WASHINGTON - Growing impatience in the US
Congress over the enormous costs incurred by the
Iraq war, as well as the Pentagon's belief that it
needs more troops in Afghanistan to fight
insurgents there, is putting the vaunted success
of the George W Bush administration's "surge"
strategy to the test.
Although the House
of Representatives appears poised to approve an
additional US$163 billion on Thursday for military
operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan through
the end of the year, most observers believe that
Congress will impose unprecedented conditions on
Iraq-related spending. This could include
requirements that the Iraqi government of Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki pays substantially more in
reconstruction and related costs
than
it has to date.
The argument that Baghdad
must bear more of the burden gained momentum last
week when the Pentagon's Special Inspector General
for Iraq Reconstruction reported that Iraq's oil
revenue in 2008 should exceed $70 billion, twice
as much as had been forecast just a few months
before.
That report, which comes amid
growing concern in Washington over the weak
domestic economy, has fueled efforts by a
bipartisan group of senators to halt virtually all
US funding for major reconstruction and
infrastructure projects in Iraq.
Indeed,
the Senate Armed Services Committee voted
unanimously last week to approve a bill that would
ban the Pentagon from funding any reconstruction
or infrastructure project in Iraq that costs more
than US$2 million. Similar legislation is expected
to be taken up by the House.
"This is the
first significant bipartisan change in our policy
toward Iraq," declared Republican Senator Susan
Collins, one of the sponsors of the legislation
after last week's vote, while the committee
chairman, Senator Carl Levin, said Iraq's failure
to pay reconstruction costs was "unconscionable
[and] inexcusable" given the windfall it has
received from the stunning rise in world oil
prices.
Another provision of the same bill
would require Iraq's government to pay the
salaries and training costs of the predominantly
Sunni militias, or so-called Sahwa or Awakening
Councils, on which the US has been spending
roughly $27 million a month.
Despite US
pressure, the Maliki government has strongly
resisted integrating the vast majority of the
estimated 90,000 members of these militias - most
of which were previously part of the Sunni
insurgency - into the army or police for fear that
they will eventually turn their guns on the
regime.
The result has been growing
frustration on the part of the militias,
frustration that reportedly was significantly
enhanced last month after Maliki enlisted
thousands of members of the Badr Organization into
the government's security forces during fighting
with Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the southern
city of Basra and Sadr City in Baghdad. The Badr
Organization is the armed wing of the Shi'ite
Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the strongest party
in the coalition.
Both the intra-Shi'ite
conflict between the Sadrists and the government
and the growing anger of the Sahwa militias - most
recently dramatized by a series of strikes and
public protests and by an increasing number of
attacks on US and Iraqi forces in al-Anbar
province and other Sunni strongholds where the
militias have kept the peace for most of the past
year - have resulted in a sharp rise in both Iraqi
and US casualties over the past two months,
threatening the security gains made by the
"surge".
The "surge", which was initiated
in February 2007, was aimed at pacifying both
Anbar province and the capital by adding some
30,000 US troops to the 140,000 already deployed
to Iraq to stop and reverse the drift to sectarian
civil war between Sunnis and the various Shi'ite
militias. Its strategic aim was to foster a
climate of peace and stability that would
encourage all factions to make the political
compromises necessary for national reconciliation.
While the "surge" made substantial headway
in achieving its tactical goals of improving
security - with the critical help of the Sahwa
militias which had mostly broken with al-Qaeda in
Iraq and allied themselves with the US even before
the "surge" got underway - its strategic goal of
political reconciliation has been far more
elusive.
Moreover, the tactical success of
the "surge" has failed to translate into
additional popular or Congressional support for
the war at home. As a result, the Bush
administration, which promised months ago to
withdraw the 30,000 "surge" troops by the end of
July, is adhering to its pledge, leaving fewer
troops to ensure that a new round of violence does
not break out.
At the same time, the
Pentagon leadership is pressing the White House to
continue the drawdown from Iraq beyond July so
that it can deploy the three brigades - between
10,000 and 12,000 troops - it says it needs to
cope with the Taliban and their allies in
Afghanistan. While Bush has announced that there
will be at least a 45-day pause to assess the
impact of the "surge" withdrawal after July, the
pressure on him to resume the process - not only
from the Pentagon, but from Republican candidates
in the November elections - is expected to be
intense.
Republican backing for the Armed
Services Committee bill banning additional
spending on major reconstruction projects and
support for the Sahwa militias is clearly seen by
both the administration and the promoters of the
"surge" as a worrisome portent, and not only for
maintaining the relative - albeit fragile - peace
that has prevailed for much of the past year.
One of the architects of the "surge",
Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise
Institute, said that legislation would "do
catastrophic damage to our image in the world,
particularly the Muslim world ... The argument
that Iraq should use its oil revenues to pay the
United States sounds like the ultimate proof that
we invaded Iraq for mercenary reasons."
Ending US funding for the Sahwa militias,
in particular, will pose a critical - and long
overdue - test of the "surge" strategy, according
to a number of observers, who see Maliki's failure
to integrate them as a critical stumbling block to
national reconciliation.
"If the
Awakenings are not integrated into the national
security forces, then there is little hope for
political accommodation or for lasting security
and the US is effectively trapped," according to
Marc Lynch, an expert at George Washington
University whose blog, abuaardvark.com, is widely
read in Washington. "Since all other forms of
persuasion seem to have failed, it's time to give
Maliki an ultimatum ... If he gives in, then there
may finally be some hope for political
accommodation ..."
"The downside is that
if Maliki doesn't go along ... then things may
well get ugly. But all signs suggests that they
will get ugly anyway - and better that they get
ugly while the US is at the highest troop levels
it will ever have," Lynch wrote.
"If
Maliki won't do this now, when US troop levels are
high and security is relatively better, with the
shadow of a new president who likely will not
continue to offer an open-ended commitment, then
he never will ... and everyone should know this."
Jim Lobe's blog on US
foreign policy, and particularly the
neo-conservative influence in the Bush
administration, can be read at
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
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