Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

[Via AMERICABlog] The new Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, presented his credentials to President Bush yesterday. With him however he brought more than his credentials, he also brought with him a personal story of the quagmire the United States finds itself in Iraq. Mr. Sumaidaie brought with him the story of his cousin’s death at the hands of American Marines.

After meeting with President Bush, the Iraqi Ambassador discussed his cousin’s killing with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.

SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.

His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.

BLITZER: Who shot him?

SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.

BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent — I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you’re saying, by United States Marines?

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.

I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.

[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] is aware of all the details, because he’s kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it’s been nearly two months, and I have not received it.

This is a serious charge and you may be tempted to believe that the Ambassador is simply jumping on the Haditha bandwagon to score some political and decidedly undiplomatic points. However, Sumaidaie raised this incident with the United States military nearly a year ago while he was the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations. In addition to raising the issue with the US military the Ambassador also sent a letter to his colleagues. According to the BBC:

In a letter to colleagues, Mr Sumaidaie explained in detail what happened to his cousin Mohammed al-Sumaidaie on 25 June in the village of al-Sheikh Hadid.

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

"In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The Ambassador’s own story highlights the confused and tragic situation of the United States military in Iraq. The Ambassador is no insurgent sympathizer. He is Western educated and is a supporter of the US military intervention. The killing of the Ambassador’s cousin, the killings in Haditha, and another killing that is also under investigation in Iraq just add to an emerging pattern of civilian killings and intimidation occurring in Iraq.

We have placed a heavily armed fighting force in the middle of a large civilian population who have been declared friendly by our Government. Our military is fighting a largely unseen insurgent force whose weapon of choice is the IED. In this circumstance the easiest target of revenge is the civilian population. It is tempting to kick down doors and interrogate and harass the population to try to gain intelligence about the insurgency. It is the way of heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaigns. It is also the surest way to lose the battle for hearts and minds. We have to ask ourselves if we are doing more harm than good in Iraq. We cannot destroy the village to save it.

The Bush Administration needs to step back and take a good look at its Iraq policy. Instead of writing off Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities as isolated incidents, it needs to ask itself if our policy in Iraq is leading to these atrocities. Upon examination I think the answer is likely to be yes. Then the question really is, "Are we as a nation willing to accept the loss of our moral authority to further our policy in Iraq?" I know what my answer to that question is; what is yours? Our collective answer as a nation will determine whether the United States withdraws from Iraq or continues down its current path.

Tim Russert lives in the faux reality created by George W Bush about Iraq. He is apparently convinced that America will stand down when Iraqis get mowed down.

Appearing on CNN’s Late Edition Russert left the comfortable inanity of being a moderator to wade into foreign policy punditry. That led to the following manly exchange between Blitzer and Russert:

BLITZER: He’s trying to balance a realistic assessment. At the same time, he uses the phrase "a turning point," which may or may not happen.

RUSSERT: We do not know if this will be a turning point. The reason is, are there enough young Iraqis who will step forward and say, "I believe in this new democracy. And to prove that, I’m willing to shed my blood and give my life."

It is then and only then can Americans start coming home. That’s the unanswered question. Do the Iraqis believe, across the board, in their government and willing to take on the insurgency without any question? [Emphasis added by me.]

How noble of Russert to offer up the blood of young Iraqis so that Mr. Bush’s war on reality can be won. It would be noble if it reflected even a basic understanding of the situation in Iraq. The Iraq mess moved well beyond a fight between insurgents and Americans a long long time ago. It is now a civil war with militias on all sides carrying out ethnic cleansing, torture and wholesale massacres. In this civil war the American military are merely another militia. But unfortunately for Russert, instead of seeing reality, he has bought hook line and sinker Mr. Bush’s talking points about "suiciders".

Mr. Russert might have benefited by listening to the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Barham Salih, a Kurd, who was on Late Edition before Russert. In a telling exchange Salih balks when Blitzer asks him if the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, should have to disarm:

BLITZER: The British defense secretary said this on Tuesday. Des Browne said, "Armed militias are widespread and a grave threat to the stability of Iraq and the rule of law. Any government, if it is to survive, must establish a monopoly on the use of force. At the moment the Iraqi government clearly lacks this."

Is the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister al-Maliki taking steps already, right now, to disband, to disarm the various militias?

SALIH: The prime minister made this issue a priority. And this is one of the most difficult issues that will face this government and perhaps this government will be judged by.

