Tensions Between Turkey and the West Increase

By DAN BILEFSKY ISTANBUL — With Turkey’s prospects for joining the European Union growing more elusive and the country reaching out to predominantly Muslim countries with a vigor not seen in years, a longstanding question is vexing the United States and Europe: Is this large, secular Muslim country turning East instead of West? When President Obama visited Turkey in April — a symbolic gesture that underlined Turkey’s geostrategic importance — he emphasized the country’s role as a bridge between East and West, acknowledged its mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict and threw his weight solidly behind Turkey becoming a European Union member. Now, six months later, some in Washington and Brussels are questioning Turkey’s dependability as an ally, and many Turks are asking whether they should reject the European Union before the bloc rejects them. Fears that Turkey is abandoning its bridge-building role were fanned this month when it canceled air force exercises with Israel, straining ties that frayed in January when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan castigated Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, over the war in Gaza, in front of world leaders at Davos, Switzerland. Senior Turkish officials say Mr. Erdogan, who was mediating between Israel and Syria just weeks before the conflict in Gaza broke out, felt personally betrayed by Israel’s aggression and what he regarded as the needless killing of innocent Muslims. At the same time, some Western diplomats say, Turkey has made what they consider alarming overtures toward Iran. When the official result of Iran’s disputed presidential election was announced in June, Turkey was one of the first countries to congratulate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his re-election. On Tuesday, during a visit to Tehran, Mr. Erdogan said the West was applying a double standard in pressuring Iran over its nuclear program. “Those who are chanting for global nuclear disarmament should first start in their own countries,” he said. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has vociferously opposed European Union membership for Turkey, arguing that it is not geographically part of Europe. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has expressed similar reservations. Many Turks have interpreted the rejection to mean that their country is not welcome because of its large Muslim population. At a meeting in Istanbul last week about Turkey’s relations with its neighbors, Representative Robert Wexler, chairman of the European subcommittee in Congress, said: “You wonder why Turkey is curious about different avenues? Look at your own behavior and attitude, Europe.” Other analysts say that cultural and economic factors are also pushing Turkey in that direction. Ersin Kalaycioglu, a political science professor at Sabanci University, noted that the global financial crisis had contracted European economies, prompting Turkey, a large exporter, to seek different markets. He and others also suggested that leaders of the governing Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., a socially conservative party with Muslim roots, felt more at home in Riyadh, Damascus and Baghdad than in Paris, London or Rome. Even a partial collapse of talks with the European Union would have far-reaching consequences. Turkey is an indispensable ally for the United States and Europe. Bordered by Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkey is a powerful symbol of the compatibility of democracy, capitalism and Islam. Located between the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, it has vital strategic importance as a transit country for gas. It also has deep influence in Afghanistan and is a regional leader in the Caucasus. Yet the country’s European Union negotiations are in a precarious state. Negotiations on a number of issues have been blocked because of its long dispute with Cyprus. For the first time in years, leading figures in the business establishment, which has always led the drive for European Union integration, are questioning the wisdom of continuing a negotiating process that appears to have no end. “We Turks are a proud nation and we don’t want to go to a house where we were invited but where the host keeps slamming the door in our face,” said Hasan Arat, an executive at a top Turkish real estate development firm. For all the country’s wounded pride, Turkish officials and analysts insist that Turkey has no intention of abandoning the West. Rather than reorienting Turkish foreign policy toward the East, Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European Union affairs, argued in an interview that the recent outreach to its neighbors — including the opening of its border with Syria, the signing of a historic agreement with Armenia to establish normal diplomatic relations and the engagement of Iran — was helping Turkey become a more effective interlocutor for its Western allies. “Any bridge with one strong leg and one weak leg can’t stand for long,” Mr. Bagis said. Ibrahim Kalin, chief foreign policy adviser to Mr. Erdogan, said Western critics of Turkey’s new inclusive foreign policy were using a double standard. “When the U.S. makes an overture to Russia, everyone applauds this as a new era in diplomacy,” he said. “But when Turkey tries to reach out to Iran, people ask if it is trying to change its axis.” Mr. Kalin said that the anti-Turkish talk emanating from key European capitals was making it harder to convince the Turkish people about the need for European Union membership. Rather than worrying that Turkey is moving toward the East, said Cengiz Aktar, a leading expert here on the European Union, the West should fear a wounded Turkey turning to Russia. Already, Russia has been courting it as a distribution point for energy supplies, while Turkish investment in Russia is intensifying. “This government is perfectly capable of saying ‘no thanks’ to Europe and instead shifting toward Russia,” Mr. Aktar said.

