Iraqis vote amid sporadic violence Reuters India
A steady stream of Iraqi voters walked to polling sites nationwide on Thursday to elect their first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein's overthrow, ignoring sporadic violence such as a mortar attack in Baghdad. Police said the mortar round was aimed at the capital's Green Zone compound, where the Iraqi government is based and senior politicians were voting. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage and voting was not interrupted. There was also an explosion in Ramadi, a city west of the capital where the insurgency is strong, and a mortar round landed near a polling station in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. Several blasts shook the turbulent northern city of Mosul. But overall, the election began in a secure, if tense, atmosphere with traffic banned and all work at a halt. Sunni Arabs voted in numbers for the first time, with crowds gathering at polling stations even in rebel strongholds like Ramadi. Most of the once dominant minority boycotted a Jan. 30 election for an interim assembly to draft a new constitution. "I am very happy to vote for the first time because this election will lead to the American occupation forces leaving Ramadi and Iraq," said 21-year-old voter Jamal Mahmoud. "I hope we can have a government that will help me and give me my rights," said Hadi Mishaal, who suffered spinal injuries while serving in Saddam's army in 1991 and who walked 2 km (over a mile) with a crutch to vote in Baghdad with his wife. This election, the first held under Iraq's new constitution, is for a four-year parliament, ushering in a long-term government to tackle the insurgency and other crucial issues. It also marks the formal completion of the U.S. timetable for setting up democratic institutions in postwar Iraq. Some 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote in the election, which many hope will end decades of suffering, lift living standards, rebuild the oil industry, and lead to a pullout of the U.S.-led troops who toppled Saddam in April 2003. "Ballot boxes are a victory of democracy over dictatorship," said Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari as he cast his vote. "The real triumph is that people are casting ballots -- whoever they choose -- and that they've chosen voting over bombs." In the northern, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, there were emotional scenes. Hussein Garmiyani, dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes, entered a voting centre and cut his finger with a pin before stamping his ballot paper in blood. "I was a victim of the Anfal campaign. These past years were all years of blood and I signed for freedom with my blood," he said, referring to Saddam's campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s. Garmiyani voted for the main Kurdish alliance. The priority for any new government will be to strengthen Iraqi security forces so that they can quell the bloody two-year-old insurgency without relying on U.S.-led troops.

TIGHT SECURITY
From the Gulf shores to the mountainous borders of Turkey and Iran, voters will file to more than 6,000 polling stations, dip their index fingers in purple ink to guard against multiple voting and drop their votes into plastic ballot boxes. Security is tight. About 150,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers are on duty to stop the suicide bombings and shootings which killed around 40 people on polling day on Jan.30. Nearly 160,000 U.S. soldiers are on hand to support Iraq's security forces, and although they aim to keep their distance from polling booths, they will intervene if needed. U.S. President George W. Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq even though he accepted it was based on faulty intelligence, saying he was right to topple Saddam. "We are in Iraq today because our goal has always been more than the removal of a brutal dictator," he said, hours before Iraqi polling stations opened. Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups have vowed to disrupt the poll but have stopped short of threatening, as they did in January, to kill anyone who votes. The run-up to the election has, by Iraq's bloody standards, been calm. "There is a quiet confidence that things are going to go well," U.N. envoy to Iraq Ashraf Qazi told Reuters on the eve of a poll which the U.N. and Washington hope will serve as an example to other Middle East states moving towards democracy. Despite voters having to walk to vote, turnout could be high -- perhaps even 70 percent compared with 58 percent in January and 64 percent in October's constitutional referendum.

WHO'S IN THE RACE?
However, insecurity kept some polling stations shut in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, where turnout was just two percent in January. Of the 207 polling sites in Anbar, whose capital is Ramadi, only 162 opened, Iraq's Electoral Commission said. There are no reliable opinion polls but the United Iraqi Alliance, a grouping of Shi'ite Islamist parties currently in government, is expected to win the most votes. Its share is expected to fall, however, from the 48 percent it won in January to perhaps about 40 percent. The Kurds are predicted to win about 25 percent of the vote, and will be pushed hard for second place by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose broad, largely secular coalition took 14 percent in January but is expected to make ground. The election is for 275 members of parliament. Most seats are allocated on the basis of the population in Iraq's 18 provinces but under a complex proportional representation system 40 seats will be set aside for smaller parties. Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people, are likely to dominate the vote in southern provinces, while Sunni Arabs are strong in west and central regions. Non-Arab Kurds dominate the northeast. (Additional reporting by Michael Georgy and Luke Baker in Baghdad, Aref Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ammar al-Alwani in Ramadi and Baghdad bureau)
Iraqis start voting as polls open Independent Online
Iraqis go to the polls Ireland Online
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http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick12142005.html

The Birth of a New "Islamo-fascist" Republic?
Shia Relish Chance to Rule Iraq
By PATRICK COCKBURN
in Baghdad

"I'll certainly vote for the Shia candidates," said Nabil Hassan Majid, a middle-aged Shia grocer in the Jadriyah district of Baghdad. "It is we who suffered and were oppressed under Saddam's regime and now it is our chance to rule."

On the last day of campaigning before the Iraqi election, 1,000 Sunni clerics called on their community to vote. Their appeal was marred, however, by the murder of a Sunni candidate, Mizhar al-Dulaimi, who was shot dead as he campaigned in Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

The parliamentary election in Iraq tomorrow is expected to confirm that Shia Arabs are the dominant community after centuries of rule by the Sunni. They can win because at least 15 to 16 million of the 25 to 26 million Iraqis are Shia Muslims while there are only about five million Sunni Arabs and five million Kurds.

It is a historic change. Immediately after the American invasion in 2003, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the immensely influential Shia clerical leader, insisted that the occupiers hold an election, which they were initially reluctant to do. They knew that the Shia majority would be the inevitable victors.

The strongest party coalition in the election is the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the so-called clerics' list, which had 140 seats in the 275-member National Assembly and won 48 per cent of the votes at the last election on January 30 compared to 25 per cent for the Kurds. The Shia and Kurdish strength was exaggerated by the Sunni Arab boycott, but it is still their candidates who are likely to carry the day.

The Shia clerical parties have a very strong hand. They already form the government, along with the Kurds. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the head of the Dawa party, is the Prime Minister. While Ayatollah Sistani has not openly backed the UIA, his office has warned voters against secular parties and small parties. For the pious Shia voter, and most are religious, this does not leave much else to vote for aside from the UIA.

"I expect the Shia religious parties will get about 110 to 115 seats in the new parliament," said one political observer in Baghdad. "They will be in a commanding position." He ticked off their advantages. The largest party in the coalition is the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) under Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, which already controls provincial councils in nine out of 18 Iraqi provinces. It has its powerful militia, the Badr Organisation, and is backed by Iran.

In this election the UIA is joined by the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr, the nationalist cleric, whose Medhi Army militia twice fought US forces in Najaf and across southern Iraq last year. He in effect controls Sadr City, the great Shia slum with a population of 2.5 million, in east Baghdad.

It is not that the Jaafari government has been particularly successful. Baghdad is as dangerous as it was a year ago. Kidnapping and crime are rife. There was a pre-election surge in electricity supply this week but there are continual shortages. Abed al-Ruda, a Shia engineer, admitted that Shia parties had "not managed to do anything for the people, but then they didn't have much time". He was still going to vote for them because "I am hopeful for the future of Iraq and the Shia will be the people who will rule this country".

Not everybody is so forgiving. Some Shia see the triumph of "555" - as the United Iraqi Alliance list is universally known - as opening the door to a clerical state and civil war. Mohamed Haki Daoud, a student, said he was planning to vote for Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, as a secular Shia who could hold Iraq together: "He stands against the break-up of Iraq." In Baghdad there is a secular nationalist vote but Allawi's hopes may founder because it is not large and the provincial cities are largely under the control of his enemies. It is too dangerous for him to campaign in many areas. When he went to the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf he was attacked by hostile worshippers whom he said had tried to kill him. Many Sunni Arabs sympathise with him but say they want to maximise Sunni influence by voting for Sunni parties.

Allawi's opponents portray him as Saddam Hussein reborn. Posters show a figure with half his face and half Saddam's face. Umm Hamid, an elderly woman, said she and her entire extended family would vote for the clerical coalition. Then she chanted: "No, No, for Allawi! No, No for the new Baath in Iraq again!"

Thursday, December 15, 2005
Secret US Diplomacy Brings Hoped-for Sunni Turnout

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

December 14, 2005, 8:40 PM (GMT+02:00)

For the first since the US-led invasion of March 2003, post-Saddam Iraq stands on the threshold of a genuine tipping point. This is because the Sunni Arabs have finally made up their minds to vote in the Dec. 15 election for the 275-seat National Assembly that will determine the shape of Iraq’s regime.

In the last of his four Strategy for Victory speeches on Iraq, President George W. Bush Wednesday, Dec. 14, noted that at last Sunnis are campaigning vigorously in this week’s general election.

Sunni leaders have accepted that boycotts of the election a year ago for a transitional assembly and the October referendum on a new constitution were a mistake. This time, polling stations in Ramadi, capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which did not bother to open in October, collected balloting materials in good time.

The new legislature will be charged with creating a government to replace the transitional administration serving at present. Voters will be able to choose 275 deputies from among 231 contending parties and their 7,655 candidates

To generate a relatively secure environment for Iraq’s 15 million eligible voters, the government has sealed the country’s borders and banned road and air traffic. US troops are deployed in force on the leaky borders from Syria to hold down hostile incursions. Several Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda in Ira and the Islamic Army in Iraq, promised not to disrupt the voting, although that is no guarantee of non-violence by any means.

While Iraq’s feet are treading the road to democracy as a nation, little has improved in the lives of Iraqis as individuals. The level of terrorist violence is higher than ever, Shiite-Sunni rivalries are acute; hundreds of cases of abuses have been uncovered in at least two detention centers under the aegis of the Shiite-led interior ministry where Sunni prisoners were held in subhuman conditions. This was confirmed two days before voting by US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who promised the American government would accelerate the investigation to determine who was responsible.

Furthermore, the Kurds of northern Iraq are quietly pressing ahead with the building of a semi-autonomous enclave based on a grab for the region’s oil riches. Despite the optimistic forecasts coming from Bush administration officials, the New Iraqi Army is taking shape far too slowly for any informed party to venture a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops.

The massive deployment of many thousands of Iranian sleeper cells across Iraq provides a sinister backdrop to overt events in Iraq. Although warned off, Tehran is liable to activate those cells at a time and in a manner of its choosing – without notice.

Already, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, Iranian agents are extending substantial logistical aid to Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq, to some of the Sunni insurgent groups and to radical Shiite militias.

