Category Archives: Iraq

Appetite for victory: Can we get hungry by September?

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
HOPE CAN come suddenly from the oddest directions. It can also be just as quickly dashed. But quickness to seize upon it can, if nothing else, be a measure of how badly we want it — and need it.

Page A4 of Thursday’s paper was topped with this proclamation: “U.S. shows appetite for victory.” I hadn’t encountered such an encouraging headline in quite a while. But my joy was short-lived: It was about an American winning the world title for eating the most hot dogs in a 12-minute period (66), defeating six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.
Take whatever satisfaction and pride from that you can. I’m still hoping the nation develops an appetite for something that it might find harder to choke down.
Lower on the same page was the subject I was thinking of: President Bush, in speaking to a Fourth of July National Guard gathering, said victory in Iraq “will require more patience, more courage and more sacrifice.”
The bitter irony of Iraq is that we have far more reason to have confidence in the troops’ courage and willingness to sacrifice than in the public’s patience.
“However difficult the fight is in Iraq, we must win it,” Mr. Bush said. “We must succeed for our own sake.”
He’s right. He might not be right about much else, but he’s right about that.
If you go to NPR.org, you’ll find this headline on an item I heard over my clock radio as I was waking Thursday morning: “Military: Iraq strategy can work, over years.” Below that is a blurb: “Most military strategists say it is a feasible plan, but it could take three to five years to see results.”
Exactly. And how far off is the September update on the surge? Hmmm. Not nearly far enough.
NPR Defense Correspondent Guy Raz reported the following regarding the surge:
“(T)here are signs of its working.” But “the lifeblood of the strategy requires two main elements — commodities that commanders don’t really have, which is time, and troop strength.”
So much for military reality. He then switched to political reality, which is far more dire: “Ultimately, of course, with pressure coming down from Congress and the American public, military commanders in Iraq know that they… simply may not have those commodities.”
He expects the Pentagon to try to play down expectations of Gen. David Petraeus’ September report as “make or break,” and it should.
But we seem to lack the appetite for any such dish as patience. The general’s subtext for the September report is that Congress and amorphous “public opinion” will view it with the following attitude: Are we done? Can we go now? Few seem prepared to conclude: OK, this can work, but it’s going to take a lot more time.
With multiple presidential candidates already reinforcing the “are we there yet?” mood, there’s just no way that the folks in TV land are going to suddenly adopt patience as their operative mode, and give military commanders the time that they need. And yet that patience, that appetite, is something we must develop.
Unfortunately, the president keeps telling us this. That would be an odd way to put it in any other historical context, but in 2007, our commander-in-chief is the one guy least likely to persuade the public to do something it doesn’t want to do (which is the definition of leadership).
Here’s how bad things are: The candidate for 2008 most clearly identified with his determination to provide commanders with the time and troop strength they need to succeed is increasingly dismissed as politically nonviable because of that. In case you’ve been living in a spider hole, I’m referring to John McCain.
Mind you, pretty much all of the serious Republican candidates say we’ve got to win, we can’t back down, etc. But they have the luxury of engaging the issue no more deeply than the usual Republican national security swagger. Sen. McCain has the problem of being specifically identified with what it will take to succeed, and what not backing down truly means, so all the “smart” analysts say he’s in trouble. And in politics, when they say you’re in trouble, you’re in trouble.
That’s the big difference between what the military does and what politicians do — the military deals with ultimate reality: Apply force here, don’t apply it there, and here are the results. It’s an elemental equation — kill or be killed; win or lose. There’s no denying such reality. Only on the playground does “Bang! You’re dead!”/“No, I’m not!” work.
In politics, from the now-smokeless back rooms to the woman on the street, what is said becomes reality, because if the public has no appetite, the military isn’t allowed that critical, real-world element of time.
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has written many discouraging things lately about Iraq. So I was encouraged this week to see him state again a simple truth that he had set forth often back when he was more optimistic: “Some things are true even if George Bush believes them.” And in this case, “it is still in our national interest to try to create a model of decent, progressive, pluralistic politics in the heart of the Arab world.”
The very mess that we have looked upon in Baghdad and the surrounding country is our preview of what real failure will look like. Only two things will turn that “mess” into success — time and troop strength.
But the only way our troops will receive those two elements — as essential to victory as bullets and training — is if America works up the appetite before September. That’s a huge if, but it’s the only hope we, and Iraq, have.

Bushwva

One more giddy guess

Tony Blair, the man the British never understood

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“The reason that I supported the action in Iraq was not that I thought we simply had to support America. It’s because I thought it was right. I still think it’s right.”
— Prime Minister Tony Blair

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
AFTER TODAY, Tony Blair is available, and there’s only one thing to do about it: Let’s get busy changing the Constitution so that he can lead this country.
The British just don’t appreciate him. He’s been their prime minister for 10 years. He’s given them Tonyclose_2
New Labor, and peace in Northern Ireland. He’s shown that an intelligent, idealistic and charismatic centrist can still be elected and effectively lead a major Western country, despite all the evidence here to the contrary.
He has done the right things, for the right reasons, and explained his actions and motivations brilliantly, and the Brits have lately responded as though their ears were filled with fried plaice and chips.
Because of “Blair’s support for the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq,” droned a British accent on NPR Tuesday morning, the “accusation was that Blair was just the poodle of the White House, prepared to do anything that President Bush wanted, and getting nothing in return.”
Tonybook
That, against all reason, is what passes as conventional wisdom in Britain these days, which is why Labor voters seem actually happy — for the moment — that dullard Gordon Brown is about to replace the finest P.M. since Winston Churchill.
The foolishness went on:

“Today, it is a mystery to many Britons how the left-of-center Baby Boomer who had seemed the ideological twin of Bill Clinton could have thrown in his lot with George W. Bush of the American right wing.”

