Bush to Iraq: YOU TAKE OVER

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2416016,00.html

The Sunday Times October 22, 2006


Bush to Iraqis: you take over
Sarah Baxter



AMERICA has responded to spiralling violence in Iraq by preparing an exit strategy that will allow coalition troops to withdraw by forcing the government in Baghdad to take responsibility for security.
The Pentagon is drawing up plans for a “forcing mechanism” that would set target dates for handing control to the Iraqis. American troops would pull back to their bases, leaving military advisers “embedded” with the Iraqi security forces.



Sources suggest troops will be concentrated in the most violent areas of Iraq, such as Baghdad and parts of Anbar province west of the capital. They could be reinforced with soldiers from pacified regions.

There is a growing consensus in Washington and London that an urgent change of direction is needed after America’s failure to curb violence in Baghdad. At least 30 people died last night in a mortar attack on a market in Mahmudiya, south of the capital.

President George W Bush consulted his military chiefs yesterday on a shift in tactics, saying he would make “every necessary change” to prevail.

American officials also held secret talks in Amman, Jordan, last week with insurgent leaders, including the Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the main Sunni militias.

The emerging exit strategy bears a strong resemblance to options favoured by the Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, that is due to publish its recommendations in the new year. A senior US official said the new course was likely to be implemented after the group reports, giving the Bush administration “political cover”.

“We’re not going to pack up and go home, but the situation is grim,” the official said. “People here are desperate. There is a lot of deep thinking going on.”

A senior diplomatic source said there was talk of a summit between Tony Blair and Bush in January “to hammer out the detail” of a new course. Downing Street denied any plans had been made.

The Foreign Office is urgently reviewing its options for Iraq. Blair indicated to the Commons last week that it was government policy to hand over security to the Iraqis within the next 10-16 months.

A source close to the Baker group suggested the Iraqi government and security forces would be given “benchmarks” for taking control. Some could be political, such as convening a constitutional conference to devolve more power to the Kurdish, Shi’ite and Sunni regions.

Bush is losing patience with the inability of the government of Nouri al-Maliki to get a grip on security. “The approach will be closer to the British model,” said a senior British source. “Instead of the Americans saying, ‘Why should we hand over an area to the Iraqis?’, the emphasis will be, ‘Why shouldn’t we?’” Lieutenant-General John Sattler, the marine commander of the battle to retake control of Falluja in 2004, is in charge of developing the Pentagon’s new strategy. He is drawing up plans for target dates that would force the Iraqi government to assume control.

“You say to the Iraqis, ‘You’re going to take this over in a month’s time, it’s your problem. If you can’t handle it, tell us why’,” said a defence source.

The Iraq Study Group is believed to favour withdrawing troops gradually to neighbouring countries such as Kuwait. A rapid reaction force could be established to deal with potential crises. If America withdraws in this way, Britain would be likely to leave Iraq entirely, according to a senior British source.

Baker has also suggested that America might have to abandon its long-term ambition of bringing democracy to the Middle East in favour of “representative government, not necessarily democracy”.





The Sunday Times October 22, 2006


Bush plots 'good finish' exit strategy from Iraq
Sarah Baxter, Washington



WITH mounting American casualties and growing political heat on the Republicans in the November congressional elections, the pressure is on for President George W Bush to “finish well” in Iraq.
Every potential exit strategy runs the risk of plunging the country into further chaos and bloodshed. This explains why Bush has insisted in recent days that he is merely interested in adjusting the “tactics” needed to secure stability.



Yet plans are emerging for a dramatic change of course that could lead to an orderly withdrawal of coalition forces. The Pentagon is determined to force the faltering government of Nouri al-Maliki to shoulder responsibility for Iraq’s security.

Defence chiefs have come to the conclusion that the Iraqis will never be ready to let American forces leave without a “forcing mechanism” that would set target dates area-by-area for US troop withdrawals.

Bush held a teleconference yesterday with General John Abizaid and General George Casey, the top US commanders in Iraq. According to White House spin, it was little more than a routine call, but the generals have been urgently canvassing senior officers with experience in Iraq for their views on new tactics.

Casey has consulted Iraqi officials on “projections” for when the Americans can hand over control of specific areas. Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said last week that the Iraqi government had to take control of its security “sooner rather than later”.

A raid on Amara by several hundred black-robed Mahdi army militia last week revealed how precarious it can be to leave security to the Iraqis. British forces, which had left the city two months ago, were placed on standby on Friday to return.

The setback has not thrown Rumsfeld’s plans off course. “The biggest mistake would be not to pass things over to the Iraqis,” he said, adding that there was “no doubt” some of the projections for handing over control would not be met. “In some cases, once we meet the projection, we may have to go back and do it again if it doesn’t work,” Rumsfeld said.

