... Hamida Smaysam, dean of media studies at Baghdad University, said: "Everyone is watching Al Jazeera and other Arab TV stations. There's a war of information going on, and the Americans have not been able to fill the gap.

"Al Jazeera is not intentionally distorting the facts — it's just rushing into exciting news and making quick conclusions," she said. "But at the same time, the Americans want to hide things."


"I have to say that Al Jazeera's task in portraying the truth is honorable," said Ahmed Asadi, a university graduate working in a Baghdad restaurant. "Al Jazeera is covering everything by the minute for everyone to see the truth for themselves, proving that the Western networks are nothing more than liars. Why do you think the Americans want Al Jazeera out of Fallouja?"

.... "Americans say there's a cease-fire, but when you turn on the TV all you see is fighting in Fallouja," said Wisam Karim, ... . "It's strange to be told one thing and see another. The Americans want us to believe everything is OK, but we see the casualties and burning Army trucks and soldiers dying on TV and in the streets."

... Ali Karim, who was waiting for a trim, leaned over and said that [Mark] Kimmitt, the U.S. military spokesman, reminded him of the former Iraqi information minister.

"He's the new Sahaf," Karim said. ...

Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations' special envoy to Iraq, ended his visit [to Baghdad] last week with veiled criticism of the US-led coalition and recommended a transition plan that reshapes the American vision of who should take power June 30.

Given poor relations between the US and the UN, Mr. Brahimi's comments might have drawn a stinging rebuke from Washington. [Brahimi] described fighting in Fallujah as a form of "collective punishment" pursued by US forces, a highly emotive phrase in the Arab world usually used to describe Israeli actions against Palestinians.

...

[Regardless,] the warm reception for Brahimi's plan, which will dramatically undercut the influence of the US-appointed Governing Council, illustrates how much the chaos inside Iraq in the past month has affected US plans.

With continued fighting between Sunni insurgents and marines in Al Anbar Province, which claimed five more American lives Saturday, and with a tense standoff between US forces and the militant Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, the US is edging toward the world body it spurned only last year in the run-up to the war.

...

Brahimi's plan seeks to appoint a "caretaker" government limited to election responsibilities. It would deemphasize religious and ethnic quota policies that the US supports. He envisions a transitional government with a prime minister, a president as head of state, and a broad-based consultative council to advise the transitional leadership but with no lawmaking powers.

The top leaders would probably be selected by the UN. Brahimi said he'd like to select technocrats for the role, since outright politicians could be seen as manipulating the process to prevail at the polls. Iraqi leaders who consulted with Brahimi on his week-long visit say the envoy was also concerned that the ethnic-based approach would introduce divisions into Iraqi society at a time when national unity is paramount.

The Governing Council is split over support for the UN plan. Some see the world body as the only way forward, while others, like Achmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), have repeatedly dismissed the UN since it opposed the US-led invasion.

Dr. Chalabi, who lived in exile for 40 years, has limited political support in Iraq and would probably be sidelined by Brahimi's plan. With close ties to the Pentagon and as one of the principal conduits on intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before the war, he was originally seen as a future leader of Iraq by the US.

"The concept of Brahimi appointing people is not acceptable, the concept of technocrats working out the political problems of Iraq is not acceptable,'' says Entifadh Qanbar, the spokesman for the INC. "If you want to give the UN the position to appoint people and run the political process [that] means that Iraqis will not get the sovereignty we want."

Others disagree. "What Iraq needs is leaders who have deep roots here, who have proven themselves to be effective and trusted by the Iraqi public,'' says Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, a Governing Council member who represents a large tribal confederation. "The most important thing that should happen is we should stop looking at Iraq through this ethnosectarian lens."

Sheikh Yawar says he's delighted that the UN's role looks set to expand. "Brahimi has enough experience to be the most helpful person in rebuilding Iraq. He has an extraordinary record and is quite competent."

Brahimi has had a tense relationship with Chalabi over the past decade; The INC alleged he was a Saddam supporter in 1991. The INC, which receives financial support from the US, advocated for a US invasion throughout the 1990s.

