[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 34

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Bush keeps revising war justification

WASHINGTON - President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now.

Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

But 3 1/2 years later, with no weapons found, still no end in sight and the war a liability for nearly all Republicans on the ballot Nov. 7, the justification has become far broader and now includes the expansive "struggle between good and evil."

Republicans seized on North Korea's reported nuclear test last week as further evidence that the need for strong U.S. leadership extends beyond Iraq.

Bush's changing rhetoric reflects increasing administration efforts to tie the war, increasingly unpopular at home, with the global fight against terrorism, still the president's strongest suit politically.

"We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West," Bush said in a news conference last week in the Rose Garden.

When no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, Bush shifted his war justification to one of liberating Iraqis from a brutal ruler.

After Saddam's capture in December 2003, the rationale became helping to spread democracy through the Middle East. Then it was confronting terrorists in Iraq "so we do not have to face them here at home," and "making America safer," themes Bush pounds today.

"We're in the ideological struggle of the 21st century," he told a California audience this month. "It's a struggle between good and evil."

Vice President Dick Cheney takes it even further: "The hopes of the civilized world ride with us," Cheney tells audiences.

Except for the weapons of mass destruction argument, there is some validity in each of Bush's shifting rationales, said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution who initially supported the war effort.

"And I don't have any big problems with any of them, analytically. The problem is they can't change the realities on the ground in Iraq, which is that we're in the process of beginning to lose," O'Hanlon said. "It is taking us a long time to realize that, but the war is not headed the way it should be."

Andrew Card, Bush's first chief of staff, said Bush's evolving rhetoric, including his insistence that Iraq is a crucial part of the fight against terrorism, is part of an attempt to put the war in better perspective for Americans.

The administration recently has been "doing a much better job" in explaining the stakes, Card said in an interview. "We never said it was going to be easy. The president always told us it would be long and tough."

"I'm trying to do everything I can to remind people that the war on terror has the war in Iraq as a subset. It's critical we succeed in Iraq as part of the war on terror," said Card, who left the White House in March.

Bush at first sought to explain increasing insurgent and sectarian violence as a lead-up to Iraqi elections. But elections came and went, and a democratically elected government took over, and the sectarian violence increased.

Bush has insisted U.S. soldiers will stand down as Iraqis stand up. He has likened the war to the 20th century struggles against fascism, Nazism and communism. He has called Iraq the "central front" in a global fight against radical jihadists.

Having jettisoned most of the earlier, upbeat claims of progress, Bush these days emphasizes consequences of setting even a limited withdrawal timetable: abandonment of the Iraqi people, destabilizing the Middle East and emboldening terrorists around the world.

The more ominous and determined his words, the more skeptical the American public appears, polls show, both on the war itself and over whether it is part of the larger fight against terrorism, as the administration insists.

Bush's approval rating, reflected by AP-Ipsos polls, has slid from the mid 60s at the outset of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 to the high 30s now. There were light jumps upward after the December 2003 capture of Saddam, Bush's re-election in November 2004 and each of three series of aggressive speeches over the past year. Those gains tended to vanish quickly.

With the war intruding on the fall elections, both parties have stepped up their rhetoric.

Republicans, who are also reeling from the congressional page scandal, are casting Democrats as seeking to "cut and run" and appease terrorists.

Democrats accuse Bush of failed leadership with his "stay the course" strategy. They cite a government intelligence assessment suggesting the Iraq war has helped recruit more terrorists, and a book by journalist Bob Woodward that portrays Bush as intransigent in his defense of the Iraq war and his advisers as bitterly divided.

Democrats say Iraq has become a distraction from the war against terrorism — not a central front. But they are divided among themselves on what strategy to pursue.

Republicans, too, increasingly are growing divided as U.S. casualties rise.

"I struggle with the fact that President Bush said, `As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.' But the fact is, this has not happened," said Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), R-Conn., a war supporter turned war skeptic.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record) of Virginia, said after a recent visit to Iraq that Iraq was "drifting sideways." He urged consideration of a "change of course" if the Iraq government fails to restore order over the next two or three months.

More than 2,750 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the war, most of them since Bush's May 2003 "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier speech. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died.

Recent events have been dispiriting.

The United States now has about 141,000 troops in Iraq, up from about 127,000 in July. Some military experts have suggested at least one additional U.S. division, or around 20,000 troops, is needed in western Iraq alone.

Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration, said the administration is overemphasizing the nature of the threat in an effort to bolster support.

"I think the administration has oversold the case that Iraq could become a jihadist state," said Benjamin, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "If the U.S. were to leave Iraq tomorrow, the result would be a bloodbath in which Sunnis and Shiites fight it out. But the jihadists would not be able to seek power."

