ROGER SIMON COLUMN
JANUARY 19, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Leave it to a Republican to ask the "Question That None Dare Ask" of incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
At Rice's confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), asked her: "Would you explain to this committee what you and the president see as an exit strategy for America from Iraq?"
It is a very important question, but one many have been reluctant to ask because they fear the answer might be: "We don't have one."
The question is such a potent one because it summons forth echoes of Vietnam, where we had no realistic exit strategy. (Our unrealistic exit strategy was to kill everyone fighting against us.)
Today, however, we are assured that the United States does not send troops into combat without a realistic, achievable exit strategy for them. And, at the beginning of the Iraq war, our exit strategy was so obvious that nobody mentioned it: Our victorious troops would have flowers strewn in their path by grateful Iraqis, who would immediately set about to constitute a new army - - we disbanded Saddam's old one - - hold elections, and embrace democratic reforms.
And very soon U.S. troops would simply would not be needed because there would be nobody for them to fight.
Insurgents? What insurgents? Terrorists? What terrorists? The people would love us!
Why, after all, would they not? Had we not liberated them from their evil tyrant? And would they not be grateful?
Well, as it turned out, no. Some of them are not grateful at all. And even though many in the administration would like to believe that the insurgents are all coming from outside Iraq and that, deep down, the Iraqi people really do love us, the insurgents could not operate at the scale they are now operating without the cooperation of at least some of the Iraqi people.
In Iraq, the insurgents are obviously being housed, fed, armed and protected by at least some of the Iraqi people. So are the Iraqis for us or against us? Well, some are for us and some are for the guys trying to kill us.
And the real question is whether we can find enough Iraqis to fight for their own country so we can go home.
Rice responded to Hagel's questions about an exit strategy by saying, "…I think the goal is to get the mission accomplished and that means that the Iraqis have to be capable of some things before we lessen our own responsibility."
But the Iraqis being "capable" of fighting the insurgents on their own is only part of the problem. They also have to want to do it.
Because if they don't want to do it, apparently we are going to have to stay. Which means our "exit" strategy may not contain an exit.
How big a problem do we face in Iraq? One small example: Even though it generated only a few stories, U.S. forces in Iraq announced a few weeks ago that our State Department personnel could no longer travel on the road from central Baghdad to the airport because it was too dangerous. (They would have to take helicopters to and from the airport instead.)
The airport road is only 10 miles long and we have 1,000 troops guarding it and yet our troops - - the finest in the world and armed with the best weapons - - still can't keep it safe from the insurgents.
But the Iraqi army, which does not yet actually exist in any sizeable numbers, is going to do the job for us? When? In what decade?
Condoleezza Rice tell us we have to "get the mission accomplished" and that means the "Iraqis have to be capable" of defending themselves.
But when, realistically, will that happen?
If you were an Iraqi would you want to risk death by joining the army?
Or would you say, "As long as the Americans are willing to risk their lives, why should I risk mine?"