ROGER SIMON COLUMN
OCTOBER 3, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Though it did not make big headlines, a very ominous exchange took place recently between members of the Senate Armed Services committee and the generals commanding our troops in Iraq.
Fundamental to our goal of leaving Iraq some day is the ability of the Iraqi army to fight on its own.
So the Bush administration has been following a policy of "Iraqification" of the war. (Nobody wants to call it Iraqification, however, because of the echoes of "Vietnamization," which never quite worked out as we had planned.)
So just how many Iraqi troops are currently ready to stand up and fight on their own after two years of U.S. military occupation?
One battalion, which is about 750 men.
If the matter were not so serious, it would be a joke.
How on earth are we going to get our 149,000 troops out of Iraq if the Iraqis can only field about 750 men after all this time?
The Washington Post reported that senators "bristled" at the disclosure that only one battalion is ready to fight on its own and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last week, that "things have not gone as we had planned or expected nor as we were told by you, General Myers."
Myers replied: "I don't think this committee or the American public has ever heard me say that things are going very well in Iraq."
No kidding.
"The public is going south," Sen. Lindsay Graham, (R-S.C.), said. "That worries me greatly."
It should. When the public goes south, politicians go south, too.
At this juncture, I think more and more members of the public are looking for ways out of Iraq, not for ways to pour more troops in.
One would expect the Democrats to propose an alternative to current policy on Iraq, but the party isn't there yet. Most Democratic leaders are where the party was in the 2004 election: "Gee, it's a terrible war and we never should have gotten into it, but we can't back out now."
And the official administration policy is that we will stay in Iraq "for as long as it takes."
But if you were a young Iraqi, why would you stand up and fight for your country if you knew young Americans were going to do it for you?
Our military planners are now pinning their hopes on the new Iraqi constitution, which will be voted on Oct. 15. They believe if the Iraqi people rally to the democratic process, it will lead to a stronger nation with a stronger and more willing army and that U.S. troops could begin coming home by next year.
McCain did not sound entirely convinced. "You're taking a very big gamble here," he said to Gen. Gen. George W. Casey, the commander of multinational forces in Iraq. "I hope you're correct. I don't see the indicators yet that we are ready to plan or begin troop withdrawals, given the overall security situation."
But who knows how far south the public will be by next year?