I disagree with you regarding Iranian interests in Iraq. Iran supports its own Shia leaders within the Shia dominated government. And remember, too much instability could cross over across the border into Iran, something Iran doesn’t want to see happen under any circumstances.

You misunderstand me Rich, regarding comparisons to past military conflicts. My criticism is that you based relations between past conflicts on general analogy rather than relevant, substantive factors.

There is substantial information in the press and on the internet regarding Iranian Kh-56 cruise missiles. Simply perform a search on Yahoo or Google, “iran kh56 cruise missile”. Also, a number of US government reports list this missile, some even with a nuclear payload. Do a search and you’ll see. I’ve pointed this out to many folks on related blogs.

Considering your offer on information regarding the Iranian Army of the 16th century, I agree with you- I’m more interested in past Iranian armies, as well. How about information regarding the 18th Century destroyer of the Moghul Empire? Nadir Shah. Alas, this is not relevant to the current blog post.

Hope to chat with you soon on another blog post.

Mark

I apologize for the length of this post. In a secret memorandum, obtained by the Weekly Standard, dated October 27, 2003, Undersecretary for Policy, Douglas J Feith, wrote to Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Feith laid out 50 points which supported claims by the administration of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The information was obtained by the FBI, DIA, CIA and NSA. Much of the material was collected while President Clinton was in office. The article from which I lifted these points included many but not all 50 points. I further selected out some that needed additional information for clarity. I have already presented the location of the article itself in a previous posting on this website. If there are any questions about this material please refer to the original article.

* 4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting–the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.
* 5. A CIA report from a contact with good access, some of whose reporting has been corroborated, said that certain elements in the “Islamic Army” of bin Laden were against the secular regime of Saddam. Overriding the internal factional strife that was developing, bin Laden came to an “understanding” with Saddam that the Islamic Army would no longer support anti-Saddam activities. According to sensitive reporting released in U.S. court documents during the African Embassy trial, in 1993 bin Laden reached an “understanding” with Saddam under which he (bin Laden) forbade al Qaeda operations to be mounted against the Iraqi leader.
* 8. Reporting from a well placed source disclosed that bin Laden was receiving training on bomb making from the IIS’s [Iraqi Intelligence Service] principal technical expert on making sophisticated explosives, Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed. Brigadier Salim was observed at bin Laden’s farm in Khartoum in Sept.-Oct. 1995 and again in July 1996, in the company of the Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti.
* 11. According to sensitive reporting, Saddam personally sent Faruq Hijazi, IIS deputy director and later Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, to meet with bin Laden at least twice, first in Sudan and later in Afghanistan in 1999. . . .
* 14. According to a sensitive reporting [from] a “regular and reliable source,” [Ayman al] Zawahiri, a senior al Qaeda operative, visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi Vice President on 3 February 1998. The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan under the leadership of Abdul Aziz.
* 15. A foreign government service reported that an Iraqi delegation, including at least two Iraqi intelligence officers formerly assigned to the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan, met in late 1998 with bin Laden in Afghanistan.
* 16. According to CIA reporting, bin Laden and Zawahiri met with two Iraqi intelligence officers in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998.
* 17. Iraq sent an intelligence officer to Afghanistan to seek closer ties to bin Laden and the Taliban in late 1998. The source reported that the Iraqi regime was trying to broaden its cooperation with al Qaeda. Iraq was looking to recruit Muslim “elements” to sabotage U.S. and U.K. interests. After a senior Iraqi intelligence officer met with Taliban leader [Mullah] Omar, arrangements were made for a series of meetings between the Iraqi intelligence officer and bin Laden in Pakistan. The source noted Faruq Hijazi was in Afghanistan in late 1998.
* 18. Faruq Hijazi went to Afghanistan in 1999 along with several other Iraqi officials to meet with bin Laden. The source claimed that Hijazi would have met bin Laden only at Saddam’s explicit direction.
* 23. Iraqi officials were carefully considering offering safe haven to bin Laden and his closest collaborators in Nov. 1999. The source indicated the idea was put forward by the presumed head of Iraqi intelligence in Islamabad (Khalid Janaby) who in turn was in frequent contact and had good relations with bin Laden.
* 26. During a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was “encouraged” after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training.
* 27. According to sensitive CIA reporting, . . . the Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia.
* 31. An Oct. 2002 . . . report said al Qaeda and Iraq reached a secret agreement whereby Iraq would provide safe haven to al Qaeda members and provide them with money and weapons. The agreement reportedly prompted a large number of al Qaeda members to head to Iraq. The report also said that al Qaeda members involved in a fraudulent passport network for al Qaeda had been directed to procure 90 Iraqi and Syrian passports for al Qaeda personnel.
* 37. Sensitive reporting indicates senior terrorist planner and close al Qaeda associate al Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials. As of Oct. 2002, al Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS to procure weapons and explosives, including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghdad. According to sensitive reporting, al Zarqawi was setting up sleeper cells in Baghdad to be activated in case of a U.S. occupation of the city, suggesting his operational cooperation with the Iraqis may have deepened in recent months. Such cooperation could include IIS provision of a secure operating bases [sic] and steady access to arms and explosives in preparation for a possible U.S. invasion. Al Zarqawi’s procurements from the Iraqis also could support al Qaeda operations against the U.S. or its allies elsewhere.
* 38. According to sensitive reporting, a contact with good access who does not have an established reporting record: An Iraqi intelligence service officer said that as of mid-March the IIS was providing weapons to al Qaeda members located in northern Iraq, including rocket propelled grenade (RPG)-18 launchers. According to IIS information, northern Iraq-based al Qaeda members believed that the U.S. intended to strike al Qaeda targets during an anticipated assault against Ansar al-Islam positions.

