The Osterley Times: US Officers admit they "lag behind insurgency" as Bush has meeting to blame Iraq's neighbours.

There seems to be a reality gap between what senior US Officers are experiencing on the ground, and why George Bush and his administration feel they are losing the war in Iraq.

Senior US Officers have admitted that they are tactically lagging behind Iraq's insurgents in a war that they described as "the biggest challenge since Korea" 50 years ago.

In a startlingly frank assessment of the forces they are up against - as George Bush orders them to "surge and accelerate" - the officers have described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.

In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.
By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.
The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.

These admissions come at a time when the US have finally agreed to meetings in Baghdad with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. The exchanges between the US, Iranian and Syrian delegates were said to be "lively". Which is a diplomatic way of saying they were at each others throats.

No doubt the Iranian and Syrian delegates do not accept the US version of events which has them arming the insurgency and implies that, were it not for them, the US would be riding a wave of success in Iraq.

As the US senior Officers are admitting, the success of the insurgency lies in the fluidity of it's tactics and in it's ability to change those tactics quickly to counter any steps taken by the US.

'Iraq and Afghanistan are sucking up resources at a faster rate than we planned for,' one three-star general said. 'America's warriors need the latest technology to defeat an enemy who is smart, agile and cunning - things we did not expect of the Soviets.'
Other officers said coalition rules of engagement were being used against the forces fighting the insurgency. 'They know when we can and cannot shoot, and use that against us,' said one officer, reflecting the comments of US soldiers in the field. Another said recent video footage of an ambush on a convoy, posted on the internet, was evidence that insurgents were filming incidents to teach other groups about American counter-measures.

The truth, despite Bush's attempts to blame Iran and Syria for all his problems in Iraq, is that conventional army's are built to fight conventional army's. They always appear cumbersome and run into problems when they face well organised insurgencies.

And so it was, with that reality as the background, that Maliki stood up yesterday in Baghdad:

Terrorism, Maliki said, 'was an international epidemic, the price of which was being paid by the people of Iraq'. He also warned Syria and Iran not to use Iraq as a proxy battlefield against the US: 'Iraq does not accept that its territories and cities become a field where regional and international disputes are settled.'

Now, as Maliki's government are aligned with Iran, one has to wonder who this bizarre meeting was for. Are they going to have meetings solely to uphold George Bush's fantasy that - were it not for Iran and Syria - that the US would be enjoying success in Iraq at the moment?

Even as this meeting was taking place, reality continued to knock at the door:

Despite enormous security preparations in the area near the heavily fortified Green Zone and a complete shutdown of streets and roads leading to the Foreign Ministry, where the meeting was held, two mortar rounds landed with thunderclaps nearby: one on a low-slung building just behind the main ministry building where the dignitaries were meeting, the other farther off.
The shells caused no casualties but served as a sharp reminder to the assembled dignitaries that Iraq’s government is under siege, its ministers, police forces, army and government workers targets for insurgents.

There are many good reasons as to why the US should engage with Iran, Syria and the rest of Iraq's neighbours in an attempt to work together to end the insurgency. However, if the only point of these meetings is going to be to lay the blame for what is taking place in Iraq firmly at the door of Iran and Syria then the US will simply be wasting their breath and everyone else's time.

The very fact that mortar shells were aimed at the meeting whilst Iranian and Syrian officials were in attendance undermines the US argument that this insurgency is somehow being co-ordinated from neighbouring states.

The Iranians used the meeting to strenuously object to the US "kidnapping" of six of it's diplomats and to deny that they were arming the Iraqi insurgency.

“The security of Iraq is our security,” Mr. Araghchi said, adding: “I think the Americans are unfortunately suffering from intelligence failure. They have made so many mistakes and policies in Iraq because of the false information and intelligence they had at the beginning.”

It is being reported that the US and Iranian delegates did not at any point split off for one on one talks as many had hoped they would, which means that the US are not yet serious about resolving their Iranian dispute diplomatically.

Since the meeting was closed it was impossible to see the reaction of the delegates to the mortar rounds, but armed guards shooed reporters standing outside indoors, then transferred them to a larger building. Mr. Zebari told reporters after the conference that the shells landed while he was speaking, shortly before lunch. “We assured them this was normal,” Mr. Zebari said with a smile. “I thought, ‘This is bad targeting.’ I was surprised there weren’t more.”

With mortars landing around them as they met it is surely time for proper talks between the US, Iran and Syria, rather than talks that embrace Bush's fantasy landscape where all his troubles come from interfering neighbours.

Abbas Araghchi, the head of the Iranian delegation, summed it up perfectly:

Khalilzad said he had spoken to the Iranians "directly and in the presence of others." But Araghchi said: "We didn't have any direct contact. If the Americans are interested, there is a proper channel for that."

Indeed there is. And, until Bush is willing to give up this circus, where he blames others for problems of his own making, then that channel sits sadly unused.