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 The Pentagon Early Bird for 15 Jan 2008 January 15, 2008 placeRandomImg() Use of these news items does not reflect official endorsement. Reproduction for private use or gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. Item numbers indicate order of appearance only. This is the single print version. Use the PRINT command in your browser to print the entire Early Bird as one document. (NOTE: This single file format is a long document and can use 50 or more pages of paper.) AFGHANISTAN
January 15, 2008 Pg. 1 Allies Feel Strain Of Afghan War Troop Levels Among Issues Dividing U.S., NATO Countries By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writer The U.S. plan to send an additional 3,200 Marines to troubled southern Afghanistan this spring reflects the Pentagon's belief that if it can't bully its recalcitrant NATO allies into sending more troops to the Afghan front, perhaps it can shame them into doing so, U.S. officials said. But the immediate reaction to the proposed deployment from NATO partners fighting alongside U.S. forces was that it was about time the United States stepped up its own effort. After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving, according to a wide range of senior U.S. and NATO-member officials who agreed to discuss sensitive alliance issues on the condition of anonymity. While Washington has long called for allies to send more forces, NATO countries involved in some of the fiercest fighting have complained that they are suffering the heaviest losses. The United States supplies about half of the 54,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, they say, but the British, Canadians and Dutch are engaged in regular combat in the volatile south. "We have one-tenth of the troops and we do more fighting than you do," a Canadian official said of his country's 2,500 troops in Kandahar province. "So do the Dutch." The Canadian death rate, proportional to the overall size of its force, is higher than that of U.S. troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, a Canadian government analysis concluded last year. British officials note that the eastern region, where most U.S. forces are based, is far quieter than the Taliban-saturated center of British operations in Helmand, the country's top opium-producing province. The American rejoinder, spoken only in private with references to British operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is that superior U.S. skills have made it so. NATO has long been divided between those with fighting forces in Afghanistan and those who have restricted their involvement to noncombat activities. Now, as the United States begins a slow drawdown from Iraq, the attention of even combat partners has turned toward whether more U.S. troops will be free to fight in the "forgotten" war in Afghanistan. When Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier visited Washington late last month, he reminded Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Canada's Afghan mandate expires in January 2009. With most of the Canadian public opposed to a continued combat role, he said, it is not certain that Ottawa can sustain it. Bernier's message was that his minority government could make a better case at home if the United States would boost its own efforts in Afghanistan, according to Canadian and U.S. officials familiar with the conversation. "I don't think he expected an express commitment that day that they would draw down in Iraq and buttress in Afghanistan," the Canadian official said. "But he certainly registered Canadian interest and that of the allies involved." According to opinion polls, Canadians feel they have done their bit in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper last fall named an independent commission to study options -- continuing the combat mission, redeploying to more peaceful regions, or withdrawing in January 2009. The commission report, due this month, will form the basis of an upcoming parliamentary debate. With a Taliban offensive expected in the spring, along with another record opium poppy crop, the new Marines will deploy to the British area in Helmand and will be available to augment Canadian forces in neighboring Kandahar. Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have toned down their public pressure on allies. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Bush at his Texas ranch in November, U.S. and German officials said, she told him that while Bonn would step up its contribution in quiet northern Afghanistan, any change in Germany's noncombat role would spell political disaster for her conservative government. "It's not an excuse; it's simply reality -- coalition reality and domestic reality," a German official said. Merkel came away with Bush's pledge to praise Germany's efforts and stop criticizing. Although Gates began a meeting of NATO defense ministers late last year by saying he would not let them "off the hook" for their responsibilities in Afghanistan, he said in a news conference at the end of the session that further public criticism was not productive. Still, the Defense Department hopes that increasing its own contribution -- nearly half of an additional 7,500 troops Gates has said are needed in Afghanistan -- will encourage the allies. "As we're considering digging even deeper to make up for the shortfall in Afghanistan," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said, "we would expect our allies in the fight to do the same." Many Europeans believe that the United States committed attention and resources to Iraq at Afghanistan's expense. But U.S. officials say the problems of NATO countries in Afghanistan have roots in not investing sufficiently in their militaries after the Cold War. Canada, U.S. officials say, needs American military airlift for its troops in Afghanistan because it got rid of a fleet of heavy lift helicopters. At the same time that they want more from their partners, however, U.S. defense officials often disdain their abilities. No one, they insist, is as good at counterinsurgency as the U.S. military. U.S. and British forces have long derided each other's counterinsurgency tactics. In Iraq, British commanders touted their successful "hearts and minds" efforts in Northern Ireland, tried to replicate them in southern Iraq, and criticized more heavy-handed U.S. operations in the north. Their U.S. counterparts say they are tired of hearing about Northern Ireland and point out that British troops largely did not quell sectarian violence in the south. The same tensions have emerged in Afghanistan, where U.S. officials criticized what one called a "colonial" attitude that kept the British from retaining control over areas wrested from the Taliban. Disagreement leaked out publicly early last year when British troops withdrew from the Musa Qala district of Helmand after striking a deal with local tribal leaders. The tribal chiefs quickly relinquished control to the Taliban. Britain, with a higher percentage of its forces deployed worldwide than the United States, is stretched thin in Afghanistan. Not only did the British have insufficient force strength to hold conquered territory, but the reconstruction and development assistance that was supposed to consolidate military gains did not arrive. "It's worth reminding the Americans that the entire British army is smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps," said one sympathetic former U.S. commander in Afghanistan. After 10 months of Taliban control, Musa Qala was retaken in December in combat involving British, Afghan and U.S. forces. The new Marine deployments will supplement British troops, and both sides insist they have calmed their differences. "Whatever may or may not have been said between the two in the past," said one British official, ". . . we are now in the same place." Now, he said, "the much more interesting question is where do we go from here, and can we sustain a cautiously positive picture in Musa Qala" and elsewhere. British officials hope that new deployments and stepped-up Afghan security training by the Marines will address one of Helmand's biggest problems -- the expansion of the opium crop. Opium provides income for the Taliban and is a major source of corruption within the Afghan police and government, yet