Michael Duffy, from Time magazine, wrote an interesting piece about a month or so ago titled Why the Surge worked (Interestingly, the title of the article has changed in the online version. It is now the Surge at Year One). In spite of the misleading original title, this was an outstanding article which underlines the complexity of the problem that is Iraq. Throwing 30,000 more troops can’t solve the problem in Iraq. Instead, it has just prolonged problem.
Duffy writes: “The surge’s successes and limits are both plainly visible on al-Kindy (a street in downtown Baghdad) today. A well-stocked pharmacy has reopened. A new cell-phone store selling the latest in high-tech gadgets opened in December. A trickle of shoppers moved along the sidewalks on a recent chilly morning as a grocer, who asked that his name not be used, surveyed the local business climate. “Things are improving slightly,” he said. “But not as much as we hoped.” Indeed, if al-Kindy is coming back, it is doing so slowly, unevenly—and only with a lot of well-armed help. Sandbagged checkpoints stand at either end of al-Kindy, manned by Iraqi soldiers with machine guns. Iraqi police in body armor prowl back alleys and side streets to intercept would-be car bombers. U.S. military officials often point visitors to al-Kindy Street as a metaphor for what is working—and what remains undone. “We still have some work to do,” says Lieut. General Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq. “I tell everybody we’ve opened a window. There’s a level of security now that would allow [Iraqi politicians] to take advantage of this window in time, pass the key legislation to bring Iraq together so they can move forward. Are they going to do that? In my mind, we don’t know.”
An interesting poll by USA Today/Gallup revealed that 60% of Americans call the invasion a mistake and want a timetable to get out. Almost half of those surveyed in a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll thought that less than 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq. Only 28% of the public were aware that almost 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in a Iraq. The same study found that news coverage of the war has dropped significantly over last 12 months.
I believe this adds up to this: Americans have a short attention span. It is up to everyone to not forget that we are bogged down in a war that is costing us almost $1 trillion. The President clearly told us the purpose of the surge was to quell the violence so that the Iraqi government could make the decisions necessary to move the country forward. Using the President’s own yardstick, this hasn’t happened. So what are we doing in Iraq, again?
Tags: Bush Administration, Iraq by ecthompson
2 Comments »
