Time to get out of Iraq
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| Fri, 09-24-2004 - 5:44pm |
by ERIK LEAVER
The US occupation of Iraq is the cause of, not the solution to, the violence and the mounting deaths that followed the invasion. During the recent fighting led by Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, as in countless other battles inside Iraq, authorities in Washington have misread the military and political situation. The Bush Administration uses the fighting as justification for the continued presence of foreign military forces. Yet it is precisely the presence of foreign military forces that is a major cause of the instability. Ending the US occupation by bringing the troops home now is a first step toward ending Iraq's nightmare.
Most Iraqis agree. In a poll this past June, 55 percent of Iraqis opposed the presence of US forces in Iraq. While Iraqis cheered the overthrow of the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, they didn't sign up for a foreign military occupation as a replacement. Now it is time to let Iraqis themselves choose an alternative. Here are 10 compelling reasons the United States should get out of Iraq.
1) The Human Costs Keep Increasing
On September 7 the death toll of US soldiers reached 1,000. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged that the insurgency is likely to turn even more violent. While the American death toll made headlines across the United States, the mounting number of Iraqi deaths, at least ten times greater, gets scant attention. The US military refuses to monitor or even estimate the number of Iraqi civilian casualties. As Gen. Tommy Franks described the Pentagon's approach earlier in Afghanistan, "We don't do body counts."
2) Iraqis Aren't Better Off
While the removal of the dictator Saddam was a welcome development for many Iraqis, the streets of Baghdad and other cities remain dangerous war zones. Clean water, electricity and even gasoline in this oil-rich country are all in even shorter supply than during the dark years of economic sanctions. Women face new restrictions and new dangers. Democracy, freedom and human rights appear out of reach. And Iraq remains occupied by 160,000 foreign troops, with all of the indignity that military occupation brings.
3) The War Is Bankrupting America
This year's federal budget deficit will reach a new record--$422 billion. The Bush Administration's combination of massive spending on the war and tax cuts for the wealthy means less money for social spending. The Administration's fiscal-year 2005 budget request proposes deep cuts in critical domestic programs. It also virtually freezes funding for domestic discretionary programs other than homeland security. Among the programs the Administration seeks to eliminate: grants for low-income schools and family literacy; Community Development Block Grants; Rural Housing and Economic Development; and Arts in Education grants.
4) Halliburton's War Profiteering
The US government's Iraq reconstruction process has cost both Iraqis and Americans. Instead of boosting Iraqi self-determination by granting contracts to experienced Iraqi businesses and working to lower the huge unemployment problem inside Iraq, the US government has favored US firms with strong political ties. Major contracts worth billions of dollars have been awarded with limited or no competition. American auditors and the media have documented numerous cases of fraud, waste and incompetence. The most egregious problems are attributed to Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former firm and the largest recipient of Iraq-related contracts.
5) The "International Coalition" Is Fleeing
The "coalition," always more symbolically than militarily significant, is unraveling. While the impact is felt more at the political than military level, the Bush Administration's claim that it is "leading an international coalition" in Iraq is increasingly indefensible. Eight nations have now left the coalition and many other countries have reduced their contingents. Singapore has left only thirty-three soldiers in Iraq out of 191, and Moldova's forces have dwindled to twelve.
6) Recruitment for Al Qaeda Has Accelerated
The war against Iraq is leaving US citizens more vulnerable to terrorist attacks at home and abroad. According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the best-known and most authoritative source of information on global military capabilities and trends, the war in Iraq has accelerated recruitment for Al Qaeda and made the world less safe. It estimates worldwide Al Qaeda membership now at 18,000, with 1,000 active in Iraq. It states that the occupation has become the organization's "potent global recruitment pretext," has divided the United States and Britain from their allies and has weakened the war on terrorism.
7) The War Is Draining First Responders From Our Communities
Since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 364,000 Reserve and National Guard troops have been called for military service. This spring alone, 35,000 new Guard troops were sent to Iraq. Their deployment puts a particularly heavy burden on their home communities, because many of them serve as "first responders," including police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel. A poll conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum found that 44 percent of police forces across the nation have lost officers as a result of deployment to Iraq.
8) Torture at Abu Ghraib
The Bush Administration claimed that the liberation of Iraqis from the inhumane rule of a dictator was a good-enough reason for taking military action against that country. Now investigations of the US military's torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib has stripped the United States of even that wobbly claim. The Bush Administration has tried to blame a "few bad apples" for the torture, but abuse has been widespread, with more than 300 allegations of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantánamo. Many more may exist, in light of the fact that Army investigators revealed in early September at a Congressional hearing that as many as 100 detainees were hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross at the request of the CIA. This was part of a larger strategy by the government, described by Human Rights Watch as "decisions made by the Bush Administration to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside."
