On Iraq, change of heart looms
Monday, August 27, 2007
By Bill Cahir
Bill.Cahir@Newhouse.com
WASHINGTON Democrats believed the script would go something like this:
Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus would deliver their report about combat operations, violence and political instability in Iraq, and congressional Republicans, confronted with bad news, would face enormous pressure to vote for an Iraq withdrawal timeline.
But the climate in Washington may have shifted, and the anti-war expectations may not pan out.
Republican lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and U.S. Reps. Charlie Dent in Pennsylvania, along with U.S. Reps. Mike Ferguson and Frank LoBiondo in New Jersey, next month may have a bit more breathing room to stick with President Bush and his plan to surge additional U.S. troops into Iraq.
Military gains in al Anbar Province have surprised policy-makers in Washington and put lawmakers calling for troop cutbacks on the defensive.
n
A Sunni region that includes Fallujah and Ramadi, among other previously violent cities, al Anbar Province has changed dramatically in the past eight months, according to Marine Corps commanders, lawmakers who have visited the region, and independent observers like Kenneth Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution.
Tribal leaders in Ramadi and Fallujah have turned against al-Qaida, they report. Sunnis have begun joining local police forces and taking part in patrols against terror groups. U.S. authorities have begun steering reconstruction funds toward tribes providing intelligence to Marines about the identity and location of terrorist cells.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the Army command in Baghdad, said the positive security trend is spreading. The U.S. Army military now is winning new Sunni allies in and around Baghdad as well, he said.
"You go into an area and you secure the area," Lynch said. "And then you start reaching out to the locals the tribal leadership, the local leadership. And what you find is, once they're convinced you're going to stay, they say, Hey, how can I help?' because they're tired of the violence."
n
Freedom's Watch, a group led by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, last week announced that it would spend $15 million on television advertisements encouraging Republicans to support President Bush and his surge of additional forces into Baghdad, al Anbar Province and Diyala Province.
Some House Democrats also are helping the president. U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, returned from a fact-finding trip to Iraq last week to express a change of heart. Baird, who opposed the Iraq war in October 2002, argued that lawmakers should refrain from forcing a withdrawal upon the White House.
"I believe Iraq could have a positive future," Baird wrote Friday for The Seattle Times. "Our diplomatic and military leaders in Iraq, their current strategy, and most importantly, our troops and the Iraqi people themselves, deserve our continued support and more time to succeed."
n
Even dissatisfied Republicans appear unlikely to force a change in Iraq policy upon the president.
U.S. Sen. John Warner on Thursday called for troop withdrawals that would signal American impatience to Iraqi officials in Baghdad. But Warner, R-Va., said he still wouldn't support any kind of mandatory timeline for getting American forces out of Iraq.
"I don't for a minute advocate any rapid pullout or any other type of actions of that nature," Warner stated.
LoBiondo, who represents New Jersey's 2nd Congressional District, didn't give a completely rosy report after his sixth visit to Iraq.
Learning about sectarian divisions, LoBiondo heard the mayor of Fallujah and the chairman of the city council, both Sunnis, vehemently denounce Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, for allegedly governing Iraq on a sectarian basis.
"Their criticism of Maliki was really off the chart," LoBiondo said. "The fact that (al-Maliki) would meet with the president of Iran before he would come to Fallujah was something that was really, really rubbing them the wrong way."
Al-Maliki's inability or unwillingness to strike accords that would bring Sunnis back into the fold has served as a sore point for American lawmakers in both parties. The good news coming from President Bush, U.S. military officers and other observers may seem baffling to anti-war voters who want to see Congress adopt a specific withdrawal timeline.
Fully 3,723 American servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq, including 67 so far in August, according to the Web site icasualties.org.
The single worst bombing against civilians since the U.S. invasion killed more than 500 Yazidis on Aug. 14.
Shiite-on-Shiite violence claimed the life of the governor of Iraq's Muthanna Province on Aug. 20.
And the National Intelligence Estimate, released Aug. 23, focused on several troubling trends in Iraq, including high levels of violence against civilians, a lack of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite sects, and al-Qaida's ability to conduct "high-profile attacks."
Leah Johnson, spokeswoman for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, declared that voters next month would ignore late-breaking claims about military progress and demand that Congress adopt a specific withdrawal plan.
But the Bush administration continues to use al Anbar Province as an increasingly safe showpiece for progress.
The State Department on Friday conducted a press briefing with Kristin Hagerstrom, a Foreign Service Officer leading a reconstruction team in Ramadi, and with Maj. Lee Suttee, a Marine Corps officer running civil-affairs projects in the city.
"You can walk on the street. You can buy an ice cream cone," Hagerstrom stated, citing a sweeping change in the security situation due to the cooperation of tribal sheiks.
nj.com |
