"General John Abizaid, the head of US central command, said remnants of the former Baathist regime had little in common ideologically with anti-American fighters, many of whom are believed to have come from outside Iraq. But he said a partnership based on expediency against a common enemy made sense. " Hmmm....Seems to me that I heard someone say before the war that this would happen. If I recall correctly, this view was also dismissed. So this wing of the war on terror has actually added to the opposition. The NIE report said that the Iraqis represented no threat to us, through direct attacks or through terrorists...unless we attacked them and gave them and anti-Americans a common enemy. That, too, was dismissed by pro-war advocates, some of whom said that the claim that Iraq and anti-US terrorists were not idealogically opposed was a liberal invention. Seems that the leader of the US central command in Iraq had the wool pulled over his eyes by the anti-war lunatic fringe.
1) No, I was being pretty genuine. Your point is also valid, but I maintain that it would appear thus to many Middle Easterners without any top down influence. 2) I disagree. We have stirred up a hornet's nest here. It rmenains to be seen what the effect will be.
Read the quote by the General in charge in Iraq...He says that we have created allies for the terrorists which did and could not have existed before. Iraq didn't take shots, pot or otherwise, at us. Our own intel told us that Iraq was not part of the war on terror. Now it is. Good job.
I understand your concern, but no other governments in the Middle East will have the balls to support terrorism or use their military against the U.S. troops now. Thus, the terrorist cells are probably funded privately. Given due time, I'm reasonably sure that U.S. will eventually find the culprits and take away their financial means of support. Those people are not dangerous just because of their beliefs. They are dangerous because they have the means to organize, coordinate, and fund these acts. If we can strip them of their money, then they won't be as much of a threat.
I see what you're saying, MM, but historically this kind of war doesn't work that way...there won't be any massive congregations of forces, except on our part. In fact the logic you are suggesting is probably exactly what the opponents are banking on: We are now congregated and in the open, and will have to remain so as long as we are occupying Iraq. They are not and will not be. That's how resistance actions and guerilla wars are fought, and as Afghansitan shows, these guys know what they're doing in that regard.
Would have said this anyways, but the last article shows that what has happened is an alliance of nationalists and external forces...almost exaclt what happened in Afghanistan vs. the Soviets. And I think that the reports are suggesting that many see the US occupation of their land as the greatest evil, and that will, as it already has, create otherwise uncomfortable bedfellows. We were told that we would be embraced with open arms, and we were largely not. As our occupation lengthens, and as long as egos refuse to bend and admit that we need the UN on this, that will increase. And I agree with your version of what happened in Afghanistan, and don't understand why you feel that that kind of alliance means that it won't be effective. The war in Nam was partly won at home, but there is also no doubt of the complete loss of morale of the soldiers fighting over there, and that had more to do with the type of engagement, the lack of clear objectives, and the sense that leadership was not being responsible than it did with domestic protest. Agreed that Ho got disouraged...so did Churchill and Washington and the leaders of almost every war against superior power in history...but in the end, as Ho said, we could kill 10 of theirs for every 1 of ours they killed, and in the end we would be the ones to leave. Forget about the intellectual value of religious extremeism/fundamentalism, and remember that history shows us that it is among the, if not the greatest motivator of military participants. The second greatest is self-defense. In Nam we faced the second...here we face both. Simply put, the people we are fighting against have more reason to keep fighting than our guys do, less care about their own lives, and as Adghanistan shows, an almost endless supply of manpower willing to fight and die to get us out. And the kind of war they are waging leaves them less exposed, and requires far, far less funding. Many Americans don't even support why we went in in the first place...and the remaining argument, that we were freeing the people, will seem to hold less and less weight when that freed people seem to keep fighting against us. I think that there are ways out of this, but it involves swallowing our pride and going to the UN for help...Powell wants to do this, Rummy and the VP don't. We'll see where it goes.
A significant difference between Japan, Germany, and Iraq is that even the residents of those nations recognized that they were a defeated aggressor. Iraq was invaded without having done anything or representing any threat to us. That plays very differently to the occupied peoples. Add the religious element, and again, unlike Germany and Japan, being surrounded by nations which support you and oppose your occupation also alters the filed. In that respect South America is, sadly, a closer but still not accurate example.
