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To: Alighieri who wrote (245350)	8/8/2005 3:05:20 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1577586

Iraqi army fears insurgents outside walls of base By Andrew Hammond Mon Aug 8, 5:40 AM ET For the new Iraqi army being trained by American troops in the safe confines of Taji military base, it's a jungle out there. So much so that they fear setting foot outside. "We're all afraid. I can't go outside the base wearing these military clothes," says Sergeant Abbas, listing colleagues who have fallen victim to relentless insurgent attacks in the dusty towns and highways north of Baghdad. "We all know soldiers who notice people photographing them with mobile phones and being followed," says the Shi'ite Muslim from Amara in relatively calm southern Iraq. He does not give his full name for fear of reprisals. Training the new Iraqi army is essential for U.S. plans to bring troops home over the next year. But for the moment the 15,000 Iraqis at Taji are glad they rarely have to venture outside in military attire. "I can feel them following me and I'm scared of that," said Lieutenant Colonel Bassam Ismail, speaking of the guerrillas. Taji, an old Iraqi military base just northwest of Baghdad, lies in the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency against the new, Shi'ite-led Iraqi government and its U.S. backers. In a country increasingly split along sectarian and ethnic lines, where the minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein resent the ascendancy of Shi'ites and Kurds, the army is trying its best to stay above the fray, these soldiers say. SACRIFICE In an impromptu discussion about the state of the army most soldiers were reluctant to state their sectarian affiliation. "I'm prepared to say 'I sacrifice my spirit and blood for you' to any leader, as long as the country works," said Ismail, citing the classic street slogan of the bygone Arab nationalist era, which was a favorite chant of Saddam's soldiers. They criticized the decision to dissolve the old army, taken by the U.S. occupation authorities after they removed Saddam from power two years ago. "There's no way to get the high-level officers back into the army now," said Ismail -- some are believed to be helping the insurgency, directed by Saddam's former Baathist supporters. With the economy crippled by daily violence and political uncertainty, new recruits are happy to have a steady job. "Most ordinary soldiers join just for the salary," one says. "Don't say that, we should say that it's for the nation," Lieutenant Shihab Ahmed, a Kurd from Mosul, angrily interjects. "We have Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds and we all work together. The only important thing is God, his Prophet and the way of his Prophet, isn't that so?" Radical Sunni insurgents, who see themselves as upholding the Sunna, or 'the way of the Prophet', in the face of Shi'ite domination, think otherwise. "I once received a letter from them saying I would die for being in this 'cowardly army'," Ahmed said. "But I wouldn't even call what they do terrorism, it's wrecking."

To: Alighieri who wrote (245350)	8/8/2005 3:49:44 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577586

Stakes are high in new ‘great game’ being played by West in Iraq and Afghanistan The loss of more American soldiers may mark the beginning of the end for the occupation of Iraq, finds Diplomatic Editor Trevor Royle Forty years ago, when the US was mired in an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, the mantra for ending the impasse was “declare victory and get out”. Those words came back to haunt the country last week when it lost 14 marines in a single ambush in western Iraq, wiping out a whole platoon in one of the worst incidents of the insurgency war. At a time when General George Casey, commanding US forces in Iraq, had promised to make “some fairly substantial reductions” in troop levels, it seemed that the time might have come to get out of an all-too-familiar quagmire. According to a leaked Pentagon document, the US intends to reduce its garrison to 80,000 by the middle of 2006 and down to half that number by the end of the year. Coming on top of British defence documents, which argue that coalition forces can be reduced from 176,000 to 66,000 during the same period, the figures are not only remarkably similar but they send out a powerful message that the end of the Iraqi occupation could soon be in sight. For military planners and politicians alike this is a welcome development. Senior commanders in London and Washington are well aware of the “Iraq factor” which is harming army recruitment and retention, and both the Blair and Bush administrations recognise the dangers of being saddled with an unpopular war that produces heavy casualties. Although recent research by think-tanks such as the influential Brookings Institute can find no increase in US public disquiet about the operations in Iraq, wars of this kind can produce a tipping point when people begin to question the sacrifice and start asking awkward questions. However, any draw-down in Iraq will not solve the problem of sending young men and women into combat zones. There is still Afghanistan, where elections are to be held later this year and where the security situation is still far from settled. Next May, the British-led Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) will deploy in Afghanistan and there will be a consequent increase in the size of the UK military contribution, or what senior officers have described as “a considerable ramp-up in capability”. Details have still to be confirmed, but the increase in numbers could be as high as 5000 (at present the British garrison is 1000-strong) and it could include new formations such as the recently formed Special Reconnaissance Regiment and the reformed 1st Parachute Regiment, which has been trained as a “ranger” battalion to support operations by the special forces. The British area of operations will be in the south of Afghanistan, an unquiet area where the Taliban still operates and where the bulk of the illegal poppy cultivation is carried out. The crop is big business and the region is highly volatile. Last year, the UN estimated that production stood at 4200 tones and that its export value was $2.8 billion or 60% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. To enhance those staggering profits even further, producers have already started using mobile laboratories to process the opium base into heroin. As Cindy Fazey, professor of international drugs policy at Liverpool University, put it: “The leaders of this growing industry and the farmers who supply them are hardly going to stand by and watch their lucrative businesses destroyed.” Initially, the ARRC will operate alongside US forces and elements of the Afghanistan National Army but it will not be a cakewalk. Senior commanders have promised a “robust approach” to operations, but as there is no coherence to the borders and the region is home to intense tribal rivalries, the deployment could create as many imponderables as Iraq. For the US there is an added difficulty. In evolving his Middle East strategy, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld placed great emphasis on the “lily pads”, the ring of air force bases which are used to project US authority over the Middle East and keep a close watch on the oil and gas supply lines running through the Caucasus and the old Soviet central Asian republics. Afghanistan is central to that equation but last week the US was given six months’ notice from the government of Uzbekistan to quit the Karshi-Khanabad air base, which is used to support operations in Afghanistan. The move is probably in retaliation for a US decision to withhold $8 million in aid in protest at President Islam Karimov’s refusal to uphold human rights in Uzbekistan, but it is still something of a slap in the face. While the Pentagon claims to be relaxed as it still has access to the Manas air base in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, it wants to avoid the impression that it is bowing to Russian and Chinese pressure to withdraw from the region. Once again, as happened in the 19th century, the new “great game” in central Asia is being fought for high stakes, and lives and reputations are being put on the line. sundayherald.com