corrente

Unbelievable.

American military commanders did not impose curfews, halt looting or order Iraqis back to work after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime fell because U.S. policymakers were reluctant to declare U.S. troops an occupying force, says an internal Army review examined by The Associated Press

As a result, the Bush administration's first steps at reconstruction in Iraq (news - web sites) were severely hampered, creating a power vacuum that others quickly moved to fill, and a growing mistrust on the part of ordinary Iraqis, the report said.

Since those first days, the U.S. effort in Iraq has been hampered by a growing insurgency with persistent and deadly attacks against U.S. forces.

And now for my personal favorite two paragraphs:

The review, a postwar self-evaluation by the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), said the political decision to call the U.S. forces that arrived in Baghdad "liberators" instead of "occupying forces" left the division's officers uncertain about their legal authority in postwar Baghdad and other cities. Under international law, the report says, the troops were indeed an occupation force and had both rights and responsibilities.

"Because of the refusal to acknowledge occupier status, commanders did not initially take measures available to occupying powers, such as imposing curfews, directing civilians to return to work, and controlling the local governments and populace. The failure to act after we displaced the regime created a power vacuum, which others immediately tried to fill," says the report.

Laugh, or cry? Your choice. Probably both.

Listen carefully and you'll probably be able to hear a soft whistling type sound off in the distance - that would be the RNC, the Laura Ingrahams, the Mona Charins, The Weekly Standard-ites, the Hannitynitas, and the whole vast area of rightwing frontline media troops beginning to spin like tops in order to blame this on the State Department and all those bloody Democratic internationalists whom the President was trying to please.

I guess by July, the pretense of non-occupier status had worn a bit thin. How else to explain this statement by Paul Bremer as reported by both the Asian Times and The Guardian:

"We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country."

Oh well, that was then. This is....now.

During his brief visit to Baghdad on Thursday, President Bush met with four members of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council. Bush said he reminded them that "it's up to them to seize the moment, to have a government that recognizes all rights, the rights of the majority and the rights of the minority, to speak to the aspirations and hopes of the Iraqi people."

According to three of the council members at the meeting, Bush indicated that he would be willing to accept revisions to the administration's transition plan, although he did not endorse the idea of elections.

One of the council members, Mowaffak Rubaie, said Bush told the group: "I will support any decision you make. I won't make decisions for you. I will help you in implementing your decisions." Two other members at the meeting, Ahmed Chalabi and Rajaa Habib Khuzai, concurred with Rubaie's account but added that Bush expressed a desire for the provisional government to be chosen through caucuses.

"He talked to us about getting the job done, about moving toward sovereignty," Chalabi said.

U.S. officials said Bush did not delve into specifics of the transition plan and merely indicated to the council members that the United States wanted to be helpful and supportive of the council. "He said, 'We're here to support you,' " an administration official said.

The impression one is left with from this excellent WaPo article is that of an administration desperate to get out of the hole they've dug for themselves in Iraq.

Less than two weeks after overhauling its plans for Iraq's political transition, the Bush administration is considering more major revisions that could include elections for a provisional government in an attempt to appease the country's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric, senior U.S. officials said.

Holding elections would be a major reversal for the administration, which has long argued that the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls would make a nationwide ballot time-consuming, disruptive and open to manipulation by religious extremists and loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein.

But the senior officials said the administration may be forced to organize elections to satisfy Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. A senior cleric who has strong support among Iraq's Shiite majority, Sistani appears to have rejected a plan devised earlier this month to select a provisional government through 18 regional caucuses. Two Shiite politicians said Sistani told them on Wednesday that he does not support the caucuses and instead wants the provisional government chosen through a general election.

How different this all would have been if the administration had bothered to listen to any of those voices that agreed with the dual goals of freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam's lethal grasp so that, at last, they could govern themselves. What the administration is finally doing now has been exactly what had been advised by European critics, the UN, Democrats and many non-partisan foreign policy experts for months now.

Or, if they had bothered to listen to Iraqis.

Even when they made their annoucement of this new policy two weeks ago, beneath the rhetoric of turning over sovereignty to the Iraqis, Brenner's plan was a top down approach, meaning important decisions would devolve from the...you should excuse the expression, occupiers, i.e., us, the US.

As soon as the new plan was announced Nov. 15 by leaders of the Governing Council, council members began pushing for changes. Contending that the plan was forced on them by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer, they have sought to revise several key elements, including the planned dissolution of the council after the provisional government was formed.

Several Shiite members also have objected to the method of choosing participants in the caucuses. Under Bremer's plan, they must be approved by 11 of 15 people on an organizing committee, which would be selected by the Governing Council and U.S.-appointed councils at the city and province level. Shiite leaders worry that religious figures may be excluded by the organizing committees.

In fact, the most serious misreading of which this administration has been guilty has been their take on who the Iraqis are, how their society works, their view of their own history, and most of all, a crucial underestimation of their sense of national pride, and their ability to run their own society, by which I mean, to get their own schools open, to repair their own bridges, to run their own oil fields, to work with the international community to set up some form of tribunal that would be used to separate out those Baathist who have committed human rights crimes, and some form of recognition for the victims of those crimes, in short, to govern themselves.

Oh, I understand that self-government was not the primary goal for this administration, the right kind of government was, one that included adulation of the free market, some good stuff like the rights for minorities, but most of all, a government that was both American and Israeli-friendly. What Bush & co failed to take into account was the vitality of Iraqi soceity, and thus, its own countervailing impatience with an occupation that carried the exclusive face of America, by whatever name this administration chose to identify it.

"Elections are now a possibility," said a senior U.S. official close to Iraq's political transition. "We're scrambling to find a solution."

(edit)

A senior Shiite politician who met Sistani on Wednesday evening said the grand ayatollah made clear that he wanted members of a provisional government to be chosen through direct elections, not caucuses. The politician said Sistani would issue a religious edict in the coming days that would articulate his views.

Another Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz Hakim, said Wednesday that Sistani was concerned that the administration's transition plan did not give ordinary Iraqis enough of a say in shaping the provisional government. Hakim said Sistani also was worried that the plan lacked safeguards for what he called the country's "Islamic identity."

Oh, those crazy Iraqis. And, btw, despite what you may have heard, "Islamic identity" need not be incompatible with democratic governance.