Rich

I think you’re understanding of “Iran’s interests” is a bit naïve. A free democratic Shia government is not in the interest of Ahmadiabooboo and the mullahs who run Iran. In fact, it would be a threat to their position in Iran. As I said before, Iran is trying to supply weapons to Shia insurgents such as the Mahdi Army under mullah al-Sadr, and Sunni organizations such as Al Queda and the 1920 Revolution Brigades. Iran wants total chaos in Iraq so we will pull out and so no democracy can be established there. I’m sorry if this doesn’t fit with your views of Iran but it is what is going on on the ground.

I find it puzzling that you would try to minimize what can be learned from past military conflicts. Also, your “relatively high” casualties are meaningless unless you place them in relation to some other casualty rates. Otherwise your term is meaningless. If we compare the casualty rates with that other great insurgent war, Vietnam, your “relatively high” casualty rates become “relatively low” casualty rates. So unless your use of the term “relatively high” is simply a rhetorical devise there needs to be something that they are compared to.

Finally, I never indicated whether I agree or disagree with any proposed strike by the US on Iran’s nuclear facilities. I was simply pointing out that the rationale used by the US for invading Iraq can also be used for a strike on Iran. Also, I see no reason to believe that the cruise missiles are armed with nuclear warheads. Information of that magnitude would have leaked out.

Thank you for your gracious offer with regards to information on the Iranian army. However, I would not want you to go to that effort for information for which I have only tangential interest. Now if you had information on the Persian army of the 16th century, that is information I could use. )

Rich

Iran’s intentions in Iraq are obvious. Had there been no successful Iraqi insurgency, it is a sure thing that Iran would be the next target for a US invasion. A Shia dominated democracy in Iraq is definitely beneficial to the interests of Iran. So when Sunni and al-Qaida elements undermine the Shia democracy, it runs counter-productive to the intterests of Iran. Many analysts and pundits make the mistake in believing that the government of Iran will purposely carry out policies detrimental to the state. This is unrealistic.

