Washington – The U.S. military and political chiefs in Baghdad were the latest top government officials to hint that the United States may shift course in the unpopular Iraq war, but if any real changes are afoot in Bush administration policy in Iraq, they are hard to discern.
Significant policy or tactical shifts such as an influx of U.S. forces to try to stanch the bloodletting, or even the sacking of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, would only come after the Nov. 7 congressional elections, analysts said, because any dramatic moves would be seen as an admission that the previous policy was a failure.
So, two weeks before a congressional election that is shaping up as a referendum on the war, the administration is repackaging rhetoric and ideas it has offered before.
For example, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, predicted Tuesday that Iraqi forces should be able to take control of security in the country in 12 to 18 months, with “some level” of American support.
He used the same time frame in August, and even that was not the first time U.S. troop reductions had been seen as on the horizon.
When Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Iraq in April, Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffak Rubaie said: “We have a definite plan now” for an agreement between Iraq and the U.S. to move toward Iraqi control.
“Certainly at the end of this year, there should be a sizable gross reduction in the troops” and within the next couple of years “most of the coalition forces would go back home safely.”
On the political side, the Bush administration has been putting greater pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make decisions that could help ease sectarian fighting, but it was unclear how meaningful a plan announced Tuesday would be.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, revealed a timeline that would require al-Maliki’s government to set dates by the end of the year for completing six key tasks such as passing a law to share Iraq’s oil wealth across the country and implementing a plan to combat death squads.
However, there was no mention of what the consequences would be for Iraq’s failure to comply.
Khalilzad told reporters that Iraqi leaders had agreed to the timeline.
“Despite the difficult challenges we face, success in Iraq is possible and can be achieved on a realistic timetable,” Khalilzad said during a rare joint news conference with Casey, the U.S. commander.
“I did not hear anything that suggests a fundamental shift in administration strategy in Iraq,” said Michele Flournoy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies who was a top Pentagon planner during the Clinton administration.
