Sunday, September 07, 2003
War News for September 7, 2003
Bring ‘em on: Mortar fire near Tikrit.
Bring ‘em on: Seven US soldiers wounded in separate attacks near Mosul, Kayarah, Tikrit and Muqdadiyah. Attempted pipeline sabotage reported near Kayarah.
Bring ‘em on: SAMs fired at US C-141 at Baghdad airport. Insurgents probably hoping to bring down Rummy's aircraft. Bad news is that they have SAMS, are trained to use them and can deploy them undetected close enough to get off a shot. Good news is that their intelligence isn't good enough yet to target a specific aircraft. On the other hand, if the press got it wrong and the missiles were fired at Rummy's aircraft, we have a very bad problem.
US officers in Iraq tell Rummy they need better intelligence support. “But American commanders also voiced frustration that they know little about the newest threat in Iraq - an influx of Arab nationalists and perhaps Islamic extremists.” Rummy and Feith deliberately short-circuited the intelligence process before the war to downplay the post-war risk. Now the troops on the ground don’t know what they’re up against because the neo-conservatives politicized the analysis process. For those of you unfamiliar with the intelligence process, strategic intelligence - as opposed to tactical intelligence - is a product of the analysis of raw intelligence gathered from many sources assembled and disseminated by DCI. So it's normal for a theater commander to rely on predictive intelligence assessments from DIA and CIA - the very products corrupted by Rummy, di Rita and Feith from deductive analysis to an inductive political tool.
Resistance groups appear to be consolidating, coordinating.
Local militias are forming. Anybody who remembers Lebanon in 1982 knows where this trend is heading. It's interesting that during the third Presidential debate in 2000, Candidate Bush thought the 1983 American intervention in Lebanon was a success.
British send reinforcements to Iraq.
Rummy says Iraqis are better off now. And he’s still working "diligently and professionally" to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Rummy sees a “bright future” for the Iraqis. "Baghdad is bustling with commerce. Universities and hospitals are open for business," Rumsfeld said. "A free press is flourishing, Iraqi banks have started taking applications for small business loans so Iraqi entrepreneurs can create jobs."
Bremer’s Mesopotamian satrapy. You have to read this article to fully comprehend Bremer’s Peter Pan approach to reconstruction and stability: “If I just wish hard enough, my dreams will come true…”
Sen. Robert Byrd: Our troops are stretched to the breaking point. “According to polls released by the Pew Research Center on March 18, the day before the war began, opposition to a war in Iraq was at 69 percent in Germany, 75 percent in France, 86 percent in Turkey and 87 percent in Russia. Yet the White House scoffed at this opposition and belittled the need to unify the world in confronting Saddam Hussein. Could it be that our troops are now paying the price for the administration’s bullheaded rush to war without the broad and active support of the international community?”
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