Checkpoint Baghdad : Featured

Iraq Bombings Threaten to Renew Chaos

Larry Kaplow — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:41:04 GMT

An Iraqi talk show anchor planned to spend his hour today talking about the recent robbery and shooting spree against jewelry store owners. But after the third bombing with massive casualties in two days, he changed the subject. Here’s a sample of the comments from callers.

Abdel Rahman from Baghdad: “What we’re seeing in Iraq now is the stuff of Hollywood films. This is a CIA agenda and the Americans are the first and last ones responsible.”

Zeinab, calling from Syria: “How can the politicians keep telling us to come back?”

Abu Sabhan: “Now is the time for the people to go into the street and bring down this government that is implementing the US project.”

Haider from Baghdad: “We stand at checkpoints for half an hour for the sake of security. I want to know what those checkpoints are for.”

Now, talk shows in Baghdad tend to attract the same kind of opinionated callers as shows in the United States, and this one was on Baghdadiya TV, one of the stations more critical of the government (and home of shoe-throwing reporter Muntather al-Zeidi). Still, these were the sounds of confidence draining from the security bubble of the last several months.

More than 150 Iraqis have died and at least as many have been injured in two separate bombings Thursday and this afternoon. The targets have been Shiite Muslims, including pilgrims coming from Iran yesterday and worshipers on their way to a Shiite shrine in Baghdad today. It’s the kind of violence that struck over and over from mid-2003 until Shiites started fighting back in horrific street attacks and kidnappings in 2006.

U.S. officials stress that the overall numbers of attacks are still down from 2003 levels. So far 14 U.S. soldiers have died this month, up from 9 in March and lower than the 17 in February, according to the Website icasualties.org. The site reports that civilian deaths are running about the usual rate of between 200 to 300. (An Associated Press story yesterday reported a new Iraqi tally showing nearly 90,000 killed since the start of 2005)

But U.S. commanders have expressed frustration at not being able to stop the “spectacular” attacks we’ve been seeing lately. The attacks–two coordinated in a usually secured location today, six in one morning on April 6–also show a degree of organization that belies claims that Al insurgents are desperate or on the run. In fact, they appear to be able to strike some of the city’s most patrolled areas.

The bombs have shaken the city and threaten the tortuously slow political reconciliation that most Iraqis and Americans agree is needed to bring real stability and to keep the country from splintering into chaos again. People are calling for action and resorting to old, usually ethnic, animosities. Some of what could happen next if things turn for the worse:

The bombings could scuttle plans for a conference in the coming weeks that would include Sunni Baathists interested in recognizing the Shiite-led government. Shortly after the bombing today, influential Shiite cleric Sadr al-Din al-Qubanchi blamed Baathists for the attacks and warned politicians that, “winning over 1,000 Baathists will lose you 100,000 of the people's votes.”
Iraqis who fled the violence for other countries, including badly needed doctors, engineers and civil servants, will be less likely to return.
The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which won recent local elections and touts security gains, could lose the people’s trust and even face parliamentary attempts to unseat it–which would likely lead to months of leaderless stagnation. Maliki quickly called for an investigation into security breaches at the bombings Friday.
Iraqis could lose confidence in the fledgling security forces or the Americans training them, which would reduce their desire to risk providing all-important intelligence on threats.
Worst of all, and so far not occurring, government forces or rogue Shiite militias could try to exact the kind of street vengeance that made 2006-7 so horrendous and required the American troop surge just to get things to where they are now. But now, the U.S. is trying to withdraw troops. That kind of violence could even cause the splintering or collapse of some of the new security forces.

On the other hand, this could end up being a test the new Iraqi security forces are up to handling. Today’s bombing was in the Kazimiya district of Baghdad. I was there a couple times last week and was struck by two things. First, it’s one of the cleanest, most pleasant areas of the city. Large homes line the banks of the Tigris River and the sumptuous gold dome of the shrine floats above the busy shops and mosques like a crown.

Second, the security at the checkpoints controlling all the entrances was lax. Iraqi troops waved an electronic wand by passing cars but let them go one after another with little more than that by way of inspection. After the bombing, NEWSWEEK talked to an employee at the shrine who said today’s attack was near the site of a smaller bombing last week and insisted the police are not doing their jobs. Despite the fact that attacks are still frequent, there’s a complacency that may be creating an opening for insurgents. Friday, Abdel Mehdi al-Karbalai, a prominent Karbala cleric, warned that the government has to end its infighting and keep the security forces on the alert. Local media reported that Maliki suspended top security officials in Kazimiya.

People in predominantly Shiite Kazimiya are conservative merchants, not looking for a fight and craving stability. I remember being there after a large bombing scarred a holy day in March, 2004. Residents gathered in an impromptu meeting and some called for indiscriminant blood against Sunnis until one man calmed them with reminders that they must follow their clerics, mainly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and he was urging patience. Most of Baghdad doesn’t have the cool tempers they do in Kazimiya, where people have so much to lose if things turn to mayhem. The city’s patience is being put to the test.

With Saad al-Izzi and Hussam Ali.

Some Iraqis Support Tough Shoe-Thrower Sentence

Larry Kaplow — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:19:10 GMT

Not all Iraqis want to let the shoe thrower off the hook and some even agree with the harsh three-year jail sentence Muntadhar al-Zeidi received today from an Iraqi court.

