Vision Circle

Mr. Ferguson's suggested course of action would only prove what history has shown, and what the British and the Iraqis can attest to; it would prove all that I've known since my brother, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq last year: these conflicts are not marked by winners and losers, but by irreversible tragic acts against humanity that are embedded in the souls of the affected.

Dante Zappala
Philadelphia, May 25, 2005

Niall Ferguson gave us a measure of that reality this week in a New York Times op-ed piece. Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard, argued that to defeat the insurgency in Iraq and establish a modicum of stability there would take one million U.S. soldiers and possibly 30 to 60 years.

The very least our government can do for the armed forces and the nation is to admit the true price of war - James Klurfeld - May 27, 2005

As we begin a long Memorial Day weekend, the least we can do is finally, even at this late date, be honest about how difficult and costly the war in Iraq is going to be for the men and women fighting and dying for us there.

Niall Ferguson gave us a measure of that reality this week in a New York Times op-ed piece. Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard, argued that to defeat the insurgency in Iraq and establish a modicum of stability there would take one million U.S. soldiers and possibly 30 to 60 years. That contrasts to the 138,000 soldiers there now and a prevailing belief that we will start to draw down troops next year - before the midterm elections.

Ferguson bases his estimates partly on the British experience in Iraq after World War I. The British, he says, put down an insurgency with a troop to population ratio of 1 to 23. The ratio there today is 1 to 174. He points out that the overwhelming number of British troops came from India, a type of manpower resource Washington doesn't have. And Ferguson says that many liberals in the United States don't grasp how high a price the United States will pay, in terms of its own security, if the mission fails and Iraq falls into civil war and chaos.

Even if you believe that Ferguson's estimates of manpower and time are high, the overall point is sobering: There has been and continues to be a tragic mismatch between the Bush administration's reach and its grasp. The administration grossly underestimated what it would take to make Iraq whole after the invasion. In fact, there were reports this week from a top meeting of U.S. military officials that the plan to start withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq next year is premature given the deteriorating military situation.

With the sharp escalation of bombings and new military operations, in fact, it looks as if we are at another one of those forks in the road in Iraq. The January elections have not led to any lessening of terror in the country, just the opposite. And the role of the United States - how long our troops will be there and in what numbers - is as uncertain as ever.

A just-released book, "Losing Iraq," by David L. Phillips, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department official, details how the Pentagon's civilian leadership willfully ignored detailed reports about what it would take to reconstruct Iraq. Phillips argues that much of the post-invasion chaos could have been avoided with better planning and a more realistic assessment of what was required.

This, of course, is the argument the Democrats made against President George W. Bush's handling of the war during last year's campaign. But since Bush won the campaign, the general attitude seems to be that the administration's mishandling of the reconstruction was either a phony political charge or, even if true, is now irrelevant. They won the election, so shut up.

That just can't be the case. There are Americans and Iraqis dying in Iraq every day, and the prospect is that the insurgency and the deaths from it will continue to mount. To me one of the great mistakes the president made about Iraq was not being honest with the American public about what the cost of the invasion and reconstruction would be. The danger was always that if things turned out to be much more difficult than the administration indicated - and that is clearly the case - the public would not be willing to stay the course. It's the lesson the administration should have learned from Vietnam.

If Ferguson is at all right in his assessment, the administration still isn't matching resources with mission. Either the mission is important enough to get it right and do what it takes, or we should be out of there.

Yes, there are some good signs in Iraq. The elections went far better than many had believed they would. There is a political process now as various parties begin to try to write an Iraqi constitution. There are beginning movements toward democratic forms of governance in the region. But the best reading is that this is all very delicate and could come crashing down, especially if there is no security inside Iraq.

Memorial Day is a time to remember and pay tribute to the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our security. It should also be the time that we give an honest assessment of what the men and women who are prepared to make that sacrifice now face in our latest battle for freedom.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc

Posted by at June 11, 2005 10:54 AM | TrackBack