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From The Sunday Times
July 15, 2007
Iraq: Has America lost the will to win?
Even if the war is still winnable in Iraq, it is now being lost at home. Even some Republican senators are calling for troops to be withdrawn
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.”
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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
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"The French were right. Weren't they?
CWuil, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil"
Yes, they were dead right!
The coalition forces are going to get the kicking of all time. The pity is that it will be the boys and girls who have to get out in one piece who will pay the price, not Bush, Blair and big oil.
Ian Olive, Moutardon, France
The astounding naivety of the Bush administration in particular and the US public in general that they could invade Iraq, depose Saddam Hussein, democratise the country and do a deal with the new Iraqi and pro-US government for cheap oil for ever defies all reason. Whereas Saddam Hussein was an unpleasant leader, as is Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe and a few other despots, he wasn't a real threat and he would have gone on doing his thing until he died one way or another. So what was it all about.
There is clearly no place for conventional military machines anymore. Trying to fight people with a cause and a passion on their home ground who can change from fighter to farmer or taxi driver in as long as it takes to hide the AK47 is too silly. You would have thought that just about every major conflict for the past 50 years would have adequately demonstrated that fact of life.
Perhaps it's really the military top brass who want to keep it all going along with the inevitable politicians
Ian Olive, Moutardon, France
With regard to John McCain's popularity going down the tubes, it wasn't from his stance on the Iraqi War.
It was due to his stance on the Amnesty Bill. You would think he would know better because he's from a border state!
3/4 of U.S. citizens were against that bill, and many requested refunds of their donations...not just from him, but all the others in Congress who supported that bill as well!
Holly, Tulsa, USA/OK
Quoting saleh al-mutlek does not help. every iraqi knows of al-mutlek's history. he was a strong supporter of saddam's reqime.
najdat nazhat, london, uk
Perhaps the most free press in the world exists in America, yet most Americans haven't a clue about the reality of the Iraq war. Aside from a few exceptions, the American news media have been woefully AWOL in coverage of the war.
Perhaps they are too busy providing wall-to-wall coverage of the implosions of self-obsessed celebrities.
A.R. Hicks, Memphis, Tenn.
The War on Terror isn't one that can come to a definite end with one victor and one loser, why are the Americans along with us and the other country’s in the coalition still there? one reason given is to oversee the transaction of a new government; this is ludicrous! The political views there run much deeper than Conservative, Labour or Liberal, you can't simply put a new government into power and then expect a smooth transaction. If we are in the business of taking out evil dictatorships then is there a pin stuck in Zimbabwe on the maps in 10 Downing Street and The White House?!.
Does pulling out of Iraq mean that the War on Terror is lost? No, because there is no set battlefield for this sort of war, its a guerrilla war that is taking place on a global basis you take out Al-Qaeda in Iraq and from its ashes another extremist group will rise somewhere else.
Pull our people out and bring them home, too many people have died for the sake of George W. Bush's arrogance and greed.
David J Sherwood, Upminster, Essex/England
There is no way to win .. just how much to lose !
Irradiate the oilfields, render the oil utterly useless.
Then walk away, see how many oil rich islamist fanatics want to play ganes after that.
Scott , Kirkcaldy, Independent Scotland
The problem is that America went to Iraq and made him a field of test every day try something Bush and Dick Cheney
has a huge companies in Iraq, and they are the sole beneficiary of this war
Bush claims to be waging a war against terrorism and the question now why he sold to a Saudi arms deal, which is one of enormous poles of terrorism in Iraq 50% of the suicide bombers were from Saudi Arabia
, According to washintonpost newspaper reports and statements periodicals Zalmay Khalilzad
I think they deceived American people and killed his sons in iraq
Muhsin Najim Abid, Bristol, UK
The problem is that America went to Iraq and made him a field of test every day try something Bush and Dick Cheney
has a huge companies in Iraq, and they are the sole beneficiary of this war
Bush claims to be waging a war against terrorism and the question now why he sold to a Saudi arms deal, which is one of enormous poles of terrorism in Iraq 50% of the suicide bombers were from Saudi Arabia
, According to washintonpost newspaper reports and statements periodicals Zalmay Khalilzad
I think they deceived American people and killed his sons in iraq
Iraqi journalist
Muhsin Najim Abid, Bristol, UK
What's to win in Iraq? A place to put 14 permanent US military bases? We've got that already. A place to build the world's largest unseen US Embassy in Iraq? It's already been built--we're just not allowed to have photographs of it (have any of you Brits seen the place or photos of it?)
