In an attempt to manage the expectations of a notoriously impatient American public, President George W. Bush and senior U.S. military leaders have begun to refer to the struggle against al Qaeda and its associated movements as the “Long War,” suggesting that the duration of this struggle may be measured in decades, not years. Although this characterization may be accurate, the duration of this conflict is not predetermined or inevitable. The United States can take steps to shorten the struggle and hasten al Qaeda’s defeat. The key is whether the United States can develop a comprehensive strategy that kills or captures today’s terrorists and eliminates the sources of radicalization for tomorrow’s.

The Kurdish-inhabited region of northern Iraq is relatively peaceful and prospering economically, but the Iraqi Kurds’ political autonomy and political strength in post- Saddam Iraq is causing backlash in Arab Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. The Iraqi Kurds’ ties to the United States and the U.S. drive to stabilize Iraq are increasingly less likely to help the Kurds to parry these challenges. This report will be updated. Also see CRS Report RL31339, Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, by Kenneth Katzman.

The Iraq war has arguably been the most network-centric of all wars. All the Iraqi groups involved in the Iraq war have been highly networked and established ties with external actors in pursuit of their aims. More than anything, the war in Iraq has been one for political space. Thus traditional counter-insurgency policies have proved to be counter-productive. The US military has been criticized for its over-reliance on firepower and ignoring counter-insurgency techniques such as turning guerrillas or cutting off external assistance to the insurgents.

Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle. As of fall 2007, this conflict has cost the United States over 3,800 dead and over 28,000 wounded. Allied casualties accounted for another 300 dead. Iraqi civilian deaths—mostly at the hands of other Iraqis—may number as high as 82,000. Over 7,500 Iraqi soldiers and police officers have also been killed. Fifteen percent of the Iraqi population has become refugees or displaced persons. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the United States now spends over $10 billion per month on the war, and that the total, direct U.S. costs from March 2003 to July 2007 have exceeded $450 billion, all of which has been covered by deficit spending. No one as yet has calculated the costs of long-term veterans’ benefits or the total impact on Service personnel and materiel.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s offensive in Basra is more of a power struggle with Sadr than an effort to deal with security, “militias,” and “criminals.” What is far less clear is how this power struggle will play out, and what its implication will be for the US and Iraq as a whole. There are three options and none of them have a predictable outcome: First, Maliki can win, defeat Sadr’s militia—the Mahdi Army, or Jaish al Mahdi (JAM)—and marginalize the Sadr movement. Second, Maliki can provoke Sadr into open violence and a new form of insurgency. Or, both sides become locked in a lingering intra-Shi’ite power struggle that mixes violence with political power plays.

On February 13, 2008 the Iraqi parliament simultaneously passed a law that sets forth the relationship between the central and provincial governments, an amnesty law and the 2008 national budget. The passage of these laws was the result of months of negotiation and last- minute substantive and procedural compromises that could portend a shift away from merely ethnic and sectarian-based alliances to inter-ethnic and sectarian issue-based politics. At the same time, Iraqi lawmakers may have discovered a strategy of simultaneous consideration of multiple matters that could increase the likelihood of consensus and resolution—a sharp contrast to what has until now been an issue-by-issue approach that has often resulted in impasses and political gridlock.

It is an honor to appear before you today to provide my assessment of political, economic and diplomatic developments in Iraq. When General Petraeus and I reported to you in September, I gave my considered judgment as to whether our goals in Iraq were attainable – can Iraq develop into a united, stable country with a democratically-elected government operating under the rule of law?

Charts to accompany the testimony of GEN David H. Petraeus. Multi-National Force-Iraq, April 8-9, 2008

Since Ambassador Crocker and I appeared before you seven months ago, there has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq. Since September, levels of violence and civilian deaths have been reduced substantially, Al Qaeda-Iraq and a number of other extremist elements have been dealt serious blows, the capabilities of Iraqi Security Force elements have grown, and there has been noteworthy involvement of local Iraqis in local security. Nonetheless, the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain. Moreover, as events in the past two weeks have reminded us and as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible. Still, security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was made to deploy additional US forces to Iraq.

Originally known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), this Shi’a political group was founded by Iraqi exiles in Iran in the early 1980s. It was led by Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, until his assassination by al-Qaeda terrorists in August 2003. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq is now led by the Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, the brother of Baqir. Today, ISCI is one of the most powerful parties in Iraq, and it has the largest political bloc in Iraq’s Council of Representatives. ISCI’s primary power base is in southern Iraq, and its members control a majority of the provincial governments in southern Iraq. ISCI leaders have pushed for the creation of an autonomous Shi’ite federal region in southern Iraq, which would exercise wide powers. ISCI is also thought to wield great influence in the Iraqi government bureaucracy. The main rival of ISCI is the Sadrist Trend.

The Sadrists appeared on a steady rise in 2006 and early 2007. They controlled new territory, particularly in and around Baghdad, attracted new recruits, accumulated vast resources and infiltrated the police. But as the civil war engulfed much of the country, Iraqis witnessed the Sadrists’ most brutal and thuggish side. Their increasingly violent and undisciplined militia, the Mahdi Army, engaged in abhorrent sectarian killings and resorted to plunder and theft. Militants claiming to be Mahdi Army members executed untold numbers of Sunnis, allegedly in response to al-Qaeda’s ruthless attacks, but more often than not merely because they were Sunnis.

