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As Tom Hayden concluded in What Iraqis really think, “From its beginning, this war has been one of perception. Perhaps the media elites, whose collaboration with the Pentagon
gave public justification during the 2003 invasion, now worry that if they
report that a majority of the Iraqis we are supposedly "saving from
terrorism" are actually calling for our departure, any remaining support
for the war will collapse.” Iraqis make 11th
hour changes to constitution in hopes of passage this weekend. “The change would create a panel in the
next parliament with the power to propose broad new revisions to the
constitution. In effect, the change could give the Sunnis - who were largely
shut out of the constitution-writing process - a new chance to help redraft the
document after elections in December.
The agreement was a major victory for American officials, who had spent
weeks urging Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish leaders to make changes that could
soften Sunni opposition to the charter and forge a broader consensus. It was too early to tell whether a public endorsement of the
constitution by those two groups would translate into a much broader acceptance
among Sunni Arabs. With only three full days left before the referendum, it
will be difficult for Sunni groups to convey a new message to their supporters,
especially after Thursday, when security measures restricting travel will be
imposed. But even a last-minute endorsement by prominent Sunni Arabs could
alter the politics surrounding the constitution. The new support is likely to
undercut the widespread notion that the constitution was being forced on an
almost uniformly hostile Sunni Arab population.” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/12/international/middleeast/12iraq.html US troops step up
security measures before weekend voting: curfews, some bans on autos, concrete barriers topped with
concertina wire at polling stations. “In the last 18 days, at least 442 people
have been killed as the insurgents try to scare voters away from the polls.
Most of the deaths have been caused by suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and
drive-by shootings. The bodies of many other Iraqis who had been kidnapped and
killed have been found in isolated areas.” During the first three days this week, Iraqi and U.S. forces in the
capital, backed by Black Hawk helicopters, reported capturing 75 suspected
insurgents, seizing three large weapons caches and rescuing an Iraqi man who
had been kidnapped by insurgents. There are now 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, a total that has been rising in recent weeks as the 101st
Airborne returns, along with lead elements of the 3rd Corps Support Command.
Before that regularly scheduled rotation, the number was about 140,000, the
military said. In another development, thousands of Iraqi detainees who have not been
brought to trial were allowed to vote early in the constitutional referendum at
U.S. prisons such as the notorious Abu Ghraib detention center.” Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani, also weighed in, ordering Shiites to vote ''yes'' in the
referendum. Sunni Association of
Muslim Scholars urged the Iraqi Islamic Party to withdraw its support for a
constitution that would ''fragment Iraq and destroy its identity.'' In a
statement, the association urged Sunnis to vote ''no.'' http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.html Seized letter
outlines Al Qaeda long term goals; cautions
against killing of civilians http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/10/12/seized_letter_outlines_al_qaedas_long_term_goals/ Conservatives and
Exiles desert war campaign Even among the strongest advocates in Washington of the war in Iraq
there is a sense of alarm these days, with harsh criticism directed
particularly at the draft constitution, which they see as a betrayal of
principles and a recipe for disintegration of the Iraqi state. Expressions of concern among conservatives
and former Iraqi exiles, seen also in the rising disillusionment of the
American public, reflect a widening gap with the Bush administration and its
claims of “incredible political progress” in Iraq. Over the past week, two of Washington's
most influential conservative think-tanks, the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, held conferences on Iraq where the mood
among speakers, including Iraqi officials, was decidedly sombre. Kanan Makiya, an outspoken proponent of the war who is
documenting the horrors of the Saddam regime in his Iraq Memory Foundation, opened the AEI meeting by admitting to many
“dashed dreams”. He said he and
other opposition figures had seriously
underestimated the powers of ethnic and sectarian self-interest, as well as the
survivability of the “constantly morphing and flexible” Ba'ath party. He also
blamed the Bush administration for poor planning and committing too few troops. The proposed
constitution, to be taken to a referendum on Saturday, was a “profoundly
destabilising document” that could “deal a death blow” to Iraq, he said. The constitution was a
recipe for greater chaos, said Rend Rahim,
a former exile who had been designated as Iraq's first postwar ambassador to the
US. Unless revised, it would lead to such a devolution of power that the
central government would barely exist, she said. Qubad Talabani, Washington representative of the Kurdistan
regional government, delivered a stinging indictment of the central government
that echoed the growing divisions in the ruling alliance of Shia and Kurds. Danielle Pletka, senior analyst at AEI and conference
moderator, called the constitution deeply flawed, describing it as the result of political
machinations between Iraqis and Americans. She said the process had been
reduced to a benchmark for the exit of US troops. With growing numbers
of Americans wanting an early withdrawal from Iraq, Mrs Pletka's remarks
reflect the concerns of conservative ideologues that the Bush administration
will succumb to internal pressures and pull out prematurely. The latest CBS poll
shows that 32 per cent of Americans approve of President George W. Bush's
handling of the situation in Iraq, and 59 per cent want US troops out “as soon as possible, even if Iraq is not completely
stable”. Mrs Pletka insists
that despite what she called frustration and anger at day-to-day
decision-making and unnecessary mistakes, conservative supporters of the war
remain optimistic in the long term. “I think the president is right there has
been enormous progress,” she told the FT. General David Petraeus, recently in charge of training the new
Iraqi army, spoke of “tremendous progress by any metric” in building up Iraq's
armed forces. “I'm not putting
lipstick on any pigs out there,” he said.
