From yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
[Our Troops Must Stay
America can't abandon 27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.
BY JOE LIEBERMAN
Tuesday, November 29, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
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nationhood--unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.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 cons ution 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 cons ution, 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.
THIS is bigger news that what Murtha had to say. ALL kinds of good, encouraging news in there. NONE of this gets reported. , the only places reporting this take from a DEMOCRAT are conservative talk-show radio hosts! CBS, CNN, NBC et al. couldn't wait to put Murtha's blubbering face all over my set - where the is the coverage for this?
Are they too busy basking in the glow of G.W.'s falling numbers to get distracted? Are they (and the democrats) so hate-filled and power starved that they would throw an entire, budding, aspiring democracy asside for their own purposes. It appears they would.
Shame on them.
Last edited by 101A; 11-30-2005 at 09:45 AM.
NBADAN, Boutons, any liberal out there have a comment on this? Pretty much says it all, doesn't it. It's working, it's going well, Iraq is a shining beacon to the rest of the ME. Cheney, Rumsfeld and GW were all correct. Mistakes were made, but learned from, and forgiven!
This guy was on the Democratic Ticket not 6 years ago people. This is big.
Anyone, Bueller....Bueller....
Good article. What I want to know is why this topic is yet to get a response, but when Jeb Bush's son got a DUI, we get a frenzy of posts and replies.
They just want this topic off the front page.
Can't deal with the truth.
Now lets start a thread about how the economy launching.....the timing couldn't be better for the elections next year.
This isn't big at all -- he's said this all along.
We're there and we have to stay there to not look like the big bunch of pussies we may or may not actually be.
So what?
I don't support the President and I think the War in Iraq was unjustified at the outset. I have always supported the War in Afghanistan, which to my way of thinking is the only justifiable war on terror at the moment -- and sadly, while Afghanistan is the most important front in the war on terror, it receives little or no mention these days and has been mentally subsumed in most minds within the action in Iraq.
With that said, however, I also agree with Lieberman's position on this. It makes no sense, now that we're there to pull out until the situation has been fully stablized. The Mujahedeen was emboldened by the Soviet pullout of Afghanistan in the early 80's - given reason to believe that it had won. We can't make that mistake, because the consequences of an early pullout would only redouble the efforts and resolve of the small faction of militants who contort the principles of Islam to suit their political agenda. So, while I don't think we should have ever gone there in the first place, now that we're there, it's imperative that we leave on our terms and only after the threat of terrorism has been effectively eradicated. Unfortunately, I think that means that the United States will have a military presence in Iraq for the remainder of my lifetime and that such a presence will only cause the problem to remain unsolvable.
But, if we're going to remain, we might as well provide a soil in which an attempt at a middle eastern democracy can take root. If those things are happening, it's a nice byproduct of what I think was a massive foreign policy mistake.
I don't support regime change for the sake of regime change, and I think the invasion of a sovereign Iraq on false pretenses sets a horrendous precedent that will leave this country perceived either as a bully or as horribly inconsistent.
I honestly no longer no where I stand on that anymore. 5 years ago, no question, I was right there with you. I just have trouble sitting idly by (not saying that is necessarily your position), only attacking AFTER we've been attacked - which is why I assume you feel the Afghanistan war is legitimate.
Yeah, and here I thought it was the Democrats who were supposed to be soft on defense.
Liebermann is a war hawk, has always been a war hawk and will always be a war hawk. So his position on Iraq is not surprising in the least. In fact, it would be more surprising if Liebermann stood up with John Murtha, and members of the Administration in calling for a withdrawal time-table from Iraq.
It’s funny that Iraqi polls are rarely mentioned in the U.S. mainstream media unless they can be some how twisted to benefit the news coming from Iraq. For instance, poll after poll in Iraq have shown that a majority of Iraqis, including Kurds and Shiite, want U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq. Perhaps this is part of the shiny, optimistic future Iraqis look forward too?
The latest lame attempt by war supporters to justify this boon-dongle is to try and personalize the war by showing schools opening in Iraq while they are closing back home. 200+ billion dollars later, more money than we are spending in the rebuild of New Orleans, and the city of Baghdad still has intermittent power, dirty water, and a virtually non-existent police force.
