To keep the unpopular Iraq war going, the Bush administration has created a catch-22-type public debate: we'll keep the war going as long as their is evidence of success, but not too much. We have been winning for more than four years, but we're not winning well enough. Therefore, we have to stay as long as we need to in order to get the job done.

A self-evident problem with this logic, however, is that it is a heavily politicized public relations campaign not a military strategy. Since the beginning of the war, the administration's rational has shifted many times: First, it was Saddam's non-existent WMD. In 2004, it was an insurgency, which according to the body counts presented to President Bush regularly, was going to expire and in May of 2005 was in its 'last throes.' Later that year, Bush's explanation for prolonging the occupation of Iraq shifted to Al-Qaeda, and in 2006 the rationale again shifted to the raging sectarian conflict that needed to be stopped before the US military could pull out. In 2007, there will be a new standard. And on and on, unless we stop it.

It's like the alcoholic who always has another excuse to avoid getting help. In this scenario we are enablers who need our own therapeutic break from the addicts in the White House in order to heal.

This week, we will hear General Petraeus give testimony, vetted carefully by the White House, about the great successes happening as a result of the four and a half year occupation. We'll hear about the shift in tactics in Al-Anbar Province, a new security picture in Iraq, and the need to stay the course. Administration spokespersons and right-wing pundits will blather on about Sunni groups in the west deciding to support US military aims. We'll hear about heightened security capacity of the forces and reduced numbers of killings.

On the other hand, we'll also hear about continued sectarian influence in the security forces and the failure of the Iraq government to formulate a political reconciliation strong enough to calm the violence and allow US forces to withdraw.

But we probably won't hear the whole truth. We won't hear about how the overall decaying quality of life in Iraq, in most places, is worse than before the war. Only half of Iraq receives electricity services, with frequent failures of the national grid. Almost three-quarters of Iraqis do not have access to potable water. Civilian death rates are higher than they were in 2006 (no matter how much the Pentagon fudges its analysis and body counts). Sectarian domination of the ministries and militia control of security forces signal two things: 1) the current security situation – whatever it is – is only temporary, and 2) armed sectarian groups is a recipe for more intense violence down the road.

Internal and external displacement in Iraq has doubled since the beginning of the war and shows no signs of stopping. UN agencies report that refugees suffer at the hands of gangs, while hospitals increasingly do not have medical supplies or the staff to provide for public health needs. Cholera has even become a problem in some places. Humanitarian groups estimate that about 8 million Iraqis, one-third of the population, needs emergency aid, and more than one-fourth of Iraqi children are malnourished. The Iraqi Psychologists Association reports that the number of alcoholics in care has increased by 34 percent compared to last summer. The organization blames violence, poverty, and unemployment. Unemployment is still about 50 percent, and the much anticipated oil boom has fallen so flat that Iraq has to import gasoline and fuel oil.

But the administration and Petraeus probably won't tell the full truth about the much-touted Al-Anbar situation either. New tactics in that region were part of the January 2007 'surge' plan all along, and that military engagement by the US caused this shift in attitudes and actions by Sunni groups who formerly fought the US occupation, they'll argue. But the truth is that, as the Washington Post reported last August, developments in Al-Anbar arose as a result of US military disengagement in the province combined by with offers to arm Sunni groups who fear Shia dominance in Iraq.

According to the Post, a Pentagon paper called the 'Iraq Tribal Study,' which provided the rationale for the tactics in Al-Anbar, describes the new situation as only temporary. While both sides in this uneasy alliance favor stopping Al-Qaeda, occupation forces should not assume these temporary allies support their ultimate goals. The Sunni groups involved, the Pentagon report said, would play 'both ends of the insurgency, coalition versus the insurgents, against the middle while maintaining a single motive, to force the coalition to leave Iraq.' When Sunni groups realize that Bush isn't going anywhere, in all likelihood, they will turn again to violent tactics aimed at US troops. Indeed, playing up sectarian differences in order to achieve short-term goals is a recipe to prolong and provoke longer-term sectarian violence. One can't help thinking this is the long-term strategy of the Bush administration.