On Friday, Brahimi spoke out against the de-Baathification process inside Iraq, led largely by Chalabi and his allies. "It is difficult to understand that thousands upon thousands of teachers, university professors, [and] medical doctors ... who are sorely needed, have been dismissed," he said. In Hussein's Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were expected to join the party or lose their jobs.

Mr. Qanbar attacked Brahimi's credibility on the issue. "This is an outrageous interference in Iraq's internal affairs,'' he says. "The Iraqi people have suffered from the Baath party for 35 years, and we feel this represents provocation on his part."

... Dr. Lakhdar Brahimi, made very clear in his statements after meetings with Iraqi and American leaders in Iraq that Mr. Bremer and U.S. Military officers had inflamed the situation in Iraq and they had best change their ways. He pointed out that Iraqis were tired of the American arrests of people without charges, holding them without trials, torturing and brutalizing people who were under arrest, and often killing those they arrested. He also pointed out that Bremer was wrong to shut down Al Sadr’s newspaper; it was an undemocratic thing to do, and further that he had no valid reason for going after Al Sadr and that the attacks on Fallujah were criminal and against international law because of the targeting of civilians, ambulances and sanitation and electrical infrastructure. As far as Brahimi was concerned, the American behavior had been a disaster for the Iraqi people and had alienated the Iraqi people and turned them against America and it’s alleged quest to establish democracy. He also said that the puppet “governing council” should be totally disbanded and replaced by a popularly elected president, two vice presidents and a parliament or a congress, with America staying out of the picture and withdrawing as soon as possible so that the UN could come in and clean up the mess the Americans had made. Of course, he put matters in more diplomatic language than this, but those were his main points.


What is sad is that the major American media, including the vaunted PBS News Hour, never got the whole story out—nor did any of the other major U.S. media—all they said was that Brahimi felt the UN could help and that Iraq should have a new government structure. Thus, the American people to this day, know little of Brahimi’s words of wisdom. Add to this that the American leadership said, “We think he has a good idea,” but never addressed his specifics, but then the media people went on to say, contradicting the plan that Brahimi had set forth for a vote, “But Brahimi didn’t tell us how he would enact his plan or other matters.” So, the American media not only kept the truth from the U.S. public, they also made it appear that Brahimi was vague with his plan.


This is almost as bad as Jim Lehrer on the "New Hour" last week, speaking an untruth when he said that Al Sadr’s paper had been preaching attacks on the American troops, when a guest was speaking about Al Sadr’s paper being closed down and that this was undemocratic and probably a mistake.


As Norman Solomon pointed out in his article, “How the News Hour Changed History,” Lehrer had no proof for what he said, and when all the networks checked it out, the only “proof” of the allegations against Sadr’s newspaper were simply allegations by the U.S. Command that this had been the case; but even the U.S. Command did not offer any proof, when asked for proof by Arab media in Baghdad. But, Lehrer who many think of as an honest newsman was clearly wrong on this matter. He may be honest on some matters, but as to the Iraq situation, clearly he and Suarez are in the administration’s corner with this type of untruth, with their allowing Judith Miller to go on and on when she lied about the WMD’s in Iraq, and featuring the inane prattle of David Brooks and Tom Friedman as they continually justify Bush's war and the U.S. military behavior in Iraq. So, the short-circuiting of what Brahim said runs true to form....

... Woodward describes a relationship between Cheney and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell that became so strained Cheney and Powell are barely on speaking terms. Cheney engaged in a bitter and eventually winning struggle over Iraq with Powell, an opponent of war who believed Cheney was obsessively trying to establish a connection between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and treated ambiguous intelligence as fact....

