Iraq Withdrawal - the Only Way is Out
Alex Higgins
February 21, 2007
Can you see a similarity between the following – insisting Coalition forces stay in Iraq until “the job is done”, perhaps with even more soldiers, or accepting that Coalition forces should stay in Iraq for a few more years to stabilise the situation while also criticising the administration for gross incompetence?
The answer is that, in practice, they amount to doing precisely the same thing. The numbers of those willing to defend the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq shrink by the day, but despite widespread public disenchantment in the US and Britain, those in the political and pundit classes seriously advocating a complete break with current policy are only just beginning to find a voice.
Like William Raspberry, writing two years ago in the 'Washington Post', too many have concluded:
Even those of us who thought President Bush made a hideous moral and military blunder in launching the war are largely sympathetic to the way he is conducting the aftermath -- not because it is particularly successful but because we can't think of anything better.”
We can’t think of anything better” is an honest summary of many of the President’s liberal (and conservative) critics’ actual position on Iraq, but also a terrible indictment. Critics of the war should have been putting effort into better policy alternatives and making the case publicly. If progressives wish to change America and the world we ought to have something to say on the most pressing policy issues facing us - something more substantive than complaining that George Bush is a cretin.
First it is necessary to recognize at this very late date that any policy based on continuing US stewardship of Iraq, even for a short period, is simply untenable.
In the aftermath of its electoral “thumping”, the White House still talks of a victory in Iraq, while Britain’s Tony Blair continues to insist that while he does not want British forces to stay, they must do so “until the job is done” . The fact that the longer they have stayed, the further those goals have become apparently doesn’t phase them.
As Britain’s most senior military figure, General Richard Dannatt, argued in an interview in the 'Daily Mail' in October , the presence of US and British troops “exacerbates the security problems”. The argument that Coalition forces must remain in Iraq until insurgent violence ends or is substantially reduced (“a manageable level” is the sound-bite of the moment, manageable for whom is unclear) makes no more sense than to argue you will continue to rub salt into your wound until it stops hurting.
At the centre of widely expressed hopes for US-engineered stability in Iraq is the training of a new Iraqi Army and police forces. This policy began in 2003 and its near-total failure in the last three years should have led to the conclusion that it is a non-starter. The Australian paper 'The Age' reports on the current state of the police for instance:
At least 20 per cent of those joining the police force were quitting each year. It said record keeping was so poor that it was not known how many police on the payroll were still reporting for duty. But up to 40 per cent of police were believed to be absent.”
In February 2006, the Pentagon stopped publicising the figures for battle-ready Iraqi army units just as the number had reached zero - a decrease of one from the previous year. The reason is that recruits consist largely either of those who are as unwilling to be used to fight in an American war as they were to be cannon-fodder for Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003 but need a job, or those who join seeking the military hardware and know-how for their own purposes, which can and do include killing Coalition soldiers.
On May 24th, the 'New York Times' reported that:
"The headlong, American-backed effort to arm tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and officers, coupled with a failure to curb a nearly equal number of militia gunmen, has created a galaxy of armed groups, each with its own loyalty and agenda, which are accelerating the country's slide into chaos."
The Times’ story was illustrated by the case of the Iraqi 16th brigade that was supposed to guard an oil pipeline on behalf of the Ministry of Oil at Dawra near Baghdad last year, but whose members instead chose to use their weapons to support the insurgency and execute those collaborating with the government. In such ways are your tax-dollars spent.
Surveys of Iraqi opinion – for those who regard democracy in Iraq as something other than a rhetorical flourish to give the Republican Party moral standing it does not have – consistently show the demand of a majority for the US to start leaving.
Furthermore, Iraqis – like General Dannatt - regard the Anglo-American presence as part of the problem – “Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents”, reported by Associated Press in September.
Iraqi calls for withdrawal are echoed by the sentiments of opinion polls among the British and US public, and in the US army itself. Who is missing from this popular consensus that stretches from Seattle to Basra?
Once we appreciate that the only way is out, the question is how to quit and give the greatest opportunity for a less violent Iraq to emerge, leave the least bitterness and hatred, and fulfill some of the basic obligations the US and Britain have to Iraqis for the harm that has been done. The task is not easy, but a well-handled withdrawal offers the greatest hope.
In October, staff at TIME magazine put together a to-do list for a withdrawing US army under the sober heading ‘The End of the Illusion’. With exceptions, the recommendations were essentially to try out policies that have already failed and then unleash a last round of “aggressive counterinsurgency tactics” against the Mahdi Army and the Sunni insurgency. Such suggestions show that the illusion has not ended for some, either about the effectiveness of such tactics, or the unmentioned brutality they involve. ‘Smash and Run’ will deliver piles of corpses and earn much further hatred and contempt for the United States, but little else.
