Iraq: Why Won’t They Obey?
by tristero
First, Sistani gets a personal letter from His Emperor-ness, George Bush himself. Then, God’s Avatar On Earth deigns to send a high official over to Iraq so close to His heart, she once unthinkingly called Him “my husband.” One would think they’d get the message: Do as your told!
But no. Sistani doesn’t bother even to get Young Churchill’s immortal words translated. As for the effectiveness of Rice’s visit, read on:
A top adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Wednesday that the visit this week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of Britain had backfired, prolonging a deadlock over a new government and strengthening Mr. Jaafari’s resolve to keep his post.
“Pressure from outside is not helping to speed up any solution,” said the adviser, Haider al-Abadi. “All it’s doing is hardening the position of people who are supporting Jaafari.”
He added, “They shouldn’t have come to Baghdad.”
His comments were echoed by several political leaders on Wednesday, including Kurds and Sunni Arabs.
Mr. Jaafari was nominated by the main Shiite political bloc in February to be prime minister in a new government. But the selection has faced fierce public resistance by a coalition of Sunni Arabs, Kurds, independents and some Shiite leaders.
The visit by Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw appeared to grate even on politicians who oppose Mr. Jaafari. “They complicated the thing, and now it’s more difficult to solve,” said Mahmoud Osman, an independent member of the Kurdistan Alliance, speaking Wednesday about Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw. “They shouldn’t have come, and they shouldn’t have interfered.”
Meanwhile, the killings and the anarchy.
In Baghdad, two car bombs detonated Wednesday afternoon within 20 minutes, killing 3 people and wounding at least 16, an Interior Ministry official said.
Gunmen wearing the uniforms of Interior Ministry commandos and driving ministry vehicles opened fire on guards outside the Baghdad headquarters of the Iraqna cellular phone company, wounding a guard and then abducting him.
[UPDATE: Meanwhile, according to Sidney Blumenthal, State Department reports on the deteriorating situation are being ignored. And that’s not the worst of it:
Under the pretense that Iraq is being pacified, the U.S. military is partially withdrawing from hostile towns in the countryside and parts of Baghdad. By reducing the numbers of soldiers the administration can claim its policy is working going into the midterm elections. But the jobs that the military will no longer perform are being sloughed off onto State Department “provincial reconstruction teams” led by Foreign Service officers. The stated rationale is that the teams will win Iraqi hearts and minds by organizing civil functions.
The Pentagon has informed the State Department that it will not provide security for these officials and that State should hire mercenaries for protection instead. Apparently, the U.S. military and the U.S. Foreign Service do not represent the same country in this exercise in nation-building. Internal State Department documents listing the PRT jobs, dated March 30, reveal that the vast majority of them remain unfilled. So Foreign Service employees are being forced to take the assignments, in which “they can’t do what they are being asked to do,” as a senior State Department official told me…
The State Department was correct in its assessment, contained in the 17-volume “Future of Iraq Project,” of the immense effort required for reconstruction after the war, but it was disregarded. Now the State Department reports from Iraq are correct, but their authors are being punished. Foreign Service officers are to be sent out like tethered goats to the killing fields. When these misbegotten projects inevitably fail, as those inside State expect, the department will be blamed. The passive resistance to these assignments by Foreign Service officers reflects informed anticipation of impending disaster, including the likely murders of diplomats.
Amid this internal crisis of credibility, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has washed her hands of her department. Her management skills are minimal. She has left coercing people to fill the PRTs to her counselor, Philip Zelikow, who, by doing the dirty work, is trying to keep her reputation clean…
“Did you ever imagine in your wildest dreams that after Vietnam we’d be doing this again?” one top State Department official remarked to another last week. Inside the department people wonder about the next “strategy” after the hearts-and-minds gambit of sending diplomats unprotected to help secure victory turns into a squalid, overlooked fiasco. “Helicopters on the roof?” asked one official.]