When President George W Bush announced a “surge” of American troops in Iraq,
Nick Smarro, 26, an army transport driver, was one of the first to be sent
to the front line. He has already survived one roadside bomb, which was
buried under a heap of rubbish. It burst the tyres and shattered the windows
of his vehicle but left him with only minor injuries. Two days later he was
back on patrol.
“He is scared to death,” says Tina Smarro, his mother. “He tells me he will
never get out of his vehicle unless he absolutely has to.”
Nick is stationed just outside Baghdad, where US soldiers are taking the fight
to Sunni insurgents and Al-Qaeda. Every day he runs a gauntlet of small arms
fire and rocks thrown by hostile Iraqis. He feels like a duck in a shooting
gallery, never knowing when his luck will run out.
“He doesn’t trust the Iraqi police,” his mother says. “When you don’t see them
around, you know something is about to happen. They melt away.”
Smarro held a huge “welcome home” party for her son on his return to America a
fortnight ago, but his ordeal is not over. In two days’ time he is heading
back to the Sunni triangle for another year of duty. He doesn’t complain
much to strangers. When asked what life is like out there, he says: “You
don’t want to know.”
His mother feels most Americans have preferred not to know, until now. There
has been no “shared sacrifice” with military families, she says. But as the
death toll of soldiers has risen to more than 3,600, more and more Americans
are decrying the lack of progress after so much blood has been spilt.
In theory the surge is a carefully laid plan to bring security to Baghdad and
buy time for the Iraqi government to reach out to opponents. In practice, as
one defence official out it: “The troops are paying with their lives for
clearing streets in crummy neighbourhoods without any strategic context.”
In the past five months an extra 30,000 troops have arrived in Iraq, boosting
total US forces to 160,000. Operation Phantom Thunder, launched in June, is
rolling through the Baghdad “belts” in the hope of denying insurgents havens
from where they can launch attacks and car bombings. “We couldn’t call it
what it is – Operation Last Chance,” one senior military official admitted.
US soldiers are living in Baghdad hot spots in joint security stations
alongside Iraqi forces, yet the number of unidentified bodies in the capital
was 40% higher in June than at the start of the surge. A suicide bomb in a
market near Kirkuk killed more than 100 people last week.
In Anbar province there have been some notable successes, with US forces
teaming up with formerly hostile Sunni tribes-man to take on Al-Qaeda in
search-and-destroy missions. Yet there has been little progress towards
political reconciliation by the Shi’ite-domi-nated government.
Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Iraq, says: “There are no
consequences for them when they screw up. Whatever is wrong we take care of
it.”
Even if the war is still winnable in Iraq, it is now being lost at home.
Roughly half of Republican senators whisper privately that they have given
up on Iraq, while a growing number are in open revolt. Bush’s own officials
are expressing doubts about sustaining a war that will cost $135 billion
this year. A record 71% of Americans want most troops out of Iraq by the
spring. Bush’s approval rating has plunged below 30%.
Britain, America’s staunchest ally, is inching away from the president under
the new semi-detached leadership of Gordon Brown. In an interview yesterday,
Lord Malloch-Brown, a minister at the Foreign Office, said that the British
prime minister and US president would “no longer be joined at the hip”.
Last week Bush remained defiant. “The real debate over Iraq is between those
who think the fight is lost or not worth the cost or those who think the
fight can be won,” he said. Increasingly, it is an argument between the
president and everybody else.
Bush says he is waiting for the verdict of history, but historians might
conclude that this was the week Americans lost the will to win.
Bush’s hopes of salvaging his tattered legacy now rest with “King David”, as
General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, is known. “I’m going to
wait for David . . . to come back and give us the report on what he sees,”
the president said last week. But will the general deliver the answers Bush
wants?
“Petraeus is an ambitious person,” said a senior defence source. “He might
move into politics one day so he’s looking for bipartisan support. He is a
very pragmatic guy.”
Petraeus believes it takes 10 years for a counterinsurgency war to succeed,
yet he has just two more months to turn the course of the war around before
he presents his progress report to Congress in September.
He knows America’s overstretched army cannot continue at its current troop
levels beyond the spring.
