America's Responsibility
EDITORIAL America's Responsibility Desperation breeds illusions. The latest illusion, embraced reluctantly by the Bush administration and enthusiastically by its critics, is that the burden of...
...Though it is true that our military is smaller than it should be, there are troops available for Iraq, if we are willing to call on combat elements from the Marines, the National Guard, and Special Forces...
...prove unavailing...
...The original plan was to take more than a year to stand up an Iraqi army, and more than a year to train an Iraqi police force to reasonable standards...
...But premature overreliance on Iraqi forces is a bad substitute for adequate U.S...
...The United States invaded Iraq, and did so for good reasons...
...Nor would any reasonable person deny that international assistance is essential to rebuilding Iraq...
...We trust that before that moment arrives, the White House will make the hard decision to put in the U.S...
...forces in place are insufficient to deal with the mounting crisis...
...On both the international and Iraqi fronts, the administration's actions are being driven by the realization that there are too few American troops in Iraq...
...Nor should we forget for a moment that the whole world is watching—especially Arabs and Muslims...
...At least the administration has begun dropping the pretense that everything is under control in Iraq and that the civilian authority has the resources and the field commanders the troops that they need...
...This is a special problem inasmuch as the main "security challenges" Sanchez sees "looming in the future" include the infiltration of al Qaeda and other foreign forces across those porous borders and along those highways...
...Secretary of State Powell's aides spun the press about their boss's big victory over Rumsfeld, thus perpetuating the petty personal feuds that plague this administration even during times of crisis...
...Democrats call for internationalization in Iraq not simply because they like multilateralism but because, as both Howard Dean and John Kerry have said, it will allow us to "bring our boys home...
...Marines decided to extend their stay in Najaf another two weeks...
...It's not surprising, therefore, that the American officials most eager for a U.N...
...That option does not exist...
...After all, what country would want to rush troops into Iraq now when even the Americans have been unable to create a secure environment...
...What we fear more, however, is that no amount of aid will suffice if Iraq remains insecure...
...We have nothing in principle against seeking a new U.N...
...The same desperation is driving the administration to accelerate its efforts to turn over responsibility for maintaining security in Iraq to Iraqis...
...Last week the commander of U.S...
...But every day, the reality of our predicament becomes harder to paper over...
...Similar suspicions swirl around the bombing of the U.N...
...It is a simple matter of an unwillingness by America's leaders to shoulder the necessary military burden...
...Now that's all being accelerated...
...Not because it's been determined that Iraqis don't need that much training after all...
...Obviously this ought to be the goal, and the sooner the better...
...It is an illusion to imagine that this mess can be handed off to someone else and we can go on about our business...
...The administration's push to stand up an Iraqi force ahead of schedule is a thinly veiled attempt to make up for the lack of American forces and the unwillingness to introduce more...
...over the next few months, is that we aren't likely to get more troops from the international community...
...Most worrying if true is the fact that the new Interior Ministry's domestic intelligence network will, according to the Post, be "made up largely of secret police and intelligence agents from the ousted government...
...And it only takes one or two mistakes in the vetting process to cause a catastrophe...
...It's a good bet France will strike a hard bargain before agreeing to any resolution acceptable to the administration—if it ever does...
...Never mind whether it is desirable to replace American troops with forces from Poland and Thailand and Mongolia in such sensitive places as Najaf...
...And there's another problem...
...In principle, there is nothing wrong with trying to shift control back to the Iraqis...
...forces in Iraq, Lt...
...Will things be back to normal in Najaf in two weeks...
...Right now, a scant few months after the war, Washington already seems short of breath...
...to take the lead role in Iraq is really a kind of veiled McGovernism...
...forces...
...If a militia or an internal conflict of some nature were to erupt," Gen...
...These efforts to shift responsibility onto others— regardless of whether they are ready, able, or willing—are wrong, and will in any case fail...
...Two weeks...
...The Turkish government will apparently not even put the issue to a vote before October, and Turkish public opinion remains hostile to any deployment in Iraq...
...The Europeans have few, if any, troops to spare...
...General Sanchez went on to acknowledge, as the Associated Press reported, that "the coalition lacks sufficient troops to protect Iraq's porous borders or its thousands of miles of highways...
...The difficult straits in which we find ourselves will become painfully apparent when the administration's pleas for help at the U.N...
...forces in Iraq...
...But the bad news for the U.S...
...But as one Iraqi official commented, "Their ties may be difficult to break...
...The goal of a secure Iraq requires an unapologetic assertion of U.S...
...That should be our goal...
...The administration seems to find it difficult to admit that more troops are needed, in Iraq and in the armed forces generally...