We know who the terrorists are. And the terrorists are on one side and the rest of the people of Iraq are on the other. Everybody should be united in tracking the terrorists.

But the issue of organized armed groups who are acting outside the state and outside the law are becoming a serious problem for our politics and our society. And we have to deal with it.

The prime minister has committed to taking serious steps in that direction. And all the key parliamentary blocs are supporting him in this mission.

I cannot say that this will be done easily because we have a serious problem in that context and certainly in certain areas of Iraq. But the prime minister and the government are determined and committed to resolving this issue.

We know that it will be a bit difficult, but we are committed to doing so because without that, there will be no stability in Iraq.

BLITZER: Let me play for you what the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, told me last Sunday here on "Late Edition." Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZALMAY KHALILZAD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Well, it’s still a challenge, an important challenge.

The prime minister has said, and we agree with him, that those ministries should be occupied by people who are unifiers, that are not people with ties to militias, people who are broadly accepted by the Iraqis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This militia issue, clearly a critical issue. I assume you want the Badr militia, the Mahdi militia to be disbanded. What about the Peshmerga?

You’re a Kurd. The Peshmerga is the militia of the Kurds in the north, some 70,000 militia members in the Peshmerga.

Will that be disbanded as well?

SALIH: I’ve just come back from Kurdistan. I was on a short trip to Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. Thank God the situation there is stable and secure because the Peshmergas have been enrolled in the security services, the police.

And in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, there is a provision that every federal region in Iraq can have its regional guards, very much like your National Guards in the United States.

So the Peshmerga is really not an issue in dispute as such. The issue of militias and the issue of bringing in people in charge of the security portfolio that are unifiers and are seen by most Iraqis as competent and non-sectarian will be an important challenge for this government.

And this is why the prime minister really has taken his time and is consulting and consulting. And I hope, at the end of this process, we will bring in people who can do this difficult task. And we’ll deal with the issues of militias by laying ahead of us a road map for rehabilitation and reintegration of these people back into public life of Iraqi politics or Iraqi state.

BLITZER: So let me just press you on this point. So there’s one standard, as you see it, for the Peshmerga, which will be integrated into the new Iraqi security force, another for the Shiite militias, the Badr militia, the Mahdi militia?

Is that what you’re saying? Those militias should be disbanded but not necessarily the Peshmerga?

SALIH: No, I’m not saying that at all. The Peshmerga — and you have to remember the historical context as well. The Kurdistan regional government has been in existence over the last 14 years. And this issue of militias has been dealt with for almost a decade now. That has been dealt with, by and large.

But even with the Iraqi constitution that was ratified a few months back, there is a single provision calling for the establishment of regional guards, very much like the United States, where you have a national guards for the states.

But these, all military units of Iraq, including the Peshmergas or the regional guards of Kurdistan, will be going back to the same chain of command, ending in Baghdad at the ministry of defense and the prime minister.

This is where the crux of the problem in Iraq lies. The Kurds want the Shia and Sunni to disarm. The Shia want the Sunni and Kurds to disarm. The Sunni want the Shia and Kurds to disarm. Iraq has fractured across sectarian lines with each ethnic group with its own militia. A so-called "Unity" Government cannot survive if, as you just heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, each group wants an exception to protect their militias from disarming. This, Mr. Russert and Mr. Bush, is a recipe for a civil war.

Against this backdrop comes an incisive article in The Washington Post written by Nir Rosen. Mr. Rosen has spent nearly two years in Iraq following the disintegration of Iraqi society. His article is a gripping first hand look into the heart of the problem:

Every morning the streets of Baghdad are littered with dozens of bodies, bruised, torn, mutilated, executed only because they are Sunni or because they are Shiite. Power drills are an especially popular torture device.

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

…

At first, the dominant presence of the U.S. military — with its towering vehicles rumbling through Baghdad’s streets and its soldiers like giants with their vests and helmets and weapons — seemed overwhelming. The Occupation could be felt at all times. Now in Baghdad, you can go days without seeing American soldiers. Instead, it feels as if Iraqis are occupying Iraq, their masked militiamen blasting through traffic in anonymous security vehicles, shooting into the air, angrily shouting orders on loudspeakers, pointing their Kalashnikovs at passersby.

Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy. They, too, are killing Iraqis.

…

The world wonders if Iraq is on the brink of civil war, while Iraqis fear calling it one, knowing the fate such a description would portend. In truth, the civil war started long before Samarra and long before the first uprisings. It started when U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad. It began when Sunnis discovered what they had lost, and Shiites learned what they had gained. And the worst is yet to come. [Emphasis added by me.]

