Transcript

Host: This is “On the Line,” and I'm Eric Felten.

A new strategy and higher troop levels have brought some progress in Iraq, says President George W. Bush:

Bush: "Of the eighteen benchmarks Congress asked us to measure, we can report that satisfactory progress is being made in eight areas. For example, Iraqis have provided the three brigades they promised for operations in and around Baghdad. And the Iraqi government is spending nearly $7.3 billion from its own funds this year to train, equip, and modernize its forces. In eight other areas, the Iraqis have much more work to do."

Host: The Iraqi government has been unable to organize local elections. And Iraqi factions have yet to reach an agreement on how to share the country's oil wealth. Mr. Bush says greater success can be achieved:

Bush: "Those who believe that the battle in Iraq is lost will likely point to the unsatisfactory performance on some of the political benchmarks. Those of us who believe the battle in Iraq can and must be won see the satisfactory performance on several of the security benchmarks as a cause for optimism."

Host: Demands are growing from the U-S Congress for a plan to withdraw American troops from Iraq. President Bush is urging continued support for the effort to stabilize the country:

Bush: "What happens in Iraq matters to the United States of America. A violent, chaotic Iraq will affect our security at home. An Iraq that can self-govern, provide basic services to its people, and be an ally in the war on terror will mean that all of us have accepted a great challenge and laid a foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren."

Host: Has there been progress in Iraq? And what can be done about the ongoing high levels of violence? Is political and military success still possible there? I'll ask my guests: James Robbins, Director of the Intelligence Center at Trinity Washington University, a Washington correspondent with Time magazine, Brian Bennett, and joining us from our studio in London, Mina Al-Oraibi, a correspondent with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. Welcome. Thanks for joining us today.

Brian Bennett, what are these benchmarks about? Who is being gauged, and what activities are being gauged by these benchmarks?

Bennett: I think if you look at the benchmarks, they basically fall into two categories. One is military and the success or failure of the Iraqi forces to build up, and the other is political -- the success or failure of the Iraqi politicians to come to an agreement on some of the main differences about the sharing of resources in the country. Now, as President Bush said, on the military front, there's actually been some reasonable satisfactory success in building up of Iraqi troops. However, on the political front, there's been absolutely no success in coming to conclusions about some of the tough issues that face the Iraqi politicians, like how to split up the oil wealth, how much power to devolve to the regions. And really, these two issues are combined. And the Bush administration has said that they want the military piece to provide breathing room and the surge to provide breathing room so that these politicians can work out some of these issues that will have a long-term impact on the success of Iraq.

Host: Mina Al-Oraibi, are you there in London?

Al-Oraibi: Yes, Eric, I can hear you.

Host: Yes, what do people in Iraq think of these benchmarks?

Al-Oraibi: If we're talking about the particular report that was issued in July, it's really an American report from the White House to Congress. A lot of people feel that this report doesn't really concern them because it's not about their day-to-day problems, and it's much more about Washington politics. Now, the benchmarks are important, but it's not as neat as saying, "We have eighteen benchmarks. We have military benchmarks. We have political benchmarks.” It's a much more complicated picture. For example, politics and security can't really be divided in Iraq. One of the problems that faces Iraq is the militias. And some of the militias are tied in with groups that are either in government or in Parliament. So, sometimes it's difficult to even know who you're talking about when you talk about those that are causing the violence and those that are in government. I think a lot of people are waiting for the September report because that will mean more details and more analysis on what the military surge has meant. But one thing I think that all Iraqis agree on is that facts on the ground in Baghdad are not necessarily always seen or understood all the way in Washington. And especially with the presidential elections coming up, that takes up a lot more airtime or, let's say, ink in American newspapers than what's happening on the ground in Baghdad.

Host: Jim Robbins, what's your sense of what's happening on the ground in Baghdad, and how does that relate to President Bush's report on these benchmarks?

Robbins: Conditions in Baghdad have been improving somewhat. The report isolates which neighborhoods have shown a lot of improvement, which have only shown a little bit of improvement. And the thinking there is that if the Iraqi government cannot control its own capital, it really can't control the country. So, it's most important to gain control of Baghdad. Even if some violence has been moved around in the country, because insurgents are known to sort of relocate when they get in trouble, so they're going to Kirkuk or wherever to commit violent acts, maintaining control of Baghdad itself is a very important goal in this. But I'd like to expand on something that our guest said from London. You can't separate security and politics in the U-S, either. It's true that you can't separate it in Iraq, and you can't separate it here. So, to say that while the report is just Washington politics, well, Washington politics will determine whether or not the United States stays the course in this conflict. So you can't just write it off and say, “That's not important to people's day-to-day lives.” It may not be important to the day-to-day of someone living in Baghdad, but it is vitally important to the day to day of U-S troops over there of whether they're still going to remain there.

Host: Brian Bennett, what's your sense on that? What's the political situation in Washington, and how is it going to affect the policy going forward?

