“We will settle for nothing less than victory,” asserted US President George Bush while defending his stance not to commit to a US troop withdrawal program for Iraq. Responding to increasing pressure to announce an exit strategy, the president is determined to “stay the course” in Iraq until the war against the insurgency is won.
Meanwhile some US Congressmen have introduced a resolution requiring this exit strategy and even selecting the date of Oct. 1, 2006 as the timetable for US troop withdrawal. Representative Walter Jones, one of the sponsors of the resolution, said, “After 1,700 deaths, over 12,000 wounded and $200 billion spent, we believe it is time to have this debate”.
The American public opinion polls somewhat reflect this sentiment as well. Three-fourths of the people surveyed in a recent CNN/Gallup poll say the number of US casualties in Iraq is unacceptable. Fifty-two percent believes the war in Iraq has not contributed to US security and six in ten Americans favor some form of troop withdrawal. While the US public would deem any US casualty numbers unacceptable, there appears to be more of an underlying current reflected in these recent numbers. This is the perception that regardless of countless dollars and loss of US lives, the Iraqi people do not see the United States as their liberator but rather as an occupier. In a survey of Iraqis in March, 54 percent stated that they appreciated US efforts while 39 percent said they did not. According to data complied by the Project on Defense Alternatives, while the Iraqis need US presence to keep the insurgents somewhat controlled, the Kurds in line and the Iranians out, their ultimate goal is the end of military occupation. As soon as the January elections were over, some prominent Iraqis began calling for a firm US troop withdrawal date. Moqtada Sadr was one of the voices repeating this withdrawal theme. While head of the Supreme Council, Abdul Al-Hakim, has refused to suggest a time line for the withdrawal, he has been quite vocal in his position that no people in the world accept occupation and that while his country is dependent on the US for security, perhaps the time has come for Iraq to explore other avenues such as closer cooperation with Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait.
According to the polling data complied by PDA (Project on Defense Alternatives), the majority of the Iraqi people agree with him. Most of those surveyed said they wanted coalition forces to leave within a year or even earlier. The tipping point appears to be somewhere near the date of the formation of a permanent government in early 2006. Breakdowns in the numbers show that over 60 percent of the Shiites and Sunnis desire immediate withdrawal.
The litany of errors committed by the US occupation forces in Iraq from the Abu Ghraib scandal to the mass dismissal in 2003 of Iraqi civil servants, police and military personnel has resulted in the US public asking, “Tell me just why we are over there?” and the Iraqi public saying, “Yankee go home”.
In order for President Bush to achieve this “victory” in Iraq he will have to convince both of these populations that winning the war against the insurgents is possible. But first, he needs to clearly define just what “victory” in this case means. Is it the total defeat of all insurgency inside Iraq? Is it the elimination of all violent crimes in Iraq?
In a Newsweek interview. a US Special Ops source stated that in his opinion there were 500 homegrown Iraqi jihadists and 1,000 foreign fighters. He believes there are between 15,000 to 30,000 former regime elements fighting with the assistance of 400,000 auxiliaries and support personnel. He claims the insurgency includes upward of 40 reasonably distinct groups that sometimes join forces.
If this staggering number of almost half a millionsupport personnel is the result of disenfranchised Sunnis, a combination of US troop withdrawal and participation in the political process could reduce this number. One of his most interesting observations was that in addition to these elements, there are also a large number of gangster organizations operating in at least 12 of the 18 Iraqi provinces.
If the US goal is the elimination of all violence in Iraq then both the Iraqis and the Americans can expect to have US troop presence in that country for many years to come. Precedents are there. The United States still maintains a military presence in Japan, sixty years after the end of World War II.
The time has come for White House to explain their exit strategy. Exact troop withdrawal dates are not necessary and could prove dangerous but simple victory statements are no longer acceptable to any of the people involved.
— Adrienne McPhail is an American journalist located in Yokosuka, Japan.