Republican chicken-hawks have to try and personalize the war because if you look at the big picture, things in Iraq look bleak. Predominantly, Shiite Iraqi cities that once had virtually little resistance are now hot-beds of terrorism. The Iraq-Syrian border area is a virtual war zone as this war threatens to spread into a regional conflict. The number and sophistication of road-side bombings and suicide bombings has gone up exponentially. Thanks to this war, Iraq has become a terrorist training ground. The bombing in Jordan was planned and supplied in Iraq.
Murtha didn't call for a timetable - he called for immediate withdrawal. I live in Western PA - I have heard the quote far more than y'all can imagine.
Could you cite one of your polls, please.
The bombings have not gone up exponentially. You do understand exponents don't you?
I think if terrorists are dumb enough to try to train in the midst of the US military, let them.
So Lieberman is a liar?
That's precisely why I believe in the war in Afghanistan.
My problem with a foreign policy that embraces regime change is that it either: (1) creates an imperialism in which this country assumes that it can dictate the political decision-making in sovereign nations by suggesting regime change when we dislike leadership; or (2) is inherently applied on an inconsistent basis because it is used only in some cir stances.
If it is important that we bring democracy to Iraq by regime change, why doesn't the same principle apply in North Korea or other such places? It doesn't apply there because a war with North Korea would be brutal in many respects. But if we're all about liberating oppressed people and giving them the freedoms associated with democratic states, we should seemingly be willing to bear any cost to accomplish that goal. The reason we aren't willing to bear any cost to accomplish that goal, though, is because it's truly not that important to the government. It's important only where there is some other goal that can be attained. So it's not truly a foreign policy choice -- it's a backhanded rationalization for invading countries that jeopardize our strategic interests.
I find that troubling, but I understand that others don't. In any event, that's where I stand.
You heard what the MSM wanted to you hear. Here is Murtha's plan from his own congressional site...
Now that hardly sounds to me like a immediate withdrawl plan.My plan calls:
To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
To create a quick reaction force in the region.
To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq
So, I guess this means you'll be supporting the war effort from here out?
My opinion hasn't changed either -- it's only the idiots like you who can't read that never got it.
We're there for the long run, good or bad.
So, why don't you just quit with the criticism and get behind the effort? If we're there for the duration what good is the Monday morning quarterbacking?
Because I'm not a lap dog like you.
I'm happy for whatever successes are achieved there but I will never pretend it was a fabulous idea to go in the first place.
Even if your criticism undermines the efforts being undertaken? Well, that's pretty selfish, if you ask me.
Nobody's asking you to be a lap dog. Why not just shut the up if you don't have anything positive to contribute?
I'm pretty sure this is actual language from the Patriot Act.
It doesn't.Even if your criticism undermines the efforts being undertaken?No, you're telling me to shut up.Nobody's asking you to be a lap dog.
Nice. It's all about freedom isn't it?
I believe it does.
Which is my right. I can't compel you shut up, I can only appeal to what is obviously a very small logic center in your very small brain.
Apparently.
Nah.I believe it does.As it is mine to tell you to go yourself with a steely dan.Which is my right.
Very good, conversation over scrote-sucker.
Very good, conversation over scrote-sucker.
are you a dude or a chick?
And that belief should be conclusive as to the rest of us? Come on.
You can't really be that arrogant, can you?
I mean, by what virtue does your personal belief as to whether Chump's arguments are subversive lead to an ironclad conclusion that criticisms like his actually undermine the American activities in Iraq?
Are the terrorists going to disappear if Chump or I (or countless others) cease to be critical of the reasons that we're in Iraq in the first place? If you can absolutely guarantee me that result with 100% certainty, you'll win at least my silence on this issue.
I don't get the whole "hurting the effort with criticism" argument. If the soldiers who chose to serve our country can be beat into submission by a few internet posts that question the wisdom of their being in Iraq in the first place, we truly are a nation of pussies who won't win any war.
I have a higher opinion of those soldiers.
I haven't seen anything close to a real, measureable goal for the Iraqization schemes everyone is talking about, so I can only conclude that it's a bunch of political gainsaying bull so far -- and we aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
So, if they have 27 million good Iraqis, and only 10,000 derelicts, why can't THEIR 27 million ing people deal with them?
Enquiring minds want to know.
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