This report to Congress, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, is submitted pursuant to Section 9010 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2007, Public Law 109-289 as amended by Section 1308 of Public Law 110-28 and Section 1224 of Public Law 110-181. The report includes specific performance indicators and measures of progress toward political, economic, and security stability in Iraq, as directed in that legislation. This is the eleventh in a series of quarterly reports on this subject. The most recent report was submitted in December 2007. The report complements other reports and information about Iraq provided to Congress and is not intended as a single source of all information about the combined efforts or the future strategy of the United States, its Coalition partners or Iraq.

The Iraqi Perspectives Project (IPP) review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism. Despite their incompatible long-term goals, many terrorist movements and Saddam found a common enemy in the United States. At times these organizations worked together, trading access for capability. In the period after the 1991 Gulf War, the regime of Saddam Hussein supported a complex and increasingly disparate mix of pan-Arab revolutionary causes and emerging pan-Islamic radical movements. The relationship between Iraq and forces of pan-Arab socialism was well known and was in fact one of the defining qualities of the Ba'ath movement.

U.S. efforts in Iraqhave relied extensively on contractors to undertake reconstruction projects and provide support to U.S. forces. However, a lack of well-defined requirements, poor business arrangements, and inadequate oversight and accountability have negatively affected reconstruction and support efforts. For example, in a July 2007 report, GAO found that DOD completed negotiation for task orders on an oil contract more than 6 months after the work commenced and most costs were incurred. DOD paid nearly all of the $221 million in costs questioned by auditors. Also in July 2007, GAO found that unclear DOD guidance, inadequate staff, and insufficient technology resulted in poor accountability over more than 190,000 weapons provided to Iraqi forces. DOD concurred with GAO’s recommendation to determine what DOD accountability procedures apply or should apply to the program. However, as of March 2008, DOD had not made a determination.

The Bush Administration’s initial strategy for Iraq might be dubbed “Victory on the Cheap.” The hope was that, as in the Balkans and, early on, in Afghanistan, stability could be achieved relatively quickly and with a minor infusion of American ground forces. While the means employed were to be modest, the ends we sought were anything but—creating a functioning democracy in a multiethnic Arab state that had never known one. This imbalance of ends and means has led most strategists to seek more modest ends for Iraq: some form of power sharing and wealth (i.e., oil revenue) sharing among the three principal groups—Shi’ia Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds; an end to large-scale sectarian violence; an Iraqi government opposed to militant Islamic terrorism; and a commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons.

There is a strange consensus developing among American foreign policy experts about the war in Iraq. Most agree that the war will not have been worthwhile, whatever precarious success American forces can still achieve. Despite that failure, foreign policy experts in both parties mostly agree that with better planning, more troops, better counterinsurgency doctrine, and more cooperation among U.S. government agencies, Iraq could have been stabilized.1 The experts fear, however, that Iraq will sour Americans on future interventions—that an “Iraq syndrome” will prevent the United States from embarking on future state-building missions.2 To most experts, this syndrome would be dangerous. For even if Iraq is lost, the consensus view says, the war on terrorism will require the United States to repair failed states, lest they spawn terrorism.

For a man who drew America into two wars and countless military engagements, we never knew what Saddam Hussein was thinking. But you are going to hear more than has ever been revealed before. After his capture, Saddam met every day with one man, an American he knew as "Mr. George." George is FBI agent George Piro, who was the front man for a team of FBI and CIA analysts who were trying to answer some of the great mysteries of recent history. What happened to the weapons of mass destruction? Was Saddam in league with al Qaeda? Why did he choose war with the United States?

Despite decreased violence, slowing displacement rates, and limited returns in 2007, population displacement within and from Iraq remains one of the largest and most serious humanitarian crises in the world. Over two million Iraqis are refugees, most of them in neighboring Syria and Jordan. An additional 2.4 million Iraqis are Internally Displaced People (IDPs) within their own country.

Three weeks before the 2006 midterm elections gave Democrats control of Congress, a shocking study reported on the number of Iraqis who had died in the ongoing war. It bolstered criticism of President Bush and heightened the waves of dread -- here and around the world -- about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Published by The Lancet, a venerable British medical journal, the study [PDF] used previously accepted methods for calculating death rates to estimate the number of "excess" Iraqi deaths after the 2003 invasion at 426,369 to 793,663; the study said the most likely figure was near the middle of that range: 654,965. Almost 92 percent of the dead, the study asserted, were killed by bullets, bombs, or U.S. air strikes. This stunning toll was more than 10 times the number of deaths estimated by the Iraqi or U.S. governments, or by any human-rights group.

This report is based on conversations in July 2007 with a large number of Iraqi political leaders and senior government officials, members of Parliament from the major parliamentary groups, and a wide range of Iraqi citizens from Baghdad and the provinces. Rend Al-Rahim Francke is a senior fellow in the Jennings Randolph Program for International Peace of the United States Institute of Peace. A native of Iraq, she is executive director of the Iraq Foundation. From November 2003 to December 2004 she served as Iraq’s representative to the United States and the Iraqi chief of mission. She testified about Iraq before the U.S. Senate in January 2007.

