He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

It immediately brought to an end Mr Griffin's exemplary, eight-year career in which he also served with the Parachute Regiment, taking part in operations in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Afghanistan.

But it will also embarrass the Government and have a potentially profound impact on cases of other soldiers who have refused to fight.

On Wednesday, the pre-trial hearing will begin into the court martial of Flt Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Royal Air Force doctor who has refused to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty on the grounds that the war is illegal. Mr Griffin's allegations came as the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, visiting Basra yesterday, admitted that Iraq was now "a mess".

Mr Griffin, 28, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

Mr Griffin eventually told SAS commanders at Hereford that he could not take part in a war which he regarded as "illegal".

He added that he now believed that the Prime Minister and the Government had repeatedly "lied" over the war's conduct.

"I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy," he said. He expected to be labelled a coward and to face a court martial and imprisonment after making what "the most difficult decision of my life" last March.

Instead, he was discharged with a testimonial describing him as a "balanced, honest, loyal and determined individual who possesses the strength of character to have the courage of his convictions".

Last night Patrick Mercer, the shadow minister for homeland security, said: "Trooper Griffin is a highly experienced soldier. This makes his decision particularly disturbing and his views and opinions must be listened to by the Government."

The MoD declined to comment.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006

The shift from the upbeat slogans of 2003 represents an acknowledgment by the U.S. command that the war against an insurgency dominated by Iraq's Sunni Arab minority cannot be won by U.S. arms alone.

Instead, the best chance for peace is to encourage the insurgents to lay down their arms and join the political process, while building up an Iraqi force capable of dealing with those who refuse.

But slogans obscure the complexities at play. The rising tensions between Sunnis and Shiites raise the new question of whether building up Iraq's army forces - the supposed solution - might instead set the stage for civil war.

How events play out in the coming months will determine how long U.S. troops remain in Iraq - and in what numbers. All signs point to a lengthy American commitment in Iraq, even if Washington draws down significant numbers of troops this year as expected.

At no time since the fall of Saddam Hussein have the words "Iraq stands at a crossroad" been truer. The next few months will determine whether Iraq stands at the threshold of recovery - or at the brink of disaster.

In the wind-swept plains of western Iraq, where the insurgents are strongest, American officers speak of 2006 as "a year of risk" that will determine whether the U.S. campaign for a stable, democratic Iraq succeeds or whether the war drags on for years - with or without Americans in the fight.

Despite major losses and defeats, Sunni insurgents are estimated to number about 15,000 to 20,000 - roughly the same as two years ago, according to the Brookings Institution. Roadside bombs, assassinations and scattered clashes occur with such regularity that they draw little attention.

As the fourth year of war approaches, the American strategy is moving along two tracks: encouraging a broad-based government of national unity that can win trust from all communities and transferring security responsibility to the new Iraqi army and police.

Both tracks are well under way, but fraught with risks.

The violence that swept Baghdad and other areas after the Samarra shrine attack suggests the Sunni-dominated insurgency could change into a full-scale civil war between the rival Muslim sects.

"The question is not whether there will be sectarian strife, but rather whether the central state can hold together and contain the violence," said Jeffrey A. VanDenBerg, director of Middle East studies at Drury University in Springfield, Mo.

In the March issue of Foreign Affairs, Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations argues that Washington should slow the expansion of Iraq's security forces - most of whom are Shiites and Kurds - until there is a "broad communal compromise."

For the time being, however, the process of placing an Iraqi face on the war is accelerating.

About 60 of Iraq's 102 battalions "control their own battle space," said Lt. Col. Michael J. Negard, a U.S. military spokesman. That means they plan and carry out military operations within their area of responsibility.

If all goes according to plan, by the end of the year all Iraqi battalions - expected by then to number 112 - will have that status.

Assuming the Iraqis prove up to the task, the U.S. military can begin sending thousands of soldiers home. The top commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., is expected to recommend reductions in the 136,000-strong force beginning later this spring.

Casey refuses to talk publicly about numbers. But it is widely assumed U.S. troop strength in Iraq will fall below 100,000 by the end of the year or early 2007. Privately, American officers say that figure is reasonable.

Pentagon estimates have proven wrong before, however. In late 2003, the Pentagon predicted troop strength would drop to 105,000 by the next May. Instead, insurgent attacks forced an increase to nearly 140,000 in mid-2004.

U.S. officers also caution against inferring that a greater security role for Iraq's army will mean a total American withdrawal. U.S. troops will leave the cities, but be nearby in case of trouble. U.S. convoys will have to resupply Iraqi units, and American jets will provide air cover.

And the withdrawal timetable could get snagged if some Iraqi battalions cannot be trained and equipped in time.

"If a unit is not up to task or if equipment or personnel become an issue ... then we take the time needed," Negard said. "So we're very hesitant to put a mark on a calendar and say 10 months down the road the Iraqi army will control all its battle space."

U.S. officials have praised the performance of Iraqi soldiers. But the Americans were equally optimistic in 2004 until many Iraqi units fell apart in battle. The entire 5,000-member police force in Mosul deserted after an insurgent uprising in November 2004.

This time, the U.S. command insists training is better. Measures have been taken to build up a strong cadre of noncommissioned officers - a major weakness in 2004.

Privately, however, U.S. officers say desertions and absences still dog Iraqi units, especially in the volatile west where hundreds of soldiers have left their commands since a November offensive.

This is where the political track comes in. The December election raised the amount of Sunni Arab representation in the new parliament more than threefold. Talks are under way to put together a unity government with participation by Sunni Arabs, Shiite Muslims and Kurds.

At the same time, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been reaching out to Sunni leaders in insurgent strongholds such as Ramadi. The process is continuing, despite the assassinations of local Sunnis willing to talk.

But success won't come quickly.

"Even if a broad inclusive national government emerges, there almost certainly will be a lag time before we see a dampening effect on the insurgency," the U.S. national intelligence chief, John Negroponte, a former ambassador in Iraq, told a Senate committee Feb. 2.

All that points to much work and sacrifice ahead.

"Because of the nature of counterinsurgency, it's often hard for people to define what victory is," Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said recently. "It's not D-Day. There's not a big battle and it's all over. It's about people making choices, so it evolves over time. And that's exactly what you see here."

The conference brought together advisers from the Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy administrations, and talk turned to Iraq where the panelists saw parallels with Vietnam.

Former Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a rare appearance at the conference. He said he agreed to come out of admiration for the Kennedy family.

Kissinger was greeted outside by about 25 protesters who chanted "Kissinger should go to jail, no bail." He refused to directly respond to a question, submitted by the audience and read by a moderator, that asked if he wanted to apologize for policies that led to so many deaths in Vietnam.

"This is not the occasion," Kissinger said. "We have to start from the assumption that serious people were making serious decisions. So that's the sort of question that's highly inappropriate."

In another audience question, Kissinger was asked whether he agreed that the U.S. bombing of Cambodia led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, and, if so, was he responsible for the two million people the Khmer Rouge killed?

"The premise that the bombing of a 5-mile strip led to the rise of Khmer Rouge and the murder of two million people is an example of masochism that is really inexcusable," he said.

