At Street Level, Unmet Goals of Troop Buildup

Tomorrow, Petraeus will go before the US Congress and deliver a report that could have been written by George Bush himself. He will say that the "surge" is working, the US is winning, al-Qaeda is on the run, terrorists are being wiped out, and democracy is on the march in the Middle East.

How do I know this? Because it's the very reason that Petraeus was given the job.

In November 2005, critics point out, a series of optimistic briefings by the general bore fruit in numerous news accounts and opinion pieces which accepted his message that the war was succeeding. At the St Regis Hotel in Washington, he put on a slideshow to dispute "the notion that Baghdad is, if you will, chaos". Pictures of Sunnis and Shias standing together demonstrated, he claimed, that there was increasing co-operation between the two groups. He especially talked up the preparation and training of Iraqi forces and police, his responsibility at the time.

By the spring of 2006, when most observers saw a raging civil war in Iraq, he was describing how well the occupation was progressing, saying: "Iraq's third successful election in the course of one year provides evidence that we and the Iraqis are successfully isolating the insurgents politically, if not physically ..."

Media skills like these appear to have weighed as heavily with the White House as any of the general's other qualities when it decided late last year to put him in charge of the "surge".

Petraeus's main political role in all of this is to keep the US involved in Iraq until Bush can step down and hand the whole mess over to someone else. So don't expect Petraeus to step forward and report on his own success or failure with any degree of honesty.

There have been modest improvements in Baghdad in terms of security but nothing that has been done has reversed the underlying sectarian tensions, nor has a unified and trusted national government been established.

But the overall impact of those developments, so far, has been limited. And in some cases the good news is a consequence of bad news: people in neighborhoods have been “takhalasu” — an Iraqi word for purged, meaning killed or driven away. More than 35,000 Iraqis have left their homes in Baghdad since the American troop buildup began, aid groups reported.

The hulking blast walls that the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the city’s sense of balkanization. Merchants must now hire a different driver for individual areas, lest gunmen kill a stranger from another sect to steal a truckload of T-shirts.

Ethnic cleansing, the very thing we entered Kosovo to prevent, is widespread in Iraq and the "surge" has done nothing to lessen this foul practice.

The New York Times have been studying the impact of the "surge" in Iraq and the results do not make pleasant reading, especially if one remembers what the initial aims of the "surge" were. "The troop increase was meant to create conditions that could lead from improved security in Baghdad to national reconciliation to a strong central government to American military withdrawal."

Measured against that standard, the "surge" is a failure.

To study the full effects of the troop increase at ground level, reporters for The New York Times repeatedly visited at least 20 neighborhoods in Baghdad and its surrounding belts, interviewing more than 150 residents, in addition to members of sectarian militias, Americans patrolling the city and Iraqi officials.

They found that the additional troops had slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq’s still-burning civil war. Baghdad remains a city where sectarian violence can flare at any moment, and where the central government is becoming less reliable and relevant as Shiite or Sunni vigilantes demand submission to their own brand of law. “These improvements in the face of the general devastation look small and insignificant because the devastation is so much bigger,” said Haidar Minathar, an Iraqi author, actor and director. He added that the security gains “have no great influence.”

Bush recently visited Anbar Province where new alliances with tribal leaders have improved security, but it was notable that he did not visit Baghdad, the very area that he announced as central to the success or failure of the "surge".

But when he announced on Jan. 10 his plan to add 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush emphasized that Baghdad was the linchpin for creating a stable Iraq. With less fear of death in the capital, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas,” he said.

That has not happened.

So, when Petraeus steps up and talks of success in Iraq, he will only be able to do so by ignoring the initial plan as laid out by Bush. There is no reconciliation between Sunnis and Shias, there is no healing of the sectarian hatreds. Rather, an elastoplast has been applied to a gaping wound, a wound which continues to fester and rot.

Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska, deputy commander of a brigade of the First Infantry Division that is charged with controlling northwest Baghdad, said, “We’ve done everything we can militarily.”

He added, “I think we have essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying grievances.”

Sunnis and Shiites still fear each other. At the top levels of the government and in the sweltering neighborhoods of Baghdad, hatreds are festering, not healing.

The Shias continue their ethnic cleansing:

“Their houses belong to us,” he said. “They’ve colonized us for more than 1,000 years.”

“Sunnis are just like the puppies of a filthy dog,” he said. “Even the purest among them is dirty.”

... whilst the US army looks on.

This is what Petraeus will sell as a success. A country racked by sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing. The US are no nearer to leaving behind a stable Iraq than they were when the "surge" began.

The whole operation is now a political exercise to allow Bush to slink away, leaving someone else to accept the responsibility of clearing up his mess.

UPDATE:

What's interesting is that a majority of Americans say that they do not trust Petraeus or anyone associated with this administration to give a fair report:

A majority of Americans don't trust the upcoming report by the Army's top commander in Iraq on the progress of the war and even if they did, it wouldn't change their mind, according to a new poll.

But according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Thursday, 53 percent of people polled said they suspect that the military assessment of the situation will try to make it sound better than it actually is. Forty-three percent said they do trust the report.

It would seem that ordinary Americans have sussed the fact that they are being sold a puppy.

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