The over reaching capacity of the human race : an open letter to an American Conservative.

“You probably have already seen this... I know the situation that we are in... I have a sense of what is happening to our ecology...there are far fewer birds than when I was a child...It can be as simple as that... We are individuals and we can only do what each of us is equipped as individuals can do....I get hurt when I sense you being bitter and angry and I feel you are wasting energy being that way. You have a wonderful creative mind...that can be freed to other purposes when it’s not bogged down in bitterness and anger towards those we cannot control. We cannot control others...we can only control ourselves. You have talents... Share them...use them to make some difference...some small difference there in Oregon...a small difference that can grow... who knows where it will lead...”
- an American Conservative

Part One - The DNA Frontier
In the basement of Mac Hall at OHSU I came across a massing of corporate and institutional communications–flyers, brochures, folders, postcards, catalogs. Two examples caught my eye. The first was an 8 1/2” x 11” trifold, printed on an 80 pound cover stock that allowed it to stand rigidly, the contemporary 4 color process created a seamless blue gradient to make the message read airy and coolly, and the typography unflinchingly stated “Get the Gene You Want”. The inside spread housed a handsome chart that described the production flow of managing gene sequences.

Next to the trifold was a 30 page catalog. There you could shop for then purchase the laboratory supplies, instruments, and machines that allowed any human being with proper knowledge to engineer genes.

“Our large, collaborative faculty apply
experimental approaches that include
molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry,
and microscopy. Using these tools, we pursue
an understanding of the regulatory
mechanisms that underlie the behavior of
cells, tissues, and organisms.”
- http://www.ohsu.edu/cellbio/

“The function of the nucleus is to maintain the integrity of genes and to control the activities of the cell by regulating gene expression.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_nucleus

“Gene expression, or simply expression, is the process by which the inheritable information which comprises a gene, such as the DNA sequence, is made manifest as a physical and biologically functional gene product, such as protein or RNA.

Several steps in the gene expression process may be modulated, including the transcription step and the post-translational modification of a protein. Gene regulation gives the cell control over structure and function, and is the basis for cellular differentiation, morphogenesis and the versatility and adaptability of any organism. Gene regulation may also serve as a substrate for evolutionary change, since control of the timing, location, and amount of gene expression can have a profound effect on the functions (actions) the gene in the organism.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_expression

Next to the pile of communications in the basement of Mac Hall, there was a vending machine. The kind of vending machine you can find across this country which normally serve up candy bars and snack chips. Yet, the object of this vending machines purpose was to dispense concentrated samples of enzymes.

Taken together, a dedicated student can learn management strategies to manipulate the structural quality of a cell, the internal functioning of a cell, and the resources within the environment which a cell lives. This body of knowledge is growing. Human beings now regularly intervene upon the lives of cell communities (tissue). Of course there is the desire to better manage the much more complicated task, the task that cells themselves have already achieved, the management of complex tissue structures (organisms).

“Genetics is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. Knowledge that desired characteristics were inherited has been implicitly used since prehistoric times for improving crop plants and animals through selective breeding. The science comes from human experience to improve crop and animals through the use of method such as domestication. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the mechanisms of inheritance, only began with the work of Gregor Mendel in the mid-1800s.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics

Part Two - Cataloging a Conversation on Politics and History

Last night we took two sides on an issue. I was against human beings existence as it now stands due to the brilliant yet clumsy implementation of its corpus of knowledge and the integrity of the organizations that manage the implementation of that knowledge. Too much power has been accumulated and this species is not responsible enough to wield its power. I continued by doubting that we would ever be so organized. We are adept at observing and engineering though we lack the faculty to manage a reasonable balance after we have intervened. A reasonable balance would mean less luxury for human beings for the sake of luxury, less death to other life forms as an expense of that luxury and to cease the activities which destroy ecosystems that spawn life.