Kissinger said that the Vietnam War "has fundamentally affected my life in the sense that the Nixon debate doesn't ever seem to end and for many I am the surviving symbol of the Nixon administration."

Kissinger also spoke about the war in Iraq, saying he supported the invasion.

"We have a jihadist radical situation," he said. "If the U.S. fails in Iraq, then the consequences will be that it motivates more to move toward the radical side. This is the challenge."

Former Johnson adviser Jack Valenti said that the lessons of Vietnam have been "forgotten or ignored" in Iraq.

"No president can win a war when public support for that war begins to decline and evaporate," he said.

Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association, added there was no such thing as a good war, saying "all wars are inhumane, brutal, callous and full of depravity."
© 2006 The Associated Press.

Iraq could no longer attack its neighbours or develop nuclear weapons, he said, adding: "So yes, it's a mess, but it's starting to look like the sort of mess that most of us live in."

To appreciate how ludicrous this statement would appear to the average Iraqi, it is necessary only to point out that Mr Howells was visiting Iraq to examine the oil industry. In December and January, daily oil production was around 1.1 million barrels a day, the lowest since May 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations at an end. Before 2003, oil output was 2.5 million barrels a day. Ironically, revenue has risen to about $2.5bn a month, because world oil prices have shot up, at least partly because of the situation in Iraq.

But for all the efforts of the political establishments in the US and Britain to play down the problems, reality persists in breaking through. The latest example of this for Mr Bush, whose handling of Iraq is now supported by fewer than 40 per cent of Americans, is the death of a US hostage, Tom Fox, one of four kidnapped Christian peace activists who include the 74-year-old Briton Norman Kember. Rather than being the kind of bad news that masks quiet progress, it illuminates the daily threat to Iraqis.

Iraq is the most dangerous country in the world. And in many important ways, things are getting worse. Iraq Body Count, which has sought to do what the Pentagon and the Iraqi health ministry refuse to do - keep a tally of Iraqi civilians who die violently - estimates that even before the third year of occupation has ended, the toll is higher than in either of the previous two years.

According to IBC, which compiles figures for civilian deaths reported by at least two media outlets, 6,331 were killed between 1 May 2003 and the first anniversary of the invasion, and 11,312 in the second year of occupation. The toll for the period from the second anniversary of the invasion to the beginning of March, it says, was 12,617 - and that did not include most of the deaths in the upsurge of sectarian violence which followed the destruction of a major Shia shrine in Samarra last month.

Average violent deaths per day, IBC adds, went from 20 in year one of the occupation to 31 in year two and 36 in year three. When Iraqis are asked about the biggest change in their life since 2003, nearly all point to the danger of violent death. But IBC admits that with the increasing inability of journalists to move around and report freely, its method of monitoring civilian deaths is becoming increasingly inaccurate.

What evidence has emerged indicates that a widely ridiculed study published in The Lancet in autumn 2004, estimating that at least 100,000 civilians had died violently since the war began, might not be so inaccurate.

Apart from sectarian killings or the risk from trigger-happy coalition troops, ordinary Iraqis have most to fear from crime, which is why everyone is armed. Kidnapping is an industry, with children a frequent target, leading most well-off Iraqis to flee: hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have left for Jordan, Syria and Egypt. One banker who stayed was kidnapped when his seven bodyguards were murdered.

Many Iraqis supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein because they wanted a return to a normal life. Sitting on some of the world's largest oil reserves, they did not see why they should not enjoy the same standard of living as Kuwaitis and Saudis. But if Saddam had led them to ruin and defeat, Iraqis have found that in many ways their lives have got worse without him. In the first year of occupation, some Iraqis comforted themselves with the thought that "the US cannot afford to fail". But the more time has passed, the greater the extent of the failure has become obvious. For all the billions of dollars in reconstruction money, there is not a single crane on the skyline in Baghdad, except a few rusting examples left over from Saddam's grandiose projects to build giant mosques. There are more cars in Baghdad, but there is also a permanent traffic jam because so many streets are blocked for security reasons.

Optimists can point to some improvements. Teachers now get $200 a month, compared to $2 three years ago, and many have returned to the profession. Some Iraqis have benefited from the influx of dollars. For the first time there are mobile phones and satellite TV, but the cost of living has soared and there is very high unemployment, perhaps 50 per cent. Most people survive on a state-subsidised ration, just as they did under Saddam. The most glaring failure is that the supply of drinking water and sewage disposal are both below pre-invasion levels, according to the US Government Accounting Office. Electricity output has just begun to exceed the Saddam-era figure of 4,600 megawatts. Overall, Iraqis have power only for 12 hours in 24.

People might have tolerated such difficulties if they were convinced the country was heading towards greater stability and self-government. Instead they are having to live with the consequences of the occupation authorities' early mistakes, born of ignorance and overconfidence. The best-known is the precipitate decision to disband the entire Iraqi army and sack every member of Saddam's Baath party, no matter how lowly. This not only fuelled an insurgency whose causes the US military have apparently only just begun to grasp, but gave Iran, Saddam's former enemy and the greatest threat to international peace, according to the Bush administration, undreamt-of influence in Iraq.

The US view of the insurgency as part of its "war on terror" led to more errors. First it insisted resistance came only from "foreign fighters" loyal to al-Qa'ida and its leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Later it was conceded that most insurgents might be Iraqis, though they were dismissed as disgruntled former army officers and Baathist "dead enders". Even more belatedly, US commanders have admitted to themselves that their attempt to suppress the insurgency has created more recruits for the resistance, most of whom are inspired by communal pride and lack of economic opportunities.

As for training an indigenous army to deal with this situation, the Iraqi military has been reconstituted on highly sectarian lines. It is badly equipped, because the US did not want to give it heavy weapons, and the procurement budget in 2003-2004 was largely stolen. But the main concern must be whether the army would stay together in the event of civil war. The Ministry of the Interior has 110,000 men under arms, mostly police, who are increasingly controlled by Shia militias; the paramilitary police commandos are seen by the Sunni community as death squads controlled by the main Shia militia.

Nearly three months after the Shia alliance won the election on 15 December, no government has been formed: the divisions between Shia, Sunni and the Kurds have proved too great. If a unity government is formed, it is likely to be too divided to take decisions.

President Bush is imprisoned by his own rhetoric on Iraq. Rather than the grand aims he proclaimed in his first term, he will be lucky if he can extricate himself without being seen as responsible for the worst US foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. It will be interesting to see what his speechwriters can make of this unpromising material.

PERSONAL FREEDOM AND SECURITY

Iraqis have gained freedom of speech, with many new newspapers and TV channels, but the secular middle classes increasingly fear Islamist militias. Hundreds of thousands of the better-off have fled the country.

THE PROMISE:

"The future of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people. After years of dictatorship, Iraq will soon be liberated. For the first time in decades, Iraqis will soon choose their own representative government. Coalition military operations are progressing and will succeed. We will eliminate the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, deliver humanitarian aid, and secure the freedom of the Iraqi people. We will create an environment where Iraqis can determine their own fate democratically and peacefully."

Joint statement by George Bush and Tony Blair, 8 April 2003

THE REALITY:

"Not only has the Iraqi government failed to provide minimal protection for its citizens, it has pursued a policy of rounding up and torturing innocent men and women. Its failure to punish those who have committed torture has added to the breakdown of the rule of law."

