disturbingly, nearly half of Iraqis (predominantly Sunni Arabs) say it's acceptable for al Qaeda in Iraq to attack U.S. and coalition forces. But Iraqis -- Sunni and Shiite alike -- almost unanimously reject other activities of al Qaeda in Iraq -- attacking Iraqi civilians (100 percent call this unacceptable), attempting to gain control of some areas (98 percent) and recruiting foreign fighters to come to Iraq (97 percent).
Other Local Conditions
Overall, of 13 local conditions tested in this poll, just one is reported to have improved -- ratings of local schools, eight points better to 51 percent positive. All the rest are stable or slightly worse, and all are rated poorly, ranging from views of local security (rated negatively by 57 percent) to the supply of electricity and fuel (both 92 percent negative). All are devastatingly bad in Baghdad, where in most cases every single respondent rated local conditions negatively, as was the case in March.
Segregation and Violence
Segregation of Iraqis -- both forced and voluntary -- continues to occur. Across the country, one in six Iraqis -- 17 percent -- report the separation of Sunni and Shiite Arabs on sectarian lines, including 11 percent who describe this as mainly forced. In Baghdad, it soars: Forty-three percent report the separation of Sunnis and Shiites from mixed to segregated areas, and 27 percent say it's mainly forced -- similar to the 31 percent who said so in March.
Ethnic cleansing clearly is not isolated in Baghdad. The forced separation of Iraqis along sectarian lines is reported by 39 percent in Basra city, in the mainly Shiite south; and by 24 percent -- one in four -- across all major metropolitan areas.
In a continued sign of hope, this separation is enormously unpopular: Ninety-eight percent, with agreement across ethnic and sectarian lines, oppose it.
Related results underscore the difficulty of life in Iraq: Seventy-seven percent rate their freedom to live where they want without persecution negatively; 74 percent rate their freedom of safe movement negatively. Both are essentially unchanged from March.
Ethnic cleansing is far from the only violence being visited upon Iraqis. As noted, 42 percent report car bombs and suicide attacks nearby; that includes 26 percent -- one in four -- who say these have occurred in the past six months.
Forty-one percent report unnecessary violence against Iraqi citizens by U.S. or coalition forces (26 percent say this has occurred in the last six months). Four in 10 also report kidnappings for ransom in their areas; notably that soars to 82 percent in Kirkuk and 68 percent in Basra, vs. 44 percent in Baghdad.
Other forms of violence are also troublingly high: Thirty-four percent of Iraqis report fighting between government and insurgent forces in their local area (two in 10 in the last six months), 30 percent report snipers or crossfire; as many report unnecessary violence by local militias, 27 percent report sectarian fighting and two in 10 report unnecessary violence by the Iraqi army or police.
The number of Iraqis who believe Iran is encouraging sectarian violence in Iraq, 79 percent, is up by eight points since March, chiefly because a majority of Shiites now share this view (62 percent, up 15 points). There's also been a nine-point rise, to 65 percent, in the number who believe mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia is encouraging violence. (Just 28 percent of Sunni Arabs hold this view, but that's up by 17 points, and it's risen among Kurds as well.) As many, 66 percent, also suspect Syria of encouraging violence.
Sunni/Shiite
A final point is a key one in Iraq's political equation: the makeup of the country by ethnic and religious groups. Iraq commonly is described as a majority Shiite nation, apparently on the basis of an undated and unsourced reference in the CIA's "World Factbook" proposing that 60 to 65 percent of Iraqis are Shiites.
In this survey, instead, Shiite Arabs comprise just under half of the population, 48 percent, as they did in the March poll, 47 percent.
Sunni Arabs account for 33 percent in this poll, again very similar (and within sampling tolerances) to their 35 percent in the March poll. Kurds accounted for 16 and 15 percent, respectively, in the two surveys; with three percent "other" in both. Together these two surveys consist of more than 4,400 interviews from 915 sampling points, a large combined sample with an unusual level of geographical coverage.
