Iraq: the unraveling (III)

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Monday, April 6, 2009 - 6:41 PM Share

Juan Cole's blog has a good essay by Adam Silverman, who deployed to Iraq last year as an advisor in the 1st Armored Division. Here is his conclusion about how the Maliki government is undermining American goals in Iraq. (In it, "SOI" means "Sons of Iraq," the official U.S. government term for turned insurgents, while "GOI" means "government of Iraq" and "ISF" means "Iraqi security forces"):

All of these attempts to erode the Awakening Council and SOI, all clearly part of the politics and politicking within and around the GOI, seriously undermine the transition from Coalition Forces' control to Iraqi control. While the SOI are hardly perfect, in many neighborhoods and areas they were perceived as being an important component to establishing and enhancing security, and have often been well regarded by their local ISF counterparts. The GOI's unwillingness and/or inability to properly incorporate them into the ISF and the GOI structure, will make progress going forward that much harder, risks the hard won and expensively fragile stability that has developed, and risks destabilizing Iraq as US and Coalition Forces began to pull way back and transition out of theater over the next twelve to eighteen months."

Meanwhile, former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice thinks that Iraq is "on its way to becoming a strategic asset" of the United States. Someone in Baghdad who didn't get that memo set off a bunch of car bombs that killed about three dozen people today.

Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images

EXPLORE:IRAQ THE UNRAVELING, BUSH ADMINISTRATION, IRAQ, MILITARY

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ADAGIO

11:47 PM ET

April 6, 2009

Remembering the Benchmarks

I don't remember the specifics, but I do recall that the Bush administration offered a series of benchmarks as a way for the success of the surge to be judged over time. At the time they were presented, I thought they provided fair metrics to gauge the resolution of several governance issues that continued to loom on the horizon year after year. But, of course, when the marks failed to be met they were summarily dismissed by the administration as nothing but the idle meddling of Washington in Iraq's affairs. So now, with those governance issues still substantially unresolved, no one should be surprised as the surge winds down and the situation unravels.

STRATSTUD

2:22 AM ET

April 7, 2009

Mashhadani’s (not Iraq's) Unravelling

For the perspective of an Iraqi (a partisan of Ali to be sure), but one who does understand the political nuances of the country, I suggest one takes a look at:

http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/04/how-to-do-a-surge.php

MOTOWN67

4:52 PM ET

April 7, 2009

couple of responses

1) The State Dept's weekly status reports on Iraq are still available.

http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rpt/c28011.htm

2) The Obama administration's plan to withdraw troops from Iraq within 18 months would mean that Iraq would shift from Defense to State as the Embassy will be the remaining U.S. presence in the country after the troops are out.

3) The Bush admin. stopped following the benchmarks in 2008. They said that they were imposed by Congress and didn't capture the bottom up reconciliation that had emerged in Iraq, partly because of the Surge. The Brookings Institution's Iraq Index and the Center for Strategic and International Studies' reports on Iraq still follow them. They're a mixed bag. Reconciliation acts like the new DeBaathification law have never been implemented. The Amnesty Law hasn't released that many prisoners.

4) I still believe that people are jumping the gun on Baghdad's policy towards the SOI. In 2008 the government arrested more SOI than it has so far in 2009. I don't think the 2008 events made made many people's radar because there was o fighting. In 2009 you had one commander, two days of fighting and 2 dead and people are saying it's the end of the Surge status quo. In 2008 they arrested or tried to arrest SOI leaders in a number of neighborhoods in Baghdad, and more importantly tried to break up the entire SOI structure in Diyala. They shut down all of the SOI offices in the provincial capitol Baquba, tried to arrest all of the major leaders, and sent all the foot soldiers home. (see: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/02/islamic-partys-victory-in-diyala.html) What was the effect on security? According to the Pentagon attacks declined through the last weeks and month of 2008. (see: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/02/review-of-2008-attack-statistics-in_4212.html) Many think that was due to the provincial elections held in Jan. 09. Since then casualties at least have ticked back up slightly.

The point of the arrests seem to be to send a message to the SOI that Baghdad is now in charge, not the Americans.