Not all of Bush's rhetorical flourishes have had the intended consequences.

When the history of Iraq is finally written, the recent surge in sectarian violence is "going to be a comma," Bush said in several recent appearances.

Critics immediately complained that the remark appeared unsympathetic and dismissive of U.S. and Iraqi casualties, an assertion the White House disputed.

For a while last summer, Bush depicted the war as one against "Islamic fascism," borrowing a phrase from conservative commentators. The strategy backfired, further fanning anti-American sentiment across the Muslim world.

The "fascism" phrase abruptly disappeared from Bush's speeches, reportedly after he was talked out of it by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant now with the State Department.

Hughes said she would not disclose private conversations with the president. But, she told the AP, she did not use the "fascism" phrase herself. "I use `violent extremist,'" she said.

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26 Sunnis killed in sectarian violence

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Suspected Shiite militiamen killed 26 Sunni Arabs in a city north of Baghdad that has been seized by a rash of sectarian bloodletting, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, reported the deaths of a Marine and four soldiers.

The killings in Balad on Saturday were in apparent retaliation for the slayings of 17 Shiites whose decapitated bodies were found in an orchard on the town's outskirts Friday. An outbreak of sectarian violence has killed 43 people so far in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Extra police flooded into the city and a curfew was imposed, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said. Additional security measures were taken in other villages in the predominantly Sunni area, a hotbed of the insurgency battling U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The Marine was killed in combat Saturday in Anbar province, the Sunni heartland west of Baghdad, the military said.

Three soldiers died in a roadside bombing Saturday south of Baghdad, and another was killed in a roadside bombing Friday night southwest of the capital.

In eastern Baghdad Sunday, Interior Ministry Undersecretary Hala Shakir Salim survived a roadside bomb attack that killed three bystanders and two bodyguards, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said.

A married couple and two of their sons were killed Sunday morning when gunmen burst into their home in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Two of their daughters-in-law were critically wounded. Police Col. Eid al-Jibouri said the identities of the attackers and their motive were unknown.

South of Baghdad, three women and four men were killed in drive-by shootings in the predominantly Shiite village of Wahda on Saturday afternoon, said provincial police spokesman Lt. Hadi Hassan.

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Extremisten Irak claimen eigen staat

De extremistische Mujahedeen Shura Raad, waaronder ook Al-Qa'ida in Irak valt, heeft in een video bekend gemaakt een eigen islamitische staat in Irak te hebben gesticht. De staat bestaat uit Bagdad en een aantal provincies in het westen van het land.

'We brengen u het goede nieuws dat we een islamitische Iraakse staat hebben gevormd en gesticht,’ zei de woordvoerder van de organisatie. Het gezicht van de man was onzichtbaar gemaakt. De Mujahedeen Shura Raad plaatste de video op een website.

Bescherming
In het gebied wonen vooral soennieten. Volgens de extremistische organisatie moeten zij worden beschermd. Nu de Koerden het noorden van het land in handen hebben en de sjiieten in het zuiden actief zijn, behoort het westen toe aan de soennieten, zei de woordvoerder van de Mujahedeen Shura Raad.

Vorige week heeft het parlement een wet goedgekeurd die de vorming van federale regio’s mogelijk maakt. Tegenstanders vrezen dat een opdeling in regio’s de veiligheidssituatie verslechtert.

Lijken
Een woordvoerder van het Iraakse parlement heeft in een reactie gezegd dat de soennieten de spanningen alleen maar groter maken. De Iraakse politie heeft afgelopen weekeinde in totaal 83 lijken gevonden. Tientallen waren doorzeefd met kogels, velen vertoonden bovendien sporen van mishandeling.

Een onafhankelijke commissie van het Amerikaanse Congres, ingesteld met steun van president George W. Bush, zou op korte termijn met een voorstel komen om Irak op te delen in drie autonome regio's. Dat schreef de Britse krant Sunday Times vorige week op basis van 'welingelichte bronnen'.

Federalisering
'De Koerden hebben in de praktijk al hun eigen gebied,' zou een bron bij de commissie hebben gezegd. 'De federalisering van Irak zal hoe dan ook voortgaan.'

De commissie zal naar verwachting niet volledige afscheiding adviseren, maar een verregaande opdeling met een kleine centrale regering in Bagdad die Buitenlandse Zaken, grenscontrole en de verdeling van oliegelden voor haar rekening moet nemen.

