Re: Our Troops Must Stay

Hurray! for this one outstanding Democrat! Wish there more like him....


"Cochon Capitaliste" <bravegars@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1133288900.452684.301890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> WSJ COMMENTARY
>
> By JOE LIEBERMAN
> November 29, 2005; Page A18
>
> I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months
> and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of
> course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation
> from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern,
> self-governing, self-securing nationhood -- unless the great American
> military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is
> prematurely withdrawn.
>
> Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is
> continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South
> remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power
> and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing
> greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined
> by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is
> where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And yet here, too,
> there is progress.
>
> There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on
> the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than
> before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni
> candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly.
> People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy
> in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war
> against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military
> there to protect it.
>
> It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want
> to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000
> terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists
> or al Qaeda foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set
> back if Iraq becomes free and modern. The terrorists are intent on
> stopping this by instigating a civil war to produce the chaos that will
> allow Iraq to replace Afghanistan as the base for their fanatical
> war-making. We are fighting on the side of the 27 million because the
> outcome of this war is critically important to the security and freedom
> of America. If the terrorists win, they will be emboldened to strike us
> directly again and to further undermine the growing stability and
> progress in the Middle East, which has long been a major American
> national and economic security priority.
>
> * * *
> Before going to Iraq last week, I visited Israel and the Palestinian
> Authority. Israel has been the only genuine democracy in the region,
> but it is now getting some welcome company from the Iraqis and
> Palestinians who are in the midst of robust national legislative
> election campaigns, the Lebanese who have risen up in proud
> self-determination after the Hariri assassination to eject their Syrian
> occupiers (the Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hezbollah militias should be
> next), and the Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Saudis who have taken steps to
> open up their governments more broadly to their people. In my meeting
> with the thoughtful prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, he
> declared with justifiable pride that his country now has the most open,
> democratic political system in the Arab world. He is right.
>
> In the face of terrorist threats and escalating violence, eight million
> Iraqis voted for their interim national government in January, almost
> 10 million participated in the referendum on their new constitution in
> October, and even more than that are expected to vote in the elections
> for a full-term government on Dec. 15. Every time the 27 million Iraqis
> have been given the chance since Saddam was overthrown, they have voted
> for self-government and hope over the violence and hatred the 10,000
> terrorists offer them. Most encouraging has been the behavior of the
> Sunni community, which, when disappointed by the proposed constitution,
> registered to vote and went to the polls instead of taking up arms and
> going to the streets. Last week, I was thrilled to see a vigorous
> political campaign, and a large number of independent television
> stations and newspapers covering it.
>
> None of these remarkable changes would have happened without the
> coalition forces led by the U.S. And, I am convinced, almost all of the
> progress in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will be lost if those
> forces are withdrawn faster than the Iraqi military is capable of
> securing the country.
>
> The leaders of Iraq's duly elected government understand this, and they
> asked me for reassurance about America's commitment. The question is
> whether the American people and enough of their representatives in
> Congress from both parties understand this. I am disappointed by
> Democrats who are more focused on how President Bush took America into
> the war in Iraq almost three years ago, and by Republicans who are more
> worried about whether the war will bring them down in next November's
> elections, than they are concerned about how we continue the progress
> in Iraq in the months and years ahead.
>
> Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public
> opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and
> increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis
> for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they
> are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are
> confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they
> are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan
> political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will
> and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming
> victory.
>
> The leaders of America's military and diplomatic forces in Iraq, Gen.
> George Casey and Ambassador Zal Khalilzad, have a clear and compelling
> vision of our mission there. It is to create the environment in which
> Iraqi democracy, security and prosperity can take hold and the Iraqis
> themselves can defend their political progress against those 10,000
> terrorists who would take it from them.
>
> * * *
> Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in
> Iraq? Yes we do. And it is important to make it clear to the American
> people that the plan has not remained stubbornly still but has changed
> over the years. Mistakes, some of them big, were made after Saddam was
> removed, and no one who supports the war should hesitate to admit that;
> but we have learned from those mistakes and, in characteristic American
> fashion, from what has worked and not worked on the ground. The
> administration's recent use of the banner "clear, hold and build"
> accurately describes the strategy as I saw it being implemented last
> week.
>
> We are now embedding a core of coalition forces in every Iraqi fighting
> unit, which makes each unit more effective and acts as a multiplier of
> our forces. Progress in "clearing" and "holding" is being made. The
> Sixth Infantry Division of the Iraqi Security Forces now controls and
> polices more than one-third of Baghdad on its own. Coalition and Iraqi
> forces have together cleared the previously terrorist-controlled cities
> of Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, and most of the border with Syria.
> Those areas are now being "held" secure by the Iraqi military
> themselves. Iraqi and coalition forces are jointly carrying out a
> mission to clear Ramadi, now the most dangerous city in Al-Anbar
> province at the west end of the Sunni Triangle.
>
> Nationwide, American military leaders estimate that about one-third of
> the approximately 100,000 members of the Iraqi military are able to
> "lead the fight" themselves with logistical support from the U.S., and
> that that number should double by next year. If that happens, American
> military forces could begin a drawdown in numbers proportional to the
> increasing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi forces in 2006. If all goes
> well, I believe we can have a much smaller American military presence
> there by the end of 2006 or in 2007, but it is also likely that our
> presence will need to be significant in Iraq or nearby for years to
> come.
>
> The economic reconstruction of Iraq has gone slower than it should
> have, and too much money has been wasted or stolen. Ambassador
> Khalilzad is now implementing reform that has worked in Afghanistan --
> Provincial Reconstruction Teams, composed of American economic and
> political experts, working in partnership in each of Iraq's 18
> provinces with its elected leadership, civil service and the private
> sector. That is the "build" part of the "clear, hold and build"
> strategy, and so is the work American and international teams are doing
> to professionalize national and provincial governmental agencies in
> Iraq.
>
> These are new ideas that are working and changing the reality on the
> ground, which is undoubtedly why the Iraqi people are optimistic about
> their future -- and why the American people should be, too.
>
> * * *
> I cannot say enough about the U.S. Army and Marines who are carrying
> most of the fight for us in Iraq. They are courageous, smart,
> effective, innovative, very honorable and very proud. After a
> Thanksgiving meal with a great group of Marines at Camp Fallujah in
> western Iraq, I asked their commander whether the morale of his troops
> had been hurt by the growing public dissent in America over the war in
> Iraq. His answer was insightful, instructive and inspirational: "I
> would guess that if the opposition and division at home go on a lot
> longer and get a lot deeper it might have some effect, but, Senator, my
> Marines are motivated by their devotion to each other and the cause,
> not by political debates."
>
> Thank you, General. That is a powerful, needed message for the rest of
> America and its political leadership at this critical moment in our
> nation's history. Semper Fi.
>
> Mr. Lieberman is a Democratic senator from Connecticut
>


.

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