Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Limited Pullout Is Middle Way on Iraq, Bush Will Say

When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to “find common ground” on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to “start doing some redeployment,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

“No you’re not, Mr. President,” Ms. Pelosi interjected. “You’re just going back to the presurge level.”

The testy exchange, recounted by three people who attended the session or were briefed on it, provides a peek into how Mr. Bush will try to sell Americans on his Iraq strategy when he addresses the nation at 9 p.m. Thursday. With lawmakers openly skeptical of his troop buildup, Mr. Bush will cast his plan for a gradual, limited withdrawal as a way to bring a divided America together — even as he resists demands from those who want him to move much faster.

The prime-time address will be the eighth by Mr. Bush on Iraq since the invasion in March 2003, the latest iteration of his efforts to sketch what he calls “the way forward.” It will be the first time he has described a plan for troop reductions, a radical departure for a president who has repeatedly defied his critics’ calls to bring the troops home.

Yet as the president outlines his plan, his critics say he is trying to have it both ways. He is, they say, taking credit for a drawdown that has been envisioned since he first announced the current buildup on Jan. 10 — a withdrawal that had to be carried out unless he was willing to take the politically unpalatable step of extending soldiers’ tours further.

The White House declined on Wednesday to preview Mr. Bush’s speech, but one senior administration official, speaking anonymously to avoid upstaging the president, said the reductions would be heavily conditioned on the situation in Iraq and would fall far short of the rapid withdrawal Democrats want.

Under the plan, at least 130,000 American troops would remain in Iraq next July, down from more than 160,000, decreasing to about the same level as before the buildup began, with any decisions on further withdrawals likely to be postponed until at least next March. The planned drawdowns between now and July 2008 are expected to be of the 30,000 that many assumed the president would suggest after this week’s testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq. But, the senior official said, Mr. Bush’s ultimate goal would be a sustainable force of around 10 combat brigades, down from 20 now, at the end of his presidency, though a large number of support troops would also still be required.

“We want bipartisanship,” said this official, “but not to the point where it sacrifices success.”

Mr. Bush has repeatedly asked Americans to give him another chance in Iraq, and Thursday night will be no different. “His main goal at this critical juncture,” said another senior official, also speaking anonymously, “is to ask Americans to stop and take a fresh look.”

Whether they will take that look remains to be seen. This week’s Congressional testimony from General Petraeus was supposed to be a defining moment in Washington’s debate over the war.

But in fact, as was suggested by the Pelosi-Bush exchange during the White House meeting on Tuesday, very few minds have been changed.

“We all made clear that merely bringing back the surge troops is no change in policy,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, who also attended the White House meeting. But he conceded that it could be tough for Democrats to force a change. “We have the public behind us,” he said, “but we don’t have the votes in the Senate.”

The president, meanwhile, remains as determined as ever to see the troop buildup through. Aides say he returned from his trip to Anbar Province last week convinced that military progress in Iraq would spawn the sort of political reconciliation that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has so far been unable to achieve.

Now, said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the White House, it is up to Mr. Bush to make that case to the American people.

“The question that Democrats and some Republicans are asking is, ‘Even if the military strategy is succeeding, how do we get to political stability?’ ” Mr. Black said. “That’s a fair question, and he needs to at least answer that to say there’s a fair chance of getting there and it’s worth continuing the military effort to give it a chance.”

White House officials say that Mr. Bush is in a much better place now than he was in July, when leading Republican lawmakers like Senators Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana publicly broke with the president, calling for a change of course.

At that time, top White House officials like Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, were openly nervous about the prospect of losing Republican support for the war. But in the nearly two months since then, Mr. Bush’s communications team waged an aggressive — and, many Republicans say, largely successful — campaign to use the Congressional recess in August to take control of the debate on Iraq.

Buoyed by reports of improving conditions on the ground, the White House scheduled a series of presidential speeches, including one in which Mr. Bush contended that a hasty retreat from Iraq would produce carnage of the sort seen in Southeast Asia after Americans pulled out of Vietnam.