The Bush administration’s exit strategy increasingly coincides with some of the views of the Iraq study group co-chaired by James Baker, a former secretary of state and Bush family friend. It was commissioned by Congress with the president’s approval to come up with fresh options.

The group will report in January and is believed to favour setting political and military “benchmarks” enabling US forces to withdraw to its bases — and ultimately to nearby countries such as Kuwait — leaving US military advisers embedded with Iraqi forces.

Key differences remain over the wisdom of talking to Syria and Iran about the future of Iraq. Bush and Rumsfeld are sceptical of the idea floated by Baker, but Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, is “interested and wants to be engaged”, according to a source close to the group.

The Baker commission is also interested in devolving power to the Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish regions of Iraq. Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, explicitly ruled out a regional “partition” last week but said America supported an “ongoing” debate about federalism.

Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative, said the influence of the Baker group on the administration was overstated: “I don’t believe Bush will agree to the proposals they are rumoured to be mulling over. He has two years left as president and he is not going to hand in the towel and pass responsibility to a commission.”

He warned that the fate of Iraq was unlikely to be decided in America: “The hope is that a political leadership will emerge in Iraq that can calm the situation and I don’t know how we can help with that. So far we’ve been picking the leaders, such as Maliki, and we’re not necessarily the best judges.”

Eliot Cohen, another prominent neoconservative, argued in The Wall Street Journal last week that all the “Plan Bs” for Iraq were so flawed that he would “quietly” endorse a coup by a junta of military modernisers. It would involve, he admitted, a “substantial repast of crow” for the Bush administration — an American expression for eating humble pie.

This way out

PHASED WITHDRAWAL

The Pentagon’s preferred strategy. Control handed to the Iraqis area by area. Troops to fall back to bases as a prelude to withdrawal.


For: a flexible exit strategy that would enable US forces to be massed in problem areas such as Baghdad.


Against: Iraqi security forces may not be up to the job, sending US forces back to square one.




TALKS WITH IRAN AND SYRIA

A key proposal of the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by the former secretary of state James Baker. Supported by the British.


For: would help to quell the insurgency in Sunni and Shi’ite strongholds of Iraq and reduce sectarian violence.


Against: Iran and America at loggerheads over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Syria may co-operate, but not Iran.




REGIONAL PARTITION

Power would devolve to three semi-autonomous Kurdish, Sunni and Shi’ite regions of Iraq, leaving a weak national government in Baghdad to handle foreign policy, border security and a fair share-out of oil revenues.


For: desired by the Kurds and a substantial section of Shi’ites.


Against: strongly opposed by Sunnis. Could lead to civil war.




IRAQI STRONGMAN OR JUNTA

Nobody’s preferred option outside Iraq, but disappointment with the government of Nouri al-Maliki is leading some US officials to think the unthinkable. Most likely scenario would be a back-room deal for an “advisory council” of generals and politicians to push Maliki out if he fails to establish order in coming months.


For: a method of last resort to impose order on Iraq.


Against: spells the humiliating collapse of Bush’s democracy project. This way out

[LoungeMachine]

Re: Bush to Iraq: YOU TAKE OVER

Originally posted by LoungeMachine




The Pentagon is drawing up plans for a “forcing mechanism” that would set target dates for handing control to the Iraqis.

How is this different from what DEMOCRATS have been calling for for a year now??????????????????????????

Why is this not an "artificial timetable"???????????

Why is this not cuntsidered "cut n run"??????????????


:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Nickdfresh]

About fucking time. And they need to begin to withdrawal further than their bases.

And we should have been talking to the Sunni Guerrillas two years ago, both the US and the Sunnis have a vested interest in not letting Iraq gravitate too closely too Iran...

[Nickdfresh]

I just can't believe Bush is going to cut-and-run like this!

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
I just can't believe Bush is going to cut-and-run like this!

He's a terrorist sympathizing Defeatican

[Nickdfresh]

We better not leave until we achieve total victory, including having leaders of 'al-Qaida of Iraq' signing unconditional surrender papers on the deck of the USS George HW Bush!.

[LoungeMachine]

And this from those crazy Scots............




Defeat looms for embattled Bush
ALEX MASSIE
IN WASHINGTON

WHEN American troops were delayed by a massive sandstorm en route to Baghdad in the spring of 2003, the first creeping comparisons with Vietnam could be heard or read around the world. That the delay was only temporary proved immaterial; the lure of the Vietnam analogy proved irresistible. Ever since then conservatives have tried to avoid any comparisons with the last war America lost.

