I've long advocated option 2 in your list of possibilities.  I've yet to see/read a substantive argument that would definitively mitigate it's potential advantages.  Still, it'll be particularly interesting to see what the likes of Mansoor and McMaster are able to offer the President, courtesy of Peter Pace.  Despite the high profile of the ISG, I suspect that the President may not settle for their recommendations.  Meanwhile, it'll be equally fascinating to see if the democratic Senate attempts to flex it's muscles, particularly Biden (Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee) and Levin (Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee) try to force their respective agendas through.

 

The discussion needs to move forward.  We've been thwarted in achieving all our ambitions.  I don't believe that our nation has suffered any serious damage, however.  We do suffer from a malaise of informed discussion about our real objectives and the relevance of the current battlefields to those goals.  I personally expect us to occasionally alter course in these uncertain waters.  This is new diplomatic territory in my estimation.  So, too, the challenges faced by our military.  We retain the disadvantages/requirements posed by significant regional conventional threats while facing the emergence of a variety of assymetric philosophies of conflict.  As such, fits and starts may be an acceptable by-product of the times.  To not, however, attempt a coherant and vigorous attempt to really place the prevailing issues in an appropriate national security and bi-partisan context hurts us all.

 

We've both unrealized opportunities and newly discovered limitations that we must better understand.  Any actions taken in Iraq will certainly have broad regional and even global implications.  I've tossed my two cents worth but most here seem to prefer discussing the back n' forth of blame.  I guess there must remain some political or egotistical capital to be had from that type of discussion.  For me, though, WMD or the latest findings of Lancet/IBC, etx. (as example) is a waste of time.

 

 

 

 

 

Of course there is another option which will decrease the violence quickly and that is an increase in American troops (100-200,000more) or a broadening of the international coalition.  These options though are unrealistic due to the deep state of denial the Bushies are in.  Since Rumsfeld was too proud to ask for more help from the international community and too stubborn to admit his forces were too light we are left with the five options I have listed. All of them will eventually lead to a decrease in violence as one side has to win, or they both wear each other down.  All wars end, but this one will end in a way not to our liking.  

 

If a complete, 100% verified, accounting of Iraqi WMD's, the overthrow and capture of Saddam Hussein, and free, fair, nationwide elections across Iraq equals a complete lack of planning, or basically nothing, under these current circumstances, then what makes your plan(s) even remotely logical? 

 

Well, according to many on this board we don’t have a 100% accounting of Iraqi WMD.  At any rate the threat posed by Iraq was small in comparison to the carnage that has been unleashed by the war.  You still want to still make that weak argument that Saddam was some kind of dire threat (and Sadr and Iran aren’t), go right ahead.   As for the elections, the first one was boycotted by the Sunnis so it was hardly nationwide or fair.  The second one was pre-ordained as to who would win, and well the elections did not usher in a new era of freedom nor could they stem the violence.  The overthrow of Saddam was the singular accomplishment of this war, though it hardly seems worth it.  He will be killed soon and he will be martyred.    

 

 Your plans are flawed in that it costs money to move the green zone and we still get what we've got. Of course the move could affect poll numbers; apparently most important to success... It would also please Al Sadr and his goons over at the health ministry, which is really important too; we need to stay on the good side of that fountain of reliable information.

 

  It costs money to do anything, and who said anything about moving the Green Zone. The Iraqi government stays where it is.  We could probably move the embassy to Kurdistan, and remove US troops from Iraq.  These things will happen eventually so why not now.

 

When enough of them are dead, they'll kill for the Iraq we envisioned.

 

No, they won’t.

You've gotta admit, it's an interesting position to hold, one where every single US and Iraqi govt plan or action is judged by the (almost complete) pacification of Baghdad -nay- the entire country of Iraq- and your 5 plans are actually built upon "allowing" an unabated continuance of the violence.