It is indeed a mystery — if you are so simple as to believe that everything has to fit within the dichotomy of left and right. But everything doesn’t. In fact, almost nothing real does. Certainly not Iraq.
To understand how the British feel about Tony Blair — and this is most assuredly about feelings, not thought — see the 2003 romantic comedy “Love Actually.”
Hugh Grant portrays a prime minister who would be popular were he not in thrall to a certain boorish, Tonytony
bullying cowboy (Billy Bob Thornton) who happens to be president of the United States.
Mr. Grant’s pretend premier wins the people back by publicly standing up to this ugliest of American cartoons. Mr. Blair refuses to do the wrong thing simply in order to oppose the American, so he’s out. Ta-ta.
Please, run the tape back. Look and listen. See and hear how Blair was the one who understood why we were in Iraq, and why we couldn’t leave. It was George W. Bush who couldn’t articulate it.
Mr. Bush did not take us into Iraq because he is a conservative. He did it in spite of being a conservative. This is not what conservatives do, people. They don’t take risks like this. They decry “nation-building” in the most certain, isolationist terms — as Mr. Bush himself did in seeking the presidency. Sept. 11 rattled him, and he took actions contradictory to his nature. Perhaps the greatest reason that he has handled Iraq so badly is that deep down, this just isn’t his thing.
Tonyarnold2
And yet everyone defines whether one supports the Iraq enterprise as a matter of “supporting Bush.” We can’t seem to realize that one pursues policies for their own sakes, not according to who else supports them.
Poor John McCain is suddenly cast as the president’s lapdog, when he is the one who said all along that we need more troops over there and it can’t be done on the cheap a la Rumsfeld. Now that the president has moved in his direction with the “surge,” he suffers politically for “backing Bush.”
It would seem that Americans, as a result of that failure of leadership on the part of our president, have reached the same conclusion regarding Iraq as the British. But I suspect — I have no way of demonstrating it, of course — that a man of Tony Blair’s parts could have kept resolve in the American spine. We’re different. The English have never gotten over the Somme.
We are also alike. We are certainly as deluded when it comes to the whole left-right thing. Hypnotized by hundreds of thousands of propagandistic repetitions on 24-hour TV “news” and the blogosphere, we remain convinced that there are but two ways to be in the electoral and policy spheres: “liberal” or “conservative,” with a bit of room for prefixes and modifiers such as “ultra” or “neo.”
These days, the informed, involved, truly knowledgeable and hip political junkie has been thoroughly indoctrinated into the argot of one cult or the other. He gets whipped up by the idiot box, then races to Tonyshadow
his PC to rant fluently in a way that he deems deep and enlightened, when he is just regurgitating pre-packaged slogans. He thinks he is a thinker, when he is no more than a parrot — and an ill-tempered bird at that.
But back to Britain.
The broadcast segment that set me off on today’s rant ground superciliously toward its conciliatory end with the thought that maybe this man Blair, this singular creature with “his wide-eyed idealism, earnest smile and openly Christian values,” did accomplish a thing or two, despite his having been “seduced by the special relationship”:

“Perhaps what he did most successfully was to move the debate in British politics to the center, away from the ideological divisions of the past.”

That’s right. And in trying to assess what Tony Blair did and why he did it, you’d do best to remember that. It’s not about left and right. Never was.

Tonythinking

What does this do to Rudy’s GPA?

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Based on my experience, this is probably what Rudy is thinking about now: So what’s the rule on this? Having dropped the course before the final, if I take it again next semester and pass, does that replace the F, or does it get averaged?

Rudy missing in action for Iraq panel
Giuliani’s campaign fundraising kept him from commitment to panel studying Iraq.

BY CRAIG GORDON
craig.gordon@newsday.com
June 18, 2007, 11:41 PM EDT
WASHINGTON — Rudolph Giuliani’s membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt
end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel’s top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.
Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.
He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why — the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani’s lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Brooks on Blair, Iraq and communitarianism

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As you probably already know, The New York Times has erected a significant barrier to the free flow of ideas on the Internet. It has some of the best op-ed writers in the country, but it won’t allow anyone to post their stuff or link to it on the Web. On the Times‘ own site, you have to pay a premium to read them.

So when I refer to Tom Friedman or David Brooks or one of those people, I can’t just link you straight to the entire piece I’m talking about.

But let me see if I can give you the gist of a Brooks piece I referred to in my column today, and stay within the "fair use" boundaries.

Here’s the excerpt, from a piece headlined, “The Human Community:”

Blair’s decision to support the invasion of Iraq grew out of the essence of who he is. Over the past decade, he has emerged as the world’s leading anti-Huntingtonian. He has become one pole in a big debate. On one side are those, represented by Samuel Huntington of Harvard, who believe humanity is riven by deep cultural divides and we should be careful about interfering in one another’s business. On the other are those like Blair, who believe the process of globalization compels us to be interdependent, and that the world will flourish only if the international community enforces shared, universal values….
As prime minister, he tried to remove the class and political barriers that divide the British people. Abroad, his core idea was also communitarian…
This meant moving away from the Westphalian system, in which the world and its problems were divided into nation-states….
In his 1999 speech, Blair maintained that the world sometimes has a duty to intervene in nations where global values are under threat. He argued forcefully for putting ground troops in Kosovo and highlighted the menace posed by Saddam Hussein.

If that’s not enough for you, here’s a PDF of the page of The State on which the column appeared.

How would you end an “endless war?”