Which made it all the more surprising that President George Bush should have told ABC News that he agreed with the suggestion that the recent spike in attacks from insurgents in Iraq was the Jihadist equivalent of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

Conservatives - and some military historians - have argued that the US army won the tactical battle during Tet, but lost the broader strategic war as the offensive became a tipping point for public opinion in the United States.

Something similar seems to be happening now. The insurgents know they need not win a battle; they merely need to persuade the American public they cannot be beaten. "They believe that if they can create enough chaos, the American people will grow sick and tired of the Iraqi effort and will cause government to withdraw," said Bush.

The signs are they are succeeding. With less than three weeks to go before the mid-term elections, the war has never been less popular. Polls published this week found only 34% of Americans now support the decision to invade Iraq. Only one in three Americans think the price paid in blood and treasure remains justified. There are few true believers outside the White House any more.

In public Bush accepts that the midterms will be a referendum on the war but refuses to concede an inch to his critics. "A president must make decisions based upon principle and stand by the principles by which he makes decisions in order to achieve peace" he told Fox News. "And that sometimes people will agree with my decisions and sometimes they won't, but you cannot make decisions based upon opinion polls."

However, the White House is searching for alternative policy ideas.

Bush spent much of yesterday reviewing Iraq strategy with senior commanders - for a second day in a row. Setting the stage for a possible announcement, however, the White House insisted all that is in question is a change in tactics, not a strategy overhaul.

In total, 73 American troops were killed in the first three weeks of October, an upsurge of violence that could scarcely have come at more politically inconvenient time for the President and his party. Republicans have enjoyed a stranglehold on power in Washington ever since Bush was elected in 2000. That is now threatened.

Though the federal government's sluggish, inefficient response to Hurricane Katrina and a series of Washington scandals have damaged the administration, the war is the issue that could gut Republicans next month.

"We don't think that there's been a flip-over point [in terms of public opinion]," said White House spokesman, Tony Snow, last week. "From ... the standpoint of this administration, we're going to continue pursuing victory aggressively."

The problem for the administration is that the seemingly endless commitment to Iraq - or at least the administration's inability to provide a timetable for withdrawing American troops from the country - has sapped the public's patience with the administration and its supporters in Congress.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman says voters should be aware that by voting for Democrats they are voting for weakness overseas. Do they really "want another Taliban-like Afghanistan between Syria and Iran. Is that acceptable?"

This line of attack, used successfully in 2002 and 2004, has, however, lost some of its potency. Democrats have countered with a simple message: time for a change.

Nonetheless, Mehlman presses on. The choice is stark he says. "Do we have an interrogation programme against guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad or not? Do we have a Patriot Act or not? Do we have surveillance? Do we have missile defence? A whole series of things that don't involve Iraq."

Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives to retake control. If the polls prove accurate they are on course to achieve that handsomely and could win as many as 30 seats from the Republicans. In the context of modern American politics that would constitute a landslide victory.

Such is the widespread dissatisfaction with Washington politics that seats previously considered uncompetitive are now in play. This weekend the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will begin buying advertising time in seats in Minnesota, Nevada that were not thought realistic targets two months ago.

"If the vote were today, we would not hold the House," said Congressman Mark Edward Souder, a Republican in Indiana who held his own seat with 69% of the vote two years ago but expects a much closer race next month and fears that a Democratic landslide might even imperil his own seat.

Republicans are marginally more confident of retaining control of the Senate. Democrats need to take six seats to regain power. Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Montana all seem likely to produce Democratic victories. That would leave the party needing to pick up two of the three remaining "toss-up" states: Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia.

Republicans have injected extra funds into those races, hoping they can act as a "firewall" to halt the advancing Democrats.

Although Republicans have traditionally enjoyed a more efficient get-out-the-vote operation, Democrats seem to be more motivated to go to the polls this year than Republicans. Even some of the Republicans' most devoted and reliable supporters are less enamoured of the party than they once were. Just 57% of white evangelical Christians currently approve of Bush's job performance for instance, down from 72% in January 2005 when he was sworn in for his second term.

Mike Franc, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, one of Washington's leading conservative think tanks, says: "Republicans did a lot to soften up their own base to make it very easy for rank-and-file, conservative-minded voters to say there is not a whole lot of difference between the two parties. That has become a cancerous development on the Republican biosystem."

Each regiment in the Republican coalition blames another for the party's current troubles. "It is pre-criminations," said Rich Lowry, editor of National Review. "If a party looks like it is going to take a real pounding, this sort of debate is healthy. What is unusual is that it is happening beforehand."

Factor in the impact of an unfortunately timed sex scandal involving a Florida Republican and teenage party workers on Capitol Hill and the electoral climate could scarcely be more conducive for Democrats.