Granted, it's a minority. Zeidi was lauded in street demonstrations in Baghdad and other capitals when the 30-year-old television reporter zinged his two shoes past a ducking President George W. Bush in a press conference here Dec. 14. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, at a lectern next to Bush, vainly tried to block the flying leather. Iraqi security wrestled and pummeled Zeidi and whisked him off to jail.

Zeidi later told the court that he couldn't bear listening to Bush claim success in Iraq while all the reporter could think of was the monumental human loss and suffering of the last six years. He said he viewed Bush as an occupier. Iraqis and other Arabs have hailed him as a national hero. It's probably the majority view, but there's a nuance, too.

Many think he broke an important Middle Eastern and especially Iraqi code that requires hospitality for even reviled guests. It's a little like American Southern hospitality--if someone is in your house, you treat them well as a sign of your own good upbringing and honor. "[Bush] was a guest and a guest should be respected and not humiliated," said a construction worker who wanted to be identified just by his first name, Fawad. "It's our duty to respect him, not because we love Americans but because we love our country. In our tradition as Arabs, even if you see your enemy at a meeting you should greet your enemy as a sign of respect for that meeting."

Zeidi's lawyers made a compelling argument that the sentence was too stiff. They said he should not have been charged under the law against attacks on a foreign leader but rather a lesser crime of insulting a foreign leader.

"Muntadhar would not have dared to throw his shoe at President Bush if Saddam had been receiving Bush, not al-Maliki," said Sabah Shakir Majhool, a university student. "The three years is a fair sentence for his bad behavior." Another man, an engineer, noted that if he had a complaint about Bush, Zeidi could have used his platform as a journalist to express it.

Others may feel more like Ahmed Saad, a 37-year-old grocer who expressed the same anger as Zeidi about the American-wrought chaos of the recent years. "They should honor him instead of punishing him," he said. "He has done what every Iraqi should have done against the criminal Bush, who destroyed the country and caused the killing of young people and children." Or like mechanic Abdullah Mustafa who said, "It's not fair to put a good guy who loves his country and people in prison just because he has done what all Iraqis wish to do. Zeidi's protest did give voice to Iraqis who felt ignored."

Zeidi has already spent three months in jail and, according to family members, has been badly beaten. Even with good behavior, he might not get out for about two years. Elections are scheduled for early next year. Perhaps the Iraqi leadership could show the same nuance as the people have and commute his sentence before then.

--With Hussam Ali, Saad al-Izzi and Salih Mehdi in Baghdad.

Rebuilding Baghdad's Infamous Airport Road

Newsweek — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:04:04 GMT

By Lennox Samuels

If it seems a little … premature, that’s because it could well be. As American and Iraqi military forces continue their drive to pacify Iraq by battling remnants of Al Qaeda and rump militias incongruously called “special groups,” teams of local workers spend their days on a multi-million-dollar project to repair and beautify a stretch of road in Baghdad.

This is not just any road. It is the highway from the city center to Baghdad International Airport, once described as the most dangerous six miles in the world. For more than two years beginning in 2003, the airport road was a virtual killing field, a place many hardened war veterans feared more than the prospect of vengeful insurgents on the battlefield. Driving along the highway routinely involved trying to escape an ambush, roadside IED, car-bomb attack or a suicide bomber waiting at an on-ramp. The road was an emblem of the ferocity of the Iraq war itself.

That helps explain why Iraqi and Baghdad civil authorities have decided to launch this particular construction project now, even as they and the U.S. military continue to warn that the fight isn’t over yet. Renovating the road is a powerful symbol that the nation is turning the corner and that the insurgents are no longer the threat they once were. “On the one hand I think, what are they doing when there’s still open sewage around? Then I think, no, that’s great. Fixing the road to the airport is a very important signal. It makes sense,” says Brig. Gen. Keith Walker, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group.

Construction teams manning tractors and other heavy equipment bustle along the roadway, starting just outside Camp Prosperity and continuing past neighborhoods like Qadisiyah, Hay al-Amil, Yarmouk and Jami’ah and on toward the airport. Baghdad municipality is spending almost 50 billion Iraqi dinars (about $42.5 million) to repair and pave the road itself; rebuild four bridges across the highway, along with access roads leading to them; construct 8-foot walls on the perimeter of the highway, complete with watchtowers, and plant date palms and other trees as well as erect statuary in the wide median separating westbound and eastbound lanes. A stream and several fountains also will be installed in the median and work has begun on a new car park near the airport.

“We think that the airport road is the first part of Baghdad to be seen by any foreign visitor and it needs to be in good shape,” says Latif Abdul Wahab, the chief engineer in charge of the project. “We hope this will be the first step to reconstructing the whole country.” He says the Americans agreed to provide cover for the construction workers. But the three crews have worked steadily, unhindered by any attempts on their lives.

Work, which began last July, is expected to be completed in three more months. Also on the drawing board are restaurants and a cafe to be built in gardens being installed off the highway. But this is still Iraq and there’s still a war being waged. The Americans are building new checkpoints at all nine entrances to the road, Wahab says.

--With Salih Mehdi

Spy v. Spy in the Green Zone

Larry Kaplow — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:03:50 GMT

A soon-to-be released book by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward reportedly confirms the most open secret in Baghdad's Green Zone – that you never know who's listening on your phone. The book, "The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008," quotes one source saying the Americans hear "everything" Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says. The scoop was heard in Baghdad and might complicate the oft-contentious relations between the two ostensibly allied governments. In his bright salon living room where he spent his Friday weekend time, government spokesman Ali Dabbagh fielded calls about the report, eying an Arabic translation of an Agence France-Presse version. "Definitely the Prime Minister will be upset. All the government will be upset" if it turns out to be true, Dabbagh said. He vowed that Iraqis would raise the allegation with their American counterparts. At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment on the report.