The Operation Iraqi Liberation stuff? Oil? Well, if the Brits stay, they get one quarter of the oilfields, if what we hear on the back channels is correct. US gets 75%--EU gets nothing unless they buy it from US OIl.
And the Iraqis get to keep royalties of 12.5% on all oil pumped. Such a DEAL!. Read the Hydrocarbon Law text. And good luck if you can find the secret Annexes--the ones that lay out exactly what company gets to explore/drill/pump in what "oil patch."
See the 2001 map Cheney & his pals drew up in the first few days after his appointment to office in 2001 (our first court-appointed acting President in history). The map is at www.judicialwatch.org/iraq_oil_maps, near enough.
Bill W. , Waltham, MA
To TDH in Alabama:
You said: This is a 2 thousand year struggle that is coming to a head.
I assume you are referring to a 2000 year Christian/Muslim struggle? Considering Mohammed lived from circa 570-632 AD I would like to know how it has been going on for 2000 years.
Gregor Former, Boston, USA/MA
Paul writes "The US is winning the war in Iraq. Al-qaida is on the nose with the average Iraqi. The only really effective support base Al-qaida has, is in the traitorous Western Left. The days of Al-qaida, and the insurgency, are numbered. Bush will be proved right.
Paul Francis, Brisbane, Australia"
Sorry Paul - the "Al Qaeda" apparently in Iraq is a self-titled "offshoot" and disowned by the real Al Qaeda. In fact, it is a figment of Bush and his henchmen's fevered imagination, and used to try and trick the American nation into believeing a) that Iraq was involved in 9/11 and b) that Al Qaeda are responsible for the chaos in Iraq. Wrong on both counts.
You need to get out more, mate
Iraqi innocents dead. c3/4 million, and climbing. Displaced, c 4 million
Jeremy Poynton, Fromeville, 51st State
The US is winning the war in Iraq. Al-qaida is on the nose with the average Iraqi. The only really effective support base Al-qaida has, is in the traitorous Western Left. The days of Al-qaida, and the insurgency, are numbered. Bush will be proved right.
Paul Francis, Brisbane, Australia
If the American people have lost the will to win this war ,the American media can congratulate themselves and say ,"we have done a great job ."In April there was an anti-war protest in DC . The same day there was a group in DC supporting our troops and the war .The group supporting our troops outnumbered the peace-niks 3 to 1 .The media did not cover it. I read about the ones who are saying we have lost . I talk to the ones who say "I want to get back and help win ." It seems the world is full of Chamberlands these days .
Frances Vaughn, Forest Park , USA/GA
If America can't deal with its own borders why does anybody presume that it can deal with Iraq's borders? It could never win or lose in Iraq. It could only buy time. Perhaps it would have been more honest on your part to ask why it doesn't have another 50,000 lives to spare? Without political progress in Baghdad it's a waste of American lives and money. You can't obtain this progress until the President understands that there will be no peace inside Iraq until there is peace outside Iraq between its neighbors and America. It demands a change of American policy in the Middle East. Iraq should be one state but there are several nations inside it now that are sharing the land. It's another Yugoslavia. There's no confidence in Bush at home or abroad. Nobody will allow him to make a major decision anymore. We're stuck with him until the next President. Is that bad? Perhaps not. For one thing everybody can make preparations for the next President at home or abroad. 2009 will be a busy year.