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq: As 2007 draws to a close, you should look back with pride on what you, your fellow troopers, our Iraqi partners, and Iraqi Coalition civilians have achieved in 2007. A year ago, Iraq was racked by horrific violence and on the brink of civil war. Now, levels of violence and civilians and military casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in many Iraqi communities. To be sure, the progress is reversible and there is much more to be done. Nonetheless, the hard-fought accomplishments of 2007 have been substantial, and I want to thank each of you for the contributions you made to them.

Often misidentified in Western media as “the largest Shiite party” in Iraq, SCIRI – the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Al-Majlis al-‘Aala li al- Thawra al-Islamiya fi-l-Iraq) – is certainly one of the most powerful. Its defining characteristics are a strong organisation, whose leadership hails from one of Najaf’s leading families, the Hakims; a surprising political pragmatism in light of profound sectarian inclinations; and a somewhat incongruous dual alliance with the U.S. and Iran. Since its founding a quarter century ago, it has followed a trajectory from Iranian proxy militia to Iraqi governing party, whose leader, Abd-al-Aziz al-Hakim, has been courted and feted by the Bush White House. Today, it is engaged in a fierce competition with its main Shiite rival, the movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr, which may well determine Iraq’s future. To help shape the party into a more responsible actor, the U.S. should stop using it as a privileged instrument in its fight against the Sadrists but press it to cut ties with its more sectarian elements and practices.

After the Surge: Assessing the Future of Iraq ~ A Special Edition of Strategic Insights ~. Feature Articles Half Full or Half Empty? An Assessment of the Crocker Report on Iraqi Economic Conditions by Robert Looney A Plan for Post-Surge Iraq by Abbas Kadhim Rebuilding a Non-Sectarian Iraq by Eric Davis ‘Shadows of the Images’: The Allegory of Iraq by John Tirman Economic Development During Conflict: The Petraeus-Crocker Congressional Testimonies by Frank R. Gunter

Insurgent conflicts are conspicuously at the center of today’s international security landscape. After decades of neglect, the U.S. military has spent the last few years feverishly trying to relearn some of the counterinsurgent lessons from its past. Arguably the most discussed lesson concerns the ultimate “prize” in insurgent conflicts—winning the hearts and minds of an indigenous population. In Iraq, increasing attention has focused on how to improve our politico-military policies in an effort to garner the support of Iraqis. However, Iraq also reminds us of another critical lesson from our past—the role and impact external supporters can have vis à vis successful insurgencies. As Jeffrey Record of the U.S. Air Force’s Air War College points out, during the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese, “among the most tenacious and skilled enemies the United States has ever fought, could hardly have prevailed unarmed, which is how they would have had to fight absent the massive Soviet and Chinese assistance they in fact received.” He goes on to note that.

The President of the United States expressed his desire to build a democratic Iraq that could serve as an example to the rest of the Arab and Islamic nations. The American military was the instrument chosen to build an Iraqi security structure that could fight terrorism and still promote ethical leaders and democratic values. However, efforts to transfer American military values to Iraq have been a failure. The leaders of the Iraqi Joint Security Forces have politely listened to what the Americans have determined is best for them and then have gone back to doing what they feel is best for them—namely situational leadership, corruption, and human rights violations.

As the debate over American strategy in Iraq heats up, many opponents of the current counterinsurgency approach are seeking a middle way between the strategy General David Petraeus has designed and is executing and a complete withdrawal from Iraq that they recognize will gravely harm American security and national interests. The search for this middle way goes back to the Iraq Study Group’s report, which suggested that an expanded diplomatic and military training effort could permit a significant reduction in American combat forces in Iraq while still offering the prospect of at least partial success. In June, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) published a report entitled Phased Transition: A Responsible Way Forward and Out of Iraq that is the most detailed effort yet to describe what a middle-way military strategy would look like.

We are now over two-and-a-half months into the surge of offensive operations made possible by the surge of forces,and I want to share with you my view of how I tink we're doing. This letter is a bit longer than previous ones, since I feel you deserve a detailed description of what I believe we have-and have not-accomplished, as Ambassador Crocker and I finalize the assessment we will provide shortly to Congress.

At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Althougt I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. Is has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.

The Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq was chartered by the United States Congress in Public Law 110-28, signed into law by President George W. Bush on May 25, 2007, to assess the readiness of Iraq’s military and police forces to fulfill four major responsibilities: maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq, deny safe haven to international terrorists, bring greater security to the country’s 18 provinces in the next 12 to 18 months, and bring an end to sectarian violence to achieve national reconciliation. Further, the Commission was tasked to evaluate the capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces (military and police) in key functional areas, including training, equipping, command and control, intelligence, and logistics, and to consider the likelihood that continued U.S. support would contribute to the ISF’s readiness. Finally, the law directed the Commission to report its full findings to Congress.

The January 2007 U.S. strategy seeks to provide the Iraqi government with the time and space needed to help Iraqi society reconcile. Our analysis of the 18 legislative, security and economic benchmarks shows that as of August 30, 2007, the Iraqi government met 3, partially met 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks. (See next page). Overall, key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds. These results do not diminish the courageous efforts of coalition forces.

