6-21-05, 10:06 am
As polls show dwindling support for Bush’s Iraq war, the administration has ramped up its rhetoric about why it went to war. It claims that Iraq was the center of the global terrorist threat and that the September 11th attacks justified the invasion.
As White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said last week, 'Remember, this is a region where people came from that hijacked airplanes and flew them into buildings on September 11th.' To further strengthen the administration’s case, McClellan pointed to the success the US military enjoys in helping to build Iraq’s self-defense and police forces and the success they have had in destroying the insurgency.
He described the insurgency as 'desperate' and in its 'last throes.' He wouldn’t be more specific or to say how long the 'last throes' would last.
Sunday, in a prepared statement, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the 'insurgencies are defeated not just militarily, they are defeated politically.'
But apparently 'last throes' and decisive claims about the defeat of the insurgency means something completely different to others in the administration and top military officials.
Bush suggested in his radio address Sunday that Iraqi forces had not adequately accomplished the task of defeating the insurgency, necessitating a longer occupation.
He has described the occupation has a 'generational commitment.'
In fact, the top US military official, General Richard B. Myers said recently that the insurgency is about as strong now as it was a year ago and that the 'last throes' might last another 10 years.
Myers plans to retire soon, raising questions about his confidence in the administration’s policies in Iraq.
Myers’ view was echoed just last month by several top military officials who told reporters that troop levels were too low, that military forces were bogged down, and that a victory, if there is to be won, would take years. Smaller unit commanders bearing the brunt of the fighting have called for more reinforcements.
Pentagon officials acknowledged yesterday at a Pentagon briefing that these complaints have continued, but dismissed them as based on limited views held by unit commanders of the big Iraq war picture and the successes it has made.
Republican Senators John McCain (AZ) and Chuck Hagel (KS) sharply criticized the administration’s refusal to address adequately growing domestic opposition to the occupation based mainly a sense that the war has devolved into a quagmire from which the administration has no plan to remove itself.
Both Senators urged the administration to provide a 'realistic' picture to the public about the situation on the ground in Iraq.
What are we to make of an administration that from one side of its mouth insists that victory is at hand, but on the other says US forces are bogged down?
Basically, this type of rhetoric is intended to provide a rationale for maintaining the status quo, current troop levels and continued occupation, while giving the appearance of accomplishing something.
Nixon used a similar strategy in the last years of the Vietnam War. While experts knew the war was lost, Nixon insisted on drawing out the war with bombings and futile campaigns. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians were killed and tens of thousands of US troops were killed and wounded, while Nixon knew full well it was futile.
In his book on Nixon aide, Henry Kissinger, Bush supporter and writer, Christopher Hitchens, called Nixon’s policy a serious crime for which he and Kissinger went unpunished.
The current administration’s inability to describe honestly and forthrightly the situation on the ground and to layout a clear timetable for troop withdrawal means that the US military situation in Iraq is a quagmire.
It is a quagmire that the administration is intent on staying in and using whatever rationale it has at its disposal or that it can invent to stay in.
Meanwhile the casualty rate stands at 1,715 dead US soldiers, 18,219 military evacuees (due to wounds, injuries, or illness), and some 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been reported killed.
A Johns Hopkins University study late last year estimated that the invasion had directly or indirectly caused at least 100,000 civilian deaths, most of which went unreported.
If true, this would mean that more Iraqis have been killed as a result of the Bush administration’s war than Saddam Hussein is purported to have had killed in his 25-year reign as dictator.
A bipartisan effort to establish a definitive timetable for troop withdrawal was launched last week in Congress. Its sponsors are Reps. Walter Jones (R-SC), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI). Broad public support for such a measure could break the gridlock of the Bush administration’s failed policy.
--Reach Martha Kramer at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
