Is The "Surge" Working?

• How life returned to the streets in a showpiece city that drove out al-Qaeda - An American ‘martyr’ is being hailed in the Sunni Triangle for restoring peace to a town where soldiers now fight only water leaks. Times Online August 31, 2007:

  Captain Patriquin may have offered more than mere words. His main interlocutor, Sheikh Abdul Sittar Bezea al-Rishawi, told The Times that he gave them guns and ammunition too. The sheikhs did rise up. They formed a movement called the Anbar Awakening, led by Sheikh Sittar. They persuaded thousands of their tribesmen to join the Iraqi police, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats, and to work with the reviled US troops. The US military built a string of combat outposts (COPs) throughout a city that had previously been a no-go area, and through a combination of Iraqi local knowledge and American firepower they gradually regained control of Ramadi, district by district, until the last al-Qaeda fighters were expelled in three pitched battles in March. What happened in Ramadi was later replicated throughout much of Anbar province.

  Ramadi’s transformation is breathtaking. Shortly before I arrived last November masked al-Qaeda fighters had brazenly marched through the city centre, pronouncing it the capital of a new Islamic caliphate. The US military was still having to fight its way into the city through a gauntlet of snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Fifty US soldiers had been killed in the previous five months alone. I spent 24 hours huddled inside Eagles Nest, a tiny COP overlooking the derelict football stadium, listening to gunfire, explosions and the thump of mortars. The city was a ruin, with no water, electricity or functioning government. Those of its 400,000 terrified inhabitants who had not fled cowered indoors as fighting raged around them.

  Today Ramadi is scarcely recognisable. Scores of shattered buildings testify to the fury of past battles, but those who fled the violence are now returning. Pedestrians, cars and motorbike rickshaws throng the streets. More than 700 shops and businesses have reopened. Restaurants stay open late into the evening. People sit outside smoking hookahs, listening to music, wearing shorts – practices that al-Qaeda banned. Women walk around with uncovered faces. Children wave at US Humvees. Eagles’ Nest, a heavily fortified warren of commandeered houses, is abandoned and the stadium hosts football matches.

  “Al-Qaeda is gone. Everybody is happy,” said Mohammed Ramadan, 38, a stallholder in the souk who witnessed four executions. “It was fear, pure fear. Nobody wanted to help them but you had to do what they told you.”

• Back from Hell: Baghdad's Haifa Street Story, by Ralph Peters. New York Post August 31, 2007:

  IF you saw any news clips of intense combat last January, you were probably watching the fighting unfolding on Baghdad's Haifa Street: 10 days of grim sectarian violence. Until we put a stop to it.

• Surge Working": Top US General, by Dennis Shanahan. The Australian August 31, 2007:

  David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, said the build-up of American forces in Baghdad since late January had produced positive outcomes. These included the killing or capture of al-Qa'ida fighters, causing the terrorist group to lose influence with local Sunnis.

  The strategic gains against insurgents would lead to a changed and possibly longer-term role for Australian troops, shifting from security operations to a focus on training Iraqi soldiers and police.

  General Petraeus told The Australian during a face-to-face interview at his Baghdad headquarters there had been a 75 per cent reduction in religious and ethnic killings since last year, a doubling in the seizure of insurgents' weapons caches between January and August, a rise in the number of al-Qa'ida "kills and captures" and a fall in the number of coalition deaths from roadside bombings.

• Behind the Numbers In from the Cold August 31, 2007:

  Ahead of General Petraeus's report on the troop surge (due in a couple of weeks), the monthly casualty stories provide an opportunity for the MSM to prepare their "backdrop" for his assessment. It's a safe bet the press reporting will highlight the "failures" of Iraq's government, despite significant progress by coalition security forces. In a similar vein, the most casualty totals can be used to paint the "high cost" at which that progress was achieved.

  With the end of the month just a few hours away in Baghdad, the U.S. fatality total for August stands at 79--the same number recorded last month. That will likely generate such headlines as "American deaths hold steady in August," or "Combat deaths inch upward," (assuming that there are additional fatalities that have not yet been reported by DoD). In either case, the implication is the same: We're still losing 80 soldiers a month, so our "progress" is clearly limited.

  But that analysis is wrong on multiple levels. . . .

The pope next takes up pacifism, which can have its witnesses, but which can also be a mask for not doing what is necessary to protect freedom and justice. Here, he remarks, we have demonstrated "on the basis of a historical event that absolute pacifism is unsustainable." Notice the careful use of these words. The grounds for war are to be demonstrated by what is actually going on in this or that country, in this or that time. It is not an abstraction but a concrete realization of the power and nature of a regime that seems to extend its force and limits. This is why the pope says, as I cited above, "there is no such thing as an a-historical State based on abstract reasoning."

