WB: Making Them an Offer? – Moon of Alabama

July 14, 2005

WB: Making Them an Offer?

Call me paranoid, but my hypothesis still sounds reasonable to me. However, if the leak really was an offer, the insurgents may have already mailed back their reply.

Making Them an Offer?

[About my take (see last post), though it is not as much an offer, as it is a declaration of defeat – at least that is what the resistance reads into it. b.]

Posted by b on July 14, 2005 at 21:13 UTC | Permalink

Comments

My take on it is…the reduction won’t work. While there probably are a great number of Iraqi insurgents who would be willing to work with the U.S/Allied Forces/current Iraqi govt, and make a deal, it isn’t a deal they can uphold. Not that they don’t want to, they probably do. But much like the problems in Israel, for every well meaning Israeli, and every well meaning Palestinian, there are those groups who’s very existence relies on there not being peace. Terrorists do terror. While even acknowledging that the Nazi, Arafat, may have, at times wanted peace, the jihadists did not. Same thing in Iraq. The mostly imported jihadists need the U.S. forces there in order to further their mission. I suspect they will crank up the the bombings whenever peace (or even a temporary cease fire) is on the horizon. The classic catch-22. If the U.S. pulls out in one fell swoop, anarchy and chaos rules. A full blown civil war erupts. If negotiations lead to a partial reduction (or even proposed partial reduction) terrorist attacks increase. And the U.S., with the only leverage to insist on negotiations (the withdrawal of troops is the carrot) can’t, under any circumstances, get what the neo-cons wanted in the first place, permanent bases in Iraq.
What a nasty mess you’ve gotten us into, george.

Posted by: Kane | Jul 14 2005 21:32 utc | 1

If the Bushies actually are negotiating with the insurgents, that might explain why US casualties have dropped from almost three a day to less than one. Anybody have any figures on the number of attacks per day? Has that gone down, too?
And yes, it pretty much is an admission that the war can’t be won. But assuming we do pull out with some sort of face-saving deal in place, the Bush administration will spin it as victory, or at least “peace with honor”, and the news media will be happy to go along with it, at least until the Iraqi Civil War begins in earnest, by which time nobody over here will be paying attention anymore. And once again the Republicans will get away with murder.

Posted by: Ridnik Chrome | Jul 14 2005 21:46 utc | 2

The entire experience has been very unpleasant, and we really don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Withdrawal, n. The most intimate of the acts leading to abandonment.

Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jul 14 2005 22:09 utc | 3

Your line of thought would shed light on this:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2005/0508cia.htm
“The CIA has so far refused to hand over control of Iraq’s intelligence service to the newly elected Iraqi government in a turf war that exposes serious doubts the Bush administration has over the ability of Iraqi leaders to fight the insurgency and worries about the new government’s close ties to Iran. The director of Iraq’s secret police, a general who took part in a failed coup attempt against Saddam Hussein, was handpicked and funded by the U.S. government, and he still reports directly to the CIA, Iraqi politicians and intelligence officials in Baghdad said last week. Immediately after the elections in January, several Iraqi officials said, U.S. forces stashed the sensitive national intelligence archives of the past year inside American headquarters in Baghdad in order to keep them off-limits to the new government.”
1. If the Shites are worried they would be sold down the river by the U.S. it makes sence to start complaining about not controlling their own Secret Service, esp. with a Sunni in charge.
2. If the U.S. wants to negotiate with the Sunnis behind the backs of the insurgency, it would be critical to have the Iraqi intelligence apparatus in the hands of a Sunni.
3. As a bonus our U.S. friendly Sunni strongman might rise from the ashes after the Sunni insurgency and the Shite govt. duke it out.

