Reasons 1 through 4 on why we need to leave Iraq

And it isn't so we can attack Iran.

Lawrence J. Korb of the Boston Globe:

First, Maliki knows that if the United States does not set a withdrawal date, the status of forces agreement, or even a memorandum of understanding, will not be approved by the Iraqi Parliament. A majority of the Iraqi Parliament has signed a letter to that effect. Iraq's elected legislators know that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people want the American forces out and believe that these foreign forces are actually causing much of the violence. The American people agree that the United States should have never invaded and want US forces to leave as quickly as possible. But, since Bush will not submit the agreement to Congress, he can ignore the wishes of the American people.

Second, there were not that many foreign terrorists to begin with. Despite the administration's claim that we are fighting them (Al Qaeda) over there (in Iraq) so we do not have to fight them over here (the United States), the number of Al Qaeda loyalists who came into the country after the US invasion never numbered more than 2,000. Moreover, Al Qaeda in Iraq is an overwhelmingly Iraqi organization with domestic aims. When members began killing Iraqis and tried to force a rigid version of Islam on their Iraqi collaborators, the Iraqis turned on them.

Once the United States sets a date for a complete withdrawal, Al Qaeda in Iraq will lose what little support it has from the Iraqi people.

Third, with the rising price of oil, Iraq is awash in money and no longer needs US assistance to rebuild its war-torn infrastructure. When the United States invaded, oil was $25 a barrel. Now it is about $130. The Iraqi government now produces 2.5 million barrels a day, and with the contracts it has recently signed with Western companies, it soon will begin producing even more. This means that the Iraqis will be bringing in $100 billion to $200 billion a year.

Fourth, the Shi'ite dominated Iraqi government is not as concerned about the threat from Iran as the Bush administration. Many of Iraq's Shi'ite leaders lived in Iran during the regime of Saddam Hussein and see the Iranians as Shi'ite allies with whom they can and should have a close relationship - unlike Bush who sees the Iranians as the second coming of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

Time to leave. Even al-Maliki agrees (and Der Speigel stands by its quote):

In the interview, Maliki expressed support of Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. "That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of changes."

Maliki was quick to back away from an outright endorsement of Obama, saying "who they choose as their president is the Americans' business." But he then went on to say: "But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited."

A Baghdad government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in a statement that SPIEGEL had "misunderstood and mistranslated" the Iraqi prime minister, but didn't point to where the misunderstanding or mistranslation might have occurred. Al-Dabbagh said Maliki's comments "should not be understood as support to any US presidential candidates." The statement was sent out by the press desk of the US-led Multinational Force in Iraq.

A number of media outlets likewise professed to being confused by the statement from Maliki's office. The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh's statement "did not address a specific error." CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, "how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? Matthew Yglesias, a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, was astonished by "how little effort was made" to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement.

SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.

Good.

Ignore this!

Iran is supplying al-Qaeda with weapons! Even though Iran helped us fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Even though Iran is mainly Shiite and al-Qaeda is mostly Sunni and from Saudi Arabia. Bush says Iran is bad! McCain says ShiiteSunniAl-QaedaMilitiasIranians are bad!

A plan to show some alleged Iranian-supplied explosives to journalists last week in Karbala and then destroy them was canceled after the United States realized none of them was from Iran. A U.S. military spokesman attributed the confusion to a misunderstanding that emerged after an Iraqi Army general in Karbala erroneously reported the items were of Iranian origin.

When U.S. explosives experts went to investigate, they discovered they were not Iranian after all.

Oops...

I wrote this in August of 2007

So the very shaky U.S. backed al-Maliki's Shiite government which had Sunnis resigning out of the so-called Iraqi Parliament because the Shiite government is being shored up by Sunni-killing Shiite death squads and al-Sadr which our military promptly attacked while al-Maliki was out of Iraq visiting Shiite Iran to start meaningful diplomatic ties which really freaks Sunni Saudi Arabia who is sending their radicalized Sunni youth to attack Americans in Iraq yet Saudi Arabia has been promised an immense delivery of jets and weapons by the United States which made Russia promise Iran a boatload of weaponry as well which makes no sense to weaponize the Middle East because it is so volatile but it makes perfect sense to Bush to sell weapons to the country that supplied 15 of the 9/11 hijackers so they can claim part of the Iraq that we invaded because of 9/11 but had nothing to do with 9/11 while we ignore Afghanistan which is returning to the Taliban which harbors Osama bin Laden and probably will destablize Pakistan who has nukes.

Has the surge worked yet because it seems that nothing has changed....

Understatement of the year

U.S. sponsorship of Sunni groups worries Iraq's government.

BAGHDAD — The American campaign to turn Sunni Muslims against Islamic extremists is growing so quickly that Iraq's Shiite Muslim leaders fear that it's out of control and threatens to create a potent armed force that will turn against the government one day.

The United States, which credits much of the drop in violence to the campaign, is enrolling hundreds of people daily in "concerned local citizens" groups. More than 5,000 have been sworn in in the last eight days, for a total of 77,542 as of Tuesday. As many as 10 groups were created in the past week, bringing the total number to 192, according to the American military.