Even Saddam Hussein’s trial, which alongside the general election was meant to symbolize Iraq’s transition from a corrupt, repressive tyranny, to a stable, enlightened democracy, was a flop that was played out publicly to the Iraqi people and Arab world.

Despite all these tribulations, DEBKAfile points to some hopeful signs.

1. The expected Sunni Muslim voter turnout is the brightest prospect. They have come to acknowledge that their earlier boycotts cost them missed chances. Had they voted en masse, they might have thrown out the constitution devised by the Shiite-Kurdish coalition. Now they are going after a solid Sunni share in the institutions that govern the country.

2. The National Reconciliation Conference that took place in Cairo in October at the initiative of the Arab League and behind-the-scenes US blessing, opened up a quiet diplomatic channel for American diplomats in Iraq led by ambassador Khalilzad to talk with a group of Iraqi Baathist Sunni insurgent leaders.

DEBKAfile’s sources in Iraq reveal the gist of Sunni position as it emerged from those talks:

A. We are not fighting simply for the sake of spilling blood. We will give up on bloody violence if we are convinced that the occupation will come to an end.

B. We do not claim exclusivity in representing the Sunni Arab interest and are prepared to work with fellow Sunni groupings on equal terms.

C. We accept a multi-communal, multi-partisan regime in Iraq.

Nizhar al-Dulaimi, the Sunni businessman and founder of the Iraqi Progressive Party was the main go-between in the US-insurgent exchanges. He had actively urged Sunni voters to turn out. Tuesday, he was murdered in an ambush laid for his convoy in Ramadi.

But by then his work had borne fruit.

Our sources report that the important Islamic Front for Iraqi Resistance – JAME – issued new guidelines. One calls on JAME members to break off ties with Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s followers, namely al Qaeda; another, with an eye to the future, orders adherents to desist from attacks on infrastructure and national resources such as oilfields and pipelines.

DEBKAfile’s military sources say it is too soon to say whether these directives are carrying weight on the ground and affecting the insurgents’ rank and file’s collaboration with the terrorists.

But Wednesday, in certain Sunni-dominated voting districts, local Sunni tribal militias linked to al Qaeda undertook to secure the polling stations instead of Iraqi police and soldiers. This too is thought to have been generated by the pre-election understandings forged between the US and certain Sunni leaders.

If these understandings yield the two goals of vaulting Iraq’s Sunni Arab community into mainstream national politics and power-sharing, and driving wedge between guerrilla groups and al Qaeda, Iraq’s general election may be counted a modest success.





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Headlines

DEBKAfile reveals: Secret talks between American diplomats and a group of Iraqi Sunni guerrilla leaders raise hopes for a turning-point in Iraq’s first general election Thursday

A Palestinian woman was detained by an Israeli patrol at Asira a-Shemaliya north of Nablus Thursday on her way to a suicide terror attack

DEBKA-Net-Weekly discloses: Al Qaeda has disseminated its first ever religious tract focusing on Israel as the warfront to come after Iraq

Three Qassam missiles fired from Gaza Wednesday night: One exploded in Sderot, second between Nahal Oz and Alumim - causing no casualties, third in Palestinian territory

DEBKAfile Exclusive: In an apparent gesture of support, two Israeli Air Force F-16 fighter-bombers performed low passes over the mass funeral in Beirut of publisher-lawmaker Gebran Tueini Wednesday

Four Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades terrorists killed in Sejayia, Gaza, Wednesday night by an Israeli missile fired from a helicopter

US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad reports at least 120 abused prisoners were found in two detention facilities run by the Shiite-led Iraqi interior ministry

Sharon's new Kadima party slides in the polls since the Newsweek disclosures

Fatah radicals stage revolt against leader Mahmoud Abbas

As Qassam missiles continue to fly, further security downturn on the West Bank and Gaza Strip prompts new Israeli rules of engagement in Gaza, delays start of bus link

In his final report to Kofi Annan, UN investigator Detlev Mehlis revealed that all Syrian intelligence documents concerning Lebanon were burned

Iran is "a real threat" and is part of an “axis of evil,” US President George W. Bush said Wednesday

US federal air marshals may also be posted for counter-terror surveillance on trains and other mass transit facilities, according to a new program tested this week

The EU summit beginning in Brussels Thursday will address the Iranian president’s holocaust denial comment

Three suspected terrorists with indirect links to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi arrested in France


Copyright 2000-2005 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051215/...pping_point.php

Iraq's Tipping Point
Robert Dreyfuss
December 15, 2005


Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached at his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.

It’s election day in Iraq. If October’s constitutional balloting is any precedent, we will not know the Iraqi government’s final tally for a few weeks.

Of course, that won’t stop President Bush from declaring the elections a victory for democracy. Yet such a statement does democracy a major disservice, for democracy is much more than an election. Democracy can only be the outgrowth of an earnest national consensus—a consensus that Bush, for some unknown reason, has done everything possible to avoid building.

Because of that simple, hard-earned fact, we have a pretty good idea of what the future holds. Consider the following two scenarios.

Scenario One: The Sunnis win big, gaining up to a quarter of the assembly. The Shiite bloc fragments. The religious Shiite parties suffer significant defections by urban, educated, and more secular Shiites, who opt instead for the party led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and other, smaller parties. After the election, the Shiite bloc falls apart, as the radical faction of rebel cleric Muqtada Al Sadr goes its own way, further weakening Al Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A two-thirds majority in parliament emerges among religious Sunnis, secular Sunnis, Allawi and the Kurds—enough to force the SCIRI-Dawa forces to come to the table and talk about a brand new constitution with a strengthened, more centralized state, a smaller role for Islamic Sharia law, and a fairer distribution of oil revenues. And finally, the parties agree to peace talks with the armed resistance, including a ceasefire and amnesty for fighters and for prisoners. Central to the deal, the new Iraqi government demands a six-month timetable for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq. The new government takes office in late January, and, as planned, in February the Arab League convenes Phase II of the peace process that began in Cairo in mid-November, this time in Baghdad, giving international and Arab approval to the new Iraqi concord. Together, Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish police hunt down the remnants of Al Qaeda in Iraq throughout 2006.

Scenario Two: For whatever reason, Sunni candidates fail to win a fair share of seats in the new parliament. The religious Shiite coalition—SCIRI, Al Dawa and the Sadrists—not only win big, but through ballot-stuffing, vote fraud, and help from Iran’s intelligence service, gain enough power to continue their grip on power. The Kurds opt to ally once again with the Shiites. The U.S. military begins to draw down its forces in Iraq, so that President Bush can win political points at home, and the Shiite militias fill the vacuum left over by the slowly dwindling U.S. force. Sunnis, marginalized politically, fail to muster enough votes to make any changed in the constitution imposed in October by the dominant Shiite-Kurd alliance; frustrated and outraged, the Sunnis support the insurgency with renewed vigor. The Kurds retreat into their northern enclave, the Shiite militia launch a brutal and bloody offensive against the Sunnis, with ethnic cleansing of southern Iraq, and Iraq slides into open civil war. Not only is the Phase II Arab League meeting never held, but the Arab world mobilizes in defense of Iraq’s Sunnis, and both Iran and Turkey are drawn into the conflict.

Which of these scenarios is most likely? Frighteningly, the second one. In fact, it would be amazing if Scenario One wins out.

Why? Despite the fact that, according to all reports, Iraq’s Shiites are increasingly disenchanted with the bungling and zealotry of the SCIRI-Dawa ruling elite, despite the fact that the resistance (except for Al Qaeda) has called a truce so Sunnis can vote en bloc today, it seems unlikely that the SCIRI-Dawa bloc will allow power to slip away. The reports that Iran is shipping truckloads of forged ballots across the border to support its SCIRI-Dawa allies signal a repeat of the vote fraud that marred the referendum on the constitution in October—only on a far grander scale. Ayatollah Sistani, the scowly fatwa man, has emerged from the shadows to demand that Shiites vote for the SCIRI-Dawa fundamentalist bloc. And the thuggery and murders aimed at Allawi’s party throughout southern Iraq, including an attempted assassination of Allawi himself and a rocket attack on his Najaf headquarters, mean that the Shiite religious bloc intends to stop at nothing to prevent Allawi from siphoning off disaffected Shiite voters.

In recent weeks there have been signs that the United States is aware the vote today is likely to go awry. It appears that for the first time the United States is serious about opening talks with the resistance. Ambassador Khalilzad has announced in no uncertain terms that he wants to talk to the fighters, taking pains to say that there is a difference between “terrorism” and “insurgency.” And the unfolding scandal around the Shiite torture prisons and death squad activity aimed at Sunni moderates and Baathists was triggered by a U.S. raid on a Baghdad detention center this month, possibly a sign that the United States is no longer willing to tolerate the Shiite bloc’s abuses. But it may be too little, too late—at least as far as the election goes.

If Scenario Two begins to unfold, what then?

At that point there will be no good choices for the United States, other than the one suggested by Representative Jack Murtha: get out, and fast. However, with George “Victory” Bush still in the White House, that’s unlikely, since Bush will resist calls from the U.S. military (privately) and the politicians (far more publicly) to get out. In that case, the United States will find itself stuck in the quagmire, being shot at by both sides, with no exit strategy at all and certainly no “strategy for victory.” It’s hard to see a light at the end of this tunnel, as much as optimists and rosy-scenario mongers might search for options. As Chas Freeman, the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, once told me about Iraq: “Sometimes, when you’ve driven your car off a cliff, there are just no good options on the way down.”

As Harold Pinter said recently :

The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

True, that.

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December 16, 2005
Freedom From Fear Lifts Sunnis
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 15 - Ali is only 9 years old. But when he and his buddies broke away from a street soccer game to drop into a polling station in Baghdad's Adhamiya district at noon on Thursday, Ali, a chirpy, tousle-haired youngster, seemed to catch the mood of the district's Sunni Arab population as well as anybody.

"We don't want car bombs, we want security," he said. Yards away, Sunni grown-ups were casting ballots in classrooms where the boys would have been studying Arabic or arithmetic or geography - "Boring, boring!" said Ali - had the school not been drafted for use as one of 6,000 polling stations across Iraq.

On a day when the high voter turnout among Sunni Arabs was the main surprise, Ali and his posse of friends, unguarded as boys can be, acted like a chorus for the scene unfolding about them. A new willingness to distance themselves from the insurgency, an absence of hostility for Americans, a casual contempt for Saddam Hussein, a yearning for Sunnis to find a place for themselves in the post-Hussein Iraq - the boys' themes were their parents', too, only more boldly expressed.