Posted by: RickDFL | Jul 14 2005 22:14 utc | 4

@Ridnik Chrome
Number of attacks is sustained at between 60-70/day … July so far is averaging ONLY one car bomb a day compared to an average of 2/day in June …
@Kane
Terrorists and Jihadi’s heh ? There certainly isn’t an overrall or co-ordinating command to enforce any such agreement amongst the more than FORTY known resistance groups in Iraq … with the only common goal being the end of foriegn occupation … end the occupation and the flames die down …
Here’s a bit of familiar history to put the Iraqi’s viewpoint in perspective:

We are a people whose national mythology would have it that we owe our very existence to a successfully waged guerrilla campaign for independence, much romanticized in public school classrooms. In describing the events of April 18, 1775, the historian Robert Leckie (1968) tells us that when British troops arrived at Concord, where intelligence had it most of Massachusetts’ munitions were stored in a farmer’s house, “the grenadiers, with a courtesy that should make the twentieth century blush, began searching houses,” retreating “red- faced before a determined old lady brandishing a mop,” and politely accepting “the falsehood that a locked room was occupied by an invalid when it actually contained military stores.” Flour barrels dumped into a millpond “were not stove in, and almost all of these supplies were salvaged,” and “gun carriages found in the Town House were set afire, and then put out after the grenadiers realized that they might also set the Town House ablaze.” All this changed radically after the retreating Redcoats started taking ambush all along their line of march back to Boston from bands of local farmers, tradesmen, and other irregulars, including mere boys. In response, their Colonel Smith “sent his light infantry out on the flanks” where “they surprised groups of militia in the hollows and put them to rout. They doubled back on themselves and took the unsuspecting Americans in the rear. They cornered them in houses and shot them down or drove their slender bayonets into them. And because they had taken as much as men can be expected to endure, they set fire to the houses or wrecked them“.
— GUERRILLA WARFARE by Davida Kellogg, 1997

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 14 2005 22:19 utc | 5

“If the U.S. wants to negotiate with the Sunnis behind the backs of the insurgency, it would be critical to have the Iraqi intelligence apparatus in the hands of a Sunni.”
Yeah, it’s the “Sunni option.” Personally, I think they’re fooling themselves if they think it will work. But I guess that’s what fools do — they fool themselves.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 14 2005 22:21 utc | 6

The mostly imported jihadists need the U.S. forces there in order to further their mission. I suspect they will crank up the the bombings whenever peace (or even a temporary cease fire) is on the horizon.
Good point. As somebody quoted somebody on an earlier thread: The flies have conquered the flypaper.

Posted by: Billmon | Jul 14 2005 22:23 utc | 7

I’ll buy that. Don’t think it’ll work though.
In a nutshell, it’s too late. Not only is it doubtful that there’s sufficient command consistency on the insurgency side to enforce anything like a significant stand-down, but it’s not really about “getting rid of the americans” any more anyway. It’s now about who fills the vacuum. Any Sunnis who stand down lose momentum and leverage with no guarantee that even the full faith and credit of the US can make up for what’s lost. (Not that anybody but an idiot would trust our promises in the first place, and I suspect insurgents that stupid are all dead by now.) And any group — Sunni or otherwise — that fails to take advantage of anybody else standing down can assume that some other group will do so. Nobody has a good reason to actually stand down, because there’s very little chance that the liabilities would outweigh the benefits, but everybody has a reason to negotiate, because, well, it’s always good to negotiate with somebody who’s over a barrel. We’re just handing anybody we talk to a great big moral hazard.
In fact, there’s a very real possibility that the “freedom-fighting” Iraqis with whom we’re negotiating are playing out line to see how big a fish they can catch. There are plenty of factions who would benefit from seeing how much they can learn about various drawdown plans before the bozos who appear to be in charge of the mission finally tumble. Promise the moon; ask for the sun up front; settle for mars; fail to deliver; apologize and start over. Rinse lather repeat. What do they have to lose?
And no, I don’t think Negroponte is too smart to get sucked into stuff like that. Think about it. Yeah, he’s Mr. Big with intimidated peasants and guerillas who have to count rounds after they get into a firefight. In Baghdad he can’t even leave the Green Zone without making special arrangements, his local contacts all have their own agendas, he has no particular history with them, etc etc…

Posted by: radish | Jul 14 2005 22:27 utc | 8

Zalmay Khalilzad is the new US ambassador, though I don’t think he’s even in Iraq.

