Bush’s mantra is that we’re fighting terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here. If that’s true, we better get on the ball — new information shows we may be losing Iraq faster than anyone thinks. Forget the 1st NIE, the 2nd NIE, and all the advice and warnings in between. Did you know that insurgents and terrorists have already established Taliban and al-Qaeda republics in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Yes, Bush started these wars to bomb 1 Taliban republic out of existence in Afghanistan and now there are 3 terrorist republics — does Bush know the meaning of fuzzy math?
What Bush does not want the American people to know is that he has quietly redefined the US mission. It is NOT the US mission to fight the insurgents to win the war. In fact, fighting to win the war against the insurgency is not achievable unless we increase troop numbers. The result is that we have a cut-and-run policy in slow motion where troops fight battles here and there but are unable to retain ground taken from insurgents. The consequences of Bush’s policies of not fighting to win is another matter Bush does not want the American people to know: A 2nd intelligence report withheld from the public concludes the violence in Iraq is exponentially greater than reported and media reports that did not make headline news reveal that the terrorists have already established Taliban and al-Qaeda republics in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A senior US commander in Iraq reported that US military operations are “stifling” the insurgency but are “not strong enough to defeat” the insurgency in Anbar province. Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer told reporters that he has enough troops (30,000) to accomplish his “main mission” of training Iraqi security forces, but that if his mission changes to winning the fight against the insurgency, then he would need more troops:
“For what we are trying to achieve out here, I think our force levels are about right,” he said. “Now, if that mission statement changes — if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight — then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here.”
Let’s repeat: A general on the ground in Iraq is saying that he does not have enough troops to fight to win the war against insurgents. Force levels are sufficient only for purposes of training Iraqi security forces, which means that when the Iraqi forces are trained, Bush will officially cut and run, turning over the insurgency mess that he has created to Iraq to complete Bush’s mission.
General Zilmer provided this interview to dampen down the outrage over a news report that a well-respected Col. Devlin’s classified intelligence report “says the emperor has no clothes.” Col. Devlin’s classified report concluded that the war in Anbar province was lost, that is, US efforts have failed to clear and hold major cities from terrorists’ control. The report states that this occurred because the lack of a functioning Iraqi government left a void replaced by al-Qaeda, which has become the “most significant political force” in the area.
Bush’s failure to provide sufficient troop numbers means that when violence flares up in one area, troops must be shifted to that area. However, when violence flares up in 2 or more areas at the same time, then one area obtains additional troops but the other areas are then essentially turned over to the terrorists. This is what happened in Anbar. Despite Colonel Devlin’s assessment that Anbar needed more troops to fight the insurgents, “the U.S. military shifted a unit from Anbar to Baghdad, in order to amass more troops to quell increasing violence in the capital.”
Bush admitted that Anbar is “a dangerous place . . . a place where al-Qaeda is really trying to root themselves,” but rejected media and intelligence reports that “Anbar is lost.” Some Defense Department officials have also tried to place a positive spin on this very glum secret report:
“It’s one conclusion about one area. The conclusion on al Anbar doesn’t translate into a perspective on the entire country.”
Perhaps, but Anbar is a key province that US troops have been fighting for years now and which happens to cover a large percentage of Iraq:
Anbar …encompasses Ramadi and Fallujah … [and] accounts for 30 percent of Iraq’s land mass, encompassing the vast area from the capital to the borders of Syria and Jordan, including much of the area that has come to be known as the Sunni Triangle.”
Unfortunately, it is not just Anbar province. The kicker that Bush does not want the public to know is that the Decider’s policies are actually creating terrorist republics in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that are training camps to export terrorists around the world. Does this at all sound familiar to the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan that bin Laden used to train the 9/11 hijackers?
Civil war is so rampant and uncontrolled throughout Iraq that Sunni insurgents have taken so much control of the Diyala province that local leaders say the insurgents are “close” to establishing a “Taliban republic” because the weakened government is no match for the insurgents. It is hard to obtain the facts from dangerous Taliban zones, but personal accounts from police and government officials in the Diyala province say that the death toll outside Baghdad may be significantly higher than previously reported, and may be an average of 100 people killed each week. Civilians are careful to avoid angering the local Sunni insurgents in charge of the province for killings are the answer if one violates strict Islamic laws.
The recently declassified NIE concluded that Bush’s policies are responsible for the US losing the “war on terror” because the Iraq war creates and exports more terrorists faster than the US can kill them due to 4 factors:
“Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1)Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq “jihad”; (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims–all of which jihadists exploit.”