Adhamiya, on the east bank of the Tigris River, only a 10-minute drive from the heart of Baghdad, has been so much in the insurgents' grip that American military helicopters have avoided flying overhead for most of the past 33 months. But as whole families gathered to walk neighborhood streets on the way to the polls, and with turnouts at some voting centers surpassing 60 percent barely halfway through the voting day, Sunnis -young, old and in-between, prosperous and middle-class and unemployed, merchants and tribal sheiks and schoolteachers - seemed to relish the chance to take part.

"Happy days!" said Salim Saleh, a 52-year-old government official, finding a few remembered words of schoolboy English. Switching to Arabic, he slipped into reflective mode, acclaiming the advent of democracy in Iraq, but lamenting the local inexperience with it.

"Iraqis aren't used to democracy, we have to learn it," he said, after carefully marking and folding his poster-sized ballot. And what were the crucial elements? "A government that works in the interests of Iraq and the Iraqi people, regardless of ethnicity or sect," he said. "That would be democracy."

Only months ago, the prospect of crowds of voters lining up in Adhamiya and hundreds of other Sunni neighborhoods across the country would have seemed illusionary to American officials and military commanders who have been asked to find a way toward political stability here, and toward the start, sometime in 2006, of a withdrawal of United States forces.

When Iraqis voted in January for a transitional government, and again in a constitutional referendum in October, when the Sunni boycott of the American-sponsored political process first showed signs of easing, a cannon could have been fired in many of Adhamiya's streets without risk of striking Sunni voters.

After the January voting, when more than eight million voters turned out, hopes for peace were dashed by one of the most brutal insurgent offensives of the war.

This time, the large Sunni turnout will inevitably raise fresh hopes, of a reconciliation between what has been an alienated Sunni minority and the Shiite parties that won in January and seem poised to win the largest bloc of seats again. But pragmatists were warning after Thursday's voting that the realities of power, and who will hold it once a new government is formed, could once again render the hopes short-lived.

Still, there was enough that was different in Thursday's election to suggest that something significant had changed. This time, Sunni political groups with links to the insurgency had candidates in the election. Their leaders, as well as influential Sunni clerics in the mosques of Baghdad and other cities and towns across the Sunni heartland, had urged Sunnis to vote in large numbers. Insurgent groups with links to Mr. Hussein's ruling Baath Party had agreed to hold their fire.

Adhamiya was as good a proving ground as any for the new Sunni openness to political involvement. In the 1950's, the district was a bastion of the Arab nationalism then sweeping the Middle East, and it was along Adhamiya's alleyways that the Baath party in Iraq had its first underground stirrings.

It was in Adhamiya, too, that Mr. Hussein made his last stand as American troops entered Baghdad in April 2003, standing atop a car roof outside the Abu Hanifa mosque and pledging to lead Iraqis in resisting the Americans, before disappearing from view. It was eight months before he turned up again, caught by American troops hiding in an underground bunker near Tikrit.

Mr. Hussein, now languishing in an American military prison near Baghdad's airport, would have found little comfort in Adhamiya. At his trial, he has proclaimed himself Iraq's legitimate ruler, but the voters Thursday scoffed at his delusion.

"Saddam, he's finished," said Mr. Saleh, the government employee.

"Saddam? No, no, no!" said Saad Abdul Sattar, a 51-year-old grocery store owner, with a sweep of his upturned palm.

A tribal sheik, Khamis al-Suhail, 80, said Saddam was history, but doubted that the new parliament would be much better. "Saddam was a thief, but now we'll have 275 thieves," he said.

The freewheeling opinions among the Sunnis were hard, at times, to square with the hard-line views widely expressed to reporters on previous trips to Adhamiya, and with the inflexible attitudes common there when Mr. Hussein was still in power. The difference this time appeared to be less a matter of conversion than freedom from threat - the very thing that Ali, the schoolboy, hinted at when he celebrated having a day with his friends when they did not have to worry about the gunfire or bombs that had been common in Adhamiya.

For at least as long as the insurgent pullback to allow the Sunni voting lasted, people in the district seemed freed from intimidation, and the recurrent references to this sense of freedom reflected it.

"Before, we had a dictator, and now we have this freedom, this democracy," said Emad Abdul Jabbar, 38, a teacher acting as supervisor at the Ahrar school polling site. "This time, we have a real election, not just the sham elections we had under Saddam, and we Sunnis want to participate in the political process."

A 60-year-old merchant, Abdul Kader al-Saffar, and his wife, Ammal Abdul Razzaq, 40, who voted with their three sons, agreed. "We have found candidates in this election we can trust," Mr. Saffar said, referring to the Iraqi Consensus Front, a moderate Sunni group that had several of its political workers killed during the campaign.

Another thing many Sunnis seemed to agree on was the possibility of a reconciliation between the Americans and the Sunnis, and a distancing of the Sunnis from some of the Al Qaeda-linked insurgent groups. Many were critical of American troops, saying, as Mr. Saleh did, that "they came as liberators, but stayed on as occupiers." But pressed on the question of an American troop withdrawal, most seemed cautious, favoring a gradual drawdown.

"Let's have stability, and then the Americans can go home," said Mr. Sattar, the store owner. Told that this sounded similar to President Bush's formula for a troop withdrawal, he replied: "Then Bush has said it correctly".



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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December 16, 2005
High Sunni Turnout Suggests A Deal for an Election Day Truce
By KIRK SEMPLE and QAIS MIZHER
RAMADI, Iraq, Dec. 15 - The main boulevard that runs through this defiant Sunni Arab town and insurgent redoubt is a corridor of dread. Its bullet-ravaged buildings harbor snipers and its potholes conceal homemade bombs. American troops travel it at high speed only, darting from base to base.

On Thursday, however, children taking advantage of an election day prohibition against vehicles came out of their homes and made the street their own. By noon, several pickup games of soccer were under way along a half-mile stretch that runs through the densely populated western neighborhoods. The children were barefoot and they marked the goal posts with piles of their shoes.

For election day, at least, this town was significantly changed. Shedding 11 months of political isolation, thousands of residents poured into polling stations and cast votes. In contrast, voter turnout in the election in January was near zero.

Several polling stations needed emergency shipments of ballots because they had exhausted their initial allotments, each numbering in the thousands, electoral and military officials said. The manager of a polling station in Jazeera, a neighborhood in the northern outskirts of greater Ramadi, said he was losing control of a crowd that had gathered there to vote, officials said.

Insurgent activity, a defining feature of Ramadi, was limited to a roadside bomb that detonated near an Iraqi tank in the morning, causing no damage or casualties, the American military reported. By comparison, the first several hours of voting in the constitutional referendum in October was plagued by attacks around the city.

The near total absence of violence in Ramadi, where some local tribal and religious authorities are thought to have close ties to the insurgency, suggested that someone somewhere had struck a deal. "There was probably some negotiated truce for the day," said Maj. Dan Wagner, a Marine civil affairs officer working in the western part of the town.

Local leaders may be starting to push away from the insurgency in favor of political solutions. They have held a series of meetings with the American and Iraqi command in recent weeks, primarily seeking a quick withdrawal of American troops. But politics here remain extremely murky at best, and most of the population still shares a fierce resentment of the American presence and a deep mistrust of the Shiite-dominated government.

Several voters said they went to the polls primarily to redress the lack of political representation that resulted from a Sunni Arab boycott of the elections in January for an interim Parliament.

"I'm so happy!" exclaimed Mahmood Muhammad Hussein, 25, a student at the local agricultural college, as he voted at El Imam al-Adel Elementary School in western Ramadi. "I feel I lost all my rights last time, and now I'll have all my rights restored through this government."

Under a special arrangement approved by national electoral officials, tribal chiefs assumed the responsibility for security at polling centers, replacing American and Iraqi government troops with locally hired armed guards. Residents had said that the heavy involvement of American and Iraqi troops in the referendum process in October had intimidated many voters from going to the polls.

Following the agreement, American troops stayed out of sight, mostly remaining on their bases. Even Iraqi Army presence in the streets was light. El Imam al-Adel Elementary School was guarded by only a few private security guards carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Several voters said the security arrangements had, indeed, created a safer environment for voting.

"As you know, we're under the people's protection," said Jelal Faisal, 50, a civil engineer, who visited the school to cast his vote. "Maybe if there were military forces, we'd have some problems. But now we are O.K."

Major Wagner said he expected the insurgency to reawaken by the weekend. "There's going to be a lot of attacks in the next few days, no doubt about it," he warned. "We're not out of the woods."

But he and other officials drew hope from the fact that the community leaders had demonstrated a willingness to take part in the democratic process, even if there was little certainty about whether that cooperation would continue, and under what terms.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

Experts Cautious in Assessing Iraq Election

By Robin Wright

For President Bush, the strong turnout for Iraq's election yesterday may represent the best day since the fall of Baghdad 32 months ago because all major factions participated in the political process, according to U.S. and Middle East analysts. But the sobering reality, they added, is that the vote by itself did not resolve Iraq's lingering political disputes.

After weeks of an increasingly divisive debate at home that helped sink the president's approval rating to an all-time low, the Bush administration appeared buoyed by the throngs at the polls and the low violence. Flanked in the Oval Office by six young Iraqis, all with a purple-stained finger signifying they had voted, Bush called the election a "major milestone" on the road to democracy.

"This is a major step forward in achieving our objective, which is . . . having a democratic Iraq, a country able to sustain itself and defend itself, a country that will be an ally in the war on terror and a country that will set such a powerful example to others in the region, whether they live in Iran or Syria," he said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the turnout was a defeat for those behind the beheadings and suicide bombings. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told a Pentagon town hall meeting via video teleconference from Baghdad that the United States should now expect the insurgency to "gradually reduce."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iraq is "going to be a great nation again" because of its defiance. "There are posters in Iraq today that say, 'Vote and you will die,' from the terrorists," yet people still turned out in record numbers, she told Fox News.

But even some Republicans urged caution in assessing the results yesterday, while congressional Democrats called on the White House to use the election to accelerate the transition and create the conditions for the redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

In Baghdad for election day, Republican Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said the vote provided a "second chance," but he also warned that the successful day should not be interpreted as a solution to Iraq's problems. "Really, in many ways, they're just beginning," he said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a Persian Gulf military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed. He said the vote is not the long-awaited turning point but rather a trigger for launching a new political process next year that will include amending a constitution. That, he said, will better determine whether Iraq has a chance of emerging out of turmoil.

One looming danger is that the most dedicated wings of the insurgency, the foreign fighters and Islamic extremists, may only become more determined or vicious. "The steady grind of this guerrilla war is going to go on. The elections are not relevant to it, and that's what is going to matter to the American people," warned Juan R.I. Cole, an Iraq expert at the University of Michigan.