The pope is careful to retain the "just war" context of these considerations. The just war theory was developed in Christian and classical thought precisely to explain why honorable regimes must at times defend themselves or others in the very name of justice. We still must ask if "just war" is possible and a duty in every occasion where use of force arises. The answer cannot ever be an "unequivocal" never. It depends on judgment and prudence. This is how the pope defines a just war: "a military intervention conducted in the interests of peace and according to moral criteria against unjust regimes." This means that "peace and law" and "peace and justice" are connected. "When law is trampled on and injustice comes to power, peace is always threatened and is already to some extent broken. In this sense a commitment to peace is above all a commitment to a form of law that guarantees justice for the individual and for the entire community." Clearly this means that a military and police component to the very possibility of law and justice is presupposed. The allowing of law to be "trampled" on and of "injustice" to come to power is clearly a sign of civic blindness and moral irresponsibility. This position was also the gist of C. S. Lewis' famous essay "Why I Am Not a Pacifist," found in his Weight of Glory.

. . . Referring back to the logic of the cold war, the pope granted that it still retained some intelligible rationale. "As long as this potential for destruction (nuclear and biological weapons) remained exclusively in the hands of the major powers, one could always hope that reason and the awareness of the dangers weighing upon the people and the State could rule out the use of the type of weaponry. Indeed, despite all the tensions between East and West, we were spared a full-scale war, thanks be to God." This passage, I would say, is a belated acknowledgement (though John Paul II said the same thing) that deterrence did work and the fact that increased accuracy of technology and weaponry finally convinced the Soviets that they could not keep up achieved its purpose.

However, the terrorist situation is different. "We can no longer count on such reasoning (mutual deterrence and rational comprehension), because the readiness to engage in self-destruction is one of the basic components of terrorism—a kind of self-destruction that is exalted as martyrdom and transformed into a promise" (91). Presumably, the pope does not equate Muslim terrorists with organized crime in this sense. The gangster or dope runner is not seeking martyrdom whereas the Muslim terrorist, in his own rationale, is. The gangster is in it for power and money, not for religion.

The pope still thinks that this terrorism itself can be met but by careful means. "One cannot put an end to terrorism—a force that is opposed to the law and cut off from morality—solely by means of force. It is certain that, in defending the law against a force that aims to destroy law, one can and in certain circumstances must make use of proportionate force in order to protect it." This is clearly the reasonable, common-sense position. Again the pope adds, "An absolute pacifism that denies the law any and all coercive measures would be capitulation to injustice, would sanction its seizure of power, and would abandon the world to the dictates of violence." Again, these are memorable words much in need of recollection and emphasis.

"No Weighing, No Disputing, No Such Thing": Ratzinger and Europe , by Fr. James V. Schall. Ignatius Insight (Review of Europe: Today and Tomorrow by Benedict XVI. (Ignatius Press, March 2007).

U.S. must honestly assess what is achievable in Iraq, says archbishop, by Julie Asher. Catholic News Service. May 30, 2007

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) -- At this stage in the Iraq War, the United States "must honestly assess what is achievable in Iraq using the traditional just-war principle of 'probability of success,' including the probability of contributing to a responsible transition," said Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien.

The U.S. and its allies "also have a grave responsibility, even at a high cost, to help Iraqis secure and rebuild their nation," unless the conclusion is reached that "a responsible transition is not achievable," he said.

The archbishop, who heads the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, made the comments in a Memorial Day pastoral message to Catholic men and women in the U.S. armed forces. He delivered the same message at a packed session May 25 during the 2007 Catholic Media Convention in Brooklyn. [...]

Unfortunately, what many Catholic leaders and others predicted would happen in Iraq -- the chaos and the difficulties of consolidating peace -- has come true, he said.

What was missing at the outset of the war was a comprehensive blueprint to administer and restore Iraq after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was deposed, Archbishop O'Brien said. "There was not sufficient foresight about what we might do after our seeming victory."

The archbishop argued against pulling out of Iraq now, and said the U.S. must look at what is achievable. He added that military personnel feel that Americans at the grass-roots level still support them.

He thinks there is still a chance to have a free Iraq and see democracy spread through the region.

Archbishop O'Brien compared the Iraq situation to the Vietnam War. He was an Army chaplain in the early 1970s and served a year in Vietnam. The U.S. was gaining the upper hand there, he said, until the Tet offensive conducted by the North Vietnamese. Technically, it was a failed military action but it was a turning point in the war.

Political sentiment turned against U.S. involvement and the U.S. pulled out, but the archbishop said he thinks the U.S. still could have gotten the upper hand had it stayed.

During a question-and-answer session after the archbishop's address, one member of the audience argued that the American people were conned into getting into the war. Another said many opponents of the war feel the decision to invade Iraq was advanced by a small group of neoconservatives who wanted to get their hands on Iraq's vast oil supplies.

Archbishop O'Brien disagreed with both notions.

He said that "reasonable people can disagree" about the war. He said he could see why some might feel the nation was conned because there is a great deal of skepticism about the war, but added, "I don't think there was bad will on the part of the government" in deciding to go to war.

He also said, "I don't agree this was the invention of a small group that wanted oil."

