I thought there might be some interest in
this new interactive feature introduced today on the LA Times editorial
pages.
Following the editorial is a link to an
experimental “wikitorial”. The
Times will also introduce "Thinking Out Loud", another interactive experiment they
describe as “making up our minds in
public”; starting with two national issues, immigration and
traffic, especially important to Southern California: space will be devoted in
all precincts - editorials, Op-Eds, the Sunday Opinion section, to explore
aspects and alternate views of these subjects.
Another feature in the communication
revolution made possible by technology will be something called Framework,
where fundamental principles underlying a policy debate will be featured.
These will be archived on the website (latimes.com/opinion) and also
separately outline by subject matter. The overall goal is to evolve a coherent
and consistent political philosophy, freely accessible to the public, and
impeding those who would stifle debate.
- KwC
LA
Times Editorial, June 17, 2005
War
and Consequences
As the war in Iraq grinds on and the
number of U.S. troops remains stubbornly fixed at 140,000, murmurs of
dissatisfaction at home become louder and more widespread. Republican members
of Congress have joined Democrats in questioning how much longer the troops
will have to stay. Colonels and generals estimate two years, perhaps longer.
Polls indicate an increasing public unease with the war.
For his part,
President Bush said last month he is "pleased with the progress" in Iraq,
citing its national elections in January and the ongoing training of its
military. Yet Baghdad experiences a car bombing just about every day; in all
of 2004, there were 25. The elections may have represented progress; the
violence does not.
The president's assessment represents either
ignorance or optimism — perhaps both. But it is hardly helpful to recite yet
again, more than two years after the war began, the sorry litany of the Bush
administration's failures in Iraq. What's needed is a clear timetable of goals
and a specific set of consequences.
The Bush administration should
publicly set a target for the number of Iraqi soldiers and police who will be
trained, equipped and capable of defending their country by July 1, 2006. That
means troops able to protect their positions and go on the offensive against
their enemies, with enough guns, bullets and tanks to do the job. If the
objective is not reached, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld should be
fired, along with the top U.S. military commanders in
Iraq.
No one has been held accountable for the
blunders, from the bad intelligence before the war to the failure to provide
sufficient troops during the conflict and since. Fixing responsibility is long
overdue.
This is preferable to a precise timetable for the withdrawal
of U.S. troops, as two Republicans and three Democrats in the House called for
in a resolution introduced Thursday. That could encourage the insurgents
simply to wait it out. And definite, public targets allow for more
accountability than the current strategy, which amounts to "when they're
ready, we'll come home." The quote is from Bush, and the "they" he is
referring to is the Iraqi army.
If it all sounds familiar, that's
because it is. A year ago, on the eve of a handover of government from a
U.S.-led authority to a U.S.-installed transitional Iraqi regime, this page
said that once the Iraqis had a new constitution, an elected government and
sufficient security forces, the U.S. should withdraw its troops. Today, the
attempt to write a constitution proceeds fitfully; on Thursday, Shiites and
Sunnis reached a compromise that may allow the Iraqi National Assembly to meet
its Aug. 15 deadline. There is an elected government, though it is supposed to
be replaced after the constitution is written.
As for security forces,
the record is abysmal. It is clear that Iraqis are years away from protecting
themselves from fellow citizens and foreign invaders alike.
Meanwhile,
more than 1,700 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, more than $200 billion
has been spent, and the insurgency remains strong. A Gallup poll released
Sunday found that 59% of Americans said some or all troops should be
withdrawn. In April 2004, the figure was 37%.
Some who supported toppling Saddam
Hussein also are wondering when the administration will face reality. Sen.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) went to Iraq several
weeks ago and said that the administration has to reflect what generals with
their boots on the ground are saying: U.S. troops will be needed there for
perhaps two more years.
Biden, Weldon and others in Congress will have
to make their own judgments about the validity of the numbers the
administration produces. The administration says about 170,000 soldiers and
police have been trained, and next summer's target is 270,000. But U.S. forces
in Iraq, and experts who have visited there, laugh at those claims. Too many
Iraqi troops have deserted, been overrun or are so poorly equipped that they
should not be counted as trained forces. There is no lack of interest among
Iraqis, who brave car bombs and rocket attacks to stand in line and enlist.
The task is turning the enlistees into soldiers.
The United States will
not be alone in training the troops. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
said last week that it will open a base near Baghdad to train 1,000 Iraqi
officers each year. The front-runner to become Germany's next chancellor says
Germany will train Iraqis; Biden says the French have told him they've offered
training, but the U.S. has not taken them up on it.
Determining the
strength of the insurgency is difficult. Last July, Pentagon officials were
estimating a core force of 5,000, but the U.S. majors and colonels in Baghdad,
Tikrit, Fallouja and elsewhere estimated the figure at three times that many.
Not knowing the strength of the insurgency makes it more difficult to know how
many counterinsurgent troops are needed. It may well be that the U.S. will not
need to train as many troops as some claim; many commanders say that a
relatively small number of crack troops would be better than a larger force of
inept fighters. As for police, one rule of thumb is five to 10 officers for
every 1,000 in population, meaning 100,000 to 200,000 for
Iraq.
Guerrilla attacks have forced the U.S. to shift money from
reconstruction to security and have crippled progress on repairing electrical
lines, water plants and sewage treatment facilities. That has increased the
misery for Iraqis. A May report by the U.N. Development Program and the Iraqi
Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation presented a list of
complaints about a lack of utilities and a disastrous roster of infant
mortality, malnutrition and injuries.
The inability of Iraqi forces to
stop the carnage has kept U.S. forces in Iraq longer than the Bush
administration planned or hoped. The extended deployments have made Army
recruiting tougher and weakened the Army Reserve and National Guard. The
ability to respond to crises elsewhere has been diminished.
U.S.
involvement in Iraq, at such great cost in American lives and dollars, cannot
remain as ill-defined and open-ended as it is now. The administration must set
explicit benchmarks to determine when U.S. forces can leave. Bush should be
honest with the American people and the Iraqis. That requires setting
realistic goals and holding people responsible for
them.
Click
here to Wiki this morning's editorial about Iraq.
(For FWers using text only, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-wiki17jun17,0,6698799.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-iraq17jun17,0,800552.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
