Reforming the de-Baathification process in Iraq is viewed as a critical step to quelling violence and reconciling estranged factions in Iraq. Under Paul Bremer, the Coalition Provisional Authority removed thousands of former Baath party members, despite many having no ties to Saddam Hussein, a move which helped spawn the vigorous Sunni insurgency today.

Sweeping de-Baathification reforms have been proposed to reconcile differences in the wake of Bremer’s failures. But progress on this front was “sabotaged” by U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi, who is in charge of the process:

[T]he law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, who headed Iraq’s de-Baathification commission. Mr. Chalabi, the former Pentagon prot©g©, relies on the commission for an official role in Iraq’s government. Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.

According to a senior official with the commission, Mr. Chalabi and members of his organization sabotaged the American-backed plan by rallying opposition among Shiite government officials in southern Iraq, then taking their complaints to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric.

On April 1, Mr. Chalabi visited the ayatollah’s office in Najaf. He later appeared at a news conference, declaring that Ayatollah Sistani told him the law was incomplete and that “there would be other drafts.” A day later, an aide to the reclusive cleric confirmed that there was “a general feeling of rejection” about the proposal.

Paid by the U.S. to muster pre-war intelligence, Chalabi drummed up claims that Hussein had nuclear weapons, helping lead the U.S. into war. More recently, he has promoted the escalation in the Iraqi government, serving as an “intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces mounting an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign across the city.”

Thus, while Chalabi helping extend the U.S. presence in Iraq, he is stalling political reconciliation, just as he has done several times in the past.

In an interview with USA Today yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus, top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, claimed that he sees “astonishing signs of normalcy” in Baghdad:

“I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant. … The Iraqi army has, in general, done quite well in the face of some really serious challenges.”

Petraeus painted a similarly rosy picture of progress in Iraq last week, when he declared on CNN that “what is taking place in Anbar is almost breathtaking.”

Yet, a report released yesterday by the Pentagon — “the first comprehensive statistical overview of the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq” — directly contradicts Petraeus’ optimistic assessments:

Overall, however, violence “has increased in most provinces, particularly in the outlying areas of Baghdad province and Diyala and Ninewa provinces,” … In Diyala’s restive capital of Baqubah, U.S. and Iraq forces “have been unable to diminish rising sectarian violence contributing to the volatile security situation,” [the report] said. … [I]t cited “significant evidence” of attacks on Sunni Arabs by the predominantly Shiite government security forces, which have contributed to the displacement of an estimated 2 million Iraqis from their homes.

Patraeus’s unrealistic and misleading talk of “professional soccer leagues” and “markets that are very vibrant” mirrors the rhetoric of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who recently claimed that strolling through an Iraqi market with an escort of 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawk helicopters, and 2 Apache gunships proved that one could “walk freely” in areas of Baghdad.

Additionally, Marwan Ja’afar, a prominent Iraqi soccer player, was killed in a mortar attack last month, and 21 Iraqis who worked in the Baghdad market visited by McCain were ambushed, bound and shot dead the day after he left.

UPDATE: Spencer Ackerman at TPMmuckraker has more on Petraeus’s comments.

– Jordan Grossman

Early this week, the Pentagon delivered to Congress its “first comprehensive statistical overview of the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq.” Citing “uneven cooperation” and little “concrete progress,” the report concluded that “reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions” remains “a serious unfulfilled objective.” Further, the report found that suicide bombings across Iraq have doubled since January, overall violence “has increased in most provinces,” and “civilian casualties rose slightly, to more than 100 a day.”

Today, however, the President attempted to dismiss the report’s conclusions, saying that it is still “too early to judge the results of this new strategy” by repeating the myth that U.S. forces “haven’t even started the full surge yet“:

It is too early to judge the results of this new strategy. General Petraeus recently put it this way: “We haven’t even started the full surge yet.” He just got his troops on the ground. Only at the end of this week will the last of the five reinforcement brigades become fully operational.

It is not “too early to judge” the results of the President’s escalation in Iraq. As the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explained nearly six months ago at the start of the escalation plan, “we’ll have pretty good early indications of their performance” before “very many American soldiers have been sent to Iraq”:

Well, as I indicated, we’re going to know pretty early on whether the Iraqis are meeting their military commitments, in terms of being able to go into all neighborhoods, in terms of the Iraqis being in the lead and carrying out the leadership and the fighting, and for there not to be political interference in the military operations that are going forward.

As I say, this is going to unfold over a period of time, and so I think that as I indicated in my remarks, before very many American soldiers have been sent to Iraq, we’ll have pretty good early indications of their performance. We’ll have to see, in terms of the length of time. It’s really hard to say at this point. It’s viewed as a temporary surge.

Further, as ThinkProgress noted previously, with over 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq and U.S. troop deaths at a two-year high, it is patently false to suggest that the surge has yet to begin.

– Ryan Powers

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One year ago, President Bush was unsure of the next move to make in the Iraq war. In a Rose Garden briefing, Bush expressed that he was very open to outside advice but that his final decision would ultimately rest on the advice given to him by then-Multinational Force commander Gen. George Casey:

BUSH: Well, I think — I’ve gotten a lot of advice from people. You know, one of the interesting debates from the outside community is troop levels. I’ve got people who say, you need to increase the number of forces — now. I’ve gotten people that said, well, the role of the United States ought to be more indirect than it has been, in other words, in a supporting role. To those folks, I say, look, I’m going to rely upon General Casey.

But Casey was always an outspoken opponent of the escalation. As early as December 2005, Casey publicly warned against an increased U.S. presence in Iraq:

As I’ve said before this is not a conventional war, and in this type of war that we’re fighting, more is not necessarily better. In fact, in Iraq, less coalition at this point in time, is better. Less is better because it doesn’t feed the notion of occupation, it doesn’t work the culture of dependency.

Again, in January 2007, Casey insisted that an escalation of troops was not necessary and could be “counterproductive.” But Bush quickly canned Casey, claiming that Casey “had become more fixated on withdrawal than victory.” In fact, Casey’s sentiments were echoed by all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and bipartisan members of Congress, all recognizing the futility of increasing troop levels.

Instead of listening to his own military commanders, Bush appointed the loyal General David Petraeus, who “cannot be trusted to give an unbiased assessment on Iraq,” to promote the escalation strategy. The Bush administration and Petraeus are now actively colluding to extend the U.S. stay in Iraq.

The Pentagon yesterday released its first quarterly report assessing President Bush’s escalation strategy, confirming that overall levels of violence in the country actually “increased throughout much of Iraq in recent months,” as attacks “shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar” and into “cities and provinces that had been relatively peaceful before the Bush administration’s troop buildup.”

Political reconciliation has almost entirely stalled, suicide bombings “more than doubled” from January to April, sectarian deaths have increased beyond pre-escalation levels, and U.S. troop deaths are spiking.

During his press briefing yesterday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said the increasing chaos was a positive sign. The new levels of attacks “fit a pattern that we see throughout the region,” he said, “which is that when you see things moving towards success, or when you see signs of success, that there are acts of violence.” Watch it:

Also yesterday, Snow sharply downplayed the importance of the September Iraq report from top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus. Just last month, President Bush said September would be an “important moment” in the war because “Petraeus says that’s when he’ll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been.”

Yesterday, Snow described Petraeus’ report as merely a “first opportunity” to “have a little bit of a metric” to “see what happens when you have all the forces in place for the Baghdad security plan.”

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