Mission Still Not Accomplished
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20thu1.html?_r=3D1&th&emc=3Dth&ore=
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Published: March 20, 2008
It has been five years since the United States invaded Iraq and the
world watched in horror as what seemed like a swift victory by modern
soldiers and 21st-century weapons became a nightmare of spiraling
violence, sectarian warfare, insurgency, roadside bombings and ghastly
executions. Iraq's economy was destroyed, and America's reputation was
shredded in the torture rooms of Abu Ghraib, Guant=E1namo Bay, Cuba, and
the Central Intelligence Agency's secret prisons.
These were hard and very costly lessons for a country that had emerged
from the cold war as the world's sole remaining superpower.
Shockingly, President Bush seems to have learned none of them.
*
In a speech on Wednesday, the start of the war's sixth year, Mr. Bush
was stuck in the Neverland of his "Mission Accomplished" speech. In
his mind's eye, the invasion was a "remarkable display of military
effectiveness" that will be studied for generations. The war has
placed the nation on the brink of a great "strategic victory" in Iraq
and against terrorists the world over.
Even now, Mr. Bush talks of Iraqi troops who "took off their uniforms
and faded into the countryside to fight the emergence of a free Iraq"
-- when everyone knows that the American pro-consul, L. Paul Bremer
III, overrode Mr. Bush's national security team and, with the
president's blessing, made the catastrophically bad decision to
disband the Iraqi Army and police force.
Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe that Iraq was on the verge of
"full-blown sectarian warfare" when he boldly ordered an escalation of
forces around Baghdad last year. In fact, sectarian warfare was raging
for months while Mr. Bush refused to listen to the generals, who
wanted a new military approach, or to the vast majority of Americans,
who just wanted him to end the war.
All evidence to the contrary, Mr. Bush is still trying to make it seem
as if Al Qaeda in Iraq was connected to the Al Qaeda that attacked
America on Sept. 11, 2001. He tried to justify an unjustifiable war by
ticking off benefits of deposing Saddam Hussein, but he somehow
managed to forget the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Vice President Dick Cheney was equally deep in denial on Monday when
he declared at a news conference in Baghdad that it has all been "well
worth the effort."
Tell that to the families of nearly 4,000 Americans who have been
killed -- far too many of them because Mr. Bush and his arrogantly
incompetent secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, failed to plan for
an insurgency that many others saw coming. Thousands more Americans
have been wounded and deprived of adequate post-conflict care while
Iraqis have died by the tens of thousands. More than five million have
been driven from their homes.
Add in a cost to the United States that some say could exceed $3
trillion, the new political opening created for Iran, the incalculable
damage to America's reputation and the havoc wreaked on Iraqi society.
Few lament Saddam Hussein's passing, but the war has left Iraq a
broken country, made the United States more vulnerable, not safer, and
stretched the American military to a point that compromises its
ability to fight elsewhere.
The increase in American forces last year initially produced a steep
decline in insurgent attacks. But the conflict has drifted into a
stalemate with the levels of violence remaining constant, and
unacceptably high, from November 2007 through early 2008, according to
a Government Accountability Office re****t. As Mr. Cheney visited Iraq,
a bombing killed 43 people.
*
One of the cruelest ironies is that Iraqis have not taken advantage of
the American troop surge, which was intended to create space for them
to resolve their political differences. After much foot-dragging, they
passed a 2008 budget and a law granting amnesty to thousands of Sunnis
and others in Iraqi jails. But a law on sharing oil wealth is stalled
and one aimed at allowing former Baathist Party members back into
government may actually drive many out. Another bill, mandating
provincial elections by October, was passed by Parliament, then vetoed
by the Presidency Council of Iraq's top leaders. Only after pressure
from Mr. Cheney was it suddenly revived.
The plight of Iraqis uprooted by violence is further proof of how
broken the country is. Some 2.7 million Iraqis are displaced
internally and another 2.4 million have fled as refugees, mostly to
Syria and Jordan. That's nearly 20 percent of Iraq's prewar population
-- the kind of inconvenient truth the Bush administration would rather
ignore.
Although thousands of refugees returned to Iraq last year, most ended
up leaving again because they did not feel secure. American, Iraqi and
international aid to Iraqi refugees is insufficient, and many
refugees, their savings depleted and barred from most jobs, are
despairing, aid workers say. No one knows when -- or if -- they can ever
return. Syria and Jordan generously allowed Iraqis in, but the huge
numbers could destabilize both countries and fuel anti-America
resentment.
The United States agreed to admit a paltry 12,000 Iraqi refugees in
fiscal year 2008; so far, only 2,000 have been processed.
Brighter spots -- Iraq's economy is projected to grow 7 percent this
year -- are offset by problems: millions of Iraqis still don't have
clean water and medical care, thousands are jobless and the Iraqi
Army, while improving, cannot defend the country on its own.
*
Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney refuse to let these facts interfere with their
benighted notion of keeping troops in Iraq indefinitely and insisting
that Iraq -- not Afghanistan and Pakistan where Al Qaeda and the
Taliban have gained ground -- must remain America's top priority.
It was clear long ago that Mr. Bush had no plan for victory, only a
plan for handing this mess to his successor. Americans need to choose
a president with the vision to end this war as cleanly as possible.
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