The U.S. president described Saddam Hussein’s execution as a “milestone” on Iraq’s road to democracy. But doesn’t he see he has paid too high a price for that important “milestone” to achieve?! The U.S. armed forces have lost a total of 3,019 soldiers and officers in the Iraq campaign since March 2003, in addition to the 22,728 servicemen injured, many of them severely, according to official Pentagon data. That brings the overall fatal and sanitary losses of the U.S. army to 25,747 troops. As for the economic component of the war in Iraq, as of today, the U.S. government has spent a total of $400 billion, according to the Baker-Hamilton Commission report circulated in Washington; the continued warfare requires a monthly investment of about $8 billion. Overall, the campaign could eventually cost the U.S. budget as much as $2 trillion, the report estimates.
Such is the price of Saddam Hussein’s life. Neither should one forget the lives of thousands of Iraqis who have also died while accepting the democracy that the United States is generously sharing with them. According to the Iraqi Health, Defense and Interior Ministries, 16,273 Iraqis have been killed during 2006 alone, including 627 soldiers, 1,348 policemen and 14,298 (!) civilians. Over a hundred people die in Iraq daily, according to UN experts’ estimates. This “road to democracy” is paved with deaths and anguish of hundreds of thousands of people.
Many experts expect violence to increase in Iraq in 2007, which is, to a large extent, a direct aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s conviction and execution which has outraged the majority of the local Sunni. The number of clashes and terrorist attacks has grown to 1,000 a week lately, according to Pentagon data. International humanitarian organizations estimate the number of sectarian violence victims at an average of 120 a day.
On the whole, this brief analysis shows no encouraging signs on the “road to democracy,” as violence grows along with the number of casualties, and the current “democratic government” is only surviving while backed up by the U.S. armed force. Obviously, if the Americans go, this government will have to go, too. That is why it is becoming clear to all that the U.S. government has committed a huge mistake in Iraq. This undisputable fact is even acknowledged now by the majority of American people who have been deluded by the White House’s anti-terrorist rhetoric. Hence the growing annoyance in American society, the obvious dismay of George Bush’s team, the expansion of fear and suicides among the troops – not at all a complete list of problems plaguing America as it enters the year 2007.
The dismayed White House administration is hastily searching for a way out of this tangle. After the Democrats swept both houses of Congress, Bush made a frantic attempt to shift a share of the responsibility to his political opponents, saying the Republicans and Democrats alike were now responsible for reaching a consensus.
Now consensus has been found though. The congressional Democratic majority leaders sent an open letter to President Bush persuading him to renounce the troop increase strategy in Iraq, because, according to them, it would only escalate violence in the region. They even propose a phased pullout instead. However, Bush seems reluctant to leave Iraq until it becomes a country capable of providing its own security, as he told Washington Post. Therefore, surging forces would be the only possible strategy here. In this context, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ first visit to Baghdad was obviously aimed at paving the way for adding more troops. Suffice it to watch Gates’ “informal” breakfast with junior enlisted soldiers shown on television. It was clearly done to tweak public opinion a bit. The Pentagon chief asked the soldiers for advice on what to do next. “Sir, I think we need to just keep doing what we’re doing,” said Army Spc. Jason Glenn, adding he thinks more troops would help the situation there. The fifteen “randomly” chosen servicemen kept repeating more or less the same thing about the “short-term surge in troops in Baghdad,” seconded by other people Robert Gates met.
Spokespeople of the current Iraqi government voiced similar proposals, which was even less surprising: the local regime leaders know only too well whom their compatriots in the resistance forces regard as enemies. They hate those Iraqis who cooperate with Americans, primarily the new government, much more than Americans themselves.
So, despite the Democratic pressure in the Congress, the White House does not regard an early pullout as an option. President Bush must have opted for a tried and true method: he will ask the senate to approve another $100 billion for the war and expand the size of U.S. armed forces in Iraq from the current 134,000 to 160,000 troops. This would be the “new strategy” he had announced in his January 10 televised address. To stress its “novelty,” Bush said from now on the Iraqi government should bear full responsibility for what’s going on in that country. The plan is to bring all of Iraq’s provinces under the local army’s control by November.
Along with that, U.S. Navy is being built up in the Gulf. According to Robert Gates, it is intended to send the message that "the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world.” “We have been here for a long time, we will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that, both our friends and those who might consider themselves our adversaries,” Gates told reporters.
So here’s the “new” strategy – to be in Iraq for a long time, both on land and at see close to its shores. That is, the strategy hasn’t changed.
