Fears of collapse of Iraqi state reignites debate over sacrifices made by Britain to topple Saddam Hussein

[ScottL]

I have a few Lebanese clients, they're Sunnis and they talk about their desire for a more westernized civilization with bars and cigars and female skin and democracy. One of them does a lot of traveling to both Egypt and Lebanon. Maybe that's the sect they're involved in, maybe that reflects the attitudes of Lebanese Muslims. I know we all have inherent biases.

But if the Sunni sect is actually more open and lets government govern instead of the cleric, that would suggest they're less likely to practice Sharia Law, at least the most extreme versions of it.

Then again, at the end of the day, theory is not often what's practiced. Just look at DC for that, where conservatives don't govern like the conservatives they campaigned as

Lebanon was a thriving travel and vacation destination until a 1976 Palestinian massacre in the town of Damour killed 684 Christians. Your clients will tell you of their desires to be more Westernized, but there's a reason they prefer to be here. And there are reasons ordinary Lebanese don't speak out in the street. It's another fractured state run by a terrorist gang with rocket launchers atop citizen's homes, just waiting for the next war. Pro-democracy Lebanese government officials are neutered by HezbAllah, led in that country by a cleric/warlord named Nasrallah, who is supplied by Syria and Iran. Nasrallah's forces (Shia) are fighting with Assad's army against al Queda and ISIS, as well as other Sunni thug gangs. (Whatever happened to the Free Syrian Army anyway)?

Willie Sharia Law has its origins in the Koran. The predominant spreading of Sharia Law in the last 100 years has come from the madrassas (strict Islamic schools) from the Sunni Wahhabi sect in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia financed the schools and the jihadi mindset that inspired the 9/11 hijackers. The Muslim Brotherhood led by Morsi that replaced Mubarak (the phony Arab Spring) and tried to force Sharia upon the population is Sunni. Hamas, who imposes Sharia Law in Gaza is also Sunni. Iran is Shia, and of course is a brutal dictatorship under the Sharia. Interestingly, Iraqi PM Malika, has not tried to impose the Sharia (yet) maybe because he was too busy trying to consolidate power at the upper level by sidelining Sunnis from participating in the government. This is why the US (or an excuse Obama uses???) hesitates to help Iraq now, because we fear no shot at a positive outcome. Sure, ordinary Sunnis should be upset at a Shia controlled government, after they had it so well under the Baathists and Saddam (Sunni). But even they fear the ISIS throat slitters.

The US options are limited. But if terrorist's flags fly over Iraqi cities where American soldiers died, OR the Iranian army defeats these terrorists, again America's image is weakened in the world, and other allies get a message we don't finish the job. I posted several years ago that if we left too early we'd have to go back. I think we might......

Don't be surprised if Putin uses this recent instability in Iraq to turn up the thermostat in the Ukraine, possibly even sending troops into the heart of Ukraine.

 

[SheriffJoe]

Captain Obvious would like to share his opinion on this here matter:

Weakness invites aggression.

That is all. Carry on...

 

[ScottL]

Don't be surprised if Putin uses this recent instability in Iraq to turn up the thermostat in the Ukraine, possibly even sending troops into the heart of Ukraine.

Anybody notice what day we decided to bring Bergdahl home? Exactly!

 

[Dave007inVegas]

Anybody notice what day we decided to bring Bergdahl home? Exactly!

You lost me. (easily done) I don’t see the correlation.

 

[ScottL]

^^^World leaders do stuff on the sneak when people are paying attention to other events.

 

[superbeets]

what a perfect drone opportunity wasted.

could have been another Turkey shoot, yes a wasted opportunity

Wrecked and abandoned vehicles along Highway 80 in April 1991.​

 

[Dave007inVegas]

^^^World leaders do stuff on the sneak when people are paying attention to other events.

The Friday dump? I get it now.

 

[Dave007inVegas]

BAGHDAD FALLING...
Exodus as chaos spreads...
UN: 800k refugees...
CHRISTIANS ON THE RUN...
Medieval Sharia Law Imposed...
'Roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers'...
Iraqi government 'paralyzed'...
VIDEO: Thousands of soldiers captured...
REPORT: 200 American contractors surrounded by jihadists...