9) Many Americans Oppose the War
Polls conducted in August 2004 by the CNN/USA TODAY/Gallup and the Pew Research Center showed a great divide in the country: 51 percent believe that "the situation in Iraq was not worth going to war over" and 52 percent disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war. Almost 60 percent believe that President Bush does not "have a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion."
10) No "Sovereignty" Has Been Transferred
The US occupation of Iraq officially ended on June 28, in a secret ceremony in Baghdad. Officially, the Americans handed "full sovereignty" to the Iraqi Interim Government. This was sovereignty in name, not in deed. Not only do 160,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of former CPA head Paul Bremer remain to control the economy. Although many thought the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq, Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to the undemocratically appointed interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, who has longtime ties to the CIA

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=578&e=7&u=/nm/20040924/pl_nm/iraq_usa_dc
I consider this a legitimate topic for discussion. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, there are no WMDs, and quite frankly we are the cause of the increasing attacks in Iraq. We are unwanted!!!! GWB leaked to Novac that he will be pulling out in Feb.
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You think we have to pull out of Iraq the way we did Afghanistan to have them think we are cowards?
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No, but I don't confuse Iraq with al Qaeda.
< They attacked us on our soil and they will do it again if we do not show them that they will be hunted down like the animals they are.>>
We're not hunting OBL; GWB doesn't even want his name mentioned.
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This is no excuse for the torture of prisoners.
<< You apparenantly don't remeber 9/11 where 3,000 of our people died and the Oklahoma bombing.>>
I remember them, but not all terrorists are not the same. The reply indicates a lack of differentiation, just mix everything up in a crock and throw it at the subject. This is a charasteric of an emotional reply.
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Bush has done nothing to defend our country, he pays lip service to being "brave", and pretends that "taking the war to them"--is the macho way to protect America; only mesmerized American's believe his rhetoric. He didn't do anything to protect us before 9/11 and he spews hot air about defending our boarders. I look at Bush's distruction of Iraq as a reason for more attacks, not less. Only his ardent supporters can't see that GWB is out of touch with reality--Hmmm isn't this a mental disease?
I would expect them to feel terrible, indeed only a peaceful Iraq could provide a calming reason for a loved ones death. I haven't forgotten the 1,000+ dead and the 10,000+ wounded, however, Will sending more young people to be maimed and dead make up for those already lost? Do we need to continue the Vietnam scenairo? What is the minimum we can expect to achieve.
We need to face up to the fact that GWB deceived us into an unnecessary invasion, and we need to grasp the reality that it's not going to get better as long as Americans are on Islamic soil.
Rumsfeld has loose lips, but sometimes he tells the truth.
Taken from the War and Peace Blog:
Reality in Iraq, surreality in Washington. Bush says that Iyad Allawi's comments about the situation in Iraq offer a vision of "reality," while the US intelligence community's grim forecast in the National Intelligence Estimate is just, well , an estimate. Here's the Spectator with an on the scene take by the (UK) Times' diplomatic editor, Richard Beeston.
She concludes:
This is almost unspeakably grim. Bush has turned Iraq into Lebanon, and he's running his election on this masking-taped Potemkin village of a liberated Iraq heading joyfully for elections that's all coming apart at the edges. Even if he manages to win reelection, I think any second administration would be set to soon collapse under the weight of the lies once people do wake up and realize what a disaster we have on our hands. You should hear the total condemnation of Bush's national security team I am hearing from Republican foreign policy hands I am interviewing for a forthcoming piece.
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001144.html
Here's the Spectator article:
The terror, the terror
Iraq is becoming daily more chaotic and murderous, says Richard Beeston. DVDs of beheadings are selling in their thousands. Westerners are hated and live in constant fear Baghdad
You might have thought that sitting down to watch a series of filmed executions would become tedious after the tenth unfortunate victim is dragged before the camera to be slaughtered like a sheep. After all, most of the characters do not change much. There are the hooded Islamic holy warriors standing to attention, as the charges are read out to the accused, usually a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling and blindfolded on the floor before them. The sets are the same too, often a dingy cement backroom in a house probably on the outskirts of Baghdad. The build-up is tedious. A martial song in Arabic exhorts the faithful to fight and then the commander reads out a statement, often a hammy delivery that even a B-movie Egyptian actor would not get away with. But the closing scenes never fail to shock, no matter how often you witness the sight of a man gasping his last breath as his head is hacked off with a knife. After two or three of these savage episodes you begin to feel physically sick and somehow complicit in these terrible acts.
So why is it that the snuff movies, which are being deliberately distributed by the killers, are being snapped up in their thousands on DVDs across Iraq? A year ago Iraqis liked nothing better than buying illicit pornography or video footage of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen torturing and killing their victims. It was assumed that this lurid fascination would wear off now that, after 40 years of state television, Iraqis have access to 24-hour satellite television. But no, something more disturbing is at work here. In the latest video to hit the streets an Egyptian man, accused of spying for the Americans, is paraded before a camera and has his head severed in a matter of seconds by a powerfully built executioner. Before the murder the video shows footage filmed from the camera of an American warplane that fires a missile into a crowded street; and then pictures of Iraqi civilian victims of the fighting.