The shifting security situation in Baghdad itself has not emerged because of an additional 30,000 troops in the city, despite the best efforts and risks of the troops put into harm's way there. General Petraeus's claims on this matter so far have been simply false. Sectarian violence against the Sunni population in Baghdad over the last few years have shifted the population in the city from about two-thirds Sunni to more than three-fourths Shia, according to US military estimates. In other words, peace has come at the price of US-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the capital of the cradle of civilization. Was this Bush's military strategy? Is this what General Petraeus will be boasting about this week?

Despite lacking a real military strategy and being mainly motivated by not wanting to be seen as a president who lost a war, Bush will press on with the occupation. He and his supporters will rationalize doing so by arguing that indeed, the occupation must continue until all of this can be put right. And as long as members of Congress and too many Americans accept that basic premise, even as they want the war to end, Bush will stay the course and US troops will continue to die.

How do we change course? As long as a coherent and comprehensive alternative discussion to the Bush war agenda and so far successful public relations campaign isn't offered, we may continue on this path until Bush leaves office.

So far, the push back from the Democrats and opponents of the war have consisted mainly of arguments showing how the surge has failed. Lawrence Korb, a national security analyst for the Center for American Progress, argued on a telephone press conference Friday that by its own terms, the surge has failed. 'Despite the best efforts of very brave young men and women over there, the surge has not met its objectives,' Korb announced. Citing ongoing sectarian violence, political quagmire, Iraqi security failures, and high US military casualties, Korb added, 'It is not going in the right direction.'

There has also been a flurry of official government-sponsored reports about the situation in Iraq over the last few weeks. The politicized National Intelligence Estimate painted a mixed picture with a few bright spots that support, unsurprisingly, the president's public relations campaign. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office report, mandated by a law signed by President Bush in May 2007 and using a 'benchmarks' concept worked out between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister in the summer of 2006, noted the overwhelming political failures in Iraq. Despite its realism, however, the report does not help us overcome the Bush argument that we have to stay in Iraq in order to turn things around.

Using these reports, Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq (AAEI), a coalition of labor, advocacy, and antiwar groups, emphasized the lack of credibility of the Bush administration for manipulating information and 'cherry-picking facts' to paint a rosy picture of Iraq in order to continue the occupation. AAEI implies that because the true situation is so bleak the occupation should come to an end.


On the floor of the Senate last Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)declared the president's 'surge' a failure. Schumer said, 'The surge, by the president's own stated goal, is failing. The [Iraqi] government is weaker. The fundamentals on the ground are the same.' In January, Bush argued that a surge was needed to give the Iraqi government space to make political progress. This hasn't worked, argued Schumer, so US troops should come home.

The problem is that the arguments offered by Korb, AAEI, and Schumer (and many others), while correct, are easily countered by supporters of the war who are saying, quite incorrectly, that antiwar groups are 'defeatist' and want to see the US lose the war. Whether this point is relevant or not, it appears to have just enough effect keep moderate Republicans from voting with the majority of Congress to override Bush's veto of the timetable for withdrawal.

The one report that proved the most interesting and offers a way out of the misleading binary of victory vs. defeat is by the Independent Commission on the Security Forces in Iraq, also known as the Jones Commission. (Get a PDF version of the report here.) It is named thus after the chair of the commission, former NATO commander and Iraq war subcommander Marine Major General James Jones and focused its investigative lens exclusively on Iraq's various forces and political bureaucracies that oversee them. The commission was comprised of 12 former military commanders (1 colonel and 11 generals or admirals), 2 sergeant majors, four current or former police chiefs, and at least one former Pentagon official: over 500 years of military experience and 150 years of police experience. This commission was also mandated by the law signed by President Bush last May.

