The War Over the War

Readers joined Post associate editor Karen DeYoung on Tuesday, April 10 at noon ET to discuss the debate in Washington among government, military and intelligence officials over what course to follow in Iraq as the war enters its fifth year.

The transcript follows.

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DeYoung, author of "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, is senior diplomatic correspondent and an associate editor of The Washington Post.

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Karen DeYoung: Hello everyone, and welcome to our weekly Iraq chat. I see there are already a lot of good questions, so let's go.

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Columbia, Md.: It seems obvious to everyone that the American presence as occupiers in Iraq is fueling the violence, but it's equally obvious that a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops would create a vacuum that would lead to further violence, with the Iraqi people continuing to bear the brunt either way. It also seems that the international community is reluctant to step in to help save the Iraqi people from the situation. I'm concerned this reluctance is because of the Bush administration's arrogance. What are your thoughts on this, and what sort of mea culpa would it take to get the international community involved in a big way?

Karen DeYoung: There are several questions along this line, so I'll try to address the general issue of: bad if we stay, bad if we leave. First the neighbors ... while no one in the region was happy with the U.S. invasion, and all think the U.S. presence has been handled disastrously, none of them want a precipitous U.S. withdrawal. Sunni Arab states are worried that Iran would try to take over and they would be drawn in to a fighting war on behalf of Iraqi Sunnis; Shiite Iran seems to like the current state of affairs, where they have strong influence and a majority, just fine. In this country, the argument in favor of either an immediate or a timed, orderly departure holds that things could not be much worse in Iraq; that the U.S. presence is as much a catalyst for violence at it is an inhibitor; that nothing we do will prevent it from falling apart when we leave regardless of when that is; and in the meantime, a lot of American soldiers are being killed and maimed. The Bush administration's argument is that a U.S. departure from Iraq would provide a green light for Osama bin Laden to move in and establish a regional headquarters there or that Iran would take over (although these are somewhat contradictory assumptions); that U.S. national security depends on a stable, democratic Iraq and the influence it would have in the neighborhood; and that we have a moral obligation to keep Iraqis from slaughtering each other in our absence.

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Richmond, Va.: Thirteen thousand national guardsmen are expected to be deployed to Iraq (some of whom are, in one way or another, unprepared to go, according the governor of Ohio); the Pentagon probably will extend the tours of 15,000 troops already in Iraq; reports suggest that wounded soldiers are being sent back before full recovery. Are our armed forces up to the "surge"?

washingtonpost.com: 15,000 Troops Could Stay Longer in Iraq (AP, April 10)

Karen DeYoung: No question that the military, particularly the Army, is feeling stretched and put-upon, and is taking some shortcuts in terms of training, equipment and recuperative downtime to meet requirements in Iraq. Some, including former joint chiefs of staff chairman Colin Powell, have said that the Army is "just about broken." The White House is in an uncomfortable position, arguing that the military is capable of taking on the challenge, while simultaneously saying that it's in a bad way because Congress won't give it necessary money. Meanwhile, both Democratic and Republican state governors have begun to complain loudly about National Guard deployments, saying that they can't meet state requirements for emergency preparedness.

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Seattle: Some friends and I were discussing the situation in Iraq and the topic of the Kurds came up. I wanted to ask: Is there the possibility that the Kurds will attempt to split from Iraq and form Kurdistan, or has that time passed?

Karen DeYoung: The Kurdish situation is one to keep a close eye on in coming months. They have a massive stake in the outcome of the debate over Kirkuk, they have riled up the neighboring Turks and increasingly have separated themselves from the rest of Iraq. Right now I don't see any immediate move toward more separation, but the year is young and Iraq is always full of surprises.

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Alexandria, Va.: What have the right-wing commentator been reporting about the demonstrator in Najaf, Iraq, shouting anti-American slogans? Spokesmen in Iraq are saying that this is healthy for a young democracy. At the same time, the right-wing commentators characterize those who demonstrate here in America as traitors.

washingtonpost.com: In Najaf, Protesters Demand U.S. Pullout (Post, April 10)

Karen DeYoung: The "exercising their democratic rights" was also the response from the State Department yesterday re: the Najaf demonstration.

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Woodbridge, Va.: This may be off-topic, but I'm curious -- how exactly did those British sailors get allegedly off-course? Don't they have GPS to tell them when they're where they shouldn't be? Thanks.

Karen DeYoung: The Brits did indeed have GPS ... they say it indicated they were not in Iranian waters.

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Oslo, Norway: Are Democrats ready to stand by and watch Kurdistan be reoccupied by Arabs and massacred?

