Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

led by Abdul Al Zarqawi in an effort to save the Democratic government from the scourge of the world wide terrorist movement led by Osama Bin Laden. We were told that the front lines of the war on terror was now in Iraq. Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi living in Afghanistan and, in fact, orchestrated the attack on 9/11 from Afghanistan through the loyal service of 19 terrorist followers from Saudi Arabia. None of the attacker were from Iraq.

In 2006 until today in 2008 we have been fighting the insurgency, supposedly in an effort to fend off a sectarian civil war.
Sunni insurgents, Shia Militias, and corrupt Iraqi Government officials, all profiting from our presence, and all hoping to profit from our absence on their schedule. In the middle, the Iraqi people, the vast majority of whom are not in support of Islamic extremism, sectarian isolation, religious theocracy, or violence in any form against anyone or any group. An innocent people, now living in a hell they had no part of bringing.

Iraq is not now, or in 2003, a country without professional organizations, associations, business structures and contractor networks. Iraqi engineers, construction contractors, lawyers, doctors, business managers, city planners and educators were present and readily available throughout Iraq. Almost none of which were accessed or utilized by the coalition in its effort to begin the rebuilding of Iraq. Instead outside interest we brought in from the US, Great Briton, Kuwait, Turkey and other countries to fill all the essential requirements that Iraqi citizens could have filled. The leadership of Paul Bremer was a shallow and failed leadership in this regard. The point being, from the very beginning we put the Iraqi people at arms length and have, to this day, kept them there.

During my over three years in Iraq I had rarely seen Coalition inclusion of the Iraqi people to any degree, or for any purpose. In fact it has been official policy to exclude Iraqis from almost any coalition operation or endeavor. The Iraqi labor pool has been all but ignored. Third County Nationals have been shipped in by the thousands to work in positions that should have gone to the people we came to Iraq to rescue, the Iraqis. The Iraqis who are allowed to work on any coalition Forward Operation Base (FOB) or, any coalition area around the airport in Baghdad, work as janitors and maintenance workers and are escorted at all times by armed guards. The only exception to this, I am aware of, is the US Embassy where hundreds of Iraqis are employed and are allowed to come and go without escorts of any kind. There has been no incidents of violence by those employees.

We, the coalition, made it crystal clear, by our actions, from the start that they, the Iraqi people, were not to be trusted. In our doing so, the Iraqi people were left without guidance, assistance, friendship or direction. An Insurgency was assured by our early actions. The insurgents and militias were more than happy to fill the void left by the coalition and they did.

Each Minister in the Iraq government is a member of a political or social party. In Iraq every party has its own militia or security force to do its bidding. The militia and security groups are operated like a mafia. Chaos is the environment they need to operate profitably. They benefit from the chaos by filling in social authority roles the government is not able to fill.  From the beginning the coalition recognized this fact and actually, in some cases, considered it a "stabilizing" element within the population. The coalition, absurdly reasoned that these non-governmental forces would diminish as the Iraqi government became more able to perform its governmental and social responsibilities.

Today the very people responsible for bringing social order, under the authority of government, are themselves profiting from the status quo and have already shown their reluctance to reign in the forces which have enabled them to prosper while the population suffers greatly. This unity government left to develop itself with little or no guidance from its U.S. Mentors is more like a mafia than a government. There are two Deputy Prime Ministers and twenty Ministers in Nuri Al-Malikis government (complete list at the end).  If one were to know the net worth of each Minister prior to being appointed and their net worth today, I think that would provide the graphic example of what I am talking about.

The Ministers? With few exceptions Iraqi men, some who, prior to April 2003, did not even live in Iraq and in some cases had not been in Iraq for over 20 years and most unknown to the Iraqi people at large. We allowed these former exiles with strong roots in iran, with little or no government experience or history, to decide how to start the government for an entire country while we stood there providing all the necessary assets and almost none of the guidance. Family and relatives were hired first.

Corruption was a natural derivative of this concoction of untested and primarily unknown players who we brought into Iraq to tell us what to do. To some degree, even the Iraqi people had no idea who these new leaders were that America brought into Iraq to lead them.

