Kevin Drum, reacting to recent problems, wonders
If President Bush had faced the problem squarely a year ago and been honest about what needed to be done — several hundred thousand troops for the better part of a decade — would he have gotten the popular support he needed for the war? Maybe not. But by not doing it he’s guaranteed an even worse outcome: going to war and losing popular support afterward.
On the one hand, the president has repeatedly warned us that things would be difficult:
March 2003 – War Announcement:
A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment.
May 2003 – End of Major Combat Operations:
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.
The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq
***
The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.
Having broken the Baathist regime, we face a remnant of violent Saddam supporters. Men who ran away from our troops in battle are now dispersed and attack from the shadows. These killers, joined by foreign terrorists, are a serious, continuing danger. Yet we’re making progress against them. The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell. Of the top 55 officials of the former regime, we have captured or killed 45. Our forces are on the offensive, leading over 1,600 patrols a day and conducting an average of 180 raids a week. We are dealing with these thugs in Iraq, just as surely as we dealt with Saddam Hussein’s evil regime.
The work of building a new Iraq is hard, and it is right. And America has always been willing to do what it takes for what is right. Last January, Iraq’s only law was the whim of one brutal man. Today our coalition is working with the Iraqi Governing Council to draft a basic law, with a bill of rights. We’re working with Iraqis and the United Nations to prepare for a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty by the end of June.
As democracy takes hold in Iraq, the enemies of freedom will do all in their power to spread violence and fear. They are trying to shake the will of our country and our friends, but the United States of America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins. The killers will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom.
On the other hand, as Kevin has rightly noted, we grossly underestimated–or undersold–the financial costs of the war, mainly because we relied on the (frankly reasonable) expectation that an oil-rich country could shoulder much of the financial burden of its own reconstruction. Of course, some on the other side overestimated the cost, some by several orders of magnitude.
It’s a difficult task to simultaneously keep support for the war effort and troop morale high while warning that things might well get worse before they get better. Still, I wish the Administration had done a better job of preparing the public for the type of activities that are ongoing at the moment given that they now tell us that it was all expected. While there have been some mentions here and there about a pre-transfer of sovereignty offensive by insurgents, it certainly hasn’t been highlighted.