.... Having given Brahimi its public blessing, the Administration had little choice but to stand aside and let him call the shots. After 11 days in Iraq, Brahimi announced in Baghdad last week that he essentially intended to take a year of political planning by the U.S, crumple it into a ball and toss it into the waste can. He had his own ideas about how Iraq should be governed and who should govern it. Early this month Secretary of State Colin Powell said expanding the 25-member, U.S.-appointed Governing Council was the most practical approach for transferring power after the Coalition Provisional Authority disbands on June 30. But Brahimi's plan, which he will present for Annan's approval this week, takes as its starting point the demise of the council. In its place would be a caretaker government comprising technocrats selected through a process the U.S. will participate in but not run. In the not too distant past, Brahimi's plan B would have infuriated some U.S. policymakers, especially civilian officials at the Pentagon, who had dismissed the idea of ceding any control over Iraq to the U.N. But last week the White House could hardly wait to throw its support behind Brahimi's proposals. On Friday Bush stood with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and told reporters who asked about their political plans for Iraq to seek out his new point man. "That's going to be decided by Mr. Brahimi," Bush said. "You are watching a process unfold, and you won't have to ask that question on July 1." ...

...BAGHDAD, April 17 -- In the space of two weeks, a fierce insurgency in Iraq has isolated the U.S.-appointed civilian government and stopped the American-financed reconstruction effort, as contractors hunker down against waves of ambushes and kidnappings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. The events have also pressured U.S. forces to vastly expand their area of operations within Iraq, while triggering a partial collapse of the new Iraqi security services designed to gradually replace them. ...

...There is a worrying disparity in news reporting from main news media sources and news from within Iraq itself. Reports from Baghdad and Fallujah by independent sources and journalists tell a very different story to the anesthetized and ideological versions of many of the main news distributors. ...

One of the most respected news and insight sources on Iraq is a Web log run by Juan Cole, Cole, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, entitled Informed Content. Cole stresses that the present situation is much more serious than is being presented in the media and that it is engendering a growing hatred of the United States that will be very difficult to rectify. According to Cole,

?the degree of hatred for the United States in the Muslim world is growing by the minute as the events in Fallujah are broadcast throughout the region. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's warning to Bush that by invading Iraq he would be creating a hundred Bin Laden?s may well comes to pass.?

The fact that reports of actual events are coming from Web logs and independent sources is also indicative of the state of the mainstream media. It is not surprising that independent researchers and journalists are starting to command more respect for their veracity and sincerity than mainstream media....

Why are we not seeing the scores of refugees killed on the road from Fallujah, or the appalling conditions, or the other atrocities taking place in the town?

Is there a conspiracy of silence on the part of the main Western media groups? To what extent is the media ?aligned to the Bush Administration?, as one US citizen and close observer of events in the region, contends.

Events taking place in Fallujah, as well as in other cities in Iraq, are of crucial importance for an understanding of the developing crisis in the country and the region. Many critics from within Iraq have openly accused the US forces of ?genocide? in Fallujah; and many reports of civilian deaths and casualties indicate that this accusation may have some foundation
...


While the major news sources present a bland and watered-down version of events, reports from within Iraq are very different in tone and content.


The following is an extract from some recent postings in the respected Iraqi Web log Baghdad Burning

The American and European news stations don't show the dying Iraqis; they don't show the women and children bandaged and bleeding, the mother looking for some sign of her son in the middle of a puddle of blood and dismembered arms and legs. They don't show you the hospitals overflowing with the dead and dying because they don't want to hurt American feelings-but people should see it. You should see the price of your war and occupation-it's unfair that the Americans are fighting a war thousands of kilometers from home. They get their dead in neat, tidy caskets draped with a flag and we have to gather and scrape our dead off of the floor and hope the American shrapnel and bullets left enough to make a definite identification.

Media Coverage of Iraq Called ?Shameful? By Peers...In the ongoing Iraq conflict, there is a growing realization among mainstream newsmen that they have failed the American public, but the U.S. military is happy with the way it controlled information through its program of embedding journalists with soldiers.
...

"This was an evangelist with machine guns, a combination of Teddy Roosevelt's triumphalism with Jerry Falwell's moralism," Allan J. Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University...

Bush feared that if news got out about the Iraq plan as U.S. forces were fighting another conflict, people would think he was too eager for war, journalist Bob Woodward writes in "Plan of Attack," a behind-the-scenes account of the 16 months leading to the Iraq invasion. ...

