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Iraq: When Should US Troops Leave?

By Stephen1 Shalom

Monday, February 04, 2008

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[This is the footnoted version of a presentation given to the Bloomfield/Glen Ridge Caucus organized by Bloomfield and Glen Ridge Peace Action, February 2, 2008]

Everyone who isn't a total flunky of the Bush administration knows that the war in Iraq has been based on lies.

In fact, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism, in the two years following 9-11 top administration officials told 935 lies about the national security threat posed by Iraq.¹

But many people of good will wonder: even if the war was the result of lies, even if the US invasion was unjust and illegal, what do we do now? Does the "Pottery Barn rule" so often mentioned by Colin Powell -- we broke it, we own it -- apply. And if we own it, what do we do with it?

Well, in fact the Pottery Barn denies it has such a rule, but in any case the so-called Pottery Barn rule has no moral standing. The colonial powers ravaged Africa: but that didn't give them the right to own it and decide its future. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but this didn't give them right to decide the fate of those countries.

As Noam Chomsky has noted, an invader has no rights, only obligations.² The only people with rights in Iraq are the Iraqi people. What do they think should happen? This ought to be at least the starting point for our inquiry.

Now the problem of course is that it's not so easy to ascertain the views of Iraqis -- after all, Iraq today is a non-functioning society, in the midst of massive violence, with more than one out of every seven Iraqis displaced -- either within the country or as a refugee. Town meetings are not easily organized in Iraq. Participatory democracy doesn’t flourish amidst car-bombs and air-strikes.

Nevertheless, we do have some indication of what Iraqis think. For example, focus groups of Iraqis were organized for the U.S. military this past November. According to a report in the Washington Post, which was able to obtain a summary of the results,

"Iraqis of all sectarian and ethnic groups believe that the U.S. military invasion is the primary root of the violent differences among them, and see the departure of 'occupying forces' as the key to national reconciliation...."³

Pentagon analysts said they thought this was good news because it indicated that Iraqis held some "shared beliefs" that might eventually allow them to surmount the divisions that have led to a civil war. It is indeed good news for Iraqis, but needless to say it's not much of an endorsement of the US military presence.

We don't have many details of the focus group findings, but there have been a variety of public opinion polls that have been carried out in Iraq -- by different polling companies -- that are consistent with one another and with the US military focus group results.

If you look at the tables I distributed, you'll see (in Table 1) that as of the latest poll in August 2007, 47 percent of Iraqis want US forces to leave immediately⁴; more than half of the Arab population -- that is, the Sunni Arabs and the Shia Arabs, excluding the Kurds -- supports immediate withdrawal,⁵ and the Kurds of course are the one group who do not have US troops in their region. The sentiment in favor of withdrawal is strongest in Anbar province, where US officials are so proud of their new relationship with some Sunni tribes.⁶ Table 2 shows that 79 percent of the population, including 84 percent of the Shiite Arabs and 98 percent of the Sunni Arabs, oppose the presence of "coalition" forces in Iraq.

Table 1: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007

How long do you think US and other coalition forces should remain in Iraq? They should:

	8/24/2007				3/5/2007				11/22/2005
	All	Sunni	Shiite	Kurd	All	Sunni	Shiite	Kurd	All
Leave now	47	72	44	8	35	55	28	11	26
Remain until security is restored	34	27	38	36	38	41	39	28	31
Remain until the Iraqi government is stronger†	10	*	10	28	14	3	18	28	19
Remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently	7	1	6	18	11	1	13	24	16
Remain longer, but leave eventually	2	0	1	8	2	*	2	7	3
Never leave	*	0	*	2	1	0	*	2	1
No opinion	*	*	*	1	*	0	*	*	4

* Less than 0.5 percent.
† In 2005, "Remain until the Iraqi government elected in December is in place"

Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 21, pp. 25-26, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

Table 2: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007

Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq?

	--------Support--------			---------Oppose--------			No
	NET	Strongly	Somewhat	NET	Somewhat	Strongly	opin.
8/24/2007	21	5	16	79	26	53	*
Sunni	2	*	1	98	25	73	0
Shiite	16	2	15	84	30	54	0
Kurdish	70	21	48	29	20	9	1
3/5/2007	22	6	16	78	32	46	*
Sunni	3	*	3	97	29	68	0
Shiite	17	2	15	83	39	44	0
Kurdish	75	28	47	25	21	4	*
11/22/2005	32	13	19	65	21	44	3
2/28/2004	39	13	26	51	20	31	10

* Less than 0.5 percent.

Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 19, pp. 24-25, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

Because these data are from August, the fraction saying that the US surge increased security has probably gone up from the 12-18 percent shown in Table 3. In December deaths were down -- but one of the reasons for that is that huge swaths of Baghdad have undergone ethnic cleansing -- perhaps 700,000 people have fled or been driven out of the capital⁷ -- so there simply aren't as many potential victims. In January deaths started upwards again, both for Iraqi civilians and US soldiers, but in any case they are lower than in mid-2007. But look at item "c" of table 3, which poses the crucial question: What has the impact of the surge been on the conditions for political dialogue in Iraq. 10 percent think the surge has improved things, 70 percent think it's made thinks worse. And this is true across the ethnic and sectarian divide.

Table 3: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007

As you may know, the United States has increased the number of its forces in Baghdad and surrounding provinces in the past six months. For each item I read, please tell me if you think this increase in US forces has made it better, made it worse, or had no effect.

Do you think this increase in US forces has made [read category] better, worse, or had no effect?

8/24/2007	Better	Worse	Had no effect	No opinion

a. Security in areas where these forces have been sent	18	70	11	*
Sunni	6	89	6	0
Shiite	22	66	11	*
Kurdish	33	43	23	1
b. Security in other areas of Iraq	12	68	20	*
Sunni	5	86	9	0
Shiite	13	64	23	*
Kurdish	22	48	28	2
c. Conditions for political dialogue in Iraq	10	70	20	*
Sunni	1	85	14	0
Shiite	12	66	22	*
Kurdish	20	55	24	1
d. The ability of the Iraqi government to carry out its work.	12	65	22	*
Sunni	2	79	19	0
Shiite	16	63	21	0
Kurdish	22	47	30	1
e. The pace of reconstruction in Iraq	9	67	24	*
Sunni	3	78	19	0
Shiite	11	66	23	0
Kurdish	11	52	37	1
f. The pace of economic development in Iraq	6	67	26	*
Sunni	3	79	18	*
Shiite	9	67	24	*
Kurdish	5	49	45	1

* Less than 0.5 percent.
Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 20, p. 25, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

Table 4 shows that Iraqis are four times as likely to think that US forces make security worse than that they make it better, and Table 5 indicates that 57 percent of Iraqis, including 93 percent of Sunni Arabs and half of the Shia Arabs, think that attacks on coalition forces are acceptable, while substantial majorities of all groups oppose attacks on Iraqi government forces. As Table 6 shows, Iraqis have much more confidence in the Iraqi Army, the police, and even militias than they do in the US and British occupation forces.

Table 4: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007
Overall, do you think the presence of US forces in Iraq is making security in our country better, worse, or having no effect on the situation?
	Better	Worse	No effect	No opinion
8/24/2007	18	72	9	*
Sunni	2	95	3	0
Shiite	17	73	10	0
Kurdish	53	28	17	2
3/5/2007	21	69	10	*
Sunni	2	94	4	0
Shiite	19	71	10	*
Kurdish	67	15	18	0
* Less than 0.5 percent.
Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 22, p. 26, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

Table 5: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007
Thinking about the political action of other people, do you find each of these items to be acceptable or not acceptable?
a. Attacks on coalition forces	Accept-	Not	No
	able	acceptable	opinion
8/24/2007	57	43	*
Sunni	93	7	*
Shiite	50	50	0
Kurdish	5	94	1
3/5/2007	51	49	*
Sunni	94	6	0
Shiite	35	65	*
Kurdish	7	93	0
2/28/2004	17	78	5
b. Attacks on Iraqi government forces	Accept-	Not	No
	able	acceptable	opin.
8/24/2007	7	93	*
Sunni	18	82	0
Shiite	2	98	*
Kurdish	2	97	1
3/5/2007	12	88	0
Sunni	34	66	0
Shiite	1	99	0
Kurdish	1	99	0
* Less than 0.5 percent.
Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 23, pp. 26-27, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

Table 6: Iraqi Public Opinion, August 2007
I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, please tell me if you have a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence, or none at all...