You defended human beings as they are now, and you defended America in particular. Your arguments are used by conservatives in general and those who are against the ideas of a liberal society. For the American Right I sense that they believe that strength, particularly spiritual, economic and military strength, is the virtue that will allow them to prevail-which in the end is quite clannish and tribal. One of the favorite slogans for the American Right while sabre rattling in 2001-2002 was, “You are either with us or against us”. Blind faith in free markets is a core belief of the American Right, too. Advocating capitalistic consumption simply because they find their good fortune boosted by that kind of organization is not a justification for how that organization affects all other life forms and impacts the ecosystems that we share.

In our conversation, your first defense was that human beings did not need to be brilliant in its use of the knowledge they have accumulated. Human beings need not be burdened with accountability and do not have responsibility towards the environmental situation they have created. It is out of the individuals control thus it should be put out of the individuals mind. Human beings need only to survive and human beings need only pursue and experience joy. Human beings should succumb to the idea that they have no control and that human beings simply need ‘to be’. This is quite enough for you I imagine due to your faith in the lovely qualities of the human soul. This perspective might help an individual sort through their identity, an aid for contemporary personal reflections on the self. Though this conversation is not about the individual human being.

Your defense for human beings then focused on an abstraction–the experience of joy itself. Your sense of ‘joy’ was based on something deeply private and quite ethereal. In context of the conversation, you insist that the human ability to experience private joy some how justifies any social, environmental or ecological cost. You did not want to speak of the daily atrocities that modern human society inflicts upon the world. Private joy is all that needs to be considered.

At its root, your defense was tiredly Western. To be Western, one discusses the world with human experience considered supreme. The entrenched power of the Christian church, along with its brother the Humanities, do nothing but perpetuate this view point unquestioned.

In the end your last counter point was simple and Bushian. America is not evil compared to other evil civilizations, therefore it was good. This is empty rhetoric and text book egocentrism.

To counter this perspective, I viewed human beings as a social group and spoke about its accumulated history. This tactic must give an ironic nod to the Humanities itself, particularly the French Structuralists, Post-Structuralists and ultimately Foucault. In our conversation I looked back on the grisly history of modern culture. I began the time line with American Civil War atrocities, footnoted a contemporary war in China that saw 20 million perish in over a decades time, and then, like a good high school debate from the 1980’s, emphasized the impact of the nuclear bomb. I quickly advanced a time line of American war, industrialization, and technical dominance by human beings upon the massive variety of life forms that inhabit this planet.

We have created an existence overwhelmed by industrialized process. We nurse life to maturity in order to slaughter it for food. We mine resources, manufacture to our delight, then create nasty sinks where we dump our waste. This unchecked activity destroys numerous habitats and ecosystems. The ecological footprint in order to maintain this kind of civilization we so enjoy is stressing fresh water supplies, radically altering the climate and the quality of the air, land and ocean.

The examination of our material world shows how human beings, particularly over the past 150 years, have not shown a collective maturity to handle the knowledge that they are creating. We use it predominantly in this society for wealth creation–a collective activity which does not redeem our existence.

America: Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics

Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics
Lawmakers Doubt Voters Would Fund Big Carbon Cuts
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 15, 2007; Page A01

Here's the good news about climate change: Energy and climate experts say the world already possesses the technological know-how for trimming greenhouse gas emissions enough to slow the perilous rise in the Earth's temperatures.

Here's the bad news: Because of the enormous cost of addressing global warming, the energy legislation considered by Congress so far will make barely a dent in the problem, while farther-reaching climate proposals stand a remote chance of passage.

Despite growing public concern over global warming, the House has failed to agree on new standards for automobile fuel efficiency, and the Senate has done little to boost the efficiency of commercial office buildings and appliances. In September, Congress is expected to start wrestling with more ambitious legislation aimed at slowing climate change; but because of the complexity of the likely proposals, few expect any bill to become law. Even if passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, the final measure may not be tough enough to slow global warming.

"I don't think there's any question that what is being talked about now would, over the long term, be insufficient," said Philip Sharp, president of the think tank Resources for the Future and a former House member. "The issue is: Will Congress get in place a larger architecture that sends a signal to the economy that accelerates change?"