The American commander’s prediction of a disparity between “two clocks” – one
ticking in Baghdad, the other in Washington – is already being borne out by
events. In advance of his report he is bracing for Sunni insurgents to mount
a “mini-Tet”, a reference to the 1968 offensive against the Americans in
Vietnam that undermined public support for that war.
The signs are that Robert Gates, the defence secretary, will begin withdrawing
troops in Iraq this autumn to presurge levels. With luck, Petraeus will be
able to supply a few rosy scenarios to justify such a move. If not, the
pull-out is likely to start anyway to forestall a mutiny by Republican
politicians. The hope is to reduce troops to 60,000 or 70,000 by the end of
2008 and take the sting out of the war as an election issue.
Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, provoked accusations of treason when
he said only a few months ago that Bush knew the war was “lost”. Now the
president himself is raising the spectre of defeat and the dire consequences
of “surrendering to Al-Qaeda” as a last-ditch means of rallying support for
his policy.
Bush looked defensive and peevish when he delivered his interim report on the
troop build-up at a televised press conference on Thursday. He admitted that
progress in an “ugly war” had been unsatisfactory. “Sometimes the decisions
you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved,” he said.
Peggy Noonan, President Reagan’s speech-writer, was appalled by his vanity.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, she noted that Bush liked to present
himself as an idealist, who made decisions “on principle”, unlike his
critics, who were selfish, isolationist and “ever watchful of the polls”.
It is “ungracious”, Noonan pointed out. “Part of the story of his presidency
is he gets to be romantic about history and the American people get to be
the realists . . . This is extremely irritating.” She concluded, “Americans
can’t fire their president right now, so they are waiting it out.”
THEY have, as Bush admitted, “tired of the war”, as its terrible toll hits
home. Many veterans feel brutalised by their experiences. Michael Harmon,
24, an army medic, said he turned against the invasion after a two-year-old
girl was shot. “An IED went off, the gun-happy soldiers just started
shooting anywhere and the baby got hit,” he recalled. “And this baby looked
at me, wasn’t crying, wasn’t anything . . . I know she couldn’t speak. It
might sound crazy but she was like asking me why. You know, ‘Why do I have a
bullet in my leg?’ I was like, this is it. This is ridiculous.”
The few remaining optimists on Iraq are becoming marginalised figures – none
more so than John McCain, the former frontrunner for the Republican
nomination, who might be forced by lack of campaign funds and declining
support to pull out of the 2008 presidential race, as The Sunday Times
revealed last month.
In the Senate last Tuesday, the Arizona senator urged his colleagues to stand
fast. “The terrorists are in this war to win it. Are we?” he asked. McCain
had just returned from Baghdad and, “from what I heard and saw while there,
I believe that our military, in cooperation with the security forces, is
making progress”, he told the fainthearted.
But that day McCain was in desperate straits. Two aides revealed they had
resigned from his presidential campaign after it had blown $22m and was
beset by internal feuding. The Vietnam war hero had to slink away to the
Senate cloakroom in the midst of the Iraq war debate to make a call on his
mobile phone urging fund-raisers not to desert him. His presidential
ambitions are so shattered that he is referred to as Dead Man Walking.
Antiwar critics used to be said to suffer from Bush derangement syndrome. Now
those who back Bush are the ones who appear out of touch with reality. The
rot set in for McCain last April when he was ridiculed for declaring the
surge a success after strolling around a Baghdad market under heavy armed
guard.
As soon as he lost the support of independent voters, Republicans who had
never cared for him but regarded him as a winner began baling out of his
campaign. The McCain implosion was a stark lesson for other politicians,
particularly those facing elections: back Bush at your peril.
In Congress last week, Republicans put Bush on notice that their support for
the war was running out. “Wimps!” scoffed John Boehner, the house Republican
leader. For some perhaps, it was a question of political survival – one war
critic learnt recently that he would face a well-funded antiwar challenge
for his Senate seat.
John Warner, 80, the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who is
expected to retire at the next election, said he was still haunted by the
memory of Vietnam. “The army generals would come in [and say], ‘Just send in
another five or 10 thousand [troops]’,” he recalled. “You know, month after
month. Another 10 or 15 thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept
surging in those years. It didn’t work . . . You don’t forget something like
that.”