Encouraging News from the Front

• From Bill Roggio's Iraq Report: Attacking Mahdi, al Qaeda prison camp in Diyala May 27, 2007:

  This morning, U.S. and Iraq forces struck yet again against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. The joint force captured yet another member of a network "known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training." This is the third such raid in Sadr City in 48 hours. Seventeen members of this network have been killed and 32 captured during numerous raids over the past three weeks. . . .

  In Diyala province, where al Qaeda has established a stronghold, Iraqi and U.S. security forces have broke up an al Qaeda "prison camp" and captured 7 al Qaeda during two separate raids. Today, a joint U.S. and Iraqi Army raid rescued 41 Iraqi civilians "showing signs of having been tortured or mistreated" from an al Qaeda run prison camp just south of the city of Baqubah. "Many of them showing signs of mistreatment ranging from broken bones and bruises to heat injuries caused by being held with insufficient water," AFP noted.

• Memorial Day Message from Michael Yon, milblogger and combat photographer Michael Yon has good news from Mosul:

  Long-time readers know that I deliver bad news with the good. I was first to write that parts of Iraq were in civil war back in February 2005, well over a year before mainstream outlets started reporting the same. I was also the first to report, back in 2005, that Mosul was making a turn for the better. Mainstream outlets hardly picked up on that story, however, although the turn was easy to see for anyone who was there. When I returned from Afghanistan in the spring of 2006, after writing about the growing threat of a resurgent Taliban, bankrolled with profits from the heroin trade, I wrote that parts of our own military were censoring media in Iraq. The recent skirmishing over blogging from Iraq supports that contention. These reminders are for new readers who do not believe that a province that most media outlets had put at the top of the “hopelessly lost” column is actually turning a corner for the better. . . .

  Although there is sharp fighting in Diyala Province, and Baghdad remains a battleground, and the enemy is trying to undermine security in areas they’d lost interest in, the fact is that the security plan, or so-called “surge,” is showing clear signs of progress.

  Note If I had to recommend two blogs for daily reporting on Iraq and the WOT, it would be Michael Yon and Bill Roggio.

Vatican signals support for international meeting on Iraq, by Cindy Wooden. Catholic News Service. May 4, 2007:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican signaled its support for the international meeting on Iraq that took place in Egypt in early May, and Iraq's Chaldean bishops asked participating countries to do more to end violence and protect Christians in the country.

After former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami met Pope Benedict XVI May 4, the Vatican published a statement saying the two leaders reaffirmed "the need for strong initiatives by the international community, like that occurring in these days at the meeting in Sharm el Sheikh," Egypt, to bring peace to the Middle East.

More than 50 nations sent representatives to the May 3-4 meeting in Egypt to discuss debt relief, aid and security in Iraq. The participants included the United States and other members of the U.N. Security Council, the world's richest countries and nations bordering Iraq, including Iran.

WMD's.

• WMD's and the Iraq War, by Deal Hudson. April 17, 2007:

  During the period leading up to the Iraq War, I was in regular conversation with the White House as part of what is called the Catholic Working Group. Karl Rove asked me to create this group after the 2000 election.

  We had many discussions with White House and Defense Department personnel about just war theory and the proposed invasion of Iraq. They were all well-versed in the basic principles.

  Our central concern . . . was not the issue of whether all other means had been exhausted -- we thought they had -- but whether there was a an immediate danger to the United States.

  That's where WMDs came in.

  On one call with the White House we were all assured by a senior administration official that he had "absolute and certain proof" of WMDs. I asked if he could share the evidence with us. He said "no" but that we should "trust" him.

  Since this was someone I had known for a number of years in other circumstances, I had no reason not to believe him. (He, perhaps, had no reason not to believe the person who told him he had "absolute and certain proof" and so on.)

  We believed him.

• ‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’, by Melanie Phillips. The Spectator (UK) No. 21 April 2007:

  It’s a fair bet that you have never heard of a guy called Dave Gaubatz. It’s also a fair bet that you think the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has found absolutely nothing, nada, zilch; and that therefore there never were any WMD programmes in Saddam’s Iraq to justify the war ostensibly waged to protect the world from Saddam’s use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

  Dave Gaubatz, however, says that you could not be more wrong. Saddam’s WMD did exist. He should know, because he found the sites where he is certain they were stored. And the reason you don’t know about this is that the American administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.

Recommended Reading

• Vindicating Douglas Feith New York Sun February 12, 2007.

• Tough Questions We Were Right to Ask, by Douglas J. Feith. Washington Post Wednesday, February 14, 2007.

• A conversation with Douglas J. Feith: "When is it appropriate to scrub the consensus?" RedState.com. February 16, 2007.

• Iraq in Books, by Michael Rubin. Middle East Quarterly Spring 2007:

  The Iraq war has pumped adrenaline into the publishing industry. Whereas five years ago, few bookstores included any selections on Iraq, today dozens of Iraq books line the shelves. There have been three waves of Iraq-related publishing: First came the embed accounts that described the military campaign; second were examinations of prewar planning and, third, studies of the occupation. Quantity does not equal quality, though, nor does popularity correlate to accuracy. Many of the most popular books have been deeply flawed. Many authors use their Iraq narrative to promote other agendas, be they related to U.S. domestic politics, U.N. empowerment, or independence for Kurdistan. Other authors have substituted theory for fact or tried to propel their experience into the center of the Iraq policy debate. While time has already relegated much Iraq-related writing to the secondhand shelf or dustbin, several authors have produced works that will make lasting contributions, be they to future generations of war and post-conflict reconstruction planners, or scholars looking more deeply into the fabric of Iraq.