Bennett: I think that Congressmen are running for high ground right now. They're looking for some way to articulate to the American people and their constituents that they have a plan for how to resolve the situation in Iraq. And the Bush administration is trying to figure that out, too. And they've been pushing off expectations for a shift in strategy until September, when Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are going to give what has been described as a clear-eyed report to Congress. We'll see how that works out. But right now there's intense pressure on politicians in Washington and the administration to come up with some sort of answer they can present to the American people on how we move forward there in Iraq. And the Bush administration so far has been able to push off that expectation until September. We'll have to see what they come up with.

Host: Mina Al-Oraibi, how is the political debate going on in Washington perceived in Iraq? Do people in Iraq see that there is some possibility that the U-S may up and leave Iraq in a precipitous way?

Al-Oraibi: It's really difficult to speak for what all Iraqis think. However, there is a general concern that there is impatience in Washington and rightly so. It's been four-and-a-half years. General citizens understand impatience of American citizens. And also, they're concerned for their boys and girls serving in Iraq. So, it isn't taken lightly. However, one of the problems is that some of the Iraqi politicians -- I don't want to say the majority -- But some of the Iraqi politicians feel like, “Washington doesn't have another choice. Who are they going to put instead of us?” And so, almost relaxed for a while. I think now that the pressure is escalating on them, you will see some changes over the next few weeks. I've spoken to a few people in Baghdad in the last couple of days, asking them how the outcome of the report has affected them. And while they’ve all said that the report is an American report and it is important for the future of the troops staying in Iraq, they’ve said that they understand and they accept the conclusions of the report. And they understand that the onus is on them to move forward. However, there is that problem of how the political process in Iraq was established from the start. This power-sharing agreement, the idea of trying to reach consensus among so many people that hold different political ideologies and different platforms, it’s just not coming together. And over the last few weeks, we've seen so much stalemate in the process. And how that will be resolved in Baghdad will influence the report in September.

Host: Jim Robbins, we see in Washington itself, we don't see any ease of consensus among political parties. And this is someplace where there's security and there's established political debate, et cetera. Are the expectations too high for what Iraqi politicians should be able to achieve on these big questions of how to organize large factions in Iraq?

Robbins: Yes, I think so. We do have political stalemate in this country, so it’s nothing new. This is just part of democracy. If you look at our own constitutional history, the framers of our Constitution put off two big issues. One was Federalism. One was the institution of slavery. because they couldn't resolve them, and so they said, “We’ll take care of it later.” And actually, it took a great war to solve that one. So, when we try to -- or when the administration tries to force Iraqi politicians to come to grips with their own issues of Federalism or with the oil law or other issues that we would like to see them resolve, perhaps we don't understand the complexities that are involved in running a democracy -- a new democracy of this type. I think that on both sides, people have to understand that there's going to be a certain amount of political infighting. And the ends are really unpredictable. We can’t say who the president is going to be a year and a half from now. We can’t say when the troops are going to pull out. And on the Iraqis' side, they can’t say how they're going to resolve the oil law, how they're going to resolve the different regional factions, in terms of whether they’re autonomous or semi-independent or whatever. People have to stop focusing on that and solve the problems that are in front of them right now.

Host: Brian Bennett, let's talk a little bit about the Iraqi military and where that stands. This is one of the key elements that was looked at in the benchmarks. Now, we look at a city in Iraq like Baqubah, where you had had, some time ago, a hand-off to the Iraqi military. And through that, control of the city went to militias and insurgents. And now the U-S military is back in there. The colonel who's leading that effort says, "To make this thing work, it takes competent Iraqi security forces and competent Iraqi government. The drawdown in Baqubah was premature, and the Iraqi forces we handed over to were not ready for that responsibility.” Is that a microcosm of what's going on in Iraq? And does it have any lessons for how to solve the problem?

Bennett: That experience in Baqubah certainly reflects a number of situations like in Fallujah in the early days, where the U-S handed off control to the local authorities, and it devolved into basically a mini city-state for Al-Qaida and insurgents to plan and operate attacks. Particularly Baqubah, which has been declared the capital of the Islamic state in Iraq, which is the umbrella group for al-Qaida in Iraq, that is a very dire example of how when the U-S pulls away from an area, it has in the past, like Tall 'Afar in the north and other cities, become, really, a free no-go zone for Al-Qaida to plan and operate. So, the U-S is back in there, and that's certainly a data point that the American military commanders and the Bush administration are using for why we need to keep combat troops in Iraq for the near and probably far future.

Host: Mini Al-Oraibi, what's your sense in Iraq? Is there a strategy by the Iraqi government on how to get the Iraqi military working without being compromised by militias or infiltrated by insurgents?