Others acknowledged the election's success but said it came too late. "It's the best moment since Baghdad fell . . . but it's at least 18 months late," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department Iraq policy planning expert now at Lehigh University. "The fall of Saddam Hussein was a moment. This is just a moment of relief."

Although Democrats expressed hope that the election marked the beginning of a healing process in Iraq, some called for it to be made a catalyst for policy adjustments.

In a letter to the White House, 26 House Democrats -- including the minority whip and nine members of the Armed Services Committee -- outlined four principles that they said should guide U.S. policy after the election, including a significant drawdown of U.S. troops in the next 12 months and the transfer of key nation-building responsibilities to Iraq's neighbors and the international community.

Bush is expected to try to capitalize on the vote to resist calls for setting a timetable for a U.S. exit from Iraq. He will play host today to a bipartisan group from Congress that will discuss Iraq, officials said.

Among those scheduled to join the president, Vice President Cheney and their foreign policy team are Democratic Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), as well as Republican Sens. Norm Coleman (Minn.), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pa.), Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) and John Thune (S.D.).

Staff writers Dan Balz and Josh White contributed to this report.


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Official: Al-Zarqawi caught, released
Authorities didn't realize prisoner was terrorist mastermind

Thursday, December 15, 2005; Posted: 5:44 p.m. EST (22:44 GMT)


An Iraqi official says Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was caught and released last year.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces caught the most wanted man in the country last year, but released him because they didn't know who he was, the Iraqi deputy minister of interior said Thursday.

Hussain Kamal confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the al Qaeda in Iraq leader who has a $25 million bounty on his head -- was in custody at some point last year, but he wouldn't provide further details.

A U.S. official couldn't confirm the report, but said he wouldn't dismiss it.

"It is plausible," he said.

Thursday's news tops a list of reports of missed opportunities to capture the 39-year-old terrorist mastermind. An official said the military receives frequent reports of al-Zarqawi sightings, all of which are investigated. (View profile on al-Zarqawi)

In April, U.S. troops stormed a hospital in Ramadi based on credible intelligence that terrorists were hiding there, but no suspects were found, military officials said in early May.

A high-ranking Iraqi Army officer said there were rumors that al-Zarqawi was at the Ramadi medical center, and several groups affiliated with the al Qaeda operative issued statements saying the same.

Iraqi Lt. Gen. Nasser Abadi said Thursday that al-Zarqawi was taken to the hospital. He added that he didn't believe Kamal's report was correct.

"When we got the news, we rushed there, but he was out of there," the general said.

The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was almost captured in February, too, after troops received a tip that he was heading to a meeting in Ramadi, said Pentagon officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

With his vehicle under surveillance by an unmanned Predator spy plane, troops set up checkpoints along his route. As al-Zarqawi's truck approached one of the checkpoints, the vehicle abruptly turned around, the officials said.

He was chased for several miles, but when troops finally ran his vehicle down, the terrorist had escaped. His driver and security guard were arrested, and troops found a computer with a "treasure trove of information" that offered a clear indication that al-Zarqawi corresponded regularly with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the officials said.

Colin Powell first linked al-Zarqawi with al Qaeda in a February 2003 speech to the U.N. Security Council, in which he said, "Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants."

Before taking the moniker al Qaeda in Iraq, his organization was known as Unification and Jihad, which the U.S. State Department labeled a "foreign terrorist organization" in October 2004.

His group has taken responsibility for or been accused by the U.S. of perpetrating or aiding in numerous suicide bombings, car bombings, beheadings and other acts of violence.

Included are a February 2005 suicide bombing in Hilla that left 127 Iraqis dead, an October 2004 execution-like massacre of 44 Iraqi soldiers east of Baghdad and an August 2003 car bombing in Najaf that killed more than 85 people. Ayatollah Mohammad Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was killed in the Najaf bombing.

Al-Zarqawi also is suspected to be the masked man who beheaded Nick Berg, an American civilian in Iraq, on May 11, 2004.

In April, two Web sites posted an audio message, purportedly from al-Zarqawi, in which he urges his followers to continue their attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and warns President Bush he will never relent.

Back to Story - Help
After sweeping Iraq vote, power wrangles to start By Paul Tait
Thu Dec 15, 6:17 PM ET



Iraqi leaders will begin staking their claims to power after an election that brought out Iraqis in overwhelming numbers to elect a government.

Results may take days, while talks on a coalition government reconciling ethnic and sectarian divisions may last for weeks.

Thursday's largely peaceful election for Iraq's first full-term government since U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003 was only slightly disrupted by violence and marked the last stage of a U.S. timetable to establish democratic institutions.

Wooing Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam away from revolt and into the political process has been a crucial part of that policy and the poll will raise hopes in Washington that a stable government can lead eventually to a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Turnout was at least 67 percent, Election Commission chief Hussein Hendawi told Reuters, much higher than the 58 percent seen in the January 30 vote for an interim assembly.

"This is a day of freedom for us," said Selima Khalif, an elderly woman voting in the poor southern province of Maysan.

"We are so happy. The most important thing we need is security. We want our children to get a better life."

Some voting irregularities were reported and must be investigated by the Independent Electoral Commission before final results come out, possibly in two weeks, officials said.

But Ashraf Qazi, U.N. envoy to Iraq, said preliminary results could be known within days after what he said appeared to have been a successful election.

This would clear the way for a period of horse-trading among the leading blocs before a new coalition government is formed.

"Since no single party will have a majority there will be a need for a very broad-based coalition," U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a key player in the process, told Reuters.

"There's many other steps to come. It's important to keep up the momentum."

GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATIONS

Once a coalition government is formed, the first task of the new parliament is to address Sunni grievances over the constitution, passed with Shi'ite and Kurdish votes in an October referendum. Another challenge is building up Iraqi security forces so foreign troops can go home.

The early signs were good on Thursday, with Sunnis turning out in large numbers after most either boycotted January's ballot or were too scared to vote. In Falluja, once one of Iraq's most violent rebel towns in the Sunni western province of Anbar, turnout was around 70 percent, local officials said.

Turnout was also high in Kurdish regions and the Shi'ite south, suggesting that Iraqis had voted in numbers across sectarian and ethnic lines.

Informal polling by Reuters around the country showed the ruling Shi'ite Islamist Alliance and their Kurdish allies still dominant in their southern and northern bases respectively.

But there also seemed to be a strong turnout in favor of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who heads a secular slate with candidates from across Iraq's sectarian divides and has sought to split the previously dominant Islamist Shi'ite vote.

Negotiations over the shape of a cabinet will offer an indication of how far the new parliament, representing as it will most communities, can generate a workable government that can deliver people's demands for security and prosperity.

Failure and disappointment may well spell violence.

"I'm not over-optimistic," said Iraq analyst Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group think-tank in Amman.

"It's going to be very hard to change the constitution.

"Sunnis have supported this not because they are converted to the electoral process but because they hope for influence to roll back what they see as an Iranian advance in Iraq," he said, referring to Tehran's support for fellow Shi'ite Islamists.

"And if they don't, they're going to go back to what got them here in the first place, the insurgency. And that's going to make it very difficult for American troops to leave."



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Infighting could develop after this election, too: Analysis
By Hamza Hendawi
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
12/16/2005

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

The heavy turnout for elections Thursday was a big step for Iraq's fledgling democracy, but momentum could falter if Iraqis can't quickly put together an inclusive government that lures discontented Sunni Arabs from the insurgency.

Similar impetus that followed the election of an interim parliament last January was soon lost in political infighting among Shiite Arabs, Kurds and Sunni Arabs, who took three months to form a government. The squabble gave a new push to the insurgency.

It may be no better this time.

In the eight months since the interim government took office, many of the country's troubles have deepened - Shiite-Sunni tension is worse, talk of Iraq breaking up along religious and ethnic lines has caught on, the Sunni-led insurgency shows no signs of abating.

Results of this election are expected to be similar to the previous one.

Shiite Arabs are a majority of Iraq's population, and the United Iraqi Alliance - a collection of Shiite religious parties - is likely to again hold the biggest bloc in parliament. Alliance officials predict they will win 120 of the 275 seats.

Sunni Arabs and Kurds, two minorities that together account for 30 to 40 percent of the estimated 27 million Iraqis, are expected to win 35 to 50 seats each.

A secular coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi could win around 35 seats, while a mostly Shiite slate led by former Washington insider Ahmad Chalabi is expected to take five to 10 seats.

With its dominant position, the United Iraqi Alliance would probably try to renew its partnership with the two main Kurdish parties in a coalition government, alliance officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

They said the Shiite alliance would not invite major Sunni Arab groups to join the coalition, preferring to hand-pick Sunni figures.

That might provide token Sunni representation in the government. But it would keep out Sunni leaders with influence in areas where the Sunni-dominated insurgency is most active, diminishing chances for meaningful dialogue with insurgent factions.

Allawi and Chalabi could play roles as power brokers in efforts to form a coalition government and possibly be given important Cabinet posts.

But even with a greater Sunni role, it will be difficult to get insurgents with a wide array of goals to give up violence and turn to politics.

Sunni Arabs believe current provisions on federalism could lead to Iraq's breakup. They also say the charter does not put enough emphasis on the country's Arab identity, and they object to what they view as its prejudice against members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

But Shiites and Kurds are not likely to agree to dilute federalism, and they strongly support keeping former Baathists out of government, having both suffered heavily during a Saddam regime that was dominated by Sunni Arabs.

From the Los Angeles Times

Religion Again Holds Sway Among Shiite Voters
Despite a strong push by secular candidates to siphon off centrists this time around, the ruling bloc appears to have maintained its base.

HILLAH, Iraq — Here in Iraq's southern Shiite Muslim heartland, the issue of the day Thursday was the relationship between mosque and state.

Shiite voters who streamed to the polls to elect a full-term legislature cited religion and its place in government as the guiding factor in how they cast their ballots.

"Religion is not politics," said Hamza Abdel Hussein, a 65-year-old retiree who voted for secular Shiite candidate Mithal Alusi. "Our intention is to separate religion from government."

But Mohammed Saeed Mosawi, one of the first voters Thursday morning at Gomhouriya Middle School here, said, "The important thing is to satisfy God." His vote went to "the list of religion" — the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, which consists of 18 conservative religious parties.

Early, anecdotal evidence suggested that Mosawi's side had the edge.

Despite a strong push from secular Shiite candidates such as former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, there were indications that the alliance had defied expectations and maintained much of its base — despite opponents' complaints of inappropriate campaign tactics.

In the January elections for an interim government, the alliance coasted to victory on the strength of an endorsement by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whose word is law for millions of Iraqi Shiites.

This time, with Sistani saying he favored no one, many expected that secular candidates would draw away much of the centrist Shiite vote.