A Prescription for Tragedy in Afghanistan

Max Boot Commentary Magazine WEB ONLY If media leaks are to be believed, President Obama will attempt to chart a middle way in Afghanistan, sending more soldiers but not as many as General Stanley McChrystal would like. The New York Times describes the emerging strategy as “McChrystal for the city, Biden for the country,” a blend of the diametrically opposed approaches advocated by the general (who favors a counterinsurgency strategy) and the vice president (who wants to do counterterrorism operations only). The Times writes that "the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Maza-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said." In the rest of Afghanistan, presumably, operations would be limited to a few air raids and Special Operations raids. Other media reports suggest that the administration is looking to send 10,000 to 20,000 troops -- not the 40,000 that McChrystal wants. To Washington politicians, this no doubt sounds like a sensible compromise. To anyone steeped in military strategy it sounds as if it could be a prescription for tragedy. The administration seems intent on doing just enough to keep the war effort going without doing enough to win it. That is also what the U.S. did in Iraq from 2003 to 2007, and for that matter in Afghanistan from 2001 to today. The ambivalence of our politicians places US troops in harm's way without giving them a chance to prevail. It is hard, of course, to make any definitive statement until the administration makes public its strategy. It is always possible that the final decision will not resemble the leaks we read today. But if the Times report is accurate, senior White House officials are bent on imposing a curious strategy on our on-the-ground commander. Most of Afghanistan's big cities are not seriously threatened by insurgents. Notwithstanding a few high-profile attacks, Kabul is pretty safe, as I discovered for myself during a recent visit. So too with Herat, Jalalabad, Maza-i-Sharif, and the rest. Even Kandahar doesn't have much violence, although the Taliban undoubtedly exert some control over what goes on inside the city limits. The problem lies in the countryside, where the Taliban have been pursuing the same strategy that the mujahideen used against the Soviets in the 1980s -- consolidate control in rural areas and then launch attacks on the cities where foreign troops are garrisoned. The Taliban right now are still working to secure the countryside and it would be a grave mistake if we allowed them to pursue that strategy hindered only by a few air strikes that inevitably would be ineffective unless we had troops on the ground to generate accurate targeting intelligence. That doesn't mean that we should send forces into remote outposts where no one lives. McChrystal is, in fact, pulling back such small bases, and rightly so. But his strategy envisions major operations to secure the Helmand River Valley, a rural area but one with plenty of substantial towns and villages. This is the economic heart of southern Afghanistan and the country's major poppy-growing region. His strategy also envisions taking control of the rural areas that surround major cities such as Kandahar and Kabul. In the case of the capital, that means pacifying provinces to the south such as Logar and Wardak. The approaches to those cities have been in the grip of the Taliban, and breaking their vice grip will require more troops. Similarly, Baghdad did not start to become secure in 2007 until the U.S. deployed substantial surge troops to the "gates" of the city -- the belt of rural territory surrounding the capital including the "triangle of death" to the south. If the Obama strategy does not envision a similar offensive in Afghanistan, it will be making a terrible mistake. But if such an offensive is planned it will take a lot of troops -- 10,000 to 20,000 probably won't cut it, especially if most of those are providing combat "enablers" (medevac, air support, route clearance, intelligence, and the like). But don't just take my word for it. Here is what a senior Afghan general in Kabul told me not long ago: "It's not enough to hit a terrorist sanctuary or two with Predators and Hellfires and leave the Taliban to breed. That will only prolong the fighting. In my opinion a counterterrorist strategy is not the answer. We need extra forces to cover all the threatened areas, to keep highways open, and to accelerate the growth of the army and police." I can only hope that the White House will heed his words.

14 al-Qaida suspects arrested in Fallujah and northern Iraq

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces arrested 14 suspected al-Qaida members in western and northern Iraq, including three who were formerly detained by U.S. troops in the country, local police officials said Thursday. Six men arrested in Fallujah were wanted for allegedly planning attacks in and around the city, which is 40 miles west of Baghdad, said the city's police chief, Col. Mahmoud al-Isawi. "The group is believed to be behind many murders and attacks against the citizens and the police forces," al-Isawi told The Associated Press, without specifying when the arrests or the attacks took place. Fallujah is a city in western Anbar province that was a hotbed of Iraq's Sunni-dominated insurgency and the scene of some of the most intense U.S. fighting with militants, before becoming a model of security gains in the country. Police detained the other eight suspects, one of whom was a woman, during a raid Tuesday on a suspected militant hideout in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, the police chief in the city, Jamal Taher, told the AP. Police confiscated roadside bombs and car bombs during the raid, he said. Two of the men in Fallujah and one in Kirkuk were previously detained by U.S. forces but were subsequently released, said the two police chiefs. As part of an agreement between the two countries that took effect Jan. 1, Iraqi authorities have begun reviewing the cases of U.S. detainees to decide whether to free them or press charges. Thousands have been freed because there is little or no evidence against them, but some are suspected of having returned to violence. The two men in Fallujah were suspected by the U.S. of having links with insurgents but were released in July for lack of evidence, said al-Isawi. They had been held at Camp Bucca, a military base in southern Iraq that served as the largest U.S. detention site in Iraq before it was closed down last month, said al-Isawi. The U.S. is scheduled to turn over its detention system to the Iraqi government by early 2010. Iraq is struggling to handle tens of thousands of detainees held in overcrowded prisons and makeshift jails. Many were detained in past years on suspicion of links to the Sunni-led insurgency or Shiite-dominated militias during Iraq's sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007.

