Who knew that the reviews of the Iraq Study Group report would be so graphic?
After the volume was released Dec. 6, the stay-the-course crowd went slightly, well, ballistic. The New York Post derided the group as “surrender monkeys,” and depicted co-leaders James Baker and Lee Hamilton as apes. The Wall Street Journal blasted the panel as the “Iraq Muddle Group.”
Why ridicule a super-establishment panel that included prominent and experienced hands from both political parties? Perhaps the critics couldn’t tolerate the panel’s fundamental conclusion, shared by American and world public opinion, that the Bush administration’s current policy has been a failure.
Recommendations to change the mission of U.S. forces and prepare a rational withdrawal are more than the critics can bear. They prefer to demonize the panel’s integrity and leave President Bush with a free hand.
Richard Perle, a former Reagan and Bush administration official who strongly supported the Iraq invasion, said, “The recommendations are either wrong or of no consequence … in their desire to find something, they found the wrong things.”
Bush is said to be considering what McClatchy Newspapers described as a “short-term” surge of up to 40,000 more American troops, an approach the study group considered and rejected. The additional troops would attempt to secure the capital city of Baghdad, home to 7 million Iraqis and site of escalating violence.
If so, why 40,000? And how does the administration reconcile the plan with indications from military commanders that even half that many might not be available. Gen. Peter Schoomaker warned Congress on Thursday that U.S. forces were overstretched.
Then there’s the little question of a timetable and exit strategy.
The study group labeled the situation in Iraq as “grave and deteriorating,” and one look at daily incident reports proves the point. Chaos reigns and sectarian violence is escalating as the country slips into what many interpret as a civil war.
The panel’s critics might want to dust off their copy of a September report by U.S. intelligence agencies on terrorism trends. It said the war in Iraq has fueled radicalism and “made the overall terrorism problem worse.”
In the 2004 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain was one of the president’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders. He continues to support Bush’s policy, and his response to the study group recommendations is to seek an increase in troop levels. The time for that was in March 2003, when U.S. forces invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. It isn’t clear now that a surge of troop deployments would fortify the elected government of Iraq or diminish the level of Shiite vs. Sunni violence.
Americans voted for change on Nov. 7. The study group has put forth 79 recommendations, which include a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces from combat to training of Iraqi forces. Reinforcing that strategy would be “new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region.” By early 2008, the report says, “all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq.” McCain calls the ’08 suggestion “a recipe that will lead to our defeat.” Bush has rejected the group’s call for talks with Iraq’s neighbors, Syria and Iran.
Robert Gates takes over as defense secretary on Monday, taking on a Herculean task. President Bush has said he plans to announce his Iraq strategy early next year, indicating that he’ll take some new steps in an effort to reverse the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. He continues to talk about “victory,” an elusive goal he has yet to define.
Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group before Bush picked him to replace Donald Rumsfeld. He has said the mission in Iraq can be accomplished with a “dramatically smaller” force than the 140,000 troops there now. Like Baker and Hamilton, he’s no surrender monkey – but unlike them, he’ll be at the table as the president finalizes his new strategy for success in Iraq. Americans and Iraqis alike surely hope he has something up his sleeve.
