Ms. Harmon,

Stay safe, first of all.

I'm not sure that any of the talented people you are talking to know anything beyond "talking points".  Have you been able to spot the two Iraqi divisions of trained soldiers that have seemed to disappear as recent testimony to Sen. McCain would indicate? If memory serves, a division is 10-15 thousand people, so if you happen to see 30 thousand or so soldiers wandering around, would you please show them the way back to the barracks?

No offense meant, ma'am, but hanging out with the soldiers probably won't get you much more than the company line of why we need to have the Iraqi's trained so that we can go get those bad guys in Iran.

It's time we had an intervention with the Iraqi leadership and let them know as of date certain, we're outta here and you are on your own.  Either stand up for the new country we have given you, or go back to the way it was. 

Rep. Harman, 

Interesting blog and it seems you visited a giant jail where the inmates are running the place and you go a tour from the guard who have the titular roles.
Is it possible that we have made this a totally unwinnalbe vneture through our incompetance and that all we are doing is staring at a long slow spirtal down

My cousin is in the army.

 He is in Iraq now.

 He was lied into this war.

 How much longer should he continue risking his life for a lie?

 

Honestly, I'm a lot more concerned about getting him home safe than I am about Iraqi Democracy. 

Congresswoman Harman and Noblesse  - those actions identified while not new are useful if they are the conditions we use to hold the Administration responsible to accomplish.  They took on the responsiblity (Pottery Barn), we gave them the money and now they have to do the job or admit failure and get us out.Every time the Administration uses phrases and words about progress, turning points etc. they need to be brought back to the concrete, electricity, oil, etc.

And where are those military divisions??  What an admission?  I have to wonder whether the General went off message to deliver a bit of military truth.  And if Rumsfeld agrees I se it as CYA from DOD to protect their reputations given that they are told to win something that cannot be won and they don't want to be the Adminstration fall guys (i.e., Michael Brown).

Dear CentCom Commander Gen. John Abizaid,
While it's good of you to enter the fray with your clever quip about being notified by Rep. Harman of some fairly obvious problems in Iraq which your command has yet to successfully address, may I humbly suggest as a taxpayer, and thus, for the most part, YOUR and Rep. Harman's employer that you please get back to work and:
1) get Zarqawi, turn on the power, revive the ministries, and, as you note, additionally, provide for peace, stability and prosperity in Iraq, something that was in greater evidence, by all accounts, before the U.S. military made its oh so subtle footprint. 
In addition, it would be good if you could do a few other things that I'm sure Republicans and Democrats would equally cheer:
2) Catch Osama Bin Laden. Remember him?
3) Stop, stop, stop the practice of torture at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and anywhere else our Service men and women may be practicing it.
Thank you for the time,A concerned U.S. citizen and primary employer

Dear Ms. Harman:

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution.


It is time for you to go. No one can believe you and your crowd any longer.Thank you for your serviceLook at what you've doneFayyad in Baghdad: It is no Longer Baghdad

Cole: The piece is a shocking indictment of American misrule. Bush has turned one of the world's greatest cities into a cesspool with no order, little athority and few services.



Al-Sharq al-Awsat carries a long, anguished and meditative piece by Maad Fayyad, an Arab journalist normally based in London, on the occasion of his return to Baghdad for the third time since the US invasion.

I don't have time to translate the entire thing, but perhaps he will publish it in English.

He says from Baghdad, "Here is Baghdad . . . But which Baghdad is here? The Baghdad that we do not know and which we do not want to be like this. I wonder-- did the Mongols descend on it only yesterday, led by the captain of catastrophe and devotee of death, Hulagu Khan, such that it was transformed into debris?"

Dear Representative Harmon-

Thank you for travelling into Iraq and Baghdad and trying to understand the situation there on the ground. And thank you very much for reporting back to us here. I live and work in your district here in California and appreciate your efforts --

That said, I have a few questions for you:

You write, "so much pivots on the outcome of the elections...". And then you conclude that if the Constitution passes, the HOPE is that the Sunnis will turn their attention....to campaigning for office...And, even if the referendum fails,.....the Sunnis COULD BE EVEN FURTHER MOTIVATED TO PARTICIPATE in the political system..."

