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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (107211)	7/22/2003 6:34:22 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Bush wants to 'move on,' but his problem persists By Dante Chinni WASHINGTON – Things have changed in this town over the past few weeks. Slowly, the steady drip, drip, drip of facts and questions about Iraq has begun to sink into people's heads here. Standing in line at lunch or walking down the street, one can hear snippets of conversations that contain words like "Iraq" and "casualties" and "trouble." Up until the past week or so, a second term for George W. Bush was considered by many to be a done deal. It still may be, but the degree of certainty has begun to wane, as it becomes clear that the issues around the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are more complicated than first appeared. What did the administration really know and when did it know it? The White House has shown obvious signs of unease and has tried to put an end to the debate several times in the past week with its usual heavy-handed approach. "Case closed" has become a kind of administration mantra. "The president has moved on," says White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Maybe he has, but that's a bit like walking off the field in the third inning with the lead and declaring a victory. The president doesn't get to declare an issue dead, particularly when that issue is still in the news and the news is not good. Just last week the new head of military operations in the region finally admitted that the US troops there were in the midst of a guerrilla war in Iraq. The chemical and biological weapons everyone expected to find still haven't materialized. The Iraqi nuclear weapons program that the administration referenced more than once over the past year seems to be either completely nonexistent or so early in its development as to be largely insignificant. Meanwhile, every day brings a few more casualties. That's a lot of problems. And all, in some sense, go back to how this president and his staff "connected the dots" of intelligence that the US had on Iraq. Intelligence comes in bits and pieces, or dots that need to be connected in order to get the full picture. And as the record becomes clearer on what happened in Iraq, there are serious questions about whether the administration was using the right dots or selecting the dots it wanted to draw the picture it got. Since United Nations weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, intelligence experts say there has been little in the way of new information on the country. The administration was forced to grab at what information it could and try to guess where Iraqi weapons programs were in terms of development and geography. Even within the administration, the lack of hard information was troubling, leading to differences in opinion and approach at different agencies. Yet, when the president spoke about Iraq there was little caution in his voice. Mr. Bush's statements were clear and decisive, as they often are. Up to now, the administration's response on allegations concerning the Iraqi nuclear program (that now-famous sentence in his State of the Union address) and the weapons of mass destruction, has been that the president did not lie to anyone. This is a smart White House move. People intrinsically trust Bush to be honest and straightforward. It may also have the added benefit of actually being true. But even if the president didn't lie, the errors on Iraq may speak to a serious issue concerning his judgment. Bush tends to see the world in black and white - divided between good and bad, just people and "evildoers." This is often portrayed as a strength of his presidency, but it can also be a weakness. Going into the war with Iraq, the president made it clear that Saddam Hussein was an evil man who needed to be removed from power. One can only wonder how much that view led him to see the meager strands of evidence the US had gathered on Iraq as proof of a threat far more sinister and far more immediate. As the questions about Iraq have mounted, the president has tried to push concerns aside by saying the world is a better place, a safer place, since Hussein has been removed from power. Whether those words are actually true remains to be seen - we don't yet know what will rise out of the ashes in Iraq. But they are the words of a man with great conviction. In this case, it is legitimate to ask whether that conviction got in the way of finding the truth in Iraq before the nation acted.

To: RealMuLan who wrote (107211)	7/22/2003 6:49:42 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

You may be right, and my initial reaction may be just wishful thinking. But I am sure the morale of the US troops in Iraq will be boosted considerably and the morale of the opposition crushed. The way the two sons were traveling suggests they were desperate, and this will not be lost on the Iraqis. Another positive sign is the high profile of the governing Council, which appears to have real power. I am mystified why the administration is not doing the obvious thing and boosting aid considerably and immediately. Bremer asked for more money explicitly in an interview on NPR a couple of days ago. We already have a $450 billion deficit. Another $10 or $20 billion is just a drop in the ocean. They have only allocated an incredibly stingy $2.5 billion for Iraq. For a guy that has a reputation of excellent political instincts Carl Rove seems to be sleeping at the wheel. $10 or $20 billion is an incredibly cheap price to ensure the boss' reelection. Just a tiny fraction of what the tax cuts cost in terms of deficits. Kyros

To: RealMuLan who wrote (107211)	7/22/2003 7:38:42 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

personally think those guerilla resistance has less to do with Saddam per se, but more to do with the US presence in the country. Just like Jahad would not die just because BL is dead (or not? who knows), the guerilla movement in Iraq will be there as long as the US soldiers are there. I'm sure you're mostly right - but not all the way. Some of the resistance comes from Ba'athist "bitter-enders" who can be eliminated. What's most important is that the vast majority of Iraqis who hate Saddam but are conditioned by thirty years of his terror, know well and truly that he is dead and gone and not coming back. Today was an important step in that direction.