“That was an important moment because that showed that the president was not going to cede certain arguments and cede certain ground,” said Peter Wehner, a former policy adviser to Mr. Bush who left the White House in July, referring to the Vietnam speech. “Vietnam was already out there as a narrative, and the president took it and said, ‘Well, there’s actually another story.’ ”

The strategy culminated with Mr. Bush’s surprise trip to Anbar Province last week, just as lawmakers were returning to the Capitol. But by this week, when General Petraeus testified that he would recommend a preliminary reduction of five brigades between now and July, the White House seemed to have lost some of its edge.

Republicans like Senator Susan Collins of Maine have openly questioned the Petraeus plan, and several said they would reserve judgment about whether to support the president until after he delivers his speech. Among them is Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, who said it is too soon to predict whether Mr. Bush will be able to retain enough Republican support to see his strategy through.

“This forward strategy is going to be watched everywhere,” Mr. Warner said, “and it is then going into the jaws of the presidential elections, a drumbeat of people in the United States who are saying to themselves, ‘We’re sacrificing all of these things, our sons, our daughters, our money, and the Iraqis aren’t performing as the president said on Jan. 10.’ I mean, there’s a swirl into which this new strategy goes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/wa...0A&oref=slogin

Ex-Iraqi minister says Australia in Iraq for the US rather than Iraqis

Australia’s military presence in Iraq was more about loyalty to the United States than it was about the interests of Iraqis or Australians, a former Iraqi minister said Thursday.

Prime Minister John Howard sent 2,000 troops to support the US and British forces in the 2003 Iraq invasion and has vowed the 1,600 who remain in the region will stay as long as they are needed and welcome.

The opposition Labor Party has pledged to withdraw 550 combat troops if it wins elections this year, prompting US President George W Bush to personally ask Labour leader Kevin Rudd last week to reconsider the policy.

But former Iraqi Defence and Finance Minister Ali Allawi said the departure of 550 Australian troops from southern Iraq wouldn’t matter. “It doesn’t make a difference to Iraq or to Iraqis, but it may make a difference to Australia’s relations with the United States,” Allawi told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in London. “The presence of Australian troops has very little to do with Australian interests in the Middle East. It’s basically to do with being seen as a loyal and permanent ally of the United States,” he added.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said there were reasons for Australian troops remaining in Iraq beyond the 56-year-old defence treaty between Australia and the United States. “It’s for lots of reasons. Obviously not simply because of that (alliance), but that’s an important issue,” Downer told Sydney radio 2UE. “It is in our interest because it is in the interests of the international community more broadly that a real global effort is made to defeat terrorism in the different battlefields,” he added.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

US accuses Iran over Iraq attacks
Senior US officials have singled out Iran for criticism, a day after giving a progress report on security in Iraq.

Gen David Petraeus, top US commander in Iraq, and US envoy to Baghdad Ryan Crocker both cited evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on US troops.

Responding to their report, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it made clear Iraq's security had improved, but Iran was a "troublesome neighbour".

US President George W Bush is due to address the nation on Thursday evening.

His speech will follow criticism from senior Democrats, who have said proposed reductions in US troop numbers in Iraq are "insufficient" and do not represent a change in course.

Mr Bush is expected to announce that he plans to reduce US troops in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, if certain conditions are met, White House officials say.

The move would bring the number of US troops in Iraq to "pre-surge" levels, with about 130,000 still deployed in Iraq.

'Malign influence'

Gen Petraeus endorsed a gradual reduction in troop numbers in his testimony to Congress on Monday and Tuesday, saying the surge was working, but warned against premature withdrawal.

Speaking to reporters, Gen Petraeus said there was "very clear" evidence of Iranian involvement in attacks on US forces in Iraq.

Mr Crocker echoed the message in an interview with the BBC's John Simpson, saying the role of Iran in undermining security in Iraq was "pretty well established".

"We have seen a serious Iranian effort to exercise malign influence through extremist militias," he said.

"And we know it because we've captured leaders of some of these secret organisations... and they've been very clear about their Iranian connections."

Asked how the US should handle Tehran, Mr Crocker said the administration viewed Iran as an international issue that should be dealt with by diplomatic means, such as the UN Security Council.

