US intel report: Iraq's Anbar province 'politically lost'

Chief Marine analyst says region's political vacuum being filled by Al Qaeda.
By Tom Regan csmonitor.com

In a report that some have said is the most negative yet filed by a senior military officer in Iraq, the chief of intelligence for the US Marine Corps in Iraq concluded that the possibilities of the US and Iraqi governments securing the troubled western Iraqi province of Anbar are remote.

The Washington Post reports that Col. Pete Devlin's assessment, written in mid-August, also says that "there is almost nothing the US military can do to improve the political and social situation there."

One Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, "We haven't been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically – and that's where wars are won and lost." The "very pessimistic" statement, as one Marine officer called it, was dated Aug. 16 and sent to Washington shortly after that, and has been discussed across the Pentagon and elsewhere in national security circles. "I don't know if it is a shock wave, but it's made people uncomfortable," said a Defense Department official who has read the report. ...

Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair; a third said it concludes that the United States has lost in Anbar.

The Post reports that Colonel Devlin offers several reasons for this situation: a lack of US and Iraqi troops in the province, the collapse of local governments, and a weak central government with almost no presence in the region.

News of Devlin's comments about Iraq come only a few days after the Canadian Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor said it was impossible to militarily eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO military leaders there also complained about a lack of troops to fight that country's growing insurgency. The Times of London also reports that one of Britain's top soldiers in Afghanistan quit the Army last month because he was so frustrated with the situation in that country. Captain Leo Docherty of the Scots Guards said the campaign in the southern province of Helmand province has become "a textbook case of how to a counter-insurgency