To: RealMuLan who wrote (107211)	7/22/2003 9:07:03 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You're right. It is yet another bit of wishful thinking, that resistance to U.S. occupation will end, when the Baathist leadership is "decapitated". I'll make a prediction: eliminating the Baathists, means that, when enough U.S. soldiers have died, and we decide to leave, the Islamists come to power. And resistance will not end, no matter what happens to the Baathists. Secular fascism is a dying meme; Islamism is a rising meme.

To: RealMuLan who wrote (107211)	7/23/2003 1:07:41 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I personally think those guerilla resistance has less to do with Saddam per se, but more to do with the US presence in the country. nationalpost.com 'Another Vietnam' in Iraq? Not at all Amir Taheri [Snip] There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about lack of security and power cuts. There is anxiety about the future at a time when middle class unemployment is estimated at 40%. Iraqis also wonder why it is that the coalition does not communicate with them more effectively. That does not mean that there is popular support for violent action against the coalition. Another fact is that the violence we have witnessed, especially against American troops, in the past six weeks, is limited to less than 1% of the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni Triangle" that includes parts of Baghdad. Elsewhere, the coalition presence is either accepted as a fact of life or welcomed. On July 4, some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq, including the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland, put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States. "We see our liberation as the start of a friendship with the U.S. and the U.K. that should last a thousand years," says Khalid Kishtaini, one of Iraq's leading novelists. "The U.S. and the U.K. showed that a friend in need is a friend indeed. Nothing can change that." In the early days of the liberation some mosque preachers tested the waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized that their congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme in sermons at the mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on the path of democracy. Even the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr now says that "some good" could come out of the coalition's presence in Iraq I suspect Taheri has the big picture about right. A widely supported guerilla war against the US is unlikely unless the US cocks up a lot worse than it has and I don't think that's in the cards. I can see a Baathist guerilla war against US military which has the US media as its ultimate target. I'm sure that's what we are seeing right now, but it's not going to get support from Iraqis - not even from most members of the Party - even in the "Sunni triangle" they are starting to inform the US military against the remaining resistance. All the US has to do is turn up every day and behave well in the context, (at which it is doing better all the time), and the initial Iraqi suspicion, xenophobia, and resentment for the '91 double cross, will dissipate. Relatedly, there has been a lot of disagreement on the FADG board about whether the US presence in Iraq is "liberation" or "occupation". In practical terms it must be asked how it is perceived by Iraqis. The quick answer some weeks ago given by some Iraqis to media questions was, "You've liberated us. Thanks. Now go home." But it appears their answer is now more nuanced as realization of what a quick US departure might have as outcomes: "The coalition must help us stabilize the situation," he [Sadr] says. "The healing period that we need would not be possible if we are suddenly left alone." Iraqis and Americans have some things in common: They are patriotic, hate tyranny, incessantly disagree amongst themselves, and are entrepreneurial (the Iraqis had a very enterprising culture until recently and it's showing signs of a quick recovery). As it becomes clearer to Iraqis the US does not want to colonize them, or install a new tyranny, promotes freedom of expression and commerce and wants to get alongside them in their new age, the more Iraqis will feel positive about the US presence. Not totally positive, of course, because no one can be completely content with foreign soldiers controlling their territory. One project the US and Iraqis will have in common for sure is the utter defeat of the Baathists and foreign terrorists who sabotage the infrastructure, murder US military personnel, and also murder Iraqis. I think the US/Iraq situation is poorly served descriptively by comparisons to VietNam. The situation is just not the same. The US presence has released the Iraqis from terror and rule by a minority clique; it did not release the Vietnamese from terror, or rule by a minority clique, or, in addition, civil and colonial war. The US presence very likely will prevent civil war and military adventures by Iraq's neighbours. I'm quite sure this last paragraph will be attacked by Sophists who will try to claim the new colonialist/ruling clique is now Bush, etc. Common sense should inform them the US would rather have one significant Arab ally with healthy civic structures and some democratic forms, no matter how ornery and awkward it might be, than a dozen oil rich colonies .>) frank@uscanrelatetoorneryawkward.com