The potential economic impact of meaningful climate legislation -- enough to reduce U.S. emissions by at least 60 percent -- is vast. Automobiles would have to get double their current miles to the gallon. Building codes would have to be tougher, requiring use of more energy-efficient materials. To stimulate and pay for new technologies, U.S. electricity bills could rise by 25 to 33 percent, some experts estimate; others say the increase could be greater.

Most of the technologies that could reduce greenhouse gases are not only expensive but would need to be embraced on a global scale, scientists say. Many projections for 2030 include as many as 1 million wind turbines worldwide; enough solar panels to cover half of New Jersey, massive reforestation; a major retooling of the global auto industry; as many as 400 power plants fitted with pricey equipment to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground; and, most controversial, perhaps 350 new nuclear plants around the world.

"The scope of the problem is really enormous," said Prasad Kasibhatla, associate professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. Not only must Congress and the White House reach agreement on emissions limits, developing nations must also act to achieve temperature goals. "If the climate change bills go through Congress and could somehow be coupled to a multinational agreement, then things could really start to change," Kasibhatla said. "But I'd like to start seeing real agreements between countries before I call myself an optimist."

Measures taken by the world's governments to reduce greenhouse gases could cost 1 percent of world economic output, according to a report commissioned by the British government and written last year by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern. But Stern said the cost of not taking those steps would be at least five times as much, hitting the developing world hardest.

The shape of U.S. legislation targeted exclusively at climate change remains a matter of debate.

"I sincerely doubt that the American people are willing to pay what this is really going to cost them," John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a recent C-SPAN interview, adding that he intended to introduce legislation that would impose a carbon tax "just to sort of see how people really feel about this." He said his proposal would boost the gasoline tax by 50 cents a gallon and establish a "double-digit" tax on each ton of all carbon-dioxide emissions.

In the Senate, five climate change bills have been introduced recently -- with sponsors from both parties. They do not tax carbon but use variations on Europe's cap-and-trade system. Europe modeled its system on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which the Senate rejected and President Bush later dismissed, saying it would cause the U.S. economy "serious harm."

A cap-and-trade system creates a new market where a limited, decreasing number of permits for emitting greenhouse gases, measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide, are traded. One hedge fund manager compared the importance of such a move to the creation of paper money. If implemented in the United States, it would alter the calculations of almost every business; hundreds of billions of dollars of energy investments would be redirected.

It's impossible to pinpoint the price a ton of carbon dioxide in the United States, because a cap-and-trade system would leave the price to the market. In Europe, however, the price for a permit to emit a ton of carbon dioxide in December 2008 is $29.

John M. Deutch, former CIA director and now a physical chemistry professor at MIT, thinks that price is about right. He has been pressing policymakers to speed development of technology that would capture carbon dioxide gases released by power plants and store them underground for centuries. This so-called carbon capture technology, currently applied in a handful of pilot projects, costs at least $200 million to $300 million per plant and hasn't been demonstrated on a commercial scale.

Deutch says that the technology, seen as a vital part of almost any strategy to slow global warming, won't be commercially viable until carbon dioxide reaches $30 a ton. That would translate into a 25 percent average increase in electric bills nationwide, Deutch said.

"It's certainly affordable for our economy and our society," Deutch said.

But the price might be too high for members of Congress and voters. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is the lead sponsor of one of the cap-and-trade bills. Like Europe's system, it would establish a ceiling for emissions and let companies buy or sell extra allocations, or credits. But unlike Europe's plan, Bingaman's would create a "safety valve" so that the price of a ton of carbon dioxide would not surpass $12 in 2012. When the price hit that level, the government would sell permits until the price goes down. The ceiling level would rise 5 percent a year above the inflation rate.

In response to critics, Bingaman would also give a certain number of extra credits to carbon capture and storage projects.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who chairs the subcommittee that will draft a law, opposes a safety valve, and he is planning another proposal with Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), but they haven't worked out details. In 2003, Lieberman worked with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on an earlier cap-and-trade bill, which garnered support from 43 senators. With today's greater sense of urgency about climate change, there may be more support for a cap-and-trade bill now.