Iran has denied claims it has been involved in arming and training militias opposed to US forces in Iraq.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US accuses Iran over Iraq attacks

Follow the Money

While the Democrats in the Congress were calling General Petraeus a liar for arguing that things were getting better in Iraq, one of our favorite publications — Grant's Interest Rate Observer — was circulating around town with a cover story called "Strongest currency, best bourse." It turns out that is in neither Switzerland nor Britain nor Japan nor America but Iraq, which, Grant's reports, "has turned into a capital magnet." Says it: "The only thing stronger than the Iraqi currency is the Baghdad stock market." And it adds this classic Grantian formulation: "Money is sometimes misinformed, but it is never insincere. Something is afoot in Iraq.

Grant's says it hasn't gotten to the bottom of what is afoot. "One could mention," it quotes its correspondant Ian McCulley as enumerating, "the country's healthy petrodollar harvest, the central bank's decision to use the exchange rate as a policy tool against inflation, the central bank's 20% overnight interest rate, the declining Iraqi inflation rate (to 30%, year over year, from last year's triple digits) or the simple fact that Iraq has one of the few floating currencies in the Gulf." But it notes that whatever the reason, the dinar has climbed to 1,235 to the dollar from 1,480 at the start of 2004. It says that on the Baghdad bourse, local investors anticipated the opening of the market to foreign capital in August by bidding the market up 58% in July.

Well, neither Grant's nor we would want to make too much of the Iraqi economic indicators. The whole stock market, Grant's notes, is capitalized at but $2 billion. It's a war situation and there can be a lot of distortions. But neither would we want to make too little of it. The key point is which way the arrow is pointing. As well as the potential, which is enormous. One of our favorite moments in the whole Iraq debate is when a broadcaster asked Ahmad Chalabi whether he thought Iraq needed another Karzai, a reference to the Afghanistan strongman. Replied Mr. Chalabi: "No, Iraq needs another Erhard," a reference to the Free German economist Ludwig Erhard, who, in 1948, moved to sound currency and set the stage for the West German economic miracle. Grants noted that the Guardian reported the other day, "There are some tentative signs of political reconciliation in Iraq." Concluded Grant's: "Maybe the smart money saw it coming."

Follow the Money - September 13, 2007 - The New York Sun

Babacan to attend New York conference on Iraq
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan plans to attend an international conference on the UN role in Iraq in New York later this month, officials said yesterday.

The ministerial meeting, scheduled to take place in the margins of a UN General Assembly session, will be co-chaired by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The scope of the meeting will be similar to an international conference which was held in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in May; the participants will include countries neighboring Iraq, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and members of the G-8 group. Non-permanent members of the UN Security Council may also attend, but there are no specifics on that yet, said a senior diplomat.

The US State Department earlier stated that the meeting in New York would focus on "how the UN can play a positive role in Iraq" and related UN Security Council resolutions.

The Turkish diplomat said the conference will also be preparation for a major international meeting on Iraq in İstanbul, scheduled for Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. However, the two gatherings will focus on different issues. The İstanbul conference, which will be attended by foreign ministers of the countries neighboring Iraq, the G-8 members and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, is a follow-up to the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering and is expected to focus on ways to stabilize Iraq amid debates of US troop withdrawal.

TODAY'S ZAMAN

UN voices concern over northern Iraq shelling

The top United Nations official in Iraq has voiced concern over the intermittent shelling of areas in the predominantly Kurdish-populated northern Iraq.

"Such incidents continue to cause damage and consternation among the civilian populations in these areas, disrupting their daily lives," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative Ashraf Qazi said in a statement issued on Wednesday by the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI).

Qazi recently discussed the issue with relevant parties and urged them to use their good offices to ensure an immediate end to the shelling, the statement said. He called on all concerned parties to refrain from activities that "can lead to further destabilization of the political and humanitarian situation in Iraq," the statement noted.

He stressed that "a stable, secure and peaceful Iraq is in the interests of Iraq, its neighbors and the wider region."

