The Command Post Op-Ed Page

Denial or Forced Perspective?

(Cross-posted at submandave)

Evaluating the success of the elections in Iraq have created a boom market in punditry on all sides of the political equation. I fall into the camp that can’t see past Sunday’s performance as anything other than a resounding success and another step foward for the Iraqi people in their desire for freedom, for the American people in their mission to secure a future free from terrorist threat and for the people of the world who, in many cases in spite of themselves, stand to reap the benefits of a more free and secure planet. At possibly the other extreme you can find the rationl minds at Democratic Underground bemoaning those poor Iraqis who were fooled by the “Chimperor” into voting. What then of a more moderate, dare I say centric response?

Mark Brown bravely asks “What if Bush was right about Iraq?” The Washington Post asks “Who Gets Credit in Iraq?” which logically seems to imply an acknowledgement that something for which one would want credit actually happened. But even while both of these seem to imply some degree of common perception with us Bush supporters, a read of the contents leaves me not so sure.

Mr. Brown’s article contains many poisoned gems, such as (all emphasis added):

• characterizing the Iraqi enthusiasm for the election as the “first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people”
• musing on “this brave new world we are forcing on [the Iraqis]”
• the obligatory question if “Bush is willing to allow the Iraqis to install a government that is free to kick us out”

I should long ago have shed any sense of surprise at the racist condensention of the left, but something this strident still flabbergasts me. Why, in God’s name, wouldn’t freedom mean something to Iraqis? Why should they have to proove to you or anyone else they don’t want to live under a totalitarian regime? How does a phrase like that not only get formed in the mind but committed to paper by an accomplished writer like this?

The Washington Post’s piece is even more fun filled. After being forced to recognize the significance of the elections and acknowledge that many view it as a vindication of Bush’s policies, they unquestioningly jump to the other aisle with the following claim:

“The more common view is that the election vindicated the political vision of Ayatollah Ali Sistani” (emphasis added)

“More common” among whom? I’m not the final authority, but I’ve not seem this idea put forward anywhere else. For a “common view” it certainly is keeping covert. Oh, a reporter from the UK opined that “[t]he reason there was a poll [Sunday] was that the U.S., facing an increasingly intensive war against the five million Sunnis, dared not provoke revolt by the 15 to 16 million Shia.” In that case it must be not only the most common but also the most accurate assesment. Never mind that Bush has not only stated from the beginning that our goal was to hold elections as soon as feasible and that he adamently opposed any delay once the schedule had been set.

Are we again seeing the ascendancy of the Democrats’ well-developed defense by denial? One might easilly look to theabove examples as the political left yet again denying the obvious when it rebuts their position. I believe, however, we are seeing instead more evidence of the forced perspective they impose upon themselves. Let’s review the base assumptions upon which the above commentary is built:

• the United States is wrongfully imposing its will upon the Iraqi people
• the Iraqi campaign was always fated to fail and America woul dhave to retreat in shame
• the President (and his croneys) never really intended to give Iraqis their freedom from the start
• the vast majority of Iraqis want nothing more than for the US to go away and leave them alone

Where have I heard this before? Oh, right, these are bin Ladin’s talking points, almost item by item. Not to imply the left as a whole supports bin Ladin, but, rather, to offer that they find him more honest, accurate and reliable than the current Administration. Now, would a reasonable person see this as more indicative of a problem with the Administration or a problem with its critics’ perception and perspective?

Mark Brown is still wondering “about a timetable for [Bush’s] exit strategy,” never grasping that the only acceptable “exit strategy” is tied not to a timetable but to an event: victory. The Post says that Bush’s adversaries “believe that Iraqi voters have seized the elections as the best means of thwarting U.S. domination of the country.” Despite Mark Brown’s consiliatory lede, both articles still rely upon their old assumptions that are rooted in the other assumption that Bush is bad and he can do no good. Perhaps denial is at the root, but the real symptom evidenced is a complete unwillingness to even question the wisdom and validity of their own assumptions. If this is denial or monumental arrogence, it still has the same effect.

Among the pundits, though, I think the most accurate prediction was actually made by Jon Stewart, when he said

“What if Bush, the president, ours, has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may … implode.”

I don’t think he’ll be alone.

(hat tip: link meister Glenn Reynolds)

Victory

Iraq won. America won. The human race won.

Immediately after polls closed, the New York Times grudgingly released their big story: “Amid Attacks, A Party Atmosphere on Baghdad’s Closed Streets.” You almost had to admire the Times’ pluck: they so wanted tragedy, but they were grudgingly admitting the truth.

But then, barely four hours after polls closed, they changed the headline on the exact same story to this: Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24

You have to laugh, don’t you?

Millions upon millions voted despite being told that they and their families would be murdered—then walked the streets proudly waving their inked fingers, undeniable proof of their exercise of the franchise, showing anyone who wanted to see what they’d just done for themselves, their families, and their country.

Thousands of polling places were open and, despite our worst fears, only a handful saw any violence at all. At the few places that did see violence, people still showed up in droves to vote anyway.

Terrorists—and please, can we now dispense with the Orwellian term “insurgent?”—were openly defied and in some cases beaten senseless by enraged voters armed with nothing but their shoes.

Countless millions walked miles to vote. In one case, a polling place had to be opened over 10 miles away from its original location at the last moment—and people by the thousands streamed on foot, some of them on crutches, just to get there.

There’s an old joke about walking a mile to smoke a camel. Well, these people walked ten miles on crutches just to smoke a terrorist.

How can your heart not burst with admiration?

Millions upon millions—including women and members of every minority group—voted for the first time in their lives. Even in neighboring Iran and Syria, expatriate Iraqis were able to vote while native Iranians and Syrians, still denied the right to vote in their own nations, looked on in wonder as freedom was exercised by their Iraqi friends.

And this is what the New York Times thought the most important, take-home message was: “Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24.”

They couldn’t even call them terrorists.

I’m sure it’ll get worse in the coming days. After all, these are the people who for two years now have consistently painted the greatest American military success story since 1945, and the lowest casualty rate in world history, as a “quagmire” that’s “spinning out of control.” These are the people who’ve given free voice to the modern reactionaries who speak of “imperialism” and “hubris,” who demand that our poltical leaders admit failure, and compare terrorists who bomb hospitals and cut civilians’ heads off to America’s minutemen.

For two years, despite all of this anti-American propagandizing from our own press corps, our brave men and women in the armed forces have been protecting human rights, opening schools and hospitals and power plants and water and sewage treatment centers, stringing telephone and internet wires and helping to open free radio and television stations and newspapers. All while the naysayers just sneered. Then the naysayers and the petty, carping critics could do nothing but bite at GI Joe’s ankles while he was setting up safety zones so that the Iraqis could hold free elections.

Then, while native Iraqi police and army did most of the security work, millions upon millions defied the terrorist threats and voted—while GI Joe stood quietly aside, blocks away from the polling stations and careful to stay out of the way. Our boys and girls were there, ready to help but only if called upon by the Iraqis themselves. And for the most part, they weren’t needed. So they stayed out of sight all over the country, while the Iraqis had their much-deserved day of freedom without our intrusion.

Yes yes. “Insurgents In Baghdad And Elsewhere Kill 24.” That’s the take-home message. You have to laugh, don’t you?

Well, soon it’ll be back to talk of our imperialism and our hubris and our inability to “admit failure.” We’ll see prominent interviews with sullen Iraqis who didn’t vote, or who complain that things still aren’t perfect. Rarely will anyone note the irony that the freedom to complain is something these people never used to have, and that the freedom to vote includes the freedom not to vote if you don’t want to.

Almost two years ago, on February 15, 2003, long before our military action to liberate Iraq from fascist tyrannty began, I started the following internet button campaign:

I remember the names I got called for that. The sneers at my character and at anyone who would display such a button. I remember being called an imperialist, a “Bush apologist,” a right-wing propagandist, a liar, and worse by the kind of people who read things like Daily Kos and Metafilter and Democratic Underground and Truthout and Indymedia and The Nation. By the kind of people who make excuses for lying hate-propagandists like Michael Moore. But those voices, they just get smaller, and tinier, and funnier, and sadder, all the time.

Today, with the exception of the days my sons were born, I have never felt prouder. All of us bloggers who supported Iraq’s liberation from fascism, all of us who worked against the relentlessly defeatist American press corps, have something to be proud of. We were nowhere near as important as those who served in the military, nowhere near as important as the countless Iraqis who took control of their own fate despite the those who said the Iraqis “didn’t want” or were “incapable of” democracy. Our role was small.

But we mattered. We let people know that most of the press wasn’t telling the full story. We let people know that the press wanted us to fail, wanted us to lose. We let people know there was reason for hope and optimism. We let people know this was a fight worth fighting, a cause worthy of American blood and treasure.

By the way, remember this?