Amnesty International, 9 March 2006

THE STATISTIC:

14,000 prisoners still being held in Iraq by coalition forces at the end of November 2005.

THE ECONOMY

It seemed a reasonable assumption that Iraq's oil industry, crippled by sanctions, could swiftly be revived after the invasion, but the insurgency has wrecked those hopes. Incompetence in the Coalition Provisional Authority and lack of security have also ruined reconstruction, with basic services almost all in a worse state than before the war, despite billions of dollars in investment.

THE PROMISE:

"We reaffirm our commitment to protect Iraq's natural resources, as the patrimony of the people of Iraq, which should be used only for their benefit."

Blair and Bush, 8 April 2003

"Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction."

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, 18 February 2003

THE REALITY:

"The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq. This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

Brigadier General William McCoy, Army Corps of Engineers commander, January 2006

THE STATISTIC:

$9bn of US taxpayers' money unaccounted for in Iraq.

STABLE GOVERNMENT

Fears of civil war are increasing as Iraqi politicians wrangle over the formation of a government nearly three months after the election. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, detested by Sunni politicians because of his links to Shia militias, refuses to stand aside so that a unity government can be formed.

THE PROMISE:

"Having liberated Iraq as promised, we will help that country to found a just and representative government, as promised. Our goal is a swift transition to Iraqi control of their own affairs. People of Iraq will be secure, and the people of Iraq will run their own country."

George Bush, 1 July 2003

"The Prime Minister and I have made our choice: Iraq will be free; Iraq will be independent; Iraq will be a peaceful nation; and we will not waver in the face of fear and intimidation."

Joint Bush and Blair statement, 16 April 2004

THE REALITY:

"Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation. And after two elections and a referendum on the constitution, Iraq barely has a government."

Conservative US columnist George Will, March 2006

THE STATISTIC:

86 days since the Iraqi people voted on 15 December 2005, without a government being formed.

DAILY LIFE

The coalition authorities admit that much of the insurgency is fuelled by a lack of economic opportunity. While the occupation has brought more money to some, mainly in Baghdad, life has been made more difficult for most by shortages of water and power, sky-high prices - and the ever-present danger of violent death.

THE PROMISE:

"Our progress has been uneven but progress is being made. We are improving roads and schools and health clinics and working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens."

George Bush, 27 June 2005

THE REALITY:

"The Iraqi people are suffering from a desperate lack of jobs, housing, health care and electricity ... If you compare this to the situation in the 1980s, you will see a major deterioration of the situation."

Barham Saleh (planning minister) in 'Living conditions in Iraq 2004', a survey by Iraqi authorities and UN

"Although a large percentage in Iraq is connected to water, electricity and sewage networks, the supply is too unstable to make a difference to their lives."

Staffan de Mistura, UNDP representative, May 2005

THE STATISTIC:

5.2 average number of hours of electricity in Baghdad homes

ARMY AND POLICE REFORM

The new Iraqi army and police force is one of the most controversial and secretive aspects of the occupation. Apart from doubts about the loyalty and effectiveness of troops trained by the coalition, there are fears that police and paramilitaries are functioning as death squads.

THE PROMISE:

"As the Iraqi security forces stand up, the confidence of the Iraqi people is growing - and Iraqis are providing the vital intelligence needed to track down the terrorists."

Bush at US naval academy, 30 November 2005

THE REALITY:

"Many cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees held in facilities controlled by the Iraqi authorities have been reported since the handover of power in June 2004. Among other methods, victims have been subjected to electric shocks or have been beaten with plastic cable. The picture that is emerging is one in which the Iraqi authorities are systematically violating the rights of detainees in breach of guarantees contained both in Iraqi legislation and in international law and standards."

Amnesty International, March 2006

THE STATISTIC:

60 battalions in the reconstituted Iraqi army are Shia, outnumbering the 45 Sunni and three Kurdish battalions.

THE DEATH TOLL

37,589 maximum number of civilian deaths since the Iraq invasion in 2003, according to Iraq Body Count, which bases its estimates on media reports. The minimum figure it gives for the same period is 33,489

100,000 the estimate of civilian deaths since the invasion, published in 'The Lancet' in the autumn of 2004, based on statistical analysis

2,306 US military deaths since the invasion

16,653 US military personnel wounded in action since the invasion

103 British military deaths since the invasion. Figures for British wounded are not available

103 other coalition military deaths since the invasion

1,110 highest monthly total of bodies brought into Baghdad mortuary during the past 12 months. The lowest figure was 780

100,000 estimate of civilian deaths since the invasion, published in the Lancet in the autumn of 2004, Based on statistical analysis

TODAY'S NEWS FROM IRAQ

Raids nets eight terror suspects

Eight people suspected of kidnapping, manufacturing car bombs and financing terrorists were detained in raids by US and Iraqi forces in western Baghdad, including four at a mosque identified by the US military as a possible safe haven for al-Qa'ida.

A dozen others were captured in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, the military said. They were believed to be part of a cell responsible for killing dozens of people after the destruction of one of Iraq's holiest Shia shrines on 22 February.

THIS DAY ONE YEAR AGO

Police killed in funeral shooting

Three policemen were shot dead by rebel forces at a funeral procession in Iraq. A third was wounded as mourners gathered in Mosul to mark the death of three bomb victims, while north of Baghdad rebels blew up a main oil pipeline.

THIS DAY TWO YEARS AGO

British firm wins big Iraq contract

Britain won its first big Iraqi rebuilding contract as a $500m project to help restore power supplies was handed to a joint venture 49 per cent owned by the engineering group Amec. Shares in the group rose 14.5p to 290.5p after the Pentagon said that it had handed the contract to FluorAmec. The British government had been lobbying Washington to give UK companies a fair share of the contracts, and the rules for the award of projects were changed.

THIS DAY THREE YEARS AGO

'UK troops will join invasion'

Tony Blair took the political gamble of his life when he signalled that British forces would join an imminent US-led invasion to disarm Saddam Hussein, even if a majority of the UN Security Council fails to endorse such action in a second resolution.

He stressed that there was sufficient justification for war in UN resolution 1441, which was passed last November.Mr Blair made his decision to fight, even though it could prompt a wave of resignations from his Government.

Failure to win Security Council votes will leave Downing Street endorsing a war without solid Labour or public backing.

If the resolution is rejected, the US could invade Iraq as early as next week. If it goes through, an invasion would be delayed to give President Saddam time to comply.

Bomb blasts in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Tikrit - many of them targeting Iraqi police patrols - killed at least 10 more people Monday and wounded more than 30.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said terrorists bent on igniting a civil war were taking advantage of a vacuum in authority caused by tangled negotiations to form a new government.

"The way in which this bloody act was conducted leaves us with no doubt that the terrorists have targeted this peaceful neighbourhood in order to ignite civil strife and stoke the fire of civil war," Mr Talabani said. "So, it is the duty of the political groups to accelerate efforts to form the government, and the armed forces and security bodies should act swiftly to eliminate such crimes.

Addressing reporters in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, the anti-American cleric al-Sadr avoided blaming Sunni Muslims for the attacks and appealed for unity.