Marking time in IRAQ

By Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq — Pfc. Adrian Vesik heard that war could be hell. He was happy to discover when he arrived in Iraq earlier this year that his war experience also would include salsa dancing, yoga and martial-arts classes. "When I signed up for the Army, I thought I was going to be a hero – go out and do some fighting," says Vesik, 19, during a break at a Filipino-Okinawan jujitsu class. "I haven't come close to doing anything that I was trained to do. I work, maybe, four to five hours a day. I have time to try all these new things. It's not so bad." Because of new rules that require Iraqi approval for all U.S. missions, and a general decline in violence nationwide, many of the 117,000 U.S. servicemembers stationed in Iraq say they now have more idle time than at any previous point in the six-year war. Combat is still a daily reality in some parts of Iraq, and U.S. servicemembers are being killed here at a rate of about one a week. But for many troops in places such as this large military base in southern Iraq, traditional soldiering such as kicking down doors and searching for roadside bombs has at least partly given way to book clubs, karaoke nights, sports and distance-learning university programs. Many troops express relief at the diminished threat of injury or death. Yet some say they have struggled with depression because they don't feel as if they are doing enough. Others say they are frustrated by the sense they're being underutilized – particularly at a time when their comrades in Afghanistan are struggling to beat back the Taliban. "It's been hard to get used to how much things have changed," says Army Staff Sgt. Wayne Kersh, 31, of St. George, Utah, who is on his third deployment in Iraq. "During the other tours, we were always going. You went on patrol, you ate, you slept, and then you did it again. You never had to think about keeping a soldier occupied." The improvement in Iraq's security recently prompted Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander here, to accelerate the pace of sending troops home. He announced last month that 4,000 more troops – about the size of an Army brigade – will be going home by the end of October. Even more will leave next year, until 50,000 troops remain after Sept. 1, and the rest are to be gone by the end of 2011. The drawdown is occurring as President Obama is evaluating a request for more troops in Afghanistan. Simply shifting troops from one war to another is difficult because of specialized training needs, transport logistics and other factors. But a smaller force in Iraq should, over time, free up the manpower to increase forces in Afghanistan, should Obama decide that is necessary. "An accelerated drawdown in Iraq would give the Pentagon more flexibility to meet the force requirements for Afghanistan, even if no troops were transferred directly between the two theaters of war," says James Phillips, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. This week, Odierno canceled the deployment of a brigade scheduled to arrive in Iraq next January. The Pentagon has no plans yet to send that unit to Afghanistan. But Phillips says that brigade likely will be sent there. The USA is still spending about $7.3 billion a month on the Iraq war, training Iraqi troops, providing security and assisting Iraqi forces as they target insurgents responsible for bombings and other attacks. Yet, there has been a more relaxed atmosphere, particularly since June 30, when U.S. forces had to leave Iraqi cities and towns as part of the security agreement between the two countries. Even in rural areas, all combat operations are led by Iraqi soldiers and police; U.S. troops are asked only to provide minimal support. Such progress means U.S. troops leave their bases less frequently. And when they do, it's to train Iraqi troops or to meet with community leaders about civic projects. Lt. Col. Jay Gallivan, who commands the Army battalion that advises Iraqi Security Forces in the southern provinces of Dhi Qar and Muthanna, says there is an ongoing debate over where U.S. troops can best be used. He says the current number of troops here is adequate to train and assist the Iraqis. "As forces depart, you have to start asking the question of what are things you don't do," Gallivan says. Sgt. Jonathan Blanton, 23, says he fell into a depression during his first days here because he expected more action and wondered why he was even needed. On his previous tour in Iraq, during the massive U.S. troop increase in 2007, Blanton's infantry unit fought in some pitched battles in the restive city of Baqouba, and he was wounded by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad. He was expecting more of the same this time. "I felt like many of the infantrymen," says Blanton, of New Summerfield, Texas. "Any Joe will tell you we're not doing what we're supposed to do – we're not kicking down doors. But I eventually came to understand that things have changed. That part of the war is over, and that's a good thing." U.S. troops – particularly here in relatively peaceful southern Iraq – are seldom involved in combat operations these days, says Col. Peter Newell, who commands more than 4,000 soldiers in an advisory brigade to the Iraqi security forces in an area the size of South Carolina. "For the young soldier who thought he would be kicking down doors, I'm sure it can be disappointing," says Newell, who fought in the violent siege of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Yet, the work remains intense for his brigade leaders, Newell says, as they focus on training Iraqi police and army units so they are adequately prepared to take over when the U.S. military leaves Iraq. "I would say this mission might be less physically exhausting than previous tours, but for senior leaders we're in a period that is more mentally exhausting than the war has ever been," he says. Passing the time Sgt. Neil Gussman, 56, came to Iraq knowing that deployments can be filled with torturously slow periods waiting for something to happen. Gussman, who enlisted in 1972 and later joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in 2007 – after a 23-year hiatus from the military – recalls that when he served in Germany in the late 1970s, the Army would occasionally show a movie for soldiers in the field. They mostly killed time by reading. In Iraq, he was surprised to see few soldiers reading for pleasure, so he started two book clubs. One, called Beyond Narnia, reviews essays by C.S. Lewis, who wrote the children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis' religious themes have made the club popular with chaplains here at Adder, Gussman says. The other club, the Dead Poets Society, is reading works by Dante and Virgil. At one recent meeting, soldiers debated the notion of romantic love, a concept that Gussman argues was introduced in Virgil's The Aeneid. The soldiers discussed whether marrying for love was logical, and whether some of the Iraqis they've met have it better through their arranged marriages, Gussman says. "When I asked if any of them wanted the group to arrange a marriage for them, there weren't any takers," Gussman jokes. Although the book clubs are heady endeavors, Chief Warrant Officer John Dorman might have them outdone. The former helicopter pilot is using his spare time to teach himself calculus and advanced geometry. His office is littered with origami figures he's made to study the tetrahedron, math textbooks and a white board covered with formulas and diagrams unrelated to his job as a human resources administrator in Iraq. Dorman, 32, of Orlando, says he has a fairly busy work schedule most days and regularly puts in 12-hour shifts. That still leaves him with 12 hours to fill, and Army life is free of many of the routine chores of home life. "I have plenty of time to focus on this," says Dorman, who is considering becoming a math professor once he gets out of the Army. "Working on this stuff helps me get away from it all. It's a good distraction." Dancing and fighting Each night, as many as 15 soldiers gather for mixed martial-arts training at what has been dubbed the "fight club." On a recent evening, advanced students of Army Staff Sgt. Aaron Martinez are drenched in sweat after several hours of intense exercise. One of the last drills of the night requires one fighter to try to unlock himself from an opponent and then knee him in the face. One of Martinez's students quickly bloodies his sparring partner's nose. The injured soldier shakes it off, and the class resumes. "This is a huge stress relief," Martinez says. "It's a great way for some of these guys to blow off steam." The most popular spot on this base, which houses more than 8,000 people from all five branches of the military, seems to be 6 Pazzi – an Italian restaurant with an outdoor dance floor surrounded by 10-foot-high blast walls. Three nights a week, troops wearing T-shirts and training shorts come to dance salsa, merengue and bachata. Weekly hip-hop and country music nights also are held. The dance floor is basically a concrete patio, and the only decoration is a neon palm tree. That's enough for troops to forget for a couple of hours that they're in Iraq, says Pfc. Lisandro Lantigua, 19, of Corona, Calif., who spends much of his day preparing containers of military equipment to be shipped back to the U.S. or sent to Afghanistan. Lantigua says his work likely will get busier in a few months as the U.S. begins to withdraw from Iraq. For now, he wants to take advantage of the downtime. Salsa night is one of his favorites. Crowds gather early, and by 9 p.m. most tables are filled with soldiers drinking non-alcoholic beer and smoking from hookahs. Lantigua and his buddy, Sgt. Hector Saillant, 29, of Albuquerque, are regulars and snag a table. On this night, Lantigua is eyeing a dark-haired soldier. After a couple of hours of watching her, he asks her to dance. After one song, Lantigua rejoins Saillant, who is surprised that his friend returns so soon. "She's (based) up in Baghdad," Lantigua explains. "She's just down here for tonight." Across the floor, Sgt. Mark Lewin, 28, a Miami native on his second tour in Iraq, is dancing with Pfc. Bianca Peralta, 19, of San Antonio, who is just a few weeks into her first deployment. Peralta says she was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere on the base, while Lewin says he is still overcoming his initial shock about how much more relaxed the situation seems. "On my last tour, I was sleeping in my Humvee most of the time," Lewin says. "These deployments are long; anything that can provide a little distraction is great." a recent soccer game at a post southeast of Baghdad. Improved security has created free time for troops.