	-------Confident--------			---Not confident---			No
	Net	Great deal	A lot	Net	Not much	None	Opinion
The Iraqi Army
8/24/2007	67	23	43	33	21	12	0
Sunni	34	7	27	66	34	32	0
Shiite	84	29	54	16	15	1	0
Kurdish	80	38	43	20	16	4	0
The Police
8/24/2007	69	33	36	31	17	15	0
Sunni	37	9	28	63	26	37	0
Shiite	84	43	40	16	12	4	0
Kurdish	86	47	39	14	11	3	0
US & UK Occupation Forces
8/24/2007	14	4	11	86	27	58	0
Sunni	1	*	1	99	19	79	0
Shiite	9	1	8	91	32	59	0
Kurdish	53	18	34	47	30	17	0
3/5/2007	18	6	12	82	30	52	*
Sunni	3	0	3	97	18	80	0
Shiite	12	3	9	88	42	46	0
Kurdish	67	26	41	33	24	9	*
11/22/2005	18	7	11	78	23	55	5
2/28/2004	25	8	17	66	23	43	8
11/15/2003	19	7	12	71	20	52	9
Local Leaders in Your Community
8/24/2007	46	11	36	53	34	20	*
Sunni	20	1	19	80	41	39	0
Shiite	56	11	46	43	33	10	*
Kurdish	72	30	42	28	19	9	*
National Government of Iraq
8/24/2007	39	11	28	61	31	30	0
Sunni	4	1	3	96	32	64	0
Shiite	58	17	41	42	30	12	0
Kurdish	54	13	41	46	31	15	0
3/5/2007	49	18	31	51	27	24	0
Sunni	8	1	7	92	36	56	0
Shiite	72	30	42	28	22	6	0
Kurdish	73	18	55	27	19	8	0
11/22/2005	53	23	30	41	25	16	6
Local Militia in this Area
8/24/2007	24	11	13	68	26	43	8
Sunni	2	*	1	93	27	66	6
Shiite	32	12	20	67	30	36	1
Kurdish	41	28	13	24	13	11	35

* = less than 0.5 percent

Source: ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release after 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, Question 14, pp. 22-23, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1043a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

In September 2006, Iraqis were asked whether they considered the US military "a stabilizing force" or "provoking more conflict than it is preventing." Three to one, they chose the second option, with Shia taking this view more than four to one and Sunnis fifty to one (Table 7). Shia and Sunni Arabs both also expected inter-ethnic violence to be more likely to decrease rather than increase if the US withdrew (Table 8).⁸

Table 7: Iraqi Public Opinion, September 2006

Do you think the US military in Iraq is currently:

	Overall	Shia Arab	Sunni Arab	Kurd
A stabilizing force	21	17	2	56
Provoking more conflict than it is preventing	78	82	97	41

Source: WorldPublicOpinion.org and Program on International Policy Attitudes, "The Iraqi Public on the US Presence and the Future of Iraq," Sept. 27, 2006, p. 5, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf

Table 8: Iraqi Public Opinion, September 2006
If US-led forces withdraw from Iraq in the next six months, do you think the amount of inter-ethnic violence will increase a lot, increase a little, decrease a little, decrease a lot, or have no effect either way?
	Overall	Shia Arab	Sunni Arab	Kurd
Increase a lot	16	17	4	26
Increase a little	22	22	22	22
No effect either way	4	5	2	6
Decrease a little	23	23	25	18
Decrease a lot	35	34	47	29
Source: WorldPublicOpinion.org and Program on International Policy Attitudes, "The Iraqi Public on the US Presence and the Future of Iraq," Sept. 27, 2006, p. 6, http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf

Now it might be argued that the elected government of the Iraqi people wants the US troops -- the Iraqi defense minister recently said they were needed until 2018 or 2020⁹ -- so the wishes of the Iraqi people are being met. There are two problems with this view. First, the prime minister does not -- according to the Iraqi constitution -- have the right to decide these things on his own: there's a parliament and the parliament has passed a law demanding that the prime minister get parliamentary approval before extending the stay of US forces.¹⁰ Moreover, a majority of the parliamentarians signed a statement calling for the setting of a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops,¹¹ something both President Bush and Prime Minister al-Maliki oppose doing. Second, while it would be wrong to characterize the Iraqi government as a US puppet, it would also be wrong to consider it a fully sovereign entity. For example, in August, US forces launched an attack against Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, but the Iraqi Ministry of Defense says it neither authorized nor was even informed of the operation. As the Washington Post reported, "Just as it has done after similar raids in the past, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said Wednesday that it had no knowledge of the American attack in Sadr City."¹² As Table 9 shows, when Iraqis are asked who controls things in Iraq, six out of ten say the United States, rather than the Iraqi government.

