Category Archives: Post-War

Civil War a Real Possibility

Posted on by
2

This is not good. Insur­gents shout­ing “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) staged a day­light raid on a secu­rity com­pound and Iraqi police sta­tion today, killing at least 20 and free­ing upwards of 70 pris­on­ers. This was the sec­ond attack on the sta­tion in two days, with Army Gen. John Abizaid, com­man­der of U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand and Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swan­nack Jr., 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion com­man­der, escap­ing injury in the pre­vi­ous attack.
The Iraqi police were appar­ently no match against today’s attack­ers.

The brazen, bloody bat­tle on the heels of the Abizaid attack raised ques­tions about the pre­pared­ness of some Iraqi police and defense units to take on secu­rity duties as the U.S. admin­is­tra­tion wants. After the Thurs­day attack, Abizaid said of the Iraqi civil defense unit in Fal­lu­jah: ”Obvi­ously they are not fully trained. They’re not ready.”

One Iraqi police­man not injured in the attack said he may leave the force if things don’t get bet­ter. “We joined the police to pro­vide secu­rity, but no one wants secu­rity, they (insur­gents and crim­i­nals) want to chaos to con­tinue.”
Police Lt. Col. Jalal Sabri com­plained that the Iraqi secu­rity forces still don’t have ade­quate weapons or train­ing. “We don’t have any kind of heavy weapons, no effec­tive weapons,” just auto­matic rifles, he said. Today’s attack­ers wore masks, car­ried hand grenades and used heavy machine guns, mor­tars and RPGs, accord­ing to NPR and the Asso­ci­ated Press.
In gen­eral, it’s been a bad week in Iraq. Six U.S. troops have died since Feb. 9, and eight were wounded in attacks, road­side bomb explo­sions and acci­dents. The USAID, the Amer­i­can aid agency, said in a con­fi­den­tial report that vio­lence in gen­eral is on the upswing and that the coun­try faces a real dan­ger of “Balka­niza­tion.“
“High-intensity attacks involv­ing mor­tars, hand-grenades and small-arms more than dou­bled from 316 in Decem­ber to 642 in Jan­u­ary; non-life threat­en­ing attacks includ­ing drive-by shoot­ings and rock-throwing rose from 182 in Decem­ber to 522 in Jan­u­ary. The report also recorded a total of 11 attacks on coali­tion air­craft.“
The report said some of the civil­ian vio­lence was eth­nic, and noted that that sev­eral corpses, prob­a­bly of ex-Ba’athists, were found in the south “with hands bound and bul­let wounds to the head.“
On the one hand, the attack against Abizaid could be seen as a fail­ure. They didn’t kill him. But as Strat­for points out, the chance of suc­cess in such an attack was low any­way. Abizaid is well-protected by highly armed, well trained troops. But Strat­for also points out that the attack itself was a gutsy move. The attack­ers got off three RPGs and the Amer­i­cans got lucky. And today’s prison break, in broad day­light, should be seen for what it is: a major suc­cess for the insur­gents.
This is a real prob­lem. Since Sep­tem­ber 2003, the Amer­i­cans have stepped up the offen­sive against the insur­gency by send­ing intel­li­gence teams into the “Sunni Tri­an­gle” armed with cash to buy infor­ma­tion. They cap­tured Sad­dam Hus­sein in Decem­ber. The gueril­las were thought to have been scat­tered into smaller groups that weren’t able to coor­di­nate.
From the USAID report, it seems the gueril­las have inten­si­fied their efforts and reestab­lished their com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion net­works. In short, it now appears that the U.S. is at best hold­ing steady against the insur­gents and could very well be los­ing ground again 11 months after the start of the war. In a guerilla war, if you’re not gain­ing ground, you’re los­ing.
Adding to the volatil­ity, the United Nations said elec­tions were unlikely before the planned June 30 trans­fer of sov­er­eignty.

“It’s not a ques­tion of delay­ing (the han­dover). It’s find­ing a new timetable,” Ahmad Fawzi told BBC radio. “Elec­tions will take place when the coun­try is ready and that will be after the han­dover of power.“
Fawzi, a spokesper­son for UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, was speak­ing a day after Brahimi held talks with top Iraqi Shi’a cleric Aya­tol­lah Ali al-Sistani, who has spear­headed calls for elec­tions before the June 30 handover.