As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks

New York Times, Tuesday 20 October By ELISABETH BUMILLER WASHINGTON — Only nine months ago, the Pentagon pronounced itself reassured by the early steps of a new commander in chief. President Obama was moving slowly on an American withdrawal from Iraq, had retained former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary and, in a gesture much noticed, had executed his first military salute with crisp precision. But now, after nearly a month of deliberations by Mr. Obama over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military. A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room. “The thunderstorm is there and it’s kind of brewing and it’s unstable and the lightning hasn’t struck, and hopefully it won’t,” said Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine Corps infantry officer who briefed Mr. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and is now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington. “I think it can probably be contained and avoided, but people are aware of the volatile brew.” Last week the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., gave voice to the concerns of those in the military when he issued a terse statement criticizing Mr. Obama’s review of Afghan war strategy. “The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands,” said Mr. Tradewell’s statement on behalf of his group, which represents 1.5 million former soldiers. Last August, in a speech to the V.F.W., Mr. Obama defended his strategy, saying, “This is not only a war worth fighting; this is fundamental to the defense of our people.” A retired general who served in Iraq said that the military had listened, “perhaps naïvely,” to Mr. Obama’s campaign promises that the Afghan war was critical. “What’s changed, and are we having the rug pulled out from under us?” he asked. Like many of those interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals from the military’s civilian leadership and the White House. Mr. Obama’s civilian advisers on national security say the president is appropriately reviewing his policy options from all sides. They said it would be reckless to rush a decision on whether to send as many as 40,000 more American men and women to war, particularly when the unresolved Afghan election had left the United States without a clear partner in Kabul. Although the tensions do not break entirely on classic civilian-military lines — some senior military officers have doubts about sending more troops to Afghanistan and some of Mr. Obama’s top civilian advisers do not — the strains reflect the military’s awareness in recent months that life has changed under the new White House. After years of rising military budgets under the Bush administration, the new administration has tried to rein in Pentagon spending, and has signaled other changes as well, including reopening debate on the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy governing military service by gay men and lesbians. The administration has made clear that Mr. Obama will not necessarily follow the advice of his generals in the same way Mr. Bush did, notably in the former president’s deference to Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the head of the Central Command, and that it does not want military leaders publicly pressing the commander in chief as they give their advice. Two weeks ago, after Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, rejected calls for the Afghan war to be scaled back during a question-and-answer session in a speech in London, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned not only General McChrystal, but also the military as a whole, to keep quiet in public as the debate progressed. “It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations — civilian and military alike — provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately,” Mr. Gates told the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army, a private support group, in Washington. Andrew M. Exum, a former Army officer in Afghanistan, an adviser to General McChrystal and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said that the change in style from one administration to the next had led to some of the military’s discontent. “The Bush administration would settle on a strategy and stick to it, and you could argue often to ill effect,” he said, referring to the president’s decision not to send more troops to Iraq until 2007, after years of rising violence. The Obama administration, he said, is not afraid to go back and question assumptions. “There’s a value in that,” Mr. Exum said, “but that can be incredibly frustrating for those trying to operationalize the strategy.” Part of the strain comes from lessons learned from the generals who acquiesced to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s demands for a small invasion force in Iraq, then faced criticism that they had not spoken up for more troops to secure the country during the occupation. The retired general who served in Iraq said that today’s senior officers had decided, “I won’t be so quiet, I won’t be a lap dog.” Another source of tension within the military is the view that a delay is endangering the 68,000 American troops now in Afghanistan. “McChrystal has troops out there who are risking their lives more than they need to, partly because we have not filled in the gaps and we have not created a safe zone in southern and eastern Afghanistan,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution. A military policy analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing senior Pentagon leaders, said that “the military lives in a very rarefied environment,” and that “they are not out there every day having to meet citizens who say, ‘What the hell are we doing?’ ” Senior military officers, the analyst said, “are smart guys, but they do not have the daily pulse of the American public in their face. They tend to interpret politicians who give voice to it as being weak, but none of this works if the public gives up on it.”