Methodology
This poll for ABC News, the BBC and NHK was conducted Aug. 17-24, 2007, through in-person interviews with a random national sample of 2,212 Iraqi adults, including oversamples in Anbar province, Basra city, Kirkuk and the Sadr City section of Baghdad. The results have a 2.5-point error margin. Field work by D3 Systems of Vienna, Va., and KA Research Ltd. of Istanbul.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
(http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=3571504)
General Petraeus appears to be following the same road to hell Colin Powell walked. Petraeus, like Powell, will be transformed from a respected military man to a political hack whose credibility is forever tarnished for propping up the Bush administration’s disastrous policy in Iraq.
The President’s surge policy is premised on the credibility of General Petraeus himself, not the string of cherry-picked numbers being spewed and dissected this week. If the Administration had any confidence in the numbers that show “progress”, numbers which have been contradicted by every other independent assessment, they would release the methodology used for arriving at those numbers. But they will not do that. They cannot if they want to stay indefinitely and they intend to stay.
Discussion of phony military progress in Iraq is a distraction that only serves to obscure the fact that there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq.
The fact of the matter is our troops are trapped in a civil war and occupation, a situation where there can be no victory. Our continued presence there is not only breaking our military, it is undermining our national security and our efforts to fight international terrorism.
Congress has the power to end to the Bush administration’s failed policy in Iraq. They should provide all the money necessary to fully fund the safe, timely and responsible redeployment of our troops and contractors from Iraq.
The President is abusing the young men and women who volunteer to serve their country, and try to fulfill their mission in Iraq. They are abused by an Administration which puts their lives at risk in a mission impossible. A majority of Iraqis, Americans and our soldiers agree that the occupation should end. Staying on will only create more chaos and conflict that our soldiers have neither strategy nor numbers nor resources to settle.
Iraq was a false alarm. The president dispatched the troops on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was a clear and present danger to the US because he was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons and in possession of other weapons of mass destruction. He had none. It was a false alarm.
When our fire fighters discover a false alarm, they turn off the sirens, and return to their station. We don’t ask them to risk their lives climbing ladders, breaking down ceilings, flooding rooftops if there is no fire.
Iraq is no different. The President refuses to admit the false alarm. Petraeus’ report is all fluff and no substance.
Our soldiers risk their lives every day. Their families and neighbors pay the price too. They pay it in collapsing sewers, in high gas prices, in unaffordable colleges, in a growing gulf between rich and poor.
The President demands that Congress support the troops. But support for the troops requires ending the occupation. We do no honor to the proud record of our veterans or the service of our current young men and women by sentencing them to continue this costly occupation. We ask our soldiers to exhibit courage and judgment in battle. Surely they should expect the same courage from their leaders in determining the battles that we fight.
Petraeus' version of the facts were "well-chewed" because the GAO, the Jones Report, bloggers, and their commenters all chewed them well.
I don't see why you're offended. You were in on the game as much as I was.
In on what game? This is apparently only a game to you and your fellow travelers.
todd mayo - Do you have any original thoughts, or do you simply copy and paste "news".
I know you will not answer, but think about it. If Petraeus is lying, like todd and Prof. contend, then he is knowingly submitting American service men and women to injury and death, just so he can lie? How would you explain that.
And finally, todd, the Democrats in their legislation, required that Gen. Petraeus testify. Then, when he does, you cry politics? Good Lord, you are dense.
Think what you want to; but remember: all of our futures depend on General Petraeus succeeding, on the U.S. winning against The Jihad.
todd mayo - Do you have any original thoughts, or do you simply copy and paste "news".
No, he has no original thoughts. He's the perfect Caric protege.
I rarely respond to you people as you are incapable of staying on topic and seem to prefer spending your time confusing the dialogue with irrelevant discourse and personal insults. However, I will break with policy long enough to thank the brave "anonymous" for saying this, "He's the perfect Caric protege." I accept the compliment. And may I return the compliment by saying that you are the perfect....(WELL, I'LL HAVE TO GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT BUT I'M SURE YOU HAVE YOUR STRENGTHS..I GUESS.)
todd - go read your rambling missives, and then come tell us that you do not stray from the point. Oh, I get it, the point of every topic is how evil Bu$Hitler Chimply McHitlerburton is. Gotcha.
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