Carpe Datum

The Real Story

Although the political coverage of the candidates is hopelessly bad, and the paper has many other credibility problems, it is still true that the New York Times remains one of the best sources for in depth reporting on foreign affairs. Sadly, the current picture of Iraq tells the story of a hopelessly misguided war that has been lost:

A superpower invaded an impoverished Islamic nation. Guerrillas responded with AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenades. A generation of warriors was born, eager to wage jihad.

That was Afghanistan in the 1980's. It became a breeding ground for terrorists - most infamously Osama bin Laden - who exported their deadly skills throughout the world. In Iraq, some of the same conditions that nurtured terrorism in the mountains of Afghanistan have emerged in the power vacuum created by the American occupation, Iraqis and terrorism experts say.

"Unfortunately Iraq has become a cause célèbre for radical jihadists the way that Afghanistan did a decade and a half ago," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst at the RAND Corporation. "You've got a lot of the same conditions that allowed Afghanistan to become a hub for terrorists."

Those include porous borders, swaths of lawless land and regions of the country harboring well-armed groups that are neither part of the government nor under its control, Mr. Hoffman said.

The Washington Post has more on the current state of affairs in Iraq as a result of the US-led war and the CPA-led occupation:

The American occupation of Iraq will formally end this month having failed to fulfill many of its goals and stated promises intended to transform the country into a stable democracy, according to a detailed examination drawing upon interviews with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and internal documents of the occupation authority.

The ambitious, 15-month undertaking stumbled because of a series of mistakes that began with an inadequate commitment of resources and was aggravated by a misunderstanding of Iraqi politics, religion and society in occupied Iraq, these participants said.

"We blatantly failed to get it right," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who served as an adviser to the occupation authority. "When you look at the record, it's impossible to escape the conclusion that we squandered an unprecedented opportunity."

Viewed from Baghdad since April 2003, the occupation has evolved from an optimistic partnership between Americans and Iraqis into a relationship riven by frustration and resentment. U.S. reconstruction specialists commonly complain of ungrateful Iraqis. Residents of a tough Baghdad neighborhood who welcomed U.S. forces with cold cans of orange soda last spring now jeer as military vehicles roll past. A few weeks ago, young men from the area danced atop a Humvee disabled by a roadside bomb, eventually torching it. [...]

The Daura Power Plant in southern Baghdad was supposed to be a model of the U.S. effort to rebuild Iraq. Bombed in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and neglected by Hussein's government, the station could operate at no more than a quarter of its rated capacity, leading to prolonged blackouts in the capital.

After CPA specialists toured the decrepit facility last summer, they vowed to bring it back to life. German and Russian firms were hired to make repairs, and it was placed atop a list of priority projects intended to achieve a 6,000-megawatt goal for national electricity production. More power, Bremer hoped, would improve the economy and daily life enough to reduce violence and stabilize Iraq.

Today, the Daura plant is indeed a model -- of how the U.S. reconstruction effort has failed to meet its goals.

The German contractors fled for their safety in April. The Russians departed in late May, after two of their colleagues were shot to death by insurgents as they approached the plant in a minivan.

Inside the facility, parts are strewn on the floor, awaiting installation. Iraqi technicians in blue coveralls lounge around, smoking cigarettes and waiting for guidance. In the turbine room, graffiti on the wall reads: "Long Live the Resistance."

The CPA intended for the Daura plant to be producing more than 500 megawatts of power by June 1. But the best it can do at the moment is 100 megawatts -- half of its output of last summer.

And I know this is going to come is a *huge* shock, but the Bush administration values simpleminded partisan loyalty over actual experience and competence (which, surprise, tends to be associated with a more liberal, open-minded viewpoint). The result has been a bunch of Young Republicans sent to the Green Zone, many of whom have a lot of idealism (however misguided it may be, they do mean well) but no practical useful skills for making Iraq a better place.

Several veterans of other reconstruction operations characterized civilian-military relations in Iraq as the worst they have encountered. "It has been poisonous," the reconstruction specialist said.

The other major conflict within the occupation bureaucracy has set the legions of young staff members chosen for their loyalty to the Bush administration against older, more liberal diplomats from the State Department and the British Foreign Office. Several of the diplomats said they regarded the young staffers as inexperienced and eager to pad their résumés during three-month tours.

These diplomats singled out the Office of Strategic Communications as unsuccessful in its efforts to disseminate information to Iraqis. Instead of creating an all-news television station that would compete with other Arab broadcasters that the CPA deemed anti-occupation, the communications office, with several employees straight from Republican staff jobs on Capitol Hill, set up a channel that aired children's programs and Egyptian cooking shows.

"It didn't put any effort into communicating with the Iraqi people," a British CPA official said. "Stratcom viewed its job as helping Bush to win his next election."

The article is the first of three to watch out for. Again, this is one of those things where if you want to cover your ears and go "LA LA LA! I'm not listening!", then fine, but don't pretend that you are contributing an informed opinion to the debate. If you bother to get down the brass tacks of what's really going on over there, you find that the news is pretty grim, and this corrupt, bungling administration shoulders the blame.

I know a lot of Bush-supporters don't buy that. They think the fault lies with the ungrateful Iraqis or perhaps the "liberal" media which is failing to report all the wonderful news over there. Anyone but Bush. It just makes me wonder: at what point do you accept that the whole Iraq endeavor is a failure? What are the parameters for that? I laid out my parameters for success before the war started, and we are a million miles from that.

Posted by Observer at June 22, 2004 07:02 AM