U.S. officials said they were screening new members — who generally are paid $300 a month to patrol their neighborhoods — and were subjecting them to tough security measures. More than 60,000 have had fingerprints and DNA taken and had retinal scans, American officials said, steps that will allow them to be identified later, should they turn against the government. The officials said they planned to cap membership in the groups at 100,000.

But that hasn't calmed mounting concerns among aides to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who charge that some of the groups include "terrorists" who attack Shiite residents in their neighborhoods. Some of the new "concerned citizens" are occupying houses that terrified Shiite families abandoned, they said.

It also hasn't quieted criticism that the program is trading long-term Iraqi stability for short-term security gains.

"There is a danger here that we are going to have armed all three sides: the Kurds in the north, the Shiite and now the Sunni militias," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who's now at The Brookings Institution, a center-left policy organization in Washington, D.C.

Brought to you by the people who are responsible for the war in Afghanistan.... what on earth could go wrong?

No military assistance link between Iran and Iraq has been proved

Even when we tortured captured Iranians: (my bold)

WASHINGTON - The George W Bush administration's campaign to seize and detain Iranian Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officials in Iraq, presented by Bush himself in January as a move to break up an alleged Iranian arms smuggling operation in Iraq, appears to have run its course without having been able to link a single Iranian to any such operation.

Despite administration rhetoric suggesting that the US military had solid intelligence on which to base a campaign to break up Iranian-sponsored networks supplying armor-piercing weapons, what is now known about the kidnapping operations indicates that the actual purpose was to obtain some evidence from interrogations that would support the administration's line that the IRGC's elite Quds Force is involved in assisting Shi'ite forces militarily.

None of the remaining six Iranians now held by the US military, however, has provided any evidence for the administration's case, despite many months of very tough interrogation usually employed on "high-value" detainees.

Wayne White, former deputy director of the US Bureau of Intelligence and Research Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia, told Inter Press Service he believes the administration badly wanted to get information from the Iranian detainees that they could use to make their case, but it has been unable to do so.

"I'm convinced that they haven't gotten anything out of them," he said in an interview. "They haven't come up with anything they can shop around."

The program has also been a political embarrassment in relations with US allies in Iraq. US military seizures of Iranians whom the US military claimed were IRGC Quds Force officers have been condemned not only by the Shi'ite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but also by Kurdish leaders. The US military apologized in August for "a regrettable incident" in which eight Iranians were arrested in Baghdad, and soon freed after Iraqi protests.

And the US quietly released nine Iranian detainees last week, two of whom were seized in the Kurdish city of Irbil in January, saying they were "of no continuing intelligence value".

So... what is the next step when we've found torture doesn't work. Do we just dump the victims out on the nearest road and tell them not to have any hard feelings? Is there any realization that this torture has created many more terrorists? This time with a very rational reason for hating the United States?

Update: And while we're on the subject, Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon:

Kuwait City, Kuwait (AHN) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that Iran is far from acquiring nuclear armament. He declared that an Islamic attack by the country is unlikely at this point, refuting the concerns and the claims of the current U.S. government about Iran's dangerous nuclear weaponry potential.

The United States and some of its allies have recently been pressing down on Iran, challenging its claims of ambitions for a peaceful nuclear program. The U.S. government has raised the alarm on Iran's uranium enrichment program, and threatening to slap the nation with heavy sanctions.

Mr. Powell expressed his doubts and disagreements regarding this sentiment, saying "I think Iran is a long way from having anything that could be anything like a nuclear weapon," as quoted by the Associated Press.

In an investigation done by the U.N. nuclear watchdog the IAEA, it was revealed that there was no solid evidence of Iran developing nuclear power for the sake of atomic weapon acquisition. The Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan, Mashallah Shakeri, further insisted this claim.

Everything old is new again

Swopa at Firedoglake points out the shift in the Iraq war:

Are you ready for another “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia” moment from the Orwell Bush administration? Ready or not, here we go, says the Washington Post today:

Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.

Why, yes, now that you ask — that is the same government is one whose election the Bushites praised to the skies TV airwaves and was describing as its stalwart ally earlier this year.

Sunnis or Shiite, Arab, Persian, al-Qaeda? Counting on the indifference and ignorance of the American people to pull this off. They are all the same....

Update: proof:
Conflicting stories on 25 killed in Iraq.

During a 12-hour fire fight north of Baghdad on Tuesday night, 25 armed Iraqis were killed. But local authorities disagree with the U.S. military over who exactly was killed, al Qaeda militants or anti-al Qaeda fighters:

“U.S. forces backed by aircraft killed 25 suspected insurgents in operations targeting al Qaeda militants near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Thursday.”

VERSUS

“Iraqi officials said Thursday they were investigating whether American troops had mistakenly killed some two dozen anti-al Qaeda fighters earlier this week north of Baghdad.”