This assessment updates the January 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq entitled, Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead; it has been prepared at the direction of the Director of National Intelligence in response to a request from the National Security Council. It provides the Intelligence Community’s analysis of the status of the critical factors identified in the January Estimate that are driving Iraq’s security and political trajectory. Using the January Estimate as a baseline, this update examines the prospects for progress on the security and national reconciliation fronts over the next six to 12 months.

By now is should be apparent to even the most hermetic observers that untangling the problems of Iraq will be a monumental task. As the January 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq highlighted, the country suffers from a variety of dangerous, complicated, and intertwined problems, including terrorism, pervasive organized and unorganized crime, an insurgency, a failed state, a secutity vacuum, and a civil war.

Our commanders and ambassador do not believe that. Asked whether the U.S. could win in Iraq and leave behind a stable government, General David Petraeus said “If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t be here… I think that there is good prospect for progress in the months ahead.” Ambassador Ryan Crocker says “the level of violence is down in the two areas where the ‘surge’ is focused, Anbar and Baghdad.”

This report to Congress is submitted consistent with Section 1314 of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 110-28) (the “Act”). It includes an assessment of how the sovereign Government of Iraq is performing in its efforts to achieve a series of specific benchmarks contained in the Act, as well as any adjustments to strategy that may be warranted in light of that performance. This is the first of two reports to be submitted consistent with the Act and has been prepared in consultation with the Secretaries of State and Defense; Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq; the United States Ambassador to Iraq; and the Commander of United States Central Command, consistent with Section 1314(b)(2)(B) of the Act. This assessment complements other reports and information about Iraq provided to the Congress and is not intended as a single source of all information about the combined efforts or the future strategy of the United States, its Coalition Partners, or Iraq.

Iran’s influence over the post-Saddam government in Iraq is substantial because the dominant parties in Iraq have long-standing ties to Tehran. A key U.S. concern is that Iran, seeking to ensure the political prospects of its proteges, supports Shiite militias that are committing much of the sectarian violence. Since December 2006, the Administration has stepped up efforts to reverse Iranian influence in Iraq, while also conducting limited engagement with Iran on Iraq. This report will be updated. See CRS Report RL32048, Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses, by Kenneth Katzman.

In December 2004, as the United Nations Security Council began to grapple with the challenge of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and as Iraq started its slow topple into civil war, one of the closest and most trusted American allies in the Middle East began to warn publicly of the emergence of a “Shia crescent” in the region. Jordan’s King Abdullah, a Sunni who claims direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad, sounded the alarm that a vast swath of the region, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean and from the ¬oil-¬rich Caspian Sea to the even richer Persian Gulf, was coming under the sway of the Shia branch of Islam. More ominously, he implied that this looming Shia empire would take its direction from Tehran. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt echoed this warning last year when he said, during an interview on ¬al-¬Arabiya television, “Most of the Shias are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in.”

Before World War I brought aerial photography to the mapmaker’s art, seeing a nation whole was not as simple as looking at a picture. It was an act of imagination. And few countries were the subject of more imaginings than Iraq. The Ottoman Turks saw it as a stop on the route to the Persian Gulf and thus to India. Earlier, the Romans and Macedonians had imagined it the same way. Alexander the Great made the trip to India, and the Roman emperor Trajan followed him 450 years later, in ad 117, though he was forced to turn back after reaching the Persian Gulf. But others would follow. Much of the world ended up as a way station to India, or the idea of ¬India—¬the West Indies, the East Indies, the Indian ¬Ocean.

Elections in 2005 for a transition government (January 30, 2005), a permanent constitution (October 15), and a permanent (four year) government (December 15) produced a broad-based but Shiite-led government that has been unable to reduce Sunni popular resentment. U.S. officials are urging Iraqi leaders to complete efforts to achieve national reconciliation; these efforts, subject of a provision of the House-passed FY2007 supplemental appropriation (H.R. 1591), have proceeded far more slowly than expected but are not broadly deadlocked. (See CRS Report RL31339, Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, by Kenneth Katzman.)

Since its release in early December 2006, the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) military, political and diplomatic recommendations have generated wide-spread discussions. Unfortunately, the country’s economic recovery has received considerably less attention. Yet the country’s economic situation is quite dire. The ISG correctly notes that: (a) instead of meeting a target of 10 percent growth for 2006 only 4 percent was attained, (b) inflation is above 50 percent, (c) estimates of unemployment range from 20 to 60 percent, and (d) foreign investment is less than 1 percent of gross domestic product. In many regards the economic situation today has deteriorated from that under Saddam. In short “Too many Iraqis do not see tangible improvements in their economic situation.”

The progress in the past three short months in Iraq is unmistakable. Since General Petraeus has taken command of MNF-I forces in mid February, the convergence of developments has fundamentally changed the outlook in Iraq. While “The Surge” has dominated discussion – be it on operational tempo within Baghdad or withdrawal timetables within the DC Beltway – progress on several vital fronts is beginning to reshape realities on the ground.

When addressing the reactions of various Iraqi groups to the findings and the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), one has to bear in mind that Iraqis do not view the Iraq Study Group’s main purpose to be pertinent to their plight. Rather, they view the formation of the ISG as a means to help a perplexed American administration to break the vicious cycle of failure in Iraq, which has encompassed every aspect of life in the country: politics, security, services, economics, reconstruction, and to the last item in the long list of necessities. It is no wonder, then, that Iraqis fell into two categories, those who rejected the Group’s report and others who complimented it with cold and vague statements.

