What Americans think about Iraq war
Sunday, 23 March 2008
Syed Fattahul Alim
ON the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war US President George W Bush made a frank admission. Speaking before the armed forces and defence officials he said he acknowledged that he could not anticipate the costs of the war in terms of 'lives and money.'
Initially, he did not even think the war will continue so long. But despite his and his government's failure to figure out the gravity and consequence of the war, the US president remains unwavering in his conviction that the war has made the United States and the world at large safer.
The rest of the world, especially the people of Iraq and its neighbouring countries are witness to what kind of safety the war has brought to the region. But has America really become any safer after the invasion of Iraq, dislodgement of Saddam Hussein from power and, if you will, his hanging?
According to Peter Grier, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, the Iraq war has been perhaps America's bitterest lesson since Vietnam in the realities of war and geopolitics - profoundly altering ordinary citizens' sense of their country, its essential abilities, and the overall role it plays in the world.
Poll after poll shows that Americans are worried about US troops. They're distressed at the war's rising human and financial cost and are fully aware of the globe's rising tide of anti-Americanism. Most of all, they may be confused - unsure of how the United States got here, uncertain about what to do next, and in doubt about how, and when, the conflict will end.
"It's just become a mess, and I don't think there's an easy end to it, so we're going to end up in a quagmire," says Ben Lem, a Boston-area cafe owner.
The bottom line may be that today many in the US view the Iraq invasion as a mistake they don't want to see repeated. Troubles in Iraq appear to have fed a desire on the part of some ordinary Americans for disengagement with the world.
"We are in a period of rising isolationism, just as we saw a bump in isolationism after the war in Vietnam in the '70s," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies seminar in Washington on March 12.
Five years ago, America - as well as Iraq - was a different place. Virtually every major poll showed US majorities in support of military action. For instance, in a March 2003 Gallup survey, 64 per cent of respondents said they were in favour of a US ground invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Today, Americans are mixed in their judgments as to whether the US effort will eventually be a success. The public seems roughly split as to whether US troops should come home now or stay until the situation stabilizes.
But on another point, national opinion seems clearer: In hindsight, a majority of Americans view the decision to invade as a mistake. In a February CBS/New York Times survey, 58 per cent said the US should have stayed out.
Moreover, interest in, and knowledge of, the situation in Iraq are declining among US citizens - in part because news coverage is diminishing. Public awareness of the number of US military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August, according to a March 12 study from the Pew Research Center.
"Today, just 28 per cent of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war," concludes the Pew analysis.
That does not mean Americans do not support their troops, of course. In fact, unlike the situation during the Vietnam era, there appears to be widespread realization that a small slice of US society - the military - is bearing a disproportionate burden.
"They put their lives on the line, and their lives will be forever changed. Their families' lives will be forever changed," says Sharon Howden of Mesa, Ariz.
Ms. Howden, owner of a landscape-maintenance firm, says the horrors of Iraq and general lack of freedom in the Middle East make her thankful for things in her own life, such as reliable electricity and the opportunity to run her own business.
She suggests the US is spread thin in Iraq, financially and militarily. She knows the image of the US has been tarnished overseas. She's torn about what the US should do now.
"I sometimes wish we could bring [the troops] home and put them on our border to solve our own problems here," Howden says. "But then sometimes it's necessary to help other people."
The US has spent billions of dollars bombing Iraq and then attempting to repair it, adds Brett Smith, a Mesa jewelry retailer. Yet major US cities are themselves wrecks, he says, and homelessness is chronic.
"I just think America tries to govern the world, and it seems like other countries don't do that.... We've just got our noses in too many other people's business," Mr. Smith says.
Americans are generally wary of foreign entanglements and worry about the ramifications of long-term commitments overseas, concludes an analysis of public opinion on Iraq by Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Thus many polls show that US citizens might support increased involvement in Iraq by the United Nations, or an expansion of the coalition of nations helping the US.
But if nothing else, the war in Iraq may have heightened the awareness of Americans about the problems of the rest of the globe.
That is what Boston pediatrician Andy Radbill says has happened to him, in any case.
"In general, it has made me more aware that there are a lot of countries around the world where people are treated very poorly by their governments," Dr. Radbill says. "It's hard to say that we have no responsibility to care about that."
Howard LaFranchi of the same magazine, on the other hand, reports on President Bush's critic of Iraq war, one of the harshest though, Democratic Senator from Virginia Jim Webb's warning that the strategic agreement the Bush administration is negotiating with the Iraqi government will hamstring the next president's ability to change course on the war.
Senator Webb acknowledged the lack of Senate support for mandating that President Bush change course. The Virginia senator, whose squeaker 2006 election from a red state symbolized the electorate's disapproval of the war, says anything Congress can do about the war "is really around the edges."
