Saturday, Jun 05, 2004
From Mr Steven Morris.
Sir, In your editorial "The alternative is not to cut and run" (May 29) you are right to stress that the US should not merely raise expectations regarding Iraqi self-rule but raise the reality of real sovereignty. Unfortunately what the Bush administration has been saying is rather different from the policies it has been pursuing.
From a declared stance of never negotiating with terrorists or dealing with any remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, the US, for all practical purposes, has surrendered in Falluja to an insurrection by a local militia group. Does this lend credibility to the US claim that it can assure tranquillity when sovereignty is handed to the Iraqis in less than a month?
Once military victory was achieved in Iraq, an administration and governing entity should have been instituted resembling Douglas MacArthur's stewardship in Japan or General Lucius Clay's authority in Germany following the second world war. Instead, Iraq was beset by a series of lurching artifices which had no purposeful conviction.
Speaking to reporters this past week, President Bush appeared almost relieved that the Iraqis had chosen someone other than the American first choice for president of Iraq's incoming government. Last week, deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz could (or would) not answer a simple question about what the US would do if the new Iraqi regime asked it to leave. One can only conclude that the president and his deputy are preparing the groundwork for a US withdrawal despite all the "staying the course" rhetoric to the contrary.
The delusion is that the US will see its responsibilities through in Iraq. The reality appears to be that the US is pursuing a fast-forwarded version of the "Vietnamisation" plan Richard Nixon embarked upon in the 1970s to extricate the US from Vietnam. President Bush is indeed cutting and running. Remember, the presidential election is only five months away.
Steven Morris, East Hampton, NY 11937, US
By STEVEN MORRIS
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