Damn!

 

[superbeets]

[h=1]Revealed: How Obama SET FREE the merciless terrorist warlord now leading the ISIS horde blazing a trail of destruction through Iraq[/h]

• WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
• The U.S. once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, it was revealed Friday
  
• Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.'s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq
• It is unclear why the U.S. let the merciless al Qaeda leader slip away

The United States once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, but president Barack Obama let him go, it was revealed on Friday.
Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.'s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq.


But now five years later he is leading the army of ruthless extremists bearing down on Baghdad who want to turn the country into an Islamist state by blazing a bloody trail through towns and cities, executing Iraqi soldiers, beheading police officers and gunning down innocent civilians.
Scroll down for video

+11

These are the only two known photos of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He is seen here on the left as a prisoner half a decade ago and on the right more recently as the shadowy head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, also known as ISIS

+11

This uundated handout picture of jihadi leader of The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Du'a, was provided by the Department of State. The U.S. government has a $10 million bounty out for the al Qaeda leader


It is unclear why the U.S. let the merciless al Qaeda leader slip away, however, one theory proposed by The Telegraph is that al Baghadadi was granted amnesty along with thousands of other detainees because the U.S. was preparing to pull out of Iraq.

 

[Dave007inVegas]

^^^

uppy:

 

[superbeets]

The United States and Iran are moving rapidly to defend Iraq from rampaging Sunni Islamist insurgents, with Washington urgently considering air strikes on the jihadi militants and Tehran dispatching its foremost powerbroker to help arrange the defence of Baghdad.
Senior US officials told the Guardian that an air campaign was under serious discussion, possibly targeting fighters not just in Iraq but in Syria, where they have seized swaths of territory in the past two years. President Barack Obama said that decisions would be taken in the "days ahead".



Iran, meanwhile, moved to defend its own interests in its western neighbour, sending Major General Qassem Suleimani, an éminence grise of the Iranian revolutionary guards, to Baghdad to meet militia leaders and tribal chiefs in control of the Iraqi capital's vulnerable western approaches.



The scramble by two staunch adversaries to shore up the embattled Iraqi authorities underscored how seriously they take the situation in a country in danger of fragmentation as a result of this week's sudden advance by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis).



The jihadi grouping, consisting of no more than 7,000 men, has upended regional calculus this week, seizing key Iraqi cities and towns in the north, sending the army fleeing as they sweep south to within 50 miles of the capital. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are on the move, seeking safe haven. The UN has warned that the Isis fighters have committed summary executions and rape on their irresistible advance.




The next big town in their way is Samarra, known for its Shia shrines. Units of Shia militia were escorted north from Baghdad to defend its holy sites. Fighting was reported in and around the city on Friday. Witnesses said the shrines remained undamaged and that the insurgents had not been threatening residents. "Some of them have long hair and they are carrying black flags," said one man. "They are Arabs from other countries."

 

[Willie99]

Revealed: How Obama SET FREE the merciless terrorist warlord now leading the ISIS horde blazing a trail of destruction through Iraq

• WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
• The U.S. once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, it was revealed Friday
  
• Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.'s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq
• It is unclear why the U.S. let the merciless al Qaeda leader slip away

The United States once had Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in custody at a detention facility in Iraq, but president Barack Obama let him go, it was revealed on Friday.
Al Baghdadi was among the prisoners released in 2009 from the U.S.'s now-closed Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in Iraq.


But now five years later he is leading the army of ruthless extremists bearing down on Baghdad who want to turn the country into an Islamist state by blazing a bloody trail through towns and cities, executing Iraqi soldiers, beheading police officers and gunning down innocent civilians.
Scroll down for video

+11

These are the only two known photos of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He is seen here on the left as a prisoner half a decade ago and on the right more recently as the shadowy head of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, also known as ISIS

+11

This uundated handout picture of jihadi leader of The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also known as Abu Du'a, was provided by the Department of State. The U.S. government has a $10 million bounty out for the al Qaeda leader


It is unclear why the U.S. let the merciless al Qaeda leader slip away, however, one theory proposed by The Telegraph is that al Baghadadi was granted amnesty along with thousands of other detainees because the U.S. was preparing to pull out of Iraq.

