Now that we have put behind us the WMD canards and Iraq’s non-existent links to the atrocities of 9/11 – the Bush administration and its mass media collaborators are marketing new and improved lies.

The new tall tale is that we went to Iraq on a noble mission to spread the blessings of democracy in the region. And that the democratically elected Prime Minister – Nouri Al-Maliki - is being subverted by rouge death squads and the insurgents. There is only one problem with this scenario – Maliki is the defacto leader of the death squads. He’s quite happy to have the Marines engaging the insurgents in Ramadi while his security forces and allied militias go about the nasty business of ethnically cleansing Baghdad.

Fully two years ago, there was more than enough evidence to suggest that the Bush administration was complicit in establishing and nurturing death squads. Long after the death squads appeared on the scene – outfitted in their official issue police uniforms – American advisers continued to equip, train and provide logistical support to the Iranian trained militants who had infiltrated the security forces.

It’s hard to imagine that the folks in the Pentagon and the CIA failed to notice the open collaboration of the Iraqi security forces with the death squads. The history of this dark chapter in the American occupation of Iraq is slowly coming to light thanks to folks like Seymour Hersch and Kim Sengupta. While Hersch’s initial accounts were met by denial, The Pentagon no longer bothers disputing articles like one by Sengupta that appeared in The Independent on 10/31/2006.

“This is a shadowy struggle, which involves tortured prisoners huddled in dungeons, murder victims mutilated with knives and electric drills, and distraught families searching for relations who have been “disappeared.” Iraq’s savage sectarian war is now regarded as a greater obstacle to any semblance of peace returning than the insurgency. Yet, ironically, the death squads are the result of US policy. At the beginning of last year, with no end to the Sunni insurgency in sight, the Pentagon was reported to have decided to train Shia and Kurdish fighters to carry out “irregular missions.” The policy, exposed in the US media, was called the “Salvador Option” after the American-backed counter-insurgency in Latin America more than 20 years ago, which led to 70,000 deaths and countless instances of human rights abuse.”

The death squads are an instrument. The goal is partition.

Israel and its neo-con operatives at the Pentagon were not the only forces working towards partition. The Kurds wanted it and Al-Hakim and SCIRI are sparing no effort to achieve the same goal.

But there was always one major obstacle that stood in the way of partition. It was called Baghdad. The Iraqi capital is home to one of every four Iraqis. Its seven million residents are a mix of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and others. Before the war, it was a secular city where Shiites and Sunnis lived in relative harmony as evidenced by the high percentage of mixed marriages and mixed neighborhoods. It was the kind of place where it was considered poor manners to ask another person’s sect.

To partition Iraq – one must first partition Baghdad. What appears to be random tit-for-tat violence is actually part of a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. The greatest mass migration in the modern history of the Middle East is underway. Over a million Iraqis have left the countries to seek refuge in Jordan, Syria and elsewhere. They include a high percentage of the crème de la crème of Iraq’s professional class.

According to the United Nations, one hundred thousands Iraqi refugees are abandoning the country every month. A disproportionate number are Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Christians.

But there is another great exodus going on – a million plus Iraqis have been internally displaced. In Baghdad, the Sunnis are seeking safe haven west of the Tigris and the Shiites are drifting to the east bank of the river. Sadr City is operating as an independent theocracy under the rule of the Al Mahdi army. Other mixed cities like Kirkuk, Mosul and Baqouba are also experiencing ethnic cleansing campaigns.

The erosion of American influence in Iraq

As the Iraqi civil war has evolved, the ability of the Bush administration to control the course of events has steadily eroded. That was probably the major reason for going through the motions of ‘restoring sovereignty’ to the Iraqi government. By discarding the “occupation” label – the United States absolved itself of the legal obligation to provide security for the citizens of its Iraqi colony.

The United States military began withdrawing from Iraq two years ago. The majority of American troops never leave their fortified bases. And the primary mission of the troops in Iraq is force protection. Bush and Rumsfeld have publicly declared that they have no intention of intervening in a civil war that they refuse to acknowledge even exists.

So why continue deploying 150,000 military personnel at a cost of two billion dollars a week? Because Bush and his collaborators in both parties can’t figure a face saving way to reach the exit door. Just today, he was still blaming all his troubles on Al Qaeda – a force that didn’t exist in Iraq before the invasion.

Leaving Iraq under the control of a government run by the leaders of the same Iranian trained militias that operate the death squads also poses a challenge. Partition or no partition – Iran will emerge as the dominant force in the region.

The Gulf monarchs who actively backed and facilitated the neo-con inspired invasion are visibly shaken by the results of their folly. No one has ever accused the Machiavellian custodians of the oil plantations of being the brightest bulbs in the room.

Feith and Wolfowitz are long gone. No matter – the damage they intended to inflict on Iraq is done. They are definitely entitled to hang up the ‘mission accomplished’ sign. Their Prime Minister – Ehud Olmert – is obviously satisfied with the results. During his official visit to the United States on November 13th, he thanked Bush for the Mess on Potamia. “We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East.”

Bush also had kind words for Olmert. “The whole central thrust of our discussions was based upon our understanding that we're involved in an ideological struggle between extremists and radicals versus people who just simply want to live in peace.” Just a few months ago, Olmert and Bush teamed up to inflict a whole bunch of peace on Lebanon.

Exiting Iraq without Bush

Where Bush goes from here is anybody’s guess. This empty shell of a man is susceptible to the last idea whispered in his ear – so long as it conforms to his shallow understanding of a fantasy world that exists only in his imagination. His ignorance and ineptitude are dwarfed only by his ego. We have an extremist in the White House who, after six years of neo-con indoctrination, is incapable of making rational judgments. The president is still immersed in delusions about leading victory parades down Pennsylvania Avenue. He is willing to expend whatever amount of blood and treasure necessary to leave Iraq in the lap of the next occupant of the White House.