He instead blamed feared terror group al-Qaeda in Iraq and US forces.

"Sunnis and Shiites are not responsible for such acts," al-Sadr said. "National unity is required."

"I find Sunnis and Shias innocents of this act," he added.

Two car bombs and mortars in Sadr City late on Sunday killed some 40 and injured over 90 people.

Muqtada also mocked a statement of US Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld, in which he said that US forces would not interfere if a civil war broke out in Iraq.

"This is a sheer lie," he remarked. "What is their duty if they do not protect the security of Iraq?"

Jabr said that investigations into death squads were ongoing in the Defense Ministry. He said the Interior Ministry had arrested 22 people, and subsequently released 18 as innocent after interrogation, detaining four for further questioning.

"Now we have sent them (the four) to the court because it hasn't been proven that all four were involved," Jabr said. "Although I did not have clear signs (of their guilt) I sent them to the Justice Ministry so that the law could be carried out."

Although Jabr appeared to confirm the existence of death squads, the scale of the operation uncovered would appear to be far smaller than critics had alleged.

Sunni Muslims have long complained about Shiite death squads that arrived wearing official uniforms and rode in official-looking vehicles to haul away victims.

Knight Ridder first reported the accusation of death squads in February 2005, and in June documented cases in which victims were taken away allegedly by men wearing Interior Ministry commando uniforms were later found handcuffed and killed execution-style.

The government had long denied the existence of such death squads. Sunnis had accused the Badr Organization, a Shiite militia supported by Iran, of being behind the killings, inside or outside of government ministries. Jabr is a senior leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shiite political party, and has close ties to the Badr Organization.

The investigation that led to Sunday's confirmation of government death squads came after American forces stopped a group of men who were passing through a checkpoint in late January.

The men wore official uniforms and said they were preparing to kill a Sunni man in their custody.

Copyright © 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.

In more violence on Monday, nine people were killed, including seven policemen, and 36 wounded across Iraq. The governor of Salahaddin province also survived a car bomb attack on his convoy in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

"It is the duty of the political blocs to intensify their efforts to form a government and establish a broad front to achieve security and stability," Talabani said.

Politicians said they would step up negotiations but doubted a deal would be possible by the time the parliament elected in December meets for its first session on Thursday.

"The meetings will be hours and hours long, all leaderships will meet at one table in order to agree," said Zafir al-Ani, a spokesman of the Sunni Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni political grouping.

"We wish we could reach a deal by Thursday but I think it is very difficult," he told Reuters.

After a lull in sectarian violence unleashed by the bombing of an important Shi'ite shrine on February 22, blasts ripped through the Baghdad stronghold of a major Shi'ite militia on Sunday. The U.S. military said 52 were killed and more than 200 wounded.

Talabani, a Kurd, said the bombings were meant to "inflame sectarian strife and fan the fires of civil war".

Officials, including the U.S. ambassador, have warned that another attack like the Samarra mosque bombing could spark all-out sectarian conflict in the bitterly divided country.

Radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said he would not order his militia to strike Sunni al Qaeda militants after Sunday's bombings, which hit his Sadr City stronghold.

"I could order the Mehdi Army to root out the terrorists and fundamentalists but this would lead us into civil war and we don't want that," the youthful Sadr told a news conference in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

Police discovered the shot and tortured bodies of four Shi'ites in Sadr City on Monday. Next to the bodies was a sign bearing a single word: "Traitors".

The Mehdi Army was accused of leading reprisals on Sunni mosques and clerics after Samarra that killed hundreds in a few days. Sadr has denied the charge.

Police said up to six car bombs ripped through two markets in Sadr City on Sunday. Along with the dead at least 204 people were wounded, they said.

Mehdi Army militia manned checkpoints on roads into the sprawling east Baghdad slum, home to 2 million people, on Monday, searching cars for possible explosives and weapons.

DEAL WILL TAKE TIME

Sunday's blasts erupted as political leaders, shepherded by U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, met yet again to discuss forming a unity government.

Sunnis, Kurds and secular leaders have been blocking accord with a demand that Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shi'ite who has led the interim government for the past year, be dropped as the Shi'ites' choice of premier for the new, four-year term.

The Shi'ite Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, has insisted it will stick with Jaafari despite the pressure.

Sunni Arabs, who are seeking the post of speaker and Kurds the post of president for interim head of state Talabani, need the support of the Alliance for their candidates, which means parties need to compromise in order to get what they want.

The parliament session set for Thursday is expected to remain technically open for days, without adjourning, in order to give time for blocs meet a constitutional requirement to elect a speaker in the "first" session, officials said.

Iraq's politicians said they were determined to reach a deal as soon as possible but that it would take time.

"We intend to have continued meetings for days and nights," said Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni politician in the secular Iraqi List led by Shi'ite former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Saddam's trial continued, with the judge who oversaw the trial of 148 Shi'ite men accused of plotting to assassinate the former Iraqi leader taking the stand.

Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, acknowledged he had issued a death warrant for the men and insisted it was legal.

Bandar is being tried along with Saddam and six others for crimes against humanity for the killings. Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan accused U.S. troops of torturing him in 2003 to get him to reveal where Saddam was hiding.

Freeman, a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, says that, unlike the Falklands and first Gulf War, veterans of the Iraq conflict - which began almost exactly three years ago - face additional pressures. "Servicemen know they have been involved in something deeply unpopular, which has spiralled out of control," he said. "That is another burden on them."

A study by the respected medical journal the Lancet suggests that more than 600 UK servicemen have been injured in the Iraq conflict - nearly three times more than the official figure of 230 issued by the Ministry of Defence.

So far, 103 British servicemen have died in Iraq. The military faced years of negative publicity over Gulf War syndrome and allegations that troops were poorly equipped for the first Iraq war. Now the first signs are emerging that Iraq war veterans feel they have been abandoned.

Toby Elliott, executive director of Combat Stress, a charity for veterans suffering mental health problems directly linked to their military service, said: "The troops have become part of the problem rather than the solution in Iraq."

Detainee No. 155148 was considered a high-value intelligence source suspected of having close ties to al-Qaida. According to interviews, sworn statements from soldiers and military documents obtained by The Washington Post, Ashraf Abdullah Ahsy was at the center of a military intelligence "special project" designed to break him down, and was considered important enough that his interrogation was mentioned in a briefing to high-ranking intelligence officials at the Pentagon.

Although Ahsy - also identified in documents by the tribal last name of al-Juhayshi - was described without his name in an Abu Ghraib military investigation as a "high-value" detainee, he has largely remained a mystery. Ahsy's story, and his months of intense interrogations, contrast with statements by U.S. officials that the images of abuse at Abu Ghraib depicted malfeasance of a few soldiers randomly selecting victims on the night shift.

Ahsy could become a central figure in Smith's trial because attorneys for the Abu Ghraib dog handlers have said military intelligence (MI) directed the soldiers to use their animals as part of an interrogation regimen, one that top officers approved in December 2003. Unlike others implicated, the dog handlers can point directly to approvals of the technique in question from top commanders.

In a Jan. 25 sworn statement to investigators after he was granted immunity, Col. Thomas Pappas, who ran the Abu Ghraib operation, said he approved the use of dogs for a few detainees in the days before the picture of Ahsy was taken, although he said he did not remember signing off on using dogs with Ahsy. Army officials confirmed Ahsy is the one in the photograph.

