Antiwar.com Blog

You’ve never been a regular reader of Matt Yglesias, either? Arthur Silber puts our minds at ease about the opportunity costs we’ve incurred.

Read Steve Gilliard’s assessment of the condition of US supply lines in Iraq. The situation is so bad the CPA is almost reduced to eating MRE’s.

The New York Times reports:

On Saturday, travelers heading north to Baghdad on the main highway from Kuwait saw at least three highway bridges destroyed in a 60-mile section immediately south of the capital. Munadel Abdul Ellah, 44, a Hilla resident who drove to Baghdad on Saturday, said large numbers of American helicopters flew overhead and hundreds of troops patrolled the roads.

“It’s a very bad situation,” said Mr. Ellah, who spent nearly eight hours making a round trip that usually takes only two hours. “There were so many troops on the highway. It was like when they first came to occupy the airport last year during the war.”

American forces had already effectively lost control of long sections of the 375-mile highway leading west from Baghdad to Jordan. The road runs through the battle zone around Falluja, 35 miles west of the capital. Ambushes near Falluja and the adjacent city of Abu Ghraib have destroyed numerous convoys carrying fuel and other supplies for American troops in the past two weeks.

The attacks have also resulted in the kidnapping of about two dozen foreigners, including an American soldier, Pfc. Keith Maupin, 20, who was shown Friday in a videotape released by his captors.

The announcement on Saturday of the the closing of the highways running north to Turkey and south to Kuwait was accompanied by an American military statement saying that the routes “are damaged and too dangerous for civilian travel,” and that anybody driving on the closed sections could be subject to attack. “If civilians drive on the closed sections of the highways, they may be engaged with deadly force,” the statement read.
[…]
The general said American military supplies were less of a problem because there were “alternative methods” of delivering ammunition, food and fuel, presumably by air. But even at the bases, commanders have been rationing use of critical stockpiles and urging decisive action to ensure that road convoys get through.

But a senior American official said Saturday that the cutoff in supplies reaching the American occupation authority’s headquarters in Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace in central Baghdad were approaching a critical point. Canteens feeding 2,000 people, civilians as well as military personnel, may soon be forced to serve combat rations in plastic sleeves, known as meals ready to eat.

“We’re getting back to where we were a year ago,” he said, referring to the privations that American civilian and military officials lived with during the early weeks after the invasion brought American troops to Baghdad on April 9, 2003.

Firefight Near Syrian Border?

Robert Burns of the AP reported April 16 the glowing success the US Marines were having in their mission of “sealing the border” with Syria, even though “a number” of Marines were killed in the process.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Marines have had great success in shutting off the flow of foreign fighters across Iraq’s border with Syria in recent days, a senior U.S. general said Friday.

Maj. Gen. John Sattler, director of operations for Central Command, said a number of Marines have been killed in the process. He said security concerns prevented him from saying how many died, how many are involved in the border-sealing effort or how many infiltrators they caught.

“We had an extreme amount of success on the front side, meaning that we did find, fix and ultimately finish a number of cells that were up there that were facilitating” the infiltration, he said.

Interesting. They “finished some cells.” What does that entail? Hard to tell from Marine-speak crowing.

Sattler, speaking by telephone from a Central Command headquarters in the Persian Gulf, told reporters at the Pentagon that the Marines have put at least one-third more troops along the Syrian border than did the 82nd Airborne, which turned over the operation to the Marines last month.

He would not say how many Marines are there.

The Marines have managed to “shut that border region down,” Sattler said, later tempering his assessment by saying some foreign fighters continue to elude detection at the border.

“Is the border totally shut down? I won’t make that statement because it is a large border and at nighttime there are a lot of wadis and places where individuals can work their way across,” he said. Some infiltrators are caught later attempting to cross the vast desert, he added.

The Marines’ success has come at a high price, however. Sattler refused to provide specifics, but he said, “This is, as we all know, a very dangerous business and the Marines did suffer some casualties there.”

