This article from the Washington Post is almost a week old but it’s well worth a read, especially if you read it alongside the excellent work Back to Iraq is doing.
The long and the short of it? It’s not just the radical anti-war Left or Iraqi extremists that think our invasion of Iraq has been a miserable failure.
The American occupation of Iraq will formally end this month having failed to fulfill many of its goals and stated promises intended to transform the country into a stable democracy, according to a detailed examination drawing upon interviews with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and internal documents of the occupation authority
There’s blame aplenty to go around. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority blames the military. The military blames the CPA. The Iraqis blame us. We blame them. And around it goes. Then, another interesting fact.
Attacks on U.S.-led forces and foreign civilians now average more than 40 a day, a threefold increase since January.
Small wonder so-called “Green Zone,” where the CPA and related US personnel live, is a fortress that few set foot beyond unless they’re surrounded by security forces. And what are we getting for that attack rate, and for the 800+ American soldiers dead?
In an interview last week, Bremer maintained that “Iraq has been fundamentally changed for the better” by the occupation. The CPA, he said, has put Iraq on a path toward a democratic government and an open economy after more than three decades of a brutal socialist dictatorship. Among his biggest accomplishments, he said, were the lowering of Iraq’s tax rate, the liberalization of foreign-investment laws and the reduction of import duties.
Emphasis added.
Let me get this right. We invaded a country 3,000 miles away from us, one that posed no clear threat to America. The country is a mess – the Post article goes into great detail on that point. Just one of many examples is that even in Baghdad itself, electrical power is available only 9 hours out of 24. It seems likely that the new Iraqi government will impose martial law after the June 30 handover. To name just one potential keg of worms, nobody seems to have any idea how the Kurds and the Shiites are going to resolve their differences. And Paul Bremer thinks it’s an accomplishment that Iraqi taxes have been lowered.
Small wonder they hate us.
Tip of the hat to Fuzzy Puppy for the Post link.