"The preponderance of the evidence suggests the photo was the only photo [depicting Abu Ghraib abuse] which had anything to do with interrogations because the detainee was considered a high-value detainee," an Army official said Friday in response to questions about the case. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is part of an ongoing court-martial.

An effort lasting months

Ahsy was interrogated dozens of times by military intelligence soldiers, civilian contractors, and members of other government agencies (OGA), a common euphemism for the CIA, according to the documents. The newly discovered accounts reveal that the military working dog in the photograph was being used in conjunction with a coordinated effort to get Ahsy to talk, an effort that continued for months.

Smith, who has been charged with dereliction of duty and maltreatment of detainees, is to be tried at Fort Meade, Md., this week. He also is accused of using his dog to threaten two other detainees and of allegedly engaging in a contest to make detainees urinate and defecate out of fear. Smith's military attorney declined requests to comment.

Smith told abuse investigators in 2004 that military intelligence and military police requested Marco, his black Belgian shepherd, for use in interrogations and to control detainees, and that he complied.

"They use us for interrogations purposes," Smith said in a sworn statement in June 2004. He described the interrogators bringing detainees out of their cells and then having his dog get about 6 inches from their faces.

Pappas told investigators in January that generals urged him to use aggressive tactics on the detainees and that he approved the use of dogs in at least three cases.

Establishing control

"I thought I had the authority to approve the use of the dogs," he said, according to a 25-page unclassified transcript obtained by The Post. "In my view, it was to establish control."

Pappas said he forwarded 20 to 30 requests for use of severe tactics to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then commander of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Now he did express some concerns to me about the intelligence we were obtaining and not using the full spectrum of tools and authority to obtain good intelligence," Pappas said of Sanchez, "but never did he say use dogs on any particular person or time."

Arrested aboard ship

Navy personnel arrested Ahsy on Dec. 9, 2003, aboard the merchant vessel Manar as it approached southern Iraq after sailing from a port in the United Arab Emirates, according to military documents.

Ahsy, then 23, told interrogators he was a Sunni Muslim originally from the al-Sowara neighborhood in Baghdad. He was a former soldier in the Iraqi military who had been living in the UAE, working as a driver for a sultan. He was captured with cars he said he was going to sell in Iraq. U.S. military officials said last week that some records showed he was Iraqi, while others listed him as Syrian.

Over the next three weeks, according to the logs, doctors evaluated Ahsy twice and each time recommended him for medical care, once for severe swelling in his feet. A soldier who worked at the prison said Ahsy's feet swelled because he was made to stand in "stress positions" for hours.

"People were always making a big deal about him, and I don't know why," said Sgt. Hydrue Joyner, who ran the day shift on Tier 1A. "Whenever we took him out of the cell, they made it seem like we had Hannibal Lecter with us. They thought he was important, and OGA and MI were paying a lot of attention to him."

Interrogation summaries show Ahsy was questioned regularly - 63 times through April 12, 2004 - and interrogators were frustrated by his lack of cooperation. He was threatened with being sent to a Saudi or Israeli prison, and interrogators tried to scare him with the possibility of sending him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ahsy was referred to as "al-Qaida" and "Ashy," and was "considered a big fish for a while," according to Pappas' statement.

Pappas said he received "several briefings on this particular detainee."

Military officials in Baghdad said Ahsy was released from custody in October 2004 - 10 months after his capture - but declined to provide details.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human. The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds. It immediately brought to an end Mr Griffin's exemplary, eight-year career in which he also served with the Parachute Regiment, taking part in operations in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Afghanistan.

Mr Griffin, 28, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

Mr Griffin eventually told SAS commanders at Hereford that he could not take part in a war which he regarded as "illegal". He added that he now believed that the Prime Minister and the Government had repeatedly "lied" over the war's conduct.

"I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy," he said. He expected to be labelled a coward and to face a court martial and imprisonment after making what "the most difficult decision of my life" last March. Instead, he was discharged with a testimonial describing him as a "balanced, honest, loyal and determined individual who possesses the strength of character to have the courage of his convictions". [End excerpt]

Oh, but wait until the rightwing war bloggers -- The Fightin' Anal Cyst Brigade -- get through with him. They'll soon have him turned into a craven, cowardly, pro-terrorist lunatic -- like Jack Murtha.

Meanwhile, "On Wednesday, the pre-trial hearing will begin into the court martial of Flt Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith, a Royal Air Force doctor who has refused to return to Iraq for a third tour of duty on the grounds that the war is illegal." (Telegraph). And watch this space for more as the case develops. For background, see The Philosopher's Stone. Excerpt:

The flight lieutenant is no ordinary war protestor, and no shirker of combat - unlike, say, the pair of prissy cowards at the head of the Anglo-American "coalition." Kendall-Smith, who has dual New Zealand-British citizenship -- and dual university degrees in medicine and Kantian moral philosophy -- has served three tours at the front in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is not claiming any conscientious objections against war in general, nor do religious scruples play any part in his stance. It is based solely on the law.

Central to his case are the sinister backroom legal dealings between Washington and London in the last days before the invasion. Less than two weeks before the initial "Shock and Awe" bombings began slaughtering civilians across Iraq, Lord Goldsmith, the UK's attorney general, gave Prime Minister Tony Blair a detailed briefing full of doubts and equivocations about the legality of the coming war, adding that Britain's participation in an attack unsanctioned by the UN would "likely" lead to "close scrutiny" by the International Criminal Court for potential war crimes charges, the Observer reports.

But Blair and Goldsmith withheld this report from Parliament, the Cabinet and British military brass, who were demanding a clear-cut legal sanction for the impending action. Then, just three days before the bloodletting began, Goldsmith suddenly produced another paper, this time for public consumption: a brief, clear, unequivocal statement that the invasion would be legal. This statement was almost certainly crafted in Washington, where Goldsmith had recently been "tutored" by the Bush gang's consiglieres, including the legal advisers to Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice.

Leading this pack of war-baying legal beagles was George W. Bush's top counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who had overseen the White House's own efforts to weasel out of potential war crimes charges by declaring -- without any basis in Anglo-American jurisprudence or the U.S. Constitution -- that Bush was not bound by any law whatsoever in any military action he undertook: a blank check for aggression, murder and torture that Bush has gleefully cashed over and over. Alberto and the boys leaned hard on Goldsmith, who finally caved in and replicated the Americans' contorted and specious legal arguments for launching the attack.

Of course, Kendall-Smith knew none of this during his first two tours in Iraq: Goldsmith's Bush-induced backflip was only divulged in April 2005. Nor did he know then of the "Downing Street Memos," the "smoking gun" minutes that record Blair's inner circle dutifully lining up behind Bush's hellbent drive for war - as far back as 2002 - and their conspiracy with the Bush gang to manipulate their countries into war. The memos -- which emerged in May 2005 and have never been denied or repudiated by the UK government -- show Blair's slavish acquiescence in Bush's criminal scheme to "fix the facts and the intelligence around the policy" of unprovoked military aggression. Confronted with this newly revealed evidence -- and the revelations about the mountain of doubts and caveats expressed by American intelligence before the invasion but deliberately ignored by the Bushist war party -- Kendall-Smith took the only honorable course for a soldier who has been duped into serving an evil cause.