Derry Ledoux, Cohasset, Ma., USA
Democrats have taken a stand that U.S. efforts in Iraq must cease because, as they claim, the story has ended. The "ending" has Iraq in a hopeless civil war, with U.S. forces being slaughtered for nothing. The left goes so far as to paint our entry there as nothing more than Bush and his cohorts having lied their way into this war for personal gains of one kind or another. The story in Iraq has not ended. But while we don't know the ending, we know it started with U.S. entry into Iraq. We removed Saddam, destroying the govt. in the process. The U.S. is obligated now to do what it can to help Iraq find its foundation. When confronted with the consequences of retreat, Democrats skip right over to the stock answer: "we aren't responsible". Funny, that, coming from a group that talks all the time about the need to intercede here or there around the world. Their hypocrisy is due to the fact that they're only against this war because Republicans are tied to it politically. It's a fact.
Oliver, USA,
Some 4,000 years ago it was written: "Do not fight in your enemy's city." True then as it is today.
Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Why does everyone persist in attaching Bush's policies to every American? The majority of us realize we shouldn't have gone into Iraq to begin with. We do not want war nor do we care about their oil. I feel very sorry for the innocent folks in Iraq but not sorry enough that I would want to see one of my son's sacraficed over Bush's mistake. American soldiers unfortunately at times have to obey the orders of their commander and chief and the world should be very thankful of that fact. This rule has protected the world for a century. Please direct your negative comments towards the Bush administration not Americans and their military. We are not as evil and dumb as you make us out to be.
Tom, Chicago, Illinous USE
My second attempt to put the facts right: Nicholas of London, where on earth did you get your statistics from? Coalition casualties have never been higher. April (117 deaths), May (131), June (108) and 39 in this month already. This is the first time since the beginning of the invasion that more than 100 coalition deaths have been recorded in three consecutive months. As for the maimed, it's probably three times as high at least. - The number of Iraqi civilians killed or maimed or bereaved or displaced is not properly recorded but it is mind-boggling. --- It is not nice to bend statistics, so I thought someone had better put the record straight.
alan, cologne,
As a citizen of Canada and the world, I think its a tragedy that the international community, especially Western nations that share common values with the United States were unable to rally around the effort in Iraq, politically and militarily. Going into Iraq may have been a mistake, however, what was done was done. Slinging cheap shots at the Americans and pointing fingers was never good for the Iraqis, the region or the world. America tried to do a noble thing, the world failed Iraq and failed to stand in solidarity with the leading liberal democracy by being to smug to actually give a rats ass about the reality of the situation. The UN and the Western world have become irrelevent. Terrorism will spread and consume us, and many years from now we will ask whether Iraq was winnable at a much easier price if we only backed the only country who was willing to fight for stability and for democracy in the middle-east. Shame on Canada, and shame on the rest of the Western world.
Jorge, Toronto, Canada
Our war against Iraq was lost long ago. Saying that it still might be winnable is unethical, divisive, radical-right propaganda.
Bittner, Denver, USA, Colorado
Prime Minister al-Maliki said yesterday that "“We say with confidence that we are capable, God willing, of taking full responsibility for the security file if the international forces withdraw in any time they wish.â€
So if the Prime Minister of Iraq declares that the coalition forces can now leave at any time, as the Iraqi forces are capable of handling the country's security, what compelling reason is there now to stay?
Do Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown know better than the Prime Minister of Irag of the current capabilities of Iraqi security forces?
Perhaps there will be a retraction or 'clarification' tomorrow nullifying the Prime Minister's statement, but the damage is done, if only to al-Maliki's already-diminished reputation.
And whatever further political progress is to be made in Iraq needs to occur within the next fortnight. The Iraqi government is going on vacation for the month of August, and by that month's end, General Petraeus will begin drafting his report.
Walter G., Washington DC,
if our president could only read as well as he drank. a little british history in iraq may have kept us out of this shitstorm...
arthur gore, stuart, florida, usa
There is no war. We are an invading force. The war was over after the regime change took place. We did what we went in to do. It was foolish but we accomplished the mission. We have managed to give Iraq to Iran.
By declaring a generational war our commander and chief has tried to secure the power to circumvent the constitution. This is an age old approach of leading with fear. It's been done many times before. We lost before we began.