Your analogies to past battles fought by the United States is noteworthy. However, the reality of the US military effort in Iraq vastly differs from the legends that have been built around the battles you mention.

The relatively high casualty rate refers to the figure of 50,000 plus killed, wounded and evacuated, out of a total peak of 160,000, which has been continuously rotated.

I’ve some additional military statistics to offer. Regarding US cost of the War in Iraq:

Predicted cost of a “surge” of 21,500 US troops into Iraq, according to White House calculations in January: $5.6 billion, a figure offered the month Bush’s surge strategy was announced.

Predicted cost of a one-year “surge” of 30,000-40,000 troops, according to Robert Sunshine, assistant director for budget analysis of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO): $22 billion (two years for a cut-rate $40 billion). These figures were offered in testimony to Congress five months after Bush’s “surge” was officially launched.

Percentage of dollars annually appropriated by the US government and spent on Iraq-related activities: More than 10%, or one dollar out of every 10, according to the CBO’s Sunshine.

Estimated monthly cost of the Iraq (and Afghan) wars: $12 billion – $10 billion for Iraq – a third higher than in 2006, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

Estimated total cost of the Iraq war, if Robert Sunshine’s “optimistic scenario” – 30,000 US troops left in Iraq by 2010 – plays out: More than $1 trillion. (If his less optimistic scenario proves accurate – 75,000 troops in 2010 – closer to $1.5 trillion.)

Estimated cost of deploying an American soldier to Iraq for one year: $390,000, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Here are some military statistics to offer:

Number of attacks from June 2006 through May 2007 on US supply convoys guarded by private security contractors: 869, a near tripling from the previous 12 months.

Estimated number of bullets fired by US troops for every insurgent killed in Iraq (or Afghanistan): 250,000, according to John Pike, director of the Washington military-research group GlobalSecurity.org. This comes out to 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition yearly. With US munitions factories unable to meet the demand, 313 million rounds of such munitions were purchased from Israel last year for $10 million more than if produced domestically.

Percentage of amputations performed on US war-wounded in Iraq: An estimated 6%. The average in earlier US conflicts, where the equivalents of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and car bombings did not play such a role, was 3%.

Total number of attacks against US and coalition forces, Iraq security forces, Iraqi civilians, and infrastructure targets in June: 5,335. This works out to a daily average of 177.8, an all-time high since May 2003, according to the Pentagon, and 46% more than in June 2006; more than 68% of these attacks – 3,671 to be exact – were launched against US troops, up 7% from May 2007.

Number of attacks in July using the most powerful type of roadside bomb: 99, an all-time high, according to Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, US second-in-command in Iraq, accounting for one-third of US casualties last month.

Number of US military deaths in the “surge” months, February-July: 572, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualties website. This represents 189 more American deaths than in the same set of months in 2004, 215 more than in 2005, 237 more than in 2006.

Increase in bombs dropped in Iraq in the first six months of 2007 compared with the first six months of 2006: Fivefold.

Number of times the airport base outside Basra, which houses a well-barricaded regional US Embassy office and the last 5,500 of the 40,000 troops the UK dispatched to Iraq, has been attacked by mortars or rockets over the past four months: 600.

Estimated tonnage of US equipment that might be driven out of Iraq and shipped home from Kuwait in case of a decision to withdraw: One million tons.

Rich I took these statistics from Tom Engelhardt’s article in Asia Times. This is just a fraction of statistics available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH15Ak03.html.

As for your contention that it may be a good idea to bomb Iran, it is a known fact that Iran already possesses at least 12 Kh-56 Soviet era cruise missiles, and I suspect they are nuclear armed. Let me know if you’re interested in my analysis of the Iranian military and I’ll provide it to you.

I have to smile when academics begin talking about what they believe to be the incompatibilities of Sunni fundamentalists and Shias. They need to come out of clouds and see what is going on. The Shia state of Iran is funneling millions of dollars worth of weapons and money to the Sunni organization Al Qaeda. After all, I believe it’s an Arab saying: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” We are the enemy of both.