Mother Jones Magazine ran a piece this week by James K. Gailbraith, economics professor at University of Texas, Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs. Gailbraith's article is entitled "Withdrawal Symptoms: Quitting Iraq won't undo the real damage of the war." He details what is wrong in Iraq, and says: "But the reality is that the Iraq war could not be won by a force of any size or by an expenditure of any amount. Against determined opposition, occupations in the modern world cannot prevail."

Recent words of a modern conservative godfather, William F. Buckley, Jr., echo those of Odom, Murtha and Gailbraith. Buckley is receiving a lot of flak from the neoconservative movement he helped produce. Entitled simply: "It Didn't Work." Buckley boldly condemns American policy in Iraq. By "it," didn't work, he means the American "objective" was not achieved. Buckley writes:

"Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols."

Three of these men, and thousands of other men and women who have closely observed American foreign policy in the Cold War and post Cold War Era, are exactly on target. The occupation had an agenda of sorts, although this administration has been less than open about that agenda. In the future, whole books will be dedicated to trying to figure out the real reason that we invaded and attempted to occupy Iraq. Perhaps Rumsfeld, Cheney or even George W. Bush will grace us with a memoir.

The agenda seems – and I emphasize "seems" because we cannot truly know at this time – seems to have been to forcibly transform an oil rich country that was a socialist dictatorship – with Saddam Hussein playing a hostile Marshal Tito – into a kind of Israeli-modeled proportional parliamentary system; into an unarmed country filled with religious and ethnic tolerance; into a capitalistic country with a globally integrated economy; into a country that would reliably sell their massive quantities of petroleum for dollars, and not euros, nor gold, nor any other currency, but dollars; and into a country that would sell that oil freely to people we liked.

We flew the flag of democracy from our tank turrets, HUMVEE antennas, and our rifles in order to achieve the neo-conservative vision for this other country.

This agenda has not been completely implemented. There is a proportional parliamentary system in place, but it isn't tested, seems contrived, unpopular, and not able to ensure minority rights to the satisfaction all Iraqis. Iraq is a capitalistic country, but only in the sense that another capitalist country now manages and controls its primary export commodity and its banking system. Its economy is globally integrated, but only because the formerly state-owned industrial base has been sold to friendly international bidders who were part of the U.S. "coalition of the willing." Oil is now again traded on the dollar, as this change occurred via an Executive Order signed by George W. Bush in May 2003; however, less oil is being produced today than under the heavily sanctioned former government of Iraq.

The flag of democracy we waved to the Iraqi people from the turrets and tanks is now tattered.

Of course, the cynics among us may believe that what we have today in Iraq is exactly what we, or at least Washington neoconservatives, really wanted. Cynics suggest that our real agenda was simply to destroy the industrialized, unified, and proud country of Iraq, and create a kind of long-lasting chaos and societal breakdown that would serve our own purposes in the region, including the construction of massive Guantanamo-style fortresses we call megabases.

While General Odom, John Gailbraith, and John Murtha are correct about Iraq, William F. Buckley, Jr. is off base in his assessment of the situation. Of course, Bill Buckley understands that we must now admit defeat in Iraq. He concluded on February 24th of this year that, " … different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat."

But Buckley gets it wrong in why we have been defeated. He believes we have lost against "killer insurgents" in Iraq and something he calls "the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols."

Well, people, I have some good news and I have some bad news.

The good news is that the more intelligent and reasonable on the left, the right, the down low and the on high, and every other part of the political spectrum, are all reaching the same conclusion. Iraq is a mess, we have made it a mess, and we ought to do something. Most advocate a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Strangely, no one in government, media or academia wants to talk about our multi-billion dollar megabases, and what we should do with them. I can only imagine.

More good news is that the majority of Americans – we the people – are beginning to accept our own culpability for the Iraq mess. There is a growing sense of American responsibility for what our politicians, specifically our President, Vice President and our Congress have done not only to Iraq, but to our own American credibility, financial solvency, and to our preferred image of ourselves as the most law-abiding and simultaneously the most free country on earth.

Of course, a small minority of neo-conservatives in both major political parties are the ones who dreamed, designed, promoted, advocated and implemented this disastrous foreign policy in the Middle East. But it was our political system that allowed this neoconservative concoction to be sold to American citizens and to the world without warranty, without a list of active ingredients, and without a warning that dangerous side-effects were not only possible but very likely.

That political system, with a willing state media to communicate Washington's desires for this "drug," is still intact. It is being used today with great effectiveness to advocate American and Israeli military attacks on Iran. But we as a nation are now recognizing the problem, and are beginning to assign responsibility in all of the right places, not just a few of them. This is a good sign, and it is happening now.

Lastly, good news can be found in the real performance of the Iraqis themselves under our devastating occupation. We hear of imminent or ongoing civil war, we hear of ethnic and religious intolerance. We see the incredible efforts that real (versus American-appointed and American-recommended) Iraqi leaders have made to de-escalate passions in the face of recent violence and desecration of mosques by unknown persons. In the eyes of many Iraqis, violence of this type is probably the work of persons not of Iraqi origin, outsiders intent on stirring up sectarian strife.

25 million Iraqis, with all of their problems, have come to realize to a person, that overbearing, over-centralized, militaristic government fails. Such governments extract resources and waste them. Such governments constantly engage in organized war. Such governments lie. Such governments torture. Such governments deceive. Iraqis knew this well under Saddam Hussein, as subjects of dictatorships always understand. Iraqis understand this even more completely today, as they are subject to exactly the same thing under the American-dominated and enforced administration of Iraq today.

During the Cold War, Russians and other subjects of the Supreme Soviet understood the corruption of communism, decades before the final collapse of the Soviet Union. When we read Solzhenitsyn from the late 1960s and early 1970s, we understood that Russians already knew more about their own political flaws and problems, and had already considered and debated challenges of living and society and government more deeply than we ever could or would.

The Iraqi people have witnessed – and many have survived – the American occupation. They have seen incredible destruction of institutions and infrastructure. They have witnessed corruption beyond any they tolerated under Hussein, and watched as the United States built even more prisons in order to incarcerate ever-increasing numbers of Iraqis.

But there is indeed good news. The good news is that the Iraqis today have no remaining illusions about government. They increasingly cling together along the lines of things that truly matter – family, tradition, religion, and faith – and as one of the more educated and liberal of the Arab states in the 1980s and 1990s, they are privately generating many concrete and positive ideas on how to make their country great again. If only we would get out of the way and let them do it.

Leaving Iraq is indeed the first step, and for us, little else needs to be done, to fix that mess. Colin Powell and others often publicly invoke the so-called Pottery Barn rule, saying "We broke it, we buy it." The absolute arrogance of this faulty analogy should offend all Americans, as it surely must offend the Iraqis.