I never forgot.

We were right.

(This item originally appeared here.)

Get Out The Vote

I put forward an idea about two years ago at the Halbakery (unfortunately lost in a disk crash last October) that the Hands of Victory, a monument erected in Baghdad to celebrate Iraq’s victory over Iran, should be replaced by the Hands of Democracy, a monument forged using the ashes from the voting slips of the first elections. The idea was uniformly denounced as naive and wishful thinking - denounced to such an extent that I eventually withdrew it.

This past Friday I visited a small warehouse in Ashton, a town a few miles from my home. As I approached the door a neighbour called to me to say that the warehose was closed for the day, as the manager had gone to Collyhurst to cast his vote. I posted a card to let him know I’d visited, and saw a notice posted in his door - it read Gone Votin’. Open Monday.

He fled his country in fear. He set up home in the UK and built a business. He took to his adopted country to the point at which he could humurously modify an English expression. Now, years later, he locks his doors and drives to the polling station to mark his thumb with indelible ink. Nobody thought it was possible - including me.

Today, as we hear that over 70% of his countrymen joined him at the polls, I’m happy to say I was wrong.

Cross-posted at Iraq Election Diatribes and Sortapundit.

A Note to Michael Moore

These are the Iraqi Minutemen. The volunteers for the ING Commandos who are putting their lives on the line against the Foreign and aptly-named “Anti-Iraqi Forces”. The ones who are fighting with bullets, and now with ballots.

But you were half-right. The real Iraqi Minutemen will win - despite your best efforts.

You call yourself a Democrat? Have a look at a real one.

Then say ‘Hello’ to the Dustbin of History.

Photo from Getty Images via the BBC

The Future of (In)security in Iraq

This Sunday, Iraqi citizens at home and abroad will attempt to elect the first representative government in their nation’s history. With the security situation as perilous as it is right now, particularly in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle area, it is unclear how many Iraqis will be willing to risk life and limb in this first and uncertain attempt at free elections. Voter turnout on Jan. 30th will prove absolutely vital in determining how representative, and in turn how legitimate, the new government will be.

What is clear, however, is that those who oppose any form of representative government in Iraq have been doing everything in their power to see that fair elections cannot take place, with an unyielding campaign of roadside bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and other forms of terrorism. They have intimidated their opponents to the point where many political parties are unwilling to release the names of their candidates, lest they become the targets of extremists. Chief among these elements is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist mastermind who is considered by many the most prominent contender to supplant Osama Bin Laden as the figurehead of global jihadism.

Zarqawi has been in Iraq since at least the end of the Saddam Hussein regime, working towards the stated goal of inciting countrywide sectarian war and preventing at all costs the existence of representative government. Zarqawi has gone so far as to declare all Iraqis, and indeed all Muslims who support democracy to be infidels who deserve death. This is worth bearing in mind whenever one hears that Islamic fundamentalism is a response to American imperialism in the Middle East. It is the jihadists who harbor the true imperialist ambitions for Iraq, and they have no compunction about killing Muslims and non-Muslims alike to achieve that goal.

Such enemies of democracy, who are euphemistically and uncritically called “insurgents” by so many in the western media, are without a doubt the greatest threat to the existence of peaceful, civil society in Iraq. The greatest weapon against them, however, is not the might of the American military, or even the Iraqi security forces they have trained, but rather the process of elections themselves. To quote a recent editorial by Brett H. McGurk, a legal advisor to the (former) Coalition Provisional Authority, “As Afghanistan demonstrates, credible elections – elections that are perceived as free and fair – can sap the influence of violent extremists whose only claim to power is force and intimidation.” (Washington Post, January 18)

The case of Afghanistan is obviously different from that of Iraq, where majority-minority ethnic divisions run so close to the surface of political life, and the day-to-day security situation is conspicuously worse in the lead-up to elections, but it remains true that legitimate elections can do more to stem radicalism then force of arms alone. Why else would terrorist thugs like Zarqawi be so hell-bent on preventing them? Not only do they have the most to gain by driving Iraqi society into sectarian violence, they also have the most to lose should the democratic experiment succeed.

Average Iraqis will have a greater stake in defending the government they created in the face of extraordinary personal risk than one imposed on them by the American occupation. If the Bush administration does the intelligent thing and makes the exit of occupying forces conditional upon a popular referendum, then the goal of ending the occupation may be tied to the cultivation of participatory government, and the terrorists will have lost one of the few rallying points from which they draw support. (For more on virtues of this approach, I would direct readers to a column in the January 19th New York Times by several researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.)

Will successful elections mean an immediate end to terrorism and violence in Iraq? Certainly not, but it will mean the beginning of the end for Islamist terrorists like Zarqawi who have tried to use the pretext of fighting the American occupation to institute Taliban style theocracy in Iraq. Sunday’s election may prove be one of the most pivotal battles yet in the global war on against the ideology of Islamic fascism.

Thousands of Expatriates Choose to Vote

After reading co-blogger Daniel’s post over at Iraq Election Diatribes regarding the shortfall in expatriate voter registration, I’d like to make a few comments.

I agree that there are many reasons why 1 in 10 of those eligible to vote have actually registered, not least of which is the fact that there are only 74 registration and voting centres in the 14 countries taking part.

Consider the fact that Democratic voter turnout in the US is typically lower when the weather is bad than when the sun shines. The purported reason for this is that many people who intend to vote blue can’t afford their own transport, and have to walk to their polling place.

Now, imagine expatriate Iraqis as a form of “Super-Democrat” voter, an impoverished demographic driven from their homes with little more than their lives. While it would be unfair and unwise to assume that every expatriate Iraqi lives below the poverty line, I think it would be fair to assume that many do. Disagree if you wish, but I think it’s a fair statement.

Now, while bad weather can keep a potential US voter from walking to his/her polling place, imagine what that voter would do if he/she had to take a train to their nearest registration center 100 miles away in the capital city of their adopted nation to register, and then repeat the journey the following week in order to vote. I know what I’d do, and 9 out of 10 expatriate Iraqis agree with me.

But that’s not what I wanted to say. What I want to say is that I disagree that the number of those to have registered is necessarily low. Consider this:

It is estimated that about 30 percent of U.S. citizens overseas vote. Overall turnout in the 2000 presidential election was more than 50 percent. According to estimates provided by the Foreign Voter Assistance Program, run by the Department of Defense to facilitate overseas voting, turnout among non-government American civilians abroad in the past four presidential elections has fluctuated between 31 percent and 38 percent of eligible voters. (LA Times)

and

Some experts estimate the percentage of eligible U.S. expatriates who voted in the 2000 presidential election was as low as 30%, far less than the overall 51.3% turnout among eligible voters overall.(Fairvote.org)

So, as few as 3 in 10 eligible voters hailing from the seat of democracy bothered to register in 2000, an election that was so hotly contested it invalidated the claim that ‘my vote won’t count’. What’s more, US expatriates are, in the main, affluent and mobile. The majority of civilian expatriates living abroad are either students wealthy enough to pay extortionate foreign citizen tuition fees, or people working abroad in connection with business - meaning that they have good jobs that pay good salaries. Again, I’m basing that on only my own assumptions/prejudices, so feel free to disagree with my logic.

The simple fact is that it isn’t easy to register, and it isn’t easy to vote. There aren’t polling places at every high school. It isn’t possible to post in your vote. You have to work, really work, to get your voice heard as an expatriate Iraqi, and the fact that 93,000 of them have made that effort speaks out to me that the spirit of democracy is alive and well in the hearts of those who are about to get their first taste of self-determination. I can only hope that the Iraqi population shows as much resolve come election day.

Cross-posted at Sortapundit and Iraq Election Diatribes.

The "V" Insurgency

Falluja has pretty much been liberated. There are some “diehards” holed up in al-Shuhada, but they have been completely cut off from the outside world, and the Marines are dealing with them harshly.

So, assuming that we accept the Battle of Falluja is at its end, we must ask ourselves where we go from here? Before that, though, we need to figure out where we are now.

Presently, the insurgency is limited to Sunni Muslims- most of them Iraqi- from predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq. The popular analogy is that it takes the shape of a “triangle,” but that seems slightly misleading. A more appropriate way of looking at the physical shape of the insurgency is as a “V” that extends North out of Baghdad along the Tigris and the Euphrates.

One line of the insurgency goes through Falluja, Ramadi and Haditha and over the border to Syria. The other line goes North through Baqubah, Samarra, Tirkrit and eventually Mosul. The main reason it is important to see the insurgency in this way is because it simplifies the strategy of military defeat. When dealing with a “triangle,” considerations have to be made for isolating a vast region of the country on all sides- which is a tremendously difficult task when you have too few troops to begin with. When you see the insurgency as two distinct lines that follow Iraq’s main water-arteries as they snake through the desert, then you begin to see that the insurgency is not a regional phenomenon so much as it is a supply line phenomenon.

