Bush has no evidence that withdrawing from Iraq would embolden terrorists

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George W. Bush admits he has no evidence that a withdrawal timetable from
Iraq would be harmful. Instead, the President told interviewer Charlie Rose
that this core assumption behind his veto threat of a Democratic war
appropriation bill is backed by ?just logic.?

?I mean, you say we start moving troops out,? Bush said in the interview on
April 24. ?Don?t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon
an announced timetable for withdrawal??

It is an argument that Bush has made again and again over the past few
years, that with a withdrawal timetable, the ?enemy? would just ?wait us
out.? But the answer to Bush?s rhetorical question could be, ?well, so what
if they do??

If Bush is right and a withdrawal timetable quiets Iraq down for the next
year or so ? a kind of de facto cease-fire ? that could buy time for the
Iraqis to begin the difficult process of reconciliation and start removing
the irritants that have enflamed the violence.

One of those irritants has been the impression held by many Iraqi
nationalists that Bush and his neoconservative advisers want to turn Iraq
into a permanent colony while using its territory as a land-based aircraft
carrier to pressure or attack other Muslim nations.

The neocons haven?t helped by referring to Bush?s 2003 conquest as the ?USS
Iraq? and joking about whether next to force ?regime change? in Syria or
Iran, with the punch-line, ?Real men go to Tehran.?

By refusing to set an end date for the U.S. military occupation, Bush has
fed this suspicion, prompting many Iraqis ? both Sunni and Shiite ? to
attack American troops. Another negative consequence has been that the
drawn-out Iraq War has bought time for foreign al-Qaeda terrorists to put
down roots with Sunni insurgents.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal
would bring peace to Iraq. The greater likelihood remains that civil strife
will continue for some years to come as Iraq?s factions nurse their
grievances and push for a new national equilibrium.

But the counterpoint to Bush?s veto threat against a withdrawal timetable is
that his open-ended war is doomed to failure. To attain even the appearance
of limited success would require American forces to effectively exterminate
all Iraqis who are part of the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation.

After all, the only logical reason for not wanting the ?enemy? to lie low is
so American troops can capture or kill them.

That has been Bush?s strategy for the past four-plus years ? longer than it
took the United States to win World War II ? and the military situation has
only grown increasingly dire. Meanwhile, anti-Americanism has swelled around
the world, especially among Muslims.

Failed Surge

But a long, bloody stalemate is the likely result from Bush?s stubbornness.
With little fanfare, the Bush administration has essentially abandoned its
earlier ?exit strategy? of training a new Iraqi army so as ?they stand up,
we?ll stand down.?

Bush?s much-touted ?surge? ? beefing up American forces in Baghdad and other
hot spots ? is an indirect acknowledgement that the training was a flop. The
?surge? is a do-over of the war?s original approach of relying on American
troops to bring security to the country.

The ?surge? also places American troops in lightly defended outposts in
Iraqi neighborhoods, rather than concentrating U.S. forces in high-security
barracks. The Pentagon acknowledges that this approach will put Americans in
greater danger, both from insurgents and from Iraqi police whose loyalties
are suspect.

The prediction of higher U.S. casualties is already coming true, as
al-Qaeda-connected terrorists and Iraqi insurgents adjust their tactics to
kill the vulnerable Americans. On April 23, two suicide truck bombers rammed
a U.S. Army outpost near Baqubah, exploding two bombs that killed nine
American soldiers and wounded 20 others.

As Iraq?s temperatures begin to soar into the 100s, the American troops will
have to fight the heat as well as the insurgents. The secure base camps were
well equipped with air conditioning, water and other supplies that won?t be
as accessible in the remote outposts scattered throughout hostile
neighborhoods.

Supplying these American troops will be another invitation for ambushes and
roadside bombs.

The chances that U.S. troops will kill Iraqi civilians will rise, too, as
may have happened earlier this month when an American helicopter gunship
killed an Iraqi mother and her two sons in Baghdad Al-Amel neighborhood.
[Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 2007]

Bush?s insistence on an open-ended U.S. occupation also plays into the hands
of foreign al-Qaeda terrorists who are estimated to number only about five
percent of the armed opposition.

Captured al-Qaeda documents reveal that the terrorist group has had trouble
building alliances with Iraqi insurgents. So, al-Qaeda has pinned its hopes
on keeping the U.S. military bogged down in Iraq indefinitely while those
bridges are built and a new generation of extremists is recruited, trained
and hardened.

In addition, having the U.S. military focused on Iraq protects Osama bin
Laden and other terrorist leaders holed up on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

An announced date for American withdrawal would put non-Iraqi al-Qaeda
operatives in a tighter fix. Without the indefinite U.S. occupation,
al-Qaeda would find it tougher to recruit young jihadists and would likely
face military pressure from Iraqi nationalists fed up with foreign
interference of all kinds.

That is why al-Qaeda leaders view Bush?s open-ended war in Iraq as crucial
to their long-range plans for spreading their radical ideology throughout
the Muslim world. As ?Atiyah,? one of bin Laden?s top lieutenants, explained
in a Dec. 11, 2005, letter, ?prolonging the war is in our interest.?

?False Hope?

Military and intelligence analysts have told me that the ?surge? is already
recognized as a failure by U.S. military officers stationed in Iraq. ?It?s
just another layer on top of what they?ve already been doing,? one
well-placed U.S. military source said.

In this view, the ?surge? is more a political tactic than a military one, a
way for Bush to argue for more money without strings, one more time.
Presumably, after the ?surge? collapses in obvious failure, Bush and his
advisers will point to another mirage on the horizon.

Or, as comedian Lewis Black has put it, ?Keep false hope alive.?

Given what the Iraq Study Group has called the ?grave and deteriorating?
conditions in Iraq, why not give a timetable for American withdrawal a
chance? It potentially could help achieve three goals:

First, it might tamp down the violence from Iraqi nationalists who, if Bush?s
?logic? is right, would lie low for a while. Second, it might pressure the
Iraqi government to get serious about reconciliation during a respite from
the violence. Third, it might help isolate al-Qaeda and deny the terrorist
group the recruiting advantage from the open-ended U.S. occupation.

There also would be an incentive for the Iraqi nationalists to cooperate in
reconciliation, because the United States could reverse its withdrawal plans
if Iraq descended into chaos as a failed state or became a haven for
al-Qaeda. At minimum, an announced U.S. withdrawal would change the current
depressing political and military dynamic in Iraq.

So, a Bush victory in the funding showdown with congressional Democrats
might lead to some high-fiving at the White House and mean that President
Bush will have saved some political face. But the prospect of an open-ended
war will condemn Iraqis and American soldiers alike to nightmarish months
ahead and the certainty of many more deaths.

In effect, they will be asked to die for W.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/042507.html

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