• The Evidence On Iran PowerLine February 17, 2007. (See also The Smoking Gun, Redux

• The war in the shadows against Iran & Sadr, by Bill Roggio. February 14, 2007. The Fourth Rail :

  While the U.S. military and intelligence proceeds cautiously on exposing Iran's involvement in Iraq's insurgency, and treads carefully on exposing Muqtada al-Sadr's backing of the Shia death squads, a war is being fought in the shadows - a war which we only see glimpses of. The war has escalated enough that Muqtada al-Sadr has left Iraq for safe environs in Iran. . . .

• The Battle for Baghdad Begins StrategyPage.com. February 15, 2007:

  How are the bad guys doing in Iraq? The Iraqi media is full of information on what the various Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions are up to. Lots of the reporting is speculation, but a lot of it is not. If you've been following the action long enough, you can pick out the accurate stories. And the talk on the street and in the shops is also pretty dependable. That said, most people believe al Qaeda in Iraq is finished. . . .

Reactions to the Iraq Study Group Report

Iraq Study Group: Change Iraq strategy now CNN.com. Dec. 6, 2006:

In a highly anticipated report being released Wednesday, the Iraq Study Group will call for a dramatic shift in war policy by urging the Bush administration to set a target of moving most U.S. troops out of their combat roles by early 2008, according to two sources who have seen the executive summary of the report.

The bipartisan panel, however, will stop short of a specific timetable for withdrawal.

"The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve into one of supporting the Iraqi Army," says the report.

It adds: "It's clear the Iraqi government will need U.S. assistance for some time to come, especially in carrying out new security responsibilities. Yet the U.S. must not make open-ended commitments to keep large numbers of troops deployed in Iraq."

Sources familiar with the report, which will be presented to President Bush at the White House early Wednesday morning, said it also prods the administration to launch a new diplomatic initiative to solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The report contends the United States "cannot achieve its goals in the Mideast" unless it embarks on a "renewed and sustained commitment to a comprehensive peace plan on all fronts," according to the sources who have seen the report.

As part of this initiative, the panel calls for direct talks between the United States and Iran, as well as Syria, a move the Bush administration has repeatedly resisted.

The Iraq Study group report will be downloadable at the following websites:

• United States Institute of Peace (www.usip.org)
• James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy (www.bakerinstitute.org)
• The Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org)

Reactions

• The Iraq Study Group's self-contradiction, by Donald Sensing. Winds of Change Dec. 7, 2006:

  . . . on the one hand, the ISG says the US is facing a real crisis in Iraq and that time is short to change direction. Then, on the other, the ISG offers recommendations that even it (unanimously) says is "not likely to happen quickly." The ISG wants to start withdrawing US combat units from Iraq by 2008, but did it stop to think that it's highly unlikely for any of its regional initiatives and conferences even to be scheduled by then? The wheels of the gods and diplomats grind exceedingly slow, something James Baker should have remembered. Syria and Iraq have no obvious incentive to engage with us at all, a fact that Messrs. Baker and Hamilton tacitly admitted. To imagine that Assad and Ahmandinejad will jump at the chance to assist the US in achieving its goals in Iraq is the triumph of hope over experience. If anything, they'll see the report as a sign of the slackening of American will and pretend to engage while making sure that the "peace process" drags on interminably. (We do, after all, have a track record of being victiom of that tactic, just recall the Paris peace talks with Hanoi, in which the North Vietnamese delegation spent most of a year doing nothing but arguing about the shape and height of the negotiation table.)

• Assessment of the Iraq Study Group Report, by Marc Schulman on Lebanon. American Future Dec. 6, 2006.
• We've Been Talking: It's a myth that the U.S. hasn't already engaged Syria and Iran, by Joel Himelfarb. The Wall Street Journal Dec. 6, 2006:

  Based on the historical record, the advocates of U.S. engagement with these regimes are delusional. The record, from Carter to Bush II, strongly suggests that neither regime has any interest in cooperating with us in Iraq, and are more likely than not to view the Carter-Brzezinski-Hagel approach as a demonstration of American weakness.

• Will Iraq Study Group’s Plan Work on the Battlefield?, by Michael R. Gordon. New York Times Dec. 7, 2008.

Gold Star Families Travel to Iraq

The Gold Star Families Iraq Survey Group has released a new report, "A Brighter Future for Iraq," to help enhance the debate and discussions concerning the United States’ commitment to achieve success with the mission of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The authors of this report have all traveled to Iraq since the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Seven of the individuals are known as “Gold Star Families” as they have lost a son in the war effort. Two of the individuals, Gold Star Father Joe Johnson and Marine Reservist John Ubaldi, served in Operation Iraqi Freedom themselves. Additionally, group member Melanie Morgan led a delegation to Iraq in 2005 where she had the opportunity to speak with both U.S. and Iraqi military leaders.

