Sacrificial Lion

by Mark Luedtke

http://www.daytoncitypaper.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3147

The greatest failure of Iraq is a failure of imagination. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Americans and politicians often consider the U.S. government omnipotent, and they think any problem can be solved by government. This failure of imagination, to grasp both the simple truths and the enormity of problems, warps our understanding of the situation in Iraq.

Imagine every government employee in Ohio, including the police, was fired and made a wanted criminal all on the same day. Imagine every military unit in Ohio was disbanded and sent home on that same day. Imagine there was no Ohio economy, unreliable electricity, water, sewage, and communications.

Imagine further that Ohio had no democratic tradition, no Constitution, no higher government, was populated by three tribes that have been in civil war for centuries, had spent the last 25 years enslaved by an evil tyrant, was surrounded by rich, tyrannical enemies subverting all progress, and filled with terrorists, armed militias and a foreign army, all struggling for control. Now imagine Iraq.

Everybody failed to imagine the difficulty of establishing a functional democracy in Iraq, most notably President Bush, but America made Donald Rumsfeld the scapegoat. Rumsfeld carried out Bush's directions on Iraq, and firing him for his service the morning after the election was an act of cowardice. By all accounts Don Rumsfeld worked tirelessly to improve the security of all Americans, and suffered nothing but slings and arrows for his trouble.

Rumsfeld was strong willed and abrasive. If press conferences could ever be called entertaining, Rumsfeld's were. He fought to transform the largest bureaucracy in the country, entrenched with 40 years of Cold War mentality, into a force to fight 21^st century wars. After 9/11 he oversaw the historically successful overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But because of the political focus on rebuilding Iraq, it's unlikely Robert Gates will follow up on Rumsfeld's reforms.

If President Bush continues to listen to his commanders, it's unlikely Gates will change much in Iraq either. In congressional hearings after Rumsfeld's resignation, General Abizaid, commander of the Middle East theater, stated that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster. Abizaid said we need neither more nor fewer troops. The recommendations of the military, which have been followed by Rumsfeld and Bush all along, have not changed since Rumsfeld resigned.

Abizaid also said, "When I come to Washington, I feel despair. When I'm in Iraq with my commanders, when I talk to our soldiers, when I talk to the Iraqi leadership, they are not despairing." The perception of the situation in America, driven by the media's focus on body count and Democrats' attempts to hang Iraq around Bush's neck like LBJ's Vietnam, is very different than the perception in Iraq. For that Bush threw Rumsfeld under the bus. Al Qaeda is overjoyed.

No one person is responsible for Iraq because no one person has been in charge. From Tommy Franks' plan to use the Iraqi army for labor and security, to Jay Garner's plans to start a government after no humanitarian crisis arose, to Paul Bremer's orders to criminalize all the Baathist government officials and disband the army; personalities and plans have been fluid. Circumstances, egos, inter-agency turf wars, and a failure of leadership by the President conspired against any coherent plan of action.

Bremer's decision to disband the Iraqi army required U.S. troops to provide security and transformed them from liberators into occupiers. Saddam had used the army to terrorize his own people, and the troops themselves were conscripts forced at gunpoint to serve, so Bremer decided it was best to rebuild the Iraqi military from scratch. Franks had planned to bring his liberators home in months, but as a consequence of Bremer's decision, American troops have occupied Iraq for years. Which plan was better?

Lost from our American-centric viewpoint is that Iraqis are actually responsible for their own country, and their leaders have so far failed to make democracy work. Millions of Iraqis voted for a democratic Iraq, but the majority Shiite leaders seem more interested in domination than compromise and sharing power. The government factions have still failed to negotiate a revenue sharing plan for Iraq's oil money.

Prime Minister Maliki's government also protects Shiite militias. Maliki recently released a captured leader of a Mahdi death squad, and he stopped security operations in Sadr city, home of the Mahdi Army. Stopping coalition forces from destroying the militias removes any incentive the militias have to join the political process.

Gates' plans call for additional U.S. troops in Baghdad, but if they're not allowed to destroy the militias, they'll just provide more targets for the enemy. The U.S. will also make another push for reconciliation and more funds for training Iraqi security forces, but the reality is that those security forces are loyal to mosques and warlords, not the nation of Iraq.

Where Colin Powell failed, Gates will try to re-engage regional allies like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to help in Iraq. The one change that would most likely produce results, allowing U.S. troops to kill the enemy instead of being restricted from engaging them, is unlikely to occur.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-30-powell-iraq_x.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7053-2004Oct4.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/interviews/

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,118647,00.html?wh=news

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,228438,00.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1114/p01s03-usfp.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1948748,00.html

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2006/11/17/bipartisan_senatorial_grandstanding

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/can_the_iraqis_keep_their_repu.html