You can not win when you do not moral high ground. If we want security then we need to come to terms with the imperial agenda that has been to sold to us in the form of progress. Until then, we will continue to loose civil rights and be put in harms way by those who support imperial aspirations. The media has played an instrumental part in putting us where we are at. The media needs to come terms with their sins as well. Articals on impeachment and wars crimes trials are the only way to start the healing.
This is all about power not religion.
Chris Stewart, Morrow, Ohio
Sooner or later America will fall. Al-Qaeda will never give up until they either defeat the west or the west destroys Islam. Even if it doesn't happen tomorrow.....it will happen eventually.
Jane, Paris, France
Republicans are looking for something to boost their credibility ahead of presidential elections next year. Boosting numbers and then reducing them by summer next year, claiming victory where none existed, is one clever ploy. Another will be to miraculously capture a high value target around the third quarter next year, something that has eluded the mighty US army for 7 years. Yet another would be another terrorist attack on mainland US.
Don't be surprised if one or a combination of these happen next year.
J. Taylor, London,
Nicholas - Wherever did you get your statistics from? Interestingly, as you say, the rate of "coalition" casualties has been at its highest (not lowest) rate over the past three and a half months since the invasion began. Never before have over 100 "coalition" troops been killed in three consecutive months. April 117, May 131, June 108 and already nearly 40 this month. - I just thought I'd put the record straight. -- Unfortunately I don't have figures for the maimed, but they are perhaps three times as high. -- As for Iraqi deaths and maimed, nobody seems to be counting them.
alan, cologne,
It's not that America cannot win the war, she cannot sustain the will to win when engaging the enemy with one arm tied behind its back. The generals know that counterinsurgency warfare cannot be won. All you get is a stalemate. Western politicians are perfectly fine with a stalemate, but the mullhas are not. The fanatics will not leave us alone. They are on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons and they will use them. This is a 2 thousand year struggle that is coming to a head. We can blame Bush all we want for the mismanagement of the war, but if we withdraw in defeat, our enemies will be emboldened. The options are clear: wait to be attacked again or take the offensive. As in WW2 we must be willing to let the marines do what they do best-- rape, murder and pillage. Every great general in history has known there is no alternative in a campaign but to totally destroy the armed combatants and to take the horror of war to their population. But the question is: Do we have the stomach?
TDH, Daphne, USA/ Alabama
The "surge" is working but the democrats are doing all they can to ensure America's defeat at any cost. Regaining the White House and their power is their priority - not the welfare of the country!
Salopian, Shropshire/ATL,
Vietnam II
Jim, Leeds, Uk
It is ironic, not to say tragic, that Bush is now asking for people to Petraeus "more time", since that's exactly what he failed to give Hans Blix.
Patrick Mullaghy, Toulouse,
I protested the war in 2003 because it was manufactured, arrogant, and irresponsible... and
I will protest an early withdraw for exactly the same reasons.
I think these thinktanks make a nicely balance trio and offer the largest amount of information and intelligence on Iraq and the region. Anyone interested take some time to browse around their websites.
The Jamestown Foundation,
The Council on Foreign Relations,
and The Brookings Inst.
Michael, DC/Baltimore, US
If you have a heart and you pay attention, you cannot possibly believe that military intervention has made a positive difference in Iraq. How can sending our military to destroy the homes and lives of the Iraqi people make any of us any safer? I doubt seriously that any parent, wife, husband, child, in any country, who has lost a soldier in the "war" would say that their sacrifice is well worth it and that they are satisfied that their loved one died for a great cause. When, to this day, we cannot see progress, how can they be convinced that their sacrifice has made a difference? Our citizens are paying the price, our government is not and NEVER WILL !
Carmen, Nashville, USA
Cut Iraq into Shiastan, Sunnistan and Kurdistan and move the US troops to Kurdistan. That is the only way out.
If the US and allies want to dance to Saudi Arabia's tunes and persist with the current situation including anymore surges, it will be a total rout!
Regards,
Krishna R. Kumar, Udupi, India
More people in the US are worried about their house value than the "war".
Those with no family or multi national corporation interest don't know and don't care. There's no WMD (remember them..) and the bogeyman isn't coming to take Mid West children. Executive Order 39...What's that?
