On April 9 Iraq marked the fifth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime with the nation still wracked by fierce clashes and insurgent bombings.
It took invading US forces just three weeks to defeat Saddam's forces and topple his regime on April 9, 2003.
On that day, US Marines put a rope around the neck of a giant statue of Saddam in Baghdad's Firdaus Square, pulling it down in an act that symbolized the fall of the dictator. A jubilant Iraqi crowd "insulted" the fallen statue by smacking its face with their shoes.
But five years later the American military and Baghdad's new Shiite-led regime are still battling to curb the bloodshed that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than four million.
More than 700 people have been killed in a fortnight of clashes between Shiite militiamen and Iraqi and
US forces in Baghdad, the southern port city of Basra and other Shiite regions.
Fears of an increase in the violence ran deep after the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, angered by attacks on his militiamen, threatened to end the truce his feared Mahdi Army militia has been observing since August.
US commanders acknowledge that the cease-fire was one of the factors behind a sharp drop in violence across Iraq in the second half of last year.
Although US President George W. Bush insisted in March that toppling Saddam was the "right decision", his commanders are finding it difficult to bring stability to Iraq despite last year's strategy of "surging" an extra 30,000 troops.
The senior US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, urged in testimony to the US Congress last Tuesday that further withdrawals of troops should be held off for at least 45 days after completing the withdrawal of the surge forces by July.
Petraeus said the surge had helped make "significant but uneven" progress in Iraq, while Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador in Baghdad, warned that those achievements were "reversible".
For Iraqis, the five years since the ouster of Saddam has been a period of turmoil and bloodletting.
"When I saw the American tanks roll into Baghdad, I was happy and full of dreams... dreams of a prosperous Iraq, a developed Iraq. But since then it has become a nightmare of suffering and destruction", mused Sarah Youssef, 25.
The war has killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians since the US-led invasion. Between 104,000 and 223,000 people died from March 2003 to June 2006 alone, according to the World Health Organization.
Iraqis, US and allied forces also face daily attacks from insurgents and Islamist militants, and fighting continues between factions from both sides of Iraq's Sunnite-Shiite sectarian divide.
More than 4,200 US and allied soldiers have also lost their lives in the conflict.
The joyful songs that greeted the American tanks when they reached Baghdad have long since become cries of hatred.
Gone are the jubilant cheers of "Good, Good, Bush!" praising the US president for ousting the regime. Angry chants of "Down with Bush" are a frequent background to daily violence.
On the streets of Baghdad, fear of Saddam's hated secret police has been replaced by a new terror. In the United States, the war is deeply unpopular and has emerged as one of the key factors in this year's presidential election campaign.
Majeed Hameed, a gift shop owner in Baghdad's northern Antar Square, said the American tanks rolling on the streets of Baghdad are now seen as "enemy" forces.
"We can't describe how savage these barbarians are whose promises were false and full of lies. They came to occupy and cause destruction. We got nothing but disaster", Hameed exclaimed.
"Five years of suffering are enough. I think it is really enough for us to understand that they [the Americans] must leave and not return. We should understand that they destroyed us. They looted us".
Last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the plight of millions of Iraqis who still have little or no access to clean water, sanitation or health care was the "most critical in the world".
The economy, the main concern of Iraqis after security, is also a wreck. Unemployment is running at between 25 and 50 percent, according to government figures.
Oil exports, the country's main money-earner, are a key source of contention between rival political factions.
Iraqi officials say production is at 2.9 million barrels per day, higher than pre-war levels when Saddam's Iraq was under UN sanctions. Oil analysts believe it is really around 2.2 million.
Public services like water and electricity have not yet been fully restored, despite billions of dollars having been spent on often badly managed reconstruction projects.
Political progress in Iraq 'halting and superficial'
According to a report by American security experts published last week, the United States faces the risk of a costly, open-ended quagmire in Iraq because of a lack of political progress in the divided country.
"Political progress is so slow, halting and superficial, and social and political fragmentation so pronounced, that the US is no closer to being able to leave Iraq than it was a year ago", said the US Institute of Peace (USIP) study, which came ahead of testimony to committees of both houses of Congress by Petraeus and Crocker, their first such report in seven months.
The American commitment to Iraq "carries a massive cost, both human and financial", in addition to the global interests the US is sacrificing, it added.
"Even if progress in Iraq continues", USIP said, "the results may not be worth the cost".
The report, which also offered options for future US policy, was produced by the same experts who advised the earlier Iraq Study Group, which delivered its findings to President George W. Bush and Congress in December 2006.
That bipartisan group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former lawmaker Lee Hamilton, called for beginning a phased withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq and a diplomatic opening to Syria and Iran.
While acknowledging that security has improved partly due to the "surge" of some 30,000 additional US forces in Iraq, the USIP report said the situation remains tenuous and that Washington enjoys little leverage with the Baghdad government.
"The reduced level of violence, still far short of the needs of both Iraqis and Americans, leaves the situation fragile and dependent on the presence of US forces", it said.
"Without political progress, the US risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world".
The study said it could take five to ten years of a "full, unconditional US commitment to Iraq" before serious political progress took root.
Iraq was plagued by "a weak and divided central government with limited governing capacity" and it was unlikely the situation would improve anytime soon.
