We've Done All We Can Do in IraqBy Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page B01
The banner decorating the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, when President Bush announced an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq, turns out to have been accurate after all. If only the president himself had taken to heart the banner's proclamation of "Mission Accomplished." For by that date, having deposed Saddam Hussein, the United States had achieved in Iraq just about all that it has the capacity to achieve. The time has come for Bush to dig the banner out of the closet, drape it across the front of the White House and make it the basis for policy instead of continuing under the inglorious banner of "Mission Impossible."
Ironically, ever since the presidential victory lap of two years ago, the Bush administration has been in the forefront of those insisting that the U.S. mission in Iraq is not accomplished -- that there is ever so much more that the United States can and must do on behalf of the Iraqi people. Hence the grandiose U.S. promises of reconstruction, economic and political reform, and nation-building.
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Getting out now makes sense not just to avoid further running up our bill, but because doing so holds out the prospect of a more favorable result. Granted, constructing a positive case for withdrawal requires a redefinition of purpose. From the outset, the Bush administration has focused on the wrong political objective. Rather than attempting to democratize Iraq as a first step toward "transforming" the Middle East, our proper aim should be to stabilize the country so that we can concentrate our energies on containing and eventually reducing the threat posed by violent Islamic radicals.
more A year earlier in a speech at NYU, Sen. Kerry laid out a plan for iraq and withdrawing troop:
Now, this is not going to be easy. I understand that.
Again, I repeat, every month that's gone by, every offer of help spurned, every alternative not taken for these past months has made this more difficult and those were this president's choices. But even countries that refused to put boots on the ground in Iraq ought to still be prepared to help the United Nations hold an election.
We should also intensify the training of Iraqis to manage and guard the polling places that need to be opened. Otherwise, U.S. forces will end up bearing that burden alone.
If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.
That can achieved.
linkIn June 2005, Kerry wrote:
He also needs to put the training of Iraqi troops on a true six-month wartime footing and ensure that the Iraqi government has the budget needed to deploy them. The administration and the Iraqi government must stop using the requirement that troops be trained in-country as an excuse for refusing offers made by Egypt, Jordan, France and Germany to do more.
The administration must immediately draw up a detailed plan with clear milestones and deadlines for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis after the December elections. The plan should be shared with Congress. The guideposts should take into account political and security needs and objectives and be linked to specific tasks and accomplishments. If Iraqis adopt a constitution and hold elections as planned, support for the insurgency should fall and Iraqi security forces should be able to take on more responsibility. It will also set the stage for American forces to begin to come home.
moreOf course everything done in Iraq, from the government to the constitution to the elections, and now the
oil law, has been orchestrated by the Bush admin via a puppet government.
In October 2005, Kerry shaped the plan for a deadline in his Path Forward speech:
This difficult road traveled demands the unvarnished truth about the road ahead.
To those who suggest we should withdraw all troops immediately -- I say No. A precipitous withdrawal would invite civil and regional chaos and endanger our own security. But to those who rely on the overly simplistic phrase "we will stay as long as it takes," who pretend this is primarily a war against Al Qaeda, and who offer halting, sporadic, diplomatic engagement, I also say -- No, that will only lead us into a quagmire.
The way forward in Iraq is not to pull out precipitously or merely promise to stay "as long as it takes."
To undermine the insurgency, we must instead simultaneously pursue both a political settlement and the withdrawal of American combat forces linked to specific, responsible benchmarks. At the first benchmark, the completion of the December elections, we can start the process of reducing our forces by withdrawing 20,000 troops over the course of the holidays.
The Administration must immediately give Congress and the American people a detailed plan for the transfer of military and police responsibilities on a sector by sector basis to Iraqis so the majority of our combat forces can be withdrawn. No more shell games, no more false reports of progress, but specific and measurable goals.
It is true that our soldiers increasingly fight side by side with Iraqis willing to put their lives on the line for a better future. But history shows that guns alone do not end an insurgency. The real struggle in Iraq -- Sunni versus Shiia -- will only be settled by a political solution, and no political solution can be achieved when the antagonists can rely on the indefinite large scale presence of occupying American combat troops.In fact, because we failed to take advantage of the momentum of our military victory, because we failed to deliver services and let Iraqis choose their leaders early on, our military presence in vast and visible numbers has become part of the problem, not the solution.
moreKerry introduced his deadline in binding legislations in April 2006, which led to
http://www.johnkerry.com/initiatives/kerry_feingold">Kerry-Feingold.
Congress went backward,
unnecessarily, with this recent vote, and they need to be criticized.
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