It has now been a little over six months since President Bush
declared an end to major fighting in Iraq. Landing Top Gun-style on
an aircraft carrier and making his speech in front of a banner
proclaiming “mission accomplished,” the event was
dramatic, to say the least.
Surely, some things have changed since that day. For example,
more American soldiers have been killed since May 1 than were
killed during the major fighting.
Most things, however, have not changed.
For example, Iraq is still mired in a massive unemployment
crisis ““ the jobless rate has reached a nearly inconceivable
70 percent. Furthermore, a guerrilla war continues to be fought and
American soldiers are still dying. Reconstruction efforts still
suffer from lack of funding, guerrilla attacks, and sabotage.
Thus, despite the pretty banner, this “mission” is
far from accomplished.
And, particularly as we lose more and more soldiers to sabotage
and guerrilla attacks, support for finding an easy way out of
continued U.S. involvement in Iraq is growing. Some of the very
same people who accused anti-war protesters of being traitors
during the major combat operations are now saying that our job is
done and it is time to bring our troops home.
If only it were that easy. Unfortunately, simply holding
elections and beating a hasty retreat will not a democracy make. In
the words of noted author and editor of Newsweek International,
Fareed Zakaria, “We can leave fast or we can nurture
democracy, but we cannot do both.”
It is critical we take the time to help rebuild Iraq’s
economy and government. There are three large factions within Iraq
““ Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds ““ along with many smaller
ethnic groups such as the Turkomans and the Assyrians. If we simply
held elections and left, it would be possible for these ethnic
groups to attempt to hijack the government and the reconstruction
efforts.
No doubt this would end in a brutal war of ethnic violence like
we have seen in countless other countries where one ethnic group
gains a monopoly on the power structure. We must help to create a
system of power-sharing in order to prevent hostile takeovers.
Make no mistake about why we should stay in Iraq. It is not
about weapons of mass destruction. Nor is it, despite Bush’s
rhetoric, about a war on terrorism. Our presence in Iraq is making
the problem of Islamic terror far worse than if we had never gone
in there in the first place.
Indeed, Donald Rumsfeld recently wrote a letter to the Pentagon
expressing concern about the possibility that every new day in Iraq
we could be creating more terrorists than we are killing or
capturing.
Additionally, the unemployment problem is making terrorism worse
as jobless Iraqis grow more and more desperate for a source of
income. An unemployed Iraqi recently told The Los Angeles Times,
“It’s no wonder people are taking $500 or $1,000 to
commit acts of sabotage. What are we supposed to do? I need to pay
my rent.”
No. We must stay in Iraq, because when we entered the country,
we accepted the responsibility to help the Iraqis reconstruct their
nation and gain self-determination over their national destiny.
It is becoming clear, however, that Bush’s current
approach is not getting the job done. The reconstruction of Iraq is
a massive commitment and the United States needs the help of other
countries and organizations to do so. Instead, thanks to President
Bush’s absolutely arrogant foreign policy, we are losing the
support we need. Portugal recently pulled out all of its troops.
Turkey instituted a similar moratorium on sending its troops on
Tuesday. The Red Cross and other international aid organizations
are pulling out for security reasons.
The Bush administration is getting some important things done,
like rebuilding Iraq’s oil economy and rebuilding
Iraq’s power plants. But it is ignoring some of the
fundamental problems that are causing much of the violence. His
moderate program of recruiting tens of thousands for the Iraqi
police force does nothing to help the estimated 13 million
unemployed Iraqis.
Bush is focused on fighting his losing war on terrorism in Iraq
instead of providing widespread job placement, housing and food
programs for all Iraqis. In typical borrow-and-spend form, Bush was
just granted $87.5 billion by Congress, helping to push the
projected national deficit to an all-time high. This money should
be coming out of his tax cut that went to the wealthy.
As the next election year approaches, the fundamental question
we will have to address is: Where do we go from here?
Many of the democratic candidates, like Howard Dean, have the
right ideas. In an Oct. 16 press release, Dean calls for a new plan
in Iraq. He states: “The new plan must give our troops what
they need and bring them home safely, share this burden with other
nations, ensure the stabilization and rebuilding of Iraq, and make
sure that the billions of dollars we are spending are not wasted
and used to pay off big corporations.” These are the key
pieces that have been missing from the Bush administration’s
reconstruction strategy in Iraq.
Bitondo is a third-year political science and history
student. E-mail him at mbitondo@media.ucla.edu.