Gary Monro’s blog

There is a suggestion that Tehran is arming and training insurgents in Iraq to kill British soldiers. The British government’s response to evidence that foreign powers may be killing our soldiers differs quite markedly from their attitude when they couldn’t find WMDs that they didn’t really know that Iraq even possessed:

“The particular nature of those devices lead us either to Iranian elements or to Hezbollah… however, we can’t be sure of this,” [said Mr Blair].

Despite the qualification, Mr Blair said there could be “no justification” for interfering in Iraq. The Ministry of Defence said these new claims supported the prime minister’s comments. A spokesman said the evidence pointed towards Iranian involvement, but it did not have decisive proof.

Reiterating the prime minister’s statement he said: “What is clear is that there are new types of explosives being used by insurgents in Basra and elsewhere in Iraq. “The particular nature of them leads us to think of Iranian elements or Hezbollah”.

But he said there was no clear proof Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was involved.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the UK hoped to discuss the evidence with Iran.

So we invade a country that may or may not have some nasty weapons and which definitely has not killed our soldiers but require rigorous proof - and discussion - with a power that may very well be doing its level-best to harm our soldiers wherever it can?

I don’t think we should have invaded Iraq (been into all that here) but I do very much care about what happens to our soldiers. And since we aren’t attacking Iran but they are attacking us then I believe there is a strong case for sending them some high-explosive greetings from HM Forces.

In the meantime, in what passes for a show of strength these days, the British authorities showed they mean business in Basra by promising to pay compensation for the damage caused to a police station they raided in order to rescue two of their captured comrades. They also apologised for rescuing their comrades.

“We hope to avoid a repetition of such incidents.”

We’ll only avoid a repetition of such incidents if none of our soldiers are kidnapped by Iraqi police or militia. Otherwise, I very much hope to see such incidents repeated as often as is necessary.

US generals are saying publicly now that the insurgency in Iraq could go on for many years and that, in fact, holding out until it’s over is a non-runner. The emphasis must be on training the Iraqis to deal with it themselves.

Herein lies a problem, however. Leaving aside the relative inability of the very average Iraqi army to fill in for the mighty US one to combat a fierce and murderous suicide campaign, the very presence of the US military means the Iraqi Army will never learn to stand on its own two feet.

Furthermore, according to the Generals, it may well be that the US presence in Iraq is actually fuelling the very insurgency they are fighting.

During a trip to Washington, the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East.

“This has been hinted at before, but it’s a big shift for them to be saying that publicly,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It means they recognize that there is a cost to staying just as there is a benefit to staying. And this has not really been factored in as a central part of the strategy before.”

I doubt the insurgency will decrease significantly until all the coalition troops are gone - and even then the killing may go on against what the insurgents will see as collaborators. This will include most of the Iraqi security and police forces.

Additionally, an ideal exit strategy is going to be difficult - if impossible - to come by. If staying in Iraq until the insurgency is defeated is now not an option then the US has to be extremely careful that any pullout does not appear to be surrender in the insurgents’ eyes. Every attempt will be made to ensure it’s seen as one.

This war between the west and Muslim terrorists is being played out on battlefield Iraq. The world is watching but it is the US who has most to lose if the world concludes that it blinked first…

From The Times:

The entire lay leadership team of the main Anglican church in Iraq is presumed to have been killed after they were attacked while returning from a conference in Jordan.

Canon Andrew White, of the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East, who is the clergyman in charge of the church, said: “Anglican leaders in Baghdad have been missing for two weeks and they are presumed dead.”

British Bishops recently decided to make an apology for the Iraq war in an act of public penetance. In the light of the deaths of a number of their fellow religionists the response of British Imams will be informative.

After giving reasons for why we should not have invaded Iraq in the first place I said that, once there, we really were in no position to bail out in the short-term. I suggested that if the coalition withdrew from Iraq then they’d leave the country facing a civil war.

