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Don't get maudlin over the need to continue our presence in Iraq, support the establishment of the government, and continue to train and equip the Iraqis so that they can have soverignty over their own country.  The Iraqi government hasn't reached a point yet where it can ask us itself to leave - which are the terms we promised our involvement would consist of.  We stay until the job is finished and they ask us to leave -- not because the insurgents bomb us into leaving, not sow chaos to the point that we wish that we could go.    

Docj, I'm really surprised at you.  The Americans will never be welcomed completely in Iraq, and the insurgency will continue to a certain extent -- but it will diminish over time and we will most assuredly be hated much more now if we leave than if we stay.  Millions of Iraqis - the vast majority of indigineous Iraqis - are still placing trust in us to do what we promised we would do.  You're letting the New York Times get to you.  Cut it out.

Kowalski, I'll ignore for the time being the condescending points about letting the NY Times get to me.  But please, someone (you, anyone) answer for me when, precisely, the job is "finished"?  Who defines "finished" in this sense?  Is it George Bush?  Iyad Alawi?  Who?

Perhaps the daily body-count is starting to get to me.  Perhaps it's the fact that we cannot seem to get control of large areas of the country (perhaps because we're unwilling to do the ugly, ruthless things necessary to secure them) that is starting to cause me distress.  Perhaps it's the seeming lack of any sort of plan coming from anyone.  I hear lots about "patience" and "stay the course" - to which all I ask is "what course?"

I never expected us to be fully welcomed in Iraq.  What I expected was a whole-lot more help from the Iraqis in getting their own house in order.  This is, in the end, a battle for their survival in real terms - not ours.

And I'm sorry, there is no evidence that the insurgency will diminish over time especially when I don't see us doing any of the things (such as locking-down large sections of the Sunni Triangle) that would lead to the capture (or preferably death) of the insurgents.

All the while, the body count continues to grow on our side.

I want very much to be wrong about this, mind you.  I would love nothing more than to eat these words 6-months, 12-months, 24-months from now.  But I don't see anything happening on the ground that gives me cause for anything other that pessimism.

Sorry to disappoint you - take it as a sign.  If you're starting to lose me, you may very well be starting to lose your hawks.

Cheers.

The days leading up to the election?  When the media was concentrating on the deaths in Iraq and giving us the drip....drip....drip...every single day, and it did a fantastic job of eroding the support for Bush and this Administration?

Docj, this is what is happening right now.  The insurgents are murderers who are trying to turn the Iraqi population against the Americans before the government has any form of stability. They are, in other words, doing what they have done for more than a year -- derail the establishment of a new government using techniques that anyone in the Western world would find reprehensible to cause that.  

The most striking thing is that our media is publicising their efforts.  You really need to stop being swayed this way.  If you really believe that Iraq will be better if the United States leaves now, and allows [choose your particular country of favor] to usurp our influence there, please -- tell me why that option will be better for them, or for us?  Do you honestly believe the French will do a better job?  Or the Syrians?  Or the Germans?  Or some combination of all the above?  

What about the people with whom we have gained trust over the past two years?  Do we just say, at this point -- "listen, it was nice, I'm glad you and I were friends, but now I have to go home and leave you here to whatever might happen to you?"  Because in essence, that's what we'll be saying.  It is the Vietnam retreat rewritten into 2005.  Don't do this.

The inversion of the body count statistics that has been promulgated nonstop by the MSM since day one of this war has turned your mind to mush.  Maybe you haven't been reading about it until now.  Tough s***, because the rest of us have, and we've been strong enough to resist that daily torture.  I fault the administration for not mentioning that it would be this hard.  But you, now, are striking a completely different tone -- complete withdrawal and utter retreat.  It is an absolutely insane position, because we will leave Iraq in a state of chaos.  Is that what you want?

First, sorry for taking so long in reply.  It's raining here in the northeast so, of course, I lost my DSL connection (Verizon sux, by the way).

Second, without addressing any of your points directly at this moment, I have to say that you may have misunderstood me.  I do not advocate prompt or immediate withdrawal from Iraq.  I just read and re-read my diary and nowhere do I say prompt or immediate withdrawal.  Nor to I mean or intend to imply such.

The money-passage from my diary is the following:

I'm starting to believe that the time has come, possibly even past, that we develop a plan for declaring victory and leaving.

I'm sorry if you do not see it this way, but there is to my mind a fundamental difference between developing a plan for departure and pulling-up stakes and running out with our tails between our legs.

