February 28, 2006

Quotable

"Localized difficulties also persist, but I think, at the strategic level, this crisis -- a mosque attack leading to civil war -- is over... It was a serious crisis. I believe that Iraq came to the brink and came back."

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

He goes on:

I give credit to Iraqi leaders for rising to the occasion," Khalilzad said. "Going to the brink, of course, but more importantly, pulling back. I am gratified that the decisive crisis caused by the attacks did not lead to an all-out civil war. The Iraqi people, I hope, will learn from this to use this as an opportunity for a new nationalism."

"Great crises such as this can fragment, polarize people or pull them together," he said. "I hope in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years, people will look at this crisis as a turning point in getting Iraqis to come together against a common enemy."

There is a bleaker narrative, of course. But, at least for today, let's give Ambassador Khalilzad some props for helping the various factions pull through this very significant crisis. Not to mention, a massive tragedy:

Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"After he came back from the evening prayer, the Mahdi Army broke into his house and asked him, 'Are you Khalid the Sunni infidel?' " one man at the morgue said, relating what were the last hours of his cousin, according to other relatives. "He replied yes and then they took him away."

Aides to Sadr denied the allegations, calling them part of a smear campaign by unspecified political rivals.

By Monday, violence between Sunni Arabs and Shiites appeared to have eased. As Iraqi security forces patrolled, American troops offered measured support, in hopes of allowing the Iraqis to take charge and prevent further carnage.

But at the morgue, where the floor was crusted with dried blood, the evidence of the damage already done was clear. Iraqis arrived throughout the day, seeking family members and neighbors among the contorted bodies.

"And they say there is no sectarian war?" demanded one man. "What do you call this?"

The brothers of one missing man arrived, searching for a body. Their hunt ended on the concrete floor, provoking sobs of mourning: "Why did you kill him?" "He was unarmed!" "Oh, my brother! Oh, my brother!"

Morgue officials said they had logged more than 1,300 dead since Wednesday -- the day the Shiites' gold-domed Askariya shrine was bombed -- photographing, numbering and tagging the bodies as they came in over the nights and days of retaliatory raids.

The Statistics Department of the Iraqi police put the nationwide toll at 1,020 since Wednesday, but that figure was based on paperwork that is sometimes delayed before reaching police headquarters. The majority of the dead had been killed after being taken away by armed men, police said.

Ah, but stuff happens when your de facto war leader game-plans the wrong war, and his predictions go very, very awry. The President is at 34% (at least in one poll), in part one suspects, because of his refusal to hold such abysmally discredited figures to task. It has become unforgivable, really. Whether a tragedy or a farce, I don't know. Both, perhaps, at this point.

Check out the internals of that poll. Republicans are badly underrepresented.

Posted by: joe at February 28, 2006 08:40 AM | Permalink to this comment

If there is any prospect for change at the top, which you seem to be encouraging, the Three simple questions necessary for any candidate must be:

Are we at war?
If so, with whom?
And what do you propose to do about it?

Posted by: sbw at February 28, 2006 12:57 PM | Permalink to this comment

While there can be no doubt that predictions were wrong, the wrong predictions are only a byproduct of the real problem.

To continue to opine about how the grand plan was good but derailed by poor leadership is living in a fantasy.

Posted by: Davebo at February 28, 2006 01:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

Ambassador Khalilzad gets props from the Western press all the time, usually without any explanation of what he's accomplished. (I've blogged about this a couple of times: http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad.html and http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad-ii.html. Not that either post is particularly well written, but it is something I've noticed over time.) I don't mean to knock the man, but I'm not clear what he's accomplishing, other than that he has the skill to get good press from the American media. Unlike most of them, he seems to know Iraqi politics and to talk to Iraqi political leaders. This is not a bad thing, but it should be table stakes, given our involvement in the country.

Khalilzad's comments quoted above seem like the right thing to say, but is anyone in Iraq listening to him say them? Surely they will be heard more in this country than there. (I'd like to be wrong about that.)

Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at February 28, 2006 04:12 PM | Permalink to this comment

You are correct Joe. We wished to learn what intelligent people thought this time.

Posted by: Martin at March 1, 2006 12:21 AM | Permalink to this comment

Khalilzad is always getting props, but for what?

http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad.html
http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad-ii.html
http://allintensivepurposes.blogspot.com/2006/02/our-man-in-baghdad-iii.html

Is he getting something done, or is he just good at getting good press?

Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at March 1, 2006 10:57 PM | Permalink to this comment

Sorry for the double post -- a day later, I couldn't remember whether I'd written one.

I wasn't trying to knock Khalilzad in a backhand way. If there's a good explanation out there of why he is such a genius, I'd like to see it.

Posted by: Tyrone Slothrop at March 3, 2006 09:03 PM | Permalink to this comment