The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward—A New Approach is poorly researched, fails to appreciate the political consequences of the changes which have happened in Iraq since 2003, treats Iraq’s constitution of 2005 with contempt, and yearns, for no good reasons, for a return to a highly centralized Iraq. Before establishing these propositions it is necessary to answer a prior question, namely, “Should time be invested in flogging a dead horse?”

While the Bush Administration has had two skilled, high-profile secretaries of state, international diplomacy has not been its long suit. Exhibit A is the Iraq war, which began amidst fractiousness in the West and resentment and suspicion in the region. As the war effort has gone awry, with each justification weakened or discarded, U.S. diplomacy has appeared disjointed and often incoherent. The recommendations of many seasoned observers—including the Iraq Study Group—have pivoted on opening talks with Iran and Syria in particular. While the U.S. national security team resisted any meetings with Iran in particular—full-scope one-on-one talks especially—it did agree in late February to a regional conference, perhaps recognizing that it is difficult to imagine an acceptable result in Iraq without the participation of all its neighbors.

Security in Kirkuk is deteriorating sharply. Two main factors are to blame. First, following the death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Mus‘ab al-Zarqawi on 7 June 2006, jihadi fighters partly moved operations there, finding in the multi-ethnic region fertile ground for chaos by exacerbating communal tensions. An unrelenting series of suicide bombings began to shake the city and its surroundings, blind to their victims’ primary identity or political affiliation.

"Thank you. I know that seated in the front of this hall are VMI cadets who have served in Iraq. I am grateful for your service, honored by your presence, and mindful that I speak to an audience that can discern truth from falsehood in a politician's appraisal of the war. You know, better than most, whether our cause is just, necessary and winnable. You have risked much to make it so. Thank you. I'd also like to salute a few old comrades of mine, Orson Swindle, Jim Berger and Paul Galanti, whose example of steadfast courage helped to sustain me in a difficult time.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq was marked by a series of unanticipated challenges and hastily improvised responses. U.S. officials did not foresee the looting that accompanied the fall of Baghdad, were not prepared for the disintegration of the Iraqi army or the collapse of most other Iraqi institutions, failed to appreciate the impact of years of sanctions and misgovernment on the Iraqi economy, and were surprised by the emergence of organized resistance. U.S. troops stood by while Iraq’s public property was ransacked. U.S. occupation authorities moved to disband the Iraqi military and dismiss thousands of senior Iraqi officials. Washington first assumed that Iraq’s reconstruction would be largely self-financing, and then initiated the largest bilateral U.S. aid program in history. Responsibility for managing this rebuilding effort was assigned to the U.S. Department of Defense, an agency without modern experience in postwar reconstruction.

The upcoming international conference on Iraq has raised unrealistic expectations about the prospects of gaining the cooperation of Iran and Syria, the world's leading state sponsors of terrorism, in stabilizing Iraq. Both countries have strong reasons to continue their efforts to undermine the peace and security of their beleaguered neighbor. Both want to inflict a stinging defeat on the United States and drive Western forces out of Iraq, as they did in Lebanon in the 1980s.

This report, the second in a series, describes the purpose, course, and results of Coalition operations in Baghdad during the fi rst three weeks of Operation Enforcing the Law (also known as the Baghdad Security Plan), from General Petraeus’ assumption of command on February 10, 2007, through March 5. It describes the fl ow of American and Iraqi forces into Baghdad; American and Iraqi command relationships; the efforts of those forces to prepare positions and develop intelligence in critical neighborhoods; the limited clearing operations that the forces already in Baghdad have conducted; and operations against the so-called Mahdi army, or Jaysh al Mahdi, in Baghdad. It describes and evaluates the apparent responses of the Jaysh al Mahdi and al Qaeda to these preparations and early operations, and highlights some of the differences between this operation and last year’s offensives in Baghdad, Operations Together Forward I and II.

To concede that going to war in Iraq was a grave mistake of policy is not to embrace the conclusion that an immediate pull-out — or one by a declared date moderated by conditions on the ground — would today serve U.S. interests. The country may have entered the war with erroneous notions of the state of Saddam’s wmd programs. It may have underestimated the resilience of former Baathists and regime loyalists, their access to weapons and the help they would get from foreign jihadists. It may have failed to anticipate that a society divided and oppressed by an authoritarian ruler might erupt into ethnic and religious conflict when that leader departs.

Does this week's surprise U.S. declaration of a new international conference on Iraq, scheduled for March 10, represent a major shift in U.S. policy or just a minor shuffle? Why is it happening now? And will it have any more of an impact than other recent international meetings on Iraq?

This report, the fi rst of a series, describes the purpose, course, and results of coalition military operations between January 10, 2007, when President Bush announced a change in U.S. strategy in Iraq, and February 10, when General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey as overall U.S. commander in Iraq. It describes operations in Baghdad, in the villages and towns around the capital, and in Diyala province to the northeast. All of these operations preceded the Baghdad Security Plan now getting underway. Some of them were aimed at preparing for that operation; others were independent undertakings responding to local opportunities or challenges. This report describes in detail and evaluates signifi cant combat on Haifa Street in Baghdad, and clear-and-control operations south of Baqubah in Diyala province, placing these operations within the overall strategic context of the struggle. It discusses coalition efforts to disrupt al Qaeda networks in Iraq, the probable effects of those efforts, and the integral relationship between those efforts and efforts to stem sectarian violence.

