Date: Friday, November 21, 2003 6:40:58 PM EST By RICHARD SALE, UPI Intelligence Correspondent
American's top man in Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, last week fired 28,000 Iraqi teachers as political punishment for their former membership in the Saddam Hussein-dominated Baath Party, fueling anti-U.S. resistance on the ground, administration officials have told United Press International.
A Central Command spokesman, speaking to UPI from Baghdad, acknowledged that the firings had taken place but said the figure of 28,000 "is too high."
He was unable, however, after two days, to supply UPI with a lower, revised total.
The Central Command spokesman attributed the firings to "tough, new anti-Baath Party measures" recently passed by the U.S.-created Iraqi Governing Council, dominated by Ahmed Chalabi, a favorite of administration hawks in the White House and Pentagon.
"It's a piece of real stupidity on the part of the neocons to try and equate the Baath Party with the Nazis," said former CIA official Larry Johnson. "You have to make a choice: Either you are going to deal with Iraqis who are capable of rebuilding and running the country or you're going to turn Iraq over to those who can't."
Facing a spreading insurgency, this was "not the time to turn out into the street more recruits for the anti-U.S. insurgency," Johnson said.
"It's an incredible error," said former senior CIA official and Middle East expert Graham Fuller. "In Germany, after World War II, the de-nazification program was applied with almost surgical precision in order not to antagonize German public opinion. In the case of Iraq, ideologues don't seem to grasp the seriousness of their acts."
Administration officials told UPI that from the beginning of Bremer's arrival in Iraq, the Bush administration has consistently misplayed the issue of Iraq's former ruling Sunni group, most of whom were members of the Baath, but who are also the most able and knowledgeable administrators in the country. In addition, many able government employees joined the Baath Party not out of any special political sympathies, but simply to attain or retain their jobs.
"The anti-Baath edicts, all of which are ideological nonsense, have been an outright disaster," a State Department official said. "Whatever happened to politics as the art of the possible?"
"All we have done is to have alienated one of the most politically important portions of the Iraqi population," another administration official said.
According to several serving and former U.S. intelligence officials, the latest firings are only one of a series of what one State Department official called "disastrous misjudgments." He cites, as one of the first, how senior Pentagon officials, relying on Chalabi's advice, led the Bush administration to believe it would inherit the Iraqi government bureaucracy virtually intact at the end of the war.
This same group ignored warnings from the internal CIA and State Department studies about looting and general lawlessness in the event of a U.S. victory, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In a long editorial last Sunday, the New York Times said that the lack of U.S. preparation for a post-war Iraq was "most likely" due to the Defense Department and the president's security advisers (believing) in the assurance of Mr. Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles."
Another major and disastrous decision was Bremer's order, on arrival, to disband without pay the Iraqi military force of 400,000 men, several of these sources said.
A Pentagon critic of the administration said: "We spent a lot of money on psychological operations that urged the Iraqi army to remain out of the fight.
"They did, and what did we do? Rewarded them by throwing them out of work and denying them a living."
What deeply disturbed many U.S. Iraqi experts in the State Department and CIA was the fact the Iraqi army was a highly respected institution in Iraq, which Saddam Hussein did not trust and used other organizations like the Republican Guard to spy on.
But it was disbanded in an effort to sweep aside any viable internal leadership and to install "democrats" from Chalabi's Iraqi Governing Council, a half-dozen former U.S. diplomats and serving administration officials said.
"Disbanding the army only alienated the Iraq Sunnis, who could have been useful in restoring public services and getting the country up and running," a State Department official said.
Only 20 percent of the population Iraq's Sunnis are better educated, more experienced and more unified than the Shiite majority, he said. Since a U.S. victory would erode their position of dominance, they were very receptive to the argument that the U.S. government needed to utilize their expertise in order to ensure a smooth political transition.
This, of course, did not occur, the State Department official said.
Instead, under orders from Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, Bremer tried to get rid of former Baathists in the Iraqi government by removing the top six layers of bureaucracy, U.S. officials said. The decision was made on May 16.
One of its effects of this was to re-energize Islamic militant forces in the country, this official said, even though, "The Sunnis are a secular force, hostile to Iran and Shiite influences, not much given to promoting radical religious causes."
"All you were doing were pissing off people who were armed and had no place to go," a former senior CIA official said.
posted on November 30, 2003 08:33:56 AM new
November Deadliest Month in Iraq
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2003; Page A14
More U.S. troops have died in Iraq in November than in any month since the war began in March, according to Defense Department figures.
With November nearly over, the official death count yesterday stood at 79, surpassing March (65) and April (73), when the invasion was underway and fighting was most intense and widespread.
The surge has reflected an increase in the effectiveness and the frequency of guerrilla attacks.
About half of the deaths resulted from the downing of four military helicopters, in which 39 soldiers were killed. U.S. aircraft in Iraq have been targeted in the past, but these incidents, involving either a surface-to-air missile or rocket-propelled grenade, marked the first major hits.