My reasoning - such that it was - was that the coalition could keep the opposing sides apart long enough for the installation of something vaguely democratic while in the meantime training the Iraqi security services to carry out the formidable task of maintaining order once the coalition had left.

Recent events seem to be suggesting that one of my underlying objections to the war - that you can’t just install your own personal favoured government system in a country that has its own ideas about how it wants to be governed - is proving to be so. It seems that the Iraqi security forces - in Basra at least - are so heavily infiltrated by the very people they’re supposed to be fighting that the British Army is claiming to be in control of only about 25% of them. The infiltrators are going to be representing religious and tribal groupings and are probably positioning themselves for the final showdown when power is up for grabs and the strongest will get the booty.

If this is the case and if the declaration of war against Shi’ites is being taken seriously by Sunnis then maybe the civil war that is looming is about to become a fact.

If a civil war is inevitable should the coalition withdraw? Where is the advantage of being the common enemy of all three factions?

Would it be better to acknowledge an impending civil war (if, indeed, it’s agreed that one is inevitable) and actively partition the country rather than wait for it to take place in an uncontrolled - and violent - manner?

Or should we dig in and simply fight it out?

The Iraq situation seems muddled and confusing. What do people think we should do next?

Seems some suicide bombers, erm, weren’t.

A suicide bomber captured before he could blow himself up in a Shiite mosque claimed he was kidnapped, beaten and drugged by insurgents who forced him to take on the mission. The U.S. military said its medical tests indicated the man was telling the truth.

He might not be the only one.

His story was similar to those recounted by other captured militants. The captives routinely claim they were either coerced or fooled by insurgent leaders who promised them a role in the holy war against the U.S. military, only to find themselves as would-be suicide bombers sent to attack civilians.

Their confessions make good television:

Televised interrogations and confessions are becoming increasingly common as Iraqi and American officials capture more militants and use their confessions in an attempt to undercut support for militants.

Maybe the insurgency is running a bit short on volunteers?

“The kidnapping demonstrates the desperation of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his ability to execute his strategy,'’ said Col. Billy J. Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman .

“He knows that he can’t win against Iraqi security and coalition forces, and is therefore willing to use innocent Iraqi citizens to further his cause to disrupt the election process and prevent a free and democratic Iraq,'’ he said.

Nearly 200 people have been killed in Iraq in the last 24 hours as certain Sunnis declare war on the Shia community. It seems that Iraq is fracturing along the faultlines kept together by decades of tyranny.

Shortly after yesterday’s wave of explosions and shootings, a group linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, calling itself al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility on an Islamist website and urged all Sunni Muslims to “wake up from your slumber” and join the fight.

The group claimed that the carnage came in response to a successful Iraqi and US joint military offensive against the rebel stronghold of Tal Afar, a staging post on the Syrian border used by foreign recruits, five days earlier.

The Times has learned that al-Zarqawi, considered to be Osama bin Laden’s lieutenant in Iraq, has united insurgent groups in Baghdad to target the Shia community with the aim of bringing civil war to Iraq as it prepares for a referendum on its constitution next month.

According to US military intelligence sources , al-Zarqawi, the man responsible for the bloodiest acts of terror in Iraq over the past two years, now commands thousands of fighters from various rival groups and is set to order further waves of bombings.

Al-Zarqawi promised war, without mercy, against all Shi’ites everywhere - a pledge that will probably raise the $25 million bounty already on his head. In the meantime I stand by my original assertion that deliberately partitioning Iraq now rather than being eventually forced to deal with a de facto partitioned Iraq will avoid the inevitable bloodshed in between times.

Iraq’s President, the unfortunately named Jalal Talabani, believes Saddam Hussein had confessed to war crimes.

According to The Times the President said:

… an investigating judge had been “able to extract confessions from Saddam’s mouth” about a series of massacres and war crimes committed by his regime.