Bush and his aides have denied accusations they were preoccupied with Iraq at the cost of paying attention to the al-Qaida terrorist threat before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ... [testimony by] former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, [before the 9-11commission also] charged the Bush administration's determination to invade Iraq undermined the war on terror.

Woodward's account fleshes out the degree to which some members of the administration, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were focused on Saddam Hussein from the onset of Bush's presidency and even after the terrorist attacks made the destruction of al-Qaida the top priority.

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside Nov. 21, 2001 - when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan - and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about it and when the defense secretary asked to bring CIA Director George Tenet into the planning at some point, the president said not to do so yet.

Even Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was apparently not fully briefed. Woodward said Bush told her that morning he was having Rumsfeld work on Iraq but did not give details....

People who rely on Fox News as their primary source are far more pro-war than non-Fox watchers. It's no surprise: The top-rated cable news channel is relentlessly hawkish on Iraq, and its mix of information and commentary strengthens the pro-war preconceptions of its viewers.

Likewise, people who listen to National Public Radio tend to be more liberal and more critical of all things Bush. Thus, highly educated liberals hear gloomy and critical reports from the front that validate their deeply held convictions.

Few NPR listeners watch Brit Hume or Sean Hannity in Fox-land. And even fewer Fox fans are willing to consider All Things Considered.

Then there's Rush Limbaugh and his merry band of right-wing radio talkers. They regularly question the backbone and patriotism of war foes.

Meanwhile, Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo have launched their own talk shows on the new liberal radio network, Air America...

These days, our man in Baghdad, Civilian Administrator L. Paul Bremer III, must be wondering if his memoirs of the last year should start with the same line.

a lack of post-invasion planning,

failure to develop an exit strategy, and

for a persistent glaring void between the ears of the Bush administration regarding Iraq's history, economy and culture.

Neoconservatives pleaded and postured for preemptive war in Iraq, but they under-estimated one of the few "successes" of Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship. Saddam's costly, protracted war with Iran, his failed invasion of Kuwait and the resultant humiliation of a Versailles-esque settlement, plus a dozen years of global sanctions and U.S./U.K. bombings combined, have produced many negative effects.

But these realities have transformed various religious and ethnic groups from the provinces into something new: Iraqis against the world.

Iraqi national identity need not be permanent to throw a monkey wrench into the U.S. self-help project in Mesopotamia. Violent civil war or a Czech and Slovak style "velvet divorce" are future options for Iraq.

Here's a hint: It isn't liberation, democracy, counter-terrorism, a search for weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian concerns, or even oil or Israel's security interests.

It is simple geo-strategic military positioning, a classic Cold War model, aimed at punishing future enemies and rewarding allies by leveraging regional oil flow, water allocations, and weapons development. This, and nothing else, explains why the EU is nervous, the Russian President antsy, and the Chinese Prime Minister coy.

Fortunately, we don't have to take the self-serving advice of neoconservatives and editorial boards. We can save our working class sons and daughters from unnecessary death, disease, or lifelong debilitation courtesy this boutique war imposed on us by chickenhawk academics and lying old men.

Toss a key, or not, over the fence and redeploy home. Write off the whole experiment as a bad decision taken by a mediocre president unrestrained by a frightened Congress, a docile Supreme Court, a lazy domestic media, and a too-busy-to-pay-attention electorate.

This option is typically rejected as immoral and bad for the Iraqi people. Of course, the Bush Doctrine of selective, preemptive, full-scale war based on jury-rigged or incompetent intelligence, and severely outmoded, but cherished, security paradigms gets first prize in the "immoral and bad for the Iraqi people" category.

Toss a hundred keys over a hundred city walls, and militarily pull back into a subset of friendly Guantanamo-style Iraqi outposts. In places like Kurdish Mosul or Shia Basra, we can pick our own friendly hosts and spend the bulk of the $67 billion base building and security money on these must-have facilities. As we withdraw to our friendly zones, we get to keep military access. As cities like Baghdad and Fallujah settle down, we might negotiate with the emergent leadership there for additional military access. Or not.

