Critically important reporting in this morningâs LA Times on what amounts to a complete collapse of U.S. efforts to establish an Iraqi civil police authority:
Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq’s police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.
Some have argued, persuasively, that any effort to create a professional and effective Iraqi police force was doomed from the earliest days of the occupation when the Pentagon failed to put enough boots on the ground, especially police and civil affairs units, to secure the peace.
Not only did the insurgency step into that power vacuum but a fearful population, including, undoubtedly, members of the police forces themselves, also turned instinctively to their religious and tribal associations for protection. That doomed the chances of establishing an impartial civil authority:
A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors underscores the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.
. . .
Police officers’ loyalties seem a major problem, with dozens of accounts of insurgent infiltration and terrorist acts committed by ministry officials.
In general, this isnât new news, although some of the particulars are. What the piece reinforces is that any U.S. withdrawal plan that is predicated on Iraqis assuming responsibility for policing is not a plan at all but an open-ended commitment.
At best such a commitment would last years. But realistically Iâm not sure there is any historical precedent for an occupying power being able to salvage a situation that is as far gone as the security situation in Iraq is.
Lacking the integrity to acknowledge a disastrous outcome and the courage to change course, the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Defense have made the decision to punt the problem they created to the next administration.
More on Lanny Davis’ pro-Lieberman performance on CSPAN over at Kos, written by one of the callers to the program.
I watched just enough of the Lieberman-Lamont debate and Davis’ CSPAN appearance to pick up on the Lieberman campaign’s new theme that you just can’t rely on Lamont because he’s all over the place on a withdrawal plan for Iraq.
I don’t know whether that’s an accurate criticism of Lamont (I suspect it’s not), but it doesn’t strike me as a winning formula for Lieberman: you can’t trust this guy to fix the problem I created.
If you need help getting your car out of a ditch, would you turn to the guy who just drove it in there or to the stranger who stops to help?
Update: Score one for TPM Reader AS: “That might sound logical, but that strategy worked for Bush in his reelection!”
Some readers have written in to suggest that the Hoekstra-Bush brushup reported in today’s NYT is less about legally questionable intelligence programs that have yet to be disclosed and more about a power play between different factions in the Administration, represented by the Rumsfeld’s Pentagon on one side (which Hoekstra supports) and DNI/CIA on the other.
My own sense is that both are probably at play, but that post-9/11 intelligence programs that have yet to be vetted by Congress probably have greater implications than the outcome of bureaucratic powerplays.
But for an alternative view, go see emptywheel’s post.
Laura Rozen asks the right questions about the “significant” intelligence program to which House Intel Chairman Hoekstra has alluded.
Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan . . . a top-notch account by Christina Lamb in the London Sunday Times of the âmilitary and developmental anarchyâ in that country:
âWe need to realise that we could actually fail here,â warns Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of the Nato-led peacekeeping force. âThink of the psychological victory for Bin Laden and his ilk if we failed and the Taliban came back. Within months weâd suffer terror attacks in the UK. I think of my own daughters in London and the risk they would be in.â
Take a look. This is the sort of piece to which every foreign correspondent should aspire. Via Wolcott.
Let’s nip this whole “Bush is shifting to a more enlightened foreign policy” theme in the bud, shall we?
Time calls it “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy” in this week’s cover story. A David Sanger piece in tomorrow’s New York Times is headlined, “Bush’s Shift: Being Patient With Foes.”
The sad truth is that the Administration’s foreign policy has run aground on the shoals of its own incompetence. As Kevin Drum noted last week, “the Bush administration literally seems to have no foreign policy at all anymore.”
Afghanistan is reverting to the Taliban. Iraq is beyond the point of no return. North Korea is acting with impunity. Iran controls its own destiny.
Worse, for an Administration that has instinctively favored military action over diplomacy, the nation’s military resources are depleted, bogged down, and largely unavailable for any further foreign adventures.
Yet we have stories emerging that suggest the current foreign policy dilemma is a deliberate course of action chosen by Bush. Time, in a mishmash of its news and style sections, calls it a “strategic makeover” led by Condi Rice.
The fact is Bush has boxed himself in, frittering away lives and treasure, and leaving himself with few options. He deserves no more credit for a policy shift than the man serving a life sentence who declares that he will henceforth be law-abiding.
The Washington Post uncovers a handful of lobbyists bravely willing to admit — anonymously — that yes, $2 million is probably too much for a firm to give a congressional staffer, even if he works for the House Appropriations Committee. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
Who’s that mysterious whistleblower who’s been whispering in House Intel Chairman Pete Hoekstra’s ear? Here’s a good guess.
Update: On second thought…
Maria Cantwell’s primary challenger drops out, endorses Cantwell.