Do we really believe that we can break a people who have withstood occupations in any number of centuries in just a few years with a few hundred thousand American soldiers and Marines? Do we actually believe that Iraqis were broken by the years of sanctions and daily bombings by the US and UK that characterized the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton regimes in Washington? Do we think that the destruction of Saddam's Republican Guard and hundreds of thousands of draftees and civilians in 1991 broke the Iraqis? Was Iraq destroyed by eight years of Saddam Hussein's insane war against Iran, a country three times its size and with far more resources? Do we actually think that our killing of over 300,000 Iraqis since 2003 – whether on purpose or as nameless, faceless collateral damage – has destroyed the country?

American political leaders – particularly those Republicans and Democrats who tentatively oppose the American occupation in Iraq – whimper under their breath about having to stay there because we "broke the country." These politicians are almost more arrogant and uninformed than the neo-conservatives who had planned to do precisely that.

Allow me to offer you a new analogy. It is one that every American can understand, including our congressional representatives. It is an analogy that applies well to Iraq today. When the supermarket announcement is made for "Cleanup in Aisle 3," do we not make every effort to contain our errant children and get them away from the mess, so that those truly responsible for the store's operation can do their job, a job they want to do, and which they are best qualified to do?

Naturally, the store owner would prefer that his property not be damaged and destroyed. Naturally the store owner would prefer that safety, sanitation and other customers not be put at risk. But the mother or father who unleashes her newly penitent, and perhaps chastened crowd of 3-year old ankle biters on the spilled applesauce in Aisle 3 will certainly be told by the store owners and employees, firm and confidently, "Indeed, your help here is not necessary. Thanks, but we'll take care of this ourselves."

George W. Bush has said that the best thing we can do in fighting his global war is to go shopping. The shopping experience we need to apply in Iraq today is not the Pottery Barn rule, but the more humble "Cleanup in Aisle 3" rule. And deep down, the vast majority of Americans already know this.

Now for the bad news.

Bill Buckley wrongly believes we failed in Iraq because "the ice men who move in shadows" in Iraq have defeated our glorious occupiers. Instead, we failed strategically because the ice men who move in shadows in Washington do not respect the rule of law or our own Constitution. The ice men in Washington do not understand real freedom and from whence it comes, and apparently, they slept through every history class they ever took. Buckley is a bit confused on this point. The ice men are not in Iraq. But they do exist and they are indeed the cause of this extreme and tragic failure of American foreign policy.

Leaving Iraq does nothing to solve the primary problem that plagues our national policy and financial stability. The ice men remain, and will remain, in Washington. The system that allows boutique wars of choice to be pursued at the whim of the President and his advisors is still in place. The government media system that manufactures lies, reports those lies to the people, and then charges truthtellers with being traitors and terrorists, is still in place in America. It is hard to believe, but this system is even more robust than it was three years ago.

Both the grassroots and the ivory tower embrace the idea that elections are useful and something called "voting" matters. Many naïvely expected that, once Iraqis voted and raised the purple finger, American troops would come home, having accomplished at least that small afterthought of the American agenda in Iraq.

But any dictator can have elections. Saddam held regular elections, as did the Soviets, as do we. Paper ballots or electronic signaling of our preferences may not, in the end, really matter.

But the image of Iraqis with purple index fingers raised does suggest a partial, yet intriguing, remedy to our own situation here at home.

We, the people, desperately need to raise more fingers in defiance of our pencil-necked, jack-booted government. My personal preference – and apparently that of George W. Bush – is the middle finger salute. But the index finger, when associated with "Just a minute, buster!" and "What are you doing to us, Congressman?" also works. We, the people, also need to give healthy thumbs-down to politicians corrupted by lobbies or love of power, and those who suffer chronic and willful ignorance of our Constitution.

How does giving the finger to our own government help fix Iraq? As anyone who watches Oprah or Dr. Phil, or even Judge Judy knows, when you have a troubled relationship with a significant other, you can't just fix the "other." All you can really do is be honestly aware of what you have become, and then listen and learn the truth about your partner's situation (and here's a great starting point). Finally, no matter what solutions present themselves, we understand that the only future we own, the only destiny we control, and the only change we can truly accomplish is our own.

We cannot "fix" Iraq. The Iraqis surely can, and the sooner they are able to get started, the better. We might lead by example, illustrating to the Iranian clerics, and the Turkish nationalists, and the Israeli adventurers that it is polite and proper to give a partner some space, to let them find their own way.

We might, as we have done in other emergency situations, offered favored nation trade benefits, use our soft power in the world to discourage our allies, like Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, from taking material advantage of Iraq during its necessary recovery. We might use our soft power and other influence to encourage our adversaries, like Iran, to focus on making its own country a good neighbor, and not seek to destabilize Iraq.

However – we must accept that any advice we have for the rest of the world is fundamentally discredited, as our own behavior in Iraq has, just as in the game of Monopoly, sent us to jail, and this time, we do not have a "get out of jail free" card. We will have to sit out the next round.

In addition to withdrawing our military troops, abandoning our military bases in Iraq, and our prisons, we might put some of our free trade rhetoric into practice. We should immediately and completely return the financial, energy and service sectors to local Iraqis, even to Iraqi regions and Iraqi municipalities. We insist upon ensuring a federal state, but we have no trusted strong man to manage it for us. As Sir Walter Scott wrote, "…Oh the tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to deceive." Or, if this is more understandable to the neoconservatives, the Rolling Stones used to sing, "You can't always get what you want, but you might just get what you need."

Perhaps – and I know this sounds like crazy talk – someday we might buy Iraqi oil, without constraints and conditions, just because they might someday produce it and we might someday want to use it, at a non-coerced, mutually agreed upon free market price?

If Oprah or Dr. Phil, or even Dr. Laura or Dr. Ruth were to make a recommendation on how to fix Iraq, the advice would be to start by fixing ourselves. Perhaps instead of "fix," they might use the word "heal" or "improve." Stop overt aggression in our actions and our language, cut out the holier-than-thou platitudes, they would say. Don't pick fights, start listening, stop labeling, refrain from theft and don't tell lies about what is really going on.

This advice, if taken, would clear out most of our current members of Congress, before or during the next election. It would put right-wing administration-apologist talk radio and TV completely out of business, and it would crush the emerging left-wing critics who want more government power in order to "fix" someone else. Imagine an America where centralized controls, fear-mongering government spokesmen, and mass-produced White House talking points are rare and unusual. Imagine a Congress that takes its Constitutional role seriously, and can distinguish between real and imaginary national security threats. Imagine political leaders who carefully moderate the coarser public tendencies, instead of exploiting and intensifying them.

Fix Iraq? We cannot do it, we should not do it, and we must not insist upon trying to do it. It's not our job, and we have no right. Sadly, it's not even our responsibility. Americans were told nothing but lies before the invasion of Iraq, and still can't get the truth out of the White House about this never-ending occupation. Neoconservative politicos can't even agree on why they wanted the war, and now they're dropping from the team like day-old houseflies over theoretical arguments and occupation reality.

Americans have only a single solemn responsibility – to end it.

In any case, Iraqis won't be fooled again. We ought to recognize this as an admirable quality, and adopt it ourselves. Instead of fixing Iraq, we ought to focus on fixing our own country.

God bless this country, and God bless our founders, who understood we would be faced with real governing challenges in the years that would follow. The founders fully expected that our government would not be completely guided nor constrained by the Constitution. They fully expected that our government would become corrupted, arbitrary, militaristic and unaccountable to the people.