One of the things we are now learning in Falluja is that insurgents have been using the city as a final staging ground for launching attacks into Baghdad. Explosives and other bomb making materials were obtained out of the country, smuggled over the border and then delivered to Falluja where IED’s and car bombs were assembled. They would then be “distributed” to Baghdad and other cities in the “Sunni Triangle.” In a way, this kind of process is a lot like an assembly line in a factory. Imagine being able to disrupt the end of a factory line, and imagine killing most of the workers at the same time. The factory wouldn’t be able to produce the same amount of product. In this case, the product is violence.

Until we secure the border with Syria near the Euphrates, there will be a somewhat steady stream of explosives and money entering Iraq. But by taking Falluja, you have immediately forced the enemy to launch attacks from 75 miles further West of Baghdad. And if any effort is made to pacify Ramadi (which doesn’t offer the insurgents a lot of the amenities Falluja did), you can further that distance by another 125 miles and force insurgents to operate out of Haditha (which is a tiny little backwater at least 5 hours away from Baghdad by car).

One of the things we noticed after taking Samarra a month ago is that the level of violence declined in Baghdad. At the same time, violence increased in Mosul and other cities North of Samarra along the Tigris river. We can infer that Samarra was a way-station en route to Baghdad for insurgents and terrorists looking to foster violence in the capital. Expect a similar effect once activity in Falluja settles. There will still be some violence within the capital, and within areas around the capital, but we can start to see a bubble being constructed to the North and West of Baghdad.

Violence in Ramadi and Mosul is still a troubling thing, but it is far less troubling- given the prospect of trying to organize national elections in January- than violence in Baghdad. For Americans to capitalize on their successes in Falluja and Samarra, they must make sure they plug all the holes and prevent violence from leaking into Baghdad again. It will be a difficult thing to accomplish, but it is possible- particularly considering that it will soon be possible to open up meaningful negotiations with the ex-Baathist Iraqi Nationalists who make up a full 75% of opposition forces (that percentage is probably a little low now that the Marines in Falluja have dealt with a great number of foreign fighters).

After the Battle of Falluja, it should be clear to the ex-Baathists, who have solid negotiating leverage, to begin with, due to their economic status, that the foreign fighters are curses, not enablers. If Zarqawi and his friends are allowed to stay and fight for a new Taliban state then every city in Iraq will soon lie in rubble the way Falluja now does— and the way Afghanistan did after the Russians had had enough of the jihadist ideology. The blueprint for negotiations has already been established by Moktada al-Sadr, and I don’t think it will be long now before we see some secular insurgent leaders follow his suit.

Cross-posted at Mayflower Hill.

So Much For The Truce With Al-Sadr

Newswires and newscasts yesterday were dominated by reports that a deal with rebel Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had been reached. But, if you look at the latest news, yesterday’s optimistic reports AGAIN underline the fragility of western reporting: today the deal is off.

Yesterday’s reports said Al Sadr had agreed to all of the government demands. The most hopeful of these demands — which would have been an authentic milestone-setting achhievement — included disarming his militia and turning it into a peaceful organization that would take its place in Iraq’s new democratic order.

But now Ad Sadr is essentially saying “Never mind!” and “No way” — and there are growing indications that the government is seriously considering storming the mosque now being used by Al Sadr to as shield him from consequences:

Fierce fighting erupted in the city of Najaf Thursday after a rebel Shi’ite cleric defied an Iraqi government threat to attack his stronghold in a holy shrine and rejected demands that he end his uprising.

Thick black smoke poured into the sky from near the Imam Ali Mosque, soon after Moqtada al-Sadr spurned the ultimatum from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. U.S. aircraft and tanks pounded the area around the shrine.

It was not immediately clear if the government’s threatened offensive was under way at the mosque, where the radical cleric and his Mehdi Army militia have holed up.

Away from the mosque area, three mortar bombs hit a Najaf police station in quick succession, killing seven police and wounding 21 others, police said.

Sadr reverted to his trademark defiance after two days in which he had appeared to be willing to disarm his militia and leave Iraq’s holiest Shi’ite shrine.

Asked about the latest government demands, Sheikh Ahmed al-Sheibani, a senior Sadr aide and Mehdi Army commander, told reporters inside the mosque, “It is very clear that we reject them.”

This all suggests only one side will be left prominently standing when this is over: the Iraq government’s or al-Sadr. And, the news report says, the government is already suffering from the turmoil:

The two-week rebellion has badly dented Allawi’s authority, killed hundreds and rattled world oil markets. Oil prices hit a new record of $47.95 for a barrel of U.S. light crude.

Iraqi Minister of State Kasim Daoud told a news conference in Najaf the government had exhausted all peaceful means to persuade Sadr to back down and was determined to impose a military solution unless the cleric surrendered.

He said the scion of a respected Shi’ite clerical dynasty was facing his “final hours” before an attack.

Daoud vowed to liberate the Imam Ali Mosque but declined to say whether the government would storm the site itself.

It sounds like one way or another the mosque will be stormed or somehow flushed out. The government (and the U.S. which won’t be sending in troops but will back an attempt to take the mosque) has no choice unless it wants its authority to keep slipping away. No matter how much it’s provoked, storming the mosque will create some new problems — problems al-Sadr and other militant Muslims would like to see the new government (and the U.S.) have.

But now the choice is how to solidify the authority of a new government amid signs the rebellion is already hurting the government. The surprise would be if the government allowed this stalemate to continue.

The Goalposts: Defining Victory In Iraq

This is a reprint of an essay I posted to my blog earlier this week.

We can’t well judge where we stand on victory in Iraq - and how much more needs to be done - without stepping back and reviewing what our objectives there were in the first place. I’m not looking so much to answer all these questions in this one entry as to frame the issues:

1. Removing the Regime: As I’ve explained repeatedly before (see here, for example) and will no doubt return to again soon, the first and primary reason for the Iraq war was the nature of the regime itself - implacably hostile to the United States, planted at the center of the region that has been the epicenter for terrorism against the United States and its allies, immune to outside persuasion or pressure, safe from any internal revolt, and unpredictable in its actions. The regime’s record on numerous issues supported the conclusion that it could neither be changed nor safely ignored. Recall just one example, one of the most critical facts about Saddam Hussein’s regime: after September 11, when nearly all of the world’s worst dictators - Castro, Khaddafi, even Arafat - were lining up to give lip service to denouncing the attacks, Saddam’s state-run media was trumpeting them with front-page celebrations. The Ba’athist regime put up murals cheering the attacks. All of which underlined why the United States Congress had passed, and President Clinton signed into law, legislation making “regime change” in Iraq the formal policy of the United States. Removing the regime would also take care of its appalling human rights record.

The objective of removing the regime was, of course, accomplished by mid-April 2003, which is what anyone who was paying attention understood to be the “Mission Accomplished” announced by President Bush a few weeks later. The final nails in the coffin were the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein and the December 2003 capture of Saddam himself. While it’s true that some ex-Ba’athists are starting to resurface in the new Iraq, notably in the Fallujah Brigade tasked with pacifying Fallujah (and now the head of the new provisional government), that’s as unremarkable as the presence of ex-Communists (like Yeltsin and Putin) in post-Soviet Russia, given the lack of alternatives to being in the Ba’ath party while Saddam ruled the country. There’s nothing to fear in terms of the regime rising again in anything resembling its prior form, especially given how much of that form was dictated by the personality of Saddam Hussein himself.

2. Removal of the WMD Threat - While the human element was Iraq’s chief threat, the regime’s persistent pursuit of weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, nuclear - was, famously, the subject of international debate for years before the war dating back to Israel’s bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. On the issue of WMD programs, we can feel pretty good about what we’ve accomplished - we know that the regime was continuing to, at a minimum, ‘keep its powder dry’ in terms of maintaining the know-how and capability to ramp up production of chemical and biological weapons, which are cheaper, quicker and easier to produce and transport than nuclear weapons; that that capability was concealed from weapons inspectors; and that that capability is now dissipated.

Actual weapons - including the large stockpiles previously identified by the UN (and cited by President Bush) but not accounted for - are another matter. If we ever get comfortable that there really were no such stockpiles by the time of the war, of course, that would be good news; a propaganda victory for war opponents, but good news nonetheless. On the other hand, if there’s one thing that’s made me genuinely nervous about the aftermath of the war (or perhaps the interminable 14-month “rush to war”), it’s the possibility that WMD materiel made its way to Syria or into the hands of rogue individuals or groups, including Al Qaeda or other international terror groups. Thus, it remains premature to declare victory on this front, and we may never really get to the bottom of the question.