Brahimi and Sis­tani are in a del­i­cate dance, with every­one look­ing at the Amer­i­cans to see if they have a han­dle on the sit­u­a­tion. If attacks are increas­ing both in num­ber, inten­sity and bold­ness then it’s pretty obvi­ous that the plans for the sov­er­eignty trans­fer is in seri­ous jeop­ardy.
Loom­ing over all the vio­lence and uncer­tainty is the spec­tre of civil war, which was made all the more real by the hor­rific twin car bomb­ings ear­lier this week which killed more than 100 Iraqis. And, as noted, the frus­tra­tions and ten­sions are spread­ing. In Kur­dish Suleimaniya, thou­sands demon­strated for an inde­pen­dent Kur­dis­tan that includes the three autonomous provinces and the dis­puted Kirkuk province.
In an NPR story this morn­ing (sorry, no link yet), one expert warned of a civil war that was “a com­bi­na­tion of Lebanon and the Congo,” which should send a chill down anyone’s back. A mas­sive civil war in the Mid­dle East would mean Turkey, Iran, Syria and pos­si­bly Jor­dan and Saudi Ara­bia would be forced to inter­vene. The region is home to 64 per­cent of the world’s proven crude oil reserves. A mas­sive dis­rup­tion of that sup­ply would send the world econ­omy into cri­sis that could spark other regional con­flicts as coun­tries scram­ble for reli­able crude sup­plies.
It would be bet­ter to delay the trans­fer and pre­pare for the ear­li­est pos­si­ble elec­tions that are trans­par­ent and fair than rush a tran­si­tion that could lead to a spi­ral of vio­lence that could lead to a catastrophe.

Bloggers: Whitewash in the works

Posted on by
Reply

There’s a fair amount of skep­ti­cism among well-known blog­gers about the Pres­i­den­tial Com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the intel­li­gence fail­ures in the lead-up to Oper­a­tion Iraqi Free­dom. I don’t have a lot to add myself, but I’d like to point out some good posts.
First of all, there’s the exec­u­tive order itself estab­lish­ing the com­mis­sion. Its mis­sion, in an excerpt from the order:

Sec. 2. Mis­sion. (a) The Com­mis­sion is estab­lished for the pur­pose of advis­ing the Pres­i­dent in the dis­charge of his con­sti­tu­tional author­ity under Arti­cle II of the Con­sti­tu­tion to con­duct for­eign rela­tions, pro­tect national secu­rity, and com­mand the Armed Forces of the United States, in order to ensure the most effec­tive counter-proliferation capa­bil­i­ties of the United States and response to the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, ter­ror­ist attacks and the ongo­ing threat of ter­ror­ist activ­ity. The Com­mis­sion shall assess whether the Intel­li­gence Com­mu­nity is suf­fi­ciently autho­rized, orga­nized, equipped, trained, and resourced to iden­tify and warn in a timely man­ner of, and to sup­port United States Gov­ern­ment efforts to respond to, the devel­op­ment and trans­fer of knowl­edge, exper­tise, tech­nolo­gies, mate­ri­als, and resources asso­ci­ated with the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion, related means of deliv­ery, and other related threats of the 21st Cen­tury and their employ­ment by for­eign pow­ers (includ­ing ter­ror­ists, ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, and pri­vate net­works, or other enti­ties or indi­vid­u­als). In doing so, the Com­mis­sion shall exam­ine the capa­bil­i­ties and chal­lenges of the Intel­li­gence Com­mu­nity to col­lect, process, ana­lyze, pro­duce, and dis­sem­i­nate infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the capa­bil­i­ties, inten­tions, and activ­i­ties of such for­eign pow­ers relat­ing to the design, devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, acqui­si­tion, pos­ses­sion, pro­lif­er­a­tion, trans­fer, test­ing, poten­tial or threat­ened use, or use of Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion, related means of deliv­ery, and other related threats of the 21st Cen­tury.
(b) With respect to that por­tion of its exam­i­na­tion under para­graph 2(a) of this order that relates to Iraq, the Com­mis­sion shall specif­i­cally exam­ine the Intel­li­gence Community’s intel­li­gence prior to the ini­ti­a­tion of Oper­a­tion Iraqi Free­dom and com­pare it with the find­ings of the Iraq Sur­vey Group and other rel­e­vant agen­cies or orga­ni­za­tions con­cern­ing the capa­bil­i­ties, inten­tions, and activ­i­ties of Iraq relat­ing to the design, devel­op­ment, man­u­fac­ture, acqui­si­tion, pos­ses­sion, pro­lif­er­a­tion, trans­fer, test­ing, poten­tial or threat­ened use, or use of Weapons of Mass Destruc­tion and related means of delivery.

