US scholars see qualified success for US Iraq surge

[Barrett808]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two prominent US political analysts just back from Iraq said Monday the US troop surge strategy was making strides in some areas, but warned the Iraqi government was making "zero" progress.

Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, who have recently criticized Bush administration strategy, said they returned from eight days in Iraq more optimistic than they expected.

They noted progress in battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq in western Al-Anbar province, and said there had been impressive stabilization in the northern cities of Tal-Afar and Mosul.

But they warned that southern Iraq and the city of Basra were like the "Wild West," pummelled by violence, and that security in the capital was uneven, with some neighborhoods returning to normal and others like a "war-zone."

"This is the first trip I have taken to Iraq that I actually came back more hopeful than I went over, (but) again that is a more qualified hopefulness," Pollack told a small group of reporters.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070730/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary

---

Hard to square with this report:

8 million Iraqis in need of emergency aid: Oxfam
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2934424#2934678

[jimshoes]

1. What's the pay day for a

bullshit propoganda NY Times Op-Ed these days. How many times did these fellows leave their hotel in the green zone during that trip?

[EST]

2. Scholar-hah!

Connecting the words "scholar" and "brookings institution" just proves that words won't leap off the page when ignorantly juxtaposed.

[hack89]

5. The Brookings Institure is considered liberal

and is run by a Clintonite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookings_Institution

[Donnachaidh]

11. So it's a blue hack? See reply number 6

Dems have hacks too.

[antiimperialist]

13. Brookings receives funding from right-wing think-tank Smith-Richardson Foundation

And it is very stupid of you to imply that because Brookings is consider "liberal", it follows that these two war cheerleaders are somehow liberal. Brookings received over $100,000 from SRF in 2005.
http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=570

And Since you love Wikipedia, here's a description of Smith-Richardson:

The Foundation became especially active in supporting free market, pro-democratic and anti-communist causes in 1973 when R. Randolph Richardson became its president. Under Mr. Richardson's leadership, SRF was an early supporter of such intellectual movements as supply-side and monetarist econnomics, and neo-conservatism in general. An internal family conflict resulted in a 12 year legal battle between several branches of the family between 1990-2002. As a result of this conflict, Peter Richardson (nephew of R. Randolph) became president in 1992, while a much smaller entity, The Randolph Foundation, (TRF), was created in the same year controlled largely by R. Randolph Richardson and his daughter, Heather Higgins. SRF's policy orientation became slightly more centrist at this time, while TRF, under Ms. Higgins as president, largely abandoned economic and foreign policy, choosing instead to pursue projects associatied with social conservatism.

Brookings has also received hundreds of thousands from right-wing Olin Foundation.
On foreign policy, Brookings is not a liberal entity.

[JDPriestly]

24. Ahh! Hillary voted for the war, has been lukewarm in

her criticism of it and now her friends are trying to persuade us that things are getting better. I do not disbelieve or believe what these "experts" say.

It is a moral issue. Bush lied to get the American people to support the invasion of Iraq. His intention was criminal -- to steal the Iraqi oil. As a nation, we did something wrong. If things are better for Iraq, I am happy for them. Nevertheless, we have a moral obligation to do what is right. That means we have to leave Iraq and its oil to the Iraqis.

I wonder to what extent the improvement in the situation is simply due to the fact that so many Iraqis have given up hope and sought refuge in other countries.

Back to Hillary, she and Bill were such strong supporters of the war when it started. She has never claimed to support a complete pullout. This looks like a maneuver to set a scene in which Hillary can win the election and keep enough American troops in Iraq to control the oil. That will never, never work. A let-up in the violence will be only temporary. Hillary and the Republicans would like to paint a rosy picture of the scene in Iraq so that they can persuade American voters once again to vote against what is right and what will in the long run be in the interest of America. This is another MSM, big corporate hype.

But, still, I hope they are right and that there is less violence in some areas of Iraq at least in the short run.

[LuckyTheDog]

3. If we lower our expectations enough...

... then, eventually, the Iraq occupation just might come close to meeting them.

[aaronbees]

22. That's BushCo's aim for the game

Shifting targets in the sand - moving the goalpost since they're such liars about the real reason they wanted to jump into Iraq in the first place.

[TomInTib]

4. Shades of early 1968.

I believed that shit then. So I enlisted because I just knew that by the time I got anywhere, it would be over.