Come on Mark, Shia Iran is not poring money and weapons to Al Qaeda so a Shias state won’t be built in Iraq. This is just common sense.

As for things not going to plan, hwo many battles in the American revolution did we lose before we began to win? How many generals did Lincoln go through before he found Grant? As for blunders, how about WWII and the massing of our ships in Pearle Harbor. How about losing the Philippines. Have you heard of Kasserine Pass? And then there is that strategic gem: invading Germany through the soft underbelly of Itally. We never did break the Gothic line. How many unnecessary lives did that cost. Talking about unnecessary lives, how about Eisenhower’s tactic of putting pressure on the Germans everywhere to see where the Germans would break rather than choosing where to strike and then envelopment. How many GIs died needlessly? Oh, let’s not forget, in Korea, that brilliant stroke of McArthur’s to pierce the 48th parallel. The there is the siege of Khe Sanh. The North Vietnamese suckered Westmorland into pulling troops from the coast to rush support for Khe Sanh. Their real goal was the coastal cities which were left almost undefended. So you’re finding blunders in Iraq? What a surprise.

The biggest blunder has nothing to do with Iraq. The biggest blunders is tying down hundreds of thousands of troop in obsolete bases. We have a hundred thousand troops in Europe. Forty thousand are in Korea. Why? Leave some in some of the eastern European countries as a quick reaction force (the eastern European countries would love the money that brings), and bring the rest home.

You mention the the “relatively high” casualty rates. Relative to what? Looking at military deaths, in Vietnam in 1968 we sustained a 25% casualty rate among combat soldiers. If you look at the casualties for the total war in Iraq, we have sustained 5% casualty rate. (We have 160,000 soldiers in Iraq however I counted of those 160,000 only 80,000 were combat troops.)

With regards to the $400 billion the vast majority of that money was spent in reconstruction. This had nothing to do with fighting Al Qaeda.

Finally I understand that Dr. Grimsley feels the Iraqis war is a mistake. I disagree with him. We could not go on not knowing the status of WMDs in Iraq. The UN was far too corrupt to deal with the issue. Had Hussein been more forthcoming there would have been no war. With the fall of Hussein it was imperative that a pro-western government be created to protect the oil supplies from getting into the Al Qaeda terrorists. Getting the answer to WMDs and insuring the safety of the part of the world’s supply of oil are in our national interest. And national interest is the only reason for going to war.

Concerning Dr Grimsley’s skepticism about using oil as a weapon, this is a natural western liberal (little L) materialistic view. However, as you Mark pointed out these are not materialists. As far as they are concerned they are doing God’s will and if this causes hardships it’s irrelevant. Besides, embargo is not necessarily the way to go. They simply raise the price to where our economies can no longer sustain these prices.

Here is a thought. President Bush can use the same interpretation of Article 51 to make a surgical strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran. I’m sure the US have copies of the Russian plans which were used to build these facilities and probably have worked out ways to break through and destroy these facilites. As with Iraq, the UN is on record condemning Iran for their nuclear development.

Rich

But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Massad Al-Zakawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

Zakawi, Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons.

When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zakawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp.

The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch — imagine a pinch of salt — less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock, followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote. There is no cure. It is fatal.

Those helping to run this camp are Zakawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein’s controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region.

After we swept al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They remain there today.

Zakawi’s activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During his stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they have now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.

Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible. Last year, an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq was “good,” that Baghdad could be transited quickly.

We know these affiliates are connected to Zakawi because they remain, even today, in regular contact with his direct subordinates, include the poison cell plotters. And they are involved in moving more than money and materiel. Last year, two suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell and one of them received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide.

It goes on like that for several more paragraphs.