Webb's discussion of the Iraq war with reporters at a Monitor breakfast last Wednesday was one of many events in Washington marking the war's fifth anniversary. Mr. Bush spoke at the Pentagon to civilian and military employees about what he called the successes of a war he ordered to begin this day five years ago.
At the same time, anti-war protesters rallied outside government buildings and marched in black clothing and skull masks - to represent the nearly 4,000 US soldiers who have died in the conflict.
Webb highlighted the negotiations under way between the United States and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"The new president is going to inherit this agreement," he said, adding that any agreement the Bush administration reaches will make it "more difficult for a Democratic president to change course than for a Republican to continue the same course."
By August, the administration hopes to conclude agreements with Iraq that will define how, where, and in what capacity US forces will remain in the country. One is a status of forces agreement. The potentially more far-reaching is a strategic framework agreement that could cement US-Iraq relations for years to come.
Administration officials insist any agreement will not tie the hands of a future president, but critics like Webb counter that any agreement with a foreign government would be difficult to undo.
Moreover, Webb says such an agreement is really a treaty and requires Senate confirmation, while the administration plays down documents as lower-level agreements that don't require congressional approval.
The Webb breakfast and Bush's Pentagon speech provided a point-counterpoint on the Iraq war in terms of one of its original objectives in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: to further the international war on terrorism.
Bush pointed to last year's Sunni uprising in Iraq's Anbar Province against Al Qaeda forces. He also noted that the year-old "surge" of 30,000 US troops in Iraq allowed the US to develop a closer relationship with Sunnis who had been living under the yoke of Al Qaeda in Iraq. "The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around - it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror."
Bush said, "In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network."
Countering that view, Webb ticked off a list of familiar criticisms that the war helped Al Qaeda enter Iraq, and that the US focus there has allowed Al Qaeda and other forces of extremism to flourish elsewhere. "Al Qaeda is fluid mobile - you see their resurgence in Afghanistan [and] we can't separate that from Iraq."
As for Bush's picture of Sunni Arabs joining the US to drive out Islamist extremists, Webb countered with what he says his son - a Marine deployed to the Anbar city of Ramadi - told him about the province's change of heart. "He said the former insurgents going after Al Qaeda is truly redneck justice." It's an example of the local population becoming fed up with the outsiders who ended up oppressing them, and acting on it.
Himself a former marine, Webb said he does "not want to be in a position of downplaying what the military is doing" in Iraq. But he advocates stepped up diplomatic intervention with Iraq's neighbours as a prelude to reducing the US footprint in Iraq.
ON the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war US President George W Bush made a frank admission. Speaking before the armed forces and defence officials he said he acknowledged that he could not anticipate the costs of the war in terms of 'lives and money.'
Initially, he did not even think the war will continue so long. But despite his and his government's failure to figure out the gravity and consequence of the war, the US president remains unwavering in his conviction that the war has made the United States and the world at large safer.
The rest of the world, especially the people of Iraq and its neighbouring countries are witness to what kind of safety the war has brought to the region. But has America really become any safer after the invasion of Iraq, dislodgement of Saddam Hussein from power and, if you will, his hanging?
According to Peter Grier, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, the Iraq war has been perhaps America's bitterest lesson since Vietnam in the realities of war and geopolitics - profoundly altering ordinary citizens' sense of their country, its essential abilities, and the overall role it plays in the world.
Poll after poll shows that Americans are worried about US troops. They're distressed at the war's rising human and financial cost and are fully aware of the globe's rising tide of anti-Americanism. Most of all, they may be confused - unsure of how the United States got here, uncertain about what to do next, and in doubt about how, and when, the conflict will end.
"It's just become a mess, and I don't think there's an easy end to it, so we're going to end up in a quagmire," says Ben Lem, a Boston-area cafe owner.
The bottom line may be that today many in the US view the Iraq invasion as a mistake they don't want to see repeated. Troubles in Iraq appear to have fed a desire on the part of some ordinary Americans for disengagement with the world.
"We are in a period of rising isolationism, just as we saw a bump in isolationism after the war in Vietnam in the '70s," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies seminar in Washington on March 12.
Five years ago, America - as well as Iraq - was a different place. Virtually every major poll showed US majorities in support of military action. For instance, in a March 2003 Gallup survey, 64 per cent of respondents said they were in favour of a US ground invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Today, Americans are mixed in their judgments as to whether the US effort will eventually be a success. The public seems roughly split as to whether US troops should come home now or stay until the situation stabilizes.
But on another point, national opinion seems clearer: In hindsight, a majority of Americans view the decision to invade as a mistake. In a February CBS/New York Times survey, 58 per cent said the US should have stayed out.
Moreover, interest in, and knowledge of, the situation in Iraq are declining among US citizens - in part because news coverage is diminishing. Public awareness of the number of US military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August, according to a March 12 study from the Pew Research Center.
"Today, just 28 per cent of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war," concludes the Pew analysis.