President Talabani’s more interesting quote was this one:

“I met the investigator who questioned Saddam,” said Mr Talabani said in an interview on state television. “He said he had extracted important confessions from Saddam Hussein and he signed them… There are 100 reasons to sentence Saddam to death.”

If Saddam is sentenced to death where will Britain stand on this? According to EU law we are not allowed to deport even terrorists to countries where they may be executed so I doubt our involvement in a coalition that is facilitating the death penalty will endear us to our masters in Europe. Will our government seek to over-rule the death penalty for Saddam?

Nice to see Sunni Iraqis helping the coalition forces:

US warplanes bombed suspected safehouses being used by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s insurgent group near the Syrian border yesterday during what one local leader called an unprecedented push by a Sunni Arab tribe to drive out Zarqawi’s foreign-led forces.

Ali Rawi, an emergency-room director in the border city of Qaim, said at least 56 people — the majority of them apparently followers of Zarqawi — were killed in yesterday’s air strikes and ground fighting. Zarqawi’s group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, said in a statement posted in local mosques that it had lost 17 men.

The clashes between Sunni Arab tribes and insurgents, coupled with growing vows by Iraq’s Sunni minority to turn out in force for national elections in the coming months, coincided with US hopes for defusing the two-year-old insurgency. US military leaders have repeatedly expressed optimism that public anger at insurgent violence would deprive insurgents of their base of support.

Terrible news from the US as the death toll from Hurricane Katrina runs into the hundreds.

Hundreds of people are feared dead in Mississippi, and the Louisiana city of New Orleans is badly flooded.

The city mayor said rescuers were unable to retrieve the dead. “They’re just pushing them aside,” he said.

Amid worsening conditions, officials plan to evacuate a New Orleans stadium where up to 20,000 people took shelter.

I recall seeing the Mayor on television a few days ago ordering people to leave the area. It seems his advice, which I initially thought was a little dramatic, turned out to be prescient - to put it mildly.

Then in Baghdad we have more than 600 dead in a Shia march to a holy shrine.

The incident happened on a bridge over the Tigris River as about one million Shias marched to a shrine for an annual religious festival.

Witnesses said panic spread because of rumours that suicide bombers were in the crowd. Many victims were crushed to death or fell in the river and drowned.

The pilgrims had already withstood one attack:

Earlier, mortar rounds had been fired into the crowd, killing 16 people.

About 36 others were injured when four mortar rounds landed close to the Kadhimiya mosque.

Tension between the two main factions in Iraq - Sunni and Shia - may come to a head over the proposed constitution. Sunnis fear it will lead to a break-up of the country depriving them of the oil in the Shia south of the country.

Watching the news this weekend confirms - if it needed confirming - that the Sunnis, Kurds and Shi’ites are simply three, unrelated tribes thrown together by Britain’s border creation activities after World War 1 who have no desire to live with each other if they can possibly avoid it.

With the world’s recent history showing that some states kept together by fear - the USSR and Yugoslavia, for example - will try to go their seperate ways when given even a glimmer of a chance one cannot be overly surprised should the various tribes of the Iraqi state seek to take advantage of the present situation and make a break for independence.

The draft constitution was mainly a Kurdish/Shi’ite creation, handed to the Sunnis on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The Sunnis may very well leave it - with serious consequences for the region’s coalition rulers.

An Iraq partitioned along its ethnic and cultural groupings might create a far simpler scenario for the US to administer. And a simpler, more stable region requires fewer troops - an ideal domestic sweetener for President Bush.

Seems some anti-war demonstrators will stop at nothing:

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read “Maimed for Lies” and “Enlist here and die for Halliburton.”

I was under the impression that these people were anti-war at least in part because they felt for the soldiers who were suffering in an ‘unjust’ war. Not according to Kevin Pannell’s experience. He was recently treated at Walter Reed and had both legs amputated after an ambush grenade attack near Baghdad:

Pannell said he initially tried to ignore the anti-war activists camped out in front of Walter Reed, until witnessing something that enraged him.