Well! Looks like the ques­tions *I* want to see answered won’t be. The pri­mary ques­tion is not “What went wrong with our intel­li­gence analy­sis?” but instead should be, “Was this intel­li­gence mis­used?“
As Bill­mon says, the fix is in. Josh Mar­shall says so, too. Hes­iod over at Coun­ter­spin Cen­tral points out that Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, a mem­ber of the com­mis­sion, seems to have already made up his mind. And Atrios points out the Democ­rac­tic response to the appoint­ment of for­mer fed­eral appel­late judge Lau­rence Sil­ber­man, as co-chairman of the com­mis­sion.
Lots of good reading.

Sistani survives assassination attempt … maybe

Posted on by
1

Reports from ear­lier today said Grand Aya­tol­lah Ali al-Sistani, the supreme spir­i­tual leader of Iraq’s Shi’ites, nar­rowly escaped an assas­si­na­tion attempt. Ini­tial reports were that gun­men opened fire on his entourage as he was trav­el­ing from his office to his home in Najaf. But this may be a lot less bad than early reports sound. I was for­warded an e-mail from Sistani’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives that read in both Eng­lish and Arabic:

In the name of the Mer­ci­ful

News Update
Regard­ing the assas­si­na­tion plan of his Grand Emi­nence, Sayyid Seestani

We have received many calls regard­ing the wel­fare of his Grand Emi­nence Ayat­ul­lah Sayyid Ali Seestani, (may he live long). Many dif­fer­ent sto­ries have been broad­cast about the inci­dent that occurred in the past few hours.
An unusu­ally armed per­son, approach­ing his Eminence’s home, was stopped by a few con­cerned indi­vid­u­als. The sus­pect is now being held by offi­cials and is being inter­ro­gated as to the cer­tainty of the assas­si­na­tion plan.
We would like to thank all believ­ers for their devot­ed­ness and their close atten­tion, and more impor­tantly we have assur­ance from his Grand Emi­nence home in Najaf that he is well and not injured.

Los Ange­les Office

Whether this was a seri­ous assas­si­na­tion plot or just a lone gun­man “unusu­ally armed” who screwed up is fright­en­ing. (Aside: What does “unusu­ally armed” mean? Sui­cide belt? I don’t know, but I’d like to.) Fol­low­ing on the heels of the bomb­ing in Arbil on Sun­day, which killed some of the Kur­dish lead­er­ship, any attacks on Sis­tani have to be treated seri­ously. With one suc­cess­ful attack and pos­si­bly one unsuc­cess­ful attack on the lead­er­ship of the two groups opposed to Saddam’s regime, the insur­gency is hop­ing to stir up nuclear meltdown-scale trou­ble in the months before the sov­er­eignty trans­fer on June 30.
sistani.jpg
Grand Aya­tol­lah Ali al-SistaniThe pos­si­ble groups who would want Sis­tani dead include Ba’athists and Sun­nis, for­eign fight­ers or a rival Shi’ite fac­tion. Sis­tani is, frankly, tar­get num­ber one if dis­rupt­ing the trans­fer of power to Iraqis is the goal.
Why? Because he’s a uni­fy­ing force for Iraqi Shi’ites, who make up 60 per­cent of the country’s 25 mil­lion cit­i­zens. Fol­low­ing his lead, most of the var­i­ous Shi’ite groups in Iraq speak with one voice, mak­ing Iraq’s Sunni com­mu­nity very ner­vous about their role in the new Iraq. Espe­cially if the United States and Sis­tani can make a deal regard­ing elec­tions and the trans­fer of power.
For­eign fight­ers and jihadists would also like to remove Sis­tani. As I men­tioned ear­lier, Al Qaeda and groups affil­i­ated with it, such as Ansar al-Islam, are hop­ing to bog down the United States in Iraq. If Sis­tani were killed, that would throw any deals the U.S. might be close to mak­ing with the Shi’ite lead­er­ship, lead­ing to con­fu­sion, delay and pos­si­bly esca­lat­ing vio­lence as Shi’ites begin revenge killings against Sun­nis, fol­lowed by inevitable Sunni retal­i­a­tion.
The third pos­si­bil­ity, that a rival in the Shi’ite com­mu­nity might have been behind the attempt — assum­ing there was an attempt — should also be con­sid­ered. With Sis­tani dead, there would be a power vac­uum that lead­ers like Moq­tada al-Sadr, the young fire­brand preacher who has set up shop in Sadr City in Bagh­dad and who has called for resis­tance to the occu­pa­tion, would like to fill. A sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion arose after the assas­si­na­tion of Aya­tol­lah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, the for­mer head of the Supreme Coun­cil for Islamic Rev­o­lu­tion in Iraq (SCIRI).
There are a num­ber of pos­si­ble suc­ces­sors, includ­ing Grand Aya­tol­lah Moham­mad Said al-Hakim, the new head of SCIRI. But no one has the author­ity or com­mands the respect of Shi’ites like Sis­tani does, so it’s more likely that the Shi’ite com­mu­nity would col­lapse into var­i­ous fac­tions, each vying for lead­er­ship. The United States would lose a part­ner in the tran­si­tion. Sun­nis and jihadists would be embold­ened.
At any rate, my sus­pi­cion — and it’s just a hunch — is that this was the work of Ba’athists. But they screwed up. To cover for the screw up, Ba’athist agents began whis­per­ing that the attempt was a lot more suc­cess­ful than it really was, in the hopes of stir­ring Shi’ite anger. (Appar­ently, reporters just heard about all this after the fact, so they might be get­ting spun by one side or both. An Asso­ci­ated Press reporter said that there was no unusual secu­rity activ­ity or height­ened alert in Najaf dur­ing a mid­day visit.)
While full-on sec­tar­ian vio­lence is highly unlikely to result from an unsuc­cess­ful plot, a few revenge killings and other tit-for-tat exchanges between Shi’ites and Sun­nis could esca­late as the weather gets hot­ter and the elec­tric­ity for air con­di­tion­ing remains unre­li­able. Iraq is on a knife’s edge. Any push — or an accu­mu­la­tion of small nudges — could knock it into chaos.