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Set aside for a moment the increasing shrillness of the releases I get from antiwar groups. More and more, I find myself having trouble understanding what these folks actually want the United States to do. Take this release today, for instance:

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq
http://www.NoIraqEscalation.com

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR                            Contact: Moira Mack
Thursday, June 14, 2007                                     202-261-2383

"IRAQ SUMMER" BEGINS TODAY

Nearly 100 Organizers Begin Work
in Key Congressional Districts

Coalition Turns Up Heat on "Endless War" Republicans

WASHINGTON, DC – “Iraq Summer” begins today as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq prepares to dispatch nearly 100 organizers to the home states and districts of Republican Senators and Representatives who have opposed setting a timeline to end the US war in Iraq. The program is modeled on the “Freedom Summer” civil rights project. Organizers will be in fifteen states from Nevada to Maine, a total of 40 congressional districts.

Organizers will spend ten weeks in their assigned districts working with local veterans and advocacy groups to pressure targeted lawmakers to reject President Bush’s Iraq policy and instead vote to bring a responsible end to the war. A barrage of events, letter writing campaigns, endorsement efforts, and local legislative events are planned for each targeted state or district, building to large nationwide rallies at the end of August. The rallies come just in advance of anticipated votes on the war and the so-called “surge.”

With no real progress expected on the ground in Iraq, AAEI aims to turn growing nation-wide opposition to the war into intense political pressure to end the war responsibly. By mobilizing thousands of outraged citizens, AAEI will demonstrate that continued support for the war in Iraq has political consequences for those representatives seeking re-election in 2008. A recently released New York Times/CBS poll indicates that 63% of the public wants a timetable for withdrawal in 2008.

“Opposition to the war in Iraq is reaching a boiling point and this summer Republican members of Congress will be feeling the heat from their constituents,” said Moira Mack, spokeswoman for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. “As more and more rural and suburban voters turn against President Bush’s Iraq war policies, the President’s supporters in Congress will be facing their own political vulnerability. We will force Members of Congress to make a choice: continue to support President Bush’s wildly unpopular policy of endless war in Iraq and face the political consequences or side with the majority of Americans and vote to responsibly end the war.”

Most of the organizers in the program are local to the regions where they will be working, and are a mix of veterans, military family members, students and community organizers. They gather this weekend in Washington, DC, for four days of training and planning.

AAEI will be holding a press conference call to officially kick off the program.
            ###

I had to write back to Moira Mack to ask:

Moira, reading your release, I have a question.
Saying you oppose "endless war" suggests that you propose to end that war somehow.
What is your plan? Since you don’t think the surge or anything like it will bring the fighting to an end, what action do you propose to keep the various factions in Iraq from killing people?

I’ve been wondering about that for years, but the question is taking on a new urgency as more and more people say things like that, things which make no sense.

The "endlessness" of this war is not a policy; it’s a fact. The issue is, what do we do in the face of that fact?

And no, having a "timeline" is not a plan, unless the plan is to get the jihadist insurgents and Sunni and Shi’a combatants to agree to the timeline, which would be a neat trick.

Sunni-al-Qaida rift gets more interesting

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You had probably heard about the increasing tension between Sunnis and foreign terrorists, but this piece that just moved is one of the more interesting, and promising, developments I’ve heard about lately:

Sunnis Revolt Against al-Qaida in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.

The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.

Three more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in combat, raising the number of American deaths to at least 122 for May, making it the third deadliest month for Americans in the conflict. The military said two soldiers died Wednesday from a roadside bomb in Baghdad and one died of wounds inflicted by a bomb attack northwest of the capital Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl, commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the U.S. military’s role in the fighting in the Sunni district. He said the battles raged Wednesday and Thursday but died off at night.

Although al-Qaida is a Sunni organization opposed to the Shiite Muslim-dominated government, its ruthlessness and reliance on foreign fighters have alienated many Sunnis in Iraq.

The U.S. military congratulated Amariyah residents for standing up to al-Qaida.

"The events of the past two days are promising developments. Sunni citizens of Amariyah that have been previously terrorized by al-Qaida are now resisting and want them gone. They’re tired of the intimidation that included the murder of women," Kuehl said.

A U.S. military officer, who agreed to discuss the fight only if not quoted by name because the information was not for release, said the Army was checking reports of a big al-Qaida enclave in Amariyah housing foreign fighters, including Afghans, doing temporary duty in Iraq.

U.S.-funded Alhurra television reported that non-Iraqi Arabs and Afghans were among the fighters over the past two days. Kuehl said he could not confirm those reports.

Veto it

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Veto it, Mr. President. Veto it, and then, if you are so inclined, say "Mission Accomplished," for you will have done your duty as commander in chief.

Bushtoday Once you’re done, take a long, hard look in the mirror, to see the guy who lost the support of the American people — support that is essential to eventual success in this war.

Over the past four years, you have only gotten one thing right: You have understood that our troops will have to be in Iraq for the rest of your presidency, and most likely through the administration of the next president — and quite likely longer than that. But through your lack of political and diplomatic leadership, you have gotten more of them killed than had to be.

Sure, much of the world would have been against you anyway — it was in the interests of the French, Germans and Russians to oppose you on this and other things. Ironically, though, the Germans have since then elected a more friendly administration, and the French appear poised to do so. But your policies have alienated even our friends in Britain, and undermined our best friend of all, Tony Blair. If only he could have led this coalition.

Worse, you have lost the faith of Americans — through your long refusal to throw out the bankrupt Rumsfeld approach, for the atmosphere you and A.G. Gonzales created that encouraged the abuses of Abu Ghraib, you have allowed the insurgency to flourish, and made enemies where we might have had friends, or at least neutrals.

You only got one thing right. You knew that we could not desert Iraq once we had toppled Saddam.

But anybody can get one thing right. Even Mike Gravel. He really nailed it when he challenged the other candidates on the stage last week in Orangeburg, asking them if they thought you were kidding about staying in Iraq? If they didn’t believe that, they were fooling themselves and their supporters. If they did believe that, then their cheering Congress on as it sends you this unconscionably cynical spending bill is beyond appalling.