As a matter of policy, the Marines since shortly after arriving in Iraq last month have withheld some details about their casualties, such as the location and the nature of the hostile action. There were a few exceptions in March, however. An announcement on March 19 said that two Marine privates were killed the day before in hostile action in Qaim, a city about six miles from the Syrian frontier.

Sattler said the Marines have focused much of their border-sealing effort in the vicinity of Qaim. He would not say how many Marines are operating along the border, but he said they are using a variety of firepower, including helicopter-borne troops and fixed-wing aircraft.

“They have a substantial-size force that is dedicated out into that western region that has shut that border region down,” he said, “and it is not only at the legal crossing points where we do have Iraqi border police, but it is those longtime traditional crossing points where foot traffic and some mobile traffic comes across.”

So, we know that there was a large force of Marines centered around Qaim who’ve already suffered an unannounced number of casualties. Even though this is deadly serious business it is difficult to refrain from pointing out with amusement that these Marines were on the Syrian border, supposedly batlling “foreign infiltrators” when they were attacked in force by fighters from the supposedly cordoned off area of Fallujah/Ramadi.What happens next to these Marines at Qaim?

Marines battled a large force of Iraqi insurgents near the Syrian border Sunday in fighting that killed five Marines. At least 10 Iraqis, including the city police chief, were also killed, according to a hospital official.

The fighting at the town of Husaybah, on the Syrian border, appeared to be related to insurgent violence in the western towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.

It began when insurgents ambushed Marines in the city on Saturday, sparking a 14-hour-battle with hundreds of gunmen. Fighting continued Sunday in three neighborhoods of the city, which was sealed off by U.S. forces.

Five Marines were killed in the initial ambush and nine more were wounded throughout the fighting, an embedded journalist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Ten Iraqis were killed and 30 wounded – a mixture of insurgent fighters and civilian bystanders, said Hamid al-Alousi, a doctor at the hospital in the nearby city of Qaim, 240 miles west of Baghdad.

Some were shot by Marine snipers as they left their homes to use outdoor toilets behind their houses, the doctor told the Arab television station Al-Arabiyah.

Husaybah police director Imad al-Mahlawi was one of those killed by American snipers, according to a man who identified himself as al-Mahlawi’s cousin, Adel Ezzeddin, Al-Arabiya reported.

According to Marine intelligence, nearly 300 Iraqi mujahedeen fighters from Fallujah and Ramadi launched the offensive in an outpost next to Husaybah, first setting off a roadside bomb to lure Marines out of their base and then firing 24 mortars as the Marines responded to the first attack, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch correspondent reported.

Here we have reports of “300 fighters from Fallujah and Ramadi” converging on Qaim and ambushing the Marines stationed there. How did 300 fighters go from Fallujah and Ramadi to Qaim and then set up a successful ambush of these Marines? Clearly the Americans have little to no control of any of the Anbar province outside the immediate areas where their troops are actually based or engaged in the siege of Fallujah. Take a look at this map and ask yourself how these 300 guys managed to converge on Qaim. Remember, Fallujah is allegedly cordoned off and under siege, yet Marine intelligence is claiming that 300 (!) Fallujah and Ramadi mujaheden travelled undetected to Qaim and set up an effective ambush there.

Meanwhile, main highways into Baghdad were sealed off. I speculated yesterday that perhaps some bridges were blown. There is no “official” confirmation on that though Reuters is reporting that it is true, but the American military has suddenly been seized with an imperative need to “repair” those highways. Picture US soldiers out on the highway shoveling asphalt because no “contractors” are venturing out at all. 3 American soldiers were killed in an ambush yesterday in Baghdad. All Westerners are holed up in the Green Zone and instructions were issued to all staff to wear flak jackets and helmets at all times.

Sunni clerics have announced their solidarity with al Sadr and the Shiite insurgents. Along with that, a flyer was distributed in Baghdad anouncing an 8 day strike and advising Iraqis to stay off the streets:

To our families in Baghdad:

Do not leave your homes and do not go to school, universities, offices. Do not walk around in the markets and to all supermarket owners and commercial markets: close your shops from April 15 2004 to April 23 2004, since your brothers the Mujahadieen in Ramadi, Khaldiya, and Fallujah will transfer the resistance fire to Baghdad, the capital, to help out Mujahideen brothers from the Al-Mahdi Army to free you from the darkness of the occupier, and so you have been warned.

