Iraq: Three Years Later

Iraq: Three Years Later

March 17, 2006

Monday will mark the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion, and the most important question being asked is, “What progress have we made since then?” Yesterday’s launch of Operation Swarmer, hailed as a major offensive, is one of over a hundred anti-insurgency operations that have failed to make the country any more stable. In a speech yesterday at the Center for American Progress, Dr. ZbigniewBrzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Carter, said what was on the rest of the nation’s mind in that, after three years, the war has proven to be prohibitively costly and “American leadership, in all of its dimensions, has been damaged.”

• Despite countless errors, the Bush Administration has yet to recognize its failures. As Dr. Brzezinski noted yesterday (PDF), America’s presence in Iraq is “a failed occupation which is a consequence of a decision-making process that compounds errors, that involves a very narrow group of true believers, and a decision making process that evades responsibility and accountability for errors and even for crimes.”
  
  
  
• The Bush Administration is now facing serious pressure from like-minded conservatives. In yet another vote of no confidence for the Bush administration, a bipartisan working group, led by former Rep. Lee Hamilton and supported by Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), has been formed to take a fresh look at the U.S.’s role in Iraq. In voicing his support for the group, Representative Wolf has joined the growing chorus of conservatives who have realized Bush’s current approach is not working.
  
  
  
• President Bush clearly has no plan for dealing with sectarian militias in Iraq. The administration has failed to recognize the extent of sectarian violence that Iraq is now facing; sectarian militias now number more than 120,000 and outnumber the insurgents. Fifty-seven percent of the American public now disapproves of the way Bush is handling the Iraq war and is looking for an alternative, but the President has yet to show that he has one other than “stay the course.” American Progress has some answers.