That does not mean Americans do not support their troops, of course. In fact, unlike the situation during the Vietnam era, there appears to be widespread realization that a small slice of US society - the military - is bearing a disproportionate burden.
"They put their lives on the line, and their lives will be forever changed. Their families' lives will be forever changed," says Sharon Howden of Mesa, Ariz.
Ms. Howden, owner of a landscape-maintenance firm, says the horrors of Iraq and general lack of freedom in the Middle East make her thankful for things in her own life, such as reliable electricity and the opportunity to run her own business.
She suggests the US is spread thin in Iraq, financially and militarily. She knows the image of the US has been tarnished overseas. She's torn about what the US should do now.
"I sometimes wish we could bring [the troops] home and put them on our border to solve our own problems here," Howden says. "But then sometimes it's necessary to help other people."
The US has spent billions of dollars bombing Iraq and then attempting to repair it, adds Brett Smith, a Mesa jewelry retailer. Yet major US cities are themselves wrecks, he says, and homelessness is chronic.
"I just think America tries to govern the world, and it seems like other countries don't do that.... We've just got our noses in too many other people's business," Mr. Smith says.
Americans are generally wary of foreign entanglements and worry about the ramifications of long-term commitments overseas, concludes an analysis of public opinion on Iraq by Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Thus many polls show that US citizens might support increased involvement in Iraq by the United Nations, or an expansion of the coalition of nations helping the US.
But if nothing else, the war in Iraq may have heightened the awareness of Americans about the problems of the rest of the globe.
That is what Boston pediatrician Andy Radbill says has happened to him, in any case.
"In general, it has made me more aware that there are a lot of countries around the world where people are treated very poorly by their governments," Dr. Radbill says. "It's hard to say that we have no responsibility to care about that."
Howard LaFranchi of the same magazine, on the other hand, reports on President Bush's critic of Iraq war, one of the harshest though, Democratic Senator from Virginia Jim Webb's warning that the strategic agreement the Bush administration is negotiating with the Iraqi government will hamstring the next president's ability to change course on the war.
Senator Webb acknowledged the lack of Senate support for mandating that President Bush change course. The Virginia senator, whose squeaker 2006 election from a red state symbolized the electorate's disapproval of the war, says anything Congress can do about the war "is really around the edges."
Webb's discussion of the Iraq war with reporters at a Monitor breakfast last Wednesday was one of many events in Washington marking the war's fifth anniversary. Mr. Bush spoke at the Pentagon to civilian and military employees about what he called the successes of a war he ordered to begin this day five years ago.
At the same time, anti-war protesters rallied outside government buildings and marched in black clothing and skull masks - to represent the nearly 4,000 US soldiers who have died in the conflict.
Webb highlighted the negotiations under way between the United States and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
"The new president is going to inherit this agreement," he said, adding that any agreement the Bush administration reaches will make it "more difficult for a Democratic president to change course than for a Republican to continue the same course."
By August, the administration hopes to conclude agreements with Iraq that will define how, where, and in what capacity US forces will remain in the country. One is a status of forces agreement. The potentially more far-reaching is a strategic framework agreement that could cement US-Iraq relations for years to come.
Administration officials insist any agreement will not tie the hands of a future president, but critics like Webb counter that any agreement with a foreign government would be difficult to undo.
Moreover, Webb says such an agreement is really a treaty and requires Senate confirmation, while the administration plays down documents as lower-level agreements that don't require congressional approval.
The Webb breakfast and Bush's Pentagon speech provided a point-counterpoint on the Iraq war in terms of one of its original objectives in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: to further the international war on terrorism.
Bush pointed to last year's Sunni uprising in Iraq's Anbar Province against Al Qaeda forces. He also noted that the year-old "surge" of 30,000 US troops in Iraq allowed the US to develop a closer relationship with Sunnis who had been living under the yoke of Al Qaeda in Iraq. "The surge has done more than turn the situation in Iraq around - it has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror."
Bush said, "In Iraq, we are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network."
Countering that view, Webb ticked off a list of familiar criticisms that the war helped Al Qaeda enter Iraq, and that the US focus there has allowed Al Qaeda and other forces of extremism to flourish elsewhere. "Al Qaeda is fluid mobile - you see their resurgence in Afghanistan [and] we can't separate that from Iraq."
As for Bush's picture of Sunni Arabs joining the US to drive out Islamist extremists, Webb countered with what he says his son - a Marine deployed to the Anbar city of Ramadi - told him about the province's change of heart. "He said the former insurgents going after Al Qaeda is truly redneck justice." It's an example of the local population becoming fed up with the outsiders who ended up oppressing them, and acting on it.
Himself a former marine, Webb said he does "not want to be in a position of downplaying what the military is doing" in Iraq. But he advocates stepped up diplomatic intervention with Iraq's neighbours as a prelude to reducing the US footprint in Iraq.