Peter Dow

Well of course there is a lot in President Bush’s new Iraq strategy but some points look strong to me and other points look weak.

Firstly, the plan's strong point, briefly.

The strong point of the new plan of course is that finally we might be taking unto ourselves the right to go after Sadr's militia and Moqtada Sadr himself.

While the Mahdi army in Sadr city are of course in Baghdad - Moqtada Sadr himself won't be - I guess he is in Najaf mostly - but if Maliki is serious (which I doubt) he'll help us arrest or assassinate Moqtada Sadr - give his exact location, time and place and so on.

In any case, we'd be better beating Maliki's brains out than allowing him to call a halt to military action against Moqtada Sadr and his militia commanders - that was the quagmire we were in.

My analysis of Maliki's quagmire can be found here -

Secondly, what is the plan’s weak point?

Well the military have got to know this already - if you set up 27 small bases in Baghdad that is 27 significant targets for the sort of truck bomb that defeated the political resolve of the US to stay in Beirut in 1983.

Remember this?

Remember Beirut well.

Because if our military commanders have forgotten …

(I think it was retired army General Jack Keane whom I heard on the TV recently boasting that "the US, the only super-power, could certainly hold any city in the world" etc.),

... certainly Moqtada Sadr and Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, Saddam's Baathist replacement - our most-wanted "King of Clubs" (remember?) HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN BEIRUT and what our enemies need above all to drive out the American-led coalition is one or more bombings in the style of the 1983 Beirut barrack bombings to break the political will of the US to stay in Iraq.

Remember the Congress is already losing the will to fight on. Although the US military is tough enough to take a severe hit like that, the politicians are NOT - so we need to avoid such an outrage at almost all costs.

Now what our enemies need to hit us so hard is easy targets. So why on earth has General Keane recommended that we provide 27 such targets in Baghdad which will need 27 different supply routes to be defended too which all makes it much more difficult to defend our forces?

Better sticking to the green zone or having strong bases outside Baghdad pretty much miles away from civilians so you can spot your enemies coming a mile away etc.

So we are setting our own army up to be hit hard and I recommend against these 27 localized bases, well right now I do.

You see it might be different if we had much stronger political support in Iraq - such as we could have after we remove Moqtada Sadr and the Baathist insurgency.

We'd know if we had such strong support now if the Iraqis had been cheering Condi during Saddam's execution rather than Moqtada Sadr and if the citizens of Iraq were cheering our forces as they passed and were waving US flags - but they are not - their politicians are still bad-mouthing us to their supporters.

To be honest, it is a bit of a worry when Condi says

We might be walking into Moqtada Sadr's trap - following Moqtada Sadr's plan for us to make ourselves easy targets for his militia or other suicide bombers.

Now of course, it is possible to build very strong bases inside a city but it requires a huge engineering effort - to absolutely defend a base (such as the Baghdad green zone) from attack.

I don't know how many of these super-strong bases we can afford in Iraq - but I can bet it isn't 27.

First things first - we need to prioritise eliminating Moqtada Sadr and his Mahdi army militia - and the Baathist insurgents, and the Iranian infiltrators too.

That action is intelligence led and is carried out by large mobile strike forces who go after targets and who do not sit about defending territory waiting to be bombed!

Look guys, the penny has dropped with the British in Basra - they have used the right tactics and are now winning. The Americans need to follow that part of the plan.

Sure that means that of course Baghdad civilians are still at the mercy of death squads and suicide bombers - of course they are.

But quite frankly, better that Iraqi civilians die than our soldiers die because we cannot sustain political support in Congress if many more of our soldiers are killed.

Look I know it is tough, but Al Qaeda's plan IS to draw us in - as we seem to be being drawn in with these 27 Baghdad mini-bases/targets - draw us in so they can hit us, HARD!

Al Qaeda, Moqtada Sadr and the Baathists are sacrificing Iraqi civilians in order to draw us in to become easy targets.

So let's not be sucked in to trying to police an untenable situation - we need to eliminate the enemy political factions FIRST before THEN policing will be possible.

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Peter Dow, the author of The Scottish National Standard Bearer website

Peter Dow, the Owner of the Rice for President Yahoo Group

Peter Dow

Baghdad press conference with General George Casey US Military Commander in Iraq and Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador to Iraq. 15 January 2007.
Under American command? As indeed the U.S. Marines bombed in the Beirut barracks bombing of 1983 were under American command.

So when Casey commands American soldiers to move into 27 poorly defended bases in Baghdad to be sitting ducks for truck bombs etc. it will be under American command but according to a Maliki-approved plan.
Well Mr President some people said
They were wrong. The Iraqis needed help to remove Saddam and they need help to end sectarian violence.
No, Mr President. The Maliki plan is not aggressive against sectarian violence. It is not aggressive against those political faction leaders (including government ministers and clerics like Moqtada Sadr) who are organising, justifying or giving covert support to sectarian violence.

Casey calls the Maliki plan a so-called "Baghdad Security Plan" but it would be more accurately described as a "Moqtada Sadr Security Plan" as it seems to be designed to draw attention away from Moqtada Sadr, his and other political factions which are waging war with the American-led coalition and with other Iraqis.

The Maliki plan asks us to police their sectarian war and to put ourselves directly in their Baghdad firing lines whereas a truly aggressive plan to end sectarian violence would proceed to eliminate all sectarian leaders and factions who are in any way complicit in waging sectarian war and war against our forces.

I'm sorry guys but the impression I get from General Casey is that he is an old soldier who doesn't have much of a clue about military and political strategy who is being led by the nose by Maliki and therefore also by the Shiite clerics like Sadr who are pulling Maliki's strings out of sight.

I've no confidence in Casey to get us out of Maliki's quagmire and I was dismayed to see Casey still in post in Iraq today as I had heard that Bob Gates, the new US Defense Secretary was retiring Casey and was appointing a new US Commander in Iraq - someone with more strategic intelligence than Casey is capable of.

Yes that's it! Hopefully, the political knives in Washington will come out for Casey sometime soon.

How it should work is that the US Commander in Iraq should know what needs to be done to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and he should (with diplomatic help) explain it to Iraqis as in their best interests (most of them) to go along with.

Whereas the way Casey is running things, it seems to be Maliki who is explaining to Casey what he wants the Americans to do in order to -

(a) trick us into taking poor strategic decisions and then enough military casualties to cause political problems leading to a withdrawal from Iraq, while trying not to raise the suspicions of unsuspecting people like Casey and Bush, so that

(b) Maliki and Sadr can go on to impose a Shiite sectarian dictatorship over as much of Iraq as they can.

- and Casey is foolishly accepting Maliki's lead.

How many stars has General Casey got? Four? Well our British two star General in Basra - Major General Richard Shirreff seems to be doing better than Casey is.

Now maybe you think I am just being loyally British, praising a British general but I am a ferocious republican so actually I see British generals as royalists first, British second, and I'd rather support a republican American general than a royalist British general, all things being equal but in this case all things are not equal - Shirreff is better.

So come on America, you've got a better general than Casey somewhere in your ranks, I just know it and NOW is the time to put your best man in and hopefully this General David Petraeus is the leader we need.