I don't get this. So the American soldiers are fighting terrorists now in Iraq, and the soldiers are taking casualties, but the war isn't over yet. The war isn't over until the government is stable, and Iraq is rebuilt. Despite the casualties of the American troops, this has got to be by far one of the most successful American military campaign in history. Remember that this time we are occupying another country instead of simply suppressing an army. We marched town to town, and we tore their leadership down. Despite the arduous task, the American casualties are pretty miniscule compared to any other war of occupation in history. I don't know about you, but I am very proud of our troops and work that they have done. The war with Iraq is not a war on terrorism despite what the government claim, and I am sure you can agree to that. The government is able to use the 9/11 to use as a battlecry for the support of this military campaign. While moralistically, this war is kind of shady. However, the aftermath of the war makes this justifiable I think. First of all, we get rid of Saddam Hussein who is the Josef Stalin of the Middle East (just imagine if Stalin never ruled the Soviet Union, the country would be so different today). Second, we rebuild a nation and make life better for it's people. With the wealth and resource in Iraq, there is no reason for them to live in that state. Third, hopefully if it works out, the non-radical sects in the Middle East can hopefully look at America with less hatred, and perhaps improve relations with the U.S. The third scenario is a bit far-fetched presently, but it's a dream, and a darn good one too. While the war has attracted new people in joining the cause of terrorism, those people were opponents to America in the first place. Much like America used 9/11 as our battlecry, the radicals are using the Iraq invasion as their's. Also, America used lots of money and resource to drive our support for the war, and the radicals must do the same as well. Given enough time, I am sure that the radicals' source of funding and other resources will be discovered and eliminated. Once that is accomplished, the situation in Iraq will look much better.
I'll have to disagree with you here. I don't believe the whole Iraq nation hates the Americans for invasion. I believe that they recognize they live in shambles and recognize that Americans can help them rebuild. I understand that Japan and Germany are different from Iraq. One of the key differences is that the post-WWII Nazi's didn't have the power that the radical terrorist leaders does in Iraq. While they might still have wealth, they had no where in the world to base their operations if they were to rebuild. Currently, these terrorists leaders have the resource and means to organize and spread propaganda, but once they are discovered, things will change. It will take time and patience though.
I don't suggest that the whole Iraq nation hates the Americans. I do think that many do, and many more will the longer we stay, and tell them what kind of government they can and can't have, who can and can'r be part of it, etc. But my main point to you wasn't about hate, it was about resentment: Japan and Germany had declared war on us, and we had defended ourselves, supported by the globe . Iraq had done nothing to us, and we invaded opposed by the globe. Thinking that their country is a shambles, and being okay with a foreign aggressor telling them what to do in their own land are two different things. Even in Afghanistan, where our initial invasion had more support, we see resentment growing proportional to how long we stay there, and our prescen their is nowhere near is intrusive as in Iraq.
I think the key point where we are at a disagreement is that I think that America has the means stamp out the financial source of the terrorist activities, thus stamping them out once and for all. I find it hard to believe that Japan and Germany did not have any anti-American sentiments after World War II. However, those sentiments couldn't be carried out in those countries because they had no means to. They had no where to go to organize their cause, and they probably didn't have the resources to carry out their missions. I'm pretty positive that the state of Iraq will be turning for the better. At the very least, I very much hope that this will be the case.
I agree...It won't work and hasn't, however, more of that is meant for the Foreign audiences... I suspect that this will be a long, expensive campaign, but well worth it...
I never said guerilla tactics were 'unfair.' You miss the point. My point is that everytime our military engaged in Vietnam, be it against the NVA regulars or the Viet Cong, the NVA or Viet Cong lost. That is a precursor to my next point... Sorry if that tugs at your conscience, implicating you in the defeat in Vietnam, but those are the facts. If you want to go do the research and say Ho never said that, then be my guest. Not saying that a counterfactual outcome would have happened for certain. Only pointing out that when Ho considered quitting, he didn't look at the battlefield to stiffen his resolve. He looked at the US domestic situation. Something you simply don't come to grips with. Your protests FACTUALLY prolonged the war, killing more Americans and more Vietnamese. Your 'spin' is so pathetic because you want to feel like you ONLY have a positive effect on the action, which is a ridiculous assumption. Some positive effect yes, absolutely. Questioning action is good and necessary in our system. However, as both Vietnam and Somalia show, you also have a negative effect, especially once the engagement is underway. I think they took the lesson that they needed a clear objective, certainly. And that is a good lesson to learn. Public opinion of the action is, and should be, of less concern to the military, although I'm sure they were so proud to come home to protestors (like yourself) and draft dodgers spitting on them and calling them baby killers. Never said anything like that, but domestic protests like yours, which have NO POSITIVE effect, only serve to embolden our enemies. Of that there can be no doubt, as historical precedent has shown.