The report itself does several things, but the first sentence really sets the tone. It says, “It is a grave and deteriorating situation.” And it’s important that that kind of honesty is set as the foundation for the report. It talks about the internal chaos which is threatening people’s lives. It uses the term humanitarian catastrophe. And as we know from other accounts, there are now on a monthly basis about 3500 Iraqis who are losing their lives and it’s costing the lives of about 100 US Military every month.

Since my last article was published, Iraq’s political situation has slightly improved, but terrorist attacks continue to inflict immense and painful loss of human life and cause huge damage of resources. Also, the sectarian violence and displacement have worsened, and the living standards have further deteriorated to unbearable levels. The dominant players of the conflict were trying to maximize their benefits by changing their military (violence) tactics, but not their strategic objectives. In this difficult, intense and historically crucial situation, the tough struggle continues for building a free democratic, stable, and prosperous Iraq.

Four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. sunni groups continue to fight an insurgency against the occupation forces, and the violence that erupted in summer 2003 has yet to let up.

It does not cost much to undermine the morale, and eventually the fighting capacities, of a technologically- and numerically-superior armed force. Ask the historically-informed sniper. History is replete with the achievements of lone marksmen thwarting the plans of larger armies. In 1777, Timothy Murphy, a sharpshooter in the American Revolutionary War, helped break the British attempt to capture American positions at the Battle of Bemis Heights when he terminated the lives of two inspirational British generals. In 1942, Vasily Zaytsev contributed to the successful Soviet resistance against the mighty German Wehrmacht at Stalingrad by killing over 100 enemy officers and soldiers with his rifle.

The Baker-Hamilton report explained that failure in Iraq could have severe consequences for our national interests in a critical region and for our national security here at home. In my many conversations with members of Congress and foreign policy experts, few have disagreed.

While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in Iraq, they were not fully prepared. Since then, the U.S. military and other government agencies have expended much effort to refine their counterinsurgency capabilities. But have they done enough?

Following is the opening statement by Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus this morning before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, as recorded by Federal News Service.

Le président Bush devrait décider début janvier quelle nouvelle politique il entend appliquer en Irak. Partir ou rester? Abandonner l’Irak à ses démons ou tenter encore d’y rétablir une certaine sécurité ? Solution militaire ou solution politique?

In this consensus report, the ten members of the Iraq Study Group present a new approach because we believe there is a better way forward. All options have not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America’s credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a stable and hopeful future.

President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor. As a result, more and more Americans want to bring our troops home immediately, even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could become a regional war. Both are bad alternatives.

By invading Iraq, the U.S. and its Coalition partners have undertaken probably the most challenging nation-building exercise since the end of World War II. The Coalition has set itself the task of fundamentally transforming Iraqi society, restoring stability to a war- and sanctions-ravaged country and reconstructing Iraq’s political order. This monumental task has been further complicated by a succession of well-documented strategic errors, tactical blunders, and operational shortcomings. The list would surely include: the commitment of too few troops, often with the wrong equip-ment and training for counterinsurgency warfare; hasty turnover of responsibility to unready Iraqis in the search for an early exit; and failure to seal the borders as part of a larger strategy to gain regional support for the project.

To evaluate the claim of media bias systematically, we constructed a simple methodology for reviewing the reporting from Iraq over the last three years. First, we selected several news outlets that are considered among the most important in the United States and that also span its political spectrum, at least in the outlets’ editorial instincts. Specifically, we assessed coverage by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and NBC News and also looked at the Washington Times, USA Today, ABC News, and Fox News in more limited ways. This approach not only served to provide raw data that could help answer our basic question of whether media coverage is slanted but also helped to assess the degree to which the typical tone of stories might vary across organizations and thus the degree to which the reporting might reflect the political agendas of publishers, owners, editors, editorial writers, news anchors, and other key media figures.

Rhetorically, the United States and Europe are united in their opposition to terrorism. Governments on each side of the Atlantic frequently assert that counterterrorism cooperation is essential to solving the problem, and they join together to condemn outrages such as the July 7, 2005, attacks in London. In terms of doctrine, the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002 and European Union Security Strategy of 2003 are remarkably similar in their scriptions of the new threats to national security. Both highlight international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and ungoverned spaces that might foster terrorism as the central security concerns for the future.

With stepped-up U.S.-led raids against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and media allegations of the militia’s responsibility for widespread and particularly horrendous sectarian killings in Baghdad on 9 July, the Shiite leader and his movement have become more central than ever. The war in Iraq radically reshuffled the country’s political deck, bringing to the fore new actors and social forces, none more surprising and enigmatic, and few as critical to Iraq’s stability, as Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadrist movement he embodies. Largely unknown prior to the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and bereft of resources Shiites typically must possess to assert their authority, Muqtada al-Sadr at first was dismissed as a marginal rabble-rouser, excluded from the political process and, after he flexed his muscles, decreed wanted “dead or alive” by the U.S.-led coalition. Learning the hard way, the U.S. and its allies have had to recognise the reality of the Sadrists’ strength.