Three questions:

1. How can so much "pivot" on the outcome, if you interpret that whatever the outcome, there's room for either "hope" [if it passes] or "further motivation" towards political participation [if it fails]? With your rosey scenario, there is no pivot. It doesn't seem to matter what the outcome is.

2. Just as many observers fear the worst from the referendum; that is, if it passes, the Sunnis may be further driven into the arms of the insurgents; and if it fails, the insurgency will continue, now drawing additional comfort from a confused and directionless government. Are you taking any initiative to get 'outside the bubble' of conventional military and US thinking on the situation. Few here believe the official military or government sources any more.

3. Why should we be so certain that the elections will provide us with an "either-or" outcome? I mean couldn't it be both continued political and insurgent struggle? Isn't it just as likely that the Sunnis will follow a dual strategy, supporting both the military struggle, the insurgency, AND continuing to organize politically to push for their rights? Could this be just another mirage "turning point"?

Stay well

Ms Harmon:

What you have said about 'what needs to get done' is what the administration has said for more than 2 years now. You had to fly to Iraq to get 'field news' when you simply are repeating the talking points of 2-1/2 years? I suppose this looks good for your constituents back home, but it is truly weak, non-enlightening information.

What is going to make our efforts in the next 3.5 months any different than the previous 2.5 years? Note to Ms Harmon, the American public is already done with this war - if you stayed home you would have understood that 'news from the field'.

Get the oil out.

The LA Times reported earlier this week that major damage to the infrastructure by American bombs and the decade plus years of sanctions.  The Americans in charge of oil don't have any background in the industry.  The reconstruction contracts were given to Halliburton and they screwed-up every one of them.  Now they're trying an Australian company.  They are pumping oil back into the ground because the infrastructure can't support it.  This could make it difficult if not imposssible to get new oil out.   The Iraqis blame the US and Halliburton for being in far worse shape than they were before the occupation.  And it's going to take more than 3 months to repair the infrastructure.

If life seems so everyday, why not take a walking tour of Baghdad rather than bunkered in the Green Zone.     

Ms Harmon, frankly, madam, you make us all proud.  It's about time someone in the Democratic Party laid it out flatly, starkly and with no equivocation.  You did that, madam, and I, for one, am grateful beyond words. 
You also did something else.  You finally put the time reality in bold terms that anyone can understand.  Three months, that's it, something that needed to be said from our side for a very long time.  After the December elections, all bets are off.
Power, oil, infrastructure, and get Zarqawi... AMEN... the rest will follow. 
You, madam, get it.  Thank God at least one Democrat leader does and knows how to communicate it succinctly.  Let's hope the Bush administration hears you, because even though I don't have close to your first-hand expertise, I've thought for a very long time that the next three months are our last shot.  You confirming it gives us all something on which to base the next days and weeks.  Thank you.
Taylor Marsh

Perhaps the whole Iraq war was engineered with the main goal to get Al Queda fighting arab countries instead of America.  So they are viewed as waging a false jihad rather than a true jihad, and lose support in the arab world.

Not a bad strategy actually.   

I say let's just focus on getting Democrats elected and let this Iraq situation play out as it has been designed.  There could be swing voter backlash if many of us are outspoken against the war.

We might be able to gain some political points by showing how the war was waged incorrectly.  Although I think it is closer to the truth that it was engineered to go exactly as it has gone, that the goal is not making an easy transition at all, but the goal is to get Al Queda to fight an arab nation, Iraq, as it should still be fighting after we've left, but we are taking our jolly time in order to provide the "honey pot" to get Al Queda involved first.

It sucks that Iraq is being used as a battle ground nation in this way, but I actually think the strategy might work, and that there will be less support for Al Queda when it is seen as muslims fighting other muslims.  It is no longer a holy war, when this happens.  Well it could be a holy war between different flavors of islam i suppose, like catholic vs. protestant.  But not the same jihad as christian vs. muslim which is the most powerful propaganda message that Al Queda uses to recruit new members. 

