Editorial: Iraq burning / Why are we still there?
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The now five-day-long battle between American and Iraqi forces for the city of Najaf continues, the Iraqi death toll from it rises to an estimated 360 and the Shiite holy city comes increasingly to resemble Three Rivers Stadium the morning after the implosion.
A question becomes more nagging: Are Iraqis, in fact, better off with their America-brought freedom than they were under Saddam Hussein?
The United States has taken great pains not to tabulate the death toll of Iraqis since the invasion in March of last year. It has nonetheless been estimated by other observers to stand between 10,000 and 15,000. American forces' losses now number 931, those of other countries, 123.
Saddam Hussein's regime killed a lot of people, mostly Kurds and Shiites, but the death toll it exacted from the Iraqi people tailed off after it had put down the unsuccessful Shiite and Kurd rebellions that followed the first Gulf war 12 years ago. American and British enforcement of no-fly zones in the north and south helped.
The damage rendered to Iraqi economic and social infrastructure, ranging from oil installations to mosques and other holy sites, particularly in the predominantly Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, but also in the Sunni centers of Fallujah and Tikrit, may have by now exceeded what was incurred during the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf war and the rebellions.
Some of it has been Iraqi-on-Iraqi destruction, but there is almost nothing that can match the impact of U.S. high-tech attacks, particularly from the air, in terms of inflicting damage.
A recent unfortunate phenomenon of the 15-month U.S. occupation and appointed Iraqi interim authority period has been the outflow of Iraq's Christian minority from the country. They are at increasing risk in the deteriorating security situation and menaced in a now more politicized religious context by militant Islamic extremists, domestic and foreign, Shiite and Sunni.
So, basically, one can argue that the United States has not in fact brought freedom to Iraq. It has brought instead death, destruction and now near-chaos, including forcing Christians who have lived there since the time of Christ to flee the country to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Forget as reasons for the war weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi support of al-Qaida terrorists and even increased oil supplies. And is Israel really safer with a hot war being waged a few hundred miles from its borders and the Arab world thoroughly riled up over that war?
So why do we stay? The place now called Iraq has been there in one form or other since the dawn of recorded history. Does anyone think the situation there will get better if we stay? Or that it will become substantially worse if we leave? Is our presence not in fact increasingly the bone of contention among warring Iraqis?
Sen. John Kerry and President Bush need to think very carefully about that central question -- stay or get out -- as they as presidential candidates consider and suggest what the United States should do next.
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