Hi. I'm a staff writer with AlterNet, and Iraq is one of my beats -- I also edit our special coverage area. I spend several hours a day reading the news out of the far fringes of the Empire, and every week I produce this mildly snarky digest with lots of links so busy people can keep up. I also produce a free weekly newsletter with plenty of great coverage, which you can sign up for here. Thanks.
To the round-up...
The Los Angeles Times takes the Understated Headline of the Week award with this gem:
Maliki, Bush may differ on Iran's role
Gosh, ya think?
While the Iraqi PM was hobnobbing with his Iranian counterpart, McClatchy reports that Dick Cheney has been pushing for airstrikes against Iranian targets in Iraq. Reporters Warren Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy Youssef add:
The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media.
The most prominent of these voices in the military is Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, now the chief spokesflack for the coalition forces in Iraq. It's a job he got fresh out of the White House, where he served as a special assistant to Bush. His word is like gold.
Judith Miller's old writing partner, Michael Gordon, had a nice bit of stenography on the story, repeating the claim that the "Explosive Formed Penetrators" -- AKA "bombs" -- that have taken the majority of American lives are so super hard to manufacture that they must be coming from Iran. As blogger Duncan Black put it:
Those of us who stayed awake the past couple of years remember the claims that those caveman Iraqis, once so sophisticated that they were going to DESTROY US ALL WITH THEIR DEATH RAYS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, were now such losers that they couldn't possibly build the incredibly advanced EFPs.
Of course, a local, home-grown EFP factory was discovered in Iraq a few weeks after the US started making the claim.
I wonder how anyone could believe that Iraqi insurgents really require much in the way of outside assistance. The country is flooded with guns and explosives and unemployed vets with military training. And, again, a third of the weapons we've sent to Iraq are missing.
Anyway, while Maliki was in Iran, Iranian officials were in Iraq for another set of talks with the US and US forces were bombing so-called "Iran-backed" insurgents in Baghdad.
The military claimed that 30 "militants" were killed in the strikes. According to Iraqi sources, those militants included a number of women and children. Take a second and go look at the pictures of the wailing, grief-stricken survivors during the funeral march that followed if you have any doubts that our military-heavy policy in Iraq is perfectly sefl-defeating. See those kids? They're a generation being raised on violence.
Let's talk about who is, is not, may be and never was on "our" side. Get out your scorecard.
In Diyala, pro-Iranian militias "control" the police force. In Anbar, two US-backed Sunni militias are vying for position on the eve of provincial elections. Both have claimed that the other is fixing the vote, and have already promised to contest the results. The Los Angeles Times reports that the US has partnered with the Sunni insurgent group, Revolutionaries of Amiriya. The Washington Post reported this:
Forward Operating Base Iskan, Iraq - Inside a brightly lit room, the walls adorned with memorials to 23 dead American soldiers, Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage stared at the three Sunni tribal leaders he wanted to recruit.
Their fighters had battled U.S. troops. Balcavage suspected they might have attacked some of his own men. The trio accused another sheik of having links to the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. That sheik, four days earlier, had promised the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq and protect a strategic road.
"Who do you trust? Who do you not trust?" said Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division, his voice dipping out of earshot.
An hour later, he signed up some of America's newest allies.
U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.
Honestly, bribery is a very effective policy. But I wouldn't want to be the one to tell the parents of those 23 dead soldiers that we may be putting their killers on the payroll.
Meanwhile, the Arabic press, via Iraqslogger, reports that US forces are signing up Sunni tribesmen around Baghdad to new military units that answer to US commanders and are doing so without the consent of the Shiite-dominated Ministry of Defense.
And in Tikrit, the online mag Monsters and Critics reports that: "US forces, backed by helicopters, cordoned off the house of Sheikh Abu al-Manar al-Alami" along with six bodyguards. The Sheikh, described as a moderate Salafist, is accused of plotting a series of bombings that rocked Kirkuk a week earlier, causing over 150 casualties.
Clean-cut case? Nope, this is Iraq:
The governor of Salah el-Din, Hamad Hmoud al-Qesi, denied the accusations, describing them as groundless. He said that al-Almi was an Islamic scholar who has contributed towards spreading security and stability in central and northern Iraq.
The province was establishing contact with US forces to secure the release of al-Alami and his bodyguards, al-Almi's brother said.
Sheikh Mohammad Khudier, known as Abu al-Manar al-Alami, 50, is the sheikh of the Moderate Salafist Islamic movement in Iraq. Its military wing is the Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI), which targets US soldiers in most of its operations, according to the independent Voices of Iraq news agency.
And our good allies the Turks have reportedly followed up on their promise to chase PKK "terrorists" -- your call whether they're terrorists or independence fighters -- into Iraq with several hundred commandos crossing the border this week. It was the same week in which Maliki traveled to Ankara for high-level talks with the Turks. The talks were reportedly stalemated over disagreements over how to manage the tense situation on Iraq's Northern border. Let me translate: the talks were stalled over the fact that Maliki is effectively the PM of the Green Zone and maybe parts of Baghdad, and a federal government effort to confront Kurdish separatist within the Kurdish Autonomous Zone is pretty much out of the question. The long and tall of it is that Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan asked Maliki to sign a treaty that would guarantee the Iraqi government would take action, he refused, they settled on a "memo of understanding," shook hands and Turkish commandos ... invaded.