But countless technical details each worth billions of dollars to regions and companies remain a matter of debate. Utilities like PNM Resources based in New Mexico, which burns coal for 64 percent of its power, want more allowances for current emitters like itself; environmentalists call these companies "pollution squatters" seeking rewards for bad past behavior. By contrast, California-based Sempra Energy, which has efficient natural gas plants that emit relatively few greenhouse gases, fears it will be penalized for its good behavior. Sempra president Neal Schmale says California, which has high electricity rates, shouldn't subsidize the rest of the country.

"The thing I'm struck by is the magnitude of the challenge," said James Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy, after listening to a talk on carbon capture and storage. Rogers said that he feared that the United States is far -- "we're not even three Zip codes away" -- from a price that would make that technology economically viable.

In Europe, there is a much greater sense of urgency about combating climate change, as Bush discovered at last month's meeting of the Group of Eight major industrial nations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Merkel is expected to push for big increases in power plant productivity and more renewable energy, although Germany is already the leading country in Europe for wind and solar power. Spain and Italy are offering incentives of about 40 cents a kilowatt hour for solar-power installations.

While some energy-intensive industries complain that the European cap-and-trade program is driving manufacturers to developing countries where greenhouse gases aren't regulated, German government officials say that the campaign to reduce emissions will foster new technologies and jobs, helping the German economy.

Neither Congress nor the Bush administration is considering figures anywhere near the cuts Merkel supports. Bingaman's bill would take effect in 2012 and bring emissions back to 2006 levels by 2020. The Bush administration has talked about lowering carbon intensity, meaning the amount of gases emitted for every unit of economic output. But in a growing economy, it could still mean additional emissions overall.

The deepest proposed U.S. cuts are in the bill introduced by Sens. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Falling in between are proposals by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), McCain and Lieberman. The bills also differ over whether to cover all industries or just utilities; on whether to distribute allocations or auction them; and how much to allow offsetting credits for projects, such as reforestation, that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

One issue for U.S. lawmakers is that the impact of greenhouse gas restrictions would vary by region and lifestyle. Some utilities rely more heavily than others on coal, which faces a big challenge if progress isn't made on carbon capture and storage. Other utilities are poised to take advantage of new regulations. Areas where wind can power huge turbines might benefit. Wealthier Americans might be better able than poor Americans to afford new equipment -- more efficient air conditioners, better insulated windows, solar panels -- to cut energy costs. In recent lobbying, utilities from Southern states, who said they would be disadvantaged, successfully dissuaded the Senate from adopting renewable-energy standards that would have applied evenly across the country.

In 2009, one of the first issues to confront the new U.S. president is likely to be climate change legislation. In addition to domestic pressures, the European Union will want a deal including the United States because the Kyoto framework it is using expires in 2012, and it takes time for all the member countries to ratify a new plan.

"Doing something about global warming requires an intelligent use of lead time," said David Hawkins, director of the climate change section of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Changing the way our economy functions so that it isn't polluting is like turning a supertanker. You can't wait until you're on the reef before deciding how to steer the ship."

Iraq: Operation Last Chance

When President George W Bush announced a “surge” of American troops in Iraq, Nick Smarro, 26, an army transport driver, was one of the first to be sent to the front line. He has already survived one roadside bomb, which was buried under a heap of rubbish. It burst the tyres and shattered the windows of his vehicle but left him with only minor injuries. Two days later he was back on patrol.

“He is scared to death,” says Tina Smarro, his mother. “He tells me he will never get out of his vehicle unless he absolutely has to.”

Nick is stationed just outside Baghdad, where US soldiers are taking the fight to Sunni insurgents and Al-Qaeda. Every day he runs a gauntlet of small arms fire and rocks thrown by hostile Iraqis. He feels like a duck in a shooting gallery, never knowing when his luck will run out.