I was being facetious when I said allow the Sunnis and Shiites to kill each other.  I don’t believe as many do that the violence in Iraq will increase after an American withdrawal.  The air will be taken out of much of the Sunni insurgency and they may cut a deal.  We are currently a scapegoat for the Iraqis. Anytime something goes wrong they blame the US, they want us out so let us accede to their wishes.  They will be forced to bring order or perish.  We have trained enough Iraqis in the army to give the government something of a fighting chance, so we don’t need 140,000 troops there that can’t provide security.

 

 

Of course you were, Which is why the un-funny, current plan is the only one that might work... all goofballs are facetious (believe me, I know). What other state of mind could you be in when you claim that; or when you claim the the Iraqi govt is helpless to curb the violence, and then you say that they stand a fighting chance just hours later. Of course we're scapegoats (although usually for not providing security) Most Arab govts need a scapegoat to keep doing what they do best....You don't actually consider Arab governments a reliable source of information, do you???  Do you think our leaving will decrease the violence? Who is your scapegoat?

Screw the violence, there's a curious crowd going about their daily business at the scene of every insurgent battle. I say we stay and try to end up with an ally in charge of that counrty..The violence in Iraq only moderatley affects the definition of success in Iraq as it pertains to America. It's hardly a lynch pin or the most important measure of success. We stay because Iraq is a short drive from Iran....there's so much more to come.

You don't actually consider Arab governments a reliable source of information, do you???  Do you think our leaving will decrease the violence? Who is your scapegoat?

Well if Arab governments are not reliable sources of information how is one going to become a reliable ally?  Not only do Arab governments exaggerate but Arab exiles do too (Saddam has WMD, a nuclear program, ties to al Qaeda etc.), so I don't know how reliable any intelligence coming out of an Arab government is going to be.

 

Our leaving may or may not decrease the violence I don't know for sure, nobody does, but our presence there has certainly not decreased the violence. For the most part the Iraqis seem oblivious to our presence except to blame us when things go wrong (As in they continue killing each other despite the presence of American troops), or to take potshots at us. 

 

My scapegoat is Bush and Rumsfeld, they are terrible managers and allowed much of the violence to escalate needlessly...we had a window of opportunity to really change Iraq, in the early goings of the occupation, the vast majority of Iraqis were willing to give us a shot, instead Bush filled the CPA with political lackeys who cared little for Iraq, and Rumsfeld denied for over a year that an insurgency was taking place.

 

 

 

 At least 3700 civilians died last month, and the new government is helpless to stop the violence.

 

 

 

"A figure of 3,700 civilian deaths in October, given by the United Nations last week based on data from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, was branded grossly exaggerated by the Iraqi government." --Reuters

 

 

 The government of Iraq states that the number of dead civilians given to the UN by the government of Iraq or subsidiaries thereof, are grossly exaggerated.  How?  Why?  What number of civilians were killed in October?  What number will be released for November that the government will almost certainly disown?  Reuters has nearly 2,000 killed, and they are usually off by a third of the "official" numbers.  So 6,000 killed in November, 4,000, or merely 3,000?  All civilian casualty numbers reported in the newspapers or by the UN have one source---the Iraqi government.  That the Iraqi government subsequently disowns the numbers because they make it look bad, doesn't mean those people didn't die.  Dead bodies are easy to count and are powerful evidence and cannot be merely explained away .  Just ask OJ, or Saddam.

 

  

The government of Iraq states that the number of dead civilians given to the UN by the government of Iraq or subsidiaries thereof, are grossly exaggerated.  How?  Why?  What number of civilians were killed in October?  What number will be released for November that the government will almost certainly disown?  .  That the Iraqi government subsequently disowns the numbers because they make it look bad, doesn't mean those people didn't die. 

 

 

 

 Reuters has nearly 2,000 killed, and they are usually off by a third of the "official" numbers.  So 6,000 killed in November, 4,000, or merely 3,000?  All civilian casualty numbers reported in the newspapers or by the UN have one source---the Iraqi government. (now you're catchin' on!)

 

If by 'official' you mean "grossly exaggerated" then no, the number would be "nearly 2000"

 

 

100/day is not my number it's the UN and Iraqi government's.  If they don't like what the UN says they can always ask the UN to leave their country, it hasn't stopped Iraqis in the past. 