3. Eliminate Iraq as a Terrorist Safe Haven: Regardless of the continuing debate over the extent of Saddam’s active operational and financial assistance to various terror groups, the incontestible fact remains that Iraq before March 2003 was (as Iran and Syria remain) a black hole on the map into which terrorists of all kinds - Zarqawi, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, Ansar Al-Islam, possibly some of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers - could disappear or encamp without fear of being apprehended or reliably traced. For the moment, that aspect has been greatly diminished - it’s true that we haven’t found Zarqawi, but then fugitives in the US have been known to evade capture for years as well, and there have been many, many foreign terrorists captured or killed by US forces there. There’s at least been very significant progress in reducing the freedom of terrorists to move into Iraq as a safe haven. And, of course, Saddam is no longer pumping cash into the suicide-bombing operations in Israel, which is good.

4. Prevent the Re-Emergence of a Hostile Regime: Obviously, this is the big-ticket endgame right now, and one that might ultimately require us to play power politics, since neither the Shiites, the Sunnis nor the Kurds can create a dangerous rogue regime in Iraq if the other two groups retain some base of power. The major danger would be an Islamist theocracy controlled by Iran under someone like al-Sadr (who’s pretty well discredited and weakened at the moment, although the careers of the likes of Khomeini and Saddam suggest that a guy like this is a continuing danger to bounce back until he’s actually dead or in permanent US custody).

5. Prevent the Descent of Iraq into a Failed State: The opposite pole, and the first of the objectives that represents an objective of the reconstruction rather than the war (although Christopher Hitchens, among others, has argued that Iraq was headed this way anyway) is preventing anarchy - if Iraq winds up looking like Somalia, it will resume its status as a place for transnational terror groups to congregate. Again, the jury’s still out, but the growth of local institutions in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south hopefully could create a fallback position where if post-occupation Iraq started to crumble, there would be hope of salvaging parts of the country from anarchy.

6. Building a Role Model: Most of the objectives of the Iraq war were negative - get Saddam out of power, stop the spread of weapons and terror groups, etc. The positive goal - building democracy in Iraq - has attracted mountains of scorn, but when you consider that we had little choice but to try to rebuild the place anyway once we’d removed the existing regime, why wouldn’t we want to use all the persuasive powers at our command to try to provide a positive example to the rest of the region? Needless to say, this aspect of President Bush’s “forward strategy of freedom” has a ways to go, although there’s no reason to suspect that there won’t be elections by January - the more troubling question is what comes after that. My own bottom line: regardless of the shape it takes, if the resulting institutions provide accountable government that the Iraqi people are happy with, that alone will put pressure on the neighbors to shape up. Considering the number of former tyrannies around the world that have transitioned to functioning or semi-functioning democracies in the last 20 years without any U.S. troops at all, and sometimes in the face of bitter-end internal resistance, faltering economies, and/or inhospitable cultural traditions, I hardly consider this an unrealistic endeavor.

7. Humanitarian Reconstruction: Rebuilding roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Keeping the lights on. By all accounts, this is going well. In fact, we made significant progress just by putting and end to the failed sanctions regime, which gave the “containment” policy a brutal cost in human life.

8. Prevent Iraqi-on-Iraqi Violence: At the end of the day, this is Iraq’s problem, not ours, although we obviously need to keep violence from overwhelming the other mission objectives. The US media has tended to elevated this to Job One in Iraq, thus missing the entire point of the exercise.

(I’m ignoring “prevent violence against US troops,” since that’s not so much an end goal as something we’re trying to do while working towards our goals; in military terms, force protection is an ongoing priority but not a mission objective - if every other job on the list was done, we could keep the troops safe just by bringing them home. The importance and difficulty of protecting our forces has, of course, been a critical concern through all of this.).

9. Flypaper The notion that our troops would serve as “flypaper” - attracting jihadist fanatics to Iraq to kill them rather than have to hunt them down elsewhere - always struck me more as a sliver lining to the cloud of the insurgency rather than a positive goal. It’s not that we actually want people attacking our soldiers. But if they are going to pour into Iraq, killing a lot of them is a laudable goal that will advance our ultimate war aims, and the casualty figures from the front suggest that we are indeed doing this at a fairly high volume.

10. Get the Wells Pumping: Nobody seriously argued that oil should have been a valid reason for war - we could have increased Iraq’s production by lifting UN sanctions - but given oil’s importance to the Iraqi, world and US economies, getting the wells pumping at full tilt was obviously an important thing to do. From what I’ve read, that’s going fine, although it may be some time before Iraq can really tap into its full potential as an oil producer.

11. Reorganize US Base Structure: Basing US troops in Saudi Arabia, of course, was not only expensive and inefficient (like the Germans, the Saudis could be picky about where they would let us go), but also an irritant cited by bin Laden as a grounds for jihad. We seem to be headed towards the first leg of this objective, getting our bases out of Saudi Arabia, and for now we have temporary bases in Iraq from which to stage more operations against the likes of Syria and Iran. But it’s an open question whether the new Iraqi government will agree to long-term basing rights.

I’ve probably forgotten something, and I’m also leaving off some of the more intangible objectives, like demonstrating US resolve, sending a message to other dictators, improving the future credibility of UN resolutions, repaying the Kurds and Shiites for abandoning them in the past, etc. I’m also ignoring the end of the oil-for-food boondoggle, since that wasn’t and couldn’t have been fully appreciated as a war aim before the war.

America, Don't Go Wobbly On Iraq

There are those who say we can’t help Iraq become a Democracy; they’re wrong. They say we should pull out; they’re mistaken. They claim it’s pointless to continue, but they have no sense of history or perspective.

To those who say…

A lot of Iraqis have soured on the occupation and don’t like American troops!: Gee, I wonder how popular American troops were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki a year after we dropped nukes on them? How about in Dresden where we, along with along with the British, firebombed the city and killed 30,000 people? Even though we weren’t loved, we still made it work in post-war Japan and Germany. Certainly our troops today can do the same thing in a country like Iraq where our soldiers are dealing with a population that is, for the most part at least, grateful to us for removing Saddam.

All the Iraqis hate us because of the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. Democracy is impossible now! I’ve seen little evidence beyond pure supposition to support that. In fact, to the contrary, there’s more than a little evidence that the majority of Kurds and Shias weren’t terribly upset by the idea that Sunnis, who had been torturing their people for decades, were getting a dose of their own medicine. That’s not to say that what happened at Abu Ghraib helped matters, but the idea that it was some sort of crippling blow to Democracy in Iraq is sheer nonsense peddled for the most part by the same people who opposed the war in Iraq all along.

It has been more than a year since we invaded, why isn’t Iraq Switzerland yet? People don’t usually put it like this, but this is in effect what they mean. What I say to that is “Was our occupation in Germany or Japan done in a year”? How long did we have to stay in South Korea helping them towards freedom? To think that we should be able to take a war torn country full of people who have lived under a tyrant their whole lives and magically transform them into a stable, prospering, democracy in little over a year is expecting too much, too soon.

Look how many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. We can’t keep that up!: We should never forget the American lives lost in Iraq, nor the soldiers who have been wounded. It’s a terrible thing for an American to have to die or lose a limb fighting in a foreign land. Moreover, we should not minimize the grief and hardship it causes for their friends and families. There’s no such thing as “light casualties” to someone who has had a loved one killed or injured in combat.

However, we must also remember that we have lost a very small number of soldiers in Iraq compared to other conflicts America has been engaged in during our history. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, from the time we invaded until now, it has been roughly 14 1/2 months. In that time, we’ve had 784 fatalities in Iraq. Let’s say we lost that many every year from now on in Iraq. According to the statistics I gathered from the United States Combat Casualty Digest, it would take…

717 years to = the 562,130 American lives lost on both sides of the Civil War

148 years to = the 116,708 American lives lost in WW1

520 years to = the 408,306 American lives lost in WW2

69 years to = the 54,246 American lives lost in the Korean War

74 years to = the 58,219 American lives lost in the Vietnam War

Make no mistake about it, we’re capable of hanging in there. Especially since cutting and running now would mean that the soldiers who have already given their lives would have died in vain.

We need more troops in Iraq to succeed and why haven’t the marines rampaged through Fallujah yet? We’re not doing enough militarily to win in Iraq right now!: The generals in Iraq are not currently asking for more troops and the marines on the ground in Fallujah ultimately made the decision to hand that city over to Iraqi forces. Our military forces are not only the best the world has ever seen, they’re on the ground in Iraq and have a better understanding of what’s going on than anyone stateside. As far as I’m concerned, they have a better handle on combat operations in Iraq than any grandstanding politicians, knowitall ex-generals, or pontificating pundits. I trust our military’s judgement in these matters and so should everyone else.