Sistani, the UN and America

Posted on by
Reply

The vio­lence in Iraq con­tin­ues, and while the fre­quency of attacks may decrease, yesterday’s spree of bomb­ings, which killed 6 troops and an unknown num­ber of Iraqis, prove that the gueril­las’ effec­tive­ness may be increas­ing. It is this envi­ron­ment that the United Nations will enter to medi­ate between the United States, the Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil and Iraq’s Shi’ites, led by Aya­tol­lah Ali al-Sistani. This was cer­tainly not in the United States’ plans when it decided to invade Iraq last year.
_39742727_203b_protest_ap.jpg
Mass turnouts in Basra and Bagh­dad send a clear mes­sage to the CPAHow­ever, as Strat­for notes, it must be sweet indeed for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who opposed the inva­sion and felt the United States has ignored the U.N., the Secu­rity Coun­cil and him­self per­son­ally. But there is another man for whom the entry of the United Nations as an trusted bro­ker is a wel­come sight: Sis­tani.
He has proven him­self a canny politi­cian in demon­strat­ing his power. On Jan. 15, on the word of the Aya­tol­lah, tens of thou­sands of Shi’ites marched in Basra to sup­port open elec­tions to the national assem­bly. Last week, 100,000 Iraqis marched in Bagh­dad. And then, on Fri­day, Sis­tani turned off the spigot, telling his sup­port­ers not to march and giv­ing the United Nations time to think. His point had been made: If George Bush doesn’t want the entirety of south­ern Iraq to burst into an intifada, he would do well to heed the Shi’ites’ desires.
Enter United Nations, stage left. And its entry is sig­nif­i­cant because it means the United States has been reduced from an all-powerful occu­py­ing power to a party in a dis­pute — and one that has already sig­naled its inten­tions to relin­quish power. The only ques­tions now are when and how.
Accord­ing to Strat­for, the United Nations’ entry addresses three issues:

  1. Sym­bol­ism is impor­tant, and it’s got to stick in the craw of the White House to be com­ing to the UN to patch things up almost a year after it snubbed them. Have no doubt, this is a loss for Wash­ing­ton, and it under­mines the Bush Doc­trine of pre­emp­tive war.
  2. Polit­i­cal cover. Sis­tani will get what he wanted all along, which is a Shi’ite dom­i­nated Iraq. But now he will get it not by nego­ti­at­ing with the United States, but with the United Nations. His hand — and Shi’ites in Iraq in gen­eral — will be strength­ened by this.
  3. Finally, we come to the issue of the U.S. troops. One of the pri­mary rea­sons the United States invaded was to have a strate­gic base to project force through­out the region and pres­sure Iran, Saudi Ara­bia and Syria. The future of the troops in Iraq is now in question.