Ben Franklin famously warned moments after signing the constitution when asked by a lady on the street "What have you given us, sir?" He answered, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

I want to close with comments made this week by Antiwar.com's editor, Justin Raimondo. He was referring to Iraq, and drums in Washington pounding ever more loudly for war with Iran. Raimondo says:

…One intervention leads us, ineluctably, to another, and – in the case of war with Iran – to far greater and more destructive conflict.

This is why the cautious proposals of a gradual drawdown proposed by some ostensibly pragmatic critics of the war are, in the end, eminently impractical. The accelerated tempo of the developing conflict will soon outpace such half-measures.

He goes on, saying,

Only a massive rebellion by the American people – an outpouring of militant antiwar sentiment – can stop the War Party.

Fixing Iraq is actually far easier for us than recovering our own innocence. But I believe that if we remember that we ARE the people, and that we only suffer the government that we ourselves consent to suffer, we can indeed fix the mess we have made, and certainly prevent future such disasters in our foreign policy. At least, I hope so.

Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for militaryweek.com, hosts the call-in radio show American Forum on Saturday nights, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com.

Copyright © 2006 LewRockwell.com

If the summer is unusually hot, however, ``all bets are off,'' said Lt. Col. Otto Busher, an engineer with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division.

``We're living miserably,'' said housewife Su'ad Hassan, a mother of four and one of millions in Baghdad who have endured three years of mostly powerless days under U.S. occupation. Her family usually goes without hot water and machine washing, she said, and ``often my children have to do their homework in the dim light of oil lamps.''

Despite such hardships, Army Corps of Engineers officers regard their Restore Iraq Electricity project as one of the great feats in corps history, along with the building of the Panama Canal a century ago.

Their efforts and related programs, at a three-year cost of more than $4 billion and tens of thousands of man-hours, built or rehabilitated electric-generating capacity totaling just over 2,000 megawatts - equaling the output of America's Hoover Dam.

``It's not a disappointment, not in my opinion. We've added megawatts to the grid,'' said Kathye Johnson, reconstruction chief for the joint U.S. military-civilian project office in Baghdad.

For one thing, deprived areas outside the Iraqi capital are doing better, with a nationwide average of 10 to 11 hours of electricity daily, compared with three to five hours in Baghdad. That represents a reshuffling of priorities from prewar days, when the Baathist government diverted flows from northern and southern power plants to this central metropolis.

Although the U.S. effort helped boost Iraq's potential generating capacity to more than 7,000 megawatts, available capacity has never topped 5,400, held down by plant breakdowns and shutdowns for maintenance, fuel shortages and transmission disruptions caused by insurgent attacks, inefficient production, sabotage by extortionists, and other factors.

In the first week of February, a busy maintenance period, output dropped to 3,750 megawatts, reports the joint U.S. agency, the Gulf Region Division-Project Contracting Office. That's a new low since the period immediately after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Now the U.S. reconstruction money is running out, the last generating project is undergoing startup testing in southern Iraq, and the Americans view 2006 as a year of transition to full Iraqi responsibility, aided by a U.S. budget for ``sustainability,'' including training and advisory services.

Even that long-term support may fall short, however. The reconstruction agency allotted $460 million for this purpose, but in a report to Congress on Jan. 30 the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction estimated $720 million would be needed.

The decline of Iraq's electrical system can be traced back at least to the 1991 Gulf War, when U.S. warplanes targeted the grid. The government rebuilt the system to produce 4,400 megawatts, still short of demand. But damage from the 2003 invasion - and particularly from looting that followed - knocked production down to 3,200 megawatts and wrecked transmission lines.

The Army engineers who rolled into Iraq in 2003 found power plants barely operating, lacking spare parts and suffering from years of neglect brought on by U.N. trade sanctions. They brought in contractors to upgrade installations, but the looting and sabotage went on. Insurgents attacked fuel pipelines. Other Iraqis toppled transmission towers to keep power in their own cities and away from Baghdad.

To battle the insurgency, U.S. authorities shifted more than $1 billion from power projects to security spending. Having planned to add or rehabilitate 3,400 megawatts' worth of power production, they settled instead for 2,000. The lack of security also slowed work: Fewer than half the 350 local power-distribution projects planned by the Americans had begun as of early this year, the inspector-general reported Jan. 30.

``It's problems, rather than mistakes,'' said Mohamoud al-Saadi, an Iraqi Electricity Ministry official, citing the sabotage and insurgency.

But some believe the Americans also made a critical mistake by installing gas-turbine generators rather than building or overhauling more of the oil-fueled, steam-run plants.

Iraq doesn't have pipelines to deliver natural gas from its oil fields, so plant operators resort to low-grade oil to run the gas-combustion engines, reducing power output by up to 50 percent and potentially damaging the machinery.

``Turbines don't run well on that, and that forces us into a maintenance cycle,'' said Tom Waters, deputy director for electricity in the U.S. reconstruction office.

Meanwhile, demand kept rising as Iraqis bought imported air conditioners, washer-driers, DVD players and other power-hungry appliances. To help fill the gap, households or neighborhood groups are buying diesel-run generators, stringing dangerous makeshift wiring around their homes.

Demand, almost 9,000 megawatts last summer, is expected to rise sharply this year, and the Army engineers responsible for Baghdad are worried.

``We're about 4,000 megawatts in the hole nationwide to meet our needs,'' Maj. Al Moff, 4th Infantry Division electricity specialist, noted at a recent internal briefing for division officers.

He said the system risked losing 300 megawatts more in hydroelectric power because the Tigris River was running extremely low. But a recent agreement by Turkey to release more upriver water appears to have lifted that threat.

One solution could be power from Iran: one Iraqi proposal is for a transmission line to import much more than the 100 megawatts of Iranian power Iraq now buys.

The U.S. Embassy won't talk about it, in view of Washington's animosity toward Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. But the reconstruction office's Waters said one of the U.S.-financed Iraqi substations under construction could handle more Iranian power.

``Completing an Iran transmission line could give them up to 1,500 megawatts,'' said Army engineer Moff.

The Iranian Embassy says Tehran has earmarked $1 billion in loans for Iraqi infrastructure, mostly for electrical power, the Iranian news agency reports.

Even if a major Iran linkup is built, however, other projects may stay in the blueprint stage unless more aid is forthcoming from Washington or other donors.

``We have a lot of unfinished projects because of a lack of government funding,'' said the Electricity Ministry's al-Saadi.

Reconstruction chief Johnson agrees with Iraq's five-year cost estimate. ``It's probably in the range of $16 to $20 billion to complete the infrastructure to provide 24/7 sustainable power to all the citizens of Iraq,'' she said.

In the long term, Johnson said, it's essential for Iraq to open its power industry to private investment. That would mean making it profitable by following the advice of the World Bank and others to raise rates; Iraqis now pay 50 cents to a dollar a month.

Can people afford more?

Hassan's family already cannot afford fuel for its small generator. ``Most of the time we can't use it,'' the Baghdad housewife said.

Whether she and others can afford higher rates, a classic ``chicken and egg'' problem confronts energy-short Iraq, said Moff.

``Before you can raise rates,'' he pointed out, ``you have to have power.''