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86 Iraqis die in 2-day violence spree

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's government indefinitely postponed a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference Sunday as a two-day spree of sectarian revenge killings and insurgent bombings left at least 86 Iraqis dead.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, said three Marines and four soldiers were killed from Friday through Sunday, the latest deaths in an especially bloody month. Hundreds of Iraqis have died in attacks and more than 50 U.S. military personnel have been killed in the first two weeks alone.

The three Marines were killed in western Anbar province, the military said. Three of the soldiers died in a roadside bombing Saturday south of Baghdad, while the fourth was killed in a roadside bombing Friday southwest of the capital.

Elsewhere, a militant network that includes al-Qaida in Iraq announced in a video that it had established an Islamic state in six provinces, a propaganda push in its drive to force the withdrawal of U.S. forces and topple the American-backed Iraqi government.

The Mujahedeen Shura Council — an umbrella organization of insurgent groups in Iraq — said the new state was made up of six provinces including Baghdad that have large Sunni populations, along with parts of two other central provinces that are predominantly Shiite.

Responding to the statement, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmud al-Meshhedani, derided the group's leaders as "vulgar with no religion, who only kill others under the pretext of jihad (holy war)."

"Those who believe in this council are ignorant and those who follow it are foolish," al-Meshhedani said. "This council caused the sectarian conflict as well the displacement of both Shiites and Sunnis."

The militants' announcement appeared mainly symbolic, since no Iraqi insurgent group has the strength or authority to act as a rival government and none controls territory.

It underscored, however, the weakness of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government and its inability to bring Iraq's deeply divided politicians together.

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91 die in sectarian violence in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four days of sectarian slaughter killed at least 91 people by Monday in Balad, a town near a major U.S. air base an hour's drive north of the capital. Elsewhere, 60 Iraqis died in attacks and 16 tortured bodies were found.

The U.S. command said seven American troops died in fighting a day earlier. That raised the U.S. toll to 58 killed in the first two weeks of October, a pace that if continued would make the month the worst for coalition forces since 107 U.S. and 10 British soldiers died in January 2005.

Iraqi deaths also are running at a high rate. According to an Associated Press count, 708 Iraqis have been reported killed in war-related violence this month, or just over 44 a day, compared to a daily average of more than 27 since the AP began tracking deaths in April 2005.

A surge in sectarian bloodshed and jump in U.S. casualties coincide with the run-up to the American midterm elections in which the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war has become a key issue.

The U.S. military has kept a low profile in Balad, where violence began Friday with the slaying of 17 Shiite Muslim workers. Revenge-seeking Shiite death squads then killed 74 Sunnis, causing people to flee across the Tigris River to the nearby Sunni-dominated city of Duluiyah.

An American spokesman did not directly respond when asked if the Iraqi government had sought U.S. military assistance in quelling the violence.

"Coalition force units are partnering with Iraqi police and Iraqi army units involved in operations around Balad. We are also providing quick reaction assets to the Iraqi police and army. The IA and IP are in the lead with the operations around Balad," Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said.

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CHENEY: Well, I think there’s some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn’t over instantaneously. It’s been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don’t think it’s surprising that people are concerned.

On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They’re off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we’ve now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They’ve had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.

It’s still very, very difficult, very tough. Nobody should underestimate the extent to which we’re engaged there with this sort of, at present, the “major front” of the war on terror. That’s what Osama bin Laden says, and he’s right.

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Oct. toll at 78 for U.S. troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three U.S. Marines were killed in combat Saturday in Anbar province, the military said, making October the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq this year. The deaths raised the October toll to 78, surpassing the previous high figure of 76 in April and making October — with more than a week left — on course to be the deadliest month for American service members in two years.

Also Saturday, a dozen mortars rained down on an outdoor market crowded with holiday shoppers, killing at least 18 people in a Shiite-dominated city that was the scene of a deadly market assault earlier this year, police said.

The mortar attack in Mahmoudiyah came soon after bombs hidden in plastic bags left on five bicycles ripped through the market, which was crowded with shoppers ahead of the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday, said police Lt. Hayder Satar. Such dual attacks are frequently employed by armed groups to inflict additional damage on crowds that form after the initial bombing.

Satar said at least 18 people were killed and 52 injured in the attack on the city about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Mahmoudiyah, a primarily Shiite Muslim city surrounded by rival Sunni communities, was the scene in July of one of the worst assaults on civilians in recent months when suspected Sunni gunmen sprayed grenades and automatic weapons fire in a market, killing at least 50 people, mostly Shiites.

Earlier, gunfights broke out in Hamza al-Gharbi, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, after a bomb exploded near the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shiite political party that sponsors the Badr Brigades militia.

