Bill Nelson and Jim Webb sit on both the Foreign Relations and the Armed Services committees. Yesterday they questioned Condi Rice as part of Joe Biden’s Foreign Relations committee. Today they questioned Robert Gates and Peter Pace as part of Carl Levin’s Armed Services committee. Nelson noted the radical difference in tone between the two hearings. Gates is getting a lot of respect and deference. Rice received little more than incredulity.
Gates and Pace have their story down pat. This is their argument. Prime Minister Maliki wanted to do a major military mobilization in Baghdad in an effort to stop the sectarian bloodshed. But, according to Gates and Pace, when his military and security experts sat down to plan it out they realized that they didn’t have the capability. So, they asked the Americans to send 20,000 more troops. This is not an honest account of what happened. At best, it is incomplete and badly misleading.
Senator Susan Collins, who sits on Armed Services, noted that she talked to Maliki three weeks ago and that he did not want any additional troops. Secretary Gates admits that Maliki originally wanted to do this mission without American troops. In fact, Gates admits that Maliki told him that he didn’t understand how he could be held responsible for mayhem in Iraq if he couldn’t even take command of his troops.
What I believe happened is that the Saudi Arabians intervened in this process. When they found out that Maliki was about to unleash the Iraq army on the Sunnis of Baghdad they threw a fit. I can’t say I blame them. It started on November 25th, 2006 when the Saudis summoned Dick Cheney to Riyadh and reportedly warned him that they would financially back Sunni insurgents against Maliki’s government if we didn’t rein him in.
The Saudis fired another shot across Cheney’s bow on November 28th, when Saudi advisor Nawaf Obeid wrote an editorial. Ostensibly he was warning us not to initiate a phased withdrawal, but the context suggests that they were warning us off Maliki’s plan to crackdown on Sunnis in Baghdad.
Because King Abdullah has been working to minimize sectarian tensions in Iraq and reconcile Sunni and Shiite communities, because he gave President Bush his word that he wouldn’t meddle in Iraq (and because it would be impossible to ensure that Saudi-funded militias wouldn’t attack U.S. troops), these requests [for aid to Iraqi Sunnis] have all been refused. They will, however, be heeded if American troops begin a phased withdrawal from Iraq.
Then on
December 1st, 2006, Robin Wright wrote an article called U.S. Considers Ending Outreach to Insurgents. Wright reported that the State Department had produced a report (originating with 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow) nicknamed the 80% solution.
The proposal, put forward by the State Department as part of a crash White House review of Iraq policy, follows an assessment that the ambitious U.S. outreach to Sunni dissidents has failed. U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that their reconciliation efforts may even have backfired, alienating the Shiite majority and leaving the United States vulnerable to having no allies in Iraq, according to sources familiar with the State Department proposal.
Some insiders call the proposal the “80 percent” solution, a term that makes other parties to the White House policy review cringe. Sunni Arabs make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people.
Things got worse on December 12th, 2006, when Michael Fletcher reported that Bush was delaying his plan for Iraq.
In its policy review, the administration is focusing closely on the “80 percent solution,” that would bolster the political center of Iraq and effectively leave in charge the Shiite and Kurdish parties that account for 80 percent of Iraq’s 26 million people and that won elections a year ago. Vice President Cheney’s office has vigorously argued for the plan.
The same day Robin Wright reported the abrupt resignation of Saudi Ambassador Turki al-Faisal. The spin was that it was all a disagreement between al-Faisal and Prince Bandar, but it occurred in the context of this fight over Cheney and Zelikow’s 80% Solution.
In my opinion, the present escalation in Iraq signals, somewhat counterintuitively, that the Saudis finally managed to prevail over Cheney. Instead of leaving the Shi’ite government free to crush the Sunnis, we will embed our troops in with the Shi’ites. There is a bunch of rhetoric about how the Iraqi army will take on Moqtada al-Sadr and other Shi’ite militias. That remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any Senators asking questions about the role of the Saudis in this escalation. I believe they are behind it. And I believe they insisted on it as a way to protect the Sunni minority in Iraq.
>>November 25th, 2006 when the Saudis summoned Dick Cheney to Riyadh
’cause doesn’t everyone enjoy the Saudi Thanksgiving Day Parade?
Remember all the speculation that Trick-Shot Dick was heading for Thanksgiving with the troops? But instead he was kissing ass a little further south (Can you go further south than kissing ass?).
20,000 is a pretty paltry sum to gift the Saudis, it’s about all he had to gift though. Not sure how long it’s going to stay at 20,000 either. Whenever we have been worried about friends over there this past year and we hear from them they always say the same thing, “try not to worry because they pulled us back”. It is how they have kept the American body count down when things get hot and you have to send in the gunships, pull the troops out someplace in the boonies off alone so they aren’t all in the line of fire. Being embedded with Iraqi troops is sort of the exact opposite thing. We have had a few people training Iraqi forces there but those numbers are going to climb drastically these next few months and look out cuz the American body count is probably going to get nasty.
So, upon reading the whole theory, what do you think of such a mission?
I actually find it at least palatable from the humanitarian side; that our troops would work hand-in-hand with the official Iraqi government forces, therefore ensuring those forces operate in proper manner.
I think that such a mission could find support with the American public.