The Iraqi government might be upset, but no one will be too shocked. Reports surfaced in January, 2007, that U.S. agencies were listening in on Maliki. The Green Zone is probably among the most thoroughly spied-upon pieces of turf on the planet. Tales circulate of phone transcripts of top Iraqis passed among embassies. Drones frequently buzz like flying lawn mowers overhead. It's reputed that U.S. government employees' calls are monitored and people can be disciplined for speaking the details about top officials' movements. This means the Americans think insurgents could have the equipment needed for listening in on mobile connections, carried by local phone companies. It can make it tough for embassy press aides, who have to invite reporters to press conferences without naming the speakers.

They use phrases like "senior U.S. official" when a cabinet secretary has come from Washington. Reporters have to gamble on whether showing up will get them a meeting with a top State Department power or someone on a junket from the Department of Commerce.

There's also the old-fashioned in-person spying. I know of one operative from Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army who was arrested by U.S. troops at his job in a Green Zone police station. People worry that Mahdi Army spotters could be phoning in the locations of rocket strikes to provide better aim to the attackers. U.S. advisers assigned to Iraqi ministers are sometimes suspected of reporting back to American commanders.

And, yes, the phones are highly suspect. Dabbagh acknowledge that Iraqis often joke about who might be listening to them chat. They are especially suspicious of the mobile phones that coalition officials have handed out since early in the war. They carry the U.S. country code and a 914 area code. Dabbagh would not say whether Iraqis also spy on U.S. officials but he said spying is not a two-way street. "It is our right if we want to do it," he said. "As long as there's no problem with international law, for our national security we have to do it. But the U.S. should not do it in Iraq." Surely, they're both doing it.

Chalabi Aide Accused of June Bombing, U.S. Deaths

Larry Kaplow — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:52:24 GMT

U.S. troops were waiting at the Baghdad International Airport for Ali Faisal Lami, an associate of Ahmed Chalabi, to climb down from his plane and when he did, they grabbed him. The allegations are serious: leading Iranian-backed cells of Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army and organizing a June bombing in Sadr city that killed four Americans and six Iraqis.

A possible break in the investigation of one of the year's most notorious acts of violence also marks another plunge in relations between America and Chalabi, the one-time Iraqi exile and Pentagon favorite who was a leading proponent of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. The arrest occurred Wednesday morning and was not announced by the military until late last night – without identifying the target by name. By Thursday morning word started to seep out and Iraqi officials, asking not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that it was Lami. According to one account from an Iraqi security official, U.S. soldiers met Lami's plane and calmly pulled him aside, confiscating his luggage including a laptop computer. He was traveling from Beirut with his family.

Lami, a Shiite, holds a high rank in Iraq's controversial DeBaathification Commission, which carried out widespread purges of Sunnis from government jobs and has now been frozen by new legislation. The committee is headed by Chalabi, who issued an adamant defense Thursday, demanding that Lami be released with an apology from his American captors. "This act by the Coalition Forces affirms again the importance of finding a solution for the random arrests of Iraqis by U.S. forces which are ignoring the rights of Iraqi citizens," Chalabi said in the statement. He credited Lami with opposing Saddam's repression and said he had helped negotiate an end to fighting between Sadr forces and U.S. troops in Najaf in 2004.

Lami apparently joined Chalabi at the DeBaathification Commission after working for a Shiite tribal leader on the Iraqi Governing Council, established by the U.S. occupation in 2003. An Iraqi familiar with the commission said Lami is a close aide who also does outreach for Chalabi in Baghdad's Sadr City, a stronghold for the Sadr militia. An Iraqi official told Newsweek that U.S. or Iraqi troops had arrested one of Lami's bodyguards recently in Sadr City.

Chalabi has slipped in and out of favor with American leadership since the invasion. Intelligence sources have accused him in the past of being too cozy with Iranian contacts – though the allegations have not been proven and would hinge on some fine distinctions in a country where leaders frequently meet with their Iranian neighbors. After helping Chalabi lead his own militia force into Baghdad in 2003, U.S. officials ended up raiding his compound a year later, reportedly because of links to Iran. Though his party failed to win a seat in 2005 parliamentary elections, Chalabi seemed to have rehabilitated himself with the Americans and won influential economic and trouble-shooting posts from the Iraqi leadership. But Newsweek reported in May that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had stripped him of a post coordinating infrastructure projects, again in part because of flirtations with elements from Tehran. Chalabi's office denied he was fired and has consistently denied that he has passed on secrets or made inappropriate contacts with Iranians.

With reporting from Hassan al-Jarrah, Yassar Ghani and Ahmed Obaidi

Good Times Roll at Baghdad Club

Newsweek — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:54:39 GMT

By Lennox Samuels

It is mid-afternoon on a Friday and the noise level is rising in Al-Wiyah Club, as urbane Baghdadis walk in and stake out their places at coveted dinner tables. Men seated at the legendary teak bar smoke, drink and call out affable greetings to new arrivals. A few people walk through to the tennis court and pool area out back, but most head for the restaurant, where waiters in white shirts and black trousers weave in and out of the aisles. “Come! Your place is here,” a beaming Dr. Tahseen Sheikhly commands a group of six, waving them over to his large corner table. “Sit down; what will you have?”