This is an approach that will save American lives and American tax dollars. It compromises on the American oil and infrastructure development contracts. It won't guarantee that the Mosul-to-Haifa oil pipeline – a booster for the Israeli economy – will be finished on schedule, if ever. It does not protect the right of expatriate crooks like Ahmad Chalabi to run the country under our tutelage.

The "hundred keys" option offers Iraq self rule, but it sacrifices the neoconservatives' adoration for overwhelmingly strong and centralized federal governments. Adding neoconservative insult to injury, this option also requires us to not only decentralize, but give up U.S. control over Iraqi banks and Iraqi oil production.

Doing so sooner rather than later will save American lives, while preserving at least some existing American contracts. It will, in a small way increase unemployment in Iraq, as the U.S. appointed Governing Council, the U.S. appointed bureaucratic Ministers, and the entire American staff of handlers will all be kicked off the rebuild Iraq gravy train funded by American tax dollars.

These are the types of choices that originate from an honest assessment of why we are in Iraq in the first place: military geo-strategic positioning, with a side of economic welfare for a few fat cat American companies. The neoconservative pipe dream of the reformation of Islam, and a stirring of the democratic heart of the Middle East is, as it always was, delusional window dressing.

April was the cruelest month for T.S. Eliot. It is a month of change; a month that breaks comfortable habits without kindness or remorse. When it comes to fixing our Iraq policy, we need only to appraise, with brutal honesty, what we really want and what we are really willing to spend to achieve it. The practical compromises are self-evident. One hopes we might make them before another April rolls around.

Radical Shi'a leader Moqtada al-Sadr has agreed to accept the authority of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in a move aimed at calming the past week's escalating conflict, a top aide of al-Sadr told reporters Wednesday.

"Moqtada al-Sadr agrees to all that is decided by the religious authority represented by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani," said Qaiss al-Khazali.

There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust. One says: You are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you. The other says: The world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men.

While neo-imperialists and neo-cons invoke Hobbes to support aggressive foreign and military policies, they rarely confront his main concern - that no practical distinction exists between the powers needed to defend against external threats and those required to preserve law and order at home.


Both cases require that absolute power be granted to rulers because the struggle for power and the possibilities of violence are as rampant at home as they are in international relations. (Think of our overflowing prisons and love affair with the death penalty as the domestic counterparts to pre-emptive war.)

What makes Hobbes' argument attractive to the apologists of empire and Superpower is his claim that the only sure method of establishing power that is both unlimited and legitimate is to derive it from the free consent of each citizen. Citizens are complicit in their own subjection, engaging in an imaginary covenant whereby they agree to surrender all their powers to a sovereign who is authorized to protect them.

Ideally, the accompaniment to the politics of fear is political quietism.

Meanwhile the neo-Hobbesians warn that the Social Security system will be bankrupt unless replaced by a social insecurity system based on the vagaries of the stock market. Pension systems are put at risk and employers encouraged to reduce benefits. Medicare becomes more problematic just as unemployment increases and jobs are exported.

Meanwhile, "crowd control" is perfected by an increasingly militarized police. Enough to satisfy the most demanding Hobbesian - and with the Guantanamo prison camp and the Patriot Act as dividends.

The central question to be answered in November is: Will the citizenry revoke or confirm the Hobbesian covenant?

...Why is it so difficult for Americans who love freedom to understand that Iraqis also love freedom and detest being treated like children who have to grow up according to rules written and enforced by generals from Florida and Ohio? Why does a country as powerful and otherwise great as the United States refuse to accept that it is rejected as a foreign military occupier, however benign its self-stated motives?

The last significant aspect of what is happening these days is that the United States is now negotiating with the same thugs, criminals, terrorists and dead-enders whom it has been fighting for a year. ... These [same thugs, i.e.,] Iraqis and many others in the country will inherit political power in due course, and they will determine their own future governance system and national values. The United States should learn the lessons of the past year in Iraq, bask in the glory of its liberating Iraqis from a killer regime, take a bow before the world for its noble deed, and go home with dignity, leaving behind a credible international and Iraqi mechanism by which Iraqis can ensure their security and define their own future condition. Things turned out OK in Concorde and Lexington when the British troops left, and things will turn out OK in restive Iraqi towns when the "natives" can control their own lives as well....