Table 9: Iraqi Public Opinion, March 2007
Who do you think currently controls things in Iraq?
	Overall	Shia Arab	Sunni Arab	Kurd
Iraqi Government	34	50	7	49
United States	59	44	88	42
Someone Else	4	3	2	7
No One	3	2	3	2

Source: ABC News/USA Today/BBC/ARD Poll – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, March 19, 2007, "Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss Marks a National Survey of Iraq," Question 23, p. 27, http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/1033aIraqpoll.pdf.

There is no doubt that relations between Shia and Sunni in Iraq are horrendous -- and there are also bloody conflicts involving Kurds and within both the Sunni and Shia communities. The question is, does the US military presence help bring these groups together? Bush trumpeted the progress in his State of the Union message.¹³ The Iraqi parliament, he boasted, passed a law revising the de-Baathification program, one of the "benchmarks." But what he didn't tell us is that Sunni legislators voted against the bill because they thought it made things worse. It's a strange reform indeed whose supposed beneficiaries oppose it.¹⁴

The US presence, in fact, probably delays any possible reconciliation between the various Iraqi parties. As long as US troops are around, there is no need for the Iraqis to make the tough decisions and compromises that peace requires. John McCain says it's OK with him if US troops stay a hundred, or even a thousand or a million years,¹⁵ but in any case, public opinion polls show that Iraqis think the US is planning to stay permanently¹⁶ -- and if you saw some of those US bases, you'd think that too. And just this past week, President Bush issued a "signing statement" when he approved the military budget indicating that, among other provisions of the law that he would not follow was a prohibition against spending money on permanent US bases.¹⁷

As soon as the United States announces that it's leaving, however, and sets a date for doing so, suddenly things change. Now the Iraqis know that they can put off reconciliation no longer. Nothing focuses the mind so much as the necessity of avoiding chaos.¹⁸

I don't mean to suggest that things will become idyllic in the event of a US withdrawal. But the crucial point to keep in mind is that things are far from idyllic with the US there. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died over the five years that US troops have been present in the country.¹⁹ Withdrawal is not a strategy for miracles in Iraq, but for offering some chance to improve things there. Calling for withdrawal, however, does not mean callously leaving the Iraqis to their fate. There are several things that the United States can do and should do to ease the transition.

First, the United States can encourage Iraq's neighbors to support reconciliation within Iraq. If external powers pursue destabilizing policies -- for example, permitting the entry of combatants or weapons into Iraq -- things will be much worse. But the current policy of the United States is exactly the opposite of what is needed to move Iraq's neighbors to encourage stability. Washington has been urging its Sunni Arab allies to mobilize against Iran. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to have been succeeding. As the headline in the Star Ledger read this past Sunday, "Bush fails to convince Arab states about Iran." "Sunni Arab regimes," notes the article, "aren't confronting Iran, as the US would like."²⁰ Iraq's neighbors won't support a stable Iraq unless they think it's in their interest to do so. If there's a confrontation between the Sunni Arab states and Iran, there's a high likelihood of their competing via their Iraqi proxies. Trying to isolate Iran, trying to subvert Iran, declaring its Quds Force a terrorist organization, threatening Iran with military attack, refusing to take the military option off the table: all these will surely make Tehran less inclined to promote peace in Iraq.

It is not enough to say, as some candidates do, that they will urge neighboring countries to adhere to a policy of non-intervention in Iraq. For this to have any credibility, for it to have any impact, it's necessary that the United States first commit itself to a policy of non-interference in Iraq. If Washington is plotting in Iraq against the interests of Iran or other regional states, it won't be surprising if these states meddle as well.

Second, if the Iraqi people want some sort of international force to help them maintain order as they reconstitute their society after decades of Saddam Hussein's crushing dictatorship and five years of a murderous occupation, they have every right to do so. However, few countries -- except for various US poodles -- want to send peacekeepers to Iraq today, because they know full well that they will be seen as -- and will in fact be -- fronting for a US occupation. But once the occupation is truly over, other countries may well be more willing to offer assistance to Iraq. And, of course, the United States ought to subsidize any peacekeepers in Iraq. That might be costly, but, remember, invaders have no rights, just responsibilities, and paying for the peacekeepers in a society one has devastated is one of those responsibilities.