But interviews in several southern cities indicated that the United Iraqi Alliance had convinced many voters that its slate had the endorsement of the marjaiyah, the powerful Najaf-based Shiite religious leadership.

"We're with the marjaiyah," said Amir Ali Jassim, who came to the polls in Hillah with his wife and five children. "We're very happy. It's a special day."

Throughout the south, Shiites packed polling stations to cast votes that, for many, represented another step in the formerly oppressed community's post-Saddam Hussein political ascendance. Having been through January's vote and an October constitutional referendum, residents seemed accustomed to the security lockdown and the ban on vehicular traffic that once again left Iraq's streets eerily empty.

Election officials in Hillah, Najaf and Basra reported minimal problems, although several politicians complained that the United Iraqi Alliance had openly defied electoral rules. They charged that poll volunteers had been intimidated and rallies staged after Wednesday's mandatory cutoff in campaigning.

Hatim Bachari, coordinator for the Allawi campaign in Basra, claimed that local police cars had broadcast pro-alliance messages on the streets. Electoral commission employees, he said, were placing alliance posters inside the voting centers.

How well the alliance performs in the south could largely determine the makeup of the government. The slate captured 140 of 275 seats in January, and some opponents fear a similar performance could embolden the bloc's leaders to try to create an Iran-style theocracy.

"That's what we're afraid of," said Abdel Hussein, the secular voter in Hillah. "We're worried about the future."

Secular candidates such as Allawi and former alliance member Ahmad Chalabi have targeted defecting Shiite moderates, hoping to chip away at the bloc's support base.

Exit polls in Hillah and elsewhere suggested solid support for the alliance. But Haidar Mohammed, a policeman and two-time voter for Allawi, suspected that many secular Iraqis would not admit how they had voted, fearing a backlash from their conservative neighbors.

"They're scared to say who they really voted for," he said.

Mohammed Reda Nejm declined to say how he voted but made it clear that he was against religion in politics.

"Religious extremism doesn't benefit us," said the 50-year-old telecommunications engineer. "Religion is important, but religion is for God. The government is for the people."

Allawi, Chalabi and others were gambling on a raft of defections from the alliance ranks. But some defections Thursday went in the other direction.

Ghaleb Jabber Mussawi, an unemployed Shiite voting in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, voted for Allawi in January. This time he switched to the alliance, saying he approved of the performance of coalition leader Ibrahim Jafari, an Islamic scholar and Allawi's successor as prime minister.

"I noticed that this period has been a lot better than the previous period," Mussawi said. "The security has improved, and there seems to be a little more economic activity."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times special correspondent Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf and a special correspondent in Basra contributed to this report.

Iraq tallies millions of ballots after high poll turnout Ireland Online
Iraqi authorities tallied millions of ballots today from elections to choose a parliament in a mostly peaceful election – among the freest ever in the Arab world. Officials said it could take at least two weeks until final results are announced for the parliament, which will serve a four-year term, but an indication of the overall turnout should be available today when the election commission holds a planned a news conference. There were early indications that Shiite tickets did well in southern areas where the religious group is dominant. Shiites make up 60% of Iraq’s 27 million people, compared to about 20% for Sunni Arabs. So many Sunni Arabs voted yesterday that ballots ran out in some places. The strong participation by Sunnis, the backbone of the insurgency, bolstered US hopes that the election could produce a broad-based government capable of ending the daily suicide attacks and other violence that have ravaged the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Difficult times lie ahead, however. The coalition of religious Shiite parties that dominates the current government is expected to win the biggest portion of the 275 seats, but will almost certainly need to compromise with rival factions, with widely differing views, to form a government. Although violence was reported light yesterday with only three people killed in bombings around Iraq, police reported today that five bodies turned up in the predominantly Shiite north Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah. Police Lt. Col. Riyad Abdulwahid said the four bodies had all been shot and were all wearing Interior Ministry commando uniforms, a force which has been accused by Sunni Arabs of taking part in the abuse and torture of detainees. The fifth body had been decapitated and was dressed in an Iraqi army uniform, Abdulwahid added. Ballots were being transported to central warehouses in each province, usually after being counted at one of the thousands of polling stations around Iraq. A nationwide vehicle ban remained in effect, and most Iraqis walked to mosques for prayers as they had walked to polling stations yesterday. Streets were generally empty of cars, except for police, ambulances and a few others with permits. Up to 11 million of the nation’s 15 million registered voters took part, election officials estimated, which would put overall turnout at more than 70%. Many Sunnis said they voted to register their opposition to the Shiite-led government and to speed the end of the US military presence. “What happened yesterday in Sunni areas and Iraq does not mean that the resistance is getting weaker,” said Mohammed Abdelkarim, 42, a teacher in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. “The patriotic resistance adhered to the calls by Sunni clerics to participate in the elections to make up for the loss we suffered during the last elections.” He added that “the resistance will not die till the withdrawal of the occupation forces.” Opposition to the American military presence runs deeper among Sunni Arabs, the minority group which enjoyed a privileged position under Saddam, than among any of Iraq’s other religious and ethnic communities. While Sunnis were defiant, Shiites and Kurds seemed hopeful the new government would be more successful than the outgoing one in restoring security. A common theme, however, appeared to be a yearning for an end to the turmoil that has engulfed Iraq since the US-led coalition invaded in March 2003 to topple Saddam’s regime. Officials said it could take at least two weeks until final results are announced for the parliament, which will serve a four-year term. Violence was light. Insurgent groups, as promised, generally refrained from attacks on polling stations. In the Sunni Arab militant stronghold of Ramadi, masked gunmen provided by local sheikhs guarded polling stations, frisking voters as they entered. Yesterday’s election appeared on track to record more votes than any other parliamentary election in an Arab country – though more than 17 million people voted in a May referendum in Egypt, and more than 14.6 million in a September referendum in Algeria, according to IFES, a non-profit organisation that supports building democratic societies. US President George Bush called it “a major step forward in achieving our objective.” US officials hope a broad-based government will be able to quell the bloodshed so that the US can begin to bring troops home next year. A successful election followed by an effective, broad-based government would also give the Bush administration a significant victory in its campaign to spread democracy through the Middle East. But many Shiite politicians have little interest in concessions to Sunnis on their key demands, including a greater share of power and allowing a role for Saddam loyalists in public life. As a result, negotiations to create a new government – including a prime minister – could drag on for weeks just as they did following January’s election, when many Sunnis stayed away from the polls because of threats of violence or to honour boycott calls. Another prolonged political struggle might worsen sectarian tensions. Still, Iraqi leaders expressed relief that the election had passed relatively smoothly and US officials saw the lack of violence as an encouraging sign. “We should expect the insurgency not to just go away, but to gradually reduce,” said General George Casey, top US commander in Iraq, speaking via video to a town hall-style meeting of Defence Department workers at the Pentagon. But the incidents did little to discourage Iraqis, some of whom turned out wrapped in their flag on a bright, sunny day. Afterwards, many displayed a purple ink-stained index finger – a mark to guard against multiple voting. In Fallujah, the former Sunni insurgent bastion seized by US forces in November 2004, 11 of the city’s 35 polling stations did not receive ballot boxes, while some sites ran out of ballots in the morning, said Mayor Dhari al-Arsan. He said some voters “thought it was done purposely,” but he attributed the lack of ballot boxes to the large turnout. Election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said officials opened only 167 of the planned 207 election centres in Anbar province because of security. Anbar includes Ramadi and Fallujah. Turnout was also reported high across the Shiite south, including Basra, where the director of one polling centre, Amjad Mahdi, estimated more than 70% of the 5,000 registered voters at his facility had cast ballots.
Sunnis turn out to have their say in Iraq poll The Age
Vote counting under war in Iraq Aljazeera.com
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Iraq’s election a victory for Iran, says Rafsanjani
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: December 16 2005 18:22 | Last updated: December 16 2005 18:22

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s influential former president, on Friday called Iraq’s parliamentary elections a “victory” for Iran and said the vote had shattered any US expansionist ambitions in the Middle East.

He also criticised Washington for refusing to give Tehran a role in its Iraq policy.

“The election was a victory won by the Iraqi nation, which we share with them, because we paid a price for its preparation - since the Iran-Iraq war [1980-1988] and the Ba’athist regime,” Mr Rafsanjani told Friday worshippers at Tehran University campus. “Although Iraq has still a difficult future ahead, the trend is on the right track.”

The US accuses Iran of misusing its influence and fuelling the insurgency to destabilise Iraq. Iran denies such charges and argues that stability in Iraq is in line with its national interests.

Mr Rafsanjani is known as a pragmatic conservative who favours strategic co-operation with the US in the region. “It could be to the US’s benefit not to ignore Iran’s role; instead, they were hostile wherever they could be,” Mr Rafsanjani said.

Iraq debate rips at congressional wounds Fri Dec 16, 6:40 PM ET



Republicans in the US Congress seized on the large turnout in Iraq's election to expose sharp Democratic Party divisions on when to bring US troops home.

President George W. Bush's majority party forced a resolution enshrining a commitment to "victory in Iraq," which rejected calls for a timetable for withdrawal, through the House of Representatives by 279 votes to 109.

The vote exposed Democratic disagreements over the state of the war, as 59 opposition lawmakers joined Republicans in voting for the resolution.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has endorsed calls by fellow Democrat congressman John Murtha for withdrawal from Iraq within six months, accused Republicans of pulling off a cheap political trick.

"Instead of using these elections as an occasion to unify, once again the Republican majority brings to the House floor a divisive resolution to denounce those who disagree," Pelosi said.

"It is not democratic and also insists that if you want to congratulate the people of Iraq, you have to support the status quo."

Texas Republican Tom DeLay, who has stepped down as Republican majority leader to fight money laundering charges, lambasted Democrats.

"They point to the war's costs, its difficulties, and our setbacks -- and despite the catastrophic consequences of failure, call for an immediate retreat and surrender."

The resolution forced Democrats into an unpleasant dilemma -- either line up with their Republican tormentors or risk being accused of rejecting victory.

Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said "early withdrawal would not achieve anything but embolden the Islamist fanatics who were dealt a deadly blow to their plans" at the ballot box.

"A strong bipartisan support for this resolution would send a clear message that this House is in this until our mission is achieved," she said.

Veteran Democrat Tom Lantos accused the Republicans of using the courage of Iraqis who went to the polls to score a cheap political victory, by limiting time in the debate and using the election as a political prop.

"It is a sad day, indeed, when the Iraqi people have to teach the United States Congress a lesson in democracy," Lantos said, decrying the "ugly, divisive and unnecessary debate."

The White House and Republicans have succeeded in drawing public attention to Democrat divisions over Iraq: while some opposition lawmakers favor immediate withdrawal, others reluctantly agree with Bush's contention that US troops must stay on.