The only thing really left to decide, is how many more American lives and how much. The outcome remains the same, as it always was.
F.S.Summers, London/NY.,
How does one "win" a foreign civil war?
Garth Strong, San Diego, USA/CAL
By not fanning the flames of hatred.
John Reid, london,
WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE??
The US finds itself between a rock and a hard place. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Do they continue what seems to be an unwinnable war? Or do they cut and run?
For the Bush fans out there, I think it is important to remember that all this money, all these American lives, all these Iraq lives have been lost because of a war that George W Bush started. The US is in a huge mess today because George attacked a sovereign nation. George says he attacked Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. Of course it was proved that there were no weapons of mass destruction. So what was the reason we went to war in Iraq. It was either greed (George and his cronies stand to make billions) or it was stupidity. Neither of these are good traits in a president.
And unfortunately that man put them into a trillion dollar war that has cost thousands of lives and caused the world to hate the US.
It's unfortunate that this man is still in charge.
Tom, Dallas,
Oh my God! This has to be the most "the sky is falling" piece I've yet to read! Lets get past all the bad news the author could possibly find to write about and deal in reality.
There is no anti war ground swell over here. There are no Vietnam era type anti war marches taking place.
There is no "were losing" conversation around the lunch table taking place. Rather the discussion is more along the lines that our rules of engagement are hamstringing us and lets really take the gloves off and win this despite CNN and the lawyers.
Everyone here recognizes its coming up to a Presidential election and the political BS is flying at its highest. I mean lets face it. If your running for office then the party in control is an obvious target and gets more air time by the detractors simply because it makes news...not common sense.
Frankly the majority of people I've listended to would prefer to keep fighting and killing then over there and not here!
Murph, Madisonville, KY/USA
The French were right. Weren't they?
CWuil, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Hi, Sarah & Dave.
Gosh, great article. Genius nuggets such as "the war is still winnable" & don't "abandon the surge too soon." The war isn't winnable, Sarah & Dave. The U.S. Army can't deliver a political solution. Therefore, the surge will never work. But wouldn't it be great to stay in Iraq "10 more years" to find this out. By the way, if you thinkt the wear is still winnable, why don't you volunteer for the U.S. Army. I know they wouldn't turn you down.
jack, austin, USA
Among the Anti-war folk, there used to be a discussion of satiation levels - how many Iraqi dead would it take to assuage the US thirst for revenge post 9/11. The matter now seems to have been resolved - no amount of Iraqi dead, but more American force casualties than died on 9/11.
Now comes the hardest part of all - can US troops contrive an orderly withdrawel, or will they compound the loss with a rout?
stuart munro, Daegu, Korea
Nicholas beale got to icasualties.org and you will see you are wrong. Many coalition troops are dying every day. This is a US site which details all coalition casualties and relies on voluntary support.
John Reid, london,
Americans make me laugh! They are dangerous because of their attitude with respect to the war. They enter it always with naive enthusiasm and while they realize war is a set of circumstances where "their boys" are killed they start protesting against it. It is really childish attitude. A normal people know from the very beginning that entering a war means loosing own men! The problem is that we are an ally (very, very modest I agree - "You forgot Poland" - nevertheless are so) of those people and I find them completely unreliable as such. The fact that now they so seriously envisage the withdrawal from Iraq is a clear message for Poland that it shall not maintain alliance with people who cannot think over properly their strategy. They do not care for what will be after. They do not have "know how" regarding the management of territories they occupy. The arrogant way they treat local people in Iraq is also one of the reasons of their problems with Iraq.
