So What Are We Doing?

This story in the Washington Post gives a pretty good idea just how far out-of-control events in Iraq are spinning, and just how ineptly some of our military and civilian leaders are dealing with the situation.

In brief, in the city of Kut, a man named Fadhil has declared himself to be mayor and is busily consolidating power. Fadhil clearly has a lot of popular support, and therefore his less-than-friendly take on the American occupation would appear to be cause for concern. So what has been the US reaction? "Marine officers here said they do not have the authority to decide who can be mayor." Fair enough, but as Fadhil whips up anti-American sentiment in Kut, you would think that we would try to do everything we can to defuse the situation, right? Nope.

Lt. Col. Erik Grabowsky, "leader of the Marine civil affairs unit in charge of dealing with local leaders and rebuilding the city's infrastructure", has chosen to ignore the "dealing with local leaders" part of his job description: "We don't really pay attention to him." Fadhil isn't taking this very well: "The cold shoulder is annoying Fadhil, who declared open season on former Baathists during a meeting with his supporters. He said he had earlier ordered his followers not to engage in revenge attacks — but no more."

There is obviously no love lost in Kut for the Ba'athists. As Fadhil himself has said, "There should be no room in the government for these people, these criminals and opportunists." Yet Grabowsky of the civil affairs unit has decided that even acknowledging this problem really isn't part of his job either: "Simply having a Baath affiliation isn't enough to disqualify them. We should ask — and we are — 'Is he a criminal? Is he a bad guy?' But beyond that, it's not our job to vet people right now."

I hope the situation in Kut isn't typical, but reading this story, it's really hard to come away with the impression that we know what the hell we are doing over there, unless endlessly pissing off the locals is precisely the point, in which case we're doing super.