The recent journeys of Donald Rumsfeld to Afghanistan and Iraq, which followed George W. Bushs Thanksgiving foray to Baghdad, were accompanied by optimistic assessments of both wars designed to counter the negative publicity that is seeping into United States domestic politics. Rumsfeld was greeted with comments from local commanders that the United States had the upper hand and that any problems ahead were eminently surmountable.
Afghan realities
In Afghanistan, the recent military operation Mountain Resolve has been followed by a further offensive, Avalanche, reportedly the largest operation since the fall of the Taliban regime over two years ago. Avalanche, started on 2 December, involves over 2,000 US and Afghan troops attempting to kill or capture Taliban militia before winter sets in. The size of the operation both gives some indication of the problem facing the US and is eloquent evidence against the argument that the guerrilla war is fading away.
While this latest operation was underway, US planes attacked a village in Ghazni province, killing nine children and one adult in an assault intended to target a member of the Taliban, Mullah Wazir. A further attack in Paktia province killed six children and two adults in another village and again failed to reach the intended target, Mullah Jalani. The reaction in Afghanistan to these military blunders has been hostile.
The current US operation follows a blunt UN report covering the period from July 2002 to November 2003 that comments on the political process begun with a meeting in Germany two years ago which was designed to chart a transition to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. The report states that unchecked criminality, outbreaks of factional fighting and activities surrounding the illegal narcotics trade have all had a negative impact on the Bonn process.
The report sees it as vital that UN member states support Afghanistan with a wide range of measures including a far greater commitment to security assistance as well as civil reconstruction; it points out that the increase in attacks on United Nations staff and other international and Afghan civilians engaged in providing assistance and furthering the peace process is a matter of the utmost concern.
These trends indicate that, despite its best efforts, it is frankly difficult for the Bush administration to claim that Afghanistan is even remotely a success story for the war on terror, given the Taliban resurgence that is now developing. Fortunately for the White House, domestic politics in the United States is hardly focused on Afghanistan whereas Iraq is far more important, especially in terms of the 2004 presidential election.
Iraqi instabilities
It is in Iraq that the administration is putting far more effort into a really positive assessment of the situation, with much of it coming to the fore during Bush and Rumsfelds visits. Although Rumsfeld spent barely twelve hours in the country, he was, at least according to official sources, repeatedly briefed on the progress being made.
This took many forms, with a recent decline in attacks on US troops cited as evidence that the current aggressive counter-insurgency tactics are having an impact. Iraqi security forces now number around 145,000, ranging from police through to security guards and border patrol militia, and there are claims that cross-border infiltration has declined markedly.
In Baghdad there are thought to be ten enemy cells of insurgents, each numbering up to 100, and US sources claim that four of these have been disrupted in Operation Iron Hammer two weeks of raids in November. (Bradley Graham, Rumsfeld gets good report on Iraq, Washington Post, 7 December 2003). US sources also speak of a rapid development of commercial life in Baghdad centred on increased consumerism.
On this specific issue, a more nuanced view points to progress that is somewhat superficial. As a report in The Economist (Doomed, or still recoverable?, 4 December 2003) says: Baghdad itself continues to splutter back to commercial life, though the mayhem of traffic no one seems to bother, for instance, if roundabouts are negotiated the wrong way round suggests that barely suppressed lawlessness lies beneath the surface. As soon as darkness falls, few people drive or walk about. The silence of the night is punctuated by random bursts of gunfire.
Furthermore, the current shortage of fuel is having an impact across much of the country; queues up to two miles long form at petrol stations and drivers take to sleeping through the night in their cars to maintain their place in the queues. Black market prices are around twenty times the pump prices and there is widespread bitterness that an oil-rich country such as Iraq should face these shortages eight months after the destruction of the old regime and the start of the US occupation. (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Fueling anger in Iraq, Washington Post, 9 December 2003).
The Israeli connection
More generally, though, what is becoming clear is the nature and extent of the robust counter-insurgency policy now being implemented by the United States, a policy that includes involvement of Israeli urban warfare specialists in training US special forces.