Karen DeYoung: Judging by the growing strength and belligerence of Iraqi Kurdistan -- which has its own armed forces -- seems little chance of that happening.

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Wheaton, Md.: Why is it that those who favor an immediate pullout, or even a timeline, never comment on what they think will happen in Iraq once U.S. troops are gone?

Karen DeYoung: See response above. The argument is that Iraqis already are slaughtering each other and that the sectarian civil war will continue to play itself out regardless of whether we're there or not.

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Arlington, Va.: At what point do you see congressional Republicans abandoning the president in greater numbers? A lot of analysts seem to think that if things in Iraq don't improve by the fall (i.e., if the surge doesn't work by then), that's when the Republican abandonment will happen. And if this were the case, do you think Congress would then have the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto?

Karen DeYoung: Congressional Republicans are in a tough spot ... particularly those who have to run for reelection next year. At the moment, many are hedging their bets, waiting to see if the president's new strategy will begin to show results by late summer. In terms of overriding a presidential veto, the Dems are starting to hedge themselves in terms of watering down specific legislative deadlines for withdrawal. Everybody seems to be taking a deep breath after the pre-recess showdown; Bush announced this morning he wants to sit down with Congressional leaders and talk once they're all back next week.

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Minneapolis: What are General Petraeus and his dream team planning as a fallback if and when the current strategy fails to produce results (soon enough)?

Karen DeYoung: It's understandably hard to get anyone from Petraeus on down to talk about "what ifs" in the event of failure. But there is some thinking about contingency plans, beginning with a containment strategy with U.S. troops withdrawing to Iraq's borders to keep outside influences out, while the Iraqis deal with each other.

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How long?: Karen: While the President and his supporters keep saying we can't pull out quickly or things will fall apart, what they don't say is how long do we need to stay. According to Tom Ricks' story this weekend, the generals over there say it likely would need to be five to ten years. It would be nice if the media used this statement as a benchmark while interviewing politicians on this topic. How many of them really are willing to commit to this "surge" if it's going to take five to ten years to work?

washingtonpost.com: Politics Collide With Iraq Realities (Post, April 8)

Karen DeYoung: The hope is that with the new deployments and neighborhood strategies that violence, in Baghdad at least, will drop enough that they can claim some initial success and argue that the strategy should be continued.

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al-Maliki situation: A lot of talking heads, whether right or not, have been complaining about the slow pace of the political process is Iraq. Given al-Maliki's ties to al-Sadr, why doesn't the U.S. call for new elections to try to replace him? Would that be too disruptive?

Karen DeYoung: There are some in the administration who think Maliki is a lost cause -- too beholden to Iran, not enough political power inside Iraq to accomplish much even if he wanted to. Sunni Arab governments in the region distrust him immensely and have pushed U.S. to replace him. There was discussion in Washington last fall on whether to try to find someone else and it was decided it was too difficult and there were no other candidates likely to be any better. In recent months, Maliki at least has given lip service to the kinds of reforms Washington has demanded, but the time for actual results quickly is approaching.

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Helena, Mont.: Gen. Petraeus, the current savior of Iraq for the White House, has stated that we cannot win militarily, but that the situation has to be decided politically. That said, what is happening on the political front that gives McCain, Bush and Graham so much optimism that the surge is working? I think the media is letting us down by not reporting all the progress on the political front!

Karen DeYoung: Well, progress is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. To give one example on the political front, the president said recently that Maliki had "met the benchmark" set for a new law on redistributing Iraq's oil wealth. But while it is true that the Iraqi executive agreed on a general framework law saying that oil belonged to all Iraqis (and not just those who happen to have it underground in their own areas), that law has not yet passed the Iraqi parliament. More important, it is one of four separate laws that have to be enacted for anything to happen on the oil front, and the other three haven't even been written yet.

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Washington: I've heard the argument made that the fighting between the Sunni and the Shia is essentially over, with the Shia having killed and/or driven out most of the Sunni from key parts of Iraq. If this is true, what does this mean for our policy of surge? If not, what is the current state of affairs between those two factions?

Karen DeYoung: Not true. While Shia militias remain strong and in the majority, Sunni insurgents are more than holding their own. In recent months various Sunni groups have increasingly allied with al-Qaeda in Iraq and become more organized.

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Annandale, Va.: How are things going with Iraqi security forces? In late September Gen. Caldwell reported that three years ago there were virtually no security forces in Iraq; today that number is more than 300,000 and soon to reach 325,000. Are the Iraqi security forces that large? And can these forces be considered active?