UN agencies have been in touch with the governorate, and local authorities and have undertaken assessment missions to ascertain humanitarian needs, providing tents, blankets, cooking equipment and other emergency items to several hundred displaced families as well as emergency supplies to ho****als treating the wounded, the statement said. Work was going on to ensure adequate water supplies to those affected, UNAMI added.

Iraqi Kurds have been complaining that Iran, which is fighting the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) -- the Iranian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- has been shelling northeast Iraq to hit PJAK camps, though Iranian officials have declined to confirm the charges. Turkey has implicitly backed Iranian operations in Iraq, with the then-foreign minister President Abdullah Gül, saying countries have the right to secure their borders. Turkish officials have denied any cross-border attack in northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK terrorists, but the Iraqi government complains that both Turkey and Iran resort to military measures affecting Iraqi territory.

TODAY'S ZAMAN

New White House report on Iraq's government shows progress on only one benchmark out of 18

A new White House report on Iraq will show improved progress on just one of 18 political and security goals: efforts to allow some former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to rejoin the political process, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

The latest conclusions, being released Friday, largely track a comparable poor assessment in July. The earlier report said the Iraqi government had made satisfactory gains toward eight benchmarks, unsatisfactory marks on eight and mixed results on two.

In the new report, the Iraqi government showed movement on only one of the benchmarks — enacting and implementing legislation on so-called "de-Baathification, which put the goal in the satisfactory category, said the official, who spoke Thursday night on condition of anonymity because the report had not been made public.

Such a law has not passed, but the official pointed to the tentative Aug. 26 power-sharing agreement among leading Iraqi politicians that President George W. Bush praised, although he said it was not enough.

The White House would not confirm contents of the report and has tried to lower expectations about its findings.

"It has only been 58 days since the last assessment of July 15, which showed the Iraqis are making some progress in many areas, but that in others they are lagging," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Thursday. "While everyone continues to work toward more political reconciliation, we don't expect dramatic differences in the Sept. 15 report compared to the one submitted less than two months ago."

In testimony this week, the U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, said Iraqis are struggling to come to terms with a vicious past in the matter of "de-Baathification."

"They are trying to balance fear that the Baath Party would one day return to power with the recognition that many former members of the party are guilty of no crime and joined the organization not to repress others but for personal survival," Crocker said.

New White House report on Iraq's government shows progress on only one benchmark out of 18 - International Herald Tribune

Bush tells Howard of Iraq troop plan

US President George W. Bush has briefed Prime Minister John Howard about his plans for US forces in Iraq, ahead of a speach to be delivered today

Mr Howard said Mr Bush briefed him on the speech he would deliver in a few hours.

"He did ring me last night and tell me in advance what he was going to announce," Mr Howard said on Southern Cross radio in Melbourne.
"But I think it's for him to make the announcement."

In his speech, to be televised, Mr Bush is expected to endorse a limited withdrawal of more than 20,000 US troops from Iraq by next July.

The proposal to gradually remove five of 20 military brigades now in the country was suggested by the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, during testimony to the US Congress earlier this week.

The partial drawdown will effectively roll back troop levels to the same size as before 30,000 extra troops were sent in January as part of a "surge" strategy.

Mr Howard said any US drawdown would not affect the number of Australian troops in Iraq.

There are just under 1500 Australians in Iraq and 160,000 Americans - almost 100 times the Australian level.

"Even if there was some reduction in American forces, it would be unrealistic to say that automatically there should be a proportionate reduction in Australian forces," he said.

"We will keep our forces there and keep them doing the things they are doing while we think it's needed and while conditions on the ground suggest it should happen.

"Our forces provide security, they provide training and they also provide humanitarian assistance to the local population," he said.

"And we think it's good that assistance on all of those three fronts continue and it would be a huge mistake if we pulled our forces out."

The Australian, News from Australia's National Newspaper

Bush agrees to limited Iraq troop cuts

President George W. Bush on Thursday will endorse a limited withdrawal of about 20,000 troops from Iraq by July but will offer little else to skeptical Americans looking for a change of course in the unpopular war.