Posted by: slothrop | Jul 14 2005 22:39 utc | 9

The follow-on goal after successful ‘Regime Change’ has consistently been to replace the former puppet/strongman, Saddam, with another, i.e. Chalabi, the IGC, Allawi, rehabilitated Ba’athists in key positions, especially Intel and military command … but the chickenhawks fucked it right up … they have no allies in Iraq, only enemies with differing degrees of hatred/animosity to the US.
Gulf War I, the years of sanctions, the invasion and the subsequent insurgency will not be forgotten by Iraqi’s for a generation or more after a total withdrawal … in many ways it would appear the Iranians have ensnared and indirectly manipulated the US into delivering Iraq into Iran’s influence at the cost of US global influence, legitamicy, treasure and blood … what a bargain for those supposedly stupid Iranians, who have always played excellent chess 😉

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 14 2005 22:45 utc | 10

Ooops, right, forgot about that. I doubt Khalilzad is in any position to genuinely intimidate anybody either though…

Posted by: radish | Jul 14 2005 22:57 utc | 11

Allawi said recently that Iraq was on the precipice of civil war.
I wonder if the “Salvador Option” is back on the table. The CIA have little options in turning over the secutiry apparatus. The can’t give it to the Kurds, because the Turks believe they would use it for coordination of terrorism in Turkey and could spur Turkish incursion into Iraqi territory. They can’t give it to the Shia, because of already close coordination of the army with Iran. The only option is the Sunni, who already have the institutional capacity (I say that in most despicable terms) to perform the job.
It would be a very interesting British style arrangement to essentially have the ministries run by Kurds (seem to have conquered better governance than the others), the army by Shia (more numbers) and secret police by the Sunni (years of training). It reaks of trouble, but is there any other option? The only question is how this would play out with the insurgency. The Shia army could fight the insurgency in the streets. The Sunni secret police would conceivably end former Baathist elements from active participation, however I would be certain that they would actively coordinate with the foreigner fighters against the Shia army.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 14 2005 23:03 utc | 12

I am mega confused as usual, from way back. Our foreign policy simply cannot be as F—ing crazy as it appears.
We overthrow the last democratically elected leader in the Middle East with a CIA led coup that gave Iran the Shah. When the Shah is run out of town on a rail by a peoples led revolution, all of a sudden Saddam Hussian, the dictator of Iraq, is our guy and we encourage him to make a Ten Year War against Iran to prevent a similar Islamic revolution in Iran happening in Iraq and (god forbid-Saudia Arabia.) I mean do you remember reading about Khomeini (sp?) using Iranian children to roll over land mines so battle troops could advance?
Then Saddam, feeling his oats, tells us he wants to partition part of Kuwait because there is clear historic tribal reasons to have a right to that land, and we tell him “we will not take a position in Arab on Arab disputes”. And then we sucker punch him because we need to find any excuse to set up bases in Saudia Arabia to protect the ruling family who are procreating themselves into poverty (at least all the little princes trying to live on less than a million a year), but no way are we gonna toss out our buddy Saddam for real. We just proceed to let alot of innocent Iraqies die under sanctions without ever touching him.
And when all our meddling in all of Arabia and Afganistan and Pakistan result in 14 (16?) native born Saudis flying planes into US properties on 09/11/2001 (BUT WE HAVE NEVER HAD SUICIDE BOMBERS IN AMERICA LIKE ISRAEL AND SPAIN AND NOW LONDON-Huh? I think we had the biggest suicide bombing of all)we decide we have to get rid of Saddam.
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to give Saddam $300 Hundred Billion
Dollars to just conscript every living, breathing Sunni male to invade Iran, and then Saudia Arabia, and then form a partnership with Sunni Syria, with the condition he must stay out of and accept Israel and hell let the Kurds have a Kurdistan (because if Turkey causes a problem-well we just send Saddam there too) with just one condition, we get first right of refusal on all the oil and he cannot sell the oil to Russia or China without our okey, but India is allright as long as not too many people there get to many ideas.
Instead, we are speculating about US troop withdrawals from Iraq, which can only mean one thing -Iran.
If you are going to be an evil empire and attempt to confiscate all the earth’s natural resourses wouldn’t you be a little better at it than Dr. Evil?

