Antiwar.com Blog

From the forthcoming issue of National Review:

Since the conclusion of the war, the Bush administration has shown a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations. The post-war looting was explained away as the natural and understandable exuberance of a newly-liberated people. (Now some Coalition officials suggest that a crackdown would have sped the reconstruction.) Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld denied the obvious reality of a guerrilla resistance and compared it to urban street crime in the United States. Every piece of good news has been hailed as turning the corner, even as the insurgency has remained stubbornly strong. …

Even if the administration had avoided these mistakes and made all moves correctly, it is still possible Iraq would be very messy. But this concession points to an intellectual mistake made prior to the occupation: an underestimation in general of the difficulty of implanting democracy in alien soil, and an overestimation in particular of the sophistication of what is fundamentally still a tribal society and one devastated by decades of tyranny. This was largely, if not entirely, a Wilsonian mistake. The Wilsonian tendency has grown stronger in conservative foreign-policy thought in recent years, with both benefits (idealism should occupy an important place in American foreign policy, and almost always has) and drawbacks (as we have seen in Iraq, the world isn’t as malleable as some Wilsonians would have it).

Read every mind-boggling word of it. It would be hilarious if not for all the blood and viscera on these guys’ hands.

(Link courtesy of Marcus Epstein.)

Zapatero said he acted after deciding the United Nations was unprepared to take over the occupation of Iraq — his condition for keeping Spanish troops in the country.

Zapatero is right. There’s nothing the UN can do to end this debacle.

An editorial on the accused Marine (see also this and this) appears in today’s New Orleans Times-Picayune. A snippet:

The Marine Corps has investigated the matter, although it has yet to disclose its findings on the authenticity of the photo or its decision on whether to discipline Lance Cpl. Boudreaux.

His former commanding officer, Lt. Col. David Couvillon, has called the photo a stupid attempt at humor.

But the stunt wasn’t just stupid, it was also mean-spirited. Lance Cpl. Boudreaux may have intended to degrade the Iraqi people, but in truth, he embarrassed himself, the Marine Corps and, unfortunately, his home state [Louisiana].

Read the whole thing.

Warbloggers, I await your thoughts!

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.