The fact that the self proclaimed Iraqi resistance is distancing itself from the latest attacks spreads doubt on the unity of Iraqis and external forces. That Al Queda et al see the UN as an enemy and the Iraqis don't shows there is not a unity of objective. That is MUCH different than the situation in Afghanistan. Agreed that Bush is making a mistake by not wholesale bringing the UN into Iraq now. That would facilitate both a decrease in US presence and bring legitimacy to a common front against the Baathists and external forces. I addressed this with glynch above. Ho looked not at the battlefield but at our domestic turmoil when deciding to continue to war. Well, we're agreed that the UN should now be brought in. Continuing to harp on pre-war arguments simply is not productive, however. Don't know why we have to swallow our pride to let the UN in. They want in, and it would be the most productive move by far. That is not because the external forces are uniting with everyday Iraqis, however.
The best assessment IMHO is that Iraq was not harboring Al Qaeda until we invaded and made ourselves easily available targets... http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0825/p01s03-woiq.html For Al Qaeda, Iraq may be the next battlefield Paul Bremer, Iraq's governor, said Sunday that 'foreign terrorists' are entering Iraq. By Nicholas Blanford and Dan Murphy | Special to The Christian Science Monitor BEIRUT, LEBANON – Jihad in Iraq? The devastating Al Qaeda-style suicide bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad has given new heft to declarations by US officials that there is mounting evidence of Islamist fighters crossing Iraq's borders. It's also spurring analysts to ask if Iraq is becoming the new Afghanistan - a magnet for Islamic extremists bent on waging jihad against the United States in the heart of the Arab world. "Iraq is developing as Al Qaeda's new battlefield," says Rohan Gunaratna, an author and terrorism expert. "Without a theater of jihad, they cannot produce terrorists for operations anywhere else. They lost Afghanistan, so they needed a new combat theater in which to train and inspire. And the US invasion gave it to them." Thousands of Muslim volun- -teers flocked to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight Soviet occupation forces which had invaded the country in 1979. The cumbersome Soviet military was unable to subdue the lightly armed, resourceful Afghan and Arab mujahideen (holy fighters) and withdrew from the country in 1988. Now analysts say that calls for young men to fight in Iraq are popping up on jihad websites across the world. If Gunaratna is right, the US is in for a long and bloody occupation. In the thinking of Al Qaeda, the mere sustaining of a presence, and the ability to carry out intermittent attacks, is a form of victory, a sign that the world's great superpower is incapable of stamping them out. "We recommend luring the enemy forces into a protracted, close, and exhausting fight," Osama bin Laden threatened in a taped statement to "his Iraqi brothers" in February. "The enemy fears city and street wars most." Common ground against the US Bin Laden loathed the secular Saddam Hussein, who repressed Islamic movements in his country as much as he did his political opponents. But in the wake of the US invasion, he urged his followers to make common cause with the socialist Baath regime. "Under these circumstances, there will be no harm if the interests of Muslims converge with the interests of the socialists in the fight against the crusaders, despite our belief in the infidelity of socialists," he said. But despite the potential common cause among Hussein's Baathists and Al Qaeda fighters, not all analysts believe that the Afghanization of Iraq has already begun. US officials have said nothing conclusive about the source of specific attacks yet, but they are convinced that militant Islamist groups, both Shiite and Sunni, are well established in Iraq and that foreign fighters are pouring into the country. "The borders are quite porous, as you'd imagine, and the fact that we've captured a certain number of foreign fighters in Baghdad and around Iraq indicates that the ways that these people are getting into the country is from Iran and from Syria and from Saudi Arabia," said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in an interview Friday with the Al Jazeera Arabic satellite channel. The number of volunteers crossing into Iraq remains unclear. However, the Saudi security authorities reportedly have expressed unease at the "disappearance" of some 3,000 young men, suspecting that they have crossed the border into Iraq to wage jihad against the coalition forces. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's chief ideologue, has written of the need to shift Al Qaeda's confrontation with the US from relatively peripheral places like Afghanistan to the Middle East. "We must seek to move the battlefront to the heart of the Islamic world, which represents the true arena of the battle and the theater of the major battles in defense of Islam," he writes. A threat to Saudi Arabia Al Qaeda's immediate goals have been the overthrow of corrupt or secular regimes in the Middle East - starting with Saudi Arabia, the land of the prophet. An Al Qaeda beachhead near Saudi Arabia could directly threaten the monarchy - in addition to threatening US forces. "I do think Iraq - as well as Afghanistan - are the two places now where mujahideen can go to kill an American on a relatively level playing field," says Graham Fuller, a consultant at the RAND Corporation in Washington and a former vice president of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. "I don't think Iraq is an 'Afghanistan' in the sense that there will be a massive international jihad like there was in Afghanistan [in the 1980s] - that one required massive funding and weapons from the US itself, as well as from other countries." Mohsen al-Awajy, a Saudi lawyer and Islamist campaigner, says that despite the anti-coalition fighters' limited support, the truck bombing of the UN headquarters and other attacks are just the beginning of a campaign that he predicted will increase as next year's US presidential election draws closer. "The anger of the people in the region is tremendous. The most powerful punishment against the Americans for their dirty campaign in Iraq will be harvested in November next year," he says, adding that there is a "very strong mood" among young Saudis to join the "Iraqi resistance." Robert Baer, a former CIA operative and author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Its Soul for Saudi Crude," says that Saudi volunteers were joining Sunni tribesmen in Iraq. "The easiest way into Iraq is across the Saudi border," he says. "Once they have hooked up with the Bedouins, there's no way we can know who they are." A civilian adviser to a European military contingent based in southern Iraq says that villagers near the border with Saudi Arabia recently told him that "hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters" were streaming into Iraq. "They are having little difficulty entering Iraq and then they head north to join up with the Iraqi Sunnis," the adviser says. "These people don't have to go to New York to kill Americans anymore. The Big Satan has showed up on their doorstep. Logistically it's fantastic for them." Islamist volunteers reportedly are still slipping into Iraq across the Syrian and Iranian borders as well, although the Saudi frontier appears to be the most porous. Paul Bremer, the coalition administrator of Iraq, last week accused Syria of not doing enough to block "foreign terrorists" from entering the country. During a television appearance Sunday, Ambassador Bremer directly addressed the issue of foreign fighters, saying: "We are now seeing a large number of international terrorists coming into Iraq." Not entirely like Afghanistan Nonetheless, there are significant differences between Iraq of 2003 and Afghanistan of the 1980s. The "Arab Afghans" enjoyed the general support of the Pashtun majority and were amply funded by Saudi Arabia and the US, the latter also providing weapons and training. The wild mountains of Afghanistan provided a secure base of operations for the mujahideen and CIA-supplied Stinger antiaircraft missiles devastated the Soviet military's air advantage. "The situation is different in Iraq," says Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and an Iraq specialist. "The vast majority of the country is Shiites and Kurds, neither of them sympathetic to Sunni radicalism, so that the volunteers would be turned in by the local population if they tried to operate anywhere but in the narrow Sunni Arab triangle." Although the influx of foreign volunteers is attracting the concern of the coalition forces, Professor Cole believes the bulk of the attacks are still being carried out by "Iraqi Sunni Arab nationalists, with some evidence of Iraqi Sunni religious radicals joining in." "The steady, horrible picking off of US troops by small bands of guerrillas, using roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades, is far more effective," he says. "In my view, the real danger to the US is a continued indigenous insurgency" by Iraqi nationalists. While it is still possible for the US to manage the situation in Iraq, says Mr. Fuller, "most of the indicators are increasingly negative." "I am pessimistic," he says. "But I don't think it will be a military disaster in the sense of Afghanistan for the USSR. The US will declare victory and go home before that happens - maybe even by next summer in time for the elections." http://www.msnbc.com/news/956615.asp What We Should Do Now Washington’s Plan A clearly isn’t working. The fighting is far from over in Iraq. But there’s no walking away. The administration needs to have a clear, long-term commitment, the backing of the United Nations and more than a little help from its friends By Fareed Zakaria NEWSWEEK Sept. 1 issue — There is a danger of over-reacting to last week’s gruesome bombing of the United Nations’ headquarters in Baghdad. The United States has been in Iraq for only four months and much of the country is stable. The northern lands, home to the Kurdish population, are settling into an almost normal existence. THERE HAVE BEEN no large-scale revolts nor the much-feared civil war between various sections of Iraqi society. Given Saddam Hussein’s devastation of the country, 13 years