Posted by: Mary | Jul 15 2005 1:24 utc | 13

@Mary
Bravo, salut. Dr Evil indeed 🙂

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 1:41 utc | 14

It’s been all over since April 2004. No one in Iraq their right mind would want to work with the US occupation after Fallujah, Najaf, and Abu Ghraib.
It’s all been erosion since then.

Posted by: sm | Jul 15 2005 1:50 utc | 15

wow mary. whaddu put in your cheerios?

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 1:53 utc | 16

NYTimes
Here’s a story from tomorrow’s Times about the resurgence of the insurgency in Fallujah. It reports a trend that can only mean “retreat” for the US forces from Iraq. In effect, the man in the street has voted for the “bad guys,” and Americans can’t do anything to stop it. Out, out, out is where we’re headed.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 2:48 utc | 17

even acknowledging that the Nazi, Arafat, may have, at times wanted peace, the jihadists did not.
Say what????
The mostly imported jihadists need the U.S. forces there in order to further their mission.
But that seems to miss the major point of “dealing with the insurgents”. Surely, we are aiming at a deal with the ex-Baathist, non-jihadi element in order to get at the jihadis. Saddam was no fan of the jihadis and presumably neither are the “Saddam wing” of the insurgents. It is clear that the Baathist types have made some kind of strategic partnership with the jihadis and what are strategic partnerships for if not to be broken.
Is this a workable plan? I don’t think so, since accomodating any Arab nationalists seems wildly at odds with American “strategic interests” in the region – permanent US military bases, control over Iraq’s oil, looting the economy and the US taxpayer for Haliburton, greater Israel etc.,

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 15 2005 3:23 utc | 18

Saddam is probably looking better and better these days to the planners of this clusterfrag. But they could never put him (or a Sunnie strongman surrogate) back–not after spending 300+ B. and killing 2000/138,000 and blathering onabout Democracy. And the Shiites would never stand for it the second time around, after being betrayed in ’91. Nope, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Reminds me of the joke with the genie and wishing for a little “brain”; well we got it.

Posted by: Malooga | Jul 15 2005 3:34 utc | 19

When We Bomb Them Does It Matter If They Die?
… For the last two years, she has been unsuccessfully trying to get permission from the Home Office for her children to join her in London. When she finished speaking on the phone, she returned to the class in tears. It was her daughter telling her a bomb had gone off that morning in the market in Baghdad 30 dead so far. She was distraught.
Today the first 10-15 pages of every newspaper are devoted to the bombings in London.
Unless Western soldiers or contractors are involved, the bombs in Baghdad only get a few paragraphs in the middle.
… But, as Respect MP George Galloway said on TV last night, what about the dead in Baghdad and Fallujah? In Mosul, Basra and Tikrit? In Afghanistan? In the refugee camps of the Gaza strip and the West Bank?
When the bombs fall from 10 kilometres in the air, so high you cant even hear the planes, and kill thousands, or they rip through busy streets and market places in Baghdad, we dont hear their stories of near escapes, chance decisions or the tragedy and sorrow of their families. We dont see the blurry images from mobile phones.
In Baghdad, do they stare out the window of the bus wondering if or when another explosion will bring death to the city? Do they keep away from that bus route, street or market stall for a few days? Or do they lie in bed desperately trying to hear the almost imperceptible rumble of a B-52 miles above? Do the authorities erect white plastic sheets to hide the body parts?
When our governments bomb them, do they have hundreds of ambulances, fire engines and police bringing out the wounded and rushing them to hospital, all within 20 minutes? Or do they just bleed to death on the pavement? When we bomb them does it matter if they die?
Our bombers have expensive planes and millions of dollars of training, nice uniforms and the advice of expensive lawyers. They are sanctioned by democratically elected governments.
So now, to paraphrase the Queen Mother, we Londoners can look the people of Baghdad in the eye. But is it really the same?