Dead man walking

Mark Lynch of Abu Aardvark on the murder of Shaykh Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha: (my bold)

Nothing could have been more predictable than the murder of Abu Risha, the man most closely identified with America's Anbar strategy. He was the public face of the turn against al-Qaeda, and Petraeus immediately said that "it shows Al Qaeda in Iraq remains a very dangerous and barbaric enemy." But there's no reason to assume that al-Qaeda killed him - I'd guess that one of the nationalist insurgency groups, the ones which current American rhetoric pretends don't exist - is a more likely suspect. Other tribes deeply resented him. The major nationalist insurgency groups had recently issued a series of statements denouncing people who would illegitimately seize the fruits of their victorious jihad - of whom he was the prime example. All those photographs which swamped the Arab media showing him shaking hands with President Bush made him even more a marked man than before.

His murder graphically demonstrates that the other groups threatened by the American Anbar strategy were never going to just sit back passively and allow it to succeed - an obvious strategic point which has always seemed to elude surge advocates. The Sunni strategy as presented by surge advocates has always rested not only on a whole series of dubious claims about Iraqi Sunni politics, but also relies on a whole series of best-case scenarios in which nothing could go wrong. In Iraq, something always goes wrong.

It's a major setback for the strategy, particularly at the symbolic level. Even if Abu Risha was a poor choice to "lead" the strategy, he was in fact elevated to that symbolic position by American propaganda and practice (that meeting with the President, for instance). His murder demonstrates that even America's closest friends are not untouchable - not even on the day of a Presidential address expected to rely heavily on progress in Anbar. The political fallout of the murder inside of Iraq may well exceed Abu Risha's actual role in Sunni politics.

Are the Democrats able to support the troops

By bringing them home like we asked?

Via jurassicpork at Welcome to Pottersville,

Paul Krugman:

There are five things I hope Democrats in Congress will remember.

First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue, hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no decline in the average number of daily attacks.

So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post that “if a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian. If it went through the front, it’s criminal.” So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.

Oh, and by the way: Baghdad is undergoing ethnic cleansing, with Shiite militias driving Sunnis out of much of the city. And guess what? When a Sunni enclave is eliminated and the death toll in that district falls because there’s nobody left to kill, that counts as progress by the Pentagon’s metric.

Second, Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters.

I’ve written before about the op-ed article Gen. Petraeus published six weeks before the 2004 election, claiming “tangible progress” in Iraq. Specifically, he declared that “Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt,” that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward” and that “there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security.” A year later, he declared that “there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi security forces.”

But now two more years have passed, and the independent commission of retired military officers appointed by Congress to assess Iraqi security forces has recommended that the national police force, which is riddled with corruption and sectarian influence, be disbanded, while Iraqi military forces “will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months.”

Third, any plan that depends on the White House recognizing reality is an idle fantasy. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, on Tuesday Mr. Bush told Australia’s deputy prime minister that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq. Enough said.

Fourth, the lesson of the past six years is that Republicans will accuse Democrats of being unpatriotic no matter what the Democrats do. Democrats gave Mr. Bush everything he wanted in 2002; their reward was an ad attacking Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, that featured images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Finally, the public hates this war and wants to see it ended. Voters are exasperated with the Democrats, not because they think Congressional leaders are too liberal, but because they don’t see Congress doing anything to stop the war.

In light of all this, you have to wonder what Democrats, who according to The New York Times are considering a compromise that sets a “goal” for withdrawal rather than a timetable, are thinking. All such a compromise would accomplish would be to give Republicans who like to sound moderate — but who always vote with the Bush administration when it matters — political cover.

And six or seven months from now it will be the same thing all over again. Mr. Bush will stage another photo op at Camp Cupcake, the Marine nickname for the giant air base he never left on his recent visit to Iraq. The administration will move the goal posts again, and the military will come up with new ways to cook the books and claim success.

One thing is for sure: like 2004, 2008 will be a “khaki election” in which Republicans insist that a vote for the Democrats is a vote against the troops. The only question is whether they can also, once again, claim that the Democrats are flip-floppers who can’t make up their minds.

Changing the rules, moving the goal posts, rewording the memo

Using a new definition of success...

WASHINGTON: With the Democratic-led Congress poised to measure progress in Iraq by focusing on the central government's failure to perform, President George W. Bush is proposing a new gauge, by focusing on new U.S. alliances with the tribes and local groups that Washington once feared would tear the country apart.

That shift in emphasis was implicit in Bush's decision to bypass Baghdad on his eight-hour trip to Iraq this week, stopping instead in Anbar Province, once the heart of an anti-American Sunni insurgency. By meeting with tribal leaders who just a year ago were considered the enemy, and who now are fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a president who has unveiled four or five strategies for winning over Iraqis - depending on how one counts - may now be on the cusp of yet another.

It is not clear whether the Democrats who control Congress will be in any mood to accept the changing measures. On Tuesday, there were contentious hearings over a Government Accountability Office report that, like last month's National Intelligence Estimate, painted a bleak picture of Iraq's future.

