Why We're Failing in Iraq

After we were attacked by Al Queda I—like many Americans—felt a need for payback. 9/11 created a sense of unity in our country, something that may not have existed since the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

We were scared. We wanted retribution. We wanted to know who had done this to us, how it happened, and why. But most of all we wanted the culprits caught and destroyed. Mentally and emotionally we were ready for war. Tens of thousands of our finest young men and women volunteered for military service. They wanted to defend our country from its sworn enemies. With the image of George W. Bush addressing recovery workers on the rumble of the World Trade Center, we left it up to our new president and his team to carry us through to ultimate victory.

So with that mindset, we watched as our armed services successfully wrested control of Afghanistan from its radical Taliban leaders. But one of our main objectives, to kill or capture Bin Laden, failed.

Why?

Then the administration began touting the danger posed to us from Iraq. We were told that the Iraqis had huge stocks of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) stockpiled throughout their country. Supposedly they were in bed with Bin Laden and would supply these weapons to the terrorists. The case was made for attacking Iraq.

How did this happen and why?

With our overwhelming military force we had no problem defeating the conventional Iraqi army. Iraqi citizens were dancing in the streets with joy. We felt that we were liberators. At that point we had an opportunity to stabilize the country with a series of intelligent decisions. But the decisions that were made only led to hostility and persistent attacks on our service personnel. Four years later, with over 3,000 dead and more than 20,000 wounded, those attacks continue.

Why? How did we screw up so badly?

The answers to many of those questions are revealed in a new book by Andrew Cockburn, RUMSFELD, His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy ($16.50 in hardback at Amazon.com). It is a scathing attack against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, his leadership of the military establishment, and the decisions he forced through regarding our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. While I don’t know enough to concur with all of the author’s conclusions, the book offers fascinating insights into Donald Rumsfeld’s ambition which was limitless, his intellect which was overestimated, and his management style which was Machiavellian.

We may be analyzing what went wrong in Iraq for years to come, but if you are interested in the subject and those questions plague you as they did me, then this book is a fine start.

If you’d like to contribute to the foregoing, you can comment on this site by becoming a ‘blogger’ or you can e-mail me at WGDavis46@aol.com.

Visit my web site: www.authorsden/williamgdavis

Iraq - What Now?

Tending to personal and family commitments, Middle Class Warrior has been silent for several months. So much has happened since November 2006 that it was like a big meal that took a long time to digest.

The Democrats won the House and the Senate, repudiating not only the Bush administration’s handling of the war in Iraq but also, I believe, a rejection of their insensitivity to the plight of the Middle Class. If we can believe the Democratic Party leadership, they want to address our massive health care problem, move toward energy independence, and create more good paying jobs. Though I believe the House of Representatives will do all it can to move this agenda forward, it will be the Senate, where corporate campaign contributions is the blood on which the institution thrives, that will make or break these initiatives. Watch the Senate. These people don’t work for you, but for the corporations and lobbying groups that fund their campaigns.

But the biggest issue, the one that’s on the mind of almost every American, is Iraq. What do we do? Follow the President’s “new” course of surging a further troop buildup? Phase down our commitment by slowly bringing our troops home? Pull the plug as soon as possible?

That’s the debate and it will continue as long as Bush is in office. Let’s face it. We all know now that going into Iraq, as ignorant as we were, was a mistake. We had no idea what we were getting into. Most experts can’t even agree about that now. Are we fighting an insurgency? A counterterrorism operation? A civil war? It’s most likely a combination of all three. The question we have to ask ourselves is how do we handle it? Can we handle it? Should we handle it?

Like most Americans, I’m thoroughly disgusted with the Iraqis. We deposed a regime that had terrorized them for years. They were grateful—for a while. We had a small window of opportunity to transform their initial gratitude into a positive force. But we didn’t find ways to get these people quickly employed. We chased off the technocrats who could run the infrastructure because most of them were associated with Sadaam’s political party. We brought in American firms with Republican political connections to rake profits off of the “rebuilding” of Iraq. While we were fighting our “War on Terror”, the Iraqis were maneuvering behind the scenes to achieve the political agendas of their respective factions through violence and “ethnic cleansing.”

Now we’ve got what we’ve got; an insurgency, a counterterrorism operation, a civil war. A mess is the best description.

So what do we do now?

Here’s my recommendation. Give the President’s “troop surge” six months to work. If it doesn’t, pull all of our troops out of the center of the country. Mass them along Iraq’s borders with Syria and Iran. Seal off the borders from any outside infiltrators and foreign fighters. Let the Iraqis fight it out among themselves. Maybe without our troops in the middle, they’ll figure out a way to live peacefully. Once the Iraqis fill their power vacuum, we back the winner, declare victory, and come home.

But here’s the sad truth. We’re going to be in Middle East for a long, long time. Until we solve our debt problem to the Arab sheikdoms and end our dependence on their oil.

If you’d like to contribute to the foregoing, you can comment on this site by becoming a ‘blogger’ or you can e-mail me at WGDavis46@aol.com.

Visit my web site: www.authorsden.com/williamgdavis