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 3:47 utc | 20

Bubb Rubb wrote:
Allawi said recently that Iraq was on the precipice of civil war.
I wonder if the “Salvador Option” is back on the table.
Yes, Negroponte has death squads everywhere gumming up the works, but I heard something interesting this afternoon that there’s a new strategy in the works w/US backing that this might be referencing. They let a leader back in from Syria who’s organizing the secular forces in the South. Turns out 80% of the oil is in the South &, of course, the ports as well. They’re talking about forming some kind of a secular state so they can keep their own oil revenue thank you very much and not be run from Baghdad by those goddamn Shia fundies. Needless to say al Sadist, I mean al Sadr, is hysterical about it. Not clear on their proposed relationship to the rest of Iraq.
There goes Iran’s influence… name of guy so alien to me I can’t pass it along.

Posted by: jj | Jul 15 2005 4:38 utc | 21

@jj
Not quite … it’s a large bloc of the Shia, aligned with Iran, through thier militias which dominate southern Iraq because of the effective ‘capitulation’ of the British forces and the Multinational Division (to avoid ‘violence’) that are seeking to obtain Kurdish(Northern Iraq) like autonomous governance … the Sunni’s, the Ba’athists and the US are certainly not part of it and in no way beneficiaries of such an event … Iran on the other hand … especially given the Kurdish oil fields in the north have been over-pumped …

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 4:53 utc | 22

Surely, we are aiming at a deal with the ex-Baathist, non-jihadi element in order to get at the jihadis
Yeah, that was kinda my point. Despite aiming to deal with the non-jihadist, thats a practical impossibility. The imported jihadist won’t stand for it. They will block attempts at peace, even if (and thats a BIG if) the Iraqi Shia and Sunnis could come to any sort of agreement, specially if the US has any involvement. But US involvement is probably essential for them to ever get to the table. Historically, negotiation is not their first choice in solving disagreements.

Posted by: Kane | Jul 15 2005 5:27 utc | 23

@Kane
Imported Jihadists or more commonly referred to ‘Foriegn fighters’ account for probably no more than ~5% of the Iraqi insurgents …
Historically, negotiation is not their first choice in solving disagreements.
And you may wish to reconsider what you appear to be displaying of re a certain media inculcated/indoctinated condescension and dare I say it narrow world view re your choice of words/phrase and if percievable via text, tone ?
It could be very easily argued indeed that this administration, i.e. the US, does NOT have a history of thier first choice being negotiation to settle disagreements, especially with regard to Iraq.
After all, who was determined at all costs regardless of the reality or the facts to Invade whom ?
Remember our championing of the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials ? Perchance you recall the definition of Aggressive War ?

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 5:54 utc | 24

Vietnam,Algeria,Afghanastan(Russia & US)Iraq =CLUSTERFUCKS & QUAGMIRES……I see these FUCKFACES in control now down te road either being pushed to the wall or just wanting to do it so bad of using The Big One or several of them.Then they would enjoy it so much that they would throw around a lot of them…..If you haven’t ran across it, several speakers at Right Wing Think(Yeah Right) tanks in the last few years have stated that a ideal population of Earth would be about 2 billion of the Earth’s present 6 billion. Why even mention it unless you thought it could be done?