the allies are divided on how to stop its production. U.S. officials in Afghanistan, led by Ambassador William B. Wood, have insisted that the current strategy of manually destroying opium fields is ineffective and have pressed to begin aerial spraying of herbicide. Wood is a former ambassador to Colombia, where the United States funds and operates the world's largest aerial effort to eradicate coca. The British, in charge of NATO's anti-narcotics program in Afghanistan, strongly oppose spraying, as does Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who last month formally ruled it out over U.S. objections. But the government's preferred method of manual eradication -- sending Afghan troops and police to pull poppy plants out of the ground -- has faltered because of poor security. More important, programs to provide rural Afghans with alternative income sources remain underfunded and poorly coordinated. Each of NATO's regional Afghan commands operates its own provincial reconstruction teams, and scores of nongovernmental organizations work in the country. But with few exceptions -- such as Khost province under U.S. command in the east, where military and reconstruction resources are meshed -- they share no overriding strategy or operational rules. The United States has pressed U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a high-level representative to coordinate non-military activities in Afghanistan. Karzai has resisted, and Ban is said to be worried about taking responsibility for what he sees as a worsening situation. Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Colum Lynch contributed to this report. <A name=e20080115573271.html> Wall Street Journal January 15, 2008 Pg. 2 Pentagon Moves To Deploy More Troops To Afghanistan By Yochi J. Dreazen WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed off on a proposal to send additional troops to Afghanistan, and a formal Pentagon announcement will be made as early as today, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision effectively guarantees that 3,200 more Marines will deploy to Afghanistan to bolster the U.S.-led international force there. Mr. Gates will discuss the plan with President Bush before issuing final deployment orders, but an administration official said the president was certain to endorse the proposal when he returns from the Middle East this week. The deployments, once finalized, will bring the total U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan to about 30,000. That means that U.S. troop levels in both Iraq and Afghanistan will be at or near their highest levels since the start of the two wars. The move comes amid mounting U.S. concern about deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan, which was rocked yesterday by a suicide bombing at a luxury hotel in Kabul that left at least seven dead, including one American. It also highlights the Bush administration's inability to persuade U.S. allies to send more of their own troops to Afghanistan. The extra U.S. Marines will be used for two separate missions. About 1,000 will be training the fledgling Afghan national army, a cornerstone of the long-term U.S. exit strategy from the country, and the remaining 2,200 will deploy to southern Afghanistan to battle Taliban militants there, according to an official knowledgeable about the proposal. The military has begun alerting Marines in North Carolina and California, the official said. The Marines will begin leaving for Afghanistan in coming weeks and should be fully in place by early April, the official said. The decision to add fresh troops caps a striking shift in the military's thinking about the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While conditions in Iraq were deteriorating in recent years, military commanders consoled themselves that Afghanistan was going fairly well. The U.S. forces that invaded the country in 2001 had managed to quickly topple the Taliban and install a relatively popular central government. Violence was low, especially compared to Iraq. Today, military officials are increasingly positive about Iraq and increasingly worried about Afghanistan. Last year was the deadliest for U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan since the start of the war. Taliban attacks are up sharply, exacting a growing civilian death toll and steadily degrading the reach and popularity of President Hamid Karzai's government. Compounding the difficulties, the administration has been unable to convince foreign allies to shoulder more of the military burden. Gen. Dan McNeil, the American officer who commands the 41,000-person NATO force, has asked member nations to contribute at least 4,000 more combat troops, but none of the countries has signaled a willingness to do so. That is forcing the U.S. to fill the void, which frustrates Mr. Gates. When considering the military proposal to send fresh forces to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates told associates that he was deeply concerned about "letting NATO allies off the hook," according to a Pentagon official who works closely with the defense secretary. "He didn't want to give them a free ride," the official said. "But there really isn't a choice, unfortunately." <A name=e20080115573326.html> New York Times January 15, 2008 Pg. 8 U.S. Army Chief In Europe To Run NATO Afghan Unit By Michael R. Gordon WASHINGTON — Gen. David D. McKiernan is expected to be appointed as the next commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, American military officials said Monday. General McKiernan oversaw the allied ground attack that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. He has held a variety of senior posts and is the commander of American Army forces in Europe. He is likely to assume his new command in June and is to replace Gen. Dan K. McNeill. By all accounts, it will be a challenging assignment. United States and allied forces face a resilient Taliban, as well as Qaeda militants, who have been operating from sanctuaries in northwestern Pakistan. But NATO nations have had to carry out their mission short of combat troops and trainers. General McNeill recently requested that some 3,200 additional troops be sent, according to Defense Department officials. The Pentagon is expected to announce a decision on the request on Tuesday. The NATO force in Afghanistan numbers about 40,000, of which 14,000 are Americans. Separately, the United States has 12,000 troops who are carrying out a counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan. General McKiernan entered the Army in 1972. In the months before the Iraq war, he pressed to begin the war with a greater number of troops than authorized in the plan he had inherited. General McKiernan was never a favorite of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and after the invasion he was made the deputy head of the Army’s Forces Command, which oversees the training of American troops in the United States. In 2005, he was awarded a fourth star and made the head of American Army troops in Europe. His European experience will be a plus in dealing with NATO’s disparate forces in Afghanistan. During the 1990s, he was a senior officer with allied forces in Bosnia and later was deputy chief of staff of American Army operations in Europe. Among his other posts, he has been commander of the First Cavalry Division and the Army’s chief of operations. <A name=e20080115573454.html> Los Angeles Times January 15, 2008 Assault On Kabul Hotel Kills At Least 6 Assailants with rifles and explosives stage a bold attack in the Afghan capital. The Taliban claims responsibility. One American is among the dead. By M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Special to The Times KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Striking at a prime symbol of the Western presence in Afghanistan, assailants armed with grenades, assault rifles and suicide vests stormed a heavily fortified luxury hotel in the heart of the capital Monday. The carefully coordinated assault killed at least six people, leaving trails of blood in the marble-floored lobby and forcing terrorized guests to cower behind locked doors or in the basement awaiting rescue. The attack on the Serena Hotel, an incongruously deluxe five-star establishment in rundown Kabul that is frequented by foreign delegations, Western aid workers and high-ranking Afghan officials, was the boldest such assault in recent memory. The U.S. State Department said that one American, not a government employee, was among those killed. The victim's name was not immediately released because relatives had not yet been notified. Another victim was a Norwegian journalist covering the visit to Kabul by Norway's foreign minister. Carsten Thomassen of the Dagbladet newspaper died from injuries sustained in the attack, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. "We mourn the loss," CPJ Asia program coordinator Bob Dietz said. "Foreign and local journalists face numerous threats in countries like Afghanistan, where security is a rare commodity." Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, who was also staying in the hotel, was unhurt, news agencies reported, citing Norway's public broadcaster NRK. Several Norwegian journalists and embassy officials were believed to have been in the hotel at the time of the attack, apparently carried out by at least four assailants. The Taliban, which was ousted from power by U.S.-led forces in 2001, claimed responsibility for the attack almost as soon as it had taken place Monday night. In a city where most people hurry home before dark, many were unaware that the assault had occurred. A U.S. military official in Kabul, interviewed on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said dozens of American troops in Humvees converged on the hotel after receiving a panicked call for help from Afghan counterparts shortly after 6:15 p.m. The 177-room hotel, in the center of a busy Kabul district and almost adjacent to the presidential palace, is walled off and guarded with a fortified gate and blast barriers. The lobby is set back from the street entrance to the hotel compound, and all vehicles are searched before entering. Many expatriates and Afghan officials use the Serena's well-equipped gym, and Western embassies and military officials often avail themselves of its conference rooms and restaurants for meetings. It was thought to be the first direct attack on the multimillion-dollar hotel, which opened its doors in 2006, charging as much for a single night's stay as many Afghans make in a month or even a year. Early accounts of the chaotic sequence of events were sketchy and sometimes contradictory, but witnesses said they heard at least one loud explosion followed by gunfire, then another, closer blast. One of the dead was believed to be a female employee at the hotel gym, in the wing of the building closest to the front entrance. Employees quickly herded guests into the basement or warned them to stay in their rooms with the doors locked. An American aid worker who was inside the hotel told the Associated Press of terrified gym patrons huddling in the locker room, hoping they would not be found by the assailants. "We heard gunfire, a lot of it," said Suzanne Griffin, who works for the U.S.-based nonprofit group Save the Children. "We all just sat on the floor and got as far as we could from any glass. . . . We turned our phones on silent." News agencies quoted a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, as claiming responsibility for the assault and saying at least one of the four assailants had blown himself up. Others taking part in the attack managed to flee, he said. Authorities quickly sealed off the scene, which was illuminated by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. Troops were conducting a door-to-door search of the hotel in case one or more of the gunmen were still at large. The assailants apparently managed to breach the outer security barriers and quickly scatter, carrying out separate attacks in the hotel's public areas before guards were able to rally. "There were two or three bombs, and there was complete chaos," Norwegian journalist Stian Solum told NRK. "A bomb went off. . . . There were shots fired." Stoere, the Norwegian foreign minister, had called senior embassy staffers to a meeting at the hotel that was in progress at the time of the attack, news agencies reported. Kabul had remained relatively safe through 2005, even as the situation deteriorated in the countryside, but attacks in the capital have steadily edged upward in the last two years. Suicide bombers have mainly targeted Afghan security forces rather than trying to penetrate well-guarded embassy compounds or the headquarters of NATO-led forces, who number about 40,000 and include about 11,000 U.S. troops. Approximately 12,000 more U.S. troops are in Afghanistan under separate command. Taliban militants battling the Western troops have been unable this year to seize large new swaths of territory, but have managed to make many parts of the country unsafe for development and reconstruction workers, hampering efforts to rebuild in the wake of decades of warfare. Last year, a record-setting 140 suicide attacks took place in Afghanistan, most of them targeting Afghan and Western forces, but also leaving hundreds of civilians dead and injured. Special correspondent Faiez reported from Kabul and Times staff writer King from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report. <A name=e20080115573496.html> CNN January 14, 2008 3,200 Marines To Be Sent To Afghanistan In March By Jamie McIntyre The Situation Room (CNN), 5:00 PM BLITZER: An American is among the dead in a very bloody terror attack at a luxury hotel in Kabul. The Taliban are claiming responsibility for the assault, which involved a suicide bomber and gunfire. It comes as the Pentagon now planning to boost the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by deploying thousands of additional Marines. Let's go live to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre. He broke this story, really, a few days ago -- Jamie, but give us a sense of what's going on right now. I take it a decision has been made. JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the question is that with the U.S. essentially caving in and sending additional American reinforcements to Afghanistan, will it let NATO off the hook or will it allow the U.S. to shame the alliance into delivering on its promises? (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MCINTYRE: The decision to dispatch U.S. reinforcements to Afghanistan comes as the latest Taliban attack against a swanky Kabul hotel frequented by Westerners provides a grim reminder the war is far from won. At least six people, including one American, were killed in a brazen assault by gunmen armed with suicide vests, grenades and AK-47 rifles. The primary target -- believed to be a Norwegian diplomat -- was unhurt. The prospect of Afghanistan slipping into chaos is what has tipped the scales in favor of what is a tough call for Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- stretching his already over-extended military because other NATO countries have failed to send the troops they promised. DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: I am concerned about relieving the pressure on our allies to fulfill their commitment. I am concerned about the implications for the force. I also am very concerned that we continue to be successful in Afghanistan and that we continue to keep the Taliban on their back foot. MCINTYRE: The Pentagon has not yet announced the deployment, but CNN has confirmed that roughly 3,200 Marines are being notified that most will be sent to the front lines in March, to beef up NATO forces in the southern British sector, where the fighting is toughest. That will put U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan at around 30,000 -- the highest in six years of war. But it's that or risk failure. ADM. MIKE MULLEN, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: It's a really tough situation. And, at the same time, we believe that additional forces in Afghanistan -- and particularly back to economy of force -- can have a big impact. So those are kind of the -- it's the mission versus the strain, very specifically. (END VIDEO TAPE) MCINTYRE: Wolf, there's a lot of debate within the administration about the wisdom of essentially letting NATO slide on its commitments by sending those 3,000 American enforcements. It has not been an easy decision. As the Joint Chiefs chairman said last week, if the U.S. had those forces readily available, it would have made this decision a lot earlier -- Wolf. BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Thanks very much. <A name=e20080115573317.html> New York Times January 15, 2008 Pg. 1 Iraq Defense Minister Sees Need For U.S. Security Help Until 2018 By Thom Shanker FORT MONROE, Va. — The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018. Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated. Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year. President Bush has never given a date for a military withdrawal from Iraq but has repeatedly said that American forces would stand down as Iraqi forces stand up. Given Mr. Qadir’s assessment of Iraq’s military capabilities on Monday, such a withdrawal appeared to be quite distant, and further away than any American officials have previously stated in public. Mr. Qadir’s comments are likely to become a factor in political debate over the war. All of the Democratic presidential candidates have promised a swift American withdrawal, while the leading Republican candidates have generally supported President Bush’s plan. Now that rough dates have been attached to his formula, they will certainly come under scrutiny from both sides. Senior Pentagon and military officials said Mr. Qadir had been consistent throughout his weeklong visit in pressing that timeline, and also in laying out requests for purchasing new weapons through Washington’s program of foreign military sales. “According to our calculations and our timelines, we think that from the first quarter of 2009 until 2012 we will be able to take full control of the internal affairs of the country,” Mr. Qadir said in an interview on Monday, conducted in Arabic through an interpreter. “In regard to the borders, regarding protection from any external threats, our calculation appears that we are not going to be able to answer to any external threats until 2018 to 2020,” he added. He offered no specifics on a timeline for reducing the number of American troops in Iraq. His statements were slightly less optimistic than what he told an independent United States commission examining the progress of Iraqi security forces last year, according to the September report of the commission, led by a former NATO commander, Gen. James L. Jones of the Marines, who is retired. Then Mr. Qadir said he expected that Iraq would be able to fully defend its borders by 2018. Mr. Qadir was in the United States to discuss the two nations’ long-term military relationship, starting with how to build the new Iraqi armed forces from the ground up over the next decade and beyond, with American assistance. The United States and Iraq announced in November that they would negotiate formal agreements on that relationship, including the legal status of American military forces remaining in Iraq and an array of measures for cooperation in the diplomatic and economic arenas. Negotiations have yet to begin in earnest, but both countries have begun sketching their goals, and Mr. Qadir’s visit certainly is part of measures by the Iraqi government to lay the foundation for those talks, which are to be completed by July. “This trip is indicative of where we are in our military relationship with Iraq,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “We are transitioning from crisis mode, from dealing with day-to-day battlefield decisions, to a long-term strategic relationship.” Mr. Morrell said the goal was to end a period in which Iraq has been a military dependent and build a relationship with Iraq as “a more traditional military partner.” Meanwhile, Mr. Qadir sketched out a shopping list that included ground vehicles and helicopters, as well as tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers. Those, he said, are needed as Iraq moves toward taking full responsibility for internal security. In the years after that, as his nation assumes full control over its defense against foreign threats, Iraq will need additional aircraft, both warplanes and reconnaissance vehicles, he said. Pentagon officials said that Mr. Qadir’s visit, which includes the usual agenda of meetings at the Pentagon, White House and on Capitol Hill, was expanded to include his first talks with commanders of American headquarters that are responsible for long-term military planning, training, personnel development and doctrine. Mr. Qadir, a career armor officer who commanded Iraqi troops who fought alongside Marine Corps forces during the battle for Falluja in 2004, spent part of Monday here, at the headquarters of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, where he questioned senior officers on how the ground force trains its leaders, from sergeants through senior officers. Even in wartime, “it is a requirement for somebody to think about the future,” said Gen. William S. Wallace, the Army’s training and doctrine commander. While Army training cannot ignore “the urgency of the next assignment,” General Wallace told his visitor, the complexity of modern warfare proved the importance of the Army’s program of pulling its leadership out of the fight on a routine schedule to take courses on tactics, operations and strategy, as well as logistics. At a meeting with senior officers at the nearby Joint Forces Command, Mr. Qadir was told of the American military’s latest efforts at synchronizing the efforts of its ground, air and naval forces for combat, and to use computer exercises to train headquarters units for deployment. “We are keenly aware that you are not engaged in an exercise in your country,” said Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander. General Mattis acknowledged how different the dialogue with Mr. Qadir was on Monday from when the two served together in Falluja. Iraq is still at war, General Mattis said, but Mr. Qadir is carrying out the traditional functions of any regular defense minister. It is a positive development that “it is just the norm to have an Iraqi come and visit us,” General Mattis said. <A name=e20080115573393.html> USA Today January 15, 2008 Pg. 1 Raid Shows Risks In New Tactic To Hunt Al-Qaeda Rangers recall 17-hour fight that signaled effort in Mosul By Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today WASHINGTON — When the two Army Rangers slipped inside the house of suspected assassins in the dark on Christmas morning in Mosul, they expected a fight. They got one. Two gunmen, using an 11-year-old boy as a shield, confronted the soldiers. One of the Rangers, a staff sergeant, shot the suspects dead with his rifle. The boy was unharmed, according to an Army document about the assault. That clash — recounted to USA TODAY by four of the Rangers involved and confirmed by the military command in Baghdad — kicked off what U.S. military officials say was a 17-hour firefight that resulted in the deaths of 10 al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents, including the head of an assassination cell, a financier and a military leader. At least one fighter was from Saudi Arabia, according to the military account of the raid. Intelligence gleaned from the fight led to 10 follow-up operations, the Rangers' commander said. The Dec. 25 raid occurred in what military officials say has become the most dangerous part of Iraq — Mosul and surrounding areas, about 200 miles north of Baghdad. The assault was a preview of a U.S.