Bush's Exit Plan: Fomenting War in Iraq

We turn now to the constantly worsening situation in Iraq. Reports out of Baghdad say that fourteen marines and a civilian interpreter were killed when their vehicle struck an explosive just outside of Haditha, in Western Iraq.

Meanwhile, the seven marines killed yesterday west of Baghdad pushed the official US military death count past 1,800. At least 39 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the past 10 days alone — all but two of them in combat. Meanwhile, the Iraqi Defense Ministry said that since the beginning of April, more than 2,700 Iraqis have been killed. This comes as two very different pictures are being painted about Iraq, depending on who you talk to or what media you turn to. In recent days, the top commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said that the US could begin withdrawing some troops by Spring of next year.

* General George Casey,
"I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively, and if the development of the security forces continues to go as it is going, I believe we'll be able to take substantial reductions after the elections in the spring and summer next year."

General Casey made his comments standing next to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. This was the latest and perhaps most significant statement to come after weeks of buzz about a possible US exit plan. But the way it is being spun by the Pentagon is that the withdrawal will come as the Iraqi army, police and other so-called security forces assume more control of the security of the country. That's far from happening. In fact, these are among the most dangerous jobs in Iraq with resistance fighters killing soldiers and police every day. And the security forces in the new Iraq are responsible for widespread human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings.

Take the recent examples of groups of Sunni men arrested by Iraqi forces only to turn up dead. Many Sunnis now assume that being arrested is the equivalent of being killed. Far from moving toward greater stability and calm, Iraq is continuing to get more and more bloody and chaotic. Some analysts believe that the recent US talk of pullout is happening because the US is losing militarily in Iraq to multiple enemies, loosely called the insurgents or the resistance.

Our guest today writes that civil war has already begun in Iraq. He has the center spread in the current issue of the paper called, "Bush’s Exit Plan: Civil War." He says, "With the war stalemated, repeated deployments wearing down morale of U.S. troops and too few new recruits to maintain force levels, the Bush administration may be deliberately provoking civil war as its “exit strategy.” The goal is not so much to exit Iraq, but leave behind a skeletal military force that would maintain the network of permanent bases under construction throughout Iraq while maintaining access to massive oil deposits in the North and South. Breaking Iraq into a series of mini-states, a strategy being pushed by some White House allies in the media, is seen as one way to ensure these goals."

* Arun Gupta, Editor with the New York Independent newspaper of the New York Independent Media Center.

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