Why don’t we have a plan? If we had a plan everything would be smooth sailing. Without a plan we can’t succeed!: Look, there is no such thing as an “Idiot’s Guide to Turning Arab Nations Into Democracies”. It has been tougher than expected in Iraq, but on the other hand there have been local elections, we turn over partial sovereignty at the end of June, we have elections scheduled for Jan of 2005, Al-Sadr’s unpopular insurgency is petering out and Fallujah is quiet for the moment. Obviously, we do have a plan and it’s working, even if things haven’t been as smooth as we’d like.

Why aren’t the Iraqis doing something for themselves? We have to handle all the security and they don’t even care!: Right now, there are 200,000 members of the Iraqi Army, Civil Defense Corps, police services, border patrol and infrastructure protection agency and we’re adding more of them and improving their training all the time. We don’t know how long it’ll be until the Iraqis can handle their own security without our help, but that time is getting closer every day.

Make no mistake about it, the biggest threat to Iraqi Democracy is not civil war between the Sunnis and Shias or a major uprising against the US, it’s American resolve. If we have the courage to persevere, we can help the Iraqis rule themselves instead of — to our eternal shame — abandoning them to some “benevolent” dictator or pulling out before they’re ready and creating the conditions that would make a civil war likely. What we’re doing is right, just, in our interests, and succeeding. At this point, we just need to stick in there, support the troops, and most importantly, don’t go wobbly on Iraq!

An Iraqi Doctor's Abu Ghraib Experience

Time for some real journalism.

On the weblog Iraq The Model, Iraqi MD Ali interviews a friend and fellow doctor about his experience working for a month in Abu Ghraib prison. His interview provides crucial context and Iraqi perspective sorely (and intentionally?) missing from pictures leaked by CBS 60 Minutes II:

Abu Ghraib, other parts of the picture

Yesterday a friend of mine, who’s also a doctor, visited us. After chatting about old memories, I asked him about his opinions on the current situations in Iraq. I’ve always known this friend to be apathetic when it comes to politics, even if it means what’s happening in Iraq. It was obvious that he hadn’t change and didn’t show any interest in going deep into this conversation. However when I asked him about his opinion on GWB response to the prisoners’ abuse issue, I was surprised to see him show anger and disgust as he said:

This whole thing makes me sick.

Why is that?! I asked.

These thugs are treated much better than what they really deserve!

What are you saying!? You can’t possibly think that this didn’t happen! And they’re still human beings, and there could be some innocents among them.

Of course it happened, and I’m not talking about all the prisoners nor do I support these actions, and there could be some innocents among them, but I doubt it.

Then why do you say such a thing?

Because these events have taken more atention than they should.

I agree but there should be an investigation on this. There are other pictures that were shown lately, and there are talks about others that will be shown in the near future.

Yes, but what happened cannot represent more than 1% of the truth.

Oh I really hope there would be no more than that.

No, that’s not what I meant. What I’m saying is that these events are the exception and not the rule.

How do you know that!? I must say I agree with your presumption, but I don’t have a proof, and I never thought you’d be interested in such issue!

I was there for a whole month!

In Abu-Ghraib!? What were you doing there!?

It was part of my training! Did you forget that!? I know you skipped that at Saddam’s time, but how could you forget that?

Yes, but I thought that with the American troops there, the system must have been changed.

No it’s still the same. We still have to do a month there.

So tell me what did you see there? How’s the situation of the prisoners? Did you see any abuse? Do they get proper medical care? (I was excited to see someone who was actually there, and he was a friend!)

Hey, slow down! I’ll tell you what I know. First of all, the prisoners are divided into two groups; the ordinary criminals and the political ones. I used to visit the ordinary criminals during every shift, and after that, the guards would bring anyone who has a complaint to me at the prison’s hospital.

What about the “political” ones?

I’m not allowed to go to their camps, but when one of them feels ill, the guards bring him to me.

Are the guards all Americans?

No, the American soldiers with the IP watch over and take care of the ordinary criminals, but no one except the Americans is allowed to get near the political ones

How are the medical supplies in the prison?

Not very great, but certainly better from what it was on Saddam’s times. However my work is mainly at night, but in the morning the supplies are usually better.

How many doctors, beside you, were there?

There was an American doctor, who’s always their (His name is Eric, a very nice guy, he and I became friends very fast), and other Iraqi doctors with whom I shared the work, and in the morning, there are always some Iraqi senior doctors; surgeons, physicians…etc.

Why do you say they are very well treated?

They are fed much better than they get at their homes. I mean they eat the same stuff we eat, and it’s pretty good; eggs, cheese, milk and tea, meat, bread and vegetables, everything! And that happened every day, and a good quality too.

Are they allowed to smoke? (I asked this because at Saddam’s times, it was a crime to smoke in prison and anyone caught while doing this would be punished severely).

Yes, but they are given only two cigarettes every day.

What else? How often are they allowed to take a bath? (This may sound strange to some people, but my friend understood my question. We knew from those who spent sometime in Saddam’s prisons, and survived, that they were allowed to take a shower only once every 2-3 weeks.)

Anytime they want! There are bathrooms next to each hall.

Is it the same with the “political” prisoners?

I never went there, but I suppose it’s the same because they were always clean when they came to the hospital, and their clothes were always clean too.

How often do they shave? (I remember a friend who spent 45 days in prison at Saddam’s times had told me that the guards would inspect their beards every day to see if they were shaved properly, and those who were not, would be punished according to the guards’ mood. He also told me that they were of course not allowed to have any shaving razors or machines and would face an even worse punishment in case they found some of these on one of the prisoners. So basically all the prisoners had to smuggle razors, which cost a lot, shave in secrecy and then get rid of the razor immediately! That friend wasn’t even a political prisoner; he was arrested for having a satellite receiver dish in his house!)

I’m not sure, from what I saw, it seemed that there was a barber visiting them frequently, because they had different hair cuts, some of them shaved their beards others kept them or left what was on their chins only. I mean it seemed that they had the haircut they desired!

Yes but what about the way they are treated? And how did you find American soldiers in general?

I’ll tell you about that; first let me tell you that I was surprised with their politeness. Whenever they come to the hospital, they would take of their helmets and show great respect and they either call me Sir or doctor. As for the way they treat the prisoners, they never handcuff anyone of those, political or else, when they bring them for examination and treatment unless I ask them to do so if I know that a particular prisoner is aggressive, and I never saw them beat a prisoner and rarely did one of them use an offensive language with a prisoner.

One of those times, a member of the American MP brought one of the prisoners, who was complaining from a headache, but when I tried to take history from him he said to me “doctor, I had a problem with my partner (he was a homosexual) I’m not Ok and I need a morphine or at least a valium injection” when I told him I can’t do that, he was outraged, swore at me and at the Americans and threatened me. I told the soldier about that, and he said “Ok Sir, just please translate to him what I’m going to say”. I agreed and he said to him “I want you to apologize to the doctor and I want your word as a man that you’ll behave and will never say such things again” and the convict told him he has his word!!

Another incidence I remember was when one of the soldiers brought a young prisoner to the hospital. The boy needed admission but the soldier said he’s not comfortable with leaving the young boy (he was about 18) with those old criminals and wanted to keep him in the isolation room to protect him. I told him that this is not allowed according to the Red Cross regulations. He turned around and saw the paramedics’ room and asked me if he can keep him there, and I told him I couldn’t. The soldier turned to a locked door and asked me about it. I said to him “It’s an extra ward that is almost deserted but I don’t have the keys, as the director of the hospital keeps them with him”. The soldier grew restless, and then he brought some tools, broke that door, fixed it, put a new lock, put the boy inside and then locked the door and gave me the key!

Did you witness any aggressiveness from American soldiers?

Only once. There was a guy who is a troublemaker. He was abnormally aggressive and hated Americans so much. One of those days the soldiers were delivering lunch and he took the soup pot that was still hot and threw it at one of the guards. The guard avoided it and the other guards caught the convict and one of them used an irritant spray that causes sever itching, and then they brought the prisoner to me to treat him.

So you think that these events are isolated?

As far as I know and from what I’ve seen, I’m sure that they are isolated.

But couldn’t it be true that there were abusive actions at those times that the prisoners were afraid to tell you about?

Are you serious!? These criminals, and I mean both types tell me all about there “adventures and bravery”. Some of them told me how they killed an American soldier or burned a humvee, and in their circumstances this equals a confession! Do you think they would’ve been abused and remained silent and not tell me at least!? No, I don’t think any of this happened during the time I was there. It seemed that this happened to a very small group of whom I met no one during that month.

Can you tell me anything about those “political” prisoners? Are they Islamists, Ba’athists or what?

Islamists?? I don't care what they call themselves, but they are thugs, hey swear all the time, and most of them are addicts or homosexuals or both. Still very few of them looked educated.

Ah, that makes them close to Ba’athists. Do you think there are innocents among them?

