Want to know how this has been a disaster?
Posted on Sun, Feb. 05, 2006
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
"We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we are helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized. Second, we are continuing reconstruction efforts and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefit of freedom. Third, we are striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy." -- George W. Bush, State of the Union, Jan. 31.
"The Iraq war has been a disaster." -- CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour, Jan. 30.
The number of terrorist attacks per day in Iraq grew from 55 in December 2004 to 77 per day in December 2005.
Iraq today produces less oil than it did under Saddam. The current oil minister is Ahmad Chalabi, onetime darling of the neocon set and convicted of bank fraud in Jordan.
The majority of Iraqis favor complete American troop withdrawal, though the time frames they prefer vary.
"To the extent we stay there with big forces indefinitely, Iraqis will come up with all these theories that we really want to stay here for their oil. We want to use their country as a springboard for more aggression. They still see us as occupiers." -- Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institution, Dec. 27, 2005.
"A sudden withdrawal of our forces from Iraq would abandon our allies to death and prison ... and put men like bin Laden and Zarqawi in charge of a strategic country ..." -- Bush, Jan. 31.
Actually, the insurgency in Iraq is mostly native Iraqis -- old Baathists and others who don't like being occupied by infidels. International terrorist jihadists are a negligible fraction of those fighting, and they are there to fight Americans, not to take over Iraq.
The war in Iraq costs the United States $1 billion per week. Bush originally said it would cost $60 billion. Before the war, he fired his top economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, who said it would cost up to $200 billion.
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, estimates the total cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. He includes lifetime care of the wounded, the economic value of destroyed and lost lives and the opportunity cost of resources diverted to the war.
More than 2,200 Americans have been killed in action in Iraq and 16,600 seriously wounded. Because we are doing a better job saving the lives of the wounded, those who survive often have devastating injuries from which there is no recovery.
Because of its total misjudgment of the war in Iraq, the administration has failed to enlarge the regular Army and has therefore put the institution under immense strain. The "stop-loss" refusal to let people leave at the end of their enlistments affects 50,000 soldiers, and mobilization of the reserves and extended service are a form of draft.
Despite chipper denials from the Pentagon, the Army has serious problems with recruiting, especially getting quality recruits, and with regular Army re-enlistment. The reason that the numbers are not worse is because of the bonuses being offered.
It is quite possible that this administration is destroying the professional Army.
The most important question about the war in Iraq is whether it is doing any good, and an increasing pool of evidence shows that it has become a rallying and recruiting tool for global terrorists. Like the other information in this column, the evidence comes from official reports.
I do hope that this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.