 

You're right though you aren't using their data, you aren't using any data as far as I can tell.  You make assertions that because we haven't heard it in the big bad liberal MSM then there is no way there are 100 dead Iraqis a day, since we all know the liberal MSM wants the Bush Administration to fry for Iraq.  The MSM may hate Bush but it is hard to count bodies in the middle of a war zone.  People die and their bodies aren't recovered, other times the media just doesn't bother reporting the "ho-hum" more violence in Iraq stories since they have become so commonplace. 

 

You can cite unnamed government officials that state the UN numbers are "grossly exaggerated" all you want, but dead bodies are hard evidence to deny especially when they have bullet holes in them.  The Iraqi Health Minister states 150,000 civilians have died as a result of the war, the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute (counting bodies at the morgue) state that an average of 3,200 Iraqis die each month from violence (i.e. gun shots), and the UN Assistance Monitor for Iraq confirms that number.

 

 All those organizations still stand by their numbers, and I haven't seen what number of civilians that  died in October that your government source is willing to quote.  Keep in mind now this is only violent deaths and doesn't even count the number of people who are Internally Displaced (1,000 per day) or who die from malnutrition or other maladies indirectly caused by the violence.  I don't know what point you are trying to prove in arguing that some number less than the "official" stated number have died in Iraq, other than to prove that Iraq is not in a state of crisis. 

 

Do you still believe that?  Do you honestly believe that the murder rate in Iraq (estimated at over 150 per 100,000) is somewhere near the range of Dominica (2.8 per 100,000)?

 

The violence is bad and "stay the course" has failed.  Our options as I underlined in a previous much-maligned post are to basically Go Big, or Go Home...er redeploy.  The level of violence is a measure of how well we are doing, and by that measure we are not doing well.  Certainly even you can agree with a truism like that.

 

 

 

 

The Health Minister was asked how he came up with 150,000....he admitted it was NOTHING more than a guess based upon 100/day for 4 years. That is 100% of your data out of Iraq...

No it's not, if you read my post a little more carefully you would know that the UNAMI reports (UN in Iraq) are based on data collected  by the Baghdad Medico-Legal Institute in addition to the Health Ministry.  The number of a 100 per day started around May with 2,669 dead, June with 3,149 dead, July 3,509 dead, August 3,009 dead, September 3,345 dead, and October with 3,709 dead.

 

That is a total of 19,390 dead by violence in 184 days or 105 dead per day on average...just civilians.

 

Now you state that the Iraqi government finds this number "grossly exaggerated" but then do not come up with an alternative number, or a rationale as to why it is "grossly exaggerated" or why the UN would "grossly exaggerate" a number given to it by the Iraqi government.  Those are specific numbers and not estimates, and that's just the bodies we know that lie in morgues and hospitals, not every body is found and not every body is taken to the morgue.

 

  His number was/is automatically triple the previous numbers from Iraqi institutions and the media (+/- 55,000)...which jived with each other until Lancet, and this new number...

 

Well I still haven't seen the link to his assertion that he guessed at the number, no other Iraqi officials have disputed his number, and he has not retracted it to my knowledge.

 

Yes the ho-hum violence is reported on from Iraq...all the way down to single-victim drive-bys and "a construction worker was shot and killed in YakDungistan"  There are just as many if not more instances of multiple reporting than there are unreported acts of war.

All the violence that is reported in the media comes from Iraqi government sources, they choose what to release and not to release.  The AP reporters do not go around town in their convertibles counting dead bodies, because...you know Iraq is sort of a dangerous place to be in right now, what with all the violence.

The only question is:  Are the media's sources in Iraq reliable?  Are they under-reporting or over-reporting the violence in Iraq? 

 

 I meant Hispaniola. something in a subsequent post made me think you got that. Right around the time of 9/11 it was news (barley a blip)that there were 275 homicides in the Dominican republic. pop. 69,000..Just Homicides...I lumped Haiti in with that violence and had Dominica on the brain.

 

Well I am still confused about your comparison.  Hispaniola has over 17 million people on it (Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and the Dominican Republic has a population of over 8 million, not 69,000. 