Re the international law aspect of the Iraq, see this article by Prof. Mary Ellen O’Connell, an expert on the subject, explaining why the U.S. case did not pass muster.  She stopped well short of calling it a war crime, which was the conclusion of forty-three Australian legal experts.  Even neoconservative Richard Perle stated the US invasion was indefensible under international law, but in his view, so much the worse for international law:

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.”

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq – also the British government’s publicly stated view – or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that “international law … would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone”, and this would have been morally unacceptable.

I’ll kick this dead horse one more time. You re-stated 5 reasons that were given by the Bush administration for going to war. The importance given for each you do not say (you got one wrong, however; Bush did not specify links to Al Queda–he specified links to terrorists). Critics, I believe, choose to increase the import of whichever reason is the most discredited (but only after so). Hence, my hindsight argument.

As far as upholding international law, I find it curious that informed observers in and out of the United States would define “last resort” as Saddam would have defined it rather than as the freely elected leaders of several prosperous and populous democracies defined it.

And, finally, Iraq lost it’s sovereignty after Gulf war I because, at the least, it lost significant access to an entire province, lost it’s ability to produce and sell its oil (a significant amount of its GDP) as it wishes, and was unable to legally upgrade its own defense.

It should be realized that prior to the US invasion of Iraq, both Iran and Iraq’s oil production lay outside the direct controlling interests of the world oil industry. Now, even though Iraq has been occupied, its oil production has remained disappointing, in the face of repeated attacks by insurgents. Iran, on the other hand, remains outside the order. Also, the oil agreement that Iraqi legislators continue to stall on final approval is seen by many as a means of binding Iraqi oil production to the direct influences of the world oil industry. Two leading Iraqi oil trade unionists recently visited our region, pleading their case against the proposed agreement.

But, to be sure, Professor Grimsley, this is not exactly military history.

Your latest commentary suffers from a distortion of Middle Eastern socio-politics. Al-Qaida’s philosophy of sunni fundamentalism is in violent conflict with the Shia, whose power source is Iran. This conflict is locally framed as Salfi (or Wahhabism) versus the Safavid. (An excellent source of information regarding this struggle is The Shia Revival by Professor Vali Nasr , Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School.) It must be understood, Rich, that these two forces are in active combat in Iraq.

I don’t believe the top priority of Al-Qaida to be the Iraqi oil fields. They are not materialists. Their priority is the prevention of a Shia state being built in Iraq, and the engagement of US military forces in the region.

In regards to its declared war against the United States, I believe it relevant to identify successes of al-Qaida war aims in Iraq: a) financial stress on the US government to the amount of $400 billion dollars US, for cost of the war so far (most if not all on borrowed money from far eastern lending sources), and b )the relatively high casualty rate among US military personnel and private contractors. Honestly, Rich, al-Qaida in Iraq strikes me as a bare bones fighting force, numbering probably no more than 1500 foreign fighters at any one time. If this is indeed true, it has pulled off one of the most stunning performances in military history. Of course, how much of the effort of the insurgency is attributable to them is hard to define, and the propaganda waged between the war’s protagonists makes it difficult to verify such grandiose claims.

You must admit, Rich, that the US operation in Iraq has not gone according to plan. The US did not envision any active resistance on the part of the Iraqis or foreign fighters. It diid not envision the empowerment it would provide Iran. It did not envision the need of borrowing over $400 billion dollars to finance this effort, it did not envision the need to put US troops through tours of duty, some now reaching the fifth time, it did not envision the needs and cost of maintaining military equipment in the field of battle for over fours years now. I could go on, but you probably see my point.

One of Professor Grimsley’s main points for this particular blog post was identifying that the Iraq War was a mistake for the US. I find it very hard to defend this war, militarily or politically. And I believe that, initially, the US war aim was driven by an economic aim that has yet to be in any way fully realized. That said, however, it appears that, given US Congressional approval, this regional instability may yet pay off handsomely for US arms merchants and manufacturers, for weaponry provided or sold to nations such as Israel, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.