I would feel comfortable if I had confidence that somewhere, locked-away in a vault in Rummy's office, was a blueprint titled "victory strategy" (because I think the term "Exit Strategy" sux).  I have no reason to believe that such a blueprint (with appropriate corrections for the changing situation on the ground) exists and, truth be known, feel that we may well have gone into Iraq without it.

You asked what I want - that's a fair question that deserves a fair answer.  So, here it is:

1. I want us to stop sending Marines into buildings to root out terrorists when dropping a MOAB on the village that is harboring them will accomplish the same without resulting in any dead Marines
   
   
2. I'm sick of the carrot-only approach to this nation-building exercise.  Carrots work only when the stick is visible in the background.  It's time to incentive-ize the Iraqi people to turn over the terrorists in their midst, and that is done by locking-down their little towns and cities until the bomb-makers are turned-over.  If a single coalition soldier or Marine gets so much as a hangnail in hostile action with an "insurgent", then the village gets locked down air-tight until said insurgent is dragged-out by the villagers - preferably in an advanced state of death.  Call this the "Falluja Approach".
   
   
3. I want the Iraqi government to know that a date certain exists at which time they will be expected to care for themselves - they don't need to know what that date is (heck, George Bush doesn't even need to know what that date is), but only that it exists
   
   
4. I want to know when the revenue stream will exist by which the Iraqi government can, without causing undue hardship to their own population, start to repay at least some of the $300B investment we've made in their country.  It's the least they can do.
   
   
5. Finally, I want us out of there, in an orderly manner, with all deliberate speed, at the first moment that we believe the Iraqi government can take their first tentative steps - knowing full well that we'll have well in excess of 2-3 BCT's and appropriate air support there for likely the rest of our lives.

If you think those goals are incompatible with my diary, that may be because I don't have any reason to believe numbers 1) through 4) will ever happen - which leads me to think that number 5) is a fantasy.

Based on this, are we still in irreconcilable disagreement?

Cheers.

is victory? Increasing attacks on soldiers and Iraqi's? Increasing carbombs? Unrest? Lack of supplies, electricity, infrastructure?

We just "declare" victory, wave out hats, and leave?

I would thoroughly encourage you to check out Irish Pennants (Jack Kelly's new blog), and also Wretchard and some others who are either on the ground or very well connected with events on the ground.

Either the Iraqis will pull together a government or civil war will ensue.  If civil war ensues then we're probably best pulling out and letting the millions die. This will be a dark day for us.

As long as the government has a chance to pull it together, then we need to provide the cover it takes to give them the chance. There are many many lives at stake. Perhaps we should have been tougher in controlling the various hot spots but we always knew that the house-to-house stuff was going to be the most expensive. We've avoided doing more than we had to. By pretty much any measure, it's a stunning success.

And, finally, we are just over two years from the initial crossing the border into Iraq. We totally defeated the Iraqi army, established a provisional government, handed control over to it on schedule, planned elections, had them on schedule, and they have put together a government and constitutional convention.

I won't for the time being argue many of your points, though it's obvious that you certainly take a more optimistic view of the current situation than I do.

Still, you've not answered an important question: when is the job "finished"?

If you want to know when I think it's finished, it's when the following conditions are met:

1. The Iraqi security forces equal the number of coalition forces
   
   
2. The day after the first truly representative government is elected (October, right?) and seated (a monty or two later, I believe)

From my POV, we have no business being there one day longer than it takes for those two things to happen.

However, I have very little faith that Iraq will turn-out any better than our ill-advised nation-building exercise in Kosovo.  The problem is that the stakes are ENORMOUS for us in Iraq.

The Administration needs to do a far, far better job of explaining why we're still there, what good things are happening, and what the stakes are.  They need to do this DAILY - to counter the steady drip, drip, drip of the daily body count and stream of bad news reported by the media (MSM) and political (DNC) organizations that are hoping we fail, and fail badly.  Their incompetence in being able to handle this challenge (the media and strategic challenges, I have no quarrel with our troops in theatre) is getting our soldiers and marines killed needlessly.  If they do not get a handle on the situation, we are looking at the "civil war" scenerio - and over 1200 needless deaths among our overworked armed forces.

Did I just read what I thought I read?