But he admitted to concerns that the army did not have enough minority
Sunnis and that Iraqi soldiers faced “conflicting loyalties”. At the Heritage
Foundation, Bing
West, a former
marine who has been embedded with 17 battalions in Iraq, cautioned that the
referendum would not lead to a “political epiphany”. “Brute force will win this war,” he said. Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-war think-tank, said insurgents
were mounting about 90 attacks a day, compared to 50 to 70 a year ago. He
expressed concern that if the constitution is approved insurgents will be able
to mobilise more support from Sunnis who feel the system is stacked against
them. Speaking later to the FT, Mr
Eisenstadt said it would take years to defeat such an insurgency but there were indications that the Bush
administration would start to pull out troops in 2006 for its own political and
electoral reasons. “I don't know if it is winnable, but we
haven't lost it yet,” Mr Eisenstadt concluded. The original goals, he said, were out of reach
but “something acceptable” was still possible. Tensions over Iraq
mean the administration is trying to finesse waning public support for the war
with disapproval of its conduct among its core devotees who fear “cut and run”.
This helps explain the mixed messages from the Pentagon and the White House on
whether troops will start to return in early 2006. At the same time, Mr
Bush and his cabinet are presenting a new case against a premature pull-out,
arguing that this would mean not just an end to the democratic aspirations of
Iraqis, but also defeat for the whole “freedom agenda” in the Middle East. “If we quit now,” said
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, in a speech at
Princeton University last month, “we will embolden every enemy of liberty and
democracy across the Middle East. We will destroy any chance that the people of
this region have of building a future of hope and opportunity. And we will make America more vulnerable.” http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7e70a06a-3a72-11da-b0d3-00000e2511c8.html Hayden, What
Iraqis really think about the occupation: A majority of Iraqis in polls favor US military withdrawal and an
end of the occupation. At the time of January's election, 69 percent of Shiites
and 82 percent of Sunnis favored "near-term withdrawal." Surveys done
for the Coalition Provisional Authority in June 2004 showed that a 55 percent
majority "would feel safer if US troops left immediately." A recent summary of numerous Iraqi surveys, by the
independent Project
on Defense Alternatives
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, concluded that a majority of Iraqis "oppose
the US presence in Iraq, and those who strongly oppose it greatly outnumber
those who strongly support it." The PDA report went on to say that
"the fact that [these surveys] have played little role in the public
discourse on the Iraqi mission imperils US policy and contributes to the present
impasse." The only Iraqis who strongly support the US occupation are
the Kurds, less than 20 percent of the population whose semi-autonomous status
is protected by the United States, and who are represented disproportionately
in the Iraqi regime. By backing the Kurds and southern Shiites, the United
States is intervening in a sectarian civil war. The US-trained Iraqi security forces are
dominated by Kurdish and Shiite militias. In mid-September of this year, the eighteen-member National
Sovereignty Committee in the US-sponsored Iraqi parliament issued a unanimous
report calling for the end of occupation. In June, more than 100 members of the same parliament, or
more than one-third, signed a letter calling for "the departure of the
occupation." They
criticized their regime for bypassing parliament in obtaining an extension of
authority from the United Nations Security Council. In January, US intelligence agencies warned in a "grim
tone" that the newly elected Iraqi regime would demand a timetable for US
withdrawal, which indeed was the platform of the winning Shiite party. After
the election, nothing came of the worry. The winners simply abandoned the
campaign pledge that helped elect them. In June, the former electricity minister of the Coalition Provisional
Authority, Aihim Al-Sammarae, created an organization to begin dialogue with
eleven insurgent groups. The London Times
reported that high-ranking
US military officials joined one round of talks. In 2004, twenty Iraqi political parties formed a National Foundation Congress to become a public voice for withdrawal.
In May 2005 it held a second Congress, releasing a three-point platform
demanding a withdrawal timetable, an interim international peacekeeping force,
and internationally supervised elections. Virtually none of these realities have been reported in the
American media, with the exception of articles by Nancy Youssef of
Knight-Ridder. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051024/hayden |
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