You’ll do your duty, the only way you can do it at this point. And those who sent you that bill, knowing you would veto it, will share a full measure of culpability for this detestable slap at the troops who depend on our material support — though we give them so little of any other kind. Yes, they are the ones who keep sending encouragement to the terrorists, offering timetables to let them know how long they have to hold out, how many more suicide bombers they have to recruit, how many more IEDs to plant, before we get out of their way so they can REALLY rip into each other.

But don’t forget to blame everyone who deserves it. Don’t you dare let yourself off the hook.

Joe Wilson gets his minute on Iraq

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The Democratic leadership gave Joe Wilson one minute on the floor this morning, which he used to criticize their fecklessness on funding for our troops in Iraq:

Mr. Speaker, for weeks the House has debated our strategy in Iraq and continued funding for the war. In the midst of this debate the democratic leadership adjourned for a two-week spring break. Even today we appear no closer to a solution that will support our mission and troops and sustain an effective foreign policy. The democrat leadership of both chambers has indicated their desire to move their message of defeat. Fortunately President Bush is standing by his commitment to veto the bill and promote our mission for victory in Iraq to protect American families. Al Qaeda has stated Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism. Osama bin laden has characterized Iraq as the third world war. Withdrawing from Iraq will not end the global war on terrorism. I have confidence in our military leaders who should not be micromanaged by congress. Yesterday Admiral William Fallen testified effectively that the new reinforcement course in Baghdad is producing results. We’ll face the terrorists overseas or again in the streets of America. In conclusion God bless our troops and we will never forget September 11.

I got that text, and the video file, in a press release generated by the office of Rep. Kay Granger, vice chair of the House Republican Conference. It was headlined, "Best One Minute of the Day."

I bet it was for Joe. He likes being on camera, however briefly.

Respondent addresses Graham op-ed

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A new "regular" on the blog, Michael Gass, sent me an "open letter" he wrote to Lindsey Graham in response to his op-ed today. As I explained in reply, we don’t run open letters to third parties in the paper. In weeding the vast number of letters down to a publishable number, that’s one of the first things we ditch, along with "original poetry."

But there’s no such rule (or guideline, really) on the blog. I would have just urged him to post it as a comment, but there was no post on the subject yet. So here ya go, Michael:

Dear Senator,

On April 19, 2007, your letter, `Progress and losses in Iraq,’ has reinforced what many of us already knew; that Iraq is a failure.
You stated that "For the first time, our delegation drove from the airport to the Green Zone." Senator Graham it has been 4 years; there are over 150,000 of our troops in Iraq; we have spent over $400 billion dollars; we have surged more troops specifically into Baghdad; and you are telling us that our "progress" is that we were able to secure 6 miles of road for the first time?
You acknowledge that for the past 3 years, violence in Iraq was "out-of-control", yet, President Bush, who you wrote to me in a letter describing as an "honorable man", has repeatedly claimed that America was making progress in Iraq. Vice President Cheney claimed, not once, but on two separate occassions (in 2005 and again in 2006) that the insurgency was in its "last throes". You are now telling us, Senator, that in fact, there was no progress in Iraq for 3 years; that in fact, the insurgency was growing. So, you are telling us, Senator, that the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States has been lying to us for 3 years.

Senator Graham, I’ve been to Iraq. I returned in November, 2006, and unlike you, I didn’t have 100 soldiers and helicopter gunships. I traveled from Al-Faw to Tikrit. I talked to local Iraqi’s who weren’t screened for their views prior to talking to me. I can tell you that many had high hopes after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power. I can tell you that many now view our occupation, our destruction of their country, our imprisoning of the "irreconcilables" as you call them, as an autrocity on the magnitude of Saddam Hussein. I can tell you, Senator, that Iraqi’s are starving and they are taking any job they can get to feed their families – even joining the police force.

   You are right about one thing – the majority of Iraqi’s do want to live in peace. But, you portray it as if they will only have peace if we stay and kill, or imprison, more Iraqi’s. That isn’t true and you know it. In 1979, Senator, muslim men flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. We called them "freedom fighters" and al-qaeda was born out of that fight. In 2003, Senator, muslim men flocked to Iraq to fight Americans. We called these fighters terrorists. Today, Senator, the vast majority of the insurgency is comprised of Iraqi citizens, not foreign fighters, who simply want to live their lives in peace without American occupation of their country; without their fathers and sons being imprisoned in places like Abu Ghraib by American forces.

   You again make the bold claim, just as every other Republican who has nothing left to argue, no other talking point to push, that if we leave Iraq the Islamic extremist’s will destroy our way of life. Fear, Senator, is the only tool you have left. It is not the Islamic extremist’s who wrote the Military Commission’s Act, denying anyone deemed an unlawful enemy combatant, which includes American citizens, the right to habeas corpus. It is not the Islamic extremist’s who wrote the Patriot Act that the FBI has been abusing to spy on little old Quaker ladies who oppose the war in Iraq. It is not the Islamic extremist’s who has worked to undermine the liberties we used to have in America – it is our own politicians, Senator; politicians like yourself who spout the "rule of law" as you legislate away our freedoms.

You say that we cannot let the Iraqi’s dictate our foreign policy – because that is who the "terrorists" and "suicide bombers" are, Senator; Iraqi’s. They are a people who had their country invaded, destroyed, and their loved ones killed or imprisoned by our troops. They are a people who live without power and scrape for food, yet see their only natural resource, oil, being legislated away by a government we helped into power. That is the "benchmark" that means the most to President Bush; the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law. But why don’t you tell Americans what it truly is; a giveaway of Iraqi oil to companies like Exxon-Mobile and British Petroleum. And here you are, telling the Iraqi’s that they have no right to "dictate" to us what we do to them. They have every right, Senator, just as Americans have the right to determine the fate of our country, of our resources.