Chill out on spending your energy battling this war.  I dont' think it'll help the Democrat candidates at all.  Spend your energy on Domestic issues.  If our troops are still there in 2008, then let the complain about it, but for now i'd let it be, because I do think we'll see Al Queda vs. Arab Nation Iraq within one years' time, it will become a situation that erodes arab support for Al Queda, and the real stategy for this Iraq war in the first place. 

Lt. Gen William Odom, a Vietnam Veteran;expert on military intelligence, former head of the NSA, fellow at the Hudson Institute, and professor at Yale University, told is quoted in the Lowell Sun:

 “The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Odom, now a scholar with the Hudson Institute."

I fully agree with Gen Odom's view. The conclusion is inescapable and it has been for some time now. In fact, this has been clear even before George Bush sold the Congress and the American people a pack of lies.

Nonetheless, George Bush, though primarily, is no solely to blame. He could not have suceeded in visiting us with the greatest strategic disaster in US history without the active complicity of the Democratic War Party in Congress, most especially those members who served on the Select Intelligence committees at the time.

Again Gen Odom put the matter plainly - Lies Have Consequences:

 
I don't believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see. 
 
Look at John Kerry's utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign.  He said “It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity.  If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interest to fight.  If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interest?  Nothing, absolutely nothing.
 
The US invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of:
 
1) Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al Qaeda, positioned US military personnel in places where al Qaeda operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America's most important and strongest allies – the Europeans – and  squanders US military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al Qaeda in Pakistan.);
 
2) The Iranians (who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight year war with Iraq.);  
 
 3) And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don't really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war between the United States and most of the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.) 
 
The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the US occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the US interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.

So do I General. So do I.

 

On the one hand, I think your concrete suggestions are solid.

However, I think your take on the situation as it exists is rather superficial. Firstly, Shi'ite dominated Iraq is clearly going to be a more religious, thuggish, and illiberal Iraq, as is demonstrated by what is occurring in the areas that are largely Shi'ite, where rival militias attached to religious groups - esp. SCIRI and
Sadr's followers - compete over turf. These are "quiet" at least in some terms, but these are also organizations that are slowly drumming out much of the "middle class" to which you refer. 100s of thousands of Iraqis have left the country already, and over a thousand (at least) have been killed - ie Iraq is not and nor is going to be for a long time a good place to be an intellectual, a businesperson, a doctor, etc..

Secondly, it is quite clear that any government dominated by Shi'ites in Iraq is going to have close ties to Iran. The exception, strangely, is if Sadr becomes ascendent, who is actually one of the most anti-Iranian Shi'ites, but he is also the most anti-American as well a religious fundamentalist. As to SCIRI, Larry Diamond believes they represent an Islamic Revolution via stealth. And SCIRI is who is going to dominate Iraq's government into the near future, esp. at the local level.

Thirdly, I don't quite understand why people think that because Sunni are registering to vote (against the constituion, a task that will probably fail) that the insurgency is likely to decrease. Or why voting and fighting are mutually exclusive. Or why the people who will potentially vote and the people who are potentially also fighting. None of these things seem at all clear to me. Indeed, I think the burden of proof of evidence that elections will somehow stop the violence falls rather heavily on those who are proposing such a syllogism.

Fourthly, I think way too much has been made out of elections and voting as evidence of functioning - let alone a democratic - society. I'm not necessarily accusing you of saying this, because I think you aren't really, but your strong emphasis on elections does tend to reinforce this idea nonetheless. The fact of the matter is is that many countries in the world have elections but remain Hobbesian nightmares without a real national identity. Just because the Sunnis, or the Shiites choose to drop paper in the ballot box doesn't really do much at all to make Iraq a livable let alone a peaceful place.

Finally, I think we need to stop focusing so much on what the Americans can or should do at this point. In many ways, the dynamics have been set in motion and are going to have to play themselves out in the years - decades - to come. This isn't to say that the US should simply "abandon" Iraq, but I think we also need to be realistic about what we can and cannot still usefully do there. The idea that we can still "fix" Iraq strikes me as a deeply ethnocentric form of imperialism, although I don't think many involved necessarily see things this way.

aztec wrote: "If life seems so everyday, why not take a walking tour of Baghdad rather than bunkered in the Green Zone." I took it that when Rep Harman wrote "just another Thursday in Baghdad" about schoolkids playing and moms shopping underneath thundering military choppers and machine gunners on rooftops, she was being ironic.