I'm beginning to think the least prepared man in the room needs to be prosecuted for for treason, for committing war crimes, for being responsible for an untold number of deaths with the worse yet to come, for enabling genocide and for generally fucking up everything he touches

how did such a stupid incompetent sponge ever get elected? he's lied his entire life, he's lazy, he's aloof and he's the least prepared man in the room in whatever room he's occupying

 

[The Guesser]

NB I've followed the uprising from the start and at the outset it was domestic I believe. As lawlessness spread jihadis crossed the border and filled the vacuum.


Guesser why am I not surprised you like Stephen Walt?

Don't particularly like or dislike him. But he was spot on, and quite prescient in the article he authored about the enormous failure the surge was, and how a certain segment would try to blame Obama for that failed Policy years later.

 

[superbeets]

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]Iran[/FONT] has sent 2,000 advance troops to [FONT=arial, sans-serif]Iraq[/FONT] in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian.

 

[superbeets]

[h=1]Iraq arrest that exposed wealth and power of Isis jihadists[/h]The story of Isis, the band of militants that came from nowhere with nothing to having $2bn and two cities

 

[superbeets]

Members of the Kurdish armed fighting force look out over Jalula in northern Iraq, where they have been fighting Isis. Photograph: Rick Findler




Two days before Mosul fell to the Islamic insurgent group Isis (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), Iraqi commanders stood eyeballing its most trusted messenger. The man, known within the extremist group as Abu Hajjar, had finally cracked after a fortnight of interrogation and given up the head of Isis's military council.



"He said to us, 'you don't realise what you have done'," an intelligence official recalled. "Then he said: 'Mosul will be an inferno this week'.'



Several hours later, the man he had served as a courier and been attempting to protect, Abdulrahman al-Bilawi, lay dead in his hideout near Mosul. From the home of the dead man and the captive, Iraqi forces hoovered up more than 160 computer flash sticks which contained the most detailed information yet known about the terror group.



The treasure trove included names and noms de guerre of all foreign fighters, senior leaders and their code words, initials of sources inside ministries and full accounts of the group's finances.



"We were all amazed and so were the Americans," a senior intelligence official told the Guardian. "None of us had known most of this information."



Officials, including CIA officers, were still decrypting and analysing the flash sticks when Abu Hajjar's prophecy was realised. Isis swept through much of northern and central Iraq over three stunning days, seizing control of Mosul and Tikrit and threatening Kirkuk as three divisions of the Iraqi army shed their uniforms and fled.



The capitulation of the military and the rapid advances of the insurgents have dramatically changed the balance of power in Iraq, crippled prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, allowed Kurdish forces to seize control of the disputed city of Kirkuk and galvanised a Shia fightback along sectarian lines, posing a serious threat to the region's fragile geopolitics. On Sunday Isis published photographs that appeared to show it capturing and killing dozens of Iraqi soldiers.



"By the end of the week, we soon realised that we had to do some accounting for them," said the official flippantly. "Before Mosul, their total cash and assets were $875m [£515m]. Afterwards, with the money they robbed from banks and the value of the military supplies they looted, they could add another $1.5bn to that."



Laid bare were a series of staggering numbers that would be the pride of any major enterprise, let alone an organisation that was a startup three years ago.



The group's leaders had been meticulously chosen. Many of those who reported to the top tier – all battle-hardened veterans of the insurgency against US forces nearly a decade ago – did not know the names of their colleagues. The strategic acumen of Isis was impressive – so too its attention to detail. "They had itemised everything," the source said. "Down to the smallest detail."



Over the past year, foreign intelligence officials had learned that Isis secured massive cashflows from the oilfields of eastern Syria, which it had commandeered in late 2012, and some of which it had sold back to the Syrian regime. It was also known to have reaped windfalls from smuggling all manner of raw materials pillaged from the crumbling state, as well as priceless antiquities from archaeological digs.