“He doesn’t trust the Iraqi police,” his mother says. “When you don’t see them around, you know something is about to happen. They melt away.”

Smarro held a huge “welcome home” party for her son on his return to America a
fortnight ago, but his ordeal is not over. In two days’ time he is heading
back to the Sunni triangle for another year of duty. He doesn’t complain
much to strangers. When asked what life is like out there, he says: “You
don’t want to know.”

His mother feels most Americans have preferred not to know, until now. There
has been no “shared sacrifice” with military families, she says. But as the
death toll of soldiers has risen to more than 3,600, more and more Americans
are decrying the lack of progress after so much blood has been spilt.

In theory the surge is a carefully laid plan to bring security to Baghdad and
buy time for the Iraqi government to reach out to opponents. In practice, as
one defence official out it: “The troops are paying with their lives for
clearing streets in crummy neighbourhoods without any strategic context.”

In the past five months an extra 30,000 troops have arrived in Iraq, boosting
total US forces to 160,000. Operation Phantom Thunder, launched in June, is
rolling through the Baghdad “belts” in the hope of denying insurgents havens
from where they can launch attacks and car bombings. “We couldn’t call it
what it is – Operation Last Chance,” one senior military official admitted.

US soldiers are living in Baghdad hot spots in joint security stations
alongside Iraqi forces, yet the number of unidentified bodies in the capital
was 40% higher in June than at the start of the surge. A suicide bomb in a
market near Kirkuk killed more than 100 people last week.

In Anbar province there have been some notable successes, with US forces
teaming up with formerly hostile Sunni tribes-man to take on Al-Qaeda in
search-and-destroy missions. Yet there has been little progress towards
political reconciliation by the Shi’ite-domi-nated government.

Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq, says: “There are no
consequences for them when they screw up. Whatever is wrong we take care of
it.”

Even if the war is still winnable in Iraq, it is now being lost at home.
Roughly half of Republican senators whisper privately that they have given
up on Iraq, while a growing number are in open revolt. Bush’s own officials
are expressing doubts about sustaining a war that will cost $135 billion
this year. A record 71% of Americans want most troops out of Iraq by the
spring. Bush’s approval rating has plunged below 30%.

Britain, America’s staunchest ally, is inching away from the president under
the new semi-detached leadership of Gordon Brown. In an interview yesterday,
Lord Malloch-Brown, a minister at the Foreign Office, said that the British
prime minister and US president would “no longer be joined at the hip”.

Last week Bush remained defiant. “The real debate over Iraq is between those
who think the fight is lost or not worth the cost or those who think the
fight can be won,” he said. Increasingly, it is an argument between the
president and everybody else.

Bush says he is waiting for the verdict of history, but historians might
conclude that this was the week Americans lost the will to win.

Bush’s hopes of salvaging his tattered legacy now rest with “King David”, as
General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is known. “I’m going to
wait for David . . . to come back and give us the report on what he sees,”
the president said last week. But will the general deliver the answers Bush
wants?

“Petraeus is an ambitious person,” said a senior defence source. “He might
move into politics one day so he’s looking for bipartisan support. He is a
very pragmatic guy.”

Petraeus believes it takes 10 years for a counterinsurgency war to succeed,
yet he has just two more months to turn the course of the war around before
he presents his progress report to Congress in September.

He knows America’s overstretched army cannot continue at its current troop
levels beyond the spring.

The American commander’s prediction of a disparity between “two clocks” – one
ticking in Baghdad, the other in Washington – is already being borne out by
events. In advance of his report he is bracing for Sunni insurgents to mount
a “mini-Tet”, a reference to the 1968 offensive against the Americans in
Vietnam that undermined public support for that war.

The signs are that Robert Gates, the defence secretary, will begin withdrawing
troops in Iraq this autumn to presurge levels. With luck, Petraeus will be
able to supply a few rosy scenarios to justify such a move. If not, the
pull-out is likely to start anyway to forestall a mutiny by Republican
politicians. The hope is to reduce troops to 60,000 or 70,000 by the end of
2008 and take the sting out of the war as an election issue.

Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, provoked accusations of treason when
he said only a few months ago that Bush knew the war was “lost”. Now the
president himself is raising the spectre of defeat and the dire consequences
of “surrendering to Al-Qaeda” as a last-ditch means of rallying support for
his policy.

Bush looked defensive and peevish when he delivered his interim report on the
troop build-up at a televised press conference on Thursday. He admitted that
progress in an “ugly war” had been unsatisfactory. “Sometimes the decisions
you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved,” he said.

Peggy Noonan, President Reagan’s speech-writer, was appalled by his vanity.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, she noted that Bush liked to present
himself as an idealist, who made decisions “on principle”, unlike his
critics, who were selfish, isolationist and “ever watchful of the polls”.

It is “ungracious”, Noonan pointed out. “Part of the story of his presidency
is he gets to be romantic about history and the American people get to be
the realists . . . This is extremely irritating.” She concluded, “Americans
can’t fire their president right now, so they are waiting it out.”

THEY have, as Bush admitted, “tired of the war”, as its terrible toll hits
home. Many veterans feel brutalised by their experiences. Michael Harmon,
24, an army medic, said he turned against the invasion after a two-year-old
girl was shot. “An IED went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started
shooting anywhere and the baby got hit,” he recalled. “And this baby looked
at me, wasn’t crying, wasn’t anything . . . I know she couldn’t speak. It
might sound crazy but she was like asking me why. You know, ‘Why do I have a
bullet in my leg?’ I was like, this is it. This is ridiculous.”

The few remaining optimists on Iraq are becoming marginalised figures – none
more so than John McCain, the former frontrunner for the Republican
nomination, who might be forced by lack of campaign funds and declining
support to pull out of the 2008 presidential race, as The Sunday Times
revealed last month.

In the Senate last Tuesday, the Arizona senator urged his colleagues to stand
fast. “The terrorists are in this war to win it. Are we?” he asked. McCain
had just returned from Baghdad and, “from what I heard and saw while there,
I believe that our military, in cooperation with the security forces, is
making progress”, he told the fainthearted.

But that day McCain was in desperate straits. Two aides revealed they had
resigned from his presidential campaign after it had blown $22m and was
beset by internal feuding. The Vietnam war hero had to slink away to the
Senate cloakroom in the midst of the Iraq war debate to make a call on his
mobile phone urging fund-raisers not to desert him. His presidential
ambitions are so shattered that he is referred to as Dead Man Walking.

Antiwar critics used to be said to suffer from Bush derangement syndrome. Now
those who back Bush are the ones who appear out of touch with reality. The
rot set in for McCain last April when he was ridiculed for declaring the
surge a success after strolling around a Baghdad market under heavy armed
guard.

As soon as he lost the support of independent voters, Republicans who had
never cared for him but regarded him as a winner began baling out of his
campaign. The McCain implosion was a stark lesson for other politicians,
particularly those facing elections: back Bush at your peril.

In Congress last week, Republicans put Bush on notice that their support for
the war was running out. “Wimps!” scoffed John Boehner, the house Republican
leader. For some perhaps, it was a question of political survival – one war
critic learnt recently that he would face a well-funded antiwar challenge
for his Senate seat.

John Warner, 80, the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who is
expected to retire at the next election, said he was still haunted by the
memory of Vietnam. “The army generals would come in [and say], ‘Just send in
another five or 10 thousand [troops]’,” he recalled. “You know, month after
month. Another 10 or 15 thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept
surging in those years. It didn’t work . . . You don’t forget something like
that.”

The polling company Gallup has tested the opinion of American voters on
various conflicts, asking whether it was mistake to send troops. The company
reported this month that “the only war that compares to the current conflict
in terms of public opposition is the Vietnam war”. WHILE the White House was
dealing with its own row over Iraq, the first “wobble” of the new regime in
Downing Street broke out. Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for
international development, a close ally of the prime minister, delivered a
speech in Washington which was said to “reorder” Britain’s relationship with
America.

