After watching four years of violence and seeing more U.S. military men and women killed in Iraq than during the attacks on September 11th, we must ask ourselves: Does the president have any clue what he’s doing?
It has now been 1,349 days since President Bush stood atop the U.S.S. Lincoln and declared that America had completed its mission in Iraq. Despite that, Wednesday night Bush declared that within the next six months more than 20,000 additional troops will be deployed to Iraq in an effort to squelch the escalating civil war.
It was about a year ago that President Bush waged what was called “Operation Forward Together.” Similar to this latest surge, Operation Forward Together sent an increase in troops to Baghdad in an effort to secure the battlefront. While this surge met with short-term success, the operation ultimately failed because the Iraqi forces could not (or would not) secure the area. Regardless of our troop levels, if power is more important than peace to Iraqi factions, we cannot force peace upon them.
About a month ago, Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria outlined a situation in Iraq that accurately sums up the situation facing our troops on the ground. “On Thursday, just hours before a series of car bombs killed more than 200 people in the Shia stronghold of Sadr City, Sunni militants attacked the Ministry of Health, which is run by one of Moqtada al-Sadr’s followers. Within a couple of hours, American units arrived at the scene and chased off the attackers. The next day, Sadr’s men began reprisals against Sunnis, firing RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) at several mosques. When U.S. forces tried to stop the carnage and restore order, goons from Sadr’s Mahdi Army began firing on American helicopters. In other words, one day the U.S. Army was defending Sadr’s militia and, the next day, was attacked by it.”
Clearly, our troops in Iraq are caught in the middle of a civil war. No matter how many troops we send into Iraq, they will not be able to effectively squelch the violence between the Sunnis and Shiites, which has been waged for hundreds of years. It does not take access to classified documents to comprehend this. In fact, anyone with a Barnes & Noble card could have figured this out. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group report, which is now located on every bookstore shelf in the country, strongly urges against a troop surge. Part of the reason why Operation Forward Together failed was because Iraq was capable of giving only two of the six battalions it had promised to help secured areas cleared by the U.S. forces. By continually sending more troops when Iraqis fail, we send the message that our presence is open-ended and unconditional. Instead, as the report recommended, we should be lowering our troops while increasing the number of special operations forces and U.S. advisers sent to train the Iraqi’s, both militarily and governmentally.
On Dec. 6, the Iraq Study group personally brought its report to the president. For his talk of anticipation, the president spent only one hour with the group and asked no questions. Shortly after, when asked if the report was influencing his strategy, the president couldn’t even say that he’d read the report. Similarly, the vice president has not indicated that he has read the report. Perhaps, if Bush and Cheney had taken the time to read the report, 20,000 soldiers would not be saying good-bye to their families as they prepare to fight the president’s unwinnable war.
This leaves us with the inevitable question of “what now?” Many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress have said that they will deny the president’s funding of an additional troop increase. Others have given the president carte blanche. I call on all our legislators, regardless of party affiliation, to examine the realities on the ground. The opponents of reality contend that withdrawal from Iraq is accepting defeat. This is not the case. Our first mission was to oust Saddam Hussein. Mission accomplished. Then it was to fight the remnants of Hussein’s army. Again, mission accomplished. And then our job was to install a new Iraqi government. Done. With all we’ve given the Iraqis it’s now time for them to stand up and take responsibility so our men and women can come home.
Perhaps the situation was summed up best by a U.S. Armed Forces general interviewed by Newsweek who simply said, “If the Iraqi government doesn’t make political progress then all the troops in the world won’t make any difference.”
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