There could be. Some of them say they are and others boast in front of me, as I said, telling the crimes they committed in details. Of course I’m not naive enough to blindly believe either.

Are they allowed to get outside, and how often? Do they have fans or air coolers inside their halls?

Of course they are! Even you still compare this to what it used to be at Saddam’s times and there’s absolutely no comparison. They play volleyball or basketball everyday, and they have fans in their halls.

Do they have sport suits?

No, it’s much better than Saddam’s days but it’s still a prison and not the Sheraton. They use the same clothes but I’ve seen them wearing train shoes when they play.

Are they allowed to read?

Yes, I’ve seen the ordinary criminals read, and I believe the political are allowed too, because I remember one of them asking me to tell one of the American soldiers that he wanted his book that one of the soldiers had borrowed from him.

So, you believe there’s a lot of clamor here?

As you said these things are unaccepted but I’m sure that they are isolated and they are just very few exceptions that need to be dealt with, but definitely not the rule. The rule is kindness, care and respect that most of these thugs don’t deserve, and that I have seen by my own eyes. However I still don't understand why did this happen.

I agree with you, only it’s not about the criminals, it’s about the few innocents who could suffer without any guilt and it’s about us; those who try to build a new Iraq. We can’t allow ourselves to be like them and we can’t go back to those dark times.

As for "why"; I must say that these few exceptions happen everywhere, only in good society they can be exposed and dealt with fast, while in corrupted regimes, it may take decades for such atrocities to be exposed which encourage the evil people to go on, and exceptions become the rule.

What happened in Abu-Ghraib should be a lesson for us, Iraqis, above all. It showed how justice functions in a democratic society. We should study this lesson carefully, since sooner or later we'll be left alone and it will be our responsibility to deal with such atrocities, as these will never seize to happen.

-By Ali.

Why We Invaded Iraq

Given that we’re more than a year out from the start of the war in Iraq, fighting has flared up recently, and opponents of the war have been trying rewrite history to take advantage of the fact that our intelligence estimates about WMD in Iraq have proven to be inaccurate, it’s important to remind people why we went to Iraq.

To begin with, it’s important to put the war in context. We must remember that we have been trying to remove Saddam Hussein from power since the Gulf War. Here’s David Frum on that subject,

“In the 2000 election, both candidates spoke openly about the need to deal with Saddam Hussein. Al Gore was actually more emphatic on the topic than George Bush was. In 1998, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act. Just to show how conspiratorial they were, they put it in the Congressional record. In 1995, the CIA tried to organize a coup against Saddam Hussein and it failed. The coup was secret, but it has been written about in 5 or 6 books that I know of. In 1991, representatives of President George H. W. Bush went on the radio and urged the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein. So America’s policy on Saddam has been consistent. What we have been arguing about for years are the methods. First, we tried to encourage a rebellion in Iraq, that didn’t work. Then we tried coups; that didn’t work. Then in 1998, we tried funding Iraqi opposition. That might have worked, but the money never actually got appropriated. Then, ultimately we tried direct military power. The idea that Saddam should go has been the policy of the United States since 1991.”

So the idea that we should go after Saddam Hussein was nothing new. But after 9/11, removing Saddam Hussein suddenly became an essential part of the global strategy in the war on terrorism. Why so?

Well, after September 11th, it became apparent that simply going after Al-Qaeda was not going to be enough to prevent future attacks. First off, if you simply target Al-Qaeda, what happens if the core of group simply changes its name or groups with other anti-American terrorists? Furthermore, how can you effectively target terrorists protected by the power of a rogue state? The answer is, “you can’t”. In addition, the training, resources, & protection provided by those rogue states is the very thing that enables a group like Al-Qaeda to become capable of pulling off the sort of attack we saw on 9/11. So in order to prevent future 9/11s, you have to go after not just Al-Qaeda, but all terrorist groups with global reach and the rogue states that support them.

George Bush made that clear in his Sept 20, 2001 speech to the nation when he said,

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated….

And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

Without question, Iraq was a nation that provided “safe haven” for terrorists with “global reach”. Among them were terrormaster Abu Nidal, Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the conspirators in the 1993 WTC bombing, “Khala Khadr al-Salahat, the man who reputedly made the bomb for the Libyans that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over…Scotland,”Abu Abbas, mastermind of the October 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking and murder of Leon Klinghoffer,” & “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, formerly the director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan” who is now believed to be leading Al-Qaeda’s forces in Iraq. Quite frankly, any war on terrorism that didn’t tackle that nest of vipers would have been a war in name only.

Moreover, as devastating as 9/11 was, a terrorist attack featuring weapons of mass destruction could be infinitely worse. Much has been made of the fact that we have not found the stockpiles of WMD that we expected in Iraq. But, there are three points worth making about that.

First of all, there simply was no significant difference between the position the Bush administration had on Iraq’s WMD and the position held by prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, or John Kerry. In short, the overwhelming majority of Democrats & Republicans in Washington believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Secondly, given the size of Iraq and the fact that Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian regime was not cooperating with the UN inspectors, there was no way, even had they been there for a hundred years, that Hans Blix and the rest of the UN inspectors could have confirmed to anyone’s satisfaction that Iraq was not producing WMD. Even a year after the war, when our inspectors have had the run of the country, access to “secret documents”, and have been able to interview Iraqi scientists without Saddam’s”minders” being present, our WMD teams have still not been able to definitively say there are no remaining stockpiles of weapons in Iraq although we certainly suspect that to be the case.

Third, it isn’t as if our intelligence agencies and the politicians citing them were totally wrong about WMDs and Iraq. As David Kay revealed, Iraqi scientists were working on weaponizing anthrax “right up until the end” and had restarted a rudimentary nuclear weapons program in 2000 & 2001. Furthermore, Kay said,

“Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed. Several of these officials acknowledge receiving inquiries since 2000 from Saddam or his sons about how long it would take to either restart CW production or make available chemical weapons.”

Those are not comforting words given that an “Iraqi chemical weapons expert” told “Uday Husayn” that mustard gas could be produced for Saddam’s Fedayeen in two months.

After 9/11, anyone who doesn’t see the potential danger of allowing terrorists like Abdul Rahman Yasin & Abu Abbas to be sheltered by an America hating regime that was working on weaponizing ricin and that could produce mustard gas in two months has an insufficient understanding of the peril facing in our country in my opinion.

Furthermore, there were certainly many other reasons to go to Iraq. Saddam Hussein was an avowed enemy of America who had started two wars of aggression in the region, was steadfast in his support for Palestinian suicide bombers, and brutally oppressed his own people. That last point is especially salient since we justified sending troops to Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, and Somalia almost solely because of “humanitarian reasons”. Personally, I believe in using our military to further American interests, but if “humanitarian purposes” floated your boat in Kosovo or Haiti, I see no reason why it shouldn’t still work for Iraq.

Similar arguments could be made about the UN. The UN Security Council averaged better than a UN Resolution per year for over a decade, the last of which was approved unanimously, demanding that Saddam fulfill the obligations he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. While I have an extraordinarily low opinion of the United Nations, there are many people who hold the UN in high esteem and regard it as an essential part of the world order. But, why should anyone take the UN seriously when even a despised dictator can simply thumb his nose at the UN year after year with no response other than impotent new resolutions?

Also, as I mentioned earlier, Iraq is an essential part of the war on terrorism. That’s not just because we were able to go after the terrorists mentioned earlier, but because terrorists are coming to Iraq to fight our soldiers. Some people see that as a bad thing, but as Christopher Hitchens recently wrote,

“(I)n my experience, dud theories die only to be replaced by new and even dumber ones. The current reigning favorite is that fighting al-Qaida in Iraq is a distraction from the fight against al-Qaida.”

Indeed, we are fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq. And while none of us are happy that our military is risking their lives fighting against terrorists in a foreign land, it could be worse. Instead of fighting the finest soldiers in the world in Iraq, Al-Qaeda could be murdering unarmed American civilians here in the US, at a time and a place of the terrorists’ choosing. Iraq has turned out to be irresistible flypaper for terrorists and quite possibly, we here in the US may have been spared terrorist attacks because of it.

It’s also worth noting that after Saddam was gone, we no longer had a need to keep troops in Saudi Arabia, which was something Al-Qaeda had used as a recruiting tool. Furthermore, we were able to lift the sanctions which had given Saddam an opportunity to starve his political enemies to death while shifting the blame for his murderous actions to the United States. Moreover, if as expected, we can actually help the Iraqis achieve Democracy, it has the potential to be the most significant thing to occur in the Middle-East since the Mamelukes effectively ended the Crusades with their victories in 1291.

If a beachhead of democracy can be established in Iraq, there’s an excellent chance that we’ll see Democratic reforms start to sweep across the region where anti-American tyrants are keeping their populations in control by the skin of their teeth. The influence of a free Iraq could in time help lead to a free Iran, a free Syria, a free Lebanon, a free Saudi Arabia, a free Egypt, etc, etc. We’re not just shooting for an Iraqi Democracy, we’re hoping to see freedom spread across the entire region.

