Thomas Veil
Apr 10, 2004, 04:25 AM
Well, all right, it's not official official. The White House didn't say Iraq is a quagmire...but Newsweek sure did. (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4703084)
With U.S. Marines dying in Iraq and the administration’s postwar policy in shambles, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reassurances that American forces would prevail met with skepticism on Capitol Hill. “Baghdad Bob could be working for the Coalition,” said a Senate aide to a senior Republican. “The scary thing is, the administration doesn’t know how bad it is, or they know it’s bad and they’re misleading the public. They’re telling congressional leaders this is a minor flare-up.”
There are those lyin’ eyes again. Reporters on the ground in Iraq describe a wider uprising among the Shiite population than Rumsfeld acknowledges. He clings to the notion that the insurgency is primarily a function of Saddam holdovers, foreign fighters and common criminals. But to say the majority doesn’t support the uprising misses the point. All that’s needed is a determined minority fueled by religious zeal. The spreading insurrection is reminiscent of Iran in the late 1970s when the Shiite followers of Ayatollah Khomeini filled the vacuum after the shah fell.
This is the week Iraq spun out of control. And where is Bush? He’s on a weeklong spring break at his ranch. He seems increasingly disengaged. Perhaps behind the scenes he’s calling Rumsfeld and demanding to know what’s going on. When he finds out, he owes the country an explanation, and not just a speech, a full-blown news conference where he engages the press and lays out what is happening. The Iraqi people are supposed to be our friends. We liberated them. Why are they fighting us? And, Mr. President, it’s not enough to say, “They don’t love freedom.”
The Iraqi police are fleeing and militias loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are tightening their grip in cities that are the center of the country’s religious life. The June 30 deadline looms to turn sovereignty over to the Iraqis. But it’s meaningless, says an analyst on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Instead of a puppet government that doesn’t pretend to be a government, we’ll have a puppet government that pretends to be a government. Neither has the support of the Iraqi people.”
If the definition of a quagmire is the more you struggle, the more you get pulled in, Iraq qualifies. It’s a loaded term because it evokes Vietnam. Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the explosion of violence this week in Iraq reminded him of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam in the sense that it awakened the public to a failed policy. It took a change of presidents and several more deadly years before America cut its losses and withdrew from Vietnam.
"This is the week Iraq spun out of control." I have to admit having the same thought as I watched the news this past week or so. It's getting worse instead of better.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but the Vietnam parallel is starting to look pretty apt, and I don't think Bush has a clue what to do next.
With U.S. Marines dying in Iraq and the administration’s postwar policy in shambles, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reassurances that American forces would prevail met with skepticism on Capitol Hill. “Baghdad Bob could be working for the Coalition,” said a Senate aide to a senior Republican. “The scary thing is, the administration doesn’t know how bad it is, or they know it’s bad and they’re misleading the public. They’re telling congressional leaders this is a minor flare-up.”
There are those lyin’ eyes again. Reporters on the ground in Iraq describe a wider uprising among the Shiite population than Rumsfeld acknowledges. He clings to the notion that the insurgency is primarily a function of Saddam holdovers, foreign fighters and common criminals. But to say the majority doesn’t support the uprising misses the point. All that’s needed is a determined minority fueled by religious zeal. The spreading insurrection is reminiscent of Iran in the late 1970s when the Shiite followers of Ayatollah Khomeini filled the vacuum after the shah fell.
This is the week Iraq spun out of control. And where is Bush? He’s on a weeklong spring break at his ranch. He seems increasingly disengaged. Perhaps behind the scenes he’s calling Rumsfeld and demanding to know what’s going on. When he finds out, he owes the country an explanation, and not just a speech, a full-blown news conference where he engages the press and lays out what is happening. The Iraqi people are supposed to be our friends. We liberated them. Why are they fighting us? And, Mr. President, it’s not enough to say, “They don’t love freedom.”
The Iraqi police are fleeing and militias loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are tightening their grip in cities that are the center of the country’s religious life. The June 30 deadline looms to turn sovereignty over to the Iraqis. But it’s meaningless, says an analyst on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Instead of a puppet government that doesn’t pretend to be a government, we’ll have a puppet government that pretends to be a government. Neither has the support of the Iraqi people.”
If the definition of a quagmire is the more you struggle, the more you get pulled in, Iraq qualifies. It’s a loaded term because it evokes Vietnam. Sen. Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the explosion of violence this week in Iraq reminded him of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam in the sense that it awakened the public to a failed policy. It took a change of presidents and several more deadly years before America cut its losses and withdrew from Vietnam.
"This is the week Iraq spun out of control." I have to admit having the same thought as I watched the news this past week or so. It's getting worse instead of better.
I wish I could be more optimistic, but the Vietnam parallel is starting to look pretty apt, and I don't think Bush has a clue what to do next.