of sanctions and then the second gulf war, reconstruction was bound to be slow. An Iraqi Army and a police force are being trained, the Governing Council is up and running, town councils are operating throughout the country, the decentralization of the country is working. All this may be true, but it is increasingly irrelevant. Security is the first task of government; everything else rests on it. And important parts of Iraq—including its central city, home to 20 percent of its people—are insecure. The U.N. bombing was not an isolated event but a culmination of weeks of sophisticated and deadly violence against Americans and their partners. Coalition forces now face an average of 15 to 20 attacks per day. Since the end of formal hostilities, 75 Coalition troops have been killed in combat, 77 have died through other causes and about 500 have been wounded. The attack on the United Nations was preceded by bombings of the Jordanian Embassy, Baghdad’s main water pipeline and Iraq’s main oil pipeline. Baghdad International Airport remains closed to commercial traffic for fear that incoming planes will be shot down. The road to the airport cannot be secured. It is, in fact, the single most ambushed road in Baghdad, its checkpoint under fire every evening. Crime remains sky high. Murders since the war could reach 5,000 this year. Basic services such as water and electricity have not been restored in significant regions of the country, in part because of constant sabotage. And while it is true that terrorism can take place anywhere, a country that is under American military occupation should not so easily turn into a sanctuary for militant Islamic terrorists. NOT LOSING VS. NOT WINNING The afterwar has been unusual because the United States never formally defeated the Iraqi Army: Saddam’s forces simply melted away. Some American officials have privately pointed out that current casualty rates, while tragic, are low enough to be militarily insignificant. This is true but also irrelevant. The purpose of guerrilla operations is not to defeat the enemy militarily. It is to defeat him politically. (Hence Henry Kissinger’s dictum: the guerrilla wins by not losing. The army loses by not winning.) The hope is that such attacks will force the occupation to become more militarized, then, in turn, America’s heavy-handed retaliation will alienate the local population. If U.S. forces mingle less with the locals, tour in Humvees rather than on foot and make force protection their chief goal, they will not gain popular support. The fact that there have been so many attacks on U.S. forces and we have caught so few of—and know so little about—the attackers indicate that they have some support within the populace and that we still have very poor human intelligence in Iraq. In recent weeks a spate of small flare-ups between locals and troops, even in Shiite areas, suggests that beneath the calm there is restlessness. It is time to recognize that the occupation of Iraq needs fixing. This has been a massive enterprise undertaken with little planning and extreme arrogance. During the war, Defense Department officials explained that the postwar situation was “unknowable,” so no planning was really possible. (By this logic there would be no point in planning for anything.) Even the question of how long the United States would stay involved in Iraq produced a series of varying responses, from the vacuous “as long as it takes” to the absurd “three months” (from Jay Garner). That we had no plan for postwar government was quickly evident to the Iraqis. In 1920 a British official despaired of that country’s occupation of Iraq in words that are prophetic: “How can the local population settle down when we won’t tell it what we are going to do? We must either govern Mesopotamia or not govern it.” On one matter the administration seemed sure: the occupation would not require many troops. “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would to conduct the war itself,” Paul Wolfowitz declared in congressional testimony last February. Officials had privately estimated that by the end of the summer—now, that is—U.S. troop levels in Iraq would be down to 40,000. SUFFICIENT FORCE Had the administration been more willing to learn from the past, it would have noted that the United States was involved in several postwar operations during the 1990s. Lesson No. 1 was: have sufficient forces. In Somalia and Haiti, the United States placed too few forces on the ground. The result: it failed. In Bosnia and Kosovo it deployed a large force, which was able to intimidate all potential opposition. As a result, in those two places Coalition forces have suffered zero combat casualties in many years of operation. The Powell Doctrine may not be necessary for war, but it seems to help in keeping the peace. To match the number of soldiers per inhabitant as we have in Kosovo, we would need 526,000 in Iraq. To match Bosnia we would need 258,000. Right now there are about 150,000 troops in Iraq. The United States Army does not have extra troops to spare. In fact it is currently spread dangerously thin. Ninety percent of all U.S. military police, for example, are on active duty: 12,000 are in Iraq; most of the rest are in South Korea