Alexander’s call for a “multilateralist, not unilateralist” foreign policy was
cast as a dig at Blair’s unquestioning support for Bush. “In the 20th
century a country’s might was too often measured by what they could
destroy,” he said. “In the 21st century strength should be measured by what
we can build together.”

Had Brown sided with the waverers to win votes back home? The headlines on
Friday morning sparked a flurry of panic at No 10. Brown called a meeting
with his advisers shortly after lunch, where there was talk of sacking one
of Alexander’s aides for spinning the speech – a sin in the supposedly new
spin-free zone in Downing Street.

At the White House and State Department, senior officials went ballistic and
demanded explanations from their British counterparts. “It has severely
irritated the administration,” said a senior British source. “Douglas
Alexander and his team caused a lot more problems for the prime minister
than they knew.”

No 10 tried to play down suggestions of Britain taking a more independent
line. Blaming spin, however, is too easy an explanation for the
miscom-munication. Sources acknowledge that Alexander intended to deliver a
“subtle” message in Washington for British consumption – just not with the
megaphone that the White House heard loud and clear.

Besides, 24 hours later, another of Brown’s new ministers stoked the
suspicions. Mal-loch-Brown, former deputy secretary-general of the United
Nations, said: “What I really hate is the effort to paint me as
antiAmerican, but I am happy to be described as antineocon. If they see me
as a villain, I will wear that as a badge of honour.”

He went on to say that he hoped British foreign policy under Brown would
become “much more impartial”.

Brown is now preparing to fly to Washington in the next couple of weeks to
reassure Bush about the strength of the alliance. “He may need to come out
quicker than he intended,” a British official said. “He will have to undo
some of the damage.”

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is also said to be furious and might
arrive in Washington before Brown. Simon MacDonald, No 10’s foreign policy
adviser, will fly out this week to meet Stephen Hadley, the US national
security adviser.

A senior government source insisted Britain’s policy on Iraq remained the
same. “We are not drawing up some political timetable for withdrawal. That
would be nonsensical. Not only that, but how would you explain it to our
troops?

“If we said we were going to withdraw by the end of the year based on some
political calculation, then our military leaders would quite rightly say,
‘Well, why don’t we just pull out now?’ ” Thomas Friedman, the New York
Times commentator, noted last week that the British were already quietly
pulling out of southern Iraq, with important consequences for America.

“Look at the British in Basra,” he wrote. “The British forces there have
slowly receded into a single base at Basra airport. And what has happened?
The void has been filled by a vicious contest for power among Shi’ite
warlords, gangs and clans, and British troops are still being killed
whenever they venture out.

“We should not kid ourselves,” he concluded. “Our real choices in Iraq are
either all in or all out.”

Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, warned last week that an American
withdrawal could provoke a blood-bath. “The dangers could be a civil war,
dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state,” he said.

The problem is that staying and propping up the Iraqi government is doing
nothing to stop the present violence. Political divisions among Iraq’s
various factions remain as entrenched as ever. Last week Taha al-Luhaibi, an
MP from the National Accord Front, told The Sunday Times: “The government is
a sectarian government which is not based on the constitution and did not
respect its agreements with the other political blocs. This government is
part of the problem and not part of the solution.”

Saleh al-Mutlek, leader of the National Dialogue party, accused the government
of working in the interests of “external forces”, not Iraqis. America, he
said, had brought “nothing to Iraq except destruction and lack of security”.

On Friday the Republican revolt against Bush’s strategy gathered pace. Warner
and Richard Lugar, another Republican senator, proposed legislation that
envisaged a withdrawal of troops beginning as early as January 1.

WHATEVER the manner and timetable of troop reductions in Iraq, and the
consequences for civilians there, another factor plays on the American mood.
At the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative think tank where
so many hopeful plans for the war were hatched, a recent meeting discussed
the dangers of abandoning the “surge” prematurely.