The crowds have been returning to Al-Wiyah, a venerable social club that for years was a metaphor for the good life in Baghdad. Founded by the British in 1924, it became a popular retreat for the city’s gentry. The colonial grandeur is mostly gone now, the décor more workaday than elegant; the carpet a bit worn; tablecloths faded. The building’s exterior is still pocked from insurgents’ gunfire, most of it aimed at neighboring high-value targets like the Palestine hotel, once a base for U.S. Marines. The violence that engulfed the capital city forced the club to close for more than a year, in 2003-’04.

As recently as the mid-1970s, men had to wear a coat and tie in the club and during Saddam Hussein’s regime, membership was limited mostly to business leaders, senior Baath Party officials and ranking military officers. The membership and dress code are far less strict now, of course, and the club exudes more than a whiff of middle-class inclusivity, as well as secularism. Lawyers, academics, government ministers and military types are jostled by young men in sneakers and teenage girls in tight jeans and makeup, their flowing hair uncovered. The waiters briskly deliver soft drinks, along with beer, Bulgarian wine and stronger spirits.

The din rises as a singer named Muhanna sings a farrago of Arabic dirges and romantic songs. Maryam al-Rayes comes in with her expatriate sister, Hend, who is visiting with her children from the Netherlands. “They’re very surprised because all they hear about is bombings, deaths, bad things,” says Maryam, a foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. “I tell them it is not like that. There’s life here in Baghdad.” Samarra Waffaa, a middle-aged high school geography teacher tastefully restrained in an elegant light-blue hijab that frames eyes ringed with kohl, says Iraq is getting better “every day, every week, every month.”

Tahseen, ever more avuncular as the day progresses, chuckles and gestures with his Cuban cigar as he tells stories about “outdated” assumptions Coalition staffers make about Baghdad. “I ask them what they think about the rest of the city [outside the Green Zone],” he says. “They say that’s dinosaur land; Jurassic Park. I think that’s just a problem with communications, though, because things are better over here now.” He has a point, but there’s still a way to go, for there’s an accelerating need for better infrastructure and public services. As diners attack their mazgouf. a roasted river fish, a brief blackout interrupts Muhanna, mid-song.

'They're in Good Hands': Inside the Hospital at Iraq's Balad Air Base

Newsweek — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:51:44 GMT

By Lennox Samuels

The young man in the gauzy yellow jumpsuit sits motionless in a reclining chair at the edge of the ward, his knees drawn up in a near-fetal position. His face is puffy from his wounds and he exhibits the stillness of someone who is blind. Indeed, the thick white bandage over his eyes seems to confirm that he is. But a second look takes in a light-brown leather strap that tethers him to the chair, and an American military officer confirms that he is a detainee. There’s nothing wrong with his eyes. The oversized bandage is there to make sure he won’t be able to identify anyone after he is released.

Apprehended because of his actions fighting Coalition forces in Iraq (Only captured or suspected insurgents face such restrictions), the man is a patient at the U.S. Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base. He is an emblem of the facility’s policy of treating anyone, friend or foe, who arrives there needing medical help. The care is world-class at the hospital, which is renowned for its trauma treatment and the skill of its doctors. "For us, if you’re a military physician and come to Iraq and practice medicine, this is the Super Bowl,” says Colonel Patrick R. Storms, commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group and the hospital’s boss. A soldier brought to Balad, however badly injured, has a 99 percent chance of surviving. The one percent who die essentially are beyond saving because they have suffered extreme traumas such as loss of brain substance. The survival rate for Iraqi patients is 91 percent; they don't do quite as well as the Americans because they lack the soldiers' protective gear and are unable to heal as quickly since their bodies are often not as well nourished.

Saving lives is a reversal of roles in the building, which had a far more sinister function during the Saddam Hussein regime. “There used to be torture chambers in the basement, which boggled my mind,” Storms says. “Now the place looks a lot like a hospital. We’ve kind of lost that MASH feel.” Like the surgical hospital in the classic TV medical drama, the Air Force facility used to be housed in tents. Now it is in a 63,000-square-foot building outfitted with an overhead mortar protection field – a wise addition in this area, 42 miles north of Baghdad, where Iraqi militants regularly fire rockets and mortar onto the sprawling base. The patients, about half of whom are Iraqi and half American, are in the hands of a staff of 380, among them 17 surgeons. Not surprisingly in a war zone, the hospital’s priorities are to save lives and clear beds. American patients stay a little more than a day, on average. “It is not unusual for someone to be in Walter Reed within 72 hours of his injury,” says Storms, referring to the Army medical center in Washington. Iraqis typically are discharged after about six days.

