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Insurgency forces growing Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=091604b1_iraq_warhttp://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=091604b1_iraq_war
'The gates of Hell are open in Iraq'
On average, insurgents launch 50 attacks a day against U.S. or coalition forces and control over three dozen towns and cities.
USA TODAY
Two years ago, the head of the Arab League was scolded by many for predicting that "the gates of Hell" would be unleashed if President Bush proceeded with his threat to invade Iraq.
But when Amr Moussa reprised his statement to a meeting in Cairo this week, there was no dissent. Instead, the former Egyptian foreign minister, an influential figure in the Middle East, got nods when he said "the gates of Hell are open in Iraq, where the situation is becoming more complicated and troubled."
U.S. plans had called for Iraq's new government and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to be gaining respect and organizing for national elections now, but instead insurgents appear more powerful than ever.
By some counts, more than three dozen Iraqi cities and towns are in the hands of leaders hostile to the new government and the United States, and apparently able to dispatch gunmen and suicide bombers at will. The resistance that was spotty a year ago now launches an average of more than 50 attacks against U.S. or coalition forces a day.
The kidnappings continue. Gunmen kidnapped two Americans and a Briton today from a house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood where many foreign companies are based, The Associated Press reported.
The three were employed by Gulf Services Company, a Middle East-based construction firm, and were seized from a two-story house surrounded by a wall in the al-Mansour neighborhood, said Col. Adnan Abdel-Rahman, a ministry official.
At least four other foreigners - two Frenchmen and two Italian women - have been taken hostage in recent days. Villagers north of Baghdad yesterday found three decapitated bodies, said to be Iraqis, with their hands bound.
The support is still lacking. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a BBC interview yesterday that the Bush Administration's decision to go to war in Iraq was "illegal" because it didn't have U.N. Security Council approval, the AP reported.
The U.N. Charter allows nations to take military action with Security Council approval as an explicit enforcement action, such as during the Korean War and the 1991 Gulf War.
But in 2003, in the buildup to the Iraq war, the United States dropped an attempt to get a Security Council resolution approving the invasion when it became apparent it would not pass.
"I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time - without U.N. approval and much broader support from the international community," he said in an interview with the BBC World Service.
Meanwhile, the violence continues. Some of the most horrific attacks have been aimed at those cooperating with the United States and the U.S.-appointed government: More than 700 Iraqi police officers and recruits have been killed.
Increasingly, the U.S. civil and military effort in Iraq appears aimed at keeping the country from sliding into chaos rather than moving ahead. That change was underscored this week when the Bush administration said it was shifting more than $3 billion from its Iraq reconstruction budget to boost security.
Administration officials also are warning that the bloodshed will get worse before it gets better. "We do expect an increase in violence as we approach the January election in Iraq because the election is what the insurgents fear," said Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of State, this week in Prague. Yet, he added, despite "having trouble with the insurgency ... we feel along with our allies in Iraq that we are making progress on these matters."
President Bush urged patience in a speech to the National Guard Association on Tuesday. "Despite ongoing violence in Iraq, that country now has a strong prime minister, a national council, and national elections are scheduled in January. The world is changing for the better," Bush said.
But doubts are rising, even among some Republicans on Capitol Hill. At a hearing yesterday on the administration's request to reallocate the $3.5 billion in reconstruction funds to shore up Iraqi security forces, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the move was "an acknowledgement that we are in deep trouble." Despite positive talk from the administration, he said, the money shift shows there's no "grand illusion that we're winning."
"I think it's worse than we had expected and led to believe, and that is the benchmark," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of Defense under President Reagan who is now an analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning group in Washington, D.C.
Added Korb: "In the Sunni Triangle area, I would not want to go out (at) night." In addition to the violence in the cities, insurgents "are going after people aligning themselves with the new government, and they show they have the ability to disrupt the oil, which is the center of the economic plan, even in the so-called safe south.
"The bottom line is, at this moment we are losing the war," said Andrew Bacevich, a former Army colonel who teaches international relations at Boston University. "That doesn't mean it is lost, but we are losing, and as an observer it is difficult for me to see that either the civilian leadership or the military leadership has any plausible idea on how to turn this around."
While "it is certainly a good thing that Saddam Hussein is gone," it is difficult to say that Iraq is in better shape, Bacevich said. "Iraq was a lousy place to live when Saddam was in power, and Iraq is a lousy place to live with Saddam Hussein gone and this growing insurgency" in his place, he said.
Yesterday's violence was light, compared to earlier in the week when dozens were killed in bombings. A car bomb south of Baghdad killed two. And a gunfight between U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels in Ramadi, an insurgent town west of Baghdad, resulted in about 10 deaths, local officials said.
Life on 'Death Street'
While insurgents have gained control of some major towns and cities outside Baghdad, they also can strike with apparent impunity inside the capital itself.
Haifa Street, a major artery in downtown Baghdad that is crowded with shops, homes and government offices, is now known locally as "Death Street" because of the constant attacks there. "Every morning when I go out, I say goodbye to my wife and daughters because we know we may not be coming home," said Munther Mohammed, 26.
The street is a microcosm of the American problem. When insurgents start trouble, as they did with an attack on a U.S. armored vehicle there on Sunday, the U.S. response sometimes aggravates the Iraqis. Sunday's counterattack by U.S. forces, in which an attack helicopter fired a rocket in the area of the burning vehicle, killed Iraqi civilians, including an Arab television newsman who died on camera.
"The people who are fighting the Americans are real men, heroes who are defending their country," said Saddam Arak, 29.
He repeated a common belief among some Iraqis that the CIA and Israeli intelligence are responsible for planting bombs to destabilize the country. As proof, he pointed to the site where the U.S. helicopter fired, killing five, including the reporter.
"The Americans fired into a crowd when it was very clear they were unarmed. If the Americans pulled out, things would go very fine for us," Arak said.
His feelings are not universal. "Bullets are flying all around us, but look, this is our life," said Sadey Abdulamir, 72, as he played backgammon at an outdoor café with other retirees in Karada, a relatively quiet district in Baghdad. He recited an Arab proverb: "Clouds will not remain forever."
The Vietnam ghost
The last time the United States was enmeshed in a larger and more protracted conflict was in Vietnam a generation ago. Comparisons between the two are frequent now. The Iraq war marks the first time since Vietnam that U.S. troops have been involved in sustained combat for more than a few months. And for now, at least, the Iraq war seems to have no obvious end in sight.
Part of the problem America faced in Vietnam was the inability to define the end - what President Lyndon Johnson called the "light at the end of the tunnel" - or to measure progress in getting there, said Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who now heads a Washington think tank.
North Vietnam's willingness to sacrifice its sons guaranteed continuation of the fighting, he said. The United States was not outfought, it was "out-bled" - the same strategy, he said, the jihadists apparently mean to duplicate today.
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