George W Bush has recently learned from a CIA report, commissioned by CIA Director George Tenet, that Iraq is quickly spinning out of control. The report concludes that the resistance is growing rapidly, and there are already tens of thousands of active resistance members. Some reports say the number is actually about 50,000.
This is earth shaking news for this long-failed administration. It seems in their world bad news only begets more bad news. Think about what this administration has gone through in the last six months.
It's really akin to having a stake driven through their hearts. The international community has only pledged somewhere in the range of 30 billion dollars towards the rebuilding effort. The hallucination of a strong 'Coalition of the Willing' has now been shown to be, except in the case of the Brits, nothing more than a few thousand troops at best. Following the massacre yesterday at an Italian led police station in Iraq, even countries who had pledged troops are now pulling back.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031114/D7UQ2J180.htmlBush's Administration has now let it be known they are interested in handing over control to the Iraqis ASAP. I understand they are trying to give autonomy to the Iraqis, hoping they can stabilize themselves without us. But it's not well thought out, just like most of their plans.
The Pentagon has suggested the need for quick strike forces on the ground in Iraq. The idea is that these forces can quickly respond to terrorist challenges in Iraq. The Iraqi police commissioned by their city will simply call in for help when it is needed. On the surface it is a great idea, and the White House seems to be jumping at the idea. I think they're looking to pull back our troops, take out as much regular military as they can, and put the remaining forces in desert based 'super-camps' capable of quick movement throughout their assigned zones. They will probably have completed this next phase by the middle of next summer.
The problem is two-fold.
First, a lack of regular US patrols through the major cities won't encourage the Iraqis to create a real national government with a broad coalition of ethnic majorities within the country. I believe the Iraqis will see this as an opportunity to fill a power vacuum. Basically we have the Kurds in the north, the Shi'ites in the South. And very war hardened Sunnies in the middle. The Kurds are mostly interested in breaking off from Iraq and creating their own state. The Sunnis want to return to power. The Shi'tes, fueled by fundamentalism and an influx of Iranian influenced religious fervor, are seen as the most likely to lead a post US Iraq. Add in all of the leftover Jihadists who are flooding into Iraq from about a handful of neighboring countries and you have an excellent chance of a bloody civil war.
Second, their strategy relies heavilly on Iraqi police recruits who have been quickly trained. We do not even know most of their true loyalties. Do we really expect these people to be able to hold together a country, when we do not really even know what they were doing before we invaded. Certainly there is some capabilty to check backgrounds, but we are paying the Iraqis to do that. It is not like we have a CIA database on every citizen of Iraq. So the second these chaps figure out that they are on their own and responsible for holding the country together, look for a rapid breakdown.
So here's my prediction, by August of next year Iraq, especially in the Baghdad area, will be involved in a civil war. With the Bush Administration portraying it as a fight the Iraqis are taking care of, with no need for major assistance. They will do their best to paint the operation as a success in the hope that they can somehow get re-elected.
Will America fall for it?
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