Posted on Thu, Dec. 01, 2005
Distrust casts a pall on Bush's war plans
ADMINISTRATION'S DIMINISHED CREDIBILITY HURTS CASE FOR OPTIMISM
Mercury News Editorial
President Bush laid out a strategy for exiting from Iraq in a speech at the Naval Academy on Wednesday. In it, he repeated his sharp criticism of those who call for a definitive timetable for withdrawal.
But make no mistake: The overall number of troops, perhaps a significant portion, will decline next year, regardless of how the war is going.
Since Rep. John Murtha's emotional call, in a House speech two weeks ago, for an immediate pullout, the administration has been under pressure to explain itself. Bush's speech -- an upbeat assessment of the war -- was a response and a rationale for a phased withdrawal.
Bush has steadfastly said that as Iraqi troops stand up, American troops would stand down. And suddenly, the Iraqis are standing tall, in great numbers. Battalions of Iraqi soldiers who were ill-prepared six months ago, by our own generals' admission, are fit, trim and hardened now. Cadres of police will take charge, enabling U.S. troops to retreat from cities and go chase down the main terrorists.
Bush is right that a hasty retreat would be a disaster. We hope he's correct that, in transferring power to the Iraqis, the administration has learned from its mistakes (at least the few it's admitted).
But Americans have great cause for distrust. The administration has deceived Americans about the reasons for, and progress of, the war. Two years ago, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assured Americans over and over that the insurgents were in their last throes. That wasn't true then, and it's not true now. Resistance has grown steadily, to the point that on Wednesday Bush said that terrorists have made Iraq ``the central front in their war against humanity.''
The picture on the ground is more confusing and troubling than Bush acknowledges. With the growth of the Iraqi security forces comes the worry that they have been infiltrated by Shiite militias loyal to Iran or to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The New York Times reported that Iraqis in uniform have been terrorizing Sunni neighborhoods and assassinating leaders.
On Wednesday, two experts from the Army War College who eerily predicted U.S. postwar troubles in Iraq offered a counterpoint to Bush's optimism. W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane wrote, ``It appears increasingly unlikely that U.S., Iraqi and coalition forces will crush the insurgency prior to the beginning of a phased U.S. and coalition withdrawal.''
And, ``It is no longer clear that the United States will be able to create (Iraqi) military and police forces that can secure the entire country no matter how long U.S. forces remain.''
Terrill and Crane agree with Bush that announcing a timetable for withdrawal would be ``catastrophic,'' because the insurgents would simply wait out the Americans, and those cooperating with America would jump sides. There would be civil war.
Only if circumstances were ``irredeemable'' would a withdrawal be justified, they said.
Could the administration be trusted to tell Americans if that were so? |