The early failure of the Coalition to maintain constant communications with any level of the forming Iraqi government and leadership was wholly avoidable. The coalition did not initially create working circumstances which physically included the Iraqi leadership and middle management in the daily coalition planning and status sessions. Had they done this, a cohesion, or partnership may have resulted that does not exist today and has never existed. Even today, it is rare to find any middle level Iraqi in a planning or staff meeting with coalition officials.

Although Iraq has thousands of registered attorneys, very educated and experienced in Iraqi law, common law and jurisprudence, there is not a single Iraqi lawyer on the staff of the US managed Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Iraq which has the responsibility of mentoring and advising the provincial governments in "Rule of Law", Iraqi law.

In the Iraqi leadership planning and strategy groups there are few or no coalition members on a regular basis.  The Iraqis did not create this separation from the beginning, we did. We set them up in their own world and we had our own. We rarely included the Iraqi leadership in decisions effecting their country, whither the decision was minor with insignificant consequences, or serious with possible huge impact on the Iraqi people.  We lived in an "inform" mode; we informed the Iraqis of decisions we made for their country.

At one meeting I attended in Iraq during 2006 a senior British Commander suggested that the Basrah Militia, loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, were a stabilizing force in the South. Hearing this, an American Army General sarcastically asked the British General if he thought that "order" being accomplished through kidnapping, terror, murder and intimidation should be considered as "stabilizing" by the coalition. The British General, although not replying, had already made it clear what the British considered acceptable for the Iraqi citizens. It appeared, at that moment, the British were more than willing to allow the militias and the terrorist to define what is acceptable for the Iraqi people throughout Iraq in exchange for less British engagement with the enemy. I thought it sad, at least for those in the South of Iraq where the British are primarily responsible for protecting the Iraqi population; the population who were supposedly rescued in 2003 and who met the arriving British forces as heroes and liberators. How easily we forget.

In 2003, at least seemingly, the objective was good and the intention was honorable. For our Military, it is today. Unfortunately the good motives needed a plan and the right leadership to carry the plan out.  The good Iraqi people deserved at least that much. The result of our poor leadership planning and failed intelligence has costs many thousands of lives and has inflicted untold misery, fear and suffering upon an already repressed and fearful people. Iraq was never a threat to our national security. It is now. The Reverend Robert Schuler once said "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail". He was right.

What now? Where do we go from here in Iraq? The only correct course now is to first begin the reduction of combat forces from Iraq and to continue that course until all combat forces have been re-deployed from. We must also motivate and assist the Iraqi military forces, through training, intelligence and technological assistance in defeating the anti-government, forces remaining in Iraq, whether foreign or domestic. We should assist the Iraqis in healing the wounds that have divided them as they have never been divided. The Iraqi Prime Minister needs to dismiss any Minister who is not above reproach and replace them with former Iraq civil servants.  For that to occur, the Iraqi government themselves would have to want it. They apparently do not.

The Iraqi people want peace. The Iraqi government officials, because of corruption and the benefits it brings them, have no motivation to change the status quo. For example, the former Minister of Interior (Bayan Jabor), up to his neck in corruption and "murder through death squad" accusations simply left the Ministry of Interior and was appointed the Minister of Finance! Additionally, if one was to walk into the Ministry of Health today in Baghdad, he would see a large portrait of the radical cleric Moqtada Al Sadr who is credited with the deaths of many Americans as well as thousands of Sunni Iraqis. I wonder how much assistance goes to the Sunni areas directly from the Ministry of Health.

We can't stay, but we must realize, In some cases, the consequences of leaving behind many of those Iraqis who assisted us could be, most certainly would be, fatal, or ruinous to them. We must be prepared to let them immigrate to America, or another country. They trusted us and some would most certainly be killed in revenge for having done so. The blood of all the American soldiers, my own son included, demands justice for the Iraqi people who are being slaughtered on a daily basis; But, what Justice?  We, The United States of America, are responsible for bringing this nightmare upon them. We had a moral obligation the second we crossed the border uninvited.  