Wounded US troops return to Iraq to find closure By CHELSEA J. CARTER (AP) – 22 hours ago CAMP VICTORY, Iraq — As America's military role in Iraq winds down, the U.S. is grappling with how to help some of the more than 30,000 troops injured in six years of war move ahead with their lives. One approach is to bring them back to the battlefields where they were injured. It is a process akin to Vietnam veterans returning to the streets of Hue or Americans from World War II returning to the Belgian forests of Bastogne — a process made more difficult by the fact that American men and women are still dying in Iraq. But the fact that this group of men have come this far shows the lengths some need to go to find that elusive thing called closure. "A part of me was left here in Iraq," said Cpl. Craig Chavez, who was blinded in a November 2006 attack in an area south of Baghdad once known as the "triangle of death" because of the fierce fighting. "Unless you've been through this and unless you've been here, you'll never understand." Chavez, 29, of Temecula, California, was one of six soldiers and a Marine, all wounded in combat, who wrapped up a weeklong trip to Iraq on Sunday as part of a program that returns the wounded to the places they were injured or, if that's not possible, to the base where they were last stationed. The program was started by a nonprofit organization with the support of the military Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 31,483 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to Associated Press telephone and e-mail requests for the number of troops disabled and types of injuries sustained in combat in Iraq. While the physical injuries of those visiting Iraq are daunting, it is the emotional wounds that the program aims to heal. "They need to come back so they don't have to go on dreaming about Iraq, go on dealing with the night terrors of Iraq," said Command Sgt. Maj. Lawrence Wilson, who has been coordinating military support for the program, dubbed "Operation Proper Exit." Chavez has struggled with memories of the war since he stepped on a bomb during an ambush near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Baghdad. The explosion left him with shrapnel wounds that wounded his face so badly he underwent full facial reconstruction. His best friend was killed in the attack. He returned to the base earlier this week where they had served together. There, he ran his fingers over his friend's name etched into a memorial wall. Finally, he was able to say privately what he has waited to say since he left Iraq — goodbye. "It was worth it, just going back to say what I had to say to him," Chavez said at Camp Victory, a sprawling base on the outskirts of Baghdad that serves as the U.S. military headquarters. Although many have moved on without the need to return, there are some who feel they didn't get the chance to properly say goodbye, said Richard Kell, executive director of the nonprofit Troops First Foundation. The group sponsored the trip with the support of the USO — a service organization that assists servicemen and women. Kell said the idea came to him last year after volunteering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and talking to injured troops. "The first thing you hear from some of the wounded warriors is that they want to go back because they want to be with their buddies. Then later, as they heal physically ... they say they want to go back to get closure," Kell said. A test case of five soldiers came in June and was so successful that a second trip was organized. A third trip is planned for late December, and the hope is that eventually there will be monthly trips until U.S. forces pull out at the end of 2011. Kell said there are hundreds who have asked to participate. Sgt. Robert Brown, 26, of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, was part of the June group and returned this week as a mentor. Brown, who lost his leg below the knee in a 2006 attack west of Baghdad, said he found comfort in knowing others were experiencing similar emotions. "There are those moments, they happen on occasion, where you are overwhelmed. It helped to have that feeling that I wasn't alone," he said. The foundation and the USO pays the $12,000 to $14,000 it costs to bring someone over. Once in Iraq, the military pays. Those chosen, mostly amputees, have been cleared by doctors. Each also must have shown progress in their lives, such as working or involvement with sports. And most have been medically retired by the military. Army 1st Lt. Edwin Salau lost his leg in a Nov. 15, 2004 ambush north of Baghdad. He visited his old unit, which is back in Iraq. Most had not seen him since he was wounded. "I needed to see those soldiers who were there that day. I needed them to see me leave on my feet," said Salau, 38, of Stella, N.C. The group also found themselves being approached for advice by soldiers, many of whom lost comrades during the war. "I didn't expect that. At the beginning of the week, I didn't entirely understand it," Salau said. "They were asking what they could do to help their friends who were hurt." Their advice? Simply stay in touch and offer emotional support. The program met some resistance from doctors and others, who questioned whether it was a good idea for people still struggling with emotional wounds to return to Iraq, said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Odierno's son lost his left arm in an August 2004 attack in Baghdad. Odierno has rarely spoken publicly about his son's injuries. "I think it carried some weight that I was able to say 'I'm a father of a wounded warrior. I know how he feels.' I know he would want to come back," Odierno said. Odierno met with the group and said they asked questions about U.S. military progress. "They want their sacrifice to be lasting here," he said. "They want it to mean something." Shortly before leaving, some of the men said the trip didn't solve all their problems. But it helped put to rest at least some of their demons. "I found some closure in certain areas," Chavez said.

British Security Pact with Iraq Passes Parliament

By GINA CHON The Iraqi parliament, after several months of delays, passed a security agreement with Britain on Tuesday aimed at protecting crucial oil terminals in southern Iraq, among other duties. About 100 members of the British Navy will train and support Iraqi Navy forces responsible for protecting Um Qasr port, the country's only link to the Persian Gulf and the second-largest source of revenue for the Iraqi government, after oil. The agreement now heads to Iraq's presidency council, which is expected to approve the pact. The security pact is similar to one with the U.S. passed in parliament last year that calls for all American troops to leave by the end of 2011. Most of Iraq's two million barrels a day of oil exports are shipped through the two main oil terminals off the coast of Basra. Iraq also faces oil smuggling, border disputes with Iran and other issues in that area. The British and Iraqi navies, along with some American forces, had been responsible for patrolling that area. The small remaining British force in Iraq had to pull back to other areas in the Middle East over the summer after a British security mandate ended in July. About 4,100 British troops left Iraq by June, and combat operations officially ended in April. They were replaced by more than 5,000 American forces. "The agreement is evidence of our mutual commitment to building the capability of the Iraqi Navy to undertake protection of Iraqi territorial waters and installations," British Ambassador Christopher Prentice said. The Iraq Navy has been struggling to rebuild since it was found in shambles after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The navy now has some 2,000 personnel, and aims to expand to 3,000 by the end of 2010. The navy also wants to purchase combat patrol boats and other vessels to help secure the waters around Basra and in the Persian Gulf.

General Lays Out Pace of Iraq Pullout

New York Times By ROD NORDLAND BAGHDAD — By the end of October, American troop strength in Iraq will be 120,000, a decrease of 23,000 since January, the top United States military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, said Monday. The next big reduction will not come until well after the national elections in January, he added. General Lanza referred repeatedly to a “responsible drawdown.” It was his first full-scale news conference since May, when he addressed reporters in advance of Iraqi security forces’ taking the lead in security operations on June 30. “I really think the elections will be a point of departure by which we look at an assessment of true drawdown and really start moving our numbers from, let’s say, somewhere between 120,000 and 110,000 by the election, and then getting at that 50,000 by August 2010,” he said Monday. The United States has pledged to remove all combat troops from Iraq by next August, leaving 50,000 troops to advise and support the Iraqis. General Lanza released statistics showing a large reduction in war-related violence of all types since June 30, with civilian and military deaths down by 80 to 90 percent compared with the same period in 2008. There has not been as great a reduction in United States troop forces, however, despite their withdrawal from combat duties in the cities. “The key to us is to be flexible in our drawdown,” General Lanza said. “We want to have the right capability to support the government of Iraq as a sovereign partner.” He added, “I would envision sometime after the election, perhaps in 30 to 60 days, there would be another decision point based on another assessment of the security environment, and we would then look at moving more forces out of the country.” Troops remaining after August 2010 would be focused on training missions, with the goal of leaving Iraq entirely by the end of 2011. Already, the first so-called advise and assist brigade, devoted exclusively to training Iraqi troops, has arrived in Anbar Province, he said. That is the First Brigade of the army’s 82nd Airborne Division. It will eventually be joined by five more such brigades. Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces, including the police and the army, have reached a total of 663,000 members. The increase has made it possible for the police to take over security duties in many cities from the United States and the Iraqi militaries, General Lanza said. Iraq’s budget provides for security forces totaling 720,000, including 253,002 in the military.

