One Year After
It's nonetheless important to remember that none of
this might have happened if we had known then what we know now. No matter what
the president believed about the long-term threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he
would have had a much harder time selling this war of choice to the American
people if they had known that the Iraqi dictator had been reduced to a
toothless tiger by the first Persian Gulf war and by United Nations weapons
inspectors. Iraq's weapons programs had been shut down, Mr. Hussein had no
threatening weapons stockpiled, the administration was exaggerating evidence
about them, and there was, and is, no evidence that Mr. Hussein was involved in
the 9/11 attacks. Right now, our highest priority is making the best of
a very disturbing situation. Even our European allies who opposed the war want
to see Iraq stabilized and turned over to its citizens — even if they
don't necessarily see Washington as the force to do that. The other
possibility, an Iraq flung into chaos and civil war, open to manipulation by
every unscrupulous political figure and terrorist group in the Middle East, is
too awful to contemplate. This is a good moment to take stock of what has been
accomplished and what has not, especially since the day is rapidly approaching
when the United States hopes to turn over the governing of Iraq to the leaders
of the nation's three major ethnic or religious groups — who have shown
no serious signs of being able to cooperate. Grim Scenes From
Iraq In the short run, the invasion of Iraq and the
toppling of its leader have done virtually nothing to stop terrorism. In Iraq,
as in Spain, Turkey, Indonesia and other countries, terrorist attacks have continued
since the capture of Mr. Hussein. On Wednesday, and again yesterday, Americans
saw on television news the flames and casualties from bombings in Baghdad and
Basra by forces opposed to the American-led occupation, which have become more
deadly and more sophisticated in response to every change in tactics by
American soldiers. Indeed, the war in Iraq has diverted scarce resources from
the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and other places. For many Iraqis, freedom has come at a high price. In
Baghdad, civilians line up at offices where the American military doles out
money to compensate them for relatives killed, limbs lost and eyes blinded in
the war. The innocent Iraqi casualties of Mr. Bush's war are literally
countless because the Pentagon refuses to estimate their number. Still, there have been important gains that are the
basis of our hopes for the future. A bloodthirsty dictator who tortured and murdered his
people, and sacrificed their well-being to his gilded palaces, is locked up. An
interim constitution has been adopted, a step toward laying the groundwork for
a democratic government in Iraq, should the country's fractious groups ever
resolve their differences. American-led efforts to rebuild Iraq have progressed
to the point that some services are better than they were under Mr. Hussein,
and Iraqis are starting to express satisfaction with how things are going. Iraq's
power grid, for example, generates more electricity than ever. Still, there are enormous gaps. According to the
United States Agency for International Development, Iraq has a third less
drinking water than it did before the war. And the pace of the rebuilding is
alienating some Iraqis who clearly overestimated the powers and efficiency of
the occupying forces. While some of that disappointment was inevitable, there
was a bewildering lack of planning put into the occupation by an administration
that seemed to believe its own talk about American soldiers' being greeted with
flowers as an army of liberation. The so-called surgical bombing did indeed limit damage
to Iraq's civilian areas, but American troops did not come into Baghdad in
enough force last April to deter the shocking sabotage and looting that
occurred. In addition, the American government, under presidents from both
parties, had spent 13 years in denial about the civilian toll of the economic
sanctions imposed on Iraq. The Bush administration was unprepared for the total
collapse of Iraq and for the disastrous state of crucial services. Strains on the American
Military The American military's ability to deal with all of
this — and supervise the construction of a new democracy — is
declining by the week. Even with the current rotation, reducing American troop
strength to 110,000 from 130,000, the Army, Marine, National Guard and Army
Reserve forces cannot sustain the occupation. Roughly one in three of the Army's 480,000 active-duty
soldiers are on duty overseas, and an even higher proportion of its combat
brigades are either in the field or have just returned. Rotations are spaced
too closely together — some of the troops that took part in the invasion
of Iraq are to return there later this year — and that cuts into training
and readiness. The strain on the Reserves and the National Guard is already
enormous. While sending more American troops to Iraq is not the answer, the
United States does need a larger active Army. For Iraq, the only answer is greater peacekeeping and
police help through the United Nations, from nations as varied as France,
India, Bangladesh, Russia and the Arab countries. These nations can provide
more than the token forces the United States is getting from most of its
current allies, but are unlikely to help until their citizens see real United
Nations authority, transforming a military occupation into a legitimate
exercise in international nation-building. Some members of Mr. Bush's coalition are shaken by the
electoral defeat of the Spanish government that joined the invasion despite the
opposition of some 90 percent of its citizens. In Repairing the Diplomatic
Damage Winning the cooperation of countries like France and
Russia will require the Bush administration to be far more serious about
turning over real responsibility in Iraq to the United Nations and NATO. The
United Nations is, commendably, no longer so hesitant about taking the lead in
Iraq. The Bush administration has barely begun the job of
repairing the damage from its virtually unilateral rush to war last year. What
the public and foreign leaders have learned about the way it managed the run-up
to the invasion is only worsening the situation. Asking a political leader to take his country to war
in the teeth of overwhelming popular opposition is tough enough. Add to that a
public that feels misinformed about the reasons for the war, and you've got
political combustion. This page strongly opposed invading Iraq without international
backing. The events since Mr. Bush decided to go ahead with only Britain as a
major ally have further underscored the recklessness of this sort of
adventurism. It is not, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have argued in
campaign speeches and commercials, a question of getting permission from the
United Nations to do the right thing. It is a matter of listening to the
reasonable objections of proven friends, like Germany, which was privately
warning Washington about the quagmire that Iraq represented. Stability for a Divided Iraq The United States is now about 100 days away from June
30, when it hopes to turn Iraq's government over to Iraqis. As welcome as the
adoption of the interim constitution was, it underscored how much more remains
to be done before the Iraqis can begin to hope for a stable, workable
leadership to govern their wounded country. So far, the United States has not
found the formula for accomplishing what has in the past always seemed
impossible: getting Iraq's majority Shiites, minority Sunnis and separatist
Kurds to make real concessions and cooperate in governing Iraq. Days after
compromising on the constitution, Shiite leaders were talking of amending it,
and it took an ultimatum from Washington this week to make them back down. Without any culture of trust and accommodation, any
form of real elective democracy empowers the Shiites, reduces the influence of
the Sunnis and once again leaves the Kurds, who have long wanted to break away
from Iraq, at the mercy of people they do not trust. A Shiite-dominated Iraq
may run into trouble with Iraq's Arab neighbors, who generally identify with
the Sunni Iraqis, who dominate the country's military and ruling classes. One temporary solution could be a prolonged period of
Iraqi federalism imposed from the outside or an international trusteeship. Either,
however, is likely to generate intense Iraqi opposition. Whatever model
emerges, it must be guided by international bodies and not Washington alone. In some ways, the prime-minister-in-waiting of Spain, |
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