But despite the show of force, it won't be that easy to capture Sadr in Najaf, reports AP. The prospect of a battle there (especially around Sadr's office, which is very close to the Imam Ali Shrine, the Shiite religion's holiest site) upsets many Iraqis. AP also reports that the US commander of the force outside Najaf said his troops were aware that a "single shot in Najaf" could outrage Iraq's powerful Shiite majority. "Look at this as the Shiite Vatican," Col. Dana J. H. Pittard told reporters before the deployment.

On Monday, USA Today reports that the sons of Iraq's top Shiite clerics, including the son of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, met with Sadr and told him they will oppose any move by the US to capture him in Najaf.

Al Jazeera reported Tuesday that other Iraqi leaders have been trying to mediate a deal. between the coalition forces and Sadr. They propose that in exchange for Sadr openly renouncing violence, the US will agree not to arrest him. Monday General John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, did hint at a "uniquely Iraqi solution" to the problem, despite his rhetoric about Sadr being wanted, "dead or alive."

GeoTV reports that Mr. Abizaid, in a conference-call briefing to reporters Monday, announced that he was asking the US Department of Defense to send several thousand additional troops (at least two brigades) to Iraq. He could not say how long they might be needed. The Seattle Times reports the US needs the soldiers to regain control of the roads in Iraq, which have become increasingly dangerous for US soldiers and foreign contractors. One contractor, in an e-mail to the Times, said the "rebels own the roads" in Iraq.
Halliburton, the US company that has a $3.2 billion contract for delivering most of the military supplies in Iraq, said Monday it had suspended some convoys, raising the danger of shortages in food, fuel and water if the situation continues. Privately, company officials expressed concerns about security provided to the convoys. Halliburton's fuel convoys are protected by US soldiers under the terms of a contract signed in December 2001.

In his conference call, Albawaba.com reports, Abizaid also attacked two Arab-language TV stations for "lying" about what was happening in Fallujah. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, he said, were making it look at if US forces were targeting civilians during its anti-insurgency operation there over the past week.
"They have not been truthful in their reporting," Abizaid said of the two Arab television stations. "They haven't been accurate. And it is absolutely clear that American forces are doing their very best to protect civilians and at the same time get at the military targets there."

Al Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout defended the stations' coverage. "I don't think pictures lie. We have tried to be as comprehensive as possible," Mr. Ballout said from the station's headquarters in Qatar. A spokesman for Al Arabiya said its coverage merely reflected "both sides of the story."

Rory McCarthy, in an analysis for the Guardian, said some of the US's main problems in Iraq have been a "rigid adherence to military doctrine that has repeatedly caused problems," combined with a lack of diplomacy, and an inability to form strategic alliances.
George Lopez, international security expert at the University of Notre Dame in the US, told the Associated Press: "We have taken a low-level cleric and made him into a national symbol of resistance against the Americans, just before an Islamic holy day. And we have backed al-Sistani, our one major hope for preaching calm and patience among the Shiites, into a corner."
Fareed Zakaria, writing in Newsweek, also says this "rigid adherence" to a particular set of ideas about the way to move forward in Iraq can also be found in the White House

The Bush administration went into Iraq with a series of prejudices about Iraq, rogue states, nation-building, the Clinton administration, multilateralism and the UN. It believed Iraq was going to vindicate these ideological positions.

As events unfolded the administration proved stubbornly unwilling to look at facts on the ground, new evidence and the need for shifts in its basic approach. It was more important to prove that it was right than to get Iraq right.

