| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"PagCal" |
| Date: |
05 Jun 2005 04:48:32 AM |
| Object: |
War Without End In Iraq Forcast |
washingtonpost.com
Bush's Optimism On Iraq Debated
Rosy View in Time Of Rising Violence Revives Criticism
By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 5, 2005; A01
President Bush's portrayal of a wilting insurgency in Iraq at a time of
escalating violence and insecurity throughout the country is reviving
the debate over the administration's Iraq strategy and the accuracy of
its upbeat claims.
While Bush and Vice President Cheney offer optimistic assessments of the
situation, a fresh wave of car bombings and other attacks killed 80 U.S.
soldiers and more than 700 Iraqis last month alone and prompted Iraqi
leaders to appeal to the administration for greater help. Privately,
some administration officials have concluded the violence will not
subside through this year.
The disconnect between Rose Garden optimism and Baghdad pessimism,
according to government officials and independent analysts, stems not
only from Bush's focus on tentative signs of long-term progress but also
from the shrinking range of policy options available to him if he is
wrong. Having set out on a course of trying to stand up a new
constitutional, elected government with the security firepower to defend
itself, Bush finds himself locked into a strategy that, even if it
proves successful, foreshadows many more deadly months to come first,
analysts said.
Military commanders in Iraq privately told a visiting congressional
delegation last week that the United States is at least two years away
from adequately training a viable Iraqi military but that it is no
longer reasonable to consider augmenting U.S. troops already strained by
the two-year operation, said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). "The
idea that the insurgents are on the run and we are about to turn the
corner, I did not hear that from anybody," Biden said in an interview.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who joined Biden for part of the trip, said
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others are misleading Americans
about the number of functional Iraqi troops and warned the president to
pay more attention to shutting off Syrian and Iranian assistance to the
insurgency. "We don't want to raise the expectations of the American
people prematurely," he said.
After dialing down criticism of Bush's policy following the successful
January elections in Iraq, congressional Democrats are increasingly
challenging the president's decisions and public assessments, and
developing alternative policy ideas. "The administration has failed to
level with the American people," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M.
Reid (D-Nev.). "It's terrible because they refuse to provide a full
picture of what is really happening there."
Reid traveled to Iraq in April and was confined to heavily fortified
zones in and around Baghdad and prohibited from visiting some of the
most troubled areas where the insurgency is particularly strong. "The
place is in turmoil," he said. Since then, Reid said, he has been
meeting with former Clinton administration officials in an effort to
devise a new Iraq plan, including the possibility of calling for more
U.S. troops and requesting additional international assistance.
The White House says the focus on recent killings overshadows
substantial long-term progress in Iraq, where the January elections
allowed the United States to turn over more control for security to the
Iraqis and set the stage for a new constitution to be written and
approved this fall. Once that happens, White House officials say, a
democratically elected Iraqi government protected by a better trained
and equipped Iraqi military will hold off what remains of the insurgency
and gradually allow U.S. forces to withdraw. Iraq's recent decision to
put 40,000 troops around Baghdad, the most ambitious military move yet
by the two-month-old government, proves that the U.S. plan to eventually
turn over peacekeeping duties is not only viable, but working, White
House officials maintain. Bush and Cheney, however, continue to decline
to set deadlines for how long U.S. troops will remain.
"I am pleased that in less than a year's time, there's a democratically
elected government in Iraq, there are thousands of Iraq soldiers trained
and better equipped to fight for their own country [and] that our
strategy is very clear," Bush said during a Rose Garden news conference
Tuesday. Overall, he said, "I'm pleased with the progress." Cheney
offered an even more hopeful assessment during a CNN interview aired the
night before, saying the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Several Republicans questioned that evaluation. "I cannot say with any
confidence that that is accurate," said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), a
member of the House International Relations Committee. "I think it's
impossible to know how close we are to the insurgency being overcome."
It is not unusual for a president to put the most positive spin possible
on U.S. policy, especially during a time of armed conflict when public
support is crucial. But the administration's assertions about Iraq have
been a source of controversy since the earliest days of the operation,
from the insistence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction
to Cheney's claim of links between Iraq and al Qaeda to the rosy
forecasts about how welcome U.S. troops would be.
A poll conducted last month by the Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press found that only 37 percent of those surveyed approved of
Bush's Iraq policy, while the number of people telling pollsters the war
was not worth the cost has been rising in recent months.
"We are just paying a heavy price for mistakes made before," said Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.).
"It's dangerous when U.S. officials start to believe their own
propaganda," said David L. Phillips, a former State Department
consultant who worked on Iraq planning but quit in frustration in 2003
and has written a book called "Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar
Reconstruction Fiasco." "I have no doubt that they genuinely think that
Iraq is a smashing success and a milestone in their forward freedom
strategy. But if you ask Iraqis, they have a different opinion."
Phillips added that U.S. officials keep pointing to landmarks such as
the January elections as turning points but "at no point have any of
these milestones proven to be breakthroughs."
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari last week lobbied Cheney and
others for a more assertive U.S. military approach in Iraq, as well as
for more help meeting the fall deadline for writing and approving a
constitution. But even that carries risks. "Heavy-handed meddling by the
Bush administration only undermines Iraq's new political leaders,"
Phillips said.
Peter Khalil, a former national security policy adviser for the
Coalition Provisional Authority that ruled Iraq after Hussein's fall,
said the rosy views expressed by Bush and Cheney reflect tentative hopes
for progress down the road rather than a focus on day-to-day events at
the moment. "They're thinking more long term when they make such
optimistic remarks," said Khalil, now a visiting fellow at the Brookings
Institution. "There's some cause for optimism; however, things could
turn badly very quickly."
Major Sunni leaders recently agreed to abandon their boycott of the
political process; if they can be brought into the drafting of a new
constitution and subsequent elections, Khalil and others say, it would
undercut the elements of the insurgency that are powered by disaffection
among the once-ruling Sunni minority. To do that, Khalil said, the new
Shiite-led Iraqi government has to find the right balance in terms of
including former members of Hussein's Sunni-dominated Baath Party.
"If you address these issues, it's very, very difficult to see them
continue on in the use of violence because they become part of that
[governing] structure," Khalil said.
A Western diplomat in Baghdad said victory would have to be won in a
drawn-out struggle that will have peaks and valleys. "We should not
expect some big-bang breakthrough so that one day the insurgency ends,"
he said on the condition of anonymity. "We should expect a long
grind-it-out." After all, he said, "this is the hardest thing we've done
to try to rebuild a state almost from zero."
"If you pull back far enough," he added, "you see a positive trend. . .
.. The negative is we've had some really spectacular car bombs, really
gruesome car bombs and we've had a terrible civilian death toll. . . .
The overall trend lines for the last six to seven months are better, but
not so much better that we can say it's over or we won."
McCain said Bush needs to carefully balance his reassuring statements to
a troubled nation with frank talk about the arduous and unpredictable
future. "It's a long, hard struggle and very gradually maybe we are
making progress," McCain said. "There are tough times ahead."
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