Iraq

In the Fall of 2002 not many people said “no” to the war in Iraq. The vote in the U.S. Senate was either 99-1 or 98-2 authorizing the use of force in Iraq. My view at the time was that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction was convincing, and the evidence of Saddam Hussein harboring or supporting terrorists was probably true. All in all I thought the decision to go to war was a close call, and I expressed that where there is a close call the answer should be “no”. I did not favor starting the war.

By the spring of 2003 I was much more supportive of the war. I try to appreciate our armed forces and wished them speed and success in the advance to Baghdad. In 2003 and 2004 it seemed to me fair to let Iraq try to settle down, to organize a government and get about its business. By some time in 2005 or at least in 2006 it was pretty clear that was not going to happen. The Iraquis have not surrendered and are following their traditional patterns and ways of life.

I cannot predict whether peace will come to Iraq. I can, however, predict how it will come if it does come. Peace will come to Iraq in a paroxysm of violence, bloodshed and death. In other words the war in Iraq will end when someone wins and someone loses.

This is the vision shared by Senator McCain, al-Quaeda in Iraq, President Amadinejad and Muqtada al-Sadr, although their visions differ in exactly who should win the war. Senator McCain believes that the only way for the United States to win the war is with substantial numbers of additional soldiers. President Bush, on the other hand believes that with a short term increase in troops some combination of facts as yet unfound will lead to a civil solution to the war.

Senator McCain may well be correct, that a large enough force can pacify Iraq, that the various insurgent groups can be made to lose the war, but his position begs the questions of whether the war is worth winning, whether the price is worth it and whether America can stand the concomitent loss of American and Iraqui lives to bring some enforced peace. I do not think so.

President Bush appearsunwilling to accept new facts as they have evovled. Prewar Defense Department estimates were that the U.S. would suffer between 200 and 5000 deaths in a war against Iraq. As of April, 2007 we are 4 years into the war, U.S. combat deaths exceed 3,000, and soldiers are being killed at 100 per month. By the time President Bush leaves office U.S. combat deaths will exceed 4,000. The President has allowed events to dictate our policies, and the combination of linear thinking and inadequate force leaves our soldiers as targets without a goal.

In retrospect, at some point in 2004 or 2005 we should have declared victory and gone home. In 2007 we should define our troops' combat role as force protection, let the Iraquis straighten it out for themselves, which will doubtless involve a bloodbath of some magnitude and then leave them alone.