Many hospitals in the United States treat perhaps three or four trauma patients a month. Balad handles 246 monthly, with 150 evaluated for traumatic brain injuries, from admissions totaling 500. “Traumatic brain injuries are the signature injury of this war,” Storms says. With suicide vests and IEDS now the favorite weapons of Iraq’s insurgents, he and his team are seeing more and more patients with a combination of blast and burn injuries. “There’s no parallel stateside,” he says. “We’re talking about blast, burns, penetrating injuries.” Among the worst cases he’s seen is one in which 23 car bombing victims were brought in; 22 had life-threatening injuries. Storms says 8 to 12 percent of admissions are children. “The injuries have been horrific, devastating. Monstrous stuff, like some sniper shooting a child through a window just because they can.” Further, he says, while a doctor in the U.S. might remove one or two eyes in his career, Balad physicians extract about 70 damaged eyes in each 120-day rotation. Reservists Lt. Colonel Peter Sorini and Lt. Colonel Jim Budny are among the doctors on the current rotation. Both are struck by the severity of the trauma cases. In the U.S., trauma injuries tend to be related to events like car accidents. “It’s the depth and breadth of the injuries you see here that’s different from back home. I don’t think I saw a penetrating wound to the head in Montana in 10 days. Here you see them every day,” says Sorini, of Butte. “The big question to me is what kind of person would do this to another person,” adds Budny, of Buffalo, N.Y. “There’s no limit to their cruelty.” On a light day, surgeons at the Balad hospital log a total of around 20 hours in the operating room. A heavy day pushes that number to 80 hours. Storms says he has jammed as many as 21 patients into the emergency room at the same time, in “a ballet of chaos.” Even with that many people, he strives to keep the place clean, making sure no blood or drip accumulates on the floor “so the next casualty coming in has no idea there were casualties before. That’s good for morale. “

The hospital was completed last July, with the medical staff working through construction. “We didn’t say 'stop the battle,'” says Storms, a doctor of gastroenterology and aerospace medicine. The hospital is known for neurosurgery; treating head and neck as well as ear, nose and throat cases; and for oral and face reconstruction. It also handles general surgery, internal medicine and a range of other maladies. But it is best know for its trauma work. Most trauma patients arrive by helicopter and are on an operating table within 30 minutes. Wounded troops are rushed from the landing pad to the OR, passing along “Heroes Highway” through a tent whose ceiling is a large American flag. “They’re on their backs and they look up and see the flag and know they’re in good hands,” Storms explains.

In the intensive care unit, a GI sleeps in a bed, recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. An Iraqi man in his 30s is in isolation, injured in his stomach and arm by an IED. A one-year-old Iraqi boy is receiving a skin graft, his donor arm still attached to his face. He bit into an electrical cord and was grievously injured. Capt. Brian Caldwell, of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, lies in a bed nearby, awake but slightly groggy. He had been walking at Forward Operating Base Warhorse when an IED exploded. “They threw me in a vehicle and brought me here,” he says. “All I remember is reading the word ‘Phillips’ – on some kind of CAT Scan.” Caldwell appears to have been lucky. He is being evaluated for a concussion and depending on how he responds, will be sent either to Germany for further treatment or back to his unit in Iraq.

Down the ward from Caldwell, a few curtained partitions over, the Iraqi detainee doesn’t stir. People walk to and fro, paying him little attention. “Insurgents flow through from time to time,” says Captain Brian Caruthers, the hospital’s executive officer. “It’s great to patch them up. They’re actually vital, in a way, because we get a lot of information from them that helps the war effort.” Just so they don’t expect to see their surroundings, or anyone in them.

Iraq Violence Stats Update

Larry Kaplow — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:37:17 GMT

These three charts provided to NEWSWEEK by the military last week give a rough idea of how the violence in Iraq today compares to other times during the war. The military still does not attach figures to the charts but it is more forthcoming with comprehensive trends--released in close-to-real-time--than it used to be.

This chart shows that weekly attacks are in a low, nearly four-month plateau with fewer than 600 attacks of all kinds across the country per week. Attacks haven't been down at those levels for a sustained period since about spring 2005 (and they surpassed 1,500 attacks a week back in June of last year), according to the military's information.

This chart shows violent civilian deaths down in January to just above 500 a month, the lowest figure in about two years:

The third shows Iraqi security forces and U.S. military deaths per month--with an uptick for U.S. deaths in January while Iraqi deaths dropped:

No Snow, But Weather Glitches Complicate Travel in Iraq

Larry Kaplow — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:58:10 GMT

It's dust storm season in Iraq and the unruly weather is knotting up the vital helicopter travel in ways that rival the effects snows have on North American commercial aviation. Over the past week there has often been an ugly slate sheen on the skies, with low-visibility, winds that whip the palms around and the fine sand that leaves cars, windows and plants with a thin coat of beige. You can smell and taste the dirt, even inside.

True, in Iraq they don't make you sit for hours in your helicopter waiting for take off like a big airliner might, but things can get inconvenient or even interfere with military operations. It was five years ago during the invasion that the march of U.S. troops toward Baghdad was briefly suspended for dust storms. Tonight we can tell from the unusual silence around the capital that the helicopters that support troops on the ground have been grounded for hours.

One of the similarities between interruptions in helicopter travel here and airline travel in the United States is that passengers rarely know what's going on--though it seems somewhat more excusable in a war. Last night NEWSWEEK colleague Silvia Spring and an Iraqi photographer were headed to embed with a Marine unit in western Iraq. Their "show time," the military equivalent of a check in time, was 9:30 p.m. (flights usually leave an hour or two later). She was skeptical they would make it out. When they arrived to the helicopter landing zone inside the Green Zone--an expansive pavement with a few hangers and a trailer for a check-in office--it was the quietest she'd ever seen. The benches outside, usually packed with soldiers and their gear, were empty, and the small indoor office and waiting area were also quiet. The white board used for tracking flights was wiped clean of schedules, and scrawled across it was "ALL FLIGHTS ON WEATHER HOLD." They were told that they wouldn't know for sure that their delayed flight was canceled until 4 a.m.