It is not by accident that the majority of this group is comprised of men and women who lost their child in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They are presenting their findings and recommendations to ensure that the United States adopts a policy in Iraq that will enhance American security that their children fought to preserve. Their children believed in the importance of the mission in Iraq, and so too do these parents.

-- Source: Move America Forward MoveAmericaForward.org carries the report of the "Gold Star Families"

Bill Roggio on "The Military and the Media"

In nearly every conversation, the soldiers, Marines and contractors expressed they were upset with the coverage of the war in Iraq in general, and the public perception of the daily situation on the ground. The felt the media was there to sensationalize the news, and several stated some reporters were only interested in “blood and guts.” They freely admitted the obstacles in front of them in Iraq. Most recognized that while we are winning the war on the battlefield, albeit with difficulties in some areas, we are losing the information war. They felt the media had abandoned them.

During each conversation, I was left in the awkward situation of having to explain that while, yes, I am wearing a press badge, I'm not 'one of them.' I used descriptions like 'independent journalist' or 'blogger' in an attempt to separate myself from the pack.

What a terrible situation to be in, having to defend yourself because of your profession. I've always said that the hardest thing about embedding (besides leaving my family) is wearing the badge that says 'PRESS.' That hasn't changed. I hide the badge whenever I can get away with it.

-- "The Military and the Media"

I support the U.S. Bishops on Iraq

The nation's Catholic bishops on Monday (Nov. 13) called for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq "at the earliest opportunity":

"Our nation's military forces should remain in Iraq only so long as their presence contributes to a responsible transition," the statement reads. "Our nation should look for effective ways to end their deployment at the earliest opportunity consistent with this goal."

Got to hand it to the Bishops -- they've managed to come up with a position that President Bush, Congressman Murtha, and Noam Chomsky could agree on. Hat tip: Domenico Bettinelli.

The Militant Ideology Atlas

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has announced the release of The Militant Ideology Atlas [online in its entirety, .pdf format], an in-depth study of the Jihadi Movement's top thinkers and their most popular writings. According to the CTC, this is the first systematic mapping of the ideology inspiring al-Qaeda.

The CTC’s researchers spent one year mining the most popular books and articles in al-Qaeda’s online library, profiling hundreds of figures in the Jihadi Movement, and cataloging over 11,000 citations. The empirically supported findings of the project are surprising:

• The most influential Jihadi intellectuals are clerics from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, two of the US’s closest allies in the Middle East.
• Among them, the Jordanian cleric Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi has had the most impact on other Jihadi thinkers and has been the most consequential in shaping the worldview of the Jihadi Movement.
• In contrast, the study finds that Usama Bin Ladin and Ayman al-Zawahiri have had little influence on other Jihadi theorists and strategists.

The Executive Report summarizes the main conclusions of this comprehensive effort and provides policy-relevant recommendations informed by these findings. The Research Compendium contains summaries of all the texts used in the study as well as biographies of the texts' authors and the figures they cite most. A link to the entire database will be available soon.

"So I Guess The FMSO Documents Are Legit", muses Captain's Quarters:

Over the past year or so, I have provided CQ readers with a number of translations from key Iraqi Intelligence Service documents that have been translated by either the FMSO or by Joseph Shahda of the Free Republic website. I even engaged two interpreters to verify one particularly explosive memo last April, after Shahda published his own translation. That memo dealt with IIS plans to get volunteers for suicide missions to 'strike American interests".

One particular criticism that appeared with each new translation was that the documents were never proven genuine, although no one could explain the logic behind the US government hiding these documents in Iraqi Arabic among an avalanche of mundanity, only to shove it onto a shelf for years until Congress authorized their release to the Internet. Now we find another verification of their authenticity, this time from the New York Times, which reports today that the documents constitute a national-security threat . . .

• DNI Disclosed Saddam's Nuclear Secrets - Is the Saddam-Terrorism Debate Reopened?, by Andrew Cochran. CounterTerrorism Blog. Nov. 3, 2006.

Captain's Quarters has put a lion's share of effort into bringing the various translated documents from the Iraqi Intelligence Service to the attention of its readers. Among them are the following revelations:

• Palestinian Jihad Part Of Iraq Insurgency - A new document translated by Joseph Shahda indicates that the Saddam Hussein regime agreed to allow the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to stage suicide operations within Iraq in the opening days of the American invasion. [posted Captain's Quarters October 26, 2006].
• Post-Invasion Intel Showed WMD Went To Syria - Among the captured documents of the Iraqi Intelligence Services is a memo written in Arabic that describes pre-war intel from an Iraqi source working in Syria. Dated July 13, the memo itself was written after the invasion, but it describes the movement of trucks from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasions. [posted Captain's Quarters July 28, 2006].
• Iraqi Intel Memo Describes Osama Connection A memo from the Afghan section of the Directorate of Counterintelligence (M5) to the head of M5 dated September 15th, 2001 relays information from an Afghani source that Taliban consul discussed the relationship between Osama, Iraq, and the Taliban. [posted Captain's Quarters July 24, 2006].
• Foreign Intel Had Identified WMD Sites - an undated memorandum from the director of the IIS to the Military Industrialization Commission (MIC) discusses counterintelligence information regarding an informant with knowledge of the locations for Iraqi WMD programs. Document ISGZ-2004-007589-HT-DHM2A directs the MIC to change the locations of their assets. [posted Captain's Quarters October 17, 2006].
• Operation Blessed July - Uday Hussein, in 1999, ordered a series of bombings and assassinations in London, Iran, and in the autonomous areas of Iraq. Document ISGZ-2004-018948 shows a response from a Saddam Fedayeen operative to Uday himself outlining the plan, known as Operation Blessed July.
• Loose Lips Generate Paperwork, And Reveal Iraqi Malfeasance - Shortly before Saddam Hussein suspended all cooperation with the UNSCOM inspectors, in 1998 a surprise inspection at the Air Operations Directorate turned up a number of documents relating to "special" weapons -- the designation for WMD used by Iraqi forces. This caused the UN to declare a violation on the Iraqis, and touched off a massive internal investigation in Saddam's armed forces to find out who forgot to cleanse the files. The series of memos and statements in document IZSP-2003-00300856 shows that the Iraqis not only intended on making an example of the men who did such a poor job of purging the files, but that they actively hid materials that implicated Iraq in the hoarding of WMD.
• The Saddam-Osama Connection (1994-1997) - One of the documents released by the FMSO project contains the records of the Iraqi regime's early connections to Osama bin Laden, starting in 1994 and continuing at least through 1997. [posted Captain's Quarters July 15, 2006].
• Saddam's Subsidies To Terrorists - "Saddam's subsidy to suicide bombings has been reported in detail, and the fact that this went through his press secretary shows that he wanted to get the word out. Saddam wanted to provide incentives for terrorist recruitment in the Palestinian areas, [offering families of suicide bombers] the equivalent of ten years' revenue for a family of four. The money for this enterprise came from the West, in the helpful Oil-For-Food program that put billions of dollars in hard currency into the pockets of Saddam Hussein and his sons." [posted Captain's Quarters July 15, 2006].
• Iraqi Documents: UNMOVIC Knew Of Renewed WMD Efforts to Make Ricin - In a summary of a larger document, translators found that Iraq had restarted its processing of castor-bean extraction, from which ricin can be developed -- and that UNMOVIC discovered it in December 2002. Hans Blix never mentioned ricin or castor beans in his UN presentation on March 7, 2003. [posted Captain's Quarters July 7, 2006].
• Dr. Germ Analyzes Aircraft BW Attack Requirements In 2002 - Document CMPC-2003-004346 reveals that Dr. Rehab Rasheed Taha, otherwise known as Dr. Germ, prepared an analysis in 2002 of how to spread biological weapons material using an aircraft as the medium, and how far they had advanced on the application. [posted Captain's Quarters July 7, 2006].
• Iraqi Documents: Kuwaiti POWs Used As Human Shields - captured IIS documents contains the actual orders from Qusai Hussein directing the Republican Guard to take Kuwaiti prisoners illegally held for twelve years and use them as human shields at strategic locations. [posted Captain's Quarters July 7, 2006].
• Iraqi Documents: Our Friends, the Russians - According to document CMPC-2003-000878, the Russians gave more active support to Saddam prior to the March 2003 invasion than previously known -- and they used Syria as a conduit for their material. [posted Captain's Quarters July 7, 2006].
• Saddam And Anthrax Operations - In document BIAP-2003-004552.pdf, we have a short memorandum announcing a transfer to a biological weapons program. "El-Salem wrote this memo in October 2002, so this is not a case of pre-Gulf War mischief. Abas got assigned to anthrax operations while Congress debated whether to authorize military force." [posted Captain's Quarters July 6, 2006].

War "no good to anyone" - The words of a Pacifist Pope?

On August 13, 2006 Pope Benedict gave a first-of-its-kind television interview with German televisions ARD-Bayerischer Rundfunk, ZDF (complete transcript available on the Vatican website). We'll get the to the content and commentary of the interview in our upcoming Pope Benedict roundup, but this past week there has been much discussion on a particular segment:

Question: Holy Father, a question about the situation regarding foreign politics. Hopes for peace in the Middle East have been dwindling over the past weeks: What do you see as the Holy See’s role in relationship to the present situation? What positive influences can you have on the situation, on developments in the Middle East?

Pope Benedict XVI: Of course we have no political influence and we don’t want any political power. But we do want to appeal to all Christians and to all those who feel touched by the words of the Holy See, to help mobilize all the forces that recognize how war is the worst solution for all sides. It brings no good to anyone, not even to the apparent victors. We understand this very well in Europe, after the two world wars. Everyone needs peace. There’s a strong Christian community in Lebanon, there are Christians among the Arabs, there are Christians in Israel. Christians throughout the world are committed to helping these countries that are dear to all of us. There are moral forces at work that are ready to help people understand how the only solution is for all of us to live together. These are the forces we want to mobilize: it’s up to politicians to find a way to let this happen as soon as possible and, especially, to make it last.