Karen DeYoung: That is the figure they use. When you break it down, however, some questions arise. More than half are police, whom the U.S. military believes are untrustworthy and infiltrated by militia. They seem to be more optimistic about the Iraqi Army.

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To: Oslo, Norway: Are Norwegians ready to prevent Kurdistan being reoccupied by Arabs and massacred? Unless they are, it is presumptuous for others to tell us what we should do when it is our, not their, soldiers who are dying and being maimed in this conflict.

Karen DeYoung: Posting a chatter's comeback to Norway.

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Wellesley, Mass.: Everyone seems to agree that success in Iraq depends on a political solution, yet 98 percent of the effort is focused on the military actions and the surge, with very little discussion and progress on the political solution. Am I missing something? It seems that with virtually no action, focus, coverage, etc. on the political solution, we are doomed having to fight this war for a very long time.

Karen DeYoung: There are some things happening on the political/economic front in Iraq. The administration is pushing the Maliki government to meet "benchmarks" on oil revenue, constitutional reform and de-Baathification. All are moving slowly, however, and the administration--by describing military success in Iraq as crucial to U.S. national security--has not left itself much leverage to push for political reforms.

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Greenville, S.C.: It's now obvious that the "War on Terror" is a perpetual war and probably was intended to be from the beginning -- "terror" is an abstraction that never can surrender and it's impossible to know if terror ever is defeated. So why doesn't Congress classify the war expenses as part of the regular budget rather than as a special appropriation that does not add to the deficit? I suspect the reason is that powerful lobbying groups, representing the beneficiaries of the war, are pressuring legislators to maintain the fiction that the "war" is going to end sometime soon. Do you agree?

Karen DeYoung: Part of the reason. But it's the administration that draws up its own budget ... and then comes to Congress later to say it needs "emergency" appropriations outside regular budget channels.

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Sydney, Australia: What is Bush seeking to achieve in Iran? I cannot articulate his policies. It seems to me that he has vague attitudes and positions: stop terrorists, get Iraq to stand on its own two feet. If there is no endgame then the U.S. presence in Iraq will continue for a long time. I want an end to this. Congress must insist on withdrawal.

Karen DeYoung: Assume you mean Iraq, not Iran. To understand what the administration is trying to achieve, one has to accept its premises -- that failure in Iraq would lead to wholesale takeover of the region by bin Laden's al-Qaeda and result in new waves of terrorist attacks in this country. That a reasonably secure and democratic Iraq would set a new tone for the Middle East and lead to widespread democratization in the region. That a strong Iraq would keep Iran in check.

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Austin, Texas: What percentage of the people who know about these things (I'm thinking more about the military and Department of Defense than about politicians), if given the option to turn back the clock to 2003, would choose not to have invaded Iraq? (And in my question, "invade Iraq but do it differently" isn't an option.)

Karen DeYoung: I think you have to separate those who would have chosen not to invade at all and those who would have invaded with a far more robust and comprehensive plan for both military and post-conflict operations. In the non-military policy community, you'd find a whole lot in the former category. Among the uniformed military, a whole lot in the latter.

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Alexandria, Va.: Can you contrast the interrogation methods used by the Iranians with the British sailors and the interrogation methods used by the U.S. at Guantanamo? At first glance, it seems to me that the U.S. is using harsher methods.

washingtonpost.com: Britons Recount Capture, Detention (Post, April 7)

Karen DeYoung: Didn't hear any reports of Iranians using water boarding, nakedness and sexual goading, extreme heat or cold. What was reported was isolation and implied execution threats.

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Bowie, Md.: On numerous occasions, I hear people say that "it is better fight over there than here on American soil." Do you think that people overlook the overall costs, the replacement costs of material and personnel losses as not to be impacting the American economy (battle ground at home)?

Karen DeYoung: Paradoxically, war can be good for the economy, if not for other aspects of the national life and psyche. The government is spending a whole lot of money here at home.

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Anonymous: Because the government of Iraq is supposed to be the legitimate elected government of a sovereign power, why does everyone (on all sides, apparently) seem the believe that the U.S. has a right to impose requirements for it to enact legislation or do anything else? Or in some cases, even to replace that government or its prime minister?

Karen DeYoung: Good question. I think that the occupation viceroy model under Jerry Bremer has been discredited pretty well now. But because the administration needs to show political and economic as well as military progress -- and because all three are intertwined in Iraq -- the need is felt to push the Iraqi government in the direction we want. There are some here in Washington, and in Baghdad, who believe that Gen. Petraeus, who brought a lot of his own policy people there with him, has become the new viceroy.