Most of the other U.S. combat fatalities occurred in ground attacks by enemy fighters using weapons that have become characteristic of their resistance: guns, rocket-propelled grenades and remote-controlled explosives.
At one point during the month, military officials reported that the number of guerrilla attacks was averaging more than 40 a day. In response to the heightened activity, U.S. troops intensified their tactics, engaging in a stronger show of force that included greater use of artillery, tanks, attack helicopters, F-16 fighters and AC-130 gunships to pound targets throughout central Iraq. The move was followed by a drop in the rate of assaults on U.S. forces to fewer than 30 a day.
In all, 437 troops have died in Iraq since the war began, 2,094 have been listed as wounded in action and 2,464 have suffered noncombat-related injuries, ranging from accidental gunshots to broken bones and injuries in vehicle accidents. Since May 1, when President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, 298 troops have died.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19749-2003Nov28.html
Dr. Kay's team reassigned to study Iraq insurgents
Dozens of the American intelligence experts and linguists sent to Iraq to search for illicit weapons have been reassigned to an expanding effort to learn more about the insurgents attacking United States troops, senior government officials said Wednesday.
The shift in the last two weeks appears to reflect a decision that the hunt for insurgents is becoming a more urgent task than the quest for chemical and biological weapons, which has so far proved unsuccessful despite the involvement of hundreds of people in the search.
In recent weeks as many as 40 attacks a day have been conducted against American troops in Iraq, and American commanders have acknowledged that they know relatively little about the attackers.
U.S. Commanders know little about 5,000 insurgents
American commanders have said they believe that there are about 5,000 Iraqi insurgents, nearly all of them former members of the Iraqi intelligence service and other organizations loyal to Saddam Hussein. But nearly seven months after President Bush declared an end to major combat, American intelligence officials say they know little about how they are organized and directed.
The officials have acknowledged that their resources, particularly in terms of Arabic speakers, were stretched thin by the demands of the weapons search and other intelligence priorities.
Dr. Kay's 600 million team fails to find WMD
In an interim report to Congress in early October, Dr. Kay acknowledged that his team had failed to find evidence in Iraq of the chemical and biological weapons and the reconstituted nuclear weapons program that the Bush administration cited as a principal reason for going to war.
Dr. Kay, whose work has been conducted in secret, said at the time that the search might take another six to nine months. But although Dr. Kay provides regular updates by videoconference to Mr. Tenet, a senior United States official said Dr. Kay did not plan to issue any further update to Congress soon.
But while Congress has appropriated an additional $600 million to continue the weapons hunt into next year, some on Capitol Hill are losing patience.
Sheikh Qahtan Hajj Salem of the town's tribal council warned that the violence of the response would backfire against US troops.
"It is the first time that the town has been attacked with such violence," he said. "The US response to this attack can only strengthen the resistance."
Sheikh Salem added that the tribal council had decided to ask the Americans to "leave the town, to pull out completely from the built-up area."
posted on December 2, 2003 07:38:22 AM new
All valid reasons for us ending our occupation of Iraq! How high must the death toll go before action is taken to remove our men and women?
An oil services firm formerly run by US Vice President Dick Cheney overcharged US forces for petrol in Iraq, a Pentagon audit has found.
The firm, Kellogg, Brown and Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton - has denied charging the government too much.
Pentagon officials said the audit found overcharging on fuel and other items and delays on some contracts.
The officials will not divulge the sums involved but say they are working with KBR to recover some of the money.
At issue are contracts worth over $15bn, according to the BBC's Nick Childs at the Pentagon.
He says the controversy comes at a difficult time for the Bush administration, which is under fire for limiting bids on a new round of Iraq contracts to countries which supported the US-led war there.
Bush Defends Restrictions on Iraq Contracts
President Dispatches Envoy to Europe to Discuss Easing Iraqi Debt
By Peter Finn, Peter Baker and Fred Barbash
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 11, 2003; 1:26 PM
President Bush today defended the Pentagon's decision to restrict to "friendly coalition folks" the distribution of $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts for Iraq.
Responding to questions before a Cabinet meeting today, Bush strongly backed the Pentagon's decision to exclude France, Germany, Russia, Canada and other nations from the award of U.S. reconstruction contracts in Iraq because the excluded countries have neither participated in the U.S.-led occupation or helped finance it.
"The expenditure of U.S. dollars will reflect the fact that U.S. troops and other troops risk their life . . . ," Bush said. "It's very simple. Our people risk their lives. Coalition -- friendly coalition folks risk their lives. And therefore, the contracting is going to reflect that. And that's what the U.S. taxpayers expect."
Asked by a reporter to respond to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's suggestion that there might be some issues of international law involved, Bush said: "International law? I better call my lawyer. . . . I don't know what you're talking about, about international law. Better consult my lawyer."