1 I want us to stop sending Marines into buildings to root out terrorists when dropping a MOAB on the village that is harboring them will accomplish the same without resulting in any dead Marines

2 I'm sick of the carrot-only approach to this nation-building exercise.  Carrots work only when the stick is visible in the background.  It's time to incentive-ize the Iraqi people to turn over the terrorists in their midst, and that is done by locking-down their little towns and cities until the bomb-makers are turned-over.  If a single coalition soldier or Marine gets so much as a hangnail in hostile action with an "insurgent", then the village gets locked down air-tight until said insurgent is dragged-out by the villagers - preferably in an advanced state of death.  Call this the "Falluja Approach".

That sounds like exactly the approach that Saddam took to fighting the uprisings of the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south.  Indiscriminate bloodshed of innocent Iraqis was one of the reasons we were told we needed to remove Saddam--If we resort to the same tactics, what have the Iraqis gained?

Keep in mind that this is, ultimately, a political struggle.  If we show the Iraqis and the surrounding arab states that they can expect bloodshed and instability from 'democracy', then we will lose the bigger battle for democratization of the area.

I realize you are frustrated--but sometimes you have to do things the right way no matter how easy the alternative.

Thanks - I do visit Kelly's site when I'm able.

That said, why do I have to count on a blogger to get this information to me?  What is the White House doing to get this information out?

I'm sorry, but you do not defeat the steady stream of bad-news courtesy of the MSM with bloggers.  The White House has had two years to get the PR aspects of this right and they're still not even close.

I think if you read my other responses, I want nothing more than for this to "work" and be a "success".  If only I knew what "work" and "success" meant in this context, I would be much, much happier.

Cheers.

OK, point conceded - MOAB may not have been the best idea.  However, if you have a house (or a block of houses) wherein you know that you have number of terrorists, I cannot accept that the right way to get them is to send Marines in to root them out.  The best way is, sorry to say it, to take out the building or buildings that house them.

Not one Marine should die rooting-out a terrorist hiding in a building.  Give them warning, say that they have 12-hours to turn-over the bad guys, then bye-bye building when the time comes.  Pretty soon, the cost of harboring terrorists becomes too high and the population starts to take care of business themselves.  We see that happening in places where this approach has been tried - you don't hear much about Falluja anymore, do you?

To that end, I fail to see what the problem is with locking down areas where attacks have occurred.

Again, I have no problem with carrots - but the stick needs to be visible as well.  As the situation becomes acceptable, the stick goes away.  That's what the Iraqis gain - they gain a stable, reasonably peaceful and free country paid for with the blood and treasure of the United States - it's not too much to ask that they do a little more on their own behalf.

Also, if you see my other responses - the White House had better start getting control of the PR battle here.  They need to be out there EVERY SINGLE STINKING DAY making the case that bloggers are making for them.  Their PR operation on the Iraq operation to date has been nothing short of incompetent.

Cheers.

On this:

Dropping 20,000 pound conventional explosives on villages because things aren't happening fast enough to satisfy the desires of people in the United States to see the end of the war and bring the troops home.

I want the war to end.  I want the government of Iraq to be stabilized, and I want their security forces to take over from us so that we can conduct a withdrawal.  And I want that to happen as soon as it can.  

But at the beginning of this conflict I felt that it was going to be a lot harder to achieve our goals than some of the rosy, optimistic pictures we were being asked to believe.  And even though it has been very difficult, so was the reconstruction of postwar Europe.  The President has said, repeatedly, that we would stay as long as it took.  I took that statement seriously, and I believe he means it.  Especially given that no WMDs were found and we've bought the farm on this, we really don't have any choice but to follow through on that promise.    

Can you imagine the alternative?  Now that we've gone to war we suddenly get cold feet and decide to turn around less than six months after the first free elections in Iraq's history?  Before they even have a working constitution?  Before the reconstruction has really taken hold?  Before the security forces have really gotten up to speed?  

I think your doubts about this are a little premature.  A year from now, if nothing is better in Iraq, it might be a better time to start calling for the sorts of fixed deadlines you're talking about here.  But we bought into this fight, we own it, and we have to carry it through.  My God, your statements sound like a slightly recontextualized version of Ted Kennedy's!  

Did you even read my response?  Where do I advocate pulling-up stakes and running away?  Cripes!

From your comments, it seems clear to me that you and I want the same things (war ends, Iraqi Sec Forces up and running, ASAP) - all I'm asking is that someone give me an idea of how we're going to get there so that I can answer my own question - NO, IT IS NOT TIME YET TO LEAVE IRAQ.  To date, I've seen nothing - zero, zip, zilch, nada - that leads me to believe such a plan exists.

