WASHINGTON — We are preparing to vamoose Camp Victory just
outside of Baghdad. There were once 505 bases for American troops
sprinkled around Iraq at the height of our involvement, from whence
an American army went out to pacify the bloodthirsty hordes. Now we
are down to some 40 bases, and shortly there will be none at all.
Perhaps one or two headquarters will remain for a skeleton force of
Americans training Iraqi police or military.
Camp Victory was the biggest of our bases. It was open to
46,000 troops at the height of operations. It had swimming pools
and palaces and other improbable amenities for a military base
thanks to its former inhabitant, Saddam Hussein. His presence there
is shockingly diminished. Yet there remains a gaudy throne, a gift
from the deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Actually Saddam
is deceased too, but there remains this appalling throne, with the
tyrant’s pomade a stain on its headrest. I wonder how many people
he condemned to death from that throne. And more, I wonder how many
condemned victims he watched die a grisly death from that throne.
That is the kind of sport he enjoyed.
America has taken down a lot of tyrants in the past
century or so of our emergence as a world power, but Saddam is
about as evil and cruel as any. In fact I would venture that there
is an absolute measurement with regard to tyrants, beyond which one
cannot go. One can be a relatively benevolent tyrant, leaving only
a few breaches of the law. Or — more likely — one can be a rather
hideous tyrant. Panama’s Noriega comes to mind and Mussolini. But
when a tyrant breaks into the big time, killing and butchering
hundreds, thousands, millions, that is about as evil as it gets. I
would put a Hitler, a Tojo, and a Saddam in that league. I would
also put Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, and dozens of less famous brutes
in that category, but alas, America was not responsible for their
deaths. Though, in the case of Castro, there is still
time.
We are told that there is now some sort of debate going on
between Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and certain senior
military officials over how many troops if any should stay on in
Iraq. Some military leaders say as many as 18,000 should stay in
case hostilities break out anew. Panetta is for 3,000 to 4,000 to
serve as trainers on the ground. That is a debate for the experts.
I only know that our policy in Iraq came out rather well
considering how chaotic the place was four years ago and how eager
certain Democrats were to turn Iraq into another
Vietnam.
One of the main figures in screwing up Vietnam was Senator
Edward Kennedy and he was at it again in Iraq. That was apparent in
January of 2007 when he made a preemptive strike against President
George W. Bush’s “surge,” by introducing legislation to require
congressional approval before more troops could be introduced. A
lonely President Bush went ahead with his surge, which Senator
Kennedy, then a senior member of the Armed Services Committee,
called “an immense new mistake.” Of course, under General David
Petraeus the surge was a success and this war unlike Vietnam is
ending in success.
Still other Democrats tried their best to screw it up.
There was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in April 2007 famously
pronouncing the war “lost,” and the Hon. David Obey calling for a
political and diplomatic compromise. Then as the surge was working
and bringing peace to the country, Squeaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi in February 2008 told Wolf Blitzer on CNN “There haven’t
been gains, Wolf… This is a failure. This is a failure.” Finally
some Democrats could see that the Bush policy was working in Iraq.
Candidate Barack Obama thought he would play it safe on July 13,
2008 when he quietly expunged his website of “The surge is not
working,” and replaced it with a notice of the “improved security
situation” of the country, but still no salute for President Bush
or Vice President Dick Cheney, or General Petraeus. Well, I salute
them, and our magnificent military that can sing out “Mission
Accomplished.”