"In part because the US has not imposed any conditions for its support of the Iraqi government, it has little leverage over its decisions", the study said.
The long-term effect on stability from Iraq's recent crackdown on Shiite militias in Southern Basra "remains to be seen", USIP said. "If successful, the effect should be largely positive ... If it fails, the government may be perceived as weak".
The expert panel says if the United States decides to maintain its "full and unconditional" commitment to Iraq, it could either focus more effort on building up local authorities or seek out a "grand bargain" at the national level to forge a consensus among rival factions on key disputes.
"The minimum acceptable outcome to justify continued US support, is a highly decentralized Iraq with a central government performing only two critical functions: revenue distribution and national-level security", USIP said.
If Washington chose to reduce the US presence in Iraq, the study sets out two options. The first would be to tie the American role to a decentralization of power to the provinces, with Baghdad overseeing the distribution of oil revenue and maintaining an effective, non-sectarian army.
The second option, according to the study, would involve an unconditional "near-total" withdrawal of US troops in Iraq and a renewed focus on diplomacy to rebuild regional alliances.
Under this scenario, troops would be redeployed in the Gulf, allowing for intervention in Iraq if necessary.
The report said the expert panel was divided over the best way to proceed in Iraq.
As to the testimony of Petraeus and Crocker, USIP recommended lawmakers posed a series of questions, including how the US could increase its flagging leverage over the Iraqi government, and would a scheduled US troop withdrawal "focus Iraqi minds?"
Petraeus: A pause in troop withdrawals
In his testimony to Congress on April 8, Petraeus called for US troop withdrawals to be frozen for at least 45 days after July, warning military gains remained fragile and accusing Iran of seeking to stoke violence.
He recommended to lawmakers that once the last of the 30,000 extra troops pumped into Iraq last year are withdrawn in July "we undertake a 45-day period of consolidation and evaluation".
Dressed in his uniform with medals, the four-star general warned that while security has improved, "we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible".
"While security has improved in many areas, and the Iraqi security forces are shouldering more of the load, the situation in Iraq remains exceedingly complex and challenging", Petraeus told senators.
US forces could face a resurgence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or see more fighting with the Shiite militias such as those led by Moktada al-Sadr, he said, accusing Iran of playing a destructive role in Iraq by "arming, training and directing" Shiite militias.
But amid a flare-up of violence in Iraq, Democrats charged that Petraeus was seeking a blank check to commit troops indefinitely to an unpopular war.
The pair returned to Capitol Hill on April 9 to testify in the House of Representatives.
The US military is currently withdrawing five combat brigades sent into Iraq early last year.
But the general's testimony left unanswered how long a pause would be required and whether US forces would remain at about 140,000 troops, the pre-surge level.
Crocker dismissed notions that the US was seeking to establish permanent bases in Iraq through an agreement currently being negotiated between Washington and Baghdad to keep US forces in the country beyond 2008, once a UN mandate expires.
"The agreement will not establish permanent bases in Iraq, and... it will not tie the hands of the next Administration".
But Crocker conceded that in sections of the country like Basra, "with scenes of increasing violence, and masked gunmen in the streets, it is hard to see how this situation supports a narrative of progress in Iraq", Crocker said.
Democrats fear a 'quagmire'
Following the testimony by Petraeus and Crocker, anti-war Democrats accused the White House of plotting to saddle the next president with a "quagmire" in Iraq.
President Bush's spokeswoman meanwhile left little doubt that he would back the general's call for freezing US troop withdrawals for at least 45 days after July in a national speech on Iraq policy.
Bush was also set to announce a return to shorter 12-month tours for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, ending 15-month tours that have strained the force, a US defense official said speaking on condition of anonymity.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not wait for Bush to speak, demanding changes to a war plan that looks set in stone for the rest of this presidency.
"When violence is up, the president says we cannot bring our troops home. When violence dips, the president says we cannot bring our troops home.
"President Bush has an exit strategy for just one man himself on January 20, 2009".
The hearings were the latest political flashpoint over Bush's troop surge strategy and a war stretching into its sixth year.
Petraeus picked his way through a political minefield on day two of the Iraq war hearings, and was asked how he would respond to a future president who demanded a withdrawal from Iraq.
"I can only serve one boss at a time, and I can only execute one policy at a time", he said. "I am sworn to the concept of civilian control of the military; I fully support it. And we execute the mission that we have at that time".
The exchange reflected the difficulty Democrats have had in attacking Petraeus and Crocker, who have emerged as the main defenders of Bush's policy, even though their jobs are apolitical.
The three senators running for president took the row over Iraq back out onto the campaign trail.
Republican John McCain, a strong war supporter, rejected Democrat Barack Obama's suggestion that the United States should talk to its sworn foe Iran over stabilizing Iraq, as part of a regional "diplomatic" surge.
The other Democrat, Hillary Clinton, demanded answers from Bush on Iraq, while campaigning in Pennsylvania, and said Congress must approve any long-term deal with Baghdad on stationing US forces in the country.
"What is our end game in Iraq given the failure of the surge to achieve the objective that the president outlined for it?", she said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
Both Clinton and Obama have pledged to bring US troops home if elected.
© Monday Morning 2008