Strat­for says that if the guerilla war were going bet­ter and the U.S. had not been forced to turn to the Shi’ites, the ques­tion of the troops would be moot. But until now the troops have been the big ele­phant in the room that no one wanted to talk about. Sis­tani has not explic­itly called for the removal of the troops, and he prob­a­bly won’t as long as the insur­gents are around. But Sis­tani will ask the United Nations to nego­ti­ate a mech­a­nism for allow­ing a sov­er­eign Iraqi state to deter­mine rules for how the troops oper­ate, where they’re based and when they leave. Look for Annan to be recep­tive to what­ever ideas Sis­tani throws on the table.
This will throw a seri­ous wrench into the plans that Wash­ing­ton had for Iraq. Pres­i­dent George W. Bush and his advi­sors need a free hand mil­i­tar­ily in Iraq if they’re going to move for­ward with their strate­gic ratio­nale for the inva­sion. The nego­ti­a­tions between all the par­ties will likely result in a com­pro­mise, but they will be a long, hard slog. Sis­tani has yet to lose much in his deal­ings with the Americans.

More on Progress in Iraq?

Posted on by
4

Hm. Inter­est­ing… Sorry to obsess over a silly list, but I just know the one “I decon­structed yesterday”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000656.php is going to get floated around at some point. It’s impor­tant to know what’s true and what’s not.
It turns out that the list dis­cussed yes­ter­day is a greatly, ahem, “enhanced” ros­ter of accom­plish­ments that was based on CPA Admin­is­tra­tor Paul Bremer’s “Oct. 9, 2003 press conference”:http://www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts/20031009_Oct-09Bremerpresscon.htm in Bagh­dad.
There are a num­ber of changes, and they prove that the list from “Karl Nielsen” is a hoax. What’s kind of funny about this is that look­ing over these items, it’s pretty obvi­ous the forger was spoof­ing Bremer’s list — and the FreeRe­pub­lic and News­Max thought it bucked them up. In hind­sight, it would have been more effi­cient to just dis­miss the Nielsen list as bogus right off the bat, but it was more fun to call, say, McDonald’s and Bloomingdale’s and get a com­ment from them. Well, at least I fact-checked the list, which is more than what some reporters in Wash­ing­ton seem to do these days.
Here are the two lists for com­par­i­son:

