“US forces caught in the crossfire on streets of ‘capital of death’"
by Rick Jervis and Jim Michaels, USA Today (Oct.23,2006)
This excellent article in USA Today caught my eye earlier this week; it’s one of the few stories that I’ve seen that really presents the situation in Iraq for what it is; a mess of problems with few clear-cut answers.
I served in the US Army in Iraq from March 2003 to February 2004. I lived and worked amid Iraqis for a year in Baghdad. Some were good men; I made friendships that I will cherish always. Others tried to kill me.
When people discover that I was in Iraq, then ask me ‘what do you think?’ as if it’s a something I could give a quick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to. As if I could ease their minds and their responsibilities by giving them a quick and easy answer. But it isn’t that simple.
There were days in Iraq where the skies were clear and the swaying palms beautiful. When I wandered the local marketplace enjoying the bright carpets, fresh food and children playing soccer in the streets. Times when I was amazed by the intellect and learning of Iraqis; By children who learned English faster than I could learn to count to five in Arabic. By doctors who worked to learn two decades worth of medical advancements from old medical journals donated by American surgeons. By the stories of Iraqis who posed for pictures with me, telling me how thankful they were that the man who had killed their families was gone from power. By the poorest workers, hired to sweep our floors, that still happily shared their lunches with me. Iraq was, and still is, a beautiful country with unlimited possibilities for the future.
Then there were other days, I hated Iraq. Days when I wanted to go home, to let every one who was shooting kill each other, as long as I didn’t have to be involved. Days when I cried in frustration because a school we had worked hard to open had been blown apart. When Iraqis screamed at me in Arabic on the streets, or threw rocks at our passing cars. When terrorists used a car bomb to blow up the Red Cross. When they kidnapped a dedicated woman who had been campaigning for aid for Iraqi citizens and beheaded her. When they used rockets to attack my ‘home’ at the time and blew off the arm of a young woman, in Iraq as part of a charity mission.
Being in Iraq is like a taste of being a serious manic-depressive; one day you love life and cherish every taste, touch and sound, the next you can’t stop crying, or are so angry your hands shake.
There is no easy answer in Iraq. I can’t tell you what you should think. I can’t decide what I think.
The new story talks about how Americans have become little more than ‘pig in the middle,’ taking fire from both the government they are trying to build and the insurgents and their death squads. Though the war to start was one of government forces, it has become a cat-and-mouse game, with both sides blurring the boundaries. How can the Iraqi government claim to ‘crack down’ on militias, when we are increasingly discovering that the very death squads we are pursuing have strong ties to them?
As the article quoted a US company commander as saying; “US-led raids often must be approved in advance by Iraqi leaders. This month, a unit in Baghdad got a tip about a torture chamber for Shiite death squads, but a planned raid needed clearance from the Iraqi side…by the time US troops conducted a nighttime raid on the two-story building, it was largely abandoned.”
With loyalties split, how can a force create a united front against anything? Those who think loyalty among Iraqi forces should make little difference need only look at the personnel number to see just how important it is; with 34,600 police and 9,500 Iraqi soldiers of unknown loyalty, our 15,400 soldiers have plenty to worry about.
What was a shaky war for freedom seems to be degenerating into a civil war among religious zealots, each stone-bent on killing whoever doesn’t agree with them. Split loyalties has allowed people with questionable goals for Iraq to rise in power. For example, the article quoted an American intelligence officer as declaring that members of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, had infiltrated every branch of public service and political office. “As soon as the US leaves, they’ll be able to dominate the area with key citizens, key positions and key offices,” he said.
Shiites are firebombing Sunni houses, Sunnis are torturing Shiites to death. The split Iraqi government and policing forces are leaking information, looking the other way, and even protecting key players. Who are we even fighting anymore? Saddam’s left-over forces? Foreign terrorists? Religious zealots? Ourselves maybe? Though people are dying, no one really seems to know. “Sometimes we have a feeling of complete hopelessness,” the intelligence analyst admitted, while another officer in a different unit seemed to throw up his hands in frustration; “We’re not trained in this. We’re not cops. We just want them to settle down long enough to get out of here.”
It seems the waters of the situation have gotten even muddier since my boots splashed through the puddle. At least when I was there, I felt that I had the support of most of the Iraqi people. They cheered us, gave gifts and looked forward to the future. Though polls of Iraqi people (given in the article) have show that 61% believe our ousting of Saddam was worth the trouble, it seems that most of them think that we are causing it now; 79% said that the US is having a negative impact on their country and 61% now approve of attacks on American forces. At the same time, 66% of Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq and 48% think that our presence there has made America less secure. Polls of Iraqis also showed that the general populace is confident in the abilities of both their police forces and government, that they support their government (with higher approval scores than we have, incidentally) and that they feel the government is largely representative of the population. The information coming from the non-warring people tells us that American forces should leave, but the constant murder and in-fighting is forcing us to stay. I think it’s probably safe to bet that most American soldiers would LIKE to leave too, but know that if they do the country with devolve into bloody civil war (with no one to even slow it down). Thus the ultimate question becomes, do we leave and let the zealots have free reign, or do we stay and continue to act as the ‘brakes’ against the turning wheel of civil war? If we leave, it is pretty safe to say that the armed zealots will fill the country’s major cities with full-blown war; murdering anyone who happens to get in their way. The rest of the world will fault the US for ‘giving up’ and ‘failing to solve the problem’ (and possibly even causing it). If we stay, the rest of the world will continue to hate us for ‘interfering,’ we will lose billions of dollars in war costs and aid to Iraq and American soldiers will continue to die. Neither seems like a winning situation; so which do we choose? Therein lies the problem.
In my opinion, we should make a last-ditch effort to bolster the country’s police and armed forces, creating as large a force as possible. Mount a massive public campaign to create/bolster the Iraqi national identity; make Iraqis proud to be a free Iraq (huge national holidays/celebrations, LOTS of flags, patriotic art installations, etc.). Use whatever force is necessary to either involve separate factions in the government or to remove them from the platform fully. If separate ‘states’ for different groups would work, do it. If force is necessary, use Iraqi forces, under direct command, to initiate change. PR the snot out of any raids as ‘the government dealing with threats to the people’. At some point during this campaign, mount a massive national yes/no vote to ‘request the US forces leave’ (after a stated timeline) and let the people of Iraq make the decision for themselves. If they democratically vote us out, we should be able to leave with our heads held high and a complete dismissal of further responsibility. The people will have spoken. I think this timeline could be completed within a year or two; and I’d suggest the vote was done early on in the process so that the people could ‘count down’ to the US leaving and/or have a second vote to felt our ‘help’ was still needed.
I’m not saying it’s ‘the’ answer; just what I would attempt to do if in the same rock-hard-place as the president. Unfortunately, I think this war is a no-win situation for the US (the Iraqis can still win overall), and though we can’t (and shouldn’t) “run”, that it really is necessary that we leave Iraq and the middle east. The Arabic peoples of the middle east have such a different view of t world from Americans, and such a different culture, that we can’t apply any of the fixes that we are used to. It’s so easy for people to say “I’d just…” when they haven’t been there!
Overall, I can only watch the news and sigh, praying that both my Iraqi friends and my military comrades make it through this test safely. May God be with us all.