Anne Penketh, the diplomatic editor of the Independent, looks at four possible scenarios for Iraq, including (1) "Continued occupation," (2) "Cut and run," (3) "UN takes over," and (4) "A fudge." Ms. Penketh writes that the "fudge" option is the most likely outcome. [Fudge option explained in csm posting]

"During the course of roughly four hours at a small clinic in Fallujah, I saw perhaps a dozen wounded brought in. Among them was a young woman, 18 years old, shot in the head. She was having a seizure and foaming at the mouth when they brought her in; doctors did not expect her to survive the night. Another likely terminal case was a young boy with massive internal bleeding.... Makki al-Nazzal, a lifelong Fallujah resident who works for the humanitarian NGO InterSOS, had been pressed into service as the manager of the clinic, since all doctors were busy, working around the clock with minimal sleep.... He told us about ambulances being hit by snipers, women and children being shot. Describing the horror that the siege of Fallujah had become, he said: 'I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilization.' ... Nothing could have been easier than gaining the goodwill of the people of Fallujah had the Americans not been so brutal in their dealings. People I interviewed vehemently denied that they were Saddam supporters and expressed immense anger and disappointment at American conduct.... Among the more laughable assertions of the Bush administration is that the mujaheddin are a small group of isolated 'extremists' repudiated by the majority of Fallujah's population. Nothing could be further from the truth. To Americans, 'Fallujah' may still mean four mercenaries killed, with their corpses then mutilated and abused; to Iraqis, 'Fallujah' means the savage collective punishment for that attack, with current reports of 600 Iraqis killed, including estimates of 200 women and over 100 children.... When the assault on Fallujah started, the power plant was bombed."

"Before U.S. occupation chief L. Paul Bremer III provoked [Muqtada] Sadr into an armed conflict by shutting down his newspaper and arresting and killing his deputies, the Al Mahdi army was not fighting coalition forces; it was doing their job for them. After all, in the year it has controlled Baghdad, the Coalition Provisional Authority still hasn't managed to get the traffic lights working or to provide the most basic security for civilians. So in Sadr City, Sadr's so-called 'outlaw militia' can be seen engaged in such subversive activities as directing traffic and guarding factories.... I saw charred cars, which dozens of eyewitnesses said had been hit by U.S. missiles, and I confirmed with ospitals that their drivers had been burned alive.... And Thursday, I saw something that I feared more than any of this: a copy of the Koran with a bullet hole through it. It was lying in the ruins of what was Sadr's headquarters in Sadr City. A few hours earlier, witnesses said, U.S. tanks broke down the walls of the center after two guided missiles pierced its roof.... For months, the White House has been making ominous predictions of a civil war breaking out between the majority Shiites ... and the minority Sunnis.... But this week, the opposite appeared to have taken place...."

"Fallujah clearly unmasks the reality of Bush's call for 'democracy' in the Middle East. Collective punishment of the Iraqi population underscores the fallacy of U.S. government claims about its motives.... The submissive Arab regimes, afraid of the U.S. government's wrath, are largely colluding with the Bush administration. They have not spoken out against the U.S. assault, instead stifling dissent at home on the administration's behalf."

... The Washington Post reports that an increasing number of Iraqi officials, and even US officials, believe that the moves by Paul Bremer, the top US administrator in Iraq, to close the newspaper run by Mr. Sadr two weeks ago, and then to pursue him just as tensions were boiling over in Fallujah, were "profund miscalculations."

"We punched a big black bear in the eye and got him angry as hell but had no immediate plan to disable him, so of course he struck back in a very vicious way," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who has been serving as a senior adviser to the US-led occupation authority in Baghdad. "Al-Sadr basically implemented plans he had all along to launch a revolutionary campaign to seize power. The mistake we made tactically was in not moving swiftly and all at once against every aspect of his operation."

In 1920, 1952 and 1968, voters became disillusioned by war-related events. ... Early April's good news for the Bush White House is principally economic — job data suggesting that the November presidential election shouldn't be driven by high unemployment rates and associated resentments. The bad news, though, is the rising chance that the campaign will echo 20th century contests that were enlivened by voter bitterness over wartime mismanagement or postwar failures.

A year ago, foreign affairs — the combination of his response to Sept. 11, firmness against terrorism and apparent military success in Iraq — was the source of President Bush's highest approval ratings in national polls. His national security credentials looked to be a strong Republican trump for November. Not any more.

