January 3, 2006
Seymour
Hersh’s latest article in the New
Yorker is over a month old by now, and therefore would seem
a little like old news. But, like so much of his reporting, Hersh’s
article contains at least a few nuggets that ripen with time and
take on more importance as events play out in Iraq. Two of his key
points – one central to the article, the other almost an afterthought
– are of particular importance, and worth reviewing as the
Iraqis endure yet another chapter in the American effort to crush
the resistance.
The
first of these key themes is the one that was most prominently commented
upon. Hersh broke the story – which is now all
over the mainstream
press – that the U.S. is going to try a new military strategy
in Iraq: more intensive air power and less intensive foot patrols.
This will involve fewer U.S. offensive operations (like those in
western Anbar that involved evacuating whole cities), increased
use of Iraqi armed forces in high-resistance areas, and a massive
increase in the use of aerial attacks. In the short time since Hersh
wrote the article, this new policy has been aggressively enacted.
The Washington
Post, quoting U.S. military sources, reported that the number
of U.S. air strikes increased from an average of 25 per month during
the Summer, to 62 in September, 122 in October, and 120 in November.
There
are several aspects to this new strategy that we need to keep in
mind.
First,
this is an attempt to lessen the strain on U.S. troops – the
U.S. military in Iraq is in grave danger of collapsing, as it did
in Vietnam. So the new strategy seeks to reduce the number of patrols
(which are the most grueling and dangerous missions American soldiers
undertake) and compensate with more air raids. The hope is that
this switch in emphasis will make it possible for U.S. troops to
endure more tours of duty in Iraq. But probably this won’t work.
Here is what one military officer told Hersh: "if the President
decides to stay the present course in Iraq some troops would be
compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and
2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency
levels."
We
should not lose track of the importance of this comment. The U.S.
military cannot sustain the war at its current level of intensity.
As Representative John Murtha commented in his press conference
calling
for U.S. withdrawal, "Our military is suffering. The
future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present
course." In a very real sense, then, this change in strategy
is an act of desperation.
Second,
this change in strategy is an attempt to find a better way to fight
the resistance, since the search and destroy operations have failed
miserably, even while they have inflicted incredible destruction
and carnage in the cities under attack. But it also means a more
explicit use of state terror. The U.S. cannot occupy a city with
air power. As a military officer told Hersh: "Can you put a lid
on the insurgency with bombing? No. You can concentrate in one area,
but the guys will spring up in another town." The logic
of air power (since Guernica in the Spanish Civil War) has always
involved a predominant element of "bombing the population into
submission." The U.S. military leadership hopes to so injure
the population that it cries "uncle," delivers resistance
fighters to the Occupation, and begins cooperating with the Occupation
– all in order to stop the punishment. With 500- and 2000-pound
bombs that destroy everything – buildings and people –
in up to a 700-foot diameter area, air power does have a powerful
terrorizing effect, and it is altogether plausible that such a strategy
could work. Even U.S.
military reports of recent air attacks give a sense of the brutality
involved, as independent reporter Dahr Jamail recently documented.
And Washington Post reporter Ellen Knickmeyer recounted chilling
accusations from medical personnel and local civilians as a
result of the American offensive in early November, including 97
civilians killed in Husaybah, 40 in Qaimone, 18 children in Ramadi,
with uncounted others in numerous other cities and towns in Western
Anbar province.
Whether
or not the targets were insurgents, the disregard for the lives
of civilians trapped inside the buildings demolished by air attacks
is part of a larger
pattern articulated by an American officer to NY Times reporter
Dexter Filkins early in the war: "the new strategy must
punish not only the guerrillas, but also make clear to ordinary
Iraqis the cost of not cooperating."
This
is terrorism by definition – attacking the civilian population
to get it to withdraw support from the enemy. The change in strategy,
therefore, represents the embrace of terrorism as the principle
tactic for subduing the Iraqi resistance.
Third,
Hersh mentions that American officials and other observers are concerned
that this new air strategy will give Iraqi troops responsibility
for calling in U.S. bombers, and therefore could result in the use
of U.S. air power for revenge against rivals and/or for ruthless
and wanton attacks on civilians. However, these fears are misplaced,
for two reasons. First, all Iraqi units are under the ultimate
command of the U.S. forces (they are integrated into the larger
Occupation military structure) and are not allowed to act autonomously.
The U.S. places American officers with each Iraqi military unit
(even platoons), and these officers have ultimate control of any
actions taken. No air strikes could be ordered without Americans
approving them. Second – and far more important – the
American policy is already maximally ruthless, as the quote above
makes clear. The rules
of engagement are that any resistance at all from any location
(house, commercial shop, mosque, school) should be met by overwhelming
force, air power if tanks or artillery are not available. Nothing
the Iraqis could do would be worse, even if they select different
targets. They might, in fact, be less vicious (if they could actually
control the air strikes), since they might avoid schools and mosques.
As
if this new policy would not add enough mayhem to the already brutal
mix in Iraq, Hersh gestures at another negative dynamic that the
U.S. presence is animating. Speaking of the accusations that U.S.
withdrawal would facilitate or unleash a civil war, Hersh writes:
In many areas,
that [civil] war has, in a sense, already begun, and the United
States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence. An
American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar,
in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American
infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon
of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of
them Shiites, who were "rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of
whatever a Shiite said to them." The officer went on, "They
[the U.S. troops] were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,"
with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired
American Special Forces soldier. "People like me have gotten so
downhearted," the officer added.
Hersh
is understating American culpability. It is the Americans who recruited,
trained and then stationed the Shiites in these Sunni areas, and
– as this quote indicates – the Iraqi units are part of
an American sweep, and the bulk of the killing was done by Americans
"on behalf of the Shiites."
This
is not an Iraqi policy – it is an American one. This very policy
– of using Shiites and Kurds against Sunnis – has been
the trigger for the long wave of car bombings by Sunnis against
Shia targets. And, moreover, the U.S. is running the parts of the
Ministry of the Interior, that commands
the Wolf Brigade and other special forces that commit terrorist
attacks against Sunni clerics who support the resistance, as well
as other Sunni leaders. The use of Shia and Kurdish forces in Sunni
areas has become a linchpin
of U.S. military policy, and it is the key provocation that
has redirected Sunni anger toward Shia and Kurds. That sectarian
violence is the chief dynamic leading to civil war.
So
what do we conclude? As U.S. military strategy in Iraq has begun
to unravel, our military has adopted progressively more vicious
methods to attempt to maintain its control of the country. In the
current iteration, this involves escalated bombing attacks against
densely populated urban areas in an attempt to bomb the Sunnis into
submission, and the development of anti-Sunni brigades of Shia and
Kurdish troops to inflict punishment on resisting cities. The American
role in Iraq continues to get uglier.
January
3, 2006
Michael
Schwartz [send him mail],
Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University has written extensively
on popular protest and insurgency, and on American business and
government dynamics. His work on Iraq has appeared on TomDispatch,
Z Net, and Asia Times, and in Z Magazine. His books include Radical
Politics and Social Structure, and Social
Policy and the Conservative Agenda (edited, with Clarence
Lo).
Copyright
© 2006 Michael Schwartz
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