An alternative, costed approach was outlined in Harpers’ magazine by George McGovern and William Polk. They suggest a six-month period of withdrawal of US forces and the creation of an international peace-keeping buffer force consisting of troops drawn from Islamic countries such as Indonesia and Morocco. A UN-led force has been a popular idea in Iraq since 2003, and this plan enjoys wide support among Sunni and Shia parties. Such a force would not attempt counter-insurgency raids but would act to prevent sectarian slaughter and protect civilians at risk. Under the McGovern/Polk plan the construction of a new Iraqi army would be abandoned and instead the focus would be on the gradual creation of a national police force from disparate local units. Such proposals could, as others have suggested, be put to popular referendum.
The US and British governments should then put up generous sums of money – and generosity would be a wise purchase of goodwill – to fund reconstruction through a transparent process as well funds for removing explosive and radioactive ordinance, running healthcare and judicial systems, demolishing military bases, repairing cultural sites and making condolence payments to the victims of the war. There is a cost to this ($7-10 billion), but one vastly less than years or even months of war – and the positive blowback of doing the right thing for once is hard to put a price one. Such a plan also offers Americans and Iraqis the ultimate gift of loved ones still alive, who will otherwise die.
Those who opposed this war or have watched it unfold with ever-greater dismay can “think of something better” and should push for a new course from the new Congress.
Sources:
William Raspberry, Occupation Hazards, Washington Post, December 27th 2004. The piece is mainly critical of calls for greater brutality by US forces in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28092-2004Dec26?language=printer
Blair defiant over Iraq strategy', BBC Online, October 18th, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6062390.stm
Sarah Sands, Sir Richard Dannatt, - A Very Honest General, Daily Mail, October 12th, 2006, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410175&in_page_id=1770
Brendan Nicholson, US Intelligence Reveals Extent of Iraq Carnage, November 11th, 2006,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-intelligence-reveals-extent-of-iraq-carnage/2006/11/10/1162661900468.html
Dexter Filkins, Armed Groups Propel Iraq Toward Violence, New York Times, May 24th, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/world/middleeast/24security.html?ex=1306123200&en=9baaecbd0d8fcb44&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This story was featured by David Corn at his website, www.davidcorn.com.
Barry Schwied, Poll: Iraqis Back Attacks on U.S. Troops, Associated Press, September 28th, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092800408.html
Aparisim Ghosh, The End of the Illusion: 5 Ways to Prevent Iraq From Getting Even Worse, TIME (European Edition), October 30th, 2006
George McGovern and William Polk, ‘The Way Out of Iraq’, Harper’s Magazine, October 2006
The answer is that, in practice, they amount to doing precisely the same thing. The numbers of those willing to defend the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq shrink by the day, but despite widespread public disenchantment in the US and Britain, those in the political and pundit classes seriously advocating a complete break with current policy are only just beginning to find a voice.
Like William Raspberry, writing two years ago in the 'Washington Post', too many have concluded:
Even those of us who thought President Bush made a hideous moral and military blunder in launching the war are largely sympathetic to the way he is conducting the aftermath -- not because it is particularly successful but because we can't think of anything better.”
We can’t think of anything better” is an honest summary of many of the President’s liberal (and conservative) critics’ actual position on Iraq, but also a terrible indictment. Critics of the war should have been putting effort into better policy alternatives and making the case publicly. If progressives wish to change America and the world we ought to have something to say on the most pressing policy issues facing us - something more substantive than complaining that George Bush is a cretin.
First it is necessary to recognize at this very late date that any policy based on continuing US stewardship of Iraq, even for a short period, is simply untenable.
In the aftermath of its electoral “thumping”, the White House still talks of a victory in Iraq, while Britain’s Tony Blair continues to insist that while he does not want British forces to stay, they must do so “until the job is done” . The fact that the longer they have stayed, the further those goals have become apparently doesn’t phase them.
As Britain’s most senior military figure, General Richard Dannatt, argued in an interview in the 'Daily Mail' in October , the presence of US and British troops “exacerbates the security problems”. The argument that Coalition forces must remain in Iraq until insurgent violence ends or is substantially reduced (“a manageable level” is the sound-bite of the moment, manageable for whom is unclear) makes no more sense than to argue you will continue to rub salt into your wound until it stops hurting.
At the centre of widely expressed hopes for US-engineered stability in Iraq is the training of a new Iraqi Army and police forces. This policy began in 2003 and its near-total failure in the last three years should have led to the conclusion that it is a non-starter. The Australian paper 'The Age' reports on the current state of the police for instance:
At least 20 per cent of those joining the police force were quitting each year. It said record keeping was so poor that it was not known how many police on the payroll were still reporting for duty. But up to 40 per cent of police were believed to be absent.”
