OxBlog

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

# Posted 10:21 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

MORE BAD NEWS FROM IRAQ: Heavy fighting continues. There are further signs of a Shi'ite-Sunni alliance as well as indications that the depth of Shi'ite resentment is greater than expected. Perhaps recognizing that it is best to admit ones mistakes quickly, Donald Rumsfeld has announced that the occupation force will grow by as much as 25,000. Of course, that means that a lot of soldiers who deserve a rest will have to spend even longer away from home.

On the homefront, the politics of the occupation are getting louder. Joe Biden and John McCain are reminding the administration that responsible voices on both sides of the partisan divide wanted a larger occupation force from the outset. John Kerry is keeping his powder dry by offering vague criticism of the President while insisting that the United States must stabilize Iraq. However, Robert Byrd is doing his best to undermine Kerry's responsible stand by declaring that
"Surely I am not the only one who hears echoes of Vietnam in this development," said Mr. Byrd, referring to the possibility of an increase in troops. "Surely, the administration recognizes that increasing the U.S. troop presence in Iraq will only suck us deeper into the maelstrom of violence that has become the hallmark of that unfortunate country. Starkly put, at this juncture, more U.S. forces in Iraq equates more U.S. targets in Iraq."
While Ted Kennedy, Pat Buchanan and Maureen Dowd might agree, Coalition forces come across are fairly confident.
"We will attack to destroy the al-Mahdi Army," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a military spokesman, told reporters today. "Those attacks will be deliberate, precise and they will succeed.

"As long as we keep paying attention to the fact that ultimately it's the moderate Iraqis who we're here to serve, I don't think we're going to have much to worry about."
I hope that such confidence is well-grounded. At minimum, I'm glad that Kimmit placed just as much emphasis on the political dimension of the struggle as the military. On a related note, the question of civilian casualties and collateral damage has begun to reemerge as a result of a rocket attack in Fallujah. The WaPo reports that
Witnesses told Arab journalists in the city that as many as 40 people were killed in the bombing, although the U.S. military said it had no reports of any civilian casualties.
In contrast, the headline of the NYT article about today's fighting is "US Rockets Reportedly Kill Over 2 Dozen Iraqis in Falluja". The Times goes on to report that
American marines fired rockets at a wall surrounding a mosque in Falluja, west of Baghdad, killing more than two dozen people, news agencies reported, quoting witnesses who said the death toll could be as high as 40.
I'm guessing that the "news agencies" referred to by the Times are the same as the "Arab journalists" mentioned by the Post. More importantly, I hope that as few civilians as possible were killed. As always, it comes down to hearts and minds.
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