[Previous entry: "Iran suicide bombers ‘ready to hit Britain’"] [Next entry: "The last conquest of Jerusalem"]

04/17/2006:

"US plots ‘new liberation of Baghdad’"

THE American military is planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed.
Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing for a significant withdrawal of American troops.

Strategic and tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant- General David Petraeus. He is regarded as an innovative officer and was formerly responsible for training Iraqi troops.

The battle for Baghdad is expected to entail a “carrot-and-stick” approach, offering the beleaguered population protection from sectarian violence in exchange for rooting out insurgent groups and Al-Qaeda.

Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops.

Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6 “Little Birds” used by the marines and special forces and armed with rocket launchers and machineguns, are likely to complement the ground attack.

The sources said American and Iraqi troops would move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, leaving behind Sweat teams — an acronym for “sewage, water, electricity and trash” — to improve living conditions by upgrading clinics, schools, rubbish collection, water and electricity supplies.

Sunni insurgent strongholds are almost certain to be the first targets, although the Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric, and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade would need to be contained.
timesonline.co.uk

what a strange term...pacification


U.S. arming of Iraq cops skates close to legal line
WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials are doling out millions of dollars of arms and ammunition to Iraqi police units without safeguards required to ensure they are complying with American laws that ban taxpayer-financed assistance for foreign security forces engaged in human-rights violations, according to an internal State Department review.

The previously undisclosed review shows that officials failed to take steps to comply with the laws over the past two years, amid mounting reports of torture and murder by Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces. The review comes at a time when the U.S. military emphasis in Iraq has switched to training and equipping Iraqi forces to replace American troops.

As Iraq slides deeper into sectarian violence, the performance of U.S.-supported Iraqi units could be crucial, because some are infiltrated by militias believed responsible for much of the current strife.

The laws in question are called the Leahy Amendments for their author, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Unless the administration reports to Congress that "effective measures" are being taken to bring abusers to justice, it is supposed to cut off support for any unit in a foreign security force whose members commit serious human-rights violations. Units also are supposed to be vetted before receiving assistance.

But the internal memo suggests that U.S. officials believe it is not possible to comply with the laws in Iraq, noting the "burden of following the usual State Department procedures as they are practiced at other posts would vastly overwhelm [the Baghdad embassy's] available resources."


Dozens of Iraqi Police Still Missing Days After Night Ambush
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 15 — Dozens of Iraqi police officers caught in a deadly ambush north of Baghdad on Thursday were still missing on Saturday, and their colleagues feared that some had been captured by insurgents or killed, police officials said.

The American military command said 9 police officers were killed and 7 wounded in the attack, which began after nightfall as a convoy of more than 100 police officers was returning to Najaf from an American base in Taji, a trip of about 110 miles. The Iraqis had visited the base to pick up several vehicles.

A major in the Najaf police force, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said Saturday that Iraqi authorities had accounted for only about 60 officers, including 1 dead, 18 wounded and more than 40 survivors who had returned safely to police headquarters.

The rest were missing and presumed to be kidnapped, dead, hiding or to have not yet reported for duty in Najaf, officials said.

Police officials at the Najaf headquarters said that when they tried calling the cellphone of one of the missing officers, an unidentified man answered, laughed chillingly and said, "If you are brave, come and get him."


Dust Bowl Uncertainty Grows in Iraq

UMM AL GHAREEJ, Iraq — Like hundreds of villages that dot the Tigris River south of Baghdad, this cluster of cinder block-and-mud dwellings draws its livelihood from small farming plots cultivated by hand and crude machinery.

This is the heart of Mesopotamia, the biblical land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where one of the world's first civilizations thrived on the bounty of the land.

Today that land is sick.

Qassim Mohammed, 20, whose family has farmed here since 1980, has left more than half his 30 acres unplanted this year. The harvest was so poor last year, he said, that he couldn't recoup the cost of seed and fertilizer.

"This land is weak," he said, strolling in a flowing robe through a field where the salt-crusted earth offered only a scruff of dead weeds.

Mohammed's acreage is typical of much of the farmland south of Baghdad.

Reliable agricultural statistics have been unavailable since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. But the level of wheat imports, which surged during the United Nations oil-for-food program in the late 1990s, shows the extent of the decline of agricultural production.

Three years after the invasion, Iraq still imports about three-quarters of the wheat its population consumes, said Jamil Dabagh, economist for the Ministry of Agriculture.

The agricultural decline began under the centrally controlled economic system of Saddam Hussein's Baath regime. Neglect of the intricate system of irrigation canals that crisscross Iraq aggravated centuries-old problems with salt buildup and poor drainage. As the land deteriorated, free fertilizer and guaranteed prices kept farms going, Dabagh said.

Yet agriculture, which has provided the primary means of support for more than a third of Iraq's population, was an afterthought in U.S. rebuilding efforts, which concentrated on oil, electricity and municipal water systems.

"Everybody looks at Iraq as an oil country," said Col. Randy Fritz, the former agricultural counselor to the U.S. military.