For US leaving Iraq is a task that requires an Army

By MARC SANTORA JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — There is no more visible sign that America is putting the Iraq war behind it than the colossal operation to get its stuff out: 20,000 soldiers, nearly a sixth of the force here, assigned to a logistical effort aimed at dismantling some 300 bases and shipping out 1.5 million pieces of equipment, from tanks to coffee makers. It is the largest movement of soldiers and matériel in more than four decades, the military said. By itself, such a withdrawal would be daunting, but it is further complicated by attacks from an insurgency that remains active; the sensitivities of the Iraqi government about a visible American presence; disagreements with the Iraqis about what will be left for them; and consideration for what equipment is urgently needed in Afghanistan. All the while, the Army must sustain its current force of about 124,000 troops across the country, trucking in fuel, food and other essential supplies while determining what to leave behind for the 50,000 troops who will remain in a mostly advisory role until 2011. “It’s a real Rubik’s Cube,” Brig. Gen. Paul L. Wentz, the commander of the Army’s logistical soldiers, said in an interview at this sprawling military complex north of Baghdad, which will serve as the command center for the withdrawal effort. But just as the buildup in the Kuwaiti desert before the 2003 invasion made it plain that the United States was almost certain to go to war, the preparations for withdrawal just as clearly point to the end of the American military role here. Reversing the process, even if Iraq’s relative stability deteriorates into violence, becomes harder every day. The scale of the withdrawal is staggering. Consider a comparison with the Persian Gulf war in 1991: it lasted 1,012 hours, or about six weeks, and when it was over, Lt. Gen. William G. Pagonis, in charge of the Army’s logistical operations at the time, wrote a book, “Moving Mountains” (Harvard Business Press Books, 1992), about the challenges of moving soldiers and equipment in and out of the theater. He called the undertaking the equivalent of moving all the people of Alaska, along with their belongings, to the other side of the world “in short order.” The current war in Iraq has lasted more than 57,000 hours, or more than six and a half years. And now General Pagonis’s son, Col. Gust Pagonis, is one of the leading logisticians assigned to the task of figuring out how to extricate America from the desert. “When I told my dad what my assignment was, he just laughed and said good luck,” Colonel Pagonis said. A major reduction in troops is not scheduled to begin until after the January national elections. But preparations for that withdrawal can be seen on the roads across Iraq, with an average of 3,500 trucks a night traversing the nation on sustainment and redeployment missions. The military has largely identified which materials are not essential anymore and has begun to move them out of the country, in some cases to Afghanistan. For instance, lumber, ammunition and barriers used to defend against car bombs are all desperately needed in Afghanistan, and as bases are taken apart here, those are among the items sent to the fight there, commanders said. In August, about 3,000 shipping containers and 2,000 vehicles were shipped out of Iraq, and the heavy lifting is just beginning. “When the brigade combat teams come out, I want to be in a position where I don’t have to deal with the excess equipment and matériel at the same time,” General Wentz said. In a conference room here at the base, dozens of soldiers monitor the movements of every American truck in the country on two large flat-screen televisions, using GPS technology and radio communications, getting current information about attacks and the progress of convoys. Every movement is planned about 96 hours in advance to allow for rehearsals and readjustments. As the pace of withdrawal is stepped up, the American military must also assuage the worries of Iraqi politicians who want the American troops to be less visible, so most missions are carried out in the dark of night. The Americans hope that by next spring, they will be operating from what General Wentz described as a hub-and-spoke system, with 6 supersize bases and 13 smaller ones. Fewer bases means traveling greater distances, at greater risk. “The distance between two points does not get any shorter,” said Colonel Pagonis, asserting that the logisticians in his command — known as “loggies” — are also warriors. Turning the former American bases over to the Iraqis, and deciding what to give them, have proved to be among the biggest challenges. Until May, there was no system in place even to figure out who legally owned the property where Americans had set up camp. This led to scenes like the one at Forward Operating Base Warhorse, where a local Iraqi commander showed up essentially demanding a list of items that the Americans were not ready to turn over. So last spring, panels made up of Iraqi and American officials were set up to help work through some of these issues. Congress has limited the total value of equipment — like computers and furniture — that the military can leave to the Iraqis to roughly $15 million per base, but that amount does not include items considered part of the infrastructure, like buildings, sewerage and power facilities. Even coming up with a value for some of the American investments is hard because in many cases the initial costs were inflated by large outlays for security. Commanders say it is often simply more economical to turn over more equipment to the Iraqis because the cost of moving it is prohibitive. Last month, the military announced the end of its detention operations at Camp Bucca on the Kuwaiti border and said that $50 million worth of infrastructure and equipment would be given to the Iraqis. The United States has also brokered a deal with an Iraqi trucking network, led by a coalition of tribal sheiks, to move equipment that is not deemed sensitive between bases. The truckers currently move about 3 percent of all American matériel here, commanders said.Commanders also said they would closely watch the January elections for what they say about the reliability of Iraq’s security forces and the direction the country is heading. But for the planners of the withdrawal, there is no time left to wait and see. “You can’t wait for some big ‘Aha!’ moment,” said Brig. Gen. Heidi Brown, a deputy commander overseeing the withdrawal. “That does not give you flexibility. That just puts you in a box.”

AFS to provide key services for Iraq bank

AFS to provide key services for Iraq bank Gulf Daily News - [10/6/2009] Bahrain-based Arab Financial Services (AFS), one of the leading electronic payment enablers in the Middle East, is to provide credit card management services for Iraqi Middle East Investment Bank (IMEIB). IMEIB is a major private bank in Iraq and is in the forefront of technology adaption in the country. With its network of branches in the, the bank has ambitious plans for expanding its retail services. Under the agreement, AFS will sponsor IMEIB for issuing and processing credit cards. This includes providing card personalisation, comprehensive back-office, reconciliation, dispute management, an interaction centre and mobile banking services to the bank. The agreement covers similar services for the bank's debit cards. "This partnership with AFS is yet another milestone in our history of introducing new services in Iraq," said IMEIB managing director Hikmat Jerjis Bahnam. "Credit cards will form an integral part of our retail portfolio and we hope to please our customers by introducing features and services comparable to the best in the world." AFS is a subsidiary of Arab Banking Corporation and pioneered the concept of outsourcing card processing in the region and was the first to set up an end-to-end state-of-the-art card-outsourcing environment in Bahrain. AFS is the largest payment card processor in the Middle East and North Africa regions. "Iraq is an important market for us and we are committed to supporting the banks there, working with them to introduce leading edge technologies in the country," said AFS chief executive officer Shankar Sharma. "We thank IMEIB for giving us the opportunity to partner them and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship."

