New York Times Editorial - A long road ahead in Iraq
New York Times Editorial - A long road ahead in Iraq
The New York Times
Published: June 18, 2006
Rather than engage in a serious debate about America's future course in Iraq, President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress have again opted for sound bites and partisanship. Yet all the choreographed posturing and a one-week flurry of good news cannot blot out the larger picture of dubious trends and dismal prospects. Not only is the glass less than half full. The water level, viewed over months rather than days, is not noticeably rising.
Take the police. It is meaningless to talk about Iraq's taking charge of its own security when the police forces that patrol its cities and run its prisons are rife with sectarian militias and death squads that would sooner wage a civil war than prevent one.
While Bush holds out visions of Iraqi security forces standing up so that Americans can stand down, Iraq's deputy justice minister more candidly told The Washington Post last week that "we cannot control the prisons; it's as simple as that." He added that "our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."
A new interior minister can change that only if backed by a new configuration of political power, no longer subject to vetoes by parties like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq that run some of the very militias that must be curbed.
Consider also the level of sectarian violence, a clear indicator of whether Iraq is moving toward national unity or sectarian conflict. In May 2003, there were five recorded incidents of sectarian violence. In May 2004, there were 10. In May 2005, there were 20. Last month there were 250. This is a very discouraging trend, as is the predictable response: thousands of families fleeing their homes.
Or look over the abysmal record of America's multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort in Iraq, ground to a near halt by the lethal combination of military insecurity, incompetent Pentagon management and rampant American and Iraqi corruption. Electric power output has barely changed for two years; Baghdad residents still have power for only five to eight hours a day. Oil output, the key to Iraq's paying its bills, remains below depressed prewar levels and not much higher than two years ago. Health clinics that were supposed to build good will toward America are so badly over budget and behind schedule that most may never be built.
Pretending things are better than they are will not make them so. America has some very hard strategic choices pressing down on it in Iraq - much more complicated than whether to set an arbitrary target date for troop withdrawal.
Should Washington continue to tolerate the operations of Shiite militias and death squads or should it use American military power to loosen their hold? Should the United States resign itself to slow-motion "ethnic cleansing" in some mixed areas or try to stop it by pouring more American troops into zones around Baghdad and Basra where the threat seems most acute? Is it more urgent to convince Iraq's Arab neighbors that they share a stake in Iraqi stability or to scare them off by proclaiming that America's larger goal in Iraq is to ratchet up the pressure for democratic change in a neighborhood almost universally ruled by authoritarians?
A congressional leadership doing its job would hold hearings on these critical issues instead of setting partisan bear traps for November's election.
After a week in which the U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 2,500 and an Iraqi official spoke of a possible amnesty offer to insurgents who killed some of those Americans - an offer we can safely predict Washington will never allow - the real tragedy of Iraq lies not just in the thousands of Iraqi and American lives lost or the shame of Abu Ghraib or Haditha.
It lies even more in the continued lack of leadership and candor from the White House. No upbeat presidential trip to Baghdad or flag-waving congressional resolution can long divert attention from the sorry reality. More than 130,000 American troops are now spending their fourth year mired in a dangerous and ill- defined mission with no realistic plan for success and no end in sight.
The New York Times
Published: June 18, 2006
Rather than engage in a serious debate about America's future course in Iraq, President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress have again opted for sound bites and partisanship. Yet all the choreographed posturing and a one-week flurry of good news cannot blot out the larger picture of dubious trends and dismal prospects. Not only is the glass less than half full. The water level, viewed over months rather than days, is not noticeably rising.
Take the police. It is meaningless to talk about Iraq's taking charge of its own security when the police forces that patrol its cities and run its prisons are rife with sectarian militias and death squads that would sooner wage a civil war than prevent one.
While Bush holds out visions of Iraqi security forces standing up so that Americans can stand down, Iraq's deputy justice minister more candidly told The Washington Post last week that "we cannot control the prisons; it's as simple as that." He added that "our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."
A new interior minister can change that only if backed by a new configuration of political power, no longer subject to vetoes by parties like the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq that run some of the very militias that must be curbed.
Consider also the level of sectarian violence, a clear indicator of whether Iraq is moving toward national unity or sectarian conflict. In May 2003, there were five recorded incidents of sectarian violence. In May 2004, there were 10. In May 2005, there were 20. Last month there were 250. This is a very discouraging trend, as is the predictable response: thousands of families fleeing their homes.
Or look over the abysmal record of America's multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort in Iraq, ground to a near halt by the lethal combination of military insecurity, incompetent Pentagon management and rampant American and Iraqi corruption. Electric power output has barely changed for two years; Baghdad residents still have power for only five to eight hours a day. Oil output, the key to Iraq's paying its bills, remains below depressed prewar levels and not much higher than two years ago. Health clinics that were supposed to build good will toward America are so badly over budget and behind schedule that most may never be built.
Pretending things are better than they are will not make them so. America has some very hard strategic choices pressing down on it in Iraq - much more complicated than whether to set an arbitrary target date for troop withdrawal.
Should Washington continue to tolerate the operations of Shiite militias and death squads or should it use American military power to loosen their hold? Should the United States resign itself to slow-motion "ethnic cleansing" in some mixed areas or try to stop it by pouring more American troops into zones around Baghdad and Basra where the threat seems most acute? Is it more urgent to convince Iraq's Arab neighbors that they share a stake in Iraqi stability or to scare them off by proclaiming that America's larger goal in Iraq is to ratchet up the pressure for democratic change in a neighborhood almost universally ruled by authoritarians?
A congressional leadership doing its job would hold hearings on these critical issues instead of setting partisan bear traps for November's election.
After a week in which the U.S. military death toll in Iraq passed 2,500 and an Iraqi official spoke of a possible amnesty offer to insurgents who killed some of those Americans - an offer we can safely predict Washington will never allow - the real tragedy of Iraq lies not just in the thousands of Iraqi and American lives lost or the shame of Abu Ghraib or Haditha.
It lies even more in the continued lack of leadership and candor from the White House. No upbeat presidential trip to Baghdad or flag-waving congressional resolution can long divert attention from the sorry reality. More than 130,000 American troops are now spending their fourth year mired in a dangerous and ill- defined mission with no realistic plan for success and no end in sight.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 6:32 AM
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