   Our military is broken, Senator. Gen. McCaffrey has told us that it is broken. He, and others, have warned us that continuing down this road you and other Republicans have set is, and has been, a disaster. You tout progress in Iraq, Senator Graham, and, by your own statements, I give you 6 miles of road, $400 billion dollars, countless Iraqi’s dead, secure compounds that American soldiers cannot leave without dying, and the blood of near 3,300 of our own soldiers to show for it – all after 4 years.

Sincerely,

Michael Gass

Oh, and as I said to Michael earlier when he asserted that the military was "broken:" Yeah, that’s why we need a draft.

As to Sen. Graham’s piece in the paper, which I just got to read this morning after being out of the office the last couple of days — it made complete sense to me. It did not, to say the least, "reinforce" the idea that "Iraq is a failure." People who have long opposed the war — and particularly those for whom this is caught up in their own partisan tendencies — find reinforcement for their idea that all effort is useless in anything and everything. It is their constant filter for filtering information bearing on Iraq.

It will be interesting to see whether, in the comments this engenders, anyone says anything that is different from what they’ve always said, whatever their original position. If so, those will be the comments I read with interest.

Want to talk about the war in Iraq?

125 Replies

Here’s a place to do so…

A couple of readers brought it to my attention yesterday that the war began its Iraq phase four years ago today. They want to have a discussion about that. OK, even though personally I am increasing taking to heart messages such as the one from our own sometime contributor Reed Swearingen, who wrote yesterday to tell my colleague Cindi Scoppe:

Good Morning Cindi,
Have you an interest in running a blog? If so, I wish to encourage you
to do so.
I enjoy reading and occasionally commenting on Brad’s blog, but would
love to participate in a blog that focuses on public policy at the state
level, which appears to be your domain.

Sincerely,

Reed Swearingen

Columbia, SC

Well that’s sort of what I started MY blog for. Consequently, I’ve recently resolved, in my own oblique way, to concentrate more on Energy (as a critical part of the War on Terror) or on primarily South Carolina issues.

I’m edging in that direction. Now I have to edge back a bit.

But just a bit. Here are my thoughts on the Iraq War four years after the invasion:

By and large, needing only a few updates here and there, it’s the same as what I had to say on the third anniversary of that campaign, upon which I elaborated a few days later.

My thoughts on the current situation — the surge and such — have conveniently also been provided on this blog.

As the surge is just now being implemented, so it is certainly far too early to assess whether it will be successful. The only decisions that really need to be made now are on the tactical, political (Iraqi politics, not American) and diplomatic fronts. A great deal of improvement is needed on all three.

Anything you or I might have to say should have little influence on the situation, as the people on the ground who know what they’re facing need to and can call shots at this level.

So for me, the whole matter of war in iraq is a fascinating one to talk about later, when there’s something new to discuss. But if you have something new to say at this point — if you find this date on the calendar sufficiently meaningful to inspire you — go for it.

Peace

Blackhawk Author Down

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Our anti-war friends are always wanting folks who advocated the Iraq invasion to say they’re sorry. Well, leave poor Hillary alone. Mark Bowden will say it for you.

Here’s a link to a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer by the former staff writer who wrote Blackhawk Down. An excerpt:

Plenty of people got it right. Give George Herbert Walker Bush credit for having the good sense not to topple Saddam in 1991, foreseeing the unmanageable chaos that would follow. My Philadelphia Inquirer colleague Trudy Rubin saw it, as did my Atlantic colleague James Fallows. Another notable example was Scott Ritter, the former Marine and U.N. weapons inspector who campaigned vigorously with the news that Saddam did not have such weapons. He spent months being kicked around on television talk shows, weathering a mounting tide of scorn, trying to halt the war machine.
I remember being on one of those shows with him. I wondered why, in the face of so much supposedly informed contradiction, he persisted.
Scott, I see it now.

The difference between his position and mine?

My reason for supporting the invasion was that I believed the Iraqi tyrant had weapons of mass destruction, and that he would, without hesitating, pass such weapons along to Islamist terrorists who would use them…. It turns out Saddam was bluffing.

I believed we should invade whether the WMD were there or not. I thought they were there, of course, but that was not the determining factor for me.

BIDEN: Administration is Right…

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Boy, that Joe Biden really wants those crossover votes, doesn’t he?

OK, so here’s the rest of the headline:

…to Reverse Itself and Engage Iran and Syria

And here’s the rest of the text of his release, which came in about 15 minutes ago:

WASHINGTON, DC – Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) issued the following statement today in response to Sec. Rice’s announcement of a new diplomatic initiative to invite Iran and Syria to a ‘neighbors meeting’ on stabilizing Iraq:
“The Administration is right to reverse itself and engage Iran and Syria on Iraq. Right now, they’re a big part of the problem, but they have an interest in becoming part of the solution to prevent chaos in Iraq. I hope this means that clearer heads in the Administration are beginning to prevail. If the conference is to have any impact on the sectarian violence in Iraq, it must enlist the support of Iraq’s neighbors for a political settlement that would decentralize Iraq and give Kurds, Shi’ites and Sunnis control over their daily lives. We don’t need a meeting for the sake of meeting – there has to be a clear plan and purpose."
Senator Biden has long been an advocate for engaging Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and Syria. A cornerstone of the Biden-Gelb plan for Iraq is convening a regional conference of Iraq’s neighbors and the world’s major powers to promote and enforce a political settlement in Iraq. Specifically, the Biden-Gelb Five-Point Plan for Iraq calls for: 1) Maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their own regions. The Iraqi constitution already provides for federalism. The central government would be responsible for common interests, like border security and the distribution of oil revenues. 2) Securing support from the Sunnis – who have no oil — by guaranteeing them a proportionate share (about 20 percent) of oil revenues, allowing former Baathists to go back to work and re-integrating those with no blood on their hands. 3) Increasing economic aid, asking oil-rich Arab Gulf states to fund it, tie assistance to the protection of minority rights and create a jobs program to deny the militia new recruits. 4) Convening a regional conference to enlist the support of Iraq’s neighbors and create a Contact Group of the major powers to enforce their commitments. 5) Asking our military for a plan to responsibly withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by 2008 – enough time for the political settlement to take hold – while refocusing the mission of a small residual force on counter-terrorism and training Iraqis.