If you still believe that the war in Iraq is about "suiciders" and fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here, read Nir Rosen’s article very carefully. It becomes quite clear that the "progress" made by the Green Zone politicians is restricted to the Green Zone only. On the streets of Baghdad and the rest of Iraq it is the militias who rule and dole out swift justice. With the Badr Brigade, the Mahdi Army and the Peshmerga firmly entrenched with their leaders occupying senior positions in the "Unity" Government; the stage is set for large-scale bloodletting.

I am reminded of the situation in Afghanistan after the Soviet backed Government collapsed in 1992. Then a so-called "Unity" Government was formed with the various militias occupying various ministries of the Government. The "unity" collapsed rather quickly as different warring ministries began to engage in full-scale warfare. The country plunged into anarchy. The result, as everyone knows, came in the form of security and stability provided by a fundementalist group known as the Taliban.

Though there are certainly differences in the internal dynamics of the various groups that exist in Iraq and those that existed in Afghanistan in 1992, the parallels are also quite striking. Afghanistan should serve as a cautionary tale for what can happen when well armed militias are "integrated" into a "Unity" Government. But as long as our leaders are focused on the "suiciders" the lessons of history will be ignored and we will be condemned to repeat the past.

Behold the intelligence of the man who wants to be your next President. Today on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Senator Bill Frist confirmed the existence of the NSA phone records collection program first revealed by USA Today. The following is the transcript of Frist’s exchange with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: Let’s talk about the surveillance programs here in the United States since 9/11. USA Today reported a bombshell this week. Let me read to you from the article on Thursday.

"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans, most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans."

Are you comfortable with this program?

FRIST: Absolutely. Absolutely. I am one of the people who are briefed…

BLITZER: You’ve known about this for years.

FRIST: I’ve known about the program. I am absolutely convinced that you, your family, our families are safer because of this particular program.

I absolutely know that it is legal. The program itself is anonymous, in the sense that identifiers, in terms of protecting your privacy, are stripped off. And, as you know, the program is voluntary, the participants in that program.

And it comes to the reality — it faces the reality that we’re in the 21st century. And the only way to connect the dots, whether around the world or in this country, to prevent another 9/11, whether it’s in the Pentagon or in New York or back in Nashville, Tennessee, is to connect those dots. And the only way to connect those dots is to use 21st-century technology that protects your privacy, and that’s exactly what this does.

BLITZER: Can you tell the American people right now that over these past almost five years since the phone records have been collected — I’m not talking about the warrantless surveillance, the warrantless wiretaps — the phone records, that has resulted in thwarting one terrorist attack in the United States?

FRIST: You know, I am not going to comment on the program until the appropriate time. There has not been even a confirmation of the USA Today program itself. I…

BLITZER: But have you been briefed on one success story?

FRIST: I can tell you I’ve been briefed in a classified way, and I can tell you that I am absolutely, 100 percent sure, confident that this has protected and saved lives in the United States of America.

BLITZER: But has there been one success story that you can point to?

FRIST: I just don’t want to be pulled in…

BLITZER: Without specifics, just tell us that there has been a terrorist attack that was plotted and, as a result of collecting these phone calls, was thwarted.

FRIST: You know, in appropriate hearings and settings, this will come out. But this is classified information about a classified program. You know, the more we talk about these programs, the more we’re giving our playbook to the terrorists who are sitting out around this country right now, who did plan 9/11 and what happened at the Pentagon today. And they are in this country now. They are waiting. And the more we talk about these programs, we’re giving them the playbook, and that empowers them to be able to have an attack on this country. And it’s just not the right thing to do. [Emphasis added by me.]

I think the Department of Justice should crack down on leakers of classified information before they further help the terrorists. DOJ should start by asking Senator Frist about why he divulged the existence of a classified NSA program on national television. Apparently it is ok to divulge the existence of the classified program but it is not ok to mention if even one terrorist has been caught as a result of the program.

Senator Frist is the first Government official to publicly confirm the existence of the NSA spying program. Unless he has been authorized to declassify this information, he is likely in violation of a number of laws aimed at protecting classified information. Clearly Senator Frist cannot be trusted to keep our nation’s secrets protected. Perhaps his security clearance should be revoked.

As the Administration continues its witch hunt to silence leakers of classified information, it needs to look hard at the Senate Majority Leader’s loose lips. Senator Frist, don’t you know the terrorists are watching?