That war is, indeed, "no good for anyone" prompted the following protest from First Things' blogger Robert Miller:

I find it difficult to understand how the pope says this. Along with many others, I often invoke the Second World War as the paradigm example of a just war, of a case where morality not only permitted but required the use of armed force in order to combat evil. But here Benedict, expressly mentioning the world wars, says that they brought no good to anyone. No good to Elie Wiesel, and all the other prisoners liberated from Buchenwald? No good to the peoples of France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and others saved from Nazi domination? No good to the Poles and other Slavs, destined to slavery to support the Third Reich? No good to the young Joseph Ratzinger, who, freed from service in the Wehrmacht, was able to enter seminary, study theology, become a priest and a professor, and live to become pope?

As it stands, this statement from Benedict is unsupportable. All serious people know that war is a terrible reality to be avoided whenever possible, and Benedict should certainly say this. But he is also a great theologian, well able to make moral distinctions. He ought not make statements that can so easily be understood as endorsing a dangerously naive pacifism that is incompatible with the Catholic moral tradition.

Needless to say, Miller's challenge caused quite a stir.

• Mark Shea says "I basically agree with Miller", howbeit issuing a plea for context:

  On the whole, though I disagree with the Pope's remarks as they stand (since I believe in Just War teaching), I find myself thinking that I'd rather live in a world of people who err as the Pope does than in a world of War Zealots and Master Planners with big ideas for a New American Century based on "creative destruction" and other Machiavellian schemes. In short, I don't have much in the way of solutions, but I have a clearer and clearer idea of who I trust as I try to think things through.

  CAEI reader M.W. Forrest also speculates:

  For perspective, I think we should take into consideration that he was speaking to German reporters. What grievances did WWI and WWII solve for the Germans? WWI brought them the lost of some of their most productive land in the west and economic collapse. WWII gave them 1/4 of their country put in communist oppression.

• Amy Welborn blogged the piece, with a not-entirely-unexpected 120 comment reaction and some good exchanges on pacifism and the just war tradition ("No Good War?" August 16, 2006).

Looking at Pope Benedict's remark in and of itself, Robert Miller's reaction is understandable. But this is not the first time that papal statements on war have resulted in a plethora of conflicting interpretations. Back in May, this blog took a stab at assessing various positions and papal pronouncements on the war in Iraq and the legitimate use of force (Toward a Proper Understanding of the Catholic Just War Tradition Against The Grain May 18, 2006).

In response to that particular post, "rcesq", a member and contributor to the RatzingerFanClub's EzBoard forum, pointed out to me that, in Cardinal Ratzinger's address in Normandy on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of D-Day (reprinted as Chapter 6 of Values in a Time of Upheaval, first published April 2005, new edition by Ignatius Press 2006) -- we have good reason not to hasten to the conclusion from such papal comments as "war is the worst solution for all sides" and "today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a "just war"" -- that we are in the presence of a pacifist-pope.

What follows are my friend rcesq's observations, quoted in full (with permission) for your consideration:

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[In his Normandy address], the Cardinal describes how the Nazis had seized power and caused

justice and injustice, law and crime [to become] entangled by carrying out both the legislative and administrative functions of the state. It was therefore in one sense entitled to demand that the citizens obey the law and respect the authority of the state (Rom 13:1ff!), while at the same time this government also employed the judicial organs as instruments in pursuit of its own criminal goals. The legal order itself continued to function in its usual forms in everyday lives, at least in part; at the same time, it had become a power that was used to undermine law.

According to the Cardinal,

[t]he only way to shatter this cycle of crime and reestablish the rule of law was an intervention by the whole world. . . . Here it is clear that the intervention of the Allies was a bellum iustum, a "just war" . . . perhaps the clearest example in all history of a just war.

Calling WWII a "just war" is pretty obvious and most commentators would place that conflict squarely in the just war tradition as you have explained. What's interesting, though, is that the Cardinal does not justify the war on the ground of self-defense. After all, each of the Allied powers had been attacked first by the Nazis.

Instead, Ratzinger considers the war justified because it liberated the German people from their criminal government, gave them freedom and restored the rule of law. He describes it as an "intervention" -- which sounds like the language used in AA programs when family and friends gather together to "stage an intervention" for the benefit of letting a drug or alcohol addicted friend or family member know that help for self-destructive behavior is available and required. Such a "therapeutic" approach to justifying war is not something I saw [in my prior blog-discussion of just war].

The Cardinal goes on to declare that this "real event in history shows that an absolute pacifism is untenable." Even though it appears that some just war moralists are heading in the direction of pacifism by setting the bar for justifying war impossibly high, one would expect this far more rational conclusion from someone as grounded in reality as Joseph Ratzinger, who knows well that man is fallen and sinful and will fall and sin over and over again.

