Iraq

Anatol Lieven in the National | 'America Ignores Middle Eastern Public Opinion'

Communications — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:06:00 -0400

New America in the News:
...In the Financial Times, Anatol Lieven argued that the British government was in a position to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran.

"All that it needs to do is make clear to the US administration, initially in private but in public if necessary, that the consequence of an attack would be complete British military withdrawal, not only from Iraq but from Afghanistan as well.

"Israel must have US acquiescence to launch an attack since by far the easiest route for one lies over US-controlled Iraq. By starting the withdrawal of most of the Nato forces from Afghanistan, British withdrawal would throw an immense new burden on the US military, strip the Afghan operation of its international legitimacy and almost certainly wreck it altogether... LINK

Peter Bergen on CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer | Reporting on Al Qaida in Iraq

Communications — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:03:00 -0400

New America in the News:

WOLF BLITZER: ...And also joining us here in Washington, our CNN terrorism analyst, Peter Bergen. His most recent book is entitled "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaida's Leader."...

Are the United States and its allies losing ground in the war on terror right now?

PETER BERGEN: Well, it depends where you are. I mean, as Ahmed has pointed out, certainly Al Qaida on the Afghan/Pakistan border has resurged, as the national intelligence estimate said in 2007.

Certainly the Taliban are able to conduct these large-scale operations. But if you move to Iraq, where I recently returned from a trip that was sponsored by the Defense Department, it's quite clear Al Qaida in Iraq has scored a series of tremendous goals. It isn't defeated as a terrorist organization, but it's being defeated as an insurgency there.

And in fact, there is some evidence, now, that people within Al Qaida are leaving Iraq for Afghanistan, which they see as a, sort of, more fruitful area of jihad than Iraq itself...LINK

NY Event: Lessons from Iraq

Communications — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:30:00 -0400

A New America Event
06/17/2008 - 6:30pm

Is there an upside to the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history? Maybe. The current war in Iraq should definitively, permanently settle a handful of critical questions about American conduct in the world. Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War provides a list of those questions and even ventures some answers in the form of key lessons from Iraq.

Join us for a lively discussion of these lessons with noted contributors. The panel will be followed by a wine and cheese reception and copies of the book will be available for sale.

This event is co-sponsored by the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU, The Nation Institute, and The Century Foundation.

Al Qaeda In Iraq

Ron Tang — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:22:00 -0400

In a great journalistic coup, Michael Ware and the CNN team in Iraq have unearthed the largest collection of al Qaeda in Iraq material outside the hands of the US military. What they found in this collection of videos and memos underlines a key aspect of the al Qaeda organization in Iraq; it is highly organized, and not simply a loosely-knit collection of jihadists.

A debate has recently erupted in the pages of Foreign Affairs, the leading American journal of international relations, between two scholars of terrorism. On one side is former CIA case officer, Marc Sageman, the author of Leaderless… more

Iraq War Spurs Growth in Vehicle Manufacturing and Fuel Supply Contracts

adminn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:59:00 -0400

The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred strong growth in Pentagon prime contract awards to companies involved in armored vehicle production and fuel supply. In the mean time, major arms makers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have experienced much more modest growth rates.

Armored Vehicle Makers Benefit Most

A New America Foundation analysis of the Department of Defense's top ten contractors for FY 2007 found that the greatest increase by far from the prior year was posted by BAE Systems, which purchased Armor Holdings Inc., producer of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), in July of 2007. BAE's… more

The Great Divide

Ron Tang — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:49:00 -0400

Five years after a war allegedly launched to liberate Iraq’s Shiite majority, American forces have been bombing Shiite neighbourhoods in Basra and Baghdad while their snipers and tanks remain on the ground in places like Sadr City.

Iraq seems to have emerged from the worst phase of its civil war, but the victorious Shiite factions have turned their arms on one another in a fight over the spoils, battling for political power in advance of the upcoming provincial elections.

But as the Americans attempt to secure an agreement with the government of Nouri al Maliki to legalise the long-term presence of troops… more

Lessons From Iraq

Ron Tang — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:45:00 -0400

If what is shaping up to be the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history has an upside, it is that the current war in Iraq should definitively, permanently settle a handful of critical questions about American conduct in the world. This book provides a list of those questions and even ventures some answers in the form of key lessons from Iraq.

The idea of assembling lessons as tools for avoiding the next war is less of a stretch than it seems, given the group of writers represented here. They include a Nobel Prize-winning economist; the former chief UN weapons inspector;… more

Invitation To Steal

Ron Tang — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:39:00 -0400

This article is drawn from Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War edited by William D. Hartung and Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at Institute for Policy Studies.

The heavy reliance on private contractors to do everything from serving meals and doing laundry to protecting oil pipelines and interrogating prisoners has been a major factor in the immense costs of the Iraq war. By one measure, there may be more employees of private firms and their subcontractors on the ground in Iraq than there are U.S. military personnel.

One of the main rationales for using private companies to carry… more

Iron Man

Ron Tang — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:12:00 -0400

As I watched the new hit movie “Iron Man,” starring a guy in a flying armored suit, I asked myself: Why don’t we fight our wars like that? You know, so that we win, using the maximum amount of technology, suffering the minimum amount of bloodshed? After all, the nuclear-powered protagonist, played by Robert Downey Jr., wipes out the bad guys in Afghanistan, yet barely gets a scratch, safe inside his weaponized rocket-man outfit.

So what does Hollywood know that the Pentagon doesn’t? Even audiences, too, seem to be way ahead of our Cleveland Park Clausewitzes.

The whole point of war technology… more

The War Over the War (cont.)

Ron Tang — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:05:00 -0400

There's the war in Iraq and then there is the war over the war in Iraq. The first is about gaining ground against the sectarian militias and terrorists who plague that country. The second is about storytelling.

Advocates of staying and fighting in Iraq are at a distinct disadvantage in the second war. The burden of the Iraq fighting falls on such a small number of military families that it is easy to portray the troops in the field as victims. This has proved an effective strategy for Virginia's junior senator, Jim Webb, a staunch opponent of the surge. Once seen… more