We came to Iraq over five years ago. It is time we begin to remove combat forces from Iraq. Those clamoring for America to simply pack up and leave Iraq with no residual material, or diplomatic assistance do not understand the deeper reasons as to why we cannot do that. Those insisting that we stay as military occupiers, an ultimate authority, as we are now, do not understand  the Middle East, or the people who inhabit it.  Those others who feel that America really is in an ultimate war on terror and Iraq is where it is all won or lost are either U.S. Contractors, Oil industry adherents, or very uninformed citizens who, although sincere, are sincerely wrong.  Those who justify practicing terror in order to defeat terrorism have simply forgotten who we are. To become the thing we hate for reasons of expediency makes us exactly what they are. Where is the victory in that?

Americans respect human life and are willing to risk ourselves in order to save the helpless. Terrorist are only willing to risk the lives of others. Those who love freedom cherish it for all. Terrorist only cherish freedom for themselves. Those who love liberty see a world of free people living in peace. Terrorist only see the man in the mirror.

At heart, I am the forever optimist. I believe that there is a way to redeem what we have helped to bring about in Iraq. The vast majority of Iraqi people are resilient and longsuffering. They do understand the greater good means that forgiveness and tolerance will be necessary to bring about peace in their country. The Iraqis know that the coalition did not anticipate that those assisted to power by the US would turn so quickly to the corruption that would bring them easy riches.

Iraqis in Baghdad know that the Prime Minister  is the leader of the "Green Zone", while the rest of Baghdad is ruled by the militias and by the corrupted Iraqi Police (IP) who apparently are themselves the Shia death squads, long rumored to act at the behest of the former Minister of Interior Bayan Jabor, now the Minister of Finance. Many Iraqis have told me that the coalition should never have initially allowed the new government Ministers the free hand to do as they pleased. It was not time to allow the Iraqi government to begin dictating Iraqi affairs. They were right and we simply failed to hear them. Now is the time to listen to the people of Iraq. Now is the time to help them in ways that will reach the common man and woman on the street. The Iraqi people need to be motivated to force their government to work, hold them accountable and usher in the rule of law.  Now is the time for America to support the people of Iraq and begin the phased withdrawal of all U.S. Combat forces  from their country.

Current Iraq Council of Ministers
Prime Minister    Nouri al-Maliki
Deputy Prime Minister    Barham Salih
Deputy Prime Minister    Salam al-Zobaie
Interior Minister    Jawad Bulani
Foreign Minister    Hoshyar Zebari
Defence Minister    Qadir Obeidi
Oil Minister    Hussain al-Shahristani
Electricity Minister    Karim Waheed
Minister of Planning    Ali Baban
Higher Education Minister    Abd Dhiab
Minister of Municipalities and Public Works    Riad Ghareeb
Finance Minister    Bayan Jabor
Minister of Water Resources    Abdul-Latif Rashid
Minister of Environment  &nbs p; Narmin Othman
Trade Minister    Abdul Falah al-Sudany
Transport Minister    Karim Mahdi Salih
Minister of Labour and Social Affairs    Mahmoud al-Radi
Human Rights Minister    Wijdan Michael
Health Minister    Ali al-Shemari
Minister of Construction and Housing    Bayan Dezei
Education Minister    Khodair al-Khozaei
Agriculture Minister    Yaroub al-Abodi
Justice Minister    Hashem al-Shebly
Culture Minister    Suleiman al-Jumeily
Minister of Science and Technology    ; Raed Fahmy
Minister of Displacement and Migration    Abdul Samad Sultan
Minister of Youth and Sports    Jasem Mohammed Jaafar
Minister of Industry    Fawzi Hariri
Minister of State for National Security Affairs    Shirwan Waili
Minister of State for Governorate Affairs    Saad Taher al-Hashemi
Minister of State for Civil Society Affairs    Adel al-Assadi
Minister of State for Women's Affairs    Faten Mahmoud
Minister of State for Tourism and Antiquities  &nbs p; Liwaa Semeism
Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs    Safaaeddine al-Safi

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