Szymon Owczarzy, Warszawa, Polska
The war is already lost, as its purpose is still unknown. Soon upon his election victory in 2000, Bush started with the mantra of 'regime change' in Iraq. Then came the 'Axis of Evil' declaration. Then we had the 9/11 which he skillfully exploited to win the Americans' support for the war. WMD, democratisation of Middle East, Divine approval.. We are all still in the dark regarding the true purpose of this war. Answer realistically, not defensively, who has become the true beneficiary of this war? Clearly, Iran. With Saddam gone, they are like the mice that had their field day when the cat was away. Of all wars fought by men in history, this Iraq war remains the most illusive, the reasons which are only known to the Bush family and their inner circles called the super hawks.
mathew , Mumbai, India
What people do not seem to do anymore is too look at the consequences of their actions. Nobody looks ahead and tries to see what will happen after our next action. We can do one of two things. A) we can pull out. Lets look at the reciprocations of that action. When we pull out we will be showing the world that we no longer have the ability to commit ourselves and stick with our decisions. Our allies will lose faith in us. The terrorists will take this as a victory and the people around the world will see it as a victory for them. The Al-Qaeda ranks will grow. Let me ask you this, how many attacks have their been on the USA at home since September 11th? Zero. How many will happen when the terrorists are able to not worry about us on their doorstep and are able to plan again? Though I can only speculate that answer, ANY attacks are too many. We are not there for treasure. We are there to help a new government sustain themselves and to put an end to using fear as a means of (to be cont.)
Edward H Thorne, Misawa AFB, Japan
The war cannot be won. The U.S. is not fighting a state. It is fighting an army of irregulars that will never give up. When one falls ten more will spring up to take their place. They are fanatics driven by some crazed religious ideology and are happy to die to get to thos 72 virgins in parardise or whatever it is they get for martyrdom. The only thing Bush offers the American public is war without end and America is no longer buying into it. Just look at the hard lesson the Russians learned in Afghanistan. For Bush to change course would be to admit he was wrong and he cannot do that. He is quite content to continue to throw away American lives until he is out of office and someone else has to do what is necessary to extricate us from this horrible mess. Then he will say that his successor
lost the war. The irony in all this is that the American public was supporting this when it first started.
Bruce L. Northwood, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C
How's that again Mr. bin Laden? Mission accomplished?
You have to admit Osama has run rings around George W.
Andrew Milner, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Has American lost the will to win? Is this a football game?
Bush and his gang entered Iraq upon feeding the world a pack of lies. Now they want out as the Iraqis are a tough enemy than Bush had envisaged - Not the pliable and timid people offering roses to an invading army.
Why should the Iraqis now let this invading army escape? They have them bogged down and might as well keep them there and out of mischief.
Bijan Sharif, Tehran, Iran
America hasn't the patience for a 10 year counterinsurgency war. Nor is there a guarantee that she could win it. AQ on the other hand is patient and knows the weaknesses of the West... Nightly images of soldiers and civilians killed and maimed serve AQ's interest. This was their strategy from the beginning... Utilize the media as a weapon and the West will capitulate. The fall of Iraq will mark the beginning of an Islamic bloc as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Egypt, Indonesia, etc. join Iran and the Islamic revolution. The oil rich Middle East will become nuclear. The geopolitical ramifications will pit China, Russia, India, Europe, Israel and the US against one another as we starve for oil. Conflict will be inevitable. So we must face this menace now or all of civilization will be at risk.
TDH, Daphne, USA/ Alabama
Surprise! Surprise! The only way to win in Iraq's political conflicts, is to forge political peace. The US and Britain's military actions have only served to create military conflicts that otherwise would not have occurred. What's needed is a political peace among Shiiites, Sunni's Iraq's weak government and the US/British alliance. With great determination, I think they can pull it off.
Em Hawthorne, Ottawa, Canada
One question: How many Iraqis have US forces killed versus how many Saddam killed?
Remember Saddam? The guy we went in to oust because of his bloody reign? (Excuse #3 from the mouth of Bush) So are the Iraqis that much more certain of living to a ripe old age now than they were when Saddam was in power?
John Blackley, Austin, TX, USA
America is making a strategic mistake in trying to keep iraq as
one country. Yugoslavia could not be held together nor can
iraq. the solution is a sunni-arab state must be allowed to
emerge based on Anbar province in the west, a Kurdish
state in the far-north, and the rest will be a shiite dominated
rump state of iraq. when this happens and after an orderly
transfer of people, America will have to deal with three states
and three governments and can reduce it's presence. for a
longterm presence America can keep no more than six brigades about 40,000 troops there to fight terrorism ect. this
needs to be faced up to, to avoid total defeat.
