POST SCRIPTS

They claim probably less than 1300 foreign fighters are in Iraq, which is somewhat of a surprise to me too, I expected it to be much higher. Organization and financing comes mostly from within Iraq by disaffected Sunni and Bathists. Reprisal in sectarian violence is the most common motive for the violence.

40% of Iraq's population live with the four most insecure regions.

Currently nearly every US Army and Marine unit has had at least one tour in Iraq and many are going on two or three tours.

The report didn't come right out and say this, but it inferred that Paul Bremer messed up a lot in the begining and we're paying for it now. We know Bremer didn't set up a quality government and what followed was corrupt and incompetent officials in high office that led to reconstruction delays, cost overruns, internal conflicts and ultimately the theft of hundreds of millions in Iraq's oil money as our expenses escalated by the hundreds of billions.

It gets worse.

The weak Iraqi government, and right from the begining, seems to have no interest in national reconciliation and it is divided along sectarian fault lines. The report points this out very well. But, even if they wanted to reconcill and establish central control, they don't have the military means to defeat insurgent militias nor the political ability. This is because the orignal Bush plan failed to establish a permanent, professional Iraqi military and embarked on regional all-volunteer militias, where soldiers could quit at any moment. The militias only serve a specific region and they are reluctant to deploy to other troubled areas. In 2006 the Iraq Army budget was 3 billion dollars. We spend that much about every two weeks on our forces. Complicating this was our Bremer formulated policy that excluded ALL former Bathist military leaders, carte blanche with no appeal.

This is why it's been so difficult for our military trainers to establish a credible Iraqi military to fight the insurgents, such as the Mahdi Army, which is almost 60,000 strong. The state of the Iraqi police is far worse. The National
Police, which numbers about 25,000 has been trained counter-insurgency, not general law enforcement and they can't cope with the current crime wave. On another level we have the "Facilities Protection Services" which comprise about 145,000 uniformed personnel of questionable ability and loyalty. The report describes them as being "dysfunctional" and sometimes "subversive".

Our policy of "Clear, hold and build" can't be enforced if the Iraqi's forces do not have the ability to take over, as evidenced by the escalating terrorist violence and rising crime.

The real power brokers and leaders in Iraq are unfortunately not the people that hold high political office. They are outside the system and they are sectarian leaders like, Abdul Al Hakim, Ali al Sistani and Moqtada al Sadr. They don't talk to each and are cut off from talking to the US by the forces of religious extremism. This is the same sort of extremism that seems to hold Iraqi government officials in paralysis.

Prime Minister Maliki hold absolutely no authority over these powerful religious leaders. In fact, he seems incapable of even controlling corruption in his own regime, which costs the Iraqi's about 5-7 billion a year. Even IF the corrupt officials were sorted out, Iraq still lacks a competent judiciary to prosecute them. There have been almost no arrests for corruption in the past 3 years. Our best estimates say 500,000 barrels of oil every day are diverted for economic use by criminals and terrorists. This is money that could be used in reconstruction and nobody seems to be doing much about it.

On a smaller scale, but still signficant in terms of our sacrifices being put to good use, we have our field commanders carrying out their own questionable military policies that seems to come down to two uninspired things, patrolling and raiding.

How does send a convoy of foreign military vehicles into a neighborhood on a regular basis improve security? It's a provocation, it's a setup for ambush and IED's and it's a reminder to the Iraqi's they are living in an occupied country. Tensions are bound to escalate the longer we raid neighborhoods and patrol with force. This is not a good long term practice. When our soldiers interacted with the population we generally seemed to have a positive response, tensions lessened and productive dialogs happen.

Imagine you live in the outskirts of Baghdad and for many months those foreign troops outside your home were approachable and friendly, then suddenly they were back in armored vehicles and behind guns. They were occasionally conducting surprise house to house raids and seizing homes for quartering troops they used in their raids. How would you feel about those soldiers?

For the most part, the tactics we use by our soldiers depends on the area commander's judgment. The quality of command varies greatly in Iraq. Some commanders just wanted to keep their troops aloof while showing they conducted a high number of patrols and rack up some good statistics and come home. That's probably worse than doing nothing, sure, on paper this looks good, but what has it done for the peace effort? That commander likely achieved minimum casualties and logged a lot of patrols, but what sort of deteriorating situation does the next commander inherit?

We have a very ambigious policy on what it takes to hold a suspected terrorists, who are often caught and released with days. This has hurt our credibility and our pipeline of information, not to mention soldiers moral.

Formerly good community relations are spiraling down and insurgents are the benefactors. Consequently attacks increase and the quagmire worsens. We say we will stay the course for as long as it will take, but contrast that against the Iraqi's greatest fear....that we will not leave because we are their for the oil.

What exactly is the course for the boots on the ground? Like I said earlier it often depends on the local commander.
This makes it confusing for our troops and it's confusing to the Iraqis. And where there is confusion there are opportunities to be exploited by the insurgents.

The only workable suggestions I noted in this bi-partisan report is to get enough well trained Iraqi forces and police ready to assume responsibly and to make our presence as least felt as possible. But, the rules for doing that run absolutely contrary to the mission! (See Iraqi militia conditions)

Next, I find a diplomatic approach to the current regimes in Iran and Syria to seek their cooperation as foolish. It will make us look weak. It also doesn't help to have US Senators and Presidential candidates running around the middle east to send mixed signals.

We have a great strategic national security interest in a successful outcome in Iraq and I hope we all recognize this by now. As the bi-partisan panel said, "Iraq is the center piece of American foreign policy". That is why it is too risky to abruptly withdraw from Iraq like some in Congress want. If we did that right now, it is a given we will have a war of Biblical proportions involving Iraqis and likely other nations.

Bottom line: The longer we stay, the less welcome we are, but if we depart too quickly we will hand this nation over to extremists. We're in a tough spot and it's about as tough and complex as any we've ever faced. As it now appears this means we must have a phased withdrawal in a given period of time to force the Iraqi government to become the leaders in this fight. For the U.S., this might mean we face the possibility that the type of government that will work in Iraq is NOT the type of government we want.

Thanks to centuries of sectarian violence and that has begat almost incomprehensible social divisions, there is a better than average chance this situation in Iraq will end in a civil war, no matter what we do.

In the clarity of hindsight, our peace plan was monumentally flawed from the very beginning with too much assumed and given over to trust. We missed many golden opportunities to do things right and now the current state of destabilization is critical. However, in the final analysis it's up to the Iraqi to resolve their differences. I regret to say, there are simply too few signs the Iraqi's are headed in that constructive direction. I really wish I could report otherwise, but this is how it looks to me, this is how the Iraq report reads and if you believe the polls apparently 60% of American's see it this way too.