Several non-neighboring Muslim countries have previously offered peacekeeping troops, but they insisted that they be under UN, not US, command. In 2004, Colin Powell rejected such an offer, demanding that any troops take orders from Washington. But these countries don't want to be part of the occupation, they don't want to add their troops to those of the US and Britain; they want to replace occupation troops with peacekeeping troops.²¹ With peacekeepers coming from non-neighboring states, there'd be less danger of hidden agendas. Muslim peacekeepers -- and they could be balanced between Sunni and Shia personnel -- would also have a cultural understanding that US troops lack.

Why not let US troops serve as the peacekeeping force? There are two primary reasons. First, the motives of a country that has invaded another country are inherently suspect. We wouldn't want Soviet troops to serve as peacekeepers in 1970s Czechoslovakia, or Israeli troops in Lebanon, or Indonesian troops in East Timor. In the case of the United States in Iraq, its ulterior motives are rather obvious. “Of course it’s about oil," said retired Iraq commander General John Abizaid. "[W]e can’t really deny that.”²² Or as former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan wrote, "[I]t is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."²³ And in Bush's signing statement earlier this week, he indicated that he would refuse to abide by the prohibition on spending funds aimed at "United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."²⁴

Moreover, the Iraqi people know this. A poll was conducted in Baghdad as far back as November 2003 and people were asked why the US invaded. One percent said the war was waged for democracy; 5 percent said it was to help Iraqis; 4 percent said it was to destroy weapons of mass destruction; but a plurality, 43 percent, said the motive was to “rob Iraq’s oil.”²⁵ Nothing the United States has done since then is likely to have changed this view.

Iraqi suspicions of US motives lead to the second reason why the United States is one of the last countries you'd want as a peacekeeper. Peacekeepers tend to be lightly armed. They're not combat troops because in general people aren't shooting at them. Their mission is to separate combatants. But if 57 percent of Iraqis think that attacks on US troops are justified, then is it any wonder that US soldiers are not suitable for a peacekeeping role?

A third thing that needs to be done is to facilitate internal negotiations among the contending Iraqi political forces. Often the good offices of an outside party are helpful to the negotiating process, as in Northern Ireland. But the United States does not have the credibility in Iraq -- given its sorry record in that country -- to serve as that neutral arbiter. The United Nations or the Organization of the Islamic Conference should serve in this role, and if financial resources are needed to help grease the negotiations, as they often are, the United States ought to provide them.

A fourth thing the United States can do to help mitigate any adverse consequences of its withdrawal is increase its piddling refugee admission policy. There are two million displaced Iraqis and the US let in a total of 1,075 last fiscal year (despite promising to admit 7,000).²⁶ Some of the people who worked for the US occupation forces in Iraq are likely to be in danger, as are some women's rights and labor activists. Instead of keeping 150,000 troops there to protect them, they must be granted asylum.

So when and how should US troops leave Iraq?

That someone favors some small reduction in the number of US forces in Iraq is not evidence of support for withdrawal. In his State of the Union this past week, Bush announced a minor drawdown of US troops, to levels still higher than before the surge began, a drawdown driven by Pentagon complaints of troop shortages. This does not constitute withdrawal.

But nor do many other withdrawal plans actually constitute withdrawal. It's not that the troops have to leave over night. If the United States announced today that it was leaving, the logistics of moving 150,000 soldiers would take awhile, perhaps several months, though not the several years that some suggest.²⁷ What is essential is that the United States declare immediately its political decision to completely and promptly withdraw its troops. Then the exact logistical details for an orderly and prompt withdrawal can be worked out together with the Iraqi government. But many supposed withdrawal plans in fact allow for retaining substantial US military personnel in Iraq. If you call for removing just the "combat units," you're leaving behind some 70,000 troops. That is not withdrawal. If you leave behind advisers and a strike force, that too is not withdrawal.

Some call for beginning the process of withdrawal now,²⁸ but unless you make clear that this is to be a short-term process, it won't mean very much. And when candidates are not willing to guarantee that US troops will be all out by the end of their first term,²⁹ this obviously does not constitute withdrawal.

Some suggest "redeploying" US forces to Kuwait or to just over the horizon, so they can re-intervene in Iraq. But Iraq isn't ours to intervene in. And a US over-the-horizon presence is still going to lead other regional states to feel the US threat and feel the need to counter it. Removing US troops from Iraq so they can intervene in Iran, for example, would be no contribution to peace. The troops need to be brought home and demobilized.

