Recently, the former director of the NSA under the Reagan administration, General William Odom, wrote an essay calling for a strategic change in Iraq. Specifically, Democrats should frame the notion of “supporting the troops” as withdrawing them.
General Odom goes on to say that Congress should withhold funding of the war if the president does not comply. What’s more, he advocates impeachment if Mr. Bush tries to “extort” Congress into funding the war.
Isn’t General Odom emboldening the terrorists by setting timetables for withdrawal?
Nonsense, experts say. This is confirmed by ex-CIA analysts like Michael Scheuer, who warn that our continued presence in Iraq greatly exacerbates the threat of terrorism. According to Mr. Scheuer, the invasion of Iraq “broke the back of our counterterrorism efforts” and validated every claim that bin Laden spread to his followers.[i]
As the LA Times opined, “Osama bin Laden's plan was to get the U.S. to overreact and overreach itself. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap.”[ii]
Fellow CIA analyst Bruce Riedel adds in Foreign Affairs that Al Qaeda has welcomed and celebrated the US invasion as an opportunity to kill Americans and pursue its ‘bleed-to-bankruptcy’ strategy.[iii],[iv] With more than 3600 US dead and spending at the rate of $14 million an hour, we are certainly assisting Al Qaeda in both goals.[v]
But if we withdraw, won’t Al Qaeda follow us home, as the president and others has repeatedly warned?[vi] After all, we are fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here, as Mr. Bush has repeatedly claimed.
The new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that was recently released is evidence that both these claims are fallacious. Fred Kaplan of Slate and professor of Middle East history Juan Cole offer the following argument derived from the NIE.[vii],[viii] ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ (AQI), an affiliate Salifi Jihadist group in Iraq that has threatened attacks on US soil, is one of the main factors for the NIE to conclude that the United States is “in a heightened threat environment.” AQI didn’t exist in Iraq under Saddam’s rule prior to the US intervention and only came into power long after the occupation, empowered by anti-American opposition to the invasion. Therefore, the US invasion is at least partially responsible for AQI’s emergence, as many intelligence officials warned. AQI would not exist had it not been for President Bush’s war.
As Mr. Kaplan concludes, not only is the President’s argument wrong, the exact opposite is true – “that because we're fighting them in Iraq, we are more likely to face them here.” Mr. Kaplan and others conclude that this is the reason why the US should start withdrawing from Iraq.
Surely though, a US withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda as supporters of the war like Senator John McCain have claimed. It would give Al Qaeda a permanent base from which to launch attacks.
Analysts like Riedel concede that indeed Al Qaeda will take credit for a US withdrawal, but quickly point out “Al Qaeda's own propaganda indicates that it fears the Shiites' wrath after the United States' departure more than it fears what would happen if the Americans stayed.”ii
The recent Washington Post article by Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks states that most experts agree that Al Qaeda will not likely take over Iraq, noting that while the group is particularly lethal, military officials report it is only a responsible for 15% of the attacks in Iraq.
What about the moral responsibility we bear to the Iraqis? Surely, there will be a power vacuum once the United States withdraws and a likely genocide.
In truth, the genocide has already begun. West Baghdad is being “cleansed” according to Colonel Patrick Lang and the United States and we don’t have the numbers to control it.[ix] As General Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War said in March, “"Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now…Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again.”[x]
Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke adds, “All the things they say will happen are already happening. Iraq is already a base for terrorists; there is already a civil war. We've got 150,000 troops there now and we can't stop it.” Moreover, journalist Nir Rosen describes the current situation as “complete anarchy,” echoing Mr. Ricks’ description of Iraq as resembling the Hobbesian ‘state of nature.’ix
The president was briefed about this reality as far back as November 2006 when CIA director Michael Hayden said, “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible.”[xi]
In regards to the responsibility we owe to the Iraqis, first consider these sad and undeniable truths; several hundred thousand Iraqis have been killed so far as a result of the US invasion, nearly 2 million refugees have fled Iraq, of which the US has accepted less than 200 in fiscal year 2006-07[xii], and an average of 55 Iraqis are killed every day due to the sectarian violence.[xiii] That is a monumental debt which we cannot repay.
If we do have a responsibility now, surely it is to follow the will of the Iraqi people. If spreading ‘democracy’ is so highly valued in this administration, then it should listen to the Iraqis. The overwhelming majority (more than 70%) want a timetable for US led forces to withdraw, including more than 90% of Sunnis, the group most likely to be persecuted by the majority Shia.[xiv] The Prime Minister has also expressed his view that American forces can “withdraw anytime they want,” a sentiment shared by the majority of the Parliament, which backed a bill favoring US withdrawal back in May.[xv],[xvi]
As for our country, in a July USA Today/Gallup poll, more than 70% support withdrawal for all but a limited number of US troops by April 1 of next year.[xvii] Moreover, according to Think Progress, 60% of those who participated in a Military.com poll (the largest military and veteran membership group) favored troop withdrawal as well.[xviii]
So what happens after withdrawal?
DeYoung and Ricks report that Iraq could separate into three autonomous entities due to a withdrawal, citing a recent “war game” simulation carried out for the military. Senator Joe Biden -- whose son is in the Army and likely headed to Iraq next year -- is a longtime advocate of the three-state solution. There will have to be intense regional diplomacy, unlike anything this administration has offered. He warns however, that without such a political solution and dramatic change in the near future, the likely result will be much, much more catastrophic than the situation at hand.
How much more catastrophic can things get if there is not dramatic change? Vastly more, experts say. Zbigniew Brzezinski warns
If the war continues without any American willingness to accommodate regionally and to pull out, the Iraq War will be extended to Iran. And if we get involved in a war with Iran, that raises the prospect of a twenty-year-long involvement in protracted violence in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably Pakistan. I'm not a prophet, but if the president doesn't change course, then the more grim prognosis is a likely one.x
Nir Rosen fears
…borders changing, governments falling. Lebanon is already on the precipice. Throughout the region, government officials are terrified. Nobody knows how to stop it. This is World War III. How far will it spread? Anywhere there are Islamic movements, like in Somalia, in Sudan, in Yemen. Pakistan has always had Sunni-Shia fighting. The flow of Iraqi refugees will at some point affect Europe.
General Tony McPeak envisages the worst-case scenario
The worst case? Iraq's Sunnis begin to be backed into a corner, then the Sunni governments -- Jordan, Saudi Arabia -- jump in. Israel sees that it's threatened by these developments. Once the Israelis get involved, then everybody piles on. And you've got nuclear events going off in the Middle East. That would be about as bad as it could get.x
In conclusion, Mr. Riddell and former national security adviser Samuel Berger opine
A clear US commitment to a complete, irreversible withdrawal from Iraq may now be the only way to develop a regional concert of powers that could work with Iraqis to try to stabilise the country and cauterise the conflict.
The continuing US and British occupation is a roadblock to that co-operation. The galvanising impact of a decision to depart unequivocally can be the last best chance at preventing the conflict from boiling over beyond Iraq to the whole region. How we design and implement our departure is our last significant remaining leverage.[xix]
The grim consensus is there are no good answers. One thing is clear, those who advocate President Bush’s ‘stay the course’ strategy are clearly leading this nation on a perilous path against the will of both nation’s populous. The tragedy of the entire Iraq debacle is that withdrawal remains at best, the least disastrous of all options.