-led campaign to root out insurgents in Mosul and Diyala province who have targeted those who cooperate with Americans. It was part of a broader operation that led to the combat deaths of nine U.S. soldiers last week in Diyala. Taken together, the episodes show that beyond the threat posed by insurgents' roadside bombs, U.S. troops still face tough fighting in Iraq. "The operation in Mosul is part of a plan to pursue al-Qaeda in Iraq tenaciously," Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said in a statement. "Though we have dealt serious blows to al-Qaeda this past year, its elements remain lethal and we must keep the pressure on them." As the counterinsurgency strategy and the addition of 30,000 troops into the Baghdad area last year has helped to quiet much of the capital, insurgents have moved to the north and east, where fighting, as the Dec. 25 raid showed, can be fierce. More than half of all attacks in Iraq now occur in the north, according to the U.S. military command in Baghdad. In December, there were about 600 attacks on coalition troops each week. In northern Iraq, there are about 210 attacks a week. That's down about 40% compared with this time last year, but attacks in the north have declined at a lower rate than for Iraq as a whole. Nationwide, attacks are down 60%. Last Tuesday, the military announced a major offensive, called Operation Phantom Phoenix, against al-Qaeda in Iraq in the Mosul area. About 24,000 U.S. troops and more than 130,000 Iraqi security forces are taking part. "Mosul is a key strategic crossroads for the al-Qaeda both from a financing point of view and foreign-fighter facilitation networks," said Navy Rear Adm. Greg Smith, spokesman for the command in Baghdad, who confirmed the Rangers' account of the Dec. 25 fight. "It's the one area in the north that al-Qaeda really wants to hang onto, as well as Diyala," Smith said. Many attacks on Baghdad, he said, have been staged from Diyala. Mosul, a city with a population of 1.8 million, is a mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Al-Qaeda in Iraq, made up of homegrown Sunni extremists and some foreign fighters, may find blending into the population easier in Mosul, where there are fewer U.S. troops to force them from hiding than in Baghdad, said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. Engagements such as the Dec. 25 raid may reflect the future of security crackdowns in Iraq, he said. "Al-Qaeda is adaptive," O'Hanlon said. "They recognized American forces are relatively lacking in Mosul. It is sobering because it reminds us of the difficulty of dealing with these people nationwide. It also underscores how much we're still needed there. It tells you about the adaptability of the enemy and tenuousness of progress." The Rangers involved in the Dec. 25 raid spoke with USA TODAY by video conference from Mosul and Baghdad. Rules established for special operations units prohibit the use of last names of its elite troops. A tip prompted the Christmas raid, said Blake, the Rangers' company commander, a 32-year-old major from Manassas, Va. An Iraqi man had reported seeing al-Qaeda terrorists execute a man in public. The witness told U.S. troops where the extremists had gathered. A few hours later, at 2:04 a.m., Pete, 26, of Marlboro, N.J., and his fellow Rangers, with M-4 rifles and night-vision goggles, arrived at the suspected insurgents' doorstep. "You don't go into anything thinking the best-case scenario," Pete said. "Anytime you go through a door, you're expecting someone there with a gun waiting on you. Or someone with a suicide vest, grenade or whatever their weapon of choice is at that particular time. You're always thinking for the worst." Six minutes later, he had killed the two gunmen, Pete said, and Rangers had found 10 women and children huddled in the back of the house. The Iraqis' conflicting accounts of how many men remained in the house made the soldiers suspicious. Lashaun, 27, a sergeant first class from Chester, Va., searched a bathroom and noticed a nylon strap protruding from the bottom of a shower basin. "That's when I called in Pete and told him to help hold security on the shower basin as I pulled the strap out of the floor," Lashaun said. "That's when the basin came up and revealed a hidden passageway to a hidden bunker." When he rolled back a concrete block that was sitting on rails, gunfire erupted. Pete estimated the entrance at 2-by-2 feet, barely large enough for a Ranger with 45 pounds of gear to pass through. Lashaun and Pete fired into the hole and backed out of the room. Pete tossed in a grenade. After the grenade exploded, the Rangers moved back into the shower room, Lashaun said. Suddenly, he said, grenades started flying back at them. Lashaun said he saw one grenade bounce, so he and another Ranger dove through a door before it exploded. Pete and the Ranger retreated to a different room. Blake, the company commander, said the soldiers had split into two groups of nine each. Gunfire from the insurgents poured out of the bathroom, while Lashaun's Rangers fired back. Pete figured bullets passed within 1 foot of him. "I was really stuck basically in a crossfire," he said. Meanwhile, Lashaun hustled the women and children toward safety over a courtyard wall. "He's risking his life, taking enemy fire, while he's literally extending himself and pushing women and children over the wall," Blake said. Lashaun then linked up with two Rangers, re-entered the house and fired into the bathroom. One insurgent came around the corner, Lashaun said, and the Rangers killed him "right there on the spot." As the Rangers tried to move into the shower room, "another guy came up out of the hole," Lashaun said. The Rangers shot him dead. "After that we came to the conclusion that we need to get out of the house," Lashaun said. Their commander agreed. Blake ordered the split-up forces to pull back so they could regroup. Residents in neighboring homes were evacuated. The Rangers then called for an airstrike. An AC-130 gunship swooped above the house. The plane, whose two models are known as "Spooky" and "Spectre," is a workhorse for Air Force Special Operations. At 3:05 a.m., its crew fired five 105mm rounds from a cannon into the house. Delayed fuses allowed the shells to penetrate the roof and explode near the bunker. "I called that fire onto the house and watched every single one of those rounds as precision as I've ever seen it," Blake said. They waited until 9 a.m. before re-entering the house, according to a timeline provided by the military. The task of re-entering the house fell to J.R., a 26-year-old first lieutenant from Thomaston, Ga. Pete volunteered to join him. Inside the house, they found two dead insurgents wearing unexploded suicide-bomb belts. They moved downstairs, where a wall concealed the concrete bunker. J.R. spotted a man there wearing a vest and holding a pin in his hand. He sensed that there might be others. J.R. began shooting and backing out as the man yanked on the pin. "His vest detonated, clouding the whole area with dust," J.R. said. They dropped a grenade in the basement. "No noises or sounds were made after that grenade," J.R. said. They dropped another grenade inside the bunker and left the house. "We then moved back inside the house again to see if there were any more enemy (killed) or any movement inside the house," he said. "We decided to go down inside the basement to ensure there were not any more enemy personnel down there." J.R., Pete and another Ranger found two dead insurgents and another crawling away, pulling on a pin. It might have been a suicide vest or another grenade, Pete said. Their suicide vests look like a cummerbund, the garment men wear with tuxedoes. The Rangers shot him, Pete said. They heard more voices, saw more movement. J.R. ordered the Rangers out of the house and called Blake. "At this point, we have eight enemy killed in action that we have engaged," Blake said. "Four of those we have confirmed the wear or use of a suicide belt." There still may have been three more insurgents inside. Blake called in "a little bit more firepower," he recalled. They cleared the neighborhood before two Air Force F-16 fighter jets arrived. At 11:15 a.m., the warplanes dropped two 500-pound, satellite-guided bombs on the house, destroying it. The Mosul raid, Smith said, is part of the military's effort to maintain pressure on al-Qaeda and force members to try to survive rather than carry out attacks. "What we've seen with al-Qaeda is the ability to regenerate," Smith said. "It's hard to say specifically whether this particular operation on Christmas Day caused significant degradation to (al-Qaeda in Iraq's) presence in Mosul, but it sure will hurt them in the short term." Last week, the military identified one of those killed as Haydar al-Afri, a senior leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq for western Mosul, who allegedly had planned attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Dakota Wood, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, predicts difficult fights will continue in northern Iraq until U.S. commanders commit more troops, or more Iraqi soldiers backing U.S. troops become competent. Al-Qaeda terrorists will keep moving to where the U.S. troop presence is lightest, Wood said. "It's a consequence of not having enough boots on the