The party's supporters accused members of the Madhi Army headed by the radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr of being behind the blast, Police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said. He said Iraqi army and police called for reinforcements and backup from American forces, who imposed a curfew. There was no immediate confirmation of U.S. involvement from a military spokesmen.

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Blasts kill 5 in Baghdad market, bakery

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombs ripped through a Baghdad market and a bakery on Sunday as shoppers were stocking up on sweets and other delicacies to celebrate a major Muslim holiday, and at least five people were killed, police said.

The carnage in the Shurja wholesale market, Baghdad's oldest and largest, was the second time in two days that open-air shopping places have been targeted.

On Saturday, at least 19 people were killed and scores were wounded in a bomb and mortar attack on a market in Mahmoudiyah, just south of the capital.

Iraq's main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Islamic Party, issued a statement Sunday blaming the Mahdi Army for provoking the violence in that city, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

"We call upon the people of Mahmoudiyah to stay calm in this holy month of Ramadan and not to give others an opportunity," Alaa Makki, a leading party member, said at a news conference in Baghdad.

Iraq has seen a surge in deaths during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ends on Sunday for Sunnis. So far this month, an average of about 43 Iraqis have died each day, according to an Associated Press count. That compares to an average daily death toll of about 27 since April 2005.

The count is based on AP reporting and includes civilians, government officials and police and security forces. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported. The
United Nations estimates about 100 Iraqi civilians are killed each day.

October is also on course to be the deadliest month for American service members in two years, a development U.S. officials have blamed in part on the increased vulnerability of American forces during a major two-month security sweep in Baghdad. Two more U.S. troops were killed in fighting, the military said Sunday, raising the death toll in October to 80 and surpassing the year's previous monthly high of 76 in April.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials sought to play down an unusually candid assessment of the security situation made by a senior U.S. State Department official in an interview Saturday with the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera. Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the U.S. had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq, but added that Washington was ready to talk with any Iraqi group except al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that Fernandez afterward said he didn't think reports of his comments were an "accurate reflection of what he said." Asked whether the Bush administration believed that history will show a record of arrogance or stupidity in Iraq, McCormack replied "No."

A senior Bush administration official questioned whether the remarks had been translated correctly.

"Those comments obviously don't reflect our position," said the official, who asked not to be identified because a transcript was not then available for review.

Fernandez spoke in fluent Arabic in the interview, which Al-Jazeera said was taped in Washington on Friday. His remarks were translated into English by The Associated Press.

President Bush reviewed Iraq strategy with top war commanders and national security advisers on Friday and Saturday, but indicated little inclination for major changes to an increasingly divisive policy.

"Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging: Our goal is victory," Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday. "What is changing are the tactics we use to achieve that goal."

The White House is under heavy bipartisan, pre-election pressure for a significant re-examination of the president's war plan.

Ahead of the three-day Muslim feasting holiday Eid el-Fitr, which begins Monday and marks the end of Ramadan, Baghdad's Shurja market was especially packed with families shopping for food, clothing and household items.

Three people were killed and eight wounded in an initial bombing, while a second explosion 30 minutes later injured six more, police Lt. Ali Abbas said.

Another bomb hidden beneath a car killed two people and wounded 10 lined up outside the al-Farasha pastry and sweet shop in Baghdad's eastern New Baghdad neighborhood at 11:45 a.m., police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said.

About five minutes later, a mortar round crashed into a restaurant about 220 yards away, injuring two civilians and causing extensive damage to the eatery and nearby shops, Abdul-Ghani said.

At least 15 people were killed in other violence around Iraq, including nine dead in clashes between rival Shiite and Sunni tribes south of the capital.

The clashes broke out Saturday night between the Shiite Kufeifan tribe and their Sunni Juheishat rivals in Shujeiriya, apparently over the Juheishat's support for the establishment of a separate Islamic state in the surrounding province.

The bullet-riddled bodies of two men also were found dumped in Baghdad's Baladiate neighborhood, police Capt. Mohamed Abdul-Ghani said. The men had been bound and blindfolded and showed signs of torture, making them the likely victims of sectarian death squads.

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Diplomat Cites U.S. 'Stupidity' in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown ''arrogance'' and ''stupidity'' in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television aired late Saturday, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department offered an unusually candid assessment of America's war in Iraq.

''We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,'' he said.

''We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the solution to the hell and the killings in Iraq is linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation,'' he said, speaking in Arabic from Washington. ''The Iraqi government is convinced of this.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, in Moscow with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, later said that Fernandez disputes the description of his comments.