What's so great about the Surge?

Last year President Bush implemented a new strategy in Iraq -- the "surge" -- aimed at increasing security in Baghdad, and putting another 4,000 troops in the Anbar province to fight the Sunni insurgents. At first, the results didn't look too promising. When General Patraeus released his interim report on the "surge" in July 2007 coalition fatalities were at an all time high. Still, General Patraues claimed the "surge" had been moderately successful.

Since then there has been a remarkable decline in U.S fatalities, and now they are at an all time low. While the immediate reaction is to attribute this decline to the "surge" there may be other factors at work.

Conservative columnist Paul Sperry argues that the reduction in violence isn't so much due to the troops as it is the cash "bribes" we are offering to the tribal sheiks in the Anbar province. He writes:

The only, 'success' in Anbar is really just a return on U.S. financial inducements to tribal sheiks. Instead of dropping bombs in Iraq, we're now dropping bundles of cash in the laps of insurgents who without the crude bribes would no doubt return to ambushing our troops.

There is also corroborating evidence from the TimesOnline:

The Sunday Times has witnessed at first hand the enormous sums of cash changing hands. One sheikh in a town south of Baghdad was given $38,000 (£19,000) and promised a further $189,000 over three months to drive Al-Qaeda fighters from a nearby camp.

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If these cash "bribes" are responsible for the reduction in violence then we can say that in all respects the "surge" has been a failure. Perhaps the White and military were growing weary of all the negative press coming out of Iraq and wanted to turn back the tide. The Sunni insurgency was just too difficult for us to handle, so instead we tried a new approach: bribery.

This makes me wonder that if the part about the Sunnis turning against al-Qaeda is just a cover story. Al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq is hotly debated and, I suspect, wildly inflated. In fact, I doubt al-Qaeda has any real presence in Iraq at all. Perhaps we refer to foreign "terrorists" in Iraq as al-Qaeda because most of the foreign fighters come from Saudi Arabia and Bush doesn't want to alienate one of our "allies."

However, I think the military just decided to hand out cash bribes to the Sunnis and invented the part about them turning against al-Qaeda. The military cannot just claim we are paying off the insurgents to keep the violence down, so they concocted a story to make the "bribes" appear legitimate.

This is all speculation at this point, and I invite any criticism, but we cannot trust the White House and military to tell us the truth about Iraq.

The Robb Silberman Report: Just the Facts

The Robb Silberman Report was released on March 31, 2005, but its conclusions never did seem to penetrate the debate about our intelligence on Iraq and the WMD controversy. We often still hear many say that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, or had dual-use programs, or was trying to acquire uranium from Niger, or surreptiously hid its weapons in Syria. The Robb Silberman report repudiates all of these claims.

On Nuclear Weapons:

"Based on its post-war investigations, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991."

"The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991. 77 It concluded that Iraq's efforts to develop gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment ended in 1991, as did Iraq's work on other uranium enrichment programs, which Iraq had explored prior to the Gulf War. 78 The ISG also found no evidence that Iraq had taken steps to advance its pre-1991 work in nuclear weapons design and development."

"The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991. 113 With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja'far Diya Ja'far, the head of Iraq's pre-1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998--neither of which was related to uranium. 114 One such contact was a visit to Niger by the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican Wissam Zahawie, the purpose of which Ja'far said was to invite the Nigerien President to visit Iraq (a story told publicly by Zahawie). 115 The second contact was a visit to Iraq by a Nigerien minister to discuss Nigerien purchases of oil from Iraq--with no mention of "any kind of payment, quid pro quo, or offer to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum." 116 The use of the last method of payment is supported by a crude oil contract, dated June 26, 2001, recovered by the ISG."

These conclusions are not ambiguous -- Iraq had no nuclear weapon program and did not try to acquire uranium from Niger. To this day, however, Bush apologists still claim that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa.

On Biological Weapons:


"Contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments, the ISG's post-war investigations concluded that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its biological weapons stocks and probably destroyed its remaining holdings of bulk BW agent in 1991 and 1992. 221 Moreover, the ISG concluded that Iraq had conducted no research on BW agents since that time, although Iraq had retained some dual-use equipment and intellectual capital. 222 The ISG found no evidence of a mobile BW program."

"The Iraq Survey Group found that the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments about Iraq's BW program were almost entirely wrong. The ISG concluded that "Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent" shortly after the Gulf War."

"Nevertheless, the ISG "found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes."

On Chemical Weapons:

"After the war, the ISG concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW thereafter."


"The ISG concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had actually unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of CW thereafter. 482 Iraq had not regained its pre-1991 CW technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to the war."