ground," Wood said. "If you have enough force, you can handle all the trouble spots simultaneously," he said. <A name=e20080115573363.html> New York Times January 15, 2008 Rice Makes Unannounced Visit To Baghdad By Steven Lee Myers RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice flew to Baghdad on Tuesday, peeling off a trip to the region by President Bush to give momentum to legislative and political reconciliation, the White House said. Ms. Rice’s trip, which was not previously announced, came after Iraq’s parliament gave approval on Saturday to a key piece of legislation allowing some former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to work in public service again and receive pensions. The Bush administration and Congress had made the legislation a benchmark for measuring political progress in Iraq as Democrats and others critics of the war debate the war. Ms. Rice is expected to spend only a few hours there, meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other officials. “President Bush and Secretary Rice decided this would be a good opportunity for the secretary to go to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi officials to build on political progress made and encourage political reconciliation and legislative action,” a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said. With Mr. Bush visiting Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and now Saudi Arabia, there was considerable speculation that he would also furtively visit Baghdad. Mr. Bush’s trip to the Middle East has focused on the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the war in Iraq and the diplomatic confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programs. <A name=e20080115573351.html> Washington Post January 15, 2008 Pg. 9 U.S.: 60 Insurgents Killed In Offensive Northern Drive Targets Al-Qaeda in Iraq By Amit R. Paley, Washington Post Foreign Service BAGHDAD, Jan. 14 -- American and Iraqi troops have killed 60 Sunni insurgents and captured nearly 200 during a week-long offensive in northern Iraq against al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters, U.S. military officials said Monday. The announcement came on the same day that at least three Iraqi police officers were killed when a booby-trapped house exploded in the northern province of Diyala, underscoring the danger involved in trying to clear insurgents from their safe havens. The campaign in northern Iraq, known as Operation Iron Harvest, began last week with a major push to kill or capture members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a homegrown Sunni insurgent group that U.S. officials believe is led by Arabs who have come to Iraq since the war began. But military officials in Diyala, the initial focus of the operation, were surprised that most of the insurgents were able to evade U.S. forces by either fleeing or hiding among the civilian population. Iraqi and American security forces are chasing the fighters to prevent them from establishing new bases of operation in other areas. "Now they are in a corner," said Lt. Gen. Abdul Kareem al-Rubaie, the commander of Iraqi military forces in Diyala. "The armed groups have withdrawn and are fleeing." The attack on the Iraqi police officers took place in the village of al-Abarra Abu Fayad, south of the provincial capital of Baqubah, where Sunni insurgents have fled, according to Rubaie. He said a house rigged with explosives blew up when Iraqi police went inside. Six police officers were wounded in addition to the three killed in the blast. Insurgents in Diyala, one of Iraq's most dangerous provinces, have frequently used booby-trapped homes to target U.S. troops. Six American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in such a house last week during the offensive there. The U.S. military said in a statement that 193 "suspected extremists" have been detained and 79 weapons caches found since the four-province campaign began. The weapons stores included about 100 roadside bombs, more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition and more than 4,000 pounds of homemade explosives, the military said. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Iraqi and U.S. officials raised hopes for political reconciliation among the various sects and parties. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, said the country's largest Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, was prepared to return to the government if its demands, including the release of Sunni detainees from prison and better government benefits, were met. The group withdrew its ministers from the Shiite-led government last year to protest the lack of Sunni clout within the cabinet. After meeting with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of one of the largest Shiite groups in Iraq, Hashimi said that he hoped political leaders could "push forward the wheels of the political process." Also on Monday, the senior U.S. officials in Iraq issued their first statement about the passage Sunday of a law allowing Baath Party officials to return to government, the first of the political benchmarks set by the United States. "Passage of this law represents a signal achievement in that Iraqi political leaders have collectively chosen to reform a de-Baathification process that many regarded as flawed, unfair, and a roadblock to reconciliation," Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker said in a statement. "Ultimately the impact of this important legislative step will depend as much on the spirit of implementation as on the form of the legislation." The new law is an attempt by the Iraqi government to address the first decree issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation administration installed after the 2003 invasion. That order banned many senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from serving in government and helped fuel the Sunni-led insurgency. Also in Baghdad, gunmen killed Amer Jawdat al-Naieb, an appellate judge and member of Iraq's judicial council, along with his driver, while he headed to work, police said. Special correspondents Zaid Sabah, K.I. Ibrahim, Saad al-Izzi and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report. <A name=e20080115573415.html> Los Angeles Times January 15, 2008 Kirkuk Referendum Needed, Kurdish Leader Says If Baghdad doesn't arrange for a vote in the next 6 months, then the provincial government should be allowed to sponsor the balloting, he argues. By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer BAGHDAD — The president of Iraq's Kurdish region warned Monday that Kurdish leaders would resist efforts to scrap plans for a referendum on the fate of the multiethnic city of Kirkuk. His tough comments came a day after nearly a dozen political parties in Baghdad challenged Kurdish designs by calling for the central government to impose a solution. Iraqi Kurdistan leader Massoud Barzani fired back at his Arab opponents who argued that Kirkuk -- a home to Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens -- is no longer subject to an article in the Iraqi Constitution calling for a general referendum on disputed territories to be held by the end of 2007. "There is no turning back," Barzani said in Irbil. "The referendum must be conducted in the next six months." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was traveling with President Bush in Saudi Arabia, traveled to Iraq early today to press for political reconciliation, officials said. Meanwhile, a large fire erupted at an oil refinery in Shuaiba, west of Basra, early today. The cause of the fire, which sent large clouds of smoke into the air, was not immediately determined. Some witnesses said the refinery, which produces oil for southern Iraq but not for export, was sabotaged. Other sources said a technical problem had caused the fire. Barzani, the Kurdish leader, spoke at the reburial of 365 victims of the bloody 1988 campaign known as the Anfal, which the Iraqi government waged against its Kurdish population. The bodies were recovered from graves across northern and southern Iraq and returned to families in a reminder of how Kurds had suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. "This is our past and we have the right to ask for guarantees in the new Iraq in order to avoid any genocide against the Kurdish people," Barzani told mourners. If the referendum is not held in the next six months, he said, the Kirkuk provincial government should be able to sponsor its own referendum. The Kurds, who dominate the provincial government, have long dreamed of making oil-rich Kirkuk part of their northern region and believe the area belongs to them historically. The Kurds also insist that they have been robbed of areas in the northern provinces of Diyala and Nineveh through Hussein's policy of "ethnic cleansing." A referendum would settle the fate of all contested locations. Barzani appeared to be reacting to the Arab political groups who read their communique Sunday opposing a referendum on Kirkuk's fate. The Arab statement also challenged the Kurds' rights to sign oil-exploration contracts with foreign companies independent of Baghdad. The statement brought together Shiite and Sunni Arab parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum. In Baghdad, Iraqi Vice President Tariq Hashimi said the 44-seat Sunni Arab bloc known as the Iraqi Accordance Front, or Tawafiq, might return to the government. Hashimi made his comments at a news conference after a visit from Shiite leader Abdelaziz Hakim. Tawafiq, which left the government in August, has previously hinted its ministers might return but they haven't yet. In west Baghdad, a high-ranking judge was assassinated by gunmen, police and hospital sources said. Judge Amer Jawdat Naib, who sat on the national appeals court, and his driver were killed by machine-gun fire after seven gunmen in two cars blocked their vehicle, police said. The shooting took place near two Iraqi army checkpoints. Many Iraqi judges and lawyers have been assassinated since 2003 as armed groups have sought to destroy the country's professional classes. Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and four others wounded Monday when they entered a booby-trapped house in Abarat Behroz in Diyala province, police said. Last week, six American soldiers were killed when a booby-trapped house exploded in the Diyala town of Sinsil Tharia. The U.S. Army announced Monday that it had killed 60 fighters and detained 193 militants during the hunt for Sunni militants in four northern Iraqi provinces. The military said it confiscated more than 4,000 pounds of explosives during the operation. Sunni militants have flowed into northern Iraq since coming under pressure last year in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. The northern region now accounts for about 50% of violence nationwide, according to U.S. figures. Times staff writers Alexandra Zavis, Saif Hameed, Saif Rasheed and Usama Redha contributed to this report. <A name=e20080115573327.html> New York Times January 15, 2008 Pg. 8 Judge And U.S.-Linked Sunni Fighters Are Killed In Iraq By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Abeer Mohammed BAGHDAD — Gunmen in two cars assassinated a respected and high-ranking Iraqi appellate court judge and his driver in western Baghdad on Monday morning, Iraqi officials said. Hours later, in Diyala Province, three American-backed Iraqi militiamen died after they entered a building that blew up and collapsed on them, the Iraqi police said. Judge Amir Jawdat al-Naeeb, a Sunni Arab in his 60s, was killed by gunmen as he was being driven to work, shocking other Baghdad judges and lawyers, who regarded him as one of the country’s most competent and even-handed jurists. The attack appeared to be part of a longstanding campaign by militants to kill doctors, professors, lawyers and other professionals. The judge’s friends said they could not think of any case or decision that might have prompted someone to kill him. “This is a disaster for the Iraqi judiciary,” said Aswad al-Monshedi, leader of the Union of Iraqi Lawyers. Judge Abdul Sattar al-Beragdar said that Judge Naeeb was known for his independence. “I think he was assassinated by outlaws and gangsters targeting good Iraqis,” Judge Beragdar said. Bahaa al-Araji, a leader of the bloc of lawmakers loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said that when he was working as a lawyer in the early 1990s he often appeared before Judge Naeeb. Mr. Araji described him as a one-man “legal reference for Iraq.” He said the judge was from a well-known tribe in Ramadi, and moved to Baghdad many years ago. Despite being a Sunni with high standing in the government, he never joined the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein, Mr. Araji said. At least eight other people were killed in Iraq on Monday, said reports from Iraqi authorities and wire services. The dead included Fayadh al-Moussawi, a senior official with Mr. Sadr’s political organization in Basra. The worst attacks occurred just northeast of Baghdad in Diyala, which is the most dangerous region in Iraq. The province has a volatile mix of militant Sunnis and Shiites, as well as Shiite-dominated security forces with a history of sectarian conduct. One week ago the American military began its third major initiative in the past year to drive Sunni militants from Diyala. Similar operations are under way in three other northern provinces. So far, 60 “suspected extremists” have been killed and 193 arrested in all four provinces, the military said in a statement on Monday. The statement seemed to underscore the guerrillas’ wide-ranging infrastructure and weapons stockpiles. During the operations, American and Iraqi forces have discovered 79 weapons hideaways containing more than 10,000 light machine gun rounds, 2,000 heavy machine gun rounds and about 100 homemade bombs in various stages of construction. In a particularly deadly area of central Diyala known as “the breadbasket,” soldiers also discovered an underground bunker system that included a bomb-making workshop and living quarters. Many of the Sunni militants are believed to have fled in advance of the operation, just as they did before another large operation last summer. But they left plenty of deadly traps behind. Six American soldiers were killed last Wednesday in a house where a huge explosion, apparently set off by a hidden trigger wire, collapsed the home on them. At least five other house bombs have been discovered in the past week. House bombs have become a common weapon of the insurgents in Diyala, who in many cases have been able to move large amounts of explosives into a house without being detected by American or Iraqi forces or reported by neighbors or onlookers. The latest such attack happened Monday south of the provincial capital of Baquba and involved an American-Iraqi force and members of an American-recruited Sunni Arab militia known as an Awakening group. At least three Awakening guards were killed when they entered a house, only to have it explode, the Iraqi police said. The force was searching for fighters from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the mostly home-grown insurgent group that American officials say is foreign-led. Six Iraqi policemen were also wounded, the police said, and another Awakening guard was shot to death in a village nearby. The American military also disclosed on Monday that Haji Uday, the leader of a large Sunni Awakening militia in Baquba, died on Sunday when his vehicle collided with a dump truck near Khalis while it was being escorted by the Iraqi police. The accident injured six other Iraqis. The military said it was investigating the crash. Reporting was contributed by Anwar J. Ali, Ahmad Fadam, Karim Hilmi and Qais Mizher from Baghdad and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Diyala and Basra. <A name=e20080115573211.html> Christian Science Monitor January 15, 2008 U.S. Pushes Iraq To Clear More 'Benchmarks' Signs of political reconciliation are emerging in Iraq, raising US hopes that a logjam has broken. By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is counting on Saturday's passage of a key piece of legislation in Iraq, easing measures against former Baathists, to act as a break in a logjam that has held up national reconciliation. With violence down, insurgent groups quieted, and many of the forces affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq routed, the United States is hoping passage of the new law means the "surge" of 30,000 additional troops is succeeding. In announcing the surge a year ago, President Bush said its aim was to