An emerging web of interrelated vulnerabilities —

(1) the developing sense that the pre-9/11 White House was inattentive, or worse, to the terrorist threat and Al Qaeda;

(2) the Bush family's business and financial ties to the Saudis and Osama bin Laden clan;

(3) the clamor over not finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; and administration attempts to blame Saddam Hussein for 9/11

All this is beginning to undercut the president's approval ratings. One recent poll showed public support for Bush's handling of Iraq plummeting from 59% in mid-January to just 40% in early April.

Historically, such voter disillusionment has fed incendiary politics. More than virtually any other people, Americans have refought major wars and their unfortunate consequences in postwar election debates. Today's Iraq-Saudi-9/11 issue appears to be signaling a similar political slugfest.

After World War I, the ostensible "war to end all wars," Americans were appalled by European bickering and ethnic politics at the Versailles peace conference and voted to stay out of postwar Europe and the new League of Nations.

Disenchantment surged again in 1952, after victory in World War II gave way to communist triumphs in Eastern Europe and China, and U.S. troops got bogged down in a stalemated Korean War. In both postwar periods, popular disillusionment translated into political upheaval.

In 1968, [with Lyndon Johnson] anxious politicians and voters pushed for peace plans and strategies to end the Vietnam War. Parenthetically, the Democrats lost the White House again that year, just as they had in 1920 and 1952.

Then in 1992, George H.W. Bush became the first 20th century president to be defeated after an international military success. The victory lost luster when Hussein was left in power and debate flared over Bush's prewar policies of helping to arm Iraq.


In all these elections, public concern over wartime miscalculations or unexpected postwar chaos or revolution ballooned enough to convince voters to change parties in the White House, though the economies of the times were recovering or prosperous. Voters spurned false "war" analogies about not changing horses in midstream. One could say that they opted to change guides mid-disaster.

In terms of postwar debacles, the spreading uprising and lawlessness in Iraq could rival unstable Europe in 1919-20, the expansion of communism after World War II and the breakdown of U.S. power after Vietnam.

Current polls show that half or more of respondents in 13 foreign nations believe the conflict in Iraq has undermined the war on terrorism and that the U.S. has become less trustworthy. Just as his father was politically embarrassed in 1991-92 by his prewar coziness with Iraq, President Bush seems to have been ill-served by his personal grudge against Iraq and his family's political and business connections to the Saudi royal family and the wealthy Bin Ladens.

... "It has gotten very lonely in Iraq," says retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, referring not only to other countries who have sent troops and support personnel but also to local members of the coalition.

"Iraqi security forces were supposed to be the main element of the coalition. Where have they been? The new Iraqi Army was at Falluja, but it did not, or would not, go into the city. Police disappeared; some even joined the Sadr militia," says Colonel Gardiner.

Several members of the Iraqi Governing Council, upset at what they see as the heavy-handed US response to insurgent activities, have threatened to leave the council. This could undermine the US plan for council members to form the beginnings of a new government when sovereignty is turned over on June 30....

AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action against Fallujah and stop employing "collective punishment."

Not only has what many Iraqis call "the puppet council" taken a stand against Bush administration tactics in Iraq, but individual members are peeling off. Shiite Marsh Arab leader Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi suspended his membership in the council on Friday. A Sunni member, Ghazi al-Yawir, has threatened to resign if a negotiated settlement of the Fallujah conflict cannot be found. Old-time Sunni nationalist leader Adnan Pachachi thundered on al-Arabiya televsion, "It was not right to punish all the people of Fallujah, and we consider these operations by the Americans unacceptable and illegal." For [Pachachi ] to go on an Arab satellite station much hated by Donald Rumsfeld and denounce the very people who appointed him to the IGC is a clear act of defiance. There are rumors that many of the 25 Governing Council members have fled abroad, fearful of assassination because of their association with the Americans. The ones who are left appear on the verge of resigning.

This looks to me [i.e., juan cole] like an incipient collapse of the US government of Iraq...