How many thousands of hours will future historians devote to parsing through the events of this week? Yesterday, barely 48 hours after the downing of an American helicopter in Fallujah, six — and only six — members of the Senate showed up to approve the White House’s request for $87.5 billion, thus guaranteeing our long-term commitment of lives and resources to the future occupation of Iraq. The other 94 Senators, an homogeneous mix of Republicans and Democrats, skipped the vote so as to avoid putting their names in the official record. It’s an interesting strategy. Now they can’t be accused of abandoning our troops or of pouring billions into a useless cause.
And you know what? I can’t say that I blame them.
I’ve made a deliberate choice in recent weeks to keep quiet on these issues, partly because I’m tired, but mostly because I just don’t know where to stand. I protested the war last winter because, like so many by my side, I could see this coming. Hell, even Bush, Sr. saw it coming. From his memoirs:
Trying to eliminate Saddam… would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible… we would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq… there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles… Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.
But then we started dropping bombs and killing thousands of people and dismantling what remained of Iraq’s infrastructure, and everything changed. Regardless of his political motives, I gained some respect for President Bush in recent weeks when he threatened to veto any changes to the appropriations bill that would turn our $20 billion “gift” into a “loan.” We owe the people of Iraq at least that much. But, of course, then I wonder how much of our gift will actually make it to the people of Iraq, and how much will simply be funneled into the pockets of American contractors (who might or might not have direct, personal connections to the administration). But, then again, even if the money does go to those contractors, who’s to say that they aren’t, in fact, the most qualified people to do the job and that the Iraqi people won’t benefit in the long run?
And now you see why I’ve been so quiet.
I wish I could join the knee-jerkers on my end of the spectrum who are turning up the “bring our boys home” rhetoric. Ray McGovern makes the most convincing argument that I’ve read yet. “Whether or not U.S. policymakers can admit at this point that they were ‘terribly wrong,’” he writes, “they need to transfer real authority to the United Nations without delay and support the U.N. in overseeing a rapid return to Iraqi sovereignty.”
But, many protest, we can’t just withdraw! Sure we can, and better now than ten years from now, as in the case of Vietnam. If it is true that we are not in Iraq to control the oil or to establish military bases with which to dominate that strategic area, we can certainly withdraw. As in Vietnam, the war is unwinnable… hear that? Unwinnable!
If the U.S. withdraws, would there be civil war in Iraq? One cannot dismiss this possibility lightly given the history of Iraq. But it is at least as likely that a regional-federal model of government that would include substantial autonomy for the Kurds in the north, the Sunnis in the center, and the Shiites in the south (something foreshadowed by the composition of the existing Council) could begin to function in relatively short order with help from the U.N. While some degree of inter-ethnic violence could be expected, chances are good that this model would still allow a representative national government to function.
We won’t know if we don’t try. Besides, there is no viable alternative.
McGovern, the 27-year CIA veteran and advisor to Bush, Sr., certainly understands the issue better than I. (That he directs the Servant Leadership School is another reason that I’m heeding his warning.) And with each day, as the death toll grows (23 already in November), I grow increasingly disheartened. When I heard of the helicopter tragedy on Sunday, my first thoughts were of my own family, who just last week marked the twenty year anniversary of the death of my cousin, who piloted a Black Hawk into (but not out of) Grenada. On November 2, 2023, sixteen other families will mark similar anniversaries and will still be mourning, as ours is.
But wish as I might, I can’t yet join the knee-jerkers, and I’m not sure why, exactly. Except that I don’t want it all to have been for nothing.