news details |
|
|
| Americans without sheen and shine | | | B L KAK
World’s superpower, USA, is in a throes of confusion. The level of confusion has registered a phenomenal increase in recent times, with the “do-or-die” battle waged in Iraq by the Muslim rebels and anti-US revolutionaries. And these rebels and revolutionaries are sufficiently armed and enjoying the support of several Islamic extremist organizations.
Most Americans, according to a survey, are of the opinion that US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq. There are differences on the degree of the pull-out. While some would like a partial withdrawal, a record 33 per cent want to see all US troops withdrawn from Iraq. Taken together, those who believe some or all American troops should return home constitute a good 58 per cent of those polled.
This rising chorus in favour of a pull-out is in sharp contrast to what the US President, George Bush, has been saying repeatedly — that he is not in a position to give a withdrawal schedule. His logic is that giving a pull-out timetable would encourage the insurgents to plan their strategy. The logic is queer and is being bandied about at the expense of American and Iraqi lives.
Whatever Washington’s future line of action in relation to Iraq, senior US military officials, based in Baghdad, have just been reported to have dropped clear hints about the proposed “fairly substantial” reduction in US troop strength in strife-torn Iraq next year, as the US-led coalition gradually hands over security responsibility to newly-trained Iraqi forces. But the plan, contingent on political progress in Iraq, improvements in Iraqi forces and an absence of growth in the insurgency, will leave a sizeable American military presence in the most dangerous parts of Iraq.
More than two years after the end of the war, there is still no sign that Iraq is anywhere near normality. The resistance is as strong as ever, in spite of US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice’s views to the contrary. After the elections and the coming into being of an elected government, it appeared the resistance was weakening.
However, of late, the insurgency has been gaining strength as is evident from the rising number of American casualties. Till August end, hundreds of Americans were killed, with the insurgents using newer and more powerful weapons. In one attack, the resistance fighters were able to destroy an amphibious vehicle in which marines were travelling, killing 14 of them.
On the whole, the number of American casualties has crossed the 1,900 figure while the Iraqi civilians killed has been estimated to be an unbelievably high 100,000. It would be naive to expect the US to withdraw in haste. The elected Iraqi government is far from being in control of the situation.
It is doubtful now that the basic law will be ready in the near future. Then there is the question of handing over the responsibility of maintaining law and order to the post-Saddam Iraqi police and army. At the moment, the new security force is not in a position to replace the US-led occupation forces and take on the resistance.
Like the Iraqi government itself, the new security set-up, too, is considered a collaborator by the resistance forces. That is the reason why the resistance has directed attacks as much against the occupation troops as against the new Iraqi security forces’ recruitment and training centres.
The more Washington delays the withdrawal the more it will complicate the situation and suffer more casualties. A hurried pull-out would, of course, mean chaos that could endanger Iraq’s state structure. The best course would be to induct a UN peacekeeping force in phases to synchronize with the gradual withdrawal of the occupation forces.
Once a UN force is in place it can organize an election. Only a government that comes into being through this process will enjoy the Iraqi people’s confidence and proceed toward the task of giving Iraq a new constitution and work for its re-construction. A US withdrawal will also help in the war on terror. As a former chief of Australian defence forces said in a radio interview, a pull-out of the occupation forces will remove one of the “focal points of terrorist motivation”.
==================
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
