It's July 2006 in Iraq...

U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker told Congress last week that "massive corruption" and "a lot of theft going on" in Iraq's government-controlled oil industry is hampering the country's ability to govern itself.

"It took me about, you know, a second and a half to realize that, obviously, there was massive corruption going on, because the numbers just didn't add up," Walker said, referring to a trip he took to Iraq this year in which he was shown figures on oil production and revenue.

Walker, who heads the Government Accountability Office, made his remarks at a House Government Reform subcommittee meeting last Tuesday called to examine implementation of the Bush administration's 2005 "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." He said one of the failures of the U.S. program was related to the prewar assumption that Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction "in large part through oil revenues."

He said about 10 percent of Iraq's refined fuels and 30 percent of its imported fuels are being stolen, in part because the subsidized Iraqi price of gasoline, about 44 cents a gallon, is less than half the regional price of 90 cents a gallon. "That provides a tremendous incentive to be able to steal these fuels and be able to sell them for whatever purposes, corruption or otherwise," Walker said.

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Walker's GAO report criticized the administration's failure to identify "current and future costs" or "the sources of funding needed to achieve U.S. political security and economic objectives in Iraq."

The report concludes that neither the Defense Department nor Congress "can reliably determine the costs of the war, nor do they have details on how appropriated funds are being spent or historical data useful in considering future funding needs." He said it costs about $1.5 billion a week for U.S. military operations, reconstruction and support for Iraqi forces.

Walker said that although the administration "has resisted for several years providing cost estimates longer than one year in advance, there is a basis to come up with some estimates."

The Congressional Budget Office last week released its estimate of potential spending requirements for Iraq in the fiscal years 2007 to 2016 based on scenarios where there was either a rapid or slow drawdown of U.S. forces. In the case of rapid withdrawal -- troops out by 2009 -- the CBO estimated an additional $166 billion would be needed for military operations, on top of $290 billion already allocated. For a slower withdrawal, where 40,000 troops stay through 2016, it would cost $368 billion, said the CBO.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060718/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_out_of_control_2

http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13

This afternoon I was able to stop being depressed about Lebanon for just long enough to be depressed about NYTimes correspondent Dexter Filkins' assessments of Iraq instead (basically, the country is coming apart, things are getting worse, and there doesn't seem to be much hope.)

Supposedly one of the more surprising and gut-wrenching turn of events lately (I've heard this elsewhere too) is that now much of the Sunni minority is actually clamoring for us to stay. Why? Because the new Shiite-dominated police and military forces are much more brutal than even our worst "bad apples." Apparently it's gotten to the point that parents are relieved if they find out their child was arrested by Americans rather than by the Iraqi government, because at least they can be fairly sure they'll see the child again.

in JULY

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/030217fa_fact

Meanwhile, the Iraqi interior ministry has issued orders aimed at curbing kidnappings by men in uniform. Anti-crimes units are to inform headquarters of their operations and it has urged Iraqis to demand identification.

It follows a year of complaints by Sunni politicians that Shia militias had infiltrated the ministry and were kidnapping Sunnis.

Whee!

Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.

Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House's war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.

And freshman Sen. John Thune (S.D.) told reporters at the National Press Club that if he were running for reelection this year, "you obviously don't embrace the president and his agenda."

"The first thing I'd do is acknowledge that there have been mistakes made," Thune said.

It goes on from there (the Gutknecht backtracking is blackly hilarious in particular). What makes it all the more interesting is this brief follow-up over in NROworld from Rich Lowry, who has plenty of contacts and sources among GOP Congress members, that's a tacit admission:

This seems an accurate reading on GOP sentiment on Capitol Hill.

A quick cast around some typical spots like Malkin and Instapundit turns up either hedged bets or a suspicious silence, even (especially?) in the face of other events in Lebanon. Mudville Gazette was venting a week back about how to address 'the truth' in Iraq and has had little to say specifically since.

The second is actually an excerpt from staffer Thomas Ricks' new book, Fiasco, which probably will be the best text on the whole mess for the moment until it ends (whenever/if it ends). Said excerpt should probably be sent around to anyone says the US always knew what it was going to be doing -- a smaller amount of people than usual but it's a good slap upside the head for them.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has suggested Iraqi troops will soon take control over more areas of the country, ahead of his visit to the UK and US.