Posted by: R.L. | Jul 15 2005 6:05 utc | 25

Billmon’s very interesting premise has spawned an interesting thread, whose subtext seems to be “duplicity everywhere”. I wonder if the construction on the permanent bases in Iraq goes on as if the original megalomaniacal PNAC project were indeed going smoothly. Maybe John Pike at globalsecurity.org or our own Outraged has recent data. In a related vein Cryptome reports on what seems to be a major U.S. base being constructed near Lod Airport in Israel, and scheduled for completion at the end of August. Like good soldier Schweik, I am wondering about the deeper meanings here.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 15 2005 6:12 utc | 26

Missing here is one group that has a BIG interest in keeping the war going on. 20,000 US mercenaries who will loose their well paying jobs when the show is over.
You can be sure that they, and their puppetmasters, do want to keep their income coming. And I guess they know how to do that.

Posted by: b | Jul 15 2005 6:18 utc | 27

b, i think there are 120,000 private contractors although not all mercenaries they are making a bundle.

Posted by: annie | Jul 15 2005 6:24 utc | 28

“…although not all mercenaries …”
You say potato; I say projectile. Would you prefer we call them “unenlisted homocidal prostitutes”…?

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 15 2005 6:32 utc | 29

Sorry for the snark, there, annie. It’s only that anyone turning a buck or two (or million… or billion) off the suffering of others seems pretty damned mercenary to me. This might just be a semantics thing.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 15 2005 6:36 utc | 30

@HKOL
I wonder if the construction on the permanent bases in Iraq goes on as if the original megalomaniacal PNAC project were indeed going smoothly
Yep, no change in status re the bases and nota single indication anywhere that partial withdrawal or otherwise is there any intention of acceding to Iraqi wishes re a change in policy of NOT maintaining permanent bases in Iraq as a substitute for the former vases in Saudi Arabai and the former bases in Iran under the Shah prior to that.
Re Israel … its called hedging … just in case the dream fails and irqaq is a washout for the Neocons … the committed geoploitical staregy in the ME and re Central Asia REQUIRES a forward deployed series of permanent bases and forces … however, US troops in Israel is exceedingly dangerous as it could create a situation where those forces are ‘drawn ‘ into a conflict by Israel against our interests … needless to say it would also be ME/Islam PR disaster of the highest order … its bad enough the Israelis do thier indiscriminate killing/assassinations and occupation with large amounts of US identifiable (F-16s, Apaches, etc) funded military hardware … but thats idealogue neocon chickenhawks serving Empire for ya …

Posted by: Outraged | Jul 15 2005 6:46 utc | 31

I think b’s point is that they can create the environment that requires them to be there.
And 20 thousand contractors at say $1000 a week is $1,040,000,000 a year. Chump change.
That’s just their salary — they need housing, cars, guns, gas. Where the heck can you buy that kind of stuff in Iraq?

Posted by: jonku | Jul 15 2005 6:51 utc | 32

cui bono, a division of Halliburton Inc.

Posted by: jonku | Jul 15 2005 6:53 utc | 33

@ Outraged
You seem to be right on the intended use of the Israeli base. From the comments to the earlier link:

A good article, since this type of news is never report by the major media here in the U.S.. The buildings shown in the pictures look exactly like buildings I’ve seen on U.S. bases in Germany. This looks like a POMCUS (Prepositioned Material Cofigured to Unit Sets) site. That is, each building is climate controlled, and has vehicles,set up in unit sets, i.e., an armored battalion, or engineer company, or whatever; in each building. In Europe these POMCUS sites were where Stateside units would come to draw their equipment should Russia have invaded Western Europe during the cold war. You do the math….

I still wonder if the August 31 completion date has any significance. It looks like someone’s in a bit of a hurry.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jul 15 2005 7:41 utc | 34

It is all about the military bases. This is the long and short of it. The only withdrawl will be to the military bases.