Some suggest reducing the US troop presence by relying more on airpower, perhaps based outside Iraq. This will reduce US casualties, but it would likely increase Iraqi casualties, given the imprecision of even "smart" bombs. In fact, the United States has already been sharply expanding its air war in Iraq.³⁰ And the number of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces -- a certainly underreported phenomenon -- increased 70 percent from 2006 to 2007.³¹ And each civilian killed, of course, generates more support for the insurgency. If our opposition is not just to US casualties, but to what we're doing to Iraqis, then we need to oppose this sort of withdrawal as well.

Since the US has no rights in Iraq, it needs to withdraw all its troops, all its military contractors, and all its coalition forces. Any oil contracts that have been signed during the occupation, any sweetheart deals with Halliburton and others, and all laws that were enacted by the US occupation authorities, need to be abrogated and made subject to Iraqi decision.

In addition, the United States needs to provide massive reparations to the Iraqi people for the incredible devastation it has caused in their country, from intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf war, to the decade-long murderous sanctions, to the latest war and occupation. Some critics of the Iraq war point to all the good things we could have done and could do with the one to two trillion dollars spent on the war. That's true enough, but we need to be clear that first dibs on that money belongs to the Iraqi people, as compensation for the harm we have caused them.

There are no guarantees in life. But the best hope for the Iraqi people is the course suggested here -- complete withdrawal of US troops and contractors, announced and initiated immediately and carried out on a prompt time table, and supported by international and regional diplomacy, backed by a different kind of US foreign policy, a democratic and non-militaristic foreign policy -- with substantial US reparations, and if desired by the Iraqis, international peacekeepers but not the US military.

Happily, such a course would also be in the best interests of the American people.

Notes

1. A searchable database is available.

2. Chomsky has said this often. See, for example, his "Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities," Monthly Review, vol. 59, no. 2, June 2007.

3. Karen DeYoung, "All Iraqi Groups Blame U.S. Invasion for Discord, Study Shows," Washington Post, Dec. 19, 2007; Page A14.

4. This 47 percent is a plurality, though the other choices may unfairly divide the opponents of this view. However, we can assume that many of those favoring the other options want a short timeline for withdrawal (an option that wasn't offered in this poll). A September 2006 poll asked Iraqi respondents "Which of the following would you like the Iraqi government to ask the US-led forces to do?" 71 percent wanted these forces to leave within either 6 months (37 percent) or 12 months (34 percent), with 20 percent choosing 2 years and 9 percent choosing "Only reduce as the security situation improves." (WorldPublicOpinion.org and Program on International Policy Attitudes, "The Iraqi Public on the US Presence and the Future of Iraq," Sept. 27, 2006, p. 4 [hereafter cited as WPO/PIPA, Sept. 2006].)

5. Using the proportion of each ethnic group found in the survey (48 percent Shia Arabs, 33 percent Sunni Arabs, 16 percent Kurds, and 3 percent other; see ABC NEWS/BBC/NHK POLL – Iraq: Where Things Stand, Embargoed For Release After 7 a.m. Monday, Sept. 10, 2007, Iraqis’ Own Surge Assessment: Few See Security Gains, p. 13, [hereafter cited as ABC News, Sept. 2007]) we can compute that 55 percent of the Arab population supports immediate withdrawal.

6. "Desire for the United States to 'leave now' is highest in Anbar, still deeply anti-American despite any accommodation its leaders have made with the U.S. military." ABC News, Sept. 2007, p. 10.

7. Juan Cole, "Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2007," Informed Comment blog, Dec. 26, 2007.

8. In August 2007, Iraqis were asked what they thought the impact would be of US withdrawal before civil order was fully restored. Just over a third thought this would make full-scale civil war more likely, but almost half thought it would make it less likely. Among Shiites, 55 percent thought it would be less likely compared to 20 percent who thought it would be more likely. ABC News, Sept. 2007, Question 35a, p. 32.

9. Thom Shanker, "Minister Sees Need for U.S. Help in Iraq Until 2018," New York Times, Jan. 15, 2008.

10. Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, "Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation," AlterNet, June 5, 2007.

