Editorial
Los Angeles Times
June 27, 2004
In its scale and intent, President Bush's war against Iraq was something new and
radical: a premeditated decision to invade, occupy and topple the government
of a country that was no imminent threat to the United States. This was not a
handful of GIs sent to overthrow Panamanian thug Manuel Noriega or to oust a
new Marxist government in tiny Grenada. It was the dispatch of more than
100,000 U.S. troops to implement Bush's post-Sept. 11 doctrine of preemption,
one whose dangers President John Quincy Adams understood when he said the
United States "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy."
In
the case of Vietnam, the U.S. began by assisting a friendly government
resisting communist takeover in a civil war, though the conflict disintegrated
into a failure that still haunts this country. The 1991 Persian Gulf War,
under Bush's father, was a successful response to Iraq's invasion and
occupation of Kuwait — and Bush's father deliberately stopped short of
toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq.
The current president
outlined a far more aggressive policy in a speech to the West Point graduating
class in 2002, declaring that in the war on terror "we must take the battle to
the enemy" and confront threats before they emerge. The Iraq war was
intended as a monument to his new Bush Doctrine, which also posited that the
U.S. would take what help was available from allies but would not be held back
by them. It now stands as a monument to folly.
The planned transfer
Wednesday of limited sovereignty from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority to an interim Iraqi government occurs with U.S. influence around the
world at a low point and insurgent violence in Iraq reaching new heights of
deadliness and coordination. Important Arab leaders this month rejected a U.S.
invitation to attend a summit with leaders of industrialized nations. The
enmity between Israelis and Palestinians is fiercer than ever, their hope for
peace dimmer. Residents of the Middle East see the U.S. not as a friend but
as an imperial power bent on securing a guaranteed oil supply and a base for
U.S. forces. Much of the rest of the world sees a bully.
The War's
False Premises
All the main justifications for the invasion offered
beforehand by the Bush administration and its supporters — weapons of
mass destruction, close ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, a chance to make
Baghdad a fountain of democracy that would spread through the region —
turned out to be baseless.
Weeks of suicide car bombings,
assassinations of political leaders and attacks on oil pipelines vital to the
country's economy have preceded the handover.
On Thursday alone, car
bombs and street fighting in five cities claimed more than 100 lives. Iraqis
no longer fear torture or death at the hands of Hussein's brutal thugs, but
many fear leaving their homes because of the violence.
The U.S. is
also poorer after the war, in lives lost, billions spent and terrorists given
new fuel for their ra ge. The initial fighting was easy; the occupation has
been a disaster, with Pentagon civilians arrogantly ignoring expert advice on
the difficulty of the task and necessary steps for success.
Two iconic
pictures from Iraq balance the good and the dreadful — the toppling of
Hussein's statue and a prisoner crawling on the floor at Abu Ghraib prison with
a leash around his neck. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln
in May 2003 to a hero's welcome and a banner declaring "Mission
Accomplished."
A year later, more than 90% of Iraqis want the U.S. to
leave their country. The president boasted in July that if Iraqi resistance
fighters thought they could attack U.S. forces, "bring them on." Since then,
more than 400 personnel have been killed by hostile fire.
Iraqis hope,
with little evidence, that the transfer of limited sovereignty to an interim
government will slow attacks on police, soldiers and civilians. Another goal,
democracy, is fading. The first concern remains wh at it should have been
after the rout of Hussein's army: security. The new Iraqi leaders are
considering martial law, an understandable response with suicide bombings
recently averaging about one a day but a move they could hardly enforce with an
army far from rebuilt.
The new government also faces the difficulty of
keeping the country together. In the north, the Kurds, an ethnically separate
minority community that had been persecuted by Hussein, want at least to
maintain the autonomy they've had for a decade. The Sunnis and Shiites
distrust each other. Within the Shiite community, to which the majority of
Iraqis belong, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and the violent Muqtada Sadr are
opponents. Sadr was a relatively minor figure until occupation officials shut
his party's newspaper in March and arrested one of his aides, setting off large
protests and attacks on U.S. troops.
The U.S. carries its own
unwelcome legacies from the occupation:
• Troops are
spending more time in Ira q than planned because about one-quarter of the Army
is there at any one time. National Guard and Army Reserve forces are being
kept on active duty longer than expected, creating problems at home, where the
soldiers' jobs go unfilled and families go without parents in the home.
• The Abu Ghraib prison scandal has raised questions about the
administration's willingness to ignore Geneva Convention requirements on
treatment of prisoners. Investigations of prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Guantanamo Bay must aim at finding out which high-ranking officers approved of
the abuse or should have known of it. The U.S. also must decide what to do
with prisoners of war. The Geneva Convention requires they be released when
the occupation ends unless they have been formally charged with a crime. The
International Committee of the Red Cross says fewer than 50 prisoners have been
granted POW status. Thousands more detained as possible security threats also
should be released or charged.
• ; The use of private
contractors for military jobs once done by soldiers also demands closer
examination. Civilians have long been employed to feed troops and wash
uniforms, but the prevalence of ex-GIs interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib
prison raises harsh new questions. For instance, what, if any, charges could
be brought against them if they were found complicit in mistreatment?
Investigate the Contracts
The administration also put private
U.S. contractors in charge of rebuilding Iraq. Congress needs to take a much
closer look at what they do and how they bill the government.
Halliburton is the best-known case, having won secret no-bid contracts to
rebuild the country. A Pentagon audit found "significant" overcharges by the
company, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney; Halliburton denies the
allegations.
Iraqis say they want the Americans out, but most
understand they will need the foreign forces for many more months. A U.S.
troop presence in Iraq should not be indefinite, even if the Iraqis request it.
By the end of 2005, Iraq should have enough trained police, soldiers, border
guards and other forces to be able to defend the country and put down
insurgencies but not threaten neighboring countries.
The Bush
administration should push NATO nations to help with the training. Once the
Iraqis have a new constitution, an elected government and sufficient security
forces, the U.S. should withdraw its troops. That does not mean setting a
definite date, because the U.S. cannot walk away from what it created. But it
should set realistic goals for Iraq to reach on its own, at which time the U.S.
Embassy in Baghdad becomes just another diplomatic outpost. It also means
living up to promises to let Iraq choose its own government, even well short of
democracy.
France, Germany and others that opposed the war seem to
understand that letting Iraq become a failed state, an Afghanistan writ large,
threatens them as well as the U.S. and the Middle East. But ot her nations
will do little to help with reconstruction if Iraq remains a thinly disguised
fiefdom where U.S. companies get billion-dollar contracts and other countries
are shut out.
A Litany of Costly Errors
The missteps
have been many: listening to Iraqi exiles like Ahmad Chalabi who insisted that
their countrymen would welcome invaders; using too few troops, which led to a
continuing crime wave and later to kidnappings and full-blown terror attacks.
Disbanding the Iraqi army worsened the nation's unemployment problem and left
millions of former soldiers unhappy — men with weapons. Keeping the
United Nations at arm's length made it harder to regain assistance when the
need was dire.
It will take years for widely felt hostility to ebb, in
Iraq and other countries. The consequences of arrogance, accompanied by
certitude that the world's most powerful military can cure all ills, should be
burned into Americans' memory banks.
Preemption is a failed doctrine.
Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led
to disaster. The U.S. needs better intelligence before it acts in the future.
It needs to listen to friendly nations. It needs humility.