Our Troops Must Stay
By
JOE LIEBERMAN November 29,
2005; Page A18
I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the
past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be
done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed
transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern,
self-governing, self-securing nationhood -- unless the great American
military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is
prematurely withdrawn.
Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North,
there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite
South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power
and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing
greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by
Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where
most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too, there is
progress.
There are many more cars on the streets, satellite
television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in
Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing.
And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National
Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and
economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war
against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there
to protect it.
It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million
Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and
roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic
extremists or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes
will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are
intent on stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos
that will allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their
fanatical war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million
because the outcome of this war is critically important to the security
and freedom of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to
strike us directly again and to further undermine the growing stability
and progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American
national and economic security priority.
* * *
Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the
Palestinian Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the
region, but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and
Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative election
campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud self-determination
after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian occupiers (the
Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be next), and the
Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to open up their
governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting with the
thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he declared with
justifiable pride that his country now has the most open, democratic
political system in the Arab world. He is
right.
In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence,
eight million Iraqis voted for their interim national government in
January, almost 10 million participated in the referendum on their new
constitution in October, and even more than that are expected to vote in
the elections for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27
million Iraqis have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown,
they have voted for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred
the 10,000 terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior
of the Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed
constitution, registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking
up arms and going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a
vigorous political campaign, and a large number of independent television
stations and newspapers covering it.
None of these remarkable changes would have happened
without the coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost
all of the progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if
those forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of
securing the country.
The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand
this, and they asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The
question is whether the American people and enough of their
representatives in Congress from both parties understand this. I am
disappointed by Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took
America into the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans
who are more worried about whether the war will bring them down in next
November's elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the
progress in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While
U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and
increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for
Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are
better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident
their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today.
What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political
leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the
famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.
The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in
Iraq, Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and
compelling vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in
which Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the
Iraqis themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000
terrorists who would take it from them.
* * *
Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy
for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to
the American people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but
has changed over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after
Saddam was removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to
admit that; but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic
American fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The
administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build"
accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last
week.
We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every
Iraqi fighting unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a
multiplier of our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being
made. The Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now
controls and polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition
and Iraqi forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled
cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria.
Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military themselves.
Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a mission to clear
Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar province at the west end
of the Sunni Triangle.
Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about
one-third of the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are
able to "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S.,
and that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American
military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the
increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes well,
I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence there by
the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our presence will
need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to come.
The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it
should have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador
Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan --
Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and
political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18 provinces
with its elected leadership, civil service and the private sector. That is
the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build" strategy, and so is the
work American and international teams are doing to professionalize
national and provincial governmental agencies in Iraq.
These are new ideas that are working and changing the
reality on the ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are
optimistic about their future -- and why the American people should be,
too.
* * *
I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are
carrying most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart,
effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a Thanksgiving
meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in western Iraq, I
asked their commander whether the morale of his troops had been hurt by
the growing public dissent in America over the war in Iraq. His answer was
insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I would guess that if the
opposition and division at home go on a lot longer and get a lot deeper it
might have some effect, but, Senator, my Marines are motivated by their
devotion to each other and the cause, not by political debates."
Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for
the rest of America and its political leadership at this critical moment
in our nation's history. Semper Fi.
Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from
Connecticut.
|