provide the conditions for Iraq's warring power blocs to find common ground on important political issues. What the US has done is provide an "opportunity" for Iraqis – led by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – to compromise on unsettled power-sharing issues, including oil-revenue distribution, provincial elections and powers, and constitutional reform, some experts say. But with US troop levels beginning to shrink and with the US commitment to Iraq likely to weaken no matter who is elected president in November, it's now crunch time for Iraq's leaders. "The US needs the Iraqis to come up with their own surge of political action, and pretty quickly here, if the effort is to be a long-term success," says James Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "The US military surge did its job in improving conditions on the ground, but now the Maliki government must take the opportunity to transform those gains by reaching out to moderate Sunnis and bringing them into a political-power-sharing arrangement. "If they miss this opportunity," he adds, "Iraq could slip back." The law easing restrictions on former Baathists will have its greatest impact on Sunni Arabs who made up Iraq's power elite under Saddam Hussein. More ex-Baathists who had government posts before the war are expected to reclaim those jobs, while others previously barred from benefits will now receive government pensions. Yet even as Iraqi politicians debate the new law's real impact – with some predicting it will actually lead to a purge of some Sunnis from Iraq's new security forces – some signs are surfacing that action could be imminent on other measures. On the heels of passage of the de-Baathification measure, several Shiite, Sunni, and secular political groups announced formation of a common front to press for action on oil revenue-sharing legislation and on the prickly issue of control over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The new political alliance may be a sign that determination is growing among nationalist forces to blunt the regionalist tendencies of some Kurdish and Shiite blocs. But others predict the new alliance could serve to boost Mr. Maliki by giving him a bargaining chip with those dragging out passage of national-reconciliation measures. If the alliance – which includes the parties of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr – sticks together, it could potentially include the votes of about half the Parliament. On a nine-day tour of the Middle East, President Bush hailed passage of the de-Baathification law as "an important step toward reconciliation." At the White House, officials hope more measures – which the US dubs "benchmarks" for Iraqi political action – will be approved by March, when Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to deliver a progress report on Iraq to Congress. Even as they note progress in Iraq as a result of the surge, some experts say long-term prospects for national reconciliation remain cloudy. One reason is that the surge succeeded in part by cooperating with and arming Sunni groups formerly opposed to the US, resulting in Sunni militias that may now feel less inclined to compromise with the dominant Shiite forces, they say. "We have scattered the forces of Al Qaeda in Iraq, no question," says Wayne White, who headed the State Department's Iraq analysis until 2005 and is now at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "But we've made civil war far more likely down the road by making Sunni Arabs far more able to fight it." Maliki is unhappy with how the US has empowered Sunni groups – ostensibly to fight Islamic extremists but potentially to stand up to Shiite-dominated security forces. The US, says Mr. White, needs to use the new reality on the ground to "scare" all of Iraq's political forces into making the hard compromises that can stave off a return to violence in the future. White House claims that reconciliation is taking place in the grass roots even if progress stalls at the national level, he adds, won't be enough. "The Sunni Arabs will never believe you until it is enacted into national legislation," he says. "Until then, they are going to believe that, as the US loses more of its influence, everything gained informally will be lost." The Heritage Foundation's Mr. Phillips says it would be misleading to claim that no progress has been made in the past year just because US-sought benchmarks aren't met. For example, he says, some revenues from Iraq's oil production have been distributed to regions despite no national legislation. But he agrees that the US should pressure the Iraqis to pass the oil legislation for at least two reasons. One, he says, is that "brokering a durable power-sharing deal" would be a signal to Iraq's Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis "that could take the steam out of a big part of the insurgency." The other reason, he says, has to do with US politics. The Iraqis need to act now, he says, because they may not be able to count on the same level of support from the next US president. <A name=e20080115573510.html> Newport News Daily Press January 14, 2008 Pg. 1 Commanders Prep For African Mission By Stephanie Heinatz The U.S. Joint Forces Command's war-fighting center in Suffolk was filled last week with more than 80 military officers, who were completing their last round of training before deploying to the Horn of Africa. They will work throughout East Africa - including Kenya, where riots and ethnic violence erupted recently after a disputed presidential election - but fighting was the furthest thing from their military minds. The Defense Department wants to address instability in the region through a mixture of partnerships with charities; training host nation militaries in, among other skills, human rights; and completing humanitarian projects. "Our business is to make dreams come true, to help people help themselves," a senior Navy officer said. "But make no mistake about it: We're in the business of security." The Daily Press was invited to attend some of the training - typically closed to the public - with the understanding that participants would be referred to only as "military officers." The officers make up the new crop of U.S. military commanders who will lead the peace effort from the Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa. Joint Forces Command is based in Norfolk with a compound in Suffolk. It plans the mission rehearsals for commanders heading to Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. Those rehearsals include a combination of classroom briefings and simulated problems to solve. Briefings for the African-bound commanders included talks on how to better coordinate with charities, how to decide what humanitarian projects are most needed and the importance of understanding the tribal diversities among the people they'll be working with. The hands-on part of the training runs this week. It'll force the officers to deal with simulated problems, like the effect of pirates off Somalia, human trafficking and a natural disaster. Stabilizing the countries in the Horn of Africa through humanitarian outreach, the Navy officer said, will not only benefit East Africans, but also help "prevent things from happening in our homeland." The task force was created shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The concern then was that terrorists fleeing Afghanistan would move to the Horn of Africa. The military didn't see that happen, but it did learn of a need to help. The end game, the Navy officer said, is all about "increasing security, enhancing stability and enabling sovereignty" in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. In early 2004, the U.S. Institute of Peace reported that the Horn of Africa had become a major source of terrorism. Al-Qaida was linked to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and nearby Tanzania. In 2000, the group was deemed responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole, a Norfolk-based destroyer, in the Yemeni Gulf of Aden. Trying to stabilize a region by improving the lives of people who live there, though, can be as complicated an endeavor as planning a military invasion. Take reconnaissance as an example, an Army officer said. "Civil affairs recon is very important, especially in Africa,&q |