The unmistakable message, sent by the fanatical Tawhid wal Jihad (Unity and Holy War) group, is clear. All non-Muslims and even their Muslim collaborators deserve to be executed in the most brutal manner conceivable as punishment for occupying Iraq. A year ago most Iraqis would dismiss these actions as the work of fanatics bent on plunging the country into civil war. After all, the same group is responsible for blowing up the United Nations building a year ago and killing scores of Shia Muslims during their pilgrimage earlier this year in an attempt to spark sectarian strife.
Worryingly the group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi, a Jordanian with links to al-Qa’eda, is no longer a fringe movement but is finding a receptive audience for its message. This month, when heavy fighting erupted on Haifa Street — a main artery through central Baghdad where the old British embassy is located — the group’s distinctive black flag with a yellow circle suddenly sprang up on balconies and lampposts throughout the neighbourhood. Where once the group was accused of being a front for foreign fighters from Syria and Saudi Arabia, now it is clear that Iraqis too are joining the call, or at least adopting the same tactics.
Beheadings and executions of Nepalese contract workers, Turkish truck drivers, American civilians and ordinary Iraqis accused of collaborating with the Americans are now commonplace. The lucky ones are shot, but many turn up with their severed heads bound to their bodies.
The brutality of this struggle, which seems likely to intensify as the date approaches for the first elections in January, completely dominates working life. Correspondents no longer bother writing about the failure of reconstruction, electricity cuts or even attacks on American troops. There is no reconstruction to speak of and the chronic crime, grinding traffic and other grim aspects of life go largely unnoticed. A colleague came within a second of being blown to pieces by a roadside bomb detonated in front of his car on a major motorway in the city earlier this week. The incident was simply another delay to his journey and he did not even bother writing about it. Although several Americans and Iraqis were injured in the blast, it no longer makes news. The car bombs, which explode almost daily and have killed more than 100 Iraqis in the past week, are barely worth a mention unless the death toll climbs into double figures.
Today, living in Baghdad is a simple fight for survival, particularly for the small band of Westerners who still inhabit the city alongside the Iraqi residents. In a year the response to a foreign face in Baghdad has evolved from a smiling ‘hello, Mister’, to a sulky stare and the odd obscene gesture, to today’s look of disbelief or even open hostility. A Westerner walking the street in Baghdad today is a conversation-stopper, which is why we move as little as possible through the city. After the abduction in Baghdad of one British and two American engineers living in the fashionable Mansour area of the city, the few Westerners still living among Iraqis now find themselves in the frontline of this ghastly new twist to the conflict. The Times house was abandoned some time ago because of security scares. Others who had hung on hoping the situation might improve have finally given up. They have been checking into the relative safety of my hotel all week like refugees in search of sanctuary. Others have simply left the country. Even those with contacts in the Iraqi resistance against the Americans are not immune. Two journalists recently had to flee the scene of fighting to avoid being abducted by gangs of gunmen. In both cases they were helped by commanders in the Iraqi insurgency who stalled the militant Islamic jihadists and allowed the foreigners to flee.
The only real defence is to remain inconspicuous. My driver’s car, for instance, has blacked-out windows. We leave the hotel at different times every day and make sure to vary our routes. If we are visiting someone at home or in an office, we drive around the streets first to make sure no one is lying in wait. Some areas of the country and even Baghdad are completely off limits, like the towns of Fallujah and Ramadi, certain militant Sunni Muslim mosques and notorious neighbourhoods. Most interviews are limited to 15 minutes before we are back on the road. I last had to employ these techniques when I lived in Beirut 20 years ago and abducting Westerners was fashionable. But, with a few exceptions, most of those abductions were conducted in order to get ransoms. Many hostages were held for years but most were eventually freed. In Lebanon kidnapping was business, not personal. Here your life expectancy in the hands of al-Zarkawi’s group is probably a few days at best.
In the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq there are few certainties. But now, on my sixth visit to Baghdad since the war, one simple rule seems valid: things only get worse.
Richard Beeston is the diplomatic editor of the Times.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?table=old§ion=current&issue=2004-09-25&id=5041#articletop
I'm not sure what is the correct procedure, thus I raised the question. However, there is no way we can win this war--now. I believe that if GWB hadn't had such a grandiose delusion of remaking Iraq in our image, we could have had a peaceful Iraq by now. Bush doesn't even get the idea, that his way may not be the Iraqi's way. I think Kerry gets this. It should be the Iraqi's that make the decision, what we need to do is separate out the terrorists from the freedom fighters who use terrorists means. I believe this is possible, but the US has to backdown. We cannot destory Iraq to save it!
"We cannot destory Iraq to save it!"
ITA Wish Bush & co would get this point.
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