It seems unusual and is, to me, unexpected, that the Cardinal would open the door to justifying military intervention "against unjust systems of government," when the intervention "serves to promote peace and accepts the moral criteria for peace." Does this allow a "pre-emptive war" against a criminal regime that flouts resolutions of the United Nations to disarm, terrorizes and kills thousands of its own people, repeatedly attacks it neighbors without provocation, and credibly boasts of having weapons of mass destruction? One could argue that it does. After all, one can look at such a regime as suffering from an addiction that requires intervention. Unfortunately, the address just offers this tantalizing thought and then moves on.

Farther on in the address, the Cardinal turns to the phenomenon of "terror, which has become a new kind of world war." He contrasts the destructive powers that lay in the hands of recognized superpowers -- who one hoped would be susceptible to reason -- with those potentially in the hands of terrorists, who cannot be counted on to be rational because self-destruction is a basic element in terrorism's power. He identifies as a "basic truth" that it is impossible to overcome terrorism by force alone, but notes that:

the defense of the rule of law against those who seek to destroy it must sometimes employ violence. This element of force must be precisely calculated, and its goal must always be the protection of the law. An absolute pacifism that refused to grant the law any effective means for its enforcement would be a capitulation to injustice. It would sanction the seizure of power by this injustice and would surrender the world to the dictatorship of force. . . .

Again, the Cardinal's thoughts suggest that it could be entirely legitimate for a country like Israel to use force against terrorists who try to undermine it; provided that the force is "precisely calculated." Naturally you have to ask how you calculate force precisely, even with so-called smart bombs: human error will occur and you can end up with horrible misfires. But I think that the Cardinal's reasoning does contradict those pundits who claim that American and Israeli soldiers are somehow acting immorally because their cause is unjustifiable.

The Cardinal posits another limit to the justifiable use of force against terror: "strict criteria that are recognizable by all," and cautions against one power's going it alone to enforce the rule of law (not stated but obvious: unilateral U.S. action). He also calls for an investigation into and addressing of the causes of terrorism that "often has its source in injustices against which no effective action is taken." This formula for dealing with terror strikes me as a fair balance of realism and idealism, practicality and morality. It's certainly not woolly headed or starry eyed -- which is how some of the bishops' pronouncements sometimes sound to me.

Ultimately, however, Cardinal Ratzinger advocates the way of Christ. Forgiveness is necessary to break the cycle of violence.

Gestures of humanity that break through [the cycle] by seeking the human person in one's foe and appealing to his humanity are necessary, even where they seem at first glance a waste of time.

These thoughts may be useful tools to assess what is happening now with Israel. I think it's possible to see their influence in Benedict XVI's endorsement of the G-8 position while he is pleading for an end to the violence and prays so fervently for peace. [The Ratzinger Forum; edited by: rcesq at: 8/2/06 5:32 pm]

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"As is usual with Cardinal Ratzinger's writings, he sketches ideas, asks provocative questions, but offers no definitive answers," concludes "rcesq". At the end of my own post, I closed with the pressing need for some kind of authoritative clarification on the status of the "just war tradition", together with the proper interpretation of papal pronouncements on the war in an informal context.

Ratzinger's own thoughts on the use of force, as published in Chapter 6 of Values in a time of Upheaval will hopefully alleviate somewhat Robert Miller's concerns of a "dangerously naive pacifism."

Reading the diverse reactions on Open Book, I found Tom Haessler's comment on the different papal "styles" especially helpful:

Benedict XVI's theological and homiletic rhetoric is more kerygma (proclamation) than didache (teaching). John Paul the Great was immersed in Aquinas and modern phenomenology. Benedict XVI is immersed in the Fathers, especially in Augustine. The parsing of various aspects of just war theory is quite foreign to his approach. He's trying to call all to their senses, to awaken new communities of conscience, to help us discover new zones of sensitivity and awareness not previously attended to; he's NOT playing Jesuit anagrams with just war theory. Far from believing that military force is always wrong, he's supported the Afghanistan and Kosovo interventions. But he'd be the last one to insist that his own prudential judgments trump every careful scrutiny of all pertinent aspects of an enormously complex problematic. He's asking that he be heard, not that he be obeyed. . . . we're all orthodox Catholics here, trying to discover God's will in fidelity to all the values and norms we've learned through our membership in the Body of Christ. We all have something to teach (through our own experience), and we all have something to learn.

"The New Testament does not order soldiers to surrender their arms but rather commends them for their righteousness and virtue. The injunction to requite evil with good concerns not so much external actions as the inward disposition with which these actions are to be performed. It seeks to insure that war, if it must be waged, will be carried out with a benevolent design and without undue harsheness."

Most importantly of all, however, we must remember that "The wicked wage war on the just because they want to, and the just wage war on the wicked because they have to...The best that can be hoped for in practice is that the just cause will trimph over the unjust one; for nothing is more injurious to everyone, including evildoers themselves, than that the latter should prosper and use their prosperity to oppress the good."

Fr. Ernest Fortin