Iraqi Leader Creates Broad Coalition

By STEVEN LEE MYERS New York Times BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki announced the formation of a broad political coalition on Thursday, setting the stage for a parliamentary election campaign dominated by rival blocs claiming to appeal across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divides. Mr. Maliki, a Shiite seeking a second term, assembled an array of political figures and tribal leaders in a hotel ballroom inside the heavily fortified Green Zone and pledged that his coalition, State of Law, would represent those “believing in the unity of Iraq and its social diversity.” “The birth of the State of Law coalition is a historic turning point and a qualitative development in the building of a modern Iraqi state,” Mr. Maliki told the gathering. Mr. Maliki’s strategy is something of a gamble, especially after he refused to join a rival coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance, dominated by parties that represent Shiites, who make up a majority among Iraqis. A coalition with Mr. Maliki unchallenged in the top spot was not a surprise, but its unveiling on Thursday was a measure of his ability to draw support across the country, especially in areas where Shiites are a minority. State of Law embraces 40 parties or organizations, and Mr. Maliki and his aides on Thursday invited still more to join. Those who appeared with Mr. Maliki included Shiites and Sunnis, Kurds and Christians. On the stage and in the hall, the headdresses of tribal leaders significantly outnumbered the turbans of clerics, a significant shift, given the religious and sectarian roots of Mr. Maliki’s own party, Dawa. Few of those who joined him, however, are truly national leaders likely to lure major blocs of votes. The coalition did recruit several current ministers and government officials and peeled away several politicians previously allied with Ayad Allawi, who served as interim prime minister for a year after the American invasion and occupation. One of them, Hachim al-Hasany, a deputy speaker of Parliament, said State of Law had created a more inclusive bloc and pledged to act by consensus, though its leader is unmistakably Mr. Maliki. “It isn’t good enough to talk about these things,” he said of appeals for national unity, now ubiquitous in Iraq’s politics. “It’s good enough to believe them and to have people who came implement them.” Sheik Nuri al-Enizzi, a Sunni tribal leader from Baghdad, said Mr. Maliki had earned support in Sunni areas with his willingness to order assaults against Shiite militias in southern Iraq last year and by reaching across sectarian lines since then. “He opened channels of trust,” he said after the meeting. Mr. Maliki’s main rival will be the Iraqi National Alliance, formed by two of the largest Shiite parties: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by Ammar al-Hakim, and the Sadrists, followers of the cleric and militia leader Moktada al-Sadr, whose supporters have sought to recast his movement as a purely political and social one. The main Kurdish parties in northern Iraq are expected to form their own alliance, while other Sunni parties, which are badly splintered, are jockeying to form coalitions, often with secular political leaders. None of the other blocs have so far clearly identified a candidate for prime minister who would be able to directly challenge Mr. Maliki. The election is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 16, but Parliament returned to work this week unable to agree on the law needed to hold the election and under what rules. Mr. Maliki, in his remarks on Thursday, outlined a broad political platform that called for strong federal authority over security and natural resources but also an independent judiciary. Mr. Maliki, often accused by his critics of amassing too much power, pledged to root out corruption and partisan influence in the security forces, to promote human rights and to expand the role of women in politics, government and society. He also warned neighboring countries against interference in Iraq’s internal affairs — a thinly veiled caution to Syria, which he has accused of harboring terrorists planning attacks in Iraq — and vowed that the last American troops would leave by the end of 2011, as scheduled. “This election sends a clear message to the world that the people of Iraq are holding on to the democratic option, to freedom and a multiparty system,” he said. “They have turned forever the pages of tyranny and repression.”

Number of Iraq attacks drops 85%

By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The number of attacks in Iraq has dropped 85% over the past two years, the top U.S. commander testified Wednesday before a Congressional panel. Gen. Ray Odierno said security has continued to improve in the three months since American forces withdrew from cities as part of a agreement to remove all American forces by the end of 2011. SECURITY CHALLENGE: Iraq budget shortfall derails plans The level of attacks has dropped from 4,064 in August 2007 to 594 this August, Odierno told the House Armed Services Committee. "We have already begun deliberately drawing down our forces — without sacrificing security," he said. There are about 124,000 American troops in Iraq. By the end of this month 4,000 troops will leave, he said. At the peak of President Bush's increase in troops in 2007, there were about 160,000 U.S. forces there. Odierno said the U.S. has closed 100 bases and reduced the number of foreign contractors to 115,000, from 149,000 at beginning of this year. He said that improved security allowed them to withdraw forces faster than anticipated. The decision to withdraw 4,000 this month reflected improved security in Anbar, a Sunni Muslim region west of Baghdad, he said. It was once one of the most violent regions. The panel's chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton, said adjustments "in Iraq will not be easy for us or, I suspect, for the Iraqis." He called moving troops and equipment out of Iraq a large challenge. "The war in Iraq is coming to a close, but my suspicion is that these transitions will take years to work through," Skelton, D-Mo., said. Odierno voiced cautious optimism about Iraq's future. But he warned of several looming problems as U.S. troops prepare to end combat missions by September 2010 and leave Iraq at the end of 2011. Those problems include: —"A clear security lapse," Odierno said, was evidenced by a pair of truck bombings Aug. 19 at Iraq's finance and foreign ministries, which killed about 100 people in Baghdad. —A system of government that is accepted across what Odierno described as ethnic, sectarian and regional lines has yet to be agreed on. He described a power struggle between provincial officials and Baghdad and said long-standing tensions continue to stall progress between Arabs and Kurds. As the January elections approach, military officials have identified Arab-Kurd tensions as one of the top concerns for potential violence, especially in contested territories in the oil-rich north that each side claims as its own. Still, Odierno said the darkest days of the Iraq war seem to be long gone, citing failed efforts by extremists still seeking to destabilize the nation. "The overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people have rejected extremism," Odierno said. "We see no indications of a return to the sectarian violence that plagued Iraq in 2006-2007." —Although Iraqi leaders had planned to find government jobs for all members of a group known as Sons of Iraq, who helped curb the insurgency, "we do not believe they will meet this timeline," Odierno said. "We continue to monitor the progress of this program very closely." Iraq's government promised to open thousands of police and military jobs, dominated by Shiites, to the Sons of Iraq, who are mostly Sunni. But the government has been accused by Sunnis of dragging its feet on integrating the jobs. Odierno, however, said 23,000 former Sons of Iraq have begun working in government jobs since 2008, and 5,000 more will start next month.