“We went by there one day and I drove by and [the anti-war protesters] had a bunch of flag-draped coffins laid out on the sidewalk. That, I thought, was probably the most distasteful thing I had ever seen. Ever,” Pannell, a member of the Army’s First Cavalry Division, told Cybercast News Service.

To even things up a little there’s a conservative counter-demonstration:

“[The anti-war protesters] have no business here. If they want to protest policy, they should be at the Capitol, they should be at the White House,” said Nina Burke. “The only reason for being here is to talk to [the] wounded and [anti-war protests are] just completely inappropriate.”

Albion Wilde concurred, arguing that “it’s very easy to pick on the families of the wounded. They are very vulnerable … I feel disgusted”.

It’s hard not to feel that at least some parts of the anti-war movement glory in American dead and wounded.

I remember way back being very, very surprised that, a short time after the fall of communism and the ascendency of Boris Yeltsin, Russians were marching in Moscow demanding the return of communism.

But then I was young and naive.

Now I am older. But still find this a bit of an eye-opener:

Thousands marched in adoring praise of Iraq’s deposed leader Saddam Hussein on Friday, offering a stark display of the loss of power and leadership felt by some of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs.

Drawing inspiration from the Baath party strongman, who now languishes in jail awaiting trial, marchers in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, danced and chanted his name and condemned plans by the Shi’ite and Kurdish-led government to push through draft constitution to create a federal Iraq.

“Bush, Bush, listen well; We all love Saddam Hussein!” crowds chanted. “We reject the American and Iranian constitution” and “No to a constitution that breaks up Iraq,” their placards read.

The news still has the ability to surprise…

Since the start of the Iraq was in March 2003 the price of a barrel of oil has doubled. That’s not good news to me - but, then, I’m not in the GCC:

…all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia - have experienced levels of economic growth not witnessed since the 1970’s.

According to a recent Institute of International Finance report, the GCC’s aggregate nominal GDP grew by 17% in 2004 and is likely to grow as impressively this year.

It’s being suggested, on the one hand, that if it weren’t for the war oil would be cheaper.

Some in Washington had hoped that by now Iraqi oil would be flooding the market, rendering OPEC obsolete and acting as a counterbalance to Saudi Arabian influence.

This has not happened, partly because Iraq’s pipeline infrastructure has been sabotaged no less than 257 times since 2003 but also because its oil infrastructure is in a dilapidated state.

In the final months of the UN Oil for Food programme, Iraqi oil exports averaged at 2.5 million bpd. At peak levels, prior to sanctions, Iraq produced 3.5 million bpd. Last month Iraq managed to export only 1.6 million barrels daily.

However, the production of the black gold may have peaked while demand - especially from rapidly developing economies plus the US - are placing upward pressure on the price.

China, which is now the world’s second-largest consumer of oil, has over the past few years accounted for approximately 40% of the growth in global demand. The EIA forecasts that Chinese demand will double by 2025.

India, another rapidly industrialising Asian state, is importing more oil than ever. Demand is still growing in developed economies, especially the US, where gasoline for motor vehicles accounts for most of its demand.

It is interesting to note that Ford’s current range of cars achieves, on average, fewer miles per gallon than its Model-T did 80 years ago.

See? However complicated the world becomes the unseen hand of supply and demand wins out in the end…

President Bush has declared that “as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” But decreasing coalition troops while increasing Iraqi troops is not necessarily the correct exit strategy for Iraq.

The US is creating a force of light infantry. Increasing use of Iraqi troops has its own advantages : they may be better placed to collect intelligence and will possibly be more acceptable to the Iraqis they are protecting. But it will not constitute an army and will not be able to conduct a counterinsurgency by itself for many years.