To your point: The President has said, repeatedly, that we would stay as long as it took.

I ask again, as long as it took to do what, precisely?

I'm sorry, but if we're waiting for Iraq to become a Jeffersonian democracy, then we'll be there far longer than we "occupied" Germany and Japan after WWII.  If we're waiting for it to become even a democracy akin to Turkey, we're signing-up for something that will take many, many years.  And what reconstruction?  Reconstruction is on hold now in large sections of the country because the security situation, 2-years after the fall of Baghdad, is a mess.

If the Administration has a different POV, then they had best start getting that point out there and stop relying on bloggers (who are trying) and the MSM (who are not) to do it for them.

I've already acknowledged to corazon that the use of MOAB was a bad idea, born of frustration.

Kowalski - I want someone to give me evidence that Iraq is going to end up in a happier place than Somalia, Haiti or Kosovo is today (all of which are unqualified disasters).  To date, I've been given a link to a blogger's web site and a whole bunch of insults (and yes, being compared to a blame-America-first communist like Teddy Kennedy is an insult in this context).  Sorry, that's just not going to convince me that we're on the right course there.

If a year from now we can look back and say that this was nothing more than a rough patch on an otherwise smooth and straight road, then I will be all too happy to eat these words.

What I'm afraid however is that rather than that desired discussion, we'll be discussing instead the same things we're discussing now, only with more names that will need to appear on the Iraq War Memorial.

and I say this respectfully because yours is one of a handful of opinions I do respect, that you are demanding clairvoyance.

Kowalski - I want someone to give me evidence that Iraq is going to end up in a happier place than Somalia, Haiti or Kosovo is today (all of which are unqualified disasters).

I don't know how anyone could meet this test or why anyone should try. The ultimate question for you should be was getting rid of Saddam worth the costs as you see them right now?  My sense from your comments, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the answer is no.

Do I think it would have been worth 1200 lives and 10k injured to remove Saddam?

Actually, I would answer yes to that.

So what's my complaint?  I suppose it's that it cost us far less in blood and treasure to accomplish our primary mission (to remove Saddam and his regime) than it has taken to accomplish what I've always thought was our secondary mission (secure the country).

Perhaps I naively thought that I wasn't being totally BS'd about the whole "welcomed with flowers" bit - I knew a fair amount of that was sales and marketing, but thought the general jist was fine.  Turns out that really wasn't the case, was it?

In the end, perhaps my frustration is misdirected - I am genuinely disapointed that the Iraqis themselves don't have more of a handle on things.  Setting up a national government takes time - setting up a town government can be done in a week.

I suppose I don't know - but I want to.

I ask clairvoyance of no-one knowingly - and if such is the only way I can get the answers I seek, I suppose I need to become one with my discomfort.

Thanks.

[Note:  My post about the MOAB was written while you were in the process of writing yours conceding it was a bad idea...if I had seen it I wouldn't have written mine the same way.]

The Administration has not been as clear as it needs to be to quell doubts such as this one:

What I'm afraid however is that rather than that desired discussion, we'll be discussing instead the same things we're discussing now, only with more names that will need to appear on the Iraq War Memorial.

But I am willing to give them more time, with the caveat that they need to start working harder to make our goals and the timelines and methods for the achievement of those goals more specific.  I think the doubt is beginning to eat away at all of us, and that doubt will turn into utter contempt if a year from now we find ourselves in the same situation we are in today.  The result will be, I think, nothing less than a rout at the polls for the Republicans in the next two elections if the Administration can't start crystallizing some of the nebulous words into concrete results and a real plan for leaving Iraq.

I'm sorry for calling you a Kennedy, but I will tell you this:  The surest way for Iraq to become another Somalia or Haiti is to have the United States lose its nerve right now and start making preparations to walk away.  We will leave a war torn country with its nascent government at the mercy of the insurgents who are trying desperately to instill fear through the techniques of mass murder.  The administration needs to be more clear, it has always needed that, and perhaps you are sounding an alarm that some of their support is having some serious second thoughts and they need to be reassured that this war is going to reach a conclusion.  

OK -- we've all had some misgivings from time to time.  The Administration needs to step up the plate, perhaps with a televised address, to put forth its views and help keep this train on the track.

End of fight from my side.

The two points you mention are probably good benchmarks. I would argue that many people feel that our forces are insufficient to provide security for the whole country. If that is the case, we would need for the Iraqi security forces to become more numerous than our forces for the place to be secure.

