Unequal sacrifice
While American troops and their families bear the burden of the war in Iraq, the Bush administration gets no help from abroad and asks for none at home.
A Times Editorial
Published September 28, 2003
A broad international coalition of the unwilling refuses to provide the military help the Bush administration desperately needs - and claimed it would receive - in Iraq. As a result, American troops will continue to bear virtually the entire burden of a military occupation that grows more costly, and more damaging to the United States' broader security interests, by the day.
The failure to win military help from Europe and the Muslim world is just the latest evidence of the disastrously misguided assumptions on which the administration based its postwar plans in Iraq. President Bush promised that a broad "coalition of the willing" would send troops to Iraq. Yet more than 90 percent of the military personnel - and the military casualties - are still American.
The administration now plans to call up thousands of additional National Guard and Reserve troops in a desperate effort to shore up our overburdened forces in Iraq. Thousands of troops who already have served for months under dangerous and oppressive conditions are having their tours of duty extended on short notice. Most of the National Guard and Reserve forces being asked to assume a greater burden in Iraq are inadequately trained for the duties they will perform. And their families and employers are being asked to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of the war at home.
The president and other top administration officials created false expectations in several other crucial respects.
They said our troops would be welcomed as liberators. Millions of Iraqis view them as unwelcome occupiers.
They said the postwar administration of Iraq would cost relatively little money and require few troops, and they ridiculed and removed military leaders who suggested otherwise. Now they are seeking $87-billion in additional funding and scrambling for ways to maintain current troop levels indefinitely.
They said victory in Iraq would further the Middle East peace process, spur democratic reform throughout the Muslim world and strengthen the international coalition against terrorism. The peace process is in tatters, and anti-American sentiment has grown more intense in the Muslim world and elsewhere.
They said the discovery of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction would vindicate the decision to go to war. The interim report by the American team searching for those weapons says it still has had no luck in finding any solid evidence of their existence.
And they said Americans would fairly share the burdens of war. Yet the burden has fallen almost entirely on our troops and their families. Even with record deficits and an enormous new bill for the war, the president has asked no sacrifice, financial or otherwise, from those Americans best able to contribute to the cause.
Having made this commitment in Iraq, our government has an obligation to finish the job in an honorable way, even if the rest of the world fails to contribute to the effort. Militarily, that means maintaining adequate troop levels in ways that do not amount to a breach of faith with those who serve. Economically, it means paying for the war in an honest and equitable way.
Surveys show that the public overwhelmingly favors repealing tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans as one way of finding the tens of billions of dollars needed to complete our postwar mission. Millions of Americans of more modest means are eager to contribute, whether it means conserving a gallon of gas a week or comforting the families of those called to combat. Yet the president has not yet asked the great majority of Americans to contribute anything more than lip service to this war.
The miscalculations continue to mount. And with the rest of the world refusing to bail out this administration, the burdens of those miscalculations are falling most heavily on those Americans who already have contributed more than their share. |