The issue becomes more and more sensitive with each month passes, as next November's mid-term congressional elections loom.

US public support for the war in Iraq has plummetted, as US deaths now number 2,154 plus thousands more wounded.

But the Bush administration hopes the elections will mark a watershed in Iraq's troubled history since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Lantos was frustrated in his attempts to introduce an alternative resolution that did not mention the withdrawal of US troops.

Democrats are still fuming at what they saw as dirty Republican tactics over Iraq last month.

On that occasion, Republicans introduced a motion calling for an immediate withdrawal of US forces, designed to quell a political firestorm sparked by Murtha.

The resolution, which Democrats were forced to reject, was defeated by 403 votes to three.



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Bush Says Iraq War Is Good for Israel
By FORWARD STAFF
December 16, 2005

In sharp contrast to the growing consensus of Jerusalem's security and political establishment, President Bush argued this week that Israel's safety depends on democratization of the Arab world.

"If you're a supporter of Israel, I would strongly urge you to help other countries become democracies," President Bush declared Monday, in a major address defending American policy in Iraq and his wider vision for the region. "Israel's long-term survival depends upon the spread of democracy in the Middle East."

Israeli security officials argued the opposite view at this month's American-Israeli strategic dialogue, warning that regime change and democratization threatened to destabilize the Middle East. Israel sees its security tied to regimes such as Egypt and Jordan, and fears that democratization could turn those countries against Israel.

"I am skeptical when it comes to the supposition that democracy is a panacea. Not all democracies are good," said General Shlomo Brom, former chief of the Israeli army's strategic planning division. "What about a democracy in Egypt — let's say — which is governed by the Muslim Brotherhood? Would Egypt then have better relations with Israel than under Mubarak's regime?"

As the American-Israeli debate quietly heats up, the Bush administration's approach is creating fault lines within the Jewish community. On Tuesday, the Republican Jewish Coalition took out a full-page advertisement attacking the Reform synagogue movement over its recent call for the United States to develop an exit strategy for the war in Iraq.

Neither the Republican Jewish Coalition ad nor the Reform statement mentioned Israel. But some pro-Israel activists and Israeli observers criticized Bush's comments, saying they could end up fueling claims that Jerusalem and Jewish groups pushed the United States into an unpopular war.

"American Jews don't want American soldiers to be dying for Israel," said Martin Raffel,
associate executive director of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, a public-policy coordinating umbrella group consisting of 13 national organizations and 123 local community-relations councils.

"Would Israel benefit from democracy in the Middle East? Yes. But so would Europe, and America and the whole international community," Raffel said. "So why would the president select supporters of Israel? Supporters of Western civilization would want to see democratization in the Middle East, along with Israel."

Israeli experts voiced similar concerns.

"It could put Israel in a very awkward situation with the American public, if Israel would be the excuse for losing more American soldiers every day," said Danny Rothschild, a retired major general who once served as the Israeli army's top administrator in the West Bank.

In a speech on Wednesday, Bush criticized anti-war opponents who would suggest that America went to war for Israel. At the same, he and other Republicans defending his foreign policy by linking it to Israel's security needs.

Senator John Warner of Virginia, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently argued in an interview with MSNBC that a premature American pullout would "put Israel in a very tenuous and vulnerable position." And a GOP activist, Bruce Blakeman, told the Forward that Israel's security has always played a key role in the president's thinking on Iraq.

"The president realized not only that Saddam Hussein was a danger to America, but that Saddam Hussein had designs on attacking Israel," said Blakeman, whose brother Brad is a former Bush aide. "There was a concern that an attack on Israel would turn into a regional war, with Syria and Iran joining in on Iraq's side."

While some Israelis and Jewish communal leaders worried about Bush's remarks, Blakeman told the Forward that "concern for the well-being of Israel is not confined to the Jewish community."

"The vast majority of Americans realize that Israel is a strong democracy in a region where there has been no democracy and an ally that shares our values," Blakeman said.

But several Israeli experts insisted that any pro-war argument — even a valid one — linked to Israel's security could end up undermining American public support for the American-Israeli relationship. And while most Israeli experts contacted by the Forward predicted that an American withdrawal would unleash a wave of terrorism directed at American allies in the region, several still challenged the premise that the United States should remain in Iraq.

"I maintain that the U.S. presence there actually causes harm to some of our interests," said Brom, who is currently a guest scholar at the federally funded United States Institute of Peace in Washington. "Take Iran. America's presence in Iraq does not allow an appropriate dealing with the Iranian problem. It also erodes, over time, the powerful image of the United States. That's not good for Israel, as an ally of the U.S."

Still, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said few dispute that a premature pullout would create instability, threatening several U.S. allies, including Israel, and several Arab states. "That is not to say that we went to war because of Israel or we stayed at war because of Israel," Hoenlein said, "but one of the consequences of making the wrong step of leaving Iraq prematurely would be Israel.... I don't think that there is any division in the Jewish community that I know of on that."

A very public dispute did erupt this week between Jewish groups over Iraq, with the Union for Reform Judaism and the Republican Jewish Coalition exchanging rhetorical blows. At issue was the Reform union's resolution last month calling for a strategy to end America's presence in Iraq.

On Tuesday, the Republican group published a full-page ad in The New York Times, addressing the Union for Reform Judaism and stating: "Freedom is worth fighting for." The ad was signed by several prominent Jewish Republican elected officials, former ambassadors, senior military officers, rabbis and former senior officials with Jewish groups. The Republican ad argues that it is "misleading and wrong" for the Reform movement to suggest that "American Jews oppose the president on Iraq."

By Tuesday evening, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Rabbi David Saperstein, had sent a scathing open letter to the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks. The Reform union's president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, and its chairman of the board, Robert Heller, sent a letter to Bush.

"Respectfully but firmly, Mr. President, we want our leaders to tell us the truth, the whole of it, and we therefore call on your administration to adopt a policy of transparency," Yoffie and Heller wrote. "With regard to troop withdrawal, we call not only for a clear exit strategy but also for specific goals for troop withdrawal to commence after the completion of parliamentary elections scheduled for later this week and then to be continued in a way that maintains stability in Iraq and empowers Iraqi forces to provide for their national security."


With reporting by Ori Nir in Washington, Guy Leshem in Tel Aviv, and Ami Eden and E.J. Kessler in New York.

Iraq Eases Tight Security After Election Forbes
Cars and trucks returned to Iraq's roads Saturday as authorities eased tight security imposed for the parliamentary election, and the main Sunni Arab alliance said it was open to forming a governing coalition with a religious Shiite bloc.
2 Top Americans in Baghdad Urge Unity After Vote The Ledger
Sunnis see potential after vote Chicago Tribune
Toronto Star - Deccan Herald - Washington Post - Newsday - all 2,737 related »

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December 18, 2005
New Mission for U.S. Division to Put Iraqi Forces to the Test
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 - The Fourth Infantry Division returns to Iraq next month for a complex, yearlong tour that illustrates the risks and goals of the American military's postelection mission across Iraq.

The more than 20,000 troops in the division, about 15 percent of the 138,000-strong American commitment scheduled to remain in Iraq at least through the early part of the year, will be responsible for security across a swath of central and south-central Iraq that is much larger than previous commands have tried to cover there.

The expanded mission includes more than a hope, but a requirement, that Iraqi security forces take over the security mission in larger areas of their own country. The planning is also driven by a cold reality that many of the allied troops - including Ukraine, Bulgaria, Italy and possibly even Poland - seem likely to leave Iraq over coming months.

So, like American troops all across Iraq, the Fourth Infantry Division, from its headquarters in Baghdad, will have no choice but to rely on increasing numbers of Iraqi troops, testing as never before the American and Iraqi forces - and the new government to be assembled from the parliamentary election that was held Thursday.

The Americans are planning to turn over bases to Iraqis, and more significantly plan to turn over a much larger share of the battle space to Iraqis, with the goal to minimize a visible American presence that alienates many Iraqis and provides a target for the insurgency. When possible, the American military will remain in a stand-back role, available to rush in if Iraqi forces need assistance.

American commanders make it no secret that the coming Iraqi government, with its sovereign stature and a full, four-year tenure, means they will be operating in new political terrain. Mounting pressures in the United States - and a new Iraqi government all but certain to assert its authority in coming months - will require that the American military demonstrate some kind of success and then withdraw as many troops as quickly and as safely as possible.

The goal is to make Iraqi patrols the norm, with stability no longer dependent on the large foreign force that has so constantly enraged Iraqis. That goal has become every bit as important as quelling the insurgency, if not more so. The new mission for the Fourth Infantry Division is planned around that new goal.

"It is very much a laboratory for the overall mission, linked not just to the development of the Iraqi armed forces but to efforts to make the special security forces act like national police forces," and not loyal only to local religious or ethnic leaders, said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"How much of the battle space can the Iraqi forces take over, and who is actually doing the fighting - those are the key measurements," Mr. Cordesman said.

"The measure cannot be the elimination of the insurgency, as desirable as that would be," he said. "You cannot eliminate all of the bombings."

In a strong indication of the tenor of the coming months, several of the incoming commanders are also returning veterans of the Iraq mission, and come from a school of thought that balances both the rebuilding of Iraq's economy and civil institutions and the contest of arms against the insurgents.

Still, the American reliance on overwhelming firepower will remain central.

The Fourth Infantry Division is the largest and most technologically advanced heavy division in the Army, with the most modern Abrams tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and armored Humvees in the military's inventory.

The division re-enters Iraq redesigned to be more flexible, growing to four brigade combat teams from three, each a self-contained fighting unit hauling the latest high-tech communications and surveillance gear to operate with greater certainty of its locations - and that of adversaries.

The new, enlarged boundaries assigned to the Fourth Infantry Division were described by officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq, but the military asked that the details not be printed because they might assist the insurgency in its planning.

In this postelection phase, incoming commanders are starting off free from the burden of earlier bitter debates about war planning, prewar intelligence or the number of troops engaged in the first months of the invasion and occupation.

"They are not looking over their shoulders," said Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff. "They are looking forward."

The Fourth Infantry Division is headed by Maj. Gen. J. D. Thurman, who served as chief of operations for the Coalition Forces Land Component Command, which planned and ran the rapid ground war into Baghdad, and then spent a tour at the Pentagon helping the Army redesign the way its attack helicopters would be sent into combat.

Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the new commander of the Iraqi training mission, previously served two years in Saudi Arabia and already has served 15 months of combat duty in Iraq, as he commanded the First Armored Division for its earlier tour, when it was assigned to provide security in Baghdad after the fall of the old government, and battled a Shiite militia uprising to the south of the capital.

