Why are we still in Iraq? by Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Why are we still in Iraq?
We shouldn't let our elections or economic problems divert us from the need to exit Iraq
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
By Dan Simpson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

There is considerable danger that, with Americans' attention being drawn to the election campaign and the miserable state of the economy that we will lose sight of the unfinished war in Iraq as the priority question still confronting the country.
Dan Simpson , a retired U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com).

On the part of the media, there is no excuse for us to dash off chasing the latest rabbit to break from the brush, whether it be Pakistan, Kenya, the writers' strike or the travails of Britney Spears. The pass that we, the media, as a group gave President Bush, the warmongers and their enablers in 2002 and 2003 is in no small part responsible for the mess that we are in as a country.

For the Bush administration, the Republicans and some of the Democrats, nothing could come as a bigger relief than to be let off the hook by the public's attention turning away from the war in Iraq to other bitter but more sugary topics, such as the lack of job creation, unemployment, inflation, high fuel prices and a ghastly housing market. The difference is that the Iraq war involves the deaths of Americans -- in 2007 the highest number since the invasion in 2003 -- as well as numbing financial costs. ("Financial costs" means $9 billion a month that is poured down the Iraq rat hole rather than being applied to deal with America's growing economic problems.)

As a political issue, Iraq hurts the Republicans more than it hurts the Democrats, although Mr. Bush could not continue to pursue his war if the Democrats in the Congress could get their act together to cut off his funding. The votes of some of the Democratic candidates in 2002 to allow the war remain fixed in history no matter what piece of evasion they are using now to try to weasel away from having taken that position.

Iraq is a perfect disaster, one we should walk away from at a measured pace, but definitively. Its sad state now has nothing to do with the brave struggle that American forces have waged there. It has to do with the lack of wisdom of the initial decision to invade, followed by the ineptitude of America's occupation policies. Those mistakes are now compounded by the almost incredible pigheadedness of Mr. Bush and all those who support him, one way or the other, Republican or Democrat, in not devising and executing a withdrawal policy.

Much self-congratulation on the part of war supporters has accompanied the drop in security incidents in Baghdad that has gradually followed the introduction of 30,000 more U.S. troops -- Mr. Bush's "surge" -- subsequent to his speech on that subject a year ago. The obvious question is, what exactly did anyone think would happen when we added another 30,000 of America's best to the 130,000 already in Iraq? Of course their presence would have an impact.

But, better security to accomplish exactly what? Mr. Bush said it was to permit more Iraqi forces to be trained to take the place of American forces, thus, theoretically, to permit them eventually to come home. He said there would be 18 new Iraqi brigades. Instead, the number has dropped to 15, U.S. troops are assuring security in Baghdad and the Iraqis are deployed elsewhere or are not battle-ready. As of now, reports indicate that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki controls only half of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Then there is the credit that the administration has taken for the fact that some of Iraq's Sunnis have rallied to our side to fight al-Qaida and other insurgents. The phenomenon is called "The Awakening."

Now, would anyone like to assess the motivation of those Sunnis? It couldn't be, by chance, that they want to load up on American arms, ammunition, vehicles, money and know-how in advance of the war with Iraq's Shiites that they know will come when the United States gets around to leaving? Or is it that they have come to love us, the Americans who overthrew their position at the top of the heap in Iraq for the first 70 years of its independence, led for 24 of those years by Saddam Hussein, whom we disposed of?

Then there are all the things the al-Maliki government was supposed to do while U.S. "surge" forces sat on Baghdad. There was supposed to be a new petroleum law, dividing oil receipts, the country's principal resource, among the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Our proteges, the Kurds, have blocked that, and stirred up big trouble with long-time U.S. ally Turkey as well.

There were supposed to be provincial elections, putting into the hands of the Sunnis some of the political power now in the hands of the Shiites. No elections. The Shiites oppose them.

There was supposed to be a reverse de-Baathification law, turning around the early disastrous U.S. decision to ban from public responsibility anyone who ever had anything to do with the Saddam Hussein government. (An Iraqi had to be a member of the Ba'ath Party to be the equivalent of postmaster of McKees Rocks in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.) But there's no law to overturn de-Baathification; the Shiites don't like that idea either.

Iraq, according to Mr. Bush a year ago, was supposed to put $10 billion of its own money alongside American money for reconstruction. It did a third of what it was supposed to do, reconstruction is hamstrung by corruption and sectarianism, and the United States has said quietly that such benchmarks are no longer applicable.

So, looking at what has occurred since Mr. Bush announced his surge a year ago, the record would suggest that now -- at last -- the United States can conclude that enough is enough. Our extra 30,000 troops, 901 U.S. deaths during 2007 and billions more spent, allegedly to make it possible for the Iraqi government to get to the point where it can be left home alone, were basically for little or for nothing. So, we put down our hand, push back from the table and leave. Right?

Or do we let our own elections, peopled in no small part by war-soiled politicians, keep us there for another horrible year? More American deaths, more money. Why are we doing this? Why are the American people letting their grubby, greedy politicians do this to us?
First published on January 9, 2008 at 12:00 am



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