Echo2
09-18-2004, 10:09 AM
Glowing promises can't hide dark turn of events in Iraq
Fri Sep 17, 6:22 AM ET USA Today News
With each passing day, the U.S. war in Iraq is looking bleaker and the Bush administration's rosy scenario less convincing.
Just how bad the insurgency in Iraq has become was underscored by a classified intelligence report prepared for President Bush in July and leaked this week. Its outlook for the country by the end of 2005 is tenuous stability at best, civil war at worst.
Certainty, the facts on the ground make the worst-case prediction seem plausible:
• Insurgents control three dozen cities and towns. While most are in the Sunni Triangle, where Saddam Hussein had enjoyed his broadest support, they're spreading and becoming the base for increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks on U.S. and coalition forces. Those now average 50 a day.
• The number of insurgents, recently put at 5,000 by the Pentagon, now may be 20,000, according to various estimates.
• Deaths of U.S. troops have been climbing since the U.S. turned authority over to an interim Iraqi government on June 28.
In spite of these worrisome developments, the Bush administration continues to put an optimistic face on the situation. It cites progress in bringing democracy and prosperity to Iraq, and says it expects national elections to take place throughout the country in January with the help of 200,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops that will assume security operations in just a few months.
As the U.S. presidential election approaches, the administration has good political reasons to paint the best possible picture of Iraq - particularly since it has few good options for bringing the insurgency under control any time soon. But a White House that hides the truth about a worsening conflict from the American public only loses support for its mission. Vietnam showed that.
This week, even some Republican senators began breaking ranks with the administration's upbeat assessments of the war. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., described Iraq as "beyond pitiful. It's beyond embarrassing. It's now in the zone of dangerous."
Not that the options for suppressing the insurgency are evident. This week, the administration began trying one. It moved to divert more than $3 billion from reconstruction to security and election planning. That's hardly likely to be enough. The United Nations, which is overseeing the elections, has little staff in the country because of the fighting, and it is struggling to recruit a needed 70,000 election workers. Many Iraqis are too fearful to sign up, as insurgents are targeting Iraqis working with foreigners.
Separate efforts to train Iraqi forces to rout the insurgents have yielded mixed results at best. By the Pentagon's estimate, 95,000 are ready, but not to the point where they can carry out the major offensives needed to flush out rebel enclaves.
One possibility - sending in reinforcements for the 160,000 coalition troops - risks a bigger Iraqi backlash, a dilemma the U.S. already faces in offensives underway to retake insurgent strongholds. And large-scale reinforcements aren't available.
While all of the options have downsides, the longer the administration denies the deepening crisis in Iraq, the longer the crisis will fester. That places U.S. troops in greater peril, risks turning Iraq into a terrorist haven and dims hopes of creating a viable government, much less a model of democracy in the Middle East.
By sticking with rosy scenarios during the Vietnam War, U.S. leaders only deepened the quagmire, soured public opinion and eventually retreated.
With so much at stake in Iraq, a U.S. pullout is not an option. But as civil war looms, sorting reality from wishful thinking is the best way to begin averting disaster.
Fri Sep 17, 6:22 AM ET USA Today News
With each passing day, the U.S. war in Iraq is looking bleaker and the Bush administration's rosy scenario less convincing.
Just how bad the insurgency in Iraq has become was underscored by a classified intelligence report prepared for President Bush in July and leaked this week. Its outlook for the country by the end of 2005 is tenuous stability at best, civil war at worst.
Certainty, the facts on the ground make the worst-case prediction seem plausible:
• Insurgents control three dozen cities and towns. While most are in the Sunni Triangle, where Saddam Hussein had enjoyed his broadest support, they're spreading and becoming the base for increasingly sophisticated and frequent attacks on U.S. and coalition forces. Those now average 50 a day.
• The number of insurgents, recently put at 5,000 by the Pentagon, now may be 20,000, according to various estimates.
• Deaths of U.S. troops have been climbing since the U.S. turned authority over to an interim Iraqi government on June 28.
In spite of these worrisome developments, the Bush administration continues to put an optimistic face on the situation. It cites progress in bringing democracy and prosperity to Iraq, and says it expects national elections to take place throughout the country in January with the help of 200,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi troops that will assume security operations in just a few months.
As the U.S. presidential election approaches, the administration has good political reasons to paint the best possible picture of Iraq - particularly since it has few good options for bringing the insurgency under control any time soon. But a White House that hides the truth about a worsening conflict from the American public only loses support for its mission. Vietnam showed that.
This week, even some Republican senators began breaking ranks with the administration's upbeat assessments of the war. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., described Iraq as "beyond pitiful. It's beyond embarrassing. It's now in the zone of dangerous."
Not that the options for suppressing the insurgency are evident. This week, the administration began trying one. It moved to divert more than $3 billion from reconstruction to security and election planning. That's hardly likely to be enough. The United Nations, which is overseeing the elections, has little staff in the country because of the fighting, and it is struggling to recruit a needed 70,000 election workers. Many Iraqis are too fearful to sign up, as insurgents are targeting Iraqis working with foreigners.
Separate efforts to train Iraqi forces to rout the insurgents have yielded mixed results at best. By the Pentagon's estimate, 95,000 are ready, but not to the point where they can carry out the major offensives needed to flush out rebel enclaves.
One possibility - sending in reinforcements for the 160,000 coalition troops - risks a bigger Iraqi backlash, a dilemma the U.S. already faces in offensives underway to retake insurgent strongholds. And large-scale reinforcements aren't available.
While all of the options have downsides, the longer the administration denies the deepening crisis in Iraq, the longer the crisis will fester. That places U.S. troops in greater peril, risks turning Iraq into a terrorist haven and dims hopes of creating a viable government, much less a model of democracy in the Middle East.
By sticking with rosy scenarios during the Vietnam War, U.S. leaders only deepened the quagmire, soured public opinion and eventually retreated.
With so much at stake in Iraq, a U.S. pullout is not an option. But as civil war looms, sorting reality from wishful thinking is the best way to begin averting disaster.