or Europe. There are no more MPs to call on. The shortage is not simply of military personnel. Iraq’s administrator Paul Bremer is an able man who has made several smart choices since he has taken charge. He is, however, understaffed and underfunded. The Coalition Provisional Authority has about 1,000 people working for it. Douglas MacArthur had five times the number when he was nation-building in Japan. Perhaps as urgently as it needs troops, Iraq needs diplomats, political advisers, engineers, agronomists, economists, educators and lawyers. Without deploying this other army the occupation cannot succeed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terror war strains military August 22, 2003 — NBC’s Fred Francis in Fort Riley, Kansas, reports on the strain the United States military faces fighting the global war on terrorism. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PICKING UP THE TAB And Iraq needs money; lots of it. The fantasy that the country would quickly pay for its own reconstruction can now be put to rest. For the next year or two, while Iraq’s oil facilities are brought online, it must live on foreign aid. Bremer has estimated that the cost of satisfying current demand for electricity in Iraq is $2 billion. Estimates of the cost of repairing and improving Iraqi oil facilities are between $5 billion and $10 billion. Estimates of the costs of upgrading Iraqi infrastructure are $16 billion to $30 billion. The amounts currently appropriated are a fraction of this. The United States is currently providing 95 percent of total aid to Iraq and 90 percent of the troops, and suffering 90 percent of the casualties. We have jealously held onto Iraq as if the rebuilding of it were some great prize to be denied to everyone else. In fact it is better thought of as a monumental, historic challenge that can best be accomplished with as many partners and as much support as possible. The best and obvious solution from the start was to turn the rebuilding of Iraq into a great international project, in which all the major countries in the world were invested. To accomplish this, other nations would have to be given some control over the future of the country. Giving the United Nations more of a hand in Iraq’s political affairs would actually help. The United Nations has developed skills and expertise in nation-building over the last decade that are worth having. Iraq needs more hardworking men like Sergio Vieira de Mello, not fewer. It is difficult to shift policy now and convince the world that we do so willingly. But it should be done. Specifically: The United Nations should be given formal authority over the reconstruction of Iraq. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Paul Bremer would be given U.N. appointments in addition to their U.S. appointments. NATO could take over the command structure of military forces. The administration’s concerns about messing up the unity of command are mystifying since it gave NATO command of operations in Afghanistan and NATO runs the military in Kosovo. In return, the United States should ensure that non-U.S. troop contributions total 100,000. India, Turkey, France and Germany could make up the bulk of the force (adding to the contributions of Britain and the other Coalition members). The United Nations must help recruit thousands of new nonmilitary personnel to assist in the reconstruction. Similarly, non-U.S. aid contributions should be 40 percent of the total, with the bulk coming from the European Union and Japan, and some contributions from oil-rich Arab countries. Without outside help, funding for Iraq will be too little too late. The commitment of troops will give the United States some help on the ground and other nations a stake in making post-Saddam Iraq work. It is true that other countries will want a share of Iraq’s business but that would also help get those countries invested in Iraq’s success. That is more important than husbanding a few contracts for American firms, many of which would win in an open bidding process anyway. The administration should present Congress with a multiyear budget that estimates the costs of the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, with increases in all areas. The occupation of Iraq needs to look less like an improvised, fly-by-night operation and more like a thought-through, massive project. Truman did not keep everyone guessing about the Marshall Plan. President Bush should make a speech explaining to the American people why it is crucial that we succeed in Iraq, what the stakes are and why the costs are justified. He should make clear in no uncertain terms that the United States will stay committed to this course for as long as the Iraqi people wish its help and assistance. Candor about the costs of the occupation and our determination to stay will send a signal to the world and, most important, to the Iraqi people that they will have a predictable, stable future. The Coalition Provisional Authority must assert its authority and ensure rapid progress on governance and reforms—even when Iraqis are slow or unable to act. The Governing Council is an admirable body, but it is a committee of 25 people, many of whom dislike each other and who have never worked together. If things fall apart, Iraqis will not blame the Governing Council. They will blame America. After order, the first priority must be to create a system of justice: courts, police and a legal system. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Country In Chaos Months after major combat ended, Coalition troops are still dying and Iraq's infrastructure is a shambles. A look at the billions being spent to keep the peace and rebuild a war-torn nation: A HEFTY PRICESLICK FIGURES?BIG BILLS TO PAY A HEFTY PRICE Where's the money coming from? What the officials say: $3.4 billion: expected oil sales $2.8 billion: U.S. Congress $2 billion: U.N./international groups $1.7 billion: frozen Iraqi assets $795 million: seized from Saddam & Co. $379 million: revenue from state-owned companies SLICK FIGURES? Concern is growing that initial oil revenue won't make the grade: 2.5 million: barrels of oil per day (BPD) produced before the war 800,000: current BPD pumped $200 million: amount earned from oil sales since end of war BIG BILLS TO PAY The interim administration in Iraq has budgeted $6 billion for the remainder of 2003. Here's where some of the funds will go: Live Wires: $294M to boost power supply--blackouts are frazzling nerves Law and Order: $233M for a security system Cleanup: $231M to repair damage caused by looters Self-defense: $165M for a new Iraq Army, sans Saddam Telecom: $150M to repair and revamp Iraq's communications infrastructure SOURCE:U.S. Defense Dept., U.N. Coalition Provisional Authority Printable version -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The last point is important. The Coalition is increasingly staffing key ministries with Iraqis; an excellent move. The Governing Council is an important first step in constitutional government. Putting Iraqis in charge of their own country is an essential step forward. But none of this absolves the United States of its role and responsibility. Iraq will not become a democracy simply by removing Saddam Hussein and replacing him with other Iraqis. It will require a political and economic transformation, one that will take years and one that the United States has committed itself to. It took seven years in Japan. It has taken almost as long in Bosnia and Kosovo. If we leave hastily, it is certain that Iraq will turn into something quite different from a functioning democracy. There are voices beginning to sound a theme: in the words of one columnist, “at the end of the day, it’s their country.” Well, yes, but we did invade it. The line “Giving Iraq back to the Iraqis” sounds nice, but what it means, in fact, is giving up. Failure in Iraq would be a monumental loss for America’s role in the world. Washington will have created instability in the heart of the oil-producing world; weakened America’s ability to push for change in other Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, and given comfort to its foes. The old order will rejoice and the Middle East would return to its stagnant and self-destructive ways. And things might even get worse. The fundamental purpose behind the invasion of Iraq—more important than the exaggerated claims about weapons of mass destruction—was to begin cleansing the Middle East of the forces that produce terror. Were America to quit, it would give those armies of hate new strength and resolve. A failed Iraq could prove a greater threat to American security than Saddam Hussein’s regime ever was. © 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
HayesStreet, one war at a time... OK? Crap, what the hell. Look, HayesStreet, there was broad political support for the war in Vietnam the first few years. If you want to go to the REAL reason the protests occurred in the first place, I think you need to point a finger at the incredible micro/mismanagement of the conflict by LBJ and his advisors. Had we been blessed with better leadership at the top echelons of our government, we would have gone in with overwhelming force or picked a better place to fight. That's my opinion, anyway. Iraq is a different conflict with it's OWN Administration to blame or praise... whichever the case may be.
Deckard, I couldn't agree more. My contention is mainly that comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam are foolish. The spectre of Vietnam is used, and has been used to strike fear and indecision into the publics mind about ANY intervention we've undertaken since 1975. On Vietnam I would only say that in LBJs defense he was worried (mostly mistakenly) about the Chinese, which is why he didn't just authorize full force, not because he would have shied away from it. Bush has learned that lesson at least, and realized other major powers may huff and puff but are hardly in a position to blow the house down. As for Woofer's post, let them unite and come to Iraq to fight. The anti-war crowd claims there are but a 'few' radicals anyway. The sooner we crush them the better.
If we are talking about numbers or oppressive effect, the Israel are the ones that have killed more civilians oppressed more families, destroyed another groups economy dignity etc. I'm not saying that the Palestinians are great, just that basing arguments of number of innocent people killed is a mistake.