Yeah, right.

What did they do, threaten to yank Brookings' non-profit status?

[Alpharetta]

15. Was Brookings pretty much in favor of the Vietnam War back then?

I seem to recall they were pro-war for most of the Vietnam era, but I can't find any specifics on it.

[TomInTib]

20. That's what I remember. nt

[Demit]

6. As Glenn Greenwald says, "this isn't the first time O'Hanlon took a trip to Iraq

and came back and announced How Great Things Are, that We Have the Right Strategy, and that We are Winning.

From an NPR Interview, September 28, 2003:
LIANE HANSEN: Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He just returned from a Pentagon-sponsored visit to Iraq and he's in the studio. Welcome back, Michael. What's it like in Iraq?

MICHAEL O'HANLON: Well, it's obviously tough. It's a little better, however, than I thought for a couple of reasons. One is I think the counterinsurgency effort is going fairly well. Now obviously, you mention the number of attacks per day that continue; it's a real concern. We're still losing troops. Everyone's aware of that. The truck bombings in August were tragic. The assassination of the Governing Council member was tragic, but overall, the counterinsurgency mission seems to be going well in that we are taking out a lot more people than we're losing and I believe we're using force fairly selectively and carefully on balance. ...

HANSEN: Final question. Your visit was sponsored by the Defense Department. Are you concerned that you perhaps were given a rather narrow view of the country by your hosts?

O'HANLON: There's no doubt. But we only had a couple days there. We talked primarily to American officials. However, we could be quite prying and we could really push them. And I think overall, nonetheless, I was reassured. We didn't meet a lot of Iraqis who could tell us how things were going, but on balance, I think we had some access."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/


Glenn's piece is pretty thorough in showing how O'Hanlon the Serious Expert has been a cheerleader of the war from the beginning. Worth reading the whole thing.

[Barrett808]

8. Great link, thanks!

:thumbsup:

[sakabatou]

7. Iraq demands more blood!

[antiimperialist]

9. Pollack "prominent? haha. Pollack strongly supported the Iraq invasion, and the surge

He authored the book, "The Case for Invading Iraq":
http://www.amazon.com/Threatening-Storm-Case-Invading-Iraq/dp/0375509283

[arewenotdemo]

21. He seems to run in the RIGHT circles to know it all.

A U.S. government indictment alleges that Pollack provided information to former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) employees Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman during the AIPAC espionage scandal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Pollack

[jordi_fanclub]

10. Here's the REAL successful FAILURE picture...

... and wasn't necessary an 8-days PAID vacation to the Green Zone to plot this

[antiimperialist]

12. 25 bodies found shot dead in Baghdad in the last 24 hrs.

Sectarian violence continues unabated; and 93 iraqis slain the two previous days.

link

[Alpharetta]

14. will they change the Brookings Institute Iraq Index?

http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex

The Brookings Institute has some pretty hard data about progress in Iraq.

Oil production. (down. lower than during UN sanctions)

Deaths. Violence. Unemployment. Refugees. all up.

Did these scholars suddenly learn the data was collected incorrectly? I doubt it.

But I'm glad they had a nice trip. Embedded sympathy.

[antiimperialist]

16. Sadly, Brookings responds to corporate interests

http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientgrants.php?recipientID=570

[KansDem]

17. Doesn't matter if Bush's surge is a "qualified success" or not...

It is still a war based on lies; people are still being murdered and driven into exile; US troops are still being used to advance a Bush Family plan for oil and global hegemony.

And what Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack say doesn't make it any less so...

[antiimperialist]

18. Good point

i am not one of those who would be happy with the war if the US military were able to keep insurgents in check. Unilaterally invading a country based on lie is outrageous.

[youngdem]

19. I guess the Brookings Institute and PNAC now call their stooges 'scholars'.

:shrug:

[chknltl]

23. Wanting to win the hearts and minds of folks everywhere

...I wonder if he is having any success?

[struggle4progress]

25. O'Hanlon happily signed a PNAC letter in March 2003:

Second Statement on Post-War Iraq
http://web.archive.org/web/20030605091221/http:/www.newamericancentury.org/iraqstatement-032803.htm

Perhaps the most informative thing about the letter is the limited collection of signatories. O'Hanlon has proudly planted his name with Max Boot, Will Marshall, and William Kristol. It at least tells you in what circles he runs.