But here before them in extraordinary detail were accounts that would have breezed past forensic accountants, giving a full reckoning of a war effort. It soon became clear that in less than three years, Isis had grown from a ragtag band of extremists to perhaps the most cash-rich and capable terror group in the world.



"They had taken $36m from al-Nabuk alone [an area in the Qalamoun mountains west of Damascus]. The antiquities there are up to 8,000 years old," the intelligence official said. "Before this, the western officials had been asking us where they had gotten some of their money from, $50,000 here, or $20,000 there. It was peanuts. Now they know and we know. They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don't need one."



The scale of Isis's resources seems to have prepared it for the improbable. But even by its ruthless standards, occupying two major cities in Iraq in three days, holding on to parts of Falluja and Ramadi, and menacing Kirkuk and Samara, was quite an accomplishment.



Social media postings throughout last week revealed the group's shock at its successes. Some posting showed extremists weeping with joy as dozens of Iraqi army humvess were driven through a sand berm on the border into Syria.



Foreign jihadists, many from Europe, were among those who stormed into Mosul and have spread through central Iraq ever since. Most of their names were already known to the intelligence agencies which had tried to track their movements after they arrived in Turkey, then disappeared, initially across the Syrian border. But noms de guerre given to the new arrivals had left their trails cold. Now officials had details of next of kin, and often phone numbers and emails.



Whether the intelligence haul can do much to reel in Isis after the fact seems a moot point, with the group having already wrought so much carnage in such a short time. "We will eventually find them," said the Iraqi official. "We knew they had infiltrated the ministries and the most frustrating thing about that flash [stick] was it only had initials. We are focusing on the initials that had the annotation 'valuable' next to them."



Other names were clearly of lesser use, he said. They were marked with "lazy", "undecided" or "needs monitoring".
More than ever before is now known about how Isis has gathered steam. The past week has also been an advanced education in its capabilities and ambitions. "Now we have to catch up with them," the official said.

 

[superbeets]

US Marines pull down a statue of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in Firdous Square, Baghdad on 9 April 2003.
Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

 

[superbeets]

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the amphibious transport dock ship USS Mesa Verde into the Persian Gulf as concern grows over a militant group's advancement toward Iraq's capital.
Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby says the Mesa Verde has already moved into the Gulf, joining the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and other U.S. naval ships.
Kirby says the ships' presence will give President Barack Obama "additional options to protect American citizens and interests in Iraq."
The Pentagon says the Mesa Verde carries Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft that can be used for crisis response.
The State Department is reinforcing security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and evacuating some personnel. The militant Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, has taken over several cities in northern Iraq.


USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19) is the third San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock and the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. The ship is designed to deliver a fully equipped battalion of up to 800 Marines.

 

[superbeets]

Up to 275 US "military personnel" are being sent to Iraq to provide security for the US embassy in Baghdad and other personnel, the White House says.
The personnel will assist in the temporary relocation of some staff from the US embassy in Baghdad.


The White House statement said that the main role of the 275 military personnel will be to help embassy staff to relocate to US consulates in Basra and Irbil.
It added that 100 personnel would provide airfield management and security.
"These US military personnel are entering Iraq with the consent of the government of Iraq," the statement said.
"The US embassy in Baghdad remains open, and a substantial majority of the US embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place and the embassy will be fully equipped to carry out its national security mission."
American officials quoted by the AP news agency have said that there is also a possibility of a limited special forces mission being deployed to train and advise demoralised Iraqi troops, although such a move has not yet been been given the go-ahead.

 

[superbeets]

Iraqi government forces fought off jihadi rebel forces north of Baghdad on Tuesday amid signs from the US that the Obama administration is hesitating before being drawn into a new war.




Heavy clashes were reported from Baquba after it was taken over by fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), and in Baghdad eight people were killed by a suicide bomber. Iranian-backed militiamen were out in force in Shia areas of the capital in an attempt to assure residents that they have a highly volatile situation under control.



As the fighting continued, there was no sign of imminent military moves by the US, with the White House warning of several days of further consultation before any intervention. Senior Democrats have expressed growing caution about the risks of being sucked back in to any conflict