In summary, what we must remember about Iraq is that it’s not simply an optional war like Bosnia or Haiti, it’s an essential part of the war on terrorism and the linchpin of our efforts to help bring democracy to the Middle-East. Potentially, what we’re doing in Iraq could be as important as the work the “Greatest Generation” did in Japan and Germany after WW2, perhaps more so. The Bush administration’s decision to take down Saddam and help the Iraqi people build a better, freer country was not just the right thing to do, it is without question in America’s interests.

Good Politics or Bad Policy

Is Dick Morris floating an idea that may become the Kerry/DNC position on Iraq? While Morris is often dismissed as a denouement, if not joke, he is still one of the sharpest political operatives around. Morris is also the perfect focus group of one; the DNC can disavow his views and position theirs accordingly. I have never been convinced that his ties with Clinton are severed.

Morris’ appearance on Fox yesterday and his current column offers Bush advice on disengaging from Iraq.

Bush will be in real trouble if the situation in Iraq deteriorates. The reported boast of one anti-American demonstrator that he and his ilk “cannot drive America out of Iraq, but we can drive Bush out of the White House, like we did to Carter” is not far-fetched.

So what is Bush to do?

Procedurally, the June 30 deadline for handover of power to the Iraqi government looks like an essential element in the president’s escape from political danger. But behind it must lay humility and a realization of our limited means and the even more attenuated patience of the American people.

We were willing to support Bush in Afghanistan and over the Patriot Act. We backed the invasion of Iraq and agreed that Saddam needed to be removed. Even when no weapons of mass destruction turned up, the American people still supported Bush.

But last week’s polling suggests that Americans are not prepared to sacrifice their sons and daughters to assure democracy in Iraq. That nation, which has never known freedom, may or may not be able to achieve democracy. But Americans are not willing to bet our children on the outcome. Nor should Bush wager his presidency.

As long as Saddam Hussein and his Ba’athist Party are out of power - and do not return - the United States will have accomplished its essential objective in Iraq. Saddam is an evil man. His villainy, coupled with his access to oil wealth, made him a potent threat to peace and freedom. He had to go.

To make sure he remains out of power, we must keep a large garrison, safely ensconced at a secure base, in Iraq once we hand over power to the Iraqi Governing Council.

In effect Morris advises abandoning Iraq to civil war while establishing a “garrison” similar to Gitmo, aka sitting ducks in an angry Arab barrel. Should we betray the Iraqi people we have lost the best, and perhaps the last chance to influence generations of young Arabs, to turn them away from isolation and theocracy to self-governance and participation in the free world.

Morris continues :

But democracy may be a bridge too far in Iraq; even peace may be elusive. We must heed the lessons of Nixon’s successful disengagement from Vietnam. As Nixon did, we must turn the war over to the locals, a process he called Vietnamization.

As today’s news headlines demonstrates this has been a disaster for Vietnam’s minority tribes.

HANOI, Vietnam - Vietnam’s Central Highlands remained sealed off Monday by police and security officials following protests by hundreds of ethnic minority Christians over Easter weekend.

Scores were arrested and injured when more than a thousand people took to the streets Saturday in Buon Ma Thuot, the provincial capital of Daklak, in what was supposed to be peaceful prayer demonstrations against religious repression and land confiscation. Most of the indigenous mountain tribes are Protestant.
[…]
Vietnam recognizes only a handful of state-sponsored religions and has clashed many times with Buddhists and Christians. International human rights groups allege some ethnic minorities have been persecuted for their beliefs and forced to publicly renounce their faith. The European Union and the U.S. State Department have criticized Vietnam for religious repression.

Vietnamization overlaid upon the Northern communist takeover produced the obvious result; a repressive majority regime. Should we adopt a similar withdrawal technique in Iraq a Shi’ite civil war ensues and a theocracy regime will take power in Iraq. The Kurds would demand and fight fiercely for independence, throwing Turkey into turmoil. Civil and territorial wars would roil Iraq and its neighbors. Ba’athists and weaponery would pour back into Iraq from Syria. A theocratic Iraqi government would be little more than Iran’s puppet. Could Saudi Arabia withstand the internal pressures of a unified Iraq and Iran?

Morris is a clever campaigner and reader of popular sentiment, but his advice in this case is poisonous to the American body politic. There is no quick fix. I do not think Bush is considering such a scheme, it goes against his grain and he has surely internalized the failure of his father to take on the task in 1990. The reason Bush 41 didn’t go to Baghdad was not because we couldn’t win as easily as a year ago, but to avoid the situation with which we now grapple.

As a nation we have asked the Iraqi people to trust us to finish what we began a decade ago and we will stand by them. That we betrayed them in 1990 is a large part why they are fearful of aiding us in rooting out the bad actors and thugs, they do not believe we will stay the course. Why would Afghani’s trust us not to do the same? The Arab world will not give western civilization another chance if we cut and run in Iraq and in effect we will have handed a small radical minority the tools to engage us in the next stage of their war, the decimation of the oil fields in order to cripple our civilization. Oh, I can hear the lefties sneering “See, I told you it was about oil”…but our society, comforts and very existence is supported by Mid-East oil, and that is an immutable fact.

What we have undertaken is the most important task since the post-WWII reconstruction of Europe and Japan. To view it through the prism of winning an election is not only exceedingly stupid, but dooms the next administration to chaos and even higher costs in American lives and perhaps the stability of our system for decades. As a nation we have always undertaken what is right, not what is easy. It’s the best part of our character.

Dodge City, Iraq

W. Thomas Smith, Jr. writes in National Review Online:

In a fight that has been compared to both Hue (1968) and Dodge City (19th century), U.S. Marines spent most of last week fighting house-to-house for control of several urban centers in Iraq. The worst of the fighting has been in the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi. There, young Marine riflemen, many less than a year out of boot camp, have been battling black-masked rebel gunmen who don’t seem to care whether they live or die.

The Marines have the advantage of superior battlefield technologies, as well as air and tank support. But in the narrow streets and alleyways, where both belligerents are closing to within yards of one-another, technological advantages are greatly lessened. The edge instead goes to the quickest, most-accurate marksmen and those who are conditioned physically and emotionally to handle the clamor and horror of close-quarters battle.

Fortunately, the Marines are winning. Unfortunately, there have been losses.

Last week, 47 American soldiers and Marines were killed, countrywide. Nearly a thousand Iraqi guerillas — both Shiite and Sunni — were killed.

The death toll spiked on April 6. That day, 12 Marines were killed and over 20 wounded when Iraqi guerillas launched a surprise attack against a U.S. base in Ramadi, just up the road from Fallujah.

Americans back home were shocked. One man compared the Ramadi casualties to the losses suffered during the initial assaults up Hamburger Hill in 1969, a battle lasting for 10 days and ultimately costing the lives of 70 American soldiers. Others have confessed they believe the Iraqi war might be spiraling out of control.

Marines in the fight, however, have an entirely different perception.

Click here for the full article.

Cross-posted at Backcountry Conservative.

Arbitrary Deadlines

Cross-post from OTB

George Will makes a pretty strong case that turning control of Iraq over to, well, whoever it is we’re turning it over to, on June 30 is unwise.

Now Americans must steel themselves for administering the violence necessary to disarm or defeat Iraq’s urban militias, which replicate the problem of modern terrorism - violence that has slipped the leash of states.

For the near term, U.S. policy must flow from Napoleon’s axiom: “If you start to take Vienna - take Vienna.” We started to take Iraq 13 months ago. That mission is far from accomplished.

***

Not much else having gone as planned since the fall of Baghdad, a delay in the transfer of sovereignty, scheduled for June 30, should not be unthinkable. A delay would trigger violence. But, then, the transfer on schedule probably would be preceded by an offensive by the insurgents.

The transfer is to be from the Coalition Provisional Authority, whose authority does not extend throughout the country. A U.S. official in Baghdad says Sadr will be arrested if he appears “any place that we control.”

The transfer is to be to an institutional apparatus that is still unformed. This is approaching at a moment when U.S. forces in Iraq, never adequate for postwar responsibilities, are fewer than they were.

U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient for that mission; unless the civil war is quickly contained, no practicable U.S. deployment will suffice. U.S. forces worldwide cannot continue to cope with Iraq as it is, plus their other duties - peacekeeping, deterrence, training - without stresses that will manifest themselves in severe retention problems in the reserves and regular forces.

Since 9/11, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president.

While the evidence for the “severe retention problems” surprisingly points in the other direction, the point is well taken.

Robert Robb makes the countervailing case.

Were it not for the U.S. occupation, the two rebellious groups might very well be killing each other rather than Americans.