Bremer’s List “Karl Nielsen’s” list
The first bat­tal­ion of the new Iraqi Army has grad­u­ated and is on active duty. The first bat­tal­ion of the new Iraqi Army has grad­u­ated and is on active duty
over 60,000 Iraqis now pro­vide secu­rity to their fel­low citizens. ~60,000 Iraqis pro­vid­ing secu­rity to cit­i­zens. They will receive weapons by June 2004.
nearly all of Iraqís 400 courts are functioning. Nearly all of Iraq’s 400 courts are func­tion­ing and 24 judges have passed the Amer­i­can bar.
the Iraqi judi­ciary is fully independent. The Coali­tion approved Iraqi judi­ciary is fully independent.
on Mon­day, Octo­ber 6 power gen­er­a­tion hit 4,518 megawatts — exceed­ing the pre-war average. Power gen­er­a­tion hit 4,518 megawatts for one day in Octo­ber exceed­ing pre­war output.
all 22 uni­ver­si­ties and 43 tech­ni­cal insti­tutes and col­leges are open, as are nearly all pri­mary and sec­ondary schools. All 22 Uni­ver­si­ties & 43 tech­ni­cal institutes/colleges are open and most of them have teach­ers. Nearly all pri­mary and sec­ondary schools are open for at least ninety min­utes a day.
Coali­tion forces had rehabbed over 1,500 schools — 500 more than their target. Coali­tion has “rehabbed” 1,500+ schools (500 ahead of sched­ule) and many of them have roofs and electricity.
teach­ers earn from 12 to 25 times their for­mer salaries. Teach­ers earn from 12 – 25 times their for­mer salaries.
all 240 hos­pi­tals and more than 1200 clin­ics are open. All 240 hos­pi­tals and more than 1200 clin­ics are open and 10% have run­ning water.
  Hoosiers has opened its first restau­rant in Bag­dad (sic).
doc­tors’ salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam. Doc­tors salaries are at least 8 times what they were under Saddam.
phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion has gone from essen­tially noth­ing to 700 tons in May to a cur­rent total of 12,000 tons. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion has gone from almost zero to 12,000 tons and Prozac has been made avail­able for free.
the Coali­tion has helped admin­is­ter over 22 mil­lion vac­ci­na­tion doses to Iraqís children.  
  Five Wall­marts (sic) are set to go up in the main cities of Iraq.
a Coali­tion pro­gram has cleared over 14,000 kilo­me­ters of Iraq’s 27,000 kilo­me­ters of weed-choked canals. They now irri­gate tens of thou­sands of farms. This project has cre­ated jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women. Coali­tion has cleared 14,000+km of Iraq’s 27,000km of weed-choked canals which now irri­gate tens of thou­sands of farms. This project has cre­ated 100,000+ jobs for Iraqi men & women.
  Three golf courses have been built.[I still kind of believe this one. — Ed.]
we have restored over three-quarters of pre-war tele­phone ser­vices and over two-thirds of the potable water production. Coali­tion has restored over 3/4 of pre­war tele­phone ser­vices and 2/3+ of potable water production.
there are 4,900 full-service con­nec­tions. We expect 50,000 by Jan­u­ary first. [In Bremer’s speech, he’s actu­ally refer­ring to Inter­net con­nec­tions here and not phone connections. — Ed.] 4,900+ full-service tele­phone con­nec­tions (~50,000 by year-end).
the wheels of com­merce are turn­ing. From bicy­cles to satel­lite dishes to cars and trucks, busi­nesses are com­ing to life in all major cities and towns. Com­merce is expand­ing rapidly (bicy­cles, satel­lite dishes, cars, RV vehi­cles, etc) in all major cities and towns.
95 per­cent of all pre-war bank cus­tomers have ser­vice and first-time cus­tomers are open­ing accounts daily. 95% of all pre­war bank cus­tomers have ser­vice and first-time cus­tomers are open­ing accounts daily and receiv­ing a free toaster.
Iraqi banks are mak­ing loans to finance businesses. Iraqi banks are mak­ing loans to finance businesses.
the cen­tral bank is fully independent.  
Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented invest­ment and bank­ing laws. Iraq has one of the world’s most growth-oriented invest­ment and bank­ing laws. The Bag­dad Stock Exchange opened stim­u­lat­ing a blos­som­ing busi­ness in speculation.
Iraq (has) a sin­gle, uni­fied cur­rency for the first time in 15 years. Iraq has a sin­gle, uni­fied cur­rency for the first time in 15 years. Despite many demands from mon­e­tory author­i­ties Vice-President Dick Cheney turned down requests to allow his pic­ture to be used on the currency.
satel­lite dishes are legal. Satel­lite TV dishes are legal.
for­eign jour­nal­ists aren’t on 10-day visas pay­ing manda­tory and extor­tion­ate fees to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion for “min­ders” and other gov­ern­ment spies. For­eign jour­nal­ists are not on “10-day visas” pay­ing manda­tory fees to the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion for min­ders. There is no such Ministry.
there is no Min­istry of Information.  
there are more than 170 newspapers. There are 170+ news­pa­pers. The first issue of _Playboy_ was published.
  Plans have been approved to open 45 McDon­alds restaurants.
you can buy satel­lite dishes on what seems like every street corner.  
for­eign jour­nal­ists and every­one else are free to come and go.  
a nation that had not one sin­gle ele­ment — leg­isla­tive, judi­cial or exec­u­tive — of a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment, does.  