General Dempsey said the elections on Thursday offered a new framework - and a new time frame, if not a deadline, for the allied effort.

"For the first time since this mission began, we've got a government that will come into power with the expectation that it will sit for four years," he said.

"You've got a six-month window of opportunity to assist them in putting in place a system that reflects democratic processes in a free market economy," he added.

"Why do I say six months? Any nation is gong to begin to assert itself after that first six-month period, and will develop habits and processes of its own," the general said. "Our influence begins to wane a bit."

Another returning veteran is the three-star officer who early next year takes command of the day-to-day fight and military-led reconstruction mission all across Iraq; he is Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, who left Baghdad this year after a tour as commander of the First Cavalry Division.

General Chiarelli provided insight into the way ahead for next year in an essay for an Army journal over the summer in which he argued that the military mission must provide essential city services, create jobs and promote local governmental control.

"A gun on every street corner, although visually appealing, provides only a short-term solution," the general wrote in the journal, Military Review, and "does not equate to long-term security grounded in a democratic process."

"If there is nothing else done other than kill bad guys and train others to kill bad guys, the only thing accomplished is moving more people from the fence to the insurgent category," he wrote. "There remains no opportunity to grow the supporter base."

Training Iraqi security forces has been delayed in part by a lack of American trainers, but commanders say that by early next year, the full complement of 2,500 American military advisers will be in place working and living directly with Iraqi units, from battalions up to ministries in Baghdad.

These advisers to Iraqi Army, special police and border patrol forces will instruct Iraqi forces and provide a vital link to American intelligence and logistics support.

In addition, entire American units will partner with Iraqi units to provide more training. General Dempsey's latest count of Iraqi forces - about 75,000 police officers and about 100,000 soldiers - is projected to grow rapidly.

As the Iraqi forces take on additional responsibility, and prove their combat worthiness, American commanders in the country are poised to recommend a reduction of United States forces, with a tentative planning target of dropping to 100,000 by autumn.

Across Iraq, American forces say they will be ready to rely on the Iraqis, though many acknowledge that previous assessments of how quickly domestic security forces would step up to the fight have been far too optimistic, with well-publicized instances of Iraqi troops fleeing the fight or not returning to duty after a particularly intense battle.

Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner II, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said that within six months, he expected Iraqis to lead operations in about half of his division's area of responsibility in north-central Iraq, an area the size of Louisiana.

Over the past four to five months, Iraq police officials have reverified the credentials of police officers on the payrolls in all 18 provinces by creating an automated database that took fingerprints and retinal scans. These measures have slashed hundreds of "ghost" officers from the payrolls.

General Dempsey said another major focus next year would be on building up the Iraqi Defense and Interior Ministries to manage their own forces. Over the past month, raids on two Iraqi-run detention centers in Baghdad found scores of abused Iraqi detainees, prompting the military to order inspections of hundreds of Iraqi detention centers.

General Dempsey acknowledged that hundreds of militia gunmen had joined police departments around the country, while still retaining loyalties to their militia commanders.

"Some of these units are corrupt," said one Army company commander on his second yearlong tour in Iraq, who asked for anonymity in order to discuss his critical assessment of the Iraqi police forces candidly. "They are also poorly equipped in many cases, although they are becoming more of a focus and this is improving."



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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December 18, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Taking a Long View of the Iraq Conflict
By DAVID BROOKS
Over the past few years, the Iraq war has morphed from a war of liberation against Saddam into a civil conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. And when you look at this civil conflict - or civil war if you want to call it that - you see how typical it is of many of the civil wars we've seen in the world over the past six decades. Over that time, there have been 225 civil wars, and many of them have featured the same sort of insurgency and counterinsurgency, the same ethnic feuding and the same pattern of elections intermingled with violence that we see in Iraq today.

American policy makers and think-tank Johnnies have not really looked at Iraq in the broader context of these other conflicts. That's in part because when Americans think of civil war, we tend to think of our own Civil War, which was utterly atypical. It's also because American experts were almost all trained to think about wars between nations, even though civil wars are nine times more common.

If, however, you do happen upon the Journal of Peace Research, where specialists do write about civil wars, you find that their broad perspective helps you see Iraq in clear and refreshing ways.

It's interesting to know, for example, that the median civil war lasts about six years. It's also interesting to know that most civil wars start, as Iraq's did, because of a power vacuum at the top. When a country's central government becomes ineffective, as Iraq's did after the toppling of Saddam, groups begin to grab for power and resources. (Civil wars are much more likely in countries with oil or other mineral wealth.)

The leaders of insurgent armies certainly magnify ethnic grievances as part of their grab for spoils, but sectarian hatred usually isn't sufficient to start civil wars. These wars are started by local elites that are essentially making an investment. They decide to commit violence now in the hopes of grabbing great wealth later. The people who do the killing might be whipped up by ethnic grievances, but the people who lead civil wars are usually rational and greedy.

Once a war starts, the length of the war is influenced by how strong and effective the central government is. If the central government is strong enough to fight back against insurgents, demonstrate resolve in the face of setbacks and also bribe insurgent leaders into joining the establishment, then the war can be cut short. If the central government is weak or corrupt, or if it reacts to the insurgency with excessive brutality, then the war drags on.

This is why it is essential that the U.S. remain in Iraq until we are sure the central government is strong.

There are three ways civil wars end. In countries where ethnic hatreds have been whipped to fever pitch, there may be no answer but partition - separating the two groups. In countries where one side will settle for nothing less than total victory, then the war rages until one side suffers a crushing defeat.

But the best news out of Iraq last week was that the Sunnis voted joyfully and in large numbers. In what they said and the way they acted, both the Sunnis and Shiites made it clear that while they are engaged in a fierce rivalry, they fervently believe in a democratic and unified Iraq. This is not yet a to-the-death struggle.

That makes the third option for ending a civil war - a joint governing agreement - more likely. The difficulty in ending a civil war via compromise is that neither side can trust the other enough to lay down its arms. That's why it is necessary to have a third party - in Iraq, the United States - to cajole the two sides toward the settlement, to enforce the agreement afterward, to nurture a functioning social contract after that, and to prevent hostile outside powers from spoiling the deal.

That's why, again, it is essential that the U.S. remain in Iraq long enough to de-escalate the conflict.

At the very moment that American gloom-mongers are opting for panicked withdrawal, there's been a pileup of good news on Iraq: the improved training of Iraqi troops, the more effective counterinsurgency strategies, the booming Iraqi economy, the vastly improved White House communication strategy, the amazing confidence of the Iraqi people and, most of all, this glorious election.

All of which means that Iraq's civil war doesn't have to be a cataclysmic one - that is, if Iraqis keep their heads and the United States has the perseverance to finish the job.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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Outside View: The art of leaving Iraq
By William S. Lind
UPI Outside View Commentator
Published December 17, 2005


WASHINGTON -- The main question about the war in Iraq was never whether it would go well or go badly. The question was whether it would go bad fast or go bad slowly. So far, it has gone bad slowly, which was always the greater probability. But the possibility remains that it could go bad fast. The greatest likelihood may be during that most delicate of military arts, the withdrawal.

At least behind closed doors, a consensus is emerging in Washington that America will leave Iraq in 2006. Whether the White House will accept that consensus or resist it is yet to be seen, but the result will be the same either way. At this point, the Bush administration has about as much credibility on Capitol Hill as Napoleon had in Paris after Waterloo. On the House side particularly, where every seat is up next November, the watchword is sauve qui peut. As Dr. Johnson said, being about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.


An Office of the Secretary of Defense run by Donald Rumsfeld that assumed the war would be easy may also assume a withdrawal will be easy. History offers a note of caution. In war, getting in is often simpler and safer than getting out. The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld recently warned that America's withdrawal from Iraq could prove messy, for Americans as well as Iraqis. Xenophon's Anabasis might serve as a useful if not entirely encouraging preview. The 10,000 did make it back to Greece, most of them anyway, but few enjoyed the journey.

What scenarios should our planners and policy-makers consider? As the best case, logic suggests that Iraq's December elections might be seen by Iraq's "key man," Shiite Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, as the turning point. A new, Shiite-dominated government will probably be elected to a four-year term. What better move for him than to issue a fatwa saying that it's time for the Americans to leave? His Shiites are getting restive at the American presence, he has to compete for his leadership role with firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, and as the man who kicked the foreign occupiers out, he could reach across Iraq's central divide to offer a deal to the Sunnis, perhaps restoring a real Iraqi state. In the face of a Sistani fatwa, Iraq's government would almost certainly have to ask the American troops to leave.

Our response should be, "Hallelujah!" This would give us the golden bridge we need, a way out where we could claim with at least some credibility that we were not beaten. It would also probably mean a relatively safe and orderly exit. The Bush administration has said we would leave if the Iraqis asked us to, and the new U.N. resolution under which our presence in Iraq is authorized requires us to do so. If the White House resisted, it would get trampled into the dirt on Capitol Hill by elephants and donkeys alike.

As the worst case, we should envision what might happen if Israel or the United States or both attack Iran. Israel has recently indicated that unless international efforts to secure Iran's nuclear program succeed, an Israeli military action is likely sometime next year. Iran has said publicly that it will regard an Israeli attack as an attack by America also. If Iran's influence in Shiite southern Iraq is as great as reports suggest it is, the obvious Iranian response would be to blow up the magazine by attacking the American lines of supply -- and withdrawal -- that come up from Kuwait. Add a Shiite insurgency to that of the Sunnis, and an American withdrawal could start to look like Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, with sand substituting for snow.

There are of course a wide range of possibilities between these two extremes. An American withdrawal might lead to a truce with nationalist elements of the Iraqi resistance; they would have succeeded in their objective and would have no need to continue fighting us. Jihadi elements, however, might redouble their efforts, both to humiliate the Americans and to prevent the emergence of a real Iraqi state. In Shiite country, a lot of young men might think it's now or never if they want a piece of the glory of having fought the world's greatest superpower. Moqtada al-Sadr might turn his Mahdi Army loose on us again, as part of his bid for power in a post-American Iraq.

The question of how we withdraw from Iraq should be at the top of the Pentagon's planning tasks. If the same kinds of optimistic assumptions that guided our invasion of Iraq also shape our plans for withdrawal, we could find ourselves in what one old Pentagon planner used to call "a fine kettle of fish."

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)

Outside View: Al-Qaida's mistake

By William S. Lind

UPI Outside View Commentator

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The suicide bombings in Jordan recently carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq seem to have blown back on the jihadis. According to Western press reports, almost all those killed were Moslems, including a Palestinian wedding party. Outrage among Jordanians has compelled al-Qaida to issue a quasi-apology, saying the wedding party was not its target. Had Abu Musab al-Zarqawi been a tad more clever, he might have apologized for the "collateral damage."