Remember this:

"...Gail Sheehy wrote an article for the {Vanity Fair} magazine about W. that made this point: “Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn’t lose. He’ll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him.”"

Uh oh. The Saudis are gonna be pissed, Georgie...

How're you gonna explain this to your bestest Sunni pals?:

Baghdad's new Kurdish-Shiite coalition may end efforts at national reconciliation with the Sunnis. But a government pursuing common interests is Iraq's only hope. Even stability brought about by a Shiite-dominated regime would be better than the chaos that currently reigns.
[snip]
The members of the new coalition include, for the time being, the two Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), as well as two Shiite groups, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Maliki's Daawa Party. These are exactly the four parties that have favored transforming Iraq into a federalist state since the drafting of the constitution in 2005. These "federalists" are the only forces in Iraqi politics that can be expected to make any headway when it comes to stabilizing the country. This does nothing to change the observation that they are less interested in a functioning federal system than autonomy motivated by the desire for political power.

So, how are you going to handle this exclusion of the Sunnis, Bush?

Let's see.... Point fingers of blame at al-Maliki and his Shiite government... check:

BAGHDAD, Aug. 22 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday strongly rebuked American politicians for threatening to withdraw support from his government, suggesting while on a trip to Syria that he could "find friends elsewhere" if he was abandoned by the United States.

Facing widespread and growing American criticism that he has not pushed his government faster toward political reconciliation or engineered the passage of important legislation, Maliki defended his elected government as reflecting the will of the Iraqi people rather than the urgencies of presidential politics in the United States. He said the calls for his removal were "discourteous."

Spend millions telling people the war was a good idea.... check:

A new group formed to pressure members of Congress to continue supporting U.S. military efforts in Iraq launched a $15 million ad campaign Wednesday that mostly targets members of both parties who have voted or spoken out against continued operations in that country.

Freedom's Watch, which counts former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer among its supporters, is targeting several Republicans who are deemed vulnerable in 2008, including Reps. Heather Wilson (N.M.), Jon Porter (Nev.) and Jim Gerlach (Pa.).

The group says it is “dedicated to fighting to protect the ideals and issues that keep America strong and prosperous” and wants to refocus the Iraq debate on the threat to U.S. security.

Tell people no matter what, you are planning to keep troops there until you are out of office and can't be blamed anymore:

President George Bush sought to buy more time for his Iraq "surge" strategy yesterday by making a risky comparison for the first time with the bloodshed and chaos that followed the US pullout from Vietnam.

Making it clear he will resist congressional pressure next month for an early withdrawal, he signalled that US troops, whom he hailed as the "greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known", will be in Iraq as long as he is president. He also said the consequences of leaving "without getting the job done would be devastating", and "the enemy would follow us home".

Just an aside, but does Georgie really think terrorists don't have ... like... world maps? Does he truly think terrorists can't find their way over here without sneaking onto troop transports? And does he really think terrorists are unable to delegate, so that some terrorists can be following us over here while others still blow stuff up over there? And even if this crop of terrorists is stuck in the quagmire over there and cannot figure out where the United States is, we've cleverly made a new generational crop of terrorists who will never forget we've ruined their lives.

Not everybody is as dumb as you, George.

Sunnis are odd man out

So what do you think they will do with this?

Shia and Kurdish parties form Iraq alliance

Iraqi leaders on Thursday said Shia and Kurdish political parties had formed a new alliance in a bid to help the beleaguered government emerge from its latest crisis.

Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister, told the Financial Times that the move was designed to create a core group of parties that would bolster the administration and help it win support in parliament to push through important legislation.

But the main Sunni Arab bloc, which quit the Shia-led government at the beginning of the month, refused to be part of the four-party alliance despite days of consultations, signalling that the crisis was far from over.

It's not al-Qaeda, it's not Iran

It's the Iraqi Shiites protecting themselves from us:

In his press briefing on August 5, Odierno, the second-ranking US commander in Iraq, blamed the rise in the proportion of US casualties attributable to Shi'ite militias to Iran "surging their support to these groups based on the September report" - a reference to the much-anticipated report by General David Petraeus on the United States' own "surge" strategy.

Odierno claimed intelligence reports supported his contention of an Iranian effort to influence public perceptions of the "surge" strategy. "They're sending more money in, they're training more individuals and they're sending more weapons in."

He repeated the charge in an interview with Michael R Gordon of the New York Times published on its front page on August 8 under the headline "US says Iran-supplied bomb is killing more troops in Iraq". In that interview, he declared of Iran, "I think they want to influence the decision potentially coming up in September."

What Odierno framed in terms of an Iranian policy, however, can be explained much more simply by the fact that the US military mounted more operations on Muqtada's Mahdi Army during the spring and summer.

The US command has not provided any statistics on the targets of its operations in recent months, but news reports on those operations reveal a pattern of rising US attacks on Mahdi Army personnel since March.

Between April 26 and June 30, the US command in Baghdad announced dozens of military operations in Baghdad - the vast majority in Sadr City - solely for the purpose of capturing or killing Shi'ites belonging to what were called "secret cells", a term used to describe Mahdi Army units alleged to be supported by Iran.