As all eyes are turned toward efforts to stabilise Iraq, the conflict that has been percolating in Kirkuk remains dangerous and dangerously neglected. That struggle is equal parts street brawl over oil riches, ethnic competition over identity between Kurdish, Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian-Chaldean communities, and titanic clash between two nations, Arab and Kurd. Given the high stakes, the international community cannot afford to stand by, allowing the situation to slip into chaos by default. It needs to step in and propose a solution that addresses all sides’ core concerns without crossing their existential red lines. The most viable negotiated outcome, which a special UN envoy should mediate between leaders of Kirkuk’s communities as well as representatives of the federal government and the Kurdish federal region, would rest on the following provisions.

With stepped-up U.S.-led raids against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and media allegations of its responsibility for the horrific killings in Baghdad on 9 July that threaten new escalation of sectarian violence, he and his movement have become more vital than ever. In the immediate aftermath of Saddam’s ouster, Muqtada was known chiefly for disruptive behaviour. Two years later, he has political power and a very different role. The Sadrist movement has deep roots in contemporary Iraq and expresses many justified grievances. But as sectarian tensions have grown, so too has his movement’s involvement in the dirty war of Sunnis against Shiites. Muqtada must be recognised as a serious political actor, but if he is to be a constructive one, he must do more to exercise responsible leadership and defuse his movement’s violent inclinations.

In recent days, administration officials, from President Bush on down, have insisted repeatedly that it is time for others to live up to monetary commitments to Baghdad, most of them made in 2003.

At the same time, however, Afghanistan is offering a note of caution about the challenge of removing America's military might from a country still finding its feet. There, as US forces pull back from the volatile south in anticipation of the arrival of NATO troops, insurgents are taking advantage of the vacuum in the most violent year since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

On Wednesday, at our request, the director of national intelligence declassified six "key points" from a National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on the recovery of chemical munitions in Iraq. The summary was only a small snapshot of the entire report, but even so, it brings new information to the American people. "Since 2003," the summary states, "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," which remains "hazardous and potentially lethal."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's tribe in Jordan, the Al-Khalayleh, claimed last November that they had disowned the man who had sown havoc in Iraq. They made that public declaration in the aftermath of his attack on three Amman hotels. That day, Nov. 9, 2005, was dubbed by the Jordanians as their own 9/11. But blood has its claims, and in truth Zarqawi had been, and remained, a man of high standing in Jordan and in other Arab lands.

The U.S. military in recent weeks has seized a "huge treasure" of intelligence materials on al Qaeda in Iraq, including a revealing document in which the terror group acknowledges its own "bleak situation" caused by losses on both the public relations and war fronts.

At the time of his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still trying to transform his organization from one focused on the Iraqi insurgency into a global operation capable of striking far beyond Iraq's borders, intelligence experts here and in the West agreed.

The agreement announced Saturday between Iran and Iraq to close their border against insurgents reflects Iran's growing influence in its rebellion-torn neighbor. The agreement announced by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki during his visit to Iraq has paradoxical implications for the United States. On the positive side, if Iran honors its side of the deal, the flow of weapons and to insurgents in Iraq could be significantly reduced.

There is something rather surreal about the transatlantic world today. There are completely separate debates about Iraq ongoing on either side of the ocean and they simply don't connect.

Iraq has a rich and diverse resource base—the third largest oil reserves in the world, abundant water, and a national labor force of more than seven million people—much larger than any member of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

As Iraq teeters on the precipice of a civil war, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, continues to search for ways to push the country over the edge.1 Yet questions linger about Zarqawi’s ultimate motivation: Is it his loathing of foreign occupation forces that make him tick? Or is his hatred of Iraq’s Shia the essential and irreducible sentiment that sustains his violent jihad? This distinction between Zarqawi’s quest to promote a Sunni–Shia civil war and al Qaeda’s broader goal of waging a universal battle that unites all Muslims against Western “infidels” has many implications, not merely for the future of Iraq, but also for the Middle East and the war on terror itself.

Serge Boidevaix, une ancienne figure de la diplomatie française, dîne avec Tarek Aziz, vice-premier ministre irakien. Les deux hommes se connaissent bien. La guerre en Irak est imminente - elle éclatera le 20 mars. A l'ONU, la France a bataillé pour tenter de l'empêcher.

A small group of current and former conservatives have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is dead and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is necessary for freedom to take root.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and the head of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, has sharply lowered his profile in recent months, and his group claims to have submitted itself to the leadership of an Iraqi.

Iraq´s response to the Coalition´s military threat was dictated by the nature of the regime and of Saddam Hussein himself. While to Western eyes the choices Iraq made may appear dysfunctional or even absurd, the regime´s responses to the threat and then the invasion were logical within the Iraqi political framework, even if later proven to be conterproductive.

The third anniversary of U.S. military action to liberate Iraq has brought with it a relentless stream of media and political pessimism that is unwarranted by the facts and threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if it goes unchallenged.

In the book, Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army's failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy.

For centuries, Iraq has held a strategic geopolitical position in the Middle East region. Since the late nineteenth century, Iraq has attracted foreign interest in its oil wealth. Toward the future, Iraq's strategic importance will extend beyond the drive for the democratization and economic liberalization of the Middle East, as part of a wider movement for civil liberties within a globalization thrust.