 

The island of Dominica has a population of 69,000, but I already showed you what its murder rate was. 

 

If you don't know the difference between the Dominican Republic and Dominica then perhaps you shouldn't cite their respective murder rates as proof that Iraqi violence is no greater than the violence found there.

 

 

Baghdad has an "official" murder rate of 160 per 100,000, the murder rate for New Orleans is 54 per 100,000 (worst in the United States), Cape Town had the highest murder rate for any city prior to the Iraq invasion at 82 per 100,000--half the rate of Baghdad.

 

So my point being that yes there is a lot of violence in Iraq, there are  probably more violent deaths on a per capita basis in Iraq than anywhere else in the world.  This government has proven to be incapable of quelling the violence, and the US shows no signs it has the ability either. So we are left with more violence and a failed policy to bring either stability or democracy to this wretched country. 

"Baghdad has an "official"
murder rate of 160 per 100,000, the murder rate for New Orleans is 54
per 100,000 (worst in the United States), Cape Town had the highest
murder rate for any city prior to the Iraq invasion at 82 per
100,000--half the rate of Baghdad."

Funny how you use the focal point of the war in Iraq as your baseline.

It also has 25 percent of the population of Iraq.  The only accurate counts we get from a morgue in Iraq is the Baghdad morgue.  We do not have hard data for Anbar, Basra, Maysan, Diyala, Mosul, Salan-din, and Babil provinces.  Anbar, Diyala, Mosul, and Slan-din are the four Sunni provinces that see a lot of violence and chaos.  Basra, and Babil are home to Shiites and Shiite death squads, and no accurate data on death tolls has been recorded. Maysan is on the Iranian border, the home of the Marsh Arabs, and controlled by Sadr, and no coalition forces have control there. Those provinces combined have 10.5 million people and could be as violent as Baghdad.  You add in Baghdad’s 6.5 million people and you have 17 million out of Iraq’s total population of 24 million that potentially could see violence every day.  That’s 71% of the population. 

 

In Basra, one estimate, showed at least 2,400 assassinations for this year, which translates into a murder rate of 92.3 per 100,000.  That's just assassinations.  Take the average of the two largest cities if you like (Baghdad and Basra), and the murder rate is 142 per 100,000.  Those two cities have an estimated 38 percent of Iraq's popualtion.  Add in the other provinces and yeah your murder rate is probably way up there in the 140-160 per 100,000 range. 

 

Even if there is not a single other murder in Iraq, just those figures that I cited, Iraq would still have the highest murder rate of any other country in the world.  

 

"Morgue official said bodies unclaimed after 15 days are transferred to the cemetery administration to be catalogued, and then taken for burial at a cemetery in Najaf. As he spoke, three Iraqi police pick-up trucks loaded with about 10 bodies each arrived at the morgue.

At the cemetery administration, an official told IPS: "From February 1 to March 31, we've logged and buried 2,576 bodies from Baghdad."

Requests by IPS to meet with administration officials at the Baghdad morgue were turned down for "security reasons."

Several surveys have pointed to large numbers of civilian deaths as a result of the U.S.-led occupation.

Iraqiyun, a humanitarian group affiliated with the political party of interim president Ghazi al-Yawir reported Jul. 12 last year that there had been 128,000 violent deaths since the invasion. The group said it had only counted deaths confirmed by relatives, and that it had omitted the large numbers of people who simply disappeared without trace..

Another group, the People's Kifah, involved hundreds of academics and volunteers in a survey conducted in coordination with "grave-diggers across Iraq." The group said it also "obtained information from hospitals and spoke to thousands of witnesses who saw incidents in which Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. fire."

The project was abandoned after one of the researchers was captured by Kurdish militiamen and handed over to U.S. forces. He was never seen again. But in less than two months' work, the group documented about 37,000 violent civilian deaths up to October 2003.

The Baghdad central morgue alone accounts for roughly 30,000 bodies annually. That is besides the large number of bodies taken to morgues in cities such as Basra, Mosul, Ramadi, Kirkuk, Irbil, Najaf and Karbala"

 

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