A column in the Oct. 12 International Herald Tribune by professor of Islamic Studies Bernard Haykel suggests that a rift is opening up among jihadis over the tactic of suicide bombing. Haykel writes, "In fact, growing splits among jihadis are beginning to undermine the theological and legal justifications for suicide bombing. ... There are strong indications from jihadi Web sites and online journals, confirmed by conversations I have had while doing research among Salafis, or scriptural literalists, that the suicide attacks are turning many Muslims against the jihadis altogether. ..."

If we look at this practice from a Fourth Generation War (4GW) picture, what do we see? On the surface, it looks as if Islamic non-state elements are making a major blunder. Fourth Generation war theory, drawing from the late U.S. Air Force Col. John Boyd, argues that the moral level of war is the most powerful, the physical level is the weakest and the mental level lies somewhere in between. It would seem obvious that when Islamic elements set off bombs that kill other Islamics, they work against themselves at the moral level.

To some degree, this is certainly the case. Bombings such as those in Jordan do turn some Moslems against al-Qaida in other similar groups.

We might try here to reason by analogy. When the United States drops bombs from aircraft or otherwise dumps firepower on Iraqi cities, towns and farms, it alienates the population further. As the FMFM 1-A argues, success for an outside, occupying power requires de-escalation, not escalation of violence.

But here is where the picture grows murky. The fact is, both sides don't get to operate by the same rules in 4GW. While the very strength of the intervening power means it must be careful how it applies its strength, that is much less true of the weaker forces opposing it. This is an aspect of what respected Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld calls the power of weakness. Viewed from the moral level, a weak force can get away with tactics that damn its vastly stronger enemy. Its weakness itself tends to justify whatever it does.

Suicide bombing is itself a tactic of the weak (which does not mean it is ineffective). The United States bombs from aircraft, where the pilot operates in complete safety against 4GW opponents, with rare exceptions. At the moral level, that safety works against us, not for us. In contrast, the fact that 4GW fighters often have to give their lives to place their bombs works for them. Their combination of physical weakness and apparent heroism leads civilians from their own culture to excuse them much, including "collateral damage" they would never excuse if the bomb came from an American F-18.

Does this mean that al-Qaida and its many clones can ignore the deaths and injuries they cause among fellow Islamics? No. They have to be careful not to go too far, as al-Qaida clearly did in Jordan. But they can still get away with a great deal we could not get away with. The same rules do not apply to all, and much stricter, more disadvantageous rules apply to us than to them. Is that fair? Of course not. But whoever said there was anything fair about war?

--

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is Director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of World Peace Herald or United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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Outside View: The hazards of spin
By Anthony H. Cordesman
UPI Outside View Commentator
Published December 17, 2005


WASHINGTON -- The sharp gap between the evolution of the insurgency and the almost endless U.S. efforts to use the media and politics to spin a long and uncertain counter-insurgency campaign into turning points and instant victory has done America, the Bush Administration, and the American military great harm. Spin and shallow propaganda lose wars rather than win them. They ultimately discredit a war, and the officials and officers who fight it.

Iraq shows that it is critical that an administration honestly prepares the American people, the Congress and its allies for the real nature of the war to be fought. To do so, it must prepare them to sustain the expense and sacrifice through truth, not spin. There is only so much shallow spin that the American people or Congress will take. It isn't a matter of a cynical media or a people who oppose the war; rubbish is rubbish. If the United States spins each day with overoptimistic statements and half-truths, it embarks on a process that will sooner or later deprive itself of credibility -- both domestically and internationally.


Iraq is another warning that serious counter-insurgency campaigns often take five to 15 years. They don't end conveniently with an assistant secretary or a president's term in office. Again and again we deny the sheer length of serious counter-insurgencies. Planners, executers, and anyone who explains and justifies such wars needs to be far more honest about the timescales involved, just how long we may have to stay, and that even when an insurgency is largely over, there may be years of aid and advisory efforts.

The insurgency raises lessons about warfighting that go beyond the details of military strategy and tactics, and provide broader lessons that have been surprisingly consistent over the more than 40 years from Vietnam to Iraq.

First, warfighters must focus relentlessly on the desired outcome of the war and not simply the battle or overall military situation. In strategic and grand strategic terms, it doesn't matter how well the war went last month; it doesn't matter how the United States is doing tactically. The real question warfighters must ask is whether the United States is actually moving toward a strategic outcome that serves the ultimate interests of the United States. If warfighters don't know, should they spend the lives of American men and women in the first place?

The United States, and any military force engaging in counter-insurgency warfare, should teach at every level that stability operations and conflict termination are the responsibility of every field-grade officer. And, for that matter, of every civilian. Warfighters need to act on the principle that every tactical operation must have a political context and set of goals. The United States needs to tie its overall campaign plan to a detailed plan for the use of economic aid at every level, from simple bribery to actually seeking major changes in the economy of a given country.

Second, warfighters need to understand, as Gen. Rupert Smith has pointed out, that Iraq has shown that enemies will make every effort to try win counter-insurgency conflicts by finding ways to operate below or above the threshold of conventional military superiority. It is stupid, as some in the U.S. military have done, to call Iraqi insurgents cowards or terrorists because they will not fight on our terms. The same remarkably stupid attitudes appeared in 19th century colonial wars and often cost those foolish enough to have them the battle. The Madhi's victories in the Sudan are a good example.

The United States has to be able to fight in ways that defeat insurgents and terrorists regardless of how they fight. Insurgents are not cowards for fighting us in any way that leads to the highest cost to us and the least cost to them. If they can fight below the U.S. threshold of conventional superiority, then technology is at best a limited supplement to U.S. human skills, military professionalism, and above all, our ability to find ways to strengthen local allies.

It is far more important, for example, to have effective local forces than more technology. Net-centric is not a substitute for human-centric, and for that matter, human-centric isn't a substitute for competent people down at the battalion level. Systems don't win. Technology doesn't win.

Third, warfighters and their political leaders need to acknowledge that enemies can fight above the threshold of U.S. conventional ability, not just beneath it. The character of America's political system, culture, and values are not the answer to winning the political and ideological dimension of many counter-insurgency campaigns. There is no reason Americans should think it can win an ideological struggle over the future of Islam and/or the Arab world. Our Muslim and Arab allies, in contrast, may well be able to win this struggle, particularly if the United States works with them and not against them.

U.S. public diplomacy and political actions can have a major impact in aiding counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism. But Iraq shows that the local, cultural, ethnic, religious and political issues have to be fought out in such wars, and must be fought out largely by our ally on the ground and other Islamic states. The United States can help, but cannot win, or dominate, the battle for hearts and minds. Moreover, only regional allies with the right religion, culture, and legitimacy can cope with the growing ability of ideologically driven opponents to find the fault lines that can divide us from local allies by creating increased ethnic and sectarian tensions.

Fourth, the United States does need to improve our counter-insurgency technology, but cannot win with "toys." Technology is a tool and not a solution. Israeli technology failed in Lebanon as U.S. technology did in Vietnam, and some of the same IED systems that helped defeat Israel have now emerged in Iraq: those twin IR sensors, the shaped charges, the radio-controlled devices, the foam painted to look like rocks. Like Israel, the United States can use technical means to defeat many IEDs, but not enough. Moreover, it is possible that the total cost of every insurgent IED to date is still lower than the cost of one AH-1S that went down over Iraq.

Fifth, the best "force multiplier" will be effective allies, and interoperability with a true partner. If it is true that the United States can win most counter-insurgency campaigns if it creates strong allies, the United States must act decisively on this principle. U.S. victories will often only be a means to this end. The real victories come when the United States has allied troops that can operate against insurgents in the field, and a friendly government to carry out nation building and civil action activities at the same time. The United States really begins to win when it can find ways to match the military, political, economic, and governance dimension.

Creating a real partnership with allies means respect; it doesn't mean creating proxies or tools. It means recognizing that creating the conditions for effective governance and police are as important as the military. So is the creation of effective ministries. Iraq shows all too clearly that if you focus on the ministry of defense and ignore the ministry of the interior -- and even more difficult if you ignore the ministry of finance -- this just doesn't work.

In most places, the actual counter-insurgency battle is local and as dependent on police and effective governance as effective military forces. In hyper-urbanized areas, which represent many of the places where we fight, the city is the key, at least as much as the national government. And, incidentally, Iraq has already shown time after time that it is difficult to sustain any victory without a lasting presence by local police and government offices

Sixth, political legitimacy in counter-insurgency is measured in local terms and not in terms of American ideology. Effective warfighting means the United States must recognize something about regional allies that goes against its present emphasis on "democracy." In most of the world, "legitimacy" has little to do with governments being elected, and a great deal to do with governments being popular.

By all means, hold elections when they do more good than harm. But bringing the people security, the rule of law, human rights and effective governance is far more important. In many cases, elections may be disruptive or bring people to power who are more of a problem than a solution. This is particularly true if elections come without the preconditions of mature political parties, economic stability, a firm rule of law and checks and balances. In most cases, the United States and its allies will still need to worry about the people who don't win -- people, ethnicities, and sects who will not have human rights protection. If anyone thinks there is a correlation between democracy and human rights, they got through college without ever reading Thucydides. The Melian dialogue is the historical rule, not the exception.

Seventh, the United States needs to have a functional interagency process and partner our military with effective civilian counterparts. Iraq has shown that political leaders and senior military cannot afford to bypass the system, or to lack support from the civilian agencies that must do their part from the outset. The United States needs to begin by deciding on the team it needs to go to war, and then make that team work. It is one of the oddities historically that Robert McNamara got his largest increase in U.S. troops deployed to Vietnam by bypassing the interagency process. The Bush Administration began by going through an interagency process before the war, but largely chose to ignore it after January 2003.

This is the wrong approach. Counter-insurgency wars are as much political and economic as military. They require political action, aid in governance, economic development and attention to the ideological and political dimension. The United States can only succeed here if the interagency process can work.

At another level, the United States needs civilian risk-takers. It needs a counterpart to the military in the field. There is no point in supporting the staffing of more interagency coordination bodies in Washington unless their primary function is to put serious resources into the field. The United States is not going to win anything by having better interagency coordination, and more meetings, unless the end result is to put the right mix of people and resources out in the countryside and where the fighting takes place.

The United States needs put a firm end to the kind of mentality that overstaffs the State Department and intelligence community in Washington, and doesn't require career civilians to take risks in the field. Foreign Service officers should not be promoted unless they are willing to take risks. The United States can get all the risk-takers we want. There already is a flood of applications from qualified people. It can also ensure continuity and expertise by drawing on the brave group of people already in Iraq a