Given that Americans view the war in Iraq as the most important issue right now, an article in the NY Times today seems a bit more relevant than the Kerry debacle:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.
Michael Gorden reports about a slide from a Centcom assessment, and it looks to me as if all these arguments about who has the better “plan” for Iraq — or any plan, for that matter – are pretty much moot:
The pretty green shade on the left? That would be peace. Over there on the right where it’s red? That’s chaos. And the arrow to the right of the 3/4 mark? That’s Iraq today — or rather, the “today” of October 18… and if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know that things have gotten worse since.
An intelligence summary at the bottom of the slide reads “urban areas experiencing ‘ethnic cleansing’ campaigns to consolidate control” and “violence at all-time high, spreading geographically.” According to a Central Command official, the index on civil strife has been a staple of internal command briefings for most of this year. The analysis was prepared by the command’s intelligence.
According to the slide from the Oct. 18 briefing, the variables include “hostile rhetoric” by political and religious leaders, which can be measured by listening to sermons at mosques and to important Shiite and Sunni leaders, and the amount of influence that moderate political and religious figures have over the population. The other main variables are assassinations and other especially provocative sectarian attacks, as well as “spontaneous mass civil conflict.”
A number of secondary indicators are also taken into account, including activity by militias, problems with ineffective police, the ability of Iraqi officials to govern effectively, the number of civilians who have been forced to move by sectarian violence, the willingness of Iraqi security forces to follow orders, and the degree to which the Iraqi Kurds are pressing for independence from the central government.
I can’t think of a single thing to say here, folks, that is encouraging. This is the view from Central Command, not some partisan spin-master. When Polimom adds in the incredible influence of al Sadr over the Iraqi Prime Minister, I think we’re looking at the end game in Iraq.
I’m far too angry, frankly, for calm analysis (I recommend here, here, and here for coherent thought). I just want answers to a few questions:
Since we have roughly 140,000 American soldiers there who are at terrible risk with Iraq going over the cliff, do you think Bush will finally fire Rummy if 100,000 or so of them die?
Will the administration wait until the “current” arrow is all the way to the right before it can bring itself to utter the words “civil war”?
Amongst all these lovely plans to “save” the situation in Iraq, is anybody working on how one reacts to chaos?
Or are we just gonna stall some more, and hope for divine intervention?