Rice Visits Baghdad Seeking End to Sectarian Violence

Secretary of State neoCondoleezza Rice made a surprise visit yesterday to the Green Zone in Baghdad in an attempt to get the sectarian violence there under control. The day before, an entire Iraqi police brigade was taken off the streets for cooperating with Shi’ite death squads while the US Congress approved $20 million for a party to celebrate victory in Iraq. As Rod Serling would say, “welcome to the Twilight Zone.”

The fact that Dr. Rice’s visit was unannounced for security reasons illustrates just how effective US policy has been thus far. Her plane actually had to circle Baghdad for half an hour due to “indirect fire” from the ground. The latest count says there are at least 23 different militias operating in Iraq, but any figure bigger than zero is trouble for a government anywhere. The Kurdish peshmerga count as a militia, but the fact is these warriors have ensured that Kurdistan is independent in all but name. It won’t be long before the Shi’ite legions can make a similar statement.

Of course, where the central government has the most effective military, militias are nuisances more than threats. That is not really the case in Iraq. The British have handed over Muthanna and Dhi Qar provinces to the locals, but these places have been quiet since the 2003 war, or at least, relative to the rest of the non-Kurdish parts of the geographic expression “Iraq.” Elsewhere, the government isn’t the strongest influence in the neighborhood, which draws into question the sovereignty the US handed back.

“We are going to Baghdad because it is a quite critical time for the Iraqi government as they work on their . . . national reconciliation plan,” Rice said misusing the royal pronoun. She added, “It ought to be very clear to everybody -- and I think it’s especially clear to the Iraqi government -- that these are urgent matters that they have to take on with great urgency.” But can they? The militias will have a lot to say about this. When 700 policemen go to work for the death squads as collaborators, “it ought to be very clear to everybody” that the government can’t rely on its own security forces. Iraqis aren’t standing up for this government so much as squatting off to one side hoping not to get hit by shrapnel.

Meanwhile, the US Congress has approved $20 million to fund “commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan ceremonies in the latest defense appropriation. This is the brain child of Kentucky’s finest, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, and this money was in last year’s bill, but it didn’t get spent for the reasons cited above. There’s no success to commemorate because of the gross incompetence of Dr. Rice and her boss. However, it might not be a bad idea to spend the money on a parade anyway. A $20 million ticker-tape parade is cheaper than the billions a month spent on the war. And the troops would be marching in the US rather than in Fallujah. Unless things improve radically in the next couple of months, further American efforts in Iraq will only be reinforcing failure.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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