Yet another from the over-stuffed cabinet of Iraq invasion and occupation "nobody could have anticipated" files. And another sign that all is not the rosy victory that the right would wish us to believe it is. (h/t Kat)

Marine Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly told The Associated Press that his greatest "mission failure" was his inability to bring together the government in Baghdad and the Sunnis in Anbar to take advantage of the steep decline in violence.

"What the Iraqi government in Baghdad should have done is said Anbar is getting peaceful, let's commit," Kelly told the AP in a telephone interview from his headquarters southwest of Baghdad, as he begins to make preparations to hand over command of 23,000 Marines next month to Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tyron.

"It drives me to distraction," he said. "I would count it as a mission failure."

Reconciliation? Meh, not so much. The many faction feuds and sectarian rivalries which helped make Iraq so bloody are still there, just tamped down for a while - hopefully long enough for the US to declare victory and (pretend to) withdraw. I'm mostly OK with that, since it's the Iraqi people's "pottery barn" and it should always have been their perogative to break it more or mend it as they see fit. I just wish the US government, politicians, militrary and mainstream media would be honest about it.

By the time it flares up again, US leaders appear to be hoping, those troops left in Iraq will be rebranded as trainers and securely inside fortified bases where they can get on with their original primary mission, as conceived by neo-whatevers from left and right, of being the US dog in the Gulf manger.

And I fully expect the Obama administration's strategy for Afghanistan to be doing exactly the same thing there.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but given how poorly other official government actions have gone, and no doubt the strong American thumbprint over this, I'm not sure that this is the panacea the ISG claims it will be.

NY Times (reg. req.):

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country's feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country's oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.

The Iraq Study Group report stressed that an oil law guaranteeing an equitable distribution of revenues was crucial to the process of national reconciliation, and thus to ending the war.

Continue reading »

Baghdad

Gunmen ambushed minibuses south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 10 passengers and kidnapping about 50 others, police reported.

The abductions took place at around 7:30 p.m. (1630 GMT) nearly the highly volatile city of Latifiyah, said an officer who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals. Gunmen believed to be local Sunnis set up a false security checkpoint to stop the passengers, occupants of several minibuses. Latifiyah lies in the so-called Sunni Triangle of Death, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, where Shiites and U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been repeatedly targeted.

NY Times:

Up to 48 Iraqis were killed and 60 wounded in a brazen bomb and grenade attack in a town south of Baghdad this morning, Iraqi officials said. It was one of the highest death tolls from a single attack in months on victims believed to be mostly Shiites, and it prompted a walkout in Parliament today of members in the legislative bloc of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Mike's Blog Round Up

Pensito Review: NSA began training employees in 2004 on giving congressional testimony about domestic spying

The Osterley Times: What country is this? In Bush's America, you're arrested and then suspected of insanity if you even question the actions of Dear Leader.

NewsHog: Bush wants your DNA, Shiites and Kurds shooting at each other, Bush bodyguards pointing assault rifles at peaceful protestors, and more...

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Intelligent Design and Neo-Conservatism

Crooked Timber: Jonathan Chiat veers into the abyss

Unqualified Offerings

Pretty much every massacre Saddam Hussein’s regime committed was undertaken as part of a war or civil war. (Iraq’s Kurds have been in periodic armed revolt since the 1960s, its Shiites since the time of the Iran-Iraq War.) Many of the individuals and families he slaughtered were connected to attempted coups and assassinations. The Dawa Party at the time of Dujail cleaved to an enemy power, theocratic Iran.

If you believe there can be such a thing as a war crime, Saddam Hussein is a notorious war criminal and deserves whatever he gets. If you believe in “war the way it needs fighting, with grim ferocity and cold unconcern for legalistic niceties,” then Saddam Hussein is your boy. You and he are brothers under the skin. If you believe that there can be war crimes when our enemies commit them, but not when we or our allies do
What’s surpassingly interesting is that the people who bleat loudest about the morality of our crusade seem to keep a healthy supply of a-moralists around to justify the rough stuff. Read it all...",0]);D(["ce"]);D(["ms","869e"]);//-->, then perhaps Saddam Hussein himself would be shamed by your company.

What’s surpassingly interesting is that the people who bleat loudest about the morality of our crusade seem to keep a healthy supply of a-moralists around to justify the rough stuff. Read it all...

We interupt the Charles and Camilla wedding to bring you a little news.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Tens of thousands of Shiites marked the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a protest against American troops at the same square where jubilant crowds toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein two years ago. The protesters back radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militiamen led uprisings last year against U.S. troops before signing truces with U.S.-led forces...read on

It's still not a bed of roses.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eight suicide bombers struck in quick succession Saturday in a wave of attacks that killed 55 people as Iraqi Shiites marched and lash themselves with chains in ritual mourning of the death of the founder of their Muslim sect 14 centuries ago. Ninety-one people have been killed in violence in the past two days.

For the second year running, insurgent attacks shattered the commemoration of Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shiite religious calendar, but the violence produced a significantly smaller death toll than the 181 killed in twin bombings in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala a year ago.