Deep Blade Journal

Yesterday reports (Patrick Cockburn, The Scotsman) out of Iraq said that:

“US marines handed over control of Fallujah to a former general in Saddam Hussein’s army yesterday and began to withdraw troops from positions close to the besieged city.

“In a significant climbdown by the US, the former Republican Guard general Jasim Mohammed Saleh arrived in Fallujah to take command of 1,100 soldiers from the disbanded Iraqi army who live in the city”. (Cockburn)

The Scotsman pointed out that General Saleh was, “A prominent figure in the al-Jubouri tribe, which has its power base in the old Sunni heartlands around Fallujah, … Gen. Saleh was a level-two Baath member, a position of power and privilege normally only earned by paying more than lip service to Saddam. And in 1991, when Shiites rebelled, he was among those ordered to crush it by all means necessary”.

As such, he participated with Saddam’s cousin, “Chemical” Ali Hussein al-Majeed, in the murder that filled the now much discussed mass graves uncovered in Iraq over the last year. However, The Scotsman does report “officers who knew him” say General Saleh, “was a tough guy, but a gentleman, who was a general because he was properly trained, not because he was close to Saddam”.

Now top U.S. military officer Gen. Richard Myers today denied on three Sunday news shows, CBS Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, and ABC This Week that Saleh is likely to take charge of the Fallujah peacekeeping mission. He is “still being vetted” for a role in the mission. Furthermore, “The Marines have not withdrawn from Fallujah” and “The Marines will not withdraw from Fallujah”.

How is it that reporting directly from Iraq could be at such odds with the statements of the American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Here are some possibilities, all of which may or may not be true: (1) Myers simply does not know what his subordinates are doing and what is actually happening in Iraq so policy has therefore gotten away from him. (2) Myers sees the bad press and politics of hiring a Saddam-era Iraqi general to do what the US Marines could not do, so he is just spinning a “vetting” story and claiming there is no reversal in hopes that attention will fade from the obvious reversal of policy. (3) Myers has been ordered by the White House to keep a lid on public admission that the whole Iraq project is collapsing.

All the fine rhetoric about the evils of Saddam’s methods that President Bush is so fond of repeating wouldn’t pass a laugh test if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was going around telling the public that Saddam’s tools were being rehabilitated.

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor reports this afternoon that “Iraqi insurgents are celebrating their ‘victory’ in Fallujah– broadcasting it from mosques while residents rejoice in the streets–as US marines over the weekend pulled back forces encircling the city”.

Whether or not General Myers is “vetting” Saleh, this is the reality.

The CSM closes its story with this positive note: “Opting for the deal may have saved US and Iraqi lives, despite other negative repercussions, says Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst for Jane’s Consultancy Group in London”.

Maybe the American leadership will come to its senses and figure out that a way to save many more lives would be to remove all US troops from Iraq. If it is feared that chaos would follow such a pullout, I ask what is it that we have there now?