Analysis: Iraq 'Victory' Sites Lowered

Gen. David Petraeus testifies on the future course of the war in Iraq while appearing before a joint hearing of the House Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Relations Committee, Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/\Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh - AP)

The chances that Iraq will evolve into a pro-Western democracy seem slight, with anti-Americanism rampant throughout most of Iraq among most ethnic factions.

Bush's decision in January to send in 30,000 additional troops, bringing the total U.S. military presence to about 160,000, has failed to bring about the sought-after turnaround once predicted for this month.

How did the U.S. get into this mess?

The decision has bipartisan roots.

In 1998 the then-GOP Congress passed _ and Democratic President Bill Clinton signed _ the "Iraq Liberation Act," making regime change in Iraq official U.S. policy and promoting an Iraqi insurgency.

In October 2002, Congress _ still in GOP hands _ voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq if necessary, with the administration asserting Iraqi links with al-Qaida Sept. 11 terrorists and insisting that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Bush, perhaps wanting to finish the job his father didn't by not sending troops marching to Baghdad after driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in 1991, first went to the United Nations and got a strong Security Council resolution in the fall of 2002 demanding Saddam give up all unconventional weapons and open his country to new arms inspections.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell testified to the Security Council in early 2003 documenting Saddam's weapons programs _ based, it turned out later, on faulty U.S. intelligence.

Russia, France and Germany balked at a U.S. resolution to use force against Saddam. With Russia and France holding permanent Security Council veto powers, Bush decided to invade Iraq without U.N. blessings.

Polls at the time showed that roughly six in 10 Americans agreed with him. He enlisted the help of Britain, Italy, Spain, Australia and several dozen smaller countries for a "coalition of the willing."

Despite initial support among Americans for the war, a strong majority of people now say the United States made a mistake going to war in Iraq, a position they have stubbornly maintained all year, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. Asked whether the additional troops had helped stabilize Iraq, 58 percent said no.

Bush's continual linking of Iraqi insurgents with al-Qaida terrorists who planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been challenged by academics and war critics. But few dispute that al-Qaida is active in Iraq today.

A third of Americans _ or 33 percent _ said they think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a CBS News-New York Times poll released on Monday. Fifty-eight percent said he was not, and 9 percent said they did not know.

The victory in Iraq long sought by the administration now has become "avoiding a bloodbath, having some minimum amount of stability and predictability in the region," said Dan Benjamin, a former Middle East specialist with the National Security Council in the Clinton administration.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution military analyst who has criticized the administration's post-invasion tactics but who saw signs of military progress during a recent tour of Iraq, cites "momentum that I think is real."

But it follows "four years of mistakes," said O'Hanlon. "What I don't know is whether the four years of errors are something we can recover from."

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.