In July, the Mahdi Army resisted these raids in many cases. On July 9, for example, US troops cordoned off an area in Sadr City and began searching for members of what the US command called a "criminal militia" accused of planting roadside bombs. According to the official military press release, the US troops were "engaged by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire from numerous locations".

In short, the rise in deaths of US troops in Baghdad last month reflected the increased pace of US operations against the Mahdi Army and the Mahdi Army's military response.

Odierno conceded as much in the same press conference: "Because of the effect we've had on al-Qaeda in Iraq and the success against them and the Sunni insurgency," he said, "we are focusing very much more on the special groups of the Jaish al-Mahdi [Mahdi Army] here in Baghdad."

The major briefing by the US command on alleged Iranian support for Iraqi Shi'ite militias in recent weeks appears to contradict Odierno's claim that intelligence showed increased Iranian assistance to those militias. Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner told reporters on August 2 - after a "surge" in Iranian assistance had allegedly taken place - that the rate of training of militia groups in Iran had remained stable for a long time.

The transcript of the briefing also shows that Bergner did not claim any recent increase in financial assistance to the Mahdi Army.

How many Americans still think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? How many of them think all Iraqis and Iranians have goats and camels and live in the desert? How many of them are unaware Iraq had a thriving middle class? That Iran has a highly educated population? How many Americans think all Muslims are of the same religion? How many of them think that attacking Iran is a good idea?

How many Americans can point to Iraq and Iran on the map?

Devastating collection of events and facts

Showing that the Saudis are no friends of ours:

The Bush administration is once again banging the war drums, this time directing their threats at Iran. However, as they have begun laying out questionable evidence of Iranian meddling in Iraq, a number of commentators have already picked up on a major disconnect in the administration’s rhetoric. As they blame Iran for our failure to stabilize Iraq, they have consistently ignored much more compelling evidence that Saudi nationals have played a pivotal role in fueling the sectarian which is tearing Iraq apart.

The main article are the pdf files listed on the left. But just a reminder, look at these tables: (the numbers are footnote references):

Table A: The Saudi Killers
The actual car bombers, suicide bombers and hijackers from the last twelve years of major terrorist attacks on the U.S. who have hailed from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi National Guard Bombers
Abdul Aziz Bin Fahd Bin Nasser Al-Mothem
Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Ibrahim Al-Sa’eed
Riyadh Bin Suleiman Bin Is’haq Al-Hajeri
Muslih Bin Ali Bin Ayedh Al-Shemrani400

Khobar Towers Bombers
Ahmed al-Mughassil
Ali al-Houri
Hani al-Sayegh
Abdallah al-Jarash
Hussein al-Mughis401

African Embassy Bombers
Jihad Mohammad Ali al-Makki
Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-‘Owhali402

USS Cole Bombers
Hassan al-Khamri
Ibrahim al-Thawar403

September 11 Hijackers
American Airlines Flight 11
Waleed al-Shehri
Wail al-Shehri
Satam al-Suqami
Abdulaziz al-Omari
United Airlines Flight 175
Ahmed al-Ghamdi
Hamza al-Ghamdi
Mohand al-Shehri
American Airlines Flight 77
Hani Hanjour (pilot-hijacker)
Nawaf al-Hazmi
Khalid al-Mihdhar
Majed Moqed
Salem al-Hazmi
United Airlines Flight 93
Saeed al-Ghamdi
Ahmad al-Haznawi
Ahmed al-Nami404

Riyadh Residential Compound Bombers
Khaled Mohammad bin Muslim
Al-Juhani
Mohammed Othman Abdullah Al-Walidi
Al-Shehri
Hani Saeed Ahmad Al Abdul-Karim
Al-Ghamdi
Jubran Ali Ahmad Hakami Khabrani
Mohammed bin Shadhaf Ali Al-Mahzoum
Al-Shehri
Abdul-Karim Mohammed Jubran Yazji
Majed Abdullah Sa'ad bin Okail.405

Mosul Mess Tent Bomber
Ahmed Said Ahmed al-Ghamdi406

Table B: Suicide Bombings in Iraq
“Most of those who blow themselves up in Iraq are Saudi nationals.”
Mowaffak Rubaie, National Security Adviser, Iraq
· The August 29, 2003, car bomb outside Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrine,
the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, which killed leading Shiite cleric
Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim and more than 80 other
people.407
· The March 2, 2004, suicide bombings of crowds near Shiite
shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, which killed 181 people.408
· The February 28, 2005, car bomb detonated outside a medical
clinic in Hillah, which killed 125 people, the vast majority of
whom were Shiite police and National Guard recruits who were
waiting to take a physical.409
· The July 16, 2005, fuel tanker bomb detonated outside a Shiite
mosque in Musayyib, which killed 90 people.410
· The September 14, 2005, car bomb in which the driver lured a
crowd of Shiite day laborers to his van before detonating his
explosives, killing 114.411
· The September 29, 2005, car bombs detonated in the mostly Shiite
town of Balad, which killed at least 102 people.412
· The November 18, 2005, suicide bombs detonated at two Shiite
mosques in the town of Khanaqin, which killed 74 people.413
· The January 5, 2006, suicide bomb outside the Imam Hussein
shrine in Karbala, which killed 63 people.414
· The April 7, 2006, suicide bombings of the Buratha Mosque in
Baghdad, which killed 79 Shiite worshipers.415
· The January 16, 2007, suicide bombing/car bombing of the Shiite
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad which killed at least 70.416
· The February 3, 2007, suicide truck bombing in an outdoor market
in a Shiite section of Baghdad, which killed 135 people.417
Note that these are just the major attacks targeting Iraqi Shiites, in
addition to countless smaller ones.