Al-Oraibi: The concern about the infiltration of the military and the police has been there for some time. Unfortunately, in the first two years of the establishment of the new regime, the new status quo in Iraq, there wasn't really an appreciation of the dangers of the militias. And while everyone was concerned that no former Iraqi army members joined the new military, very few people actually looked at the problem of the militias. Today, there is a strategy from the Iraqi government to filter through those that are in the army, make sure that they are loyal and so forth. However, we have problems such as government members or government parties having militias who now they say aren't militias, are regulated members of the army. So you have no way of actually knowing the allegiances of these people. Are they actually to the party that they belong to, or are they to the country? And likewise, we have the problem of poverty. I mean, there are people who don't have money, enlist in the police or enlist in the military, don't get a good enough salary, and might actually be compromised by getting money from other forces to actually attack their own people or attack the Americans. There's just one thing I want to go back to that Jim mentioned, and that was relating to the Constitution and how long it took the U-S to come together in terms of a democracy in the country. One of the problems Iraq is facing now is its constitution. The only reason this constitution was ratified was because there was a clause that says, "This constitution is going to be amended.” And for over a year now, they're trying to amend it and make everyone agree on this document to unite the country. And everything from oil to Federalism to all the other sticking points in the political process depend on the amendment of the constitution and an agreement by all sides that this is the constitution that will unite the country. And there still hasn't been any move forward on that. And I think everything else will hinge on the results of those amendments.

Host: Jim Robbins, what's your sense of the likelihood at this point of Iraq being able to be unified, whether it's through a change in the constitution or some other kind of accommodation between Sunni/Shi'a/Kurds?

Robbins: An easy question. And just to observe, it took us four score and seven years, to quote President Lincoln, to get unity in this country. So, the fact that it's been a couple years or a year in Iraq, it may take much longer. I think that unity will come not from within but from threats from without as Iraqis begin to understand that there are other people in the region where they live who do not have their best interests at heart -- some of their neighbors who are helping foment chaos inside the country, international groups like Al-Qaida, who are interested only in their own ends and only in killing people in order to establish this caliphate. Once Iraqis understand that those are the real enemies and start to take concerted action against them and against those who work with them to create this disunity can they really try to achieve some kind of national identity and some kind of national focus. But so long as there are people in the pay of these foreign agents and so long as there are people willing to cooperate with them against Coalition forces, who, more than anything else, want to go home -- I hope people understand that, that they're not an occupying power, that all the Coalition troops and all of the Coalition governments want to bring them home. Until that time, I don't think that they're going to be able to achieve that kind of unity and also until they settle the question of how the profits from energy resources are distributed, because that's really the golden goose in Iraq.

Host: Brian Bennett, is there any kind of exit strategy for the Coalition? And what does it mean in terms of these external players, whether it's Iran or whether it's Al-Qaida?

Bennett: Right now the Bush administration has not articulated an active strategy -- Where the Bush administration is right now is, "We're going to see how the surge goes. We'll try to give the political process some breathing room and revisit that in September, October.” So, right now there's really no official plans. But certainly, as we've seen in reports, the Pentagon is dedicating itself right now, a lot of thinkers and planners, to how a withdrawal would look and what the ramifications would be. Talking to military experts -- Time magazine is writing a story this week about what different withdrawal scenarios would look like. Military experts say that for an orderly withdrawal, you would probably have to do about one brigade per month. And since there are twenty combat brigades in Iraq right now, that would mean an orderly withdrawal of about twenty months. That's the minimum. So, there are people thinking about this, but it's not the official policy of the administration right now.

Host: Mini Al-Oraibi, are people in Iraq thinking about what is likely to happen if the U-S and the Coalition starts to leave, starts to draw down and what that would mean for the Iraqi government?

Al-Oraibi: It would be detrimental. If withdrawal started anytime soon, it would be detrimental. There are those that think that a phased withdrawal over time could be controlled. However, first it would signal that the U-S, so to speak, has given up on Iraq and so is leaving. And those that want to destroy Iraq as we see it today would lie low, wait for them to withdraw, and then come in. And violence would spread throughout the country even more than anything we've seen so far. There is a fear amongst general Iraqi citizens from the withdrawal of American troops. One, there is really a lack of confidence in the Iraqi security forces, not only in protecting the people but even not harming them. And there's a saying that goes in Baghdad that if you get taken by an American patrol, then you're likely to come home. However, if you get taken by an Iraqi patrol, there's a high probability you'll never be seen again. So, there really is a lack of confidence in them. There would be a huge security vacuum. However, long term, people, yes, of course, are thinking this can't be forever. There is the general understanding that there would be permanent bases of one shape or the other for the Coalition, especially for American troops. And while a huge number of Iraqis are opposed to it, a lot of politicians have come to the acceptance that this may be the case. And for quite a few people, this is almost a safety valve that if all broke loose, then the Americans, so to speak, can bail them out, which really is the wrong philosophy to hold. They have to stand up on their own two feet eventually.

Host: We've only got about 30 seconds left. Jim Robbins, what's going to be the things to look for in this September report on the surge to determine whether it's been a success or not?

Robbins: The same metrics that they're showing right now -- whether more neighborhoods in Baghdad have been secured, whether more Iraqi brigades have been stood up, the number of police recruits who have been trained, these kinds of things -- the number of violent acts. Hopefully all of those metrics will be going in the right direction. Also, hopefully the Iraqi government will get more serious about the decisions it needs to undertake and get them done.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word for today. We're out of time. But I'd like to thank my guests, James Robbins, Director of the Intelligence Center at Trinity University in Washington, also, a Washington correspondent with Time magazine, Brian Bennett, and joining us from our studio in London, Mina Al-Oraibi, a correspondent with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our website at www.voanews.com/ontheline. For “On the Line,” I'm Eric Felten.