Archive for category: War

Following on yesterday’s announcement that it was withdrawing the license of Blackwater, Iraq’s government has announced it will review all the security contractors doing business in Iraq.

The Iraqi government said today that it would review the status of all foreign and local security companies working in Iraq after a shooting that left eight Iraqis dead.

I’m as skeptical as I was yesterday that this is going to achieve anything. Larry Johnson lays out the reasons why:

First problem.  Blackwater does not have a license to operate in Iraq and does not need one.  Theyhave a U.S. State Department contract through Diplomatic Security.Instead of using Diplomatic Security officers or hiring new Securityofficers or relying on U.S. military personnel, the Bush Administrationhas contracted with firms like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and othersfor people capable of conducting personnel security details. StateDepartment is not about to curtail the contract with Blackwater, who istightly wired into Washington. Plus, State Department simply does nothave the bodies available to carry out the security mission.

Second problem. The Iraqi government has zero power to enforce adecision to oust a firm like Blackwater. For starters, Blackwater has abigger air force and more armored vehicles then the Iraqi Army andpolice put together.

Nevertheless, this is Read more →

Oddly enough I just read this anecdote in Stephen Hayes’ hagiography of Cheney. In an interview with Hayes, Mike McConnell confesses to the childish tactics he used to force CENTCOM to commit, one way or another, whether they thought Saddam would invade Kuwait.

"I’m going to see the chairman [Powell]," [McConnell] told his colleagues. "I went up to his office on the second floor…. So I went up to the second floor and went into the executive assistant’s office, just outside the chairman’s office. There’s a little peephole–you can look in to see if he’s busy so you don’t interrupt him, that sort of thing. So I looked in and he was sitting at his desk. I came out and I walked down the hall and had a Coke and went back down. And I said: "I’ve seen the chairman and here’s what we’re going to do." I never said that I’d talked to the chairman. "I’ve seen the chairman."

Our Director of National Intelligence, you see, is the kind of man who plays the old game you did as a five year old: "I saw mom and you’re in deep trouble," I used to tell my brothers. Only, by the time Read more →

Omar Mora and Yance Gray have died in Iraq, just weeks after they contributed to a powerful op-ed in the NYT. In tribute to their lives, I think it only appropriate to return to their op-ed, which offers a far more honest assessment of progress in Iraq than the Petraeus and Crocker dog-and-pony show. Mora, Gray, and their colleagues call for an assessment of progress in Iraq from the perspective of Iraqi civilians, not from an American-centered perspective.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from anAmerican-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observersto safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not aresounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of thelocal citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we takethis view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasinglyinsecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to producenormalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as wecontinue to arm each warring side.

They point out that the foundation of recent successes in Anbar Province–alliances with Sunni tribes–does not guarantee enduring loyalty.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning acounterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies Read more →