By PHK
Here we go again. As Washington, D.C. attorney Elizabeth D. Dyson pointed out in a post Christmas e-mail to ombudsmen at PBS and the Washington Post, the U.S. military has been upping air strikes against insurgents in Iraq as it begins to decrease ground troops in, I guess, preparation for the November 2006 Congressional elections. Thus far, she wrote, the air power story’s either been ignored (PBS-Newshour) or buried (p. A14 in the Post) in almost all the U.S. media.
The New York Times published only one report that I could find in its archives on the increased use of airpower in Iraq, but this was on June 12, 2005 and before the increase documented by the Pentagon data (see below). Interestingly, the Seattle Post Intelligencer republished the Washington Post report – and will hopefully follow up, but a search of the Los Angeles Times which broke the Lincoln Group psyops fiasco a couple of months ago reveals nada. Nothing. Rien. Nichevo. Tipota. Ei mitaan. Choose your language. I hope this is not in line with the paper’s recent decision to replace two liberal columnists with those more to the administration’s liking.
Why is it most of the U.S. MSM is so afraid to – or neglectful of – investigating a story that Seymour Hersh wrote about in the December 5, 2005 New Yorker and was discussed in the UK’s Guardian, November 28?
A peak at the stats
Here is the Pentagon data which the Washington Post reported on page A-14 on Christmas Eve: U.S. air strikes in Iraq have risen from about 25 air strikes per month to 62 in September, 122 in October and 120 in November. This includes unmanned Predator flights controlled by “airmen” from an Air Force base in Nevada striking at “insurgent strongholds” in western Anbar province next to the Syrian border, the use of Air Force F-16 and F-15 fighters from an airbase north of Baghdad, Navy F-18s from a carrier in the Persian Gulf and Marine Corps F-18s from Al Asad air base in western Anbar province. What are they firing and why? AP reports that in November the military disclosed that it had fired “three satellite-guided 500 pound bombs designed for support of ground troops in close combat.” Other information on types of weapons and ammunition used, we’re told, is not available. Why is unclear.
Here’s a related Christmas bombing story from the Armed Forces Press Service, courtesy of the conservativevoice.com, on December 27:
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26, 2005
Coalition aircraft flew 36 close air support missions Dec. 25 for Operation Iraqi Freedom. U. S. Air Force F-15s provided close-air support to coalition troops near Balad, destroying an enemy mortar location with a precision-guided bomb. U. S. Air Force F-16s, a Predator and Royal Air Force GR-4s provided close-air support to coalition troops near Baqubah. The GR-4s struck an enemy firing position. Other U. S. F-15s provided close-air support to coalition troops in near Baghdad. Nine U. S. Air Force and U. S. Navy intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions in support of operations in Iraq.
(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq, Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq and U. S. Central Command Air Forces Forward news releases)
But what’s this supposed to mean? Change of strategy or tactics?
Hersh, as quoted in the Guardian, and others who oppose U.S. involvement in this civil war suggest that the increase in U.S. air strikes since early September relates directly to the administration’s decision – albeit under pressure from the home crowd – to decrease the number of troops in Iraq presumably in the run-up to the November 2006 Congressional elections. Norman Solomon in Common Dreams, December 22, 2005, for instance, explicitly makes this connection.
Another take might suggest that the military has decided that close air support of the kind used in Afghanistan where soldiers on the ground called in unmanned predators and other aircraft for “close-air support” using “smart-bombs of around 500 lbs each rather than the clumsy much heavier “dumb” ones is more effective than engaging in battles with Iraqi insurgents without this kind of additional help.
I don’t pretend to be a military strategist, but what both explanations suggest is that despite the administration’s trumpeting of yet another Iraqi election “triumph,” the U.S. military knows that all is not right in this “kingdom” on the Tigris and Euphrates and is trying to cope the best way it knows how, e.g. with more guns, steel and explosives (and don’t ask me about their composition.)
I’m sorry. Also don’t tell me that the latest Iraqi elections and Rumsfeld’s spooning up Christmas dinner to the troops in Iraq – a classic Father Christmas photo op for the folks back home - will make everything turn out all right. Whether the December elections have deepened the sectarian divisions among Iraq’s Arabs or just explicitly demonstrated the existing cavernous divide through a numbers display – if the statistics are to be believed – I don’t know. Regardless, the result is increased Sunni outrage – rightly or wrongly - at what they consider an election stolen by the Shiites as well as resounding victories for the hard-line religious parties and defeat for the secularists except in Kurdistan where Kurds are Kurdish nationalists first and religious divides play less importance.
The only positive outcome that I’ve seen is that votes for Ahmed Chalabi are so low – he won’t even rate a seat in the parliament. So I guess he can claim fraudulent elections, too. But will this be enough to remove him from the Oil Ministry? Don’t count on it. And who will take his place? Shiite clerics – or their front men? I don’t think any of this forebodes well for a quick conclusion, happy ending or a tidy victory, over the insurgency in Iraq. (See Juan Cole’s “Ten Myths about Iraq 2005”)
But will devastation caused by air strikes really turn the tide?
Did you ever wonder how precise a 500 pound bomb is dropped from on high? How likely is it to remove a single IED planting individual without causing collateral damage? I’m no physicist or engineer, but I’m skeptical that at least a few innocent civilians are also likely to be caught in the carnage. Witnesses, according to Post correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer reporting from Ramadi in western Iraq December 23, say scores.
Yet putting human rights aside for a more realist, or even Machiavellian, interpretation of aerial bombardment, I think that bombing the hell out of people creates – not only unwarranted casualties - but also more enemies. How are even small craters where houses once stood, destroyed cars, burned fields, dead families and maimed kids going to win a single “heart and mind?” I doubt very effectively.
With thanks to Elizabeth D. Dyson for letting me share her e-mails and John Oram and Elizabeth for research help.