A NEW PLAN FOR IRAQ

 Editorial de  “The Washington Post” del 28.08.2003

El formateado es mío (L. B.-B.)

President Bush at last has begun to speak more honestly to the country about the immense challenges in Iraq and the likely costs of meeting them. For far too long the president avoided the subject while his aides suggested, against all evidence, that the U.S.-led occupation could be wound up in a matter of months and reconstruction financed mainly by Iraq's own oil revenue. On Tuesday, Mr. Bush at last delivered a speech acknowledging that guiding Iraq from dictatorship to democracy would be "a massive undertaking" comparable to the reconstruction of Japan and Germany after World War II, a task that "took years, not months." The U.S. occupation coordinator, L. Paul Bremer, meanwhile told The Post that Iraq's economic needs "were almost impossible to exaggerate" and would amount to tens of billions of dollars more than could be financed by oil revenue -- and that's just for next year.

This tardy straight talk may shock many Americans and cost Mr. Bush some polling points. Yet leaders across the political spectrum are beginning to understand that the United States cannot afford to fail in Iraq, that the stakes for national security could not be higher. Even Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, who built his campaign on opposition to the war and continues to believe it was a mistake, said: "We have no choice. If we leave and don't get a democracy in Iraq, the result is a very significant danger to the United States." Foreign governments that strongly opposed the war, such as Germany, share this view. In short, now that he has clearly described the task of transforming Iraq, Mr. Bush has an opportunity to move beyond the bitter debates over the war and build broad domestic and international coalitions to tackle the job.

The danger is that having adjusted rhetoric to reality, the administration will nonetheless fail to adjust policy. In Iraq, U.S. operations still correspond more to the illusion of a quick and cheap transition than to a project comparable to the occupation of Japan or Germany. It is now obvious to almost everyone -- Iraqis, American soldiers, visiting members of Congress -- that there are not enough troops, police or civilian administrators to stabilize Iraq, but Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld goes on denying it. To admit otherwise would be to confirm the equally glaring fact that he was wrong when he pooh-poohed prewar predictions that a large occupation force would be needed. Mr. Bremer asks skeptically "how does the situation on the ground get better" if the United Nations is given a slice of his authority. Here's one answer: It would facilitate the arrival of tens of thousands of capable troops from Turkey, India and Pakistan and spring billions in reconstruction donations from European and Arab governments. But for too many in the administration, unilateral U.S. control, rather than stability or democracy, has somehow become the paramount objective in Iraq, even as painful American casualties increase.

Administration officials now tout their plans for quickly expanding Iraqi self-government and security forces. Those projects are vital but not, as some would have it, an alternative to more foreign troops and aid; training and recruitment will take too long. What is needed is an effort to mobilize both Iraqis and the international community behind a detailed plan for political transition, reconstruction and peacekeeping, one that can be endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. With good diplomacy, there should be a way to do this without either surrendering to France and the contain-America movement or obliging U.S. soldiers to put on blue U.N. helmets. As a start, Mr. Bush and his team must settle on what resources are immediately needed for Iraq, how much can be obtained from Congress and how much from abroad, and what parameters and redlines should delimit a sharing of authority. Mr. Bush's determination to stay the course in Iraq is admirable. But if he is to succeed, the president also must be willing to adjust U.S. strategy to match the challenge he has described.