"Regarding Iraq's dual-use chemical infrastructure and personnel, the Iraq Survey Group found no direct link to a CW program. Instead, investigators found that, though Iraq's chemical industry began expanding after 1996, in part due to the influx of funds and resources from the Oil-for-Food program, the country's CW capabilities remained less than those which existed prior to the Gulf War."

"In sum, the Iraq Survey Group found no direct link between Iraq's dual-use infrastructure and its CW program."

"Still, given that, of the dozens of CW munitions that the ISG discovered, all had been manufactured before 1991, the Intelligence Community's 2002 assessments that Iraq had restarted its CW program turned out to have been seriously off the mark."

On Delivery Systems:

"Following its exhaustive investigation in Iraq, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had indeed been developing small UAVs, but found no evidence that the UAVs had been designed to deliver biological agent. 555 Instead, the ISG concluded that Iraq had been developing and had flight tested a small, autonomous UAV intended for use as a reconnaissance platform, 556 and had developed a prototype for another small UAV for use in electronic warfare missions."

"The Iraq Survey Group concluded that, although Iraq had pursued UAVs as BW delivery systems in the past, Iraq's pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom program to develop small, autonomous-flight UAVs had actually been intended to fulfill reconnaissance and airborne electronic warfare missions. The ISG found no evidence suggesting that Iraq had, at the time of the war, any intent to use UAVs as BW or CW delivery systems."

Conclusions:


"Having gained access to Iraq and its leaders, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that the unlikely course of voluntary abandonment by Saddam Hussein of his weapons of mass destruction was, in fact, the reality."

"According to the ISG, Saddam's regime, under severe pressure from United Nations sanctions, reacted by unilaterally destroying its WMD stockpiles and halting work on its WMD programs."

Unfortunately, not a single person was ever held responsible for this massive "intelligence" failure nor does there seem to be any outrage that the entire justification for war was a hoax.

Brit Hume: Fox's fact-free journalist

In response to the Center for the Public Integrity's report on the false statements made by President Bush and other top officials regarding Iraq's WMD in the two years following 9/11, Brit Hume, a Fox News anchor, had this to say:

A study by two self-described non-profit journalism organizations accuses President Bush and his advisers of 935 false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years following the 9-11 attacks. But a large number of those statements were drawn from repeated assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- a concept nearly universally accepted by most of the world's intelligence services at the time.

Bush apologists always defend President Bush by claiming "everyone thought Iraq had those weapons of mass destruction." However, this isn't correct, and it's based upon a misunderstanding of two separate intelligence claims.

The United Nations did recognize that there were still outstanding issues regarding unaccounted for WMD in Iraq. Lt. Gen Hussein Kamel, who defected from Iraq in August of 1995, told the CIA that he personally oversaw the destruction of Iraq's stockpile of weapons in the summer of 1991. However, the United Nations did not witness this destruction, so they could not verify it. So this became a controversy throughout the intelligence world: did Iraq really destroy its weapons in the summer of 1991, or did it conceal them for later use? No one really knew. As Hans Blix defined the problem, "One must not jump to the conclusion that they [WMD] exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded. If they exist, they should be presented for destruction. If they do not exist, credible evidence to that effect should be presented."

In 2002 was the Bush Administration claiming that Iraq did not destroy its weapons in the summer of 1991? No, they were making an entirely separate intelligence claim, namely, that in 2002 Iraq "renewed" production of biological and chemical weapons and began to actively seek a nuclear weapon. The subtitle of the October 2002 NIE was Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In other words, it had nothing to do with whether or not Iraq did destroy weapons back in 1991, but instead claimed that Iraq had begun new weapon programs in order to wage war and threaten the United States.

The question "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?" is imprecise. Does it mean: did Iraq not destroy its weapons back in 1991? Or does it mean: Did Iraq "renew" production of biological and chemical weapons in 2002?

The United Nations was trying to answer the first question, while the Bush Administration and the U.S. 2002 NIE were trying to answer the second. Hans Blix was agnostic on the first question, while the Bush Administration was certain on the second. So the specific intelligence claims made by the Bush Administration were not universally accepted.

For instance, on March 17th 2003 President Bush made the following claim:

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

However, when the United Nations (UNMOVIC) left Iraq they reached a far different conclusion:

UN INSPECTORS FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF PROHIBITED WEAPONS PROGRAMMES
AS OF 18 MARCH WITHDRAWAL, HANS BLIX TELLS SECURITY COUNCIL

Says New Environment in Iraq, with Full Access and Cooperation,
Should Allow Establishment of Truth about ‘Unaccounted for’ Items

On March 18th UNMOVIC, the most sophisticated source of direct intelligence in Iraq, says there is no evidence of any WMD programs. While President Bush says there is "no doubt" Iraq continues to possess WMD.

Brit Hume is obviously not aware of the facts, is not interested in the facts, but only is interested in performing his duties as a shill for the Bush White House and the war in Iraq.