Further, the Iraqis are heavily dependent on the US army:

For example, it appears that efforts to establish Iraqi logistical elements are lagging badly behind the formation and training of light infantry units. Iraqis thus rely on coalition logistics when they must move from their home bases - or, more commonly, they simply do not move from those bases at all. Their transportation assets are minimal, and so they lack the ability to project their forces within Iraq. As a result, they would not be able to concentrate force rapidly in particularly violent areas or to destroy insurgent concentrations quickly. For as long as these conditions hold, the U.S. military will remain an essential part of the struggle against insurgency in Iraq.

Worse, Iraqi soldiers are becoming dependent on the kind of fire-power that only the Americans can provide:

It is also important to understand that the current Iraqi forces rely heavily on the availability of responsive U.S. airpower. They do not have their own organic fire support (artillery or aviation), and so must wait for the American soldiers embedded within their formations to call in coalition air support when they run into any sort of serious opposition.

Many of the skills needed to fight a determined insurgency - planning and conducting large-scale raids and sweeps, coordinating the activities of multiple infantry units, and using artillery and air power - take years to learn.

To judge the right moment to withdraw from Iraq by counting the number of Iraqi soldiers is not an accurate method of assessing Iraq’s ability to stand alone. At present there are many situations in Iraq that only the US and its allies can handle effectively. It is likely to be this way for years to come. Whatever the invasion finally achieves, a too-soon withdrawal could ruin it all.

A lull in the afternoon’s workload gave me an opportunity to wander around some American blogs.

Honestly, some of those conservative/liberal chaps are spiteful. As a person with grave misgivings about the war in Iraq I found myself roped in with appeasers, self-haters, anti-Americans - and worse. As a conservative myself I suspect I would be strung up for thinking the war isn’t a good idea.

Anyway, I thought I’d clear my head on this subject and try to describe why I am uneasy about the Iraq project. Quite a bit of how I feel is based on gut instinct rather than hard-core statistical fact. This is a bit risky, thinking out loud on a blog. If you can intelligently challenge my opinions then please go ahead; I’m willing to listen because this is how we learn.

There are sensible arguments against the invading of Iraq that are not based on pacifism or any dishonourable cowardice in the face of terrorist threats.

Firstly, if one is even a little disposed to nationalist ideas then one respects national borders and would generally only cross one if one’s own security was at risk or if one had a treaty of some sort with a threatened country. I’m fairly certain that, for all his monstrosity, Saddam was little or no threat to the UK whatsoever. That the government needed to enhance, exaggerate and even fabricate an argument justifying the war is strong evidence that the motives for the war were not then ones expressed by Blair - that is, reasons of national security in the face of an imminent threat of attack by Iraq.

Second, democracy is not an object. It can’t be air-lifted into a country, plugged in to the nearest electricity socket and then switched on - hey presto, we have democracy. Democracy is usually an evolved state of affairs for which a population is primed over time, weaned from whatever they previously had until, in stages they reach a type of democracy (or whatever) that most suits them.

Iraq is a country that has existed for centuries on an Islam-based tribal social system - which has, to a large extent, survived Saddam’s secular regime. Whatever we in the liberally democratic, nominally Christian UK might think of it, tribal Islam is the natural and preferred means to living the good life for the average Iraqi. It’s not my cup of tea but it probably is theirs…

From a UK point of view - and this is a personal view undoubtedly tainted by an intense dislike for Tony Blair and his government - the imposition of ‘our’ system on ‘them’ is typical of an authoritarian administration that regards personal liberty as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a value to cherish. I realise Iraqis didn’t have much personal liberty under Saddam but they were still a people who lived their lives independent of UK control. Our government - and America’s - sudden regard for their well-being, so overpowering that a military invasion was considered necessary, has all the hallmarks of a coalition desire to impress their own will on a people regardless of whether those people wanted it at the price they were going to have to pay.

Finally, it seems that, in order to achieve the Iraqi Constitution that they want the US is having to acquiesce to demands that Iraqi law be informed by Islam. However we dress it up that means sharia. They’re simply reverting to type, to what they feel most at home with.