It was time to settle in for some satellite television. Appropriately, a cop movie called "Murphy's Law" came on. At least it had Arabic subtitles so our photographer could follow along. The desk manager told Spring, "If it was an Army flight, I'd tell you to go home right now . . . But with the Marines, you never know." One of the three soldiers still hoping for flights had already taken the only US Weekly in the pile of old magazines, leaving a September issue of NEWSWEEK. At 12:30, the desk manager put "Casino Royale" in the DVD player. Just after 2 a.m., salvation came in the form of a new weather warning that would almost surely ground all flights the following day as well. She could at least come back to the bureau for some sleep.

I was in a similar jam at an Army base in the Iraqi north last week. Soldiers on patrol were keeping track on their radios for whether they could count on helicopters to keep an eye on their routes or evacuate them if injured. I heard about other reporters in limbo at various bases or, for those at air bases, being wait-listed on airplane flights that were also getting packed with stranded would-be helicopter fliers. Some were waiting days. My flight out was in doubt.

Two generals, including Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a senior Army spokesman, came to visit the small base. They ended up getting grounded for the evening. That meant I had to give up my guest trailer for them and move into a small wood shack with a bed and some piles of boxes – and a good heater, fortunately. But it was all worth it. In the morning I was able to hitch a ride with Bergner back to Baghdad, who had extra seats (they were talking about bumping someone for my other route out). On arrival, the landing pad was crowded with soldiers and contractors trying to score a flight amid a short break in the weather.

Monster Truck

Larry Kaplow — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 21:39:32 GMT

...

Judging from a recent ride through the Baghdad suburbs, the military's new MRAP will provide a protective yet bulky and bouncy alternative to the Humvee that has carried troops throughout of the war. There are now about 1,500 MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles) in Iraq of 15,000 or so the military plans on buying, for at least $500,000 each.

I rode a 4-wheeled version on a short trip with the Army. As it slowed to pick me up I felt like a small two-story building was lumbering up beside me. Its base sits high--maybe four feet--off the ground and the cabin is crowned on top by a gun turret surrounded by netting and bullet-proof glass. A heavy hydraulic ramp groaned open from the back and I made my way up five metal steps, the ramp closing behind me with a loud clap. The officer hosting me said his units don't use the trucks when riding inside Iraqi neighborhoods in his area because they're just too big. Streets aren't even that narrow in his part of the capital but they're usually lined with parked cars and electrical wires that sometimes get caught on Humvee antennae.

Once inside, I was surprised by the relative roominess. As wide as Humvees look from the outside, the interior is somehow chopped up by all the equipment and the standing room for the gunner. That barely leaves room for four seats at the corners (including one for the driver) where there's little space for your legs. The MRAP had two seats up front and four in back, which faced inward and left ample legroom across the aisle. The gunner has his own metal step to steady him in the turret.

I'm always puzzled by the user-unfriendly aspects of military vehicles and the dangers they pose before any battle is ever joined. Whether they're Humvees, Strykers or tanks, they seem filled with exposed steel edges, unpadded walls and supports. Maybe the lack of padding reduces the fire risk. The back of the big gun in an Abrams tank can crush your leg when it rises and falls if you're not sitting just right in back. Similarly, the MRAP's interior came with considerable risks, which the soldiers inside promptly explained. Seatbelts were a must, I was told. Otherwise, a normal bump could send you a couple feet in the air, slamming your (albeit helmeted) head into the thin padding of the armor ceiling. I noticed that all the seats were mounted on complicated systems of pulleys and thick nylon ropes. A soldier warned me to keep my feet away from a couple barely perceptible ridges across the passenger area floor. He wasn't sure what they did but had been warned they absorb shock and "can break your leg."

The stress, of course, is entirely on function. The interior is mostly metal in desert beige. There were boxes of ammunition for the gunner and an RPG launcher strapped against a wall. Along with written instructions on the side of the launch tube was an outline of a man with it mounted on his shoulder and the advice, "Fire like this." There was enough room for a round drinks cooler (like the kind they dump on winning football coaches) next to the driver and a leather football was pinned between a seat and the wall. They seemed like the only things inside that wouldn't maim someone who slammed against them in a wreck.

Just the speed bumps at the exits of the Green Zone, even taken slowly, were enough to send me shooting up into my shoulder straps, my feet flying off the floor and bring a knowing smile from the infantryman across from me. There was something about the suspension and the trussed-up seats that made me feel like the whole thing was made of springs as we were bouncing down the highway. The soldier told me that, while it bounces inside, the MRAP appears steady from the outside. Seems the weight of the vehicle requires a stiff suspension. But as I watched another in our convoy move turn with us over a median, it rocked like a small boat in choppy water.

The MRAPs have a lot of advantages over the Humvees. Their armor is integral to the design unlike the add-on quality to the armored Humvees, where you struggle to open the 400-pound doors now in place where canvas flaps were early in the war. The V-shaped hull is supposed to deflect blasts. The windows are protected by metal gratings and provide ample views. The tall chassis keeps soldiers literally more removed from the Iraqis around them, which offers safety. But, whether it's a vehicle, a fortress or an embassy, security comes at a price. Nowadays, the MRAPs seem to run counter to the up-close, boots-on-the-ground surge strategy that has helped reduce attacks on U.S. troops. It's harder for troops to get in and out or for Iraqis to speak eye-to-eye with anyone inside. And, though they are expanding their requests for them, officers in Afghanistan are concerned the big trucks can't handle the hilly off-road terrain. Marines worry they're too heavy for rapid transport to war zones. Even in Iraq, the behemoth might be more suited for the violence faced just a few months ago than for today's relative calm. It's a worst-case-scenario ride. If the violence grows, the MRAPs will be handy again. If it doesn't, maybe they can do like they did with the Humvee--convert the ultimate gas-guzzlers for American commuters. But they'll need a new set of shocks.

