By Todd Robberson
LONDON – After 31 months of fighting in Iraq, the ouster of a brutal dictator and more than 2,000 U.S. military deaths, Americans and Iraqis are left questioning whether the current level of progress justifies the sacrifices that President Bush says are still required.
The results of America's military campaign in Iraq are confusing at best, giving cause for both optimism and pessimism, according to defense and social analysts in Europe and the United States.
They emphasize that an artificial milepost, such as last week's 2,000th American military death, does not serve as a gauge of progress or failure in the war, even if casualties might influence America's resolve to stay in Iraq.
Mr. Bush has made clear that there will be no change in course as long as he is in the White House. He says other mileposts, such as government elections in January and the Oct. 15 referendum that approved a new Iraqi constitution, are clear signs that Iraq is moving forward.
"The Iraqis are making inspiring progress toward building a democracy," Mr. Bush said last week. "By any standard or precedent of history, Iraq has made incredible political progress, from tyranny to liberation to national elections to the ratification of a constitution in the space of 2 ½ years."
The Bush administration has tried to focus world attention on progress in developing Iraqi democracy, putting former dictator Saddam Hussein on trial and improving the quality of life for Iraqis after three decades of oppression. But daily attacks by a growing insurgency, employing ever-more powerful and deadly bombs, continue to grab headlines and diminish public perceptions that progress is being made on the ground.
Polls show that the symbols of progress – renovated schools, new sewer lines, expanded electricity grids and restored oil pipelines – tend to be too sporadic and limited to hold Americans' attention and support. But the rising price tag, now exceeding $200 billion, and casualty figures – which include more than 15,000 wounded troops – are resonating with Americans.
The casualties in particular are adding to public anxiety about the U.S. mission in Iraq and accelerating pressure on the administration to set a target date for withdrawal, said Steven Kull, a polling analyst and director of the Program for International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.
Iraqi insecurity
For their part, Iraqis are mindful that civil war would almost certainly erupt if American troops pulled out anytime soon. Even so, many Iraqis are questioning whether the presence of 174,000 foreign troops, including more than 150,000 Americans, is destabilizing their country more than safeguarding it.
"The precondition for real progress is for the public to feel safe – from intimidation as well as from attacks," said Frederick Barton, a senior adviser on post-conflict reconstruction for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The United States can rebuild schools, dig new sewers and improve the infrastructure, but without security, the benefit of that progress is lost on Iraqis, he said.
A reconstruction study by his center showed that "most of the positive trends from mid-2003 to early 2004 were being reversed because of a general feeling of insecurity. It was showing up in medical supplies not going to clinics, or people not willing to go to work or get out on the streets to send their kids to school," Mr. Barton said.
Spreading violence
Not only does the Arab Sunni insurgency appear to be gaining momentum in central Iraq, but Shiite militants are drawing logistical and financial support from Iran to organize increasingly violent street protests and attacks on British forces in southern Iraq, according to the British government.
The only region of consistent security and stability is Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq – also the only region where economic development is skyrocketing. The rest of the nation appears to be in a state of economic stagnation.
Iraqi casualty tolls show that insurgents' attacks are aimed more and more at civilians and recruits for the police and military, which defense analysts say could be a result of tightened security procedures that have dramatically reduced the vulnerability of American forces.
Iraqis as well as foreign analysts say the cause is a lack of security, which is made worse by an apparent influx of foreign extremists.
"It is a serious problem and a security challenge for the United States and international community that Iraq has become a magnet for anti-Western, anti-American beliefs. That has to be incorporated into the price that's being paid for this intervention," said Patrick Cronin, a former Bush administration senior official and current director of studies for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Frustrated Americans
Despite growing disaffection with the war, only about a third of Americans are calling for an outright withdrawal from Iraq, said Mr. Kull, the polling analyst.
At the same time, the rising death toll and the confused picture about progress in Iraq are causing many Americans to question whether the Bush administration's strategy is as coherent as it once appeared to be, he said.
"They're only getting frustrated," Mr. Kull said, "and the signs of that frustration are growing." The most potent sign is the president's steadily declining support in opinion polls.
Adding to Mr. Bush's woes is his administration's credibility. One of his main justifications for the war – Mr. Hussein's alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction – proved unfounded.
"On the question of capability, President Bush is really slipping. And Iraq is the biggest single thing" affecting the administration's support in the polls, Mr. Kull said. It is not the casualty toll alone that is affecting American attitudes, but also the concern that the U.S. presence could be making the situation worse, or a perception that Iraqis no longer want American forces in their country."
Anti-American magnet
Also driving much of the public's perception in the United States, as well as in Iraq, is whether the U.S. presence is the main attraction for foreign extremists and whether it is turning the country into a breeding ground for terrorists. If so, the U.S. presence would be achieving the opposite result of the objective Mr. Bush cited at the outset of the war in 2003: to eliminate Iraq as a potential base of terrorist activity.
Iraq "has become the focal point for people to hate Americans," said Paul Beaver, a defense analyst and publisher of the newsletter Homeland Response. "Iraq has become the place where radicalized Islamists want to go and have a pop at an American – or any one of the other 29 members of the coalition."
Images of civilians killed in U.S. attacks and of prisoners being abused by American troops at Abu Ghraib prison have aided recruitment efforts for groups such as al-Qaeda, according to some academic studies. A videotaped statement by one of the four British Muslims who launched the July 7 suicide bomb attacks on London's transportation system said they were motivated specifically by images of Muslims being killed in Iraq.
Neighboring Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, are finding Iraq a convenient venue to send their most anti-social and extreme Islamist elements. Those governments may be content to let the extremists expend their energies in a holy war against Americans instead of agitating for revolution at home, Mr. Beaver said.
"I suspect that's why the borders of Iraq remain so porous," he added.
Supporters of the Bush administration argue, however, that it makes strategic sense to draw terrorist groups into an engagement in Iraq rather than confront them on America's doorstep.
Setting an example
Mr. Bush says there is an important example to be set by continuing the military presence: that U.S. forces will no longer turn and run in the face of trouble, as he suggested they did during the Reagan administration's pullout from Lebanon in 1983 and the Clinton administration's withdrawal from Somalia 10 years later.
Extremists "believe that America can be made to run again – only this time, on a larger scale, with greater consequences," Mr. Bush said in a speech last week.
For anyone expecting a quick end to the U.S. deployment in Iraq, Mr. Bush was unequivocal: "This war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve. The terrorists are as brutal an enemy as we have ever faced, unconstrained by any notion of common humanity and by the rules of warfare."
Defense analysts say the United States deserves credit for its military successes. Troops have launched risky offensives to eliminate large pockets of support for the insurgents in towns such as Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, as well as two sustained campaigns this month and in May against insurgent strongholds near Iraq's border with Syria.
"There is no doubt whatsoever that when you push a large force of Americans into a town like Fallujah or Ramadi, they do well. They hold it," said Charles Heyman, editor of the respected journal Jane's World Armies. "But the moment they hand it over to the Iraqi police or Iraqi army, the Americans disappear and the whole thing starts to fall apart."
Mr. Cronin, the former Bush administration official, said that no matter how bleak the picture may seem, with rising casualty tolls and slow progress, there is no alternative to a long-term American military presence, possibly lasting five more years or longer. And there is little hope of reducing troop levels below their current levels.
To do otherwise is to invite chaos, leave Iraq vulnerable to foreign extremist groups and risk all-out civil war.
"Having broken this crockery, we have to fix it," he said. "Otherwise, we'll be back invading 10 years from now, so dangerous and vital is the area."