***

Simply put, too many Iraqis still see this as a U.S. fight rather than their own.

You often hear, even from initial opponents of the war, that the United States cannot now “fail” in Iraq. But that’s not an attitude necessarily conducive to our long-term national interest.

There can be different opinions about the extent to which Saddam Hussein constituted a threat to the United States. But whatever the level of the threat, it is now gone.

Moreover, whatever emerges in the wake of Saddam is highly unlikely to poise anywhere near the threat that he did.

This is a classic Realist argument and one I might have been sympathetic to under different circumstances. Indeed, had our stated objective merely been regime change with no talk of creating a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, this may well have been the course to take—a relatively quick strike to take out the enemy and then move on to objectives elsewhere in the war on terrorists. That wasn’t the case, however, and leaving the place in chaos would be a collosal failure. It would also send a signal that democratization in the Middle East, something clearly in our interest—to say nothing of the interest of the citizenry—is unachievable.

Good News from Iraq: Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary, in Davos, Switzerland

From National Review and Andrew Sullivan (scroll down):

- - - - - - -

Impromptus

By Jay Nordlinger, Managing Editor
National Review
January 22, 2004, 8:49 a.m.

Davos Journal, Part I

Friends, I’m writing you from the village of Davos, in Switzerland, where the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum is being held. I will report for the next few days, mixing items of some moment with items of a light nature. (How does that differ from the normal Impromptus, huh?)

- - - - - - -

As for Jack Straw, he makes a striking impression. The session begins at 10:45, but Tony Blair’s minister is not there. David Ignatius announces that he’s expected at 11:05. Straw actually arrives at 10:55. The moderator points out that the minister is ahead of schedule, whereupon Straw quips, “Do you want me to go?” So many of the British seem to have quickness and charm in their blood. One does not have to be an Anglophile to recognize this simple fact of life.

When it’s time to make his prepared remarks, Straw says, “As an adherent to the British parliamentary tradition, I find it physiologically difficult to sit and speak at the same time” — but he does so anyway. What he does is deliver a powerful defense of the Coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq. He gives a defiantly upbeat report on the situation now: the Iraqi police is being firmed up; 70 million revised (i.e., de-Saddamized) textbooks have been distributed; vaccines have been made available; electricity and water are improving; etc., etc.

Straw notes that Iraq has established a currency and a central bank with remarkable speed, but that the press has not taken notice — a well-placed shot. He tells his listeners that they have no idea of the “extravagances” in which Saddam and his “ruling clique” indulged — the palaces boggle the mind. The plunder of the Iraqi people wounds the heart.

Also, Iraqis, during the long Baathist tyranny, were kept in deplorable ignorance. But now they have satellite dishes, which were banned under Saddam, and about 200 newspapers, and unfettered access to the Internet — also banned under Saddam. (Banned in Castro’s Cuba, too, by the way. That is not a datum you’re apt to learn in our media.)

The foreign secretary reminds his audience that Saddam Hussein had violated no fewer than 17 U.N. agreements, and that the U.N. had 173 pages’ worth of WMD concerns. He says — as before, I will paraphrase — “I respect the views of those who disagreed with our action in Iraq. But I would ask them to look back and consider what the situation would be if we had allowed Saddam to continue to defy the U.N. I submit that if we had sat on our hands and not acted, the world today would be a much more dangerous place.”

Someone asks whether Iraq will have to be split apart, given the inharmonious peoples. He responds that the territorial integrity of Iraq must be “absolute,” and points out that we are in a country — Switzerland — that is “highly federated” but “still unified.” He also cites Belgium, with its different regions and tongues — “so these models exist.”

Secretary Straw is sort of needled about Iraq contracts flowing to U.S. companies. He says something arresting, from a foreign official: Again, paraphrasing, “The U.S. taxpayer has put an astonishing amount of money in Iraq, through Congress — and that’s democracy, by the way. It’s only natural that they should want some of the money to come back to American firms. But plenty of subcontracts are going to other Coalition partners. I applaud the astounding generosity of the American people, and I would remind you that the ultimate benefit, of course, accrues to the people of Iraq.”

You can live for many days — or years or decades — and not hear such an evaluation of the American people from any foreign leader.

Olivier Roy interjects that it has been demonstrated that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and no link to al Qaeda — therefore, the only reason to have gone into Iraq was to build a stable democracy, and that the Coalition is doing badly.

Straw does not sit on his hands. He again refers to those 173 pages, in which was mentioned “the strong presumption” — the U.N.’s words — that the regime harbored 10,000 liters of anthrax. “Were we to do nothing?” asks Straw. “Nothing?” It is probably the most dramatic moment of the session.

The secretary adds that he has never claimed a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda — although Saddam had his hands in terror generally (e.g., in the Intifada). (I myself always like to point out that Saddam, after all, gave refuge to Abu Abbas — the Achille Lauro mastermind — and Abu Nidal, an Arab Carlos the Jackal, whom Saddam, in all likelihood, wound up killing, for reasons that make for interesting speculation.)

Straw robustly defends our democracy-building efforts in Iraq, then goes on to sing an ode to democracy at large. He comes from a party, he says, “that lost four elections on the trot” (a wonderful Britishism for “in a row”). “We won the last two. That’s called democracy, and sometimes the side you favor doesn’t win.”

He also explains that he doesn’t especially mind religious parties, which dot Europe (even if they do not tend to be especially religious — think the Christian Democrats, in any country). When an Islamic party in Turkey won power, there was “shock, horror,” but everyone now agrees that that government is “a delight to do business with.”

A questioner notes that all of the experts on an earlier panel — all of them, to a man — averred that the Iraq campaign had made the War on Terror harder. Straw snorts this claim out of school, pointing out that, at a minimum, the Coalition has removed Afghanistan and Iraq from the terror business, and can that be counted as nothing?

Another questioner alleges that Britain et al. are “cooking the books” in Iraq — placing their thumbs heavily on any electoral scale. Straw himself describes this as a charge of “a stitch-up job,” then knocks it down, in no uncertain terms. He again avows his special love of democracy: “I have been democratically elected to public office. Who else in this room can say the same? Let me see hands, please. One? Fine. But I don’t care to take lectures on democracy and democratic legitimacy. Elective office in a democracy has been my life.” What’s more, “‘legitimacy’ is an easy word to mouth, but those who question our methods in Iraq should be asked, ‘What would you do that would be an improvement on what we’re doing?’”

That is a question that tends to shut mouths.

A Turkish participant expresses concern that the Kurds are feeling their oats (so to speak), and cites at least one Kurd who has made loud independence noises. Straw (in paraphrase): “People will take positions, ‘twas ever thus. But when Saddam Hussein was in power, people could not take positions, lest they be killed. True, we’ve found fewer WMD than expected, but we’ve found more mass graves. And now, people don’t get shot for expressing their opinion.”

Another participant chides Secretary Straw for putting the judiciary last in his list of recent Iraqi accomplishments. Obviously, says this man, the government of the U.K. can’t care terribly much about the rule of law. Straw, barely patient, responds that he put the judiciary last because it’s most important, not least, “and I say this as a lawyer.”

So that’s that.

I have gone on about this performance simply because it’s not the kind I am accustomed to witnessing. Certainly we don’t often see such things at international conferences, including the Davos Forum. Straw was commanding, unflinching, persuasive, affable, willing, and factual. He was informed to the gills. He proved a superb explainer/defender of all that we are doing, and have done, and will do in Iraq. I dare say that no American official has performed as well — certainly not Straw’s counterpart, Colin Powell. How much good it would do, around the world and at home, for Powell to make such efforts, with such conviction and knowledge! My suspicion is that most people would come around to the Coalition point of view — or at least not be hostile to it — if it were explained sufficiently well. This has been a failure of the post-9/11 period. But Jack Straw, trust me, is up to the job.

I doubt that we will ever, dear Impromptus-ites, find a foreign minister of a socialist government more congenial. Ever.

The same goes for his PM, actually.

- - - - - - -

Heh. Quite right. Indeed, why do we in the U.S. (and especially in the Democratic Party) seem so willing to let appointed officials from other countries and the U.N. - unelected by the public - lecture us about legitimacy?

"Broomstick One"

Did you hear what the troops were calling the Sikorsky Blackhawk which Hillary used to tour Iraq? "Broomstick One."

Via CPT Patti.

Joy to Iraq

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. were the opening words of US administrator Paul Bremer as he announced the capture of Saddam Hussein.

As one might expect, Iraqis are jubilant.

Hundreds of Kurds rushed from their homes in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, to celebrate the ousted president's capture.

"We are celebrating like it's a wedding," said resident Mustapha Sheriff. "We are finally rid of that criminal."

Volleys of rifle fire also echoed across Baghdad as Iraqis drove around tow