The Saudis are Sunni. Tell me again why we aren't challenging the Saudis? Oh... forget it... again.

I say Sunni and you say Shiite

Let's call the whole thing off:

BAGHDAD - Two Sunni leaders who took public stances against al-Qaida in Iraq were attacked Saturday, in a sign the terror network may ramp up retaliation against local chiefs who oppose it.

Meanwhile, a powerful roadside bomb killed the governor and police chief of a southern province that has been torn by fierce fighting between Shiite factions. The country's prime minister urged residents to show restraint and not launch reprisals.

The flurry of attacks hinted at the complex challenges facing Iraq, from both Shiite militias and Sunni extremists, who often target not just Americans but also their own sects in vicious internal battles.

The United States has pointed to an anti-al-Qaida alliance of local Sunni leaders as a sign of turnaround, but the attacks showed the high risks local leaders face by joining.

So the very shaky U.S. backed al-Maliki's Shiite government which had Sunnis resigning out of the so-called Iraqi Parliament because the Shiite government is being shored up by Sunni-killing Shiite death squads and al-Sadr which our military promptly attacked while al-Maliki was out of Iraq visiting Shiite Iran to start meaningful diplomatic ties which really freaks Sunni Saudi Arabia who is sending their radicalized Sunni youth to attack Americans in Iraq yet Saudi Arabia has been promised an immense delivery of jets and weapons by the United States which made Russia promise Iran a boatload of weaponry as well which makes no sense to weaponize the Middle East because it is so volatile but it makes perfect sense to Bush to sell weapons to the country that supplied 15 of the 9/11 hijackers so they can claim part of the Iraq that we invaded because of 9/11 but had nothing to do with 9/11 while we ignore Afghanistan which is returning to the Taliban which harbors Osama bin Laden and probably will destablize Pakistan who has nukes.

It's becoming clear to me now...

The Iraqi government

Is actually the Shiite group that supports al-Maliki that is fighting the Sunni groups that resent the Shiite hold on power because of their use of death squads... So what do we do while al-Maliki goes to Tehran to open diplomatic ties?

We attack al-Sadr's section of Baghdad, a Shiite stronghold.

Juan Cole of Informed Consent:

The US military took advantage of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's absence from the country to settle some scores with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City (East Baghad), attacking units there and mounting air strikes on them, killing 32 and wounding about a dozen. Local observers claimed that the attacks killed 9 innocent civilians, but the US military said the casualties were militiamen. When al-Maliki is in Baghdad, he tends to run interference for the Sadr Movement, which elected him to office, and to attempt to convince the US military to put off attacking these Shiite forces until after the Sunni Arab guerrillas are dealt with decisively.

Iraqslogger shows the reaction in Sadr City. It isn't pretty.

Not only did the US military attack these Shiite forces unilaterally, but its spokesmen attempted to link the Mahdi Army cell attacked to the importation of explosively formed projectiles from Iran.

It cannot be an accident that both the attack and the attempt to implicate Iran (with no evidence for the allegations against Tehran provided) came while al-Maliki was in Tehran for high level consultations with the Iranian government.

Maybe somebody's score card was upside down or something....

Lord Voldemort will not be pleased

After all, this is why we've wasted all our military and treasury in Iraq in the first place:

... last month, more than 100 Iraqi oil experts, economists and legal scholars criticized the proposed legislation and urged the Iraqi parliament to put it on hold.

The most vocal opposition to the oil framework has come from Iraq's influential oil workers' unions. Hassan Jumaa Awaad, president of the Iraqi Oil Workers union, called the proposed hydrocarbon laws "more political than economic" and "unbalanced and incoherent," and said they threatened "to set governorate against governorate and region against region." Iraq's oil unions have threatened to "mutiny" if the law is passed as drafted.

In favor of the laws are the multinational energy companies who stand to gain tens of billions more profits in Iraq than they could expect from any other major oil producer's reserves. They're supported by Iraqi separatists -- especially Shias in the South and Northern Kurds -- who want control over the country's oil to rest in the hands of the regional authorities they dominate. They include Iraq's prime minister, Nouri Al-Maliki, and its president, Jalal Talabani.