Peter, Dorset, England
Interesting. So when are they going to condemn Bush and neocon gang for treason by waging war on behalf of a foreign nation, Israel?
John, Montreal, Canada
I believe every event we observe are the results of some underlying causes and will have its own effects. The Iraq war was fought on the wrong premises and can never be won unless the Americans seek out and understand the root cause for this war.
I once had a dream after September 11, that the American President would, walk unarmed into the lair of Osama bin Laden and ask why did the Americans have to suffer such an attack. The American President, in my dream asked, what had given cause to this hatred, so deeply entrenched in the minds of the attackers, to go to such extent to bring pain and suffering. The American leader continued, by graciously lying down his life as an offer to lessen the hate. Millions of lives were saved by his gesture and the world was a safer place.
That was only a dream. At the current moment, I cannot see how this hatred can ever be removed.
haikang, London, UK
(continuation of previous comment) We are there to help a new government sustain themselves and to put an end to using fear as a means of to control the populace for their own ambitions.
Our second option is to send more troops in. This would be the wiser of the two options. By sending in more troops we can help reduce the amount of attacks and sustain more operations to take terrorist leaders out of power. The people at home would know if they went and saw this country for themselves that we cant just leave it now, not after destroying their previous government (which was a needed action in my eyes) Once things begin to calm down in Iraq, and only then can we afford to pull troops out. Now we must do what we can to help their new government work out its problems and become stronger. My only regret is that I can not say more do to character limitations. Being a soldier myself i understand the risks and know we can not leave now or anytime in the near future.
Edward H Thorne, Misawa AFB, Japan
I am an American & I can state with great confidence that America`s will to fight has not been diminished. But....in this particuilar case, the way most of us see it is that we`re fighting a futile civil war where we don`t belong; where an elected govt. is both pathetically weak , clueless & beholding to just a single secterian group. Parliament going on vacaton next month is flabegasting.
Iraq , an artificial country to begin with ( thanks to colonialism) perhaps should revert to its original 2 or 3 separate parts & maybe 50 years hence when anger & hatred suside & civilty returned will they be able to talk about 1 united country. The emphasis is on a big maybe.
Under different circumstances when our national inerest is truly threatened, we will fight & do everything necessary to win.
rochelle n., lake forest, us.a. il
2 points ....John McCain's declining numbers have nothing to do with his support for the war. He has so much baggage from other issues that he is unacceptable to the Republican party
This is no open revolt by Republican Senators. Just the spineless hedging their bets
Hey, after 4 years of steady negative reporting we are still there and despite what the Democrats say, they'll keep us there. Just politics
r. burns, Tampa, Fla
Better start getting the helicopters ready to lift everyone out of the Green Zone.
Ian, Beijing, China
Interestingly the rate of coalition casualties is currently the lowest since August 06, and if the present reduction continues will be below the average since the invasion. On this measure, at least, the Surge seems to be working.
Nicholas Beale, London, England
It's a 'no brainer' the American people want out of Irac-now.
And yet Persident Bush continues to beat the dead horse.
So much blood and treasure have been expended and for
what?
Irac is a mess now and will be after the U.S. withdraws its
troops.
Forget the treasure but the waste of lives is becoming more
and more tragic.
Enough is enough and in this case too much!
Jerry Scroggin, Phoenix, Arizona/USA
The only way the war on terror can be lost is to have the American people continue to listen to the far left and the left's liberal camp followers in the demo-clown party. Why anyone would take seriously a party lead by post menopausal old bags, and tired old men is beyond comprehension. Yet today many in the states do listen to these clowns. Sooner or later the American people willtire of these idiots and press the attack on terrorism.
Steve In Tucson, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Most people have woken up to the fact that this war cannot be won, even some Republican senators are seeing sense. Hopefully brown too will start smelling the coffee. We need to be be realistic and get out as soon as we can not start creating myths about stabs in the back.
Mark, newcastle,
THE BIG QUESTION
How does one "win" a foreign civil war?
Garth Strong, San Diego, USA/CAL