Given the choice between Saddam and western democracy many Iraqis will of course prefer western democracy but that’s less to do with the attraction of an imposed democracy and more to do with the abhorrence of Saddam. As I reject internationalist imposition in my country - via the EU especially - so Iraqis naturally object to western imposition from the US and UK.

I am not in any way anti-American. The US is a superb country and I visit there at least once a year (just got back from Boston this Sunday, in fact). I have a lot of respect for America generally and Americans particularly. I am genuinely aggrieved to hear the death reports of their soldiers - as well as our own and as well as Iraqi civilians and security personnel. Furthermore, I do not in any way support the awful statements of some anti-war commentators who, to my mind, are bordering on the gleeful at every mention of US difficulties in Iraq. This Cindy Sheehan lady (she lost a son in the war and is now demanding a one-to-one with President Bush to, probably, yell abuse at him) seems to be being used by anti-war groups to further their own political agenda. I find it - and the behaviour of some American anti-war people - deeply distasteful.

But if we are suggesting that the inspiration for the war was to spread democracy - since it almost certainly wasn’t a battle against a sovereign state which had the desire and the means to attack us - then why Iraq particularly and who’s next? Because there are dozens of nasty countries throughout this world of ours whose people are no less deserving of our concern. Are we just going to leave them to their fates? If so, why?

The means we use to achieve an end are as important - and can be more important - than the ends themselves. It is a typically Marxist attitude to believe that the ends are what count and how you get there is of little importance. If this invasion was an aspect of a clearly defined project to gradually work through all the tyrannies on the planet one by one to end the suffering of populations under vicious leaders then it would at least have the credibility of being a coherent and consistent policy backed by some semblance of honourable intention. But this is a seemingly arbitrary action, executed with no real idea on how to develop the project over time once the initial battle was won.

I believe we cannot pull out now. I genuinely hope that, now we’re in, we can make a good job of things, minimise casualties and, eventually, leave the Iraqis in substantially improved circumstances than those we found them in. America is strong, daring and resilient and can, if the will is there and if they have some favourable luck (they’ll need at least some), make a decent job of things.

It is not for me to judge though whether the loss of life amongst our soldiers and our American comrades - who have suffered particularly badly - and the Iraqi populace - who have suffered awfully - was a price worth paying for whatever is eventually created from this operation.

If the Iraqis are going to be ‘allowed’ to apply Islamic law to their country - which, seeing as it’s their country seems entirely reasonable - one has to wonder if one of the major benefits of the war is being lost.

The country’s draft constitution - already delayed once - is due by the end of today and there is some anxiety to see that it’s produced on time.

American diplomats backed religious conservatives who threatened to torpedo talks over the shape of the new Iraq unless Islam was a primary source of law. Secular and liberal groups were dismayed at the move, branding it a betrayal of Washington’s promise to advocate equal rights in a free and tolerant society.

According to Kurdish and Sunni negotiators, the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, proposed that Islam be named “a primary source” and supported a wording which would give clerics authority in civil matters such as divorce, marriage and inheritance.

Women have begun to protest against the constitution and their perception that they would become second-class citizens. That the US might be instrumental in the creation of an Islamic state would be ironic indeed:

If approved, critics say that the proposals would erode women’s rights and other freedoms enshrined under existing laws. “We understand the Americans have sided with the Shias. It’s shocking. It doesn’t fit with American values,” an unnamed Kurdish negotiator told Reuters. “They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state.”

From a UK perspective this war was fought to protect us from Weapons of Mass Destruction, evidence for which had to be fabricated in order to sell the idea to Parliament and the world in general. To date, none have been found.

For those few of us who are uneasy with the war altogether but also do not want to join in the unthinking anti-Americanism of many who also oppose, the imposition of democracy was a kind of compensatory argument, a ‘well, it should not have happened but at least the Iraqis get something out of it’ type of silver-lining.

That argument slinks quietly out of the room as Islamic law marches boldly in.