FACING REALITY IN IRAQ

 Editorial de  “The Washington Post” del 08.07.2003

Most of Iraq is stable, and most Iraqis continue to cooperate with the U.S. mission in the hope that it will succeed in passing power to a representative government. But in military terms, the postwar situation is getting worse rather than better. Enemy forces, concentrated in areas north and west of Baghdad where support for the old regime was strongest, have grown bolder and more effective by the week, and Saddam Hussein himself apparently managed to smuggle a defiant message to the al-Jazeera network in time for the Fourth of July. While their degree of organization and connections with the former dictator are debatable, the militants pose a clear strategic threat to the U.S. mission beyond the painful cost in lives they are exacting. The danger is that they will succeed in triggering a broader guerrilla war against U.S. troops fed not just by loyalty to the Baath Party but also by popular discontent with American occupation -- a war that could destabilize Iraq and the region around it. To head off that threat, the Bush administration needs to act decisively and soon.

The first step toward regaining the initiative would be full acceptance by the administration of the fact that more resources are needed -- more money, more civilian administrators and more troops. Assertions by Washington-based Pentagon officials that the current force is large enough don't square with reports from the field, which depict a steadily mounting conflict as well as sinking morale among some U.S. units exhausted after months of hard duty. Nor are the Pentagon's reports about the recruitment of allied forces encouraging: Though 70 nations have been contacted, only about 10 have made concrete commitments, and the number of non-U.S. troops is due to rise only from 12,000 to 20,000 by the end of summer. The poor support is a direct result of the administration's poor diplomacy, both before and after the war -- and, in particular, its insistence on monopolizing control over Iraq while mostly excluding the United Nations. India and Pakistan, for example, are reluctant to deploy troops under U.S. rather than U.N. command, and European countries have been slower to supply aid and advisers who could be assisting with reconstruction.

The only way to bolster U.S. forces without dispatching still more American soldiers and reservists is for the Bush administration to formally seek assistance from the United Nations and NATO -- and, in doing so, patch its relations with France, Germany and other allies that opposed the war. That would open the way not only to greater numbers of allied troops but also to more help in such tasks as training Iraqi police forces and restoring power and other vital services in cities. Internationalizing the occupation would deflect growing Iraqi fears that the United States plans to rule the country indefinitely. Meanwhile, the administration could seek explicit U.N. and allied support for a detailed plan to return Iraq to self-government. The sketchy current scheme, under which U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is to appoint an interim council and convene a convention to write a new constitution, is opposed by key Shiite leaders and might increase rather than assuage Iraqi dissatisfaction.

While reaching out to U.S. allies, President Bush also needs to speak more clearly about Iraq to the American people. Last week he finally acknowledged that rebuilding Iraq would be "a massive and long-term undertaking," but his shallow "bring 'em on" taunt to the militants merely underlined his failure to clearly explain the objectives of U.S. forces and how long it may take to achieve them. Americans are now dying in Iraq at the rate of nearly one per day. Mr. Bush needs to tell the country why that sacrifice is necessary -- and what he will do to mitigate the threat.