But instead–par for the course–the administration obfuscates, won’t share the real story for what ever reason, and comes off looking like they’re either hiding something or just have no real plan.
We lost the war. What do you want me to say? We can delay the collapse of the government, but we cannot prevent it. We can choose a new winner and arm them exclusively, we can still do a lot of things. But we lost. And we have to get out.
Our best hope is to force the resignations of Bush and Cheney, put in a caretaker government (Warner, Lugar, B. Dole, Danforth) and try to organize a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. I am not hopeful.
Hmm. Hope Bob Gates is a quick study. He’s caught confessing: “I’m no expert on Iraq, no expert on military matters.”
Time running out, everyone seems obsessed with bombing Iran, even the Donald.
(h/t:Thinkprogress)
Hear what soldiers have to say about this surge
Read the whole article please, it’s very informative about the soldiers and the situation and not very promising.
I think your theory is right and it makes sense.
Pax
sense to me too. Hey Boo, how are your friends in the windowless van across the street doing?
they’re four cars down to the right and on the othr side of the street (I checked).
They came back a couple weeks ago after taking off around Thanksgiving.
probably needed the extra personnel for the War on Christmas.
I am used to it by now. It bothered me a lot at first. I hope they enjoy my personal life.
Are you guys joshing around or are you serious? If you are serious have you gone up to the van and knocked on it or reported it to the police?
It is a police van. Although the decals have been taken off so the ‘Police’ is spelled out by the less weathered paint. And no, I am not joking.
I have knocked, and I always wave.
Any idea who it is and what they are up to?
No. Not really.
I’ve been listening to commentators for a month now, including so-called think tank “experts,” and this is the first explanation that has the ring of truth to it. It makes sense chronologically, politically, and militarily.
It may not, however be what Cheney and Co. told Bush. I actually believe he is a pawn right now. (I’m reminded of an old Star Trek episode where the leader of a planet (an ex-Captain) is drugged up and set before his “people” to parrot what the puppet masters want him to say. Anyone remember the name of that episode? I’m talking really old, here.)
But if you go back and carefully read the quotes, the statements over the past three months chronologically, mapping them to Cheney’s trip to Saudi Arabia, this is the only sensible explanation.
Now how do you get Jim Webb to ask this question to Rice (or preferably, Cheney) under oath?
My sense is that the neocons have been outmaneuvered by virtually everyone with power in the MidEast. Yet, even so, if one embraces the simple premise that the neocon goal is perpetuating and widening conflict in the region, then even though they may be outmaneuvered tactically, their strategy to foster chaos proceeds at a steady pace.
As to the dynamics behind this stupid escalation, I see it as pure Ledeen, Cheney, Kristol delusional insanity. They want to draw everyone in the region into the conflict, and whether they’re pissing off the Saudis or anyone else; that’s just fine with them. “Winning” is not part of the plan, at least not in the way rational huimans think of the term. Cheney et.al. will “win” only when they’ve destabilized the entire region and somehow magically gained control of all the resources there.
The military component for my plan to get us out of Iraq is pretty simple. Get a small group of loyal, patriotic special forces soldiers and give them special training in the use of tranquilizer darts. Then ddeploy them undercover in the White House, (with extra emphasis on the VP’s office), the Pentagon, and certain areas in the State Dept. When the time is right, launch the darts at the key policy players, get the straightjackets on them, and trundle them off to an undisclosed mental hospital to be kept isolated from humanity ’til the end of their days.
This is probably the first theory that fits together and still works that I have read. I would like to hear your theory of an alternate scenario – one where we would have followed the Iraq Study Group recommendations. Considering that Baker was behind that, the Saudis must have given it their blessing… Baker is more beholden to the Saudis than to the United States in my opinion.
Also, does anyone else here see a HUGE security risk in embedding our troops as advisers with larger groups of Iraqi troops, of who a majority are likely beholden to Muqtada al Sadr? I mean, one day Muqtada decides he’d like the Americans out of the picture and he just declares it’s “zero-hour” in a radio broadcast or whatever and the “Iraqi” troops who are loyal to him just immediately kill their American Embedded soldiers, who supposedly trust them. We could easily lose thousands of our guys in a day – and that would be WAY beyond the sacrifice threshold for America. Muqtada would get his way and run the country. He’d do in Maliki and the “elected” government and just declare himself supreme leader. The average Iraqis would probably welcome it because they’d finally have some sense of security – unless they’re Sunni.
Is it possible that the fools we have running this thing haven’t even thought of this scenario? Or am I just insane? Sometimes I wonder.
It came out at the hearings 2 brigades of Kurdish troops will be used against the Shia. Now that sure seems to be one way of further inflaming sectarian tensions. I woul also hazard a guess that this was not Maliki’s idea.
I’d been trying for some time to make sense of the Saudis summoning Cheney to SA, and you’ve offered a smart analysis of the current policy “direction” in the wake of that meeting.
But I, too, would like to see where the Baker boys fit in, particularly if the Iraq study group is acting, as has been noted previously, with its historical interests in Saudi oil intact.
I also can’t figure out the political angle of the 20K troop escalation. As we all know, Bush et al do nothing without thinking of their political futures. While some argue that Bush is delusional in envisioning himself going down in history as a military genius, I can’t see a man who has never revealed himself as particularly farsighted becoming so at this point.