Your Brothers the Mujahideen companies

From God victory and success

I think I will go out on a limb here, and speculate that the alleged “calm” in Fallujah is a ruse and cover for this new campaign which has moved out of Fallujah to Baghdad, and even to Qaim for the assault on the border Marines. I think the “coalition” has lost all control of Iraq.

Ian Welsh points out in this insightful, must-read post that Europe reacted just as Osama bin Laden knew they would to his peace offer. Welsh writes that OBL was speaking to the Muslim world, not Europe, when he made his offer:

As everyone has probably heard by now, last week a tape from bin Laden offered reconciliation with Europe. The condition was simple, any government that agrees to not attack Muslims and to not interfere in Muslim affairs will, in turn, not be attacked.

It was rejected out of hand…

… and bin Laden is smart enough to know that the offer would be rejected. Moreover it’s clear that this tape wasn’t directed primarily at Westerners. It is directed at Muslims and its’ effect, in the West, is probably to strengthen those who want to continue to keep boots on the ground in the Middle East – after all many will believe that if bin Laden suggests anything – we should do the opposite. It should be obvious, that if that is so, then he can make us do anything he wants just by suggesting the reverse.

Read the rest…

Thanks to MG at Norwegianity for calling attention to this post.

Marines in Fallujah are reported to be holding 200 Iraqis in detention for refusing to take part in the assault on Fallujah. These Iraqis are described as members of the 36th Battalion of the ICDC. The 36th Battalion is an interesting unit, supposedly made up of members the miitias of SCIRI, the INC, INA and Kurdish pershmergas.

Con artist and neocon darling Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi Puppet Council made this statement in a phone interview with the Council on Foreign Relations

There’s been a lot of publicity about the fighting in Falluja and in the south, but what is going on in Baghdad and the Iraqi Governing Council? Are you working on, the build-up to the June 30 transition?

No. We’re working now on how to stop the fighting, provide relief to civilians, uphold the rule of law, and also take stock of the security apparatus of the Iraqi government and move forward, learning the lessons from the recent fighting.

Describe the fighting going on.

There are two kinds of fighting going on. There is a sustained effort by the coalition forces in the Falluja area to systematically and rigorously find the criminals who killed and burned the U.S. contractors [on March 31], and also to disarm the terrorists that are found in Falluja. [The interview occurred about 12 hours before a temporary halt in the fighting in Falluja was announced April 9]. That is being conducted systematically and with the cooperation of the Iraqi 36th battalion of the ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps], which has demonstrated its capability and its courage in the current crisis.

And they’re in Falluja?

They’re in Falluja now.

They’re fighting together with the U.S. Marines?

Yes.

Busted again. Then again, maybe Chalabi’s INC is the only part of the 36th fighting. Maybe not all of the 36th refused, only the ones with honor and integrity.

This issue of the 36th fighting in Fallujah very much concerns Iraqis, especially the question of whether the Kurdish pershmerga are involved. I posted this picture on my blog of Kurdish peshmerga patrolling Fallujah. Raed Jarrar later posted about the question of the peshmerga collaborating with the Marines, implying that this would be a divisive issue for Iraqis, possibly pitting Kurds against Arabs if it became known. I emailed Raed about the picture of the peshmerga and he linked it on his blog. Immediately, my blog was inundated with thousands of hits from Raed’s site, several Iraqi sites and email lists and blogs linked and thousands of people viewed the picture and subsequent posts on the subject. I think it is fair to conclude that this may be an explosive issue. It is still difficult to piece together exactly what has happened in Fallujah – who fought and who didn’t and the timeline is murky. One thing I should make clear, this 36th ICDC battalion and the Iraqis in detention in Fallujah are not the Iraqis who refused to fight a few days ago and turned around and returned to their base. That particular story was about an Army battalion.