Posted by: Dismayed | Jul 15 2005 9:23 utc | 35

(remove at to reply by email)
Look the key to understanding Blair’s Administration is that they are in power with the succor of the Daily Mail. It is the only paper they listen to and it shapes their policy eg on Law and Order.
They see the DM as their pipeline to the swing voter: the suburban dwelling white collar woman who has won Blair 3 elections (if only men voted, Labour would have been in power in 1992– men vote left wing in the UK, the opposite of the angry white male Republicans in the US). The DM is the only newspaper that has increased its circulation in the last 25 years, and it has done so by riding the trend towards more women commuting to office work. The FeMail section is half the paper.
So New Labour and the DM are well into bed together. The editor loves Opera (Paul Dacre) and he is often seen at the Royal Opera with Labour worthies.

Posted by: John | Jul 15 2005 14:15 utc | 36

@Outraged
Imported Jihadists or more commonly referred to ‘Foriegn fighters’ account for probably no more than ~5% of the Iraqi insurgents …
Historically, negotiation is not their first choice in solving disagreements.
And you may wish to reconsider what you appear to be displaying of re a certain media inculcated/indoctinated condescension and dare I say it narrow world view re your choice of words/phrase and if percievable via text, tone ?
I suspect the % of non-Iraqi “foriegn fighters” is higher than 5%. Probably not 25%, but higher than 5 anyway. More importantly, even 5% can throw a wrench into negotiations, since, as pointed out by someone earlier, there doesn’t appear to be any single entity which represents the native insurgency either.
And I have reconsidered the language I used. There was no condescension. Its an observation, which probably should have been prefaced with “Especially given the already hostile environment”. General observations about different cultures are not invariably incorrect, just because they’re general. They are also not invariably bad, just because they are different. Although, you made a very good point, the U.S. administration, in this instance, shot first, and asked questions later. Wait…no they didn’t. They never asked questions. They just shot. Now its our turn to ask the questions.

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 15 2005 15:23 utc | 37

Posted by: Kane | Jul 15 2005 15:25 utc | 38

Regarding the “leak” to the Daily Mail, BillMon asks –
“What other way could such an offer be communicated to the various factions and gangs in the Iraqi insurgency, in a way that would be accepted as genuine?”
How about a statement made in the House of Commons nearly two months before the Daily Mail published? Something like –
Hansard 18 May 2005 : Column 218
Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con):
“I am particularly puzzled by the decision, which appears already to have been made, to move large numbers of our troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.”
Genuine enough? Compared to a leak in the Daily Mail, I’d say so.
Or how about an article in The Scotsman, published Sun 22 May 2005, that states we are to redeploy “thousands” of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, because –
“Ministers have been warned they face a “complete strategic failure” of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan.”
Grimly, they also report that the country is “on the verge of disintegration”.
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=559872005
So, in the case of British troops at least, the plans to remove thousands of them from Iraq are old news and the Daily Mail tells us nothing we didn’t already know.
My guess, and that’s all it is, is that Downing St. leaked the papers to assuage the UK opposition to the occupation – call it a light at the end of the tunnel – which is likely to grow in the wake of last weeks carnage, particularly as Blair was warned that –
“The JIC assessed that al-Qaida and associated groups continued to represent by far the greatest terrorist threat to Western interests, and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq.” p.34
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/isc/
That’s a view from the Joint Intelligence Committee that didn’t appear in any of Blair’s dossiers. And the reason none of this surfaced before the 5th May UK election is simple – Blair was desperate to limit any discussion of Iraq. He wasn’t entirely successful, though in the case of Afghanistan – on the verge of disintegration – he was. That country was totally absent from the media or the mouths of politicians during the election campaign.

Posted by: Ron F | Jul 15 2005 19:36 utc | 39

The leak to the Daily Mail may be the beginning of a concerted Blairite campaign in the run-up to the local elections due in the UK in May 2006, when New Labour will undoubtedly get a kicking (from the Lib Dems, who are very strong at grassroots level but suffer from the inequity of the 1st-past-the-post voting system at national level).
Note all discussions of drawdowns come with the caveat “if conditions allow”. I think it means business as usual, there will be no drawdowns. It’s just spin for electoral purposes.

Posted by: Dismal Science | Jul 16 2005 12:25 utc | 40

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