###

Discuss amongst yourselves…

Iraq resolutions: Three views

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Still catching up on notes and video from the Monday and Tuesday meetings with Sens. DeMint and Graham. Here’s what Sen. DeMint had to say about the anti-Surge nonbinding referendum:

And here’s what Sen. Graham had to say:

For an interesting, other-than-the-usual contrast, here’s what fellow Republican Bob Inglis had to say over on the House floor explaining why he voted FOR the resolution. Either follow the link to the whole thing, or be satisfied with this excerpt:

The President has ordered an increase in troop strength in Iraq.
He thinks a surge in troops will give breathing room for the development of a path to progress.
I’m concerned that a surge will have the opposite effect—that it will give breathing room to the death squads, that our service men and women will be caught in the crossfire and that the surge will end right where it began.
In fact, that’s what happened in Baghdad in August and September of 2006.
I’m concerned that a surge sends a conflicting message. On the one hand we’re telling them, “You don’t have forever; you’ve got to make progress in solving these political questions; you’ve got to stop legging up on your enemies; it’s your country.”
By surging, we may be saying, “Not to worry, we’re increasing the size of that American security umbrella; there’s no urgency; we’re here to stay; in fact, more of us are coming.”
I want all Iraqi factions and leaders of factions to worry.
I want them to see us reaching for the button that would bring that umbrella down.
I want them to imagine the click of that button and the feel of the wind from the descending umbrella.
The resolution before us isn’t written the way I would have written it, but it’s the resolution before us.
Resolutions are the way that Congress discharges its constitutional responsibility to communicate with the President.
This resolution says, “We disapprove of the surge.”

You decide which one you think is right. I’ve got a column to write for Sunday, on another subject.

Lindsey walks right into it

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Not to stir up another round of "you’re a coward;" "no, you are," but this was an interesting tidbit in
The Washington Post yesterday:

Some Loaded Comments at ‘Abu Ghraib’ Screening
When the lights go up after most documentary screenings, you usually can expect a politely snoozy lovefest at the "panel discussion to follow." So the folks who turned out for the preview of HBO’s "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" at the Ronald Reagan Building last night were unusually lucky.
Among the VIPs on hand to discuss the Rory Kennedy project (set to air Feb. 22) were Uncle Ted Kennedy and Sen. Lindsey Graham. The latter livened things up in a big way when he denounced Army Col. Janis Karpinski, who was demoted from brigadier general after the prison torture scandal.
"Karpinski should have been court-martialed," said the South Carolina Republican, who sits on the Armed Services Committee. "She was not a good commander."
Awkward! For who was in the audience but Karpinski herself. "I consider you as cowardly as [Lt. Gen. Ricardo] Sanchez or [Donald] Rumsfeld or [former Guantanamo Bay commander Geoffrey] Miller," she shot back. "You’re saying I should be court-martialed — they didn’t want me in a courtroom because I would tell" the truth. Graham sputtered clumsily until moderator Jeffrey Toobin jumped in.
Afterward, Karpinski told our colleague Michael Cavna: "Ninety-nine percent of the story is still covered up. . . . Miller and Sanchez and Rumsfeld should be in those cells" with the Army guards who were found guilty.

Maybe Lindsey Graham has gotten a little too accustomed to speaking frankly on "Meet the Press," and neglected to consider the possibility that at a live speaking event, the person you’re talking about just might be there.

I don’t know who’s right here (although I’ve always blamed Rumsfeld), but I know I don’t want to make Col. Karpinski mad at me. I’m just going by her pictures (although she is smiling in this one, bless her heart). She looks like somebody you’d rather have on your side, or just avoid. Perhaps that’s her misfortune; her rather severe habitual expression makes her a convenient scapegoat (the "evil lady torturer" from Central Casting). Or perhaps she’s just as culpable as Miller and Sanchez and Rumsfeld and the Army guards who were convicted. There were probably no angels anywhere near the situation.

I just don’t know. But it would have been interesting, and perhaps enlightening, to have her testify.

Peggy gets it wrong

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Watch closely, now — you especially, Mary: Here’s how we disagree with someone respectfully.

You’ll recall that I had nice things to say about Peggy Noonan. My attitude on that point is unchanged.

But she was 180 degrees wrong when she wrote "He’s Got Guts," in defense of Chuck Hagel. (In this, my attitude is ALSO unchanged.) She quotes at some length his speech in favor of the spineless resolution griping about the Surge, but doing nothing about it — except, of course, signal to the enemies those 21,500 Americans will be fighting that if they just kill a few more of our boys (and yes, for those of you who are sticklers, sometimes girls, but in this case we’re talking combat infantry), then we’ll probably cave, because we are SO divided about this already.

She includes in her excerpt this quote, which I had read elsewhere in forming my previous judgment:

"Sure it’s tough. Absolutely. And I think all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this. What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why are you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes."

Precisely. So if you don’t want the troops going, stop them. Don’t holler, as they climb on the plane, that you really don’t think this is a good idea, but you’re not going to do anything about it.

If that’s your idea of being a stand-up guy, maybe you should be selling shoes.

Yeah, I get Peggy’s point about all the falseness and cowardice in Washington. But how that resolution is a departure from that rule is beyond me.