Mr Maliki told the BBC that predictions that foreign troops would be in Iraq for decades were wide of the mark. ....... a recent report by the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq estimated that 5,818 people were killed in violence in Iraq during May and June - an average of more than 100 civilians per day."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_iraq_20060724.ram

There is an interview with Nouri Maliki here. He is very critical of Israel whose actions in Lebanon he condemns as illegal. Should go down well during his trip to Washington.

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?

It's so clear now!

(The hawks must *really* be grasping at straws now.)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/images/aug19_ok_bill.jpg

http://www.defenselink.mil/home/images/photos/2006-07/Face-of-Defense/pr20060711b.jpg

Volkstrum jokes aside, uhm...you really don't want revenge-happy troops trying to maintain an occupation, do you?

Then there's this:

Maliki was asked why he thought this new security plan would work when various other curfews and restrictions didn't manage to stop the daily violence there. He said this plan had the support from all segments of the Iraqi population because of his national unity government.

Note my reassured mood.

There is a war of arms. And there is a war of ideas. They are not just inter-related, they are interdependent. They are equally consequential.

…Let’s take just one example: In the 1930s, Churchill fought a war of ideas. He tried to warn the world about Hitler; tried to warn Europe and America that Hitler’s hatred and ambition had to be checked. But most people did not listen. Churchill’s ideas did not prevail. They called Churchill a “war monger.�

…So yes, Kathryn, you are fighting a war. And your e-mailer is ignorant about how wars are fought, about how wars are won and lost, and about the way the world actually works.

Oh! Bush took the visiting Maliki to the tautology seminars he attends weekly. Nice!

Churchill = John the Baptist, Dubya = Jesus...?

For the neoconservatives, it’s not about Israel. It’s about war. War is a bracing tonic for the national spirit and in all its forms it presents opportunities for national greatness. “Ultimately, American purpose can find its voice only in Washington,� David Brooks once wrote. And Washington’s never louder or more powerful than when it has a war to fight.

It's seems a process akin to the "Greatest Generation" thing; you accord status & moral worth to folks who took part in the Grand Struggle, and those folks had meaning in their lives, since they got to participate in the Grand Struggle. So the boomers need one too, dammit.

The commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon are "looking at the big picture all the time, but for us, we don't see no big picture, it's just always another bomb out here," said Spec. Joshua Steffey, 24, of Asheville, N.C. The company's commanding officer, Capt. Douglas A. DiCenzo of Plymouth, N.H., and his gunner, Spec. Robert E. Blair of Ocala, Fla., were killed by a roadside bomb in May.

Steffey said he wished "somebody would explain to us, 'Hey, this is what we're working for.' " With a stream of expletives, he said he could not care less "if Iraq's free" or "if they're a democracy."

"The first time somebody you know dies, the first thing you ask yourself is, 'Well, what did he die for?' "

"At this point, it seems like the war on drugs in America," added Spec. David Fulcher, 22, a medic from Lynchburg, Va., who sat alongside Steffey. "It's like this never-ending battle, like, we find one IED, if we do find it before it hits us, so what? You know it's just like if the cops make a big bust, next week the next higher-up puts more back out there."

"My personal opinion, I don't speak for the rest of anybody, I just speak for me personally, I think civil war is going to happen regardless," Steffey responded. "Maybe this country needs it: One side has to win. Be it Sunni, be it Shiite, one side has to win. It's apparent, these people have made it obvious they can't live in unity."

It was dark now save for one fluorescent light and the cigarette tips glowing red.

"I mean, if you compare the casualty count from this war to, say, World War II, you know obviously it doesn't even compare," Fulcher said. "But World War II, the big picture was clear -- you know you're fighting because somebody was trying to take over the world, basically. This is like, what did we invade here for?"

"How did it become, 'Well, now we have to rebuild this place from the ground up'?" Fulcher asked.

He kept talking. "They say we're here and we've given them freedom, but really what is that? You know, what is freedom? You've got kids here who can't go to school. You've got people here who don't have jobs anymore. You've got people here who don't have power," he said. "You know, so yeah, they've got freedom now, but when they didn't have freedom, everybody had a job."

Steffey got up to leave the porch and go to bed.

"You know, the point is we've lost too many Americans here already, we're committed now. So whatever the [expletive] end-state is, whatever it is, we need to achieve it -- that way they didn't die for nothing," he said. "We're far too deep in this now."