Crocker Disappointed With Progress

Larry Kaplow — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:46:04 GMT

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker hasn't yet written the report to Congress he is supposed to give, along with General David Petraeus, in mid-September on the state of Iraq. Things change so quickly here, he said, that "Lord knows" what the landscape will look like by then. But he acknowledged that, as of now, the work on the political "benchmarks" that American leaders demand of Baghdad "has been extremely disappointing, frustrating to all concerned, to us, to Iraqis to the Iraqi leadership itself." The assessment came with the usual explanations Crocker has stated in the past that the problems facing Iraqi leaders are excruciatingly complicated and difficult and that the U.S. continues to support Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. But he also repeats his warning that the support is "not a blank check."

In the marble-lined palace housing most of the U.S. Embassy staff on Tuesday, around a table with the coffee, bottled water and cookies offered at these briefings, it was unclear exactly why Crocker wanted to hold the briefing, which was scheduled a few days ago. He gave no opening statement before throwing it open to questions that he answered in characteristic modesty--noting when he had doubts or didn't have answers. He likely wants to downplay the emphasis and expectations around the September report. Crocker said that even if the Iraqi government had tackled all the benchmark issues, the country could still be headed in the wrong direction. And even if it tackles none of them, but leaders are talking, bonding and building their capacity for peaceful politics, Iraq could be on the right track.

Downplaying Expectations? Ambassador Crocker, speaking to Baghdad store owners this past weekend, says just about everyone is unhappy with work on the ‘benchmarks’.

Crocker, five months into his job here, pointed to the items you'll probably hear repeated in September as glimmers of hope--but each had a counterpoint the ambassador was also willing to point out. Sunni tribes in western Iraq have turned against al Qaeda and parallel steps are seen in other Sunni areas. But he said that goes on separately from the Sunni-Shiite reconciliation that is so key and lacking in resolving the country's violence. Sectarian violence in Baghdad, he claimed, has dropped since the American troop build-up started in February--though Iraqis in some neighborhoods have reason to dispute that. But he allowed that Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi militia was still active and that southern Iraq is seeing "mafia-type" violence among Shiites themselves.

Crocker said Iraq's top political leaders are meeting face-to-face daily for hours on end to try to resolve their disputes. But in a comment that I thought spoke to the veteran diplomat's awareness of the pitfalls facing people in his job, Crocker said he might be finding "silver linings where you shouldn't."

He wouldn't directly address the comments made by Sen. Carl Levin, who said that if there is not political progress soon the Iraqi parliament should vote Maliki out of office. While saying Maliki is genuinely trying to move his country forward and is as frustrated as anyone else by the political and government chaos, he said, "In a parliamentary system, no government is forever."

For those tallying the growing list of U.S. allegations of Iranian meddling in Iraq, Crocker almost hinted that the Islamic Republic might have been behind the recent assassinations of southern Iraqi governors. He said he did not have any evidence, but it couldn't be ruled out as part of a "Hezbollization" strategy in Iraq's Shiite heartland. That could be a word we hear again in the September report, as Crocker warns of the dangers if America quits Iraq. And for anyone who remembers the "Year of the Police," in 2006, in which U.S. military officials repeatedly touted the progress of the Iraqi force, Crocker stated what most Iraqis have long known to the contrary. He said it might take years to reverse the fear and mistrust of the Shiite dominated police, rife with corruption and militia infiltration, and referred to the "fairly awful experiment" of building a national, rather than locally based, police force.

Digging In

Joe Cochrane — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:55:57 GMT

Visiting a U.S. military base in Iraq can feel a little like a trip down Alice’s Wonderland rabbit hole. Inside the barbed-wire fences and flood lights, and just past the tanks and attack helicopters, is a slice of Americana. In between their dangerous duties, soldiers talk about the latest sporting events back home, work out in fully equipped gyms, go to the movies, and eat Pop-Tarts and Baskin Robbins ice cream in mess halls adorned with state flags and university banners as Fox News blares in the background.

It’s almost like home, these forward operating bases, known in military jargon as FOBs. (And those whose duties do not require them to leave the base are known as Fobbits.) Clearly, the ambience is no accident. Back in Washington, D.C., the Congress and White House are heatedly debating when to bring the troops home from Iraq. But a visit to one of these FOBs seems to suggest something else: the troops are digging in for a long stay.

From what I’ve seen, the U.S. military’s continuing infrastructure expansion at some forward operating bases, especially those with landing strips for fixed-wing aircraft, clearly signals that Iraq will be America’s South Korea or Germany of the 21st century. Bush administration officials have hinted as much. Sure, U.S. soldiers will rotate in and out, but the armed forces are here to stay.

A cursory look at one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of buildings on FOB Speicher in northern Iraq provides some interesting anecdotal signs. During my last evening on a recent embed there, one of my Navy escorts took me to a brand-new mass hall, where we used real crockery and cutlery--quite an upgrade from the normal plastic ware. Eventually, Speicher will be handed over to the Iraqi Army because it’s not considered one of America’s “legacy” bases-- meaning long term--but that didn’t stop them from adding new infrastructure.