The polling company Gallup has tested the opinion of American voters on
various conflicts, asking whether it was mistake to send troops. The company
reported this month that “the only war that compares to the current conflict
in terms of public opposition is the Vietnam war”. WHILE the White House was
dealing with its own row over Iraq, the first “wobble” of the new regime in
Downing Street broke out. Douglas Alexander, the secretary of state for
international development, a close ally of the prime minister, delivered a
speech in Washington which was said to “reorder” Britain’s relationship with
America.
Alexander’s call for a “multilateralist, not unilateralist” foreign policy was
cast as a dig at Blair’s unquestioning support for Bush. “In the 20th
century a country’s might was too often measured by what they could
destroy,” he said. “In the 21st century strength should be measured by what
we can build together.”
Had Brown sided with the waverers to win votes back home? The headlines on
Friday morning sparked a flurry of panic at No 10. Brown called a meeting
with his advisers shortly after lunch, where there was talk of sacking one
of Alexander’s aides for spinning the speech – a sin in the supposedly new
spin-free zone in Downing Street.
At the White House and State Department, senior officials went ballistic and
demanded explanations from their British counterparts. “It has severely
irritated the administration,” said a senior British source. “Douglas
Alexander and his team caused a lot more problems for the prime minister
than they knew.”
No 10 tried to play down suggestions of Britain taking a more independent
line. Blaming spin, however, is too easy an explanation for the
miscom-munication. Sources acknowledge that Alexander intended to deliver a
“subtle” message in Washington for British consumption – just not with the
megaphone that the White House heard loud and clear.
Besides, 24 hours later, another of Brown’s new ministers stoked the
suspicions. Mal-loch-Brown, former deputy secretary-general of the United
Nations, said: “What I really hate is the effort to paint me as
antiAmerican, but I am happy to be described as antineocon. If they see me
as a villain, I will wear that as a badge of honour.”
He went on to say that he hoped British foreign policy under Brown would
become “much more impartial”.
Brown is now preparing to fly to Washington in the next couple of weeks to
reassure Bush about the strength of the alliance. “He may need to come out
quicker than he intended,” a British official said. “He will have to undo
some of the damage.”
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, is also said to be furious and might
arrive in Washington before Brown. Simon MacDonald, No 10’s foreign policy
adviser, will fly out this week to meet Stephen Hadley, the US national
security adviser.
A senior government source insisted Britain’s policy on Iraq remained the
same. “We are not drawing up some political timetable for withdrawal. That
would be nonsensical. Not only that, but how would you explain it to our
troops?
“If we said we were going to withdraw by the end of the year based on some
political calculation, then our military leaders would quite rightly say,
‘Well, why don’t we just pull out now?’ ” Thomas Friedman, the New York
Times commentator, noted last week that the British were already quietly
pulling out of southern Iraq, with important consequences for America.
“Look at the British in Basra,” he wrote. “The British forces there have
slowly receded into a single base at Basra airport. And what has happened?
The void has been filled by a vicious contest for power among Shi’ite
warlords, gangs and clans, and British troops are still being killed
whenever they venture out.
“We should not kid ourselves,” he concluded. “Our real choices in Iraq are
either all in or all out.”
Hoshyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, warned last week that an American
withdrawal could provoke a blood-bath. “The dangers could be a civil war,
dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state,” he said.
The problem is that staying and propping up the Iraqi government is doing
nothing to stop the present violence. Political divisions among Iraq’s
various factions remain as entrenched as ever. Last week Taha al-Luhaibi, an
MP from the National Accord Front, told The Sunday Times: “The government is
a sectarian government which is not based on the constitution and did not
respect its agreements with the other political blocs. This government is
part of the problem and not part of the solution.”
Saleh al-Mutlek, leader of the National Dialogue party, accused the government
of working in the interests of “external forces”, not Iraqis. America, he
said, had brought “nothing to Iraq except destruction and lack of security”.
On Friday the Republican revolt against Bush’s strategy gathered pace. Warner
and Richard Lugar, another Republican senator, proposed legislation that
envisaged a withdrawal of troops beginning as early as January 1.
WHATEVER the manner and timetable of troop reductions in Iraq, and the
consequences for civilians there, another factor plays on the American mood.