Lost amid the news of all the bloodletting in Iraq is an important political development: The Kurds have switched sides. In the first parliament they allied themselves with the Shiite slate to produce the current Shiite-dominated government led by Ibrahim al-Jafari.

Saddam Hussein and his small circle of aides had their own ideas of how to fight the war. Convinced that the main danger to his government came from within, Hussein had sought to keep Iraq's bridges intact so he could rush troops south if the Shiites got out of line.

Success in Iraq requires progress on all three tracks — political, security, and economic — of the President’s National Strategy for Victory in Iraq. The three tracks are fundamental to our counter-insurgency, counterterrorism campaign and our effort to help Iraqis build a democratic, stable and prosperous country that is a partner in the war against terrorism.

The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency. In October, the two insurgents said in interviews, a group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.

This will be a year of decision in Iraq. Full participation in the December national elections by all communities has created the opportunity to significantly advance our strategy for success as recently outlined by President Bush. Building on this momentum is up to the Iraqi people.

The President is answering America’s questions about our mission in Iraq. And today, I have come to the Heritage Foundation to address an additional question: What is the international community doing to advance the cause of victory in Iraq?

When it comes to the future of Iraq, there is a deep disconnect between those who have firsthand knowledge of the situation and those whose impressions are shaped by doomsday press coverage and the imperatives of domestic politics.

The frenzy of the week in the blogosphere concerns the use of White Phosphorus as an anti-personnel weapon at Fallujah. After initial State Department denials that did little for the American PR cause, the Pentagon has now made a matter-of-fact statement that it was indeed so used, but only against combatants, and therefore legally.

Dozens of reports in the foreign news media and on Web sites have suggested that the United States used banned weapons and tried to cover it up.

2005 will be remembered as the year of the freest elections in Iraqi history. Iraqis will have gone to the polls three times by the end of this year. In January, they elected their representatives for an interim parliament, in October they voted on a constitution, and in December they are scheduled to choose a regular parliament.

The final substantive report concerning the UN Oil-for-Food Programme. This report illustrates the manner in which Iraq manipulated the Programme to dispense contracts on the basis of political preferece and to derive illicit payments from companies that obtained oil and humanitarian goods contracts.

The lead-up to the war in Iraq put the issue of the potential acquisition and use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by terrorist groups at the top of the list of Western priorities.

Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities -- Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs -- a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings.

The birth-pangs of Iraq’s new constitution are symptomatic of the deep crisis afflicting the country, and even if an agreed document is eventually produced, it may not only fail to resolve the country’s underlying problems but could actually make them worse.

In April 2004, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed an independent, high-level inquiry committee to investigate the administration and management of the Oil-for-Food Programme in Iraq. The appointed Committee was chaired by Paul Volcker. This is the result, the conclusions and lessons of the OFFP.

Because they lack a coherent strategy, U.S. forces in Iraq have failed to defeat the insurgency or improve security. Winning will require a new approach to counterinsurgency, one that focuses on providing security to Iraqis rather than hunting down insurgents. And it will take at least a decade.

The complete text of the draft Iraqi Constitution, as translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press.

To help tackle the raging insurgency, Iraqis should give themselves six additional months to draft their new constitution. Iraq faces a dilemma: rush the constitutional process and meet the current deadline of 15 August 2005 to prevent the insurgents from scoring further political points, or encourage a process that is inclusive, transparent and participatory in an effort to increase popular buy-in of the final product.

Este informe presenta las pruebas reúnidas por el Subcomité permanente de Investigaciones del Senado de EEUU que establece que a Charles Pasqua, el anterior Ministro del Interior francés, y a George Galloway, un miembro recién elegido del Parlamento Británico, se les concedieron asignaciones sustanciales de petroleo desde el regimen de Hussein bajo el programa Petroleo por Alimentos de la ONU.

Two years after the invasion of Iraq, we still do not know with complete confidence what happened to all of the stockpiles of weapons and weapons precursors that Saddam’s government admitted to possessing in the early 1990s, as well as other undeclared material Iraq had not accounted for during the United Nations weapons’ inspection process.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.

If we look back at the war that started on September 11, there have emerged some general rules that should guide us in the next treacherous round of the struggle against Islamic fascism, the autocracies that aid and abet it, and the method of terror that characterizes it.

Although critics impatiently complain about its slow pace, Iraq is making much faster progress in standing up an elected government than Germany or Japan did following World War II.

Training Iraq’s security forces is the centerpiece of President George W. Bush’s strategy in Iraq. To the extent that training records can be uncovered in the muddle of conflicting reports, the chronicle of the past eighteen months raises grave doubts about the strategy’s hope of success.

Iran's influence in Iraq has been one of the most talked about but least understood aspects of the post-war situation. Tehran has been variously accused by Washington of undue and nefarious interference, by Arab leaders of seeking to establish an Islamic Republic, and by prominent Iraqi officials of an array of illegitimate meddling.

The catalogue of what we have lost for refusing to increase the size of the force to respond to the post-9/11 world is considerable. It has played out in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the larger war on terror, and is causing structural damage to the force itself.

Overview of investigative results and sets out the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Food Programme.