The Sydney Morning Herald and Islam OnLine are both carrying this account of 200 Iraqis held in detention by the Marines. I’ll try to update this post if any more information surfaces.

No, not Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or Bremer. But, hey, it’s a start.

In keeping with the Bush administration policy of never admitting they are ever wrong about anything, they haven’t actually announced the fall from grace of one Khidir Hamza, the Iraqi who so obligingly spun lies for the New York Times’ Judith Miller.

The invasion of Iraq was premised on the existence of weapons of mass destruction. None has yet been found and most of the US detective teams are now wanly returning home. Did the NewYorkTimes assist in this process of deception? Very much so. Just look through the clips file of one of its better known reporters, Judith Miller.

It was Miller who first launched the supposedly knowledgeable Iraqi nuclear scientist Khidir Hamza on the world, crucial to the US government’s effort to portray a nuclear-capable Saddam.
[…]
Thus far there’s been no agonized reprise from the Times on its faulty estimate of the credibility of Hamza.

Here’s Miller in the NY Times, September 19, 2002, beating the drums for war:

But Khidir Hamza, who led part of Iraq’s nuclear bomb program until he defected in 1994, disagreed. Estimating that Iraq was now close to what he called a “pilot plant” stage of nuclear production, Hamza said that centrifuges were “small, easily hidden, and emit very little radiation that can be detected.” Also, he said, such centrifuges do not require much power to operate, compounding the difficulty of finding them.

Now, the CPA is quietly letting Hamza’s contract expire and trying to expel him from his house in the “Green Zone.” Undoubtedly, he’ll get a warm welcome from the real Iraqis.

After the war, Dr Hamza was rewarded, to the distress of many Iraqi scientists, with a well-paid job as the senior advisor to the Ministry of Science and Technology. Appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, he had partial control of Iraq’s nuclear and military industries.

It was not a successful appointment, according to sources within the ministry. Dr Hamza seldom turned up for work. He obstructed others from doing their jobs. On 4 March, his contract was not renewed by the CPA. It is now trying to evict him from his house in the heavily guarded “Green Zone” where the CPA has its headquarters. He could not be contacted by The Independent but is believed to have taken up a job with a US company.

Dr Hamza’s fall from grace with the US administration is in sharp contrast with the seriousness with which it took his views on WMD before the war. Speaking excellent English, he was also regularly interviewed by US television and quoted by the press.
[…]
It was as if Dr Hamza had studied the agenda of the hawks in the US, who wanted to invade Iraq, and was willing to supply evidence supporting their arguments. Several other Iraqi defectors during the 1990s also produced information which they said proved Saddam was secretly producing WMD, but Dr Hamza was the most convincing because he was able to clothe his evidence in appropriate scientific jargon. He wrote a book, Saddam’s Bomb Maker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda.

One employer in the US decided that his account of his past simply did not stand up to examination but the US government stuck by him and made him a consultant to the US Department of Energy. Dr Hamza also hinted that Saddam had secret links to al-Qa’ida and might give them anthrax.

Back in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam, Dr Hamza’s position as a senior advisor was very influential. The US-appointed advisors share control over ministries with Iraqi ministers. The ministry was, among other things, in charge of monitoring and securing the remains of Iraq’s nuclear industry.

Dr Hamza’s life in Baghdad was not entirely happy. At first he lived outside the Green Zone with his family until a remotely detonated bomb exploded near his car on the morning of Christmas Eve, buckling the doors and blowing out the windows.

He and his son were in the car at the time but were not injured. Dr Hamza asked for and was given a house in the Green Zone. It is this which the CPA is now trying to recover.

Of the Iraqi defectors after the Gulf War in 1991 who built a career in the US by providing evidence that Saddam Hussein was covertly building up an arsenal of WMD, Dr Hamza was the most successful. Once the war was over and no WMD had been found, he was something of an embarrassment, all the more so since he could not do his job.

It’s almost mind-boggling to imagine how bad a job someone would have to do to get fired by the CPA considering the apparently low standards they have. OK, next…Chalabi.