And no, I don’t want him to stop the troops from going. That would be disastrous. But passing a resolution saying they shouldn’t go, but taking no concrete action, is contemptible.

Shame, cowardice and betrayal

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Finally, the Congress is heard from on Iraq, and what does its vanguard decide to do?

It passes a resolution that accomplishes absolutely nothing legislatively. It won’t stop a single soldier or Marine from going into harm’s way in Iraq.

Oh, but it does accomplish this: It tells the force of chaos, those who wish to kill as many of those brave Americans as possible, that they only have to hold out a little longer: See how divided we are? See how we tell our troops we don’t support their mission, even as they kiss their wives and babies goodbye, possibly for the last time?

This is utterly disgusting — worse than that, because Americans will pay for it in blood.

If those who don’t think it necessary to do all we can to succeed in Iraq had the slightest trace of courage, they would take tangible ACTION — they ARE the majority are they not (and I’m including the nihilists of both parties here, so give me none of your partisan umbrage)?

Get this paragraph, describing the depth of senatorial resolve:

But they said that whatever language is sent to the floor will have to
include the policy prescriptions that are in both resolutions: a
statement against further deployments; a call for U.S. troops to be
re-deployed to guard Iraq’s borders, focus on counterterrorism and
speeding up the training of Iraqi troops; and a call for diplomatic
efforts to engage Iraq’s neighbors in the pursuit of a political
settlement to the war.

A statement. A call. Another call. No action, of course. Oh, what inexcusable, bloodyminded fecklessness!

They make the laws. They control the pursestrings, completely. All they need do is cut off all funding for offensive operations, and appropriate money that, BY LAW, can only be used to fund the retreat that they desire. As Newt Gingrich and company learned to their great pain and chagrin after 1994, governing carries far weightier responsibility than merely sitting on the back benches and criticizing.

As my readers know, I don’t WANT them to do those things; such actions would be disastrous. But at least I could respect them more.

But they don’t have the guts to do that, do they, Hagel and the rest? All they have the gumption to do is make gestures of the sort that undermine, that corrode, that fester in the national soul as they watch more Americans die, and say, "See? We told you so." Self-fulfilled defeat.

What of that, though? The senators have now expressed themselves, however nonbinding their expression, and that has enabled them to go home tonight feeling much better about themselves. Surely we can all take solace from that.

I can write no more about it tonight. My contempt is complete, and so is my grief for my country, and its finest and bravest — who, despite this deadly insult, will go and do their duty, however much more difficult the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has resolved to make it.

Give the general a chance

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Gen. David H. Petraeus had not even had the chance to present his case to Congress before some otherwise thoughtful folks were moving to undermine his ability to implement his plan for stabilizing Iraq — a thing he’s shown in the past he know how to do.

Nevertheless, he went on to present it, to the Senate Armed Services Committee, today.

I truly believe it would have been worth waiting to hear him before judging his chances.

On past occasions, the trio of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and John Warner has been a bulwark of sanity, courage, and principle in the U.S. Senate. They stood together to move the Bush administration on the treatment of enemy prisoners, for instance.

But now they’re parting ways on Iraq, and I see it the way Sen. Graham does:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Wes Hickman or Kevin Bishop
January 22, 2007
(202) 224-5972 / (864) 250-1417

Graham Statement on the
Warner-Collins-Nelson
Iraq Resolution
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made the following statement on the Warner-Collins-Nelson Iraq resolution.
“Unfortunately this new Iraq resolution, no matter how well-intentioned, has the same effect as the Biden resolution. It declares General Petraeus’s new strategy a failure before it has a chance to be implemented.
“Any resolution that could be construed by American forces that Congress has lost faith in their ability to be successful in Iraq should be rejected because it rings of defeatism at a time when we should be focused on Victory.
“Success or failure in Iraq will spread throughout the region creating momentum for moderation or extremism. Petraeus’s new strategy is our best hope for success, acknowledges past mistakes, sets benchmarks for Iraqi leaders, and provides needed reinforcements in all areas: militarily, politically, and economically.
“I urge my colleagues not to try to micromanage the war, but instead listen to General Petraeus and fully resource his proposal. We must stand behind him and the brave men and women who will execute this new strategy, as the successful outcome in Iraq is essential to winning the War on Terror."
####

Of course, one of the virtues of independent, thinking, honest people is that they are free to disagree, rather than being mindlessly bound to ideology or party.

But I’m sorry to see Sen. Warner go the way of the crowd on this one. Men such as Sen. Graham and especially Gen. Petraeus need support on this. The stakes are too high to play resolution games that will weaken the general’s position before he and his new troops even get their boots on the ground.

Warner

Iraq “Surge” Column

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It’s a sound plan,
but Bush can’t sell it

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
WE HAVE in place much of what we need to succeed in Iraq. We have a new, comprehensive plan that corrects many of the mistakes of the past three years. We have new leadership on the ground, in the form of a general who has shown that he knows what it takes to win this war.
We just need a better salesman.
If you saw and heard President Bush’s address to the nation live Wednesday night, and listened with an open mind, you probably still went away saying, “Huh? How is this going to improve the situation?”
I’m glad that wasn’t my first impression. I missed the live broadcast. And before watching a replay of the Bush speech, I called U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham.
George W. Bush has two, and only two, virtues as our commander in chief: He understands, on some fundamental, gut level, how important it is that we succeed. And he won’t give up. Those are fine, but they’re not enough.
We need someone in charge who is able to communicate to the nation why we need to be in Iraq, how we need to proceed, and why that course of action can work. He needs to persuade fair-minded people to believe him, and to follow.
Of course, he has to have a good plan to start with. If I had heard him tell about it first, I would doubt that he does.
In fairness, it helps if you start by asking the right question. The president was trying to talk to a nation that polls tell him is asking, “Why on Earth are you sending more troops?” I asked Sen. Graham, “Why on Earth do you think 20,000 will be enough?”
Sen. Graham and his friend and ally Sen. John McCain have maintained that we need more troops in Iraq. The senator from Arizona has insisted that it needed to be a lot more. But Sen. Graham had indicated he was pleased with this smaller “surge.” Why? Because it’s a part, and not the largest part, of a comprehensive new approach that stresses diplomatic, economic and political initiatives.
The military mission is specific: Put in enough troops to provide security in Baghdad and increase our muscle over on the Syrian border, in Anbar province.
Here are some critical points related by Sen. Graham that the president failed to get across:

Tremendous pressure is being placed on the Shia-dominated Iraqi government to ensure Sunni leaders that their people will get their cut of the country’s oil wealth. Assure them that their tribe will not starve out in the cold, and you remove ordinary Sunni Arab insurgents’ motivation to kill Shiites. That removes the cloak of legitimacy from the Shiite militias, which their communities will no longer see as essential to their protection. Extremists — Shia and Sunni — become isolated. Neighbors start dropping a dime on IED factories. We destroy those, and we largely eliminate the cause of 80 percent of current U.S. casualties.
None of the above can happen without the capital being secure. How would such a small surge make that happen? It would double the U.S. combat capability in the capital, a force that would be multiplied by embedding the U.S. troops in the Iraqi units that will have the job of actually kicking down doors and cleaning up militant neighborhoods (one idea taken from the Iraq Study Group). As the president did mention, those neighborhoods will no longer be “off limits”; the Maliki government can no longer protect the Sadr militia.
The brigade sent to Anbar would have interdiction as a large part of its mission. Amazingly, we have never shut down the terrorist superhighway flowing out of Syria; this would address that.
The pivotal role of the new U.S. commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus. Sen. Graham describes the plan not as what President Bush wants to do, but what Gen. Petraeus wants to do. He doesn’t say Congress needs to listen to the president. He says “Listen to this new general; give him a chance to make the case.”

Who is David Petraeus? He’s a West Point graduate with a Ph.D. from Princeton. He’s the former commander of the 101st Airborne Division. Under his command, the 101st was described by the author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq as the one Army outfit that was doing it right — providing security in its area, and winning hearts and minds. The general himself is the author of the Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency, which applies practical tactics that work.
The president didn’t do an awful job in his speech. He explained how things went wrong, emphasizing the critical bombing of the Golden Mosque. He mentioned increased diplomatic efforts, the fact that we need to hold as well as clear dangerous areas, and that troops will now go wherever they need to go to get the job done. He let us know that even if things go perfectly, there will be more casualties.
But a wartime president who has lost the people’s trust to the degree that he has needed to go a lot farther, and the president did not. He failed to draw a clear, bright line between his past failure and a future in which we have a realistic expectation of success.
Why the president didn’t even mention the name “Petraeus,” explaining what a departure he was from the discredited Rumsfeld approach, is beyond me.
After talking to Sen. Graham, I feel a lot better about our future in Iraq. I’m still not positive that six brigades is enough, but I now have sound reasons to believe we’re finally on a better track.
I’ve put a recording of that interview on my blog. I urge you to go listen to it — and don’t miss the senator’s column on the facing page.

For that, and observations on last week’s inaugural activities, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Graham phone interview

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This is a test. We’re going to see just how big a wonk you are.

I have, to the best of my ability, given you full access to the audio of a phone interview I conducted with Lindsey Graham on Thursday morning. I was restricted by certain challenges. The interview is 28 minutes long, and I have no sound file compression software. I DO have video software that compresses things as a matter of course in saving them. So I put the audio in a video file, and added some recent still photographs from the wire, just to see if I could.

The only way I knew how to give you access to the audio without you having to download the whole gargantuan file was to stream it from YouTube. Trouble is, YouTube won’t take files longer than 5 minutes, no matter how they’re compressed.

So here you go — it’s in seven parts, and the audio and photos aren’t nearly as nice as they were before I compressed them. But you can still hear it. I recommend that you give it a try, because it’s pretty interesting.

The background for the interview: I was seeking input before we decided what we would say in Friday’s editorial. As it happens, the interview only had an indirect — although significant — impact on the editorial, since the person who wrote it was not involved in the interview. All he had was what I had briefly told him about it. In other words, my impressions of Graham’s views had an influence on the forming of consensus that led to our conclusions, but you won’t find much trace of it in the paper. That’s the way it is with most of the things that go into editorials — the factors are too many for all to be mentioned.

But I thought it was particularly interesting and helpful, so I’m working on a followup column based on the interview. Yeah, doing it this way is pretty weird and awkward, but bear with me. I’m just exploring new ways to make this blog useful and worth the time, both yours and mine.

Please do your bit for the blog by doing two things:

Listen to the interview, or as much of it as you have time for.
Then comment to let me know whether it worked, and whether you found it helpful. Or to say whatever else you want.

Thanks.

Anyway, that’s Part I up at the top of the post. Here’s Parts II-VII:

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Iraq

Appetite for victory: Can we get hungry by September?

One more giddy guess

Tony Blair, the man the British never understood

What does this do to Rudy’s GPA?

Brooks on Blair, Iraq and communitarianism

How would you end an “endless war?”

Sunni-al-Qaida rift gets more interesting

Sunnis Revolt Against al-Qaida in Iraq

Veto it

Joe Wilson gets his minute on Iraq

Respondent addresses Graham op-ed

Want to talk about the war in Iraq?

Blackhawk Author Down

BIDEN: Administration is Right…

Iraq resolutions: Three views

Lindsey walks right into it

Peggy gets it wrong

Shame, cowardice and betrayal

Give the general a chance

Iraq “Surge” Column

Graham phone interview