Americans Wonder: Can Iraq be saved?

May 13, 2004

by Robert Nolan

It has been a month of introspection and questioning for many Americans, shocked by the human rights abuses revealed this month in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and frustrated with continued violence in Iraq. Public opinion polls indicate waning support for the U.S. effort to bring democracy to the nation it invaded more than one year ago. For the first time, a majority of Americans told pollsters that the war “wasn't worth it.” Nearly half also indicated that they favor lowering, not increasing, U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

While such a public response may be warranted following the administration's inability to produce evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the increase in al-Qaeda linked terrorist activity and the undermining of democratic ideals by the scandal at Abu Ghraib – most analysts agree that an American withdrawal would only make matters worse. Though there is reason to despair, some say, the situation in Iraq is not yet untenable.

Public Opinion

Throughout most of the past year and a half, a majority of Americans have given tacit support to the U.S. effort to topple the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein and the administration's plan to bring democracy to the Middle East. Polls taken in April 2003 showed that 76 percent of Americans believed that “all in all” the war in Iraq was worth it, though that number has recently dropped to 50 percent, according to a Gallup Poll taken earlier this month. When asked in the same poll how things were going for the U.S. in Iraq today, 62 percent responded badly, compared with only 14 percent in April of 2003.

A majority of Americans are also increasingly worried by the president's conduct of the war. According to another CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, President Bush's approval rating has fallen to 46 percent, its lowest ever, while only 44 percent of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction. The same poll shows that 54 percent of Americans now say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Undoubtedly, recent violence and the highly publicized atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison have taken a toll on American support for the U.S. effort. The administration has responded by displaying what The Economist calls “its famous solidarity.”

Though President Bush publicly reprimanded Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over the abuses at Abu Gharib, top administration officials have rebuffed calls for his resignation. Vice President Dick Cheney told reporters that Rumsfeld is “the best secretary of defense the United States ever had,” and President Bush has repeatedly voiced support the secretary, calling his efforts in Iraq and elsewhere “superb.”

While such rhetoric has come to be expected of an administration known for its intractable policies, pundits in the United States nevertheless continue to come down hard on Rumsfeld, not just over the prisoner abuse scandal, but also for his overall strategy in Iraq and the war on terror. The Economist, which has frequently offered editorial support to the administration's mission in Iraq, ran the bold headline, “Resign, Rumsfeld,” on its May 6th cover, alongside the now famous photo of a hooded Iraq standing on a box with wires attached to his fingertips. “Some may worry that a change of defense secretary now would further endanger the effort in Iraq,” says the editorial. “The opposite is the case, for although Mr. Rumsfeld is rightly credited with a successful steering of the conventional war a little over a year ago, he and his team have also been responsible for many of the blunders since then: appalling post-war planning, inadequate troop numbers, excessive deBaathification, and more.”

“The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been ‘We're at war; all these niceties will have to wait,” writes Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, referring the administration's apparent dismissal of the Geneva Conventions and treatment of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Abu Ghraib, Iraq. “As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure.”

“I've stopped reading the papers,” said Rumsfeld on an unannounced visit to Iraq and Abu Ghraib prison this week in response to the widespread criticism. “It's a fact,” he added to the applause of military personnel attending his rallying speech, “I'm a survivor.” Rumsfeld's statement was backed by opinion polls that showed that more than 60 percent of Americans reject the suggestion that the secretary of defense should resign.

Blood and Treasure

As Zakaria points out, the cost of war in both troops and finances has far exceeded the numbers provided by the administration in the build-up to war. General John Abizaid, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, indicated last week that at least 135,000 American soldiers would remain in Iraq through 2005. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also said this week that the administration would seek a “much larger” supplement than the $25 billion it recently requested from Congress for fiscal year 2005 in Iraq and Afghanistan. The funds “will be in addition to the $401 billion that Bush previously has requested for the Pentagon in the 2005 fiscal year,” said the Washington Post. According to Bloomberg News, the U.S. military is currently spending $4.5 billion to $5 billion per month in its twin nation-building projects.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told reporters that officials were “decoupled from reality” in their early forecasts, and that “we have seen a whole group of factors come together to raise our costs.” No doubt, any administration would be hard pressed to plan for the current situation in Iraq, as many supporters of the effort are quick to point out. “War unfortunately is a very unpredictable operation,” Wolfowitz said in an attempt to address sticker-shock and Congressional reluctance to give the administration carte blanche in how the money is spent. “We're not looking for a blank check,” he added. “We are looking for the kind of flexibility that will make sure that when a need arises, we can allocate funds to where that need exists.”

“They need a lot more than $25 billion given the tempo of operations,'' said Senator John McCain, in the Bloomberg News report.

Stay the Course – Or Chart a New One?

Op-ed pieces across the country this week questioned weather or not the administration would revise its current strategies, and many warned of the dangers of giving in to the growing public urge to withdraw from Iraq. For most, however, staying the course is not an option. “If the war continues to challenge the United States, as seems likely at the moment, the gap between the president's portrayal of the situation and the perceived reality will eat away at his political support,” write analysts at Stratfor.com. “At this point, the president doesn't really have much more room for loss of support. Even marginal erosion can cost him.”

“The Bush administration seems not to recognize how widespread, and how bipartisan, is the view that Iraq is already lost or on the verge of being lost,” write William Kristol and Robert Kagan in the Weekly Standard. “The administration therefore may not appreciate how close the whole nation is to tipping decisively against the war. In a sense, it doesn't matter whether this popular and elite perception of the situation in Iraq is too simplistic and too pessimistic. The perception, if it lingers, may destroy support for the war before events on the ground have a chance to prove it wrong.” The writers, known for their neo-liberal views, advocate accelerating elections in order to speed up the democratic process, reduce violence and “change the subject” in addition to providing hope for Iraqis and Americans who want the U.S. to succeed in Iraq.

Jim Hoagland, writing in the Washington Post, warns that while recent events have stained American credibility, opponents should not forget what is at stake. “Make no mistake: The military and congressional investigations into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal must be pursued. They offer the best opportunity to repair America's reputation and prevent future atrocities,” he writes “But this episode should not be inflated for partisan gain at home, or manipulated by those abroad who oppose the exercise of U.S. power in their precincts. Those outcomes risk throwing the American baby out with the Bush bath water.”

Editors at the National Review agree. “No one said it would be easy, but neither did anyone say it would be this hard, in this particular way,” they write. “But nothing going on in Iraq is quite as alarming as the panic of our political class about it…the emerging conventional wisdom is that Iraq is an unrecoverable disaster. Make no mistake: Iraq still may become that, but we need to muster all our resources and shrewdness to try to avoid it.”

William Murchison attributes the current crisis to the nature of democracy. "Democracy is a one-word answer to the question ‘How'd this Iraq mess suddenly get so messy?' It takes a democracy — in our own case, the greatest of them all — to get bollixed in the beguiling way familiar now to the whole world,” writes Murchison in the Washington Times. The irony, he says, is “American determination to build in Iraq yet another vulnerable democracy, vulnerable on account of openness and the rule of law.”

Such comments bring to mind the response of the Secretary of Defense to the chaos and looting that erupted in Baghdad immediately after the American invasion. “Democracy is messy,” Rumsfeld said. As the U.S. stumbles in its quest to bring democracy to the heart of the Middle East, this observation might be well taken, both in Iraq and here at home too.