But as the meeting drew to a close, Danielle Pletka, a leading hawk, glumly
noted that the panel and audience had spent two hours discussing the war
with barely a mention of Al-Qaeda or the threat of terrorism. The focus was
almost entirely on America’s diminishing will to win.

Days later the contents of a new US intelligence report were leaked to the
Associated Press. Al-Qaeda, an official revealed, was “considerably
operationally stronger than a year ago” and has “regrouped to an extent not
seen before 2001”. Michael Chertoff, the homeland security chief, said he
had a “gut feeling” that terrorists were planning to attack the United
States this summer.

After billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended, America, it seems,
is back where it started on the eve of September 11, 2001.

Additional reporting: Ali Rifat, Jordan

2003

March 20 Invasion starts

May 1 George W Bush makes ‘mission accomplished’ speech on USS Abraham
Lincoln

May 11 Paul Bremer becomes head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Disbands Iraqi army

September 25 UN orders almost total withdrawal of its staff from Iraq

December 13 Saddam Hussein captured by US troops near Tikrit

2004

Janaury 23 David Kay, head of Iraq Study Group, says Iraq had no WMD

April 29 Pictures of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by US
troops shown on American television

June 17 Independent US commission reports that there was no link
between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 attacks

June 28 Bremer stands down. Interim Iraqi government sworn in

July 9 US Senate committee says US and its allies went to war on
‘flawed’ information

November 7 Battle to drive insurgents from stronghold of Fallujah
begins

2005

January 30 8m Iraqis vote in elections

March 16 Iraq's new parliament opens

August 3-4 21 marines killed near Haditha

August 31 Up to 1,000 people killed in stampede of Shi’ite
pilgrims in Baghdad after bomb rumours

October 25 2,000th US soldier killed

November 19 Reports suggest 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women
and children, killed by US marines in Haditha

2006

January 31 100th British soldier killed

February 22 Bomb destroys Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, one of the
holiest sites in Shi’ite Islam, deepening sectarian strife

June7 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed

June29 British and Iraqi ministers announce plan to transfer security
to Iraqi troops by the end of the year

November 7 Democrats win control of Congress

November 8 Donald Rumsfeld, a key architect of the war, resigns

December 6 US Iraq Study Group recommends Bush abandon his policy or be
‘doomed to failure’

December 30 Saddam Hussein hanged

2007

February 1 Surge of additional 30,000 troops begins

February 18 News reports reveal scandal of wounded US soldiers being
poorly treated at Walter Reed army medical centre

April 12 Suicide bomber gets inside Iraqi parliament, killing three MPs
and injuring five others

July 12 Bush says some military progress being made, but admits no
political solution in sight. US House of Representatives votes to withdraw
most troops by April 2008

• US dead 3,612

• UK dead 159

• Estimates of Iraqis killed by the war range from 73,000 to more than 600,000

What now for Iraq?

Wishful thinking

The Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki moves towards political reconciliation
between Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurd factions. A deal is agreed on oil revenues.
Iraqi forces successfully take over internal security. US troop numbers
fall, leaving 50,000 to fight Al-Qaeda and protect the border. Phased
withdrawals continue under the new president, whether Republican or
Democrat.

Hopeful pragmatism

US forces withdraw in stages, but Iraqi forces melt away as sectarian militias
run out of control. The government falls and civil war worsens between Sunni
and Shi’ite areas. The worst of the carnage is soon over and factions agree
spheres of influence. Iraq is effectively divided into three – autonomous
Kurds in the north, a Sunni central area and a Shi’ite south. Baghdad
remains the thorniest problem.

The fear

Coalition troops withdraw and civil war rages, spilling over into neighbouring
countries. Iran aids the Shi’ites, while Saudi Arabia defends its Sunni
brethren. As the fighting continues it fans further violence throughout the
region, particularly in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Al-Qaeda
establishes new havens to plot terror attacks on the West.

For Deborah Haynes's blog from Iraq, go to www.timesonline.co.uk/insideiraq