...In short, it is foolish—and we believe irresponsible— for the administration to place all its bets on being able to find tens of thousands of foreign forces to fill the dangerous gap in Iraq in the coming months...
...The latest illusion, embraced reluctantly by the Bush administration and enthusiastically by its critics, is that the burden of establishing and maintaining security in Iraq can be substantially shifted off American shoulders and onto someone else's—whether it be the United Nations, Turkey, India, or the poor Iraqi people themselves...
...backing is not a victory for the multilat-eralist spirit Powell allegedly harbors...
...But in present circumstances, the hasty efforts in this direction have about them an unmistakable air of buck-passing...
...There's symmetry to that, because the Turks aren't happy about the idea either...
...General Sanchez admits that a serious Iraqi force won't be ready for several months...
...Again, we have no principled objection to involving the United Nations, to seeking more international help, and to giving Iraqis more responsibility for their own country...
...But even that may be inaccurate...
...The choices are stark: Either the United States does what it takes to succeed in Iraq, or we lose in Iraq...
...Here we find the Bush administration and its Democratic critics in altogether too much agreement: It's been four months since the war ended, and already everyone wants to shift the burden of responsibility off America's shoulders and onto someone else's, and the sooner the better...
...Nor should one have high hopes for India, where public opinion is also hostile and the government wary...
...Robert Kagan and William Kristol...
...Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad, ". . . that would be a challenge out there that I do not have sufficient forces for...
...But the fact is that, at the end of two months of U.N...
...military, and for all those out there who would like to see us shift some of the burden of the Iraqi occupation to the U.N...
...After the August 29 car bombing that killed the prominent Shia cleric Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, the U.S...
...It is the responsibility of the United States to build in Iraq a condition of security and stability, moving toward prosperity and democracy...
...India and Turkey, who are the real targets of the administration's diplomatic efforts, show every sign of not wanting to play...
...resolution, or in further "internationalizing" the occupation of Iraq, if that will help bring security to the country...
...So when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says the United States has enough forces on the ground in Iraq, what he means is that we have enough so long as nothing untoward happens...
...resolution these days are to be found not just in the State Department but also among the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders of U.S...
...headquarters...
...According to the Washington Post's Daniel Williams, "The need to quickly find skilled fighters and intelligence agents . . . has forced the Americans to dip into the ranks of units closely associated with Hussein...
...And if we lose, we will leave behind us not blue helmets but radicalism and chaos, a haven for terrorists, and a perception of American weakness and lack of resolve in the Middle East and reckless blundering around the world...
...In this formulation, the call for the U.N...
...General Ricardo Sanchez, admitted that his forces could not handle any new eruption of conflict in Iraq should one occur...
...Not because the administration is suddenly eager to put an Iraqi face on security...
...diplomacy, the United States is unlikely to have found real help...
...That's probably optimistic...
...But even if a new resolution passes, don't expect a big influx of foreign forces...
...And then what will the administration do...
...Plainly, there are no easy answers to the problems we face in Iraq right now...
...It is heartening that he has decided to send a large budget request for Iraq to Congress, though we fear he may actually have asked for too little in reconstruction funds...
...troops necessary to do the job...
...That is the abyss we may be staring into if we do not shift course now...
...In the interest of finding capable Iraqis, the administration has apparently been turning increasingly to former employees of Saddam Hussein's elite military and security forces...
...The American military is too small, thanks to a decade-and-a-half's irresponsible cutbacks, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike...
...Then there are other problems...
...But what we are witnessing today is neither prudent multilateralism nor the normal, gradual process of turning power over to Iraqis that we all expected to occur over time...
...Administration officials say all recruits are "screened" to insure their loyalty to the new regime and their friendliness toward the United States...
...responsibility and a redoubling of U.S...
...This week the newly appointed Iraqi foreign minister said he was not happy about the idea of Turkish troops in Iraq...
...We trust the president knows he cannot cut and run in Iraq...
...Already American officials in Baghdad are investigating the possibility that the car bombing of police headquarters there may have involved Baathists within the new Iraqi security forces...
...But there are real questions about how quickly a reliable Iraqi force can be put in place...
...As Reuel Marc Gerecht points out elsewhere in this issue, there is a real question whether non-American forces, and particularly Muslim forces from Turkey and Pakistan, will make the situation in Iraq better or worse...
...effort—not clinging to illusions...
...But in fact the administration's new push for U.N...
...This can only encourage our deadly enemies to escalate the pressure...
...No, the accelerated timetable is due entirely to the fact that security problems are proliferating, and the U.S...
Vol. 9 • September 2003 • No. 1