If you haven't heard about these stories, I suggest you read up.  They are chilling.

I have heard and read the stories, and they are chilling.  That is another reason for getting out of Iraq fast.  Our soldiers will be coming home one day.  Does anyone think that seeing the torture or taking part in it will not take a toll on them?  The soldiers and their families will pay a heavy price for a long time to come.

Another tidbit that came out of yesterday's hearing is that Gen. Casey stated, in response to Sen. Clinton's remark that we still can't seem to secure 6 miles of road, that the road from BIAP to the Green Zone was safe.  Apparently, if Ms. Harmon's experience is common, I guess it's safe because it isn't used anymore.

Thank for a nice, if my view unwarrantedly optimistic, report.  I agree that failure of the proposed Iraqi constitution is when moderate Republicans give up on the venture.

Usually when two ethnic groups have a history of oppression and massacres it takes a civil war to settle scores prior to attempting a democracy or other advance over warlordism.  I really don't know what magic has supposedly made Iraq exceptional in this regard, but I can't see the Shia and Sunni choosing to violate the pattern.

What I would consider interesting to find out is: when will you personally give the Iraq venture as lost, and what events and reasons will it require?  There seems to be a rather large contingent of Jewish-American Congresspeople and Senators whose rationale for backing military intervention in Iraq seems to have revolved around reasons that ultimately root most strongly in a question of what was in the best interests of the state of Israel.  (I think Diane Feinstein was the most overt about it.)  I'm indifferent about the merits of that; I'm just curious whether that rationale contained any planning at all, any principled or realistic stance or criterion to apply, should the OSP theorem of what to do with Iraq fail as utterly as it has.

Congresswoman Harman, this from your post struck me:

 

And even if the referendum fails, one senior military officer told me the Sunnis could be even further motivated to participate in the political system to influence the redrafting of a constitution more acceptable to them.

Do you see how ludicrous this is?  Would Sunni influence on the Shia majority be any more effective than Democratic influence on the Republican majority here?  Thugs are thugs the world over; maybe the Sunnis have looked at "American democracy" and the thuggery of our majority party and decided democracy is a game they don't want to play.

Harman:  "Iraq is the only country in the Mideast that has it all - oil, water, agriculture, and a highly educated public."
My concern is that Americans keep repeating and believing that the educated public exists and will win out.  Without an educated public what is the chance of any form of success, for Iraqis or Americans?  
I have not read what is the basis for the oft repeated "highly educated public." I worry that it has no more basis in fact than some of our other assessments of Iraq.
Even if a "highly educated public" was once true, I have to believe that is increasingly not true.  The "not true" comes from a common sense view that an educated person might well leave the current mess.  Also from what I've read (e.g., Juan Cole, NYTimes Oct 2) there is evidence of an exodus of educated and/or middle class people.
What if Iraq today does not have a highly educated public? What if the Iraqi powers that will be do not value education?  How does that change the view of Iraq's future?

American's are woefully misguided about the people of Iraq. It has yet to occur to our 24 hour cable news programs to get a staff of interpreters and actually conduct regular interviews with the people we're there dying to protect. The folks who led us in to Iraq and intend to keep us there so they can create a permanent base of operations for US interests in the region do not talk about the highly educated, professional, or specially trained population there because the less the public knows about that the more it helps their cause.How could they insist we must stay the course and train security or import our corporate contractors to rebuild the infrastrucure if American's realized these are things they could have done themselves given the funding, materials, and opportunity. The administration needs an excuse to sell the public for staying where we aren't wanted and where American's increasingly do not want to be because the do not intend to ever leave. So don't worry, while the public may not know how much of the educated population has been forced to flee it's not apparent that they ever knew they existed in the first place. 

Brain cramp...

Must have had something to do with the three 6's on the end of the link address. 

Here's the correct link:

UPDATE 2006: The View from the Graves | 01/05/2006

Du'OH!