----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 4:20 PM
Subject: Iraq: Entering the Fourth Year of War and Occupation - FCNL
By Col. Dan Smith (USA Ret.)
As the fourth year of the war and occupation begins, Iraq is coming
apart because it is missing the glue to hold it together. The White
House has launched a second round of speeches and press releases about
coalition achievements in Iraq. Answering position papers and briefings
were fired off in response by critics of the administration, generating
in turn new administration briefs supporting its claims. The issues
were not new: how much, if any, progress was made; what still had to be
done by Iraqis and by the remaining coalition forces; the
"conditions" or status to be met that would permit a
substantial drawdown of foreign troops; and the future of Iraq-U.S. and
U.S.-Middle East/Persian Gulf relations.
Whatever the strategy particulars, a common theme is the need to
integrate political and economic progress with progress in providing
physical security to the ordinary Iraqi. Without security, the economic
infrastructure will remain dependent on foreign donors and lending
institutions. A country that once exported agricultural products as
well as oil now imports and subsidizes both. Politically, three months
after the election of the Iraqi parliament, the politicians remain
closely divided over who would become the next prime minister. And,
while a number of provinces exhibit placid surfaces, at root this
"peace" is largely the work of the various
sectarian-associated militias that still exist in defiance of the U.S.
and Iraqi authorities.
Iraq and the U.S. are locked in a dependency relationship that neither
wants but which neither seems able to break out of. Nominally, Iraq has
resumed its place as a sovereign state. Yet with 140,000 foreign troops
on its soil against the desires of a majority of the public, Iraq
hardly meets the qualitative conditions defining sovereignty: the full
exercise of external relationships with equal entities and some form of
implied or explicit internal relationship or social contract between
ultimate authority -- either a person or the rule of law -- and the
ruled.
Read my full analysis of the situation in Iraq today at
www.fcnl.org/smith/missing_dimension.htm
*No Clear Strategy from the United States*
The United States government has not offered any clear analysis of what
is happening on the ground in Iraq, or what will be the continuing role
of the U.S. military in Iraq. "We're making progress because we
have a strategy for victory," the president said Monday.
Administration officials have also insisted that the United States does
not have a long-term plan to remain in Iraq. Yet when Gen. John Abizaid
briefed Congress last week, he asserted that the U.S. might need a
long-term military presence in Iraq. And today, Tuesday March 21,
President Bush said that there will certainly be U.S. troops in Iraq at
least through the end of his presidency in January 2009. For day-by-day
analysis of these comments, read my new blog, The Quakers' Colonel at
http://www.quakerscolonel.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately, the statements in the last two weeks are part of a
historical pattern of statements and pronouncements from the U.S.
government that have not provided a full picture of the situation in
Iraq, the rationale for military action, or the consequences of those
actions. This week NPR correspondents produced an excellent,
four-minute radio piece tracking the events leading up to the U.S.-led
invasion. As NPR reports, the piece discusses the "Bush
administration claims -- since discredited -- of ongoing Iraqi nuclear
weapons development and links with al Qaeda." Listen to the NPR
program: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5289399
*The Senate Must Now Act*
The U.S. House of Representatives acted last week to fill in this void,
and provide the people in Iraq, the international community, and within
the United States with the first step toward a clear statement of U.S.
policy. The emergency supplemental funding legislation approved last
week by the full House includes a provision intended to prevent the
U.S. from establishing permanent military bases in Iraq. Now it is up
to the Senate. Congress must clearly declare that no permanent military
bases will be sought, leased, or in any way retained in Iraq by the
U.S. Such a statement, which would be cast in terms of Congress' power
of the purse, could rally the vast majority of Iraqis around a national
"achievement" while contributing to achieving reductions in
U.S. budget expenditures. Read more about FCNL's Iraq peace campaign
and the recent House actions at http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/.
_______________________________________
The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign, http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/
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________________________________________
Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330
We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.
Read more about FCNL's Iraq peace campaign and the recent House actions
at www.fcnl.org/iraq/
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