Faced with such broad and intense opposition to a set of laws that were effectively crafted in Washington, London and Houston, the Iraqi government and the U.S. authorities in Baghdad have kept Iraqis in the dark over the details of the proposed legislation, brought all manner of pressure on lawmakers and, when that failed, used heavy-handed coercion to move the legislation forward.

According to the poll released this week, more than three out of four Iraqis -- including nine of 10 Sunni Arabs -- say "the level of information provided by the Iraqi government on this law" was not adequate for them to "feel informed" about the issue. Only 4 percent of Iraqis feel they've been given "totally adequate" information about the oil law.

Why are we arming Saudis?

The rest of the world's mouths are agape at this:

Saudi Arabia? Isn't that the country:
- from which came 15 of the 19 men responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001?
- that opposed the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and whose king, this March, called the invasion an "illegal occupation"?
- that told the United States to remove its troops and find some other country for the US Central Command's (CENTCOM) forward command post?
- whose border is so poorly monitored that 75% of all foreign fighters crossing into Iraq do so from Saudi territory, far more than from Syria?
- whose autocratic government either will not or cannot prevent its youth from going to Iraq - an estimated 40% of all foreigners fighting US troops and Iraqi government forces are Saudi nationals - where they become bomb makers, snipers, and suicide bombers?
- that nearly 60 years after the creation of the modern State of Israel still refuses to extend diplomatic recognition to that country?

No matter how deft the White House "spin", there will be considerable congressional opposition to the sale. Previous Congresses have opposed sales of weapons to the Saudis on the grounds that the kingdom has never signed a peace agreement with Israel. This time, the opposition is fueled by the lack of sustained support from Riyadh for US aims in Iraq and in the "global war on terrorism".

Cost of oil
There is also the sense among some members of Congress that the Saudis have not acted to control the soaring costs of energy. In the run-up to the 2004 US elections, the Saudis allegedly promised they would increase production if necessary to preclude a price spike that might hurt the re-election prospects of the George W Bush-Dick Cheney ticket.

Once the US election was concluded, however, the Saudis did little if anything to curb higher prices - first to $40 and then to $50 per barrel - pleading market forces beyond their control. Coincidentally with the announcement of the proposed arms sale, the price of a barrel of oil hit $78. Yet there was only silence from the Saudis.

From the perspective of the hardliners in Bush's White House, the Saudis were undercutting every US goal in the Middle East, particularly the current president's vision of a democratic Iraq as the seedbed for transforming autocratic regimes to democracies.
[snip]

Washington has been insisting that there is no military solution to the region's trauma. Yet it is proposing not only $20 billion in weapons to the Saudis but another $13 billion to Egypt and $30 billion to Israel - a total of $63 billion for weapons in a part of the world already awash in modern arms. And this total apparently doesn't include $40 million in guns, bullets, rockets, missiles, small-arms ammunition, night-vision goggles, and spare parts for the Lebanese Army this year and another $280 million for 2008. Nor does it include the $3 billion Iraq is spending on weapons and ammunition - all of which are contributing to the current mayhem in these two countries.

Nonetheless, since Israel has already said it will not oppose the sale, it is unlikely that Congress will vote to block it or even to amend it. As for the Pentagon, it hopes to save money through economy of scale for items produced for either the Saudis or Israelis. And of course US companies that build weapons and munitions are pleased at the prospect of new contracts and new profits.

The irony in this whole affair is that Bush started the Iraq war over weapons that never existed and that have not been used since 1945. Now his administration seems to think the way to end the war is to make sure that there are more weapons - ones that kill thousands every day. Go figure!

Can somebody explain this again? We are arming the Saudis who are sending their radicalized Sunni youth to fight against the U.S. supported Shiite government in Iraq; who are afraid of the Shiite power in Iran; who hate Israel; and use their grip on oil prices to control U.S. elections. We are arming Saudis who think the next war will involve them as Iraq is carved up between Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia?

We are fighting Bush's Eternal War on Terror with weaponry supplied by the Bush administration against terrorists whipped to a frenzy by Bush foreign policies.

Al-Maliki on the edge

Will he be able to keep his job? Or is he already finished? Al-Maliki makes connections with Iran and Turkey:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with officials in Iran on Wednesday to seek help in reining in violence in his country, reaching out to a nation the U.S. accuses of fueling Iraq's turmoil by backing Shiite militants.

It was al-Maliki's second visit to Tehran in less than a year, coming days after U.S. and Iranian experts held talks in Baghdad on improving Iraq's security.

Al-Maliki and the Shiite and Kurdish parties that dominate his government are closely linked to predominantly Shiite Iran, and he has struggled to balance those ties with the United States, Tehran's top rival in the region.

The U.S. has recently stepped up its allegations that Iran is arming Shiite militiamen, but the Iraqi government has taken a low-key stance without outright backing the American claims, which Tehran denies. One al-Maliki adviser, Sami al-Askari, said last month that the government "doesn't rule out" Iranian arming of militants.