At the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative think tank where
so many hopeful plans for the war were hatched, a recent meeting discussed
the dangers of abandoning the “surge” prematurely.
But as the meeting drew to a close, Danielle Pletka, a leading hawk, glumly
noted that the panel and audience had spent two hours discussing the war
with barely a mention of Al-Qaeda or the threat of terrorism. The focus was
almost entirely on America’s diminishing will to win.
Days later the contents of a new US intelligence report were leaked to the
Associated Press. Al-Qaeda, an official revealed, was “considerably
operationally stronger than a year ago” and has “regrouped to an extent not
seen before 2001”. Michael Chertoff, the homeland security chief, said he
had a “gut feeling” that terrorists were planning to attack the United
States this summer.
After billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended, America, it seems,
is back where it started on the eve of September 11, 2001.
Additional reporting: Ali Rifat, Jordan
2003
March 20 Invasion starts
May 1 George W Bush makes ‘mission accomplished’ speech on USS Abraham
Lincoln
May 11 Paul Bremer becomes head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Disbands Iraqi army
September 25 UN orders almost total withdrawal of its staff from Iraq
December 13 Saddam Hussein captured by US troops near Tikrit
2004
Janaury 23 David Kay, head of Iraq Study Group, says Iraq had no WMD
April 29 Pictures of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by US
troops shown on American television
June 17 Independent US commission reports that there was no link
between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 attacks
June 28 Bremer stands down. Interim Iraqi government sworn in
July 9 US Senate committee says US and its allies went to war on
‘flawed’ information
November 7 Battle to drive insurgents from stronghold of Fallujah
begins
2005
January 30 8m Iraqis vote in elections
March 16 Iraq's new parliament opens
August 3-4 21 marines killed near Haditha
August 31 Up to 1,000 people killed in stampede of Shi’ite
pilgrims in Baghdad after bomb rumours
October 25 2,000th US soldier killed
November 19 Reports suggest 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women
and children, killed by US marines in Haditha
2006
January 31 100th British soldier killed
February 22 Bomb destroys Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, one of the
holiest sites in Shi’ite Islam, deepening sectarian strife
June7 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed
June29 British and Iraqi ministers announce plan to transfer security
to Iraqi troops by the end of the year
November 7 Democrats win control of Congress
November 8 Donald Rumsfeld, a key architect of the war, resigns
December 6 US Iraq Study Group recommends Bush abandon his policy or be
‘doomed to failure’
December 30 Saddam Hussein hanged
2007
February 1 Surge of additional 30,000 troops begins
February 18 News reports reveal scandal of wounded US soldiers being
poorly treated at Walter Reed army medical centre
April 12 Suicide bomber gets inside Iraqi parliament, killing three MPs
and injuring five others
July 12 Bush says some military progress being made, but admits no
political solution in sight. US House of Representatives votes to withdraw
most troops by April 2008
• US dead 3,612
• UK dead 159
• Estimates of Iraqis killed by the war range from 73,000 to more than 600,000
What now for Iraq?
Wishful thinking
The Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki moves towards political reconciliation
between Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurd factions. A deal is agreed on oil revenues.
Iraqi forces successfully take over internal security. US troop numbers
fall, leaving 50,000 to fight Al-Qaeda and protect the border. Phased
withdrawals continue under the new president, whether Republican or
Democrat.
Hopeful pragmatism
US forces withdraw in stages, but Iraqi forces melt away as sectarian militias
run out of control. The government falls and civil war worsens between Sunni
and Shi’ite areas. The worst of the carnage is soon over and factions agree
spheres of influence. Iraq is effectively divided into three – autonomous
Kurds in the north, a Sunni central area and a Shi’ite south. Baghdad
remains the thorniest problem.
The fear
Coalition troops withdraw and civil war rages, spilling over into neighbouring
countries. Iran aids the Shi’ites, while Saudi Arabia defends its Sunni
brethren. As the fighting continues it fans further violence throughout the
region, particularly in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. Al-Qaeda
establishes new havens to plot terror attacks on the West.
For Deborah Haynes's blog from Iraq, go to www.timesonline.co.uk/insideiraq