These same factors are also creating the power vacuum which has enabled insurgents to control provinces in Iraq. The reasons underlying each of these 4 factors are a multitude of Bush’s policy failures. For example, the US has created grievances by permitting and even fostering corruption and injustice, such as the injustice of kidnapping family members to force suspected insurgents to surrender. The Iraqi government is weak because it has not been provided security and is repeatedly criticized by the US, whose extensive micromanagement earned the Iraqi and Afghanistan governments their moniker as a puppet whose strings are pulled by Bush Team.
Afghanistan also has its own Taliban republics. Remember that Newsweek cover story for the rest of the world about “Losing Afghanistan: The Rise of Jihadistan” while the US edition was about a celebrity photographer? Well, if Americans did obtain a copy of the article, they would have learned that the Taliban now have created another sanctuary in Afghanistan where Taliban and al-Qaeda can openly train recruits and plan attacks against the US. It is a large republic which covers most of the country excluding Kabul:
“Most worrisome, a new failed-state sanctuary is emerging across thousands of square miles along the Afghan-Pakistan border: “Jihadistan,” it could be called. It’s an autonomous quasi state of religious radicals, mostly belonging to Pashtun tribes who don’t recognize the Afghan-Pakistan frontier – an arbitrary line drawn by the British colonialists in 1893. The enclave’s fluid borders span a widening belt of territory from mountainous hideouts in the southernmost provinces of Afghanistan – Nimruz, Helmand and Farah – up through the agricultural middle of the country in Ghazni, Uruzgan and Zabul, and then north to Paktia and parts of Konar. It extends well across the Pakistan border where, despite close cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, jihadist militants in Waziristan province have begun calling themselves “Pakistani Taliban.” No longer worried about interference from Islamabad, they openly recruit young men to fight in Afghanistan, and they hold Islamic kangaroo courts that sometimes stage public executions.”
The openness of the Taliban sanctuaries is evidenced by the Taliban permitting Newsweek reporters to interview them. Moreover, Taliban fighters now have open meetings with their commanders in daylight because the “people know we are returning to power.” Shortly after Newsweek’s visit, US forces tried to remove the Taliban from Ghazni and 4 other provinces with attacks, but the Taliban fighters later returned.
The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan is occurring because the terrorists are filling a power vacuum created by the insufficient US troop numbers and the weak governments. And, similar to the conclusions of the NIE report about Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan “feed on the people’s disillusion with the lack of economic progress, equity and stability that Karzai’s government, NATO, Washington and the international community had promised.” The Taliban also have the added benefit of an easy cash flow from the opium traffickers.
And, then there is the al-Qaeda sanctuary in Pakistan, formalized by the recent “peace” agreement between Pakistan and the terrorists. After 9/11, the Bush Team threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” unless it cooperated with Bush in his “war on terror,” according to President Musharraf. The Bush Team’s bully diplomacy does not produce beneficial results, as evidenced by Bush’s inability to negotiate and work with Pakistan these past 5 years to prevent this peace agreement.
Foreign journalists are not allowed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, but an indication of what is occurring in the tribal areas can be gleamed from visiting nearby communities which have similar attitudes. One community voiced strong support and admiration that the Taliban brought its interpretation of Islamic justice and moral order to Afghanistan. Thus, it should not be surprising that dozens of new madrassas have been opened in this community. Those same madrassas that were blamed for educating and recruiting terrorists.
Bush can’t say that no one warned him that terrorists would establish republics if there were insufficient troops. This time it was Bush who warned the American people that the terrorists want to drive the US from Iraq and use that vacuum to establish bases to launch attacks against the US and “try to establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain.” Well, the terrorist republics are now spreading thanks to Bush’s policy failures. And, the danger from these 3 terrorist republics reached a new level when the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group’s holy war against the West.
The fact that the US has already lost or is losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as evidenced by the emergence of terrorist republics may be part of the intelligence data still classified in the 1st NIE. Or, it may be part of the 2nd NIE that the Bush Team is blocking from Congress and the public until after the midterm elections. Rep. Harman revealed that this 2nd NIE on Iraq provides a very “grim assessment” of the situation in Iraq. It may be that Bob Woodward’s disclosure — based upon access to key intelligence — that the Bush Team has lied about the level of violence in Iraq may also be part of the 2nd NIE. Woodward reports that a key intelligence assessment “predicts the insurgency will grow worse next year.” Woodward reveals not only that Henry Kissinger — Mr. Failed Vietnam policymaker — is advising Bush, but that insurgent attacks against US troops occur every 15 minutes, “a shocking fact the administration has kept secret.” This means 800-900 attacks a week or more than 100 a day, or 4 attacks per hour.
The sad result of Bush’s policies is that “Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups now have a place from which to hatch the next 9/11.” The frustrating part is that Americans continue to think that Bush keeps us safer than Democrats because Bush is good at keeping the truth secret.
