For me, the highlight of last week’s Senate Foreign Relations
Committee hearing came when Senator Joe Biden questioned Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice about the Bush Administration’s postwar
strategy for Iraq.
“What’s the plan, Stan?” said Biden with all of the eloquence of
a playground bully, yet with none of the charm.
I am almost old enough to remember a time when military plans
were kept secret. Today, they must be broadcast via satellite to
the mustiest cave in Afghanistan. And the more plans on the table
the better, if only to hide beneath later.
Despite what you’ve heard, there was no dearth of plans and
planners before the invasion. At the top of the list were the
Coalition Provisional Authority’s plan and the State Department’s
Future of Iraq plan. The Pentagon and the CIA had plans too. All
had basically the same goals: set up a provisional government,
implement a democratic constitution, hold elections. Make sure the
Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds share power like good little boys and
girls. And then there was the military’s plan: kill or capture
Saddam and his inner circle, remove the Baathists from power,
restore order.
It is now axiomatic that L. Paul Bremer’s bumbling Coalition
Provisional Authority, which ruled Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004,
caused much of the postwar chaos. How? By dismantling the Iraqi
military and secret police and barring Baathists from power. Yet
the sixty-four thousand-dinar question remains: how else does one
build a new Iraq? Speaking before packed houses of insurance
salesmen in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and such, Bremer
continues to defend his agency’s policies, pointing out that for 30
years Saddam used that same army and intelligence services “to
inflict misery, torture, and death on Iraqis and their neighbors.
[While] the Baath Party was another important instrument of
Saddam’s tyranny.” Writing earlier this year in the Wall Street
Journal, Bremer maintained that it was vital to reassure the
Iraqi people that in the New Iraq, Baathists and Saddam’s secret
police would no longer be used as instruments of terror.
Bremer was right. Try to imagine triumphant Allied troops
encouraging Nazi officials to move back into their government
offices, or putting a rearmed SS in charge of security. Second,
there were practical concerns, such as how it would look for rape
and torture victims to run into their former tormentors patrolling
the streets of Baghdad.
L. Paul Bremer now says the U.S. erred in planning for
humanitarian relief and starving refugees, rather than preparing
for a bloody insurgency. “There was planning, but planning for a
situation that didn’t arise,” Bremer now says. The former CPA
director is just one of many bureaucrats who have criticized
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for deploying too few troops
in Iraq. It is this small number of troops that is blamed for the
violence and looting (mostly of Baathist buildings) that followed
the remarkably quick crumbling of Saddam’s war machine. Yet the
same critics also recognize that too many troops would
risk an even greater anti-imperialist backlash in the Muslim world
and a greater antiwar reaction back home. Okay, in hindsight maybe
the Pentagon’s balancing act needed a bit more work. But as for the
paucity of troops, the Post reported a senior defense
department official saying that Director Bremer never requested
additional troops.
LOST IN ALL THE FAULT-FINDING is how well things have gone.
Building a free democratic nation out of the ruins of a cruel
fascist dictatorship is no Sunday morning walk in the park, but in
two and a half years, America and its allies have pretty much done
just that. Iraqis now have a constitution to rival that of many
Western states, and in a few months their own democratically
elected government will be sworn in. Increasingly Iraqi troops are
taking over security operations, and doing a bang-up job. Despite
what the Michael Moores and Howard Deans believe, Army Spc. Casey
Sheehan and the other American, British, Australian, Polish,
Italian, and Iraqi soldiers have been part of — in the president’s
words — “an historic opportunity to change the world,” a moment
when America and its allies proved beyond doubt that democracy and
freedom and human rights are accessible to everyone, everywhere.
Yes, even to Middle East Muslims.
But perhaps the most encouraging development in Iraq is this
one: as the Baghdad government’s legitimacy grows in the eyes of
the Iraqi people, the average citizen is increasingly pointing out
the foreign suicide bombers who crawl into Iraq to kill civilians.
Like people everywhere, the Iraqis long for peace and stability.
Give them a chance to vote — in a secret ballot where the
cutthroat Bin Ladinists cannot terrorize them — and Iraqis
overwhelmingly vote for democracy. Just like Bush and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair said all along.
Bush and Blair also promised that Iraq’s transition to democracy
would transform the Middle East and the Muslim world. Two for two.
If you are keeping tabs, since the March 2003 invasion, the U.S.
has lifted its trade embargo on Libya — until recently a major
state sponsor of terrorism — as a reward for its giving up weapons
of mass destruction. The Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, and Saudis
have held elections — for Arabia its first municipal elections in
decades. Even more amazing, President Hosni Mubarak allowed
multiparty elections in Egypt. Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon.
Israel pulled out of Gaza. After years of silence, Jordan and Syria
have begun to talk up reform. So many positive developments cannot
be coincidental.
So what is the plan, Stan?
Last week on Capitol Hill, Ms. Rice said the U.S. plan is to
clear the toughest areas of insurgents, make those areas a
sanctuary from violence and then build durable national Iraqi
institutions. “Our strategy is to clear, hold, and build,” said
Rice. That sounds infinitely preferable to the left’s “Protest,
Undermine, and Desert” strategy.
In addition, the U.S. will also “embed” diplomats, police
trainers, and aid workers on military bases, and traveling with
troops. Soon Provincial Reconstruction Teams will be deployed to
help secure the country by training police, setting up courts, and
helping local governments with essential services like sewage
treatment or irrigation, Rice said.
While Iraqis were working to write a democratic constitution
with checks and balances, respect for human rights, and multi-party
elections — in other words while they were building a future of
hope and freedom — jihadist groups like Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi Army
and Saddam’s Fedayeen were trying to gain power by planting
roadside bombs and murdering Iraqi civilians. These so-called
insurgents blew up Iraqi civilians not because of the U.S.
intervention, but because only by starting a civil war can
cretinous thugs hope to gain power.
Today the imminent civil war is entering its second year of not
happening. The militias are largely disbanded, and most of the
violence comes from disenchanted Iraqi Sunni, Syrian Sunni, and
Saudi Sunni suicide bombers directed mainly at Shiite civilians.
Like Israel, like Spain, like the Philippines, Iraq will learn to
live with petty terrorists in its midst. At least for the
foreseeable future. But that doesn’t mean that the plan isn’t
working, or that Iraqis and all those who live under tyranny don’t
deserve to live free.
Christopher Orlet is a frequent contributor and runs
the Existential Journalist website.