Trying to buy time to allow his strategy to work in the face of growing Democratic opposition, Bush will use a prime-time televised address to embrace a proposal by his top commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to gradually remove five of 20 military brigades now in the country.

"Because of the measure of success we are seeing in Iraq, we can begin seeing troops come home," Bush will tell Americans after Petraeus delivered two days of congressional testimony that underscored deep partisan divisions over the war.

Excerpts of Bush's speech were released in advance of his Oval Office appearance at 9 p.m. EDT, the centerpiece of a public relations blitz aimed at blunting critics' demands for a faster, wider withdrawal.

The partial drawdown approved by Bush will roll back troop strength from the current 169,000 to around the same levels the United States had in Iraq before the president ordered a buildup in January.

That has prompted Bush's Democratic critics to accuse the administration of trying to fool the American people into thinking he has responded to growing anti-war sentiment when he is actually making no fundamental change in policy.

Even before Bush spoke, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi said he was announcing "a stay-the-course strategy that puts us on a path for 10 years of war in Iraq."

One brigade out by December

Bush agreed to Petraeus's recommendation that 2,200 Marines return home this month and an army brigade leave by December, making for a total of 5,700 troops out of Iraq by Christmas without replacements, U.S. officials told reporters.

But they dodged repeated questions about exactly how many troops would be involved in the eventual withdrawal of five brigades by mid-2008.

An army brigade is typically made up of roughly 4,000 soldiers plus an unspecified number of support troops, which would make for a total withdrawal of more than 20,000 under Petraeus's plan. The so-called "surge" over the past eight months involved deployment of about 21,500 combat troops.

Bush will make clear the size of the planned troop cuts will hinge on continued progress on security, saying, "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home." Petraeus will report to Congress again in March on the situation in Iraq, U.S. officials said.

Bush has insisted the "surge" in troop numbers since January has yielded improved security.

The fragility of such progress was shown earlier on Thursday when a Sunni Arab tribal leader instrumental in driving al Qaeda out of Iraq's Anbar province was killed by a bomb. Bush had met Abdul Sattar Abu Risha during a visit to Anbar two weeks ago meant to highlight progress there.

Bush will also point out that the Iraqi government "has not met its own legislative benchmarks," and will press them to do more to achieve national reconciliation.

Suggesting he envisions a US military presence in Iraq well beyond the end of his term in January 2009, Bush will say Iraqi leaders "understand that their success will require US political, economic, and security engagement that extends beyond my presidency."

The drawdown would not be as fast or extensive as critics demand, but it could buy time for Bush to pursue the war by undermining a Democratic-led push for a broader disengagement four-and-a-half years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Some of Bush's fellow Republicans have also voiced doubts over his strategy.

Without a dramatic policy shift, Bush's speech could be a tough sell. Polls show Americans 2-to-1 against the war.

Democrats say the White House is putting the best political spin on what Pentagon officials have been saying for months -- that the buildup of forces in Iraq faces a time limit because of the risk of overstretching the US. military.

ABS-CBN Interactive

Killing of top Sunni likely to hit morale

The death of the Sunni tribal coalition leader credited by George W. Bush with turning the tide against al-Qaeda came just hours before the US president announced the withdrawal of 30,000 US troops by next summer.

Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, was reported to have been killed along with two of his bodyguards by a roadside bomb near his home in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. Other accounts say a bomb may have been planted by visitors whom Abu Risha had received to mark the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

The assassination is unlikely to cause the Anbar Salvation Council to unravel, although the loss of a charismatic leader may harm morale.
Fatal attacks on US troops have declined dramatically in Anbar since Abu Risha’s movement was founded in late 2006, and police recruitment has shot up.

The model has spread to other provinces. In Diala, north-east of Baghdad, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a former insurgent group, now patrols alongside US and Iraqi government troops. South of Baghdad the US military says 14,000 “concerned citizens” assist it in keeping order.

However, the Sunni tribal strategy has also met criticism. Other tribal leaders in Anbar had accused Abu Risha’s tribe of complicity in robbing cars along the highways.

FT.com / In depth - Killing of top Sunni likely to hit morale