NYT: U.S. Central Command Charts Sharp Movement of Iraq Civil Conflict Toward Chaos

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Central Command Charts Sharp Movement of the Civil Conflict in Iraq Toward Chaos
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: November 1, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

A one-page slide shown at the Oct. 18 briefing provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.

The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.

The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/world/middleeast/01military.html


United States Central Command
A slide titled “Iraq: Indications and Warnings of Civil Conflict” lists factors that are destabilizing Iraq.

[The_Warmth]

1. need to send this one around

kicked

[TacticalPeek]

2. K & R

:kick:

[Eugene]

3. Somebody, put this on a DVD that our dear leader can watch.

Maybe then even he might get the message.

[Poiuyt]

8. Good one!

[PATRICK]

4. Exacerbated by WH push

to temporarily falsify the situation? I don't mean that the Iraqi combatants are watching FOX and the US polls to gain some incomprehensible advantage. It is the WH looking at Iraq as an influence on their polls that traditionally has meant the following headaches on the ground:

Very recent efforts to tamp down resistance violence(in the present case, botched meeting with insurgent leaders by intolerable puppet surrogates), sending out troops into the streets to "show the flag" which is supposed to only send the message to the insurgents "Not now, later", attempted hits on insurgent leaders, large round-ups, photo-ops and speeches painting an absurdly rosy picture.

This is not a strategy in any sense to actually improve the situation in Iraq, merely to dress it up for temporary electoral consumption and as such put lives at risk, costs lives and falsifies and diverts the real effort to the detriment of all except WH political fortunes in the short run.

In other words, Iraqis and our soldiers are specifically dying in an orchestrated PR game, hyped up violently at election time, that is defeating our army and purpose, unless you consider simply keeping the WH in charge of "staying the course" is a cause worth lies, chaos and senseless murder and destruction of our military and all national planning and policy.

[Dhalgren]

5. What "gets" me is the date of this thing.

The WH was shown this chart two weeks ago and yet they have continued to lie about the situation in country. They have allowed the militias to dictate our movements in Baghdad and they have abandoned a missing US soldier. They pushed thousands of US troops into the Shiite slums of Baghdad in order to quell the violence to help them in the US mid-term elections. This action got over a hundred US soldiers killed and hundreds more maimed and wounded - with one missing. And it was all for nothing. How much longer will the military "leaders" accept this? How much longer will the troops? The only way to even attempt to salvage the Dictator's war of choice in Iraq is to reinforce the current troop levels with 100,000+ additional soldiers - and not as "trainers", that doesn't even come close to working. Will the American public stand by and watch an additional 100,000 troops fed into the meat-grinder? Not to even mention where these troops will come from. This is beyond the "worse case scenario", this is a debacle beyond historical precident....

[krkaufman]

7. That's not surprising.

They received the NIE brief back in April, saying that the Iraq was was hurting the fight against terrorism -- not helping -- yet the WH continued to spout the lies that we were "winning" the war in Iraq and that our efforts there were making us "safer."

If their lips are moving, they're lying.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092301130.html

[Supersedeas]

6. shhhhh, doncha know the Media wants to feed them more Kerry statements