The US army is currently rotating many of its units in Iraq, with troops that have been in the region for a year or more finally beginning to return home, to be replaced by units new to Iraq. A flavour of the attitude within the army is shown by the mode of entry into Iraq of such units. At the weekend, the 3rd brigade of the armys 2nd infantry division formed up in Kuwait with the entire brigade of 5,000 troops marching in formation at a parade at Camp Udairi in the Kuwaiti desert.
The psychology of the moment was deeply symbolic, with the massing of troops emphasising that they are moving into a war zone far removed from the original expectation of peacekeeping and low-level garrison operations. The brigade is fortified by high levels of equipment, including 300 new Stryker high-speed armoured patrol vehicles intended for urban operations. (Christian Davenport, Troops ready for Iraq with a battle-cry, Washington Post, 7 December 2003).
During the parade, the brigade commander, Colonel Michael Rounds told the assembled troops that they were about to embark on a supremely tough task but that they would prevail because they will take the enemy aggressively, mercilessly and with overwhelming combat power. We are exactly the forces needed for this fight.
The vigorous policy that has now developed has a number of elements that illustrate the step-change in attitude, born perhaps of recognition of the problems facing the US as an occupying power. The arrival of Israeli Defence Force (IDF) specialists at the home base of US special forces, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is significant. There, they are reported to be assisting in the training of US units in counter-insurgency tactics, including the assassination of guerrilla leaders. These tactics reflect what Israel has been doing in the occupied territories, especially since the al-Aqsa intifada began three years ago (see Julian Borger, Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq, Guardian, 9 December 2003).
This linkage with Israel adds considerably to the view across the region that the Iraq war is part of an Israeli-American joint operation to control Arab oil, a suspicion that US army tactics employed within Iraq do nothing to dispel.
Chief among these is the development of a policy of containment that is uncannily like that employed by the IDF, especially in the West Bank although it also has a marked resemblance to US operations in the Vietnam war in the late 1960s and even to British counter-insurgency tactics during late-imperial campaigns in Malaya and Kenya in the 1950s.
Perhaps the most emblematic policy in this respect is the isolation of entire villages in hostile areas, surrounding their residents in razor wire with strictly controlled entry and exit points. Only those people issued with identity cards (printed in English) are allowed in or out. Moreover, buildings suspected of being used by insurgents are destroyed, and relatives of suspects are taken into custody, effectively being held hostage. (Dexter Filins, New York Times, 7 December 2003)
US military sources do not disguise their interest in Israeli tactics. One acknowledgement is that of Brigadier General Michael A. Vane, deputy chief of staff for doctrine concepts and strategy at the US armys training and doctrine command. Writing in Army magazine, Vane reported that: Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately in our concepts, doctrine and training. For example, we recently travelled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counter-terrorist operations in urban areas.
Phantoms of progress
At the time of Donald Rumsfelds visit to Iraq, there was a feeling that this highly active counter-insurgency policy was having an effect in terms of a decline in attacks on US troops. But the longer-term prognosis is far more negative.
The USs recent action in Samarra is claimed to have killed numerous insurgents but later reports from western journalists on the scene revealed both military exaggeration and the killing of civilians.
More recently, the killing of two South Korean workers resulted in the remaining sixty staff deciding to leave the country, a car bomb outside the Tal Afar base of the 101st Airborne Division near Mosul injured 58 American soldiers, a reconnaissance helicopter was forced down by a rocket-propelled grenade and a US soldier guarding a petrol station was killed. These all suggest that the insurgency is far from being brought under control, and there are indications that the use of much tougher tactics is producing a more sullen mood of resistance in those areas most opposed to US occupation.
The clear and open linkages with Israel of current US tactics are highly significant, however appropriate these linkages appear to many in the US military and in the Bush administration. The effects in the region are likely to be persistently counter-productive, in a way that makes it far easier for al-Qaida and its associates, let alone Iraqi guerrillas, to argue that they are opposing a full-scale Israeli-American operation to control a major Arab state. In such circumstances, perception is all, and the impact of that perception could be seminal in determining the further development of this war.
Outside the village of Abu Hishma, now encased in a razor-wire fence, an Iraqi told a New York Times reporter: I see no difference between us and the Palestinians. We didnt expect anything like this after Saddam fell.
