Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka c;ape-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Dzeti
Iraq nearing chaos, u.s. Army says
By Michael R. Gordon
WASHINGTON: A classified briefing
prepared two weeks ago by the u.s.
Central Command portrays Iraq as
edging toward chaos, in a chart that
provides a rare glimpse of how the mi~itary
command that oversees the war IS
trying to measure its trajectory.
A one-page slide from an Oct. 18
briefing shows how commanders look
from behind closed doors at the sectarian
bloodletting and identifies the
, trends officers regard as most telling.
'A color-coded bar chart used to illustrate
an "Index of Civil Conflict"
shows a sharp escalation in sectarian
violence since the bombing of a Shiite
shrine in Samarra in February, and
tracks a further worsening this month
despite a concerted American push to
tamp down the violence in Baghdad.
The index represents an effort by the
Central Command's intelligence directorate
to assess the intensity of the sectarian
strife and its potential to devolve
into a violent free-for-all. The factors
. the intelligence officials are weighing
include indicators like the problem of
ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling
influence of moderate religious
and political figures, rather than such
traditional military measures as the capability
of enemy units or territory
controlled.
The conclusions the Central Command
has drawn from these trends are
not encouraging, according to a copy of
,,'
Iraqi police have been a significant
problem and cites as a concern sectarian
Lonflicts between Iraqi security
forces.
Other significant factors are in the
political realm. One slide notes that the
Iraq's political and religious leaders
have lost some of their moderating inthe
slide from the brief that was obtained
by The New York Times. The
slide shows Iraq as moving sharply
away from "peace," an ideal on the far
left side of the chart, to a point much
closer to the opposite end of the spectrum.
As depicted in the command's
chart, the needle has been moving
steadily toward the far right of the
chart, a red zone marked "chaos."
An intelligence summary at the bottom
of the slide reports "Urban areas
experiencing 'ethnic cleansing' campaigns
to consolidate control" and "violence
at all-time high, spreading geographically."
According. to a Cen~r~l
Command official, the mdex on CIvil
strife has been a staple of internal command
briefings for most of this year.
The analysis is prepared by the co.mmand's
intelligence directorate, whIch
is overseen by Brigadier General John
Custer.
General John Abizaid, who heads the
command, warned publicly in August
about the risk of civil war in Iraq but
said then that he thought it could be
averted. In evaluating th~ prospects for
all-out civil strife, the command concentrates
on several principal variables
- what the briefing refers to as "key
reads." According to the slide from the
Oct. 18 briefing, they include "hostile
rhetoric" by political and religious lead-
I
ers, which can be measured by listening
to the sermons at mosques and important
Shiite and Sunni leaders, and the
amount of influence that moderate
political and religious figures h~ve ovt;r
the population. The other mam vanabIes
are assassinations and other especially
provocative sectarian a~t~cks as
well as "spontaneous mass CIvil conflict."
A number of secondary indicators
are also taken into account, including
activity by militias, problems wit~ ine~fective
police, the ability of IraqI offIcials
to govern effectively, the number
civilians who have been forced to move
by sectarian violence, the willingness
of Iraqi security forces ~ofollow ord.ers
and Kurdish separatIst tendenCIes,
among other factors.
These factors are evaluated to create
the index of civil strife, which has been
steadily on the worrisome side of the
spectrum for months. "r:~er since t~e
February attack on .he Shute mosque m
Samarra, it has been closer to the chaos
side than the peace side," said a Central
Command official who asked not to be
identified because he was talking about
classified information.
In the Oct. 18 brief the index moved
still another notch toward "chaos."
That briefing was prepared three days
before Abizaid returned to Washington
to meet with President George W. Bush,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
and General Peter Pace, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for their stocktaking
on Iraq.
A spokesman for the Central Command
declined to comment on the index
or other information in the slide.
"We don't comment on secret material,"
the spokesman said.
One significant factor in the military's
decision to move the scale toward
"chaos" was the expanding activity by
militias.
Another reason was the limitations
of Iraqi government security forces,
which despite years of training and
equipping by the United States, are
either ineffective or in some cases infiltrated
by the very militias they are
supposed to be combating.
The slide notes that "ineffectual"
u.s. FORCESBACKOFF - Residents of
Baghdad's Sadr City chanting slogans
Tuesday after U.S.troops abandoned
roadblocks. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki ordered the lifting of joint
U.S.-Iraqimilitary checkpoints around
the Shiite militant stronghold in another
apparent mO¥eto assert his authority
with the Americans and appeal to his
Shiite base ~f support. - -
Index of civil conflict (assessed)
Peace
Source
U S Central Command
t
Pre-~amarra
. ,. .,f.'J't'"
',~ -::"'{.."r.~t
tt
'> : ~ i' "Mf~".p.~
Chaos
Last week Current
IHT
3