[Mb-civic] More Rallies, No Sale - David S. Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

More Rallies, No Sale
Bush Fails to Resolve Public Doubts About War

By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Thursday, March 16, 2006; A23

On the third anniversary of the war in Iraq, President Bush once again 
finds himself trying to rally American public opinion to support that 
costly venture. The series of speeches that began this week comes 
against a background of deepening skepticism on the part of voters about 
the effort that began in March 2003 with a lightning strike against 
Saddam Hussein's forces.

A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, taken just as Bush began this latest 
oratorical push, found 57 percent of those surveyed said it was a 
mistake to start the war and 60 percent believe the struggle for 
democracy and order in that country is going badly. Only 1 voter in 3 
believes Bush has a clear plan for winning or ending the war.

It was that sense of futility that Bush sought once again to overcome in 
his speech Monday at George Washington University. Acknowledging that 
with sectarian violence raging, "we still have difficult work ahead in 
Iraq," the president nonetheless found "signs of a hopeful future." He 
predicted that the power struggle among factions of the Shiite, Sunni 
and Kurdish populations would give way to a government that "represents 
the will of the Iraqi people."

"We have a comprehensive strategy for victory in Iraq," he said, 
describing a victory that would enable American troops to leave the 
country in a position where terrorists no longer threaten and Iraqi 
forces can provide their own security.

That is a consummation devoutly to be wished for. But, as retired Marine 
Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former head of Central Command, which includes 
the Middle East, argues, the United States may be greatly mistaken in 
believing that it can determine the future of Iraq.

In his new book, "The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's 
Power and Purpose," Zinni and co-author Tony Koltz recall the general's 
testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb. 11, 
2003, just a few weeks before Bush took the nation to war.

Zinni knew, he says, that many of his military colleagues believed 
Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld was underestimating the manpower needs 
for an occupation of Iraq. "And I had heard interpretations of 
intelligence that many of us with deep experience in the region felt 
were far off the mark from the true threat."

So when Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, asked Zinni if 
he did not agree that anything would be an improvement on Hussein, the 
general demurred. Recalling that the ouster of the Soviets from 
Afghanistan had left that country in the hands of the Taliban, Zinni 
said, "Anyone who has to live in this region and has to stay there and 
protect our interests, year in, year out, does not look at this as a 
start and end, as an exit strategy, as a two-year tenure. As long as you 
are going to have a U.S. Central Command, you are going to be out there 
and have to deal with whatever you put down on the ground."

Later in the book, Zinni says that "ignoring this reality, the United 
States and a handful of its allies forcibly evicted the Saddam Hussein 
regime, with no plans for a new order to replace it. Today, U.S. 
military forces in Iraq are mired in an ever-worsening insurgency. Civil 
war is an ever-growing danger. Disorder and chaos grow ever more 
entrenched."

This is not latter-day wisdom from the general. In the summer of 2002, 
seven months before the war began, he told an audience in Florida what 
would be required if the United States invaded Iraq. "You could inherit 
the country of Iraq, if you're willing to do it," he said. "If our 
economy is so great that you're willing to put billions of dollars into 
reforming Iraq. If you want to put soldiers that are already stretched 
so thin all around the world and add them into a security force there 
forever, like we see in places like the Sinai. If you want to fight with 
other countries in the region to try to keep Iraq together, as Kurds and 
Shiites try and split off, you're going to have to make a good case for 
that."

Now it is 2006, and Bush is still trying to make that case.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502182.html?nav=hcmodule
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