Meanwhile, Maliki's government continues to unravel, as five more members of his cabinet resigned this week. And in the Arab language press, again courtesy of IraqSlogger, there are reports that Bush, who it was reported just last week has regular "soulful" phone calls with the PM, is also bad-mouthing him to Iraqi president Jalal Talabani:
According to the newspaper [Az-Zaman], Bush told Talabani in a phone call that "(Maliki's performance is) weak, and (Maliki) does not understand (Bush's) messages concerning (Bush's) support for the political process in Iraq. Furthermore, Az-Zaman alleged that Bush qualified his statements of support for the political process in Iraq as being a support "not for the person of Maliki, but for the process as a whole."
This comes a week after Iraq's largest Sunni legislative bloc pulled out of the government. A summit, not yet scheduled, between representatives of all of the major players in the war-torn country, is considered to be a last gasp try for political reconciliation.
If the regime has just a few more defections, the parliament will have the two-thirds super-majority needed for a vote of no-confidence.
Back on the home front, much of the media seems to have embraced the narrative that things are looking up in Iraq -- despite the fact that civilian deaths were up by a third last month despite the fact that there are more troops in Iraq than at any time since the war began. Last week, I discussed the amazing story of two long-time war supporters -- Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack -- who went to Iraq and returned still supporting the war. This week, we discover that the trip was planned and organized by the military -- by a former aid to Dick Cheney no less -- who babysat them at every turn. It also turns out that a third member of the party, Anthony Cordesman, a former Reagan appointee, also was on the trip and sai he saw no progress whatsoever. Talkingpoints Memo notes that the media booked O'Hanlon and Pollack solid and ignored Cordesman.
It's media malpractice, and I'd say it has a direct correlation with the fact that a things continue to get worse in Iraq, support for the latest "surge" appears to be growing.
Speaking of the media, if you were out of the country, you might have missed the whole brouhaha over the New Republic's reports by one Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a soldier who may or may not have been truthful in claiming that US troops do some nasty things in Iraq. The right has gotten itself into a lather over Beauchamp -- see the indefatigable Krauthammer's column for example -- but I just don't get it. Assuming his reports were fabricated -- I don't assume that personally, BTW -- are they arguing that US troops are without sin?
Because even if his dispatches are false, that doesn't have anything to do with, for example, the fact that a court of military law found US soldiers guilty of gang-raping a fourteen year old and then shooting her and her entire family to cover it up -- one of the soldiers was sentenced to 110 years this week. It doesn't change the story I relayed last week about a group of marines that had gone looking for a suspected insurgent to mete out some vigilante justice, and, failing to find him, took his neighbor -- a father of ten-- out and executed him for nothing (two of the marines in that case were discharged this week after serving less than two years). It doesn't change the fact that 24 unarmed civilians were massacred in Haditha -- one of the marines in that incident was arraigned this week and evidence was presented that he had shot women and children -- including several little girls -- to death in cold blood. Beauchamp's reports also had nothing to do with the soldier accused of premeditated murder for executing an unarmed and wounded detainee. He testified this week that he was just following his commander's order to "finish him off."
So, what impact does it have if Beauchamp's stories about playing with the skull of a dead Iraqi or running down dogs in a Humvee aren't true? They pale in comparison to what's being revealed every week in military courtrooms.
Ok, we're coming to the home stretch. Here are some quick hits:
The wife of former interim PM Iyad Allawi (who was accused of being a brutal killer) was convicted in the UK of "dangerous driving," after "she allegedly drove her car into a parking enforcement officer and continued traveling with the terrified officer on the hood of the vehicle." They must be a charming couple.
The Brits are out of Basra with their forces hunkered down around the airport. The town is under control of Shiite militias, violence is on the rise, and The Gaurdian reports that US officials are very concerned about the political impact of a Brit pull-out. Not sure what they're so worried about; the mandate for Estonia's 35 Special Forces operators has been extended through December.
The UN Security Council is considering a resolution, written by the US and Brits, that would expand the body's role in Iraq. Despite the systematic abuse, I'm sure they'll take us back if we bring flowers.
The Iraqi power grid is on the verge of collapse, causing continued black-outs and water shortages. And IraqSlogger reports that much of Western Baghdad is without water and has been for almost a week. From the department of obvious statements, the reporter adds: "With temperatures in Iraq edging close to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, there could not be a more dangerously inconvenient time for Baghdad's decrepit infrastructure to fail on the delivery of water."
And a new RAND Corporation study that no doubt cost millions of taxpayer dollars concludes that if things don't get better in Iraq, "domestic pressure" will force a withdrawal. From the article, it's hard to know if they mean domestic here or domestic there. Either way, I could have told you that gratis.
Not sure what to make of this one:
Iraqi forces surrounded a headquarter for the General Motors Corporation in southeastern Baghdad's Oqba Ibn Nafi square and arrested all its security guards, a source from the corporation said on Sunday.
Finally, the Labor Department says that 1001 civilian contractors have been killed during the war and subsequent occupation.
OK, if you haven't yet signed up for my weekly War on Iraq newsletter, I don't know what you're waiting for. There's a lot more coverage than we can fit on the front-page and I'll send it to you every week.
Here's a taste of what we ran this week in the special coverage area:
Helping Enemies in Iraq
Martin Schram
US troops are under fire ... from weapons distributed by the US.
Al-Maliki Declines Turkish Terror Treaty; Kurds Pass Oil Law
Juan Cole
Iraqi-Turkish relations are strained, and the Kurds pass an oil law before the national government in Baghdad.
Vets of Iraq, Afghan Wars Surging Into Homeless Shelters
Anna Badkhen
The consequences of war can be seen in the nation's homeless shelters.
Disaster Looms as Saddam-Era Tigris River Dam Verges on Collapse
Patrick Cockburn
A devastating disaster looms over Mosul, an Iraqi city of almost 2 million.
That's the good stuff. Choose a story and enjoy -- I'll see you next week.