I do think there is a lot of incentive for the new Iraqi government to say, "thanks, we can take it from here." and that it will happen as soon as they think they can.

Kosovo is one of the reasons I am glad this is not a UN operation.

The administration is explaining why, but the media is far more interested in the three years ago, someone left a copy of the Koran sitting on top of a commode story. I'm not sure how the administration can get its message out if no one wants to print/show it.

hold the key to what is so problematic.

You state frustration at the pace of setting up a government:

In the end, perhaps my frustration is misdirected - I am genuinely disapointed that the Iraqis themselves don't have more of a handle on things.  Setting up a national government takes time - setting up a town government can be done in a week.

But you also state that the Iraqis are not too happy we are there:

Perhaps I naively thought that I wasn't being totally BS'd about the whole "welcomed with flowers" bit - I knew a fair amount of that was sales and marketing, but thought the general jist was fine.  Turns out that really wasn't the case, was it?

What is necessary to create a government and all of the institutions that go along with it that lead to stability (security forces, judicial system, efficient utilities, infrastructure, etc.) is comittment.

Right now, a pretty good percentage of Iraqis believes that working with the US constitutes collaborating with the enemy.  And they are willing to kill those collaborators.  

To see this struggle as anything other than a political battle with a strong military component is, in my view, a very serious mistake.  We can keep killing or jailing insurgents, but until enough Iraqis see us as liberators and not as occupiers, new insurgents will keep popping up.  You mentioned Fallujah as an example of a successful campaign--But if you remember, that campaign was supposed to 'break the back' of the insurgency.  We may have passified that town, but the insurgents have popped up everywhere else.

The tragedy of all this is this is exactly what was wrong with Vietnam.  That war was also an essentially political battle fought with military forces.  And we know the absurdities that forced on us, as well as the divisions it caused at home.

What is the solution from here--beats me.  I don't think we can just cut and run, but I also see very little real possibility of a victory scenario.

I feel like we should have listened to the computer in "War Games" on this particular fight.

must stay, must win, must absorb, must go on. There is no magic "reset" button in this game. We win or we lose.

End of debate.

On your Note: I figured that our points regarding MOAB crossed in cyberspace - thanks for clearing that up though you did not have to.

Money-quote for me: The surest way for Iraq to become another Somalia or Haiti is to have the United States lose its nerve right now...

Spot-on, my friend.  Thanks for the clarity - I had forgotten that rather seminal point.  As to the rest of your post, I'll add a "Huzzah!"

I too am happy to end the battle at this point.  Thanks for the discussion - helps us all stay sharp.

Cheers.

or is it the continuing losses?

I bring this up because if it's the former, I do not believe that our presence in Iraq will ever end.  Look at South Korea for an illustrative example; we've been in that country for five decades now?  And threats by Rumsfeld to pull our guys out met stiff resistance by the Korean government (whose own people, by the way, are marching in the streets holding 'Yankee Go Home' signs, but I digress).

Iraq is surrounded by enough hostile states that an American tripwire is likely to be continued indefinitely.  It won't be hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground, but I suspect we'll have a few thousand or tens of thousand men and an air base or two in Iraq for the foreseeable future.

And I'm personally of the opinion that we should maintain a presence in Iraq for as long as we seek to influence that sphere of the world.  I disagree with liberal talking points about how our being 'over there' creates more terrorists by providing recruiting excuses, largely because recent changes in the Middle East (e.g., Lebanon, etc.) all appear to have at least some connection to the fact that we have plenty of military muscle on the scene.

Hopefully, the Iraqi government will come along soon, with its own military and police and other infrastructure.  Hopefully it will prove to be among the least corrupt regimes in the area, and actually fulfill the needs of its own people.  And hopefully, the insurgency will die down as Iraqis realizes that their only hope is to stamp out the criminal terror gangs in their midst.

Having said all this, I wonder if the fastest way to kill off the insurgency doesn't go through Riyadh....

-TS

Good question though.  As I mention in another reply, I acknowledge that we are likely to have 2-3 BCT's in Iraq for generations and frankly I think that's the way it needs to be.

I disagree with liberal talking points about how our being 'over there' creates more terrorists by providing recruiting excuses...

Bang-on the mark.  They (the terrorists) don't hate us because of what we do - they hate us because we are.  There is no negotiation with people who's endgame results in the mass beheading of all westerners.

Having said all this, I wonder if the fastest way to kill off the insurgency doesn't go through Riyadh....

I've been thinking that very thought since 9/12/2001.