The same goes in other parts of Iraq. A recent report in The Washington Post said the Pentagon plans to spend $738 million on 33 “critical” construction projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, and intends to continue building up military infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and Horn of Africa. Given that Balad Air Base in Iraq is the busiest military airport in the world, it’s easy to visualize where the biggest U.S. military footprint will be for the next decade.

The House of Representatives passed a bill on July 25 banning permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq. This is part of the Democrats’ strategy to bring the troops home. Good luck. The bill’s language is so vague that President George W. Bush likely won’t even have to veto it if it gets to his desk. What in Iraq even qualifies as “permanent” these days?

Congress is fooling itself. They want U.S. military operations in Iraq limited to border security, counterterrorism and training the Iraqi Army. That alone, according to various analysts, would require that at least 75,000 American troops remain in Iraq indefinitely. However much they dress up the bases, those soldiers are still going to be a very long way from home.

The Iran Connection

Babak Dehghanpisheh — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:26:46 GMT

For months, U.S. military officials in Baghdad have put together elaborate briefings with Power Point displays and defused munitions to highlight the questionable activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, specifically the Qods Force branch, in Iraq. These briefings were generally missing one thing: a clear assertion that the Revolutionary Guards, or IRGC, are directly responsible for American deaths. That assertion came in a briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, the U.S. military spokesman, today. Bergner said that the IRGC had helped plan an attack in Karbala last January that killed five American soldiers. He added another twist: the Qods Force have been using Hizbullah operatives as a "proxy" to help train Shia fighters in Iraq and carry out attacks against the Coalition and Iraqi security forces. "They are killing Iraqis," he said. "They are killing Iraqi security forces. In addition to the threat that they are to the Coalition force. So this is a threat for the government of Iraq as much as it is for the Coalition."

The bulk of the information Bergner presented today was pieced together from a March 20 raid in Basra that nabbed three key individuals along with computers and documents. Two of the detainees, Qais Khazali and his brother Laith, had been previously identified. Qais once worked as a spokesman for radical cleric Moqtada Sadr but splintered off from the movement at the end of 2004. According to Bergner, Qais headed up the "Secret Cells" or "Special Groups," Shia militia elements "funded, trained and armed" by the Qods Force. Documents found with Qais showed he had ordered several attacks against Coalition forces in Basra. Asked about Sadr's current influence over these groups, Bergner said, "They're operating outside his control." Laith was a smaller player in these Special Groups which, Bergner claimed, receive somewhere between $750,000 and $3 million dollars a month from Iran.

The third individual grabbed in the raid, Ali Musa Daqduq, had not been previously identified by the U.S. military. Efforts to pin down his identity may have been delayed because he initially claimed to be a deaf mute and gave U.S. military officials an alias. Bergner said in the briefing today that Daqduq's identity had been corroborated through interviews with other individuals linked to the Special Groups as well as documents found during the raid. Daqduq, who's Lebanese, joined Hizbullah in 1983 and commanded a special operations unit. He also coordinated protection for Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah. According to Bergner, Daqduq was sent to Iran in 2005 to meet with representatives from the Qods Force. In the past year, Daqduq made four trips to Iraq to liaise with the Special Groups and help train their fighters in the use of mortars, rockets and IEDs as well as the use of kidnapping techniques. "He was tasked to organize the Special Groups in ways that mirrored how Hizbullah was organized in Lebanon," Bergner said. Qods Force and Hizbullah instructors, Bergner claimed, train groups of 20 to 60 Iraqis at a time in three camps near Tehran.

Since February, approximately 21 high-level members of these Special Groups have been nabbed and three have been killed. Still, Bergner said that these groups "remain a serious concern." And they're involved in all kinds of nasty business: "planning and execution of bombings, kidnappings, extortion, sectarian murders, illegal arms trafficking." But the most high-profile attack attributed to these Special Groups is the raid on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. That attack, on January 20, showed a level of sophistication that Iraqi insurgents, both Shia and Sunni, had not demonstrated before. The attackers used American-style uniforms, IDs and cars to get into the Karbala compound. Iraqi security officials interviewed at the time said the attackers also spoke English. Five American soldiers were cuffed and pulled out of the compound during the raid and they were later shot when Iraqi security forces closed in on the attackers. The Qods Force, Bergner said today, "had developed detailed information regarding our soldiers's activities, shift changes and defenses and this information was shared with the attackers." The man thought to have led the attack, Azhar al Dulaymi, an Iraqi, was killed by U.S. forces on May 19.

For their part, Iranian officials have repeatedly denied any links to the Karbala attack or any role in supporting Shia militias. Asked about the Karbala attack in a NEWSWEEK interview last February, Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, said, "We don't have a role in any of these kinds of actions. And these accusations, from our standpoint, are condemnable." It's puzzling why the U.S. military would roll this information out now. A few weeks ago, Qomi met with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Baghdad, one of the few times in the past quarter century that representatives of the two countries have met face to face, and it seemed like the diplomatic efforts were on track. According to Bergner, the point of the briefing today was to bring about a "reconciliation of intent" – in other words, pressure the Iranians to match their diplomatic rhetoric with their actions on the ground. And he pointed his finger at the top. "Senior leadership in Iran are aware of this activity," Bergner said. He also said it would be "hard to imagine" that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wasn't aware of the activities of the Revolutionary Guard.

It's harder to imagine how the diplomatic efforts between Iran and the United States can proceed after today's briefing.