[snip]
Before arriving in Iran, al-Maliki traveled to Turkey and agreed to root out a Kurdish rebel group operating from northern Iraq. But he said the Iraqi parliament would have the final say on efforts to halt the guerrillas' cross-border attacks into Turkey. Iran also faces problems with its Kurdish minority near the Iraqi border.

Turkey has threatened to stage an incursion into northern Iraq unless Iraq or the United States cracks down on rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, that have set up bases there. The envisaged counterterrorism agreement is aimed at forcing Iraq to officially commit itself to fighting the rebels.

Iraq, which like Iran is majority Shiite, has managed a difficult balancing act between Tehran and Washington since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, trying to maintain good relations with its powerful neighbor while not angering the Americans.

The U.S. has accused Iran of providing money and weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran denies the charges and argues that the presence of U.S. troops is destabilizing the region.

Washington and Tehran have held three rounds of talks on Iraqi security since May, and al-Maliki told AP he would push for these talks to continue at an ambassador level.

Looks like he's making every attempt to keep Iraq together but then:

... Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki - whose days in office are surely numbered - might want to to be remembered as the man who brought democracy and justice to Iraqis; the man who rooted out terrorism and killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Instead, Iraqis will remember Maliki as a selfish, sectarian politician who divided the country as never before, between Shi'ites and Sunnis. They will remember the death squads that flourished under his regime, the targeted assassinations of Sunni notables, and they will see him as a stooge of the Americans who was unable to fulfill any of the promises he made when coming to power in May 2006.
Maliki's problem is that his government is not constitutional, as his cabinet no longer represents all parties that are seated in Parliament. Thirteen out of 37 ministers have walked out, and more are likely to follow soon.

The first to abandon him were six Shi'ite ministers from the Sadrist bloc in April. They objected to his relationship with the United States, and his failure to secure a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq. They were followed by Sunni Justice Minister Hashem al-Shibli from the Iraqi List that is headed by former prime minister Iyad Allawi.

This week, five Sunni ministers from the Iraqi Accordance Front stepped down, along with Sunni Salam al-Zoubai, who was deputy prime minister. They claimed this was because Maliki had not responded to any of the 11 demands they had made, which included greater decision-making for Sunnis, and a political amnesty for Sunni prisoners.

Then came the resignation of nine senior officers from the Iraqi Army, including Baker Zebari, the commander-in-chief. All of them were objecting to how the prime minister is running affairs.

After discussing the politicians who are jockeying for position to take al-Maliki's seat, the writer of this article, Sami Moubayed (a Syrian political analyst) goes on to say:

The pro-US Arab states have been very blunt in opposing Maliki, because of his relations with Iran and his well-known animosity toward Sunnis. Recently, they turned down an offer by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to support the Maliki cabinet.

[snip]

One cannot help but recall Maliki's first speech to the Iraqi people, broadcast in April 2006 when he was still prime minister-designate. He said, "Our Sunni brothers, by their participation in a broad alliance, have begun to carry responsibilities in the political process ... which will dry up the sources of terrorism. Fighting the insurgency will be my government's priority." He said he hoped to do so by creating "a white front" of Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds and that he would create a non-sectarian government to ward off accusations made by observers claiming that he was "too Shi'ite".

Maliki then addressed the Sunnis directly by playing down fears that Iran was interfering in Iraqi affairs. He thanked neighboring countries such as Iran for sheltering the Iraqi opposition during Saddam's era, saying, "But this does not mean any country can meddle in our affairs." Gratitude did not mean security interference, he added. Earlier, Maliki had said, "The weapons must be in the hands of the state. Their presence in the hands of others [militias] will be the start of problems that will trigger a civil war."

Rather than collect arms and root out militias, Maliki did the exact opposite. He will leave office amid a civil war - a very ugly one - that is largely due to his own doing.

The more Bush demands the 'Iraqi government' do something, the more it unravels. Heckovajob, Georgie!

Paying off the Sunni to undermine the Shiite government

Run by the U.S. chosen Shiite leader al-Maliki whose Parliament has just had the Sunnis walk out on it...

Do I have it right? We are paying bribe money to insurgents who are killing our soldiers who are trying to prop up a non-existent government to give it time to stand up so we can leave.

This must have been thought up by Georgie.



Update: We also can't find a um.. few .. you know... guns...

The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office.

According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."

The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid increasing attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

...Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, spokesman for the US-led military in Iraq, said the Americans were working hard with their Iraqi partners to improve accountability and increase the security of weapons.

Shocked U.S. officials realize that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers

Came from Saudi Arabia. 'Hey!', said one official. 'How long has this been known?'

Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war.

[snip]

...Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, "That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not."

[snip]

Of course, the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years explicitly told senior Bush administration officials of the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there. Last fall, King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq's Shiites if the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq, American and Arab diplomats said.

Several officials interviewed for this article said they believed that Saudi Arabia's direct support to Sunni tribesmen increased this year as the Saudis lost faith in the Maliki government and felt they must bolster Sunni groups in the eventuality of a widespread civil war.

Just why are the Saudis our 'friends'? Oh... never mind....





Update: Driftglass says it best.