Tomah Journal - Printable Version

Story originally printed in the Tomah Journal or online at www.tomahjournal.com

Published - Sunday, January 02, 2005

Editorial: Vision of easy victory left troops without adequate support

Why don't soldiers serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom have enough armor? Their leadership didn't think they would need it.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finds himself on the wrong side of public opinion (52 percent believe he should resign) after a flippant reply to a soldier who asked why it's necessary to pick through landfills for sufficient metal to protect military vehicles. It's not that Rumsfeld doesn't care about soldiers -- President Bush is accurate to describe him as a "caring fellow," and criticism about Rumsfeld's mechanically signed condolence letters is just another cheap shot in our increasingly empty, symbolic politics.

The real problem isn't one of symbols, but one of substance -- the Bush Administration's pre-war vision of an easy victory and painless occupation. Had the vision been accurate, 140,000 troops would have been sufficient, and there would have been plenty of armor to go around.

The vision, of course, was not correct. Vice-President Dick Cheney was wrong when he said Americans would be genuinely greeted as liberators. The Media Research Center was spectacularly wrong in April 2003, when its website published a "Quote and Gloat" section, which ridiculed people who cautioned the war would be long and difficult. Back then, anyone who predicted that over 1,000 more Americans would die in combat over the next 19 months or that an insurgency would fester and grow -- even after the inevitable capture of Saddam Hussein -- would have been condemned as pessimistic and defeatist.

These days, the party line is that the insurgents are mounting one final, violent spasm before the Jan. 30 elections, after which the Iraqis will accept their newly elected government as legitimate. But what if they don't? What if the violence continues? How long do we remain pinned down in Iraq at the expense of other military and domestic priorities?

It's unclear whether most Iraqis desire the presence of American troops; polling in war zones isn't an exact science. What is clear, however, is that Iraqis willing to fight and die for a cause -- the only people that matter in these situations -- don't want us there. Unless other Iraqis show an inclination to fight and die for their own freedom, there's no reason why Americans should continue to fight and die on their behalf.

The easy part was taking Baghdad. The hard part is bestowing freedom on people who won't lift a finger in its defense. At some point, American troops will withdraw and let the Iraqi people determine what kind of country they want. The day after the Jan. 30 elections would be a good time to start.