in Bagh­dad alone res­i­dents have selected 88 advi­sory coun­cils. Baghdad’s first demo­c­ra­tic trans­fer of power in 35 years hap­pened when the city coun­cil elected its new chairman.  
today in Iraq cham­bers of com­merce, busi­ness, school and pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions are elect­ing their lead­ers all over the country. Iraqi Cham­bers of com­merce, busi­nesses, schools and pro­fes­sional orga­ni­za­tions are elect­ing their lead­ers all over the country.
  Over 170,000 credit cards have been issued to qual­i­fied individuals.
25 min­is­ters, selected by the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ing body in Iraqís his­tory, run the day-to-day busi­ness of government.  
the Iraqi gov­ern­ment reg­u­larly par­tic­i­pates in inter­na­tional events. Since July the Iraqi gov­ern­ment has been rep­re­sented in over two dozen inter­na­tional meet­ings, includ­ing those of the UN Gen­eral Assem­bly, the Arab League, the World Bank and IMF and, today, the Islamic Con­fer­ence Sum­mit. The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs today announced that it is reopen­ing over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.  
Shia reli­gious fes­ti­vals that were all but banned, aren’t.  
for the first time in 35 years, in Kar­bala thou­sands of Shi­ites cel­e­brate the pil­grim­age of the 12th Imam.[My Shi’ite friends still say this is wrong. It’s the 3rd Imam. — Ed.] For the first time in 35 years, in Kar­bala, thou­sands of Shi­ites cel­e­brate the pil­grim­age of the 12th Imam.
  Bloom­ing­dales has been signed as the anchor store in the new Metro Bag­dad Mall.
the Coali­tion has com­pleted over 13,000 recon­struc­tion projects, large and small, as part of (a) strate­gic plan for the recon­struc­tion of Iraq. The Coali­tion has com­pleted 13,000+ recon­struc­tion projects, large and small, as part of a strate­gic plan for the recon­struc­tion of Iraq.
  Amer­i­can busi­nesses are mak­ing tremen­dous prof­its from the recon­struc­tion to off­set the expense and loss the United States suf­fered in the war.
Uday and Queasy are dead — and no longer feed­ing inno­cent Iraqis to his zoo lions, rap­ing the young daugh­ters of local lead­ers to force coop­er­a­tion, tor­tur­ing Iraq’s soc­cer play­ers for los­ing games, mur­der­ing critics. Uday and Queasy are dead, and no longer feed­ing Iraqis to the zoo lions, rap­ing the young daugh­ters of local lead­ers to force coop­er­a­tion, tor­tur­ing Iraq’s soc­cer play­ers for los­ing games, or mur­der­ing critics.
chil­dren aren’t impris­oned or mur­dered when their par­ents dis­agree with the government. Chil­dren aren’t impris­oned or mur­dered when their par­ents dis­agree with the government.
  Sesame Street and Bar­ney, pre­vi­ously for­bid­den in Iraq, is now aired daily.
polit­i­cal oppo­nents aren’t impris­oned, tor­tured, exe­cuted, maimed, or are forced to watch their fam­i­lies die for dis­agree­ing with Saddam. Polit­i­cal oppo­nents aren’t impris­oned, tor­tured, exe­cuted, maimed, or forced to watch their fam­i­lies die for dis­agree­ing with Saddam.
mil­lions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in per­pet­ual terror. Mil­lions of long-suffering Iraqis no longer live in per­pet­ual terror.
Saudi swill hold munic­i­pal elections.* As a side effect, in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, (1) Saudis will hold munic­i­pal elections,
Qatar is reform­ing edu­ca­tion to give more choices to parents.* (2) Qatar will allow cit­i­zens to use credit cards which were for­merly for­bid­den under Islamic law,
Jor­dan is accel­er­at­ing mar­ket eco­nomic reforms.* (3) Jor­dan has begun broad­cast­ing Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming; Friends, Sien­field, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,
the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the first time to an Iran­ian — a Mus­lim woman who speaks out with courage for human rights, for democ­racy and for peace.* (4) through Coali­tion influ­ence the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded (first time) to an Iran­ian (Mus­lim woman) who speaks out for human rights/democracy and peace.
[Pres­i­dent Bush] has not fal­tered or failed.  
Sad­dam is gone. Sad­dam is gone.
Iraq is free. Iraq is free.
  Lit­tle or none of this infor­ma­tion has been pub­lished by the Press Corps that prides itself on bring­ing you all the news that’s impor­tant. Iraq, under US lead con­trol, has come fur­ther in six months than Ger­many did in seven years or Japan did in nine years fol­low­ing WWII. Mil­i­tary deaths from fanatic Nazi’s and Japan­ese num­bered in the thou­sands and con­tin­ued for over three years after WWII vic­tory was declared. It took the US over four months to clear away the twin tower debris, let alone attempt to build some­thing else in its place.
Now, take into account that many peo­ple in our gov­ern­ment and media con­tinue to claim on a daily basis on national TV that this con­flict has been a fail­ure. Tak­ing every­thing into con­sid­er­a­tion, even the unfor­tu­nate loss of our sons and daugh­ters in this con­flict, do you think any other coun­try in the world could have accom­plished as much as the United States and its coali­tion part­ners have in so short a period of time?