Unity Is Rallying Cry Ahead of Iraq Elections

By STEVEN LEE MYERS New York Times DHULUIYA, Iraq — Iraqi politics has a new catchphrase, the “yes, we can” of the country’s coming parliamentary elections. It is “national unity,” and while skepticism abounds, it could well signal the decline of the religious and sectarian parties that have fractured Iraq since 2003. Across the political spectrum — Sunni and Shiite, secular and Islamic — party leaders have jettisoned explicit appeals to their traditional followers and are now scrambling to reach across ethnic or sectarian lines. In some cases, the shift is nothing less than extraordinary. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite whose party has deep Islamic roots, has enlisted support from Sunni tribal leaders in areas that once were — and might again be — the heartland of opposition to the central government. Here in Dhuluiya, a lush town nestled in a bend of the Tigris River, a fiery Sunni cleric who waged war against American and Iraqi forces openly courts an alliance with Mr. Maliki, saying the time of religious parties in Iraq has passed. The cleric, Mullah Nadhim Khalil al-Jubori, said Iraq’s future now rested with secular political parties. “It would be ironic,” he said of his own evolution in an interview at his home, “if it were somewhere other than Iraq.” With the elections less than four months away, the emergence of national unity as a theme has been welcomed by Iraqis and by American officials, who fear that identity politics in Iraq will only worsen tensions and risk a return to sectarian bloodshed. Some go so far as to say the elections could reinforce a greater sense of Iraqi citizenship and nationalism out of the chaos of the war. “I do believe that there is genuine opportunity for restoring our coexistence, our historical coexistence,” said Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who broke with the main Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, this year. “I mean, in the past, we used to live together here. What we need, in fact, is real and genuine reconciliation.” Such appeals stem from pragmatism, perhaps as much as from conviction, and that motivation is why many people view the apparent transformations of some parties cynically. Even as Iraq’s political leaders all pledge national unity, Parliament remains so paralyzed by infighting that lawmakers are unable to pass any significant legislation, including the very bill required to hold the next elections, scheduled for Jan. 16. Even so, party leaders agree that something fundamental is changing in the mood of Iraqi voters. Provincial elections last January showed diminishing popular support for religious or purely sectarian parties. Mr. Maliki’s coalition, known as State of Law, had the strongest showing after playing down the religious roots of his own Shiite party, Dawa, and promising security, rule of law and a nationalistic government representative of all parts of the country. Haider al-Abbadi, a member of Mr. Maliki’s party in Parliament, referring to the beginning of widespread sectarian killings, said, “What happened in 2006 showed people a taste of what will happen in a sectarian system.” Now as the national elections approach, the parties and movements that make up Iraq’s political kaleidoscope — 296 in all, large and small — are working eagerly to replicate State of Law’s tactic. This opening phase of the campaign has become a contest of assembling coalitions with the broadest and most representative cast — what Ali al-Mousawi, one of Mr. Maliki’s aides, called “the colors of the Iraqi bouquet.” Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister and a Shiite, pledged that his Constitution Party would run on the “concept of citizenship” with a preliminary agreement to ally with a Sunni party from Anbar Province led by the prominent tribal leader there, Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha. Even the main Shiite parties that dominated the elections in 2005 — in part because most Sunnis boycotted them — this time included Sunni, Turkmen and Kurdish parties, as well as historically secular leaders, when they announced their coalition in August. In keeping with the times, they called it the Iraqi National Alliance. “We learned very important lessons,” said Ammar al-Hakim, who took over one of the alliance’s largest parties, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, after his influential father died in August. “And we’re preparing for the next phase. This is democracy.” Mr. Maliki refused to join the new alliance, despite public appeals and, his aides said, diplomatic pressure from Iran to unite Iraq’s Shiites. Instead, after meetings with Sunnis, Turkmens, Kurds, Christians and Shiites in trips across Iraq, Mr. Maliki is expected to announce his own coalition on Thursday. In the past week alone, he has won public pledges of support from tribal leaders in Kirkuk and, on Monday, from an independent alliance led by the minister of displacement and migration, Abdul Samad Sultan, a Kurd. “We both come from Islamic roots,” Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni who was the speaker of Parliament until he was ousted last year, said in an interview in which he also pledged to join Mr. Maliki’s coalition. “It’s not important that you’re from this sect or that sect, but that you’re a nationalist.” How deep exactly national unity will take root remains to be seen. “The provincial elections have shown that the Iraqi public is fed up with religiously garbed parties, so these parties are now scrambling to profile themselves as secular and nonsectarian,” said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, who met with several party leaders while in Baghdad this week. “But does the leopard change its spots?” Here in Dhuluiya, a Sunni town enveloped in orchards and date groves, Mullah Nadhim represents the shift in Iraqi politics at its most extreme. He is the scion of a religious family whose members lead the town’s largest mosque. After the American invasion in 2003, he joined the insurgency and fought American and Iraqi forces for four years. In 2007 he turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown insurgent group that American intelligence says has some foreign leadership, which controlled the town from its headquarters across the street from his mosque. Like many Sunni fighters, he became a leader of the Awakening movement of fighters who joined American and Iraqi forces. Mullah Nadhim is 31, burly and, now, cleanshaven. His remarks and his sermons remain fiery; he clashed with an American colonel after he flew a defaced Israeli flag to protest the fighting in Gaza last winter. But Mullah Nadhim denounces religious parties that aim to represent only Sunnis or Shiites. In his view, Mr. Maliki has undergone the same transformation. “I do not at all regret the armed struggle,” Mullah Nadhim said of his four years in the insurgency, “but I’m sorry that there was no political process parallel to it.”