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Re: Norwegians/Americans: Did Norway invade Iraq and depose its leader (after having initially helped his party come to power, by the way)? If not, they don't have the same responsibility as the U.S.!

Karen DeYoung: Touche.

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Ogden, Utah: I was fascinated at your discussion of how Washington is not sure it likes Maliki and is thinking he is not reliable, has too many ties to Iran, and may have to ponder changing him. My question: change him how? Iraq is a free and independent country, you may recall, and the occupation has ended. The voters of Iraq elected him. So I'm guessing the classic CIA coup, a la Diem in Vietnam? Or the more blatant Mossadegh overthrow?

Karen DeYoung: Not saying it's going to happen, but I think the way it would be done -- assuming Iraqi players would cooperate -- would be more by legislative coup. Maliki's party is part of the leading Shiite coalition. Other coalition parties are bigger and have their own leaders and under the Iraqi constitution they simply would have a vote of no confidence and dump him.

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Sun Prairie, Wis.: Ms. DeYoung: Thanks for doing this chat. Given that President Bush has vetoed only one bill in more than six years in the White House, and never has vetoed a spending bill, why would the Democratic Congress not simply pass a supplemental with a withdrawal deadline and see what happens? I'd agree that Bush actually would use the veto this time, but my point is, when a guy bluffs as often as Bush does, you always should call it. What do you think?

Karen DeYoung: Everybody in Washington is playing a game of chicken at the moment. While the Democrats can pass the legislation, they don't have the 60 percent required for a veto override. The White House has shown it is fully prepared to blame them if things continue to go badly in Iraq and nobody knows how it all would play with the public. While the Constitution gives Congress the power to withhold funds, it gives the president sole power to deploy troops and develop war strategy. The question is whether the two sides are going to opt for gridlock and mutual blame, or try to negotiate something in the middle when they all come back to town next week.

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Dale City, Va.: Since it is beginning to look like a majority of Iraqis want us out, what is our justification for staying? I seem to remember that President Bush said that if the Iraqis wanted us to leave we would go. No matter how long we stay, won't a civil war erupt whenever we leave? Okay, maybe I should say a wider civil war than there already is. How do the U.S. troops pick which Iraqis to protect and which ones to shoot?

Karen DeYoung: While it's easy to find Iraqis in the street who say they want the U.S. to leave, and some polls indicate that's what the majority wants, the Iraqi government has asked the U.S. to stay.

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Pittsburgh: Hello, Karen, thank you for taking questions. Is the timing of the surge intended to take advantage of the fact that U.S. fatalities have a tendency to decline significantly during the hot months (May-August)? Also, the Pentagon has stop-lossed, extended, and sent soldiers back early to Iraq frequently since the war began. Was Mr. Bush's excoriation of Democrats last week intended to plant the seed in some folks' minds that the announcements from the Department of Defense this week are a result of Democrat's putting benchmarks and limitations in the war-funding bill, rather than the administration's own policies?

Karen DeYoung: The timing of the surge was all about last November's election, and clear indications that U.S. strategy in Iraq up to that point was not working. I think last week's presidential outburst was all about positioning for the upcoming battle over war funding.

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Chicago: Could you give me an update on the electricity production in Iraq? Do they have all day power now?

Karen DeYoung: Electricity production is still below optimum pre-invasion production and far below U.S. and Iraqi goals. People in Baghdad, where much of the power was routed under Saddam, are especially put upon, as they had nearly full-time power pre-invasion and now are restricted to several hours a day off the grid while available power is spread more evenly around the country.

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Long Beach, Calif.: Everyone said Vietnam would be a disaster that would follow us home, communists would be emboldened, freedom would suffer ... when we leave Iraq, Sadr will claim victory, the Israeli government will have to deal with the Palestinian homeland question, and the U.S. can go back to fighting the war on terror. Remember that? Osama? Afghanistan? Pakistani whack-job military types protecting Taliban types? Why not look at history and learn?

Karen DeYoung: Posting without comment.

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Anonymous: Why is it that those who favor an open-ended commitment never comment on how many casualties and billions of dollars it is worth to them?

Karen DeYoung: Posting without comment.

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Bridgewater, Mass.: Is there any progress being made on getting oil production up? It's hard to believe the insurgents have given up on attacking pipelines etc., but there doesn't seem to be much mention of it in the news. On a related note, is the U.S. still pushing for the government there to privatize the oil business and let the internationals take it over?

Karen DeYoung: Oil production remains significantly below goals, a combination of sabotage, corruption, poor infrastructure and insufficient investment.

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Karen DeYoung: Time's up. Thanks for all the thoughtful questions.

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