Privately, Republicans have conceded as many as a dozen seats already, ensuring that on election day, however improbably, the party will have to prevail in nearly every other marginal seat across the country. Few political observers in Washington believe there's any chance that can happen.

The more Bush tries to help the worse he makes it. The last thing any Republican locked in a too-close-for-comfort race wants right now is a visit from the Commander-in-Chief whose mere presence tars local candidates by association. In Maryland, for instance, the Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele does not even mention his party affiliation in TV advertisements.

Keeping the focus on the President helps Democrats nationalise the election, turning it into a referendum upon the President and the Republican Congress.

Senior Republican strat-egists argue a vote for the Democrats is a negative act, not a positive endorsement.

Republicans last week unveiled an advertisement featuring the image and words of Osama bin Laden and a warning that "these are the stakes" in the November 7 election.

Though Republicans received a small lift around September 11, as America remembered the 9/11carnage five years on, continuing violence in Iraq has washed that advantage away. Republicans cling to the hope there is still more than a fortnight until polling day and that a lot, perhaps even a miracle, can happen before then.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine


. Just 57% of white evangelical Christians currently approve of Bush's job performance for instance, down from 72% in January 2005 when he was sworn in for his second term.

.

[Nickdfresh]

Talking too the enemy...

October 22, 2006
Diplomat Cites U.S. 'Stupidity' in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:29 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown ''arrogance'' and ''stupidity'' in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television aired late Saturday, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department offered an unusually candid assessment of America's war in Iraq.

''We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,'' he said.

''We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the solution to the hell and the killings in Iraq is linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation,'' he said, speaking in Arabic from Washington. ''The Iraqi government is convinced of this.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, in Moscow with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, later said that Fernandez disputes the description of his comments.

''What he says is, that is not an accurate reflection of what he said,'' McCormack said. Asked whether the Bush administration believes that history will show a record of arrogance or stupidity in Iraq, McCormack replied ''No.''

A senior Bush administration official questioned whether the remarks had been translated correctly. ''Those comments obviously don't reflect our position,'' said the official, who asked not to be identified because a transcript had not been available for review.

The question of negotiations between the United States and insurgency factions has repeatedly surfaced over the past two years, but details have been sketchy. One issue that was often raised in connection with such negotiations was the extent of amnesty the United States and its Iraqi allies were willing to offer to the insurgents if they disarmed and joined the political process.

Fernandez spoke to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera after a man claiming to speak for Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party told the network the United States was seeking a face-saving exodus from Iraq and that insurgents were ready to negotiate but won't lay down arms.

''Abu Mohammed'', a pseudonym for the man, appeared to set near impossible conditions for the start of any talks with the Americans, including the return to service of Saddam's armed forces, the annulment of every law adopted since Saddam's ouster, the recognition of insurgent groups as the sole representatives of the Iraqi people and a timetable for a gradual, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops in Iraq.

''The occupier has started to search for a face-saving way out. The resistance, with all its factions, is determined to continue fighting until the enemy is brought down to his knees and sits on the negotiating table or is dealt, with God's help, a humiliating defeat,'' he said. The man wore a suit and appeared to be in his 40s but his face was concealed.

''There is an element of the farcical in that statement,'' Fernandez said of Abu Mohammed's comments. ''They are very removed from reality.''

Still Fernandez warned that failure to pacify the widening sectarian strife in Iraq as well as an enduring insurgency would damage the entire Middle East.

''We are witnessing failure in Iraq and that's not the failure of the United States alone but it is a disaster for the region. Failure in Iraq will be a failure for the United States but a disaster for the region.''

Although the actual identity of Abu Mohammed remains unknown, the interview adds to growing indications that Iraq's Sunni insurgents sense the tide may be turning against the United States and the Iraqi government it backs.

Fernandez's comments, on the other hand, join a series of sobering remarks by President Bush and the U.S. military in recent days.

Bush this week conceded that ''right now it's tough'' for U.S. forces in Iraq and on Saturday met with his top military and security advisers to study new tactics to curb the staggering violence in Iraq. Three U.S. Marines were killed Saturday, making October the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq this year.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said attacks in Baghdad were up 22 percent in the first three weeks of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan despite a two-month old U.S.-Iraqi drive to crush violence in the Iraqi capital.

On Wednesday, and again on Friday, Sunni insurgents believed to belong to al-Qaida in Iraq, staged military-like parades in the heart of five towns in the vast and mainly desert province of Anbar, including the provincial capital Ramadi. Some of these parades, in which hooded gunmen paraded with their weapons, took place within striking distance of U.S. forces stationed in nearby bases.

The parades proved to be a propaganda success, with TV footage of Wednesday's parade shown in many parts of the world, a likely embarrassment for the U.S. military as well as the embattled Iraqi government.