In February 2006, the Pentagon stopped publicising the figures for battle-ready Iraqi army units just as the number had reached zero - a decrease of one from the previous year. The reason is that recruits consist largely either of those who are as unwilling to be used to fight in an American war as they were to be cannon-fodder for Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003 but need a job, or those who join seeking the military hardware and know-how for their own purposes, which can and do include killing Coalition soldiers.
On May 24th, the 'New York Times' reported that:
"The headlong, American-backed effort to arm tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and officers, coupled with a failure to curb a nearly equal number of militia gunmen, has created a galaxy of armed groups, each with its own loyalty and agenda, which are accelerating the country's slide into chaos."
The Times’ story was illustrated by the case of the Iraqi 16th brigade that was supposed to guard an oil pipeline on behalf of the Ministry of Oil at Dawra near Baghdad last year, but whose members instead chose to use their weapons to support the insurgency and execute those collaborating with the government. In such ways are your tax-dollars spent.
Surveys of Iraqi opinion – for those who regard democracy in Iraq as something other than a rhetorical flourish to give the Republican Party moral standing it does not have – consistently show the demand of a majority for the US to start leaving.
Furthermore, Iraqis – like General Dannatt - regard the Anglo-American presence as part of the problem – “Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents”, reported by Associated Press in September.
Iraqi calls for withdrawal are echoed by the sentiments of opinion polls among the British and US public, and in the US army itself. Who is missing from this popular consensus that stretches from Seattle to Basra?
Once we appreciate that the only way is out, the question is how to quit and give the greatest opportunity for a less violent Iraq to emerge, leave the least bitterness and hatred, and fulfill some of the basic obligations the US and Britain have to Iraqis for the harm that has been done. The task is not easy, but a well-handled withdrawal offers the greatest hope.
In October, staff at TIME magazine put together a to-do list for a withdrawing US army under the sober heading ‘The End of the Illusion’. With exceptions, the recommendations were essentially to try out policies that have already failed and then unleash a last round of “aggressive counterinsurgency tactics” against the Mahdi Army and the Sunni insurgency. Such suggestions show that the illusion has not ended for some, either about the effectiveness of such tactics, or the unmentioned brutality they involve. ‘Smash and Run’ will deliver piles of corpses and earn much further hatred and contempt for the United States, but little else.
An alternative, costed approach was outlined in Harpers’ magazine by George McGovern and William Polk. They suggest a six-month period of withdrawal of US forces and the creation of an international peace-keeping buffer force consisting of troops drawn from Islamic countries such as Indonesia and Morocco. A UN-led force has been a popular idea in Iraq since 2003, and this plan enjoys wide support among Sunni and Shia parties. Such a force would not attempt counter-insurgency raids but would act to prevent sectarian slaughter and protect civilians at risk. Under the McGovern/Polk plan the construction of a new Iraqi army would be abandoned and instead the focus would be on the gradual creation of a national police force from disparate local units. Such proposals could, as others have suggested, be put to popular referendum.
The US and British governments should then put up generous sums of money – and generosity would be a wise purchase of goodwill – to fund reconstruction through a transparent process as well funds for removing explosive and radioactive ordinance, running healthcare and judicial systems, demolishing military bases, repairing cultural sites and making condolence payments to the victims of the war. There is a cost to this ($7-10 billion), but one vastly less than years or even months of war – and the positive blowback of doing the right thing for once is hard to put a price one. Such a plan also offers Americans and Iraqis the ultimate gift of loved ones still alive, who will otherwise die.
Those who opposed this war or have watched it unfold with ever-greater dismay can “think of something better” and should push for a new course from the new Congress.
Sources:
William Raspberry, Occupation Hazards, Washington Post, December 27th 2004. The piece is mainly critical of calls for greater brutality by US forces in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28092-2004Dec26?language=printer
Blair defiant over Iraq strategy', BBC Online, October 18th, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6062390.stm
Sarah Sands, Sir Richard Dannatt, - A Very Honest General, Daily Mail, October 12th, 2006, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410175&in_page_id=1770
Brendan Nicholson, US Intelligence Reveals Extent of Iraq Carnage, November 11th, 2006,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/us-intelligence-reveals-extent-of-iraq-carnage/2006/11/10/1162661900468.html
Dexter Filkins, Armed Groups Propel Iraq Toward Violence, New York Times, May 24th, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/world/middleeast/24security.html?ex=1306123200&en=9baaecbd0d8fcb44&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This story was featured by David Corn at his website, www.davidcorn.com.
Barry Schwied, Poll: Iraqis Back Attacks on U.S. Troops, Associated Press, September 28th, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092800408.html
Aparisim Ghosh, The End of the Illusion: 5 Ways to Prevent Iraq From Getting Even Worse, TIME (European Edition), October 30th, 2006
George McGovern and William Polk, ‘The Way Out of Iraq’, Harper’s Magazine, October 2006
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