11. Joshua Partlow, "Iraqi Lawmakers Back Bill on U.S. Withdrawal; Kirk Semple, "Iraq Petition Presses for Withdrawal of U.S. Troops," New York Times, May 11, 2007.," Washington Post, May 11, 2007; A12

12. Charles Crain, "Making a Move Against Shi'ite Militias," Time, Aug. 8, 2007, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1651031,00.html

13. George W. Bush, State of the Union speech, Jan. 28, 2008.

14. See Juan Cole, "Informed Comment," blog, Jan. 26, 2008.

15. See Matt Corley's blog for the Center for American Progress, "McCain Flip Flops Again: 100 Years In Iraq ‘Would Be Fine With Me,’ Even ‘A Million Years’," Jan. 4, 2008 (accessed 1/30/08).

16. WPO/PIPA, Sept. 2006.

17. Charlie Savage, "In signing statement, Bush looks to bypass four laws," Boston Globe, Jan. 29, 2008.

18. Asked in September 2006, "If the US made a commitment to withdraw from Iraq according to a timeline do you think this would strengthen the Iraqi government, weaken it, or have no effect either way?" 53 percent of Iraqis said it would strengthen the government, compared to 23 percent who said it would weaken it. This sentiment was strongest among Shia Arabs, 60 percent of whom said strengthen and only 18 percent said weaken. (WPO/PIPA, Sept. 2006, p. 4.)

19. The death toll is controversial. The lowest figures -- 81,000-88,000 as of Feb. 1, 2008 -- come from Iraq Body Count, which tallies deaths reporting in two media accounts (since Dec. 2007, credible single-sourced reports are included). Two surveys were done by Johns Hopkins University researchers and published in The Lancet. The second found 650,000 deaths, 600,00 of them violent deaths, from 2003 to mid-2006 (Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey," The Lancet, October 11, 2006). A study done in partnership with the Iraqi government and published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group, "Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006," New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 358, no. 5 [January 31, 2008, found 150,000 deaths through 2006. And the British polling company, ORB, estimated a million deaths.], pp. :484-493

20. Mohamad Bazzi, "Bush fails to convince Arab states about Iran," (Newark) Star Ledger, Jan. 27, 2008, p. II:1.

21. Dilip Hiro, "Healing the wounds," Guardian Comment Is Free, May 19, 2007.

22. Gerry Shih and Susana Montes, "Roundtable debates energy issues," Stanford Daily, Oct. 15, 2007.

23. Quoted in Dilip Hiro, "How the Bush Administration's Iraqi Oil Grab Went Awry," TomDispatch, Sept. 25, 2007. Hiro provides additional evidence of the oil motivation for the war.

24. Savage, "In signing statement, Bush looks to bypass four laws," Boston Globe, Jan. 29, 2008.

25. Walter Pincus, “Skepticism about U.S. Deep, Iraq Poll Shows; Motive for Invasion Is Focus of Doubts,” Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2003, p. A18.

26. Tom A. Peter, "Struggling in the U.S., some Iraqi refugees now want to go back," Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 10, 2008; The Associated Press, "U.S. finally ready to admit more Iraqi refugees, but only a chosen few," International Herald Tribune, May 30, 2007. This paltry number was admitted in response to the revelation of the even smaller numbers previously allowed entry. The number of Iraqis granted asylum in the United States from October 2006 to April 2007 was 68, and in May 2007 there was a grand total of 1. (Neil King Jr. and Yochi J. Dreazen,"Iraqi Refugees Create Quandary; U.S. Admits Only a Handful, Spurring Fresh Political Dueling," Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition), May 24, 2007, p. A6.

27. The time needed for withdrawal will depend on whether the withdrawal is under fire or not. For some discussion, see Neha Inamdar, "U.S. Out of Iraq How?: Interview With Carl Conetta," Mother Jones, October 18 , 2007.

28. For example, Hillary Clinton says "It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month -- but today." (Clinton website, accessed 1/30/08.)

29. See Stephen Zunes, "Hillary Clinton on Iraq," Foreign Policy In Focus, Dec. 10, 2007; and Stephen Zunes, "Barack Obama on the Middle East," Foreign Policy In Focus, Jan. 10, 2008.

30. Anthony H. Cordesman, "US Airpower in Iraq and Afghanistan: 2004-2007," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dec. 13, 2007.

31. Neta C. Crawford, Catherine Lutz, Robert Jay Lifton, Judith L. Herman, Howard Zinn, "The Real 'Surge' of 2007: Non-Combatant Death in Iraq and Afghanistan," Carnegie Council, Jan. 22, 2008.

Stephen R. Shalom teaches political science at William Paterson University in New Jersey. Thanks to Joanne Landy and Joe Fine for their helpful comments.

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