Iraq Facing
New Civil War, Insurgency
By Robert Dreyfuss
02/10/08 "The
Nation" -- - What does the start of a new
civil war in Iraq look like? It looks a lot like this:
The Times reports
today matter-of-factly on the
pattern of assassinations of Sunni members of the Sons
of Iraq militia by Shiite death squads:
American military leaders
disagree among themselves about whether the
assassinations are increasing or whether some of the
killings are merely criminal acts. But they are
"watching the numbers closely," said a military official
who attends briefings on attacks.
Yesterday I wrote a
lengthy piece for The Nation about the likehihood
of a new civil war and a new Sunni resistance movement
stemming from the sectarian Shiite government's refusal to
make a political deal with Iraq's Sunnis. The American
military may indeed be "watching the numbers" of murdered
Sunnis "closely," but there's not much that they intend to
do about it. (Here's a clue for the vaunted US military
intelligence people "watching" these assassinations: they're
not "criminal." They're political.)
In a major feature this week
on the handover of the Awakening movement and the Sons of
Iraq to Prime Minister Maliki's bloodthirsty regime, the
Post cited the fears of Ibrahim Suleiman al-Zoubaidi,
one of the movement's leaders in Baghdad:
"They will kill us,"
Zoubaidi declared. "One by one."
Across Baghdad, leaders
of the groups speak about the transition in similarly
apocalyptic terms. Some have left Baghdad, saying they
fear that the Iraqi government will conduct mass arrests
after the handover. Others are obtaining passports and
say they will flee to Syria.
Reports Leila Fadel of McClatchy, one of the very best
reporters in Baghdad:
The Sons of Iraq worry that
putting them under the control of Shiite Prime Minister
Nouri al Maliki is a ploy to detain and disband them.
Already, Sons of Iraq leaders in the northern province
of Diyala are hiding in neighboring Syria.
Others aren't fleeing at
all. They'll fight.
It's going to get uglier.
Here's an excerpt of
an important story in the of London
on the Sons of Iraq handover:
The Sons of Iraq said they
feared for their future. Mohammad Idan, 42, a former
shopkeeper related a rumour he had heard about the Iraqi
security forces kidnapping and "disappearing" a Sons of
Iraq member.
"We will never feel safe
with them," he said. ...
Alarm has spread through
the militia group in recent weeks after the government
issued arrest warrants for dozens of members around the
country. Under US pressure, the Iraqi government has
agreed not to arrest any members without a warrant
issued during the past six months, and not to fire any
without cause.
In The National, a
newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, the warnings from the
Awakening movement -- called sahwa in Arabic -- are a
little more explicit:
Sunni fighters who once
battled US troops in Baghdad, before turning their guns
on al Qa'eda, have warned the Iraqi government it must
continue to support them or risk a return to chaos. ...
The Sahwa themselves are
concerned that the Iraqi government may simply disband
the councils and push the former insurgents back into
the role of active insurgents. In essence it would be a
repeat of a former devastating mistake, when America
disbanded the Iraqi army in 2003, leaving thousands of
trained soldiers without jobs and a score to settle
against the US military. ...
Sheikh Abdul Mohammad, a
Sahwa fighter in Taji, to the west of Baghdad [said],
"If we are treated properly we can stand with the
government and Iraq will be strong, can stabilize and
prosper. If not the country will fall again. The future
is not in our hands it is in the government's." ...
In the notorious Diyala
province, one Sahwa leader said government security
forces contained too many people who took orders from
Iran – again a reference to distrust many Sunnis have
for the Shiite dominated security forces.
"The security services
have too many elements which are loyal to Iran. We need
to see those cleaned out, and then the Sahwa can think
about being integrated."
He's right, in case you're
wondering. Iran pretty much runs the show, through its teams
of death squads, its influence of the powerful Badr Brigade
of the Iranian-created Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI),
and its strong influence over Maliki.
It's having an effect,
across Baghdad and much of Iraq. From an Italian source,
here's
one account about Adhamiya, a neighborhood in north
central Iraq just east of the river:
In al-Adhamiya in recent
days, gunfights have broken out of a sort not seen for
some time: two people were killed at a checkpoint on
Sunday, and a civilian was killed on Monday when a car
bomb exploded. There have also been rising tensions
between local leaders and government officials. The
situation will have to be carefully managed to keep al-Adhamiya
and similar neighborhoods from descending into sectarian
violence once again.
Here's a conclusion from the
Pentagon's own
quarterly report on Iraq, in typical bureaucratese,
about the Iraqi government's unwillingness to take
responsibility for supporting (and paying) the Sons of
Iraq--not to mention not assassinating them:
"The slow pace of
transition is a concern. Continued GoI [Government of
Iraq] commitment is required to ensure SoI [Sons of
Iraq] are fully transitioned to permanent employment.
Recent allegations of GoI targeting SoI leaders in
Diyala Province are of concern if they are indicators of
GoI reluctance to integrate SoI into the ISF or, more
broadly, to reconcile a diverse province."
All this makes mincement of
John McCain's assertion that his vaunted "surge" has led to
"victory" in Iraq. It hasn't. The country is seething with
violence and political fissures that are very deep. It's
ready to explode. Barack Obama, who's been defensive about
the surge, ought to slam McCain for his support, in 2006,
for escalating the war. Obama -- along with the entire US
military leadership back then, most of Congress, and the
Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group -- wanted to start pulling
US forces out of Iraq two years ago. Had they won, the war
would be over. Instead, the next president will take office
with more than 150,000 troops in Iraq.
As AP
reported this week:
Six Army brigades, a
National Guard unit and three military headquarters have
been ordered to Iraq next summer in a move that would
allow the U.S. to keep the number of troops largely
steady there through much of next year.