The Jones Commission report is interesting because it is being used by both sides in the debate to bolster their arguments. It paints a picture of increased capacity of some Iraqi security forces, while criticizing others for being dominated by sectarian forces. At some points it suggests that some security units are ready to take control of the situation, while others (like the National Police) should be disbanded because they have been thoroughly corrupted by sectarian influences.

But the report is unique among all of the discourse being offered up about Iraq in that despite the murky picture, it argues for a changed role for the US military. In its concluding section, the report urges US forces to look at the recent British actions in Basra as an example. Provincial Iraqi Control, the current system of shared power by US forces and Iraqi political leaders, should end and all power should revert to Iraqi control 'as a matter of policy.' This should be a systematic and ongoing.

The report argues that British commanders in Basra (and the British government) came to understand that their ongoing influence over the political and security situation caused most Iraqis to see them as an occupying force and that fact itself became the main barrier to political progress. This same problems is perpetuated in US controlled areas and 'may contribute to increased violence and instability.' As a result of this realization, British forces started the withdrawal process last week by moving out of Basra and shifting control to the local authorities. The remaining 5,500 British troops (down from about 13,000 last year) are expected to leave Iraq in October.

The US military role, the report finds, should shift to border security to limit the influx of foreign influence, while for better or worse, Iraqi security forces and political formations take full control of their own institutions. According to the report, which in addition to interviewing over 100 US officials and commanders, talked with more than 100 Iraqi officials, Iraqi leaders want such a shift as soon as possible.

There is 'a fine line between assistance and dependence,' the report states, and turning over control to Iraqis is the best way to legitimize and strengthen those institutions. The report gives a unique analysis of how the size of the US 'footprint' in Iraq gives many Iraqis the 'impression' that US troops are an occupation force and our 'good intentions' go unrewarded. Instead, disaffected people turn to violence and other means of securing power, a livelihood, and protection. 'We recommend,' the report concludes, 'that careful consideration of the size of our national footprint in Iraq be reconsidered with regard to its efficiency, necessity, and cost. Significant reductions, consolidations, and realignments would appear to be possible and prudent.'

In an interview on PBS's The Charlie Rose Show, Gen. Jones reiterated this point. 'There is a possibility that we're approaching a strategic moment where the Coalition ... could actually take a look at our footprint. Reshape it. Transfer it to more of an expeditionary force, because it appears to us to be extremely heavy and gives the impression of permanence that I don't think we wish to convey.' While he deferred to the commanders on the ground (notably not to the president), Gen. Jones predicted that early 2008 could be the point when that 'strategic moment' starts. In his Senate testimony, Jones refused to endorse an immediate withdrawal.

While most regular readers of Political Affairs will agree that the US 'footprint' in Iraq is more than a mere 'impression' of being an occupation, we cannot wait to convince a majority of the people or Congress of that fact to end the war. The Jones Commission has the capacity to change the debate. It's basic conclusion is that the occupation itself is the cause of the instability and violence in Iraq, and that shifting the political and military role followed by significant force reductions and redeployments is the best path to resolving the political crisis in Iraq.

Let's be clear. These recommendations are not ideal, because they do not insist on complete withdrawal nor do they discuss broader regional diplomatic efforts that appear to be required in order to reduce non-US foreign intervention in Iraq or needed multilateral humanitarian and security arrangements. (UN or regional peacekeepers, for example, could just as easily take over the border security role the Jones Commission assigns to US troops.)

Nevertheless, the records and experiences of the authors of the report should dispel despicable and unconscionable charges leveled by the White House against its critics of defeatism (the smiley-face version of its earlier charges of treason). The issue isn't defeat or failure; the issue is that taking steps to withdraw is in the best interest of Iraq. The decision to stay is a recipe for violence and instability and to (at least) appear to be pushing an imperial agenda. And that is what the Bush policy is all about.

And because Bush won't leave on his own, Congress, as a co-equal branch of our government, has to step up with meaningful alternatives and legislative mandates and and lead us to making responsible choices and to peace.